:bleeding:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/09/30/the_battle_for_kunduz_everything_you_need_to_know_about_the_deteriorating.html
Quote
How Have Things Gotten So Bad in Afghanistan?
By Joshua Keating
With a number of major ongoing international crises, events in Afghanistan have not gotten as much attention as the situation deserves: In recent months, the country's security situation has dramatically deteriorated. As this week's dramatic events in Kunduz continue to unfold, here's a quick overview of what is going on.
This is what's happening right now.
Afghan troops, assisted by U.S. airstrikes and NATO Special Forces, are currently fighting to retake the northern city of Kunduz, a major transportation hub that on Monday became the first urban area to fall to the Taliban since 2001. The Taliban now controls most of the area and security forces, and civilians have fled to the city's airport, several miles away. Taliban fighters have reportedly set fire to police buildings and freed hundreds of prisoners from jail.
The fall of the city is a major setback for Afghanistan's security forces, who retreated in the face of a Taliban force they vastly outnumbered. The Taliban also now controls much of southern Helmand province and has launched an increasing number of attacks in Kabul in what has been one of the deadliest annual fighting seasons in years. Last year had already seen a record number of civilian casualties and, after Syrians, Afghans now constitute the second largest population of refugees trying to reach Europe.
The Taliban is back.
The Taliban's momentum has been slowly building over the past few years, but the most recent gains follow the announcement in July of the death of longtime leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. (The reclusive leader may actually have been dead for as long as two years while senior Taliban leaders continued to issue statements under his name.) The announcement of Omar's death led to the suspension of fledgling peace talks, hosted by Pakistan, between the Afghan government and the insurgents.
The recent spate of attacks in Kabul has been attributed to infighting within the Taliban between opponents and supporters of Omar's successor, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who had been leading peace talks under the supposed blessing of Omar (when Omar was actually dead). Now, a number of factions within the movement oppose the peace process and want to continue fighting to overthrow the government.
The Pakistan factor
Senior Afghan officials have blamed the Pakistani government for involvement in the recent attacks. The Pakistani military has been accused of maintaining ties with the Haqqani network, a Taliban-affiliated militant group that operates in both countries—a charge Pakistan denies. It was reportedly Pakistani officials who informed Afghanistan about Omar's death, possibly a move to disrupt the talks.
ISIS is complicating allegiances.
With the Taliban's leadership divided, a number of fighters opposed to Mansour have split to join groups fighting under the banner of the Islamic State, though it's not quite clear to what extent they're actually cooperating with the Syria-based group rather than just adopting a popular brand. So even as the Taliban has made recent gains against government forces, it's had to contend with an insurgency of its own. ISIS is also attacking Afghan government targets, including several military checkpoints this week. ISIS's emergence may be prompting the Taliban to change its own tactics in order to compete for influence and recruits. In April, it carried out a wave of ISIS-like kidnappings and beheadings of member of the Hazara ethnic minority.
The Afghan government is divided.
This week's inauspicious events mark the first anniversary of Ashraf Ghani's presidency. After an election marked by accusations of fraud on both sides, Ghani formed a unity government with runner-up Abdullah Abdullah last year. The deal avoided another major political crisis and Ghani has forged better relationships with foreign governments than his predecessor, Hamid Karzai, did. But infighting between rival camps in the unity government and uncertainty about Abdullah's role have hampered the government's ability to respond to both the deteriorating security situation and a stagnant economy.
Afghan forces are weak.
Afghanistan's security forces have suffered devastating losses in the recent offensive. About 4,100 troops and police were killed in the first half of this year, a 50 percent increase over the same period last year. According to the New York Times, desertion has become such a problem that troops are sometimes barred from returning home on leave.
America can't get out.
U.S. and NATO combat operations in Afghanistan formally ended at the end of last year. About 13,000 international troops are still in the country, including 9,800 Americans.* They are involved in training Afghan forces as well as conducting limited counterterrorism raids. International casualties are much less common than at the height of the combat mission, but eight U.S. service members have been killed in the country so far this year, and there have been several "insider" attacks on U.S. military bases.
In theory, the Obama administration is still committed to a timetable that would see the full withdrawal of U.S. troops by the end of 2016 except for a small security force at the U.S. embassy in Kabul. But the pace of withdrawal has already been slowed, and the events in Kunduz are likely to raise even more doubts about the ability of Afghanistan's security forces to maintain the country's security.
*Correction, Sept. 30, 2015: This post originally misstated the number of NATO troops still in Afghanistan. It is 13,000 not 130,000.
Another wall of text (from a Slate blog, no less) with no highlights and posted in a separate thread even though we have a mega thread on the topic of islamists.
Perhaps Putin can intervene?
Quote from: Martinus on October 01, 2015, 01:00:21 AM
Another wall of text (from a Slate blog, no less) with no highlights and posted in a separate thread even though we have a mega thread on the topic of islamists.
This one doesn't even top 900 words. Is anything longer than one paragraph a wall of text now? I thought lawyers read tens of thousands of words worth of legal documents every day?
We have a thread on ISIS, and another on Syria, we don't have a thread on Afghanistan.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on October 01, 2015, 01:35:57 AM
we don't have a thread on Afghanistan.
I'm sure there is...just may be a bit old, is all.
Quote from: Jaron on October 01, 2015, 01:06:09 AM
Perhaps Putin can intervene?
Sounds good. This time, we won't even give the opposition anti-aircraft missiles.
Quote from: Martinus on October 01, 2015, 01:00:21 AM
Another wall of text (from a Slate blog, no less) with no highlights and posted in a separate thread even though we have a mega thread on the topic of islamists.
It's a Timmay thread. Why are you bothering to even note that you aren't reading the wall of text? No one does. Not even Tim.
Move on. Let this thread die a decent death. A soldier's death.
Quote from: grumbler on October 01, 2015, 06:24:05 AM
Quote from: Martinus on October 01, 2015, 01:00:21 AM
Another wall of text (from a Slate blog, no less) with no highlights and posted in a separate thread even though we have a mega thread on the topic of islamists.
It's a Timmay thread. Why are you bothering to even note that you aren't reading the wall of text? No one does. Not even Tim.
Move on. Let this thread die a decent death. A soldier's death.
I read every article I posted today in full. They were short as hell.
Short enough article, easy read. I've read also that ISIS is moving into Afghanistan, no surprise there though. I wonder if they'll ally with the Taliban or if the two groups will oppose each other. I figure they'll be more likely to be allies than foes.
At least here the Afghan forces appear to be moving quickly to counter attack, as opposed to in Iraq where real counter attacks have been a lot more iffy.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on October 01, 2015, 09:10:58 AM
I read every article I posted today in full.
You should always do that. :P
I propose a Taliban.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on October 01, 2015, 01:35:57 AM
Quote from: Martinus on October 01, 2015, 01:00:21 AM
Another wall of text (from a Slate blog, no less) with no highlights and posted in a separate thread even though we have a mega thread on the topic of islamists.
This one doesn't even top 900 words. Is anything longer than one paragraph a wall of text now? I thought lawyers read tens of thousands of words worth of legal documents every day?
We have a thread on ISIS, and another on Syria, we don't have a thread on Afghanistan.
It's not about word count it's about on how big it fills the space on an 1080p screen. I have to scroll to read it = wall of text.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on October 01, 2015, 01:35:57 AM
Quote from: Martinus on October 01, 2015, 01:00:21 AM
Another wall of text (from a Slate blog, no less) with no highlights and posted in a separate thread even though we have a mega thread on the topic of islamists.
This one doesn't even top 900 words. Is anything longer than one paragraph a wall of text now? I thought lawyers read tens of thousands of words worth of legal documents every day?
We have a thread on ISIS, and another on Syria, we don't have a thread on Afghanistan.
Tim, if it is longer than 500 words, you should bold the key parts.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on October 01, 2015, 01:35:57 AM
Quote from: Martinus on October 01, 2015, 01:00:21 AM
Another wall of text (from a Slate blog, no less) with no highlights and posted in a separate thread even though we have a mega thread on the topic of islamists.
This one doesn't even top 900 words. Is anything longer than one paragraph a wall of text now? I thought lawyers read tens of thousands of words worth of legal documents every day?
We have a thread on ISIS, and another on Syria, we don't have a thread on Afghanistan.
There's been 25 threads with Afghanistan in the title, 6 or 7 started by you. :P
You could have tacked this onto the end of your thread:
Topic: Is peace really in the air in Afghanistan?
http://languish.org/forums/index.php/topic,9087.msg521488.html#msg521488 (http://languish.org/forums/index.php/topic,9087.msg521488.html#msg521488)
or used this one perhaps:
U.S. Continues Quagmire-Building Effort In Afghanistan
http://languish.org/forums/index.php/topic,2669.msg133549.html#msg133549 (http://languish.org/forums/index.php/topic,2669.msg133549.html#msg133549)
edit:
Tim, I apologise, I was being too hard on you.
BN - reports of a US C130 crashing at Jalalabad airport, no reports on injuries or circumstance or if it's even US military as opposed to a civilian charter.
Why do people care so much about whether a topic deserves a new thread or not?
Either comment about the topic if it interests you, or don't if it doesn't, and the thread will live or die on its merits.
I think the topic of the *current* state of affairs in Afghanistan is perfectly reasonable, and there is no reason that it has to be tacked onto an existing thread that hasn't been posted in in days.
On the topic, I think the US policy in Afghanistan under Obama has been, well, not terrible, but mostly pretty non-existent. It seems like Obama's foreign policy in most cases is basically "How can we do nothing as much as possible without getting too much flack for it?". He mostly seems like he just wishes these FP issues would just go away.
And the results are pretty much exactly what you would expect from such a policy. Which doesn't necessarily make it the wrong policy, btw. You can make a perfectly reasonable argument that Afghanistan, at some point, will simply need to figure out for itself what I wants to be. My problem though is that I don't think that is the principle motivating the Obama administration. Rather, it is "Oh what, Afghanistan? Again? Why do I have to deal with that place?"
Quote from: jimmy olsen on September 30, 2015, 11:56:45 PM
the northern city of Kunduz, a major transportation hub
There is a north-south and an east-west road that go through the city. No rail line. A dinky airport that runs a couple flights to Kabul. Wouldn't call it a "major transportation hub." Mazur-I-Sharif, which is hardly a metropolis, is a good deal more significant in as a transport hub in the north.
Tim, never stop making new threads. You are the blood of this board.
Maybe the Pentagon should double check the intelligence given us by Afghan officials before blowing stuff up? I know it's a little radical, but just a thought. :hmm:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/10/04/doctors_without_borders_says_u_s_may_have_committed_war_crime.html
QuoteDoctors Without Borders Says U.S. May Have Committed War Crime
By Daniel Politi
Doctors Without Borders said it was closing its hospital in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz on Sunday, a day after it was hit by what seems to have been a U.S. airstrike. The medical charity, commonly known by its French name Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF, increased the death toll in the bombing, saying the total fatalities amount to 22, including 12 staff members and 10 patients, and 37 people were wounded. Three of the patients who were killed in the attack were children, reports the New York Times.
"Under the clear presumption that a war crime has been committed, MSF demands that a full and transparent investigation into the event be conducted by an independent international body," the charity said in a statement on Sunday. "Relying only on an internal investigation by a party to the conflict would be wholly insufficient." The sentiment echoes what U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said on Saturday. "If established as deliberate in a court of law, an airstrike on a hospital may amount to a war crime," Zeid said in a statement.
The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan has estimated that a preliminary investigation into the incident would be completed within days.
The medical group is pushing back on claims that Taliban fighters were using its hospital as a firing point to strike at coalition forces. The active governor of Kunduz told the Washington Post that Taliban fighters had been firing "small and heavy" weapons from the grounds of the hospital, which they used as a base. "The hospital campus was 100 percent used by the Taliban," the acting governor, Hamdullah Danishi, said. "The hospital has a vast garden, and the Taliban were there. We tolerated their firing for some time" before responding.
Without directly mentioning the claims, MSF made clear it saw the contention was nonsense. "Not a single member of our staff reported any fighting inside the hospital compound prior to the US air strike on Saturday morning," MSF said. The charity also pointed out the claims that the grounds around the hospital were used by Taliban fighters don't stand up to scrutiny. On Twitter, MSF noted that the hospital itself was "repeatedly and precisely hit during each aerial raid, while the rest of the compound was left mostly untouched."
QuoteDoctors w/o Borders ✔ @MSF_USA
The main bldg where staff was caring for patients- repeatedly, very precisely hit during aerial raid. Rest of compound left mostly untouched
1:11 AM - 5 Oct 2015
194 194 Retweets 68 68 favorites
MSF insists there were no insurgent fighters in the hospital at the time of the bombing.* "The gates of the hospital compound were closed all night so no one that is not staff, a patient or a caretaker was inside the hospital when the bombing happened," the group said, according to Reuters. "In any case, bombing a fully functioning hospital can never be justified."
*Update, Oct. 5, 2015, at 12:41 a.m.: This piece initially quoted the Associated Press claiming its own video footage of the burned compound appeared to show weapons on windowsills at the hospital. That claim was later retracted by the AP: "further review of the images cast doubt on whether they were rifles and a machine gun or simply charred debris from the bombing."
Quote from: Grey Fox on October 02, 2015, 12:28:49 PM
Tim, never stop making new threads. You are the blood of this board.
:yes:
And what will accountability entail I wonder? :yeahright:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/07/us-afghanistan-attack-congress-idUSKCN0S01S420151007
Quote
Pentagon calls Afghan hospital strike a mistake, seeks accountability
WASHINGTON | By Yeganeh Torbati and Patricia Zengerle
The U.S. military took responsibility on Tuesday for a deadly air strike on a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz, calling it a mistake and vowing to hold people accountable.
Saturday's strike on an Afghan hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, or Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), killed 22 people and deeply angered the medical charity. MSF officials have blamed the United States, demanding an independent investigation into an attack it called a war crime.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the Pentagon "deeply regrets" the loss of life. "The U.S. military takes the greatest care in our operations to prevent the loss of innocent life, and when we make mistakes, we own up to them. That's exactly what we're doing right now," Carter, who was traveling in Europe, said in a statement.
"We will do everything we can to understand this tragic incident, learn from it, and hold people accountable as necessary," he said.
Earlier in Washington, the American commander of international forces in Afghanistan, Army General John Campbell, called the strike a mistake made within the U.S. chain of command.
The comments by Carter and Campbell were the most direct acknowledgement yet by the U.S. government that the strike on the hospital was carried out by U.S. forces. On Monday, Campbell said only that U.S. forces had responded to a request for support from Afghan forces.
In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Campbell also made clear he favored a rethink of a plan to withdraw almost all U.S. troops by the end of next year. He said rising threats in Afghanistan from the Islamic State and al Qaeda were among factors informing his recommendations to the White House on future troop levels.
Campbell said U.S. forces had responded to a request from Afghan forces and provided close air support as they engaged in a fight with Taliban militants in Kunduz, a provincial capital that the Taliban captured late last month.
"To be clear, the decision to provide aerial fires was a U.S. decision made within the U.S. chain of command," Campbell said. He added that U.S. special forces nearby were communicating with the aircraft that delivered the strikes.
"A hospital was mistakenly struck," Campbell said. "We would never intentionally target a protected medical facility."
President Barack Obama expected steps to be taken to prevent such an incident from recurring, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Tuesday.
The government of President Ashraf Ghani, heavily dependent on Washington for military support and far less critical of the United States than his predecessor Hamid Karzai, has held back from directly criticizing the United States.
But an Afghan military officer took issue with the idea that Afghan forces had called for a strike against the hospital.
Abdullah Guard, commander of Afghan special forces in Kunduz, said his men had been under heavy fire in the area near the hospital, fighting a Taliban force estimated at around 500 men.
"It is possible our forces might have called for an air strike to hit the enemy position, but that doesn't mean to go and bomb the hospital," he told Reuters. He was speaking before Campbell's testimony on Tuesday, in which the American general made clear the decision to conduct the strike was a U.S. one.
Campbell said on Tuesday he had directed forces under his command to undergo training to review operational authorities and rules of engagement to prevent further incidents like Kunduz.
RENEWED ATTENTION ON MISSION
The incident, along with the Taliban's capture of Kunduz, has cast renewed attention on the 14-year U.S. mission in Afghanistan.
Many members of Congress are deeply concerned about Obama's plans for a final withdrawal of U.S. forces. The president is reassessing the timetable for a drawdown that currently envisages removing all but about 1,000 U.S. soldiers by the end of 2016.
"The world walked away from Afghanistan once before and it descended into chaos that contributed to the worst terrorist attack ever against our homeland," said Senator John McCain, the Republican chairman of the armed services committee, referring to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that were planned by al Qaeda militants sheltered by the then-ruling Taliban in Afghanistan.
"We cannot afford to repeat that mistake," McCain said.
Campbell said counterterrorism missions would be less effective if the U.S. presence in Afghanistan was limited to a small force based in the capital. He said there were some 1,000-3,000 Islamic State members in Afghanistan, although many of them were disaffected Taliban members who were "rebranding" themselves.
He declined to provide specifics about recommendations he had made to the White House about force levels, but said they included an option for more troops than just a small embassy-based force. There are currently around 9,800 American troops in Afghanistan.
When asked by Senator Angus King whether his judgment was that conditions in Afghanistan would require revision of the withdrawal plan, Campbell responded: "Yes, sir."
(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati, Patricia Zengerle and Doina Chiacu, Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi in Kabul; Editing by Frances Kerry)
Those responsible will be brought before a military tribunal?