ATN: An 8-year old girl was raped in the Takhar province. General Ziauddin Mahmoodi, the commander of the police of Takhar said that the man involved has been arrested and is in the custody of the police now. Dr. Ashrafuddin Aini, head of the Civil Hospital of Takhar said that the 8-year old is admitted in this hospital and is under treatment.      Full news...

AFP: Even Mother Nature was cruel on the day 15 years ago when rampaging thugs chopped off Marzia's fingers for a gold ring and shot dead her nine-year-old son when he cried out to object. It was a bone-chillingly cold morning, she recalls, when militia loyal to Pashtun warlord Abdul Rab-Rasoul Sayyaf -- now a parliamentarian -- captured her village, west of Kabul and dominated by ethnic Hazaras.      Full news...

Belfast Telegraph: US soldiers have killed six Afghan civilians during a military raid in the east of the country this morning, according to a local official. A woman and two children are said to be among the dead following the operation in the village of Hom, close to the Pakistani border.      Full news...

The Independent: Two women and two children were killed in an air strike called in by British forces in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence said. It is understood that the incident in Helmand Province took place after British troops had called in air support to help extricate them from a Taliban ambush at an undisclosed location in the southern part of the war-ravaged province.      Full news...

The Independent: There is no one as colourful and controversial among the warlords of Afghanistan as General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a man of immense power and huge wealth whose name became synonymous with bloodshed and betrayal during the long years of conflict.      Full news...

Spero News: Since March of 2007 until now, there has been a 40% increase in reports of physical violence against women in Afghanistan, according to United Nations sources.      Full news...

UN News Centre: Some 24,000 Afghan women die every year while giving birth, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which is working with the Government and other partners to reduce maternal mortality and improve the overall health of women and girls in the war-torn nation.      Full news...

RAWA: The woman belonging to Gulran District of Herat province in Western Afghanistan had been burnt with hot water, a bullet had been found buried in her abdomen and her hair had been pulled out with his hands. She says he fired on her by a pistol but she survived.      Full news...

The Independent: Girls as young as six are being married into a life of slavery and rape, often by multiple members of their new relatives. Banned from seeing their own parents or siblings, they are also prohibited from going to school. With little recognition of the illegality of the situation or any effective recourse, many of the victims are driven to self-immolation – burning themselves to death – or severe self-harm.      Full news...

RAWA: A fourteen-year old girl named Bashira belonging to Sar-e-Pul province was gang-raped by three men on February 18, 2008. One of the rapists is Najibullah, the son of Haji Payinda, a member of parliament from Sar-e-Pul.      Full news...

RAWA News: Late Sunday, February 3/4, 2008 in a compound in Bakwa district, Shagay area of Farah Province. NATO occupation and Afghan forces carried out an air and ground assault upon a home where allegedly a Taliban commander was present. Eleven people were killed in the air strike including seven members of one family – a woman, 2 children, and 4 men. The raiders also abducted seven family members to a fate unknown. The photo from Iran’s Alalam News shows relatives mourning the dead. The names of the victims were provided to the author by the Afghan women’s organization, RAWA.      Full news...

RAWA: On February 12, 2008, Amina the daughter of Said Gul of Khushk Aaba Village in Khaksafed District of Farah province was sentenced to death in a field trial by the local clerics Scholars Council of the village for running away from her home with a stranger. Her husband and other close relatives approved of the punishment.      Full news...

RAWA: On the night of 3rd February 2008 a man in Mazar-e-Sharif killed his two wives with an axe. The man was arrested by the police. According to the police authorities of Mazar-e-Sharif, this man introduced himself as Sahib Khan of Takhar province.      Full news...

RAWA: Nafisa is hospitalized with her child in a local hospital in Herat province in Western Afghanistan. She says her husband attacked her like a hungry tiger and bat her nose and then cut off her ear by a knife. She showed her child who is also burnt by her husband. Nafisa says: “I’ve lived ten painful years with my husband and he always beats me…. My husband also poured hot water over my child and she is also seriously injured.”      Full news...

Asia Media (University of California): A crowd of people wait, cowering on the side of a road. They need to cross this road to get to their homes in the west of Kabul but they don't dare. Bullets are flying from all directions over their heads. So they keep their heads down, wait. Then there is a brief moment of ceasefire, a chance to cross the road unscathed and reach home. The first to dare is a man on a bicycle. He rides off, keeping his head low. Two children follow his example and start walking, first slowly, then quickly. Next is a woman. She grabs a girl's hand, leaves the crowd and starts running. The girl struggles to keep up with the woman. Moments later, a rocket is fired. It hits the cyclist and the two children who had followed his example and set off on the road. The three of them are instantly killed.      Full news...

Xinhua: Taliban militants beheaded four local employees of a private construction company in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, said the Interior Ministry in a press release.      Full news...

Badger Herald: Every now and then, I run across a news story that reminds me of the importance of individual liberties in modern society. One of these stories came out of Afghanistan this Wednesday.      Full news...

ForeignPolicy.com: Someone please explain to me how this is supposed to be justice. A 23-year-old journalism student named Sayad Parwez Kambaksh supposedly goes online, finds an interesting paper, and prints it out. He supposedly brings it to class at Balkh University, discusses it with a teacher and some fellow students. The paper gets copied and distributed. Some students find it objectionable; they say it is offensive and that it insults Islam. They complain to the government.      Full news...

Reporters Without Borders: A court in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif today passed the death sentence on a young journalist, Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, for alleged blasphemy. The trial was held behind closed doors and without any lawyer defending him. His brother, fellow journalist Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, told Reporters Without Borders: "I saw my brother leave the court. He was very anxious. All the family was, too."      Full news...

Reporters Without Borders: Reporters Without Borders is very worried about the pressure being placed on the authorities by conservative religious leaders in the case of Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, a young journalist in the northern province of Balkh who has been detained since late October 2007 on charges of blasphemy and defaming Islam. The Council of Mullahs says he should be sentenced to death.      Full news...

Global Research: Soldiers of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have repeatedly used Afghan children to detect land-mines in war-ravaged country, said a former German ISAF officer in Berlin on Thursday.      Full news...

IRIN News: A man named Mumtaz in southern Zabul province of Afghanistan first shaved wife, Nazia’s head and then cut off her ears, and nose and damaged her teeth on the first day of Eid ul Adha, an Islamic ritual of sacrifice. “One night he hit me so much that I fainted. When I regained consciousness I found my head had been shaved. I cried so much, but he did not care.”      Full news...

IWPR: This has been the worst year so far for Afghan journalists, say media watchers. Afghanistan's media have enjoyed remarkable degree of freedom over the past six years, making this one of the most visible achievements of the post-Taliban era,. But increasingly, as security deteriorates and the public mood sours, media outlets are coming under pressure from government and other powerful elites.      Full news...

The Telegraph: The British Army says it is "taking seriously" claims that children were shot and several adult villagers had their throats cut during a secret military operation by unidentified forces in Helmand province.      Full news...

IWPR: Residents of a southern village tell of a night of violence at the hands of foreign and Afghan soldiers. Abdul Manaan claims he suffered slashes to his neck during a nighttime raid which locals say was carried out by a mixed force of foreign and Afghan troops helicoptered into Toube on November 18. Eyewitnesses say the soldiers killed 18 civilians in an attack that was brutal even by the standards of the Afghan conflict.      Full news...

By Marc W. Herold: Thought and language, which reflect reality in a way different from that of perception, are the key to the nature of human consciousness. Words play a central part not only in the development of thought but in the historical growth of human consciousness as a whole. A word is a microcosm of human consciousness...      Full news...

AFP: UN rights chief Louise Arbour criticised Afghanistan Tuesday for stalling on a plan to address atrocities and human rights abuses committed in its more than two decades of armed conflict.      Full news...

VOA News: Afghan security officials say Taliban militants have hanged five policeman in southern Afghanistan as a public warning to others.      Full news...

BBC Persian (translated by RAWA): Members of Afghanistan parliament accuse some officials of Pul-e-Charkhi prison in Kabul for raping women prisoners. A delegation of Afghan parliamentarians who recently visited the prison say some women become pregnant after being raped.      Full news...

Deutsche Welle: A leading human rights group has called on NATO-led forces in Afghanistan to stop transferring prisoners to local authorities out of fear they could be tortured. NATO said there is no evidence of abuse.      Full news...