The general who commands NATO forces in Afghanistan on Wednesday called for enlisting tribes to help pacify the country and did not rule out reconciliation with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.
US General David McKiernan, the commander of the International Security Assistance Force, also said the coalition needs more troops for what he said is an increasingly “tough fight” in eastern and southern Afghanistan.
“And until we get to what I call a tipping point where the lead for security can be in the hands of the Afghan Army and the Afghan Police, there is going to be a need for the international community to provide military capabilities,” he told reporters.
McKiernan has asked for four more US combat brigades, support forces, helicopters and reconnaissance, intelligence and surveillance capabilities. McKiernan said that any reconciliation efforts should be led by the Afghan government, but that the military would support it.
Asked whether dealing with the man who harbored al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was beyond the pale, McKiernan said: “I think that’s a political decision that will ultimately be made by political leadership.”
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai said on Tuesday that he has asked Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah to arrange talks with the Taliban so that Omar and other militia leaders could return home in peace.
“Ultimately, the solution in Afghanistan is going to be a political solution not a military solution,” said McKiernan, who spoke to reporters at a Pentagon news conference.
“We’re not going to run out of bad guys there that want to do bad things in Afghanistan,” he said.
“So the idea that the government of Afghanistan will take on the idea of reconciliation, I think, is [an] approach and we’ll be there to provide support within our mandate,” he said.
His visit to Washington comes as the administration is conducting a wide-ranging strategy review prompted by rising insurgent violence in Afghanistan fueled from sanctuaries in neighboring Pakistan.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
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