Three women were killed and another eleven civilian injured in a clash between NATO and armed Taliban the previous day in Dare Peech of Kunar Province. According to the governor, the Afghan and NATO forces retaliated and a fight took place. Wahidi said that during the clash some of the bullets were fired in a populated area on people’s homes, as a result of which 3 women were killed and 11 others, including 6 children, were injured.      Full news...

The Huffington Post: Since 2001, the US Air Force has dropped nearly 31 million pounds (14,049 metric tons) of bombs on Afghanistan. The UN estimates that US airstrikes alone accounted for 64 percent of the 828 Afghan civilians killed last year. Those numbers practically scream the need to abandon conventional warfare tactics in Afghanistan and dramatically shift US foreign policy to incorporate a more humanitarian approach. Instead, we're seeing the horrific images from IDP camps: refugees who have lost loved ones; parents so desperate they would rather sell their children than watch them starve; children scarred both physically and psychologically.      Full news...

Rethink Afghanistan: $100 billion, and for what? To bring more troops to Afghanistan without an exit strategy? To further US foreign policy that fails to address the humanitarian needs of the world’s third poorest country? To escalate military operations that directly result in Afghan civilian casualties?... Fortunately, there are ways to take immediate action and address Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis.      Full news...

RAWA News: A tacit agreement operates between the Obama administration, the U.S corporate media, most progressive U.S. liberals, and the United Nations Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA). All dream to a lesser or greater degree of a future social democratic paradise in Afghanistan where girls’ schools would be flourishing and small farmers exporting pomegranates. Some debate exists over the means to achieve this end. Much ado has been made during the past five months as to whether the Obama approach to Afghanistan differs or not with that of its predecessor.      Full news...

Quqnoos: A US-led air strike has killed 22 people, including 10 civilians in the central Ghor province, officials said. Deputy Governor of Ghor province, Ikramuddin Rezazada revealed that at least 10 civilians were killed in Tuesday’s air raid, carried out by the US-led coalition forces. A day earlier, US forces in statement said a prominent militant commander, Mullah Mustafa, and 16 other insurgents were killed in the bombing. Later, Mullah Mustafa in a phone interview told Quqnoos that he is “not harmed in the incident”.      Full news...

PAN: Nine children and 11 suspected Taliban insurgents were killed in a Coalition bombing raid in the northwestern Ghor province, a police officer said on Wednesday. Acting police chief Col. Zainul Abidin told Pajhwok Afghan News the airstrike by US-led forces in Shahrak district targeted dreaded Taliban commander Mullah Mustafa and his accomplices.      Full news...

The Telegraph: Heavy weapons are continuing to stream across the Afghan border from Iran despite Barack Obama's attempts to enlist Tehran's help in fighting the insurgency, officials have said. Border police say they are regularly intercepting consignments of anti-tank mines and mortars bound for Afghan militants fighting Nato-led forces.      Full news...

The Huffington Post: Many Americans are profoundly ignorant of history, even regarding distant countries where the United States finds itself at war. One need not know much about Afghanistan's rich and ancient history, however, to learn some important lessons regarding the tragic failures of U.S. policy toward that country during the past three decades.... The Reagan administration sensed the most hard-line elements of the resistance were less likely to reach negotiated settlements, but the goal was to cripple the Soviet Union, not free the Afghan people. Recognizing the historically strong role of Islam in Afghan society, they tried to exploit it to advance U.S. policy goals.      Full news...

IWPR: America pledges to reduce price paid by civilians in war against Taliban, but disputes Afghan estimates for Farah airstrike death toll. Sayed Karim, 72, is now all alone. The elderly, white bearded man bowed his turbaned head as he told of the 13 members of his family who were killed in a May 4 airstrike by United States forces in Farah province, on Afghanistan’s western border. “I am no longer young,” he sighed. “I cannot build a new life.”      Full news...

USA TODAY: Despite Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's call to reduce the reliance on foreign aid contractors, the main U.S. aid agency is continuing to award multimillion-dollar contracts as it proposed to increase development spending in Afghanistan to $2.8 billion. An inspector general's audit released May 11 criticized DAI's performance on a $164 million contract to promote local governance. Success, the audit found, was "highly questionable" in part because DAI "had no overall strategy" for implementing local projects.      Full news...

MSNBC: Should detainees the United States has shipped to the Bagram air base in Afghanistan have the same constitutional right to challenge their detention in court that prisoners at the Guantanamo prison in Cuba have been given? President Barack Obama didn't answer that question in a May 21 speech outlining his policy for dealing with alleged terrorists. In fact, Obama didn't mention Bagram at all.      Full news...

Christian Science Monitor: The Haqqani network is considered the most sophisticated of Afghanistan's insurgent groups. The group is alleged to be behind many high-profile assaults, including a raid on a luxury hotel in Kabul in January 2008 and a massive car bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul that left 41 people dead in July 2008.... Haqqani's son Sirajuddin has now taken the reins of the organization, according to intelligence officials. The younger Haqqani has proved more dynamic than his father, expanding the network greatly in the last few years.      Full news...

Amnesty International: Millions of people living in southern and eastern Afghanistan, terrorized by the Taliban, other insurgent groups and local militias ostensibly allied with the government, suffered insecurity that further restricted their already limited access to food, health care, and schooling. Indiscriminate attacks, abductions and the targeting of civilians reached unprecedented levels. The Taliban and other anti-government groups significantly expanded their attacks to cover more than a third of the country, including areas once considered relatively safe in the centre and the north.      Full news...

CommonDreams.org: Andr? Shepherd, who was stationed in Germany, refuses to deploy to Iraq. Many U.S. soldiers stationed in Europe who refused service in or support of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan have been tried in U.S. military courts in Europe and imprisoned in the U.S. military's correctional facility at Mannheim; the most well known are Blake Lemoine (2005) and Agust?n Aguayo (2006-2007). But Shepherd is so far the first to turn to the German government for help: last November he filed a formal application to the German government for asylum.      Full news...

The Canadian Press: An international aid expert says only pennies from each dollar being sent to Afghanistan are actually reaching the people who need help. Marco Vicenzino says he is appalled by the inefficiency of humanitarian aid efforts. Vicenzino, who is a strategic adviser for the Afghanistan World Foundation, says about 80 cents of every dollar goes back to donor countries - largely through the contractors doing the work.      Full news...

The Guardian: British pilots in Afghanistan are firing an increasing number of "enhanced blast" thermobaric weapons, designed to kill everyone in buildings they strike, the Ministry of Defence has revealed. Since the start of this year more than 20 of the US-designed missiles, which have what is officially described as a "blast fragmentation warhead", have been fired by pilots of British Apache attack helicopters. A total of 20 were also fired last year after they were bought by the MoD from the Americans last May.      Full news...

Reuters: An Afghan who has spent over six years at the U.S. military's Guantanamo Bay prison was only around 12 years old when he was detained, not 16 or 17 as his official record says, an Afghan rights group said on Tuesday. Interviews with the family of Mohammed Jawad, who like many poor Afghans does not know his exact age or birthday, showed he was probably not even a teenager when he was arrested in 2002, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission said.      Full news...

IPS: "It’s a matter of what I’m willing to live with," Specialist Victor Agosto of the U.S. Army, who is refusing orders to deploy to Afghanistan, explained to IPS. "I’m not willing to participate in this occupation, knowing it is completely wrong.".... On one of them, dated May 1, Agosto’s written statement appears: "There is no way I will deploy to Afghanistan. The occupation is immoral and unjust. It does not make the American people any safer. It has the opposite effect."      Full news...

The Times: Millions of pounds in taxpayers’ money have been wasted on failed reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, according to an internal assessment by the Department for International Development. An evaluation by independent consultants criticised the department’s approach to planning, risk management and staffing, and said poor co-ordination with the rest of Whitehall meant that the department was slow to shift strategy as the military effort moved to counter-insurgency.      Full news...

Six schools in the northern region of Kunduz closed following Taliban threats in recent weeks. The German army says it can't protect them. The schools received letters threatening acid and gas attacks, and teachers and pupils responded by staying home. The Afghan authorities finally decided to shut the schools altogether. The affected district of Chahar Darreh in the province of Kunduz is largely under the Taliban's control.      Full news...

VOA News: NATO says an airstrike by one of its warplanes has killed eight civilians in southern Afghanistan, in the midst of a controversy over civilian casualties. The NATO-led international military force on Wednesday said its troops called in the airstrike Tuesday in Helmand province after a clash with about 25 insurgents. A NATO statement accused the militants of using the civilians as human shields.      Full news...

Quqnoos: Foreign troops gunned down a local farmer Monday in Pushtrod District of the western Farah province, an official said. The US convoy opened fire on the farmer when he war irrigating his farms early Monday morning in the district, north of the provincial capital city. Bilqees Roshan, a provincial council member said the body of the farmers is flamed.      Full news...

Boise Weekly: American soldiers serving in Vietnam wondered what they were fighting for. U.S. troops in Afghanistan don't have that problem. They know exactly what they're fighting for: rapists. America's media repeatedly claimed that Afghan women would be better off under the U.S.-supported Northern Alliance puppet government headed by Karzai than under the Taliban. But when I went to Afghanistan and asked women what they thought, they had a different story. The defeat of the Taliban brought about the collapse of law and order, making life even more dangerous, especially for women.      Full news...

Human Rights Watch: NATO forces in Afghanistan should immediately release the results of their investigation into a March 14, 2009, incident in which an 8-year-old girl in Kapisa province was burned by white phosphorus munitions, Human Rights Watch said today. A NATO spokesperson has denied allegations from the girl's father that NATO forces had fired the rounds that caused her injuries.      Full news...

The Sunday Times: When civilians get killed in conflicts in Sudan, Zimbabwe or Sri Lanka, the United Nations predictably raises hell. But when civilians are victims of domestic insurgencies or military conflicts involving the five big powers -- the US, Britain, France, China and Russia (plus Israel) -- the Security Council invariably remains silent or paralysed.      Full news...

AFP: Hundreds of Kabul University students labelled the United States "the world's biggest terrorist" on Sunday as they protested against US air strikes said to have killed scores of Afghan villagers. Chanting "Death to America", "Death to the biggest terrorist" and "long live Islam", up to 1,000 protesters marched outside the university to condemn what is believed to be the deadliest such incident in nearly eight years.      Full news...

The Sunday Times: One of Afghanistan's most wanted terrorists is to be offered a power-sharing deal by the government of President Hamid Karzai as the country's warlords extend their grip on power. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is on America's "most wanted" terrorist list, is to hold talks with the Kabul government within the next few weeks. Hekmatyar is the leader of Hezb-i-Islami, which has been fighting Nato troops alongside the Taliban.      Full news...

Quqnoos: The tiny roads of the Afghan village do not witness the cheer of kids, the muddy houses are destroyed and the survival villagers even cannot find a place to mourn the victims of the fatal air-raid. It’s incredibly harsh to tolerate a second in Geranai, a remote village in Bala-Buluk district of the western Farah province, where the green rural area is heavily bombed and single smiling face can hardly be seen. One or two are remaining from a family of 10 to 15 members and the village is mourning the deaths, exceeding 100.      Full news...

AFP: Afghans chanted "Death to America" and demanded US troops leave Afghanistan as mobs threw stones at government offices Thursday in a violent protest against civilian deaths, witnesses said. Four people were wounded when hundreds of furious demonstrators protested in the western town of Farah against the reported killings of up to 70 civilians during US-led air strikes and fighting against insurgents, officials said.      Full news...

The Independent: Of course there will be an inquiry. And in the meantime, we shall be told that all the dead Afghan civilians were being used as "human shields" by the Taliban and we shall say that we "deeply regret" innocent lives that were lost. But we shall say that it's all the fault of the terrorists, not our heroic pilots and the US Marine special forces who were target spotting around Bala Baluk and Ganjabad.      Full news...