US President George W. Bush met on Tuesday with his Afghan
counterpart Hamid Karzai at the White House. Prior to that
discussion, Bush also had talks with Pakistani President Pervez
Musharraf. To people's surprise, the three leaders are due to meet
again on Wednesday night, which are generally believed to be
focusing on the worsening situation in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan tension ignored
In the past years, a sequence of bloody conflicts and terror
attacks in Iraq and scandals involving ill-treatment of prisoners
and captured Islamic militants have become a major coverage of mass
media, whereas the situation in Afghanistan, which appeared to be
calm relatively, seemed to have been ignored sometime.
However, war always claims lives and make great troubles. So is
the five-year-old war in Afghanistan. Facing the fact that Taliban
is gaining influence in southern Afghanistan and more than100 NATO
peacekeeping soldiers have been killed in the war-torn country this
year, the US military has given up the plan of troop reductions
there.
"Our troop level in Afghanistan will remain about steady through
... February," Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, who leads the Combined
Forces Command in Afghanistan, said last week.
There are approximately 20,000 US troops in Afghanistan, the
highest number since the US-led invasion in October 2001 to
overthrow the Taliban regime.
The latest decision by the Pentagon is based upon an estimation
that Taliban fighters and extremists have grown more numerous,
organized and determined in some parts of the south and southeast
where foreign troops are limited and the Afghan government was
weak.
"In some areas there are more Taliban extremists than there were
at this point last year. And within some areas they ...
demonstrated better command-and-control and they're fighting
harder," Eikenberry said.
Bin Laden's whereabouts disputed
Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, who has a US$25 million
government bounty on his head, is the Western world's most wanted
terror mastermind. However, despite of long and sustained effort to
hunt and eliminate leaders of al-Qaida and the Taliban regime,
whereabouts of the targeted people remain unknown to the US
intelligence personnel.
Karzai said on Sunday that bin Laden "probably" was in Pakistan.
But Pakistani officials usually say bin Laden is more likely to be
in Afghanistan. In comparison, the US government officials are
reluctant to talk about the issue publicly.
However, Bush told CNN a week ago that if he had firm
intelligence, he would not hesitate to issue an order to go after
Osama bin Laden even in Pakistan.
Asked in an interview with CNN whether he would issue an order
to go into Pakistan to kill or capture bin Laden and his deputy
Ayman al-Zawahri, Bush replied: "Absolutely."
Bush's remarks has not only demonstrated his doubtfulness about
Pakistan's ability to strike against terrorists, but also
apparently hurt self-respect of the government and people of
Pakistan who vow to defend national sovereignty in anti-terrorism
war, analysts said.
Cooperation plus differences
Following his meetings with Musharraf and Karzai, Bush has
denied that Afghan-Pakistan tensions are undermining efforts to
quell cross-border violence or hunt down terrorists.
"Quite the contrary. We're working as hard as ever in doing
that," Bush told reporters after meeting with Karzai on
Tuesday.
"It's in President Karzai's interest to see bin Laden brought to
justice. It is in President Musharraf's interests to see bin Laden
brought to justice. Our interests coincide," Bush insisted.
Bush may be right in making assessment of determination by
leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan in fight against terrorism. But
differences between Kabul and Islamabad over a recent peace deal
between Pakistan's government and tribal chiefs in a remote
Afghan-Pakistan border region is unavoidably making discount to
Bush's optimistic saying.
"We will have to wait and see if that is going to be implemented
exactly the way it is signed," Karzai said, showing skepticism
about the deal.
On Sept. 5, Musharraf announced the peace pact with domestic
tribal chiefs, saying the peace deal was designed to end armed
attacks inside Pakistan and to stop the Taliban forces operating in
the tribal areas of Pakistan along the Afghan border crossing.
While Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan are at odds over the
Taliban issue, Musharraf's remarks which disclosed that Washington
threatened to bomb Pakistan back to the "Stone Age" if it failed to
join the "war on terror" in 2001.
Although Bush claimed to be "taken aback" by the report, he
failed to confirm or deny the report, which has resulted in many
questions about Washington-Islamabad anti-terrorism
cooperation.
It is generally believed that both Afghanistan and Pakistan are
key forces in the US-led war against terrorism. Starting from this
viewpoint, the Bush administration will be expected to make every
effort to keep not only its alliance with both Karzai and Musharraf
as long as possible, but also to keep cooperation between Kabul and
Islamabad as close as they can.
(Xinhua News Agency September 28, 2006)
