Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. is "running out of time" to win the war in Afghanistan, and sending in more troops will not guarantee victory, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned Congress on Wednesday. Adm. Michael Mullen made his statement to the House Armed Services Committee a day after President Bush announced the deployment of 4,500 additional troops to the poor, war-ravaged nation. Mullen said he is convinced the war can be won, but the U.S. urgently needs to improve its nation-building initiatives and its cross-border strategy with Pakistan. "We can't kill our way to victory, and no armed force anywhere -- no matter how good -- can deliver these keys alone. It requires teamwork and cooperation," Mullen said. The Taliban government harboring the al Qaeda movement that conducted the 9/11 attacks was overthrown soon after U.S. and British troops entered the country in October 2001, but the militants have re-established their presence there. And Mullen says they've grown "bolder." Cross-border attacks into Afghanistan by militants in Pakistan's tribal region are a problem. Mullen stressed that Afghanistan can't be referenced without "speaking of Pakistan," where, he says, the militant groups collaborate and communicate better, launch more sophisticated attacks, employ foreign fighters and use civilians as human shields.

5 Million Afghans at Risk for Severe Food Shortage

The Christian Post reports that the onslaught of winter combined with failed donor pledges may lead to a "major humanitarian crisis" in Afghanistan, according to international relief agency Oxfam. Less than a fifth of the $404 million needed to feed 5 million at-risk Afghans have been turned in. "Large parts of Afghanistan are facing crisis as a result of the cumulative effect of factors including the harsh winter, high food prices, drought, and increasing and spreading insecurity," the charity said in a statement Saturday. Oxfam said some areas face the worst food crisis in more than 20 years. "This is a race against time, the international community needs to respond quickly before winter when conditions deteriorate," said Oxfam's head of policy in Kabul, Matt Waldman, according to Agence France-Presse.

Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban insurgents once derided as a ragtag rabble unable to match U.S. troops have transformed into a fighting force - one advanced enough to mount major conventional attacks and claim American lives at a record pace. The U.S. military suffered its 101st death of the year in Afghanistan last week. The total number of U.S. dead last year, 111, was a record itself and is likely to be surpassed. Top U.S. generals, European presidents and analysts say the blame lies to the east, in militant sanctuaries in neighboring Pakistan. As long as those areas remain havens where fighters arm, train, recruit and plot increasingly sophisticated ambushes, the Afghan war will continue to sour. "The U.S. is now losing the war against the Taliban," Anthony Cordesman of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in a report Thursday.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Scores of Afghan civilians who had gathered in a small village for the memorial ceremony of a militia commander were killed when U.S. and Afghan soldiers launched an attack in the middle of the night, officials and villagers said Saturday. President Hamid Karzai condemned the early Friday operation in western Afghanistan and said most of the dead were civilians. Amid allegations that large numbers of civilians have died in recent raids and airstrikes by foreign forces, President Karzai's government has demanded a review of the presence of U.S. and NATO troops in the country. The government Monday ordered its foreign affairs and defense ministries to review the presence of foreign troops, regulate their presence with a status of forces agreement and negotiate a possible end to "air strikes on civilian targets, uncoordinated house searches and illegal detention of Afghan civilians."

Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A team of suicide bombers tried to storm a U.S. military base near the border with Pakistan in a daring insurgent attack on a major American installation, officials said Tuesday. Six suicide bombers attacked and three detonated their vests, NATO officials said. Afghan officials said at least 13 militants died in the attack, including six suicide bombers. NATO offered a slightly different account, saying three suicide bombers detonated their vests and that three bombers were shot to death. NATO said seven attackers in total were killed. The militants who attacked the U.S. base failed to gain entry to Camp Salerno in Khost city after launching waves of attacks just before midnight on Monday, said Arsallah Jamal, the governor of Khost. The base is just a few miles (kilometers) from Pakistan's border. Salerno is the second largest U.S. base in Afghanistan, after the main base at Bagram.

Afghanistan/Pakistan

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has endorsed a new five-year, $17 billion plan to increase the size of the Afghan army by about 50,000 troops. The move follows a proposal from the Afghanistan government, and the price tag includes the costs for routine Afghan Army combat operations and upgrading the air corps, beginning in 2010, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Friday. He said it generally costs about $1 billion a year to increase forces by 10,000, and another $100,000 to sustain them. Officials are currently looking at ways to finance it. Options include seeking money from NATO allies. Morrell said the proposal would increase the size of the Afghan army from a planned 80,000 troops to roughly 122,000, plus 13,000 in support staff. Currently there are about 65,000 soldiers in the Afghan Army, and that total is expected to hit the 80,000 goal next year, Morrell said.

Top Bush administration officials are urging the president to direct U.S. troops in Afghanistan to be more aggressive in pursuing militants into Pakistan on foot as part of a proposed radical shift in its regional counterterrorism strategy, The Associated Press has learned. Senior intelligence and military aides want President George W. Bush to give American soldiers greater flexibility to operate against al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters who cross the border from Pakistan's lawless tribal border area to conduct attacks inside Afghanistan, officials say. The plan could include sending U.S. special forces teams, temporarily assigned to the CIA, into the tribal areas to hit high-value targets, according to an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the plan. Such a move would be controversial, in part because of Pakistani opposition to U.S. incursions into its territory, and the proposal is not universally supported in Washington. It comes amid growing political instability in Pakistan and concerns that elements of Pakistan's security forces are collaborating with extremists.

Afghanistan

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — About 870 prisoners escaped during a Taliban bomb and rocket attack on the main prison in southern Afghanistan that knocked down the front gate and demolished a prison floor, Afghan officials said Saturday. The police chief of Kandahar province, Sayed Agha Saqib, said 390 Taliban prisoners were among the 870 inmates who fled the prison during the attack late Friday. NATO's International Security Assistance Force put the number of escapees slightly higher, at around 1,100, according to spokesman Brig. Gen. Carlos Branco. He conceded that the assault was a success.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened Sunday to send Afghan troops across the border to fight militants in Pakistan, a forceful warning to insurgents and the Pakistani government that his country is fed up with cross-border attacks. Karzai said Afghanistan has the right to self defense, and because militants cross over from Pakistan "to come and kill Afghan and kill coalition troops, it exactly gives us the right to do the same." Speaking at a Sunday news conference, Karzai warned Pakistan-based Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud that Afghan forces would target him on his home turf. Mehsud is suspected in last year's assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.