KABUL: Afghan officials Wednesday welcomed US President Barack Obama's decision to send 17,000 more soldiers to fight a Taliban-led insurgency here, but ordinary people feared more troops would mean more attacks.In his first major military decision since taking office in January, Obama on Tuesday agreed to the deployment "to stabilise a deteriorating situation" in Afghanistan. "It's a positive move," Afghan defence ministry spokesman Mohammad Is'haq Payman told. "But we have our own conditions. We want these troops to be deployed in areas where they could play a positive role in suppressing terrorists," he said. "We want them to be deployed along the border, in eastern, southeastern and southern parts of the country." Many of the attacks in Afghanistan are carried out by militants holed up in Pakistan's lawless tribal zones, who infiltrate the porous 2,400-kilometre (1,500-mile), largely mountainous border. Payman said the US reinforcements would also allow growing Afghan security forces to concentrate on vital training instead of fighting the insurgency, which started after the Taliban were ousted from power in late 2001.
BEIRUT: Thousands of people converged Saturday on central Beirut to mark the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri.Waving Lebanese flags and carrying pictures of the slain leader, men, women and children gathered under sunny skies in Martyr's Square where members of the parliamentary majority were to address the crowd. The rally comes as final preparations are underway in The Hague for the launch of the international tribunal set up to bring Hariri's killers to justice. It also comes as the country prepares for legislative elections in June that will pit Western-backed political parties against a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Syria and Iran.Hariri died in a massive car bombing on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 others. The assassination was widely blamed on then Lebanese power-broker Syria, which has denied any involvement. The attack on the Beirut seafront was one of the worst acts of political violence to rock Lebanon since t...
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