# The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread September 2012



## The Bread Guy (30 Aug 2012)

*The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread September 2012 *               

*News only - commentary elsewhere, please.
Thanks for helping this "news only" thread system work!*


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## GAP (2 Sep 2012)

*Articles found Sept 2, 2012*

 US drones attack again in Pakistan
by The Canadian Press Sep 1, 2012 / 10:55 am
Article Link

U.S. drones fired a barrage of missiles at a vehicle and a house in a Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan Saturday, killing at least five suspected militants, Pakistani officials said.

The strikes in the North Waziristan tribal area were the first since news that a top commander of the powerful Haqqani militant network was killed in a drone strike late last month, also in the tribal region.

Two intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief the media, said U.S. drones fired seven missiles at targets in the village of Degan in an area of North Waziristan close to the Afghan border.

They said the area is dominated by anti-American militant commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur, but they did not know whether the men killed belonged to his group.

Bahadur's faction is alleged to have been involved in frequent attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but generally shies away from carrying out operations inside Pakistan. Several recent drone strikes have killed militants affiliated with Bahadur's group.

The CIA-run drone program is controversial in Pakistan.
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Military model might help cure what ails N.S. health-care system
September 1, 2012 - 4:01am By TIM DUNNE
Article Link

A Canadian medical technician radioed for advice to physician assistant Chief Petty Officer Peter Jardine at his forward operating base in Afghanistan. A military policeman had lost both legs and an arm to an IED and was bleeding out. He wanted to make sure he was doing everything right until the helicopter arrived.

The military policeman survived.

Now at Halifax’s Formation Health Services, CPO Jardine has fewer emergency calls. As a military physician assistant (PA), he is a member of a profession that partners with physicians as treatment extenders. His civilian colleagues, who go by the same moniker, are unknown in Nova Scotia but are well-established in New Brunswick, Manitoba and Ontario. Alberta will soon launch a pilot project.

CPO Jardine says, “We work closely with a supervising physician to develop a scope of practice and we do whatever the doctor feels comfortable with us doing. That can be minor surgery, toenail removal, suturing, removal of lymphomas, lumps and bumps, prescriptions — as long as the supervising physician is comfortable with it.”

Canada’s first PA was sick berth CPO First Class Clement Filewod, who joined HMCS Rainbow in August 1910. The navy’s “physician extenders” provided continuous health care during the Second World War, in Korea and today in the surface and submarine fleets. The Canadian Army adopted the physician extender model for combat medics during the Korean War.

Twenty-three candidates are accepted into the military’s PA training program annually.

“Historically, people needed 15 to 20 years of experience,” Jardine noted. “It would take that long to be rated highly enough to be accepted into the profession. Today, some can qualify with 12 years of service.”
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 Suicide attack in Afghanistan kills 12 near U.S. base
  Article Link
September 1, 2012   

Two suicide attackers, one driving a fuel tanker, blew themselves up near a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing at least 12 people, officials said.

The attack around dawn in the town of Sayed Abad in Wardak province, about 70 kilometres from Kabul, served as a reminder that even after a decade of fighting, tens of thousands of U.S. and foreign troops are still engaged in a war that shows no signs of slowing down despite the start of a withdrawal of coalition forces.

The U.S.-led NATO coalition said that no American or coalition troops were killed in the blasts. It confirmed that a number of troops were wounded, but did not say how many, in accordance with coalition policy.

Shahidullah Shadid, a spokesman for the Wardak provincial governor, said one suicide bomber detonated a vest rigged with explosives outside a compound housing the district governor's office, while another in a fuel tanker detonated his bomb on a road separating the compound from the base. He said the dead included eight civilians and four Afghan police.
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 U.S. Halting Program to Train Afghan Recruits
By GRAHAM BOWLEY and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. September 2, 2012 
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan — The training of Afghan Local Police and special operations forces has been put on hold while their American trainers conduct stricter vetting to try to root out any infiltrators or new recruits who could pose risks to the coalition troops working with them, American officials say. 

 The move does not affect the vast majority of Afghan forces — more than 350,000 Afghan National Army soldiers and Afghan National Police members — who are still being trained and are still working in the field with American and NATO counterparts, military officials said. The action was first reported online by The Washington Post.

“The training is definitely still going on for the regular A.N.A. and A.N.P.,” said Maj. Steve Neta of the Canadian Air Force, a spokesman for the NATO training mission in Afghanistan. At any given time, there are 25,000 Afghan soldiers and more than 4,000 Afghan national policemen in training, and that is continuing, he said.

But a rash of recent attacks by Afghan forces on American and NATO troops has led American Special Operations commanders in Afghanistan to put a hold on the training of those Afghan units overseen by American Special Operations forces: Afghan Local Police and special forces units, which, combined, number over 20,000, or roughly seven percent of all Afghan forces.

“The training of our partner forces has been paused while we go through this revetting,” said a spokesman for American Special Operations. The spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the suspension affects only Afghan Local Police and Afghan special operations and commando forces.

He said the revetting of the Afghan Special Operations had started on Aug. 22 and had already been completed. Training of recruits to these forces had resumed after a few days, he said. 
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 In Afghanistan, Roya Mahboob Connects Girls With Computers
by Angela Shah Sep 1, 2012 
Article Link

The 25-year-old is at once exhilarated and shy. A woman is not supposed to attract so much attention. Just minutes earlier, a male colleague offered her a word to the wise as he gently pulled down her head scarf to cover her throat and shoulders, exposed from the scoop-necked top she wore, saying: “There are conservative men inside.”
roya-mahboob-shah-main-tease

On this day in late May, the girls at Baghnazargah High School were getting computers and Internet access for the first time. Mahboob’s IT company, Afghan Citadel Services, or ACS, installed the technology lab as part of a project to help wire schools in Herat, and Mahboob offered welcome remarks as a panel of bearded men dressed in traditional salwar kameez, elders in this community, along with school officials, sipped tea behind her.

Baghnazargah is located in a poor section of Herat and many of the female students come from conservative families. While boys can move freely, and so attend computer tutorials outside of school, girls are only allowed to leave home to attend school. And those girls are, in a sense, the lucky ones: most girls don’t even attend high school. Like most 16-year-olds, Augiza longs to surf the Web, but she doesn’t have an email address. “This is the only way for me to learn the computer,” she says. “It gives me [a] connection to everywhere in the world.”

For students like Augiza, Mahboob is a revelation. Here is a woman less than a decade older than they are who runs her own company and flies in from Kabul on her own for ribbon-cutting ceremonies like the one on this day. She, they can see, has a position of power. Once the men have left and the formal festivities are concluded, the girls congregate around Mahboob in packs of threes and fours asking to take pictures with her.

“You have to show everybody that men and women are equal,” Mahboob says. “Women can do something if you allow them. Give them opportunity and they can prove themselves.”

In a country where the Taliban had outlawed telephones, Afghanistan has quickly wired itself in the last decade. The number of Internet users in the country has grown from 300,000 in 2006 to 1 million two years ago, according to the International Monetary Fund.
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 DOD: US military casualties in Afghanistan as of Aug. 31, 2012
Washington : DC : USA | Aug 31, 2012 By Karl Gotthardt 
Article Link

 This week, another nine U.S. soldiers paid the ultimate price in Afghanistan. Another 96 were wounded in action (WIA). While politicians and military commanders argue that war is going as planned, with a complete handover to Afghan Security Forces by the end of next year, the carnage continues.

One of the major concerns recently is the so-called "green on blue" deaths, which describes the killing of NATO troops at the hands of their Afghan allies. The concern over the strength of the Taliban and its infiltration into Afghan security forces continues. On Wednesday, another three NATO soldiers were killed at the hands of their Afghan allies in a "green on blue" incident.

This brings the total to 45 deaths at the hand of Afghan security forces. Most of those killed were Americans, and the U.S. military has taken to arming themselves to protect themselves against their Afghan allies.

Canada has about 950 trainers in Afghanistan, and according to the Deputy Commander of the Canadian training mission, Col. Greg Smith, Canadians have not adopted the same measures. Smith says that while the threat is on top of the mind of members of the mission, Canadians take precautions though and work in pairs alongside the Afghans.

The Associated Press reports that Australia is mourning the death of five of its soldiers. The soldiers died in two separate incidents on Wednesday and early Thursday. This is the biggest one day loss of Australian troops in Afghanistan. (Source: Global Regina)

"In a war of so many losses, this is our single worst day in Afghanistan. Indeed I believe this is the most losses in combat since the days of the Vietnam War and the Battle of Long Tan. This is news so truly shocking that it's going to feel for many Australians like a physical blow," Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said. 
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 Afghan minister accused of abuses to become new intelligence chief
Article Link
By Jon Stephenson McClatchy Newspapers

KABUL, Afghanistan -- An Afghan Cabinet minister dogged by torture allegations is slated to become the new chief of Afghanistan’s notorious intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security.

The appointment of Asadullah Khalid, the minister of border and tribal affairs, will be announced within days by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, said a man who knows Khalid. A former senior government official who’s close to Karzai told McClatchy that “Khalid’s appointment has been confirmed.”

Both men spoke only on the condition of anonymity, as they weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Khalid was the governor of the restive southern province of Kandahar, where troops from Canada were based, from 2005 to 2008. He had a notorious reputation among many Kandaharis, who say he abducted and tortured personal and political opponents, but he’s consistently denied any involvement in such activity.

In April 2010 the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. said suspicions had been widespread during Khalid’s tenure in Kandahar that “the feared governor kept a private dungeon for prisoners under his palace.” The CBC quoted top-level Canadian government documents that showed Canadian authorities had known in spring 2007 about claims of serious human-rights abuses by Khalid.

“Allegations of human rights abuses by the governor are numerous and consistent,” said one document from spring 2007. “According to multiple sources, including the U.K. embassy, the private detention centre is located under the governor’s guest house.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/30/2976936/afghan-minister-accused-of-abuses.html#storylink=cpy
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  In Pakistan, a grotesque injustice
Article Link
The Globe and Mail  Thursday, Aug. 23 2012

The use of Pakistan’s laws against blasphemy – which carry the death sentence – to prosecute a Christian youth who reportedly has Down syndrome is so grotesque as to almost defy belief.

Authorities were prompted to arrest the girl, who by some accounts is as young as 11 years old, after hundreds of neighbours gathered outside her family’s home in an impoverished Christian neighbourhood in Islamabad. They were angry that she had allegedly burned a learning guide to the Koran, which contains excerpts of the Islamic scriptures, for cooking fuel. The girl remains in jail, where she is so traumatized that she will not speak to visitors.

It is moderately encouraging that President Asif Ali Zardari has ordered his interior ministry to investigate the circumstances of the girl’s arrest. Mr. Zardari should go further by heeding calls to reform the laws that make it an offence to defile the Koran – even for those who do so unintentionally.

Of course, it is politically difficult for the government to repeal these criminal sanctions, which were introduced by the British in the 1860s, and then expanded under the military government of General Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s. Despite the controversy, the laws have a high level of public support. Last year, two prominent politicians who criticized the blasphemy laws – the governor of Punjab and the federal religious minorities minister – were killed.
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## Edward Campbell (2 Sep 2012)

Muslim cleric arrested for framing girl in Pakistan blasphemy case

Article Link

ISLAMABAD — Pakistani authorities have arrested a Muslim cleric on allegations of framing a Christian girl who was arrested under the country’s controversial anti-blasphemy law, a police official said on Sunday.

Religious and secular groups worldwide have protested over the detention in August of Rimsha Masih, accused by Muslim neighbours of burning Islamic religious texts.

Police official Munir Hussain Jafri said a cleric was arrested after witnesses from Masih’s village on the edge of the capital Islamabad complained about his alleged actions.

“Witnesses complained that he had torn pages from a Koran and placed them in her bag which had burned papers,” Jafri told Reuters.

More on link


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## GAP (3 Sep 2012)

*Articles found Sept 3, 2012*

  Canadian forces to continue Afghan training despite U.S. suspension
Article Link
SHAWN McCARTHY OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail Sunday, Sep. 02 2012

U.S. forces have suspended the training of Afghan local police forces in response to a surge of attacks by infiltrators, but the work of Canada’s 900 military trainers will continue.

The U.S. move affects about 1,000 Afghan trainees who were part of a special American-led effort to bolster local police presence in Taliban-infected regions. NATO’s mission to upgrade the Afghan National Security Force and the Afghan National Police – the program under which Canada works – was not affected by the American decision, Lieutenant-General Adrian Bradshaw, deputy commander of the International Security Assistance Force, said in a statement Sunday.

Canada has some 900 Armed Forces personnel working mostly around Kabul, but with a smaller team working in the north near Mazar-e Sharif, training members of the national army and the national police force.

“Obviously, the risk is still there,” Department of National Defence spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Chris Lemay said in an interview. “We don’t deny it – there is always risk. But the selection process for the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police, through NATO, has been going through rigorous upgrades and improvement.

“So for us, we remain cognizant of the risk but none of our Canadians have been targeted by any of these incidents.”
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  U.S. consulate staff wounded in Pakistan bomb attack
By Reuters 
Article Link

PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN - Two Americans working for the U.S. consulate were wounded in a bomb attack on their vehicle in the Pakistani city of Peshawar on Monday, the American embassy said.

The blast also wounded two Pakistani employees of the consulate, the embassy in Islamabad said in a statement.

Earlier, regional Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told reporters at least four people, including two Americans, were killed in an attack by a suicide bomber in a vehicle.

“We can confirm that a vehicle belonging to the U.S. consulate in Peshawar was hit in an apparent terrorist attack,” the U.S. embassy said in its statement.

“Two U.S. personnel and two Pakistani staff of the Consulate were injured and are receiving medical treatment.” 
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New Zealand confirms Afghanistan pullout plan
Article Link
  3 September 2012

New Zealand has formally announced it will pull its troops out of Afghanistan by April 2013.

Officials say this is a reflection of "careful logistical planning" and is part of the international forces' transition plan.

New Zealand has deployed troops in Afghanistan since 2003 and currently has 140 soldiers in Bamiyan province.

The announcement comes after five New Zealand soldiers were killed in two incidents last month.

"Over its 10-year deployment, the New Zealand PRT [Provincial Reconstruction Team] has contributed to international counter-terrorism efforts, improved security, and the development and governance of Bamiyan province," Defence Minister Jonathan Coleman said in a statement.
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 Uzbekistan, key to Afghan war drawdown, to ban foreign military bases
Article Link
Uzbekistan, which is seeking closer ties to the US, may have made the move in a bid to ease concerns of China and Russia, which are both dominant actors in Central Asia. 
By Abdujalil Abdurasulov, Contributor / August 30, 2012 

Almaty, Kazakhstan

Today, Uzbekistan’s upper house of parliament approved a new bill banning any foreign military bases on its territory in what appears to be an effort to appease regional power Moscow.

The bill still has to be signed by Uzbekistan’s president. But it appears to quash growing rumors that Tashkent may allow the US to open a military base in Uzbekistan to replace the major air base in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, which is due to close in 2014. It also raises questions about Uzbekistan’s support of the NATO-led operation in Afghanistan. 

The proposed bill will have an impact on US-Uzbekistan military cooperation, says Joshua Foust, an expert on Central Asia. "Uzbekistan has never been friends with the US per se. And this decision can be explained by Uzbekistan's desire not to be portrayed as an American puppet," he says.
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## GAP (10 Sep 2012)

*Articles found Sept 10, 2012*

Kabul attack: Bomber kills children near Nato base
Article Link
  8 September 2012 

A teenage suicide bomber has killed at least six people near the headquarter of the Nato-led international coalition (Isaf) in Kabul.

A number of children are among the dead. There were no reports of casualties among Isaf troops.

The police said the attacker was a boy, 14, on a motorbike, who detonated a bomb near an entrance to the HQ.

Kabul security has been tightened as supporters of an anti-Taliban warlord mark 11 years since his assassination.

Ahmad Shah Massoud - a hero of the 1980s war against Soviet occupiers, and later of opposition to the Taliban - was killed by al-Qaeda suicide bombers on 9 September 2001.

Following Saturday's explosion, the Isaf HQ, home to some 2,500 personnel, was placed "on lockdown", the Isaf spokeswoman said.
'Child hawkers'

Child street hawkers are believed to have been caught in the blast and witnesses quoted by Reuters said small bodies could be seen being carried to ambulances. 
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 Potential for a Mining Boom Splits Factions in Afghanistan
Article Link
By GRAHAM BOWLEY September 8, 2012 

KALU VALLEY, Afghanistan — If there is a road to a happy ending in Afghanistan, much of the path may run underground: in the trillion-dollar reservoir of natural resources — oil, gold, iron ore, copper, lithium and other minerals — that has brought hopes of a more self-sufficient country, if only the wealth can be wrested from blood-soaked soil. 

 But the wealth has inspired darker dreams as well. Officials and industry experts say the potential resource boom seems increasingly imperiled by corruption, violence and intrigue, and has put the Afghan government’s vulnerabilities on display.

It all comes at what is already a critically uncertain time here, with the impending departure of NATO troops in 2014 and old regional and ethnic rivalries resurfacing, raising concerns that the mineral wealth could become the fuel for civil conflict.

Powerful regional warlords and militant leaders are jockeying to widen their turf to include areas with mineral wealth, and the Taliban have begun to make murderous incursions into territory where development is planned. In the capital, Kabul, factional maneuvering is in full swing, including disputes over lucrative side contracts awarded to relatives of President Hamid Karzai. 
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 Afghanistan, One Village at a Time
Posted on 9 September 2012 by admin	
On the Use of Aid and Development to Induce Political Conversion: Lessons from a Failed State
Article Link

In late 2010 and early 2011, this author managed a Canadian aid program operating in rural villages of Dand District, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. A total of eleven villages were targeted by this program, though initially, only four were thought to be safe enough to approach. Two of these eleven villages, we were to discover, were hard Taliban communities, actively opposed to GIRoA and taking orders from Quetta, Pakistan. Ordinarily, aid programs stay far away from such communities. We succeeded in persuading these two to break with Quetta and formally align themselves with GIRoA—where they remain to this day.

This stands in contrast to the conventional wisdom. More than a decade after NATO’s invasion of Afghanistan, the West has learned to stop getting its hopes up. Critics up and down the political spectrum seem to agree that Kabul will never be the Paris of Central Asia, and that there is not much hope of bringing substantial improvement to Afghanistan. Indeed, billions of dollars in aid money have been spent on Afghanistan, and there is virtually nothing to show for it. Afghanistan’s economy has languished, and violence has increased, rather than decreased, year after year.

Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to believe that things are hopeless. Afghanistan’s economy could thrive, and the Taliban could be soundly defeated, even at this late date. Political reforms are needed for this, though those will not be addressed in this paper: the other and less obvious needed change is a reform in how aid and development programs are implemented. It will be argued that the conventional approach taken by most aid programs has been a counterproductive disaster, and it will be shown that a better implementation strategy is capable of wresting whole communities from Taliban control.

Conversion of Two Taliban villages

At the outset, we had no communication with the two villages. The Dand District Support Team (Dand DST) had them listed as possessing no official village governance and the villages never sent representation to the weekly shura meeting at the district governor’s office. We had miscellaneous reports that they were responsible for various attacks against GIRoA. In late 2010, most of Dand District was evolving into a success story, but these two villages were among the remaining centers of resistance. We came to learn that these particular villages were aligned with the Quetta Taliban, and had been for years. But they also happened to be on the list of communities that the Canadian government had asked us to engage with—if possible. Not wanting to disappoint, we set out to convince the villages to switch sides
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 Mineral wealth could hold key to Afghan prosperity
Article Link
 September 10, 2012 Graham Bowley

KALU VALLEY, Afghanistan: If there is a road to a happy ending in Afghanistan, much of the path may run underground, in the trillion-dollar reservoir of natural resources - oil, gold, iron ore, copper, lithium and other minerals - that has brought hopes of a more self-sufficient country, if only the wealth can be wrested from blood-soaked soil. But the wealth has inspired darker dreams as well.

Officials and industry experts say the potential resource boom seems increasingly imperiled by corruption, violence and intrigue, and has put the Afghan government's vulnerabilities on display.

It all comes at what is already a critically uncertain time here, with the impending departure of NATO troops in 2014 and old regional and ethnic rivalries resurfacing, raising concerns that the mineral wealth could become the fuel for civil conflict. Powerful regional warlords and militant leaders are jockeying to widen their turf to include areas with mineral wealth, and the Taliban have begun to make murderous incursions into territory where development is planned.

In the capital, Kabul, factional manoeuvring is in full swing, including disputes over lucrative side contracts awarded to relatives of the President, Hamid Karzai.
More on link

 Taliban reportedly using fake Facebook pages of pretty girls to gather soldiers' secrets
Published September 09, 2012 FoxNews.com
Article Link

The Taliban is using fake Facebook profiles of cute girls in an attempt to befriend soldiers with the intent of gathering information about operations, the Sunday Telegraph reports.

Australian and coalition troops are being targeted by Taliban insurgents posing as “attractive women” on Facebook, according to the paper, and now troops are being warned about the potential danger.

A review by the Australian government found a false sense of security exists among personnel due to an excessive reliance on privacy settings.

According to the Telegraph, troops are being told that geo-tagging – the process of websites that secretly logs the location of where a post is made or where a photo is uploaded – is of special concern.

The review warns that family and friends of soldiers are compromising missions by sharing confidential information online, according to the Telegraph.

"Media personnel and enemies create fake profiles to gather information. For example, the Taliban have used pictures of attractive women as the front of their Facebook profiles and have befriended soldiers," the review says, according to the Telegraph.

The review recommends education for family and friends on the dangers of sharing details like names, ranks and locations.

Three Australian soldiers were allegedly killed by an Afghan Army trainee earlier this month, the Telegraph reports.
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## TN2IC (10 Sep 2012)

Prince Harry a 'high-value' target of Taliban


Article Link

Prince Harry is the target of a “high-value plan” by the Taliban to kill him during his combat tour in Afghanistan, a spokesman for the militant group says.

"We will do our best to kill Prince Harry and Britain's other troops based in Helmand," said Zabihullah Mujahid, who spoke to Agence France-Presse by telephone from an undisclosed location.

Mujahid said the Taliban has a “high-value plan” to attack Harry, who is third in line for the throne.

"It is not important for us to kidnap him. We will target him and we will kill him," he said.

Capt. Harry Wales, as he is known in the British military, began a four-month tour on Friday as a gunner on an Apache attack helicopter and was to start flying missions within 10 days in the Helmand province.

More on the Link


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## GAP (12 Sep 2012)

*Articles found Sept 12, 2012*

 Tobogganing in Afghanistan
Article Link
Richard Johnson | Sep 10, 2012

I am sitting in a small corner of shade on the edge of the runway at KAF. My flight has been pushed to the right once already this morning.

Four days ago I began a seemingly never-ending travel odyssey with a ride down from the budding Tur-Muryani strongpoint, which will — when complete — overlook Mizan Valley in Zabul Province. I shook the hands of the U.S. Security Force Assistance Team (SFAT) 42 members, who are be stuck up there for at least a week more. “It was great, guys. Thanks.”

Somehow Sgt. Patton kept us in the dust as huge boulders on either side of the “road’ whipped by at ever-increasing speeds. We hit the flat at the bottom doing 60 km/h, somehow held onto the gravel beneath enough to make a fork in the road, and slowed to a not particularly graceful halt. Sgt. Patton had either almost killed me or just saved my life.

I rode the rest of the way out along the road – it had been registered ‘black,’ meaning nothing like secure – standing up in the back of the Gator, filming with a helmet Camera. You can see a snippet of that at the bottom of this blog post. The road was now under constant over watch, but in the moon-dust-like sand it takes only seconds for someone to place an Improvised Explosive Device (IED).
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 US watchdog questions spending for Afghan army
Article Link

By PAULINE JELINEK
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - The watchdog for U.S. spending in Afghanistan says lax accountability in a $1.1 billion program supplying fuel to the Afghan National Army needs "immediate attention" before control of the program is turned over to the Kabul government in less than four months.

There's no proof the fuel is actually being used by Afghan security forces for their missions, meaning it's not known how much fuel has been lost, stolen or diverted to the insurgency, according to a report released Monday by Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction John F. Sopko.

The report is the latest bad news surrounding a key element of the U.S. exit strategy for Afghanistan. Washington has spent billions of dollars on the international coalition's effort to train and equip Afghan forces it hopes eventually will be able to fight the Taliban on their own. The new report comes on top of growing questions in recent weeks about how recruits are vetted for the Afghan forces - questions prompted by a spike in insider attacks in which Afghan soldiers, police or impersonators have killed 45 international service members this year, mostly Americans.

The report also found:

- An audit of the spending is being hampered because someone shredded financial records covering $475 million in fuel payments over more than four years and officials inexplicably couldn't provide complete records for a fifth year.

- There is insufficient justification for the ever-ballooning budget requests for fuel that have been made by the command managing NATO's mission to equip and train Afghan forces.

- Millions of dollars in the proposed funding should be cut until international forces figure out how many vehicles and generators the Afghan security forces are actually using and how much fuel is needed for those vehicles and for power plants.
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 Base attack kills 3 Afghans, destroys NATO chopper as troop mark 9/11
September 11, 2012 22:21 GMT
Article Link

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- As U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan marked the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks today, Afghan insurgents have been carrying out attacks.

Officials say insurgents fired either rockets or mortars at Bagram Air Field outside Kabul late Monday night, destroying a NATO helicopter and killing three Afghan intelligence employees. Later, a teenage suicide bomber blew himself up in a shop in western Afghanistan, killing five people.

The attacks came as a reminder that the Afghan war launched less than a month after 9/11 continues to rage.
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## GAP (15 Sep 2012)

*Articles found Sept 15, 2012*


 Building an Afghan army Canadian style
Article Link
Richard Johnson | Sep 14, 2012

Consolidated Fielding Center (CFC), Camp Blackhorse, Kabul Province, Afghanistan.

It is an almost pitch-black night, and dust and diesel fumes fill the air. Outside of the glow of a Humvees low lights the compound wall, the ridge top of the mountain beyond, and the night stars are obscured by the talcum of sand in the air. Armoured vehicles of every shape and size idle noisily. In truck bed after truck bed, truck after truck, Humvee after Humvee, ambulance after ambulance, newly minted Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers are waiting to head out into the darkness beyond the wire. For most this is their first deployment.

The mission of the somewhat innocuously named Consolidated Fielding Center (CFC), is to man, equip, train, and then deploy entire Kandak units for the battlefield. The 300 strong CFC at Camp Blackhorse is mostly staffed by Canadians, of the 2nd Battalion Royal Canadian Regiment with a smattering of Americans, Romanians and a couple of Brits. Next door is the Afghan CFC where the Canadians mentor them daily in training techniques. At any single moment there can be almost 3,500 soldiers in ANA units undergoing that training. A Canadian, Colonel Ian Hope is the overall director of collective training at the CFC. A lifetime soldier, Col. Hope has been in the British and Canadian Army, and has served his countries all over the world. He lives in Kingston, Ontario but considers Nova Scotia as home.

“This is my third tour here. [Afghanistan] is a completely different place now. [The ANA] are way better than they were in 2006. I actually dismissed it then, I said that ‘We can’t build this army the way that we want to’, but we actually have done a pretty good job,” Colonel Hope said.

Despite the darkness and dust, there is order here. It just looks like chaos. Every soldier gets their ammo load for their M-16 rifles, then for their M-240 machine guns. Then more heavy wooden boxes of ammo for the 50 caliber are dropped by each humvee. The belts are loaded into the ammo can. Each bullet in the belt is as big around as a watch face. For now though until they exit the base none of the ANA are allowed to fit a magazine to a weapon. Such are the security concerns over infiltration by elements who would want to harm their supposed allies.

“This is the end of the process when they leave us. This is when the umbilical cord is cut. When they drive away. We are reasonably pleased with the units we send out.”

On average, Col. Hope estimates, they hit more than 85% of their manpower totals, more than 85% of the equipment required, but less than 50% of the Mission Essential Task List on each Kandak. That last one troubles him a lot.

“It’s a numbers game. We are trying to produce 190,000 soldiers. Quality is not as important,” Col. Hope said.

ANA officers hold their small flashlights close to their chests over the maps and logistical paperwork. Instructions are shouted. In sporadic glimpses in the blackness, the eye shine of those already loaded catches the light as the vehicles begin to creep out. At other moments the light catches the reflection of the ammunition belts draped around shoulders and necks.

Off to one side, a small group of Canadian CFC mentors watches as the whole thing takes shape, or doesn’t. They won’t get involved unless absolutely necessary. This is the point where they say their goodbyes to the army they have helped the Afghans create.

In a matter of nine weeks, recruits fresh out of basic training at Kabul Military Training Center have become a full Kandak (Battalion) under Canadian tutelage. Three full Kandaks will be released toward their final deployment station in Helmand or Kandahar.

Watching tonight is Lt. Alex Buck from Kingston, Ontario, heads up a team of 16 people that mentors the ANA instructors at the Afghan side of the CFC. Lt. Buck mentors the Afghan officers who train the soldiers now shuffling toward the last of the vehicles. Many of the things that he is training them in would seem self evident in a modern army.

“A lot of the Afghan officers need to learn to take command, and to take responsibility. There is a tendency to push it up to someone else. And timings are a big problem. I’ll set timings for meetings, and sometimes they just won’t show up.”

Basic literacy among the enlisted men remains a huge problem – the result of the Taliban’s influence, and almost three decades of conflict.

“We send the soldiers through literacy training every day. All of the instructors are literate in at least one language. But when we got here their planning abilities and their forethought was extremely poor.”

The culture differences don’t seem to effect the training. The Canadian Mentors and the Afghan Instructors are prepped in advance what to expect to avoid conflict. Still there is lots of interest in one another.

“They want to know about women and sex. That is all they want to know, all the time. But everyone is interested in that.

As for the prospects for Afghanistan when ISAF eventually pulls out, Lt. Buck feels that the men he has trained have a better chance of holding the country together.

“I worry for them. I’m worried that someone else will take over, or that some of the ANA will turn and take over. But I hope that by training ethical leaders, they will remain patriotic for Afghanistan rather than for themselves.”

Depending on the specific duties assigned, it can cost between US$3-million to US$23-million to create and supply each Kandak . Most of the soldiers rolling out tonight are in refurbished Humvees or brand new Ford Rangers. Between June 2011 and the end of next month, this CFC will have fielded 70 units; including 15 Infantry Kandaks, 12 Route Clearance Companies, and seven Combat Support Units, adding up to almost 22,000 men at a cost of US$739 million. This is a military production line on a massive scale. It is a second surge. This one paid for by American dollars instead of lives.

The logistical challenge of launching three convoys of around 100 vehicles each, 1,000 troops and their supplies of food, ammunition, and weapons all at the same time would be complex for any army. But slowly the trucks begin to roll by. As they pass by the maintenance shed the faces of the soldiers buried under equipment and ammunition glow from the strip lights, and then fade into the darkness again. On most faces there are smiles. But on a few of the very young there is only the blankness of trepidation. These are the ones who understand their own mortality. For the rest they behave like this is the time of their lives.

The skills the Canadians are teaching are the very minimum necessities of soldiering. To fight a war of attrition, the soldiers will need more than the Canadians and the CFC have the manpower to give in just nine weeks. As successful as the CFCs have been, the current system is unsustainable without ISAF involvement. And so far no Afghan system has been put in place to make the training in any way systematic.

“The active planning … institutionalizing and collective training is not happening here. But there are plans in place to move to each of these ANA Corps areas … then take full Kandaks out of the fight, and train them up for six-to-nine weeks of what they have not received here. That should start as early as 2013,” said Col. Hope.
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 Hands-off training
Article Link
Richard Johnson | Sep 13, 2012 

In an intensive care unit in Afghanistan’s Armed Forces Academy of Medical Sciences in Kabul lie 10 mangled men.

This is the end of the journey for many ANA soldiers. They arrive here after having stepped in the wrong place or having finally run out of luck at bullet dodging. For most of these young men — in truth, they are barely more than boys — their luck ran out in the last 10 days.

Many are missing limbs, others have been filled by shrapnel. Some have bullet wounds to the head, or other massive concussion trauma. The very fact that they are in ICU means that they are on the edge of death or — with a little help — on the edge of life.

The equipment that hums and beeps around them looks to be 10 to 15 years out of date. The blankets that cover them have a withered, white tinge. Despite some meticulous cleaning and sterilizing, the ward cannot escape its hard-worn, grimy feel.

A Canadian soldier in full body armour stands in the middle of the intensive care unit. He has a large green knife strapped to the front of his Kevlar vest and a sidearm on his right hip. His helmet is removed and strapped under one arm. On his head, he wears a cyan surgical cap and a surgical mask. For the moment his mask is pulled down under his chin. Security concerns are such that two additional Canadian soldiers armed with rifles stand as “guardian angels” at the back of the room.

Lieutenant Commander Vincent Trottier is part of the Canadian Medical Mission, assigned to help the Afghan National Army develop a training program that will help create the qualified medics, doctors surgeons and nurses of the future Afghanistan Army. Clumsily titled the Armed Forces Academy of Medical Science (AFAMS) Advisory Team it is made up of almost 40 Canadians, a smattering of Americans and a 10-strong Albanian contingent. It is overseen by Colonel Gisele Fontaine. They are based in Kabul but also have a team of 12 in Maser-e-Sharif in Northern Afghanistan.

“We are helping the Afghans deliver nursing, preventive medicine … and we are instituting a graduate medical program, and a dental program, along with an X-ray course,” said Col. Fontaine.

LCdr Troittier stands a good 8 inches taller than everyone else in the ICU. Around him, mass more than a dozen male and female ANA doctors and surgeons. They are all qualified in their own way to be here, but the Afghan system of doctoring leaves holes in their knowledge. Some arrive directly out of university into the ICU, having never touched a patient.

“In medical college, you learn theory, but you are not a doctor. You have to go through the residency program, learn how to do stuff and deal with patients, doing rotations on wards and clinics. They have not had that chance,” he said.

The quality of health care in Afghanistan remains among the poorest in the world, with a shocking ratio of fewer than 8 health care workers per 10,000 people.

Navy Captain Rebecca Patterson was the first on the ground to lead Canada’s medical training mission and she soon discovered the challenges, “As the minimal successes of the last seven years of one-on-one mentoring has demonstrated, no amount of mentoring will turn a poorly trained Afghan National Security Force (ANSF) healthcare provider into a capable and safe one who focuses of the needs of the patient.”

The task for the Canadian doctors and nurses who run the AFAMS program is to establish a quality, standardized, medical training and education system — one that will consistently produce qualified health professionals.

LCdr Trottier visits each patient, immediately asking questions of those around him. He offers no answers. To these budding doctors, he is offering a glimpse of his thought process. He is prompting them to figure out the questions that they themselves should be asking, helping them figure out what the answers might mean.

“They were not taught this way. You can go to classes and learn what pneumonia is, but unless you actually doing the work and trying to figure out what the signs, symptoms and clues are to get you to the diagnosis, you are not going to figure it out. But they are bright people. They just lack the skills and experience. And they have not been taught.”

This is LCdr Trottier’s third trip to Afghanistan. He previously worked as a surgeon giving clinical care and saving lives at Kandahar Air Field’s Role 3 hospital. Here, however, he is not supposed to intervene and this may well be the most challenging aspect for the healthcare professionals deployed on this mission. Providing medical care is the first instinct and at the core of Canada’s military medical professionals yet here they are asked to stand back and let the Afghans provide the direct clinical care.
More on link


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## GAP (16 Sep 2012)

*Articles found Sept 16, 2012*

 Bus collides with truck in eastern Afghanistan, killing 51
The Canadian PressBy The Associated Press | The Canadian Press – Fri, 14 Sep, 2012
Article Link

KABUL - A fiery crash between a bus and a truck in eastern Afghanistan has killed at least 51 people.

Gen. Zarawar Zahid, the police chief in Ghazni province, says both vehicles burned after the collision this morning in Ab Band district.

He says 51 of the 56 passengers on the bus have died.

Afghan police and soldiers are working to remove the victims, including children, from the wreckage.

Zahid says many of the bodies are so badly burned that they cannot be easily identified.

The fate of the two drivers was not immediately known.
end


 3 Afghans killed, NATO chopper destroyed in attack
Article Link
Published September 11, 2012 Associated Press

An attack on a U.S. military base killed three Afghan intelligence employees and destroyed a NATO helicopter, Afghan and coalition officials said Tuesday.

Separately, a teenage suicide bomber on Tuesday walked into a shop in western Afghanistan and blew himself up, killing five people.

The attack on Bagram Air Field, a sprawling American base north of Kabul, occurred around 10 p.m. Monday. Militants occasionally fire mortars or rockets at Bagram, but the attacks usually cause little or no damage.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on the base.

"Four rounds hit," coalition spokesman Army Maj. Adam Wojack said, adding that it was unclear whether rockets or mortars landed on the base. "One of the rounds hit the helicopter and started a fire, which destroyed it."

Both Afghan and coalition forces were inside the Chinook CH47 when it was hit, he said. Wojack said the three Afghans died and an unspecified number of coalition troops were injured in the attack, but NATO policy prevented him from disclosing details about their injuries.
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 Roadside bomb kills 12 in NW Pakistan, police say
Article Link
Published September 16, 2012 Associated Press

TIMERGARAH, Pakistan –  A roadside bomb killed 15 passengers in a van and wounded 12 others in northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border on Sunday, police said.

Officials said they did not know who set off the bomb, but such attacks are common in the country's remote tribal regions, where militants from both Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are active.

The vehicle was hit in the Jandol area when it was taking people from a border village to the town of Munda early in the morning, said Ejaz Abid, police chief in Lower Dir district where the attack took place.

He said the bomb was planted in a dirt road and apparently detonated by remote control. The injured were rushed to a hospital, where some remained in serious condition.

Local government official Mahmood Aslam said two children were among the dead. He said that the vehicle was not carrying any tribal elders, militia commanders, or others from the area frequently targeted by militants. "I don't understand why the passenger vehicle was targeted," he said.

Dilawar Khan, a survivor, said he heard a huge blast, and the passengers suddenly dived to the ground.

"There was a big bang and we all were lying here and there ... I was listening to people's cries but unable to see anything as dust and smoke engulfed the air ... Then I found myself in the hospital with my leg and hand bandaged," said Khan.
end


 NATO airstrike kills 12 militants in Afghanistan
Article Link
Published August 24, 2012 Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan –  A NATO airstrike in eastern Afghanistan targeting a group of insurgents near the Pakistani border killed at least 12 militants Friday, the international military coalition said.

Pakistani intelligence and Afghan officials said Mullah Dadullah, the self-proclaimed leader of the Pakistani Taliban in Pakistan's Bajur tribal area was killed, although they offered conflicting reports on the exact location of the strike. NATO could not confirm that a senior militant had been killed.

Coalition spokesman Maj. Adam Wojack said the attack took place late Friday afternoon in Kunar province near the Pakistan border, killing 12 militants.

Conflicting reports out of the rugged and remote regions along the Afghan-Pakistan border are common shortly after an attack.

Kunar provincial official Aslam Gul Mujahid said the airstrike killed 20 people, including Dadullah. Pakistani intelligence officials said Dadullah and 19 others were killed, but they said the airstrike took place in Pakistan's Bajur region, just across the border from Kunar.

The Pakistani intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media, said the strike occurred after a cross-border attack by Pakistani Taliban militants who came from Afghanistan.
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 Pakistan battles militants from Afghanistan
Article Link
Published August 28, 2012 Associated Press



KHAR, Pakistan –  Officials say there's been a fifth day of battles between Pakistani security forces and anti-Taliban militiamen against militants who crossed from Afghanistan.

A Pakistani military official says 11 militants and three security personnel were killed in fighting Tuesday in the Bajur tribal area in northwest Pakistan. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters.

A local government official in the Salarzai area of Bajur that is under attack, Jahangir Azam Wazir, said two militiamen and two civilians were also killed.

Another local official, Nazamin Khan, said many people are still stuck in villages in Salarzai where fighting has been most fierce.

The military said Monday that 31 militants, three security personnel and two militiamen were killed in the first four days of fighting.
end


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## The Bread Guy (18 Sep 2012)

In wake of ‘insider’ attacks, NATO limits partnered patrols
Matt Millham, Stars and Stripes, September 18, 2012
Article link

In the wake of a long string of deadly insider attacks and violence sparked by a video mocking Islam’s prophet, NATO is cutting back its partnered operations with Afghan forces.

The order will curtail many of the day-to-day operations that put coalition and Afghan forces in closest contact and were until now routine, such as partnered patrols and manning remote outposts.

Under new rules issued Sunday by Lt. Gen. James L. Terry, "such operations are no longer routine” and now require the approval of a regional commander, according to a statement e-mailed by Terry’s command.

“Most partnering and advising will now be at the Kandak (Battalion) level and above,” the International Security Assistance Force’s Joint Command, which Terry heads, said in an e-mailed statement.

The move, according to the statement, is one of the “prudent force protection measures” the command has taken “in light of recent events which include both the insider threat and reaction to recent world events.”

The directive was issued the same day that an Afghan policeman killed four U.S. troops at a remote outpost in southern Zabul province.

The change doesn’t end partnered operations, but does change the way NATO companies conduct their partnering, according to the command. Rather than partnering with the company- and platoon-sized units that do most of the daily patrolling, ISAF companies will focus their efforts on kandak commanders and their staffs. Afghan units below that level will operate independently ....
More on link


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## GAP (18 Sep 2012)

*Articles found Sept 18, 2012*

Afghan School Prepares Blind For A Brighter Future 
Article Link
 Tuesday, September 18, 2012  Frud Bezhan

KABUL -- Scores of children descend from a creaky, old bus and pour through the doors of the Kabul Blind School, the only school exclusively for blind children in Afghanistan.

Afghans suffering from blindness or other disabilities often face rejection in society, as evidenced by the blind who are forced to beg on the streets of the capital to make a living. But here young students are given a chance to learn job skills to prepare themselves for success in the uncertain future that awaits many upon graduation.

Some 120 children are currently enrolled in the modest school, beginning as early as first grade. There they spend a half-day learning basic lessons in math, science, literature, and other subjects using tactile methods.

The other half of the day is dedicated to vocational training aimed at preparing blind students for future employment. The students choose their own path by taking art lessons, training on blind-friendly computer applications, or learning crafts such as knitting and broom-making.

If it were not for the school, which has both male and female students, most of its students would be on the streets, says Eric Rajah, the co-founder of A Better World, an international development group based in Canada that partly funds the blind school.

The Afghan government estimates that some 400,000, or 2 percent, of Afghanistan's population of 30 million suffers from blindness, many of them from operable cataracts. But only a fraction is able to access medical facilities and basic education services.

"There are many Afghan children who have stepped on land mines playing in their backyards who have lost their eyesight. The majority of those are marginalized, especially girls who don’t have other opportunities," Rajah says.
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 Will Tajikistan's Restive East Explode Again? 
Article Link
 September 18, 2012

The rugged eastern region of Gorno-Badakhshan in Tajikistan has been the scene of violence in recent months, with about 70 people having been killed in a government operation lasting to late August.

As President Emomali Rahmon arrives for a working visit, many questions remain as to how the violence started, and more importantly, who was behind it.

The violence began after an opposition leader from the 1990s Tajik Civil War who had become a top regional security official, Abdullo Nazarov, was stabbed to death on July 21. After protests erupted the next day, 3,000 government troops were deployed to the region on July 24.

After a week of fighting, those resisting the government forces agreed to lay down their arms on July 28 following negotiations that included representatives of the Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the Ismaili sect of Islam. A majority of the region's population of 250,000 belong to the Shi'ite Muslim sect, while the rest of the country is mostly Sunni.

The situation appeared calm until late on August 22, when Imomnazar Imomnazarov, another former opposition civil war commander, was killed in an early-morning attack at his home in Khorug, the Badakhshan region's administrative capital. Imomnazarov had been wanted in connection with Nazarov's killing. He reportedly had diabetes and was confined to a wheelchair.

Protesters gathered at the regional administrative building in Khorug to demand officials fulfill promises to restore order, pelting the building with rocks and even attempting to storm the building.
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 Cleric Beaten Up By 'Badly Veiled' Woman 
Article Link
 September 18, 2012

"I politely [told] her to cover herself up," said Hojatoleslam Ali Beheshti, an Iranian cleric in the city of Shamirzad in Semnan Province, describing a recent encounter with a woman he believed was improperly veiled.

"She responded to me by saying: 'You [should] close your eyes.'"

The cleric, who spoke to the semi-official Mehr news agency, said he repeated his warning to the “bad hijab” woman, which is a way of describing women who do not fully observe the Islamic dress code that became compulsory following the 1979 revolution.

"Not only didn’t she cover herself up, but she also insulted me. I asked her not to insult me anymore, but she started shouting and threatening me," Beheshti said. "She pushed me and I fell to the ground on my back. From that point on, I don’t know what happened. I was just feeling the kicks of the woman who was beating me up and insulting me."

He said he was hospitalized for three days following the attack.

I’m not a supporter of violence, but as a woman who grew up in Iran and was harassed many times for appearing in public in a way that was deemed un-Islamic, I understand the frustration that woman in Semnan must have felt and why she lashed out at the cleric.
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 Afghan protest over anti-Islam film turns into melee
Article Link
By: Anna Coren

KABUL, Afghanistan - Demonstrators in Afghanistan attacked police officers along a road leading to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul as tensions remained high Monday in the Muslim world over a movie trailer that mocks the Prophet Mohammed.

U.S. embassies and consulates were on alert for further backlash over the anti-Islam video, which was produced privately in the United States.

At least 15 policemen were injured and two police vehicles burned when the protest of about 300 Afghans at an outer security perimeter several miles from the embassy turned into a melee, a senior Afghan police official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Protesters also clashed with police in Indonesia and in Pakistan.

The violence is the latest fallout from a low-budget, amateurish 14-minute movie trailer posted on YouTube that mocks the Prophet Mohammed as a womanizer, child molester and killer. Islam forbids any depictions of Mohammed, and blasphemy is taboo among many in the Muslim world.

Monday's incidents come six days after protests erupted in Egypt and Libya, and spread to more than 20 nations with sometimes violent results.

The attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, left Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.

The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, meanwhile, called for renewed protests Monday over the trailer.
More on link


 Insider attack wounds civilian worker
by The Canadian Press Sep 17, 2012 / 8:19 am
Article Link

An Afghan soldier fired on a vehicle he believed was driven by NATO soldiers on a shared base in southern Afghanistan, slightly wounding a foreign civilian worker, officials said Monday. It was the latest in a string of insider attacks by local forces on their international allies.

The attacks are threatening to undermine a partnership that is key to the handover of security responsibility to the Afghan government and therefore to the entire plan to drawdown international troops. NATO said it was reviewing protocols for protecting its troops in the wake of the current attack spike.

The Sunday evening shooting in Helmand province came the same day an Afghan police officer shot and killed four American service members in Zabul, also in the south. That followed a shooting Saturday in which a man wearing the uniform of a government-backed militia group killed two British soldiers in Helmand.

The soldier turned his weapon on a vehicle that was driving inside Camp Garmser, a shared base in Helmand, said NATO forces spokesman Maj. Adam Wojack. Another Afghan soldier disarmed the attacker and took him into custody. The assailant told interrogators he had thought he was targeting troops, Wojack said.

He declined to give the nationality of the injured civilian, adding that the wounds were minor.
More on link

 MDA extends surveillance contract for Australian defence force
By The Canadian Press  | September 07, 2012 
Article Link

RICHMOND, B.C. - MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (TSX:MDA) says one of its contracts with the Australian military have been extended and another amended.

The first contract extends MDA's unmanned aerial vehicle surveillance service for the Australian force in Kandahar Airfield for an additional two years.

The second contract provides for a three month assessment activity that will provide critical information in support of Australia's efforts in Afghanistan.

The Richmond-B.C.-based company says the combined contract value of the two deals is in excess of $100 million.

MDA has been supporting the Australian forces by providing important real-time intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance information to ground commanders since January 2010.
More on link

 Suicide blast in Kabul kills 12 including 8 South Africans

Article Link
Sep. 18, 2012 7:59AM EDT

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a mini-bus carrying foreign aviation workers to the airport in the Afghan capital early Tuesday, killing at least 12 people including eight South Africans. A militant group claimed the attack aimed to avenge an anti-Islam film that ridicules the Prophet Muhammad.

The powerful early morning blast was the first to target Kabul since a video clip of the film was posted on the Internet last week, sparking angry protests across the Muslim world including in Afghanistan. It was also the second -- and deadliest -- attack in Afghanistan that militants have said they carried out as revenge strikes in response to the film.

Haroon Zarghoon, a spokesman for the Islamist militant group Hizb-i-Islami, claimed responsibility for the dawn attack in telephone call to The Associated Press. He said it was carried out by a 22-year-old woman named Fatima. Suicide bombings carried out by women are extremely rare in Afghanistan -- and few if any women drive cars.

"The anti-Islam film hurt our religious sentiments and we cannot tolerate it," Zarghoon said. He said the 22-year-old Fatima volunteered to be the suicide bomber.

"There had been several young men who wanted to take revenge but Fatima also volunteered and we wanted to give a chance to a girl for the attack to tell the world we cannot ignore any anti-Islam attack."
More on link


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## GAP (19 Sep 2012)

*Articles found Sept 19, 2012*

 This Afghan War will end as they always do

Jeffrey Simpson The Globe and Mail Wednesday, Sep. 19 2012
Article Link

“Whatever decisions were made, there would have been no happy ending. A foreign army, isolated in Kabul, propping up an unpopular ruler in the face of a growing insurgency could not succeed. To maintain security, they needed to create a new Afghan army, which required taxation and expenditure. This created enemies and required a resource base, which Afghanistan did not have. They therefore relied on enormous – and unsustainable – amounts of foreign funding (which in turn fuelled corruption.)”
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Star of Military Valour and Medal of Military Valour to Be Awarded on Wednesday
Article Link
September 18, 2012

LIST OF RECIPIENTS

STAR OF MILITARY VALOUR
Corporal Jean-François Roger Donald Belzil S.M.V. 	Montréal, Que.

 MEDAL OF MILITARY VALOUR
Corporal Marc-André Cousineau, M.M.V. 	Greenfield Park, Que.
Sergeant Joseph André Steve Poulin, M.M.V., C.D. 	Québec, Que.
Corporal Marco Tremblay, M.M.V. 	Jonquière, Que.

 

CITATIONS

Corporal Jean-François Roger Donald Belzil, S.M.V. Montréal, Quebec Star of Military Valour Corporal Marc-André Cousineau, M.M.V. Greenfield Park, Quebec Medal of Military Valour

On April 9, 2011, upon intercepting enemy radio transmissions, 3 Platoon, A Company, awaited an attack on the security cordon established to the north of Zangabad, Afghanistan. When the first insurgent shot rang out, Corporal Belzil and Corporal Cousineau moved in that direction with their anti-tank gun, coming across a Canadian section and its Afghan counterpart pinned down under enemy fire, as well as a seriously wounded Afghan soldier lying out in the open. Thanks to Corporal Cousineau’s effective covering fire, and despite heavy enemy fire, Corporal Belzil succeeded in destroying the stronghold from which the deadly insurgent shots originated. They both then pulled the wounded soldier to cover and administered first aid. Corporal Belzil and Corporal Cousineau’s composure and disregard for personal danger helped to push back the enemy attack and save the life of an Afghan soldier.

Sergeant Joseph André Steve Poulin, M.M.V., C.D. Québec, Quebec Medal of Military Valour

Sergeant Poulin distinguished himself through his bravery as a tank commander by ensuring security during a road construction project in Afghanistan. On several occasions, notably December 18, 2010, February 17, 2011, and April 23, 2011, he placed his tank in dangerous positions to protect civilians, coalition colleagues and Afghan security forces. Sergeant Poulin’s courage and professionalism were instrumental in ensuring the success of this operation.

Corporal Marco Tremblay, M.M.V. Jonquière, Quebec Medal of Military Valour

On May 18, 2011, during an enemy ambush in Sperwan Ghar, Afghanistan, Corporal Tremblay demonstrated courage and determination. When the first enemy shots were fired, a Canadian soldier was hit in the leg and unable to take cover. Keeping calm under continuous fire, Corporal Tremblay reached the soldier, immediately applied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding and, during a lull, dragged the soldier to safety. Corporal Tremblay’s bravery enabled him to save the life of a Canadian soldier.
end

Canadian trainers still far from front lines in Afghanistan
Article Link
By Daniel Proussalidis	,Parliamentary Bureau, September 18, 2012

OTTAWA - Amid increased violence from within the ranks of Afghan forces against NATO trainers, Defence Minister Peter MacKay warns there is no guarantee Canadian soldiers will stay safe.

"We're not naive," MacKay said. "We can't eliminate risk altogether. This is a highly volatile part of the world."

At least 51 alliance soldiers have been killed this year when Afghan police or soldiers turned their weapons on their NATO mentors.

As a result, NATO has ordered a temporary cutback in joint operations with Afghan forces on the front lines of combat in Afghanistan.

While commanders are always working to reduce the risks trainers face, MacKay says Canadian trainers have an advantage as they work in and around the capital, Kabul.

"Canada does not participate in joint operations," MacKay said. "Our training is done ... on static bases behind the wire, so we are insulated from these changes as far as joint operations."

The minister also points to other factors that have kept Canadian troops safer.

"It's partly the intent of the Taliban in who they're targeting," MacKay said. He added that screening of Afghan trainees is becoming more effective, too.

Meantime, NATO says the slowdown in its joint operations with Afghan forces won't prevent the alliance from handing over full responsibility for national security to Afghanistan in 2014.

"The fact that it is possible, as a temporary measure, to suspend some partnered activities reflects that Afghan security forces are able to operate on their own," NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.
end


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## GAP (20 Sep 2012)

*Articles found Sept 20, 2012*

Bomb targeting Pakistani air force vehicle hits passenger van, killing 8 civilians
Article Link
By: Riaz Khan, The Associated Press  09/19/2012

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - A bomb targeting a Pakistani military vehicle instead struck a passenger van on Wednesday in a city in the country's northwest, killing at least eight civilians, authorities said.

Police official Tahir Ayub Khan said the afternoon blast on the outskirts of Peshawar wounded another 27 civilians, plus three air force officers in the targeted vehicle. Khan said the bomb was set off by remote control. The passenger van and the air force vehicle were driving through the area at the time.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, and Khan said authorities were still investigating the motive behind the attack.

Peshawar is considered the gateway to Pakistan's tribal areas. Militants fighting the Pakistani government often target security officials in and around the city, although violence has dropped considerably in recent years.

Also Wednesday, security officials said they found the bodies of 29 militants in an area in northwest Pakistan where the military recently staged a two-week battle against Taliban fighters who came from Afghanistan. The military finally pushed the militants back into Afghanistan on Sept. 8.

A political official in the Bajur area where the fighting took place said at the time that the death toll included at least 80 militants, 18 civilians, 12 anti-Taliban militiamen and eight soldiers.
More on link

 ‘Good enough’
Article Link
Richard Johnson | Sep 19, 2012

Camp Alamo, Kabul Military Training Centre, Kabul Province, Afghanistan – Sept. 18, 2012.

Camp Alamo is a tiny base within Kabul Military Training Centre (KMTC). It is home to around 250 Canadian soldier mentors. The camp is surrounded on all sides by KMTC Afghan National Army (ANA) barracks and training areas. KMTC is home for around 3,000 ANA training and support staff, and has as many as 25,000 soldiers in training every day. New recruits arrive at a rate of around 4,000 a month. They can be seen sitting, squatting – looking awe-struck and a little frightened – still in their own clothes, in groups numbering hundreds. They are issued uniforms and uniform haircuts and instantly they are part of a faceless mass of raw military material.

Over their first nine weeks the ANA turns this raw material into the most basic of soldiers. They don’t know how to fight, but they learn how to dress, how to pack and how to march in the Soviet style. When they arrive, 90% of these young men cannot read, write or count. So they start on a mandatory program of literacy and arithmetic. The number of soldiers going Absent Without Leave (AWOL) during training is extraordinarily high.

“Without a banking system I am convinced the AWOL will continue. They like to give the money to their families, and the only secure way to get there is to get there on foot. That problem was discovered in 2005,” said Colonel Ian Hope.
More on link


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## GAP (22 Sep 2012)

*Articles found Sept 22, 2012*

Senate votes down measure to cut aid to Pakistan
September 22, 2012 FoxNews.com
Article Link

The Senate early Saturday morning voted down a measure to cut aid to Pakistan until the country releases a doctor who assisted in locating Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden.

Earlier this month, the Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, detailed in an exclusive jail-cell interview with Fox News how the he has been tortured by spy-service interrogators. That prompted Sen. Rand Paul, to renew his months-long effort to compel a vote on the bill that would freeze U.S. aid to Pakistan unless Afridi is released.

Afridi was convicted of high treason and sentenced to 33 years in prison. The United States has sought his release.

Eighty-one senators opposed Republican Sen. Rand Paul's bill and 10 supported it.

In a 90-1 vote, the Senate approved a resolution insisting that the United States will do all it can to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

The nonbinding measure says it should not be construed as an authorization for the use of military force or a declaration of war. However, the resolution says the United States would not rely on containment of a nuclear weapons-capable Iran.
end
  
Afghanistan bans Pakistan newspapers over Taliban support
Article Link
  22 September 2012

Afghanistan has moved to block the entry of all newspapers from Pakistan, saying they serve Taliban militants.

In its order, the interior ministry said the newspapers "are a propaganda resource of the Taliban spokesmen" and has ordered police forces in east Afghanistan to confiscate all copies.

The latest move comes amid increasing tension between the two countries.

Afghanistan has urged Pakistan to immediately stop shelling in the border province of Kunar.

The Afghan interior ministry order focuses specifically on blocking entry of the papers at Torkham, a busy border crossing.

It authorises police to impound Pakistani newspapers in the three eastern provinces of Nangarhar, Kunar and Nuristan.

Referring to the reasons for the move, the ministry said news in the Pakistani newspapers "is not based in reality and it is creating concerns for our countrymen in the eastern provinces of Afghanistan".
'Sensitive issue'

Correspondents say that cross-border violence has become a highly sensitive issue in Afghanistan, where many are wary of Pakistan's historic ties to the Taliban.

At a UN Security Council meeting on Thursday, Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul said the attacks had killed dozens of civilians.

The UN says around 4,000 people have been displaced due to cross-border shelling.

Last month, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart, Asif Ali Zardari, agreed to send a joint military delegation to examine the shelling across their border. 
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## GAP (24 Sep 2012)

*Articles found Sept 24, 2012*

 Afghan troops need NATO to stick with them
Article Link
By: The Washington Post  09/23/2012

"I think we are on track" in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta cheerily told reporters on Friday. The Pentagon chief was celebrating the withdrawal of the last of the 33,000 "surge" troops sent to the country by President Obama in 2009, a pullout which -- not at all by coincidence -- was completed just weeks before the November election. Mr. Panetta was largely right in saying that the surge "accomplished its objectives" of breaking the momentum of the Taliban and buying time for the expansion and training of the Afghan army.

But after a week in which most joint operations between coalition and Afghan troops were suspended, U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is anything but "on track." In fact, it may be more imperiled than at any other time in Mr. Obama’s presidency.

The halting of contacts below the battalion level between coalition and Afghan forces was ordered a week ago Sunday, after four more American troops were shot and killed by Afghan police. These "green-on-blue" killings, which now account for 51 coalition fatalities this year, are being compared by senior U.S. officials and members of Congress to the Vietnam War’s Tet Offensive, because of the devastating effect on troop morale and the already weak domestic support for the war.

The parallel is hyperbolic -- but the suspension of "partnering" will cripple NATO’s strategy if it is prolonged. Up to 80 per cent of combat operations in recent months were joint operations between Western and Afghan forces, often at the company level. Without coalition support, many Afghan units may be unwilling or incapable of fighting. In the countryside, they will be tempted to surrender or strike truces with Taliban forces.
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Canadian trainers still far from front lines in Afghanistan
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By Daniel Proussalidis, Parliamentary Bureau Tuesday, September 18, 2012 

OTTAWA - Amid increased violence from within the ranks of Afghan forces against NATO trainers, Defence Minister Peter MacKay warns there is no guarantee Canadian soldiers will stay safe.

"We're not naive," MacKay said. "We can't eliminate risk altogether. This is a highly volatile part of the world."

At least 51 alliance soldiers have been killed this year when Afghan police or soldiers turned their weapons on their NATO mentors.

As a result, NATO has ordered a temporary cutback in joint operations with Afghan forces on the front lines of combat in Afghanistan.

While commanders are always working to reduce the risks trainers face, MacKay says Canadian trainers have an advantage as they work in and around the capital, Kabul.

"Canada does not participate in joint operations," MacKay said. "Our training is done ... on static bases behind the wire, so we are insulated from these changes as far as joint operations."

The minister also points to other factors that have kept Canadian troops safer.
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 Back Home, Service Dogs Sleep in Beds—and Sniff the Sofa for Mines
by Sandra McElwaine Sep 23, 2012 4:45 AM EDT
Article Link

Dogs, like other returning veterans, can have a long adjustment back into civilian life. Sandra McElwaine reports.

So when Air Force Major Cody Barker, who’d served in Afghanistan, and his wife, Carrie, decided to adopt Uzo, they had no idea what they were getting into.

All they knew was that the handsome, 8-year-old German shepherd who had earned his rank—Contract Working Dog Master Corporal—courageously fighting alongside Canadian forces in Afghanistan for five years was retiring and needed a good home.

When Carrie picked the dog up and brought him back to her household—which includes 5-year-old twins Colby and Carlee, the latter of whom is disabled and has her own therapy dog (a yellow Labrador named Sunshine), and her father, John, a Vietnam vet still suffering from PTSD—Uzo was not quite the gentleman she expected.

The new dog was incredibly nervous and on edge, patrolling the halls, sniffing in closets, and climbing on and under furniture. Whenever a helicopter flew over their home in Park City, Utah, he would stare up, wagging his tail furiously.

“He really loved helicopters,” Carrie says.

But two months later, when she learned from his former trainer and handler, Nelson Brown, that Uzo had been trained and then deployed to sniff out explosives and attack on command, she began to understand his anxieties and bizarre behavior.

He had never lived in a house, had a family, or even slept in a bed.
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## GAP (25 Sep 2012)

*Articles found Sept 25, 2012*

 Turkish NATO peacekeepers to stay in Afghanistan another year
Reuters – Thu, 20 Sep, 2012
Article Link

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish peacekeepers will remain in Afghanistan's capital Kabul until at least November 2013 after the military agreed to extend its mandate as part of a NATO force by a year, the Turkish military said on Thursday.

Turkish soldiers took over the Kabul regional command as part of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in November 2009. The military said in a statement that mission had been extended for a year from November 1, 2012.

The war in Afghanistan, which has failed to defeat the Taliban after more than a decade of fighting, has strained budgets and lost public support in Western nations.

NATO has said it plans to shift full responsibility for security across the country to Afghan forces by the middle of next year and then withdraw most of the alliance's 130,000 combat troops by the end of 2014.

U.S. President Barack Obama has championed a gradual exit of the allied force which does not leave Afghans feeling abandoned, but France has vowed to pull its troops out by the end of the year, two years ahead of the alliance's timetable.
end

 Afghan Security Forces plan and execute joint operation
Article Link

TARIN KOT, Afghanistan – Afghan National Security Forces continue to provide safety and security for Afghan locals. Evidence of this occurred when soldiers of 3rd Kandak, 4th Brigade, 205th Corps Afghan National Army conducted a clearance operation on Sept. 7 in Khas Uruzgan district, Afghanistan.

The 4th Brigade displayed its ability to conduct mission planning from the brigade level down to the platoon level.

"The enthusiasm that the ANA engineers have shown throughout the clearance operation has been excellent. Their drive and determination has been infectious throughout the whole clearance force and the results can be seen in the finds of weapons and caches they have picked up," said Lt. Tim Glover, Mobile Advisory Group commander, Mentoring Team Charlie, 3rd Royal Australian Regiment Task Group.

During this operation Afghan National Security Forces successfully searched and cleared over thirty structures, detonated one IED (without injury), and uncovered three weapons caches.

"My experiences of operating with the ANSF have been positive,” Glover said. “They are a relatively new army and police force who are keen to draw on our experiences and implement them in their own way."

The strong relationship between coalition forces and Afghan security forces stems from mutual respect on both sides.
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Australian engineers step out into danger
Article Link

TARIN KOT, Afghanistan – In war, a soldier is placed in situations where a measure of bravery becomes a necessary part of daily affairs. Soldiers know and accept the risk they place themselves in every day and understand the consequences.

But there are always those who stand above their fellow men courageously, embracing extreme danger to protect their brothers in arms.

The soldiers of the 2nd Combat Engineer Regiment, Royal Australian Engineers are such men.

The 2nd CER soldiers serving in Afghanistan have a myriad of jobs, including bridge building, demolitions and mobility support. The most dangerous job, however, is high-risk search.

“High-risk search is a crazy job. Instead of sitting in an armored vehicle, we’re in front of it protecting the armored vehicle,” said Sapper Christopher Blair, a 2nd CER soldier from Melbourne, Australia.
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## TN2IC (25 Sep 2012)

from liveleak.com

Airstrike kills Taliban commander in eastern Afghanistan

Article Link



> ASSADABAD, Afghanistan, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- Two people including a Taliban
> commander were killed as aircraft of NATO-led International Security Assistance
> Force (ISAF) raided a Taliban hideout in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar
> on Sunday, a local official said.



More on the link

Regards,
Macey


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## GAP (27 Sep 2012)

*Articles found Sept 27, 2012*

Really?

  Michele Flournoy, Obama Adviser: Afghanistan Insider Attacks Are Sign Of 'Taliban Desperation'
Article Link
Posted: 09/26/2012 

WASHINGTON -- Michele Flournoy, a former top Pentagon official and current foreign policy adviser to President Barack Obama's campaign, said Tuesday that insider attacks by Afghan troops against their American partners are a "very occasional" problem and a sign of "Taliban desperation."

"It's very tragic and it's very upsetting when these things happen," said Flournoy, the undersecretary of defense for policy from 2009 to 2012, who was speaking at a small gathering at the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way. "But they are a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of a percentage of the overall interactions that are happening."

Insider attacks, also described as green-on-blue, have spiked this year in Afghanistan, resulting so far in 51 deaths among soldiers from the U.S. and other NATO allies. The problem has grown so great in recent months that American commanders decided to halt the training program for some Afghan police units and cease all joint patrols, while they rescreen recruits and consider their options.

One of those options, raised in an essay on Foreign Policy Wednesday by a former top commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, would be to scuttle the exit plan as scripted and significantly expedite the handover of responsibility to the Afghans.

"If popular tolerance for battlefield deaths was tenuous, there is near zero patience with attacks from the very Afghan forces the allies have been working with over the last eleven years," wrote David Barno, a retired general who is now a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Center for a New American Security.

"The strategic logic of this costly effort in a world where U.S. military power is stretched thin is painfully elusive. It is time to put President [Hamid] Karzai and his troops in the lead and more rapidly draw down U.S. military forces to a sustainable, modest level of support," Barno concluded.

In response to a Huffington Post question at the Tuesday event, Flournoy argued that "these very occasional green-on-blue violent incidents" are not, in fact, an indication of the strategy faltering, but are instead "a sign of, I believe, Taliban desperation."
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Two NATO soldiers killed in Afghan attack
Article Link

Two soldiers with the NATO-led international coalition were killed Wednesday in an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan, the military said, dpa reported.

The coalition did not provide further details about the deceased soldiers' nationalities or the exact location of the incident.

The majority of the international soldiers stationed in southern Afghanistan are US, British and Canadian.

Taliban sources were not immediately available to comment on the incident.

Some 340 NATO troops have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year, 259 of them Americans.
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## GAP (29 Sep 2012)

*Articles found Sept 29, 2012*

The lies about aid and Afghanistan
  Article Link
The closure of British-built Afghan schools is a reminder of how the public has been misled about the west's intervention
 Conor Foley	 guardian.co.uk, Friday 28 September 2012

The news that the British have built far more schools and hospitals in Helmand province than the government of Afghanistan can afford to run, exposes a lie about our intervention in that country that is in many ways as insidious as the lies that surrounded the invasion of Iraq.

Afghanistan was always different from Iraq, both in terms of legal authority and in the manner in which the intervention was carried out. Most significantly, Afghanistan was not "invaded" by the west. Or if an invasion took place, it happened in 2006 or else in 2009.

The US-led Operation Enduring Freedom, which ousted the Taliban 10 years ago, was carried out by a handful of special forces who flew into the country with suitcases full of cash. They bought the allegiance of selected warlords and then called in air strikes against the Taliban hold-outs. Crudely put, we backed one side against another in a brutal civil war that had been going on since the fall of the previous externally imposed government of President Najibullah.

An international conference in Bonn, Germany, legitimised the process in December 2001 and selected Hamid Karzai as president basically because he was the most prominent Pashtun that could be found who spoke good English. The UN mission sent to help oversee the process was deliberately given a "light footprint" with no executive authority and extremely few resources. A token international military force was also deployed consisting of 4,000 soldiers.

At the same time a larger number of humanitarian aid workers arrived to help with the postwar reconstruction. I was one of them and lived in the country for a year-and-a-half between 2003 and 2004 so had a ringside seat of the resulting debacle.
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  Afghanistan's softer insurgents claim suicide attack. What next?
Article Link
Militant group Hizb-e-Islami claimed Tuesday's suicide bombing in Kabul that killed 12 civilians. The group had been more discriminating in targets, and more engaged in peace talks.
By Tom A. Peter, Correspondent / September 19, 2012 
Kabul, Afghanistan

Following a suicide bombing in Kabul on Tuesday that left 12 people dead, including eight South Africans and a Kyrgyz, the insurgent group Hizb-e-Islami stepped forward to claim responsibility.
As one of the most moderate Islamic militant organizations in Afghanistan, the group’s involvement came as a shock to many of its supporters. Over the course of the past decade, the group has violently opposed international forces, but called on fighters not to hurt civilians or damage the country’s infrastructure.

The militant group has also been among the most receptive to peace talks with the US, NATO, and the Afghan government. And a separate, nonviolent faction of the group had already integrated into mainstream politics, with Hamid Karzai picking members for cabinet posts and adviser roles. As one of the few political parties with decades of experience and members across ethnic groups, the nonviolent faction has been seen as a growing player in the country's political scrum as Mr. Karzai faces a term limit and the bulk of international troops leave in 2014.
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  Joint raids suspended: NATO's Afghanistan strategy hits hurdle
Article Link
The new policy is likely to put even more distance between NATO and Afghan forces, stressing relations at a time when NATO has been working to hand over security to the Afghans.
By Tom A. Peter, Correspondent / September 18, 2012 
Kabul, Afghanistan

US and NATO forces announced that they will now severely restrict their partnered operations with Afghan forces, following a wave of so-called green-on-blue killings where Afghan security forces kill international military troops and violent fallout from the anti-Islam YouTube video.

Prior to the shift, international forces throughout Afghanistan regularly conducted joint missions with their Afghan counterparts and oversaw many training exercises. Now any joint interaction that takes place below advising the command staff at the battalion level will require the approval of the two-star NATO general in command of the region.

“It was both the spate of green-on-blues recently, as well as recent worldwide events following the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ video and the attacks on embassies. There were a lot of risks to ISAF soldiers as well as Americans abroad in the past week that have driven this decision,” says US Army Maj. Adam Wojack, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force. “We noticed a trend, and we’re doing what we can to mitigate the risk to our troops in the field.”

The new policy is likely to put even more distance between international and Afghan forces, stressing relations at a time when NATO has been working to hand over a greater portion of the security responsibility ahead of the end of its combat operations in 2014.

In recent years, US and international forces have placed great emphasis on making the majority of their operations here Afghan-led, adopting Dari slogans such as shohna ba shohna, or "shoulder by shoulder," to describe their relationship with Afghan forces.Prior to the shift, international forces throughout Afghanistan regularly conducted joint missions with their Afghan counterparts and oversaw many training exercises. Now any joint interaction that takes place below advising the command staff at the battalion level will require the approval of the two-star NATO general in command of the region.
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 Kelowna teen feted for helping girls in Afghanistan get an education
  Article Link
Her charity, started when she was just nine, provides funds for teachers
 By Cheryl Chan, The Province September 28, 2012

Alaina Podmorow was only nine years old when she decided she wanted to help little girls in a war-torn country halfway across the world.

Six years and countless fundraising efforts later, the Kelowna teen was able to go to Afghanistan to see what she had started.

"It was a life-changing experience," said Podmorow, whose charity Little Women for Little Women in Afghanistan has raised almost $400,000 toward education and literacy programs in that country.

"It was a great opportunity to see the projects we have been supporting for so long."

In 2006, Podmorow's mom, Jamie, took her to a lecture by Canadian journalist and human-rights activist Sally Armstrong. It opened the young girl's eyes to human-rights injustices against girls and women in Afghanistan that had continued despite the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001.

"These girls weren't able to leave a house without a male relative. They had to cover themselves in a burka, and the thing that really moved me was these girls weren't going to school," recalled Podmorow, now a Grade 10 student at Aberdeen Hall.

"I've always been passionate about school and having the chance to get an education. Hearing these girls didn't have the same chance ... I felt it was my responsibility to stand up and say this can't happen any more."
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## GAP (30 Sep 2012)

*Articles found Sept 30, 2012*

  NATO soldier, civilian, killed in Afghan 'insider' attack
By Reuters 
Article Link

KABUL - A member of NATO’s Afghan force and a civilian contractor have been killed in the latest so-called insider attack by a member of the Afghan security forces, the NATO force said on Sunday.

The attack in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday came after the United States said joint operations with Afghan forces were returning to normal.

Joint operations were halted two weeks ago after a surge of attacks by Afghan allies. At least 52 members of the NATO force have been killed this year in so-called green-on-blue attacks.

It was too early to say what impact the latest incident would have on plans to restore joint-operations with Afghan forces to normal, a spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said. 
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