War News for Thursday, October 31, 2013

Reported security incidents
#1: A clash between Taleban militants and police claimed the lives of a key Taleban commander and a policeman in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, an official said. Taleban militants commanded by Mullah Nasir raided a police checkpoint in Orgon district before dawn and police retaliated, Xinhua reported.

#2: A powerful bicycle bomb exploded in a crowded car repair market in Quetta at around sunset, killing at least five people and wounding 17.

#3: A US drone strike targeting a militant compound Thursday killed three insurgents in a northwest Pakistan tribal region near the Afghan border, officials said. The attack took place near Miranshah, the main town in the troubled North Waziristan tribal district.

#4: Five people including three security personnel and two Taliban fighters were killed as clash flared up in Kohistanat district of Saripul province with Saripul city as its capital on Thursday, police said. "The clash which began in the wee hours of Thursday and lasted for several hours, claimed the lives of three Afghan soldiers and two Taliban rebels,"deputy to provincial police chief, Sakhi Dad Haidari, told Xinhua.

War News for Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Reported security incidents
#1: A bomb explosion on Wednesday killed two Pakistani soldiers and wounded four others in a restive Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border, security officials said. The explosion took place in a village in the South Waziristan tribal region. The explosion took place in a village in the South Waziristan tribal region.

#2: Militants on Wednesday attacked a house located near Awaran where rescue teams were stationed, DawnNews reported.

#3: At least two Afghan national army soldiers and a Taliban militant were killed following clashes in northern Sar-e-Pul province of Afghanistan. Local government officials said clashes between Afghan soldiers and Taliban militants started on Tuesday night and continued until Wednesday afternoon. Mr. Haidari further added clashes between Afghan soldiers and Taliban militants started after a convoy of the Afghan troops struck with a roadside bomb in Kohistanat district.

War News for Tuesday, October 29, 2013

80 Afghan police killed every week in 'fighting season'

U.S. Disrupts Afghans’ Tack on Militants


Reported security incidents
#1: At least nine militants were killed Monday night in clashes with security forces after an attack on a check post in Pakistan, media reported Tuesday. Some unknown number of militants attacked an army check post with automatic guns and rockets in North Waziristan, a restive tribal region bordering Afghanistan, Xinhua quoted media reports of official sources as saying. Security forces retaliated and killed nine of the assailants while the rest fled. There was no immediate report about any loss on the side of the security forces.

#2: In another incident, a landmine blast targeted a convoy of security forces and injured three soldiers at a South Waziristan road, a northwestern tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

#3: A pro-government tribal elder and six members of his family were killed when unknown gunmen stormed their home in southwest Pakistan early Tuesday, officials said. The pre-dawn attack occurred in Dera Bugti district, some 450 kilometers southeast of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province.

#4: A Taliban leader was killed by Afghan Commandos during a clearing operation in Adraskan district’s Nagal village of western Herat province, the alliance said in a statement Tuesday.

#5: Twelve Taliban militants have been killed in separate military operations in Afghanistan in the last 24 hours, said the country's Interior Ministry on Tuesday morning. "In the past 24 hours, Afghan National Police (ANP) conducted several joint clearance operations with the cooperation of Afghan National Army, National Directorate for Security (NDS) and Coalition Forces in Nuristan, Laghman, Kunduz, Jawzjan, Kandahar, Farah and Nimroz provinces. As results 12 armed Taliban were killed, four wounded and five others were arrested," the ministry said in a statement providing daily operational updates. The statement did not disclose if there were any casualties on the side of security forces.

#6: According to reports, several oil tankers have been burnt following coordinated explosions in northern Parwan province of Afghanistan on Monday.

#7: At least two service members from the Afghan intelligence department – National Directorate of Security (NDS) were injured following an explosion in eastern paktika province of Afghanistan on Monday. According to the local government officials, Afghan intelligence forces killed a suicide bomber in Khair Kot district before the bomber manage to ram his vehicle in an NDS compound.

War News for Monday, October 28, 2013

Afghan truck drivers see their dangerous jobs getting deadlier

NATO Reduces Scope of Its Afghanistan Plans


Reported security incidents
#1: A roadside bomb on Sunday killed at least 18 civilians, mostly women, as they travelled by minibus to a wedding party in a volatile area of central Afghanistan, officials said.

Angry villagers in Afghanistan have stoned a man to death and riddled his body with bullets, believing he set off a bomb on a bus that killed 18 civilians, officials said today.
#2: update A row which left an Afghan soldier dead and three Nato colleagues wounded took place close to the new UK-run officer training academy, it has emerged.

#3: A girl of seven-year-old was killed and five soldiers were wounded in the fresh explosion jolted the capital Kabul, an official said Sunday.

#4: Head of the maintenance department in Kabul municipality, Nesar Ahmad Habibi survived a roadside bomb explosion in capital Kabul late Sunday night. According to reports, Nesar Ahmad Habibi not inside the vehicle when the incident took place and only the driver of the vehicle was injured following the explosion.

#5: At least 19 Taliban militants were killed during joint military operations by Afghan and coalition security forces across the country. According to a statement released by the ministry of interior affairs of Afghanistan, the militants were killed during operations conducted by Afghan and coalition security forces during the past 24 hours. The statement further added that the operations were conducted in Nangarhar, Uruzgan, Logar, Khost, Farah, Ghor and Helmand provinces of Afghanistan.

News of the Day for Sunday, October 27, 2013

More information on yesterday's confrontation at the Afghan National Army Officer Academy. A gunfight erupted between an Afghan soldier and two foreign officers. The foreign soldiers were injured and the Afghan killed. The Afghan involved was apparently not a trainee; the foreign soldiers were Australian and New Zealander, according to sources, but this has not been officially confirmed. The Academy is operated by the U.K.

The defense spokesperson for New Zealand's opposition Labor Party comments:

The war in Afghanistan today is predominantly a fight between the majority Pashtun Taleban and the Karzai regime, rather than a war against al Qaeda-led international terrorism. When the Afghan National Army recruits, it has no idea where the real sympathies of a recruit lie.  Increasingly with the withdrawal of US-led forces from Afghanistan planned for next year, there will be more and more people who swing their allegiance to the side that seems most likely to win.

Insider fire has become an increasing problem for allied forces training the ANA with recruits turning their weapons on those who are training them.  It may be the result of a personal slight in some instances.  More often it will be Taleban sympathisers infiltrated into the ANA. Thankfully the New Zealand and Australian soldiers in this instance were only lightly wounded and we wish them a speedy recovery. However, the incident could have been much worse and it raises real questions as to the wisdom and the usefulness of keeping New Zealand soldiers in Afghanistan in this role.

A Labour-led Government would look to withdraw them.

Bomb in a Kabul market, apparently targeting soldiers, kills a ten year old girl, injures four civilians and five soldiers.

Air strike is said to have killed a Tabliban commander in Nimroz.

Afghan Interior Ministry claims 12 Taliban killed and various munitions confiscated in past 24 hours. As always, these are said to have been immaculate operations: zero casualties among government forces or civilians. (And, as always, Cervantes says "mierda de los toros.")

Local officials in Badghis province say 46 polling places out of 160 are not secure. "We are worried that we cannot launch election campaigns in the insecure districts of the province," said Zial Gul Ahmad, a member of the Badghis Provincial Council. "We cannot send supervisors to insecure districts, so in these places there could be more fraud."

Residents of Kabul complain to the members of parliament of polluted drinking water.

Explosion in Jalalabad targets police vehicle; no reported injuries.

An interesting, non-judgmental article in Khaama about a university professor coming out as gay. A brief excerpt won't really do this justice so follow the link; but here's one anyway.

A professor in Afghan American University, Nemat Sadat is among the several homosexuals in Afghanistan who has public admitted is homosexuality. The professor in a message posted on his Facebook wall said, “I’m so happy to have finished the process of “coming out” to the entire world. Burden lifted forever.” . . . “So get over it! Now, I can live life without all the kala jaan’s & kaaka jaan’s (aunties & uncles) harassing and pressuring with questions like, Nematee, tu chura zan nakardee?” Now, no grown-up shall dare ask me why I haven’t married a woman,” Sadat said through wall message.

[but .. . ]

Another Afghan gay, Hamid Zaher who is currently living in Toronto, Canada has written a memoir about what it was like to be a gay man in Afghanistan. Hamid Zaher’s memo (book) which has never been published in Afghanistan reflects the misery of his personal life after he escaped Afghanistan in 2011, not because of the oppressive Taliban. His book details his anguished years as a closeted gay Afghan man. He was disowned by his entire family after he disclosed he was a gay man, and he will be killed if he returns back to Afghanistan.

Iraq Update: Bomb attacks on Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad kill 42 people; while a suicide car bomb attack  on a group of soldiers in Mosul kills 9 soldiers and 5 civilians, and injures 30. But this is normal in Iraq nowadays.

War News for Saturday, October 26, 2013

Report: 14 Iranian border guards killed in clashes


Reported security incidents
#1: A gunfight broke out between Afghan and foreign soldiers on the outskirts of the capital Kabul on Saturday, killing at least one Afghan serviceman and injuring a number of other soldiers, according to Afghan and NATO officials. "There was an argument between an Afghan and foreign soldier inside a military base... where they opened fire on each other. An investigation is ongoing," defence ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri said.

A New Zealand soldier has suffered a foot wound after an attack in Afghanistan. The Defence Force said the soldier was attacked by a member of the Afghan National Security Forces as he and Australian soldiers left a meeting at an Afghan National Army facility in Kabul at 5.40pm today New Zealand time.

#2: A car bomb hit a paramilitary van escorting a bus of Shiite Muslim pilgrims in southwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing two soldiers, officials said. The incident took place in Dringhar area, on the main Quetta-Taftan Highway in Mastung district, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) southwest of Quetta, the capital of insurgency-hit Baluchistan province

#3: Thirty-six Taliban militants were killed in collaborated operations in different Afghan provinces since early Friday, said the country's Interior Ministry Saturday. "Afghan police, army, National Directorate for Security (NDS) and the NATO-led ISAF coalition forces conducted several joint clearance operations in Nangarhar, Parwan, Zabul, Uruzgan, Wardak and Ghazni provinces over the past 24 hours. As a result 36 armed Taliban were killed, five wounded and three others were arrested," the ministry said in a statement providing daily operational updates.

#4: Three Afghan policemen were wounded Saturday morning in a bomb explosion in the country's western province of Farah, according to a source.

#5: Explosion and gun battle has been reported in eastern Ghaznni province of Afghanistan. The blast has reportedly taken place near the provincial government compound.

War News for Friday, October 25, 2013

Four (UK) military dogs killed in action in Afghanistan


Reported security incidents
#1: Six soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in western Afghanistan, an official said Friday, dpa reported. "A roadside bomb hit a National Army vehicle on Thursday in Adraskan district, killing six soldiers and destroying the vehicle," Najibullah Najibi, an army official in Herat province said.

#2: In the eastern province of Paktika, a landmine hit a tractor, killing one civilian and injuring four, a local official said Friday.

#3: Two other soldiers were killed and six injured in five IED attacks in Kunar, Ghazni, Kandahar and Helmand provinces over the same period of time, the Afghan Defence Ministry reported on its website.

#4: Early Friday morning, three militants were killed and two injured when the militants launched an attack on police security checkpoints near a power dam in Helmand province. No policeman was hurt in the attack.

#5: Separately, eight Taliban militants were killed in an army operation in Nirkh district of eastern Wardak province overnight, the provincial government said earlier Friday.

#6: At least nine tribespeople, including four women, were injured on Thursday in rocket attacks from across the border in Afghanistan on Pakistan’s Angoor Adda area of South Waziristan Agency, official and tribal sources said. The sources said over a dozen rockets and mortars were fired from Afghanistan which landed in residential area in Angoor Adda, a border area between Afghanistan’s Paktika province and Pakistan’s South Waziristan Agency.

#7: Four militants were blown up by their own explosives in eastern Paktika province of Afghanistan late Thursday, local government officials said.