Photo: A coffin, above, with one of the laborers killed late Monday by an airstrike that hit the camp of a construction company that had been contracted by the U.S. Rafiq Shirzad/Reuters

Security Incidents on November 29, 2007

The school principal, Fazel Mir, was shot to death Wednesday morning in Khost province, said Wazir Pacha, spokesman for the provincial police.

In Ghazni province, meanwhile, Taliban insurgents ambushed police Wednesday in Khogyani district, and the ensuing clash killed one policeman and four suspected militants, said deputy provincial police chief Mohammad Zaman.

Also Wednesday, militants in Paktia province attacked trucks carrying supplies for foreign troops, killing one driver, said Din Mohammad Darwesh, spokesman for the provincial governor.

In neighboring Paktika province, a roadside bomb hit Afghan troops on Wednesday, leaving one soldier dead and three wounded, Darwesh said.

Afghan and foreign troops fought against Taliban militants and called in airstrikes in southern Afghanistan, leaving 30 fighters dead, an Afghan police chief said Thursday. The joint forces attacked militants hiding inside two compounds on Wednesday in the Zhari district of southern Kandahar province, said provincial police chief Sayed Agha Saqib. Troops detained 12 other militants, including group commanders fighting Afghan and foreign forces in the area, Saqib said. Five of the men detained were wounded during the clash.

Two Danish soldiers were killed Thursday in a gunbattle with Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan, the Scandinavian country's military said. The soldiers were part of a Danish reconnaissance unit that came under fire in Gereshk Valley in Helmand Province, the Army Operational Command said. The two were evacuated by helicopter to a Danish camp where they were pronounced dead.

Security Incidents on November 30, 2007

34 Taliban killed in Afghan clashes

Taliban militants beheaded seven policemen after overrunning their checkpoints in southern Afghanistan on Friday, officials said.

Thanks whisker for many of the links above.

REPORTS

How to Help Afghanistan people

"A Crude War Of Revenge"

The United States is on its way to losing the war in Afghanistan. The eventual defeat will be political not military. Public sentiment is shifting in Europe. The people have had enough. They want to get out. When European troops withdrawal from Afghanistan; NATO will gradually unravel and the Transatlantic Alliance will collapse. That will be a disaster for America. The US will again be isolated by two great oceans. But not by choice. America's days as an empire will be over. That's why the US perseveres in Afghanistan even though there is nothing to gain. Pipelines corridors will continue to be blocked by enemy fighters for the foreseeable future. The guerrilla war will intensify. American fatalities will mount. Political opposition at home will grow. The Taliban can't be beaten. They've already taken over more than half the country and they are steadily advancing on the Capital. By next spring, there'll be fighting in the neighborhoods of Kabul, just like there is now in Baghdad. American troops will be barricaded in little Greenzones spread across the countryside. Karzai will be locked away in the Presidential Palace surrounded by American mercenaries.

Failure now approaches in Afghanistan

Winter approaches, and as many as 400,000 Afghans face starvation. The trouble is not an insufficient supply of food. There is no way to get food to those who need it. Attacks on aid workers and the hijacking of food convoys -- the United Nations' main feeding program says it has lost about 100,000 tons of food to attacks by insurgents and criminals so far this year -- have made it all but impossible to transport supplies along the main road connecting vast stretches of the country between Kandahar in the south and Herat in the west. Nothing exposes a hollow promise like the prospect of mass starvation. By now, six years after the United States and its Western allies launched military operations to avenge the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and free Afghanistan from the grip of the Taliban, humanitarian workers surely should not be forced to give up on feeding the desperate. But this is only one measure of our catastrophic failure.

Leave Afghanistan, urges Bin Laden

The al-Qaida leader, Osama bin Laden, called on European governments to end their military cooperation with the US in Afghanistan in a new audio message broadcast today. With his fifth public message this year, bin Laden sought to exploit tensions between European capitals and Washington over the ongoing Nato military campaign in Afghanistan. He reiterated that he was responsible for the September 11 attacks on the US, not the Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan at the time. "The American tide is ebbing," he said in a message addressed directly to the European public. "It is better for you to restrain your politicians who are thronging the steps of the White House." In a quick rebuttal to bin Laden's audio message, parts of which were carried on al-Jazeera television, the Afghan government said bin Laden had no right to interfere with its sovereignty. It also rejected his accusations that Afghan civilians were being killed by Nato troops, saying they were being killed by extremists. His message came as Poland is reconsidering its commitment of 1,200 troops to the Nato mission, following the election of a new government.

AFGHANISTAN: Red Crescent calls for closer cooperation with UN, donors

The growing humanitarian needs of Afghans must come ahead of political and strategic priorities and the UN and other international donors ought to “better recognise” the pivotal role of the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) when dealing with humanitarian emergencies in Afghanistan, Fatima Gailani, president of the ARCS, told IRIN on 29 November. Lack of resources, funding and professional capacity has complicated ARCS’s ability to respond effectively to overwhelming humanitarian needs across the country. “Afghanistan’s humanitarian response capacity has remained very weak and vulnerable despite large amounts of aid money spent by various donors,” Gailani said. Established in the 1940s, the ARCS has about 37,000 volunteers country-wide and is involved in different humanitarian operations, including health services, landmine awareness, disaster response and relief activities. The ARCS acknowledges support and assistance from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the past 15 years, but criticises the UN for lack of “interest, coordination and support”.

Afghan agency rejects claims of prisoner abuse

Afghanistan's intelligence agency has rejected allegations that prisoners transferred to its custody by NATO nations are ill-treated and tortured. The agency said Wednesday it had looked into the charges in an Amnesty International report this month and found they were based on interviews with opponents of the government and on incorrect data. "This report is baseless and not based on accurate information," Afghanistan National Directorate of Security (ANDS) spokesman Sayed Ansari told reporters. London-based Amnesty said prisoners captured by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force and transferred to Afghan custody faced whipping, beatings, exposure to extreme cold and food deprivation.

Bin Laden’s Call Ridiculous: Karzai

Afghan President Hamid Karzai yesterday called “ridiculous” a call attributed to Osama Bin Laden for Europe to break ranks with the United States and quit the fight against extremists in Afghanistan. In a statement attributed to the Al-Qaeda chief and aired Thursday, Bin Laden also said he was behind the 9/11 attacks — which led to the invasion of Afghanistan — and Afghans “had no knowledge whatsoever of these events.” The remarks were “ridiculous and contrary to Islamic culture and human values,” a statement from Karzai’s office said. “Osama Bin Laden under no name has the right to comment about Afghanistan and the sacrifices Afghans have given,” it said. By “imposing terrorism” on Afghanistan, the Al-Qaeda chief was one of the reasons thousands of people had been killed and displaced in this country, the statement said. “The people of Afghanistan consider Bin Laden a criminal and the enemy of security and development of their country and put no value to his comments,” it said. They also know their “enemies and friends very well,” it said, and had solid ties with their international allies in efforts to rebuild the country.

Army Social Scientists Calm Afghanistan, Make Enemies at Home

Zenia Helbig was a little surprised when she got a call last March asking her to join a controversial U.S. Army program to embed social scientists into combat units. She was glad to hear from retired Colonel Steve Fondacaro, the chief of the Human Terrain Team program. But Helbig, then a University of Virginia graduate student, thought she was underqualified to join the project. The job description had called for a Ph.D. with Arabic language skills; Helbig was still working on her doctorate. And while she spoke five languages -- and read a sixth -- Arabic wasn't one of them. "Within five minutes, though, he offered me a position," she recalls. "I was confused." Over the course of the next nine months, Helbig was hired for -- and suddenly suspended from -- the Human Terrain Team, or HTT, program. She asked Congress to investigate her firing. And, now, on Thursday, she's joining up with the program's most bitter foes, to fight the project she once was flattered to be considered for.

Quote: At a demonstration by unemployed schoolteachers in Mazar-e-Sharif in mid-April, the mood of desperation was obvious. One protester who did not want to be named told IWPR he was quite prepared to join the Taleban. "If the government can’t employ us, I will have to join any group that will pay me so that I can bring in food for my children. If your children are hungry, you will blow yourself up in a suicide attack rather than hear them crying for food," he said.