Is the Pentagon’s revelation of a mineral bonanza in Afghanistan aimed at driving down the price of lithium and thereby undercutting Bolivia’s efforts to bring on a new global source?
The groom and 17 of the guests at a Kandahar wedding party attacked by a suicide bomber were members of an anti-Taliban militia organized by US Special Operations forces.
Millions of Pakistanis in the tribal areas live in a “human rights free zone” under Taliban control, Amnesty International charges in a new report.
Taliban suicide bombers and gunmen attacked a “peace jirga” called by President Hamid Karzai in Kabul to discuss brokering a deal with the Taliban.
Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, operational leader for al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, was apparently killed in a US drone strike at the village of Miranshah, North Waziristan, in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
The Senate approved a $60 billion spending bill to support a “surge” in troops in Afghanistan. The vote comes as the number of US casualties in Afghanistan surpassed 1,000.
US Forces-Afghanistan has launched a criminal investigation into allegations that a “small number of US soldiers were responsible for the unlawful deaths of as many as three Afghan civilians.”
Afghan opium farmers are convinced that a fungus outbreak that has damaged poppy crops is US biological warfare. The Pentagon has considered using opium-eating fungi before.
A proposed strategy document dubbed “NATO 2020” calls for an expanded readiness and capacity to operate beyond the borders of member states, and names the campaign in Afghanistan as a top priority.
US drones killed 21 presumed Taliban militants in two separate strikes in Pakistan’s tribal region of North Waziristan. Ten drones were seen hovering over the area.
Dozens of schoolgirls in Afghanistan were hospitalized after two apparent poisonous gas attacks on their schools, the latest in a spate of similar incidents.
The US detention center at Bagram in Afghanistan could be expanded into a military prison for terrorist suspects detained around the world to replace the Guantánamo Bay facility.
