Mini Battlefield Digest: Afghanistan, week 44

Dutch soldier returns a baby to her mother during a raid.
-Goran Tomasevic

Notes:

Ad-hoc evidence is that levels of violence are high in Afghanistan. There is some major sh-t going on in country, not just mini-skirmishes here and there. This week, the Australians were in a six hour firefight, reportedly. The Taliban have force sufficient to overrun a district. Clashes produce not handfuls of wounded or even scores detained, but "over 30", over 60, over 80 killed.

There appears to be a likelihood that NATO will bone up some additional resources to train the Afghani army. The dollar investments in this continue to ramp up to levels that are pretty eye-popping.

Battlefield News, Afghanistan

Political Developments and Major Campaign Resource Shifts

• US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "I am not satisfied that an alliance, whose members have over 2 million soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen, cannot find the modest additional resources that have been committed for Afghanistan." ISAF forces have launched an operation to dislodge the Taliban from Tarin Kowt in Uruzgan province. -Thursday, October 25, 2007
• BBC: Nato defence ministers are holding a second day of talks, after the alliance secured more resources for efforts to provide security in Afghanistan. It is thought that up to nine nations will offer more troops to help train the Afghan army... -Thursday, October 25, 2007
• CP: Hundreds of Canadian soldiers returning from Afghanistan are suffering from a range of mental-health problems linked to their deployment, according to new data. -Sunday, October 28, 2007
• Reuters: A roadside bomb killed an Afghan district intelligence chief, his driver and two bodyguards in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, a provincial official said. -Tuesday, October 30, 2007

COIN: Actions, Reactions, Counteractions, etc.

• Roggio: A key pro-Taliban tribal leader in Musa Qala in Helmand province may side with the government. -Monday, October 29, 2007
• DailyTelegraph: The Daily Telegraph has learned that the Afghan government hopes to seal the deal this week with Mullah Abdul Salaam and his Alizai tribe, which has been fighting alongside the Taliban in Helmand province -Monday, October 29, 2007
• Roggio: The Taliban overran the Gulistan district center in Farah province; An Afghan intelligence chief and three officers were killed in an IED attack in the Qarghai district of Laghman province. -Tuesday, October 30, 2007
• CBC: The federal government is dismissing an incendiary newspaper report about the continued abuse of detainees in Afghanistan. -Monday, October 29, 2007
• heraldsun: TALIBAN insurgents say they are on the hunt to kill Australians in Afghanistan, prompting warnings of a rising body count. A day after SAS hero Sgt Matthew Locke was shot dead in an ambush, militants said they were stepping up their campaign... -Friday, October 26, 2007
• AP: The United Nations on Monday said 34 aid workers have been killed in Afghanistan this year and called on Taliban fighters and criminal gangs to stop attacking humanitarian convoys so food can reach millions of needy Afghans before winter. -Monday, October 29, 2007
• NYTimes: Many former militia commanders and residents in northern Afghanistan have been hoarding weapons in violation of the country's disarmament laws, giving the excuse that they face a spreading Taliban insurgency from the south... -Sunday, October 28, 2007

VIOLENCE: Tactical Developments

• AP: Afghan, U.S. and Canadian troops have surrounded a pocket of some 250 Taliban fighters who have commandeered people's homes in villages just outside Afghanistan's major southern city, officials said Wednesday. -Wednesday, October 31, 2007
• Reuters: AUSTRALIAN soldiers have fought a six-hour battle with Taliban insurgents, killing at least 50 militants in a joint operation with Afghani and other NATO troops in southern Afghanistan. -Monday, October 29, 2007
• Reuters: A suicide attack killed at least seven people, including the bomber, on Tuesday less than a kilometer from Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's army residence in Rawalpindi, police said. -Tuesday, October 30, 2007
• AFP: A suicide bomber blew himself up near a military base in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday killing four Afghan soldiers and a civilian, officials said. -Saturday, October 27, 2007
• AP: Insurgents ambushed NATO-led forces in eastern Afghanistan, leaving two alliance troops dead and three others wounded, while a coalition airstrike in the south killed 18 suspected militants, officials said Friday. -Friday, October 26, 2007
• TheState: A S.C. National Guard soldier two months from heading home died in a humvee accident in Kandahar Province. Killed was Sgt. Edward Philpot, of Latta. He was a member of the Mullins-headquartered 1st Battalion, 263rd Armored Regiment. -Thursday, October 25, 2007
• AFP: A nomad child in a tent was killed in a battle between US-led troops and rebels in Afghanistan Tuesday while the NATO-led force looked into claims it had killed a dozen civilians in an air raid. -Wednesday, October 24, 2007
• AFP: In another incident linked to daily battles between extremists and Afghan troops backed by foreign soldiers, an Afghan interpreter was killed after a bomb hit a coalition convoy in volatile Ghazni province south of Kabul. -Wednesday, October 24, 2007
• Xinhua: Afghan police killed a Taliban commander in Afghanistan's southern Zabul province, said a press release of the Afghan Interior Ministry released on Wednesday. -Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Economic Developments, Reconstruction, and General Good News

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