ANP/AFP: Afghanistan’s top prosecutor Tuesday accused US ambassador Karl Eikenberry of threatening to have him removed from his job if he did not take action against an Afghan banker allegedly involved in fraud. "Against all diplomatic ethics, the US ambassador tells me: “If you don't jail him, you must resign,” Alko told reporters, citing a recent conversation with Eikenberry. Full story ...
The Washington Post: Top officials in President Hamid Karzai’s government have repeatedly derailed corruption investigations of politically connected Afghans, according to U.S. officials who have provided Afghanistan’s authorities with wiretapping technology and other assistance in efforts to crack down on endemic graft. In recent months, the U.S. officials said, Afghan prosecutors and investigators have been ordered to cross names off case files, prevent senior officials from being placed under arrest and disregard evidence against executives of a major financial firm suspected of helping the nation’s elite move millions of dollars overseas. Full story ...
VOA: NATO says a joint Afghan-international force killed a Taliban commander and several armed individuals in southern Afghanistan, but local villagers say the dead are all civilians. In eastern Afghanistan, officials say eight civilians, including women and children, were killed in a roadside bombing in Ghazni province on Monday. Full story ...
The Guardian: The Obama administration has awarded $220m (£146m) in new contracts to the military contractor formerly known as Blackwater to provide security in Afghanistan. This is despite accusations against the company of murder and indiscriminate killings of civilians in Iraq and investigations into alleged corruption and sanctions busting. The contracts have drawn stinging criticism in Congress and assertions that because of Blackwater's reputation for indifference to innocent lives it will jeopardise the mission in Afghanistan. Full story ...
AFP: CIA director Leon Panetta has estimated there are only 50 to 100 Al Qaeda militants operating inside Afghanistan, as US forces work to “flush out” mastermind Osama bin Laden. Mr Panetta said US forces had killed or captured at least half the Al Qaeda leadership, making the terrorist group the weakest it has been since the 9/11 attacks. The spy chief estimated Al Qaeda's numbers have shrunk dramatically in Afghanistan. Full story ...
AFP: NATO reported on Sunday the 91st foreign soldier killed in what has been a record month for international troop deaths in Afghanistan. In other violence, more than two dozen rebels were killed across the troubled nation, authorities said separately. In all, 311 soldiers have died in Afghanistan so far this year, with the June toll by far the deadliest of any month since the war began in late 2001. Full story ...
The Associated Press: Four American troops were reported killed and the bodies of 11 Afghan men, some beheaded, were found in rising violence across Afghanistan. Mohammad Khan, deputy police chief in Uruzgan province, said a villager in the Bagh Char area of Khas Uruzgan district spotted the bodies Friday in a field and called police. "They were killed because the Taliban said they were spying fo Full story ...
AFP: Eight percent of Afghans suffer from drug addiction, a rate twice the global average and a “major” growing problem for the world’s leading narcotic producer, a survey warned Monday. Issued by the Afghan government and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the report found around one million people in the country aged 15 to 64 had drug addictions, often to opium and heroin. Full story ...
The New York Times: American taxpayers have inadvertently created a network of warlords across Afghanistan who are making millions of dollars escorting NATO convoys and operating outside the control of either the Afghan government or the American and NATO militaries, according to the results of a Congressional investigation released Monday. Full story ...
AFP: Afghanistan has seen an “alarming” near-doubling of roadside bomb attacks over the past year, a UN report said Saturday, as the US asserted progress was being made in the war-torn country. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said “security incidents” have risen significantly as US-led forces make a push in the south and militant activities have grown in the southeast and eastern regions of Afghanistan. Full story ...
The New York Times: Mining companies around the world are eager to exploit Afghanistan’s newly discovered mineral wealth, but executives of Western firms caution that war, corruption and lack of roads and other infrastructure are likely to delay exploration for years. “Afghanistan could be one of the leading producers of copper, gold, lithium and iron ore in the world,” said Ian Hannam, a London-based banker and mining expert with JP Morgan. Full story ...
Raw Story: The whistleblower website that posted video of a US Army helicopter firing on unarmed civilians and killing two Reuters employees is ready to do it again, its founder says. (A screenshot of the clip appears at right; video available at this link.) Wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange says he has obtained video of a US “massacre” that took place in Afghanistan in 2009. Full story ...
Veterans Today: What some Afghan natives and analysts call the most dangerous part of the world has reached a critical juncture, “a tipping point”. Per Guardian and New York Times reports, “President Hamid Karzai has lost faith in the US strategy in Afghanistan and is increasingly looking to Pakistan to end the insurgency.” Full story ...
CNN: About 60 schoolgirls in Afghanistan's Balkh province appear to have been poisoned and required hospitalization, the Ministry of Health said Sunday. The victims ranged in age from 9 to 14. Most suffered minor reactions, ministry spokesman Sakhi Kargan told CNN. It's at least the third suspected poisoning of girls attending schools in Afghanistan this week. Full story ...
The New York Times: The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials. An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys. Full story ...
BBC News: A new report claims to provide the most concrete evidence yet of direct links between Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The report says the ISI is providing funding, training and sanctuary to the Taliban on a scale much larger than previously thought. The document was prepared by the London School of Economics (LSE). Full story ...
The New York Times: There is no good news coming out of the depressing and endless war in Afghanistan. There once was merit to our incursion there, but that was long ago. Now we’re just going through the tragic motions, flailing at this and that, with no real strategy or decent end in sight. The U.S. doesn’t win wars anymore. We just funnel the stressed and underpaid troops in and out of the combat zones, while all the while showering taxpayer billions on the contractors and giant corporations that view the horrors of war as a heaven-sent bonanza. Full story ...
PAN: The number of schoolgirls fallen ill after a suspected poisonous gas attack on their school in the volatile southern province of Ghazni has reached 60, medics said on Saturday. The teenage girls of the Jehan Malika High School in Ghazni City, the provincial capital, were hospitalised after smelling the poisonous gas, said the director of Ghazni Civil Hospital, Dr. Ismail Ibrahimi. Full story ...
AFP: Nine civilians, including four women and three children, died when a bomb ripped through a minibus travelling along the main road leading to the capital of Kandahar province. Eight other civilians were wounded in the attack, which took place in the Maywand area, provincial government spokesman Zalmai Ayobi said. Full story ...
IWPR: Only someone living in Afghanistan would consider Iran a bastion of freedom and independence for women. But authorities here say such a perception may be what's behind a soaring number of suicides in this western province. Once exposed to Iran's relatively more sophisticated society, women who return to Afghanistan are unable to survive in this restrictive society. Full story ...
RTT News: A report by a non-profit organization which tracks American military spending says the total cost of the US military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan has crossed $1 trillion. According to a report released Thursday by “National Priorities Project,” the ongoing military operations in the two war-ravaged nations are the most expensive ever carried out by American forces since the end of the Second World War. Full story ...
The Times of India: Suspected Taliban militants executed a seven-year-old boy in southern Afghanistan after accusing him of spying for the government, a provincial official said Wednesday. The child was captured by the militants in Sangin district of southern province of Helmand Tuesday, Daoud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said. Full story ...
PAN (Translated by RAWA): The sons of a female member of the Provincial council of Helmand, who raped a child last year, are still free from the hold of the law despite repeated demands and the orders of the authorities. Not everyone has the ability to watch the extremely shocking video clip of this rape, which has reached Kabul as well. Full story ...
AFP: At least 39 people were killed and 73 wounded by a massive explosion at a wedding in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar on Wednesday, a senior official said. Most of the victims were male as the explosion occurred in an area of the wedding celebrations reserved for men. An AFP reporter at the hospital counted 10 children among the wounded. Full story ...
IRIN: Nowhere in the world are as many mothers dying from pregnancy and birth-related complications as in badakhshan Province, northeastern Afghanistan, where maternal mortality figures are estimated at 6,000 per 100,000 live births, say agencies. Yet, the relatively peaceful province has more maternal healthcare facilities than Helmand, Zabul, Uruzgan and several others. Full story ...
PAN: Students at schools in northern Baghlan province have accused education officials of selling their text books to shops in the bazaar. Although the academic year started three months ago, the students say they have not received their books from the Ministry of Education. Stationary and book store owners said officials had sold them the new textbooks. Full story ...
The Washington Post: For rent on Street 6 in the neighborhood of Sherpur: a four-story, 11-bedroom dwelling of pink granite and lime marble, complete with massage showers, a rooftop fountain and, in the basement, an Asian-themed nightclub. Price: $12,000 a month. It’s a relative bargain in this district favored by former warlords and bureaucrats — Kabul’s version of Beverly Hills Full story ...
The New York Times: For months, reports have abounded here that the Afghan mercenaries who escort American and other NATO convoys through the badlands have been bribing Taliban insurgents to let them pass. After a pair of bloody confrontations with Afghan civilians, two of the biggest private security companies — Watan Risk Management and Compass Security — were banned... Full story ...
The Raw Story: On June 7, the day Afghanistan became America’s longest-ever war, the New York Times reported on an ongoing investigation poised to prove that private security companies “are using American money to bribe the Taliban” to fuel combat and thus enhance demand for their services. The news follows a “series of events last month that suggested all-out collusion wit Full story ...
PAN: About 3,000 people lose their lives every year in Kabul due to pollution-related diseases, a top health official said. Respiratory, heart and lung diseases were the most common illnesses associated with pollution, said Dr. Amanullah Hussaini, who heads the environmental safety department at the Ministry of Health. Full story ...
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