Hillary Clinton says Taliban outreach key to Afghan solution

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has said that Washington's "preliminary outreach" to the Taliban was part of a necessary but unpleasant attempt to achieve a political solution in Afghanistan.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Mrs Clinton told the Senate that the US is backing a diplomatic surge complementing the military surge that President Barack Obama has begun to wind down with the planned withdrawal of 10,000 troops this year.

"It is diplomatic efforts in support of an Afghan-led political process that aims to shatter the alliance between the Taliban and al-Qaeda and the insurgency, and help to produce more stability," she said.

She repeated that the Taliban insurgents must meet the US "red lines" of renouncing violence, abandoning support for al Qaeda, and supporting the Afghan constitution, which includes protections for women.

"The United States has a broad range of contacts at many levels across Afghanistan and the region that we are leveraging to support this effort, including very preliminary outreach to members of the Taliban," she said.

"This is not a pleasant business, but a necessary one because history tells us that a combination of military pressure, economic opportunity and an inclusive political and diplomatic process is the best way to end insurgencies."

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Libyan rebels take new villages in Western Mountains

Rebel fighters are seen before a heavy fight against pro-Gadhafi forces at the frontline of Dafneya, some 40 km west Misrata, Libya, Sunday, June 12, 2011.



Libyan rebels have pushed deeper into government-held territory from their base in the Western Mountains, taking two villages from which forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi had been shelling rebel-held towns.

But the rebels are still a considerable way from Gaddafi's main stronghold in Tripoli, while their fellow fighters on the other two fronts -- in Misrata and in eastern Libya -- have made only halting progress against better-armed government troops.

The rebel advance some 150 km (90 miles) southwest of Tripoli on Wednesday, came as the White House insisted that President Barack Obama had the legal authority to press on with US military involvement in Libya.

Strains have begun to show in the Western alliance trying to topple Gaddafi. The US defense secretary rounded on European allies last week for failing to back the mission the alliance took over in late March.

The White House urged skeptical lawmakers not to send "mixed messages" about their commitment to the NATO-led air war that has helped the rebels push on from their bastion in the east.

"The revolutionaries (rebels) now control Zawiyat al-Babour and al-Awiniyah after pro-Gaddafi forces retreated this morning from the two villages," Abdulrahman, a rebel spokesman in the nearby town of Zintan.

In Gharyan, a Gaddafi-held town that forms the gateway from Tripoli to the mountains, there was an undercurrent of tension as the frontline moves closer to the capital.

Libyan government minders took a group of reporters to the town, which lies about 120 km southwest of Tripoli and about 20 km east of Kikla, which rebels seized from loyalists on Tuesday.

Despite an outward appearance of normality, walls around town on Wednesday had recently painted over graffiti. The windows of one government building were smashed, the sign for another was riddled with holes.

While many traders and people on the streets were reluctant to talk to reporters, one shop owner said the calm in the area during the day was replaced by fighting every night.

"Two thirds of the people here are for the rebels," he told Reuters, giving his name as Mohammed.

Those willing to talk in front of the minders were strongly pro-Gaddafi.

"Sarkozy is stupid, he is fighting this war for petrol," a man called Yunis said in French, referring to the French president, vilified by Gaddafi supporters as the driving force behind NATO bombing. "This is colonialism all over again."

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NATO: service member killed by roadside bomb

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  United States Marine Joshua Barron reacts onboard a medevac helicopter from the US Army's Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment, after he was wounded in an IED strike near Sangin, in the Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan.

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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — NATO says a roadside bomb has killed a coalition service member in southern Afghanistan.

The international alliance says the bombing took place on Sunday but gave no other details about the attack or the nationality of the killed service member.

It was the fourth coalition death on Sunday that NATO reported. A coalition helicopter crashed in eastern Afghanistan, killing two on board, and a service member was killed in an unspecified "insurgent attack" elsewhere in Afghanistan on Sunday.

More than 200 NATO troops have died so far this year in Afghanistan, many of them in the southern provinces where Taliban fighters are trying to regain territory lost over the winter.

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