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Subscribe to RSSKABUL, Afghanistan -- Insurgents ambushed a NATO coalition supply convoy in a mountainous area of western Afghanistan, sparking a three-hour firefight in which an Afghan soldier, five security guards and at least 14 attackers were killed, Afghan officials said Thursday.
Najibullah Najibi, a spokesman for the Afghan National Army's western region, told The Associated Press that the battle raged Wednesday along a highway regularly used by coalition supply trucks in Bala Buluk district of Farah province.
"The fighting was intense and we sent in extra forces," Najibi said.
Jangir / AFP - Getty Images
More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.
There were varying estimates of the number of militants killed.
Raouf Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Afghan National Police in the west, said more than 30 militants were killed and 10 others were
wounded.
Suicide vests found in Afghan defense ministry
Sayed Abdul Wahid, an official of the Arya security company, said his workers who were fighting with AK-47s were overpowered by
militants using heavy weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns.
Kevin Frayer / AP
In southern Afghanistan, the focus of the U.S. war effort, nearly all the Afghan soldiers are foreigners too. Photographer Kevin Frayer shows these soldiers in a series of portraits.
He said five of his employees were killed and five others were wounded by insurgents who burned three vehicles in the convoy.
US orders more security for troops in Afghanistan
Meanwhile. a service member with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force died after a blast caused by an improvised explosive device in southern Afghanistan, NBC News reported Thursday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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In Afghanistan, it is most foolish to have Pakistan as an ally.
A part of the the economic and military aids to Pakistan since 2001 was diverted to Islamic miltants fighting NATO forces. Pakis are responsible for half of NATO forces deaths.
Hope Osama case has woken up those in deep slumber on Pakis role.
To open up another Iraqi front in 2003 was the most foolish one can ever imagine.
Go for carpet bombings to reduce losses including the spring board, Paki areas.
Keep away from sectarian (Shiites and Sunni battles) in Syria and Iran.
Give a break from doing dirty jobs/wars for Saudi Arabia, oil companies and their lobbyists.
Just bring them home. What do you expect when our country invades other countries? A welcoming party and they will greet us in the streets as liberators? Sure Cheney, sure Bush.
All troops home---no more wars!
Get our troops out of there - of course they don't like us - we invaded them, tore up their country, killed their civilians, urinated on their dead, burned their holy book, invaded their homes in the middle of the night and expect them to see us as heros. Bring the troops home and put them on our border with Mexico.
Get our troops out, and nuke them.
can anyone direct me to a site that shows the U.S. stated MISSION (as originally conceived) and then our CURRENT OBJECTIVE i.e., WTF has taken 10 f-ing years to accomplish?
sonar guy: I agree! Nuke that Saudi Arabia too.
Both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are fountainheads of 80 percent of world Islamic radicalism and terrorism problems.
Stated Objective: To kill 10-20 militants per week at a cost of 3.5 million $USD per week. Stated Mission: Yearly overall global reduction of hostile to US interests militant potential to exceed .00005% per year. Also to keep unemployment in the US from exceeding (on paper) 9% prior to Nov election. And for the US to piss off at least 3 more nations prior to end of 2012. I think this pretty much sums it all fairly accurately and honestly.
Only Jews want the US to fight more wars.
Just another sign Obama is losing this war. Epic fail.
Really James? Really? How many Jews do you personally know and have talked politics with? I have an entire family full of Jews, many who have served proudly in the US Military and none of us wish for war. But I'm sure in your little mental world of hatred you are correct. Go f*&k yourself.
Dear about that,
The mission in Iraq and Aghanistan (now) is to provide jobs for kids from red states and other Republican supporters. In addition, and this is the biggest one, the mission is to make certain well-connected corporations rich to pay them back for contributing to the Bush-Cheney regime. As a side benefit, tax rates for the rich will be (already have been) cut so that these well-connected corporate owners get to keep more of the money they make and so that the economy will be wrecked by the lack of tax revenues and the US government will collapse. Then the big corporations and super rich will take over the US and become the government (regime). Therefore, the warsin Afghanistan and Iraq were really wars to take over the USA.
NorthernLights, what a stupid comment! So you think that Obama (Now) is continuing the war in order to provide jobs for the Republican states and Republican supporters? Obama is continuing the war in order to pay back companies that contributed to Bush-Cheney? Obama is trying to collapse the U.S. Government in an election year so that corporations can take over? You appear to be confused and living somewhere in the past! It might interest you to know that Red States also have Democrats living in them. On second thought, I'm sure it won't interest you since you're only interested in making asinine partisan comments.
Dear Andi-1045453: As a Jew, you know that Jews demand that the US fight more wars for Israel. What about about APAIC and the neocon Jews? Can you tell me that they don't want the US to fight more wars for Isreal.
Why won't our government stop this endless exercise in futility and stop wasting our kids and money on a people that do NOT want us there? Why can't we jail people that got us into this mess? Please...enough is enough! Get us out of there and use the troops and money to fix our own infrastructure here in the USA!
Dear AreYouBuyingThis?: Because Jews control the US government, and they don't care about our dead children, who they just call "goyim". They care about our money though, and they want to make sure it all goes to Isreal.
Just like Iraq, this war is just another Vietnam. Its time for the politicians who started and continue this war to stop the fighting and immediately bring our troops home.
The ones who start it will never be the ones who end it. Doesnt work that way.
How many more American and NATO troops have to die? Afghanistan is another Vietnam. Obama is Johnson, unable to accept the reality, but Congress is complicit, they have the ability to stop funding the war. In the 60's, Americans rose up and protested the war in Vietnam. It's not that difficult in the 21st century, it's as easy as signing a petition to have your voice heard.
Show your support for our troops. Tell Obama and Congress to get out now! Sign and share the petition. Thanks!
http://www.change.org/petitions/bring-our-troops-home-from-afghanistan
We, including soldiers, need a break at least for ten years from Saudi, oil companies, lobbyists, Jewish extremist, Netanyahos, Christian right wars! Here it appears: all of them join hands!
NO TO SYRIA, IRAN OR ANY OF THEIR DIRTY WARS!
War is money and business, plus it culls the baby makers who are mostly meenorities.it will allways go on.you and i ain't got didly to do about it but kvetch on the puter.rent rant rant
They are the Repuicks (aka Repubics) that started these wars and WANT to CONTINUE these wars
The demorats also vote on funding these wars, some of them obama started.
Well, what did you expect? That war is stupid. Let me remind you that Saudi Arabia was behind the 9-11
attacks. The King was George H. Bush's good drinking buddy. They got filthy rich together. George W. Bush
gave the Bin Ladens a free ticket. Years later, banty-rooster George decided to torture people. It's a cascade
of stupidity. The cult of the greedy is STILL giving our money away to our worst enemies, instead of saving our
social programs, or doing anything to make themselves useful.
We are now a nation of unregulated bourgeois criminal capitalists. Looks like self-defense to me.
We're leaving eventually anyway and a percentage of the people we've trained will immediately take their training and weapons and switch sides in order to bring down one of the most corrupt governments in the world, which they will eventually succeed in doing.
Pakistan does and says the minimum amount necessary to extort billions in aid, some of which has undoubtedly been used to kill U.S. personnel.
Take all that money and convert it into a fleet of armed drones whose pilots are given rules of engagement that fit onto a postage stamp.
The corporate media use words like "insurgents" and "militants" when describing those who are trying to repel invaders and occupiers from their homeland. If the tables were reversed and some other nation sent its troops to occupy Amerika. These "insurgents" and "militants" would be freedom fighters and patriots.
Amerika out of foreign wars for oil. NOW! War criminals and profiteers in chains. NOW!
One thing everyone seems to forget is that we were INVITED into Afghanistan. Liberals have such selective memories.
We WERE? Thanks for the good laugh. I needed a little comic relief to take the edge off my nerves today!
Professor you are obviously not very educated. Saudi Arabia WAS NOT behind 9/11, Osama BL used Saudis to attack the US because they were dedicated Wahabbists, spoke good English and looked western but they were trained, funded and schooled in Afghanistan by the Taliban.
You are just a liberal propagandist and your diatribe is utterly worthless.
Looks like the Taliban's Spring offensive is beginning and it's going to be a long season of heavy fighting. Good luck to our troops and don't hold back.
Has there not been enough war yet? Why can't we all just live together? Imagine the great thinks that could be done
It's a king's chess game.King don't go to war, but him and his court watch from a golf course hilltop.I see torums smug face at the head of the table.
The conflict in Afghanistan is driven by two motives. First, our soldiers are dying to protect the Saudi Kingdom, the Saud family owns half the planet. Second, our real concern is all about avoiding a nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India. Many years ago I read an article in Scientific American. It described what would happen to our food production zone in the U.S. if a nuclear war broke out between the two nations. The nuclear fall out would drift over our farming belt. These are the REAL reasons we are engaged in this war.
I do not know where you got your information. The primary value of Afghanistan is that it lies between the Caspian oil, and the fastest growing regions of the world, Central / northern India and from there into SE Asia and China (easier than going over the Himalayas).
When Russia left, the Taliban put down the war-lords and established a rule of law (Sharia, and not what you or I might choose, but very definitely "law"). USA wanted to build the pipeline and Karzai had worked as consultant to the consortium. They offered the Taliban (I think the number was) 5% of throughput revenue as taxes, Taliban wanted 30%. The offer became (Google it) "you can have a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs. The Taliban (having just ousted the Russians) were feeling their oats, and wanted nothing to do with "Western" values , told USA to "shove it".
That is the real reason.
(USA and Russia have had nuclear weapons for 60 years, how many have been dropped?, Pakistan needed nuclear bombs because India had them. Guarantee that "a" won't bomb "b" because "b" can and will retaliate.)
...and the beat goes on, war-drums that is. Now we're back to the inevitable body counts. "Them" always seeming to be higher than "Ours"; giving the false impression that Wins on the individual Battlefields are Winning the war.
I know a great Deli with the best BOLOGNA you've ever eaten. The only trouble is; It's served up COLD with Crow.
If we would have went by body counts in Vietnam it would have exceeded the population of the north.
Crow is better for ya than bologna. But, pigeon is best overall. Just ask the homeless veterans who sleep in the park at night around the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC.. If you want to get them to laugh while you're there, tell them we're winning in Afghanistan. They could use a little humour.
Perry, were you one of them? I wasn't although a homeless V'Nam Vet myself for a short while. Now, instead of grousing about it I work with outreach people trying to ease their burden along with the VA. Will you offer to pitch in and help out?
The convoy pictures always show Japanese or German made trucks, yet these freeloaders are never asked to send troops or money. Amazing how two of the world's most successful exporters are never expected to commit their fair share of the manpower and money.
Instead, the bankrupt economic has-been USA always takes on the world's problems.
I may be not quite accurate as to the word 'treaty', but, I believe after ww2, they are not allowed by treaty, etc, to have 'Expeditionary Forces' of any kind.
Maybe that is because the "bankrupt economic has-been USA" always creates 90% of the worlds problems.
The rest of the world, just wishes that you would stay home and mind your own business,. We have seen your "democracy", it gave us Clinton, Bush and Obama, with 600 US bases around the world, to keep us in line, and to steal our resources.
I guess most of the posts here want the fight to protect the United States to be here in the United States.
Sadly true. People don't realize that you have to fight on foreign soil to keep the fight out of America. 911 was the first real shot. If we do not keep the enemy at bay, there will be many more 911s and they will be MUCH worse.
If we had troops in Yuma, El Paso and Laredo from Afghanistan, at least they'd be in a more local 'hostile fire' zone. We could train muslims in Afghanistan like the ones we trained for flight school in Florida. How'd that work out for us?
We trained Mujahadeen in Nevada. How'd that work out for us?
We supplied Iraq with billions of $$ worth of arms and ammunition in the '80's. How'd that work out for us?
Ask all the homeless veterans sleeping in the park and eating pigeons near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial how well our foreign policies have been working out for us.
We train and utilize Afghans guards to guard the perimeter and the gates of our compounds in Afghanistan. Ask Robert Bales how that worked out for us. And, while ya at it, ask Bill Clinton who was all balistic on his crusade to furnish North Korea with nuclear capability for nuclear power how well that worked out for us.
Okay if I'm reading this right. A supply line for the NATO coalition was attacked. It was being transported by a contract firm and protected by their security forces and the Afgan National Army sent the reinforcement's.
I'd say mission accomplished, the Afgan Army fought off the insurgent's all by themselves. Time to call it a win and get out. Once out there won't be a supply line to protect and they can turn their attention to protecting the country.
The western mountains of Afghanistan are infested with Iranian insurgents -- like fleas -- so there is only one way to win this fight. Get US troops out and make the western mountains totally uninhabitable. You figure out how we can do that easily. Otherwise it is pointless to send soldiers to fight Iranian terrorists without giving them orders to kill everyone in their way on sight. That is how a war is fought. Not 'surgically' leaving a few stragglers to regroup, rearm and attack. Just sterilize the soil in that area and move on.
With the rules of engagement the way they are how could our forces be expected to win. Take them out and send in the drones.. No point in wasting another drop of our guys blood for that piece of dirt they call home.
Yep you are right the rules changed when Obama and Panetta took over the battle. They ave put the troops in a no win war. So, with that being said we should leave.
Mathiun, we tried that in vietnam.Agent orangelo and Napalm.
By putting two and two together I would surmise that nothing the U.S. military does in Afghanistan is a secret.
I'll bet there are so many spies for the enemy, infiltrated into the Afghan military and police, the Taliban and whoever else we are fighting, know every move we make.
It's foolish to remain. Foolish and wasteful.
Which leads me to believe the American government is lying to the citizens. Lying about why they insist on borrowing and spending the tax payers resources on this looser.
Just be glad McCain didn't win the oval office. If he would have, we would also be fighting in Iran about now. Scary thought, isn't it?
Far more scary to think the current Regime in Iran with Nuclear Weapons. There is a Hitler want a be leader in Iran that wants all Jews Exterminated. I guess to you, it l would have been better not to get rid of Hitler, afterall, look at the massive loss of American lives in WWII and it was not Germany that will attacked us in Dec 7th 1941. War is scary but leaving a Hitler Want A Be about to have Nuclear Weapons is far more scary
Hey Kurt, please don't let facts get in the way of a good prejudice.
So what did Ahmadinejad actually say? To quote his exact words in Farsi:
"Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad."
The full quote translated directly to English:
"The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time."
Word by word translation:
Imam (Khomeini) ghoft (said) een (this) rezhim-e (regime) ishghalgar-e (occupying) qods (Jerusalem) bayad (must) az safheh-ye ruzgar (from page of time) mahv shavad (vanish from).
Nothing about "Jews", just about the Zionist Party running Israel. Not what He said, just quoting Imam Khomeini
Yep, speaking in Political Correctness Farsi style, what he calls the "Zionist Party" we know as all Jews. Inshalla, Ahmandinejad is a goner, Too bad Obama was too much of a coward to support the opposition during their protest in 2009. Free Iran, get rid of Ahmandinejad!
Hey Kurt,
What is wrong with you?
" Churchill said, The nazi regime should be wiped from this earth" and you then construe it to say "that PJ want to destroy all Germans."
You obviously know nothing of Iran or the middle east. I expect that you are rejoicing over the destruction of Iraq and Libya. Obama not only supported the the opposition, they created and paid the opposition, or perhaps you think that the "Colour" revolutions spontaneously procured the funds and procedures to put down the legitimate governments.
"Stability is an unworthy American mission and a misleading concept to boot. We do not want stability in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and even Saudi Arabia; we want things to change. The real issue is not whether, but how to destabilize." - Neoconservative crackpot and international terrorist Michael Ledeen.
Based on the slideshow alone one can see that we are in the middle of an ethnic war that is perhaps a thousand years old .....It should be clear by now that we cannot change or influence the outcome. It is time to come home ....
I don't understand what we're doing over there. Heroin supply is up in this country drastically. I would think getting rid or greatly reducing the poppy fields would be a High priority, while we are there and have the chance! Meanwhile we, and the West in general continue to let muslem/arab immigrants into our countries by the scores, and we, the citizens are left to figure out who's who and what's what, all while not racial profiling. And more and more we hear of "homegrown terrorists." It's topsy turvy, Assbackwards!
sounds like they are ready to take over their own security.