Afghan president Hamid Karzai met US president Barack Obama and Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari today, voicing angry protest at the "unjustifiable and unacceptable" US airstrike in Farah province suspected to have killed over 100 people, mostly civilians. In Farah itself, shots were fired and the government offices stoned, wounding several people including local officials. In the Swat Valley neighbouring Afghanistan, meanwhile, Pakistan's own airforce has provoked criticism and fears of a major humanitarian disaster following continued bombing raids.
The toD verdict: Since its inception, the use of airpower for ground assault has divided opinion on its political and military effectiveness. This latest phase in its application, to the so-called "Af-Pak war" with Taliban and other militants, has done little to allay the controversy.
The attacks at Farah are only the latest and grandest in a series of US airstrikes which the UN estimated to have caused the vast majority of the 828 civilian deaths at the hands of US forces in 2008. US military representatives claimed the attack was ordered by Afghani forces and vetted by their command, but an on-the-spot enquiry was launched and Secretary of State Clinton announced that US officials "deeply regret" civilian deaths.
Meanwhile, Pakistan, which had also criticised US use of airstrikes, has employed similar tactics on a huge scale. Thousands of people fled the Swat Valley after army ground operations were joined by air-raids after the local truce with Islamist militants in the region brokedown on Wednesday. Aid agencies fear that up to 800,000 people, half the Swat population, may be forced to flee the region, numbers sufficient to prompt a humanitarian crisis and induce further strains on the country's fragile economy. The UN High Commission on Refugees has already begun dispatching aid to the region and cooperated with Pakistani authorities in establishing camps for those escaping the fighting.
The greatest fallout of the airstrikes however may be political; the Taliban will try to capitalise on any impression that Zardari has bowed to US pressure. Civilian suffering at government hands may increase sympathy for the insurgents.
Presidents Karzai and Zardari are trapped between pressure from the US and domestic public opinion. Their survival in office depends on a dangerous tightrope walk, faced with either losing crucial US military support against enemies of their regimes and alienating popular opinion and empowering violent opposition. Despite US claims that meetings in Washington today were a success and that the parties had "reaffirmed their commitment" to a common plan, these fundamental tensions seem inescapable without a radical change in the tactics of the Af-Pak counter-insurgency.
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Israeli army and Palestinian militants exchange fire
Sporadic violence broke out today in Gaza and the West Bank. The Israeli air force wounded four people in strikes on smuggling tunnels in the Gaza strip after mortar bombs launched from Gaza struck a field in Israel. Meanwhile, in the West Bank town of Bir Zeit, an Israeli soldier was killed in a raid, possibly in a friendly fire incident. In Israel itself, a Palestinian was shot dead approaching a shrine holy to both Muslims and Jews in Hebron. Israeli military police claimed he had defied orders to halt and evaded a checkpoint but they could not report whether he was armed.
Israeli military measures have been subject to UN criticism in recent days, blaming its occupation for economic stagnation and restrictions to Palestinian freedom of movement in and around Bethlehem, and criticising attacks on UN buildings during Israeli operations in Gaza last December.
US will not waver, Arab allies told
US defence secretary Robert Gates visited Egypt and Saudi Arabia in recent days to reassure the longstanding allies that detente with Iran will not damage either nation's privileged partnership with the US. Gates dismissed the idea of a comprehensive settlement with Iran as "very remote", but the Gulf Cooperation Council still found it necessary to plead that US peace feelers "will not come at our expense". Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are particularly anxious at the prospect of increased Iranian power, fearing the possibility of Iranian-instigated subversion among their Shia populations as well as Iran's more traditional military threat.
Attempts to improve Russia-US relations founder on Georgian rocks
Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov meets US president Barack Obama today in attempt to patch up the countries' frayed relations, but in Georgia a proxy conflict still smoulders. Today a scheduled meeting between Georgia and representatives of the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was cancelled. Yesterday, Russia and NATO engaged in tit-for-tat measures with the expulsion of two NATO diplomats from Moscow and two Russians from NATO HQ in Brussels. On Tuesday Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili triumphantly claimed to have crushed an allegedly Russian-backed army mutiny, dispatching a tank regiment to a military base twenty miles east of Tbilisi.
Last night, the US-supported government was again on the defensive as opposition groups mounted a violent protest outside a police station in the capital in which dozens of protestors and six police officers were wounded. Around 3,000 opponents of the government later reconvened in parliament square, protesting at the continued detention of three fellow activists. The actions coincide with controversial NATO military exercises held in the country, which Russia had denounced as an unnecessary provocation.
Rare US critique of Israeli nuclear capacity
Rose Gottemoeller, an Assistant Secretary of State and the US's chief nuclear negotiator, included Israel in roll-call of states whose adherence to the Non Proliferation Treaty is "a fundamental objective of the United States". The speech breaks with traditional ambiguity from both sides in the Israeli-US partnership. Shimon Peres meanwhile stoked fears of a pre-emptive Israeli strike if Iran defies its commitment to the NPT. Speaking to Jewish leaders in New York, he promised not to "cross out any other options" should talks fail to halt Iranian nuclear activity.
Government intensifies public relations offensive in Sri Lanka conflict
The Sri Lankan military posted a video on its website today purporting to show Tamil fighters in civilian dress forcing civilians to help in their war-effort. Independent reporting from the war zone is hampered by the barring of journalists from areas of intense fighting. The posting seems to be an attempt to deflect criticism for heavy civilian casualties, estimated at 6,500 in the last three months alone. The government has come under international fire for the alleged artillery bombardments of civilian safe-zones, with the most recent demands for an immediate ceasefire coming from the UN, a request so far ignored. Trading in accusations and recriminations has done little to help the estimated 200,000 people displaced by the conflict.
