No time limit for US strategy in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A 94.2 billion dollar war funding bill before the House of Representatives imposes no time limit for the US strategy in Afghanistan, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday.
Pelosi provided the clarification following statements by Representative David Obey, chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, who told reporters Monday he would give President Barack Obama a year to succeed in Afghanistan.
Mr Obey, by his own admission was giving his own opinion, Pelosi told reporters. The legislation that will come before the committee this week and the Congress next week has no timeline or anything like that.
At last, we have a plan, and I support the presidents plan, she added. Obey, however, expressed skepticism about the administrations chances of success in Afghanistan in presenting a bill for 94.2 billion dollars mainly to cover the costs of continuing US military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.
US forces entered Afghanistan in late 2001 after toppling the Taliban regime, but US pacification efforts were soon sidetracked by the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
How long will it take? Pelosi said. I dont know, but it is essential to our security that we fight terrorism there.
Meanwhile, German special forces and Afghan troops on Thursday captured an alleged insurgent leader suspected of being behind a string of high-profile attacks, the German government said.
The defence ministry said in a statement that German troops serving with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in northern Afghanistan and local troops had carried out an operation overnight to seize Abdul Razeq. The suspect was located at about 0600 GMT in mountainous territory around 60 kilometres southeast of Faizabad and taken into custody by Afghan forces.
With this successful operation, which was long planned and in which a major terror suspect was arrested, German forces demonstrated their effectiveness, Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung said.
The statement said Abdul Razeq was believed to be behind an attack on a German convoy last June, a plot for explosives attacks against ISAF last July and an assault on a provincial governors convoy in northeastern Badakshan in November.
He is to be handed to the National Directory of Security in Kabul. One German soldier was wounded in the operation and is being treated in Faizabad. His condition is stable, the ministry said.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan on Thursday painted a bleak picture of the human rights situation in the country, admitting there was a lack of human rights and that torture was common during criminal investigations.
There are still key challenges facing human rights in Afghanistan, including weakness of the rule of law, failure to properly and systematically observe human rights due to lack of human rights, it said in a report submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council