"Bombings kill 7 more US troops in southern Afghanistan; Karzai questions strategy amid surge in violence" by Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press | August 31, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — Roadside bombs killed seven American troops yesterday, including five in a single blast in Kandahar, raising to 14 the number who have died in the past three days.
The increase in deaths occurs as President Hamid Karzai publicly raised doubts about the US strategy in the war....
That's why CNN called him erratic.
With death tolls rising, Karzai has become more outspoken in his criticism of the US-led war effort, telling recent visitors that the American counterinsurgency strategy is flawed.
Most recently, he told the visiting speaker of the German Parliament that the campaign against the Taliban over the past eight years had been “ineffective apart from causing civilian casualties,’’ according to a statement by the presidential media office....
Meanwhile, a district governor in the eastern province of Nangarhar, Sayad Mohammad Palawan, was killed yesterday when a bomb planted on his vehicle exploded as he was driving into a government compound in Jalalabad, according to Ghafor Khan, police spokesman.
Elsewhere, NATO announced the arrest of an insurgent commander and several associates believed involved in a weekend attack on two NATO bases in Khost Province of southeastern Afghanistan. Nearly 50 insurgents were killed in simultaneous attacks Saturday on Forward Operating Base Salerno and nearby Camp Chapman, where seven CIA employees died in a suicide attack in December.Also see: Afghan Army Surplus Store
Yeah, no details on who was arrested -- if anyone at all.
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"Poison gas targeted Afghan girls’ schools; Blood tests show toxins to blame in 10 recent cases" by Rod Nordland, New York Times | September 1, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — Meanwhile, President Hamid Karzai’s recent complaints that international forces should focus on militant leaders hiding in neighboring Pakistan instead of Afghan villages doesn’t mean the government no longer supports the US war strategy, the top NATO commander said yesterday.
Somebody said something to him as he points the finger elsewhere to divert attention from himself.
General David Petraeus said he shares Karzai’s concern about threats across the border in Pakistan but said the Pakistanis deserve credit for waging what he described as an “impressive counterinsurgency campaign’’ during the past 18 months.
The Karzai government has been increasingly vocal in recent days about the need to destroy Taliban and Al Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan.
Twenty-two American soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan over the past five days, a sudden end-of-August bloodletting that follows record-high death tolls for US troops in June and July....
Who cares anymore? I wanted out years ago.
The deaths brought the number of American troops killed during August to 55, according to a count from the Associated Press. The number compares with 66 Americans slain last month and 60 in June.
So HOW MANY INNOCENT AFGHANS have WE WASTED, huh?
Roadside bombs planted along military routes have been responsible for most of the deaths, as international forces penetrate deeper into areas controlled by Taliban insurgents.
In Kabul, gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying employees of the Afghan Supreme Court, killing three and wounding several others, officials said.
Speaking yesterday in Milwaukee, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates argued that after years of neglect the United States had finally devoted the necessary resources to the Afghan conflict.
“With the invasion of Iraq our attention — and resources — were diverted,’’ Gates told an audience at the American Legion in Milwaukee. “Afghanistan became a second-tier priority.’’
Now the war-machine murder is top priority!
"Afghan Muslim leader killed, US soldier dies" by Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press | September 2, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — A Muslim religious leader was killed by a bomb attack, and a US service member died in fighting yesterday in turbulent southern Afghanistan, officials said.
Aid group Oxfam, meanwhile, said it was suspending operations in the northeastern province of Badakhshan following the deaths of two employees and a local volunteer in a roadside bomb attack....
Formerly relatively peaceful, Badakhshan has seen rising insurgent violence.
Also see: Aid Workers Killed in Afghanistan
Isn't that odd how violence always follows us?
The Muslim leader, Mohammad Hassan Taimuri, was killed in Kandahar by a remote-detonated bomb hidden on a motorcycle that exploded in a downtown square, Kandahar police chief Sher Mohammed Zazai said. One other person was killed in the attack, and two people were wounded, Zazai said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, and it was not clear why anyone would target Taimuri, who was responsible for managing Islamic religious institutions and arranging pilgrimages to the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Muslims are obligated to make the pilgrimage, known as the hajj, at least once in a lifetime.
Actually, it is PRETTY DAMN CLEAR if you factor in the INTELLIGENCE AGENCY PRESENCE and their attempts to FOMENT UNREST!
Stuff like this STINKS to HIGH HEAVEN!!
However, Taliban insurgents who are highly active in Kandahar routinely target government figures and institutions, often indiscriminately. The city is a longtime stronghold of the hardline Islamist movement and the focus of the American-led operation against the insurgents.
Seeing as the CIA paper is blaming Taliban it must have been special ops.
NATO gave no other information about the US serviceman’s death, the first of the new month and the 20th in less than five days....
Did I ask for any?
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"Afghans contest NATO airstrike; Say 10 killed in car attack were not insurgents" by Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press | September 3, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — NATO said an airstrike in northern Afghanistan yesterday killed about a dozen insurgents, but President Hamid Karzai said the victims were campaign workers seeking votes in this month’s parliamentary elections.
There is about a dozen they will not be getting.
NATO said its airstrike on a car in northern Takhar province’s normally quiet Rustaq district killed or wounded as many as 12 insurgents, including a Taliban commander and a local head of an allied insurgent group, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, responsible for attacks in Kabul and elsewhere.
I no longer believe NATO because it has been caught in too many lies.
However, Karzai — who repeatedly warns that civilian casualties undermine anti-insurgency efforts — said the airstrike killed 10 campaign workers.
“The rationale for the airstrike still needs to be fully investigated,’’ Karzai said at a joint news conference in Kabul with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Gates said he had not heard about civilian casualties, but said the attack had hit its intended target and promised an investigation.
I'm sick of official cover-ups, aren't you?
“I am able to confirm that a very senior official of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was the target and was killed,’’ Gates said.
He says this knowing nothing.
Earlier, Takhar Governor Abdul Jabar Taqwa said the car in which candidate Abdul Wahid Khorasani had been riding was fired on by helicopters following an initial pass by fighter jets. He called the attack an obvious mistake, saying there were no Uzbek militants, foreigners, or members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in the convoy.
“There aren’t even any Taliban in this area,’’ Taqwa said. “They were all working on Mr. Khorasani’s campaign.’’
Reached by phone at a hospital in Kabul, Khorasani said windows of the six vehicles in the convoy had been plastered with his campaign posters and all those traveling with him had been members of his extended family, including a man named Amanullah, who had been allied with a local Uzbek warlord and recently returned from a lengthy visit to neighboring Pakistan.
At least he must have been a "terrorist," right?
Not like he might have relatives or anything over there.
Khorasani said Amanullah was among the 10 people killed in the attack, which he said left seven wounded.
Khorasani, who said he received minor injuries, suggested that the attack may have been prompted by false information fed to the Americans by a political rival, and called for a thorough investigation.
Happens ALL the TIME and we do not care!
“I ask the international community and the Afghan government — investigate and find out who was the spy who gave you this bad information,’’ he said.
That's all we ever seem to get, huh?
A local politician with knowledge of the airstrike, but who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the attack was probably linked to rivalries among ethnic Uzbek politicians in the province.
Afghan politicians have in the past been accused of feeding false information to foreign forces in hopes of prompting attacks and eliminating rivals. Political violence is on the rise ahead of the Sept. 18 polls, with at least three candidates and five campaign workers killed.
An alliance spokesman said it was aware of the claims that civilians were killed and would conduct a thorough investigation.
“What I can say is these vehicles were nowhere near a populated area and we’re confident this strike hit only the targeted vehicle after days of tracking the occupants’ activity,’’ said Major General David Garza, the deputy chief of staff for joint operations in Afghanistan.
Yeah, NATO never makes any mistakes.
Another NATO spokesman said the vehicle hit had stopped at least twice prior to the attack, during which men armed with rifles were observed exiting it before reentering.
Ever hear of bodyguards?
“We stand by the information in the release, and it is important to note that there was considerable time spent watching and waiting prior to the engagement,’’ James Judge said.
Also yesterday, two American service members died in fighting, while NATO and local officials said coalition and Afghan forces killed dozens of insurgents in ground and air engagements....
Hey, now YOUR DEAD are an AFTERTHOUGHT in the lying, agenda-pushing, war-promoting paper, 'murkns.
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"Afghan officials closer to talks with insurgents" by Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press | September 5, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — Also yesterday, an attack in the northern province of Kunduz killed seven people, including four police officers, and wounded another 16 people, a provincial spokesman said.
While there was no immediate sign of a connection, the bombing came on the first anniversary of a NATO air strike on two fuel trucks just outside Kunduz city that killed as many as 142 people — the single largest loss of civilian lives since the 2001 US invasion of the country.
Related: Slow Saturday Special: Americans Caught in Afghan Fireball
Also yesterday, an American service member was killed in a bombing in southern Afghanistan, US officials said. No further details were released.
--more--""Taliban threaten to attack polls in Afghan elections; Insurgents urge citizens to spurn Sept. 18 vote" by Rahim Faiez, Associated Press | September 6, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — Meanwhile, two coalition service members, one British and one from the Republic of Georgia, were killed in fighting in the turbulent south....
The two deaths yesterday bring to seven the number of foreign fighters who have fallen in Afghanistan this month, five of them Americans....
A total of 88 British soldiers have died in Afghanistan so far in 2010 — a particularly bloody year for the 10,000 British forces in the country — bringing the total number of British deaths since the start of the war in 2001 to 333....
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Which leads us into the next piece:
"US, British forces bicker over Afghan strategy" by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post | September 7, 2010
MUSA QALA, Afghanistan — US Marines and British civilian advisers are waging two wars in the hilly northern half of Helmand Province: They’re fighting the Taliban, and they’re quarreling with each other.
Then the WAR is LOST and it is TIME TO COME HOME!!!
The disagreements among the supposed allies are almost as frequent as firefights with insurgents.
No wonder NATO is losing.
The Americans contend that the British forces they replaced this spring were too complacent in dealing with the Taliban.
Translation: they didn't kill enough people.
The British maintain the Americans are too aggressive and that they are compromising hard-fought security gains by pushing into irrelevant places and overextending themselves....
Translation: we are killing too many people.
The disputes here, which also extend to the pace of reconstruction projects and the embrace of a former warlord who has become the police chief, illuminate the tensions that are flaring as US forces surge into parts of southern Afghanistan that had once been the almost exclusive domain of NATO allies....
The new US troops in the south are intended to replace departing Dutch soldiers and relieve pressure on underresourced and overburdened military personnel from Britain and Canada, where public support for the war has fallen even more precipitously than in the United States.
What support for the war are they talking about?
Even the PEOPLE WHO DON'T CARE are SICK OF IT!
But the transition entails significant new risks for US forces, who are now responsible for more dangerous parts of the country.
Pretty soon it will be ALL YOURS, AmeriKa!
Ask the Soviets how that went.
The influx also has elicited conflicting emotions from coalition partners. British and Canadian officers say they didn’t have the manpower or equipment to confront a mushrooming insurgency by themselves, but they also cringe at the need to be bailed out by the United States....
Oh, ANOTHER AFGHAN BAILOUT, Americans!
I think it is time to COME HOME, America, an LET THOSE PEOPLE LIVE as they WANT TO LIVE!
After all, they DID NOT DO ANYTHING TO YOU!!
And NOTHING smacks of FAILURE than ESCALATION:
"Afghans protest church’s plan to burn Koran; Hundreds direct fury at US, Obama" by Rahim Faiez, Associated Press | September 7, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — Also yesterday, NATO officials said Petraeus is asking for 2,000 more soldiers to join the international force here. It was unclear how many would be Americans.
Who is bailing who out?
Coalition officials said nearly half will be trainers for Afghan security forces and will include troops trained to neutralize roadside bombs, which have been responsible for about 60 percent of the 2,000 allied deaths in the nearly nine-year war.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue with media, said the NATO-led command had been asking for the troops even before Petraeus assumed command in July.
Petraeus recently renewed that request with the NATO command in Brussels. The alliance has had trouble raising more troops for the war effort, with at least 450 training slots still unfilled after more than a year. There are about 140,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan now.
With casualties rising, the war has become deeply unpopular in many of NATO’s 28 member countries, suggesting the additional forces will have to come from the United States.
Soon it will be ALL YOURS, AmeriKa!!!!
In Europe, polls show the majority of voters consider it an unnecessary drain on finances at a time of sharp cuts in public spending.
An additional 30,000 US service members have been sent to Afghanistan as part of a surge aimed at suppressing the Taliban insurgency that has claimed the lives of more than 1,100 US troops.
The extra trainers are considered essential to meeting the goal of increasing Afghanistan’s army and police to 400,000 by next year.See: Predicting a Long Stay in Afghanistan
Or else they could just lie about the numbers like before.
The United States expects to spend about $6 billion a year training and supporting Afghan troops and police after it begins pulling out its own combat troops in 2011, according to estimates of US military spending through 2015, which are detailed in a NATO document obtained by the Associated Press.
Do YOU HAVE that kind of cash to TOSS AROUND, America?
I mean, YOU are LAYING OFF COPS, right?
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