Combined Forces Raid Ends Deadly Taliban Attack on Top Kabul Hotel
29 June 2011
Nine suicide bombers penetrated several rings of security to lay siege to one of the capital’s premier hotels for six hours overnight Tuesday in a complex attack that jolted Afghans’ sense of security and highlighted the weakness of their police forces. At least 21 people were killed: all the attackers, two policemen, nine Afghan civilians, and one foreigner, a Spaniard. One witness said that the police failed to stop a man who obviously...
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Report Notes Complex Motives behind Rising Attacks by Afghan Troops on NATO Soldiers; Cites Stress as Factor
15 June 2011
In late November, U.S. soldiers were supervising artillery training for Afghan troops in Nangarhar province, close to the Pakistan border. After they climbed a ridge to assess the impact area, an Afghan border policeman suddenly turned on them and opened fire. Seconds later, six Americans and their assailant were dead. It was one of the deadliest incidents of what the military call "green on blue" -- a euphemism for attacks by members of the Afghan...
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Training of ANSF Won't Be Complete until 2016/2017, Units "Still Too Dependent on Coalition": ISAF
13 June 2011
Not a single Afghan police or army unit is capable of maintaining law and order in the war-torn country without the support of coalition forces, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. Almost a decade after international troops were sent in to overthrow the Taliban and help to establish a functioning democracy in Afghanistan, a combination of poor training, lack of numbers, corruption and illiteracy has left the country unable to protect its own people....
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Helmand, Kandahar Key Areas in Fight against Taliban in 2011: General
07 June 2011
The population centers of Afghanistan’s Helmand and Kandahar provinces and Spin Bolduk on the Pakistan border constitute key areas in the fight against the Taliban this year, the commander of International Security Assistance Force Joint Command said here today. Army Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez told reporters traveling with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that the Taliban and its terrorist allies are trying to return to the area, which coalition...
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Lack of Capable Logisticians a Great Challenge for ANA: US
03 June 2011
Stocking warehouses in most police forces is low-rank, unglamorous work. In Afghanistan, where literacy and education are at a premium, Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Hurley is pushing to make it a well-paid and prestigious job. The U.S. and its allies are rushing to ready the Afghan army and police to take over control of security from July, but they are discovering they have a job far more complex than just providing guns and training about how...
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Overall Progress in Improving Security in Afghanistan "Slow": NATO Parliamentary Assembly
01 June 2011
This report, prepared for the NATO Parliamentary Assembly’s Defence and Security Committee, is intended to assess, insofar as possible given the resources at our disposal, the evolution of the security situation in Afghanistan. It is deliberately limited in scope in that reports by the other Committees of the Assembly are treating other critical areas such as governance, development, and the role of neighbouring countries. This report will...
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Attacks by Renegade Afghan Troops on the Rise ahead of Transition
01 June 2011
Commanders of international troops in Afghanistan are becoming increasingly concerned at the growing number of attacks by members of local security forces on western forces or advisers. The Taliban ordered insurgents to step up infiltration of the Afghan national army and police earlier this year, Nato officials believe, leading to an alarming rise in the number of "blue on green" attacks. Increasing the numbers of local security forces is a key...
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Insurgents Briefly Capture District in East but Are Pushed Back by NATO, Afghan Troops
25 May 2011
Hundreds of Taliban fighters attacked and briefly seized parts of a district in Afghanistan's remote and mountainous northeast on Wednesday, provincial officials said, with gunfights raging for hours between insurgents and Afghan troops. Jamuladdin Badr, the governor of Nuristan province near the border with Pakistan, told Reuters the Duab district center had "fallen into the hands of insurgents," but most of it was recaptured within hours by Afghan...
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Afghan Army Independently Takes Over Security in Zabul Province
24 May 2011
Zabul Province, one of Afghanistan’s poorest, is mainly known for being a transit route for Taliban insurgents and NATO supply convoys. But recently Zabul, in southeastern Afghanistan, has become important for another, better reason: as a small but overlooked corner of the Afghan war that offers a glimpse of what a stable future might look like as Afghans take over their own security and administration by 2014. Afghan Army battalions have deployed...
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18 May 2011
The number of security incidents continued to be significant, as it has over the past several years, with 1,664 incidents in January 2011, compared to a monthly average of 1,620 in 2010, and 960 in 2009. Armed clashes and the use of improvised explosive devices constitute the majority of incidents. At the end of 2010, suicide attacks remained at an average of 2.8 per week compared to the weekly average of 2.6 through 2009. Abductions and assassinations...
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