Petraeus Wants Pakistani Insurgents Added To Terrorist Blacklist

Petraeus Wants Pakistani Insurgents Added To Terrorist Blacklist

Today's AfPak Round-Up:

Petraeus wants Haqqani insurgents added to terror blacklist. The Haqqani network, based along the Afghan border, is linked to Al Qaeda and responsible for a series of attacks in and around Kabul and across eastern Afghanistan. If added to the blacklist, its foreign assets would be frozen and its leaders banned from overseas travel. Petraeus' request could antagonize Pakistan, which is believed to covertly support the group, and seems to clash with recent efforts by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to have senior Taliban leaders removed from the list to encourage a peace settlement. [NYT]

Gingrich: Afghanistan "won't end well." On a visit to Iowa, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich criticized Gen. David Petraeus's counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan, saying it "doesn't go deep enough for someplace like Afghanistan." He added, "You're dealing with Afghan culture that is fundamentally different than us, in ways we don't understand." [Politico]

Afghan Army won't be ready until 2014. The death of three British soldiers at the hands of an Afghan soldier on Tuesday cast further doubt on the army's readiness to secure Afghanistan after NATO forces withdraw. But, writes the BBC's John Simpson, there is reason for NATO to keep supporting its development: it is far stronger than it was when the Soviet Union withdrew from the country in 1989—and in that case, they managed to hold off the mujahideen for three years. [BBC]

Peace with Taliban threatens women's rights: rights watchdog. According to a new report by Human Rights Watch, women in Taliban-controlled areas face intimidation, death threats and violence. "Religious police," the report notes, have forbidden girls from attending school and are beating women they believed to be inappropriately dressed. A power-sharing deal with the Taliban that does not enforce women's rights, the groups says, will further reverse the progress seen since the Taliban were forced from power in 2001. [BBC]

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