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GUEST: Mariam Rawi, member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)

A suicide bomber blew himself up at a luxury hotel in Kabul earlier this week, killing at least 2 people and wounding several others. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack and warned of more attacks targeting foreigners. Last week US Defense Secretary Robert Gates recommended that 3000 additional US troops be sent to Afghanistan to quell an expected Taliban surge over the spring. If deployed, the troops would augment the 42,000 foreign troops serving currently from the US and NATO nations. For months now, the US has been unsuccessfully pressuring its European allies to send more troops to the dangerous Southern and Eastern provinces. Republican candidate for president, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani recommends immediately doubling US troops in Afghanistan. As of yesterday, at least 408 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan according to the Defense Department. Meanwhile, a military analyst with the UK Ministry of Defense’s own think tank warned that NATO was on the “precipice of failure” in Afghanistan unless it swaps throwing “money and troops” at the country’s problems for a more coherent approach.

RAWA’s website is www.rawa.org.

Read RAWA’s latest statement condemning the US as the main human rights violator in Afghanistan, here: www.rawa.org/events/dec10-07_e.htm.