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BAGRAM AIR BASE, April 30: The US general commanding ground forces in Afghanistan signalled on Tuesday that warlords who helped drive the Taliban from power could become targets themselves if they threatened the new government.
In a blunt warning to a warlord who killed 30 civilians in a rocket barrage in the eastern city of Gardez on the weekend, but also aimed at other warlords challenging the authority of Afghan leader Hamid Karzai, General Franklin “Buster” Hagenbeck said no alliances were permanent.
Using American military power to counter warlord Padshah Khan Zadran’s attack on Gardez, 150kms south of Kabul, was a policy decision for Kabul and Washington, but he implied it was an option.
“It’s true that Padshah Khan was an ally of ours before, we’ve had that relationship with a variety of warlords throughout Afghanistan,” Hagenbeck said while talking to reporters at Bagram air base, the coalition’s Afghan headquarters.
“But the old phrase there are no permanent alliances probably smacks true in this instance.”
Asked if Padshah Khan remained an ally or had become a foe, Hagenbeck said: “I would say right now that I would not categorize him one way or another, I would leave that up to Mr Karzai.”
Around 500 rockets rained down on Gardez, the provincial capital of Paktia province bordering Pakistan, on Saturday, threatening to undermine the uneasy stability in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban.
Paktia Governor Taj Mohammad Wardak blamed the bombardment, which coincided with a visit to Afghanistan by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, on former governor Padshah Khan, ousted from his post last February and replaced by Wardak, who was appointed by Karzai.
Padshah Khan has already been accused of calling in US strikes on his rivals in neighbouring Khost province by claiming they were Al Qaeda or Taliban. More than 50 people were killed in the Khost bombing at the end of last year.
The violence in Gardez infuriated local residents, some of whom fumed at the US-led international force for only hunting out remnants of the Taliban or the Al Qaeda network.
“I will tell you that our business is to kill and capture the Al Qaeda and when they present themselves as targets we will do that,” Hagenbeck said.
He defended the US role in securing stability in Afghanistan since Washington’s offensive against the Taliban.
Gardez and Khost had always been fractious, the general insisted.
“We’re working with the Afghan interim authority to sort that problem out,” he said.
“My view is that right now we are working with the Karzai administration to see how we can support them in their efforts to bring peace and security into that area. It’s a policy issue and when those decisions are reached then I’ll be able to supply the appropriate military support.”
RUMSFELD: The United States will stay in Afghanistan as long as it takes to win the “fight against terrorism” and maintain security, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on his whirlwind tour of the region.
During a four-day swing through Central Asia, Rumsfeld renewed US commitment to building a new Afghan army, met a powerful Afghan warlord and shored up humanitarian and logistical support from three Afghan neighbours — Kyrghyzstan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan — to the international “anti-terror coalition”.
During a brief stop in Moscow, Russia also renewed its support for the coalition.
At the military bases of Manas in Kyrghyzstan, and Bagram, Afghanistan, Rumsfeld thanked US and allied troops for their effort. He also told the American soldiers to expect to remain in the region for a long time.
“The Afghanistan theatre has been the first one but it won’t be the last,” Rumsfeld said in Bagram. “It is a place where you are setting an example for how this battle has to be conducted and ... Afghanistan is indeed a proving ground.”
Asked about possible US military action against Iraq in a few months, the defence secretary declined to provide insight on the government’s intentions.
high-tech back-up: The United States has asked Japan to step up support for its campaign in Afghanistan by sending a destroyer with the sophisticated Aegis air defence system and antisubmarine surveillance aircraft, local media said on Tuesday.
The request came during talks between senior officials of Japan’s three ruling parties and US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz in Washington on Monday, the media reports said.
The US side also requested that Japan extend its current military assistance beyond the scheduled end on May 19, something local media have said the government was already considering.—Reuters
