Editorial

Kandahar has remained hotbed of violence and killing. A parliamentarian and noted tribal elder from the volatile southern province of Kandahar was assassinated on Friday night, July 04, 2008 by unidentified gunmen.
The lawmaker, Haji Habibullah was from Zherai district and was shot down after he visited an Afghan army compound in the Zhari district of Kandahar. Zhari has seen some of the worst violence in the Al-Qaeda-linked Taliban's insurgency, including major attacks on international troops with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. In August 2007, a suicide attacker blew himself up outside the house of Zhari district governor, Khairuddin, which killed him and three of his children.
Kandahar has been a hotbed of violence ever since the Taliban militia emerged from the city and the surrounding region in the early 1990s to take control of government by 1996. Ten parliamentarians have been killed since the Afghan assembly was set up in 2005. Five members of parliament were killed in a suicide attack that killed 72 people in the northern town of Baghlan in November 2007.
Another deputy died in an attempt to assassinate President Hamid Karzai at a military parade in April 2008.
The dynamism of incidents in this birthplace of Taliban militants in southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand is thought-provoking and stark reminder of ingrained problems incubated by these provinces.
Last month’s scandalous jailbreak was one of the reasons that angered President Karzai to spell out his historical patriotism and make the tirade against foreign Taliban militants for cross-border infiltration. The incubators of the Taliban militancy in this province may have root among local population. Indigenous elements supported by foreign militants and funded by narco-economy pose serious challenge to NATO forces operating on the ground. Helmand’s rugged mountains are also popular hiding places for Taliban rebels, many of whom are believed to slip back and forth across the province’s largely unguarded border with Pakistan.
In order to tackle and get rid of the burgeoning insurgency in the south, Afghan and international forces need clear strategic blueprints to eliminate roots of insurgency and militancy, and to bring the porous border under their control. With development projects at the gross-root level, Afghan and international forces should try to trace and capture the Taliban insurgents inside and rugged mountains.
Today, Taliban insurgents are waging an increasingly bloody campaign that is backed by Al-Qaeda and militants outside the country and carries out regular attacks against Afghan officials and soldiers, as well as the international troops here to support the government. Added to this, month of June witnessed the highest number of foreign military casualties as 46 coalition troops died in clashes with the Taliban insurgents.

Like any modern fighting force, the armed opposition group has learned the benefits of emotional warfare. As the AOG offensive gets under way, kidnappings have become their new weapon of choice, targeting a growing chink in NATO's armor. There have been multiple kidnappings in Afghanistan in recent years, often foreigners working on road and engineering projects.
There was a spate of kidnappings in Kabul two years ago, but they have since subsided. Like recently AGE kidnapped a Chinese road construction worker in south west of Kabul city.
For every times internationals’ kidnappings or abductions were caused political demands or ransom purposes. Such techniques However terrorism unexpectedly stretched it roots during last few years and apart of usual crimes such as kidnapping, individual killings, suicide attacks, terrorists new strategies like hostage taking was a newly introduced phenomenon. There is an increase worldwide in the number of foreign nationals being taken hostage or kidnapped, whether for political or other reasons. The abductors have often used civilians to draw international attention to their demands for the government.
Hostage taking is still a relatively rare, albeit dramatic and traumatic, event. Most abduction is short term, lasting only a few hours, and most people who are taken hostage survive the experience. Being taken hostage is a frightening and highly dangerous event, in which you lose control of your person and your future. Once someone has taken you hostage they can physically do with you what they will. About 80% of hostages are released unharmed, but as a hostage, you are likely to be margin alto the negotiating process and depend on others to ensure that you are released safely.
The level of violence following abductions is probably increasing. The offense of taking hostage is getting customary in Afghanistan; they take the foreigners in their hostages and demands for the release of their group members.

Several credentials reports confirm, killing of approximately 22 civilians as a result of U.S. military strikes that includes a woman and a child in Nuristan province. However on the other hand, the U.S. led coalition’s spokesman revealed that, the primary targets were the combatants’ vehicles who attacked a U.S. military base (6 miles away of the incident point) with mortars and carrying insurgent in Eastern Afghanistan when they were attacked. Hence it’s hard to predict at the moment that the casualties were civilian or armed opposition/criminal groups, however it will extend a frustrated atmosphere and more likely will enhance the public anger. So far a number of demonstration and public protests have been held in many part of the country. Condemning and denouncing the escalating civilians’ casualties around the country. Although high casualty rate is not the result of direct targets by U.S. Coalition Force but mostly people have been killed unintentionally or being victimized of collateral damage. According to the Alston, the United Nations Investigator, focused on civilian killings by US and other international military forces, citing 200 reported deaths in the first four months of 2008. This figure, however, was based on tabulations by the United Nations and other international organizations, and is undoubtedly a serious underestimation. In addition to civilians killed in air raids often targeted indiscriminately at civilian dwellings. Alston reported on “a number of raids for which no state or military command appears ready to acknowledge responsibility.
Since the beginning of U.S. attacks against Taliban regime recent incidents in Afghanistan have highlighted the precarious position of the US military in the country. While the level of armed attacks is not the same as in Iraq, there is nevertheless growing resistance, to the military presence of the US and its allies in Afghanistan
In Afghanistan, the civilian deaths caused by US and NATO-led troops have infuriated local people and prompted President Hamid Karzai to publicly condemn foreign forces for careless 'use of extreme force' and for viewing Afghan lives as cheap.

The Middle East is taking particular interest in the upcoming White House race in Washington with good reason. At stake is not only the future of Iraq with everything it entails, but also a possible redefining of the Gulf-US equation. The way things stand, it is difficult to fault critics compelled to note the mutual romance from the First Gulf War simply no longer there.
Interestingly, the region finds constantly increasing centrality in an election that is also otherwise unique for America. There needs to be little mention of the intensity of the Democratic nomination race, when a potential first time lady and first time African American fought it right to the end.
In the final presidential race, however, are complexities that might make the possibility of new precedents more likely than normal. For all his achievements, Obama has clearly failed to reason with the Democratic Party's core voting bloc — the blue-collar working class that stood with Hillary and now threatens to lean towards McCain. His rhetoric of change, coupled with an energetic, engaging personality has won him more luck than policy debate, something not entirely unusual for the primaries, but in no way the norm either.
For the Democrats as a whole, the strains of the Hillary-Obama race seem to have delayed realization of polls indicating far better Republican fortunes than only a few months ago. Obama's initiative from here will be a good reflection on his credentials as a leader in demanding circumstances. The decisions he takes now will have a pronounced bearing, in one way or another, on the Middle East more than any other region in the world, another reason to watch Obama closely from here.
His immediate response seems spirited and well thought out. Offsetting his losses on one side of the board, he has apparently decided to gamble on the other, leveraging his excess dollars for aggressive campaigning deep in the Republican South, an area yet to require Republican campaigning because of the strong bond with the party. The key battleground is North Carolina, last taken by the Democrats in '76 by Carter, that too because of his nearby Georgia background.
Otherwise, the Party has mostly ignored the South since way back in the 60s. That an African-American Democratic Party nominee's fortunes there in the next few days can mean a paradigm shift in Middle East realities is one of the most intricate features of present day sole-superpower international politics.
Obama's coming to the fore is likely to influence events and policies inside as well as outside America, whereas McCain has promised 'more of the same', hence the general liking for Obama in the Middle East media. As much as charm tactics have worked, the coming days will require both camps to focus on core policy matters, the real requirement of the US president. This is where, again, the Gulf will figure most prominently. (Courtesy Khaleej Times)