|
U.S. to Help Train Afghan Police
WASHINGTON,
May 21 (News Agencies) - The United States has agreed to help train
Afghanistan's new police force, interim Interior Minister Younis
Qanooni said Monday, May 20, but pleaded with foreign donors to speed
up the flow of promised aid, news agencies reported.
Qanooni
wrapped up three days of meetings with top U.S. officials Monday,
including Vice President Dick Cheney, national security advisor
Condoleezza Rice and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage,
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
He said he discussed long term U.S. cooperation in Afghanistan, after
the operation to rout out Al-Qaeda fighters and their Taliban
protectors in the country "particularly in relation to the army
and police force."
He did not detail how the United States would help train the force,
nor did he say how much money Washington had promised towards the
project.
U.S. officials were not immediately available for comment.
President
George W. Bush has already asked Congress for 50 million dollars to
help bankroll a new army reportedly designed to free Afghanistan from
the grip of warlords.
Russia and Germany, among other nations, have already offered to help
train the multi-ethnic police force which is vitally needed in a
country brutalized by decades of civil war.
Qanooni said his meetings had been fruitful and cordial and he
stressed that he was satisfied with the security situation in
Afghanistan.
He said the war-ravaged nation was grateful for the billions of
dollars in promised aid, but that pledged aid was arriving too slowly.
"We hope that donor countries will expand their assistance to
Afghanistan, but also deliver it in a speedy fashion," he said.
Qanooni is an associate of assassinated Tajik commander Ahmad Shah
Massood, who was killed by one Al-Qaeda fighter.
Meanwhile,
the first U.S. combat death in Afghanistan in more than two months was
a special forces linguist who was on a surveillance mission along the
Pakistani border, a Pentagon official said Monday.
Army Sergeant Gene Vance, trained to monitor radio transmissions, was
killed Sunday, May 19, when assailants fired at his sport utility
vehicle. An Afghan soldier was also wounded.
Vance was only the 10th U.S. serviceman killed by hostile fire since
the start of the war there October 7 and the first since a massive air
assault in March.
Altogether,
36 U.S. troops have died in the course of the Afghan campaign.
In
another development, the Pentagon defended a U.S. commando raid May 12
north of Kandahar as justified by "accurate and decisive"
intelligence despite its killing five Afghan farmers, including a
teen-age boy.
Lieutenant
General Gregory Newbold, operations director of the Joint Staff, said
investigators were still trying to establish the identities of 32
people detained in the raid.
"We feel very comfortable that the intelligence that prompted the
raid was accurate and decisive and the raid was fully justified,"
he claimed.
Pentagon officials had said the special operations commandos were
allegedly looking for a senior Taliban leader who was believed to be
at the compound.
The U.S. Central Command claims U.S. troops killed five people who
allegedly fired at them first. The U.S. forces suffered no casualties.
The
New York Times, however, quoted villagers as saying the dead were
villagers and workers who had come to help with the harvest.
Among them was a 14- or 15-year-old boy who was too young to grow a
beard, they said.
Villagers
told the Times they fled their houses as U.S. planes and helicopters
strafed the village and then landed dozens of soldiers to search the
houses.
A
Pentagon spokesman refused to comment on whether the village was
attacked from the air either before or after the troops landed,
claiming that it would give away operational secrets.
But a Pentagon official, who spoke on condition of anonymity,
confirmed that U.S. aircraft fired on the periphery of the village
during the operation to prevent those inside the targeted compound
from escaping.
|
