War Glance
The UN's former envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, has strongly criticised Pakistan's recent arrest of high-ranking Taliban leaders. Mr Eide told the BBC the arrests had completely stopped a channel of secret communications with the UN.
Pakistani officials insist the arrests were not an attempt to spoil talks. Mr Eide confirmed publicly for the first time that his secret contacts with senior Taliban members had begun a year ago. He said they involved face-to-face talks in Dubai and elsewhere.
"The first contact was probably last spring, then of course you moved into the election process where there was a lull in activity, and then communication picked up when the election process was over, and it continued to pick up until a certain moment a few weeks ago," he said.
Pakistan arrests halt secret UN contacts with Taliban
The Guantánamo “Suicides”: A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle
When President Barack Obama took office last year, he promised to “restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great.” Toward that end, the president issued an executive order declaring that the extra-constitutional prison camp at Guantánamo Naval Base “shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order.” Obama has failed to fulfill his promise.
Some prisoners there are being charged with crimes, others released, but the date for closing the camp seems to recede steadily into the future. Furthermore, new evidence now emerging may entangle Obama’s young administration with crimes that occurred during the George W. Bush presidency, evidence that suggests the current administration failed to investigate seriously—and may even have continued—a cover-up of the possible homicides of three prisoners at Guantánamo in 2006.
US soldier dies in combat in Baghdad
The U.S. military says an American soldier has died in combat in Baghdad.A statement by the military says the soldier from the U.S. Central Division was killed in combat on Thursday in the Iraqi capital.
The name of the deceased soldier is being withheld pending notification of next of kin.
PM, now trailing in Iraq vote count, cries fraud
Supporters of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki complained of vote fraud Wednesday after new but incomplete results from a March 7 election showed their candidate trailing secularist challenger Iyad Allawi.
Allawi, who served as interim prime minister from 2004-05, could still lose his narrow edge over Maliki, a Shi'ite whose law-and-order message has put him ahead in seven of 18 provinces, including the electoral prizes Baghdad and Basra.
But no matter what the final outcome, Allawi's strong showing, particularly among minority Sunnis resentful of the dominance of Shi'ite religious parties since 2003, has broad implications for the formation of the next government and stability in the country once U.S. troops withdraw.
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Iraq bomb attacks kill at least eight people
Eight people have been killed and 11 injured by two bombs in the central Iraqi town of Musayyab, police say. The bombs were detonated within five minutes of each other on the main road in the town in Babil province, 60km (40 miles) south of the capital, Baghdad.
Police told the BBC the devices - a type known as "sticky bombs" - had been magnetically attached to the underside of two minibuses carrying passengers. Earlier, a roadside bomb injured at least three police in eastern Baghdad. Their patrol car was hit as it drove past al-Mustansriya University.
U.S. Is Reining In Special Forces in Afghanistan
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, has brought most American Special Operations forces under his direct control for the first time, out of concern over continued civilian casualties and disorganization among units in the field.
Critics, including Afghan officials, human rights workers and some field commanders of conventional American forces, say that Special Operations forces have been responsible for a large number of the civilian casualties in Afghanistan and operate by their own rules.
Maj. Gen. Zahir Azimi, the chief spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, said that General McChrystal had told Afghan officials he was taking the action because of concern that some American units were not following his orders to make limiting civilian casualties a paramount objective.
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Final destination Iran?
Hundreds of powerful US “bunker-buster” bombs are being shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for a possible attack on Iran.
The Sunday Herald can reveal that the US government signed a contract in January to transport 10 ammunition containers to the island. According to a cargo manifest from the US navy, this included 387 “Blu” bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures.
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