AFGHANISTAN & PAKISTAN
Afghanistan summary here and here.
Pakistan summary here and here.
Pro-Taliban militants at a Pakistani border town blew up 13 oil tankers supplying fuel for international troops in Afghanistan, officials said [Friday]. Article
One instance after another serves to demonstrate a serious disconnect between command and the deployed; each instance another brick in the wall.
U.S. soldiers killed four civilian members of the same family during a raid on Friday in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Nangarhar, an Afghan rights body said.
The soldiers also arrested 15 civilians during the pre-dawn raid in Khogiani district which lies in the foothills of the provincial capital Jalalabad, Lal Gul, the head of Afghanistan’s Human Rights Group said.
Those killed in the raid were an 85-year-old man, Mohammada Jan, two of his sons and a grandson, Gul told Reuters.
“The American soldiers blew up the gate of Mohammada Jan’s house and then martyred him along with his three family members,” Gul said.
“From there they went to several other houses, broke into them and arrested 15 civilians,” he added.
A provincial spokesman confirmed Gul’s accounts.
A U.S. military official confirmed the operation, but said coalition soldiers killed three militants after they came under fire and arrested 16 more militants.
They said there were no civilian casualties. Article
Related:
Ferocious attacks on civilians, be these by ill-trained troops or brave warriors of the skies who bomb and rocket houses occupied by women and children, are serving to hasten the spread of distrust and loathing. The opposition, whether ‘Taliban’, double-dealing warlords, drug thugs, or ordinary tribesmen who hate all foreigners, is by its nature disorganized and incapable of mounting major attacks. But it doesn’t need to. The war in Afghanistan is being lost because the foreign occupiers are killing Afghan civilians. Article
