News of the Day for Sunday, September 21, 2014

Ending months of brinksmanship, presidential rivals Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah sign a power sharing agreement. Although official results of the election tally have yet to be announced, Ghani will become Afghanistan's new president, while Abdullah will nominate a person (presumably himself) to the post of "Chief Executive Officer." However, the constitution vests all meaningful power in the presidency, so we will have to see how this works out in practice. The way is now clear, it seems, for the new president to sign a security agreement with NATO, which Hamid Karzai has refused to do, allowing a small force to remain in the country next year. (Oh I'm sorry, did you think U.S. forces were leaving Afghanistan?)

WaPo has a lengthier discussion which only manages to highlight the uncertainty going forAward.

Sixty-two rockets are fired from Pakistan into Kunar province. No casualties reported.

Security forces say they foiled a planned car bomb attack on a military installation in Nimroz province.

Fighting in Sar-e-Pul leaves one police officer and four insurgents dead, five police injured, and five insurgent captured, according to local officials.

An exemplar of the confusing nature of Afghan politics is the career of Abdul Rab Rassoul Sayyaf, a former al-Qaeda associate and mentor of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who is suspected of committing atrocities during the Afghan civil war and of complicity in the assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud. He is now a member of Parliament. In the linked story, he is quoted denouncing attacks on Afghan security forces as haram.

The occasion of Sayyaf's remarks is the third anniversary of the assassination of former president Ustad Burhanuddin Rabbani, whose family claims that the perpetrators are known to the authorities but are being protected. Folks, you'll have to decide if it's really worth it for U.S. forces to be fighting and dying for this government.

Meanwhile, more than 60,000 Kurdish refugees flee from Syria into Turkey as IS fighters rampage through the Kobani area and Kurdish forces move to confront them. Turkey is wary of the Kurdish forces in Kobani which it believes are associated with the PKK Kurdish irredentist movement in Turkey. Indeed, Kurdish fighters entering Kobani from Turkey are said to include PKK members. Although Kurdistan president Masoud Barzani has said that IS advances in Kobani "threaten the entire Kurdish nation," there is no indication as yet that the peshmerga is entering this fight.

War News for Saturday, September 20, 2014

Reported security incidents
#1: The Pakistani Taliban announced on Saturday that a senior commander of the militant group had been killed during clashes with the Pakistan Army, a first for the group, which has maintained that the military has been exaggerating the success of Operation Zarb-e-Azb. In a statement issued to the media, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said Afghan national Mohammad Hassan had “joined his friends” in the TTP after getting released from Afghanistan. According to the statement, the attack in the Boya region was a joint operation by the TTP, local Taliban, and Mehsud fighters that resulted in several Pakistan Army casualties. “Heavy loss of life and material was inflicted upon the Army,” said Shahid, adding that over 10 military checkposts had been destroyed.

#2: Three terrorists were killed and a Naib Subedar was martyred in clashes between Pakistan Army and extremists in Northern Waziristan. According to ISPR, security forces exchanged fire with terrorist in Boya in North Waziristan during the on going military operation Zarb-e-Azb and killed three terrorists.

#3: A trainer jet of Pakistan Army crashed on the outskirts of Quetta, leaving both pilot and co-pilot injured, Pakistan Tribune reported.

#4: A remote-controlled bomb planted by militants along a roadside exploded in Dasht tehsil of Balochistan’s Kech district on Saturday, killing at least one person and injuring two others. A levies official Muhammad Tariq told media that workers of the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) were engaged on a road construction when their vehicle was targeted with the bomb.

#5: At least 35 Taliban militants were killed and 25 others were injured following counter-terrorism operations in the past 24 hours.

#6: At least four policemen were martyred and six others were injured following an attack by Taliban militants in eastern Laghman province of Afghanistan.

War News for Friday, September 19, 2014

Final agreement on Afghan unity government expected today

Whitman-Hanson graduate's death in Afghanistan reopens old wounds


Reported security incidents
#1: Afghan police say a bomb blast in northern Afghanistan killed at least six people shortly after they left a mosque in northern Afghanistan following Friday prayers.on September 19. Baghlan province police spokesman Jawad Basharat said the blast, which also injured 12 people, occurred just outside the mosque.

#2: Elsewhere, Din Mohammad Darwish, the spokesman for the governor of Logar province, said four police were killed during a battle with Taliban insurgents on September 18.

#3: Three suspected militants were killed in a roadside blast in northwestern Khyber Agency in a fresh wave of infighting that has already claimed over 100 lives since March. A senior military official in the region, on condition of anonymity, told the Anadolu Agency that three militants were killed when an improvised explosive device (IED) struck a vehicle carrying militants loyal to pro-Taliban Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) group led by Commander Mangal Bagh in the remote Sipah area of Khyber Agency.

#4: Pakistan's military says it has it killed 23 militants in aerial strikes across North Waziristan tribal district in the northwest region near the Afghan border. In a statement issued to the media on Friday, the military said: "Today in precise aerial strikes carried out on terrorists hideouts in Zerom, Ismail Khel, and Datta Khel in North Waziristan, 23 terrorists were killed."

#5: A woman was killed and three others injured when unknown gunmen opened fire at a vehicle of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Bannu on Friday. The firing incident took place in Jani Khel area of Bannu where unidentified miscreants sprayed bullets at a vehicle with North Waziristan IDPs on board.

#6: "Militants planted explosive device on a motorbike and detonated it at the 9th police district of Kandahar city this afternoon injuring six persons including two security personnel and four children," spokesman for Kandahar provincial government, Samim Khapalwak told Xinhua. Meantime, an official on the condition of anonymity said that four security personnel and four civilians sustained injuries in the blast occurred at 03:20 p.m. local time Friday.

#7: Taliban militants assassinated a local tribal elder in northern Jawzjan province of Afghanistan, local officials said. Tribal elder Haji Yousuf was reportedly organizing anti-Taliban public uprising in Aqcha district.

War News for Thursday, September 18, 2014

Reported security incidents
#1: A security man was killed in a blast in Balochistan's troubled Kech district on Thursday, a security official said. A security official, who requested anonymity, told Dawn that militants targeted a security forces' vehicle in Shapuk area of Turbat. He said one security man was killed in the attack. "The vehicle was targeted with a remote-controlled bomb," he added.

#2: In another incident, armed men killed a police officer in the Double Road area of Quetta on late Wednesday night. Imran Qureshi, the Superintedent of Police, told Dawn that armed militants opened fire on a police assistant sub-inspector (ASI), and killed him on the spot. He said the assailants fled from the scene after launching the attack.

#3: Tajik border guards killed an Afghan drug smuggler and wounded two others Wednesday on the Tajik-Afghan border, in Shuroabad district of Khatlon province, Tajikistan’s State Committee for National Security (SCNS) said on Thursday.

#4: Defense ministry spokesman, Gen. Zahir Azimi confirmed that three Afghan soldiers were martyred in improvised explosive device (IED) attack.

#5: At least 22 Taliban militants including Punjabi insurgents were killed following clashes with the Afghan security forces in Kunar province.


DoD: Sgt. Charles C. Strong

DoD: Maj. Michael J. Donahue

DoD: Civ. Stephen Byus

Pol/MoD: Sergeant Rafał Celebudzki

War News for Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Reynoldsburg Ohio Reservist Killed In Afghanistan -- Stephen Byus

Over 1,500 Afghan policemen martyred since the start of the year


Reported security incidents
#1: A provincial security official said on Wednesday that Taliban fighters killed six Afghan policemen in an ambush in western Afghanistan. Raouf Ahmadi, spokesman for the provincial police chief in Herat province said that six other police were wounded in the assault late Tuesday. Mr. Ahmadi said that eight Taliban fighters were also killed in the battle.

#2: The Pakistan army Wednesday said fighter jets bombed positions of militants in the North Waziristan tribal region and killed 40 local and foreign militants.

#3: Two militants were on Wednesday killed in an encounter with security forces near the Line of Control (LoC) in Macchil Sector of Kashmir Valley. “In the wee hours today, two unknown terrorists were killed in Macchil Sector in an encounter with troops,” an Army spokesman said.

#4: At least three Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers were martyred following improvised explosive device (IED) explosion, defense officials said Wednesday. Defense ministry spokesman, Gen. Zahir Azimi said the three Afghan soldies were martyred in the past 24 hours.

#5: A female journalist was murdered by unidentified men in northern Balkh province of Afghanistan. The female journalistm – Palwasha Tokhi Miranzai was reportedly working for Bayan-e-Shamal new network. According to reports, Miranzai was repeatedly stabbed by unidentified men inside her house in Mazar-e-Sharif city.

War News for Tuesday, September 16, 2014

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier from an ANA soldier who turned his weapon against an ISAF soldier in western Afghanistan on Monday September 15th. News reports that an ANA soldier shot his trainer in Herat Province. 

 

NATO is reporting the deaths of three ISAF soldiers from an insurgant attack in Kabul, Afghanistan on Tuesday, September 16th. News reports that a sucide bomber attacked a NATO convoy killing at least three soldiers including a Polish soldier.

Military suicides outnumbered deaths in Afghanistan, new stats show (Canadian Army)


Reported security incidents
#1: A group of militants attacked a Pakistan army post from neighboring Afghanistan Tuesday morning, sparking a shootout that left 11 insurgents and three soldiers killed. A group of terrorists" crossed over from Afghanistan and attacked the army's Dandi Kuch post in North Waziristan before fleeing back, the military said in a statement.

#2: Also Tuesday, Pakistani warplanes targeted three militant hideouts in a Taliban stronghold in the Khyber tribal region near the Afghan border, killing at least 20 insurgents.

#3: An Frontier Corps (FC) vehicle was partially damaged in an explosion on Joint Road in Quetta on Tuesday. However, no loss of life was reported in the blast. “The Improvised Explosive Device (IED) packed in a cooking oil box was planted beside the Shaheed Benazeer Bhutto flyover on Joint Road. An explosion was caused as the detonator of the IED exploded, and splinters and other destructive objects were spread on the site,” an official at the scene of the blast told reporters.

#4: a suicide bomber blew himself up in a parking lot of oil tankers in the border town of Torkham linking Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province to Peshawar of Pakistan late Monday night, burning to ashes more than 20 oil tankers.

#5: At least two civilians were killed and three others were injured following an improvised explosive device (IED) explosion in southern Helmand province.

#6: Taliban militants beheaded a religious cleric in central Uruzgan province of Afghanistan, local officials said Tuesday.

War News for Monday, September 15, 2014

Reported security incidents
#1: Pakistani authorities say militants killed three people in attacks targeting police in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province on September 15. In Tahll, a city near the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region, one police officer was killed when six militants attacked a police station. Authorities say the officer was killed when a suicide attacker detonated a bomb. Further south, in the city of Dera Ismail Khan, militants attacked the home of a police station chief, killing two of his brothers.

#2: A man was killed Monday when armed men attacked a polio campaign team in Pakistan's Balochistan province. According to a campaign official, armed men opened fire at the team in Pishin's Karbala area, Dawn online reported.

#3: Seven suspected militants were killed following a US drone strike on the Pak-Afghan border area. The strike was reportedly carried out at the Pak-Afghan border on zero line with Paktika province along the South Waziristan Agency.

#4: In the latest bloody incident which occurred in the northern Baghlan province, one police personnel was killed and seven civilians injured, a local official said. "The blast took place near Baghlan-e-Markazi District bazaar at around 10:30 a.m. local time today. The bomb went off when a police vehicle was passing the area as a result one police in the vehicle was killed and seven civilians including two children at nearby wounded," the District Governor Gohar Khan Babri told Xinhua.

#5: In a related incident, the security forces raided Taliban hideout in the western Herat province early Monday morning leaving five militants including a senior commander dead, police contended.

#6: Afghan security forces have pressed on to clear the militants in restive provinces and killed 52 militants in the latest operations, the country's Interior Ministry said on Monday.

#7: A civilian wounded in firing of Pakisani rocket attacks from other side of Durand Line on Kunr province last night.

#8: At least four Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers were martyred following an improvised explosive device (IED) explosion. Defense ministry spokesman, Gen. Zahir Azimi said the four Afghan Naional Army (ANA) soldiers were martyred during the past 24 hours.

#9: A suicide bomber was shot dead by Afghan police forces in southern Helmand province of Afghanistan on Sunday, local officials said.

#10: At least six people were injured after an Afghan army helicopter collided with a wall in central Daikundi province of Afghanistan. Defense ministry spokesman, Gen. Zahir Azimi said at least one person was killed and three others were injured following the crash of the helicopter. In the meantime, Dawlat Waziri, deputy spokesman for the ministry of defense of Afghanistan has said at least eight people including two pilots of the helicopter and six members of the quick reaction forces were injured.