Security Council Extends UN Mission in Afghanistan for Another Year
22 March 2011
The Security Council today extended the mandate of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan for one more year so that it can continue to assist the Government as it assumes greater responsibility for ensuring the country’s security and development. In a unanimously adopted resolution, the 15-member body authorized the mission, known as UNAMA, to continue its activities until 23 March 2012, including in the fields of monitoring human rights,...
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22 March 2011
A soldier being court-martialed on a U.S. Army base near Seattle for the murder of three Afghan civilians has agreed to plead guilty Wednesday in hopes of earning a reduced sentence, according to one of the attorneys handling his case. "My client is admitting on the record to three counts of murder, plus one count of conspiracy to commit assault and battery and one count of illegal drug use," said Geoffrey Nathan, a lawyer for Army Spc. Jeremy Morlock....
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Taliban Assassination Campaign Impedes Governance
22 March 2011
For seven years, Rahim Baz Mohammad was an Afghan police detective on a spectacularly perilous beat — a province sitting directly between the capital and Taliban strongholds to the south and east. His case files bulged with kidnappings and murders. Recent victims included a government reform official shot to death in front of his house. In another case, a deputy provincial governor was killed when a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden...
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Karzai Names Areas To Be Handed to Afghan Forces
22 March 2011
Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has named seven areas of the country which will pass from control by foreign troops into Afghan hands from July. They are the relatively peaceful provinces of Kabul, Panjshir and Bamiyan, the cities of Herat and Mazar-e Sharif and the town of Mehterlam. But he also named Lashkar Gah, capital of the volatile Helmand province. The handover is seen as a critical step in a transition of power before foreign troops...
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Taliban Employs Modern Weapons in "War of Words"
22 March 2011
The Taliban, which while in power in Afghanistan banned photography, movies, and the use of the Internet as un-Islamic, now makes full use of those media for propaganda and recruitment purposes. "Wars today cannot be won without media. Media aims at the heart rather than the body, [and] if the heart is defeated, the battle is won." This conclusion, reached by Abdul Sattar Maiwandi in an interview published recently on the website Al-Emarah,...
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