Earlier this week Afghan and U.S. forces killed an important Afghan militia leader. Friday, many of his supporters - either militiamen or civilians, or both - said their last goodbyes to him during a memorial ceremony. Before they knew what happened, U.S. forces attacked them, killing approximately 75 - 78 people.

An Afghan human rights group charges that of the 78 people killed, most of who (innocent) civilians. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has condemned the attack. The Interior Ministry said 76 people died, 50 of whom were children. (more…)

One day after Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf announced his resignation, the head of Pakistan’s army secretly went to Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, to talk to high ranking Afghan officials about cooperation between the two countries.

Afghanistan and Pakistan share a border, which is frequently passed by both Al Qaeda and Taliban extremists. They hide in Pakistan, cross the border into Afghanistan where they fight the allied forces and the Afghan government, after which they flee back into Pakistan once again. (more…)

French troops are involved in a large battle 30 miles outside of Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul. According to reports, French troops were on patrol when they were attacked by Taliban militants Monday. The French fought back and at least 13 militants were killed.

Tuesday the fighting started again. The French government fears the French too will lose troops. (more…)

For years now, Western analysts, journalists and bloggers have said that the West should come up with an effective plan to destroy the production of opium in Afghanistan. Opium was and continues to be big business in this Middle Eastern country, even though the country has been conquered by a coalition of Western forces who have to deal with the effects of opium daily at home. (more…)

Christopher Hitchens argues that it is time for opponents of the Iraq War - who oppose this war while they support the war in Afghanistan - to stop pretending that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are truly inherently different. Iraq is, he says, often portrayed as a war of choice, whereas Afghanistan was a war of necessity. This is, Hitchens writes, not correct. (more…)

It’s about time that Pakistan is finally acting against the Taliban. It took the new Pakistani government several months, but it finally seems to realize that you can’t talk to the Taliban forever. Sometimes reality is truly quite simple; the Taliban are extremists, bend on taking over entire countries, not just Afghanistan. The pose a threat to the Afghani and the Pakistani governments. (more…)

In what can be considered a clear sign that Afghanistan’s President, Hamid Karzai, is becoming increasingly more confident in the strength of his country’s military, he has now threatened to send Afghan troops into Pakistan if that country continues to let Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters to hide and unite there. (more…)

On June 12, an important international conference will be held in Paris, France. The conference has been requested by Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai who wants to convince his country’s top donors to give more aid than they have already given. All in all, Mr. Karzai has requested $50 billion more in aid. (more…)

After quite some good news coming out of Iraq in the last couple of months, there’s now some good news from Afghanistan: according to the commander of the British forces in that country, missions by special forces and air strikes by unmanned drones have “decapitated” the Taliban and brought the war in that country “to a tipping point.” (more…)

The New York Times reports that Afghan President Hamid Karzai was warned ‘that an attack was being planned on a military parade on Sunday, when he escaped an assassination attempt.’ The country’s intelligence chief told Parliament on Tuesday that two ‘groups of attackers were thwarted the same day, though a third succeeded in opening fire on the ceremony.’ (more…)

Hamid Karzai - the pro-Western leader of Afghanistan - escaped yesterday when his political enemies, Al Qaeda and the Taliban, tried to assassinate him. The Taliban tried to assassinate the president during the Afghan national day military parade in central Kabul. This event was meant to show the world, and Afghans specifically, that the country’s army and government are strong. Instead, the parade became a terrible embarrassment for the government. (more…)

This should serve as a reminder to the Dutch that our troops are fighting a battle against a ferocious enemy in Afghanistan, and it should also remind Americans that they most certainly have allies in the war against terrorism. And those allies suffer. Several Dutchmen have been killed by the Taliban already, of course, but now the Taliban seem to have purposefully taken the life of the son of Dutch Military chief. (more…)

In early September, 2006, I wrote a piece at my own blog, and at Donklephant, (more here) asking whether we had just lost a war. Afghanistan was the subject, and sadly, I think I was pretty close to right. The attempt by Musharraf to compromise with the Taliban and their allies in the tribal areas left the enemy there free to choose when and how to engage. It meant the enemy had a safe sanctuary.

You don’t win wars against foes that can hold the initiative, and then scurry back to a safe place whenever they don’t like the way a battle is going. Picture a boxing match where one fighter is allowed to throw every first punch, and then can call a time-out whenever he likes.

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Via Memeorandum comes the news that “Afghanistan’s lower house of Parliament passed a resolution Monday seeking to bar television programs from showing dancing and other practices deemed un-Islamic.” (more…)

Newsweek has quite a shocking and in-depth report up about so-called “opium brides.” It seems that some opium farmers can’t pay back their loans: instead of repaying those loans, then, they’re forced to sell their daughters. Opium farmers were never rich, they were simply able to get by, but the war in Afghanistan has changed even that; no longer are they able to take care of themselves, let alone their family. (more…)

The Dutch government and Parliament have decided to stay in Afghanistan until 2010. A few months ago, the Dutch cabinet already said that it wanted to prolong our stay in the Afghan province of Oruzgan, but now most other MP’s have agreed to stay in the war-torn country for a couple of years more as well. (more…)

My, my, it looks like Germany has its very own ’shaheed’ or ‘martyr’: “A young German-born Turk could possibly have carried out an attack in Afghanistan that killed two US soldiers. The Islamic Jihad Union claims 28-year-old Cüneyt C. from Bavaria was responsible for the March 3 attack, now the German authorities are desperately trying to find out the bomber’s identity.” (more…)

This post is written by an angry European who has had enough of Barack Obama’s silly rhetoric. Perhaps Americans should elect a non-diplomatically disabled person? (more…)

THE HAZARA’S: Mostly Shi’ite and persecuted by the Taliban, this people is prospering in Democratic Afghanistan. In the heartland of Afghanistan is a big hole. One day the biggest of the colossal Buddha’s of Bamian stood here. In March 2001 the Taliban first fired rockets at the statues for days, after which they covered them with explosives and blew them up. For 1500 years the Buddha’s guarded Bamian. (more…)

A major commander in the remaining Taliban forces has been captured by Pakistan.

The real good news here may not be merely the capture of the Taliban commander, but rather the evident increased willingness of Pakistani forces to attempt to control their northwestern tribal areas and the border with Afghanistan.  If it continues, the tide may finally begin to turn in al-Qaeda’s last remaining strongholds.

From ABC: On Monday, the police chief of Kandahar province, Sayed Agha Saqib, said police had not turned up any new information about the kidnapping.

“All of our security forces and intelligence agents are trying to find them,” he said… (more…)

From the Houston Chronicle:

Gunmen kidnapped a burqa-clad American aid worker and her driver while they were traveling through southern Afghanistan early today, a provincial governor said.

The two were stopped by gunmen outside the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, said Gov. Asadullah Khalid. He blamed the kidnappings on the “enemy of Islam and the enemy of Afghanistan.”

More proof that Afghanistan has not yet been stabilized, as if we needed any.

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Well, it’s news like this that makes one think “why is it that American and Dutch (and other) troops are fighting in Afghanistan again?” A 23 year old journalism student, who already works as a journalist, has been sentenced to death because he printed an article from the Internet that, according to the court, “humiliated Islam.” (more…)

A very interesting and in the end, a very depressing article in The Guardian this morning about some recommendations by a blue ribbon panel of ex-military leaders in NATO who believe that the organization is in danger of becoming irrelevant to the security interests of its members.

In short, they conclude that NATO is not addressing the fundamental security threats facing the organization in a rapidly changing world and that there is a real danger that NATO itself will not survive many of the challenges facing it.
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Pajamas Media’s - whose network we joined recently - Roger L. Simon and Claudia Rosett had the opportunity to talk to Rudy Giuliani about the war on terrorism. The conversation is party of PJM’s “War on Terror Conversations” series for which PJM will talk with, I think, all of the Republican candidates. You can watch the conversation (or read the transcript) with Giuliani by clicking here. (more…)

In what has to have left an extremely bitter taste in liberals’ mouths, the U.S. Senate approved a $556B spending bill that includes $70B for the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

By a vote of 76-17, the Senate approved the $556 billion fiscal 2008 spending bill.

Marking another defeat for Democrats trying to end nearly five years of combat in Iraq, the Senate included $70 billion in new money for the war there and in Afghanistan. Attempts to attach Iraq troop withdrawal plans failed.

The House of Representatives could vote as early as Wednesday to approve the Iraq war funds. When the House passed its version of the budget bill on Monday, it specifically prohibited any new money for Iraq.

But with the Democratic-controlled Congress hurrying to recess for three weeks and Republican Bush promising to veto any budget bill that does not have money for the Iraq war, the House is expected to relent.

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