By Sgt. 1st Class Doug Sample, USA American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, March 7, 2005 – Violent contacts between coalition forces and enemy fighters in Afghanistan are declining in number, a senior commander of forces there said today. “Over the past year, the number of areas where the Afghan central government and international organizations classify or describe the environment as insecure has gone down dramatically,” said Army Maj. Gen. Eric T. Olson, commander of Combined Joint Task Force 76, at a news conference in Kabul. Combined Joint Task Force 76 is a subordinate unit to Combined Forces Command Afghanistan. It is the operational military headquarters in the country.
“The number of contacts we have had, combat operations that we have had, and the number of casualties, both on the side of the coalition and the side that opposes the coalition, has gone down.”
Olson said the security situation in Afghanistan has reached the point at which violent contact or troops in contact situations are rare. Afghan security forces are now operating “much more freely in some of these areas that used to be very violent,” he added.
“We are starting to experience nongovernmental organizations and international organizations and aid groups much more willing to go into many areas in Afghanistan than they were willing to before,” he noted.
Olson said the more secure environment has enabled reconstruction projects to move forward. He said the coalition has spent millions of dollars over the last year on new schools and government buildings, and on other construction projects throughout the country.
Nineteen provincial reconstruction teams are spread throughout Afghanistan and are “specifically dedicated to economic development and helping Afghanistan to reconstruct,” he emphasized. “The PRTs are accepted very readily by the Afghan people and work very closely with Afghan governmental officials.”
Such acceptance of the coalition by the Afghan people is perhaps the greatest accomplishment by the coalition over the past year, Olson said. A recent poll revealed the popular support for the coalition now is at an “all-time high,” he reported.
“I would say that personally speaking, as I reflect back on the year that I’ve spent as the commanding general of CJTF-76, that my own proudest accomplishment is the close connection we have established with the Afghan people and the bonds of friendship that have been formed, plus the cooperation with the institutions and organizations of the Afghan central government.”
Mon Mar 7,10:57 PM ET Middle East - AP
AMMAN, Jordan - Fifteen alleged militants refused to speak Monday when a military court asked them to plead to numerous terror charges, including plotting to attack the U.S. and Israeli embassies in Amman.
The court interpreted their silence as a plea of not guilty and adjourned the trial to March 14. A 16th person accused is being tried in absentia on the same charges.
The charge sheet identified the chief defendant as Abed al-Tahawi, 50, and said he pursued the ideology of "takfiri" — a policy of killing anybody considered to be an infidel. The charge sheet said al-Tahawi recruited his accomplices while preaching in mosques in Irbid, 50 miles north of the capital.
The defendants planned to attack the U.S. and Israeli embassies in Amman, and a hotel favored by Israeli tourists in Irbid, the charge sheet said. They also planned to attack the home of the director of an annual cultural festival and American performers at the festival, according to the charges.
Details released Monday did not say how or when they planned the attacks.
The alleged militants were detained in August and September before they could carry out their plans. It was not disclosed how they were arrested.
In a separate trial in the same military court, a defendant pleaded not guilty Monday to planting a bomb that killed two passers-by in 2002.
Mustafa Siyam was convicted in absentia in 2003 and condemned to death for setting a bomb under the car of the wife of a senior Jordanian intelligence officer outside his home in Amman in February 2002. The intelligence officer left his house minutes before the explosion, which killed two workers on the pavement.
Siyam was later captured in Iraq and extradited to Jordan. Under Jordanian law, people convicted in absentia are granted a retrial if they are later arrested.
Siyam said Monday that the confession he made while in detention was extracted under duress.