September 7, 2002	Saturday	Jamadi-us-Saani28,1423

WASHINGTON, Sept 6: US Special Forces soldiers acted properly on Thursday by shooting a would-be assassin, killing the assailant and two others in Kandahar when Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s vehicle was fired upon, Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said on Friday.

“I talked to the secretary about this this morning, and he said, ‘One thing I want people to know is what an excellent job the security forces did,’” Clarke said.

“They did exactly what they were supposed to do,” he said. “Any time you have a personal security detail, it’s an extremely difficult thing to do, and our Special Forces troops did it very well.”

A team of nearly 100 US Special Forces soldiers has been assigned to Karzai’s protection since the slaying of an Afghan vice president in July.

Clarke said the Pentagon’s stance on participating in peacekeeping efforts remains unchanged: the United States does not oppose expansion of the mission beyond Kabul or an increase in its numbers, but would not be contributing manpower of its own to the effort.

“We have no opposition to the expansion of (the International Security Assistance Force); what we need is more support from other countries, resources from other countries,” Clarke said.

However, nearly 7,000 US service members remain in Afghanistan to fight the vestiges of the Taliban and Al Qaeda and train an Afghan national army.

“We have thousands and thousands of people there who are putting their necks on the line every single day to root out the remaining Al Qaeda and Taliban,” Clarke said.

The United States is trying to find a country to head the ISAF for the period beginning in December, when Turkey gives up the reins after six months. Britain headed the force till July.

Clarke said the Pentagon had no evidence linking the pair of bombs — a small one in a car to draw a crowd and then a larger one to inflict heavier casualties — to Al Qaeda or the Taliban, but suggested they were to blame.

“We don’t know exactly who was responsible for it. But we do know that there are Taliban remnants, as well as Al Qaeda, who have been plotting these sorts of attacks. And these are exactly the sorts of tactics we associate with those organizations,” Clarke said.

The Afghan government, however, is not without its enemies: disgruntled warlords, including Pacha Khan Zadran, and opium drug lords who resent the crackdown on their business.

Zadran is attempting to gain control over Khost and Paktia provinces with missile and small arms attacks, both on the local population and on US. troops in the area.