Afghanistan // Current TV

US terror strikes kill 31 in 72 hours

A non-UN sanctioned US assassination drone strike in the southern Yemeni province of... more

LT4456
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1 day ago
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Talented Afghan Women Leaving Country and Contributing to Brain Drain

"A brain drain of bright young women is already taking place in Afghanistan... more

Truthitswhatsfordinner
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3 days ago
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1 comment

Now you NATO

It's always so festive when world leaders/weapons dealers gather. Riot cops swing... more

laughtonotcry
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4 days ago
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Another Girls School in Afghanistan Comes Under Poison Attack

"Afghan officials say more than 120 schoolgirls and three teachers have been poisoned at a school in the northern Takhar Province.

The attack was blamed on fundamentalist radicals who used an unidentified toxic powder to contaminate the air at the school.

Many victims reportedly lost consciousness and were hospitalized.

One of the children, Samera, told Reuters they originally thought the school's water had been poisoned.

"We saw one of the students was unconscious and in bad condition," she said. "We were told not to drink water but we had already drunk the water and we became unconscious too."

Last month, 150 girls were poisoned in Takhar when they drank contaminated water. And last week, more than 200 boys fell ill at a school in Khost Province.

The Education Ministry reported this month that 550 Afghan schools have been closed down because of security concerns, affecting 300,000 students in 11 provinces.

A spokesman for Afghanistan's intelligence agency said the Taliban was trying to make families afraid to send their children to school ahead of the scheduled 2014 withdrawal of international combat troops.

The Taliban has not claimed responsibility for the school attacks, but they have carried out violent raids in Takhar Province.

When in power from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban regime banned education for girls. Since having been driven from power, Taliban fighters and their sympathizers have carried out numerous attacks against schools.

In addition to poisonings, they have targeted schools with rockets and mortars, have burned them down, and have thrown acid in the faces of schoolgirls. There have also been reports of Taliban fighters beheading teachers who work at schools for girls.

The UN Afghanistan Assistance Mission (UNAMA) earlier this month condemned the attacks as a violation of the right of Afghan children to be educated.

UNAMA called on the Afghan government and the NATO-led international coalition to "ensure that effective security measures are in place to protect schools, students, and teachers.""Afghan officials say more than 120 schoolgirls and three teachers have been... more

Truthitswhatsfordinner
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6 days ago
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I Hung My Head "VIDEO"

Early one morning With time to kill I borrowed Jebb's rifle And sat on a hill... more

Radical_Centrist
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7 days ago
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Afghan Woman Whose Nose Was Hacked Off Starts New Life in the US

"Nose hacked off, mutilated ears hidden by her dark hair, it was the magazine cover that horrified the world.
But for Aesha Mohammadzai, the Afghan girl tortured by her husband for attempting to escape their abusive forced marriage, that extraordinary and harrowing Time magazine cover was just the start of the story.
Four years on, she faces a new battle – a struggle to put the disturbing experiences behind her as she attempts to make a new life for herself in America.

Aesha, won political asylum in 2011, having fled to the U.S. a year earlier, aged just 18, after being promised reconstructive surgery.
She arrived without speaking a word of English and illiterate in her mother tongue of Pashto.

Since then she has undergone pioneering reconstructive surgery to give her a prosthetic nose and been given the education denied women back in her homeland under the Taliban.
However, it appears the psychological scars from her ordeal have proven harder to heal.
Those who have become close to Aesha have spoken of her displaying volatile mood swings – oscillating between violent tantrums and displaying deep affection to people around her

Her plastic surgery had to be delayed because it was thought she was still not yet emotionally stable to cope with the painful and lengthy surgery required.
Psychologist Shiphra Bakhchi, 31, who has helped treat the 22-year-old for post-traumatic stress disorder believes the trauma of her disfigurement may have caused deeper mental scars than physical ones.
‘I really hope at some point she’ll be a functioning young lady that had a terrible trauma,’ the private practitioner told CNN.
When Aesha was 12, her father promised her in marriage to a Taliban fighter to pay a debt. She was handed over to his family who abused her and forced her to sleep in the stable with the animals.
The UN estimates that nearly 90 per cent of Afghanistan's women suffer from some sort of domestic abuse.
When she attempted to flee, she was caught and her nose and ears were hacked off by her husband as punishment.
'When they cut off my nose and ears, I passed out. In the middle of the night it felt like there was cold water in my nose.
'I opened my eyes and I couldn't even see because of all the blood,' she told CNN reporter Atia Abawi.

Left for dead in the mountains, she crawled to her grandfather's house and her father managed to get her to an American medical facility, where medics cared for her for ten weeks.
They then transported Aesha to a secret shelter in Kabul and in August 2010, she was flown to the U.S. by the Grossman Burn Foundation to stay with a host family.
She was taken in by a charity in New York called Women for Afghan Women who supported her and helped pay for her eduction.""Nose hacked off, mutilated ears hidden by her dark hair, it was the magazine... more

Truthitswhatsfordinner
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9 days ago
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This is what real combat in Afghanistan looks like

Video of a Marine mortar platoon in real combat in Afghanistan... more

BillCorcoran
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12 days ago
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Torturers of Afghan Child Bride Sentenced

"The in-laws of a child bride who became the bruised and bloodied face of women's rights in Afghanistan have been sentenced to 10 years in prison for torture, abuse and human rights violations, a judge said Saturday.

The plight of 15-year-old Sahar Gul captivated the nation and set off a storm of international condemnation when it came to light in late December. Officials said her husband's family kept her in a basement for six months after her arranged marriage, ripping out her fingernails, breaking her fingers and torturing her with hot irons in an attempt to force her into prostitution. She was rescued by police in Baghlan province.

Gul's husband's father, mother and sister were each sentenced to 10 years in prison by a court in Kabul on Tuesday, presiding judge Sibghatullah Razi said. Also found guilty were Gul's husband, a member of the Afghan army, and her brother-in-law, both of whom have been on the run since her case became public, Razi said. He said the men will be sentenced when they are captured.

Gul was present for the decision, telling the court that she wanted her in-laws severely punished for what they had put her through, Razi said. She has filed an appeal for a longer sentence with the help of the Women for Afghan Women, a group that works for women's rights and has been caring for the teenager since her rescue.

"Of course we are not happy with the court's decision," said Huma Safi, program manager for the group.

Gul's case has prompted calls for more efforts to strengthen women's rights and end underage marriage. The marriage age in Afghanistan is 16, but the United Nations agency UN Women estimates that half of all girls are forced to marry under age 15.

There has been progress in women's rights since the 2001 U.S.-led campaign that toppled the Taliban regime, which banned girls' schools and prevented women from leaving the house unless accompanied by a male relative.

But ending abuse remains a huge challenge in Afghanistan's patriarchal society, where traditional practices include child marriage, giving girls away to settle debts or pay for their relatives' crimes and so-called honor killings in which women seen as disgracing their families are murdered by their relatives.""The in-laws of a child bride who became the bruised and bloodied face of... more

Truthitswhatsfordinner
added this
23 days ago
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2 comments

Worldwide Hippies News Briefs Sunday

Investors fret after Greek, French elections Putin sworn in as Russia’s... more

joeeddy
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23 days ago
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Super Frat: Support the Props

The White House's intern questions his boss's motives.

TonyDiGerolamo
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27 days ago
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Will al Qaeda Ever Die?

they will never die completely but their back has definitely been broken...

cedricrice
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28 days ago
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2 comments

Why didn't Obama mention TAPI pipeline completion in 2014 in his speech?

From 2011: KABUL: Afghan lawmakers on Saturday approved the... more

JanforGore
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28 days ago
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9 comments

Embracing Spontaneous Negation, Carney Says He Never Lies

"That planned deception was intended to deny the Taliban any warning of the... more

Truthitswhatsfordinner
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28 days ago
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U.S. not reporting all Afghan attacks on American and other foreign troops

WASHINGTON — The military is under-reporting the number of times that Afghan soldiers and police open fire on American and other foreign troops.

The U.S.-led coalition routinely reports each time an American or other foreign soldier is killed by an Afghan in uniform. But The Associated Press has learned it does not report insider attacks in which the Afghan wounds — or misses — his U.S. or allied target. It also doesn't report the wounding of troops who were attacked alongside those who were killed.

Such attacks reveal a level of mistrust and ill will between the U.S.-led coalition and its Afghan counterparts in an increasingly unpopular war. The U.S. and its military partners are working more closely with Afghan troops in preparation for handing off security responsibility to them by the end of 2014.

In recent weeks an Afghan soldier opened fire on a group of American soldiers but missed the group entirely. The Americans quickly shot him to death. Not a word about this was reported by the International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, as the coalition is formally known. It was disclosed to the AP by a U.S. official who was granted anonymity in order to give a fuller picture of the "insider" problem.

ISAF also said nothing about last week's attack in which two Afghan policemen in Kandahar province fired on U.S. soldiers, wounding two. Reporters learned of it from Afghan officials and from U.S. officials in Washington. The two Afghan policemen were shot to death by the Americans present.

Just last Wednesday, an attack that killed a U.S. Army special forces soldier, Staff Sgt. Andrew T. Brittonmihalo, 25, of Simi Valley, Calif., also wounded three other American soldiers. The death was reported by ISAF as an insider attack, but it made no mention of the wounded — or that an Afghan civilian also was killed.

The attacker was an Afghan special forces soldier who opened fire with a machine gun at a base in Kandahar province. He was killed by return fire.

That attack apparently was the first by a member of the Afghan special forces, who are more closely vetted than conventional Afghan forces and are often described by American officials as the most effective and reliable in the Afghan military.

Coalition officials do not dispute that such non-fatal attacks happen, but they have not provided a full accounting.

The insider threat has existed for years but has grown more deadly. Last year there were 21 fatal attacks that killed 35 coalition service members, according to ISAF figures. That compares with 11 fatal attacks and 20 deaths the previous year. In 2007 and 2008 there were a combined total of four attacks and four deaths.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/u-s-reporting-afghan-attacks-american-foreign-troops-article-1.1070174#ixzz1tdUSUgEqWASHINGTON — The military is under-reporting the number of times that Afghan... more

Radical_Centrist
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29 days ago
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U.S. Troops to Stay In Afghanistan For 10 More years?

Ben takes a look at a new agreement between the United States and Afghanistan to keep... more

Radical_Centrist
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29 days ago
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Army probes drug use by soldiers in Afghanistan

The Army has launched a probe into drug use by soldiers in Afghanistan. Read more... more

BillCorcoran
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1 month ago
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Obama Administration Agrees to American Military Staying Beyond 2014 in Afghanistan

"The U.S. and Afghanistan completed a draft agreement on a strategic partnership... more

Truthitswhatsfordinner
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1 month ago
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Iran Says It's Cracked The Codes of the US Spy Drone Captured Last Year

Iran declared Sunday it has "cracked the codes" of the intelligence gathering system of a U.S. spy drone it captured last year for violating its airspace, the nation's semiofficial media reported.

Tehran bragged about seizing the unmanned U.S. drone aircraft with stealth technology in December and displayed it on national television as a victory for Iran.

Months later, an Iranian senior military official declared armed forces have extracted data from it to prove a point to the Pentagon, which they said expressed doubt Tehran can be able to decode it.

"This plane is seen as a national capital for us and our words should not disclose all the information that we have very easily," Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh was quoted as saying by the semiofficial Fars News Agency.

"Yet, I provide four cues in here to let the Americans know how deep we could penetrate into the intelligence systems and devices of this drone."

Some data from the drone's memory device revealed it had flown over the Pakistani hideout of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden two weeks before his death in May, according to Hajizadeh.

"Had we not accessed the plane's softwares and hard discs, we wouldn't have been able to achieve these facts," he said.

Iran has also decoded information such as protocols, repairs and flight sorties, said the military leader, who commands the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps' aerospace forces.

Information shows the drone was in California in October 2010 for repairs and was moved to Afghanistan the following month, where it had problems that U.S. experts could not solve, he said.

The United States did not immediately comment on Tehran's claims Sunday.

In December, President Barack Obama said the United States asked Iran to return the drone aircraft it claimed to have. At the time, two U.S. officials confirmed to CNN that the missing drone was part of a CIA reconnaissance mission that involved both the intelligence community and military personnel stationed in Afghanistan.

"We've asked for it back. We'll see how the Iranians respond," Obama had said.

Iranian military officials have vowed not to return the plane.Iran declared Sunday it has "cracked the codes" of the intelligence... more

FreeSpiritMuse
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1 month ago
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American Soldiers Pose With Body Parts of Afghan Dead

An American soldier says he released the photos to the Los Angeles Times to draw... more

jubal
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1 month ago
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103 comments

Public, troops need greater clarity on the objective in Afghanistan, Spitzer says

"Viewpoint" host Eliot Spitzer argues that America lacks a clear objective... more

ctv
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1 month ago
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