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Security forces secure the area around an international guest-house in Kabul after an attack by Taliban militants - Source: Reuters -
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The White House condemned militant attacks in Afghanistan and
Pakistan and expressed condolences to the victims.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said an attack at a UN guest
house in Kabul was an attempt to disrupt Afghanistan's November 7
presidential run-off election and will not succeed.
A bombing at a marketplace in Pakistan, he said, showed the extent
to which extremists will go and the type of threat they pose for
both Pakistan and the United States.
Gibbs condemned the attack in which one American was among five
UN staff killed, saying it was an attempt to disrupt Afghanistan's
November 7 presidential run-off election and will not
succeed.
"The administration is confident that there are the appropriate
resources to conduct an election and that the will of the Afghan
people won't be thwarted," Gibbs told reporters.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a visit to neighbouring
Pakistan where militants bombed a marketplace, strongly condemned
the cowardly attack in Kabul.
"The United States remains steadfast in its support for the United
Nations and its vital work to help the Afghan people," she said in
a statement in which she confirmed one American working for the
United Nations was killed.
Karzai brothers
The White House, in the midst of a review of Afghan war strategy,
faced a barrage of questions after a report in The New York Times
that Karzai's brother was getting regular payments from the Central
Intelligence Agency.
There are divisions within the administration over how to handle
Karzai, seen as failing to crack down on corruption.
There have also been questions over his brother, Ahmed Wali
Karzai, a suspected player in Afghanistan's opium trade.
The New York Times said Karzai's brother had been paid by the CIA
for services that included helping to recruit an Afghan
paramilitary force that operates at the CIA's direction in and
around the southern city of Kandahar.
The White House deferred questions on the subject to the CIA, which
neither confirmed nor denied the story.
But Gibbs repeated a US demand that any Afghan government must
address governance issues and said this had been raised at each
meeting to discuss the review of strategy.
Leading lawmakers demanded answers from the Obama
administration.
Democratic Senator John Kerry, who earlier this week defended
Karzai and his brother, said senior US officials had told him
repeatedly there was no hard evidence about the allegations against
the Afghan president's sibling.
"I have serious questions about the information that Congress is
receiving. On questions this serious, it is imperative that we
receive reliable, current and accurate information," Kerry said in
a statement.
He said critical US relations with Karzai should not be damaged on
the basis of newspaper articles and rumours and neither should his
brother be condemned.
"But the appropriate congressional committees must be immediately
provided with the most comprehensive and untainted information
about his alleged entanglements," he added.
Meeting on Friday
Republican Senator John McCain said he had heard a rumour of
Karzai's brother being in the pay of the CIA, something US military
commanders would not agree with.
"Karzai's brother should not be in the country," McCain told CBS'
morning television show.
The latest violence comes as President Barack Obama is closing in
on a decision whether to send in at least 40,000 more troops, as
recommended by General Stanley McChrystal, commander of US and NATO
forces in Afghanistan.
As part of that review, Obama will meet at the White House on
Friday with Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, and with the heads of the military services.
Obama's advisers, having ruled out troop reductions, are discussing
how many more combat and training brigades should be sent to
Afghanistan next year, an administration official said.
Top officials appeared to be laying the ground for increasing
troops with a focus on protecting population centres, combined with
a stepped-up counterterrorism campaign in the countryside and along
the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
This strategy, the official said, would likely entail a troop
increase, though not necessarily as large as 40,000.
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