Up to 13 Afghan civilians killed in NATO airstrike (AFP)

KHOST, Afghanistan (AFP) – Up to 13 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed in a NATO airstrike on Thursday in the eastern Afghan province of Khost, provincial police chief Mohamad Zazai said.

"Unfortunately eight women, four children, and one man were killed in a NATO airstrike on a residential house in Dowamanda district early this morning," Zazai said.

He said four militants from the Taliban-linked Haqqani network were also killed in the strike.

"The body of a Haqqani commander and three fighters have also been recovered from the vicinity of the house. A delegation has been sent to investigate the incident," he said.

A spokesman for the provincial governor confirmed that civilians had been killed in the incident but gave no further details.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force said those killed were family members of the Haqqani network, which is a target of the alliance force.

A spokesman for the coalition said Afghan-led forces had gone in search of the insurgents when they came under attack by rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire.

"Responding to the insurgent attack, the security forces returned fire and called in an air weapons team. The subsequent air strike killed several insurgents and unintentionally a number of associated family members," the spokesman said.

The deaths triggered protests that blocked the main highway to Kabul nearby.

They come a day after provincial authorities in southern Ghazni claimed two civilians were killed in another military incident. NATO said it was looking into those claims.

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Afghan war's deadly toll on US forces hasn't eased (AP)

KABUL, Afghanistan – Despite U.S. reports of progress on the battlefield, American troops were killed in the first half of this year at the same pace as in 2010 — an indication that the war's toll on U.S. forces has not eased as the Obama administration moves to shift the burden to the Afghans.

While the overall international death toll dropped by 14 percent in the first half of the year, the number of Americans who died remained virtually unchanged, 197 this year compared with 195 in the first six months of last year, according to a tally by The Associated Press.

Americans have been involved in some of the fiercest fighting as the U.S. administration sent more than 30,000 extra troops in a bid to pacify areas in the Taliban's southern heartland and other dangerous areas. U.S. military officials have predicted more tough fighting through the summer as the Taliban try to regain territory they have lost.

President Barack Obama has begun to reverse the surge of American forces, ordering a reduction of 10,000 by the end of the year and another 23,000 by September 2012. But the U.S. military has not announced which troops are being sent home, or whether they will be withdrawn from any of the most violent areas in the south and east.

Rear Adm. Vic Beck, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Kabul, said he couldn't comment specifically on the U.S. death count, but noted that the casualties were unchanged despite the surge in forces. He attributed the overall decline in the international toll to coalition progress on the battlefield, including the discovery of a rising number of militant weapons caches. He also said Afghan security forces are increasingly taking the lead, although recent violence has raised concerns about their readiness to secure their own country.

Beck said insurgents were shifting their focus to attacking civilians, pointing to last week's attack against the Inter-Continental, a luxury hotel in Kabul, that left 20 people dead, including the nine assailants.

"The enemy is taking the fight more to innocent Afghan civilians because we're taking it to them pretty hard on the battlefield," he said.

According to the AP tally, 271 international troops, including the Americans, were killed in the first half of the year — down 14 percent from the 316 killed in the first six months of last year.

With the American deaths virtually unchanged, the decline reflects a drop off in deaths of troops from other contributing nations. In the first half of the year, 74 of these troops — from countries like Britain, France and Australia — died compared with 121 in the first six months of last year.

In the most recent deaths, NATO said two coalition service members were killed in roadside bombings — one Saturday in the west who was identified as an Italian, and another Friday in the south whose nationality was not available.

By contrast, a recent U.N. report found that May was the deadliest month for civilians since it began keeping track in 2007, and it said insurgents were to blame for 82 percent of the 368 deaths recorded. The U.N. does not usually release monthly civilian casualty figures but said it was compelled to do so in May because of the high number.

The Taliban have denied targeting civilians and insist coalition claims that insurgents have suffered heavy losses at the hands of foreign troops are false.

Monthly death tolls of foreign forces have varied so far this year, but they fell dramatically in June.

Overall, 65 international troops, including Americans, died last month. That's down 37 percent from the 103 who died in June 2010 — the deadliest month on record for foreign forces. More than 25 died last month in Helmand province in the south where fierce fighting continues in some hot spots, the AP tally showed.

"In the areas that we believe were pretty secure, there has been very little violence," U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. John Toolan Jr., the commander in Helmand province, said at a recent Pentagon briefing. He said he's still concerned about northern districts like Gereshk and Sangin.

He said his forces are working with their Afghan partners to try to keep hold of security gains made in recent months.

"I'm pretty sure, pretty confident we'll be able to do that, but it won't be without a fight," Toolan said. "But it will not be as big a fight, in my estimation, as it has been in the past."

Underscoring the dangers, a roadside bomb ripped through a van carrying a family Saturday in southern Afghanistan, killing all 13 on board — the deadliest incident in a string of attacks since Friday that killed 18 civilians, according to Afghan officials.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the attacks, saying in a statement that "bombings that kill innocent civilians are the work of people who don't want the nation to have a life without sadness."

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Homemade bomb kills 13 civilians in Afghan south (Reuters)

KABUL (Reuters) – A roadside bomb exploded under a civilian van in southern Afghanistan on Saturday morning, killing 13 people, including four women and two children, the Interior Ministry said.

The attack in Shamalzai district of Zabul province comes two days after another roadside bomb killed 13 civilians and wounded 33 in southwestern Nimroz province.

The Interior Ministry said Saturday's bomb was planted by the "enemies of peace and stability" in Afghanistan, a reference to the Taliban-led insurgents fighting the Afghan government and its Western backers.

Violence has flared in Afghanistan since the Taliban insurgents began their spring offensive at the start of May, after record deaths in 2010.

Foreign military casualties were slightly lower in the first six months of 2011 than the same period of 2010, but the United Nations said May 2011 was the deadliest month for civilians since it started keeping records four years ago.

There were 368 "conflict related" civilian deaths in May this year and 593 civilian injuries, the United Nations said, with insurgents and their supporters responsible for around 80 percent of those killings.

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi, Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

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Afghan handover to start late July: top official (AFP)

KABUL (AFP) – The process of handing control from foreign to Afghan security forces and officials in seven areas of Afghanistan will start from late July, a senior official said Thursday.

Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister who is now in charge of the transition process, said that the much-heralded transition process would start between July 14 and 21.

President Hamid Karzai had previously indicated that transition would start at some point during the Afghan solar month of Saratan which ends on July 22 but Ghani's comments give the most precise timing yet.

"The exact date of transition is from 23 to 30 of Saratan (July 14 to 21)," he said.

Under the transition process Afghan forces and officials will take more responsibility for security and their own affairs, allowing a gradual withdrawal of foreign troops.

Some 10,000 US troops will leave Afghanistan this year and 33,000 will go by next summer, President Barack Obama said this month.

All foreign combat troops are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014. There are around 150,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, nearly 100,000 of which are from the US, battling a near ten-year Taliban-led insurgency.

Ghani spoke after a conference attended by the governors of the seven safer areas of Afghanistan which are in the first wave of transition, plus the country's defence and interior ministers and head of the intelligence service.

He said that transition in the seven areas would be "simultaneous."

Western officials say the whole process in these areas -- which include the cities of Mazar-i-Sharif, Herat and Lashkar Gah in the volatile southern province of Helmand -- could take up to 18 months to implement.

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NATO air strike kills fighter linked to Afghan hotel attack (Reuters)

KABUL (Reuters) – NATO aircraft killed an insurgent leader linked to a deadly hotel attack in the Afghan capital this week, the coalition said on Thursday, a raid that raised questions about whether Afghan forces are ready for the looming security transition.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on the Intercontinental, one of two major hotels used by foreigners and Afghan government officials, a rare night-time raid that began on Tuesday and ended five hours later with 12 killed.

However, the NATO-led Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network had also been involved in the assault by nine suicide bombers and gunmen.

ISAF identified the Haqqani network leader killed in an air strike as Ismail Jan, who it described as a deputy to the senior Haqqani commander in Afghanistan, Haji Mali Khan.

It said he and "several Haqqani fighters" were killed in the air strike in the Gardez district of Paktia province south of Kabul on Wednesday.

"The Haqqani network, in conjunction with Taliban operatives, was responsible for the Tuesday night attack on the Kabul Intercontinental hotel which killed 12 people, including a provincial judge," ISAF said in a statement.

The brazen raid came only a week after President Barack Obama announced a phased withdrawal of combat troops, with 10,000 to leave by the end of this year and another 23,000 by the end September 2012.

Obama's announcement preceded the start of a gradual transition of responsibility to Afghan forces from next month that will end with all foreign combat troops leaving Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

With that transition process to begin in seven areas next month, the hotel raid raised serious questions about whether Afghan forces, particularly the police, were ready to take over.

"It shows one of the concerns is that the Afghan security forces are growing in quantity, not in quality," said Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the Kabul-based Afghanistan Analysts Network.

SNIPERS

The attack ended when snipers on board a NATO helicopter killed the last three attackers fighting from the roof of the hotel. Earlier television footage showed Afghan forces firing wildly into the air.

The New York Times reported on Thursday that some police had refused to fight back.

ISAF has been training members of the 126,000-strong Afghan National Police since 2009.

Afghan police, who will be at the front line of the security transition in villages and towns across Afghanistan, have long been viewed as inept and lagging behind the training of the better-equipped army, which had been the focus of training efforts since the Taliban were toppled in late 2001.

Violence has risen to record levels across Afghanistan over the past 18 months as NATO troops, especially U.S. forces, hit back against a growing insurgency, especially in the Taliban heartland in the south.

A quarterly report by the United Nations secretary-general to the Security Council about Afghanistan found that the number of security incidents since March had risen 51 percent on the same period in 2010, with suicide attacks rising sharply.

Attacks in the Taliban heartland of Kandahar were especially worrying. "The city of Kandahar and its surroundings registered the majority of the incidents during the reporting period, with a quarter of the overall attacks and more than half of all assassinations recorded countrywide," the report said.

But Ruttig said the attack also highlighted other problems confronting Afghanistan before the transition process, which also includes handing the running of civil institutions and projects over to Afghans, begins.

Not the least of those is the political paralysis that has gripped the country for months.

"The fact that neither NATO nor the Afghans were able to prevent it says something -- that transition needs to be something more than just security," Ruttig said of the hotel attack.

"Security forces are only part of transition. There also needs to be a strengthening of political institutions and, at the moment, the parliamentary crisis has brought politics to a standstill," he told Reuters.

Last week, a special poll court set up by a decree by President Hamid Karzai overturned the results for a quarter of the seats in parliament from elections last year, effectively throwing out 62 MPs who had been declared winners.

The move, and the court itself, have been branded unconstitutional and illegal by Afghan and Western officials and observers. Critics have said the court was set up by Karzai to further his own political agenda and silence opposition.

(Additional reporting by Alistair Scrutton; Editing by Sugita Katyal)

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Afghan suicide truck bomber kills 35

At least one doctor was among the 35 killed and 60 wounded by the suicide truck bomber Saturday at an Afghan hospital.NEW: A French soldier was killed in Kapisa provinceAlong with the 35 dead, 25 were wounded, an official saidISAF, U.S. and Karzai condemned the latest attacks

Kabul, Afghanistan(CNN) -- A suicide bomb attack targeting a hospital in eastern Afghanistan killed at least 35 people and wounded more than two dozen, a brazen strike that rocked a maternity ward and claimed the lives of numerous women and children.

The incident occurred Saturday in the Azra district of Logar province when a truck packed with explosives detonated, according to Sifatiullah Haqmal, a member of the provincial council.

The head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said "much of the damage was in the maternity ward of the hospital, and many of those killed and injured were women and children."

The mission noted that assaults on hospitals "are strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law" and that "medical workers, clinics and hospitals must be respected and protected in all circumstances."

Dr. Khaliq Yar, head of the provincial projects for a national medical program, described the hospital as a four-ward comprehensive health center, including a section for mothers and children and ten beds for maternity patients.

The Logar assault follows a similar strike last month when a suicide bombing tore through a military hospital in Kabul, killing six people and injuring others.

"This is a despicable attack against civilians who were seeking medical care, as well as visiting family members and health workers," Staffan de Mistura, the special representative of the secretary-general for Afghanistan, said in a statement on Saturday.

"The terrorists demonstrated a disregard for human life when they targeted Afghans who were patients in a hospital and their visitors and relatives, and hospital personnel," the U.S. Embassy in Kabul said in a statement.

Casualty reports fluctuated in the hours after the attack. Logar governor's spokesman Den Mohammad Darwish told CNN that along with the 35 deaths, 25 others were wounded.

The Logar strike is the second attack in as many days in Afghanistan that targeted civilians, just days after President Barack Obama outlined a plan to withdraw 30,000 troops from the country by September 2012.

Along with the Logar strike, a bomb attack in the northern province of Kunduz on Friday killed at least 10 people, actions the embassy called "devastating."

The Afghan President Hamid Karzai and NATO's International Security Assistance Force also issued statements condemning both incidents, and said the violence underscores warnings from military commanders that insurgents are intent on pursuing large-scale strikes.

"The insurgents have a complete disregard for the innocent people of Afghanistan who are trying to live in peace," ISAF spokesman Rear Adm. Vic Beck said.

The Kunduz incident on Friday occurred in the province's Khan Abad district square, said Mohibullah Saidi, a spokesman for the provincial governor.

Along with the 10 deaths, 24 people were wounded in the attack, the Ministry of Interior said. The bomb was placed in a bicycle and was detonated by remote control, Saidi said.

ISAF also reported the deaths of two service members on Saturday in separate insurgent attacks in eastern Afghanistan, and the alliance confirmed that one of them was a French service member. The nationality of the other soldier was not immediately available.

There have been 48 international troop deaths in June and 264 this year, according to a CNN count of casualties.

The French government said its soldier was wounded by insurgent fire in a fight during a reconnaissance mission in Kapisa province and died later at a hospital. He is the 63rd French soldier to die in the Afghan war.

France announced Thursday that it would also begin to reduce troop numbers, saying it "will initiate a progressive withdrawal of troops in Afghanistan, and will follow a timetable comparable to the withdrawal of the American troops."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy's office said the withdrawal will be done in consultation with NATO allies and the Afghan government.

All French soldiers could be out of Afghanistan by 2013, French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet told France Info radio Thursday.

CNN's Matiullah Mati and Joe Sterling contributed to this report

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35 dead as suicide bomber targets Afghan hospital

At least one doctor was among the 35 killed and 60 wounded by the suicide truck bomber Saturday at an Afghan hospital.NEW: ISAF, U.S. and Karzai condemned the latest attacksAt least 35 died and 60 more were wounded, an official saidA doctor is among those killed in bombing at hospital, officials saySuicide bomber targets hospital in eastern Afghanistan, officials say

Kabul, Afghanistan(CNN) -- A suicide bomb attack Saturday in eastern Afghanistan has killed at least 35 people and wounded another 60, Logar province governor spokesman Den Mohammad Darwish said.

The bomber used a truck packed with explosives to target a hospital in the Azra district of Logar province, said Sifatiullah Haqmal, a member of the provincial council.

At least one doctor was killed in the blast, which occurred at the front entrance of the Maternity Hospital of Akbarkhil Azra, said Dr. Khaliq Yar, head of the provincial projects for the Medicine Refresher Course for Afghanistan.

"The terrorists demonstrated a disregard for human life when they targeted Afghans who were patients in a hospital and their visitors and relatives, and hospital personnel," the U.S. Embassy in Kabul said in a statement.

It's the second attack in as many days in Afghanistan that targeted civilians, just days after President Barack Obama outlined a plan to withdraw 30,000 troops from the country by September 2012.

Along with the Logar strike, a bomb attack in the northern province of Kunduz on Friday killed at least 10 people, attacks the embassy called "devastating."

The Afghan President Hamid Karzai and NATO's International Security Assistance Force also issued statements condemning both incidents.

"The insurgents have a complete disregard for the innocent people of Afghanistan who are trying to live in peace," ISAF spokesman Rear Adm. Vic Beck said.

The Kunduz incident on Friday occurred in the province's Khan Abad district square, said Mohibullah Saidi, a spokesman for the provincial governor.

Along with the 10 deaths, 24 people were wounded in the attack, the Ministry of Interior said. The bomb was placed in a bicycle and was detonated by remote control, Saidi said.

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Obama to give speech on Afghan pullout

Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama will deliver a highly anticipated speech Wednesday evening about troop withdrawals from Afghanistan.

The address is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET.

On Tuesday, an administration official told CNN that Obama will announce this week that 30,000 U.S. "surge" forces will be fully withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of 2012.

Members of Congress are being informed that 10,000 troops will be withdrawn by the end of this year, followed by another 20,000 next year, a congressional source said.

The time frame would give U.S. commanders another two "fighting" seasons with the bulk of U.S. forces still available for combat operations.

Outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates has pushed for additional time to roll back Taliban gains in the country before starting any significant withdrawal -- a position at odds with a majority of Americans, according to recent public opinion surveys.

Gates -- along with Afghan war commander Gen. David Petraeus -- had pushed for an initial drawdown of between 3,000 and 5,000 troops this year, the congressional source said. The secretary also urged the president to withdraw support troops only -- not combat troops.

Obama, however, ultimately decided to adopt a more aggressive withdrawal plan.

Gates acknowledged Tuesday that the president must take into account public opinion and congressional support for further military engagement.

"Sustainability here at home" is an important consideration, Gates said, noting that people are "tired of a decade of war."

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, repeated his call Tuesday for a withdrawal of 15,000 troops this year.

"The level of U.S. troop reductions in Afghanistan needs to be significant to achieve its purpose --- letting the Afghan government know we are determined to shift primary responsibility for their security to the Afghan security forces," Levin said in a written statement.

An estimated 100,000 U.S. troops are serving in Afghanistan, some 30,000 of which are part of the so-called surge ordered in 2009 in a bid to control the rising violence.

Obama has been mulling how many troops should be withdrawn this summer and by the end of the year.

The president is expected, in his remarks Wednesday, to stress the importance of preserving flexibility in force levels on the ground so commanders can adjust as conditions warrant, the official said.

The drawdown will be accomplished by troops returning home and not being replaced as well as canceling some proposed deployments.

So far, Obama has only said publicly that troops will begin coming home in July, and he recently indicated the number would be "significant."

The president has repeatedly said he is confident the United States can meet the self-imposed deadline to begin bringing troops back from Afghanistan without compromising Afghan security, though military commanders and government officials have raised concern about the readiness of Afghan security forces.

"We have made great strides toward achieving the objectives laid out in the mission that the president articulated in December of 2009," White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday.

Obama "will make his decision based on the need to succeed further in achieving those objectives and to transfer authority gradually, security authority, over to the Afghan national security forces, with an eye to the fact that, as agreed to by NATO in Lisbon, we will eventually transfer full security lead over to the ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces) in 2014," Carney said.

Nearly three-quarters of Americans polled this month said they support the United States pulling some or all of its forces from Afghanistan.

That figure jumped 10 percentage points since May, likely as a result of the death of Osama bin Laden, pollsters said.

The deployment of U.S. forces also hasn't been popular with many Afghan leaders, who openly criticize the presence of the Americans in their country.

It's a message that's not lost on U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry.

"When we hear ourselves being called occupiers and worse, our pride is offended and we begin to lose our inspiration to carry on," Eikenberry said during a Sunday speech at Herat University in western Afghanistan.

"At the point your leaders believe that we are doing more harm than good, when we reach a point that we feel our soldiers and civilians are being asked to sacrifice without a just cause ... the American people will ask for our forces to come home."

Republicans -- who have been the strongest supporters of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan -- appear to be shifting their opinion on the conflict. Forty-seven percent of Republicans said in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll in May that they favored a partial or full withdrawal of American troops. Sixty percent of Republicans favored a withdrawal when asked this month.

The most recent CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll was conducted June 3 through 7, with 1,015 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

CNN's Aliza Kassim, Barbara Starr, Ted Barrett and Alan Silverleib contributed to this report.

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Obama's Afghan Drawdown: Why Troop Levels Won't Affect the War's Outcome (Time.com)

President Barack Obama will on Wednesday announce the size of the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan he will order in July in keeping with the symbolic drawdown he promised to begin this summer. His top military men appear to want to keep most combat troops in the field for at least another two years; other advisers want the withdrawal that begins this summer to involve substantial numbers of troops and on an accelerated schedule. But the number of U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan appears increasingly unlikely to decisively determine the outcome of the war.

Soon after he arrived in office, President Obama buckled to pressure from the Pentagon and doubled down on the U.S. commitment of blood and treasure in Afghanistan, sending an extra 30,000 soldiers as part of the Afghan "surge". Whatever tactical gains have been made in that time - and are likely to be made in the next two years even if current force levels were maintained - Obama will be well aware that a decade of warfare in Afghanistan has failed to qualitatively transform the strategic equation. The key argument from the generals and Administration figures like Defense Secretary Robert Gates in support of keeping the full complement of fighting men in Afghanistan is that the gains made in recent years are "fragile". Of course they are: Experience has shown that there's no reason to expect any area "cleared" by NATO forces will remain that way once they reduce their force levels there. It was ever thus, and there's little reason to expect any different in a conflict that pits a foreign armies against an indigenous insurgency backed by a significant section of the population and with sanctuary in a neighboring country. But who'd want to be the President who has to call time on a failed expeditionary war? (Watch "A New Season of Fighting in Afghanistan.")

Obama's track record suggests the withdrawal he announces for this year will involve a desultory figure of less than 5,000 of the 100,000 troops the U.S. currently has deployed in Afghanistan. But expect, also, to see the President define downward the benchmark of success, focusing it narrowly on protecting the American mainland from another transnational terror attack by al-Qaeda, and using the killing of Osama bin Laden to underscore the fact that the job is almost done. The terror network, much reduced by a decade of pummeling, today operates more from Pakistan than Afghanistan.

The Afghanistan mission's more ambitious nation-building goals originally proclaimed by the Bush Administration, however, are plainly beyond reach for the foreseeable future. The U.S. finds itself propping up a corrupt and ambivalent Karzai government knowing it has limited ability to win hearts and minds in the war zone, but also that it has no better alternative. The argument that the U.S. needs to be in Afghanistan to stop Pakistan falling to the Taliban has always been specious, for the simple reason that those currently in power in Pakistan see the Afghan Taliban as an ally that, unlike the U.S., shares Islamabad's strategic interests in Afghanistan. And Pakistan's generals act accordingly. Pakistan has been the headquarters of the Afghan Taliban's leadership shura ever since U.S. forces and their Afghan allies swept the movement from power in late 2001. The generals who make Pakistan's decisions didn't stop seeing Afghanistan as a key front in their existential strategic rivalry with India just because it became the initial geo-strategic focus of the U.S. "war on terror".

Afghanistan on June 7 superseded Vietnam as the longest war in U.S. history, having dragged on twice as long as American involvement in World War II. The more relevant comparison, however irksome it may be to American exceptionalists, may be to Soviet Union's nine-year debacle in Afghanistan - a milestone the U.S. passed last November.

Sure, there are plenty of differences between the two cases - Moscow hadn't suffered terror attacks originating in Afghanistan; it faced insurgent opposition in all of Afghanistan's major ethnic groups whereas the Western presence is opposed from within the Pashtun majority, but has found willing allies the Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara communities whose leaders were traditionally grouped in the Northern Alliance that had fought Taliban rule. And, of course, U.S. counterinsurgency warfare is far smarter and more effective than the Red Army's. (See pictures of medevac in Afghanistan.)

Still, like the Soviets, the U.S.-led operation controls only part of the country; the writ of the feckless government it has propped up doesn't extend much beyond the capital; Pakistan continues to function as a rear base for the insurgents; and the long-term trend lines offer no reason to expect that the insurgents will be eliminated.

The U.S. is not going to be routed in Afghanistan, like some 19th Century British expeditionary force. But nor is it able to vanquish a foe that, in traditional guerrilla style, simply melts away to form up elsewhere whenever the foreign army concentrates its forces. The Taliban doesn't need to storm Kabul to win. As Henry Kissinger famously noted, in an insurgency of this type, the guerrilla army wins by not losing; the conventional army loses by not winning.

And the U.S.-led NATO operation is clearly not winning, even if it's managing to tread water in areas where it has concentrated its forces. Polls show that a majority of Americans no longer believe the war is worth fighting. And that's an opinion long shared by the majority of Afghans in the Pashtun war zone.

The comforting prospect offered to Americans looking for an end to a war that is costing upward of $100 billion a year and a slow but steady drip of U.S. casualties is that the U.S. is training and equipping Afghan security forces projected to number 300,000 by October. But few Western military observers have much confidence that this force will be either able or willing to continue NATO's fight once Western troops leave, ostensibly in 2014 - although the rump Northern Alliance elements will certainly fight tooth and nail to protect their turf from any Taliban return. Right now, Kabul doesn't exactly control much of the territory of which it is the sovereign capital, and that's unlikely to change no matter who's in power there. (See what it will take to finish the job in Afghanistan.)

Washington appears to have recognized that the only way to relieve itself of an open-ended burden in Afghanistan is to negotiate a peace agreement with the Taliban enemy it had originally hoped to destroy. Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged last weekend that preliminary negotiations are already under way, although with little expectation of near-term progress.

The purpose of the NATO war effort, over the past two years, has been to set the negotiating table more favorably to the Western side, hoping to forcefully "demonstrate" to the Taliban that it can't prevail on the battlefield and therefore that it needs to be more amenable to U.S. terms for peace. And, of course, the Taliban's purpose has been the exact opposite - to demonstrate the futility of the NATO effort, so as to give it a better chance of imposing its own terms at the peace table.

Despite the "surge", the Taliban doesn't appear to be feeling squeezed to accept U.S. peace terms. On the contrary, right now it seems to playing hard to get, believing that time and circumstance work in its favor.

So outcome of the Afghanistan war is unlikely to be determined by the troop numbers to which President Obama commits on Wednesday. Instead, it will be shaped by what the U.S., the Northern Alliance, and Afghanistan's key neighbors, most importantly Pakistan, are willing to accept by way of a political compromise.

Watch "Joe Klein: Crisis in the Afghan War Policy."

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Afghan leader says U.S. in contact with Taliban (Reuters)

KABUL (Reuters) – The United States is in contact with the Taliban about a possible settlement to the war in Afghanistan, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Saturday, the first official confirmation of U.S. involvement in negotiations.

Karzai said that an Afghan push toward peace talks, after nearly a decade of war, had not yet reached a stage where the government and insurgents were meeting, but their representatives had been in touch.

"Peace talks are going on with the Taliban. The foreign military and especially the United States itself is going ahead with these negotiations," Karzai said in a speech in Kabul.

"The peace negotiations between (the) Afghan government and the Taliban movement are not yet based on a certain agenda or physical (meetings), there are contacts established."

The U.S. Embassy declined to comment directly on Karzai's assertion but said the United States supports Afghan reconciliation and has assisted Afghan government-led reintegration initiatives aimed at the Taliban.

"We must help create conditions necessary to enable a political settlement among the Afghan people. This includes reconciling those insurgents who are willing to renounce al Qaeda, forsake violence and adhere to the Afghan constitution," an official at the U.S. embassy in Kabul said.

The United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, weeks after the September 11 attacks, to help oust the Taliban which had hosted al Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden.

The Taliban regrouped and has been waging a fierce insurgency for years against the government, U.S. troops and other Western allies in Afghanistan.

SANCTIONS MOVE

Karzai was speaking the day after the United Nations Security Council split the U.N. sanctions list for Taliban and al Qaeda figures into two, which envoys said could help induce the Taliban into talks on a peace deal in Afghanistan.

But despite hopes that talks with the Taliban could provide the political underpinning for a staged U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the discussions are still not at the stage where they can be a deciding factor.

Diplomats say there have been months of preliminary talks, but the United States has never confirmed any contacts. And so little is known about the exchanges that they have been open to widely different interpretations.

There are also many Afghans, among them women's and civil society activists, who fear talks with the insurgents could undo much of the progress they have made in the decade since the Taliban were swept from power.

"We should not give up 10 years of achievements in Afghan women's rights. If that happens, these peace talks will be incomplete and unjust," said Suraya Parlika, head of the All Afghan Women's Union and a senator in the Afghan parliament.

The closest anyone in the U.S. establishment has come to publicly acknowledging efforts to kick-start talks was when Defense Secretary Robert Gates said this month there could be political talks with the Taliban by the end of this year, if the NATO alliance kept making military advances on the ground.

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

Karzai said neighboring countries were nervous about plans for a strategic partnership between Afghanistan and the United States, which may include long-term bases on Afghan soil.

"The issue of a strategic partnership deal with the U.S. has caused tensions with our neighbors," Karzai said. "When we sign this strategic partnership, at the same time we must have peace in Afghanistan."

That is unlikely however, as the deal is expected to be concluded in months, and even the most optimistic supporters of talks expect the peace process to take years.

If successful, the deal might ease worries among those Afghans who fear the United States will pull out too quickly, leaving a weak, impoverished government to fend off militants, and those who worry the foreign forces they see as occupiers will never leave.

President Barack Obama is expected to announce next month how many troops he plans to withdraw from Afghanistan as part of a commitment to begin reducing the U.S. military presence from July and hand over to Afghan security forces by 2014.

The United States is on the verge of announcing a "substantial" drawdown of American troops from Afghanistan, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Friday.

"There's going to be a drawdown. I am confident that it will be one that's substantial. I certainly hope so," the leading Senate Democrat said during an interview with PBS Newshour.

There are currently about 100,000 U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan, up from about 34,000 when Obama took office in 2009.

(Additional reporting by Sayed Hassib, Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

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Afghan official: Suicide bomber kills 3 (AP)

MAIDAN SHAR, Afghanistan – An Afghan official says a suicide bomber has killed three people in an attack against an administrative building in restive eastern Paktia province.

District chief Allah Gul Ahmadzai says the bombing occurred late Wednesday afternoon in the Sayed Karam district of Paktia, which borders with Pakistan. He says the bomber was wearing an explosives vest and blew himself up just 2 yards (meters) from the front gate of the district headquarters. The bomb killed three civilians, including a 13-year-old boy, and blew out windows in the compound. There was no other damage.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

MAIDAN SHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — A suicide bomber killed eight people and wounded four in a strike Wednesday on a governor's office in the northeast, while a mortar targeted a building where NATO and Afghan officials were inaugurating the country's largest police training facility in central Afghanistan.

The two attacks, which occurred at about the same time, were a stark reminder that insurgents can strike anywhere in this volatile country.

Provincial spokesman Halim Ayar said the bomber blew himself up about 220 yards (200 meters) from the office of Governor Azizul Rahman Tawab in the northeast Kapisa province. He said four of the dead were police officers and four were civilians. All the wounded were civilians, he added.

The Interior Ministry said in a statement that seven people were killed, including two police officers and five civilians. It added that seven others were wounded, including a police officer. The discrepancy in the casualty numbers, which is common in the aftermath of such attacks, could not immediately be resolved.

"The leadership of Ministry of Interior of Afghanistan condemns this inhumane and cowardly suicide attack. Such attacks will never weaken the determination of the Afghan National Police," read the ministry statement.

Meanwhile, in central Wardak province, a mortar landed next to a large building where Afghanistan's second vice president, Mohammed Karim Khalili and Interior Minister Bismullah Khan Mohammadi, along with NATO officials, celebrated the opening of the flagship center of a multibillion dollar NATO program to train Afghan national security forces ahead of a planned withdrawal of U.S.-led coalition forces at the end of 2014.

The deafening blast shook the building and more than 500 police recruits ducked for cover. Gunshots rang out after the attack. Bodyguards rushed Afghan and NATO officials into a hardened shelter before evacuating them on helicopters.

The area has seen increasing attacks by insurgents as the Taliban press a spring campaign against Afghan and NATO forces.

It was unclear if Khalili, who was born in Wardak, was the intended target of the attack, but the mortar seemed to have been aimed at the building where he had just finished delivering an address.

The $106 million facility currently houses 725 recruits but will expand to 3,000, making it the largest facility of its kind in the country. A mostly U.S. funded program has been spending about $10 billion a year in 2010 and 2011 alone to train, equip and build infrastructure for a range of Afghan forces, including police, soldiers and an air force. That program calls for increasing the number of Afghan police to 134,000 by October from the 81,509 of two years ago.

U.S. Maj. Gen. James Mallory told The Associated Press that NATO would be able to properly train and support an estimated 157,000 police officers before the coalition's planned withdrawal in 2014.

However, he acknowledged there would be long-term legacy costs that the international community would need to bear for the country as it struggles economically, especially as 86 percent of incoming recruits cannot read or write.

"We're dealing with a lost generation," Mallory said. He spoke just before the mortar attack.

Also Wednesday, in the southern province of Kandahar, the governor's office said NATO and Afghan troops killed 14 armed insurgents. Nine were killed after crossing the Pakistan border, while five were killed while allegedly trying to plant roadside bombs, the governor's office said.

A rocket attack in Kandahar city wounded four civilians in the Aymo Mina district, provincial police chief Gen. Abdul Raziq said.

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Associated Press writer Mirwais Khan in Kandahar, Afghanistan contributed to this report.

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Jon Gambrell can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

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How will Afghan women fare in Taliban reconciliation? (Reuters)

KABUL (Reuters) – The gaggles of giggling schoolgirls in their black uniforms and flowing white hijabs seen across Afghanistan's cities have become symbolic of how far women's rights have come since the austere rule of the Taliban was toppled a decade ago.

While women have gained back basic rights in education, voting and work, considered un-Islamic by the Taliban, their plight remains severe and future uncertain as Afghan leaders seek to negotiate with the Taliban as part of their peace talks.

The United States and NATO, who have been fighting Taliban insurgents for 10 years in an increasingly unpopular war, have repeatedly stressed that any peace talks must abide by Afghanistan's constitution, which says the two sexes are equal.

But President Hamid Karzai's reticence on the matter, constant opposition by the Taliban, and setbacks even at the government level cast a shadow on the prospects of equality for the 15 million women who make up about half the population.

"I am not optimistic at all," said Suraya Parlika, 66, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and member of the upper house of the Afghan parliament. "We do not know the agenda of the talks and this worries all women in Afghanistan."

"Women are at risk of losing everything they have regained," she told Reuters in her office at the All Afghan Women's Union, the country's most prominent women's rights group that she set up 20 years ago.

The dangerous business of fighting for women's rights in Afghanistan highlights just how precarious their situation is.

Parlika said Taliban militants have tried to kill her eight times. In the latest attempt, gunmen tried to shoot her through a window at her home but missed and blew a hole in the wall.

Others, such as the headmaster of a girls' school near Kabul, are not so lucky. He was gunned down by the Taliban last month for educating girls.

MIXED MESSAGES

Washington and NATO have backed Karzai's peace plan, which includes reintegrating mid-level Taliban fighters and reconciling with some leaders as well as talks.

One of the main conditions in the talks is that insurgents renounce al Qaeda. The Taliban have rejected any talks until all foreign troops have left the country.

U.S. President Barack Obama has said U.S. troops, who make up 100,000 out of around 150,000 foreign forces, will begin to come home gradually from July, with NATO eyeing a full handover of security responsibilities to the Afghans by the end of 2014.

"What they (women) fear is a power-sharing agreement between leaders that does not take their interests into account," said Martine van Bijlert, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network in Kabul.

"At the moment there is no one standing up as a guarantor of the process, no one who says it's really important this is done well. There are a lot of mixed messages," she told Reuters.

Some have accused Karzai of holding back on women's rights to curry political support in the more conservative sections of society. One example is his passing of a family law in 2009 that legalized marital rape for Shi'ites, who make up 15 percent of the population.

In March, Karzai sacked the deputy governor of southern Helmand province after two women performed without headscarves at a high-profile concert.

Parlika said physical attacks on female lawmakers, and internal pressure from their male counterparts not to press women's issues, mean their presence in government is more about symbolism than actual change.

"The situation surrounding women can get very dark indeed," said one Western official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"There are lots of challenges that need to be overcome and the international community must stay focused to make sure women are protected," said the official, an adviser in the talks.

RURAL VS. URBAN

Underlying the rights women have regained on paper since U.S.-backed forces overthrew the Taliban are the enormous social and economic hurdles they face in a country where more than 40 percent live below the poverty line.

Rights groups and Western officials warn of a "rural versus urban" split, saying the vast economic and religious divide means women in the countryside have not benefited from the end of Taliban rule and continue to live much as they did before.

Some warn this paves the way for women's rights being forgotten in the event of Taliban peace talks.

"Afghanistan is totally male-dominated, women suffer terribly, and this is worse in rural areas where they are economically dependent on men and where they cannot express their own will," Parlika said.

Ancient traditions such as 'baad', when a woman is given as compensation for crimes, are common in the countryside, where female illiteracy is over 90 percent and child marriages are still widespread despite being illegal.

In the Taliban strongholds of the south and east, many women still seek permission from a male relative to leave their homes, and the rule of law is upheld either by Taliban "courts" or by tribal elders, which almost always favor men.

For Hasina Aimaq, the manager of an eponymous fashion house sponsored by a non-governmental organization for women, finding seamstresses for her business in northern Baghlan province is a constant struggle.

"There are always problems with the father, always. They would even prefer them to beg than earn money from work as they think learning a skill is bad," Aimaq told Reuters next to a collection of high-heeled shoes with geometric silk patterns.

Aimaq said her 75 teenage female workers, who make velveteen purple jackets and delicate floral scarves, regularly receive written threats from the Taliban, urging them to quit working.

"They tell us to stay at home, but we will keep coming to work and keep sewing," she said, adjusting her navy blue hijab.

(Editing by Paul Tait and Miral Fahmy)

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Bomb kills Afghan police commander

NEW: Three people are killed in second bombing in eastern Afghanistan, officials sayNEW: At least 18 people are killed in two bombings in Afghanistan, officials sayNEW: Statement: An explosion in southern Afghanistan occurs when a vehicle hits a roadside bombNEW: Among the dead are eight children, according to the Ministry of Interior

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A roadside bomb blast Saturday killed 15 people, including eight children, in a volatile province in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Interior said.

The explosion followed a suicide bombing hours earlier in eastern Afghanistan that killed a commander of a police force and two others.

The explosion in the south occurred when "a civilian vehicle hit a roadside mine" in the Lahore district of Kandahar province, the ministry said in a statement.

Four people, including a woman, were wounded in the explosion, the statement said.

Once considered a stronghold, the Taliban has been losing its grip on Kandahar in recent months. But it continues to keep its grip on eastern Afghanistan.

Earlier, a suicide bomber detonated explosives outside a police station in the Khost province, killing three people, said Arif Pashton, a provincial council member.

There were conflicting reports about whether a child was among the dead in that explosion.

Pashton said all three killed were police officials but Hedayetullah Hamidi, the acting chief at Khost hospital, said one of the fatalities was a child.

He said 23 people were wounded.

Conflicting casualty reports are not uncommon in the aftermath of an attack.

Among the dead, according to Pashton, is the commander of Khost's quick reaction police force -- a special operations unit.

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Bomb kills 15 Afghan civilians (Reuters)

KABUL (Reuters) – Fifteen Afghans, most of them children, were killed by a roadside bomb on Saturday, as a report from the United Nations said May was the deadliest month for civilians in the country since the U.N. mission began compiling statistics.

The Interior Ministry said eight children, four women and three men were killed when a bomb hit their vehicle in the Haji Lahore region of southern Kandahar province, the birthplace of the Taliban and one of the most violent regions in Afghanistan.

Another six civilians were wounded when insurgents fired mortar rounds into a district in volatile eastern Kunar province, near the border with Pakistan, the ministry said.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said it had documented 368 "conflict-related" civilian deaths in May this year and 593 civilian injuries.

"More civilians were killed in May than in any other month since 2007 when UNAMA began documenting civilian casualties," said Georgette Gagnon, the UNAMA Director for Human Rights.

"We are very concerned that civilian suffering will increase even more over the summer fighting season which historically brings the highest numbers of civilian casualties. Parties to the conflict must increase their efforts to protect civilians now," she said in a statement.

Violence across Afghanistan in 2010 hit its worst levels since the Taliban were toppled by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001. It has flared again since the Taliban began their spring offensive at the start of May.

Military deaths hit record levels in 2010 -- and are following the same pattern this year -- but civilians continue to bear the brunt of the conflict.

Civilian casualties are one of the most contentious issue between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his Western backers, even though figures by the United Nations show that insurgents are responsible for the overwhelming majority.

In its latest findings, the United Nations said "anti-government elements" were responsible for 301 of the civilian deaths in May, or 82 percent. Forty-five civilians, or 12 percent, were killed by "pro-government forces" in May, it said.

The remaining 22, or 6 percent, could not be attributed to either side and were most likely the result of Afghan civilians being caught in the crossfire.

The figures roughly track previous statistics released by the United Nations.

U.N. figures showed that 2,777 Afghan civilians were killed in 2010, a 15 percent rise on 2009. That report said insurgents were responsible for three-quarters of those killed.

NATO-led forces have significantly tightened the use of "night raids" and air strikes as they hunt insurgents. The 2010 U.N. report found there was a 52 percent drop in civilian deaths from air strikes compared with 2009.

However Karzai and NATO commanders are fundamentally at odds over the use of air strikes and night raids.

The Afghan leader wants air strikes to end and night raids to be taken over by Afghans, but military commanders see them as their most effective weapons against insurgents who rarely take on NATO and Afghan forces on the open battlefield.

Karzai angrily warned NATO commanders last month that such tactics were "not allowed" any more.

His fiery but unspecified threat came after a spate of recent civilian casualty incidents, including the killing of at least nine civilians, most of them young children, in the south last month.

Underscoring the incident in Kandahar, the UNAMA report said "improvised explosive devices" -- or IEDs -- were responsible for 40 percent of civilian deaths attributed to insurgents in May.

(Editing by Alex Richardson)

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Panetta warns Afghan gains 'fragile'

Leon Panetta, head of the Central Intelligence Agency, will replace Defense Secretary Robert Gates if confirmed.The Senate Armed Services Committee questions the defense secretary nominee Panetta, 72, refuses to say how quickly the U.S. military should withdraw from AfghanistanPanetta says any military withdrawal should be "conditions-based"Panetta addresses a range of topics, including Libya, Iraq, and Pentagon fiscal constraints

Washington (CNN) -- Defense Secretary nominee Leon Panetta asserted Thursday that the United States and its allies have made "great progress" in the nearly decade-long war in Afghanistan, but warned that recent gains are "fragile and reversible."

He refused to indicate how fast the U.S. military should start any withdrawal from Afghanistan. The rate at which troops should be withdrawn should be "conditions-based," he said.

Greater progress needs to be made, particularly in terms of Afghan self-governance, so that ultimately officials in Kabul "can take responsibility for that country," he added.

The ultimate goal in Afghanistan, he stressed, is to ensure "sufficient stability" in that country so it can never again be a safe haven for al Qaeda or other extremist elements.

Panetta, currently head of the Central Intelligence Agency, made his remarks during his Pentagon confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Obama administration officials have said U.S. troops will start withdrawing from Afghanistan in July, and that a military handover should be completed in 2014. While the war remains largely unpopular within the United States, conservative critics have complained that a firm withdrawal timeline will undermine U.S. efforts.

Aside from the war in Afghanistan, Panetta's confirmation hearing touched on a wide range of topics, including NATO's engagement in Libya, the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, the global fight against terrorism, and Pentagon budgets in an age of fiscal austerity.

Senators from both sides of the aisle offered effusive praise for the 72-year-old nominee, who pledged to be a "tireless advocate for our troops and their families."

"This is a time of historic change," Panetta said. "We are no longer in the Cold War. This is the Blizzard War -- a blizzard of challenges that draws speed and intensity from rapidly developing technologies and the rising number of powers on the world stage."

"Despite the times we live in, there is reason to be confident," Panetta told the committee. The recent operation that killed Osama bin Ladin "has given us the greatest chance since 9/11 to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda permanently. We must keep up the pressure."

Panetta called the U.S. relationship with Pakistan, the site of bin Laden's hideout, "difficult" but "critical." While Pakistan has proven to be a safe haven for extremists, a positive relationship with authorities in Islamabad is vital to the mission in Afghanistan, he warned.

Close ties with Pakistan are also critical due to the necessity of securing that country's nuclear arsenal, he noted.

On Libya, Panetta expressed optimism that, if NATO operations continue, strongman Moammar Gadhafi will be forced from power.

"We have seen the regime weaken significantly. We have seen the opposition make gains," he said. "I think there are some signs that that if we continue the pressure, if we stick with it, that ultimately Gadhafi will step down."

He agreed, in response to a question from the committee's chairman, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, that the use of controversial enhanced interrogation techniques such as waterboarding during President George W. Bush's administration "crossed the line."

Panetta also warned of a "strong likelihood" that "the next Pearl Harbor could be a cyber attack."

"We are now the target of increasing attacks that go after our (computer-based) systems," he said.

Panetta, virtually certain to be confirmed, has been described as the consummate Washington insider. He took over at the CIA in February 2009, and previously served as chief of staff to President Bill Clinton between 1994 and 1997. Prior to that, the California Democrat served as director of Clinton's Office of Management and Budget, a position requiring mastery of tricky fiscal situations and an understanding of the federal government's sprawling bureaucracies.

Panetta also served in the House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993, a period in which he established deep congressional ties. His friendships and institutional knowledge of Capitol Hill, observers believe, will be critical in terms of helping to mold congressional opinion and balance Pentagon priorities against growing deficit fears.

"I am very aware that we must be highly disciplined in how we spend the taxpayer's precious resources," Panetta said Thursday. "I do not believe that we have to choose between strong fiscal discipline and strong national defense. We owe it to our citizens to provide both."

If confirmed, Panetta would replace retiring Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has led the Pentagon since December 2006. President Barack Obama has nominated Gen. David Petraeus, currently head of the NATO International Security Assistance Force and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, to replace Panetta at the CIA.

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Afghan civil unrest threatening peace effort (AP)

KABUL, Afghanistan – As thousands paid their respects this week to a slain northern Afghanistan police commander, a top lawmaker sounded an ominous warning: He and three other minority faction leaders are on a Taliban hit list and could be next.

Conflict between the Taliban — who come mostly from the country's biggest group, the Pashtuns — and members of its ethnic minorities is nothing new in a nation whose history is scarred by bloody civil strife. But rising ethnic tension is jeopardizing efforts to make peace with the Taliban after nearly 10 years of war.

Minorities already worry that President Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun, will make too many concessions to their Taliban enemies to shore up his Pashtun base and craft a peace deal to end the war. Whatever support for peace talks that Karzai has won from minority groups is likely to erode if militants continue to pick off their leaders one-by-one.

Gen. Daud Daud, an ethnic Tajik, was the fifth minority leader slain by militants in recent months. He was killed Saturday in one of a series of high-profile bombings insurgents have been carrying out across the nation. His death comes just weeks before the U.S. is to start withdrawing some troops.

The July U.S. drawdown — the symbolic start of a gradual withdrawal of international forces over the next several years_ already had spawned fears the country will descend into civil war when foreign troops leave.

"There are some hands who are trying to split people from each other," Karzai said at a news conference Tuesday. "There are hands who are trying to separate our homeland and create a confusing situation where you cannot tell the difference between enemy or friend."

"We, as the Afghan nation, must be very smart and clever as we go forward, but we must keep our unity."

Afghan Interior Minister Bismullah Khan Mohammadi, who has been working to mend ethnic divisions in the nation's security force, has stressed the need for a strong force that represents all faces of Afghanistan. A unified force is needed to shoulder security at the end of 2014 when international combat forces are scheduled to be gone or in supportive roles, he says.

Currently, 44 percent of Afghan policemen and soldiers are Pashtuns, 43 percent are Tajiks, Hazaras or Uzbeks, and 13 percent are from other ethnic factions, according to the U.S.-led coalition's training mission.

Mohammadi, a member of the minority Tajik group, issued his own warning to militants at Daud's funeral on Sunday.

"We will take the revenge of our martyrs," he said. "You will not be able to reach your goals by killing our heroes."

Halaluddin Halal, former deputy interior minister, said in an interview that the Taliban targeted Daud because he had strong relations with local Afghan commanders throughout the north and was keenly aware of the insurgents' tactics. "He will be very difficult to replace," Halal said.

Karzai needs minority groups — loosely known as the Northern Alliance — to back his efforts to reconcile with the Taliban. That's because, while Pashtuns make up 42 percent of the population, collectively the minority Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks and other smaller groups outnumber them. Without minority support, the country risks a de facto partition into a Pashtun south and a "minority" north.

Northern Alliance leaders say they want peace, but they are afraid of any deal that would give too much power to the very Taliban insurgents they fought in the 1990s. Some ethnic factions have started taking weapons out of mothballs in preparation for a fight if Karzai signs a peace deal that allows the Taliban to wield excessive power.

The death of Daud, who oversaw police activities in nine northern provinces, was just the latest to dent the ranks of the Northern Alliance leadership. Daud had also served as governor of Takhar province, deputy interior minister for counternarcotics and was a former bodyguard of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the charismatic Northern Alliance commander who was killed in an al-Qaida suicide bombing two days before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. News of his death stunned Fazel Karim Aymaq, a member of Karzai's peace council set up to facilitate talks with the Taliban.

"Daud was my friend. He was a very proud, brave person. Nobody can replace him," Aymaq said in his living room, where a photograph showed him standing with Massoud, the slain Northern Alliance commander.

Aymaq condemned militants' efforts to upset the peace process. "With the killing of these high figures, the Taliban think it will be a more open atmosphere for them to enter into talks," he said.

Four other leaders affiliated with the Northern Alliance also have been slain.

The Takhar provincial police chief, Gen. Shah Jahan Noori, died in the same blast as Daud. Mohammad Omar, the governor of neighboring Kunduz province in the north, was assassinated last fall in a bombing inside a mosque. Gen. Abdul Rahman Sayedkhili, the provincial police chief of Kunduz province, was killed by an insurgent bomber in March. A month later, a suicide bomber killed Gen. Khan Mohammad Mujahid, who was police chief in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar province in the south, but was aligned with the alliance.

Worried about Daud's death, Karzai cut short a foreign trip and rushed back to Kabul. He condemned the deadly attack and blamed it on outsiders, a veiled reference to Pakistan. The Karzai administration has repeatedly accused its neighbor of sheltering and assisting militant groups that stage attacks across the border into Afghanistan.

"Nobody in Afghanistan would carry out such an attack," Karzai's spokesman Waheed Omar said. "Evidence shows that these operations are being planned outside of Afghanistan."

Lawmaker Yunus Qanooni, a Tajik and former speaker of the lower house of parliament, said at Daud's memorial service Monday that insurgents now are threatening to kill him and three other prominent members of ethnic minorities. He did not say how he knew about the Taliban hit list.

He identified the others as First Vice President Marshal Mohammed Qasim Fahim, an ethnic Tajik; Atta Mohammed Noor, a Tajik and powerful governor of Balkh province in the north, and Abdullah Abdullah, Karzai's former foreign minister, who has both Tajik and Pashtun roots.

In a statement eulogizing Daud, Abdullah said his friend of more than 26 years did not always have the cooperation of the Karzai government and was "subject to unjustifiable pressure" even as he worked to shore up security in the north, which has declined in the past two years.

Amrullah Saleh, a Tajik who was Afghanistan's top intelligence official, and Karzai both accuse Pakistan of sponsoring efforts to foster ethnic division in Afghanistan. But Saleh also criticizes the president for not articulating what kind of deal he foresees with the Taliban.

"I'm not saying that there shouldn't be talks," Saleh said at a political gathering last weekend in Kabul.

But he added: "What is the end state? ... The end state should be a pluralistic Afghanistan."

He said the Taliban should be disarmed, demobilized and reintegrated into society. And they must abide by the Afghan constitution.

"If they come to dominate us through the barrel of the gun, we will resist," he said.

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Associated Press Writers Amir Shah and Rahim Faiez contributed to this report.

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Afghan soldier fatally shoots Australian mentor (AP)

CANBERRA, Australia – An Afghan soldier has shot dead his Australian mentor, a puzzling death that Australia's leader said Tuesday would not weaken the nation's commitment to its military role in Afghanistan despite an expected public backlash.

Army Lance Cpl. Andrew Gordon Jones, 25, had been on guard duty with his killer at a forward patrol base in the Chora Valley in Uruzgan province on Monday when the Afghan opened fire then fled, officials said.

No details of the killer's motive have been released. He was being hunted by his Afghan National Army colleagues, officials say.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the death would puzzle and anger many Australians. She said while hundreds of Afghan National Army soldiers had been trained by the Australian task force, none had ever turned on his mentors before.

"I understand on hard days like this one, the Australian community does question our involvement in Afghanistan — I think that's very natural and very understandable too," Gillard told Parliament.

"To Australian community members who are asking themselves that question, it is in our nation's interest to continue our deployment to Afghanistan, to see our mission through, to make sure that Afghanistan does not again become a safe haven for terrorist training," she added.

The death was one of two Australian fatalities on Monday that brought Australia's toll in the conflict to 26.

The second fatality was 27-year-old Lt. Marcus Sean Case, who was killed when a Chinook helicopter crashed while on a resupply mission 56 miles (90 kilometers) east of the Australian base in Tarin Kot in Uruzgan.

Australia has 1,550 soldiers in Afghanistan with a primary focus on training an Afghan National Army battalion to take responsibility for security in restive Uruzgan.

Australia, the largest military contributor to the U.S.-led alliance in Afghanistan outside NATO, plans to start withdrawing troops once the Afghan battalion is fully trained as early as next year.

The Greens party, whose support is crucial to Gillard's Labor Party maintaining power, on Tuesday called for Australian troops to withdraw by the end of this year.

"We should bring our troops home safely to our shore to be better deployed in Australia's interests," Greens leader Sen. Bob Brown told reporters as he offered condolences to the families of the soldiers who were killed.

Australia joined the U.S.-led war against the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, but opinion polls show that public support for the campaign has waned over the years as the death toll has mounted and victory proved elusive.

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Afghan leader tells NATO attacks on homes "not allowed" (Reuters)

KABUL (Reuters) – President Hamid Karzai warned the NATO-led force in Afghanistan on Tuesday that launching attacks on Afghan homes in pursuit of insurgents was "not allowed" and that patience with the tactic had run out after a spate of civilian casualties.

"NATO must learn that air strikes on Afghan homes are not allowed and that Afghan people have no tolerance for that anymore," Karzai told a news conference in Kabul.

Karzai reacted angrily after NATO air strikes on a compound inadvertently killed at least nine people -- most of them children -- in southern Helmand on Sunday. The strikes were ordered after a patrol had come under fire.

Civilian casualties caused by foreign troops, usually in air strikes or "night raids" on Afghan homes as they hunt insurgents, have long been a major source of friction between Karzai and his Western backers.

Karzai warned that Afghans had had enough of the tactics, which he said were a violation of Afghanistan's sovereignty.

"If they don't stop air strikes on Afghan homes, their presence in Afghanistan will be considered as an occupying force and against the will of the Afghan people," he said.

"The international community has helped us a lot but they cannot risk the lives of Afghan people, this can't be compensated," Karzai said, adding he had warned NATO commanders "a hundred times."

Tension boiled over at the weekend after the strikes on the compound in Helmand's Nawzad district. Graphic television footage after the strikes showed grieving relatives holding the bodies of several children, including babies.

The commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in southwestern later apologized for the deaths, saying the strikes on the compound had been ordered because insurgents were using them as a base.

U.S. and NATO commanders have stepped up the use of air strikes and night raids in the past 12 months, arguing they are effective weapons against insurgents who often hide among the Afghan population.

However commanders have significantly tightened the rules for using both tactics over the past two years amid a growing outcry from Afghan leaders.

U.N. figures show that at least three-quarters of civilians are caused by insurgents but it is those by NATO forces which cause the most anger among ordinary Afghans.

Karzai repeated that he had given NATO a "last warning" over air strikes and night raids but again did not go into any details about what his government would do if the tactics were not stopped. He said he hoped to meet ISAF commanders in Kabul later this week.

"Afghanistan has a lot of ways of stopping it ... But we would like NATO to stop it on their own," Karzai said.

The latest NATO strikes came at a time of high anti-Western sentiment in Afghanistan, and with a gradual security transition from foreign forces to Afghans due to begin in several areas in July.

The argument over air strikes and night raids also comes at a time of heightened violence across the country since the Taliban began their spring offensive at the start of May.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Writing by Paul Tait; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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US medics brave fire to save lives in Afghan war (AP)

FORWARD OPERATING BASE EDINBURGH, Afghanistan – U.S. Army medic Sgt. Jaime Adame hauled open the door and lunged from the helicopter into a cloud of dirt and confusion.

He could hear bursts of incoming fire above the thumping rotor blades. Somewhere in the billowing red smoke that marked the landing zone and the choking dust whipped up by the medevac chopper was a cluster of Marines pinned down by heavy fire, and one of them was bleeding badly.

The problem for Adame was that he did not know where.

Adame had dropped into "hot L-Zs" before but this one was especially thick with commotion. Every second of indecision mattered, so he just ran, knowing any direction was dangerous. Only then did the cloud clear enough to bring into view the blurred outline of several Marines' boots peeking out of the vehicle they were taking cover under.

"The fear I have never lost," said Adame, who's from Los Angeles. "It's absolutely risky ... and it will definitely get a lot more dangerous."

With the spring fighting season under way in Helmand province in Afghanistan's volatile south, the medics, crew chiefs and pilots with the U.S. Army's "Dustoff" medevac unit expect a rising number of casualties. Coalition troops are seeing stepped-up attacks, the use of complex weapons systems like multiple-grenade launchers and the continuing plague of improvised explosive devices on the battlefield.

By the war's blunt calculation, the worsening hostilities on the ground mean more medevac flights to ferry the wounded. For an emboldened insurgency, that equals opportunity. Increasingly they are targeting the medevac choppers as they swoop in for a rescue.

"It is kinda the wild, wild West," said pilot Lt. Terry Hill of Kellyville, Oklahoma, the senior officer at Forward Operating Base Edi. "In the back of your mind as a pilot you know that you will most likely be shot at or hit."

The Black Hawk helicopters Hill and other medevac pilots fly are unarmed, though they are always accompanied by at least one other aircraft that is. The "Dustoff" helicopters are distinguished with the emblem of the Red Cross and under international law are supposed to be off-limits to enemy fire.

Afghanistan's insurgents make no distinction.

On one recent medevac run, as the helicopter navigated a firefight to set down in a small courtyard, a rocket-propelled grenade fired from a compound exploded in the air just behind the helicopter. The pilot quickly aborted the approach. Ground units called in air support, and attack helicopters riddled insurgent positions with heavy caliber machine gun fire.

Within minutes, the medevac chopper made a second attempt at landing to rescue a critically wounded Marine who had sustained a gunshot wound near his spine.

On another mission, insurgents fired several rounds from an assault rifle into the belly of the helicopter and its rotor blades.

"They seem to want us to get killed, which is surprising because we rescue everybody, including them.," said Chief Warrant Officer Michael Otto of Irvine, California.

The medevac doesn't discriminate between the war's wounded. Beyond coalition and Afghan soldiers, helicopters and medics also pick up injured Afghans, especially children. They often act as an ambulance service ferrying ill and injured Afghans from remote villages to coalition medical facilities. Enemy fighters are evacuated from the battlefield and treated as well.

With the sound of explosions shaking the air, Adame raced to find the wounded Marine. His comrades carried him on a stretcher from the dusty chaos to the chopper and Adame and his crew chief swiftly set to work.

Cpl. Andrew Smith was suffering a life-threatening arterial bleed from a shrapnel wound. His boots were sliced from his feet with a seat belt cutter. He was losing blood at an alarming rate. The medics focused only on stabilizing the young corporal; there was no time to think about the danger they had just faced.

"If one of those grenades hit us as we're taking off or coming in to land that's close to 17,000 pounds of steel, and hydraulic fluid, and flammables," Adame said. "Falling out of the sky in one of those things isn't going to be pretty no matter how you look at it."

Smith remarkably survived and is recovering at a military hospital in Maryland.

It's those successes that give the "Dustoff" crews motivation to plunge back onto the battlefield.

"It's all about saving a human life," said Chief Warrant Officer Joe Rogers of Russellville, Kentucky, the pilot of the helicopter that was hit by assault rifle fire. "And it's definitely worth the risk."

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ISAF apologises for Afghan civilian deaths (AFP)

KABUL (AFP) – Foreign forces in Afghanistan apologised Monday for the deaths of nine Afghan civilians after President Hamid Karzai criticised an air strike which he and officials said killed 14, including children.

The statement said that the strike in the southern province of Helmand was carried out Saturday after insurgents who had earlier killed a patrolling marine hid in a compound and carried on firing.

The compound hit by the air strike was home to civilians. Local officials said that five girls, seven boys and two women were among those killed by international forces.

"I want to offer my sincere apologies for the nine civilians who were killed during the incident in Now Zad District, Helmand province, that occurred on 28 May," said a statement from Major General John Toolan, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commander for the southwest region of Afghanistan.

He stressed it was the coalition's "top priority" to avoid civilian casualties, adding that a full investigation was under way.

"While I know there is no price on human life, we will ensure that we make amends with the families in accordance with Afghan culture," Toolan added.

The apology came after Karzai's office issued what it said was a "last warning" to US and NATO-led troops over civilian casualties following Saturday's incident, which it described as a "great mistake."

In response, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that "we share and take very seriously" Karzai's concerns.

Civilian deaths in international military operations are a highly sensitive topic in Afghanistan, frequently sparking angry public demonstrations and vocal condemnations from Karzai.

Footage and pictures from Helmand showed turbaned men carrying the bodies of children in the aftermath of Saturday's incident.

Aslam, a local elder of Nawzad district, told AFP he "lost 12 relatives while 10 others including children were injured" in the air strike.

He said some shots were fired at ISAF helicopters which flew into the area, adding that the choppers returned after 10 to 20 minutes and fired rockets, killing the "innocent civilians".

Separately, the governor of Nuristan on Sunday told AFP that 18 civilians and 20 police had been killed by "friendly fire" during US-led air strikes against insurgents in his troubled northeastern province.

Nuristan was the scene of heavy battles last week between the Taliban and Afghan security forces. The police and civilians were targeted Wednesday after they were mistaken for militants, Jamaluddin Badr said.

ISAF has said it is sending a fact-finding team to the region but that initial reporting shows no sign of civilian casualties there.

The United Nations says Afghan civilian deaths in the war increased 15 percent to a record high of 2,777 last year. More than three-quarters of the dead were killed in violence blamed on insurgents.

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