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Karzai reaction 'surprises' Russia
HANOI: Kabul has reacted in an "incomprehensible" manner to the first US-Russian anti-drugs operation in Afghanistan, a senior source in the delegation of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Sunday.
"The reaction is simply surprising and incomprehensible," said the source.
He was responding after Afghan President Hamid Karzai reacted with fury to the first joint US-Russian anti-drugs operation in his country, saying it happened without permission and violated Afghan sovereignty.
The operation took place late Thursday in the eastern province of Nangarhar, "The reaction is completely surprising because the Afghan interior ministry participated in this operation," the source said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. Medvedev is on an official visit to Vietnam.
A statement from Karzai's office said earlier: "No organisation or institution has the right to carry out such military operations inside the territory of our country without permission and agreement from the Islamic government of Afghanistan."
It condemned the action and said "such unilateral operations are a clear violation of Afghan sovereignty as well as international law, and any repetition will be met by the required reaction from our side."
The representative in Kabul of the Russian anti-drugs service, Alexey Milovanov, said it was an Afghan operation.
"It was an operation conducted by the Afghan ministry of interior, not by us," said Milovanov.
"We have simply acted as advisers, according to an agreement between our two countries permitting the presence of Russian advisers during a drug raid."
He said that four Russian anti-drug officials were present at the operation.
Russia frequently criticises what it describes as the inadequate anti-drug policies of United States and Nato forces in Afghanistan, which it says lead to an increased flow of drugs into Russia through Central Asia.
Nato is trying to encourage greater Russian engagement in Afghanistan, more than 20 years after the former Soviet Union withdrew forces after a decade-long war against mujahedeen insurgents.
Afghanistan produces about 90 per cent of the world's opium.
Nato and Afghan troops began pushing into the insurgency's stronghold in the south in July.
The have established some pockets of security, but attacks have increased in other areas of the country.
Meanwhile, an Afghan official says Nato and Afghan troops killed 17 insurgents in an hours-long gunbattle in southern Helmand province.
Provincial government spokesman Daud Ahmadi said Sunday that the fighting lasted 12 hours and took place in the Dishu district.
http://gulftoday.ae/portal/db679ab4-...659f686d1.aspx
Karzai reaction 'surprises' Russia
In a separate incident, Nato said that an airstrike killed a Taliban leader in southern Zabul province as he was showing his fighters a new anti-aircraft heavy machine gun mounted on the back of his vehicle.
The coalition says Thursday's airstrike also killed one of his fighters.
On Saturday 80 Taliban insurgents were killed during a failed attack on a Nato combat outpost near the border with Pakistan.
"Fresh information that we received from intelligence sources shows that 80 Taliban have been killed. The bodies of the militants were left on the battlefield," said Mukhlis Afghan, spokesman for the governor of eastern Paktika province.
