Taliban battle Afghan forces
Logar, August 19
As many as 700 heavily armed Taliban insurgents are battling Afghan security forces in Logar, a key province near the capital Kabul, local officials said on Tuesday, in a test of the Afghan military's strength as foreign forces pull out of the country.

Fresh Pak strikes kill 48 militants

Baghdad, August 19
Iraqi forces halted a short-lived offensive on Tuesday to recapture Tikrit, home town of executed dictator Saddam Hussein, due to fierce resistance from Islamic state fighters who have also threatened to attack Americans "in any place".

In Geneva, the United Nations refugee agency announced a major aid operation to get supplies to more than half a million people displaced by fighting in northern Iraq.

Buoyed by an operation to recapture a strategic dam from the jihadists after two months of setbacks, Iraqi army units backed by Shia militias launched their offensive shortly after dawn on Tikrit, a city 130 km north of Baghdad which is a stronghold of the Sunni Muslim minority.

But officers in the Iraqi forces' operations room said by mid afternoon that the advance had stopped.

South of Tikrit, the government side came under heavy machinegun and mortar fire from the militants, a group of Arab and foreign fighters hardened by battle both in Iraq and over the border in Syria's civil war, the officers told Reuters.

To the west, landmines and snipers frustrated efforts to get closer to the city centre in the latest in a series of attempts to drive out the militants. Residents of central Tikrit said by telephone that Islamic State fighters were firmly in control of their positions and patrolling the main streets.

Sunni Muslim fighters led by the Islamic State swept through much of northern and western Iraq in June, capturing the Sunni cities of Tikrit and Mosul as well as the Mosul dam, a fragile structure which controls water and power supplies to millions of people down the Tigris river valley.

However, on Monday fighters from Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region said they had regained control of the hydro electric dam with the help of US air strikes. US President Barack Obama also announced that the dam had been retaken.

The Islamic State has concentrated on taking territory for its self-proclaimed caliphate both in Syria, where it is also fighting the forces of President Bashar al-Assad, and in Iraq.

Unlike Al-Qaida, the movement from which it split, it has so far steered clear of attacking Western targets in or outside the region.

However, a video posted on the Internet warned Americans, in English, that "we will drown all of you in blood" if US air strikes hit Islamic State fighters. The video also showed a photograph of an American who was beheaded during the US occupation of Iraq that followed Saddam's overthrow in 2003. — Reuters

Unfazed by the deployment of the army, Pakistan opposition leader Imran Khan and cleric Tahirul Qadri tonight marched with thousands of their supporters towards the heavily fortified 'Red Zone', the capital's diplomatic and political enclave, raising fears of clashes with the security forces.

A supporter of Imran Khan wears a shirt with Imran’s image on it as he rests during the Freedom March in Islamabad. Reuters

Imran and Canada-based firebrand cleric Tahir ul Qadri have been protesting for the last six days demanding Prime Minister Sharif's resignation, putting the PML-N-led government on the backfoot.

"Promise me, if something were to happen to me, you will take revenge from Nawaz Sharif," Imran said while addressing his supporters before starting his march towards the Red Zone that houses important government buildings including the Parliament House, Prime Minister House, President House, the Supreme Court besides embassies of various countries. "I'm coming! I'm coming to hold you accountable!" Khan said, as his vehicle progressed towards the Red Zone.

Anti-government protesters, walking in separate groups headed by Khan and Qadri, were armed with wire cutters and cranes accompanied them to remove containers as they marched on Pakistan's Parliament.

Prime Minister Sharif has said he will not resign under any circumstance, Dawn News reported quoting sources. As the protesters marched towards the Parliament, Sharif was present inside the official residence in the 'Red Zone' along with senior leaders of his ruling PML-N party. He is personally keeping a tab on the developing situation.

Qadri was headed towards the Red Zone in his bullet-proof car while Khan mounted on a truck with his party leaders.

(With inputs from PTI)

Logar, August 19
As many as 700 heavily armed Taliban insurgents are battling Afghan security forces in Logar, a key province near the capital Kabul, local officials said on Tuesday, in a test of the Afghan military's strength as foreign forces pull out of the country.

Militants have this summer mounted increasingly intensive assaults across several provinces, often involving hundreds of fighters, as the country braces to stand on it own feet militarily for the first time in nearly 13 years.

"There are some 700 of them and they are fighting Afghan forces for territorial control and they have also brought with them makeshift mobile (health) clinics," Niaz Mohammad Amiri, the provincial governor of Logar province, told Reuters by telephone.

The Taliban have made strong gains in Logar, which lies about an hour's drive south of Kabul, and nearby Wardak province to the west, in recent years.

Militants have used the provinces - gateways to the capital - as launchpads for hit-and-run attacks and suicide bombings on Kabul.

The fighting in Logar is a grim reminder of the insecurity plaguing Afghanistan as the foreign combat troops wind down their military operations ahead a deadline to leave the country by the end of this year.

The insurgents' success has been limited this year: they have yet to capture an entire province, and the government says strategic assets remain broadly under its control.

Nevertheless, the mounting intensity of the Taliban's assaults poses an increasingly serious challenge to local security forces that have long relied on NATO support from the air. — Reuters

Kabul, August 19
Afghan President Hamid Karzai appealed today for the two men vying to succeed him to end their dispute over election results and save the country from further violence and economic decline.

Afghanistan has been paralysed for months after the first round of the presidential election failed to produce a clear winner and the second round of voting in June triggered allegations of massive fraud.

As fears grew of a return to civil war, the United States brokered an emergency deal designed to end the impasse between poll rivals Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank economist, and former anti-Taliban fighter Abdullah Abdullah.

But neither candidate appears willing to back down, and the dispute looks set to erupt again in the coming days when early results emerge from an anti-fraud audit of all eight million votes.

International pressure is building for Afghanistan to select the new president by the end of the month, as the pullout of US-led NATO troops continues and Taliban insurgents launch fresh offensives.

"I hope we stay united... so that our country is led toward peace and prosperity," Karzai said in a speech in Kabul to mark Independence Day.

"I hope that Afghanistan's election has a result soon. The people are waiting impatiently for the result.

"I hope both of our brothers... reach an agreement so that Afghanistan soon has an inclusive government in which nobody is left out."

The political stalemate has revived ethnic divisions that lay behind the 1990s civil war in Afghanistan.

Many of Ghani's supporters are Pashtuns in the south and east, while Abdullah's loyalists are Tajiks and other northern groups. The uncertainty has hit the fragile economy, which is dependent on falling aid funding as the 13-year international effort to develop Afghanistan winds down.

The US has been pushing for the next president to be inaugurated before a NATO summit starting on September 4, which should sign off on follow-up support after NATO's combat mission in Afghanistan ends this year. — AFP

Ferguson, August 19
The National Guard arrived in Ferguson but kept its distance from the streets where protesters clashed again with the police, as clouds of tear gas and smoke hung over the Missouri city where an unarmed black teenager was fatally shot by a police officer.

Protesters filled the streets after nightfall yesterday, and officers trying to enforce tighter restrictions at times used bullhorns to order them to disperse. The police fired tear gas and flash grenades, and deployed noisemakers and armoured vehicles to push demonstrators back.

Molotov cocktails and bottles were thrown from the crowd and some officers came under heavy gunfire, said Capt Ron Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol, who is in charge of security in Ferguson.

At least two persons were shot and 31 were arrested, he said. Four officers were injured by rocks or bottles. A photographer and two German reporters were arrested and later released.

The latest clashes came after a day in which a pathologist hired by the family of Michael Brown's family said the 18-year-old suffered a bullet wound to his right arm that may indicate his hands were up or his back was turned. But the pathologist said the team that examined Brown cannot be sure yet exactly how the wounds were inflicted until they have more information.

Brown's August 6 slaying by a white officer has inflamed racial tensions in Ferguson, a predominantly black St Louis suburb where the police force is mostly white.

Addressing the crisis yesterday, President Barack Obama said the mistrust between police and local residents was endemic in many of America's communities and overcoming it would require Americans to "listen and not just shout." — AP