"Two US troops killed as Taliban attack base" by Fisnik Abrashi and Rahim Faiez, Associated Press | July 5, 2009
KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban militants fired rockets and mortars at a US base in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, killing two American troops in a fierce battle as thousands of Marines in the south continued with their massive anti-Taliban push.
The multi-pronged attack in eastern Paktika Province - where an American soldier was captured recently - included a truck bombing near the camp’s gates. The battle ended only after US forces called in air strikes on militants.
The battle near the Pakistan border is hundreds of miles from the massive Marine assault in southern Helmand Province. It underscores the militants’ ability to inflict casualties on the over-stretched US forces as they widen their battle against the Taliban.
Just as the blogs pointed out yesterday; Taliban will hit far away from U.S. forces!
Seven American and two Afghan troops were wounded, a US military spokesman said. More than 30 insurgents were killed in the battle yesterday in the Zerok district of Paktika, said Hamidullah Zawak, the provincial governor’s spokesman. But the NATO-led force under which these American troops fight said in a statement that US troops killed at least 10 militants. The discrepancy in the militant death tolls could not immediately be reconciled.
During the battle, an insurgent drove a truck filled with explosives and gravel toward the gates of the US base, Zawak said. When the driver did not heed warnings to stop, troops opened fire on the truck, which exploded, he said.
Zabiullah Mujaheed, a Taliban spokesman, claimed responsibility for the attack. After the blast, some 100 Taliban fighters fired at the coalition troops for several hours, briefly taking over two of their checkpoints, Mujaheed said.
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KABUL, Afghanistan - Through two decades of war, Abdul Ahad never contemplated leaving Afghanistan. But as his country started to deteriorate rapidly in 2007, so did his life. He was laid off from his full-time driving job and forced to take the only work he could find: a once-a-week driving gig through Taliban territory.
In the past eight months, a suicide bomb and a firefight nearly took his life. Now, Ahad, 26, said he has had enough. He has begun scouting potential smugglers to take him to Europe, he said, looking to join the surge of young Afghans who are abandoning their country, frustrated by endless war, a lack of prospects, and the slow pace of change.
A different kind of surge, 'eh?
While foreign diplomats hold out hope that the August presidential elections and President Obama’s new troop deployments could change things here, Afghans are voting with their feet....
Yeah, FOR the WORSE!
In interviews in Kabul, several smugglers, all of whom requested anonymity because their work is illegal, estimated that business was up 60 percent over last year. One said he was turning away customers for the first time in his 11-year career.
The country’s dire situation has even prompted some privileged Afghans to leave. They include the host of “Afghan Star,’’ an “American Idol’’-style TV series, who disappeared after a documentary based on the show won two awards at the Sundance Film Festival; as well as a media officer who worked for President Hamid Karzai and deserted his delegation during a visit to the United States in September.
Just a few years ago optimism abounded here, as the US-led invasion seemed to have ousted the Taliban, and wooed more than 3.5 million refugees back home while triggering a series of promising reconstruction projects.
This is the kind of stuff that makes me sick over the MSM.
I never thought that, and neither did they!
Not about a LYING INVASION and OCCUPATION
But since 2006, waves of Afghans have fled the Taliban resurgence, endemic corruption, and the government’s inability to provide basic services like electricity. They are turning up in perilous waters near Australia, in Turkish prisons, at Rome’s main railway station, and in Paris’s Le Petit Kabul, or Little Kabul.
In Calais, France, an immigration detention complex is keeping about 600 Afghans in conditions that are “very, very bad compared to two years ago,’’ said Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental agency in Geneva. French officials have vowed to close the center by the end of 2009.
Oh, FRANCE'S little BAGRAM, 'eh?
Officials and recent deportees said many other Afghans abroad just disappear, are sexually exploited by truck drivers, or are forced into labor.... In an attempt to curb the migration, the International Organization for Migration ran a media campaign here warning against the hazards of smuggling.
Pakistan and other neighboring countries historically offered Afghans refuge during crises like the Soviet occupation. But today Pakistan faces an internal refugee crisis of its own.Yeah, thanks to US!!!!!
Iran, too, is cracking down, now deeming the Afghans economic migrants rather than victims of war and deporting about 700,000 last year.
How come Iran never got any credit -- or a thank you -- for accepting our refugees?
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