A 12-year old schoolgirl was gang-raped by five gunmen in Sarpul province in Northern Afghanistan. The girl and her family asked Hamid Karzai to prosecute the rapists and take their case seriously. They threatened that if they are not provided justice, the whole family will commit mass suicide to get rid of such life. They say, the local authorities keep silence on such cases and did not act to arrest those responsible.      more...

The Hindu: Each year since the parliamentary elections of 2005, Afghanistan has seen a spiralling toll of human lives. Initially, the resurgent Taliban burst out once again in the southern provinces, where they had their stronghold, engaging the international forces in conventional warfare. The escalated fighting was explained away by the military forces who said they were going into “new” areas, an admission that the initial operations against the Taliban in 2001 had a very limited mandate.      more...

The Canadian Press: Girls as young as 11 are considered just old enough for a husband. Their parents collect lucrative $10,000 dowries from wealthy grooms-to-be, and these pre-teens are sent off to become housewives and start raising families. Last year 60 Kandahar girls sought to escape their fate through suicide, provincial officials say. Like Sher, many wound up as hospital burn victims after dousing themselves with gasoline and setting themselves ablaze.      more...

Press TV: Tribal elders in Afghanistan's western Herat province have said dozens of civilians have been killed during aerial attacks by US forces. News of the fighting in Herat province came from tribal elders who reported dozens of casualties in the Zirko Valley in Shindan district.      more...

PAN: U.S.-led coalition troops Thursday conceded that eight Afghan civilians have been killed in an air strike in the western province of Farah during a raid against suspected militants.      more...

IRIN News: High food prices, drought, unemployment and lack of socio-economic opportunities are pushing some women and young girls in northern Afghanistan into commercial sex work, women’s rights activists and several affected women told IRIN.      more...

The Afghan Victim Memorial: They were killed or wounded on Friday, July 4, 2008, on a road near Aranas village on the Waygal River in the district of Waigal (Waygal), Nuristan Province. The Province’s Governor himself, Tamim Nuristani, told various media including the AFP that 16 civilians were killed in an air strike as they were leaving an area after being told by security forces a military operation was about to occur. District governor Zia-ul-Rehman said that 22 civilians had died in the strike.      more...

World News Australia: A spokesman for Ghazni's governor, said the women, dressed in blue burqas, were shot and killed on Saturday just outside Ghazni city in central Afghanistan. He called the two "innocent local people." Taliban fighters told AP Television News the two were executed for allegedly running a prostitution ring catering to US soldiers and other foreign contractors at a US base in Ghazni city.      more...

IRIN: Afghanistan has the highest fertility rate in Asia - 6.7 - which not only means the deaths of thousands of young mothers and infants every year but also poses long-term challenges, an expert of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) warned. “If the fertility rates are not reduced, Afghanistan’s population will more than double by 2050; from 47th most populous country, Afghanistan would become the 31st most populous country in the world,” Penumaka said.      more...

PAN: Officials in Nuristan province on Monday said almost 30 defenseless civilians have been reportedly killed during NATO-led International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) airstrike in Want-Waigal district of the eastern province.      more...

Times Online: An Afghan government investigation has concluded that 45 women and children and two men were killed when a US aircraft bombed a wedding party in eastern Afghanistan last Sunday. The nine-man investigation team appointed by the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, found that only civilians were hit during the airstrike.      more...

US & News: The war in Afghanistan reached a wrenching milestone this summer: For the second month in a row, U.S. and coalition troop deaths in the country surpassed casualties in Iraq. This is driven in large part, U.S. officials point out, by simple cause and effect. Marines flowed into southern Afghanistan earlier this year to rout firmly entrenched Taliban fighters, prompting a spike in combat in territory where NATO forces previously didn't have the manpower to send troops. "We're doing something we haven't done in seven years, which is go after the Taliban where they're living," says a U.S. official.      more...

BBC: At least 250 Afghan civilians have been killed or wounded in insurgent attacks or military action in the past six days, the Red Cross says. It has called on all parties to the conflict to avoid civilian casualties.      more...

Reporters Without Borders: Hundreds of Afghan journalists and writers took part in demonstrations yesterday in 15 provinces to call for the release of Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, a young journalist under sentence of death. This exemplary show of solidarity came as Kambakhsh’s appeal against his conviction has ground to a halt in Kabul and no date has been set for the next hearing.      more...

DPA: A powerful explosion killed at least 44 people and wounded scores of others in an apparent suicide attack at the Indian embassy in Kabul Monday, officials said. Sources in the Afghan interior ministry said at least 44 people were killed in the deadliest suicide bombing since fall of Taliban regime in 2001.      more...

MeriNews: Afghanistan has the highest rate of violence against women in the world. According to the ministry of Women’s Affairs, Afghan women lack their primary necessities and are subject to extreme violence. Girls are usually married before their legal age. During the last six months more than 2000 cases of violence have been registered throughout the country. It is said that most cases of violence against women are not reported due to the traditional and cultural complexities.      more...

PAN: A bride was among 23 people killed as US-led coalition forces bombarded a wedding party in the eastern Nangarhar province Sunday morning, officials and residents alleged. Twenty-two people died on the spot as a result of the latest imprecise air raid that came hours after President Karzai ordered a probe into the alleged killing of more than a dozen residents in a US airstrike on a remote village in the neighbouring Nuristan province.      more...

Reuters: Twenty-two civilians, including women and children, were killed in an air strike by U.S.-led forces on Friday in Afghanistan's eastern province of Nuristan, an official said. The attack happened on a road in Want district while the noncombatants were travelling in two vehicles, the district chief, Zia-Ul Rahman, told reporters.      more...

Xinhua: Anti-war protesters repeatedly interrupted U.S. President George W. Bush's Independence Day speech Friday in Charlottesville, Virginia, ABC News reported. By the time Bush finished his 10-minute remarks, at least nine protesters had been taken away from the event by police.      more...

ABC News: The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) says children in Afghanistan suffer more than in any other country in the world from violence, war and poverty. It says Afghan children are not only caught up in fighting between Taliban rebels and international forces, but there is also evidence of an increasing number ending up on the frontlines.      more...

Quqnoos: More than half of the prisoners in Kabul's Pul-e-Charkhi jail are infected with tuberculosis, according to a study supported by the government. The study, authored by Dr Islam Saeed, found that about 55% of prisoners locked in the jail are infected with the deadly disease.      more...

PAN: Rampant corruption and consistent violations of rules by top government functionaries have forced the first-ever female head of the Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service (IARCSC) Commission for the eastern zone to quit her job - but not before exposing brazen malfeasance in the upper echelons.      more...

PAN: Five of the 24 electronic attendance system machines purchased by the SEAL project for the Afghan parliament were destroyed on purpose. A number of the employees of Lower House of Parliament stated the damage was done for personal spites and purposes and the wrongdoers are the ones who do not want incorruptibility in the state.      more...

IWPR: Remote Afghan province is home to major trading post for heroin destined for Europe and arms for Taliban and other militants. In the middle of the river, local mafiosi cut deals that will arm Taleban insurgents in southern Afghanistan, as well as al-Qaeda and other militant groups in the wider region. In return for Russian-made weapons, they trade Afghan heroin that will eventually be sold on the streets of European cities. The major profits go to those with the clout to call on adequate protection. “The big smugglers are backed by governments in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia,” he said. “These smugglers can pay huge amounts of money. But we don’t do badly.”      more...

Los Angeles Times: In a gruesome public spectacle, Taliban-linked militants on Friday executed two Afghan men accused of spying for the United States, slitting their throats and parading their severed heads before a cheering crowd.      more...

PAN: Confirming that corruption is now a deep rooted malice in the country, a global corruption index has placed Afghanistan on 172nd spot in a list of 180 countries. The Global Corruption Report 2008 gives Afghanistan just 1.8 points out of a total score of 10.      more...

Quqnoos: Residents claim US soldiers in Bagram airbase have turfed them off their land. More than 1,500 families have been forced to leave their homes near Bagram airbase because American officials on the base have cut off their water supply, residents say.      more...

CounterPunch: Can anyone state exactly why foreign troops are fighting in Afghanistan? What is the collective aim, the specific mission, the ultimate objective, of the 60,000 soldiers there? I ask this because as I write the total of US deaths in Afghanistan “and region” is over 450, and news has come in of the killing of more British and American soldiers. And I wonder what all of them have died for.      more...

The Washington Post: Afghan opium poppy cultivation grew 17 percent last year, continuing a six-year expansion of the country's drug trade and increasing its share of global opium production to more than 92 percent, according to the 2008 World Drug Report, released Thursday by the United Nations. Afghanistan's emergence as the world's largest supplier of opium and heroin represents a serious setback to U.S. policy in the region. The opium trade has soared since the U.S.-led 2001 overthrow of the Taliban, which had eradicated almost all of the country's opium poppies.      more...

RAWA News: A man named Farid, resident of Kabul was prosecuted publicly for stealing a sack of flour. Farid said that he had to earn for a family of thirteen and has done this act out of poverty. He said, “I had no work for 15 to 30 days. After about another 15 days I stole this to feed my children. I was desperate and forced to do so because of my family.”      more...

Daily Payman: A father raped his 13-year old daughter in Herat. Gulabshah raped his daughter, 13-year old Freshta, after severely beating his wife and forcing her out of the house. Freshta says, “My father tied my feet and mouth and raped me after throwing my mother out of the house.”      more...

PAN: A young girl was raped in Raghistan district of Badakhshan province. 17-year old Razia claimed that 40-year old Altaf Al-Rahman had raped her several times three days back. She told PAN that she wanted justice and the punishment of the rapist but didn’t give any further details.      more...

BBC Persian: Some Afghan villagers say that despite the contribution of billions of dollars to this country in the past six years, their lives have not even changed slightly. They said that corruption had caused a lot of money that was supposed to be used in economical projects to come into the hands of a few people.      more...

IRIN News: About 490,000 Afghans have been deported from Iran over the past 18 months, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and Afghanistan’s Ministry of Refugees and Returnees (MoRR) told IRIN. “One hundred and forty thousand undocumented Afghans have been deported so far in 2008, and some 350,000 were deported in 2007,” said Salvatore Lombardo, the UNHCR representative in Afghanistan, adding that most of the deportees were “single males” who had gone to Iran in search of work.      more...

The National: Low salaries are forcing many of Afghanistan’s teachers to take on second jobs so they can feed their families. Despite promises that their wages would be increased, schoolteachers in Kabul said there have been few improvements since the US-led invasion in 2001.      more...

AFP: Hundreds of protesters took to streets in eastern Afghanistan on Monday after a father and son were allegedly killed by gunfire from US-led soldiers, a governor and witnesses said. Around 200 people demonstrated in the Khogyani district of Nangarhar province.      more...

The Observer: British special forces operating on the border between Afghanistan and Iran have uncovered fresh evidence that Tehran is actively backing insurgents fighting UK troops. Documented proof that Iran is supplying the Taliban with devastating roadside bomb-making equipment has been passed by British officials to Tehran, prompting fears that the war in Afghanistan may escalate into a regional armed conflict.      more...

PAN: Officials in western Ghor province said thousands people face life threatening hunger due to drought and lack of food items. They warned if food stuff did not arrive on time a humanitarian disaster might take place.      more...

PAN: Thousands of families in the south and north of Zaranj (capital city of Nimroz) are faced with shortage of drinking water and most of them have to buy water. More than 20 thousand people in the south of the city of Zaranj have been facing shortage of water for the past ten days. They demanded the solution for this problem urgently.      more...

IRIN News: The worsening security situation, unemployment, the food crisis, drought, shelter problems and lack of socio-economic opportunities may force some Afghans who have returned to their country in the past six years to cross international borders again in search of a better life, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Refugees and Repartition (MoRR) warned.      more...