Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts
Monday, September 26, 2011
Iranians Burn the Koran
This very interesting video shows two young Iranian men burning a Koran, apparently in Iran. If they get caught, they are going to be in deep trouble. I wonder if they are Muslims!?
Although you might think Koran-burning videos are not that shocking, a lot of Muslims are really outraged by them, with Al Qaeda and jihadi types frequently threatening to kill the people who burned the Koran. There are also a lot of calls to ban these videos.
Saturday, February 05, 2011
Caged Lion Attacks Man in Iran
This video is too much!
The video was apparently shot in Iran judging from the appearances of the people in the video and the fact that they are speaking Farsi, or Persian.
A man, apparently a janitor or maintenance man, was working in and around the cage of a lion somewhere in Iran. The lion's cage is indoors for some reason. Somehow, the lion attacks the worker and has the worker in its jaws. Another man is there yelling and somehow trying to get the lion to quit biting the man.
This goes on for some time as the poor guy struggles to get away from the lion and the lion seems to be gnawing away at him and pulling him into its cage, apparently to eat him. The lion has grasped the man around his shoulder area.
A group of men arrive, but can't seem to figure out what to do about this very odd situation, so they don't do much of anything. Finally, a man in a uniform arrives, who may be a policeman or a military man. He has a pistol in his hand. He approaches the cage and shoots the lion a few times. The lion bounces backgrounds, releases the man from its jaws, then lets out a load moan as it dies. It did take a few shots to put the lion down.
Medical personnel then arrive on the scene and start going to work on the man who was chomped by the lion. It seems like maybe he is going to make it, but we can't be sure.
An extremely crazy video, one of the wildest I have ever posted!
Friday, October 01, 2010
Three Men Electrocuted in Iran
I am looking for translators to translate this post into German. Email me if you are interested.
This video is pretty amazing. An idiot in Iran, a young man, climbs up an electricity pole for some reason and is somehow stuck up there, possibly electrocuted. Why he did this is unknown.
A Good Samaritan, another young man who is unfortunately ignorant of the situation, climbs up and tries to rescue him while a huge crowd screams below. As he touches him, huge puffs of smoke fly up from the man at the top of the pole. He is unable to dislodge the first man from his perch.
Another man, yet another Good Samaritan, once again ignorant of the consequences, climbs up the pole and tries to rescue both of them. For some wild reason, this does not work, and instead it sets off a massive explosion that lights up the whole sky, blotting out everything. All three men fall from the pole to the ground, electrocuted.
Whether they survived or not or what injuries they sustained if they lived is not known. As the pole explodes with a splash of white light and white heat, the crowd's screaming, mostly women, reaches a fever pitch.
Sad video all around, especially for the latter two men.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Saudis and US: Dog and Tail
Excellent commenter Lafayette Sennacherib suggests that the Saudis are in fact clients of the US. I disagree.
LS:
Right, but what you mean when you say that they would not last a minute without US support is that the US for all intents and purposes is propping up an unpopular regime. It is unpopular because it is so pro-US! If it goes, you get radical Islam bigtime. Hamas X 10. You get more or less Al Qaeda in power in Arabia.
LS, you don't understand. You're like those Leftists who argue that the US dog wags the Israeli tail. Forget that. It's the Israeli dog wagging the US tail. The Israelis don't necessarily do what we want them to at all. But do we do what the Israelis want us to? You bet your sweet bippies.
If Israel is a colony of the US, then it is a very strange case of a colony actually controlling its colonizer in some important ways. That would surely go down in the annals of colonialism as a most strange transformation of colonial theory.
You don't understand. US power is what is keeping moderate regimes in power over there. That's good for the US, good for Israel and good for the War on Terror. In Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen - none of those places have free elections. Nor does Algeria or Mauritania.
There are scarcely free elections anywhere in Arabia. Truth is that no one in Arabia wants a pro-US regime. When you have free elections, you usually get of a radical anti-American regime of one sort or another. That's the bottom line. Hence, after the Hamas fiasco, the US is not in any hurry to promote free elections in the Arab World.
The Saudis do not have to dance to any kind of US tune. The US tells them to clean up their education system which is fomenting radical Salafist terror, the Saudis do little or nothing, then say they made good progress, and the US commends them in a fake report. That's how it goes.
The regime itself does not really promote terrorism per se, but they do in a roundabout way through their education system, state preachers and worldwide Wahhabi mosque funding.
The Saudis have us by the balls. By the oil balls. Furthermore, there is a complex alliance involved that the US elite is getting rich off of, and that alliance is not going to do anything to attack the Saudis.
The truth is that as long as Saudi Arabia, or any of the Gulf regimes, is a staunch US ally, the notion that the US is fighting any sort of a War on Terror is risible. How can we be fighting a Terror War when we are allied with those who are causing all the terrorism?
The people of the Kingdom are Wahhabi because this is what the people want. True, the people tire of Wahhabism, but they really don't know much else. The Royals are split. Some are pro-Wahhabi, and others are reformist. It's very complicated.
The game the regime has been playing since 1979 or so is Take Your Terrorism Elsewhere - Don't Target the Kingdom. Some even think that the royals support Sunni terrorism outside the Kingdom in order to kill off the young men who might make war on the Royals. That was the deal that the Family cut with bin Laden - Keep Your Terrorism Out of Arabia and We Will Not Bother You.
A secular culture like Syria or Lebanon or Libya does negligible damage to world's fabric, yet they are ferociously attacked in Washington and Jerusalem as the Terror Masters.
They are only demonized in that they are strongly anti-Israel and that those are the last countries in the region who have failed to become US allies. The lesson in Arabia is that you will become a US ally, or the US will try to destroy you in one way or another.
Further, the Iranian regime hardly sponsors terrorism anywhere other than in Palestine. They do support Hamas, it is true. They do want us out of Iraq and out of Afghanistan, because we are using those nations as bases to threaten Iran with.
But if you look elsewhere in the world of terrorism for the hand of Iran, it is not to be found. In the world of Muslim terrorism, all hands tend to point in one way or another back to the Gulf. Not just Saudi Arabia, but the entire Gulf. The staunch US allies in the Gulf. The money, the ideology, the troops, the mosques - they all come from the Gulf. From private oil money in the Gulf.
And that has almost nothing to do with the US, except that we are willing to overlook it in favor of our alliances with all of the Gulf regimes.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
LS:
You talk about 'the Saudis' as if they were independent operators; they're not - they wouldn't last a minute without US support, same too with the elites in Egypt and Jordan.To which I respond:
And most accounts suggest that Wahabbism is quite separate from the Saudi royal families; it's something they've made an accommodation with - they let them have their way in 'moral matters' to keep them quiet. I don't have the answers, but for 'Saudis' ultimately read ' US' elites - they have to do what they're told in the end. To what end, I don't know.
Right, but what you mean when you say that they would not last a minute without US support is that the US for all intents and purposes is propping up an unpopular regime. It is unpopular because it is so pro-US! If it goes, you get radical Islam bigtime. Hamas X 10. You get more or less Al Qaeda in power in Arabia.
LS, you don't understand. You're like those Leftists who argue that the US dog wags the Israeli tail. Forget that. It's the Israeli dog wagging the US tail. The Israelis don't necessarily do what we want them to at all. But do we do what the Israelis want us to? You bet your sweet bippies.
If Israel is a colony of the US, then it is a very strange case of a colony actually controlling its colonizer in some important ways. That would surely go down in the annals of colonialism as a most strange transformation of colonial theory.
You don't understand. US power is what is keeping moderate regimes in power over there. That's good for the US, good for Israel and good for the War on Terror. In Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen - none of those places have free elections. Nor does Algeria or Mauritania.
There are scarcely free elections anywhere in Arabia. Truth is that no one in Arabia wants a pro-US regime. When you have free elections, you usually get of a radical anti-American regime of one sort or another. That's the bottom line. Hence, after the Hamas fiasco, the US is not in any hurry to promote free elections in the Arab World.
The Saudis do not have to dance to any kind of US tune. The US tells them to clean up their education system which is fomenting radical Salafist terror, the Saudis do little or nothing, then say they made good progress, and the US commends them in a fake report. That's how it goes.
The regime itself does not really promote terrorism per se, but they do in a roundabout way through their education system, state preachers and worldwide Wahhabi mosque funding.
The Saudis have us by the balls. By the oil balls. Furthermore, there is a complex alliance involved that the US elite is getting rich off of, and that alliance is not going to do anything to attack the Saudis.
The truth is that as long as Saudi Arabia, or any of the Gulf regimes, is a staunch US ally, the notion that the US is fighting any sort of a War on Terror is risible. How can we be fighting a Terror War when we are allied with those who are causing all the terrorism?
The people of the Kingdom are Wahhabi because this is what the people want. True, the people tire of Wahhabism, but they really don't know much else. The Royals are split. Some are pro-Wahhabi, and others are reformist. It's very complicated.
The game the regime has been playing since 1979 or so is Take Your Terrorism Elsewhere - Don't Target the Kingdom. Some even think that the royals support Sunni terrorism outside the Kingdom in order to kill off the young men who might make war on the Royals. That was the deal that the Family cut with bin Laden - Keep Your Terrorism Out of Arabia and We Will Not Bother You.
A secular culture like Syria or Lebanon or Libya does negligible damage to world's fabric, yet they are ferociously attacked in Washington and Jerusalem as the Terror Masters.
They are only demonized in that they are strongly anti-Israel and that those are the last countries in the region who have failed to become US allies. The lesson in Arabia is that you will become a US ally, or the US will try to destroy you in one way or another.
Further, the Iranian regime hardly sponsors terrorism anywhere other than in Palestine. They do support Hamas, it is true. They do want us out of Iraq and out of Afghanistan, because we are using those nations as bases to threaten Iran with.
But if you look elsewhere in the world of terrorism for the hand of Iran, it is not to be found. In the world of Muslim terrorism, all hands tend to point in one way or another back to the Gulf. Not just Saudi Arabia, but the entire Gulf. The staunch US allies in the Gulf. The money, the ideology, the troops, the mosques - they all come from the Gulf. From private oil money in the Gulf.
And that has almost nothing to do with the US, except that we are willing to overlook it in favor of our alliances with all of the Gulf regimes.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Another View of Imad Mughniyeh
The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.
Updated March 25:
We've heard quite a bit in the Western press lately about how Imad Mughniyeh (Hezbollah's top military tactician, killed by a car bomb in Damascus on February 13, apparently by the Mossad) was the most evil man that ever lived. Interestingly, he justified his crimes by saying he was just doing to the enemy what they were doing to his people.
US forces were supporting the Lebanese Christian Maronite state that, aligned with Israel, was committing massacres of, torturing and imprisoning thousands of Lebanese Shia in Southern Lebanon.
After Israel invaded Lebanon and the Shia started fighting back, Israel arrested thousands of Shia on vague charges of either joining the insurgency or supporting it. They were put in an Israeli prison in Lebanon and beaten there.
After the war got going, the Maronite regime was massacring Lebanese civilians in South Lebanon. The Maronites probably committed more massacres than any other faction in that war, despite Zionist and pro-US propaganda saying they were the good guys. These Maronites were also torturing Shia fighters. The US via its military advisors in Lebanon, was supporting the Maronites and Israelis who were doing this to his people.
Based on that, Mughniyeh saw his people in a state of war with Israel, the Lebanese state and the US. The first two are accepted by everyone, but the last for some reason is not. The US is painted as some kind of innocent bystander in that mess. That's a lie. We went there as peacekeepers, but pretty quickly took the side of Israel and our "peacekeepers" were regularly shelling Shia positions.
Our ships shelled civilian vehicles driving along the coast highway in Lebanon. I'm not cheering on the attacks on our Embassy or the Marines, but Mughniyeh seems to have a point that the US was acting in a de facto enemy role and was thus targeted as an enemy during wartime. Our Marines made themselves an enemy force to the Shia, and the Shia fought back against them and caused some casualties.
Calling Mughniyeh evil and a terrorist on the basis of his wartime actions is the same as calling the Viet Cong evil terrorists for fighting our guys in wartime. There are enemy sides in every war, and people with guns fighting US troops and targets are not de facto evil terrorists. Maybe sometimes they are just enemy forces in wartime.
The US said they had a debt with the guy, because he killed some Americans over 20 years ago. Why does this make him Dr. Evil? The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese killed way more Americans, and I don't see us running around settling accounts with them.
By the same token, Mughniyeh justified his kidnappings of mostly completely innocent Americans in Lebanon on the basis of what the Maronites and Israel was doing to his people. It was wrong to treat the prisoners they way Mughniyeh's men did, but the guys we were supporting were doing the same crap.
The hijacking of the plane in Greece in 1985 and killing of the US airman, Robert Dean Stethem, was pretty bad. So was the capture and killing of a US soldier in Lebanon. As Islamic Jihad (Mughniyeh's group) saw the US (rightly) as wartime enemies, it was acceptable to capture these two US soldiers as POW's, even on an airplane.
Robert Dean Stethem, US Navy diver, taken POW by Mughniyeh on a hijacked airplane and then executed in a war crime, not a terrorist act. It's impossible to commit terrorism against soldiers in wartime.
In killing them they killed 2 US POW's. That's a war crime. It's also one that our Lebanese were doing on a regular basis and one the Israelis have been known to do quite often. It was sort of terrorist versus terrorist over there in Lebanon.
Mughniyeh's group also captured the top CIA agent in Lebanon, and killed him. I don't think killing enemy spies in wartime is a war crime or a terrorist act.
The bombing of an Israeli Embassy in far off Argentina was morally dubious and the attack on the Jewish Community Center was simply a horrible terrorist and anti-Semitic act. These two acts took place in the early 1990's.
Mughniyeh was an anti-Semite, and Hezbollah is still an anti-Semitic organization, but anti-Semitism is rife and ubiquitous in the Arab and Muslim World anyway. Hezbollah seem to be moderating their line lately on the Jews, but I am still not happy with it. Hezbollah seems also to be going to much greater lengths to play by the rules of war lately.
This is a typical evolution for an armed group. They start out pretty terrorist a lot of times, but as they get more successful and maybe start playing a role in politics, they get more sensitive to public opinion and start playing by the rules of war more.
Even Hamas declared a unilateral ceasefire as soon as they won the elections in Palestine. They have also kept that captured Israeli soldier alive for months now, and I think he's probably being treated fairly well. That's not only humane; it's also smart, because they want to trade him for Palestinian POW's. 15 years ago, I am afraid Hamas would have killed him.
Mughniyeh's killing has set off some truly regrettable remarks from the Iranians.
President Ahmadinejad said, "World powers have created a black and dirty microbe named the Zionist regime and unleashed it like a savage animal on the nations of the region." Sunday, February 17, General Hassan Firouz-Abadi, commander-in-chief of the Iranian military, said at a ceremony honoring Imad Mughniyeh, “Many millions across the world will soon receive the joyous news of the Zionist entity’s destruction.”
On February 18, head of the Revolutionary Guards Mohammad Ali Jaafari called Israel a “cancerous microbe.”
This is nasty talk, and, let's get honest, it's the language of genocide. That doesn't mean that the Iranians are really going to kill all the Jews in Israel or even lots of them, but I don't like that kind of Hitlerian language. Jews, not to mention Israelis, are paranoid enough, with good reason. No reason to add to it.
Hezbollah are hardly maniacal Islamists out to impose Sharia on Lebanon. That's supposedly their goal, but in recent interviews Nasrallah has toned that down by saying that that's only possible if, say, 80% of the population supports it. As 80% of Lebanon will not support any kind of Sharia in my lifetime, that's a roundabout way of saying that it's not really something they are trying to implement.
Another reason Hezbollah is toning down its program is that it is trying to win support from the non-Shia in Lebanon and also from more secular Shia groups. In the areas Hezbollah controlled in the South, it was not very harsh. Many women went about without headscarves. I think they even allowed alcohol to be sold again in recent years.
The Lebanese state does allow the arrest of homosexuals. In practice, this means men only. Hezbollah arrests men having sex with men in the areas it controls and beats them before turning them over for arrest. That's obviously not ok, but in Palestine and Iraq they are often killed, and in Iran they are beaten. Shia everywhere are not too keen on homosexuality and Sunnis seem to allow a lot more of it. Go figure.
Fadlallah, Hezbollah's spiritual leader, has issued some interesting fatwas. One allowed unmarried women to masturbate to meet their sexual needs. Another told women being beaten by husbands to fight back against them as hard as they could. That seems like nothing to us in the West, but in the context of an Islamist group, that's pretty revolutionary. Hezbollah's fairly progressive Islamism should be applauded as steps in the right direction.
The Shia have always allowed reinterpretation of Islam to meet the changing needs of the times. This is one reason that Sunni hardliners despise them as heretics, preferring instead the notion that Islam was codified once and forever 1,150-1,350 years ago in the Salafist version.
The PFLP site carried a eulogy for Mughniyeh that surprised me. A PFLP delegation visited Hezbollah in Lebanon to pay their respects to Mughniyeh. Mughniyeh's hands were pretty dirty, but in this fight I guess our guys need all the fighters they can get.
This is a cool graphic of George Habash, head of the PFLP who died recently, from the PFLP English site. It's nice that they finally got the English site up and running. For a long time, only the Arabic site was working, and that leaves me out, except for the pics.
The article also carries a graphic that seems to make a hero out of him. As this graphic is exactly the opposite of his portrayal in the West, I'm going to run it, mostly just to make people mad.
Well folks, here it is. Another view of Imad Mughniyeh. Enjoy, or stamp your feet in rage, or whatever.
Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
Updated March 25:
We've heard quite a bit in the Western press lately about how Imad Mughniyeh (Hezbollah's top military tactician, killed by a car bomb in Damascus on February 13, apparently by the Mossad) was the most evil man that ever lived. Interestingly, he justified his crimes by saying he was just doing to the enemy what they were doing to his people.
US forces were supporting the Lebanese Christian Maronite state that, aligned with Israel, was committing massacres of, torturing and imprisoning thousands of Lebanese Shia in Southern Lebanon.
After Israel invaded Lebanon and the Shia started fighting back, Israel arrested thousands of Shia on vague charges of either joining the insurgency or supporting it. They were put in an Israeli prison in Lebanon and beaten there.
After the war got going, the Maronite regime was massacring Lebanese civilians in South Lebanon. The Maronites probably committed more massacres than any other faction in that war, despite Zionist and pro-US propaganda saying they were the good guys. These Maronites were also torturing Shia fighters. The US via its military advisors in Lebanon, was supporting the Maronites and Israelis who were doing this to his people.
Based on that, Mughniyeh saw his people in a state of war with Israel, the Lebanese state and the US. The first two are accepted by everyone, but the last for some reason is not. The US is painted as some kind of innocent bystander in that mess. That's a lie. We went there as peacekeepers, but pretty quickly took the side of Israel and our "peacekeepers" were regularly shelling Shia positions.
Our ships shelled civilian vehicles driving along the coast highway in Lebanon. I'm not cheering on the attacks on our Embassy or the Marines, but Mughniyeh seems to have a point that the US was acting in a de facto enemy role and was thus targeted as an enemy during wartime. Our Marines made themselves an enemy force to the Shia, and the Shia fought back against them and caused some casualties.
Calling Mughniyeh evil and a terrorist on the basis of his wartime actions is the same as calling the Viet Cong evil terrorists for fighting our guys in wartime. There are enemy sides in every war, and people with guns fighting US troops and targets are not de facto evil terrorists. Maybe sometimes they are just enemy forces in wartime.
The US said they had a debt with the guy, because he killed some Americans over 20 years ago. Why does this make him Dr. Evil? The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese killed way more Americans, and I don't see us running around settling accounts with them.
By the same token, Mughniyeh justified his kidnappings of mostly completely innocent Americans in Lebanon on the basis of what the Maronites and Israel was doing to his people. It was wrong to treat the prisoners they way Mughniyeh's men did, but the guys we were supporting were doing the same crap.
The hijacking of the plane in Greece in 1985 and killing of the US airman, Robert Dean Stethem, was pretty bad. So was the capture and killing of a US soldier in Lebanon. As Islamic Jihad (Mughniyeh's group) saw the US (rightly) as wartime enemies, it was acceptable to capture these two US soldiers as POW's, even on an airplane.
Robert Dean Stethem, US Navy diver, taken POW by Mughniyeh on a hijacked airplane and then executed in a war crime, not a terrorist act. It's impossible to commit terrorism against soldiers in wartime.In killing them they killed 2 US POW's. That's a war crime. It's also one that our Lebanese were doing on a regular basis and one the Israelis have been known to do quite often. It was sort of terrorist versus terrorist over there in Lebanon.
Mughniyeh's group also captured the top CIA agent in Lebanon, and killed him. I don't think killing enemy spies in wartime is a war crime or a terrorist act.
The bombing of an Israeli Embassy in far off Argentina was morally dubious and the attack on the Jewish Community Center was simply a horrible terrorist and anti-Semitic act. These two acts took place in the early 1990's.
Mughniyeh was an anti-Semite, and Hezbollah is still an anti-Semitic organization, but anti-Semitism is rife and ubiquitous in the Arab and Muslim World anyway. Hezbollah seem to be moderating their line lately on the Jews, but I am still not happy with it. Hezbollah seems also to be going to much greater lengths to play by the rules of war lately.
This is a typical evolution for an armed group. They start out pretty terrorist a lot of times, but as they get more successful and maybe start playing a role in politics, they get more sensitive to public opinion and start playing by the rules of war more.
Even Hamas declared a unilateral ceasefire as soon as they won the elections in Palestine. They have also kept that captured Israeli soldier alive for months now, and I think he's probably being treated fairly well. That's not only humane; it's also smart, because they want to trade him for Palestinian POW's. 15 years ago, I am afraid Hamas would have killed him.
Mughniyeh's killing has set off some truly regrettable remarks from the Iranians.
President Ahmadinejad said, "World powers have created a black and dirty microbe named the Zionist regime and unleashed it like a savage animal on the nations of the region." Sunday, February 17, General Hassan Firouz-Abadi, commander-in-chief of the Iranian military, said at a ceremony honoring Imad Mughniyeh, “Many millions across the world will soon receive the joyous news of the Zionist entity’s destruction.”
On February 18, head of the Revolutionary Guards Mohammad Ali Jaafari called Israel a “cancerous microbe.”
This is nasty talk, and, let's get honest, it's the language of genocide. That doesn't mean that the Iranians are really going to kill all the Jews in Israel or even lots of them, but I don't like that kind of Hitlerian language. Jews, not to mention Israelis, are paranoid enough, with good reason. No reason to add to it.
Hezbollah are hardly maniacal Islamists out to impose Sharia on Lebanon. That's supposedly their goal, but in recent interviews Nasrallah has toned that down by saying that that's only possible if, say, 80% of the population supports it. As 80% of Lebanon will not support any kind of Sharia in my lifetime, that's a roundabout way of saying that it's not really something they are trying to implement.
Another reason Hezbollah is toning down its program is that it is trying to win support from the non-Shia in Lebanon and also from more secular Shia groups. In the areas Hezbollah controlled in the South, it was not very harsh. Many women went about without headscarves. I think they even allowed alcohol to be sold again in recent years.
The Lebanese state does allow the arrest of homosexuals. In practice, this means men only. Hezbollah arrests men having sex with men in the areas it controls and beats them before turning them over for arrest. That's obviously not ok, but in Palestine and Iraq they are often killed, and in Iran they are beaten. Shia everywhere are not too keen on homosexuality and Sunnis seem to allow a lot more of it. Go figure.
Fadlallah, Hezbollah's spiritual leader, has issued some interesting fatwas. One allowed unmarried women to masturbate to meet their sexual needs. Another told women being beaten by husbands to fight back against them as hard as they could. That seems like nothing to us in the West, but in the context of an Islamist group, that's pretty revolutionary. Hezbollah's fairly progressive Islamism should be applauded as steps in the right direction.
The Shia have always allowed reinterpretation of Islam to meet the changing needs of the times. This is one reason that Sunni hardliners despise them as heretics, preferring instead the notion that Islam was codified once and forever 1,150-1,350 years ago in the Salafist version.
The PFLP site carried a eulogy for Mughniyeh that surprised me. A PFLP delegation visited Hezbollah in Lebanon to pay their respects to Mughniyeh. Mughniyeh's hands were pretty dirty, but in this fight I guess our guys need all the fighters they can get.
This is a cool graphic of George Habash, head of the PFLP who died recently, from the PFLP English site. It's nice that they finally got the English site up and running. For a long time, only the Arabic site was working, and that leaves me out, except for the pics.The article also carries a graphic that seems to make a hero out of him. As this graphic is exactly the opposite of his portrayal in the West, I'm going to run it, mostly just to make people mad.
Well folks, here it is. Another view of Imad Mughniyeh. Enjoy, or stamp your feet in rage, or whatever.Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.
Monday, February 18, 2008
George Habash, a Revolutionary Life
The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.
Updated February 19, 2008:
The following tribute to George Habash, leader of the Palestinian Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was delivered to a meeting organized by the CPGB-ML in Central London on Saturday 10 February 2008. The Communist Party Great Britain Marxist-Leninist, basically a hardline pro-Stalin group, last time I checked. This document is interesting for various reasons.
For one, it shows that hardline Communist rhetoric in the style of the former USSR is still popular. The PFLP are lauded for being a hardline Marxist-Leninist organization. It's hard to say whether they still are or not, as they seem to be downplaying this in recent years, and no one really knows what Communism even means anymore.
It is true that there was a Communist state in South Yemen, but I am not sure if they accomplished much down there.
One of the biggest heroes of the Arab Left is Gamel Nasser, leader of Egypt. One great thing that he did do was to initiate a land reform. Most Arab states probably do not have feudal or semi-feudal land relations in the countryside anymore, but Egypt did in the 1950's. 10% of landowners owned most land, and 25% of landowners owned almost all of the land.
The vast majority of the rural population was reduced to the status of landless laborers or sharecroppers in debt peonage on the land of the landlords.
Nasser was able to break up the large estates by buying them up via the government and giving the land to the sharecroppers. It was one of the great progressive events in modern Arab history. Back in the day in Yemen, you would go into the houses of the poor in South Yemen and see Nasser's picture on the wall - they knew he was a hero to the Arab poor, and mostly for the land reform.
Unfortunately, land reform was not enough. Population was exploding and Egypt desperately needed to put more farmland into production. Hence the Aswan Dam, a necessary evil.
But even this did not solve the problems, as the rural poor continued to pour into the cities to look for nonexistent work. The landowners were bought off by assuring them a place in industry, which was and is heavily corrupt and tied in with the state. But the Egyptian economy was so shaky that the rich didn't really feel like investing in it.
Socialism was and is a pretty easy sell across the Arab World, in part due to Islam. Islam is a pretty socialist religion, although fundamentalists will argue the point with you and point out that the Koran says that there are those who have more and those who have less and this is ok. Nevertheless, the Koran is hardly a raging individualist tract.
Nor are the deserts of the Arab World suited for individualism. In such an environment, the every man for himself libertarian is lost and probably dead quite quickly. One must form alliances or one will be destroyed. One must work cooperatively or the elements will take your life. In a world of perennial scarcity, mass hoarding by a few means death for many more.
Hence, in the past century, most independent Arab states have opted for some kind of socialism. Where the states could not do it, the religious or militant groups did. There is no hatred of welfare or government as we have it in the individualist US. Socialism is simply normal and free market libertarianism is seen as a bizarre and cruel aberration.
Nevertheless, in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and probably other places, the clergy did resist land reforms on the grounds that they were un-Islamic. Iraq, newly emerging from semi-feudal relations in the 1960's, saw the Iraqi Communist Party become one of the largest parties in the country. It was particularly popular with poor Shia who flooded in from the countryside and poured into what later became Sadr City.
At that time, the Shia clergy were widely regarded as corrupt. They were tied in with large landowners, often involved in money-making scams, and were noted for enticing women into sexual relationships with them.
One of the few great things that the Shah of Iran did was to institute a land reform to realign the semi-feudal relations in the Iranian countryside. It went off pretty well, but some ethnic groups opposed it and hence were persecuted.
The tone of the Communist Party Great Britain Marxist-Leninist in the statement below is what might be called Stalinist or anti-revisionist.
Anti-revisionists hold that the problems with Communist states came from them leaving the path of true Communism and diluting their economies with capitalist relations. I do not know how much there is to that, so I can't comment on revisionism. But even staunch Marxist sites nowadays post long pieces stating flat out that the Soviet model failed.
The North Star Compass is a pretty interesting site. It's run by former Communists from the East Bloc and the USSR, and it is dedicated to the reestablishing of the Soviet Union as a socialist state. For these folks, Gorbachev was enemy #1. There are quite a few interesting essays there, and for those who think that Putin is a Communist, these guys really hate Putin.
For those who think that Russian Communists are all racists and anti-Semites, note that the North Star Compass despises the newly emerging fascist threat in the USSR.
There are many Trotskyite sites on the Net. The Trotskyites used to be totally nuts on the question of "Stalinists". Can you believe that they supported the German attack on the USSR and opposed the Soviet army's war in Afghanistan?
Trotskyites seem to have calmed down a lot lately. Many of them are supporting the Nepalese Maoists and the Colombian FARC. They even support Cuba. Usually this is measured with a tone that these states and movements would be better off if they adopted Trotskyism. Truth is that it is possible that Trotskyism has hardly even be tried anywhere, except possibly in the USSR from 1917-1922.
Trotskyites have a reputation as the ultimate splitters, and in the Philippines they have, incredibly, taken up arms alongside the feudal and fascist state against the Maoist NPA. In Defense of Marxism is a good example of a Trotskyite site.
It seems that many Communists nowadays in the West are Trotskyites of some sort. No one really knows what to make of them, and many Stalinists just laugh about them and regard them as irrelevant. Western Trotskyites seem to have a lot of money for some reason, and often put up nice websites. Non-Trotskyite Communist sites often have mild critiques of Trotskyism as some sort of irrelevant hairsplitting movement.
Western Trotskyites were heavily Jewish in the West until 1967 or possibly earlier. World Trotskyism opposed Israel in the Six Day War and Jewish Trotskyites consequently defected en masse. Many seem to have made their way into the neoconservative movement.
There are a variety of reasons for the heavy Jewish presence in Trotskyism, and that Trotsky himself was Jewish cannot be ignored. Trots have tended to oppose both Stalinism and Maoism as horribly brutal ideologies that committed atrocious human rights violations. Trotskyism has been a serious movement only in the West and it has tended to flounder in the rest of the world.
One of the Trots' main points is that a rapid buildup of urban industry is essential for the development of a modern socialist state. Trots are almost the opposite of the Maoists and their emphasis on the peasantry.
There are sites that basically uphold the former USSR and even Stalin, but they are often angry at Maoists, whom they accuse of adventurism. In India, Maoists are killing traditional Communists in the state of Bengal, a state that has been run by pro-Soviet Communists for about 30 years now.
Marxism-Leninism Today is an example of a pro-USSR, pro-Cuba, anti-Maoist site. They support the CPI-M (Communist Party India-Marxist) in Bengal and are not too happy with the Indian Maoists for killing their comrades.
Here is a cool site by a Georgian artist who is the grandson of Joseph Stalin, showing the Stalin family tree among other things.
Stalinism.ru is a site run by Russian Stalinists, but if you can't read Russian, it's not for you.
The National Bolshevik Party is some sort of a bizarre marriage of Stalinism and racial nationalism (I don't want to say Nazism, but I fear that is what it is). It's Russian too, but check out the scary party image, complete with Nordic lettering, and the background on the homepage. Lots of related links at the bottom - looks like they have chapters all over the place.
Another great site, coming from a somewhat different point of view, a Maoist one, is the Single Spark. Although Maoists are often described as ultra-Stalinists, Maoists and Stalinists are not necessarily the same thing.
The Maoists have always been the real bomb-throwers on the Far Left.
Despite Cold War rhetoric, pro-Soviet Communists often did not take up armed struggle until all peaceful avenues for change were blocked, and the Left was up against a death squad state. Otherwise, the idea was to try to gain power through parliamentary means, despite Lenin's denouncements of "parliamentary cretinism".
If the state was reasonably democratic and not killing the Left, the pro-Soviets often argued that "an objectively revolutionary situation did not exist". On the other hand, Maoists tend to reject all bourgeois democracy as invalid, particularly in very backward societies with mass extreme poverty and accompanying disease, hunger and premature death.
Hence, Maoists have launched insurgencies against formally democratic states as Peru, Sri Lanka, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Philippines, Nepal and India in recent years. In most of these cases, the pro-Soviet Left decided to sit out armed struggle, and the Maoists were denounced as adventurists irresponsibly taking up arms in spite of a lack of an objectively revolutionary situation.
In Peru, the war launched by the Shining Path led to a state that was less and less democratic and soon became just another Death Squad State. Thus in 1984, the pro-Cuban Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) took a vote and decided that "an objectively revolutionary situation existed" and opted to take up arms.
Another difference is that despite Cold War rhetoric, Maoists are often a lot more vicious than the Castroites and pro-Soviet rebels. Maoists have no qualms about killing "class enemies" - anyone prominent advocating rightwing politics or abusive landowners - whereas the Castroites often try to take the high ground in guerrilla war.
Examples in Latin America are the Castroite ELN in Colombia, URNG in Guatemala, FSLN in Nicaragua, FMLN in El Salvador, the aforementioned MRTA, and the FARC in Colombia. Despite crap from anti-Communists and the US government, all these groups have tried pretty hard to abide by the rules of war. At any rate, the overwhelming majority of grotesque human rights violations in each of these conflicts were committed by the state.
On the other hand, the Maoist Sendero Luminoso was a profoundly savage and cruel guerrilla group, though they almost seized power.
Communism doesn't mean that much anymore. Cuba allows religious believers to join the party, and there are millions of liberation theology Leftist Catholics in Latin America and the Philippines. The Chinese and Vietnamese Communists have introduced major elements of capitalism into their economies, while retaining a great deal of socialism at the same time.
Over the course of a few years, from 2003 to 2005 and 2006, the Nepalese Maoists underwent a sea change in politics. They went from hardline Maoists railing against revisionists and opposing anything but the dictatorship of the proletariat, to an embrace of multiparty democracy and a mixed economy and measured critiques of Mao, Lenin and Stalin as outdated for the needs and realities of today.
I think this is fantastic. I care nothing about dogma. I just want results, and I don't really care how you get there - capitalism, socialism, communism or whatever. If Marxism is indeed an ever-evolving science (which, if it is a science, it must be) then there must be no treating its elementary texts as some sort of religious books.
The works of Marx, Lenin, Mao and others must be regarded as the works of men, not Gods, positing theories. These theories must be tested in praxis to see how well they test out, as in any empirical investigation. The theories of these mortals will either test out or they will not, and if not, we need to adjust them accordingly.
We know what our goals are; all that is at stake is how to get there.
Let us listen to top leader Prachanda and other Nepalese Maoist leaders, from the Single Spark site:
In his 1944 speech, "Serve the People", Comrade Mao Zedong said these famous words:
Nice memorial poster of PFLP leader George Habash. In all of the obits in the US news, few detailed the reason for the radicalization of Habash. At university in Lebanon, he was apolitical and preferred to play guitar. He raced home during the "Israeli War of Independence" to his home in Lydda. Jewish militias attacked the town and forced 95% of the city to flee.
Most were Palestinian Christians. His sister died of typhoid fever during the siege of the town and Habash buried her in the backyard. He blamed the Jews for blocking access to the hospital that could have saved her. There were some notorious massacres of Palestinians during the attack on Lydda, including the execution of many young men in a mosque.
The Jews forced Habash and others to line up and leave their homes and all of their possessions. One man asked if he could return to get the keys to his house and for making this request, he was shot dead in front of Habash's eyes. From that point on, the apolitical future doctor was transformed into a revolutionary.
Comrade George Habash, who has passed away at the age of 82, gave more than six decades of his life to the revolution. He was born into a prosperous Greek Orthodox family in the Palestinian city of Lydda.
At that time, the Palestinian people were under the rule of the British colonial mandate, which was systematically preparing the way for the creation of a Zionist settler colonial state, which, in the words of Sir Roland Storrs, the first British governor of Jerusalem in the 1920s, would form “for England a ‘little loyal Jewish Ulster’ in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism”.
In the summer of 1948, whilst studying medicine in Beirut, George went back home to help organise resistance to the Zionist catastrophe that was sweeping over the Palestinian people, driving them from their ancestral homes and lands into exile and dispossession.
At this time, he and his whole family, along with 95 percent of the inhabitants of his native city, were forced out at gunpoint by the Zionist terrorists and ethnic cleansers commanded by Yitzhak Rabin. Years later, Habash was to observe:
Graduating as the first in his class, Dr Habash eschewed the chance to pursue a lucrative career, opting instead to open a people’s clinic offering free treatment and a school for refugees in the Jordanian capital, Amman.
Around this same time, he and his comrades founded the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), the first pan-Arab movement to take up armed struggle against colonialism and to win back the lost lands.
The significance of the ANM should not be underestimated. Not only was it to be the root of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP); from its ranks also came revolutionary forces in many parts of the Arab homeland, including the National Liberation Front in Aden and South Yemen, which not only defeated British imperialism in a revolutionary armed struggle to win national liberation, but, later as the Yemen Socialist Party, leading the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, stood in the vanguard of to date the only real attempt to build an Arab socialist state on the basis of the scientific principles of Marxism-Leninism and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In the 1960s, Comrade Habash, like many other anti-imperialist fighters then, before and since, came to accept that the liberation struggle of the oppressed people, if it was to be crowned with success and carried through to the end, needed to be based on Marxism-Leninism. Lamis Andoni, an analyst for al-Jazeera, who knew Comrade Habash well, expressed matters this way in his tribute to his friend:
In a 1969 interview, he declared:
Cuba and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea were also two countries close to his heart and with which he and the PFLP forged tight bonds of active solidarity. In the memorial hall for Comrade Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang, the Korean comrades proudly display the several awards and medals presented to their great leader by the PFLP over the years.
Under Habash’s leadership, the PFLP forged close and active ties of combat solidarity with national liberation movements in all parts of the world – the ANC in South Africa, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and the Irish Republican Movement, to name but a few, embracing training, material assistance, joint operations and moral encouragement.
In the September 1970 hijackings that gave the PFLP worldwide fame, Leila Khaled was joined by Patrick Arguello Ryan, a militant of the Sandinista National Liberation Front and the only martyr of those operations.
In 1983, after the Nicaraguan revolution, the Sandinistas commemorated Arguello by renaming the Geothermal Plant at Momotombo in his honour. A poster still available on the PFLP website describes Arguello as the “symbol of common Nicaraguan/Palestinian struggle”.
Comrade Habash sought to translate into reality, and himself embodied, these inspiring words of Che Guevara, which go to the very essence of proletarian internationalism:
But what shines out is the fact that he never lost sight of the importance of unity in the national liberation movement.
In their own tribute to their leader, the PFLP put matters this way:
Islamic Jihad described him as a “real leader” and other Palestinian organisations paying their tributes included the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Palestine Popular Struggle Front, who said that his path was and is one of liberation for the Palestinian and Arab people.
In its December 1967 Founding Statement, the PFLP declared:
• That the fundamental way to liberation lies through armed struggle and people’s war based on the masses.
• That for the struggle to be successful and carried through to the end it needs to be based on Marxism-Leninism, the scientific world outlook of the working class.
• That the oppressed peoples must uphold proletarian internationalism in their struggle for liberation, based on militant unity within and between the three major currents of the world revolutionary process, the socialist countries, the national liberation movements, and the working-class movement in the imperialist heartlands.
• That the liberation of the nation necessitated the principled and democratic unity of all the forces of the nation, even though major differences will also exist and must be struggled over.
Clearly, all these are not just lessons for the Palestinian people alone.
In June 2000, age and ill health led Comrade Habash to step back from the day-to-day leadership of the PFLP. Giving an inspiring speech on that occasion, in many respects he wrote his own epitaph. He told his comrades:
1. Ashok. (May 2006). Our Experiences of Ten Tumultuous Years of People’s War, The Worker#10, pp. 68-73. On Lenin and Mao, p. 71.
2. Basanta. (May 2006). International Dimension of Prachanda Path. The Worker #10, pp. 82-90.
3. Ibid. On Models: Page 87.
4. Kishor Nepal. (June 2006). Prachanda Interview. Maoist Revolution Digest.
5. Alessandro Gilioli. (Early November 2006). Prachanda: Our Revolution Won . L'espresso, Italy. Excerpts.
6. Prachanda. (November 18, 2006). Democracy: The Forbidden Fruit or Nectar for Progress? Speech at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi.
7. MLM Revolutionary Study Group in the U.S. (Dec. 21, 2006). Assessing Recent Developments in Nepal: A Bibliography on the State, a Peaceful Transition to Socialism, Democracy and Dictatorship, Negotiations and Their Relevance to the International Communist Movement in the 21st Century.
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Updated February 19, 2008:
The following tribute to George Habash, leader of the Palestinian Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was delivered to a meeting organized by the CPGB-ML in Central London on Saturday 10 February 2008. The Communist Party Great Britain Marxist-Leninist, basically a hardline pro-Stalin group, last time I checked. This document is interesting for various reasons.
For one, it shows that hardline Communist rhetoric in the style of the former USSR is still popular. The PFLP are lauded for being a hardline Marxist-Leninist organization. It's hard to say whether they still are or not, as they seem to be downplaying this in recent years, and no one really knows what Communism even means anymore.
It is true that there was a Communist state in South Yemen, but I am not sure if they accomplished much down there.
One of the biggest heroes of the Arab Left is Gamel Nasser, leader of Egypt. One great thing that he did do was to initiate a land reform. Most Arab states probably do not have feudal or semi-feudal land relations in the countryside anymore, but Egypt did in the 1950's. 10% of landowners owned most land, and 25% of landowners owned almost all of the land.
The vast majority of the rural population was reduced to the status of landless laborers or sharecroppers in debt peonage on the land of the landlords.
Nasser was able to break up the large estates by buying them up via the government and giving the land to the sharecroppers. It was one of the great progressive events in modern Arab history. Back in the day in Yemen, you would go into the houses of the poor in South Yemen and see Nasser's picture on the wall - they knew he was a hero to the Arab poor, and mostly for the land reform.
Unfortunately, land reform was not enough. Population was exploding and Egypt desperately needed to put more farmland into production. Hence the Aswan Dam, a necessary evil.
But even this did not solve the problems, as the rural poor continued to pour into the cities to look for nonexistent work. The landowners were bought off by assuring them a place in industry, which was and is heavily corrupt and tied in with the state. But the Egyptian economy was so shaky that the rich didn't really feel like investing in it.
Socialism was and is a pretty easy sell across the Arab World, in part due to Islam. Islam is a pretty socialist religion, although fundamentalists will argue the point with you and point out that the Koran says that there are those who have more and those who have less and this is ok. Nevertheless, the Koran is hardly a raging individualist tract.
Nor are the deserts of the Arab World suited for individualism. In such an environment, the every man for himself libertarian is lost and probably dead quite quickly. One must form alliances or one will be destroyed. One must work cooperatively or the elements will take your life. In a world of perennial scarcity, mass hoarding by a few means death for many more.
Hence, in the past century, most independent Arab states have opted for some kind of socialism. Where the states could not do it, the religious or militant groups did. There is no hatred of welfare or government as we have it in the individualist US. Socialism is simply normal and free market libertarianism is seen as a bizarre and cruel aberration.
Nevertheless, in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and probably other places, the clergy did resist land reforms on the grounds that they were un-Islamic. Iraq, newly emerging from semi-feudal relations in the 1960's, saw the Iraqi Communist Party become one of the largest parties in the country. It was particularly popular with poor Shia who flooded in from the countryside and poured into what later became Sadr City.
At that time, the Shia clergy were widely regarded as corrupt. They were tied in with large landowners, often involved in money-making scams, and were noted for enticing women into sexual relationships with them.
One of the few great things that the Shah of Iran did was to institute a land reform to realign the semi-feudal relations in the Iranian countryside. It went off pretty well, but some ethnic groups opposed it and hence were persecuted.
The tone of the Communist Party Great Britain Marxist-Leninist in the statement below is what might be called Stalinist or anti-revisionist.
Anti-revisionists hold that the problems with Communist states came from them leaving the path of true Communism and diluting their economies with capitalist relations. I do not know how much there is to that, so I can't comment on revisionism. But even staunch Marxist sites nowadays post long pieces stating flat out that the Soviet model failed.
The North Star Compass is a pretty interesting site. It's run by former Communists from the East Bloc and the USSR, and it is dedicated to the reestablishing of the Soviet Union as a socialist state. For these folks, Gorbachev was enemy #1. There are quite a few interesting essays there, and for those who think that Putin is a Communist, these guys really hate Putin.
For those who think that Russian Communists are all racists and anti-Semites, note that the North Star Compass despises the newly emerging fascist threat in the USSR.
There are many Trotskyite sites on the Net. The Trotskyites used to be totally nuts on the question of "Stalinists". Can you believe that they supported the German attack on the USSR and opposed the Soviet army's war in Afghanistan?
Trotskyites seem to have calmed down a lot lately. Many of them are supporting the Nepalese Maoists and the Colombian FARC. They even support Cuba. Usually this is measured with a tone that these states and movements would be better off if they adopted Trotskyism. Truth is that it is possible that Trotskyism has hardly even be tried anywhere, except possibly in the USSR from 1917-1922.
Trotskyites have a reputation as the ultimate splitters, and in the Philippines they have, incredibly, taken up arms alongside the feudal and fascist state against the Maoist NPA. In Defense of Marxism is a good example of a Trotskyite site.
It seems that many Communists nowadays in the West are Trotskyites of some sort. No one really knows what to make of them, and many Stalinists just laugh about them and regard them as irrelevant. Western Trotskyites seem to have a lot of money for some reason, and often put up nice websites. Non-Trotskyite Communist sites often have mild critiques of Trotskyism as some sort of irrelevant hairsplitting movement.
Western Trotskyites were heavily Jewish in the West until 1967 or possibly earlier. World Trotskyism opposed Israel in the Six Day War and Jewish Trotskyites consequently defected en masse. Many seem to have made their way into the neoconservative movement.
There are a variety of reasons for the heavy Jewish presence in Trotskyism, and that Trotsky himself was Jewish cannot be ignored. Trots have tended to oppose both Stalinism and Maoism as horribly brutal ideologies that committed atrocious human rights violations. Trotskyism has been a serious movement only in the West and it has tended to flounder in the rest of the world.
One of the Trots' main points is that a rapid buildup of urban industry is essential for the development of a modern socialist state. Trots are almost the opposite of the Maoists and their emphasis on the peasantry.
There are sites that basically uphold the former USSR and even Stalin, but they are often angry at Maoists, whom they accuse of adventurism. In India, Maoists are killing traditional Communists in the state of Bengal, a state that has been run by pro-Soviet Communists for about 30 years now.
Marxism-Leninism Today is an example of a pro-USSR, pro-Cuba, anti-Maoist site. They support the CPI-M (Communist Party India-Marxist) in Bengal and are not too happy with the Indian Maoists for killing their comrades.
Here is a cool site by a Georgian artist who is the grandson of Joseph Stalin, showing the Stalin family tree among other things.
Stalinism.ru is a site run by Russian Stalinists, but if you can't read Russian, it's not for you.
The National Bolshevik Party is some sort of a bizarre marriage of Stalinism and racial nationalism (I don't want to say Nazism, but I fear that is what it is). It's Russian too, but check out the scary party image, complete with Nordic lettering, and the background on the homepage. Lots of related links at the bottom - looks like they have chapters all over the place.
Another great site, coming from a somewhat different point of view, a Maoist one, is the Single Spark. Although Maoists are often described as ultra-Stalinists, Maoists and Stalinists are not necessarily the same thing.
The Maoists have always been the real bomb-throwers on the Far Left.
Despite Cold War rhetoric, pro-Soviet Communists often did not take up armed struggle until all peaceful avenues for change were blocked, and the Left was up against a death squad state. Otherwise, the idea was to try to gain power through parliamentary means, despite Lenin's denouncements of "parliamentary cretinism".
If the state was reasonably democratic and not killing the Left, the pro-Soviets often argued that "an objectively revolutionary situation did not exist". On the other hand, Maoists tend to reject all bourgeois democracy as invalid, particularly in very backward societies with mass extreme poverty and accompanying disease, hunger and premature death.
Hence, Maoists have launched insurgencies against formally democratic states as Peru, Sri Lanka, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Philippines, Nepal and India in recent years. In most of these cases, the pro-Soviet Left decided to sit out armed struggle, and the Maoists were denounced as adventurists irresponsibly taking up arms in spite of a lack of an objectively revolutionary situation.
In Peru, the war launched by the Shining Path led to a state that was less and less democratic and soon became just another Death Squad State. Thus in 1984, the pro-Cuban Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) took a vote and decided that "an objectively revolutionary situation existed" and opted to take up arms.
Another difference is that despite Cold War rhetoric, Maoists are often a lot more vicious than the Castroites and pro-Soviet rebels. Maoists have no qualms about killing "class enemies" - anyone prominent advocating rightwing politics or abusive landowners - whereas the Castroites often try to take the high ground in guerrilla war.
Examples in Latin America are the Castroite ELN in Colombia, URNG in Guatemala, FSLN in Nicaragua, FMLN in El Salvador, the aforementioned MRTA, and the FARC in Colombia. Despite crap from anti-Communists and the US government, all these groups have tried pretty hard to abide by the rules of war. At any rate, the overwhelming majority of grotesque human rights violations in each of these conflicts were committed by the state.
On the other hand, the Maoist Sendero Luminoso was a profoundly savage and cruel guerrilla group, though they almost seized power.
Communism doesn't mean that much anymore. Cuba allows religious believers to join the party, and there are millions of liberation theology Leftist Catholics in Latin America and the Philippines. The Chinese and Vietnamese Communists have introduced major elements of capitalism into their economies, while retaining a great deal of socialism at the same time.
Over the course of a few years, from 2003 to 2005 and 2006, the Nepalese Maoists underwent a sea change in politics. They went from hardline Maoists railing against revisionists and opposing anything but the dictatorship of the proletariat, to an embrace of multiparty democracy and a mixed economy and measured critiques of Mao, Lenin and Stalin as outdated for the needs and realities of today.
I think this is fantastic. I care nothing about dogma. I just want results, and I don't really care how you get there - capitalism, socialism, communism or whatever. If Marxism is indeed an ever-evolving science (which, if it is a science, it must be) then there must be no treating its elementary texts as some sort of religious books.
The works of Marx, Lenin, Mao and others must be regarded as the works of men, not Gods, positing theories. These theories must be tested in praxis to see how well they test out, as in any empirical investigation. The theories of these mortals will either test out or they will not, and if not, we need to adjust them accordingly.
We know what our goals are; all that is at stake is how to get there.
Let us listen to top leader Prachanda and other Nepalese Maoist leaders, from the Single Spark site:
Since MLM is a progressive science, the people’s war calls for ideology and leadership that is capable to complete a new People’s War in the 21st century. Our Party’s CC Extended Meeting last September held that the ideologies of Lenin and Mao have become old and inadequate to lead the present international revolution.
The political and organizational report passed by the meeting says, ‘The proletariat revolutionaries of the 21st century need to pay their serious attention towards that fact that in today’s ground reality, Lenin and Mao’s analysis of imperialism and various notions relation to proletariat strategies based on it have lagged behind.’
As Marxism was born in an age of competitive capitalism, the strategies and working policy formulated during the times of Marx had become old when they arrived at Lenin’s times of imperialism and proletariat revolution.
Similarly, the ideologies developed by Lenin and Mao at the initial phase of international imperialism and proletariat revolution have become inadequate and lagged behind at the present imperialistic phase. Therefore, ‘the main issue is to develop MLM in the 21st century and to determine a new proletariat strategy.1
The second [wrong trend] …is not to concentrate on how
revolutionary struggle can be developed in one’s country by developing correct strategy and tactics, but to talk more of world revolution, enjoy classical debate, eulogize strategy and tactic of the past successful revolutions, teach other fraternal parties as if they know everything about the concrete situation in that country and stick to what Lenin and Mao had said before. This trend represents dogmatism.2
What we think is that situation has undergone a considerable
change, so the communist revolutionaries must not stick to what Lenin had said about insurrection and what Mao had said on Protracted People’s War.3
Q. You have envisioned a people's republic, no?
Prachanda: Mao Zedong's People's Republic cannot fulfill the needs of today's world. It cannot address today's political awareness appropriately. Mao said cooperative party theory; we called it competitive party theory. We have said let's move ahead from the conventional People's Republic and develop it as per the specialties of the 21st century.
Q. You do not follow the old concept of communism?
Prachanda: Definitely not. What happened without competition? In the USSR, Stalin gave no place to competition and went ahead in a monolithic way. What was the result?4
Does Communism make sense today?
P: It's a big question, starting with Marx, Lenin and Mao Zedong, who wanted to apply the Marxist teachings in semi colonial countries. Now, we still need Marxism, but in accordance to the needs of the 21st century. We have to apply Marxist science in a very new context, understanding social, economic and also technological changes, without dogmatism and without sectarianism.
We are trying to develop a completely new concept, different from what happened in the past century. When we are in the government, our experiment will surprise everybody.
This will happen only if foreign investors trust a communist government…
P: Yes, I know. We cannot ignore the whole process of liberalization in the world. So, we will apply mixed economics to this country. Right now, we are not saying that we plan a total socialist economy, though we will not blindly follow western liberalism. We have some national priorities and we will welcome foreign investors, using capital from abroad for the well being of Nepal.5
Though Mao made some bold experiments to revive and develop socialist democracy, his efforts did not result in any qualitative advance. Why did socialist democracy ultimately fail? Why did it have to bear the stigma of ‘totalitarianism’ from its adversaries? If the revolutionary communists of the 21st century have ‘to win the battle for democracy’, as Marx and Engels had declared in the famous Communist Manifesto, we must dare to question the past practice in socialist democracy and take some bold initiatives.6.
All selections from this document7.
CPGB-ML Tribute to Habash
In his 1944 speech, "Serve the People", Comrade Mao Zedong said these famous words:
All men must die, but death can vary in its significance. The ancient Chinese writer Szuma Chien said: ‘Though death befalls all men alike, it may be weightier than Mount Tai or lighter than a feather.’ To die for the people is weightier than Mount Tai, but to work for the fascists and die for the exploiters and oppressors is lighter than a feather.Today, the heroic Palestinian people are continuing to resist, whether in the breaking of the barrier with Egypt to alleviate the genocidal siege of Gaza, or in the martyrdom operation at Dimona, the nuclear site where imperialism and its stooges do not demand inspections, to express a sense of grief at the loss of Al-Hakim, Dr George Habash, one of the greatest leaders of the Palestinian people, and, more importantly, to celebrate his glorious life and give real political vitality and clarity to the essential work of building solidarity with the Palestinian people in the British working class and in the anti-war and other progressive movements.
Nice memorial poster of PFLP leader George Habash. In all of the obits in the US news, few detailed the reason for the radicalization of Habash. At university in Lebanon, he was apolitical and preferred to play guitar. He raced home during the "Israeli War of Independence" to his home in Lydda. Jewish militias attacked the town and forced 95% of the city to flee.Most were Palestinian Christians. His sister died of typhoid fever during the siege of the town and Habash buried her in the backyard. He blamed the Jews for blocking access to the hospital that could have saved her. There were some notorious massacres of Palestinians during the attack on Lydda, including the execution of many young men in a mosque.
The Jews forced Habash and others to line up and leave their homes and all of their possessions. One man asked if he could return to get the keys to his house and for making this request, he was shot dead in front of Habash's eyes. From that point on, the apolitical future doctor was transformed into a revolutionary.
Comrade George Habash, who has passed away at the age of 82, gave more than six decades of his life to the revolution. He was born into a prosperous Greek Orthodox family in the Palestinian city of Lydda.
At that time, the Palestinian people were under the rule of the British colonial mandate, which was systematically preparing the way for the creation of a Zionist settler colonial state, which, in the words of Sir Roland Storrs, the first British governor of Jerusalem in the 1920s, would form “for England a ‘little loyal Jewish Ulster’ in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism”.
In the summer of 1948, whilst studying medicine in Beirut, George went back home to help organise resistance to the Zionist catastrophe that was sweeping over the Palestinian people, driving them from their ancestral homes and lands into exile and dispossession.
At this time, he and his whole family, along with 95 percent of the inhabitants of his native city, were forced out at gunpoint by the Zionist terrorists and ethnic cleansers commanded by Yitzhak Rabin. Years later, Habash was to observe:
It is a sight I shall never forget. Thousands of human beings expelled from their homes, running, crying, shouting in terror. After seeing such a thing, you cannot but become a revolutionary.During al-Nakba, the catastrophe, more than 700,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes and lands, made stateless and refugees.
Graduating as the first in his class, Dr Habash eschewed the chance to pursue a lucrative career, opting instead to open a people’s clinic offering free treatment and a school for refugees in the Jordanian capital, Amman.
Around this same time, he and his comrades founded the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), the first pan-Arab movement to take up armed struggle against colonialism and to win back the lost lands.
The significance of the ANM should not be underestimated. Not only was it to be the root of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP); from its ranks also came revolutionary forces in many parts of the Arab homeland, including the National Liberation Front in Aden and South Yemen, which not only defeated British imperialism in a revolutionary armed struggle to win national liberation, but, later as the Yemen Socialist Party, leading the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, stood in the vanguard of to date the only real attempt to build an Arab socialist state on the basis of the scientific principles of Marxism-Leninism and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In the 1960s, Comrade Habash, like many other anti-imperialist fighters then, before and since, came to accept that the liberation struggle of the oppressed people, if it was to be crowned with success and carried through to the end, needed to be based on Marxism-Leninism. Lamis Andoni, an analyst for al-Jazeera, who knew Comrade Habash well, expressed matters this way in his tribute to his friend:
He belonged to a generation influenced by Franz Fanon, Mao Zedong, General Vo Nguyen Giap and later by Che Guevara. In their views, colonialism epitomised systematic, institutional violence and subjugation of people under its control …After the founding of the PFLP in December 1967, following the Arabs’ bitter defeat in the June 1967 war, Habash declared that the struggle was “not merely to free Palestine from the Zionists but also to free the Arab world from remnants” of Western colonial rule. All Arab revolutionaries, he said, “must be Marxist, because Marxism is the expression of the aspirations of the working class”.
In the early 1960s, George Habash, already a paediatrician in Amman known for treating the poor for free, endorsed Marxism as he grew convinced that the national struggle should not be separate from the struggle for social justice.
In a 1969 interview, he declared:
By 1967, we had understood the undeniable truth, that to liberate Palestine we have to follow the Chinese and Vietnamese examples.Indeed, Comrade Habash paid close attention not only to the Chinese and Vietnamese revolutions, but to the experience of all the socialist countries and the revolutionary movement in all parts of the world.
Cuba and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea were also two countries close to his heart and with which he and the PFLP forged tight bonds of active solidarity. In the memorial hall for Comrade Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang, the Korean comrades proudly display the several awards and medals presented to their great leader by the PFLP over the years.
Under Habash’s leadership, the PFLP forged close and active ties of combat solidarity with national liberation movements in all parts of the world – the ANC in South Africa, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and the Irish Republican Movement, to name but a few, embracing training, material assistance, joint operations and moral encouragement.
In the September 1970 hijackings that gave the PFLP worldwide fame, Leila Khaled was joined by Patrick Arguello Ryan, a militant of the Sandinista National Liberation Front and the only martyr of those operations.
In 1983, after the Nicaraguan revolution, the Sandinistas commemorated Arguello by renaming the Geothermal Plant at Momotombo in his honour. A poster still available on the PFLP website describes Arguello as the “symbol of common Nicaraguan/Palestinian struggle”.
Comrade Habash sought to translate into reality, and himself embodied, these inspiring words of Che Guevara, which go to the very essence of proletarian internationalism:
Let the flag under which we fight be the sacred cause of the liberation of humanity so that to die under the colours of Vietnam, Venezuela, Guatemala, Bolivia, Brazil will be equally glorious and desirable for a Latin American, an Asian, an African and even a European.Comrades, The Palestinian revolution is a complex and difficult one, throwing up many challenges and inevitably differences of view. Equally inevitably, Comrade Habash often found himself embroiled in internal controversy, particularly in terms of the sometimes painful compromises, concessions and retreats that have been forced on the Palestinian people at various times.
But what shines out is the fact that he never lost sight of the importance of unity in the national liberation movement.
In their own tribute to their leader, the PFLP put matters this way:
In 1987, with the outbreak of the great Intifada, Dr. Habash called for upholding Palestinian national unity, and convening the Palestinian National Congress in Algeria in 1988.Lamis Andoni, to whom we have already referred, wrote:
Comrade Al-Hakim always understood national unity as a necessary condition for the continuation of the struggle and the national liberation movement, whether in Beirut during internal fighting among Palestinians and after as well, recognising that the internal contradictions among Palestinians could not be solved through military mechanisms, but rather through the democratic processes of the liberation movement.
‘His message to the Palestinians was to restore our unity,’ Issam Al Taher, a senior aide, who saw him a day before his death said.Andoni notes of the relationship between George Habash and Yasser Arafat:
‘Unity, unity, unity — that was his only message,’ said Al Taher.
The two men never severed ties and continued a complex relationship of camaraderie and rivalry until the end.Andoni continued:
Tall and handsome, Habash exuded a certain charisma that disarmed his distracters who admired his persistence but criticised what they saw as rigidity. A stroke that partially paralysed half of his body changed his appearance later but did not affect his ardour for the cause.Of the final period of Habash’s life, Andoni notes:
It was that Habash that I saw and met for the first time in Tunis in 1983. The PLO was expelled from Beirut too and most its leaders moved to this northern Mediterranean capital of Tunisia. Habash moved to Damascus, Syria instead.
On that day the PLO was holding a meeting. Most of the leaders had arrived and then there was a stir and silence. Habash entered slowly on crutches, hampered and subdued by his physical disability.
The hall, filled with hardened fighters, stood on their feet while Arafat hugged Habash and escorted him to his seat.
He would get so distressed during conversations discussing the events in Palestine and most recently in Iraq, that his wife, and closest friend Hilda, would interfere to stop it.It is not surprising, therefore, that the mourning for Comrade Habash has transcended the differences in the Palestinian ranks. President Mahmoud Abbas declared three days of national mourning, noting that Habash had dedicated his life to struggling for his people. Hamas leader Ismail Haneya said, “Dr. George Habash spent all his life struggling for the cause of the Palestinian people.”
When Israel besieged Arafat in 2002 in his compound in Ramallah, Habash stood by his rival. When Arafat died, amid Palestinian suspicion that Israel may have been involved, Habash deeply mourned him.
The few times I was able to see him over the last three years, he never stopped monitoring and learning every detail about Palestinian life. His physical ailment deepened the sense of soulful pain he internalised.
Those who were with him during his last days recall how disturbed he was by the rift between Fatah and Hamas. He opposed the strategy of Mahmoud Abbas, the current Palestinian president, of accommodating US and Israeli demands but did not endorse Hamas’ military take over of Gaza.
His main concern was the damage brought upon the Palestinians by the most serious internal rift in their history.
Islamic Jihad described him as a “real leader” and other Palestinian organisations paying their tributes included the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Palestine Popular Struggle Front, who said that his path was and is one of liberation for the Palestinian and Arab people.
In its December 1967 Founding Statement, the PFLP declared:
The masses are the authority, the guide, and the resistance leadership from which victory will be achieved in the end. It is necessary to recruit the popular masses and mobilise them as active participants and leaders ...Much more can be said on the life, work and legacy of Comrade Habash, but in summary these are some of the things he advocated and taught:
The only language that the enemy understands is the language of revolutionary violence …
The slogan of our masses must be resistance until victory, rooted in the heart with our feet planted on the ground in deep commitment to our land. Today, the Popular Front is hailing our masses with this call. This is the appeal. We must repeat it every day, through every breakthrough bullet and the fall of each martyr, that the land of Palestine today belongs to all the masses.
Every area of our land belongs to our masses who have defended it against the presence of the usurper, every piece of land, every rock and stone, our masses will not abandon one inch of them because they belong to the legions of the poor and hungry and displaced persons …
The struggle of the Palestinian people is linked with the struggle of the forces of revolution and progress in the world, the format of the coalition that we face requires a corresponding … coalition including all the forces of anti-imperialism in every part of the world.
• That the fundamental way to liberation lies through armed struggle and people’s war based on the masses.
• That for the struggle to be successful and carried through to the end it needs to be based on Marxism-Leninism, the scientific world outlook of the working class.
• That the oppressed peoples must uphold proletarian internationalism in their struggle for liberation, based on militant unity within and between the three major currents of the world revolutionary process, the socialist countries, the national liberation movements, and the working-class movement in the imperialist heartlands.
• That the liberation of the nation necessitated the principled and democratic unity of all the forces of the nation, even though major differences will also exist and must be struggled over.
Clearly, all these are not just lessons for the Palestinian people alone.
In June 2000, age and ill health led Comrade Habash to step back from the day-to-day leadership of the PFLP. Giving an inspiring speech on that occasion, in many respects he wrote his own epitaph. He told his comrades:
What I have lived through over the course of these militant decades, and the rich experience I have acquired, is not a matter to be taken for granted. It is your right, and the right of coming generations to review the content and lessons of this experience with all of its many successes and failures.As befits a man who gave all of his own life and strength to the revolution, Comrade Habash said of the martyrs, the prisoners and his comrades, and it is with Comrade Habash’s own words, from his farewell address, Palestine Between Dreams and Reality, that we conclude this tribute:
I remember each of the martyrs, one by one, and without exception – those martyrs to whom we are indebted, for whom we must continue the struggle, holding fast to the dream and holding fast to hope, and protecting the rights of the people for whom they shed their blood. Their children and their families have a right to be honoured and cared for. This is the least we can do for those blazing stars in the skies of our homeland.
I also remember now the heroic prisoners in the jails of the occupation and the prisons of the Palestinian Authority - those militants who remind us morning and night of our patriotic duty by the fact that they are still there behind bars and by the fact that the occupation still squats on our chests. Each prisoner deserves the noblest signs of respect …
Now permit me to express my gratitude to all the comrades who have worked with me and helped me, whether in the Arab Nationalist Movement or in the Popular Front. They stood beside me during the hardest conditions and the darkest of times, and they were a great help and support for me. Without them I would not have been able to carry out my responsibilities.
They have been true comrades, in all that the word implies. Those comrades helped to create a congenial atmosphere, an environment of political, theoretical, and intellectual interaction that enabled me to do all that was required. Those comrades have a big place in my heart and mind.
I offer all my thanks and appreciation to each one of them by name. In addition, to the comrades who vigilantly guarded me, looking out for my safety, all these long years, I offer my gratitude …
As a last word, I feel it necessary to say that I know well that the goals for which I worked and struggled have not yet been attained. And I cannot say how or when they will be attained. But on the other hand, I know in light of my study of the march of history in general, and of Arab and Palestinian history in particular, that they will be attained.
In spite of this bitter truth, I leave my task as General Secretary of the Front with a contented mind and conscience. My conscience is content because I did my duty and worked with the greatest possible effort and with complete and deep sincerity. My mind is content because throughout my working years, I continually based myself on the practice of self-criticism.
It is important to say also that I will pay close attention to all your observations and assessments of the course taken by the Popular Front while I was its General Secretary. I must emphasise that with the same close attention, if not with greater attention, I will follow and take to heart the observations and assessments of the Palestinian and Arab people on this course and my role in it.
My aim in this closing speech has been to say to you – and not only to you, but to all the detainees, or those who experienced detention, to the families of the martyrs, to the children of the martyrs, to those who were wounded, to all who sacrificed and gave for the cause – that your sacrifice has not been in vain.
The just goals and legitimate rights which they have struggled and given their lives for will be attained, sooner or later. I say again that I don't know when, but they will be attained.
And my aim, again and again, is to emphasize the need for you to persist in the struggle to serve our people, for the good of all Palestinians and Arabs - the good that lies in a just and legitimate cause, as it does in the realization of the good for all those who are oppressed and wronged.
You must always be of calm mind, and of contented conscience, with a strong resolve and a steel will, for you have been and still are in the camp of justice and progress, the camp whose just goals will be attained and which will inevitably attain its legitimate rights. For these are the lessons of history and reality, and no right is lost as long as there is someone fighting for it.
Notes
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Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Imad Mughniyeh is Dead
The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.
Updated February 19, 2008. This post has just been accused, as usual, of racism, in this case anti-Semitism. See here for my position statement on racism and anti-Semitism.
One of the only known photos of the super-elusive and ultra-mysterious Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah mastermind. He was so slippery he was dubbed Hezbollah's Carlos, after the famous terrorist Carlos from the 1970's. This is a great picture of him, suspicious, haunted, looking over his shoulder, as a man on the run should. And he was a man on the run for most of his life.
A more recent photo of Mughniyeh in military fatigues, against a camouflage background, issued by Iran after his death. Between the earlier photo and the later, it looks like he hasn't missed a meal. Some are also saying that the two plastic surgery operations did not alter his appearance much, but I am not at capable of judging that.
I can't stress the importance of this news.
Imad Mughniyeh, Supreme Commander of Hezbollah for the past 25 years, has been killed in a car bomb in Damascus last night, February 12, at 10:45 PM. He was on the CIA's Most Wanted List with a $25 million bounty on his head.
He was the only person killed when a silver Mitsubishi Pajero vehicle (apparently Mughniyeh's car) exploded in the upscale Kafar Soussa District in the vicinity of a Iranian school that teaches religion to Iranian pupils. Several other cars were damaged and windows of surrounding buildings were blown out. Residents gathered in their pajamas to look at the scene. A single body lay in the street, covered by a white sheet.
Kafar Soussa has many apartment buildings constructed in recent years, along with a large shopping center and the main offices of the formidable Syrian Intelligence Services.
Mughniyeh was wanted for a number of attacks during the US invasion of Lebanon in 1982, said to be to keep the peace, but actually ending up as usual, supporting the Israelis. Mughniyeh orchestrated the bombing of the US Marine Barracks and French Headquarters in Beirut in 1982 that killed 227 Marines and 58 French troops.
He also supervised the bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut in 1983 that killed 63 and wiped out the entire top tier of US CIA Middle East agents. He also pulled off the bombing of the Israeli command center in Tyre that killed scores of Israeli troops. He was involved in the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 and the execution of US Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem in 1985.
He was involved in the kidnappings of many Americans in Beirut during the 1980's, including Terry Anderson and CIA officer and US Army Colonel William Buckley, who Hezbollah executed. In 1988, the top US CIA agent in Lebanon, Colonel William Higgins, was kidnapped by Hezbollah and tortured to death.
He was also involved in the truck bomb attack on the US military residence facilities at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, targeting US servicemen who were guarding Saudi oil fields. 19 Americans were killed in that blast and 200 more were wounded.
There are suggestions that he was involved along with Hezbollah and/or Iran in the dual bombings in Buenos Aires, one at the Israeli Embassy 1992 that killed 29 people, and another at the Jewish Cultural Center in 1994 that killed 95 people. Three Israeli soldiers, Benny Avraham, Adi Avitan and Omar Souad were captured along the Lebanon border in 1999, taken POW, and possibly later executed.
The border incident that set off the 2006 Lebanon War led to the capture of two more Israeli POW's, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. Mughniyeh was believed to be behind both of these abductions of Israeli soldiers.
Debka has long claimed that Mughniyeh was on very close terms with both bin Laden and Al Qaeda and the Iranian leadership. This seems bizarre. Al Qaeda's project is nothing less than Hitlerian extermination of every Shia Muslim on Earth.
Mughniyeh has been described as Hezbollah's Head of External Operations and it is believed that he stays in contact with cells that Hezbollah has all over the world. He is also described as a senior Hezbollah intelligence official, head of the group's security wing and the founder of the group. In the event of a US or Israeli attack on Iran, Mughniyeh would have been relied upon to be in charge of any response.
Angry Arab feels that Mughniyeh's role and feat were largely exaggerated, but I am not so sure about that; he also feels that Robert Fisk could not possibly have interviewed the actual Imad Mughniyeh in Lebanon in 1991, but I think he did.
The interview is worth reading: Fisk in yet another superb, incisive piece. When it comes to Middle East, few are better than Robert Fisk. I guess that is why International Zionism is on a crusade to crucify him.
Mughniyeh was Lebanese, born in Tyre in South Lebanon, not Palestinian as many people are saying. He joined Arafat's Force 17 elite bodyguard unit in Lebanon at a young age. He joined Amal, and then went to Iran for training, where he excelled. He then conducted daring behind enemy lines operations in the Iran-Iraq War.
Most of the operations in Lebanon that he is most famous for were actually conducted by a group called Islamic Jihad. This group later was folded into Hezbollah, which was not formed at any rate until 1988 anyway. Mughniyeh personally executed Stethem during the hijacking in 1985. In 1990, he had plastic surgery done in Iran to change his facial features.
Then he went back to Beirut, where he lived underground using a variety of fake passports. At some point, his cover got blown and he returned to Iran again for a second plastic surgery operation that completely changed his appearance. He was said to have been in Basra in early 2006 helping Mahdi Army fighters go to Iran for military training.
He then returned to Lebanon, where he took part in the Lebanon War. Lately, he was still living in Beirut, but traveling to the Damascus neighborhood where he was killed for meetings on a regular basis.
A top Israeli military official said, "He's the brains behind Hezbollah's military wing." Hezbollah's casualties in the 2006 War are not known. Israel claims that 1/3 of its fighters were killed, but that seems excessive. It seems clear that Hezbollah has now completely restocked its missile supplies and has tripled them from 15,000 in the 2006 War to 45,000 now. Further, it now has missiles that can reach Tel Aviv.
In recent days, Hezbollah teams disguised as reporters were said to be photographing the area on the Israel-Lebanon border.
Mughniyeh definitely committed some acts of terrorism - notably the bombing of the Jewish Cultural Center in Buenos Aires - but most of his so-called crimes were simply acts of war, legitimate acts of war I might add.
Guerrilla armies lack spy satellites, $500 billion/year defense budgets, smart bombs, cruise missiles, F-16's and all of the other expensive military hardware that enables advanced states to carry out precision states during war. Guerrilla groups have to make do with what they have. I do consider embassies, especially those swarming with espionage agents, to be legitimate targets for guerrillas in wartime.
Surely spies may be executed, but I don't think enemy troops should be. None of the attacks on US, French or Israeli bases in Lebanon were terrorist attacks. The killings of the three Israelis and the US servicemen were war crimes, but the US and Israel have certainly executed plenty of POW's and the Israelis continue to do so. The attack that set off the Lebanon War was hardly an act of terrorism.
Hence, Mughniyeh's mantle as the king of terrorism is largely nonsense. Most of his acts were simply very well planned and executed attacks on the enemy in wartime, and within what I consider to be the rules of war.
Mughniyeh was one of the most underground people on Earth and no one seemed to know where he was most of the time, and Hezbollah was not talking. He was probably one of the world's most highly protected and most secretive guerrilla fighters. Whoever killed him by penetrating his multiple circles of Syrian and Iranian intelligence officers and bodyguards surely pulled off a coup de etat.
All fingers are pointing to the Israeli Mossad, which is expert at these kind of attacks. However, the Israeli government is denying any role in killing Mughniyeh, for what it is worth. Would not Israel either admit it or refuse to comment? I originally felt that Israel did not carry out this attack, but on second thought, there does seem to be evidence pointing to their involvement.
For one thing, the MO of the operation matches closely the MO of the Mossad assassination of top Hamas operative Izz El-Deen Sheikh Khalil. In fact, a book written as fiction by a former Mossad agent, though set in the Shia suburbs of South Beirut, appears to describe the MO used in the killing of Mughniyeh closely.
If the book had been translated into Arabic and Mughniyeh had read it, perhaps he could have avoided this. Khalil was a founding member of Hamas and a senior member of the Hamas military wing. Actually, there are probably two Hamases. One is the Hamas that runs the Gaza government. The other Hamas is based out of Syria and could be called Hamas-Khaled Meshal.
This could be seen as an arm of Hamas run out of Syria, and probably a more militant one at that. Sheikh Khalil was close to Meshal. However, note that Israel "neither confirmed nor denied" that killing of Khalil. Has there ever been a case of an Israeli assassination that they did not take credit for, indeed that they even said explicitly that they did not do?
Also note that retired CIA officers are saying that Israel did it. Other theories suggest that either supporters of the pro-government faction in Lebanon, at odds with Hezbollah and Syria, or Iran themselves, killed Mughniyeh.
The Syria and Iran theories hinge on those countries giving up Mughniyeh to the US or Israel in order to get the heat off of them and deliver a wanted militant that had a $5 million US price tag on his head in return for an unspecified US quid pro quo.
This theory is called into question because Bush placed new sanctions on Syria the day after the bombing. If this was a quid pro quo to get the US to back off Syria, that would not have happened. Mughniyeh was also wanted by some of the Lebanese Christian factions and the Saudi, Lebanese, Jordanian, Iraqi and Kuwaiti governments.
Adding weight to the theory that Israel did it are reports from Palestinians in Fatah who have regular contact with Israeli intelligence. The Fatah sources indicate that Israeli intel is saying that they have settled their account with Mughniyeh. Further analysis of Israel's denial shows that it may not even be a denial at all - Israel rejects terrorist groups blaming Israel for the killing, but does not deny that Israel committed the act.
If Israel indeed killed Mughniyeh, which seems likely, that looks very bad for Syria. It means that Mossad has been able to penetrate into the heart of Hezbollah, and it means that the Mossad can operate apparently with impunity deep in the most secure parts of Damascus. Their next target is surely Nasrallah himself. It also implies that Israel has penetrated Syrian intelligence itself, a tough nut to crack.
Hezbollah will now probably undergo purges looking for the Israeli agents in Hezbollah. People will be arrested and executed.
Mughniyeh is said to have replaced Hassan Nasrallah as head of the Hezbollah after the 2006 war and he was rumored to have enemies in Lebanon, maybe even inside Hezbollah. Hezbollah TV is reporting his death and blaming Israel.
Nasrallah will speak at his funeral in Beirut, which will be very heavily guarded. This does not look good for Damascus. They were supposed to protect this guy, who is after all one of their main assets, but they failed.
His death is huge news in the roiling stew pot called the Middle East, and there will surely be counter-responses by Hezbollah, probably against Israel. Nasrallah is already thundering threats in the direction of Israel. The wild conspiracy stories are already spreading like vines. This is the Middle East, where intrigues are as normal as sand and hummus and anything that can happen, probably does happen.
We have not see the end of this.
Updated February 19, 2008. This post has just been accused, as usual, of racism, in this case anti-Semitism. See here for my position statement on racism and anti-Semitism.
One of the only known photos of the super-elusive and ultra-mysterious Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah mastermind. He was so slippery he was dubbed Hezbollah's Carlos, after the famous terrorist Carlos from the 1970's. This is a great picture of him, suspicious, haunted, looking over his shoulder, as a man on the run should. And he was a man on the run for most of his life.
A more recent photo of Mughniyeh in military fatigues, against a camouflage background, issued by Iran after his death. Between the earlier photo and the later, it looks like he hasn't missed a meal. Some are also saying that the two plastic surgery operations did not alter his appearance much, but I am not at capable of judging that.I can't stress the importance of this news.
Imad Mughniyeh, Supreme Commander of Hezbollah for the past 25 years, has been killed in a car bomb in Damascus last night, February 12, at 10:45 PM. He was on the CIA's Most Wanted List with a $25 million bounty on his head.
He was the only person killed when a silver Mitsubishi Pajero vehicle (apparently Mughniyeh's car) exploded in the upscale Kafar Soussa District in the vicinity of a Iranian school that teaches religion to Iranian pupils. Several other cars were damaged and windows of surrounding buildings were blown out. Residents gathered in their pajamas to look at the scene. A single body lay in the street, covered by a white sheet.
Kafar Soussa has many apartment buildings constructed in recent years, along with a large shopping center and the main offices of the formidable Syrian Intelligence Services.
Mughniyeh was wanted for a number of attacks during the US invasion of Lebanon in 1982, said to be to keep the peace, but actually ending up as usual, supporting the Israelis. Mughniyeh orchestrated the bombing of the US Marine Barracks and French Headquarters in Beirut in 1982 that killed 227 Marines and 58 French troops.
He also supervised the bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut in 1983 that killed 63 and wiped out the entire top tier of US CIA Middle East agents. He also pulled off the bombing of the Israeli command center in Tyre that killed scores of Israeli troops. He was involved in the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 and the execution of US Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem in 1985.
He was involved in the kidnappings of many Americans in Beirut during the 1980's, including Terry Anderson and CIA officer and US Army Colonel William Buckley, who Hezbollah executed. In 1988, the top US CIA agent in Lebanon, Colonel William Higgins, was kidnapped by Hezbollah and tortured to death.
He was also involved in the truck bomb attack on the US military residence facilities at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, targeting US servicemen who were guarding Saudi oil fields. 19 Americans were killed in that blast and 200 more were wounded.
There are suggestions that he was involved along with Hezbollah and/or Iran in the dual bombings in Buenos Aires, one at the Israeli Embassy 1992 that killed 29 people, and another at the Jewish Cultural Center in 1994 that killed 95 people. Three Israeli soldiers, Benny Avraham, Adi Avitan and Omar Souad were captured along the Lebanon border in 1999, taken POW, and possibly later executed.
The border incident that set off the 2006 Lebanon War led to the capture of two more Israeli POW's, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. Mughniyeh was believed to be behind both of these abductions of Israeli soldiers.
Debka has long claimed that Mughniyeh was on very close terms with both bin Laden and Al Qaeda and the Iranian leadership. This seems bizarre. Al Qaeda's project is nothing less than Hitlerian extermination of every Shia Muslim on Earth.
Mughniyeh has been described as Hezbollah's Head of External Operations and it is believed that he stays in contact with cells that Hezbollah has all over the world. He is also described as a senior Hezbollah intelligence official, head of the group's security wing and the founder of the group. In the event of a US or Israeli attack on Iran, Mughniyeh would have been relied upon to be in charge of any response.
Angry Arab feels that Mughniyeh's role and feat were largely exaggerated, but I am not so sure about that; he also feels that Robert Fisk could not possibly have interviewed the actual Imad Mughniyeh in Lebanon in 1991, but I think he did.
The interview is worth reading: Fisk in yet another superb, incisive piece. When it comes to Middle East, few are better than Robert Fisk. I guess that is why International Zionism is on a crusade to crucify him.
Mughniyeh was Lebanese, born in Tyre in South Lebanon, not Palestinian as many people are saying. He joined Arafat's Force 17 elite bodyguard unit in Lebanon at a young age. He joined Amal, and then went to Iran for training, where he excelled. He then conducted daring behind enemy lines operations in the Iran-Iraq War.
Most of the operations in Lebanon that he is most famous for were actually conducted by a group called Islamic Jihad. This group later was folded into Hezbollah, which was not formed at any rate until 1988 anyway. Mughniyeh personally executed Stethem during the hijacking in 1985. In 1990, he had plastic surgery done in Iran to change his facial features.
Then he went back to Beirut, where he lived underground using a variety of fake passports. At some point, his cover got blown and he returned to Iran again for a second plastic surgery operation that completely changed his appearance. He was said to have been in Basra in early 2006 helping Mahdi Army fighters go to Iran for military training.
He then returned to Lebanon, where he took part in the Lebanon War. Lately, he was still living in Beirut, but traveling to the Damascus neighborhood where he was killed for meetings on a regular basis.
A top Israeli military official said, "He's the brains behind Hezbollah's military wing." Hezbollah's casualties in the 2006 War are not known. Israel claims that 1/3 of its fighters were killed, but that seems excessive. It seems clear that Hezbollah has now completely restocked its missile supplies and has tripled them from 15,000 in the 2006 War to 45,000 now. Further, it now has missiles that can reach Tel Aviv.
In recent days, Hezbollah teams disguised as reporters were said to be photographing the area on the Israel-Lebanon border.
Mughniyeh definitely committed some acts of terrorism - notably the bombing of the Jewish Cultural Center in Buenos Aires - but most of his so-called crimes were simply acts of war, legitimate acts of war I might add.
Guerrilla armies lack spy satellites, $500 billion/year defense budgets, smart bombs, cruise missiles, F-16's and all of the other expensive military hardware that enables advanced states to carry out precision states during war. Guerrilla groups have to make do with what they have. I do consider embassies, especially those swarming with espionage agents, to be legitimate targets for guerrillas in wartime.
Surely spies may be executed, but I don't think enemy troops should be. None of the attacks on US, French or Israeli bases in Lebanon were terrorist attacks. The killings of the three Israelis and the US servicemen were war crimes, but the US and Israel have certainly executed plenty of POW's and the Israelis continue to do so. The attack that set off the Lebanon War was hardly an act of terrorism.
Hence, Mughniyeh's mantle as the king of terrorism is largely nonsense. Most of his acts were simply very well planned and executed attacks on the enemy in wartime, and within what I consider to be the rules of war.
Mughniyeh was one of the most underground people on Earth and no one seemed to know where he was most of the time, and Hezbollah was not talking. He was probably one of the world's most highly protected and most secretive guerrilla fighters. Whoever killed him by penetrating his multiple circles of Syrian and Iranian intelligence officers and bodyguards surely pulled off a coup de etat.
All fingers are pointing to the Israeli Mossad, which is expert at these kind of attacks. However, the Israeli government is denying any role in killing Mughniyeh, for what it is worth. Would not Israel either admit it or refuse to comment? I originally felt that Israel did not carry out this attack, but on second thought, there does seem to be evidence pointing to their involvement.
For one thing, the MO of the operation matches closely the MO of the Mossad assassination of top Hamas operative Izz El-Deen Sheikh Khalil. In fact, a book written as fiction by a former Mossad agent, though set in the Shia suburbs of South Beirut, appears to describe the MO used in the killing of Mughniyeh closely.
If the book had been translated into Arabic and Mughniyeh had read it, perhaps he could have avoided this. Khalil was a founding member of Hamas and a senior member of the Hamas military wing. Actually, there are probably two Hamases. One is the Hamas that runs the Gaza government. The other Hamas is based out of Syria and could be called Hamas-Khaled Meshal.
This could be seen as an arm of Hamas run out of Syria, and probably a more militant one at that. Sheikh Khalil was close to Meshal. However, note that Israel "neither confirmed nor denied" that killing of Khalil. Has there ever been a case of an Israeli assassination that they did not take credit for, indeed that they even said explicitly that they did not do?
Also note that retired CIA officers are saying that Israel did it. Other theories suggest that either supporters of the pro-government faction in Lebanon, at odds with Hezbollah and Syria, or Iran themselves, killed Mughniyeh.
The Syria and Iran theories hinge on those countries giving up Mughniyeh to the US or Israel in order to get the heat off of them and deliver a wanted militant that had a $5 million US price tag on his head in return for an unspecified US quid pro quo.
This theory is called into question because Bush placed new sanctions on Syria the day after the bombing. If this was a quid pro quo to get the US to back off Syria, that would not have happened. Mughniyeh was also wanted by some of the Lebanese Christian factions and the Saudi, Lebanese, Jordanian, Iraqi and Kuwaiti governments.
Adding weight to the theory that Israel did it are reports from Palestinians in Fatah who have regular contact with Israeli intelligence. The Fatah sources indicate that Israeli intel is saying that they have settled their account with Mughniyeh. Further analysis of Israel's denial shows that it may not even be a denial at all - Israel rejects terrorist groups blaming Israel for the killing, but does not deny that Israel committed the act.
If Israel indeed killed Mughniyeh, which seems likely, that looks very bad for Syria. It means that Mossad has been able to penetrate into the heart of Hezbollah, and it means that the Mossad can operate apparently with impunity deep in the most secure parts of Damascus. Their next target is surely Nasrallah himself. It also implies that Israel has penetrated Syrian intelligence itself, a tough nut to crack.
Hezbollah will now probably undergo purges looking for the Israeli agents in Hezbollah. People will be arrested and executed.
Mughniyeh is said to have replaced Hassan Nasrallah as head of the Hezbollah after the 2006 war and he was rumored to have enemies in Lebanon, maybe even inside Hezbollah. Hezbollah TV is reporting his death and blaming Israel.
Nasrallah will speak at his funeral in Beirut, which will be very heavily guarded. This does not look good for Damascus. They were supposed to protect this guy, who is after all one of their main assets, but they failed.
His death is huge news in the roiling stew pot called the Middle East, and there will surely be counter-responses by Hezbollah, probably against Israel. Nasrallah is already thundering threats in the direction of Israel. The wild conspiracy stories are already spreading like vines. This is the Middle East, where intrigues are as normal as sand and hummus and anything that can happen, probably does happen.
We have not see the end of this.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Afghanistan Wrapup for December 14, 2006
The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here.
Updated January 31, 2008
Thursday, December 14
Zabul Province: Suicide bomber attack on a police commander's vehicle as it traveled along a crowded street killed 4 civilians and wounded 25 more. It is not known if the commander was hurt.
Along the highway in Zabul Province. This is from a trip taken by Bill Roggio from Kabul to Kandahar. Numerous Taliban were seen along the way, especially in this province. They were typically riding motorcycles are were quickly pointed out by the Afghan guides. This province is quite arid and gets up to 120 F in summertime.
Khost-Gardez Highway, Khost Province: Hundreds of tribesmen protested the killings of what they said were civilians in a raid on a home in nearby Darnami 2 days before (see the December 12 report for more on that).
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Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: French M-2000D Mirages attacked Taliban fighters battling US troops near here. For the past few weeks, the Asadabad area has been bombed continuously, even as winter looms.
Now Zad, Now Zad District, Helmand Province: Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked Taliban forces battling British troops near here. Now Zad has been being bombed almost every day for the past few weeks with no end in sight.
Wednesday, December 13
Siah Choy, Panjwayi District, Kandahar Province, Late: NATO launched an air strike on a Taliban command post here, completely destroying the post. A number of Taliban commanders were said to have been killed in this attack. A US B-1B Lancer dropped a GBU-38 on the target. Siah Choy (map) is located along the Arghandab River 23 miles west of Panjwayi, the capital of the district.
Now Zad, Now Zad District, Helmand Province: US Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs and a B-1B attacked Taliban fighters again near here, with the A-10's firing cannons at the rebels. The B-1B dropped GBU-31s and GBU-38s on Taliban positions.
Kabul: French M-2000Ds attacked guerrillas battling NATO forces near here, dropping GBU-12s on their positions.
Orgun-E, Urgun District, Paktika Province: Air Force A-10s and French M-2000Ds attacked guerrillas battling US troops near here. Urgun is being bombed regularly in recent weeks.
Tuesday, December 12
Farah Province: The Afghan police and army launched an operation against the Taliban here, killing 8 Taliban. 1 Afghan officer was wounded in the clash.
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Laskhar Gah, Lashkar Gah District, Helmand Province: Suicide bomber attack on a the compound of the governor of Helmand, Mohammed Daud. The bomber blew himself inside the governor's compound but the governor was not there at the time.
The governor has been widely accused of corruption and abuse of his position and is despised by the vast majority of Helmandis. 4 policemen and 2 civilians were killed in the attack.
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Darnami, Khost Province, 1 AM: The mainstream press reported on a US Special Forces raid on a home here.
According to the report, which is disputed by locals, US forces surrounded 4 guerrillas in their home here and ordered all "military-age males" to come out but they opened fire on US forces instead. Troops returned fire, and among the casualties were a 14-year-old girl, who was killed and an 8-year-old girl, who was wounded. All 4 guerrillas were killed.
Sources on the ground dispute this description of the events. According to Marc Herold, in the other version of this event, US Special Forces raided the home of a man named Engineer Shafik, killing 3 members of his family, including a 14-year-old girl.
According to Abdul Majid Arif and Javid Hamim of Pajhwok Afghan News, U.S Special Forces raided the home of Sarfaraz, an Afghan intelligence official serving in Khost.
Engineer Shafiq Mandozai, manager of a private bank in Khost and a member of the Sarfaraz family, said US troops broke into the home and an Afghan interpreter shouted in a Kandahari dialect for everyone to get out. US forces then inexplicably started shooting (apparently there were no shots fired by people inside the home), killing 5 people.
The dead were Mandozai's 14-year-old sister; Engineer Sarfaraz; Mandozai's father, Mohammad Jan, chief of the Forestry Department in Khost; and 2 other civilians. 3 civilians were wounded, including 2 more of Mandozai's sisters, one of them an 8-year-old girl.
Startled by the shootout, neighbors came running towards Sarfaraz' home. Guldad, an official working with the intelligence department in Khost, said two more civilians were then wounded by US forces, including another one of Mandozai's sisters.
Mandozai said US forces tied him up and beat him. As they were getting ready to kill him, he pulled out some personal documents and showed them to the troops. He was then released.
The US version of events implies that Sarfaraz and Mohammad Jan, one an Afghan intelligence agent working in Khost and the other the chief of the Forestry Department in Khost, were both members of the Taliban. If this is what US forces feel, then they need to back that accusation up with evidence. As it panned out, this is looking more like a botched raid. Darnami (map) is 10 1/2 miles west of Khost.
Khost Province is an interesting place. Right now, the city of Khost is regarded as a haven for backwards, reactionary fundamentalist morons but during the Russian War, the city was known as "Little Moscow", due to the large number of Communists who lived there. Isn't it amazing the way places change?
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Northern Now Zad District, Helmand Province: A British Royal Marine was killed when his patrol was attacked with small arms fire by the Taliban here. The dead Marine was Richard J. Watson. Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers provided air support for British troops during this battle, firing enhanced Paveway II and Paveway II munitions, dropping general-purpose 500-pound bombs and firing rockets on Taliban positions.
Kandahar: US Air Force MQ-1 Predators fired Hellfire missiles at Taliban forces near here.
Orgun-E, Urgun District, Paktika Province: Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrilla positions near here.
Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrilla positions here once again
Monday, December 11
Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked Taliban forces here. This area is being bombed almost every single day recently.
Now Zad, Now Zad District, Helmand Province: An Air Force B-1 Lancer and RAF GR-7s attacked Taliban forces here. The GR-7s fired an Enhanced Paveway II munition on a Taliban position.
Uruzgan Khas, Uruzgan Khas District, Uruzgan Province: US Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs provided attacked Taliban forces near here.
Sunday, December 10
Balabuluk District, Farah Province, Night: US troops and warplanes attacked a Taliban hideout here, killing at least 9 Taliban, including Mullah Abdul Samad, a regional commander, in fighting that went on for several hours. The Taliban have been in this Pashtun district for some time now. Their aim, among other things, is to cut the highway running from Herat to Helmand that runs through the district.
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Sperwan, Panjwayi District, Kandahar Province: Canadian and Afghan forces battled the Taliban here. Much of the battle was engaged using small arms, but Coalition forces also called in air support. There were no Coalition casualties but 1 Taliban was wounded. News reports constantly list this town's name as Sperwan Ghar but the real name of the town is Sperwan.
Sperwan (map) is 19 miles southwest of Panjwayi, the district capital. The Canadians have a large base here. A description of the base can be found here. In September, US Special Forces fought a major battle with the Taliban that they are calling the Battle of Sperwan Ghar. A detailed description of this gripping battle is here.
Unfortunately, I am not sure what good all this fighting has done, as I think the Taliban are still deeply dug into this area, where many of them are simply farmers who pick up a weapon and fight one minute and then put it down and pick up a farm implement the next. The Taliban has a deep network of spies here, and they are warned in advance of any Canadian troop movement.
Furthermore, at least some of the informants the Canadians have been using here are Taliban informants. The area is a rich river valley, with grapes, corn and a great deal of marijuana growing in the area. The Taliban use the high crops as cover and have turned many of the villages into armed fortresses.
The Canadians are unfortunately associated with the Indian movies and music videos that the locals can now see on their satellite TV's - in other words, the locals are convinced that NATO has come to corrupt their society. It will be a long, difficult fight here.
This is one of the most unstable areas in Afghanistan. Repeated operations, including Operation Medusa that reportedly killed 900 Taliban, cannot seem to rid this area of the Taliban, who obviously have deep roots here.
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Qalat, Qalat District, Zabul Province: A Air Force B-1B and Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked Taliban forces battling US troops near here. The Taliban control this entire province.
Now Zad, Now Zad District, Helmand Province: The never-ending bombing of the Now Zad continued, with US Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs firing cannon rounds on Taliban positions here.
Sangin, Sangin District, Helmand Province: Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked Taliban fighters near here. Sadly, the Sangin District is totally controlled by the Taliban.
Orgun-E, Urgun District, Paktika Province: US Air Force A-10s and a B-1B Lancer attacked Taliban forces once again near here.
Tagab Valley, Kapisa Province: US and Afghan forces were patrolling through a bazaar and a compound nearby when they became engaged in a battle with guerrillas. 1 guerrilla was killed but that was the only casualty. The Tagab Valley, previously stable, is becoming increasingly unstable in the past couple of months, a worrisome trend.
Bombing attack on the village of Khanaqa, Kapisa, from Marc Herold's excellent webpage about Afghanistan, Archivistan. US warplanes attacked this village on November 7, 2001, and completely obliterated it. No word on civilian casualties in that attack.
Bombing attack on Khan Agaha village in Kapisa during the initial US invasion. US bombs hit a residential area in this village called Qalaye Katir, killing 16 Afghan civilians, including 9 children.
The attack took place on October 27, 2001, when US FA-18's dropped 36 bombs on the village, apparently aiming for a Taliban machine gun on a nearby hill. One bomb hit a timber and mud-brick home and destroying it, killing an entire family, including 7 children who were eating breakfast with their father.
The US government has sponsored women's conferences in Kapisa and Logar. This is a photo from one of those conferences. The poster shows some fundamentalist bonehead beating an Afghan woman, which is one of the favorite activities of these "macho" guys, when they are not blowing up schools and threatening men for shaving their beards and stopping people from playing music.
A boy dives into a stream to go for a swim in Kapisa Province. There is quite a bit of flowing water here, even in early summer, when this photo was taken, and there are still many trees here. But that water doesn't look very clean. Photo taken June 21, 2006 - this past summer.
Kapisa Province is still fairly well-forested. 25 years of war have resulted in the deforestation of 70% of Afghanistan, a heartbreaking figure. In this arid land, the forests do not necessarily grow back after you cut them down, either, as is the case in very wet regions. Hillsides simply become barren, erosion increases and rainfall probably decreases with resulting drought, hunger, starvation, disease, etc.
It is not well known, but Lebanon and Greece were once forested - now the hills of both lands are largely barren after being denuded centuries ago. Further north in Scotland, the famous barren Scottish hills were once covered with oak forests, a fact few people know. Only 2% of these oak forests remain.
A burqa-clad woman crosses a full stream in Kapisa Province this past summer on June 21, 2006. As you can see, the creeks here run full and high in early summer and there is plenty of riparian vegetation. That burqa looks like a hazard when crossing the creek, though.
The village of Obdarah, in mountainous Kapisa Province. The Panjshir Valley is located in this province. This is where the famous Lion of the Panjshir, Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance, held sway against first the Russians and then the Taliban. He was killed by Tunisian Al Qaeda suicide operatives posing as journalists, armed with an exploding video camera, a mere 2 days before 9-11, in an operation that was clearly intended to be part and parcel with the 9-11 attacks.
Many girls are still not in school here for some reason - less than 20% of the students in school here are girls. Taliban night letters have appeared, threatening teachers with death unless they resign. The number of girls in school has increased somewhat here recently, as international aid agencies have been quite active in this province since it is comparatively safe. That may all be changing now with these increased attacks.
Artillery shells hidden in a cave in Kapisa Province. International aid agencies continue to work here, and one of their priorities is demining and cleaning up hidden munitions. With increased attacks here, it is not certain that the aid agencies will be able to continue to do their good work here.
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Laghman Province: Afghan sources said that a NATO airstrike here earlier in the week killed at least 4 Afghan civilians and wounded 1 more when a house was bombed. The Taliban are definitely increasing their presence here lately.
Saturday, December 9
Paktia Province, Late: Roadside bomb attack on Afghan forces killed 6 Afghan soldiers here. The bomb hit their vehicle and killed all 6 men on board. Paktia is known as a stronghold of the Taliban and Hezb-i-Islami. There are also Al Qaeda fighters here from time to time. The famous Operation Anaconda in early 2002 was fought in this province.
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Mizan District, Zabul Province: The Taliban attacked a US patrol here with machine guns and a land mine in this Taliban-controlled district, damaging vehicles and wounding 2 US troops in a gunbattle that went on for some time. This district is fairly quiet but that is just because the Taliban here spend most of their time hiding out rather than attacking.
The Mizan District, in the west of Zabul, borders the Shah Wali Kot District of Kandahar. Similarly, Shah Wali Kot is fairly quiet only because not many foreign troops are there right now. This is one of the most backward districts in the whole country. As an example, the last census was in 1963! The district is 100% Pashtun.
Water is a problem here, although it is widely available. Twice a day, residents walk 1 mile to get water, and then wait in 1-hour lines to fill their containers. As usual, sanitation is a typical problem here. The bathrooms here are known as "wherever you can squat". Women squat inside compounds; men wherever there is open space. I assume people learn to watch their step here.
2/3 of the open cultivated land, and all of the rain-fed land, lies fallow due to drought. The livestock here are sheep, camels, goats, donkeys, cows and chickens. An incredible 97% of the sheep and goats are dead after years of drought, which has even killed 50% of camels! I wasn't aware a camel could die from a drought.
Brangel, okra, tomatoes, cabbage, pomegranates and almonds are grown here. The parts of the district near the Arghandab River, which runs through the center of the district, still have good farming. In other areas, the harvest is poor. As is usual in so many Afghan districts, the main road here is partly destroyed and the rest of the roads are muddy much of the time.
The bridges, as usual, are partly destroyed. The economy is so poor here that 70% of residents travel outside the district to look for work. There is not one health clinic in this district. Residents can thank George Bush for that.
There are no high schools here at all, and only a few students at all in the grade schools - 80% of the grade school aged boys are not in school. No girls are in school and there are no female teachers, as we might expect for Zabul. The schools here actually have water and washrooms, unlike so many Afghan schools. Most actually have buildings too, though some are held outdoors.
As we might expect, women play no role in the community at all.
Resupplying a US base in Zabul. Photo by Joseph Marble.
A Taliban night letter from Zabul Province warning teachers to stop teaching or be killed. On January 3, 2005, Taliban worms entered the Sheik Mathi Baba high school in Qalat, the capital, and beheaded the teacher in front of his students, in one of the most shocking attacks on education so far in Afghanistan.
This is what parts of Zabul, especially the mountainous areas, look like in wintertime. Here US forces are supplying snowed-in residents in Zabul in early February 2005, when harsh winter weather hit the region, especially Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan.
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Saturday, December 9
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Afghanistan: US officials are voicing new worries about the situation in Afghanistan. The fears are that a renewed Taliban offensive next Spring will be a "tipping point" which could tip a large number, or possibly a majority, of Afghans over into support for the Taliban. Government control is tenuous at best in 20% of the country.
Zabul Province is almost totally Taliban-controlled, and in Helmand and Kandahar, the Taliban control most areas outside of the cities. Further, since April, the Taliban have been in control Baghran, Sangin and Dishu Districts. Dishu was captured first in February. By April, Baghran was captured. By May, they had grabbed Sangin.
Since then, the Taliban have clearly seized the Garmser and Musa Qala Districts. In the Helmand districts they control, the Taliban have banned music and forbidden men from shaving their beards. Men are forced to go to the mosque to pray five times a day.
The Taliban have a great deal of power and possibly wield control in the Now Zad, Kajaki and Nahri Sarraj Districts, especially the latter. The Taliban do not completely control the Washer, Lashkar Gah, Nad Ali, Reg and Nawa-i-Barakzayi Districts, although they are active there.
In Kandahar Province, the Taliban have a huge presence in the capital city and in control much of the Panjwayi District west of the capital. The violence is increasing inexorably; there were four times as many attacks last year as the year before. In the past year, up to 7,000 Taliban may have been killed but there seems to be an inexhaustible supply of new recruits.
A timeless scene from Zabul Province, with ancient mud-brick homes. The report above notes that Zabul is totally controlled by the Taliban at the moment.
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Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: US Navy F/A-18 Hornets dropped a GBU-12 on a Taliban position during fighting with British troops near here. Lashkar Gah is being bombed regularly these days.
Kabul: An Air Force B-1B Lancer and Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrillas fighting NATO troops near here. The B-1B dropped GBU-38s on Taliban positions.
Friday, December 8
Uruzgan Province, Afternoon: Roadside bomb attack on a US vehicle killed 2 Afghan interpreters but did not injure any Americans.
Now Zad District, Helmand Province: The Taliban attacked British and Afghan forces here. The Coalition returned fire, killing 5 Taliban. There were no Coalition casualties. Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers assisted in this battle. One of the GR-7s dropped a general-purpose 500-pound bomb on an enemy position.
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Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: US Air Force B-1Bs, Navy F/A-18 Hornets, an Air Force B-1B Lancer, Air Force A-10s Thunderbolt IIs, French M2000D Mirages and an Air Force MQ-1 Predator attacked guerrillas fighting US troops near here, an area that has seen constant fighting the past few weeks.
The B-1Bs and F/A-18s dropped GBU-12s and GBU-38s, one of the A-10s dropped a GBU-12 and a general-purpose 500-pound bomb, the B-1B dropped GBU-31s on enemy targets, and the Predator fired a Hellfire missile on the guerrillas.
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Thursday, December 7
Airport Road, Kandahar: Suicide car bomb attack on a Canadian convoy caused no Canadian casualties but either killed or wounded 15 civilians. This was the 7th suicide car bomb attack on the airport road in the last nine days, an incredible figure.
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Between the Gulran District and Herat, Herat Province: The Taliban attacked a district police chief's vehicle, killing him and wounding his bodyguard. Hajji Zahir, police chief for the Gulran District, was driving towards Herat city when the Taliban opened fire. The Gulran District is located in the northwest corner of Herat. It is bordered on one side by Iran and on the other side by Turkmenistan.
An ethnic group called the Jamshidi Aimaq makes up a large percentage of the population of the Gulran District. There are 120,000 Jamshidi Aimaqs in Afghanistan and another 37,000 in Iran. The Jamshidis are part of a larger group called Aimaqs, numbering about 850,000 - 650,000 in Afghanistan and 200,000 in Iran.
Other figures put the total population at about 1.75 million in all countries, and 1.53 million in Afghanistan. If there are 900,000 Aimaqs in Afghanistan, they would make up 3.4% of the population. They are best classed as semi-sedentary, since they wander with their flocks somewhat. This is part of a cluster of 8 tribes called the Char Aimaq. The tribal formations date back to the 1500's and 1600's.
The Aimaq language is related to Persian, with some Turkic and Mongolian vocabulary and influence. Jamshidi is one of the dialects of Aimaq. The leader of the a group of Jamshidi is known as a khan. He typically traces his ancestry back to the founder of the tribe.
For a tribe of rural Afghans, women have a surprisingly high position. Many do not marry until age 18, and girls are even known to reject the husbands who have been picked for them. The future groom often moves in with his future wife's family for up to 2 years before marrying.
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Kandahar: U.S. Navy F/A-18s dropped GBU-12's on Taliban positions near here.
Kabul: French Air Force M2000D Mirages attacked guerrilla forces fighting NATO troops near here. The Kabul area is being bombed regularly lately, an ominous development.
Musa Qala, Musa Qala District, Helmand Province: An Air Force B-1B Lancer attacked Taliban fighters battling British forces near here, an area where a truce between the British and local elders has apparently completely broken down.
Orgun-E, Urgun District, Paktika Province:Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrilla fighters once again near here in an area that is being bombed all the time lately.
Wednesday, December 6
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Kolikhel, Paktia Province: Armed men, probably the Taliban, kidnapped two NGO employees here. Two employees of a relief agency Ibn-e-Sina were driving towards the Zurmat District when they were captured.
The employees had failed to inform the police before leaving for Zurmat. The town was listed as Kalal Koh in news reports, but there is no such town. However, there is a town called Kolikhel (map), which is located about 3 miles north of Zurmat.
The Taliban fundamentalist nutcases have stated that they will be targeting all NGO employees, because they are serving the interests of the "infidel (Tarzan's) regime". By the same lunatic reasoning, all Afghan teachers are being ordered to quit their jobs, because schools "benefit the Karzai government". The Taliban must be one of the most insane and evil insurgencies on Earth.
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Kandahar: A suicide bomber blew himself up outside the offices of a US mercenary firm here, killing two Americans and five Afghans. The bomber approached the USPI (US Protection and Investigation) compound as men were leaving the building and detonated himself. In addition to the two Americans killed, an additional 5 Afghan employees of the firm were also killed, including two interpreters.
A regional USPI chief may have been amongst the dead. 1 of the Americans was John Micheal Krancich. We do not have the name of the other American.
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Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: Navy F/A-18 Hornets and Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs once again attacked Taliban fighters battling British troops near here. The F/A-18s dropped a GBU-12 on and fired cannon rounds at Taliban positions. Do you get the impression that the Taliban are besieging the capital of Helmand?
Tuesday, December 5
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Garmser, Garmser District, Helmand Province, 5 AM: British Marines attacked the Taliban-held town of Garmser, a city of 50,000 people in Helmand Province, the province that produces 1/3 of the world's opium supply. But the British were forced to withdraw after the Taliban surrounded advancing Marines and threatened to cut them off.
Marines called in air strikes and artillery fire but the Taliban managed to withstand those attacks. The only place in the Garmser District that is held by the Afghan government and British troops is a bridgehead on the eastern side of the Helmand River in Garmser.
Scores of Marines ran across the bridge just before sunup and moved out into wheat fields on the other side. At first, there was only off and on Taliban fire. But as the British moved forward, Taliban forces hiding in a well-designed series of trenches launched a vicious attack using heavy weaponry in an attempt to outflank the British.
British forces counterattacked from light armored vehicles and fired mortars and machine guns at guerrillas. The British felt trapped and called in heavy air support. Apache helicopters fired rockets, B-1 bombers dropped 500-pound bombs and A-10 Thunderbolts shot cannon fire at the Taliban, but the guerrillas were able to hold their ground in spite of the heavy fire from above.
Two Royal Marines were injured in the fighting, and one of those, Jonathan Wigley, later died of wounds. Both were airlifted to the UK hospital in Camp Bastion. An article about Wigley and the Afghan War is here. Wigley was apparently killed by friendly fire from a US A-10 attack jet.
Taliban fighters officially seized the town of Garmser over the summer two times and NATO forces had to come back days later to retake it. The Taliban angered even those locals opposed to foreign troops by burning the Afghan flag and hoisting the flags of two fundamentalist idiot groupings in Pakistan.
Schools have been shut down across Garmser and the Taliban have staged a number of public executions, further angering locals. Some locals here despise the Taliban creeps and want the British to drive the fundamentalist freaks out of the area. But Britain lacks enough troops to do that.
The British commander has been constantly calling for another 1,000 troops for Helmand but all his requests have been turned down. This means that the only way that the British could drive the Taliban worms out of Garmser would be to devastate the town from the air, which would leave a victory of ruins.
Further complicating efforts is the blatantly dishonest nature of the British role here - the British did not come to Helmand to fight the Taliban, but instead came here to rebuild the place. Shades of Alice in Wonderland.
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Kandahar: Suicide car bomb attack on a Canadian convoy on the Airport Road wounded two Canadian soldiers and six Afghan civilians. The bomber, driving a minivan, blew up his vehicle next to a Nyala RG-31 armored vehicle and a transport truck. The two wounded Canadian troops were in the truck.
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Miran Shah, North Waziristan, Pakistan: Tribesmen furious over the government's failure to restore power to Miran Shah cut off road links to the town by placing burning tires and boulders on three main roads leading to Miran Shah.
Power was cut to the region, supposedly due to technical problem, on November 13, and has not yet been restored. Makes you wonder if the government is not cutting off power to the Taliban and Al Qaeda-controlled region on purpose?
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Great Britain: A bizarre new ruling by the British courts is rewarding millions of pounds to British troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan by referring to them as crime victims. What this means is that the court said that the guerrillas fighting British troops in those countries are criminals, not irregular soldiers.
This ruling was necessary because the British Ministry of Defense became liable for possible damages from British troops wounded after the official "end of the war" in Iraq in May 2003.
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Kandahar: An Air Force MQ-1 Predator fired a Hellfire missile on a Taliban target near here.
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Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: An Air Force B-1B Lancer, Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, U.S. Navy F/A-18s and Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked Taliban fighters swarming the Helmand capital once again.
The B-1B dropped GBU-38s, the A-10s dropped general-purpose 500-pound bombs and fired cannon rounds, the F/A-18s dropped GBU-12s and fired cannon rounds, and the GR-7s fired an enhanced Paveway II munition on Taliban forces.
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Kajaki Dam, Kajaki District, Helmand Province: An Air Force B-1B, Navy F/A-18s and RAF GR-7s attacked Taliban fighters battling British troops near here, an area that has been bombed for months now.
Monday, December 4
Kandahar, 11:50 AM: A US Special Forces soldier was wounded while demolitions training here.
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Germany: A report from the German military, the Bundeswehr, warns in a classified report that the Taliban are moving in on Kabul and that attacks in the capital city are likely to increase. The analysis is based on the notion that security in districts within Kabul Province adjacent to the capital is deteriorating.
The report voices a fear that attacks on Kabul will increase in coming months. The report indicates that the Taliban have said that they will focus attacks during the winter on the largest cities in Afghanistan. The security situation has already "visibly deteriorated" in two districts located only 5 miles from Kabul's city limits.
In these districts, Afghan security forces don't even dare to patrol the streets at night. The districts were not named in the Der Spiegel article on the military report. The report feared that the Taliban could use the deteriorated districts as "gateways" to Kabul and also as a safe haven to plan future attacks.
The report said that Taliban fighters are smuggled into the districts in small "groups of up to eight men," and they blend into the local area by staying in the homes of local residents for several days at a time.
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Kandahar Province: German authorities said that two journalists may have been kidnapped here. One of them is apparently a German citizen. The pair did not registered with NATO's media office and were not covering NATO's activities.
Sangin, Sangin District, Helmand Province: U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornets and Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked Taliban forces near here in this Taliban-controlled district. The F/A-18s dropped GBU-12s and a GBU-38 and the GR-7s fired rockets on enemy positions.
Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: An Air Force B-1B Lancer attacked Taliban forces fighting British troops once again near here. It appears the capital of Helmand is surrounded by the Taliban.
Sunday, December 3
Kabul-Kandahar Highway, Near Qalat, Zabul Province, Early AM: The Taliban attacked a police checkpoint here, setting off a gunbattle that killed 4 Taliban and 1 policeman. Police recovered three AK-47's, one RPG and one dead Taliban fighter.
Mus'am Ghar, Panjwayi District, Kandahar Province, 5:10 PM: Two rebel rockets landed near this Canadian base, but caused no casualties. Canadian troops fired back with two mortar rounds of their own. Mus'am Ghar could not be located on any maps.
Kunduz: Guerrillas attacked a German patrol here. The attack did not cause any casualties, but it did slightly damaged three Dingo armored troop carriers. German soldiers returned fire at the attackers. It is not yet known who is carrying out these attacks in relatively calm northern Afghanistan.
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Airport Road, Kandahar: A suicide car bomb exploded next to a NATO convoy here, damaging an open-top NATO vehicle. As troops sped away, they fired on several civilian cars, wounding several Afghans. All together, 19 people were wounded, 16 Afghans including three NATO soldiers.
10 Afghans were wounded in the initial blast and 6 more were wounded by NATO troops afterwards. NATO troops fired on vehicles as far away as 1/2 mile from the blast site. All told, at least eight people were killed in the attack, 3 by the bombing and 5 more by NATO troops afterwards.
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Kandahar: Navy F/A-18 Hornets and French Air Force M-2000Ds attacked Taliban forces once again here.
Saturday, December 2
Panjwayi, Panjwayi District, Afghanistan, AM: For the first time since the Korean War, Canadian tanks have been deployed in a combat situation. A squadron of Canadian Leopard tanks drove through here as locals watched on their way to a forward observation base. Canadian forces said the tank deployment was meant to send a message to the Taliban.
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Duabi, Jawand District, Badghis Province, 9:23 PM: Unknown gunmen attacked Chinese workers in a remote camp being run by the China Railway Shisiju Group Corporation here. The workers managed to evacuate the base to a major base 25 miles away after the attack. No workers were injured. Afghan police guarding the walled camp returned fire against the attackers.
A gunbattle lasting 1 1/2 hours ensued. After 90 minutes, the firing ended, but the attackers had not yet retreated. 2 hours after the initial attack, police reinforcements arrived and the attackers fled. At the time of the battle, around 30 Chinese workers, building a local road, were stationed in the camp.
The camp is surrounded by barbed wire netting and trenches. There has not yet been any information about who was behind the attack or why it was launched. Doabi (map) is located 1/4 mile west of Jawand, a major city.
Badghis is a quiet but desperately poor province that is suffering from drought and resulting lack of food. Jawand is one of the worst districts in all Afghanistan. The entire area is ravaged by disease, drought and starvation.
There are no roads, no doctors, no medical clinics, no schools and almost 100% of the population is illiterate. Check out the heartbreaking Guardian story above about the district. The article is from 2002, but I doubt if things have much improved since.
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Musa Qala District, Helmand Province: British forces attacked a Taliban force here, after being informed by local police that the guerrillas were gathering nearby. The ensuing attack killed an estimated 70 to 80 Taliban. There were no British casualties. The fighting was quite heavy and continued into early Sunday.
The fighting occurred in a remote part of the district and there was no way to independently confirm the casualty figures. This seems to be the end of the truce negotiated in October between British forces and the Taliban here, negotiated by local elders. The truce was intended to keep the Taliban out of the area but all it did was cement Taliban control over the district.
There is some question about whether the truce applied to the entire district or just to the town of Musa Qala. In recent days, locals, many of them women and schoolteachers, have traveled to Kabul to complain about the truce, saying that all it did was let the Taliban take over.
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Northern Kandahar Province, AM: A US NATO-chartered MI-21 helicopter with a crew of eight personnel flown by the US mercenary firm Dyncorp International, flying supplies from a NATO base in Kandahar city to another in Tirin Kot in Uruzgan, went down here for unknown reasons in poor weather. The Taliban said they shot it down but NATO would not confirm or deny that.
It is also not known how many, if any of the crew were killed and whether any were wounded, although it was suggested that there may have been fatalities. This crash is mysterious. A search and rescue team found the helicopter at noon.
Initially, NATO was not able to dispatch ground troops to the crash site due to weather, location and terrain and the last report was that it had no information about the crew. This crash is very strange and we need more information about it. Dyncorp is widely considered to be a CIA front corporation.
2 weeks later, the Taliban were still saying that they shot this helicopter down. They may indeed have done so. If the crew was CIA, then that explains why there has been no information about any possible casualties, since CIA casualties are often not reported.
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Afghanistan: Much of Afghanistan saw significant snowfall. This will slow down the insurgency.
Friday, December 1
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Ghazni Province, 5 PM: A US convoy fired on a group of officers twice in twilight in a very confused situation, killing 1 Afghan policeman and wounding 1 more. waning daylight in eastern Afghanistan, officials said Saturday. NATO said that the police fired first on the convoy as it moved through a bazaar in a town and troops then returned fire.
Afghan police said that troops had opened fire without provocation, killing 1 officer out of 3 manning the checkpoint. 2 of the 3 police manning the checkpoint that was attacked were in civilian clothes. The other 2 officers ran away and hid.
About 45 minutes later, the convoy passed by once again, and again opened fire on police, this time wounding an officer who was shouting at them to try to show them he was a friendly. Clearly a very confused situation.
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Tirin Kot, Tirin Kot District, Uruzgan Province, Night: The Taliban attacked police in the Darwishan area of the city of Tirin Kot , capital of Uruzgan Province. Over the course of a 3-hour battle, 7 Taliban were killed and 4 others wounded. 2 policemen were also wounded.
Wardak Province, Night: In a battle with guerrillas here, police killed 4 guerrillas. There were no further details. Wardak is definitely deteriorating lately.
Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornets and Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked Taliban forces once again besieging the capital, in what is becoming a daily affair.
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Muqur District, Ghazni Province: Navy F/A-18s attacked Taliban forces fighting US troops near here. US forces have made some great changes here recently as they have ignored Washington and gone ahead with their own reconstruction and security-related projects.
The locals are sick and tired of the Taliban and want security and development. Prior, security forces were woefully ill-equipped. US forces are even funding the building of mosques in villages, arguably a positive thing.
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Thursday, November 30
Sangin District, Helmand Province, Early: British and Afghan troops, backed up by warplanes and helicopters, killed 10 Taliban and captured two Taliban commanders in a raid on an alleged suicide bomb cell here. One British soldier was lightly wounded in the operation. The identities of the Taliban leaders captured raid were not revealed. Troops seized two suicide vests, several RPG's and a cache of equipment and weapons.
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FOB Martello, Northern Kandahar Province, Afternoon: A speeding taxi approached a Canadian patrol near here and refused to slow when directed to do so. Canadian troops fired one shot at the car, which missed the driver but hit the passenger in the leg. FOB Martello was created by the Canadians in April of this year. It is located on the road between Kandahar and Tirin Kot in Uruzgan.
The area is a high, rocky desert with scattered oases and farming communities grouped around the oases. It is definitely swarming with Taliban. The base is located near a town called Elbak (map). Elbak is located 49 1/2 miles northeast of Kandahar and only 10 1/2 miles south of the border with Uruzgan Province.
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Muqur District, Ghazni Province: A US vehicle rolled over here during a battle with guerrillas, killing 1 US soldier, Specialist Chris Kleinwachter. The death is now being classified as non-hostile.
Kabul: U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornets dropped GBU-38s on guerrilla positions. Do you get the impression that the guerrillas are besieging the capital?
Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers and French Air Force M2000D Mirages attacked Taliban fighters once again near here. The GR-7s expended rockets on Taliban positions.
Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: An Air Force B-1B Lancer dropped GBU-38s on Taliban positions. Are the guerrillas besieging this regional capital also?
Kandahar: An Air Force B-1B and Navy F/A-18s attacked the Taliban who were battling Canadian troops near here.
Wednesday, November 29
Kabul: NATO said that suicide bombings have killed 244 people including 17 NATO soldiers, in Afghanistan this year, a dramatic increase over the previous year.
Afghan/Pakistan border of Eastern Afghanistan: Scores of al-Qaeda fighters stormed a checkpoint here, setting off a 1-hour battle that left 2 guerrillas dead. This attack must have taken place on the border with either North or South Waziristan on the Pakistani side and Paktika Province on the Afghan side.
Airport Road, Kandahar: A suicide bomber attacked a Canadian convoy here, killing two civilians. There were no Canadian casualties.
United States: About $2 billion worth of U.S. Army and Marine Corps equipment is wearing out or being destroyed every month in Iraq and Afghanistan. The figure is equal to about a quarter of the $8 billion per month that the US is spending on the wars themselves on direct military expenditures.
Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked Taliban forces battling British troops near here. The GR-7s fired an enhanced Paveway II munition and rockets on enemy positions.
Orgun-E, Urgun District, Paktika Province: An Air Force B-1 Lancer once again attacked guerrillas near here, dropping GBU-31s on enemy positions.
Khost Province: An Air Force B-1 Lancer attacked guerrillas here.
Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrillas once again near here, in what has become a regular occurrence.
Kandahar: Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrillas again near here. The Kandahar region is getting bombed almost every day these days.
Muqur District, Ghazni Province: An Air Force B-1 attacked Taliban fighters battling US troops here. This area is getting bombed quite a bit lately, and there have been some US casualties also.
Tuesday, November 28
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Puli-i-Nam District, Logar Province, Afternoon: Roadside bomb attack on a NATO vehicle here killed two US soldiers, Staff Sergeant Michael A. Shank and Specialist Jeffrey G. Roberson, and wounding one soldier and one interpreter. Puli-i-Nam is the capital of Logar. Logar is a conservative district, but not as conservative as the south of the country.
There is evidence that Ayman al-Zawahiri sought refuge here soon after the US invasion of Afghanistan. He was in a familiar place. There were several Al Qaeda training camps in Logar during the Taliban's rule but the locals were not very friendly towards the largely-Arab foreign fighters.
Parts of Logar were controlled by the Taliban and others by the Northern Alliance during the Civil War. Hezb-i-Islami has always been very popular here. The district is majority Pashtun with a Tajik minority.
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South of the Arghandab River, Panjwayi District, Kandahar Province, Afternoon: in a suicide bomb attack in the Suicide bomb attack on a Canadian Bison armored personnel carrier A slightly wounded a Canadian soldier.
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5 miles south of Herat, Herat Province: A suicide car bomber exploded his vehicle next to a counterterrorism police truck that had been chasing him, killing one policeman and wounding 1 more.
The vehicle approached a police checkpoint where police tried to stop and search bomber's car, but he sped away. Police then chased the vehicle. In the course of the chase, the bomber detonated his vehicle, killing himself and causing the 2 other casualties.
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Garmser District, Helmand Province: RPG attack on a British vehicle here wounded 1 British soldier. The Taliban control virtually 100% of this district.
Khost Province: An Air Force B-1 Lancer attacked guerrillas once again here.
Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked the Taliban once again near here, firing enhanced Paveway II munitions and rockets on enemy positions.
Orgun-E, Urgun District, Paktika Province: A B-1 Bomber once again attacked guerrillas here. This areas is getting bombed all the time lately. It is right across from North Waziristan, which explains the heavy fighting. The B-1 dropped GBU-31s on guerrillas here. enemy positions near Orgun-e.
Kandahar: Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked the Taliban again near here, in a reprise of the constant bombing in this area.
Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrillas again near here. Asadabad is getting bombed most every day lately.
Muqur District, Ghazni Province: An Air Force B-1 once again attacked the Taliban here. This province is getting bombed a lot lately.
Monday, November 27
Shindand District, Herat Province, Night: Roadside bomb attack on a police convoy wounded three police.
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Makeen, North Waziristan, Pakistan: The Taliban shot and killed a local cleric here, accusing him of spying for the US in Afghanistan. Gul Tahmim's body was found in a ravine near a Pakistani base.
A note left with his body said: "See this body! He was spying for America and had friendship with Maulana Salahuddin and Maulana Hashim Khan, who were also American spies." Those 2 men had been killed in the area previously, one of them 2 weeks before.
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Airport Road, Kandahar: Suicide car bomb attack on a Canadian convoy here damaged a Bison armored personnel carrier, killing two Canadian soldiers, the crew commander and the driver of the Bison. An Afghan was also killed in the attack. The 2 soldiers were Chief Warrant Officer Robert Girouard and Corporal Albert Storm.
A minivan pulled up alongside the Bison soon after it left the airport and detonated. Several camels alongside the road were also killed. There were several other soldiers inside the vehicle but they were not hurt. The troops were helping on reconstruction projects in the Panjwayi District. On the day of the attack, they were leaving the Airport base for the District to work on more rebuilding.
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Orgun-E, Urgun District, Paktika Province: French M2000D Mirages and Navy F/A-18 Hornets attacked guerrillas fighting US troops near here, in an area that is getting bombed almost every day lately.
Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: An Air Force B-1 Lancer attacked Taliban forces battling US troops near here. What is going on here? Why is Asadabad getting bombed every day?
Tirin Kot, Tirin Kot District, Uruzgan Province: Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked Taliban fighters battling NATO forces here. The Taliban control the entire rural area surrounding this capital, and recently they have moved into the city itself.
Sunday, November 26
Gereshk, Nahri Sarraj District, Helmand Province, 2 PM: A "suspect" vehicle approached a US British convoy here, and jittery soldiers opened fire on the vehicle when it refused to slow down, killing an Afghan civilian. A similar incident happened only 4 days ago. According to NATO, "Despite clear signals to stop, including the use of flares and warning shots, the vehicle refused to halt".
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Kamdesh District, Nuristan Province, Night: A US military truck rolled down a sharp embankment here in this remote province, killing one US soldier, 1st Lieutenant Benjamin Keating, and injuring 1 more. The troops were providing supplies to the Kamdesh Civil Military Operations Center (CMOC) at the time of the accident in this extremely rugged and remote area, where roads are little more than rude dirt tracks.
Men greet mountaineers in Kamdesh, Nuristan Province. Notice that there are no women present here. Also note that the homes are made of wood. This region has become very fundamentalist since it was forcibly converted to Islam 110 years ago. Osama bin Laden has probably been hiding in Nuristan at least some of the time since 2003, when he is not in Dir across the border in Pakistan.
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Mano Gai, Pech District, Kunar Province: Guerrillas captured 4 Afghans returning from work at a U.S. military base here. The guerrillas here include Hezb-i-Islami Hekmatyar, Hezb-i-Islami Khalis, the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Toiba and some other obscure fundamentalist dolts.
The fighters include Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs and are often very well-armed and very well-trained. Mano Gai (map) is the capital of the district.
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Urgun, Urgun District, Paktika Province: A Pakistani suicide bomber blew himself up in a restaurant here, killing 15 Afghans and injuring 24,. He was apparently targeting an Afghan special forces commander and a district chief who were at the restaurant and were among the injured. The restaurant was destroyed.
Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: RAF GR-7s once again attacked the Taliban, who are surrounding this capital city, dropping a 540-pound bomb and an firing enhanced Paveway II on Taliban positions.
Kandahar: RAF GR-7s dropped a 540-pound bomb and an fired enhanced Paveway II munitions on enemy positions. The Kandahar area is getting bombed about every day these days.
Musa Qala, Musa Qala District, Helmand Province: U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornets attacked the Taliban here, dropping a GBU-12 and firing cannon rounds on enemy positions. Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers also attacked in the same area, expended rockets on enemy positions.
Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: An Air Force B-1B Lancer attacked Taliban forces once again near here.
Saturday, November 25
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Kabul-Kandahar Highway, Zabul Province, Night: The Taliban ambushed a police convoy here in this Taliban-controlled province, setting off a gunbattle in which 1 Taliban was killed.
US forces in Zabul in June 2005. As you can see, this province is quite arid. The Taliban now rules almost this entire province. In 2005, 86 schools here were closed down due to terror threats from Taliban fundamentalist losers, the highest number for any province, even Helmand or Kandahar. As of March 2006, about 1/2 of the schools are closed, and only 8% of girls are in school.
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Tirin Kot District, Uruzgan Province: NATO forces said that they killed about 55 Taliban fighters in 2 separate battles here. Original reports said two NATO soldiers died in one of the clashes, but later reports indicate that only 1 soldier was killed, 2nd Lieutenant Scott B. Lundell.
Lundell was killed by small arms and RPG fire. The fighting began when the Taliban attacked NATO forces here. NATO returned fire and called in attack aircraft, killing about 50 Taliban.
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Arghandab district, Zabul Province: About 50 Taliban fighters attacked the police chief's compound here, setting off a 1-hour firefight. At the end, 1 Taliban was killed 3 more were wounded. There were no police casualties.
US forces in Zabul in an undated photo from a Slovenian newspaper. These homes appear to be in ruins for some reason, possibly still from the Russian War. This entire province is Taliban-controlled, so US forces are fighting an uphill battle here.
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Panjwayi District, Kandahar Province: The Taliban fired on Canadian and Afghan troops here, wounding 3 Canadian soldiers. The Canadians called in an air strike that killed about five Taliban.
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United States: US Air Force C-17 transport planes, planes that fly troops, supplies and fuel in missions over Iraq and Afghanistan, were attacked 215 times — an average of four times a week — in 2006. The smaller turbo-prop C-130 transports were attacked 65 times.
70% of the attacks happened when the planes were flying below 5,000 feet. Most of the attacks were with small arms such as assault rifles and machine guns. Since the war on terrorism began five years ago, there have been five “major” hits on C-17s.
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Charkh District, Logar Province: Suicide car bomb attack on a combined Afghan-NATO convoy wounded 2 who were walking in the street. Some vehicles in the patrol were lightly damaged.
Kabul: Roadside bomb attack on an Afghan army jeep damaged the vehicle but caused no injuries. A public bus was also damaged.
Helmand Province: Two Pakistani journalists held by the Taliban in southern of Afghanistan and put on trial for unknown reasons, A reporter for The Star said that its reporter Saleem Shahzad and another journalist, Qamar Yousafzai, had been detained by Taliban commander named Matiullah. Shahzad was detained on November 21 by the Taliban.
Kabul: Czech troops arrived to take command of the Kabul International Airport. A unit of 47 Czech troops is scheduled to take charge of the airport starting in early December until early April 2007.
Musa Qala, Musa Qala District, Helmand Province: Navy F/A-18Fs attacked the Taliban once again here, in a district where a truce with the Taliban has clearly totally broken down. The F/A-18Fs dropped GBU-38s and a GBU-12 on enemy positions.
Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrillas fighting US troops near here.
Friday, November 24
Kandahar Province, 12:11 PM: US forces fought with the Taliban somewhere in this province, in a battle in which US forces utilized mortars, artillery, and air power. 7 Taliban were killed in the fighting.
Mus'am Ghar, Panjwayi District, Kandahar Province: The Taliban fired a rocket near the Canadian base here, missing an assembled foot patrol by 50 yards. There were no casualties. As noted above, Mus'am Ghar cannot be located on a map.
Kandahar: Navy F/A-18 Hornets and Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked the Taliban once again here, where the Taliban are possibly besieging the capital. The F/A-18s dropped GBU-12s and fired cannon rounds on the Taliban.
Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: RAF GR-7s attacked the Taliban once again here, in what appears to be a case of whack-a-mole.
Thursday, November 23
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Qarabagh District, Ghazni Province: The Taliban fired a rocket at a US patrol, killing 1 US soldier and wounding 1 more. US forces and guerrillas traded small arms fire and later US troops called in air support. The soldier's name has now been released as Corporal Nathan Joel Goodiron.
His vehicle took the full brunt of an RPG attack while escorting a military convoy. His cousin, Sergeant C.J. O'Berry, was the soldier wounded in the attack. Interesting that 2 cousins were manning the same vehicle.
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Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornets attacked guerrillas once again, in what is becoming a daily series of bombings in this area. The F/A-18s expended cannon rounds on enemy positions.
Ghazni, Ghazni Province: Navy F/A-18s attacked Taliban forces battling US forces near Ghazni.
Gereshk, Nahri Sarraj District, Helmand Province: French Air Force M2000D Mirages attacked Taliban forces battling British troops near here. This area is Taliban-controlled.
Forward Operating Base Carlson, Afghanistan: An Air Force B-1B Lancer attacked guerrillas fighting NATO forces near here. FOB Carlson could not be located.
Khost, Khost Province: Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrillas once again here. This area is getting bombed a lot these days.
Wednesday, November 22
Kandahar, 12:30 PM: An explosion at a gun shop here killed 1 civilian and wounded 4 more. Five gun shops were destroyed and a mosque was partially damaged. The blast was apparently caused by improper storage of gunpowder in one of the gun shops.
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Between Kabul and Bagram Airbase, Kabul Province: US troops fired warning shots at a civilian van here, upsetting the driver and causing him to crash his van, killing an Afghan doctor and wounding four other people The doctor had been working at a health clinic at the Bagram base.
The doctor was in a civilian van that US forces felt was acting suspiciously in the vicinity of a US patrol. US forces signaled for the van to stop and fired a number of warning shots. The shots upset the driver so much that he crashed his car, resulting in the casualties above.
The view of the Hindu Kush near Bagram Airbase. This photo looks like the Great Basin in Western US. That could be Eastern California, Nevada, Utah or Eastern Oregon.
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Kabul: Militant activities have dropped in Afghanistan over the past month. The daily number of guerrilla attacks dropped below 10 in November and roadside bomb attacks dropped to 0.2. The last NATO soldier killed was on November 6, however in the days afterwards, a few more NATO troops were killed, along with some US mercenaries.
Tuesday, November 21
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Kandahar Province, Late: Taliban criminals on motorbikes attacked a female provincial councilor's car here, killing her husband. The gunmen attacked when Zarghona Kakar and her husband stopped at a roadside bakery to buy bread here.
She is the third prominent woman to be attacked in Kandahar in recent days. This woman was attacked first for being a prominent woman, and only secondly for being a Karzai legislature. The Taliban's misogyny is boundless.
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Spin Boldak, Kandahar Province: The Taliban are plotting a fresh offensive against foreign troops in Afghanistan when the winter ends early next year, according to a top Taliban commander. Attacks have declined rapidly in recent weeks.
Winter runs from late November to early March in Afghanistan. The Taliban say it is hard to stay up in the mountains during the harsh winter months. An early winter has already hit this year, with sleet falling in valleys and snow higher up in the mountains.
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Khost Province: Suicide bomber attack on a US convoy here wounded four Afghans, including two school children. No US troops were hurt in the attack. Troops were distributing kits to school children when the blast went off.
The bomber's nationality was not known. The Taliban here are mirroring the Iraqi guerrillas for being the most disgusting and evil guerrillas on Earth.
Just as the Sunni guerrillas in Iraq have delighted in repeatedly attacking US forces while they handed out candy to Shia schoolchildren, slaughtering dozens of kids in the process, the Taliban cancer here follows in the malevolent footsteps of the Iraqi criminals, targeting schoolkids once again, in this case their own Pashtun Sunnis.
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Islamabad, Pakistan: A local BBC journalist disappeared as he was set to leave here and head back home to Dera Ismail Khan in the Northwest Frontier Province. He was kidnapped and roughed up by Islamists but turned up 24 hours after he disappeared, shaken but healthy. Dilawar Khan Wazir was quite upset and broke down repeatedly while telling his story.
The kidnappers took him to a house where they roughed him up and questioned him about his reporting and sources. The kidnappers dumped him in a remote area and threatened to kill him if he talked about what they did to him.
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Panjwayi District, Kandahar Province: Canadian troops were on a foot patrol in a town here when one of them stepped on an anti-personnel land mine, injuring two soldiers. One soldier was severely wounded, the other only superficially wounded.
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Sangin, Sangin District, Helmand Province: Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers and Navy F/A-18 Hornets attacked Taliban fighters here, with the GR-7s firing rockets on enemy positions. The enemy is generally lying low in Sangin lately, though they control the district. The British stay in their bases and the Taliban stay in their villages.
The British come out at night and shoot into the air to scare the Taliban and let the Taliban know the British are there. The Taliban do not fire back. The Taliban have realized that the best strategy here is to just lay low and not attack the British. The British, for their part, are not keen on endless battles with the Taliban.
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Kandahar: US Navy F/A-18s attacked Taliban fighters battling Canadian troops near here. Kandahar is bombed almost every day these days.
Khost, Khost Province: Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrillas here once again. Khost is getting bombed a fair amount lately.
Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: An Air Force B-1B Lancer and Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrillas again near here, in an area that is being bombed almost every day lately.
Monday, November 20
Bermal, Paktika Province, Late: A suicide bomber blew himself up next to an Afghan army patrol, killing himself but no Afghan troops were injured.
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Marja, Nad Ali District, Helmand Province, Late: The Taliban attacked a local police station here, killing 2 policemen. Marja (map) is 17 miles west of Lashkar Gah, the capital of the province. The Nad Ali District is 80% Pashtun, 10% Hazara, 5% Tajik and 5% Baloch.
Most of the people live in the far east of the district near Lashkar Gah. Except for the far east of the district, the rest of the district is uninhabited desert. That region is known as Zamindovar. This district is very warm. In the wintertime, it averages 68 F, and in the summer it climbs to 120 F.
As usual in Afghanistan, there is no sanitation, and waste water flows right into the canals where the people get their drinking water. Cotton, wheat, corn, turnips, tomatoes, ladyfinger brinjiles, pomegranates, apples and opium are grown here - especially opium - but cotton is still the primary crop.
The harvest is good on irrigated lands, but the rain-fed lands are all dry. 90% of the arable land is still being cultivated, which is a very good figure for Afghanistan. The main road is partly destroyed and the rest of the roads are often muddy, typical for an Afghan district. Most of the bridges are partly destroyed also. Water is readily available but the well water is salty and therefore difficult to drink.
Most people in the district are working and few are unemployed. There is plenty of work in the cotton fields. There are two clinics in the district with two female nurses, but there are no woman doctors. The clinics treat 50 people a day and have fairly good facilities for Afghanistan. Still, the district needs more health centers.
There are a number of schools here, and there are actually a few girls in school, though boys outnumber girls by 10-1 in high school. There are also four woman teachers here. There are no girls in grade school. 70% of the boys are in school - the rest are working, usually in the fields. The schools are in bad shape, with no water or bathrooms available. The teachers are not trained.
Although women are usually confined to their homes in the Pashtun tradition, some work in the fields and others work as maids or cooks.
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Kandahar: French M2000D Mirages, US Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornets and Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers all attacked the Taliban once again near here. The F/A-18s dropped a GBU-12 and fired cannon rounds on enemy positions.
Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: Air Force A-10s and an Air Force B-1B Lancer attacked guerrillas again here, in what are apparently daily battles in this area.
Kabul: Air Force A-10s and Navy F/A-18s attacked guerrillas fighting NATO forces near here once again. The Kabul area is really getting bombed a lot lately.
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Jalalabad, Nangarhar Province: Air Force A-10s and U.S. Navy F/A-18s attacked guerrillas near here. Hezb-i-Islami Hekmatyar and Hezb-i-Islami Khalis are particularly strong in this region, in particular Younis Khalis' faction.
Bear in mind that in the last election, Hezb-i-Islami won an incredible 25% of the seats in the Afghan government, though Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has not yet made a peace with the government. There are yet rumors that Hekmatyar is negotiating a peace with the government. Hekmatyar is probably hiding in the Dir District in Pakistan south of Chitral and east of Kunar and Nuristan Provinces in Afghanistan.
Dir is the rear guard for Hezb-i-Islami Hekmatyar. Speaking of Dir, there is excellent evidence that this is precisely where bin Laden is, and has been since at least 2003. Hopefully, more on that in a future post. It is obvious that Pakistani intelligence, the ISI, knows where Hekmatyar is, and it is probable that they also know where Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are also. The ISI just does not feel like catching them.
Hekmatyar has influence in Kunar and Nuristan Provinces and to a lesser extent Kunduz Province in the north, where he is from, and he also has forces in Khost, Paktia, Logar and Paktika Provinces. Hekmatyar's super-Islamist faction was favored by the CIA in the Russian War, receiving 70% of funds.
These funds were all distributed by the ISI. This funding is the genesis of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Younis Khalis is a warlord from Nangarhar Province who gave bin Laden a training camp and base at a place called Farmada, south of Jalalabad.
Khalis had a particularly close relationship with bin Laden, but he quickly sold out and cut a deal with the US soon after the invasion. Hekmatyar is now with the Taliban and Al Qaeda and the rumors are that Khalis' faction has now aligned with the Taliban and Al Qaeda too.
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Orgun-E, Urgun District, Paktika Province: Navy F/A-18s attacked guerrilla forces once again in the endless air strikes on guerrillas here.
Sunday, November 19
Eastern Afghanistan: NATO forces said they killed 11 Taliban in air raids and artillery strikes here.
Kandahar: Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked the Taliban once more here, dropping general purpose 500-pound bombs and GBU-12s, and firing cannon rounds on enemy positions.
Gereshk, Nahri Sarraj District, Helmand Province: U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornets attacked Taliban forces fighting British troops near here.
Musa Qala, Musa Qala District, Helmand Province: Navy F/A-18s attacked the Taliban here again, where a truce has totally unraveled and heavy fighting has resumed. The F/A-18s dropped a GBU-12 on enemy positions.
Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: An Air Force B-1B Lancer and Air Force A-10s attacked guerrillas once again battling US troops in this dangerous area. The A-10s dropped a GBU-12 and a general purpose 500-pound bomb and the B-1B dropped GBU-12s on guerrilla positions.
Friday, November 17
Afghanistan: Air strikes in Afghanistan have increased dramatically lately, according to this report here.
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Updated January 31, 2008
Thursday, December 14
Zabul Province: Suicide bomber attack on a police commander's vehicle as it traveled along a crowded street killed 4 civilians and wounded 25 more. It is not known if the commander was hurt.
Along the highway in Zabul Province. This is from a trip taken by Bill Roggio from Kabul to Kandahar. Numerous Taliban were seen along the way, especially in this province. They were typically riding motorcycles are were quickly pointed out by the Afghan guides. This province is quite arid and gets up to 120 F in summertime.Khost-Gardez Highway, Khost Province: Hundreds of tribesmen protested the killings of what they said were civilians in a raid on a home in nearby Darnami 2 days before (see the December 12 report for more on that).
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Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: French M-2000D Mirages attacked Taliban fighters battling US troops near here. For the past few weeks, the Asadabad area has been bombed continuously, even as winter looms.
Now Zad, Now Zad District, Helmand Province: Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked Taliban forces battling British troops near here. Now Zad has been being bombed almost every day for the past few weeks with no end in sight.
Wednesday, December 13
Siah Choy, Panjwayi District, Kandahar Province, Late: NATO launched an air strike on a Taliban command post here, completely destroying the post. A number of Taliban commanders were said to have been killed in this attack. A US B-1B Lancer dropped a GBU-38 on the target. Siah Choy (map) is located along the Arghandab River 23 miles west of Panjwayi, the capital of the district.
Now Zad, Now Zad District, Helmand Province: US Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs and a B-1B attacked Taliban fighters again near here, with the A-10's firing cannons at the rebels. The B-1B dropped GBU-31s and GBU-38s on Taliban positions.
Kabul: French M-2000Ds attacked guerrillas battling NATO forces near here, dropping GBU-12s on their positions.
Orgun-E, Urgun District, Paktika Province: Air Force A-10s and French M-2000Ds attacked guerrillas battling US troops near here. Urgun is being bombed regularly in recent weeks.
Tuesday, December 12
Farah Province: The Afghan police and army launched an operation against the Taliban here, killing 8 Taliban. 1 Afghan officer was wounded in the clash.
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Laskhar Gah, Lashkar Gah District, Helmand Province: Suicide bomber attack on a the compound of the governor of Helmand, Mohammed Daud. The bomber blew himself inside the governor's compound but the governor was not there at the time.
The governor has been widely accused of corruption and abuse of his position and is despised by the vast majority of Helmandis. 4 policemen and 2 civilians were killed in the attack.
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Darnami, Khost Province, 1 AM: The mainstream press reported on a US Special Forces raid on a home here.
According to the report, which is disputed by locals, US forces surrounded 4 guerrillas in their home here and ordered all "military-age males" to come out but they opened fire on US forces instead. Troops returned fire, and among the casualties were a 14-year-old girl, who was killed and an 8-year-old girl, who was wounded. All 4 guerrillas were killed.
Sources on the ground dispute this description of the events. According to Marc Herold, in the other version of this event, US Special Forces raided the home of a man named Engineer Shafik, killing 3 members of his family, including a 14-year-old girl.
According to Abdul Majid Arif and Javid Hamim of Pajhwok Afghan News, U.S Special Forces raided the home of Sarfaraz, an Afghan intelligence official serving in Khost.
Engineer Shafiq Mandozai, manager of a private bank in Khost and a member of the Sarfaraz family, said US troops broke into the home and an Afghan interpreter shouted in a Kandahari dialect for everyone to get out. US forces then inexplicably started shooting (apparently there were no shots fired by people inside the home), killing 5 people.
The dead were Mandozai's 14-year-old sister; Engineer Sarfaraz; Mandozai's father, Mohammad Jan, chief of the Forestry Department in Khost; and 2 other civilians. 3 civilians were wounded, including 2 more of Mandozai's sisters, one of them an 8-year-old girl.
Startled by the shootout, neighbors came running towards Sarfaraz' home. Guldad, an official working with the intelligence department in Khost, said two more civilians were then wounded by US forces, including another one of Mandozai's sisters.
Mandozai said US forces tied him up and beat him. As they were getting ready to kill him, he pulled out some personal documents and showed them to the troops. He was then released.
The US version of events implies that Sarfaraz and Mohammad Jan, one an Afghan intelligence agent working in Khost and the other the chief of the Forestry Department in Khost, were both members of the Taliban. If this is what US forces feel, then they need to back that accusation up with evidence. As it panned out, this is looking more like a botched raid. Darnami (map) is 10 1/2 miles west of Khost.
Khost Province is an interesting place. Right now, the city of Khost is regarded as a haven for backwards, reactionary fundamentalist morons but during the Russian War, the city was known as "Little Moscow", due to the large number of Communists who lived there. Isn't it amazing the way places change?
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Northern Now Zad District, Helmand Province: A British Royal Marine was killed when his patrol was attacked with small arms fire by the Taliban here. The dead Marine was Richard J. Watson. Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers provided air support for British troops during this battle, firing enhanced Paveway II and Paveway II munitions, dropping general-purpose 500-pound bombs and firing rockets on Taliban positions.
Kandahar: US Air Force MQ-1 Predators fired Hellfire missiles at Taliban forces near here.
Orgun-E, Urgun District, Paktika Province: Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrilla positions near here.
Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrilla positions here once again
Monday, December 11
Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked Taliban forces here. This area is being bombed almost every single day recently.
Now Zad, Now Zad District, Helmand Province: An Air Force B-1 Lancer and RAF GR-7s attacked Taliban forces here. The GR-7s fired an Enhanced Paveway II munition on a Taliban position.
Uruzgan Khas, Uruzgan Khas District, Uruzgan Province: US Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs provided attacked Taliban forces near here.
Sunday, December 10
Balabuluk District, Farah Province, Night: US troops and warplanes attacked a Taliban hideout here, killing at least 9 Taliban, including Mullah Abdul Samad, a regional commander, in fighting that went on for several hours. The Taliban have been in this Pashtun district for some time now. Their aim, among other things, is to cut the highway running from Herat to Helmand that runs through the district.
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Sperwan, Panjwayi District, Kandahar Province: Canadian and Afghan forces battled the Taliban here. Much of the battle was engaged using small arms, but Coalition forces also called in air support. There were no Coalition casualties but 1 Taliban was wounded. News reports constantly list this town's name as Sperwan Ghar but the real name of the town is Sperwan.
Sperwan (map) is 19 miles southwest of Panjwayi, the district capital. The Canadians have a large base here. A description of the base can be found here. In September, US Special Forces fought a major battle with the Taliban that they are calling the Battle of Sperwan Ghar. A detailed description of this gripping battle is here.
Unfortunately, I am not sure what good all this fighting has done, as I think the Taliban are still deeply dug into this area, where many of them are simply farmers who pick up a weapon and fight one minute and then put it down and pick up a farm implement the next. The Taliban has a deep network of spies here, and they are warned in advance of any Canadian troop movement.
Furthermore, at least some of the informants the Canadians have been using here are Taliban informants. The area is a rich river valley, with grapes, corn and a great deal of marijuana growing in the area. The Taliban use the high crops as cover and have turned many of the villages into armed fortresses.
The Canadians are unfortunately associated with the Indian movies and music videos that the locals can now see on their satellite TV's - in other words, the locals are convinced that NATO has come to corrupt their society. It will be a long, difficult fight here.
This is one of the most unstable areas in Afghanistan. Repeated operations, including Operation Medusa that reportedly killed 900 Taliban, cannot seem to rid this area of the Taliban, who obviously have deep roots here.
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Qalat, Qalat District, Zabul Province: A Air Force B-1B and Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked Taliban forces battling US troops near here. The Taliban control this entire province.
Now Zad, Now Zad District, Helmand Province: The never-ending bombing of the Now Zad continued, with US Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs firing cannon rounds on Taliban positions here.
Sangin, Sangin District, Helmand Province: Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked Taliban fighters near here. Sadly, the Sangin District is totally controlled by the Taliban.
Orgun-E, Urgun District, Paktika Province: US Air Force A-10s and a B-1B Lancer attacked Taliban forces once again near here.
Tagab Valley, Kapisa Province: US and Afghan forces were patrolling through a bazaar and a compound nearby when they became engaged in a battle with guerrillas. 1 guerrilla was killed but that was the only casualty. The Tagab Valley, previously stable, is becoming increasingly unstable in the past couple of months, a worrisome trend.
Bombing attack on the village of Khanaqa, Kapisa, from Marc Herold's excellent webpage about Afghanistan, Archivistan. US warplanes attacked this village on November 7, 2001, and completely obliterated it. No word on civilian casualties in that attack.
Bombing attack on Khan Agaha village in Kapisa during the initial US invasion. US bombs hit a residential area in this village called Qalaye Katir, killing 16 Afghan civilians, including 9 children.The attack took place on October 27, 2001, when US FA-18's dropped 36 bombs on the village, apparently aiming for a Taliban machine gun on a nearby hill. One bomb hit a timber and mud-brick home and destroying it, killing an entire family, including 7 children who were eating breakfast with their father.
The US government has sponsored women's conferences in Kapisa and Logar. This is a photo from one of those conferences. The poster shows some fundamentalist bonehead beating an Afghan woman, which is one of the favorite activities of these "macho" guys, when they are not blowing up schools and threatening men for shaving their beards and stopping people from playing music.
A boy dives into a stream to go for a swim in Kapisa Province. There is quite a bit of flowing water here, even in early summer, when this photo was taken, and there are still many trees here. But that water doesn't look very clean. Photo taken June 21, 2006 - this past summer.
Kapisa Province is still fairly well-forested. 25 years of war have resulted in the deforestation of 70% of Afghanistan, a heartbreaking figure. In this arid land, the forests do not necessarily grow back after you cut them down, either, as is the case in very wet regions. Hillsides simply become barren, erosion increases and rainfall probably decreases with resulting drought, hunger, starvation, disease, etc.It is not well known, but Lebanon and Greece were once forested - now the hills of both lands are largely barren after being denuded centuries ago. Further north in Scotland, the famous barren Scottish hills were once covered with oak forests, a fact few people know. Only 2% of these oak forests remain.
A burqa-clad woman crosses a full stream in Kapisa Province this past summer on June 21, 2006. As you can see, the creeks here run full and high in early summer and there is plenty of riparian vegetation. That burqa looks like a hazard when crossing the creek, though.
The village of Obdarah, in mountainous Kapisa Province. The Panjshir Valley is located in this province. This is where the famous Lion of the Panjshir, Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance, held sway against first the Russians and then the Taliban. He was killed by Tunisian Al Qaeda suicide operatives posing as journalists, armed with an exploding video camera, a mere 2 days before 9-11, in an operation that was clearly intended to be part and parcel with the 9-11 attacks.Many girls are still not in school here for some reason - less than 20% of the students in school here are girls. Taliban night letters have appeared, threatening teachers with death unless they resign. The number of girls in school has increased somewhat here recently, as international aid agencies have been quite active in this province since it is comparatively safe. That may all be changing now with these increased attacks.
Artillery shells hidden in a cave in Kapisa Province. International aid agencies continue to work here, and one of their priorities is demining and cleaning up hidden munitions. With increased attacks here, it is not certain that the aid agencies will be able to continue to do their good work here.*****
Laghman Province: Afghan sources said that a NATO airstrike here earlier in the week killed at least 4 Afghan civilians and wounded 1 more when a house was bombed. The Taliban are definitely increasing their presence here lately.
Saturday, December 9
Paktia Province, Late: Roadside bomb attack on Afghan forces killed 6 Afghan soldiers here. The bomb hit their vehicle and killed all 6 men on board. Paktia is known as a stronghold of the Taliban and Hezb-i-Islami. There are also Al Qaeda fighters here from time to time. The famous Operation Anaconda in early 2002 was fought in this province.
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Mizan District, Zabul Province: The Taliban attacked a US patrol here with machine guns and a land mine in this Taliban-controlled district, damaging vehicles and wounding 2 US troops in a gunbattle that went on for some time. This district is fairly quiet but that is just because the Taliban here spend most of their time hiding out rather than attacking.
The Mizan District, in the west of Zabul, borders the Shah Wali Kot District of Kandahar. Similarly, Shah Wali Kot is fairly quiet only because not many foreign troops are there right now. This is one of the most backward districts in the whole country. As an example, the last census was in 1963! The district is 100% Pashtun.
Water is a problem here, although it is widely available. Twice a day, residents walk 1 mile to get water, and then wait in 1-hour lines to fill their containers. As usual, sanitation is a typical problem here. The bathrooms here are known as "wherever you can squat". Women squat inside compounds; men wherever there is open space. I assume people learn to watch their step here.
2/3 of the open cultivated land, and all of the rain-fed land, lies fallow due to drought. The livestock here are sheep, camels, goats, donkeys, cows and chickens. An incredible 97% of the sheep and goats are dead after years of drought, which has even killed 50% of camels! I wasn't aware a camel could die from a drought.
Brangel, okra, tomatoes, cabbage, pomegranates and almonds are grown here. The parts of the district near the Arghandab River, which runs through the center of the district, still have good farming. In other areas, the harvest is poor. As is usual in so many Afghan districts, the main road here is partly destroyed and the rest of the roads are muddy much of the time.
The bridges, as usual, are partly destroyed. The economy is so poor here that 70% of residents travel outside the district to look for work. There is not one health clinic in this district. Residents can thank George Bush for that.
There are no high schools here at all, and only a few students at all in the grade schools - 80% of the grade school aged boys are not in school. No girls are in school and there are no female teachers, as we might expect for Zabul. The schools here actually have water and washrooms, unlike so many Afghan schools. Most actually have buildings too, though some are held outdoors.
As we might expect, women play no role in the community at all.
Resupplying a US base in Zabul. Photo by Joseph Marble.
A Taliban night letter from Zabul Province warning teachers to stop teaching or be killed. On January 3, 2005, Taliban worms entered the Sheik Mathi Baba high school in Qalat, the capital, and beheaded the teacher in front of his students, in one of the most shocking attacks on education so far in Afghanistan.
This is what parts of Zabul, especially the mountainous areas, look like in wintertime. Here US forces are supplying snowed-in residents in Zabul in early February 2005, when harsh winter weather hit the region, especially Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan.*****
Saturday, December 9
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Afghanistan: US officials are voicing new worries about the situation in Afghanistan. The fears are that a renewed Taliban offensive next Spring will be a "tipping point" which could tip a large number, or possibly a majority, of Afghans over into support for the Taliban. Government control is tenuous at best in 20% of the country.
Zabul Province is almost totally Taliban-controlled, and in Helmand and Kandahar, the Taliban control most areas outside of the cities. Further, since April, the Taliban have been in control Baghran, Sangin and Dishu Districts. Dishu was captured first in February. By April, Baghran was captured. By May, they had grabbed Sangin.
Since then, the Taliban have clearly seized the Garmser and Musa Qala Districts. In the Helmand districts they control, the Taliban have banned music and forbidden men from shaving their beards. Men are forced to go to the mosque to pray five times a day.
The Taliban have a great deal of power and possibly wield control in the Now Zad, Kajaki and Nahri Sarraj Districts, especially the latter. The Taliban do not completely control the Washer, Lashkar Gah, Nad Ali, Reg and Nawa-i-Barakzayi Districts, although they are active there.
In Kandahar Province, the Taliban have a huge presence in the capital city and in control much of the Panjwayi District west of the capital. The violence is increasing inexorably; there were four times as many attacks last year as the year before. In the past year, up to 7,000 Taliban may have been killed but there seems to be an inexhaustible supply of new recruits.
A timeless scene from Zabul Province, with ancient mud-brick homes. The report above notes that Zabul is totally controlled by the Taliban at the moment.*****
Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: US Navy F/A-18 Hornets dropped a GBU-12 on a Taliban position during fighting with British troops near here. Lashkar Gah is being bombed regularly these days.
Kabul: An Air Force B-1B Lancer and Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrillas fighting NATO troops near here. The B-1B dropped GBU-38s on Taliban positions.
Friday, December 8
Uruzgan Province, Afternoon: Roadside bomb attack on a US vehicle killed 2 Afghan interpreters but did not injure any Americans.
Now Zad District, Helmand Province: The Taliban attacked British and Afghan forces here. The Coalition returned fire, killing 5 Taliban. There were no Coalition casualties. Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers assisted in this battle. One of the GR-7s dropped a general-purpose 500-pound bomb on an enemy position.
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Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: US Air Force B-1Bs, Navy F/A-18 Hornets, an Air Force B-1B Lancer, Air Force A-10s Thunderbolt IIs, French M2000D Mirages and an Air Force MQ-1 Predator attacked guerrillas fighting US troops near here, an area that has seen constant fighting the past few weeks.
The B-1Bs and F/A-18s dropped GBU-12s and GBU-38s, one of the A-10s dropped a GBU-12 and a general-purpose 500-pound bomb, the B-1B dropped GBU-31s on enemy targets, and the Predator fired a Hellfire missile on the guerrillas.
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Thursday, December 7
Airport Road, Kandahar: Suicide car bomb attack on a Canadian convoy caused no Canadian casualties but either killed or wounded 15 civilians. This was the 7th suicide car bomb attack on the airport road in the last nine days, an incredible figure.
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Between the Gulran District and Herat, Herat Province: The Taliban attacked a district police chief's vehicle, killing him and wounding his bodyguard. Hajji Zahir, police chief for the Gulran District, was driving towards Herat city when the Taliban opened fire. The Gulran District is located in the northwest corner of Herat. It is bordered on one side by Iran and on the other side by Turkmenistan.
An ethnic group called the Jamshidi Aimaq makes up a large percentage of the population of the Gulran District. There are 120,000 Jamshidi Aimaqs in Afghanistan and another 37,000 in Iran. The Jamshidis are part of a larger group called Aimaqs, numbering about 850,000 - 650,000 in Afghanistan and 200,000 in Iran.
Other figures put the total population at about 1.75 million in all countries, and 1.53 million in Afghanistan. If there are 900,000 Aimaqs in Afghanistan, they would make up 3.4% of the population. They are best classed as semi-sedentary, since they wander with their flocks somewhat. This is part of a cluster of 8 tribes called the Char Aimaq. The tribal formations date back to the 1500's and 1600's.
The Aimaq language is related to Persian, with some Turkic and Mongolian vocabulary and influence. Jamshidi is one of the dialects of Aimaq. The leader of the a group of Jamshidi is known as a khan. He typically traces his ancestry back to the founder of the tribe.
For a tribe of rural Afghans, women have a surprisingly high position. Many do not marry until age 18, and girls are even known to reject the husbands who have been picked for them. The future groom often moves in with his future wife's family for up to 2 years before marrying.
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Kandahar: U.S. Navy F/A-18s dropped GBU-12's on Taliban positions near here.
Kabul: French Air Force M2000D Mirages attacked guerrilla forces fighting NATO troops near here. The Kabul area is being bombed regularly lately, an ominous development.
Musa Qala, Musa Qala District, Helmand Province: An Air Force B-1B Lancer attacked Taliban fighters battling British forces near here, an area where a truce between the British and local elders has apparently completely broken down.
Orgun-E, Urgun District, Paktika Province:Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrilla fighters once again near here in an area that is being bombed all the time lately.
Wednesday, December 6
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Kolikhel, Paktia Province: Armed men, probably the Taliban, kidnapped two NGO employees here. Two employees of a relief agency Ibn-e-Sina were driving towards the Zurmat District when they were captured.
The employees had failed to inform the police before leaving for Zurmat. The town was listed as Kalal Koh in news reports, but there is no such town. However, there is a town called Kolikhel (map), which is located about 3 miles north of Zurmat.
The Taliban fundamentalist nutcases have stated that they will be targeting all NGO employees, because they are serving the interests of the "infidel (Tarzan's) regime". By the same lunatic reasoning, all Afghan teachers are being ordered to quit their jobs, because schools "benefit the Karzai government". The Taliban must be one of the most insane and evil insurgencies on Earth.
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Kandahar: A suicide bomber blew himself up outside the offices of a US mercenary firm here, killing two Americans and five Afghans. The bomber approached the USPI (US Protection and Investigation) compound as men were leaving the building and detonated himself. In addition to the two Americans killed, an additional 5 Afghan employees of the firm were also killed, including two interpreters.
A regional USPI chief may have been amongst the dead. 1 of the Americans was John Micheal Krancich. We do not have the name of the other American.
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Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: Navy F/A-18 Hornets and Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs once again attacked Taliban fighters battling British troops near here. The F/A-18s dropped a GBU-12 on and fired cannon rounds at Taliban positions. Do you get the impression that the Taliban are besieging the capital of Helmand?
Tuesday, December 5
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Garmser, Garmser District, Helmand Province, 5 AM: British Marines attacked the Taliban-held town of Garmser, a city of 50,000 people in Helmand Province, the province that produces 1/3 of the world's opium supply. But the British were forced to withdraw after the Taliban surrounded advancing Marines and threatened to cut them off.
Marines called in air strikes and artillery fire but the Taliban managed to withstand those attacks. The only place in the Garmser District that is held by the Afghan government and British troops is a bridgehead on the eastern side of the Helmand River in Garmser.
Scores of Marines ran across the bridge just before sunup and moved out into wheat fields on the other side. At first, there was only off and on Taliban fire. But as the British moved forward, Taliban forces hiding in a well-designed series of trenches launched a vicious attack using heavy weaponry in an attempt to outflank the British.
British forces counterattacked from light armored vehicles and fired mortars and machine guns at guerrillas. The British felt trapped and called in heavy air support. Apache helicopters fired rockets, B-1 bombers dropped 500-pound bombs and A-10 Thunderbolts shot cannon fire at the Taliban, but the guerrillas were able to hold their ground in spite of the heavy fire from above.
Two Royal Marines were injured in the fighting, and one of those, Jonathan Wigley, later died of wounds. Both were airlifted to the UK hospital in Camp Bastion. An article about Wigley and the Afghan War is here. Wigley was apparently killed by friendly fire from a US A-10 attack jet.
Taliban fighters officially seized the town of Garmser over the summer two times and NATO forces had to come back days later to retake it. The Taliban angered even those locals opposed to foreign troops by burning the Afghan flag and hoisting the flags of two fundamentalist idiot groupings in Pakistan.
Schools have been shut down across Garmser and the Taliban have staged a number of public executions, further angering locals. Some locals here despise the Taliban creeps and want the British to drive the fundamentalist freaks out of the area. But Britain lacks enough troops to do that.
The British commander has been constantly calling for another 1,000 troops for Helmand but all his requests have been turned down. This means that the only way that the British could drive the Taliban worms out of Garmser would be to devastate the town from the air, which would leave a victory of ruins.
Further complicating efforts is the blatantly dishonest nature of the British role here - the British did not come to Helmand to fight the Taliban, but instead came here to rebuild the place. Shades of Alice in Wonderland.
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Kandahar: Suicide car bomb attack on a Canadian convoy on the Airport Road wounded two Canadian soldiers and six Afghan civilians. The bomber, driving a minivan, blew up his vehicle next to a Nyala RG-31 armored vehicle and a transport truck. The two wounded Canadian troops were in the truck.
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Miran Shah, North Waziristan, Pakistan: Tribesmen furious over the government's failure to restore power to Miran Shah cut off road links to the town by placing burning tires and boulders on three main roads leading to Miran Shah.
Power was cut to the region, supposedly due to technical problem, on November 13, and has not yet been restored. Makes you wonder if the government is not cutting off power to the Taliban and Al Qaeda-controlled region on purpose?
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Great Britain: A bizarre new ruling by the British courts is rewarding millions of pounds to British troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan by referring to them as crime victims. What this means is that the court said that the guerrillas fighting British troops in those countries are criminals, not irregular soldiers.
This ruling was necessary because the British Ministry of Defense became liable for possible damages from British troops wounded after the official "end of the war" in Iraq in May 2003.
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Kandahar: An Air Force MQ-1 Predator fired a Hellfire missile on a Taliban target near here.
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Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: An Air Force B-1B Lancer, Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, U.S. Navy F/A-18s and Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked Taliban fighters swarming the Helmand capital once again.
The B-1B dropped GBU-38s, the A-10s dropped general-purpose 500-pound bombs and fired cannon rounds, the F/A-18s dropped GBU-12s and fired cannon rounds, and the GR-7s fired an enhanced Paveway II munition on Taliban forces.
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Kajaki Dam, Kajaki District, Helmand Province: An Air Force B-1B, Navy F/A-18s and RAF GR-7s attacked Taliban fighters battling British troops near here, an area that has been bombed for months now.
Monday, December 4
Kandahar, 11:50 AM: A US Special Forces soldier was wounded while demolitions training here.
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Germany: A report from the German military, the Bundeswehr, warns in a classified report that the Taliban are moving in on Kabul and that attacks in the capital city are likely to increase. The analysis is based on the notion that security in districts within Kabul Province adjacent to the capital is deteriorating.
The report voices a fear that attacks on Kabul will increase in coming months. The report indicates that the Taliban have said that they will focus attacks during the winter on the largest cities in Afghanistan. The security situation has already "visibly deteriorated" in two districts located only 5 miles from Kabul's city limits.
In these districts, Afghan security forces don't even dare to patrol the streets at night. The districts were not named in the Der Spiegel article on the military report. The report feared that the Taliban could use the deteriorated districts as "gateways" to Kabul and also as a safe haven to plan future attacks.
The report said that Taliban fighters are smuggled into the districts in small "groups of up to eight men," and they blend into the local area by staying in the homes of local residents for several days at a time.
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Kandahar Province: German authorities said that two journalists may have been kidnapped here. One of them is apparently a German citizen. The pair did not registered with NATO's media office and were not covering NATO's activities.
Sangin, Sangin District, Helmand Province: U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornets and Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked Taliban forces near here in this Taliban-controlled district. The F/A-18s dropped GBU-12s and a GBU-38 and the GR-7s fired rockets on enemy positions.
Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: An Air Force B-1B Lancer attacked Taliban forces fighting British troops once again near here. It appears the capital of Helmand is surrounded by the Taliban.
Sunday, December 3
Kabul-Kandahar Highway, Near Qalat, Zabul Province, Early AM: The Taliban attacked a police checkpoint here, setting off a gunbattle that killed 4 Taliban and 1 policeman. Police recovered three AK-47's, one RPG and one dead Taliban fighter.
Mus'am Ghar, Panjwayi District, Kandahar Province, 5:10 PM: Two rebel rockets landed near this Canadian base, but caused no casualties. Canadian troops fired back with two mortar rounds of their own. Mus'am Ghar could not be located on any maps.
Kunduz: Guerrillas attacked a German patrol here. The attack did not cause any casualties, but it did slightly damaged three Dingo armored troop carriers. German soldiers returned fire at the attackers. It is not yet known who is carrying out these attacks in relatively calm northern Afghanistan.
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Airport Road, Kandahar: A suicide car bomb exploded next to a NATO convoy here, damaging an open-top NATO vehicle. As troops sped away, they fired on several civilian cars, wounding several Afghans. All together, 19 people were wounded, 16 Afghans including three NATO soldiers.
10 Afghans were wounded in the initial blast and 6 more were wounded by NATO troops afterwards. NATO troops fired on vehicles as far away as 1/2 mile from the blast site. All told, at least eight people were killed in the attack, 3 by the bombing and 5 more by NATO troops afterwards.
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Kandahar: Navy F/A-18 Hornets and French Air Force M-2000Ds attacked Taliban forces once again here.
Saturday, December 2
Panjwayi, Panjwayi District, Afghanistan, AM: For the first time since the Korean War, Canadian tanks have been deployed in a combat situation. A squadron of Canadian Leopard tanks drove through here as locals watched on their way to a forward observation base. Canadian forces said the tank deployment was meant to send a message to the Taliban.
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Duabi, Jawand District, Badghis Province, 9:23 PM: Unknown gunmen attacked Chinese workers in a remote camp being run by the China Railway Shisiju Group Corporation here. The workers managed to evacuate the base to a major base 25 miles away after the attack. No workers were injured. Afghan police guarding the walled camp returned fire against the attackers.
A gunbattle lasting 1 1/2 hours ensued. After 90 minutes, the firing ended, but the attackers had not yet retreated. 2 hours after the initial attack, police reinforcements arrived and the attackers fled. At the time of the battle, around 30 Chinese workers, building a local road, were stationed in the camp.
The camp is surrounded by barbed wire netting and trenches. There has not yet been any information about who was behind the attack or why it was launched. Doabi (map) is located 1/4 mile west of Jawand, a major city.
Badghis is a quiet but desperately poor province that is suffering from drought and resulting lack of food. Jawand is one of the worst districts in all Afghanistan. The entire area is ravaged by disease, drought and starvation.
There are no roads, no doctors, no medical clinics, no schools and almost 100% of the population is illiterate. Check out the heartbreaking Guardian story above about the district. The article is from 2002, but I doubt if things have much improved since.
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Musa Qala District, Helmand Province: British forces attacked a Taliban force here, after being informed by local police that the guerrillas were gathering nearby. The ensuing attack killed an estimated 70 to 80 Taliban. There were no British casualties. The fighting was quite heavy and continued into early Sunday.
The fighting occurred in a remote part of the district and there was no way to independently confirm the casualty figures. This seems to be the end of the truce negotiated in October between British forces and the Taliban here, negotiated by local elders. The truce was intended to keep the Taliban out of the area but all it did was cement Taliban control over the district.
There is some question about whether the truce applied to the entire district or just to the town of Musa Qala. In recent days, locals, many of them women and schoolteachers, have traveled to Kabul to complain about the truce, saying that all it did was let the Taliban take over.
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Northern Kandahar Province, AM: A US NATO-chartered MI-21 helicopter with a crew of eight personnel flown by the US mercenary firm Dyncorp International, flying supplies from a NATO base in Kandahar city to another in Tirin Kot in Uruzgan, went down here for unknown reasons in poor weather. The Taliban said they shot it down but NATO would not confirm or deny that.
It is also not known how many, if any of the crew were killed and whether any were wounded, although it was suggested that there may have been fatalities. This crash is mysterious. A search and rescue team found the helicopter at noon.
Initially, NATO was not able to dispatch ground troops to the crash site due to weather, location and terrain and the last report was that it had no information about the crew. This crash is very strange and we need more information about it. Dyncorp is widely considered to be a CIA front corporation.
2 weeks later, the Taliban were still saying that they shot this helicopter down. They may indeed have done so. If the crew was CIA, then that explains why there has been no information about any possible casualties, since CIA casualties are often not reported.
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Afghanistan: Much of Afghanistan saw significant snowfall. This will slow down the insurgency.
Friday, December 1
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Ghazni Province, 5 PM: A US convoy fired on a group of officers twice in twilight in a very confused situation, killing 1 Afghan policeman and wounding 1 more. waning daylight in eastern Afghanistan, officials said Saturday. NATO said that the police fired first on the convoy as it moved through a bazaar in a town and troops then returned fire.
Afghan police said that troops had opened fire without provocation, killing 1 officer out of 3 manning the checkpoint. 2 of the 3 police manning the checkpoint that was attacked were in civilian clothes. The other 2 officers ran away and hid.
About 45 minutes later, the convoy passed by once again, and again opened fire on police, this time wounding an officer who was shouting at them to try to show them he was a friendly. Clearly a very confused situation.
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Tirin Kot, Tirin Kot District, Uruzgan Province, Night: The Taliban attacked police in the Darwishan area of the city of Tirin Kot , capital of Uruzgan Province. Over the course of a 3-hour battle, 7 Taliban were killed and 4 others wounded. 2 policemen were also wounded.
Wardak Province, Night: In a battle with guerrillas here, police killed 4 guerrillas. There were no further details. Wardak is definitely deteriorating lately.
Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornets and Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked Taliban forces once again besieging the capital, in what is becoming a daily affair.
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Muqur District, Ghazni Province: Navy F/A-18s attacked Taliban forces fighting US troops near here. US forces have made some great changes here recently as they have ignored Washington and gone ahead with their own reconstruction and security-related projects.
The locals are sick and tired of the Taliban and want security and development. Prior, security forces were woefully ill-equipped. US forces are even funding the building of mosques in villages, arguably a positive thing.
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Thursday, November 30
Sangin District, Helmand Province, Early: British and Afghan troops, backed up by warplanes and helicopters, killed 10 Taliban and captured two Taliban commanders in a raid on an alleged suicide bomb cell here. One British soldier was lightly wounded in the operation. The identities of the Taliban leaders captured raid were not revealed. Troops seized two suicide vests, several RPG's and a cache of equipment and weapons.
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FOB Martello, Northern Kandahar Province, Afternoon: A speeding taxi approached a Canadian patrol near here and refused to slow when directed to do so. Canadian troops fired one shot at the car, which missed the driver but hit the passenger in the leg. FOB Martello was created by the Canadians in April of this year. It is located on the road between Kandahar and Tirin Kot in Uruzgan.
The area is a high, rocky desert with scattered oases and farming communities grouped around the oases. It is definitely swarming with Taliban. The base is located near a town called Elbak (map). Elbak is located 49 1/2 miles northeast of Kandahar and only 10 1/2 miles south of the border with Uruzgan Province.
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Muqur District, Ghazni Province: A US vehicle rolled over here during a battle with guerrillas, killing 1 US soldier, Specialist Chris Kleinwachter. The death is now being classified as non-hostile.
Kabul: U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornets dropped GBU-38s on guerrilla positions. Do you get the impression that the guerrillas are besieging the capital?
Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers and French Air Force M2000D Mirages attacked Taliban fighters once again near here. The GR-7s expended rockets on Taliban positions.
Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: An Air Force B-1B Lancer dropped GBU-38s on Taliban positions. Are the guerrillas besieging this regional capital also?
Kandahar: An Air Force B-1B and Navy F/A-18s attacked the Taliban who were battling Canadian troops near here.
Wednesday, November 29
Kabul: NATO said that suicide bombings have killed 244 people including 17 NATO soldiers, in Afghanistan this year, a dramatic increase over the previous year.
Afghan/Pakistan border of Eastern Afghanistan: Scores of al-Qaeda fighters stormed a checkpoint here, setting off a 1-hour battle that left 2 guerrillas dead. This attack must have taken place on the border with either North or South Waziristan on the Pakistani side and Paktika Province on the Afghan side.
Airport Road, Kandahar: A suicide bomber attacked a Canadian convoy here, killing two civilians. There were no Canadian casualties.
United States: About $2 billion worth of U.S. Army and Marine Corps equipment is wearing out or being destroyed every month in Iraq and Afghanistan. The figure is equal to about a quarter of the $8 billion per month that the US is spending on the wars themselves on direct military expenditures.
Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked Taliban forces battling British troops near here. The GR-7s fired an enhanced Paveway II munition and rockets on enemy positions.
Orgun-E, Urgun District, Paktika Province: An Air Force B-1 Lancer once again attacked guerrillas near here, dropping GBU-31s on enemy positions.
Khost Province: An Air Force B-1 Lancer attacked guerrillas here.
Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrillas once again near here, in what has become a regular occurrence.
Kandahar: Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrillas again near here. The Kandahar region is getting bombed almost every day these days.
Muqur District, Ghazni Province: An Air Force B-1 attacked Taliban fighters battling US troops here. This area is getting bombed quite a bit lately, and there have been some US casualties also.
Tuesday, November 28
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Puli-i-Nam District, Logar Province, Afternoon: Roadside bomb attack on a NATO vehicle here killed two US soldiers, Staff Sergeant Michael A. Shank and Specialist Jeffrey G. Roberson, and wounding one soldier and one interpreter. Puli-i-Nam is the capital of Logar. Logar is a conservative district, but not as conservative as the south of the country.
There is evidence that Ayman al-Zawahiri sought refuge here soon after the US invasion of Afghanistan. He was in a familiar place. There were several Al Qaeda training camps in Logar during the Taliban's rule but the locals were not very friendly towards the largely-Arab foreign fighters.
Parts of Logar were controlled by the Taliban and others by the Northern Alliance during the Civil War. Hezb-i-Islami has always been very popular here. The district is majority Pashtun with a Tajik minority.
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South of the Arghandab River, Panjwayi District, Kandahar Province, Afternoon: in a suicide bomb attack in the Suicide bomb attack on a Canadian Bison armored personnel carrier A slightly wounded a Canadian soldier.
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5 miles south of Herat, Herat Province: A suicide car bomber exploded his vehicle next to a counterterrorism police truck that had been chasing him, killing one policeman and wounding 1 more.
The vehicle approached a police checkpoint where police tried to stop and search bomber's car, but he sped away. Police then chased the vehicle. In the course of the chase, the bomber detonated his vehicle, killing himself and causing the 2 other casualties.
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Garmser District, Helmand Province: RPG attack on a British vehicle here wounded 1 British soldier. The Taliban control virtually 100% of this district.
Khost Province: An Air Force B-1 Lancer attacked guerrillas once again here.
Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked the Taliban once again near here, firing enhanced Paveway II munitions and rockets on enemy positions.
Orgun-E, Urgun District, Paktika Province: A B-1 Bomber once again attacked guerrillas here. This areas is getting bombed all the time lately. It is right across from North Waziristan, which explains the heavy fighting. The B-1 dropped GBU-31s on guerrillas here. enemy positions near Orgun-e.
Kandahar: Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked the Taliban again near here, in a reprise of the constant bombing in this area.
Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrillas again near here. Asadabad is getting bombed most every day lately.
Muqur District, Ghazni Province: An Air Force B-1 once again attacked the Taliban here. This province is getting bombed a lot lately.
Monday, November 27
Shindand District, Herat Province, Night: Roadside bomb attack on a police convoy wounded three police.
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Makeen, North Waziristan, Pakistan: The Taliban shot and killed a local cleric here, accusing him of spying for the US in Afghanistan. Gul Tahmim's body was found in a ravine near a Pakistani base.
A note left with his body said: "See this body! He was spying for America and had friendship with Maulana Salahuddin and Maulana Hashim Khan, who were also American spies." Those 2 men had been killed in the area previously, one of them 2 weeks before.
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Airport Road, Kandahar: Suicide car bomb attack on a Canadian convoy here damaged a Bison armored personnel carrier, killing two Canadian soldiers, the crew commander and the driver of the Bison. An Afghan was also killed in the attack. The 2 soldiers were Chief Warrant Officer Robert Girouard and Corporal Albert Storm.
A minivan pulled up alongside the Bison soon after it left the airport and detonated. Several camels alongside the road were also killed. There were several other soldiers inside the vehicle but they were not hurt. The troops were helping on reconstruction projects in the Panjwayi District. On the day of the attack, they were leaving the Airport base for the District to work on more rebuilding.
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Orgun-E, Urgun District, Paktika Province: French M2000D Mirages and Navy F/A-18 Hornets attacked guerrillas fighting US troops near here, in an area that is getting bombed almost every day lately.
Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: An Air Force B-1 Lancer attacked Taliban forces battling US troops near here. What is going on here? Why is Asadabad getting bombed every day?
Tirin Kot, Tirin Kot District, Uruzgan Province: Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked Taliban fighters battling NATO forces here. The Taliban control the entire rural area surrounding this capital, and recently they have moved into the city itself.
Sunday, November 26
Gereshk, Nahri Sarraj District, Helmand Province, 2 PM: A "suspect" vehicle approached a US British convoy here, and jittery soldiers opened fire on the vehicle when it refused to slow down, killing an Afghan civilian. A similar incident happened only 4 days ago. According to NATO, "Despite clear signals to stop, including the use of flares and warning shots, the vehicle refused to halt".
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Kamdesh District, Nuristan Province, Night: A US military truck rolled down a sharp embankment here in this remote province, killing one US soldier, 1st Lieutenant Benjamin Keating, and injuring 1 more. The troops were providing supplies to the Kamdesh Civil Military Operations Center (CMOC) at the time of the accident in this extremely rugged and remote area, where roads are little more than rude dirt tracks.
Men greet mountaineers in Kamdesh, Nuristan Province. Notice that there are no women present here. Also note that the homes are made of wood. This region has become very fundamentalist since it was forcibly converted to Islam 110 years ago. Osama bin Laden has probably been hiding in Nuristan at least some of the time since 2003, when he is not in Dir across the border in Pakistan.*****
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Mano Gai, Pech District, Kunar Province: Guerrillas captured 4 Afghans returning from work at a U.S. military base here. The guerrillas here include Hezb-i-Islami Hekmatyar, Hezb-i-Islami Khalis, the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Toiba and some other obscure fundamentalist dolts.
The fighters include Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs and are often very well-armed and very well-trained. Mano Gai (map) is the capital of the district.
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Urgun, Urgun District, Paktika Province: A Pakistani suicide bomber blew himself up in a restaurant here, killing 15 Afghans and injuring 24,. He was apparently targeting an Afghan special forces commander and a district chief who were at the restaurant and were among the injured. The restaurant was destroyed.
Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: RAF GR-7s once again attacked the Taliban, who are surrounding this capital city, dropping a 540-pound bomb and an firing enhanced Paveway II on Taliban positions.
Kandahar: RAF GR-7s dropped a 540-pound bomb and an fired enhanced Paveway II munitions on enemy positions. The Kandahar area is getting bombed about every day these days.
Musa Qala, Musa Qala District, Helmand Province: U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornets attacked the Taliban here, dropping a GBU-12 and firing cannon rounds on enemy positions. Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers also attacked in the same area, expended rockets on enemy positions.
Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: An Air Force B-1B Lancer attacked Taliban forces once again near here.
Saturday, November 25
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Kabul-Kandahar Highway, Zabul Province, Night: The Taliban ambushed a police convoy here in this Taliban-controlled province, setting off a gunbattle in which 1 Taliban was killed.
US forces in Zabul in June 2005. As you can see, this province is quite arid. The Taliban now rules almost this entire province. In 2005, 86 schools here were closed down due to terror threats from Taliban fundamentalist losers, the highest number for any province, even Helmand or Kandahar. As of March 2006, about 1/2 of the schools are closed, and only 8% of girls are in school.*****
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Tirin Kot District, Uruzgan Province: NATO forces said that they killed about 55 Taliban fighters in 2 separate battles here. Original reports said two NATO soldiers died in one of the clashes, but later reports indicate that only 1 soldier was killed, 2nd Lieutenant Scott B. Lundell.
Lundell was killed by small arms and RPG fire. The fighting began when the Taliban attacked NATO forces here. NATO returned fire and called in attack aircraft, killing about 50 Taliban.
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Arghandab district, Zabul Province: About 50 Taliban fighters attacked the police chief's compound here, setting off a 1-hour firefight. At the end, 1 Taliban was killed 3 more were wounded. There were no police casualties.
US forces in Zabul in an undated photo from a Slovenian newspaper. These homes appear to be in ruins for some reason, possibly still from the Russian War. This entire province is Taliban-controlled, so US forces are fighting an uphill battle here.*****
Panjwayi District, Kandahar Province: The Taliban fired on Canadian and Afghan troops here, wounding 3 Canadian soldiers. The Canadians called in an air strike that killed about five Taliban.
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United States: US Air Force C-17 transport planes, planes that fly troops, supplies and fuel in missions over Iraq and Afghanistan, were attacked 215 times — an average of four times a week — in 2006. The smaller turbo-prop C-130 transports were attacked 65 times.
70% of the attacks happened when the planes were flying below 5,000 feet. Most of the attacks were with small arms such as assault rifles and machine guns. Since the war on terrorism began five years ago, there have been five “major” hits on C-17s.
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Charkh District, Logar Province: Suicide car bomb attack on a combined Afghan-NATO convoy wounded 2 who were walking in the street. Some vehicles in the patrol were lightly damaged.
Kabul: Roadside bomb attack on an Afghan army jeep damaged the vehicle but caused no injuries. A public bus was also damaged.
Helmand Province: Two Pakistani journalists held by the Taliban in southern of Afghanistan and put on trial for unknown reasons, A reporter for The Star said that its reporter Saleem Shahzad and another journalist, Qamar Yousafzai, had been detained by Taliban commander named Matiullah. Shahzad was detained on November 21 by the Taliban.
Kabul: Czech troops arrived to take command of the Kabul International Airport. A unit of 47 Czech troops is scheduled to take charge of the airport starting in early December until early April 2007.
Musa Qala, Musa Qala District, Helmand Province: Navy F/A-18Fs attacked the Taliban once again here, in a district where a truce with the Taliban has clearly totally broken down. The F/A-18Fs dropped GBU-38s and a GBU-12 on enemy positions.
Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrillas fighting US troops near here.
Friday, November 24
Kandahar Province, 12:11 PM: US forces fought with the Taliban somewhere in this province, in a battle in which US forces utilized mortars, artillery, and air power. 7 Taliban were killed in the fighting.
Mus'am Ghar, Panjwayi District, Kandahar Province: The Taliban fired a rocket near the Canadian base here, missing an assembled foot patrol by 50 yards. There were no casualties. As noted above, Mus'am Ghar cannot be located on a map.
Kandahar: Navy F/A-18 Hornets and Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers attacked the Taliban once again here, where the Taliban are possibly besieging the capital. The F/A-18s dropped GBU-12s and fired cannon rounds on the Taliban.
Laskar Gah, Laskar Gah District, Helmand Province: RAF GR-7s attacked the Taliban once again here, in what appears to be a case of whack-a-mole.
Thursday, November 23
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Qarabagh District, Ghazni Province: The Taliban fired a rocket at a US patrol, killing 1 US soldier and wounding 1 more. US forces and guerrillas traded small arms fire and later US troops called in air support. The soldier's name has now been released as Corporal Nathan Joel Goodiron.
His vehicle took the full brunt of an RPG attack while escorting a military convoy. His cousin, Sergeant C.J. O'Berry, was the soldier wounded in the attack. Interesting that 2 cousins were manning the same vehicle.
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Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornets attacked guerrillas once again, in what is becoming a daily series of bombings in this area. The F/A-18s expended cannon rounds on enemy positions.
Ghazni, Ghazni Province: Navy F/A-18s attacked Taliban forces battling US forces near Ghazni.
Gereshk, Nahri Sarraj District, Helmand Province: French Air Force M2000D Mirages attacked Taliban forces battling British troops near here. This area is Taliban-controlled.
Forward Operating Base Carlson, Afghanistan: An Air Force B-1B Lancer attacked guerrillas fighting NATO forces near here. FOB Carlson could not be located.
Khost, Khost Province: Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrillas once again here. This area is getting bombed a lot these days.
Wednesday, November 22
Kandahar, 12:30 PM: An explosion at a gun shop here killed 1 civilian and wounded 4 more. Five gun shops were destroyed and a mosque was partially damaged. The blast was apparently caused by improper storage of gunpowder in one of the gun shops.
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Between Kabul and Bagram Airbase, Kabul Province: US troops fired warning shots at a civilian van here, upsetting the driver and causing him to crash his van, killing an Afghan doctor and wounding four other people The doctor had been working at a health clinic at the Bagram base.
The doctor was in a civilian van that US forces felt was acting suspiciously in the vicinity of a US patrol. US forces signaled for the van to stop and fired a number of warning shots. The shots upset the driver so much that he crashed his car, resulting in the casualties above.
The view of the Hindu Kush near Bagram Airbase. This photo looks like the Great Basin in Western US. That could be Eastern California, Nevada, Utah or Eastern Oregon.*****
Kabul: Militant activities have dropped in Afghanistan over the past month. The daily number of guerrilla attacks dropped below 10 in November and roadside bomb attacks dropped to 0.2. The last NATO soldier killed was on November 6, however in the days afterwards, a few more NATO troops were killed, along with some US mercenaries.
Tuesday, November 21
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Kandahar Province, Late: Taliban criminals on motorbikes attacked a female provincial councilor's car here, killing her husband. The gunmen attacked when Zarghona Kakar and her husband stopped at a roadside bakery to buy bread here.
She is the third prominent woman to be attacked in Kandahar in recent days. This woman was attacked first for being a prominent woman, and only secondly for being a Karzai legislature. The Taliban's misogyny is boundless.
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Spin Boldak, Kandahar Province: The Taliban are plotting a fresh offensive against foreign troops in Afghanistan when the winter ends early next year, according to a top Taliban commander. Attacks have declined rapidly in recent weeks.
Winter runs from late November to early March in Afghanistan. The Taliban say it is hard to stay up in the mountains during the harsh winter months. An early winter has already hit this year, with sleet falling in valleys and snow higher up in the mountains.
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Khost Province: Suicide bomber attack on a US convoy here wounded four Afghans, including two school children. No US troops were hurt in the attack. Troops were distributing kits to school children when the blast went off.
The bomber's nationality was not known. The Taliban here are mirroring the Iraqi guerrillas for being the most disgusting and evil guerrillas on Earth.
Just as the Sunni guerrillas in Iraq have delighted in repeatedly attacking US forces while they handed out candy to Shia schoolchildren, slaughtering dozens of kids in the process, the Taliban cancer here follows in the malevolent footsteps of the Iraqi criminals, targeting schoolkids once again, in this case their own Pashtun Sunnis.
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Islamabad, Pakistan: A local BBC journalist disappeared as he was set to leave here and head back home to Dera Ismail Khan in the Northwest Frontier Province. He was kidnapped and roughed up by Islamists but turned up 24 hours after he disappeared, shaken but healthy. Dilawar Khan Wazir was quite upset and broke down repeatedly while telling his story.
The kidnappers took him to a house where they roughed him up and questioned him about his reporting and sources. The kidnappers dumped him in a remote area and threatened to kill him if he talked about what they did to him.
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Panjwayi District, Kandahar Province: Canadian troops were on a foot patrol in a town here when one of them stepped on an anti-personnel land mine, injuring two soldiers. One soldier was severely wounded, the other only superficially wounded.
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Sangin, Sangin District, Helmand Province: Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers and Navy F/A-18 Hornets attacked Taliban fighters here, with the GR-7s firing rockets on enemy positions. The enemy is generally lying low in Sangin lately, though they control the district. The British stay in their bases and the Taliban stay in their villages.
The British come out at night and shoot into the air to scare the Taliban and let the Taliban know the British are there. The Taliban do not fire back. The Taliban have realized that the best strategy here is to just lay low and not attack the British. The British, for their part, are not keen on endless battles with the Taliban.
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Kandahar: US Navy F/A-18s attacked Taliban fighters battling Canadian troops near here. Kandahar is bombed almost every day these days.
Khost, Khost Province: Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrillas here once again. Khost is getting bombed a fair amount lately.
Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: An Air Force B-1B Lancer and Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked guerrillas again near here, in an area that is being bombed almost every day lately.
Monday, November 20
Bermal, Paktika Province, Late: A suicide bomber blew himself up next to an Afghan army patrol, killing himself but no Afghan troops were injured.
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Marja, Nad Ali District, Helmand Province, Late: The Taliban attacked a local police station here, killing 2 policemen. Marja (map) is 17 miles west of Lashkar Gah, the capital of the province. The Nad Ali District is 80% Pashtun, 10% Hazara, 5% Tajik and 5% Baloch.
Most of the people live in the far east of the district near Lashkar Gah. Except for the far east of the district, the rest of the district is uninhabited desert. That region is known as Zamindovar. This district is very warm. In the wintertime, it averages 68 F, and in the summer it climbs to 120 F.
As usual in Afghanistan, there is no sanitation, and waste water flows right into the canals where the people get their drinking water. Cotton, wheat, corn, turnips, tomatoes, ladyfinger brinjiles, pomegranates, apples and opium are grown here - especially opium - but cotton is still the primary crop.
The harvest is good on irrigated lands, but the rain-fed lands are all dry. 90% of the arable land is still being cultivated, which is a very good figure for Afghanistan. The main road is partly destroyed and the rest of the roads are often muddy, typical for an Afghan district. Most of the bridges are partly destroyed also. Water is readily available but the well water is salty and therefore difficult to drink.
Most people in the district are working and few are unemployed. There is plenty of work in the cotton fields. There are two clinics in the district with two female nurses, but there are no woman doctors. The clinics treat 50 people a day and have fairly good facilities for Afghanistan. Still, the district needs more health centers.
There are a number of schools here, and there are actually a few girls in school, though boys outnumber girls by 10-1 in high school. There are also four woman teachers here. There are no girls in grade school. 70% of the boys are in school - the rest are working, usually in the fields. The schools are in bad shape, with no water or bathrooms available. The teachers are not trained.
Although women are usually confined to their homes in the Pashtun tradition, some work in the fields and others work as maids or cooks.
*****
Kandahar: French M2000D Mirages, US Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornets and Royal Air Force GR-7 Harriers all attacked the Taliban once again near here. The F/A-18s dropped a GBU-12 and fired cannon rounds on enemy positions.
Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: Air Force A-10s and an Air Force B-1B Lancer attacked guerrillas again here, in what are apparently daily battles in this area.
Kabul: Air Force A-10s and Navy F/A-18s attacked guerrillas fighting NATO forces near here once again. The Kabul area is really getting bombed a lot lately.
****
Jalalabad, Nangarhar Province: Air Force A-10s and U.S. Navy F/A-18s attacked guerrillas near here. Hezb-i-Islami Hekmatyar and Hezb-i-Islami Khalis are particularly strong in this region, in particular Younis Khalis' faction.
Bear in mind that in the last election, Hezb-i-Islami won an incredible 25% of the seats in the Afghan government, though Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has not yet made a peace with the government. There are yet rumors that Hekmatyar is negotiating a peace with the government. Hekmatyar is probably hiding in the Dir District in Pakistan south of Chitral and east of Kunar and Nuristan Provinces in Afghanistan.
Dir is the rear guard for Hezb-i-Islami Hekmatyar. Speaking of Dir, there is excellent evidence that this is precisely where bin Laden is, and has been since at least 2003. Hopefully, more on that in a future post. It is obvious that Pakistani intelligence, the ISI, knows where Hekmatyar is, and it is probable that they also know where Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are also. The ISI just does not feel like catching them.
Hekmatyar has influence in Kunar and Nuristan Provinces and to a lesser extent Kunduz Province in the north, where he is from, and he also has forces in Khost, Paktia, Logar and Paktika Provinces. Hekmatyar's super-Islamist faction was favored by the CIA in the Russian War, receiving 70% of funds.
These funds were all distributed by the ISI. This funding is the genesis of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Younis Khalis is a warlord from Nangarhar Province who gave bin Laden a training camp and base at a place called Farmada, south of Jalalabad.
Khalis had a particularly close relationship with bin Laden, but he quickly sold out and cut a deal with the US soon after the invasion. Hekmatyar is now with the Taliban and Al Qaeda and the rumors are that Khalis' faction has now aligned with the Taliban and Al Qaeda too.
******
Orgun-E, Urgun District, Paktika Province: Navy F/A-18s attacked guerrilla forces once again in the endless air strikes on guerrillas here.
Sunday, November 19
Eastern Afghanistan: NATO forces said they killed 11 Taliban in air raids and artillery strikes here.
Kandahar: Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attacked the Taliban once more here, dropping general purpose 500-pound bombs and GBU-12s, and firing cannon rounds on enemy positions.
Gereshk, Nahri Sarraj District, Helmand Province: U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornets attacked Taliban forces fighting British troops near here.
Musa Qala, Musa Qala District, Helmand Province: Navy F/A-18s attacked the Taliban here again, where a truce has totally unraveled and heavy fighting has resumed. The F/A-18s dropped a GBU-12 on enemy positions.
Asadabad, Asadabad District, Kunar Province: An Air Force B-1B Lancer and Air Force A-10s attacked guerrillas once again battling US troops in this dangerous area. The A-10s dropped a GBU-12 and a general purpose 500-pound bomb and the B-1B dropped GBU-12s on guerrilla positions.
Friday, November 17
Afghanistan: Air strikes in Afghanistan have increased dramatically lately, according to this report here.
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