Barack Obama vows to 'dismantle' al-Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan

[TriWooOx]

Quote:In his first major announcement as America's new commander-in-chief, Mr Obama said the situation in Afghanistan was "increasingly perilous" and required an extra 4,000 soldiers to join the additional 17,000 combat troops the United States had already committed to tackle the most dangerous provinces in eastern Afghanistan, and Helmand and Kandahar in the south.

The US President sent a mesasge to extremists as he promised to rout out the "cancer that risks killing Pakistan from within" by increasing aid to the country to $1.5 billion (£1 billion) a year over five years.

Britain was likely to be pressed to send up to 2,000 more combat troops, bringing its force levels to 10,000 in southern Afghanistan. Mr Obama was expected to appeal directly to Gordon Brown when they meet at the G20 summit in London next week.

Mr Obama resisted sending in the 30,000 reinforcements initially recommended by military commanders and said he would reassess troop levels over the next year.

It marked the moment when Mr Obama took "ownership" of the war in Afghanistan and responsibility for its end, but he did not repeat an earlier reference to finding an "exit strategy". Some on the Left feared that it could doom his presidency in the way that Vietnam affected President Lyndon Johnson's. Mr Obama said the 4,000 extra troops would be deployed in a training role with the Afghan police and the national army, which the US wanted to double in size to 134,000 men in the next two years.

But the scale of the challenge in building an indigenous professional fighting force was underlined when an Afghan soldier shot and killed two coalition troops before killing himself.

Violence in Pakistan – the problems of which Mr Obama said must be tackled for progress to be made in Afghanistan – also raged with a suicide bomber killing 50 people at a mosque.

Mr Obama insisted that "this is not simply an American problem". Appealing to America's allies for a greater commitment to Afghanistan, and justifying the extra troops to his domestic audience, he described the region as "an international security challenge of the highest order" and said that the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan as "the most dangerous place in the world".

"Terrorist attacks in London and Bali were tied to al-Qaeda and its allies in Pakistan, as were attacks in North Africa and the Middle East, in ­Islamabad and Kabul," he said.

"If there is a major attack on an Asian, European or African city, it, too, is likely to have ties to al-Qaeda's leadership in Pakistan."

The announcement was part of a comprehensive new policy to deal with both Afghanistan and the border regions of Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding.

"Al-Qaeda and its allies, the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks, are in Pakistan and Afghanistan," Mr Obama said in ominous tones, telling Americans that the Afghan war was not an overseas adventure "of choice" like Iraq but directly linked to protecting the US.

"Intelligence estimates have warned that al-Qaeda is planning attacks on the United States homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan.

"And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban or allows al-Qaeda to go unchallenged, that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can."

He announced the setting up of a regional group on Afghanistan that would include Iran, whose nuclear ambitions and desire to eradicate Israel led to it being ostracised by the US.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...d-Pakistan.html

[Free Scotland]

So much for Obama the saviour. I knew they would end up going into Pakistan and try to split it up.

This really is the beginning of the NWO isn't it. The big push.