27th February

War in Afghanistan News reports provided by ISAF Joint Command.  Operations are reported in the following provinces:  Kandahar and Helmand.
With operations from only two provinces being reported, there is no lack of activity.  12 insurgents, and multiple Taliban facilitators were arrested/detained.  In  Zharay district of Kandahar a  Taliban leader recently returned from Chaman, Pakistan, in preparation for the spring fighting season was captured.

Afghan National Security and International Security Assistance Forces targeted a Taliban leader responsible for orchestrating large scale suicide attacks throughout southern Afghanistan and detained several suspected insurgents during a security operation in Kandahar City, Kandahar province, yesterday .

The Taliban leader is actively involved in planning and coordinating suicide-improvised explosive device attacks on Afghan National Army and coalition forces. The targeted leader is subordinate to the provincial military leader who ordered his return to Afghanistan from Pakistan to carry out attacks. He was involved in the suicide attack at the Kandahar City police headquarters Feb. 12 that killed several Afghans and wounded numerous others.
Coalition forces followed leads to a targeted compound where they called for the occupants to exit the buildings before conducting a search. Several suspected insurgents were detained after initial questioning at the scene.


Afghan National Security and International Security Assistance Forces today, confirmed the capture of an insurgent leader responsible for improvised explosive devices attacks in Uruzgan province.The detained insurgent is suspected of being the head of a Baluchi IED cell responsible for attacks on Afghan and coalition forces in Baluchi Valley, Uruzgan province.



(This picture have nothing to do with what's written above, i submitted it because its a very touching and true picture.)

Nato accused of killing 50 civilians in air strikes

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has accused Nato troops of killing more than 50 civilians in a troubled province of eastern Afghanistan. 

Mr Karzai's statement followed comments by Fazilullah Wahidi, provincial governor of Kunar province, alleging US-led Nato forces had killed up to 63 people, including women and children in air strikes on suspected rebels.

Mr Karzai said: "about 50 civilians have been martyred during international military forces operations in Ghaziabad district in Kunar province."

Nato said they would investigate the allegations.

"We are conducting an immediate assessment of these allegations and will report our findings," said US Army Colonel Patrick Hynes in a statement.

Taliban suicide bomber kills 30 in attack on government office

A Taliban suicide bomber killed at least 30 people and maimed dozens when he blew himself up amidst a crowd queuing for identity documents at a government office.

The morning blast in the northern province of Kunduz took the death toll from a recent wave of attacks on government buildings and security forces to over 100.

Witnesses said the Kunduz bomber detonated in a waiting area as people queued outside a district office in Imam Sahib to collect new identity cards and paperwork.

“There are wounded and dead all over the floor in the hospital,” a man called Mohammad Ismail told reporters. “There are bodies with their chopped-off hands or legs next to them in the hospital. It’s a disaster... you can hear screams everywhere.”

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it had targeted a recruitment centre for the Afghan army.

Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s president, denounced the bombing as “un-Islamic.” The American embassy in Kabul said it demonstrated “yet again the terrorists’ cowardice and complete disregard for human life”.

Afghan war costs USD 300 mn a day

Yep, thats what you pay tax for.

The withdrawal of American troops from Iraq will allow for a reduced US defense budget in 2012 but the war in Afghanistan still costs the United States close to 300 million dollars a day.

Under the Pentagon's proposed budget, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will drop to USD 117.8 billion for fiscal year 2012, a reduction of 41.5 billion from the previous year.

As the US war effort winds down in Iraq, the budget sets aside USD 10.6 billion for "Operation New Dawn," with the remaining 50,000 US troops there due to withdraw by the end of 2011.

Spending for the Afghan mission calls for USD 107.3 billion, down slightly from the last budget, which requested USD 113.5 billion.

President Barack Obama has vowed to start a withdrawal in July of the roughly 97,000 troops now in Afghanistan.

The budget released on Monday offered no insight into the scale of the planned drawdown, with the Pentagon's budget document assuming an average of 98,250 troops on the ground by the end of 2012. 

One child each day killed in Afghan war

One child a day is being killed in the Afghan war as both the Taliban and government forces recruit and exploit them according to a United Nations report. 

Militants are employing children as suicide bombers or to plant explosives, while killing scores through the indiscriminate use of roadside booby traps and bomb attacks.

The Afghan police have also recruited boys as young as 12 into their fight against insurgents, according to a report which underlines the grim toll of the war on children.

Fighting in the first half of 2010 killed at least 176 children and wounded 389, in an increase of more than half from the previous year.

The real number is likely far higher, but difficult to measure because so much fighting takes place in areas made impenetrable by rebels.

The report by Ban Ki-moon, UN general secretary, said there were "grave violations and abuses committed against children" and called on all sides to do more to protect them.

 

Afghanistan: 4,000 British troops set for biggest battle with Taliban

Four thousand British troops are preparing to take part in the largest military offensive against the Taliban since the Afghanistan invasion in 2001.

 

The strike force, composed of British, US and Afghan troops, will storm into some of the most dangerous areas of central Helmand in a series of daring raids — the biggest since the first Gulf war — as part of Operation Moshtarak.

The offensive, the start date of which is being kept secret, will dwarf last summer’s Operation Panther’s Claw in which 10 British soldiers were killed and more than 100 injured.

The mission is designed to “break the back” of the Taliban in Helmand but commanders warned that casualties could be the highest of any operation in the eight-year war. Senior officers believe that there is a “real risk” that British forces could lose a Chinook helicopter laden with troops in the assault and warned the public to “steel itself” for casualties.

Gen Sir David Richards, the Chief of the General Staff, said casualties were inevitable. “One has to be prepared physically to drive the insurgents out,” he said.

The battle for the Taliban heartlands in central Helmand will be the first significant test of the strategy proposed by Gen Stanley McChrystal, the American commanding the Afghanistan operation, for achieving success