War News for Thursday, February 28, 2013

Reported security incidents
#1: INSURGENTS today launched a rocket attack on the main coalition military base in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province. The heavily-fortified Camp Bastion, which accommodates up to 4,000 British, US, Danish and Estonian troops was targeted at about 6.30pm as darkness fell. Damage was caused but a spokesman for Taskforce Helmand said no-one had been injured. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “We can confirm that a rocket attack against Camp Bastion took place. No significant damage or casualties have been reported as a result of this incident.”

War News for Wednesday, February 27, 2013

'Drop' in insurgent attacks in Afghanistan is clerical error

Afghan Sign of Progress Turns Out to Be Error - The American-led NATO coalition said Tuesday that it had discovered a clerical error in its reporting and that the number of enemy-initiated attacks — defined as attacks with guns, mortars, rockets or improvised explosive devices — remained constant from 2011 to 2012.


Reported security incidents
#1: Militants shot dead 17 people overnight, including 10 local Police officers, as the victims slept, in eastern Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday. The attack took place at a police outpost in Ghazni province, according to the provincial governor. In addition to the officers, seven of their friends and relatives who were spending the night were also killed, Gov. Musa Khan Akbarzada said.

#2: In a separate incident, a suicide bomber targeted an Afghan National Army bus in western Kabul, injuring six personnel and one civilian, according to Kabul police chief Mohammad Ayoub Salangi.

#3: A local journalist working for a Pakistani newspaper and TV news channel was shot down Wednesday by unknown gunmen in restive North Waziristan agency, family members said. According to family members, Malik Mumtaz, a correspondent for The News and Geo News, was shot dead Wednesday in his home town of Miranshah in the militancy hit tribal region.

#4: Two police personnel were found dead in their checkpost in Kandahar City last night, an official said Tuesday. The Kandaahr governor's spokesman Javed Faisal told the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) the incident was being probed to ascertain the nature of their death. Meanwhile, the Taliban spokesman Qari Muhammad Yousaf Ahmadi told the AIP these policemen had been killed with the help of an infiltrator.

War News for Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Talk of Inquiry, but Not Much Is Sure After Afghan Ban on U.S. Troops


Reported security incidents
#1: At least one FC personnel was killed and six others were injured in a blast at the FC fort in Bara district of Khyber Agency on Monday. A powerful blast reportedly destroyed seven rooms of the garrison at Fort Slope Camp in Khajoori area of Tehsil Bara. The blast took place in a vehicle captured recently by the forces and which was parked inside the fort.

#2: Military aircraft on Monday pounded the Tirah Valley while security forces conducted an operation in Bara, killing seven terrorists. Several terrorist hideouts were also destroyed. Security sources said the aircraft targeted Kukikhel area and destroyed Taliban hideouts in Saravila and surrounding areas. Four Taliban were reportedly killed in the bombing. Three other terrorists were killed in an operation by the security forces in Bara.

#3: Up to 35 militants have been killed and 41 others wounded in an operation conducted by Afghan army in the country's western province of Herat and neighboring Badghis province, authorities said on Tuesday. "The Afghan army launched an one-week operation ending on Tuesday in Muquar district of Badghis and Kishk-e-Kohna district of Herat, killing 35 armed insurgents and wounding 41 others," deputy provincial governor Asilluddin Jami told Xinhua.

#4: Eight militants have been killed and 12 others detained in Afghanistan over the past 24 hours, the Interior Ministry said on Tuesday. "Afghan National Police (ANP) carried out several cleanup operations in collaboration with army and the NATO-led coalition forces in Logar, Parwan, Ghazni, Khost, Samangan, Zabul and Uruzgan provinces, killing eight armed Taliban insurgents and detaining 12 others over the past 24 hours," the ministry said in a statement providing daily operational updates.

#5: At least one man was killed and a dozen others were injured when a bomb went off near a shrine in Pakistan's southern district of Shikarpur on Monday night, reported local Urdu TV channel Samaa.


DoD: Staff Sgt. Jonathan D. Davis

War News for Monday, February 25, 2013

Reported security incidents
#1: Four Afghan civilians were killed and two others were wounded in explosion in the country's southern province of Helmand on Monday morning, police said. "A civilian car was running along a road in Sharsharak area of Marja district at about 9 a.m. local time but the ill-fated vehicle touched off an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) and the explosion claimed the lives of four civilians and wounded two others," the provincial police department said in a statement issued here.
#2: Two policemen were killed and one injured when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in the adjacent Uruzgan province, police spokesman Farid Ayel said. 'The incident took place in the outskirts of Trinkot city, the provincial capital,' Ayel said.

#3: AFGHAN security forces shot dead at least one would-be suicide bomber yesterday in a high-security area of Kabul, home to government departments and diplomatic missions, police said. The attack, one of four in Afghanistan early yesterday, happened near a construction site that was stormed by Taliban gunmen last April. The would-be bomber was carrying a gun and wearing an explosive vest when he was shot said Kabul police chief General Ayoub Salangi.

#4: Up to 29 militants have been killed and 29 others wounded in military operations in the past 24 hours, in the latest raids against insurgency in the country, the Afghan Interior Ministry said on Monday. “Afghan National Police (ANP) in partnership with army and the NATO-led coalition forces carried out several cleanup operations in Nangarhar, Laghman, Badakhshan, Kandahar, Zabul, Logar, Ghazni, Paktiya, Herat, Badghis and Helmand provinces, killing 29 armed Taliban militants during the past 24 hours,” the ministry said in a statement providing daily operational updates.

#5: A police head constable was gunned down by some unknown shooters in the Yakatoot Police Station area, interior City on Sunday morning, police confirmed. Head constable Farman Khan, residence of Tuheed Abad, Yakatoot was going for Fajr prayer when some unknown shooters raiding on a motorbike started indiscriminate firing on him, killing Farman Khan on the spot and made their escape goods. He was a CID Police head constable but was serving as the gunman of SSP Investigation these days.

#7: At least one security person was killed and several others injured when a bomb went off inside a fort of paramilitary troops in Pakistan's northwest tribal region of Khyber on Monday afternoon, local Urdu TV Geo reported.

News of the Day for Sunday, February 24, 2013

Suicide car bombing at a facility of the National Directorate of Security in Jalalabad kills 2, injures 3. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claims responsibility.

Elsewhere, suicide attack on a police outpost in Logar province results in the death of one officer,  while a separate, apparently coordinated attack nearby results in the death of another officer and a civilian.

Attempted sucide bombing near NDS HQ in Kabul is thwarted. (This story says the Logar attacks resulted in woundings, not deaths, but deaths are often confirmed after initial accounts emerge.)

Interior ministry says 17 Taliban killed in operations in past 24 hours. (As I have noted before, that number of approximately 17 seems to pertain just about every day. -- C) "[T]he Taliban issued a rebuttal statement in which they "strongly rejected" the Ministry of Interior's updates on Taliban casualties."

NATO considering plan to sustain Afghan national army at 352,000 through 2018. The United States would pay for the bulk of the country's military budget, at $5.7 billion a year, while Afghanistan would contribute $500 million and other NATO allies $300 million. (But we can't afford the National Institutes of Health or heating assistance for the elderly poor. -- C)

Iran is reported to have executed approximately 80 Afghan civilians by hanging in the past six months, over opium smuggling charges, and to have many more in custody, hundred under sentence of death.

Update: The Afghan government says a group of armed people who may be U.S. special forces is carrying out acts of torture and murder.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force must stop all special force operations out of Wardak province, where such horrors have been taking place, and all U.S. special forces must be gone from the province within two weeks, Afghanistan's National Security Council demanded.

At a meeting of the council, chaired by President Hamid Karzai, "it became clear that armed individuals named as U.S. special force stationed in Wardak province engage in harassing, annoying, torturing and even murdering innocent people," Karzai's office said in a statement. It did not indicate who "named" the group a U.S. special force.

Nine people "disappeared in an operation by this suspicious force," the statement said. And in another incident, a student was taken from his home at night, and his "tortured body with throat cut was found two days later under a bridge," the statement said.

War News for Saturday, February 23, 2013

TAPI pipeline to start commercial operation by 2017-18  and here's how it all started - whisker

Nato may station 8,000-12,000 troops in post-2014 Afghanistan

U.S. Opens Niger Drone Base, Building Africa Presence


Reported security incidents
#1: Units of Afghan police have killed 17 Taliban militants during series of operations across the militancy-plagued country over the past 24 hours, Interior Ministry said in a statement released here on Saturday. The operations, according to the statement, were carried out in Nangarhar, Laghman, Kandahar and Logar provinces during which four more militants had made captive. It did not say if there were any casualties on the police side.

#2: Police recovered and defused an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in Satellite Town in the provincial capital (Quetta) on Friday afternoon.Police sources said that unknown men had planted IED against the wall of a house in Satellite Town.On receiving information about the suspected thing attached with the wall, the Satellite Town police along with Bomb Disposal Squad reached the site and defused the explosive.According to BDS team, about four to five kg explosives were used in the IED.

#3: A roadside bomb struck police van in Kunduz province 250 km north of Kabul on Saturday, wounding three police personnel, provincial police chief Mohammad Khalil Andarabai said. "A mine planted by anti-government militants struck a police vehicle at around 01:30 p.m. today injuring three policemen," Andarabi said to Xinhua. The incident, he added took place on the road leading to Shir Khan Bandar border town.

War News for Friday, February 22, 2013

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier from an IED blast in an undisclosed location in southern Afghanistan on Friday, February 22nd.

NATO Plan Tries to Avoid Sweeping Cuts in Afghan Troops

National Guard (In Federal Status) and Reserve Activated as of Feburary 12, 2013


Reported security incidents
#1: A policeman was killed and two wounded in a hand-grenade attack in Kandahar City, capital of Kandahar province on Thursday, an official said. A police vehicle came under a hand-grenade attack in Dand Square of Kandahar city, killing a cop aboard the vehicle and wounding two more, Javed Faisal, spokesman for Kandahar governor, told AIP.

#2: Taliban kill two cops: The Taliban allegedly killed two Afghan Local Police personnel and captured six more alive in Kohistanat district of Sar-i-Pul province, officials said Thursday. The Taliban attacked a checkpost of the Afghan Local Police in Sopak area of Kohistanat district yesterday, killing a commander identified as Kamaluddin and his deputy, the Sar-i-Pul police chief Abdul Rauf Taj told AIP. The Taliban also captured six more Afghan Local Police personnel in the area, he added. He said backup teams had been sent to the area to secure release of captured policemen.

#3: Combined force allegedly killed four civilians in Kunduz district, capital of northern Kunduz province on Thursday, local resident said. Afghan and foreign forces raided the house of a local resident, Saifur Rahman, at approximately 1:30 a.m. (local time), killing him, his two sons, Dilarwa and 18-year-old Hayatullah, residents of Khwaja Ghaltan area, 20 km to northwest of Kunduz City, told a correspondent of Afghan Islamic Press who visited the area. He said the combined force also raided an adjacent house, killing owner of the house, Abdul Haq.