Saturday, November 24, 2007

Mini Mini Battlefield Digest: Afghanistan, Week 47


Two new police recruits help an injuried colleague as others, holding wooden guns, take position during a training session at the Canadian Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) compound in Kandahar province, south of Kabul, Afghanistan on Thursday, Nov. 22, 2007. (AP Photo/Allauddin Khan)


Battlefield News, Afghanistan

Political Developments and Major Campaign Resource Shifts

  • Reuters: Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Thursday Taliban insurgent leaders were increasingly contacting him to try to find ways of making peace. Afghan and Western military leaders and diplomats recognize talks will ultimately... -Thursday, November 22, 2007
  • Roggio: The Afghan denfense minister said the US will speed up the transfer of weapons for the army. -Saturday, November 17, 2007
  • Roggio: NATO support for the Afghan mission is waning. -Monday, November 19, 2007
  • Roggio: The Global Islamic Media Front demanded Germany and Austria withdraw their troops from Afghanistan. -Tuesday, November 20, 2007
  • AsiaTimes: The Afghan government and its international partners are struggling to bolster the country's security forces, fighting the twin problems of boosting the numbers of the national army and trying to disband illegal armed groups. -Tuesday, November 20, 2007
  • Reuters: France on Thursday denied a report that it is setting aside roughly 1,000 troops for possible deployment in Afghanistan, a move that would be a boon to the United States, which wants NATO countries to do more there. -Thursday, November 15, 2007
COIN: Actions, Reactions, Counteractions, etc.
  • Roggio: The Taliban recaptured the Gulistan district in Farah province. -Friday, November 23, 2007
  • The Taliban beheaded seven police officers after overrunning their checkpoints in Kandahar's Arghandab district; six other police are missing. -Friday, November 23, 2007
  • Roggio: British soldiers have pushed to the outskirts of the Taliban controlled district of Musa Qala in Helmand province. "Several" Taliban fighters and facilitators were killed in Helmand's Garmsir district. -Thursday, November 15, 2007
  • smh: The Taliban has a permanent presence in more than half of Afghanistan and the country is in serious danger of falling completely into its hands, according to a report by an independent think tank with long experience in the area. -Thursday, November 22, 2007
  • Reuters: the conflict in Afghanistan has reached "crisis proportions," with the resurgent Taliban present in more than half the country and closing in on Kabul, a report said on Wednesday. -Wednesday, November 21, 2007
  • AP: The United States military transferred 20 Afghan prisoners from its detention facility at Bagram Air Base to the custody of the Afghan Defense Ministry, a ministry statement said Wednesday. -Wednesday, November 21, 2007
  • AP: The famed bookseller of Kabul "whose family life was chronicled by a Norwegian journalist" has published a scathing response to that best-selling book, accusing the author of creating lies about him and abusing his hospitality and friendship. -Tuesday, November 20, 2007
VIOLENCE: Tactical Developments
  • AP: Up to two-thirds of the 77 people killed and 100 wounded in a suicide bombing last week were hit by bullets from visiting lawmakers' panicked bodyguards, who fired on a crowd of mostly schoolchildren for up to five minutes, a preliminary U.N. report says. -Saturday, November 17, 2007
  • smh: Pamela Constable in Baghlan examines the conflicting accounts of a bombing's aftermath. Mohammed Asadullah, a high school teacher in this quiet northern town, was lining up his students to greet a group of visiting politicians... -Thursday, November 22, 2007
  • A US F-15 fighter jet squadron is back in operation in Afghanistan after being grounded. -Thursday, November 15, 2007
  • Roggio: ISAF forces and Afghan police capatured two foreign fighter facilitators in the Deh Chopan district of Zabul province. -Friday, November 16, 2007
  • dpa: Taliban militants attacked a police checkpoint and beheaded seven policemen and took away another six agents in the early hours of Friday in southern Kandahar province, local police said. -Friday, November 23, 2007
  • AP: Afghan and foreign troops called in air strikes after clashing with suspected Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan, leaving some 55 insurgents dead, police said Wednesday. -Wednesday, November 21, 2007
  • AP: Taliban militants tortured five abducted policemen in southern Afghanistan and then hanged their mutilated bodies from trees in a warning to villagers against working with the government, officials said yesterday. -Monday, November 19, 2007
  • AP: A suicide bomber struck outside a governor's residence in southwestern Afghanistan on Monday, killing six policemen and wounding 14 people, an official said. -Monday, November 19, 2007
  • AP: A military court on Thursday ordered seven Polish soldiers held for three months while investigators look into allegations of war crimes in the killing of Afghan civilians. -Thursday, November 15, 2007
Economic Developments, Reconstruction, and General Good News

[this space purposely left blank because of lack of de-classified, systematic data]

  • OttawaCitizen: Six years after the fall of the Taliban, the reconstruction of Afghanistan is a booming business for the private sector, but much of the work is still going to big foreign firms, say Afghan officials and development workers. -Friday, November 23, 2007

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