A couple were stoned to death for adultery in a Taliban-controlled village in northern Afghanistan, just as the Taliban is demanding a joint investigation with NATO and the UN into civilian casualties.
A crowd of about 300 villagers blocked a main road in eastern Afghanistan and chanted “Death to the US!” The protest came after a raid by US forces in which they said three villagers were killed.
The Taliban should be prosecuted for war crimes, Amnesty International said, following the release of a UN report showing a rise in targeted killings of civilians by insurgents in Afghanistan.
Dozens of Afghan refugees have been reported missing and thousands displaced by severe floods in Pakistan over the past two weeks, according to refugees, aid workers and officials.
Amid the US military documents released by WikiLeaks are nearly 200 involving Task Force 373, a unit charged with killing combatants in Afghanistan, but also responsible for numerous civilian deaths.
US drones killed 18 in Pakistan’s South Waziristan region. A count by the BBC Urdu service says nearly 2,500 have been killed in Pakistan by drone strikes and Taliban attacks since January 2009.
By the end of 2011, 81 US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) special agents will be deployed in Afghanistan, up from 13 just three years ago, according to the agency’s chief of operations Tom Harrigan. “Afghanistan is the most prolific producer… Read moreDEA boosts Afghan anti-opium force
A mosque and adjoining shrines were destroyed in an explosion at Ashkail village in Pakistan’s Khyber tribal region, near the Afghan border. Some shrines held the remains of Sufi saints.
Twin suicide attacks on a Sufi shrine in Lahore left 44 dead and 175 injured. The Taliban have repeatedly threatened the Data Darbar, one of the oldest Islamic sites in Pakistan.
A new US drone strike killed four in North Waziristan. According to a count by Iran’s Press TV, the US has launched 36 drone strikes in Pakistan since January, killing at least 390.
At least nine ethnic Hazara men were killed in a Taliban ambush and possibly beheaded. The Taliban carried out a campaign of genocide against the Hazaras during their years in power.
Barack Obama’s replacement of Gen. Stanley McChrystal with Gen. David Petraeus as commander of US forces in Afghanistan appears to represent a strategic shift within the administration.
