Snubbed by Pakistan, US envoy goes to India

WASHINGTON: A US envoy on a mission to discuss post-war Afghanistan will head on a previously unscheduled trip to New Delhi after India’s rival Pakistan refused his visit, officials said Wednesday.

US officials said Pakistan informed them that it did not want to receive special envoy Marc Grossman until Islamabad completes an ongoing review of relations with Washington, which have sunk to rock-bottom in recent months.

The State Department said Grossman would head Friday to India, whose support for Afghanistan and President Hamid Karzai is deeply resented by many Pakistanis who accuse New Delhi of trying to use the issue against Islamabad.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that the United States was not trying to send any message to Pakistan through Grossman’s trip to India and reiterated that he would have liked to visit.

“We made clear that we would welcome a stop by Ambassador Grossman in Islamabad on this trip,” she told reporters.

“The Pakistanis are looking hard internally at our relationship. They asked us to give them time to do that, so he will not be going there on this trip,” she said.

Nuland said that the United States welcomed efforts by India, which has given more than $2 billion in aid to Afghanistan and plans to take a larger role training Afghan troops and security forces.

“We believe that India has a role to play in supporting a democratic, prosperous future for Afghanistan,” she said.

Pakistan has launched a review of its relations with Washington amid a drastic deterioration of ties, particularly after US forces killed Osama bin Laden during a unilateral raid in the garrison town of Abbottabad last year.

Islamabad has demanded an apology and curbed cooperation after a Nato air strike near the Afghan border on November 26 killed 24 Pakistani troops. President Barack Obama has voiced regret but stopped short of a full apology.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last week that Grossman would seek to advance reconciliation in Afghanistan and talk to President Karzai about a resumption of preliminary talks with the Taliban.

The United States wants to withdraw most forces from Afghanistan in 2014, ending more than a decade of war. But many US officials have deep concerns about the role of Pakistan, believing its intelligence services maintain ties with Islamic extremists inside Afghanistan.

After New Delhi, Grossman heads to Afghanistan on Saturday for talks with Karzai. He is also visiting Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates on his nearly two-week trip.

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Avalanches kill 29 in northeastern Afghanistan

KABUL: Avalanches have killed at least 29 people in Afghanistan’s mountainous northeast as rescuers struggled to reach the worst-hit areas cut off by heavy snows, officials said.

The Afghan National Disaster Management Agency said Thursday that at least 40 more people have been injured in a series of avalanches since Monday in Badakhshan province.

Roads outside the provincial capital of Faizabad are blocked by at least six feet of snow, the agency said.

Afghanistan’s harsh winters and mountainous terrain in the north make avalanches a danger each year. In February 2010, an avalanche killed at least 171 people near the Salang Pass, a major route through the Hindu Kush mountains that connects the capital of Kabul to the north of the country.

The Nato security force in Afghanistan said Thursday that one of its service members died after an explosion in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday. A coalition statement did not provide the nationality of the service member, nor any details of the attack.

On Wednesday, dozens of civilians, coalition troops and Afghan security forces were killed and wounded when a suicide attacker blew himself up in a bazaar.

Daud Ahmadi, a provincial spokesman, said a bomber on a motorcycle killed 12 Afghans, including two policeman, and wounded at least 23 other people in Kajaki district of Helmand province.

A statement released late Wednesday by Nato said the Kajaki explosion killed and wounded dozens of Afghan civilians, Afghan national security forces and coalition troops. The Wednesday statement did not give details about how many foreign troops had been killed or wounded.

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Norway security chief quits in Pakistan agents row

OSLO: Norway’s internal security chief resigned late on Wednesday after revealing confidential information that the country had intelligence agents in Pakistan, government officials said.

Janne Kristiansen, already under fire for missing signs that a far-right extremist was preparing attacks that killed 77 people in July, said the small Nordic nation had operatives in Pakistan during a parliamentary hearing earlier on Wednesday.

Kristiansen, the head of the agency in charge of Norway’s internal security (PST), did not say why the agents were there.

But Norway, a close ally of the United States, has hundreds of troops in the Nato-led operation in Pakistan’s neighbour Afghanistan.

“PST head Janne Kristiansen has informed the justice minister that she will resign her position,” the justice ministry said in a statement.

“The reason is the possible breach of confidentiality through the disclosure of classified information.”

According to a transcript of the parliamentary hearing, Kristiansen made the comments in reply to questions on whether Norway should have contacts with Pakistani intelligence.

She said the intelligence agency operated by the Norwegian armed forces, the E service, already worked in Pakistan.

“The E service has its representatives in these countries, so we cooperate via the E service about this country,” she said.

The Norwegian daily VG said on its website that this exchange about Pakistan was the reason why the security chief resigned.

A government source told Reuters the VG news report was correct.

Kristiansen had already attracted controversy for saying her agency could not have done more to prevent the attacks by Islamophobe Anders Behring Breivik, who committed the worst attacks in the Nordic country since World War Two.

“Not even Stasi-Germany would have managed to isolate and catch this person,” she told state broadcaster NRK three days after Breivik’s double attack.

“You would almost have had to have a chip inside the head of every single Norwegian, to capture all thoughts.”

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