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Bakwa, Farah Province, 3 AM: 200 Taliban in dozens of pickup trucks invaded this town, firing RPG's at the police headquarters. They took over the compound for an hour until police reinforcements drove them off into the dark desert. 2 Taliban were killed and 2 more were wounded.
Bakwa is 59 1/2 miles east of Farah city, the capital of the province. It is 12 1/2 miles north of the border with Nimroz Province. Nimroz has not been very hostile since 2001. However, Bakwa is also 41 1/2 miles from the western border of Helmand Province, where much fighting is taking place.
It is possible that guerrillas fleeing the very heavy fighting in Helmand are fleeing west to Farah. On the other hand, the population of Bakwa is 100% Pashtun, so this may just be a case of local Pashtuns joining the Taliban insurgency, which is basically a Pashtun insurgency at its core. There are no girls' schools in Bakwa and there are no health facilities.
NATO is worried that Farah may turn into a new Taliban stronghold and may become a serious new front in the war unless something is done quickly to stamp it out.
Typical desert terrain in Farah Province.
A typical dwelling in barren Farah Province.
Farah city, with desolate, beautiful mountains in the background.*****
Sarkani District, Kunar Province: US and Afghan forces arrested 3 guerrillas with a bomb in this district south of Asadabad. The Sarkani District extends south of Asadabad to the Pakistani border. This is probably a very unstable area.
This district is 100% Pashtun. There are a fair number of girls in school, but there are zero female teachers. There is only one health clinic in the entire district. 80% of the homes were destroyed in the Russian War.
Sori District, Zabul Province: Roadside bomb attack on an Afghan military vehicle here wounded 2 Afghan soldiers. A Taliban commander claimed responsibility. There is no district in Zabul called the Sori District, so I do not know what area they are talking about.
Wednesday, September 13
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Balabaluk District, Farah Province, 4 PM: Dozens of Taliban attacked a police convoy here, setting off a large battle that killed 4 policemen and 4 Taliban. 11 more policemen were wounded. Balabaluk has seen a number of sporadic serious incidents in the past year or so. It is 32 miles northeast of Farah city, the capital.
The Balabuluk District has a population that is 95% Pashtun. There are no girls' schools in Balabaluk and there are only 2 poorly-equipped health facilities in the district, which in general are not accessible by women.
NATO is starting to get very worried about Farah Province and the possibility that it may soon become a major battlefield. It is a majority-Pashtun province, but is has not been extremely unstable until recent weeks.
It is possible that Taliban forces have fled here from Helmand and Kandahar to the south. At any rate, the spread of this mess to Farah is not positive at all is merely another chapter in the ever-expanding insurgency and the worst violence since the US invaded in 2001.
The desolate terrain surrounding the landing area on the approach to the Farah City airport.
Boy tending his herd animals in an irrigated field in Farah Province. With irrigation, the desert can indeed bloom. These are apparently goats. Goats are probably the most popular herd animal in Farah.
Boys and a man working an irrigation ditch in Farah Province. Irrigation is necessary in this desert province.*****
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Ali Bag, Akund Khel and Ali Qala, Andar District, Ghazni Province: US and Afghan forces continued their raids here in this Taliban-controlled district and fought battles in 3 separate towns - Ali Bag, Akund Khel and Ali Qala. Ali Bag, Akund Khel and Ali Qala (which is actually called Qala Ali) are all located from 7 1/2 to 12 miles northwest of Miri, the capital of the district.
Ali Bag (map here) is 7 1/2 miles northwest, Qala Ali (map here) is 9 miles northwest and Akund Khel (map here) is 12 miles northwest of Miri. Each town has a population of about 3,500. 30 Taliban were killed in the fighting and Coalition forces did not suffer any casualties. 4 of the fighters killed were foreigners, probably Pakistanis from the Waziristans.
Noted Afghan War researcher Marc Herold has complained about this report in his comment on this site here. According to his website, at least 3 civilians were killed in these battles. He also calls into question the "30 Taliban" killed. Unfortunately, as Herold notes on his site, in many cases, civilian casualties are lumped in with Taliban casualties, so civilian deaths are reported as Taliban.
In this case in Andar, Herold notes that there is no independent verification that "30 Taliban" were killed in these battles. Herold's criticism is noted. I am a fan of Herold's work. On the other hand, I do support this Afghan War although I have many criticisms of the way it is being carried out.
The latest surveys that I am aware of show that 73% of Afghans support the Coalition presence in their country. Karzai's government also apparently has majority support. If anyone has more recent surveys, feel free to comment at the bottom or email me.
Pulling out of Afghanistan now and letting the Taliban possibly take over again and turn Afghanistan into a Hell and another Al Qaeda sanctuary cannot be allowed to occur. Recall that bin Laden planned the 9-11 attacks at his training camps in Afghanistan.
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Jalalabad, Nangarhar Province: 2 rockets were fired here 2 hours before a visit by President Karzai to inaugurate a new cross-border road with Pakistan, probably extending over the Khyber Pass, which is not far away. 1 rocket landed near the airport compound and the other hit a home, but there were no casualties.
Kunar Province: Roadside bomb attack on an Afghan army van killed 4 troops, including 2 officers. A Taliban commander claimed responsibility.
Kandahar: A suicide bomber blew himself up in an empty mosque here. It was possible that this was an attack that went awry. No one other than the bomber was hurt. The intended target and the reason for the attack were not known.
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Panjwayi District, Kandahar Province: NATO forces continued to advance here as part of Operation Medusa, which seems to be winding down. Forces were searching for weapons, roadside bombs and booby traps.
After the operation is finished, "reconstruction" can supposedly commence, but considering how disastrously the free market fundamentalists in the reactionary imperialist Bush Administration have completely botched the reconstruction project so far, I do not have high hopes.
To give you an example of the insane values of the free market ideologues in the US government, the US government spent a large sum of reconstruction money ($17.7 million) on a private university for wealthy Kabul residents. The university will only admit those rich enough to afford it, which means maybe 1% of the population.
In a nation where vast numbers have no access to regular food or health care, where refugees outside Kandahar starve to death as I write, where 25% of Afghan children die before they get to age 5, this private university, paid with US taxpayer money, is emblematic of the serious failure of the Bush mission in Afghanistan.
The Taliban are now moving through Afghanistan, advancing an interesting argument. We may have been cold and brutal, they say, but we were not corrupt, and you got enough to eat when we were in.
It is true, the Taliban were much less corrupt than Bush's crony capitalist buddies in the Afghan government, and sadly, the Taliban barbarians did a better job of feeding their people than the President From Unocal, Hamid Karzai, or his allies in the US government.
Locals say that the Taliban did a better job of building roads than the Bush crony criminal-capitalists. That is truly a devastating assessment - that the super-reactionary Taliban cavemen were less corrupt, better at feeding their people and better road-builders than the US government is an appalling statement. Of all the people to be shown up by! How humiliating for America!
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Tuesday, September 12
Boka, Balkh Province, 11:40 AM: 15-30 fighters representing unknown forces attacked Finnish and Swedish troops here. The reason for the attack was not known. Attackers used mines, RPG's and handguns. Fighting continued until 1 PM. No ISAF forces were hurt in the incident. This town of about 8,000 is located about 5 miles west of the Balkh, the capital of the province.
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Balabuluk District, Farah Province, Late: Taliban fighters attacked a vehicle carrying a UN driver and an Afghan government official and another passenger. The Afghan driver was working for UN-HABITAT, or the UN Human Settlements Program. He was shot dead. The government official, who worked for the Ministry of Rural Development, and another passenger, fled.
A meeting in Farah city on Women's Day in July 2004. Farah has elected one of the only women present in the Afghan government, Malalai Joya. These women represent the possible future of Afghanistan. Another possible future is the Islamofascist nightmare of both the Taliban and the US-supported warlords in the Afghan government.
Malalai Joya working in her home in Farah city. This year, she has started getting threats from both the Taliban and the warlords in the US-supported Karzai government. Joya is an example of what the future of Afghanistan could be.
A "service station" in Farah Province. I kid you not!*****
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Outside Garmser, Helmand Province: There was a large battle here between the remains of the Taliban force that captured the town the week before. On Monday, a force retook the town. NATO and Afghan forces pursued the fleeing Taliban to a mountainous area outside of Garmser, where a large battle ensued and 16 Taliban were killed. 6 of those killed were Pakistanis. 1 Afghan policeman was wounded.
The battle continued into early Wednesday. 2 Taliban were arrested, including an area commander. The remaining Taliban fled deeper into the mountains. There has been a 150% increase in the opium crop in Helmand this year. Afghanistan is now producing more heroin than all the world's addicts can possibly consume.
It is a good bet that the increase in drug production, which has been encouraged by the puritanical Taliban for purely instrumental reasons, has led to a large increase in the Taliban's war chest. 4,500 British troops are in Helmand in an operation that is coming under increasing criticism at home in Britain.
Helmand is one of the Taliban's main redoubts in Afghanistan. Parts of Helmand, especially the Now Zad District, were hotbeds of Taliban and Al Qaeda support when the Taliban was in power. In Sangin, the locals admitted when they first met with the British, that they were also attending meetings with the Taliban.
The locals are convinced that British troops are there to eradicate the poppy crop, from which they derive their livelihood. It's not true, although US forces are taking an aggressive stance on opium eradication. Development of alternative crops that will support farmers has been completely lacking.
The US government has taken a rightwing dogmatic line regarding opium production that has radically increased support for the Taliban. An alternative would be to license opium production for legal drugs, which is an opium that the rightwing radicals in the US government will not hear of. As farmers livelihoods are destroyed, they join the Taliban in anger.
It is reasonable that Helmand Province is a hotbed of support for the Taliban. In most districts, there are no girls in school at all and there are few, if any, medical clinics, and those that exist typically are have few or no female medical workers. Many of the locals and their leaders openly say that they are opposed to girls going to school.
This is actually in contrast to most of the rest of Afghanistan, including other Pashtun areas, where there are usually at least some girls in school and some access for women to health centers. Other than that, in Helmand, women have virtually zero rights in any way.
In such an extremely conservative district, it is easy to see how the Taliban could thrive. It has hard to see what the Coalition could offer such deeply conservative people, but aid would surely be helpful. An article detailing the nightmarish situation in Helmand from a British POV is here.
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Andar District, Ghazni Province: US and Afghan forces attacked Taliban holed up here, killing 16 of them. 2 police and 1 Afghan soldier were wounded. This district is pretty much controlled by the Taliban. An article detailing the mess in Ghazni Province is here. Basically, the government has neglected the area, particularly in terms of security.
The Taliban now run regular checkpoints on the new Kabul-Kandahar Highway in the province. Anyone found with any evidence of working for the government is detained and some of those detained are killed. The government police in the province are woefully undermanned, underpaid and underarmed. They are no match for the Taliban, who are better armed, have larger forces and are paying much higher salaries.
A number of locals are fighting for the Taliban because the Taliban is offering high salaries (about $120/month) to fight for them. No one really knows where they are getting the money, but some suspect that they are getting it from Islamist groups in Pakistan. They are also probably getting money from the Gulf, especially Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
There are only a tiny number of government soldiers here, much fewer than is needed to secure the province, in a repeat of a similar situation over the summer with Uruzgan Province. The 2 girls' schools in Andar have been closed by Taliban threats. The locals feel helpless and feel that the government cannot protect them.
It is urgent that the Karzai regime provide much more soldiers and police to Ghazni, arm them much better and pay them as much as the Taliban is paying their troops. They can always get the money from US deep pockets. It is insane that the US has not provided funds to the Karzai regime to pay for such necessities.
Many of the fighters here (up to 40%) are coming straight over the border from the Waziristans, where the Pakistani Taliban is now in full control. I really do not know what to do about that hopeless situation, but the problems in Ghazni could be easily remedied with cash and weapons.
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Panjwayi District, Kandahar Province: Canadian forces continued to advance through this district as part of Operation Medusa and for the third straight day met no resistance. Apparently Taliban forces are either fleeing or laying low.
Heavy fighting last week here killed 4 Canadian troops and 1 US soldier and wounded 12 others. Canadian troops are pushing south in Panjwayi, towards where the settled area melt into sparsely-inhabited and inhospitable desert.
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Monday, September 11
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Panjwayi District, Kandahar Province: Canadian troops pushed several hundred yards deeper into the Panjwayi District, advancing about the distance of one football field. They found blood trails leading away from fortified compounds.
NATO said they killed another 92 Taliban in this Operation Medusa, pushing the total killed in this operation to over 500. Considering that the US said there were 200 Taliban in all of Panjwayi a few months ago, then killed 200, and have now killed another 500, I guess that is progress, or something...1 Canadian soldier was wounded while destroying a compound.
In addition, 7 Taliban were arrested here. The mission was an attempt to disrupt Taliban supply lines in the desert south of Pashmul (which cannot be located on a map) and routes extending from Baram Cha (this town also could not be located on any maps) across to the Helmand River Valley in Helmand Province.
A Google Earth photo of the agricultural area along the Helmand River Valley in Helmand Province. As you can see, it is just a narrow band along the river. Not far away from the river is barren desert.It appears that the Canadian involvement in Afghanistan was something of a scam. The new Prime Minister, a follower of super-reactionary US President George Bush, lied his country into war, as conservatives always do, always have, and always will, since lying is an essential aspect of conservatism (honest conservatives should think about that).
The mission was sold to the gullible Canadians as a reconstruction mission. But there has been no reconstruction, and if the Bushies have their way, there will be little or none in the future. Instead, the Canadians are turning out to lead Operation Medusa.
Almost no reconstruction has been done in southern Afghanistan, most reconstruction money has been wasted for salaries or overpriced US experts, bribes to corrupt Afghan officials, mandates to purchase US products, and the usual Bush ultra-corrupt no-bid contracts, endless cost overruns, etc.
For instance, the job to rebuild the Kandahar-Kabul Highway was given to a corrupt, criminal US gangster-corporation with ties to George Bush.
They got the job at 3 times the price of another outfit, then subcontracted the job out to a local criminal-run business, who botched the job, while everyone involved laughed all the way to bank. Bottom line is the job cost 3 times what it should have and the highway is falling apart already.
We need to seriously consider whether the Bush Administration is capable of engaging in any decent and responsible rebuilding or reconstruction projects anywhere on Earth, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in the US - they have failed abjectly, and deliberately, everywhere they have tried.
Even hardline Communist governments like Cuba's have shown that they are able to construct projects far cheaper and far better than Bush's US gangster-corporate pals.
If that is not an abject failure of at least that crony aspect of Bush fascist-style corporate-government marriage, I do not know what is. How shameful must it be for Bush's US county club elites to be repeatedly humiliated by the statist Cubans, of all people?
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Asadabad, Kunar Province: A Humvee rolled over here, killing 1 US soldier, Army Sgt. Jeremy Edward DePottey.
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Vardak Province: Police arrested 12 Taliban here, including the head of the cell who came from Helmand Province. Vardak is also quite stable and it is similarly ominous that the Taliban are gaining force here. Vardak has a population that is 70% Pashtun, 20% Hazara and 10% other ethnic groups.
A girls' school with female teachers in Vardak Province in an undated photo. Note the smiling faces of the girls, the teacher in the burka and the stark, desolate beauty of the terrain in the background. The fact that many girls are in school in Afghanistan now, as opposed to zero under the Taliban, is, like it or not, a sign of progress rendered by the US invasion.Those who oppose the invasion due to opposition to US imperialism ought to consider that not one of these girls would be in school if the US had not invaded and the women teachers would have been unemployed and depressed, holed up in their homes, since of course the Taliban cavemen would still be in power.
For supporting the entirely reasonable US attack on Afghanistan and even the (botched) occupation of Afghanistan, I have been called a "neoconservative" by so-called anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist and pro-Islamist freaks like Joh Domingo. Progressives need to really watch who they keep company with these days. I do not think alliances with reactionary Islamists, no matter how much they oppose US imperialism, are in our interests at all.
The Taliban and those like them have been slaughtering our comrades in Afghanistan since the 1960's - we should support them for WHAT reason? Conservatives (including Islamists), everywhere on Earth, are pretty much the enemy in one way or another - face it. Let's stop making alliances with Islamist reactionaries!
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Day Chopan, Day Chopan District, Zabul Province: The Taliban raided the district police chief's headquarters here. 1 Taliban fighter was killed and 3 more were wounded. This district has been very unstable for a long time. US forces fought a huge battle here quite some time ago, claimed that they cleaned out the area, and now the Taliban are back again.
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Gorcak, Khost Province: 2 mid level commanders of Hezb-i-Islami were arrested here. One was a bomb maker suspected of attacks on Shombowat Bazaar (this town could not be found on any map) in the Gurbuz District. The Gurbuz District extends south of Khost City to the Pakistani border. That district is probably very unstable.
Another was suspected of the bombing of an Afghan army checkpoint in Khulbusat (actually called Khulbesat - map here) and the killing of an Afghan army officer. Khulbesat is located 11 1/2 miles northwest of Khost City in the Sabari District. Gorcak itself (map here) is located 10 1/2 miles northwest of Khost City in the Tere Zayi District. It is located near Khulbesat.
Hezb-i-Islami is a radical Islamist organization but they are not nearly as radical as the Taliban. Mostly, they are fighting to oust foreign forces, who they see as equivalent to the Soviets. Hezb-i-Islami was one of the main forces fighting the Soviets during the Afghan War.
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Nangarhar Province: 7 guerrillas were arrested by US forces here. One was a Hezb-i-Islami commander and the others were suspected members of Al Qaeda.
Nangarhar is definitely a Hezb-i-Islami stronghold and it is also quite probable that Al Qaeda has fighters in the area, considering that bin Laden's Tora Bora redoubt was in Nangarhar as was one of his bases at the town of Farmada, south of Jalalabad (which cannot be found on any map). Warlord Tunis Khalis controlled many of the fighters in Nangarhar and was an ally of bin Laden's.
Khalis' forces have now reportedly taken up arms against the Karzai regime alongside the other forces fighting them. When the US first invaded, Khalis quickly made peace with the US troops, but I guess he has reneged on that promise.
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Sunday, September 10
Northern Afghanistan: Unknown forces attacked Swedish troops here. There were no details on the incident, but no Swedish troops were hurt.
Jalez District, Vardak Province: Masked gunmen kidnapped 3 aid workers here. 1 was Colombian and 2 others were local Afghans. They were all working with an NGO. As mentioned above, Vardak has been fairly stable, so these incidents are really ominous. The Jalez District is on the northeastern edge of Vardak on the border with Kabul Province.
Friday, September 8
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Logar Province: Afghan police arrested 9 Afghans for helping Afghan and Pakistani fighters prepare for suicide attacks. This province is fairly stable and it is ominous that these arrests occurred here. Tribal leaders in Logar claim that the men are innocent shepherds and were set up as part of a local dispute. Such setups are pretty common in the traditional treacherous atmosphere of Afghanistan.
Machine guns, thousands or rounds of ammo and bomb-making materials were also confiscated from a home allegedly linked to the 9 arrested, further complicating the matter. Logar Province, south of Kabul Province, is majority Tajik, with a large Pashtun minority. There were several Al Qaeda training camps here during the Taliban's rule, but the foreign fighters were reportedly not popular with residents.
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