Summary here and here.

…pharmacist Gul Mohammad is part of a growing group of Afghans that question who is ultimately winning in these parts.

Just days ago, six Taliban fighters stormed into his clinic located just a kilometre from a police checkpoint in Panjwaii. The clinic helps treat sick Afghans in the area, and is run by the Afghan Health and Development Services, an international-funded aid organization.

“They called me a son of George Bush and a helper of infidels,” said Mohammad. “I said no, I am just helping Afghans.”

The fighters then ordered Mohammad into the agency’s car, and drove him into the desert.

“They threatened to shoot me in the legs and leave me in the desert to die,” Mohammad said. “But one of the Taliban said ‘no, let him go’.”

After pleading for his life, Mohammad was abandoned in the desert. He made his way to a village, and eventually back into Kandahar City.

“I’m so relieved to be alive,” he said. “But I will quit my job, I will never go back to the Panjwai.”

NATO commanders call such videos propaganda from a desperate group that is fast losing its support in the region.

Such incidents have been repeated hundreds of times this year throughout Afghanistan. An estimated 300 schools, have been burned or torched by militants. And several school teachers assassinated.

That was the fate of three men in the latest Taliban DVD.… Article

Mogging.

62 months on.

MP and journalist Shukria Barikzai said her country had to seek more non-military means to end the insurgency which has paralysed the government. “We hoped that the international community, having five years’ experience in Afghanistan and learning from the repeated mistakes they have made, would suggest a very clear way out of Afghan’s problem,” she said. “The results are good, but there should have been more focus on reconstruction, more focus on supporting the government, more focus on training and equipping Afghan security forces, which is the long-term solution for the problem,” she added. Article