News of the Day for Saturday, January 10, 2014

(As I've said,  won't be posting here every day but I will try to keep up with events as they merit.)

Remember that new cabinet that was supposed to be announced last week, then Wednesday? Monday is now the official date. We shall see.

Meanwhile, president Ghani apparently offered some government posts to Taliban figures as a way of promoting the peace process, but they refused the offer. These were low-influence posts with little policy relevance, and the three individuals who were offered jobs aren't really active Taliban, they're Taliban associates living openly. Even so.

No real surprise, but hundreds rally in Uruzgan in support of the attack on Charlie Hebdo. However, most political leaders, including president Ghani, condemned the attack.

A protest we hope will have a more positive result is against corruption in Paktia.

I don't get this. Kabul airport will be guarded by Azerbaijani peackeepers. Isn't Afghanistan supposed to be in charge of its own security now?

Eight deminers, working for an international NGO, are abducted in Logar. Overall, attacks on de-miners increased by 50% last year. (Many of the explosions we read about injuring and killing civilians are actually from old ordinance, and the specific victims were not intended targets. Afghanistan is full of mines from decades of war.)

District police chief killed in an ambush in Sar-e-Pul.

Twelve civilians kidnapped in Sar-e-Pul, perpetrators and motive as yet unknown.

Ghani is expected to sign a security pact with Iran. Content is not stated, but sources of irritation between the two countries are drug smuggling, and the treatment of Afghan migrants to Iran. They have a common foe, however, in Sunni extremism.

News of the Day for Wednesday, January 7, 2015

It's been another violent day, with 2 children killed by an explosion in Kandahar province (possibly an accidental encounter with an old mine), 10 children injured, 7 critically, by a separate explosion in the same province, a bomb killing a judge in Jalalabad, 6 construction workers murdered in Baghlan, and a suicide attack injuring 3 police officers in Khost.

Taliban burn the house of a district governor in Maidan Wardak.

Report says 20 cabinet nominees have been selected but for some reason the public announcement, promised for today, did not occur.

About half of pharmaceuticals sold in Afghanistan are smuggled and are likely to be counterfeit or spoiled.

News of the Day for Monday, January 5, 2015

Suicide car bomb attack near the HQ of the European police training mission in Kabul kills 1 Afghan civilian, injures 5. The occupants of the targeted convoy were uninjured.

Sticky bomb kills 1 ANA soldier and injures 5 in Badghis province. Another attack on security forces in Zabul kills 2 civilians and injures 11 people, including 4 police.

As cabinet positions remain unfilled, a coalition of civic activists has nominated a symbolic cabinet as a form of protest. The president's office is promising an announcement by Wednesday.

Ghani questions the U.S. plan to withdraw its remaining forces by the end of 2016.

Police seize 70 kg of opium in Samangan, which is kind of like sweeping the beach.

In Iraq, a Saudi general and 2 border guards are killed in an attack on the Iraq border. Fourteen coalition airstrikes in Syria and 6 in Iraq.  A Turkish soldier, who was pursuing smugglers, is captured by IS.

News of the Day for Sunday, January 4, 20015

A female doctor and her husband are murdered in a home invasion in Ghazni city. No claim of responsibility so far, and the exact motive is unknown. However, this report does attribute the act to "militants."

According to a spokesman for Ghazni's provincial governor, a battle to secure the Kabul-Kandahar highway has resulted in the death of 15 militants and 1 "security personnel." (Not clear if this is ANA, Afghan National Police, or local police.) As usual, there is no independent corroboration of the casualty total.

Insurgents kill 9 police. Five are killed in an ambush in Logar early today. Four are found dead in Pul-i-Alam, Wardak after having been abducted on Saturday.

Despite billions in aid money, Afghanistan's orphanages are deplorable. Much of the funding intended to benefit orphans is lost to corruption.

Ministry of Defense says 5 Afghan soldiers killed in an explosion, 35 militants killed in various operations. Again, no corroboration for the body count, and no details given. The Ministry of the Interior, in a separate statement, claims Afghan National Police killed 34 insurgents, with zero government or civilian casualties reported. As usual, I do not link to this because it is not credible.

A poll finds that 38% of Americans say the Afghan war was worth fighting; 56% say it was not. Oddly, that makes the war more popular now than it was last July, although it's hard to see how results are looking any better.

Taliban orders fighters to take precautions to avoid civilian casualties and property damage.

News of the Day for Saturday, January 3, 2015

Just a few items worth passing on today. First, do you see any irony here?

ISLAMABAD, Jan 3 (KUNA) -- At least eighteen rebels were killed in air strikes by foreign forces in southeastern Paktika province of Afghanistan on Saturday, said police. . . .

The air strikes came at a time when Taliban rebels have paced up their attacks on security forces following drew back of NATO/ISAF forces from Afghanistan handing over the security control to Afghan forces.

So, no U.S. combat role except for . . . oh, bombing.

Although local warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum recently announced that thousands of militants would soon be surrendering in his fiefdom of Jowzjan, the reality appears to be otherwise. "But now according to the local officials, the insurgents have rather boosted their activities and that in the Turkmenistan border, raising deep concerns for both the countries." A large-scale military operation is planned in the area.

Delays in filling cabinet posts and other government vacancies  have left public agencies in disarray.

In one province, police officials have been fired and not replaced despite a rash of violent crime. In another, frustrated parents are calling their legislators to get copies of school records. In the capital, no phones were answered at one federal ministry last week — an unusual occurrence even by lax Afghan standards. In another ministry, idle office workers made a video of one another dancing in the halls, which was later shown to a reporter.

Azam Ahmed in the NYT discusses the state of the Afghan Taliban. In a pistachio shell, the movement has become fragmented. The first generation of military leadership has largely been replaced, and factions differ in their ideology. In some areas, they are less severe in their rule; not so in others.

 In Iraq, the turmoil continues. Islamic state abducts 170 civilians from two northern villages where people burned the IS flag. (This will not turn out well for them.) U.S. led coalition continues air strikes, but this report reminds us of the rather odd political context. The pentagon reports 12 strikes in Syria, while Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve reports separately on 11 stries in Iraq. In other words these are not technically the same operation. In an apparent sectarian attack, three Sunni clerics were murdered in Basra on Thursday.

News of the Day for Friday, January 2, 2015

(I'm so accustomed to posting on Sundays that I titled yesterday's post as Sunday. I've fixed it.)

There's a difference, it seems, between what happens when U.S. troops bomb wedding parties, and what happens when Afghan troops do it. Afghan troops arrested for deadly attack on a wedding party in Helmand. It's still not clear what happened, they may have mistakenly responded to celebratory gunfire. People may debate the standards for holding soldiers criminally responsible for battlefield actions, but there has to be accountability.

Afghan MP Fawzia Koofi discusses the status of women in the country. Parliament has so far failed to pass the Elimination of Violence Against Women act (EVAW), although many of its provisions are included in an executive decree. Koofi trust president Ghani, but it is not clear what will happen with the foreign presence greatly reduced.

Increasing presence of armed gangs in Kabul alarms residents.

Explosion kills a border policeman in Jalalabad, injures another.

Mark Thompson in Time discusses the cost  of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to U.S. taxpayers. Spoiler alert - it's between $4 and 6 trillion. The cost of keeping one soldier in Afghanistan for a year is $3.9 million. But we can't afford decent public schools in many places, or affordable higher education. 

News of the Day for Thursday, January 1, 2015

Now it's the Afghan army that gets to do this.  Rocket fire kills 28 people at a wedding party in Sangin, Helmand. Fighting was going on in the area, but apparently the fire came from the ANA, not the Taliban. An investigation is underway. (Details are pretty horrific.) What is it about weddings that seems to attract missiles?

Mine kills 2 civilians in Kandahar province.

Taliban attack a convoy of would-be defectors in Jawzjan, resulting in 5 deaths, although it is not specified on which side the casualties were.