Intelligence Operations Re-focus from Social, Tribal Data to Targeting Insurgents
27 June 2011
Military intelligence officers were scrambling a year ago to collect and analyze the social, economic and tribal ins and outs of each valley and hamlet in Afghanistan. This information wasn't the kind of secret or covert material many military intelligence specialists were used to. But it was seen as crucial to helping commanders tell the good guys from the bad, learn what Afghans really needed from their government and undermine the Taliban-led...
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Taliban Use Girl, 8, as Bomb Mule in Attack on Afghan Police Post
27 June 2011
Taliban insurgents used an eight-year-old girl carrying a bag of explosives to attack a police checkpost in central Afghanistan, the Afghan government said on Sunday, making her one of the youngest child bombers of the decade-old conflict. The incident took place in Char Chino district of central Uruzgan province, the interior ministry said. "The insurgents handed over a bag with a homemade bomb to an eight-year-old girl and asked her to take it...
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Afghan MPs Vote No Confidence in Top Judge, Five Others
27 June 2011
Afghanistan's political crisis worsened Saturday with lawmakers voting to sack the five most senior judicial officials and international consternation growing after a presidential tribunal threw out a quarter of parliament. The special court, set up by a decree of Afghan President Hamid Karzai after parliamentary elections last year were marred by fraud, ruled Thursday that 62 lawmakers would have to be replaced because of alleged poll fraud. [...]...
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Death Toll in Hospital Bomb Attack Reaches 38; Taliban Deny Responsibility
27 June 2011
Funerals of victims of a car bombing at a hospital in Afghanistan's eastern Logar province have been taking place. Thirty-eight people, including pregnant women, children, doctors and nurses, died in the attack, officials say - the deadliest on a medical facility since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. The hospital, in Azra district, was destroyed, leaving people buried under rubble. Officials blamed the attack on the Taliban, but the group denied...
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