Reuters: A NATO helicopter crashed in Afghanistan's east on Monday but there were no apparent casualties, officials said, another stark reminder of the dangers of the war after 38 people were killed in an air incident, the largest single loss for foreign forces in 10 years. A worrying surge of military deaths is being matched by record casualties among civilians... Full story ...
The New York Times: This tiny village rose from the rocky soil with great hopes and 10 million USD in foreign aid, a Levittown of identical mud-walled houses built to shelter some of the hundreds of thousands of Afghans set adrift by war and flight. Five years later, the village of Alice-Ghan and those good intentions are tilting toward ruin. Full story ...
The Christian Science Monitor: In his sprawling office in Kandahar’s gubernatorial palace, Tooryali Wesa spends much of his day behind an imposing hand-carved wooden desk. Stately chairs and couches line the wood-paneled walls, topped with the type of high-vaulted ceiling found in a cathedral or classically designed mosque. Full story ...
The Independent: “I was born into war. I sometimes curse my parents. Why did they have children in war?” asked Faiz, an earnest young man from Kabul working as an interpreter in Helmand. The 28-year-old explained that he never planned to marry or have children until he was sure that they would not have to endure the hardships of conflict. He held out little hope that that would ever ha Full story ...
AFP: Afghan civilians may have been caught up in a NATO air strike against suspected Taliban insurgents, a foreign military spokesman said Saturday, amid claims up to eight civilians died. A local official said that an imam, his wife and their six children were killed by an air strike in Nad Ali district in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province Friday. Full story ...
Reuters: The global community has failed to create a politically stable and economically viable Afghanistan despite pouring billions of dollars into the South Asian nation during a decade-long war against the Taliban, says the International Crisis Group. The Brussels-based think tank said the United States and its allies still lacked a coherent policy to strengthen Afghanistan... Full story ...
The Baltimore Sun: I used to think of Vice President Joseph Biden as a nice guy. Good old Joe. Down-to-earth, nice sense of humor, great family man. But last year I read the Bob Woodward book on “Obama’s Wars.” His account of Mr. Biden’s meeting with Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai in January 2009, was a shocker. Mr. Biden was rude and arrogant, humiliating the Afghan le Full story ...
PAN: Residents of southeastern Paktia province protested against Afghan and foreign security forces on Thursday, a day after a civilian was killed by a mortar shell during a firefight between militants and coalition troops. Angered by the civilian death in the Zazai Aryub district, some 300 men blocked the Zazai Aryub-Gardez highway as a mark of protest. Full story ...
National Journal: The number of IED attacks in Afghanistan has spiked to all-time high, U.S. military officials said, because of the free flow of critical bomb-making materials from neighboring Pakistan. Senior military officials said there were more than 1,600 strikes involving so-called “improvised explosive devices” in June, setting a new record for the long Afghan war, and underscoring the dangers posed by militants operating inside both of the troubled countries. Full story ...
Examiner.com: Afghanistan’s capital city has experienced a financial and development boom over the past decade, growing in population from 1.5 to 5 million people while gleaming new malls and apartment complexes have sprung up and dot the landscape. But these bastions of the rich are offset by the sharp contrast of crowded shanty towns and squatter settlements where dwell the other Kabul... Full story ...
The Independent: Civilians are bearing the brunt of the international forces’ onslaught against the Taliban as the coalition rushes to pacify Afghanistan before pulling out its troops, it was claimed last night. Human rights groups warned that civilians are paying an increasingly high price for “reckless” coalition attacks, particularly aerial ones. Full story ...
The Sydney Morning Herald: LOOMING over the dusty, noisy metalworkers’ lane in Kabul is a gleaming skyscraper. Daily, the building’s shadow sweeps over the wooden workshops. And then it is gone. It is a fitting metaphor for this city’s two-speed economy. “We work 100 metres from these buildings,” metalworker Kazem says, “and less than a kilometre from the presidential palace - but we have no electricity.” Full story ...
IWPR: Ali Ahmad, 19, and Samira, 18, were walking down a street in Herat in western Afghanistan when a police car suddenly drew up in front of them and officers got out to question them about the nature of their relationship. The young couple explained that they were engaged and due to marry soon, and had come out together – with the permission of both their families – to discuss their future together. Full story ...
Reuters: Roadside mines have killed 23 civilians in southern Afghanistan, with a minibus and a tractor struck separately by explosives in Helmand province, according to officials. The minibus was travelling from Nahr-e-Saraj district to the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, when it hit a mine and all 19 people inside were killed, said Kamaluddin Shirzai, deputy police chief for Helmand. Full story ...
Zee News: The cost of British military operations in Afghanistan was on Thursday officially estimated at over GBP 18 billion (around USD 29 billion), The Guardian reported. The figures released by the House of Commons defence committee also show the cost of imposing a UN-backed no-fly zone in Libya as well as the cost of bombing targets at GBP 260 million (around USD 424 million). Full story ...
IWPR: Afghan education officials have promised to take action after members of the small Hindu and Sikh communities said their children were being forced to drop out of state schools because of bullying. Opinion is divided, however, on whether separate minority schools are the best way forward. “When our children go to the government schools, they face problems,” Ravinder Singh, a Sikh Full story ...
BBC News: French soldiers serving with Nato forces in Afghanistan have shot dead three civilians, officials say. The victims - a man, a pregnant woman and a child - were travelling in a car that failed to stop at a checkpoint in northern Kapisa province. The French ambassador has apologised, but President Karzai said no apology could bring back the dead and he called on Nato to protect civilians. Full story ...
ABC News: A chronic shortage of midwives and basic health services makes having a baby one of the most dangerous things an Afghan woman can do. A woman dies during childbirth every 29 minutes in Afghanistan, which is wracked by poverty, insecurity and deeply ingrained discrimination against women. Full story ...
Reuters: Across Afghanistan there are about 850 children in juvenile rehabilitation centers who lack access to adequate food, health and education, and there is inadequate coordination among aid groups trying to help, a senior official said on Tuesday. Mohammad Seddi Seddiqi, head of the Juvenile Rehabilitation Center department at the Ministry of Justice... Full story ...
PAN: Three civilians, including two students, were killed and six others wounded late on Monday in a clash between foreign troops and Taliban in eastern Kunar province, officials said on Tuesday. Governor Syed Fazlullah Wahidi told Pajhwok Afghan News that Taliban attacked an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) base in the Watapur district. Full story ...
The Guardian: This month, as the Pentagon and the CIA countenance a changing of the guard – welcoming Defence Secretary Leon Panetta and CIA Director David Petraeus, respectively – it is worth pressing pause on national security strategy before our modus operandi becomes any more politically disconcerting, morally disheartening and financially devastating. Full story ...
...he attack helicopter, the Ministry of Defence has said. They were working in a field in the Nahr-e-Saraj area of Helmand Province on Saturday as UK forces targeted an insurgent riding a motorcycle nearby.... Full story ...
Associated Press: Insurgents in southern Afghanistan hanged an 8-year-old boy six days after they abducted him, the Afghan government said Sunday. The boy’s captors had demanded that his father, a police officer, supply them with a police vehicle and he refused, said a statement from President Hamid Karzai’s office. The militants hanged the boy Friday in Helmand province's Gereshk district. Full story ...
The Wall Street Journal: The U.S. has wasted or misspent 34 billion USD contracting for services in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a draft report by a bipartisan congressional panel, the most comprehensive effort so far to tally the overall cost of a decade of battlefield contracting in America’s two big wars. Full story ...
Graan Afghanistan (Translated by RAWA): The hard political, military and social conditions that Afghanistan is facing today, has affected the whole society and children have turned to one of the biggest victims of this turmoil. Last week, a roadside bomb killed at least ten children and before this Afghan children have been mistakenly targeted in NATO airstrikes. Full story ...
PAN: NATO-led troops killed a lady doctor along with two family members in the Syedabad district of central Wardak province, the Ghazni Civil Hospital director alleged on Saturday. Dr. Ismayeel Ibrahimzai told Pajhwok Afghan News that Dr. Aqila Hekmat, in charge of the maternity ward, her 18-year-old son and nephew were killed late on Friday, when ISAF soldiers fired at their vehicle. Full story ...
The Washington Post: Kabul’s international airport has long been seen as a virtual black hole for foreign currency, the perfect venue through which travelers can smuggle out hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid that was intended for development projects. Full story ...
Reuters: The United States has made headway in building up Afghanistan’s counternarcotics forces, but the war-torn country needs more international help to hold onto those fragile gains, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. Top Defense Department, State Department and Drug Enforcement Administration officials told the U.S. Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control that Afghanistan’s opium poppy cultivation was down... Full story ...
Associated Press: Government officials in eastern Afghanistan accused NATO troops on Thursday of killing six civilians in an overnight raid, and more than 1,000 people poured into the streets in anger. The military alliance said the joint patrol with Afghan forces in Khost province killed six fighters from a militant group allied with the Taliban known as the Haqqani network and injured one civilian. Full story ...
Associated Press: The U.N. says the number of Afghan civilians killed in bombings and other attacks is up 15 percent from the same period last year. The figures reflect concern that Afghan civilians are increasingly being caught up in violence in the conflict-ridden country. Full story ...
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