News of the Day for Sunday, July 20, 2014

Roadside bomb in Nimroz kills 3 civilians, injures 3 more.

NATO drone attack said to kill 12 Taliban in Herat province.

A NATO airstrike in Pul-e-Alam, Logar,  kills 16 militants.

Vote audit briefly suspended due to a dispute between the candidates  but it appears to have resumed.

A 10 year old girl who was raped by a Mullah faces honor killing. Yes folks, this is really how traditional Afghan society works. According to Khaama,

According to reports, the family of the young rape victim is under the pressure by village elders, who are insisting to kill the girl because “she had brought shame to them.”

The girl was reportedly protected in a women’s shelter in Kunduz province but was returned to her family on Tuesday. According to an official indictment, the rape was so brutal and had nearly died because treatment as delayed. She had suffered a break in the wall between the vagina and rectum, the New York Times reported.

In the meantime, the 45-year-old Mullah has claimed that the girl had promised to marry him and rejected that she is 10-year-old. The mullah has claimed that the girl was 17-year-old, but the mother of the victim has said she was only 10-year-old. Hospital records indicate the child weighed just 40 pounds and had yet to start menstruating.

The full account from the New York Times is here. Additional details are, believe it or not, even more appalling.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, the 12th Century marches on as Christians flee Mosul under threat of a special "tax" or forced conversion. Seven explosions in Shiite districts of Baghdad on Saturday killed 24 people, with the Islamic State claiming responsibility for at least 4 of them. An all female armed brigade enforces strict laws on women in Raqqa, including full coverage in public and male chaperonage. More than 1 million refugees have entered Kurdistan. Kurdish National Security Director Masrour Barzani says the Iraqi army cannot defeat IS and that western powers will need to intervene. He also says that the peshmerga will need heavy arms to confront the equipment stolen by IS from the Iraqi army, should the IS eventually try to attack Kurdistan. (For now, the expanded borders of Kurdistan are secure, as IS chooses to confront the weak Baghdad state.)