Afghanistan

"I heard that 15,000 US troops invaded Fallujah while planes dropped 500-pound bombs on ‘insurgent targets’. I heard they destroyed the Nazzal Emergency Hospital in the centre of the city, killing 20 doctors. I heard they occupied Fallujah General Hospital, which the military had called a ‘centre of propaganda’ for reporting civilian casualties. I heard that they confiscated all mobile phones and refused to allow doctors and ambulances to go out and help the wounded. I heard they bombed the power plant to black out the city, and that the water was shut off. I heard that every house and shop had a large red X spray-painted on the door to indicate that it had been searched." [more]

"In all parts of the world many scholars and those who want the world to be saved from the evil of America wished for Bush to be re-elected and for America to remain in the hands of his bullying friends in order to push America closer to ruination." [more]

"During the last three years, this holocaust has not only spread wider but also been given a general acceptability, to such an extent that now it seems to be a matter of routine even when several hundred Muslims are slaughtered in a single day." [more]

"The failure of the controlled electronic media--outlets reaching the largest audience in Pakistan--to publicize the commander's statement on the unsuccessful effort to locate Bin Ladin or other Al-Qa'ida leaders contrasts with the airing those remarks received by Pakistan's private electronic and print media." [more]

Nicholas Burns said NATO defense ministers meeting here were likely to instruct the alliance military leadership to report back in February on how to bring NATO and US military operations under a single NATO command. [more]

With counting due to begin on Wednesday, several rivals of frontrunner President Hamid Karzai have abandoned a boycott of Saturday's poll over what they had said were fraud and irregularities. [more]

"It is believed that the United States receives such defective information from Afghanistan's opportunist warlords, Indian secret agencies, or from Pakistani experts who never visited Kabul or Kandahar but who are earning dollars by writing imaginary stories about the Taliban and Al-Qa'ida. " [more]

A spokesperson "despaired that military campaigns were employing 'hearts and minds' strategies more and more often, making it difficult for aid workers to maintain their aura of all-important impartiality. If armies are handing out food assistance and medical equipment, it becomes harder for locals to tell the aid workers from the occupiers." [more]

"A new book by an author going by the name Anonymous (a senior US intelligence official), contains an outright and strong condemnation of America's counter-terrorism policy [...] The book, due out in the first week of July, titled Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, dismisses two of the most frequent boasts of the Bush administration: that bin Laden and al-Qaeda are 'on the run' and that the Iraq invasion has made America safer." [more]

"Karzai, who arrived back in Kabul on Friday, has promised to disarm the warlords, but as many as 100,000 militia fighters still control most of the country more than two years after the Taliban was routed." [more]

"Michael Moore's documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11," will open in about 1,000 U.S. theaters June 25, and a trailer promoting the expedited release could hit the Internet by the end of this week." [more]

If today the U.S. government were to put itself on trial, on the same basis it employed to try the Nazis at Nuremberg, for actions taken in Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years, it might have to convict itself—if only for the sake of consistency. [more]

"'Tillman gave up millions of dollars,' Rall added. 'To that extent I think he's admirable, but the cause is not. ... He would have been a better person and a better husband if he took the $3.6 million and played football and left the poor and beleaguered people of Afghanistan and Iraq alone.'" [more]

"Afghan President Hamid Karzai called on Sunday for more international money to help rebuild his war-ravaged country and admitted he was frustrated that Iraq was getting much more." [more]

"Forces of ethnic Uzbek strongman General Abd al-Rashid Dostum invaded Faryab province on Wednesday, prompting the central government to dispatch national army troops there on Thursday in an attempt to restore order." [more]

"Question and answer session with President Kharzai; from the 'Good Morning Afghanistan' program: 'You and the President'" [more]

"The correct moral to draw from al-Qaeda's involvement in Afghanistan is not the danger of rogue states but the danger of failed ones where the collapse of the central government allowed a lightly armed but highly motivated group of fanatics to seize control. Rather than resolve the problem of Afghanistan's lack of effective authority, however, Bush simply treated a symptom and left the disease in place. Now, not only are Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda leaders still at large, the possibility that they and their allies will gain control over a substantial portion of Afghan territory remains quite real." [more]

"Donor countries pledged a total of $8.2 billion in aid over the next three years to Afghanistan on the first day of the conference on Wednesday. The country is set to receive $4.4 billion of the sum by March 20, 2005. The World Bank estimated that Afghanistan would need $27.5 billion over the next seven years for reconstruction." [more]

"Although the complete Land Warrior System -- a modular, integrated fighting system that includes everything an infantry soldier wears or carries on the battlefield -- is not due to be fielded until 2007, troops in the field already benefit from several of its components." [more]

"Pakistani troops have faced fierce resistance from suspected al-Qaida fighters and tribesmen in the South Waziristan area since launching a sweep on Tuesday, leading to speculation they may be protecting Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Ladin's right-hand man." [more]

"Tens of thousands are on the move now as the Pentagon carries out the largest rotation of forces in its history, relieving battle-weary soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait with fresh forces. By late March, 130,000 troops will be leaving Iraq and 105,000, including some of the 319th, will arrive. As many as 50% of these will be reservists or National Guard." [more]

"There is also a growing belief that the release was a cynical move to divert attention from the US Supreme Court’s hearing later this year to test the legality of holding the Camp Delta detainees. Two of the released British detainees were named as plaintiffs in a legal challenge mounted by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), arguing that the US cannot order indefinite detention without due legal process in 'a prison that operates entirely outside the law.'" [more]

"Terror is both a real phenomenon and a fraud ... The United States has made a long series of blunders in the Middle East guaranteed to offend and intimidate Muslims, especially fundamentalists, the people from whom an organization like al Qaeda draws support. These blunders must be seen in the context of an almost irrational support for Israel's bloodiest behavior." [more]

"Since the end of 2002, most of the major US think tanks, human rights groups, and Western NGOs have persistently pointed out the flaws in US strategy and suggested the fairly obvious changes that need to be made. As in Iraq, however, the Bush administration is extremely reluctant to admit its mistakes or rectify them publicly or even make reliable information available." [more]

"A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Pentagon has no constitutional obligation to provide the media access to U.S. troops during combat." [more]

"The situation today is starting to improve. There are now eight cinemas operating in Kabul, mostly showing Indian films. Afghan Film is slowly being re-equipped and some private companies are emerging from the dust of older firms such as Ariana Film and Kabul Film. New initiatives include a production company set up by Bollywood actor Hashmat Rahmini (known to audiences as Hashmat Khan), himself an Afghan." [more]

"The suicide attack on Tuesday was the first one in Afghanistan in which a human body was used as weapon to make a direct bomb attack." [more]

"Seeing that operations in Afghanistan haven't succeeded in shutting down terror networks, the Pentagon is planning a 'spring offensive' and ordered troops to start working on logistics and getting equipment in place, a Washington official said, speaking on condition of anonymity." [more]

"The attack was the most vicious in the area in the last two years. In retaliation, the foreign forces also attacked the Taliban, and when US aircraft arrived the Taliban retreated." [more]

"[Karzai's] opponents want Parliament to control the printing of money, the creation of a constitutional court, three vice presidents rather than one, a ban on top officials holding dual citizenship or having a foreign spouse, more power devolved to provincial councils, and for Uzbek and Turkmen language rights in their ethnic regions." [more]

"While the eyes of world are on Iraq, the Taliban are reborn across much of this country and their al-Qa'ida allies are once more in the ascendant. As attacks mount and the death toll rises, the US [is] losing control" [more]

"Two years after they fell from power, the Taleban are back, rearmed with guns and a determination to stop the march of democracy in an attempt to win back the hearts and minds they once controlled." [more]

"Six children and two adults were killed during a US attack on a weapons compound in south-eastern Afghanistan, the second bungled operation in the country to leave child victims in as many days." [more]

Despite the raid's failure, "the American military is pressing ahead with its objectives ... announcing Monday that it had 2,000 soldiers out on its biggest operation ever against elements of the Taliban and Al Qaeda across a wide swath of the country." [more]

"The 11,500 U.S.-led troops hunting Taliban and al Qaeda remnants in south and east Afghanistan often are supported by air power, and there have been a string of military mishaps. The worst occurred in July 2002, when Afghan officials said 48 civilians at a wedding party were killed and 117 wounded by a U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunship." [more]

"A flurry of terrorist attacks over the past several days, as well as the deaths of nine children Saturday in a U.S. air assault on a village where a lone Taliban terrorist was said to be hiding, have cast a jittery pall over preparations for an historic constitutional assembly scheduled to begin Wednesday." [more]

"Four Army divisions now in Iraq are to return next year and will need about six months to rest, retrain and repair equipment. With three divisions set to rotate into Iraq and another into Afghanistan as replacements, about 80 percent of the Army's fighting strength will be either on the mend or on duty fighting terror and stabilizing the two countries." [more]

"Rumsfeld told Davis he could understand [Afghan warlord] Dostum's reluctance to surrender the foundation of his power. 'I don't think his position is unreasonable,' Rumsfeld said." [more]

"We heard a missile passing over our heads immediately before we had finished eating and it exploded 100 meters from the house. We immediately started to leave fearing that we were the target and the targeting would be corrected so as to hit us." [more]

"Fighters from the two factions have clashed repeatedly since the Taliban's overthrow by U.S.-led forces in late 2001. Past U.N.-brokered disarmament drives have failed. The violence has raised doubts about the ability of President Hamid Karzai's government to bring stability to the entire country." [more]

" 'Almost two years after the fall of the Taliban and nearly six months after the fall of Baghdad, the White House is finally organizing itself to deal with the realities of postwar Afghanistan and Iraq," said Senator John Edwards. '[R]earranging flow charts is no substitute for leadership.' " [more]

"Mansour and others associated with the Northern Alliance said the group has no intention of threatening violence against Karzai or of disrupting national elections, whenever they are held. But they said several recent moves by Karzai to weaken their power had made them 'rethink' their support for his government." [more]

"Though U.S.-led coalition forces are stationed in hot zones, their sights are trained on terrorists rather than the local thugs, drug traffickers and bandits who make life for Afghans miserable. For many Afghans, the country is less secure today than it was before the coalition bombers arrived." [more]

"Aid groups are fleeing in terror. They blame much of their exodus from the southern third of the country on its drug crop, worth an estimated $1.6 billion Cdn, which purportedly finances Islamic extremist violence, ethnic blood feuds, warlord war chests, provincial property disputes and competing political movements." [more]

"The civilians died in their beds when a bomb landed on their tent in Naw Bahar district of the southern province of Zabul on Wednesday night." [more]

"I certainly cannot make an offer of which Washington would take notice. The Americans listen to criticism and then act as they see fit. I think it is obvious that there must ultimately be a procedure through which an objective judicial entity decides whether a specific person constitutes a threat, and that such a person also needs legal counsel in that procedure. Otherwise fundamental principles are lost." [more]

"Lawmakers of both parties warned before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that stabilizing post-war Iraq could be far more expensive than waging war. For months, the Bush administration was reluctant to discuss the financial costs of the commitment, much as the Johnson administration seldom directly addressed the budget impact of Vietnam." [more]

"Despite a 22-month military campaign against the Taliban, the militant group has staged a series of increasingly audacious and brutal attacks on military and civilian targets that has alarmed the government of President Hamid Karzai and frustrated US officials. Afghan officials have been troubled by the resurgent group's ability to muster increasingly large forces in the remote hills that straddle the Afghan-Pakistani border, and Kabul's and Washington's patience with Islamabad has worn thin." [more]

"The description of active combat in Iraq was one of several statements Bush made in the interview that differed with earlier administration positions." [more]

"Pressure is growing to dispatch more soldiers from the international force to bring stability to the anarchic provinces outside Kabul." [more]

"Presidential contenders and congressional Democrats criticized the Pentagon on Thursday for opposing legislation that would extend an increase in combat pay for troops in Iraq and other war zones." [more]

"People nowadays are not willing to bow down before an emperor, even a benevolent one, in order to be democratised. They will protest, and the ensuing pain will be felt by the imperial power as well as by its subjects. For Americans, the pain will not be just a matter of budget deficits and body bags; it will also be a blow to the very heart of what makes them American—their constitutional belief in freedom." [more]

"Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, remain unaccounted for, and the south of the country is getting more dangerous, not less. Major operations ... often result in coralling a few men, who may be terrorists or, just as easily, shepherds. Detainees are spirited off to the Bagram base, north of Kabul, and interrogated. Several have died there. But as major combat dies down, questions are sure to be asked about the cost-effectiveness of what the coalition is up to, given that the Americans are spending $10 billion or so a year on it." [more]

"Originally set up after World War II to fight communism, NATO has decided that now it is time to target international terrorism. In this way the alliance hopes to ease the sense of its own inaction, and even pointlessness, which has been haunting it since the break-up of the USSR." [more]

"The Army is telling troops to take precautions as it tries to figure out the cause of pneumonia cases, including two deaths, among forces in the Afghan and Iraqi campaigns." [more]

The United States is in discussions with Afghanistan to send hundreds of advisers to government ministries in order to accelerate reconstruction there. Critics contend the system would be the beginning of a colonialization similar to Iraq. [more]

"Kandahar police also say they feel demoralized and targeted. In July alone, one district police chief was shot to death on his way home from work and another was killed along with five of his officers when a band of about 20 armed men stormed their compound, police officials said. This past week, five or six government officials were ambushed and killed along the same isolated road where a Red Cross water engineer was executed in late March." [more]

"When the Taliban fell, the US would not agree to the deployment of the International Security Assistance Force outside Kabul. Why? Because the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, was already planning the invasion of Iraq and did not want men tied down in peacekeeping." [more]

"Mr. Stueve could not specify how many soldiers are in hotels, but said Walter Reed is referring about 20 patients or their relatives to hotels each day. Hotels in Silver Spring, just across the D.C. line, offer discounted rates for outpatients and their families, and the military pays the bill." [more]

"The Bush administration has come to realize that it is impossible to keep Pakistan as a friend and simultaneously keep the Northern Alliance–backed government in power in Kabul ... either one has Pakistan as a friend with an Islamabad-backed Pashtun group in power in Kabul, or one gets Pakistan as an enemy. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind how the Bush administration would act when confronted with such a choice." [more]

Funds "would go toward highway and school construction, other infrastructure initiatives, police training, beefed-up development of the Afghan national army, education projects and programs to help women enter the workforce." [more]

"The best chance at killing or capture may have been deep in the past. Below the white peaks of the Spin Ghar near the Pakistani line, Osama bin Laden was spotted. The American high command believed this was it but didn't want to put its soldiers in severe danger; didn't want British special forces to claim the war's greatest prize; and couldn't compel Pakistan to close off the frontier." [more]

"In Zebak province, in the country's northeast, regional commanders are forcing women into marriage, threatening their families' lives if they decline. And although the central government insists that women are no longer being arrested for "moral" crimes, police continue to jail women for adultery and eloping, often without trial or even so much as a witness against them." [more]

"By all appearances, insurgents have consciously turned against foreign aid workers despite work done during the days of the mujahideen resistance and Taliban rule. Attacks on their local helpers as well suggest that more than xenophobia is at work. Rather, the attacks seem part of a concerted effort to undermine the reconstruction work itself." [more]

"The Afghan foreign ministry says Musharraf, during a recent trip to Europe, questioned Karzai's influence across Afghanistan, spoke of a power vacuum and said the government was not representative of all ethnic groups." [more]

"The one demand almost all Afghans make — that international troops should be deployed in other cities, not just in Kabul, and hoover up the millions of rifles and rocket-propelled grenades — is denied them by the United States. Why? The Americans are keen to confiscate weapons in Iraq. Why not in Afghanistan as well?" [more]

"Opium use among all age groups is on the rise in Afghanistan, which produces more of the drug than any other nation, according to the United Nations. But in a poor country where anti-narcotics efforts are focused on combating supply, not demand, there are few places to treat addicts who need help." [more]

"The hard truth is that US intelligence simply does not really know what is going on in the Taliban and al-Qaeda camps. This is evidenced by the countless raids that have been launched in recent times, none of which have resulted in the capture of anyone in Afghanistan." [more]

"A surreal society has emerged at the tip of Cuba in which rules are the only common language and prisoners and guards alike feel marooned." [more]

"Mullah Omar called on the Taliban to make sacrifices to drive out U.S. and other foreign troops and the "puppet" government of U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai." [more]

"Since the United States broadened its anti-terrorism campaign to include Iraq, there has been a surge in violence against Westerners in the Islamic world. A May 12 attack on housing complexes in Saudi Arabia killed at least 23 people, bombings in Morocco killed 31 victims, and there have been continued guerrilla assaults on U.S. troops in Iraq." [more]

"The United States is urging Afghan President Hamid Karzai to rein in provincial warlords who are hijacking hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue needed by his government, and has not ruled out U.S. military aid in the event of a showdown." [more]

"Children younger than 16 are being held as 'enemy combatants' in the American detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, the US military admitted yesterday, a practice human rights groups condemned as repugnant and illegal." [more]

"Not only might these tribes bring back an ancient vigilante style of justice — burning the homes of accused criminals, for instance — but tribal militias could become an obstacle for US forces as they search the countryside for Al Qaeda." [more]

"Attacks against US troops in southern Afghanistan, the former stronghold of the deposed Taliban regime, have spiked in recent weeks, culminating Saturday with the ambush of a US Special Forces unit that left two US soldiers dead and a third injured." [more]

"Rumors about the death of the fanatics in Afghanistan were premature. Local bosses and drug traffickers are entering the vacuum created by the Karzai regime. The U.S., eager to bring the message of the West to Iraq, seems to be turning a blind eye." [more]

"Another commentator, Rahimullah Yusufzai, a leading Pakistani journalist and expert on Afghan affairs, said many members of the clan had left the tribal area to seek work in the Gulf states and the Middle East making them relatively well off." [more]

"Some combat troops privately admitted feeling sidelined in a country where only weak pockets of enemy forces remain after 17 months of US and allied operations to root out Al Qaeda." [more]

"Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the assault was not timed to coincide with the war with Iraq or meant to counter critics who say the Iraqi campaign will divert military attention from the war on terrorism." [more]

"An incident last week shows how close US forces and their allies in Afghanistan come to fighting one another, instead of their enemies. It also points to a lack of coordination between two forces with very different mandates — one keeping the peace, the other catching terrorists." [more]

"According to UN figures, Afghanistan now produces three-quarters of the world's opium, much of which finds its way on to the streets of Europe and the United States as lethally addictive heroin." [more]

"Afghan officials said yesterday that at least 17 civilians were killed in a US-led bombing raid in southern Afghanistan." [more]

"The United States Congress has [had to step] in to find nearly $300 million in humanitarian and reconstruction funds for Afghanistan after the Bush administration failed to request any money in the latest budget." [more]

"At least 16 people, including women and children, were killed when their bus exploded on a bridge just outside the southern city of Kandahar, in an attack that the local police attributed to the Taliban or other rebel forces." [more]

"Hundreds of Qaeda fighters and Taliban supporters are planning to intensify their attacks on Afghan territory if war breaks out in Iraq, interviews with three visitors from Pakistani tribal area indicate." [more]

"More than 14 months ago, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan produced swift and stunning results." [more]

"Guns and the warlords who wield them are distorting the Afghan economy, obstructing the role of government and impeding the delivery of relief and reconstruction aid." [more]

"President Hamid Karzai urged donors at the opening of the talks Tuesday to shift away from immediate humanitarian aid and to focus more on the longer-term investments needed to aid the shattered nation. Diplomats say that any U.S.-led war against Baghdad is likely to divert aid budgets toward future reconstruction of Iraq, thinning cash available for nations like Afghanistan." [more]

"The main theme of his report is the need for countries to share information more effectively in order to combat what is still described as a substantial threat to global peace and security." [more]

"Asked how the Monitoring Group felt about the appearance of new Al Qaeda training camps in eastern Afghanistan, he replied that they were of great concern, since their emergence signified that people were still disillusioned enough to side with Al Qaeda. Indeed, sympathy for the organization was widespread in some countries, he added." [more]

"Gulbuddin, the Afghan defense official known as 'Doctor' from his former job as a surgeon, is worried about developments in the Middle East. An American invasion of Iraq, he says, could hurt his country’s efforts to build a lasting peace." [more]

"Violent confrontations between police and student protesters over the last two days have left at least two college students dead of gunshot wounds, dozens more seriously injured and several policemen wounded." [more]

"In March, Afghanistan's new education ministry rehired thousands of teachers who had been sacked by the Taliban, including many women who were banned from teaching. But attitudes towards girls' education remain mixed. In the south, much of the conservative Pashtun community remains hostile towards the idea of girls going to school, especially after the age of 10." [more]

"The Afghan government won a resounding endorsement from international donors today for its budget and development plan to lift Afghanistan out of destitution and work toward self-sufficiency, positioning it well to win badly needed long-term assistance." [more]

"When the role that Afghanistan's deep descent into chaos played in the 9/11 attacks became clear, the White House promised things would be different this time around. The world would not abandon Afghanistan again. Yet a year after the start of the air war that ousted the Taliban, Afghanistan could be forgiven for feeling neglected." [more]

"Almost a year after the defeat of the Taliban, President Hamid Karzai's government is weaker than it was a few months ago, ethnic and political rivalries plague the country, the military power of the warlords has increased and there is a new wave of anti-Americanism from the Pashtun tribes in the east and south, who feel alienated and victimized both by the Kabul government and US forces." [more]

"Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been criticized at home for mismanaging the government and warned that his reliance on U.S. bodyguards could have 'dangerous consequences.' " [more]

"Nobody knows exactly how many Taliban prisoners were secretly interred in this mass grave, a short distance from the main road. But there is now substantial evidence that the worst atrocity of last year's war in Afghanistan took place here; most controversially, during an operation masterminded by US special forces." [more]

"Hamid Karzai's government may require the support of the U.S. and its allies for some time to come." [more]

"Mr Muttawakil, now in American custody, believed the Taliban's protection of Mr bin Laden and the other al-Qa'ida militants would lead to nothing less than the destruction of Afghanistan by the US military. He told his aide: 'The guests are going to destroy the guesthouse.' " [more]

"President Hamid Karzai narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar this evening, just three hours after a powerful car bomb exploded on a crowded street in this capital city, killing at least a dozen people and injuring scores more." [more]

"In a country where freedom of the press and freedom of speech have always been fiercely guarded rights, post 9/11, Americans — including many journalists — seemed to defer to the perceived wisdom of government as we barreled into a war with Afghanistan, a country with none of its own citizens in the driver's seat on any of the hijacked planes." [more]

"A group that purports to be a new 'Secret Army of Mujahedeen' is claiming responsibility for attacks on U.S. troops in Arabic-language leaflets that have surfaced in eastern Afghanistan in recent days." [more]

"The supreme court of Afghanistan on Saturday backed a decision by state-run media to ban women from singing on the radio and prevent Indian films from being aired in the capital. " [more]

"With the poppy-planting season only weeks away, the Afghan authorities face a hard task persuading farmers to grow wheat instead." [more]

"The problem: Pakistan was in the way. While Pakistan is a U.S. ally in the war against the Taliban and al-Qaida, the Pakistanis did not want a huge U.S. military presence visible on - or over - Pakistani soil." [more]

"As in the Soviet case, it took a year for the opposition to coalesce, spreading slowly across the country's various factions. The gradual strengthening of the rebel forces was then followed by attacks on the Soviets' Afghan allies, who presented soft targets. This forced the Soviet troops to take charge of security operations themselves, destroying the illusion of partnership with a local regime. The pattern is repeating itself." [more]

"A rocket fired by unidentified attackers landed close to a U.S. special forces base in eastern Afghanistan( news - web sites) early on Monday but caused no casualties, the U.S. military said." [more]

"In the past three days there have been three separate small explosions in the capital." [more]

"How many human rights did the mass killers of 11 September allow their victims? You are either with us or against us. Whose side are you on? But the man in the garden was worried. He was not an American. He was one of the 'coalition allies', as the Americans like to call the patsies who have trotted after them into the Afghan midden." [more]

"The attack on the Kabul army garrison began about 7 a.m. when the guerrillas, armed with AK-47 semiautomatic rifles, rushed the post in the Bagram-i District, about six miles south of the center of the capital, said the local police commander, Col. Haji Rashid." [more]

The Wall Street Journal said a moderate group within the Taleban wanted to get rid of Osama bin Laden and establish relations with the United States. Under their pressure, Mullah Omar made a secret agreement to send the al-Qaida leader to Saudi Arabia to stand trial for treason. Prince Turki bin Faisal, then head of Saudi intelligence, said it was a done deal, soon to be undone by Clinton's 1998 bombings of Afghanistan. [more]

"A former member of a Special Forces unit from one of America's coalition partners supplied his own explanation for the American behaviour when I met him a few days later. 'When we go into a village and see a farmer with a beard, we see an Afghan farmer with a beard,' he said. 'When the Americans go into a village and see a farmer with a beard, they see Osama bin Laden.'" [more]

"A deep rift emerged early on between al-Qaeda and their nominal hosts, the Taleban, who seemed locked in mutual scorn. One top al-Qaeda lieutenant, Morgan al-Gohari, complained that the Afghans 'change their ideas and positions all the time' and 'would do anything for money'." [more]

"The use of the drugs is outlined in a 58-page document seen by The Independent entitled Performance Maintenance During Continuous Flight Operations, produced by the Naval medical research laboratory in Pensacola, Florida. It says: "Combat naps, proper nutrition and caffeine are currently approved and accepted ways ... to prevent and manage fatigue. However, in sustained and continuous operations these methods may be insufficient ..."" [more]

"Hundreds of protesters have staged a fourth day of demonstrations in one of the most restive regions of Afghanistan ó the Khost area of neighbouring Paktia and Nangarhar provinces near the border with Pakistan." [more]

"Officials say they also need clean drinking water, clinics built and stocked with basic medicine, schools and books, plus loans for the small businesses that once filled the bazaar, which was famous for its ceramic goods." [more]

"A UN source said that the report was produced by a team of 'experienced and reputable UN people, who have been in the region a while and know it well'. It states that there was clear evidence that human rights violations had taken place and that coalition forces had arrived on the scene very quickly after the airstrikes and 'cleaned the area', removing evidence of 'shrapnel, bullets and traces of blood'. Women on the scene had their hands tied behind their backs." [more]

"The Special Forces aren't social workers. They are an imperial detachment, advancing American power and interests in Central Asia. Call it peacekeeping or nation-building, call it what you like — imperial policing is what is going on in Mazar. In fact, America's entire war on terror is an exercise in imperialism. This may come as a shock to Americans, who don't like to think of their country as an empire. But what else can you call America's legions of soldiers, spooks and Special Forces straddling the globe?" [more]

"It was the fifth time U.S. forces have been attacked since hostility against them rose sharply after a U.S. air strike July 1 that Afghan officials say killed 25 people at a village wedding party. The wounded soldiers were flown to Bagram. Four of them, wounded early in the attack, had injuries that were not life-threatening. The condition of the fifth, wounded late in the gunfight, was not immediately known." [more]

"Karzai and his allies describe the secret service — once again controlled by Fahim — as a vast, corrupt and highly politicized apparatus that operates outside the president's authority. According to a source close to Karzai, the agency has 30,000 employees and its departments are run by ethnic Tajiks from the Northern Alliance who answer only to Fahim." [more]

"Some Defense Ministry commandos, who have been responsible for the president's security since his arrival in the capital in December, admitted that they were unhappy about the takeover by Americans because it would make the president appear even more in the American pocket. 'Whose president will he be if he is not guarded by Afghan soldiers?' one commando asked." [more]

"Key Afghan commanders are being bribed with British and US money to ensure their loyalty to the new government." [more]

"The western press has made so much of the idea that, as the Taliban left Kabul, the liberated women threw off their blue shrouds. But in Kabul, almost all the young women are still wearing the burka. This is not through force of tradition. There was a custom of wearing the burka among some ethnic groups in Afghanistan, but not among educated women in the cities. I asked 20 or 30 women why they were still wearing it, and all gave the same answer. Fear." [more]

"AIP said four soldiers died and six were wounded in the rocket attack. The vehicle was destroyed. AIP quoted the Afghan army officer as saying the Pashtun heartland of southern Afghanistan — once the stronghold of the vanquished Taliban — was turning against the U.S. and its allies since the wedding bombing." [more]

"Afghanistan's Pashtuns, the country's dominant ethnic group, say they are beginning to lose faith in President Hamid Karzai and to fear that the U.S. military campaign here is working against them." [more]

"A team was scheduled to arrive Friday or Saturday in Uruzgan province to investigate one of the worst such accidents of the campaign ó a July 1 airstrike that Afghans say killed 48 civilians. In continued fallout from that accident, governors of six provinces in Afghanistan said Friday they would require Americans to get their permission before launching military operations in their regions." [more]

"While there have been several reports of civilian casualties ever since the military campaign in Afghanistan began on Oct 7, 2001, the sheer casualty figures in the July 1 attack — the Afghan government estimates 48 people were killed and 117 injured — have raised fears that Washington's precarious battle for minds could tip the wrong way." [more]

"Women and children lay dead and wounded in and around one big house where they had been gathered for an engagement party, torn apart by cannon fire from the American attack plane, an AC-130 gunship. Survivors said they were gathering up the bodies, picking up limbs and body parts from the streets and adjoining orchard, and carrying the wounded to the village mosque, when the soldiers arrived." [more]

"Even though Qadir was far from universally popular among Afghanistan's large Pashtun population, his death will further increase the Pashtun's feeling of alienation from the government, which is dominated by ethnic Tajiks." [more]

"Mr. Karzai had apparently hoped that drawing such a powerful regional leader away from his power base and into the governmental fold in Kabul would strengthen security. Instead his killing could create a dangerous power vacuum in the east." [more]

"U.S. officials have concluded after 10 months of war that the combat mission of U.S. conventional military troops in Afghanistan is largely over and that whatever fighting remains is likely to be carried out by small numbers of Special Forces troops and CIA operatives." [more]

"The U.S. may have won, in the accepted sense of the word, but the enemy hasn't surrendered. Al-Qaeda and Taliban forces have split into smaller and smaller groups, which survive by mixing with civilian populations. That's exactly what a big, heavily armed superpower with a taste for making war from the air doesn't want; it makes the chance of accidents like Kakarak much more likely." [more]

"Anger about the incident grew among ordinary Afghans, a factor which could complicate the task of the U.S. military as it continues its efforts to track down al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives in the country." [more]

"Preliminary reports indicate that heavy cannon fire from a U.S. AC-130 warplane and not an errant 2,000-lb bomb dropped by a U.S. B-52 bomber may have torn into an Afghan wedding party, killing and maiming perhaps dozens of people, defense officials said on Tuesday." [more]

"Saying 'stronger measures' and 'further explanations' were needed to prevent the U.S.-led effort to hunt down al Qaeda and Taliban fugives from killing civilians, Foreign Minister Abdullah said: 'This situation has to come to an end. Mistakes can take place ... but our people should be assured every measure has been taken to avoid such incidents.' " [more]

"Col. Roger King said the Americans had been visiting the hospital where victims of a U.S. air attack Monday were undergoing treatment when their vehicles came under fire about 1.5 miles outside the city. One soldier was shot in the foot and is undergoing treatment at a clinic at the U.S. base at Kandahar airport, King said." [more]

"A Defense Ministry official said celebrants were firing into the air, as is traditional in Pashtun weddings." [more]

"A rocket struck near Kabul's airport on Saturday, a key base of foreign peacekeeping troops, but caused no casualties or damage, an Afghan Interior Ministry official said. General Deen Mohammad Jurat, the ministry security chief, said the Russian-made rocket, called a BM1, landed after dawn on the perimeter of the airport to the northeast of the city." [more]

"Live rockets, missiles and mortars littered the streets of the scruffy Afghan border town of Spin Boldak on Saturday after an arms dump blew up, killing at least 25 people and leaving a trail of destruction." [more]

"The Red Cross has warned Afghan children not to play with unexploded yellow cluster bomblets dropped on Afghanistan by the United States last year that look a little like toys." [more]

" 'Many of these men have been fighting all of their adult life in a particular movement. Their whole life and their whole identity is formed by associating with that movement. Now if we suddenly tell them to forget about their identity and their past life, it is not going to be easy. If you look at all the militia members in Afghanistan, you see that their attitudes, their age and their whole outlook is very dissimilar.' " [more]

"Karzai: We have offered all Afghans, warlords or no warlords, to be part of the nation-building in Afghanistan. And there is an opportunity for them to come and participate, and go down in Afghan history as good people. They also have the choice to go the other way around ó and go into the Afghan history as bad people." [more]

"Sima Samar's opponents, some of them allied with President Hamid Karzai, have even branded her the Afghan Salman Rushdie — raising chilling memories of the death threat that haunted the Indian-born writer for more than a decade." [more]

"By the most generous of readings, the council left many delegates disappointed. While they may have had unrealistic expectations coming in, given the difficulties of having such a large group take a hands-on role in choosing a Cabinet, they appeared to be leaving with a sense of having been cheated of their main job of designing the new government." [more]

"US soldiers took part in the torture of Taleban prisoners and may have had a role in the 'disappearance' of around 3,000 men in Mazar-i-Sharif in north-west Afghanistan, according to a new documentary." [more]

"Karzai is expected to be reconfirmed as Afghan leader at today's national council, where US power has raised ire." [more]

"Afghanistan's tribal assembly will try again on Wednesday to appoint a president after the only declared candidate, interim leader Hamid Karzai, jumped the gun by mistakenly declaring that it had acclaimed him leader. Karzai's claim — which he later acknowledged to have been an error — added to the confusion and tension surrounding a much-heralded solemn meeting that had already been delayed by a day owing to factional bickering." [more]

"After 23 years of war, key Afghan players gather to choose a government. With the world's eyes on Afghanistan, many warlords have found it difficult to control their fiefdoms when a central government is supposed to lead the way to peace." [more]

"Leaders of Afghanistan's ethnic groups are meeting in Kabul to decide who will form the country's government for the next 18 months. How the 'grand council' will work." [more]

"A senior Taliban official said he approached U.S. representatives three years ago for help in replacing the hard-line Islamic leadership but was told Washington was leery of becoming involved in internal Afghan politics, the former official said Sunday." [more]

"Factional wrangling, confusion and fears of violence have cast a shadow over a gathering the United Nations views as a key stage in the country's transition from 23 years of poverty and conflict to a future of peace and stability." [more]

"U.S. military officials believe an attack on the American Embassy in Kabul is being planned for the day after the end of the loya jirga, the Afghan tribal council that is supposed to determine the country's political future later this month." [more]

"A memo by military chief Mohammed Atef raises new questions about whether failed U.S. efforts to reform Afghanistan's radical regime — and build the pipeline — set the stage for Sept. 11." [more]

" 'If they don't want to be found, I don't think we're going to find them. There's a lot of places to hide up there,' Watkins said. 'We [will] just have to get [in] line at double-arm interval and walk across the country if we want to find them.' " [more]

"The US military has admitted shooting dead three of its Afghan allies and wounding two others in a bungled operation in the troubled east Afghan province of Paktia. Special forces opened fire during a night-time raid on a compound after believing themselves in danger, said Lieutenant Frank Merriman, a spokesman for US Central Command." [more]

"The three leaders — Pakistani President Musharraf, interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai and Turkmen President Niyazov — agreed on the construction of a $2bn pipeline to bring gas from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan." [more]

"We can ignore it if we like, and therefore lead to further terrorist attacks, or we can try to understand. The United States has done some very good things in the world, and that does not change the fact that the World Court was quite correct in condemning the United States as an international terrorist state." [more]

" 'We were told there were no friendly forces,' said Guckenheimer, an assistant gunner with the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum. 'If there was anybody there, they were the enemy. We were told specifically that if there were women and children to kill them.' " [more]

"US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld confirmed here on Friday that Pakistan has moved some troops away from its border with Afghanistan to its border with India since the escalation of tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad." [more]

" 'It is certainly not stable, like Washington, D.C., or San Francisco or wherever. But for Afghanistan, it isn't bad,' Rumsfeld said. 'The big areas are reasonably secure. People get killed every once in a while, just like they do in the United States and Europe ... It is a vastly better place than it was.' " [more]

"As U.S. troops searched for the attackers who killed Special Forces Sgt. Gene Vance earlier this week, U.S. officials say enemies are using a new variation on the suicide attack." [more]

"[T]oday Padsha Khan Zadran did what he has done for the last several months: laughed at Hamid Karzai and his interim government in Kabul. 'Mr. Karzai has some problem with his mind,' Mr. Zadran said this afternoon, as a smug grin spread across his leathery face. 'He is nothing. He is a common man.' " [more]

"Afghanistan's remote terrain, a tight-lipped military and the deployment of spin prevent a real assessment of British operations: Charting the progress of British forces in pursuit of al-Qaeda in southern Afghanistan." [more]

"Coalition commanders in Afghanistan were last night fending off allegations that they have launched a major operation involving air power and 1,000 marines after a patrol stumbled into a local tribal firefight." [more]

"U.S. planes pounded the village of Bul Khil of Sabari district in Khost province for several hours overnight after crew flying U.S. helicopters in the area mistook traditional firing at a wedding for an attack." [more]

"Coalition troops have engaged Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in what appears to be a major new battle brewing in southeast Afghanistan." [more]

"Military commanders in Afghanistan have put a virtual news blackout on a coalition operation against suspected Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters in the eastern Paktia province." [more]

"The new Kabul authorities say they've jettisoned Taleban-era press censorship, but some journalists aren't so sure." [more]

"Close to 1,000 nomads representing 12 tribes from provinces in central and south-central Afghanistan have chosen six district representatives for Afghanistan's Loya Jirga, or tribal council, according to the United Nations mission in the country." [more]

"The campaign now fights a scattered, hit-and-run enemy that travels more easily and furtively than its pursuer." [more]

"Karzai warned Tuesday he was prepared to call in US military help to bring Padsha Khan to heel if he failed to respond to the Wednesday ultimatum and that he had already assembled a large government force to attack the ethnic Pashtun strongman based in eastern Paktia province." [more]

"The rockets fell close to Khost airport in an early morning attack, the latest in a string of mostly ineffective rocket attacks in the area targeting U.S. forces. 'I don't know from which direction the rockets came from but their bang definitely woke me up,' one witness said." [more]

"The United States is setting up a joint task force headquarters in Afghanistan, a move that signifies a long-term U.S. commitment to the region, the Pentagon said Tuesday." [more]

"The effort by Nuaimi and his colleagues may be the most potent legal undertaking so far to challenge the government's detention of the 384 captives in Cuba and Hamdi, who is held in the brig at the Norfolk Naval Station." [more]

"The United Statesówhich has the final say in a country it still deems a war zoneóhas steadfastly opposed the deployment of foreign peace-keepers, regardless of nationality, beyond the confines of Kabul. Not only won't we provide the Afghans security; we won't let anyone else do it either." [more]

"Mr Razim said US energy company Unocal was the 'lead company' among those that would build the pipeline, which would bring 30bn cubic meters of Turkmen gas to market annually." [more]

"Most Afghans, I found, feel deep gratitude for America's role in ousting the Taliban and banishing Al Qaeda. But they also worry that Washington is losing interest in their country ... [D]uring my stay I found little evidence that the United States has the necessary will, or skill, to address Afghanistan's profound political and economic problems." [more]

"The releases left 1,500 Afghans and 600 Pakistanis still at Shibergan, which is known for its atrocious conditions. Prisoners who have been released have told of beatings, starvation rations, and cells so tightly packed that the inmates couldn't all lie down at once. The International Red Cross recently started an emergency feeding program because some inmates were on the verge of starvation." [more]

" 'Without new contributions, the World Food Program will have nothing to distribute in June,' said U.N. food agency spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume. 'We have averted one famine. We don't want to go back to that.' " [more]

"Their mission is to hunt relatively small numbers of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters who have dispersed to avoid detection. In some ways, it is more like what the United States Army tried to do in the middle of the Vietnam War than it is like the last seven months in Afghanistan. The operation also carries considerable risks: of suffering American casualties, of mistakenly attacking the wrong people, of being misled by faulty intelligence and of inflaming local hostility to foreigners on Afghan soil." [more]

"United States and British troops came under rocket attack at the Khost airport in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported. The Pakistan-based private news agency quoted residents as saying that three rockets were fired after midnight, with one landing at the airport and two others nearby." [more]

"Al Qaeda was not destroyed in the war. Afghanistan was. Is our country doing anything significant to rebuild the country, nation-building, all those things? Anything that would suggest that when we move on to Iraq it might do some good? Iraq might emerge better? If the model of going into Iraq is Afghanistan, boy, you can understand why people might be very worried." [more]

"The partnerships that Green Berets and other U.S. troops forged with Afghan fighters were key to defeating the Taliban. But it wasn't easy." [more]

"The situation on the ground belies the Bush Administration's claims that it has won the war on terrorism in Afghanistan, averted a famine and liberated women. As the US military struggles to stamp out persistent pockets of now-you-see-them, now-you-don't Al Qaeda and Taliban, death from hunger is common, lawlessness rampant, and little has changed for the vast majority of Afghan women." [more]

"A new campaign against al-Qaeda has allied forces digging in for a long stay. The U.S. believes there are hundredsónot thousandsóof al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters left in Afghanistan. Future missions are likely to involve small bands of soldiers taking on cells of terrorists in a slow, steady war of attrition." [more]

"Factional fighting among rival militia leaders erupted across eastern Afghanistan today for the first time since January, killing and injuring dozens of people and complicating efforts by the U.S.-led military coalition to hunt down residual al Qaeda and Taliban fighters near the Pakistani border." [more]

"Speaking to several hundred heavily armed U.S. and allied troops in an aircraft hanger at Bagram, Rumsfeld said the world was determined to end 'the tyranny of terror.' " [more]

"Remnants of Taliban and al-Qaeda forces on Saturday attacked the main eastern Afghanistan town of Gardez, an Afghan minister said. The attack was staged on the day US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited Kabul and several hours after the Afghan capital's airport was hit by several rockets. There were no casualties in the airport attack." [more]

"Major Bryan Hilferty said the attack occurred yesterday but there were no injuries and it was unclear who fired the rocket. 'One of our forward operating bases came under attack yesterday in eastern Afghanistan. A rocket landed nearby,' he said." [more]

"Robert Young Pelton, author of The World's Most Dangerous Places, says the U.S. military has killed 'thousands and thousands' of people in Afghanistan, al-Qaida is a myth and the WTC was brought down by a 'Mickey Mouse' outfit." [more]

Why War? hosted its first panel discussion on Dec. 3 with Swarthmore Professors Timothy Burke (history), Ray Hopkins (political science) and Donna Jo Napoli (linguistics). Reproduced are Prof. Napoli's comments. [more]

"Squadron Leader Tom Rounds of the RAF said at Bagram airbase, 'Tens of thousands of dollars have been offered as bounty for both an attack on Bagram as well as killings of Westerners. There is a real and very immediate threat to this base at the moment; that is what our intelligence indicates, and we are taking it extremely seriously.' " [more]

"The fragile nature of Afghanistan's peace was evident Saturday, as French peacekeepers were shot at, a plot to assassinate the returned king was uncovered and parents were threatened with death for educating their children." [more]

"General Rosa said he did not believe there had been any contact with Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters since the operation began on late Monday. It is being carried out in Paktia Province, near the Pakistani border, in the area of Gardez and Khost, he said." [more]

"In a clear sign that Mr Karzai's honeymoon is over, EU foreign ministers issued a terse statement yesterday 'insisting' that his government takes urgent action to create a viable currency system and a 'competent macro-economic framework.' " [more]

"On Friday night British peacekeeping forces in western Kabul were attacked by 30 gunmen who opened fire with machine-guns. The British returned fire, drove off their attackers and captured seven of the gunmen, who were handed over to Afghan authorities. Nobody was injured. Six of the detained men turned out to be members of the Afghan police service and the seventh was a serving member of newly-constituted Afghan army. Five were in police uniform and one in combats when captured." [more]

"At least nine people have been killed in heavy fighting in Afghanistan's central Wardak province between two warlords vying for control of the region, according to Afghan Islamic Press reports. The clash, some 45 kilometres (28 miles) west of Kabul, began Friday when Muzaffaruddin, a Northern Alliance commander, launched an attack on local rival Ghulam Rohani Nangiali, AIP said." [more]

"Nearly 100 US Special Forces personnel were killed and about 200 injured and four Apache helicopter gunships were destroyed in the offensive at Paktia province in eastern Afghanistan, Russian online newspaper Strana.ru reported quoting well-informed sources in the Kremlin, the seat of the Russian government here." [more]

"So what is the state of post-Taliban Afghanistan? Is it a human rights triumph where freedoms have been regained, or just a mess? A security nightmare that needs heavy policing, or a state with some non-threatening security issues? One thing is certain: the Bush administration's contradictory statements about Afghanistan over the past two months show that US policy is driven less by concern for democracy and human rights, than by political expediency." [more]

"One of the many activists now based in Pakistan, he said: 'We have some 300 suicide bombers ready to attack the American installations in Afghanistan.' They are confident of mobilising support among the Pashtuns, who they believe would not accept a foreign-propped government in Kabul. 'People are still with us and the Americans are being sucked into a war which they can never win,' he said." [more]

"The 'friendly fire' incident became one of the most publicized in the Afghan war and almost killed the man the Green Berets were assigned to protect: Hamid Karzai, who later that day was named the country's interim prime minister." [more]

"Ministry of Defence officials said yesterday that they remained optimistic that Turkey would take over command but admitted that the mandate was expected to be renewed with the possibility that British troops would remain part of the force until at least the end of the year." [more]

"More than 30 Afghans seized by American troops in a 3 a.m. raid on a village security post said they were kicked and abused at a U.S. Army detention center before being freed four days later." [more]

"The US-led forces will have increasing difficulty in convincing that Afghan people they have been liberated if civilian deaths mount. Yet US commanders concede stepped-up enemy strikes are expected as the snows thaw." [more]

"So what did happen to the al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in Shah-i-Kot? One report claimed that 'the absence ofÖany sign of the enemy, dead or alive, raised suspicions that many fighters had escaped before the offensive had begun [on 1 March]' (32). So those 3250 bombs might have been dropped on largely uninhabited territory that may have been vacated by the enemy two weeks previously? That wouldn't be a first for the Americans, who spent much of January bombing caves in the Zhawar Kili region of southern Afghanistan, even though most al-Qaeda members had left, in an attempt to 'destroy al-Qaeda's infrastructure'." [more]

"The former commander of Nato forces in Europe fears that America, Britain and their allies could become embroiled in an unwinnable guerrilla war in Afghanistan." [more]

"Underlining the new threat posed by new al-Qaeda and Taleban tactics, George Tenet, director of the CIA, also warned the Armed Services Committee: ìYouíre entering into another phase here that actually is more difficult, because youíre probably looking at smaller units who intend to operate against you in a classic insurgency format.î" [more]

"During the visit of Afghan leader Hamid Karzai to Washington this winter, he appealed to the Bush administration to approve a substantial enlargement of the force so it could enforce order across the country. Foreign diplomats and some members of the administration, especially in the State Department, had also pressed for more peacekeepers fearing that resurgent tensions between rival Afghan warlords could undermine Karzai's authority and sabotage efforts to establish a new central government." [more]

"The U.S. military and its allies are planning new attacks on several pockets of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters believed to be hiding in southern and eastern Afghanistan, the U.S. commander of ground operations in the war said today." [more]

"Taliban have announced their willingness to release 18 US troops in exchange for all prisoners detained at Guantánamo island." [more]

"In January, a team from Physicians for Human Rights, which is based in Boston, found an epidemic of dysentery and jaundice, the latter indicative, the group said, of hepatitis A. The group said the conditions at Jowzjan were in "grave violation of international standards for the treatment of prisoners" and called on the United States to ensure that conditions improve." [more]

"As for the American operation, some participants lauded it for effectively encircling the foe, while others said the Taliban had more or less come and gone as they pleased, visiting villagers in nearby towns. As American officials continued to speak about a vast number of well- appointed caves that served as enemy fortresses, General Haider [one of the two main Afghan commanders] called this notion "propaganda" and said he knew of only five or six caverns, none very big." [more]

ìThey were not trained for the kind of fighting we do in the mountains and, in these conditions, their kind of fighting is useless,î Commander Allah Mohammed said. ìThey were weakening our morale, it was better for them to go.î [more]

"Ultimately Operation Anaconda will not finish off al Qaeda or even the Taliban fighters. Instead it signals the beginning of a protracted guerrilla war that will allow Afghanistan to continue to serve as sanctuary for al Qaeda. A guerrilla war ó against which the United States has found only one effective answer, overwhelming air power ó also could affect Washington's timeline for fighting terrorism in other parts of the world." [more]

"Army Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, disputed the notion that the fight in rugged terrain south of Gardez, which began March 2, was subsiding. He said that it was evolving and that troops were being repositioned within the battlefield or on its perimeter. In some cases, he said, fresh troops were rotating in." [more]

"The United States pulled 400 frontline troops out of the mountain assault on al Qaeda fighters Sunday, turning the battle over mainly to B-52 bombers and a divided Afghan force." [more]

"Wounded Americans lie side by side with Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters at this old Soviet airfield." [more]

"Afghan allies never arrived and [US] troops became the pointed end of the spear engaging adversaries in the first 18 hours of combat." [more]

"Mr. Aslam described the transaction: the boys' father had offered to give up his sons so long as they were kept well fed. 'But I know about human rights,' said the restaurant owner. 'I knew I was obligated to pay him something.'
The compensation settled upon was 400,000 Afghanis per month ó about $5 at the time of the deal. 'After two years, I stop paying and the boys are mine forever,' Mr. Aslam said happily, presenting the situation as something as benevolent as an adoption.
He asked the youngsters to sit at his side. He requested a smile. They complied." [more]

"As the fierce battle persisted for a sixth day, the Defense Ministry in Kabul announced the infusion of soldiers, in effect doubling Afghanistan's commitment to the campaign. Near dusk, a caravan of tanks and armored personnel carriers rumbled down the main road south of the capital toward Paktia Province and the high-elevation combat." [more]

"Additional Afghan fighters were called in after U.S. commanders realized they had significantly underestimated the size and firepower of the al Qaeda fighting force holed up in the Arma mountain range at Shahikot." [more]

"After five months during which some of the Bush administration's most willing international partners griped about being left on the sidelines of the Afghan war, at least seven U.S. allies are contributing troops to this week's U.S. offensive in eastern Afghanistan, elevating their profile in a war managed by the Pentagon." [more]

"Afghanistan always surprises, old hands say. But historically the pattern of victories followed by hard campaigning has actually been the norm. Just as in Vietnam, the Americans should have looked at history but on the whole did not, so they — and other countries — should consult the same lesson book in Afghanistan. [more]

"The Pashtuns of northern Afghanistan are fleeing their villages by the thousands now, telling tales of murder and rape and robbery, and leaving behind empty towns and grazing grounds just beginning to shimmer with the first grass of spring." [more]

"U.S.-led attacks on al Qaeda forces in eastern Afghanistan caused numerous casualties Thursday night, a U.S. military spokesman said on Friday." [more]

"Army Maj. Gen. Richard Cody says his troops were involved in 'a short knife fight. They got right in there and took it to them.' " [more]

"Some had talked of wrapping up the operation in eastern Afghanistan in little more than 24 hours. But with the desperate battle for Shah-i-Kot this morning entering its sixth bloody day, two things have become increasingly clear: that the US has been surprised by the strength and tenacity of the Taliban and al-Qa'ida forces, and that those forces intend to battle to the end." [more]

"An explosion at an ammunition depot near the Kandahar air base killed three U.S.-allied Afghan fighters Thursday, and the top Canadian officer here said one of the men may have inadvertently tripped a booby trap." [more]

" 'We'll put what is needed to do the job' in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said at a regular news briefing. The current American military strength there is 5,200 to 5,300 troops, said Gen. Tommy R. Franks, who runs the day-to-day operations in Afghanistan as head of the United States Central Command." [more]

"The ground war [in Afghanistan] is taking U.S. forces into rocky terrain and thin air, the sort of conditions that felled the Soviets." [more]

"After the first three weeks the men were given four days' intensive weapons training. Each man was offered lessons in one weapon: Kalashnikov assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades or machine guns. Following the weapons training they began a four-day exercise to prepare for the attack on Shah-e-Kot. On the fifth day, Saturday, the attack began." [more]

"It seems likely that the American victory will not come easily and that the bitter mountain battle will not mark the end of the war." [more]

"For all the Pentagon's efforts to present the loss of the lives of at least nine US servicemen in a weekend as a small hiccup on the road to certain victory, the episode has come as a rude awakening to America." [more]

"Thirty US military personnel have been killed in the US-led campaign in Afghanistan, nine of them from hostile fire and the remainder in air crashes and other accidents, according to US defense officials." [more]

"Retreating quickly from Zurmat by convoy, the journalists were first pursued by gunmen and then approached on the road by a man who appeared to throw a grenade at one of the vehicles. An explosion seriously wounded a Canadian journalist, who was later evacuated from a U.S. military outpost.
" 'We've had a lot of casualties,' one U.S. soldier said at the base, where the American troops appeared particularly on edge tonight. 'It's not safe here,' another said." [more]

"During the December battle at Tora Bora, the American military relied heavily on the combination of its Afghan allies and small teams of Special Operations forces to prevent its foe from escaping. The strategy avoided American casualties but hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters, possibly including Osama bin Laden, got away. "In contrast, the new American-led offensive south of Gardez is markedly different. In the two days of combat, Afghan forces are carrying out most of the fighting on the ground. But in addition to the Afghan and Special Operations forces, hundreds of regular Army troops have also been sent into the fray." [more]

"Backed by American bombing, hundreds of U.S. ground troops and their Afghan allies battled al Qaeda fighters in the rugged mountains near here today, Pentagon officials said. Afghan leaders and soldiers said the offensive suffered a setback on Saturday when an opening ground assault was stalled by heavy resistance." [more]

"The offensive is a fresh reminder that the US's military role in Afghanistan is not over yet. It raises new concerns about the fragility of Afghanistan's peace. And it underlines the continued need for concerted US attention to prevent a country ravaged by 20 years of bloodshed from falling back into the sort of chaos that turned it into a terrorist haven." [more]

"In mounting a major military offensive near Gardez, the Pentagon's aim is to wipe out the last major pocket of Al Qaeda resistance in Afghanistan. One of the most important battles of the war, it seems, did not begin until most Americans concluded that the war was essentially over." [more]

"U.S. bombers blasted the cavernous mountains of eastern Afghanistan for a third day Sunday, pressing a new offensive against al-Qaida and Taliban fighters believed to be regrouping there. One American and three U.S.-allied Afghans were killed Saturday in the opening day of a ground offensive that accompanied the air campaign, the Pentagon said. An Afghan doctor at the Gardez hospital said at least six Americans were injured." [more]

Renewed fighting and bombing campaigns are focused on the mountains southeast of Zormat. A graphic by The New York Times. [more]

"Peace in Afghanistan may be far more daunting than war. Nursing a country back to health is a lot more difficult than launching airstrikes." [more]

U.S. warplanes and Afghan fighters backed by U.S. Special Forces launched a major attack Saturday on Taliban and al-Qaida forces regrouping in eastern Afghanistan. Defenders fought back with heavy weapons, and the Pentagon said one American was killed and others were injured. [more]

"The seven, all prominent residents of the Pashat area of eastern Kunar province, traveled to Jalalabad last week and met with commission members to discuss strategy in convening the assembly, now scheduled for June. They were shot and killed by unknown gunmen late Friday in the Kunar provincial capital of Asadabad, near the Pakistani border, at the home of someone they were staying with, said Aziz Ullah Salik, the nephew of one of the victims. " [more]

"Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters are regrouping in the mountains of eastern Paktia province and just over the border in Pakistan, urging the faithful to wage holy war against U.S. forces, Afghan officials say." [more]

"America needs more than just a military legacy in the Islamic world. The United States should not end its involvement short of reconstruction; any partial solution would pose a serious threat to the Karzai government. If it or its successor falls, even the American military success story will be in doubt." [more]

Karzai, who arrived in Tehran on Sunday for a three-day visit to Iran, told a press conference here that "Iran has never interfered in the internal affairs of Afghanistan and has always shown goodwill toward Afghanistan and its people." [more]

"The leader of Afghanistan's interim government, Hamid Karzai, visited Tehran today and appealed to Iran and the United States to put aside their differences and help build his war-ravaged country." [more]

"Hamid Karzai, 44, unelected chairman of Afghanistan's fractious interim government, seems like a man in control, but two months into his tenure he is governing largely by illusion." [more]

"The man accused of masterminding the abduction of US journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan has refused to confess to the crime in a Karachi court. In his latest appearance, he complained to the judge that he was being pressed to sign a confession. " 'Police have been trying to force us to sign blank papers,' Sheikh Omar said." [more]

"Hours before the appearance of British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who already has spent time in an Indian jail for a 1994 kidnapping, troops were already in place around the court in central Karachi where Pearl's kidnap occurred." [more]

Karzaiís government has ruled the country for only two months only, but it is being torn apart with internal contradictions. These contradictions . . . may become the reason for an internal war in Afghanistan. [more]

"America has reached 'just the beginning' of the war in Afghanistan, the Pentagon's senior soldier said yesterday." [more]

"A senior member of Afghanistan's defeated Taliban derided the interim government Monday for failing to stem rising lawlessness and said the people would soon demand the return of his hard-line movement." [more]

Afghans accused British paratroopers yesterday of shooting dead a civilian in Kabul as he took his pregnant sister-in-law to hospital. [more]

"Four Afghan fighters and an aid worker were killed in weekend clashes in northern Afghanistan between rival factions within the shattered country's interim government, officials said on Monday. The fighting, in which about 30 people were wounded, cast fresh doubt on the ability of the new Afghan government to hold together its loose coalition of old enemies and ensure security in the country." [more]

"The brutal death of Afghanistan's new aviation minister - apparently lynched by a crowd of angry pilgrims at Kabul airport — took a bizarre twist yesterday after it was revealed he may have been the victim of an elaborate assasination plot." [more]

"The world got a chilling demonstration Thursday of why Afghanistan urgently needs an expanded international peacekeeping force. The country's aviation minister, Abdul Rahman, was beaten to death at the Kabul airport, allegedly by rivals within the government." [more]

"Taliban officials dramatically inflated the number of people living in Afghanistan's largest camp for displaced people, according to a new survey by [UN] relief officials." [more]

"Mullah Abdulsamata Khaksar has been waiting months for the CIA to talk to him. The former deputy Interior Minister of the Taliban says he has a lot of information to give up, perhaps even some that will lead to Mullah Omar, the fugitive leader of Afghanistan's fallen regime and chief ally of Osama bin Laden. But, until Time alerted U.S. military officials in Kabul in late January of his willingness to talk, no American officials had debriefed Khaksar." [more]

"Afghanistan's volatile post-Taliban politics took a grim turn today when Hamid Karzai, chairman of the interim government, said the killing Thursday of one of his ministers was carried out by other senior government officials, including the intelligence chief." [more]

"The startling accusation about Thursday night's fatal attack on Abdul Rahman, the air transport and tourism minister, at Kabul International Airport cast serious doubt on the stability and unity of Hamid Karzai's national government. Installed seven weeks ago, the new administration is a fragile coalition made up mostly of backers of the former king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, and leaders of the Northern Alliance, an amalgam of groups from northern Afghanistan whose troops helped oust the Taliban in November." [more]

"The American media may still debate which prisoners captured in Afghanistan qualify for 'prisoner of war' status, but there is now little doubt left that these prisoners and their families have been ill-treated by the US troops. At least three leading American newspapers have recently broken stories of excesses by the US troops rounding up suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban men in Afghanistan, before flying them off to the US base in Cuba." [more]

"Afghanistan has an interim government, but no legitimate internal source of revenue and no defense budget. The only significant domestic source of income in Afghanistan is the production and trafficking of heroin. The Northern Alliance army that liberated Kabul last November was raised with and is still financed by narcodollars." [more]

"Heavy gunfire and explosions were heard in the half hour exchange, which included intense firing over a five minute period." [more]

"Afghans captured by American forces in two raids in Oruzgan in Afghanistan last month have said that they were beaten and abused by American soldiers, despite their protests that they were supporters of Interim leader Hamid Karzai." [more]

"U.S. commanders acknowledged last week that they mistakenly took 27 prisoners in the raid, believing they were al-Qaeda and Taliban warriors ... Several contended in reports in The New York Times and The Washington Post that they were beaten and kept in a cage with wooden bars during their detention in Kandahar." [more]

"A Washington Post reporter who reached the remote scene of the attack was held at gunpoint by U.S. soldiers and prevented from entering the site. The soldiers also barred access to the nearby village where Ahmad and the two other [alleged civilian casualties] had lived." [more]

"An Afghan warlord who led the worst factional fighting since the fall of the Taliban vowed Sunday to fight rather than step down as governor of an eastern province." [more]

"The Karzai administration has called for the disarming of groups like Hotak's men, but he says he cannot lay down his weapons until he is confident the central government can provide security. 'We respect this new government,' he said. 'But I am the one who must protect my people against bandits and other threats.'Ý" [more]

"Ý'Tell me why our homes were destroyed and 55 people ó even little children ó are dead?' asked an angry young man named Gul Nabi, standing in December among the 15 obliterated houses of a village named Madoo. 'There were no Arabs here," he said, referring to Al Qaeda fighters. 'There were only farmers who lived a good life and prayed to Allah for peace.'Ý" [more]

President Pervez Musharraf criticized President Bush's remarks about declaring Iran and Iraq as axis of evil. "The extensive US military presence here should end as soon as events in Afghanistan permit," he said. [more]

"Around 270 Taliban prisoners were released in a ceremony at the presidential palace on Saturday night under the watch of interim leader Hamid Karzai. The ragged prisoners from all over Afghanistan were delivered by bus to the palace grounds and then allowed to walk free." [more]

"The combined effects of 23 years of war and the last three years of drought have left many people entirely destitute. The team heard how girls as young as ten are being offered for marriage in exchange for bags of flour in a desperate struggle for survival in parts of Herat and Farah provinces in western Afghanistan." [more]

Human Rights Watch, a privately funded human-rights advocacy group, plans to send a team of researchers to Afghanistan next month to try to estimate the number of civilians killed during the course of the campaign. Amnesty International may do the same after trying unsuccessfully to get the Pentagon to disclose details about a number of bombings that reportedly killed civilians. [more]

"President Bush reversed himself yesterday and declared that captured combatants who fought for Afghanistan's Taliban regime will be formally covered by the Geneva Conventions. But the president refused to confer that status on detainees who are members of the al Qaeda terrorist network." [more]

"Two rival factions, wrangling for control of the city, had each mobilised about 1,000 men and were marching on Mazar-e-Sharif. But, following UN intervention, the sides agreed to establish a security commission, and set up a 600-strong multi-factional police force." [more]

"The U.S. military has conceded that a major raid in Afghanistan was a mistake. American soldiers believed they were attacking an al Qaeda hideout in a remote village last month, but residents claim the American soldiers killed at least 18 people who were loyal to the new government. Inskeep ... discovered that the families of the dead have received compensation from the United States — paid in American $100 bills." [more]

"The fighting has fuelled fears that Afghanistan could descend into factional chaos following the collapse of the Taliban regime last year despite the creation of Karzai's UN-backed interim government in December." [more]

"Afghanistan's interim leader Hamid Karzai is starting a visit to the United States amid growing controversy over the continuing American-led military campaign. Villagers in eastern Afghanistan have been protesting at the US bombing, which they say is killing not Taleban fighters, but ordinary civilians. They want Mr Karzai to call for the raids to stop while he is in Washington." [more]

"Interestingly, while Walker is being provided a trial in the United States, hundreds of his comrades in arms have been denied any such 'luxury'. Many across the world should have been relieved to see Walker enter the courtroom without handcuffs or fetters. No one, however, seems to be concerned about the fate of hundreds of al Qaeda and Taliban captives being kept in Cuba precisely so they cannot approach a court of law." [more]

"Afghans have challenged U.S. accounts of a firefight, claiming U.S. Special Forces soldiers killed the wrong people ó sleeping in a school ó during a raid in which the Pentagon said a Taliban weapons cache was destroyed and about 15 people killed." [more]

"The old woman rose up out of the dust, her black chador unwinding behind her, like an apparition in slow motion, and moved towards the road. 'Food,' she wailed. 'We need food. Give us food.'Ý" [more]

"America, which unavoidably played a role in .Ý.Ý.Ýdestruction, now has the duty to help rebuild. As we learned after World War II ó a test we failed after World War I ó destroying the enemy is not enough. To assure we are not drawn back into future conflict, destruction must be followed by reconstruction and rehabilitation." [more]

"Standing with his soldiers on the second floor of Mirvais Hospital here, Nazer Jan said at least some of the six men believed to be Al Qaeda fighters trapped on the other side of a sealed doorway at the end of the corridor were still alive, despite attempts to starve them out." [more]

"The U.S. bombs that blasted this clump of mud-brick homes a few hours before dawn on Dec. 29, killing dozens of civilians, were aimed at Taliban and al Qaeda leaders who survivors deny were ever here, and an arms cache they say they never saw. What remains in view is the tattered evidence of a little world blown apart." [more]

"US President George W Bush has warned Iran not to destabilise Afghanistan.
He also said Washington expected Tehran to hand over any members of Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network who might have fled across the border from Afghanistan. His blunt comments reflect US concerns that Iran is trying to challenge the authority of the interim government in Afghanistan, and may be giving safe haven to al-Qaeda leaders fleeing US and allied military troops there." [more]

"Seven high-ranking officials of the vanquished Taliban government, including the justice minister who played a leading role in the Taliban's repressive laws and the destruction of the Buddha statues at Bamian, surrendered to a provincial leader and were allowed to go free on Monday, a spokesman for Afghanistan's new government said today." [more]

"America's goals in Central Asia were easily explained as Kabul and Kandahar fell, when daily Pentagon videos showed bombs homing in on caves in Tora Bora and when there was a reasonable prospect that Osama bin Laden, Mullah Muhammad Omar and their top aides would soon fall into American hands. But that was last month . . . While the president insists that his goals are unchanged — a broad war against all terrorists with a global reach — events have forced a more diffuse, complex strategy." [more]

"The United States and its opponents are preparing for a new phase of combat in Afghanistan, with information suggesting that after March a renewed anti-US struggle is likely to begin in the country. The movement will not be led by Al-Qaeda or the Taliban, but will be a combination of various Afghan factions inside and outside of Afghanistan, and even including some elements of the Northern Alliance. And informed sources have revealed to Asia Times Online that this new movement wants to solicit the either direct or indirect support of Iran, which has serious reservations over the US presence in the region." [more]

"After Arab mass-murderers crashed four hijacked aircraft into the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania, a crime against humanity which cost more than 4,000 innocent lives, President Bush announced a crusade for infinite "justice" — later downgraded to infinite freedom — and bombed Afghanistan. Using the gunmen and murderers of the discredited Northern Alliance to destroy the gunmen and murderers of the discredited Taliban, the Americans bombed bin Laden's cave fortresses and killed hundreds of Afghan and Arab fighters, not including the prisoners executed after the Anglo-US-Northern Alliance suppression of the Mazar prison revolt." [more]

"Pentagon officials sought today to deflate any lingering optimism that Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammad Omar might be captured soon and said they would stop speculating about their whereabouts." [more]

"America [has] harnessed, even cultivated, terrorism in the struggle against movements it saw as Soviet proxies. Yes, I do mean 'terrorism,' which Washington supports when it backs groups for whom the preferred method of operation is destroying the infrastructure of civilian life." [more]

"The Berlin Wall fell not because capitalism triumphed but because communism failed. I am not sure the United States realizes this. We may tell ourselves that capitalism is the only game in town, yet in 80 percent of the world, capitalism is not yet a reality." [more]

"Today it may appear, from titles alone, that Hamid Karzai is the leader of Afghanistan. Actually, he is a figurehead, chosen at the behest of United States officials. Afghan delegates at the conference in Bonn that selected the government have told reporters they voted for Karzai only because American officials instructed them to. Karzai's largest following is in Washington, not Afghanistan." [more]

"After nearly a week of scouring the area near Baghran where Mullah Omar was believed to be hiding, a team of American Special Forces and anti-Taliban Afghan troops left the region today, said officials in charge of Helmand Province, where Baghran is located.
" 'He's escaped,' said Pier Muhammad, the deputy governor of Helmand in an interview here in the provincial capital. 'No one knows where he is. People are saying he is in Baghran. But he is not in Baghran.' " [more]

"Now the Taliban are gone, and the city and the surrounding Nangarhar Province is run once again by warlords and guerrillas, whose enterprising rackets have almost instantly turned the place into Afghanistan's version of Shakedown Street, the land where almost everything is corrupt." [more]

"The Pentagon is trying to persuade remaining al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan to surrender by distributing leaflets that contain a doctored image of Osama bin Laden in Western-style dress." [more]

"The United Nations said it had an unconfirmed but reliable report that the airstrike on the village of Niazi Kala, in Paktia province about 100 miles south of Kabul, had left 52 civilians dead. A spokeswoman in Kabul said that U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi was 'very concerned' and would raise the issue with Afghanistan's interim government and with U.S. officials." [more]

"Relief officials said that several days ago six trucks loaded with rice arrived from Pakistan, enough food to feed everyone now requesting assistance. But the Eastern Shura seized four of the trucks to feed its armies or the relatives of soldiers who died in the war. The seizures left little rice for the refugees." [more]

"US forces were reported to have killed 106 Afghan civilians when they dropped bombs on the village of Qalaye Naizi, in eastern Afghanistan. Military authorities denied having mistakenly bombed a village, and said the warplanes had targeted a compound used by al-Qaeda." [more]

"The Pentagon has ordered soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division to relieve the Marine Corps in southern Afghanistan, paving the way for a long- term American military presence in the country, military officials said today." [more]

"Nearly two months after the Taliban were routed from Mazar-e-Sharif, fighting still flares in villages around the northern city as warlords sort out the complex web of Afghan rivalries. Skirmishes are reported several times a week in the region around Mazar-e-Sharif as militias controlled by northern warlords battle one another and even among themselves." [more]

"Afghan villagers said Monday an American air strike killed more than 100 civilians as U.S. forces combed rugged mountain terrain for fugitive Osama bin Laden. A Reuters cameraman in the stricken village in eastern Paktia province said he could see huge craters blasted by bombs. Amid the destruction were scraps of flesh, pools of blood and clumps of what appeared to be human hair." [more]

"New York and Afghanistan, paired worlds of rubble, work and grief. To travel from one to the other ó 12 days at ground zero; three months in Central Asia and Afghanistan ó was to wander a succession of stages populated by distinct and overburdened tribes.
From afar, the escalating events, filtered through radio, television and newspapers, achieved a sort of context, with analysis and interpretation from many points of view. Up close, context usually fell away. The devastation in New York and Afghanistan, and the war that joined them, became a blur of people and impressions. No single scene can capture it, at least not according to the notebooks, or the memories tumbling out." [more]

"Osama bin Laden has called on his followers to 'concentrate on hitting the US economy with every available means' in a videotape aired by Qatar's Al-Jazeera television." [more]

"As warlords have carved out chunks of Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, the lawlessness that gave rise to the strict Islamic movement in the mid-1990's has begun to spread, once again, across this country. The United States–led military campaign that began on Oct. 7 has succeeded in eradicating most of the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan, but it has returned to power nearly all of the same warlords who had misruled the country in the days before the Taliban." [more]

"A tribal leader in eastern Afghanistan threatened on Sunday to launch a war against Afghan Interim Setup Chairman Hamid Karzai if US jets launched another attack on his area, Afghan Islamic Press reported." [more]

"U.S. warplanes on Friday attacked a convoy that the Pentagon said was carrying Taliban or al-Qaida leaders in Afghanistan. But an Afghan official said the trucks were bringing tribal leaders loyal to the new government to the capital. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said many were killed in the strike. The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency reported 65 dead." [more]

"An estimated 7,000 members of the Taleban and the al-Qaeda terror network are being held in Afghanistan, a spokesman for the US-led coalition has said. It is the first time that the number of detainees has been announced since the beginning of the military campaign that toppled the Taleban regime." [more]

There is strong continuing support for the Taleban among ordinary people in Pakistan, according to a BBC World Service opinion poll .Ý.Ý. Forty-six per cent of the men and 40% of the women questioned supported the Taleban." [more]

"A grenade explosion that injured 159 people in a crowded marketplace was an accident, not an act of terrorism, police said Friday in this northern Afghan city." [more]

"The United States will recognize the new interim government of Afghanistan once it is sworn in at the weekend, U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan James Dobbins said Friday." [more]

"American troops will be sent into Afghanistan's abandoned al-Qaida cave complex to press the search for Osama bin Laden, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said Friday.
"He declined to say how many." [more]

"Osama bin Laden speaks fondly of several Sept. 11 hijackers on the videotape released by the U.S. military, asking Allah to 'accept their action,' according to a more thorough translation of the tape by a government-hired Arabic expert. The new analysis of the videotape released last week revealed 'a whole bunch of names,' translator George Michael said in an interview with The Associated Press." [more]

"The battle of Tora Bora is over. Northern Alliance mujahideen say they chased the mostly Arab Al-Qaeda fighters over the mountains into Pakistan. But slowed down by the snow, they gave up the chase. When the mujahideen returned, they killed any stray Arabs they found. 'I saw about 25 bodies later,' says an Alliance fighter.
The mujahideen say Tora Bora was their victory. They laugh at the role of the US Special Forces. 'At best they provided support and at worst did nothing,' the Afghans say." [more]

"An explosion ripped through the central market in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif on Thursday, injuring 100 people, six of them seriously, according to hospital officials and witnesses. One of the wounded said he had seen a 32-piece fragmentation grenade rolled into the moneychangers' section of the bazaar just before the late afternoon blast. There was no known suspect in the attack." [more]

"Several dozen Arab fighters captured by Pakistani forces after fleeing across the border from Afghanistan overpowered their guards today and set off a gun battle in which 13 people were killed and some of the Arabs escaped, Pakistani authorities said." [more]

"The demise of the Taliban freed Afghanistan from five years of severely restrictive social regulation. But a deeply conservative version of sharia, or Islamic law, still guides the legal system during a time when some women are testing the new boundaries of society.
"There appears to be no revision of the basic social restrictions for women despite appeals from Western rights groups for the rules to be relaxed."
[more]

"U.S. and Afghan forces destroyed the last bastion of the al Qaeda organization in Afghanistan on Sunday but did not find Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born militant who stands accused of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States." [more]

"Uzbek leaders want to keep traffic down to make it easier to keep out militant Muslims, drug runners and refugees. However, Uzbek businesses and port officials on both sides are pushing to open things up to attract shippers and investment." [more]

"In an apparent change of tactics, Pentagon officials said teams of soldiers and CIA officers in the area had been ordered to try to capture bin Laden and his lieutenants, rather than kill them. The Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, confirmed that the US wanted to detain and interrogate the al-Qaeda leadership to strengthen its hand in breaking up the movement's global terrorist network." [more]

"Gangs of Northern Alliance soldiers have unleashed a crimewave of looting and killing in Kabul which is awakening nostalgia for the Taliban. Lawlessness is creeping into daily life, after six years of Taliban order, in the form of robberies, extortion and murder aimed at the few Kabul residents with visible wealth." [more]

"Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States has lauded the region as a stable oil supplier, in a tacit comparison with the Persian Gulf states that have been viewed lately as less cooperative. The State Department is exploring the potential for post-Taliban energy projects in the region, which has more than 6 percent of the world's proven oil reserves and almost 40 percent of its gas reserves." [more]

As air strikes continue on the Tora Bora caves, some Afghan leaders say the U.S. resisted a surrender because the terms would have allowed bin Laden and others to give themselves up to the United Nations. [more]

"What causes the documented high level of civilian casualties—3,767 civilian deaths in eight and a half weeks—in the U.S. air war upon Afghanistan? The explanation is the apparent willingness of U.S. military strategists to fire missiles into and drop bombs upon, heavily populated areas of Afghanistan." [more]

The United States continued to bomb the Tora Bora caves Wednesday after surrender talks with the Taliban led nowhere. [more]

Bin Laden escaped the embattled Tora Bora base to Pakistan 10 days ago with the help of tribesmen from the Ghilzi tribe, according to a firsthand account Wednesday by a senior Al Qaeda operative and Saudi financier. Abu Jaffar, who spoke from an Afghan village still sympathetic to Mr. bin Laden and his fighters, says that several days later, bin Laden sent his 19-year-old, married son Salah Uddin back to act on his behalf. He is now the only bin Laden family member inside the Tora Bora terror base." [more]

"Stability is reported to be returning to Kandahar but aid agencies remain concerned about the humanitarian situation in the southern Afghan city which fell to anti-Taleban forces last week. International relief organisations say they are still unable to reach much of the area. There have been no food or medical convoys into Kandahar for more than three weeks." [more]

"Dozens of Taliban prisoners died after surrendering to Northern Alliance forces, asphyxiated in the shipping containers used to transport them to prison, witnesses say.
Faced with transporting thousands of potentially dangerous prisoners even while a prisoner uprising in the Qala Jangi fort near Mazar-i-Sharif was under way, the Northern Alliance packed many of the detained into the sealed shipping containers for the journey from Kunduz." [more]

"The only foreigners not sweeping into Kabul so far are those from the U.S. government. Diplomats from other key countries are in town to set up embassies, but American diplomats are conspicuously absent.
The tardiness of the American diplomats is one of several signs that Washington risks repeating its mistake of a decade ago, when it won the war against the Soviet invaders of Afghanistan and then betrayed the Afghans by walking away from them. Americans point fingers at other countries for allowing Afghanistan to become a terrorist haven, but it was Americans who abandoned the Afghans to the feuding factions whom they had armed and whose fundamentalist Islamic passions they had ignited." [more]

"A few privileged Afghan women have been caught smiling for AP cameras, but many Afghan women, men and children are silently dying behind the burqa of U.S. deceit.
The facts are simple. Massive food distribution programs put in place prior to 9-11 in response to widespread famine were derailed by the anticipation of and then the actual U.S. bombing campaign, and have been even further set back by the Taliban's retreat. According to the New York Times (11/30/01), 'In the past two weeks, the tonnage [of aid] delivered dropped to a pace less than half of what it had been in the previous two weeks.' The problem is that the 'towns and cities are so chaotic that relief agencies cannot safely operate. Many roads are off limits because of lawlessness and banditry.' " [more]

The main points of the new agreement include an interim ruling authority, in place for six months; a supreme court; a national assembly, which will elect a new government; and a multinational governing security force. [more]

Babies and infants stranded in northern Afghanistan are dying as temperatures in the war-ravaged country continue to plummet, the UK charity Save the Children has warned. [more]

"As the net tightened around the Taliban leadership yesterday, questions were being asked about whether the bloody end to this week's prison siege at the 19th-century Qala-i-Jhangi fort outside the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif will be the defining moment of the Afghan war. Pictures of aid workers picking their way through the corpses of Taliban prisoners killed by a combination of Northern Alliance fighters and American bombings, have caused revulsion around the world. At least 175 prisoners were killed; that is the number of bodies recovered so far by the Red Cross." [more]

"In a revealing reversal of fortunes, food deliveries have actually dropped since the Northern Alliance took Mazar-i-Sharif, the crossroads city that could become the hub for supplies across the northern half of Afghanistan. In the past two weeks, the tonnage delivered dropped to a pace less than half of what it had been in the previous two weeks." [more]

"Even as the CIA saluted its slain colleague, the first American fatality in Afghanistan, 'American hero' Johnny ëMikeí Spann, who died in the prison revolt, British journalists in Mazar-i-Sharif have begun reporting that Spann was less an innocent victim than the one who allegedly provoked the riot." [more]

"A planned womenís freedom march through the streets of Kabul on Tuesday was banned on the orders of Northern Alliance interior minister Younis Qanooni, organiser Soraya Parlika said." [more]

"Dozens of captives loyal to Osama bin Laden [are] said to be fighting to the death.
Hundreds of the prisoners had been killed a day earlier in fighting and U.S. airstrikes after they pulled weapons from their tunics and attacked their outnumbered guards, according to the Pentagon and the northern alliance.
Two witnesses and an alliance commander claimed at least one American soldier had been killed ... [and] five U.S. troops were injured by an errant American bomb that landed near the prison compound." [more]

Northern Alliance officials believed Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden were in the south of Afghanistan near Kandahar. [more]

At least half Kunduz, the Taliban's last major city in northern Afghanistan, is now under control of the Northern Alliance. Taliban prisoners who had surrendered Saturday in Mazar-e-Sharif rioted, and Alliance troops and U.S. airstrikes quelled the rebellion by killing at least 300 soldiers. [more]

"The International Committee of the Red Cross says it has recovered up to 600 bodies in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif. The organisation could not specify whether the victims had died in the fighting or had been summarily executed after the Northern Alliance captured the town from the Taleban two weeks ago." [more]

In the same region where four journalists were killed Monday, safety and order has all but dissolved. "Armed warlords operating in the hills of eastern Afghanistan have begun ambushing and looting cars and buses as large areas of the country slide back into anarchy." [more]

"U.N. hopes for speedy action to install a broad-based government in Afghanistan have stalled because the victorious northern alliance doesn't appear to be in any hurry to share power." [more]

The author has "a sense of utter hopelessness for a nation that seems to be a perennial victim of horror" after witnessing human rights abuses by both the Taliban and the Northern Alliance [more]

"An early-morning U.S. raid on Kabul's northern outskirts Sunday killed at least 13 civilians, including eight members of one family, witnesses said, a day after another apparent stray U.S. air strike hit two villages in territory occupied by the main opposition coalition, the Northern Alliance." [more]

"Stung by the stubborn resilience of the Taliban, senior American and British officials are bracing themselves for a military campaign in Afghanistan that promises to be more prolonged and difficult than they had hoped as recently as early October." [more]

"This is an administration that will let its special interests ¡ª particularly its high-rolling campaign contributors and its noisiest theocrats of the right ¡ª have veto power over public safety, public health and economic prudence in war, it turns out, no less than in peacetime." [more]

"He said the Islamic militia appreciated aid workers were helping the country's impoverished people and said anyone legally entering the country would be safe." [more]