KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Rising death tolls, military timetables slowed. Infighting in the partner Government. War-weary allies packing up to leave — and others eyeing an exit.

Events this spring — from the battlefields of Helmand and Kandahar to the halls of Congress — have served as a reality check on the Afghan war, a gruelling fight in a remote, inhospitable land that once harboured the masterminds of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.

The Taliban have proven resilient and won’t be easily routed. Good Afghan Government won’t blossom any faster than flowers in the bleak Afghan deserts. Phrases like "transition to Afghan control" mask the enormous challenge ahead to make those words reality.  Read more... (1206 words, 1 image, estimated 4:49 mins reading time)

Washington, June 20 (ANI): Amidst reports of both Pakistan and Afghanistan being engaged in ‘peace’ talks with the Taliban, including with the dreaded Haqqani network, the US leadership must also assert a clear role and vision in the reconciliation process, noted South Asian affairs analyst Lisa Curtis has said.

Curtis, a senior research fellow for South Asia in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation, said any genuine thaw in relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan would be welcome, however, the idea that the U.S. would take a back seat in any effort to negotiate an end to the war in Afghanistan defies logic.  Read more... (303 words, 1 image, estimated 1:13 mins reading time)

U.S. missiles killed four alleged Taliban insurgents on Monday in northwest Pakistan, while three other militant suspects were slain in a shootout with local security forces elsewhere in the region, officials said.

Three missiles struck a house in the Khaisur area of the North Waziristan tribal region near the border with Afghanistan, said two intelligence officials on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists. The identities of the dead were not known.  Read more... (260 words, 1 image, estimated 1:02 mins reading time)

If the despondent Bharati (aka Indian) think tank community has the deer-in-the-headlights-look, it is because they think the world has changed around them–it has.

The Bharatis were lead down the primrose path by Condaleeza and her sweet talk about making Bharat a superpower with a seat at the Security Council. When that didn’t happen, Bharat blames Obama. No one can deliver Superpower status to anyone, and only countries that have gone towards it have built regional relationships and friendships with all their neighbors.  Read more... (1668 words, 1 image, estimated 6:40 mins reading time)

India faces Pakistan in sometimes-bloody shadow war in Afghanistan.

cross Afghanistan, behind the obvious battles fought for this country’s soul, a shadow war is being quietly waged. It’s being fought with spies and proxies, with hundreds of millions of dollars in aid money and ominous diplomatic threats.

The fight pits nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan against one another in a battle for influence that will almost certainly gain traction as the clock ticks down toward America’s military withdrawal, which President Barack Obama has announced will begin next year.  Read more... (1588 words, 1 image, estimated 6:21 mins reading time)

KABUL (AFP) – On walls around Afghanistan’s scrappy capital, where million-dollar mansions line rutted roads, anonymous graffiti artists are daubing their disapproving take on the devastating cost of war.

Styled after the anonymous British vandal-artist Banksy, Kabul’s streetwise stealth stencillers go by the moniker “Talibanksy”, a reference to the Islamist Taliban who have been waging war in Afghanistan for almost nine years.

The street art forms a commentary on the cost in blood and treasure of the war, which has brought 126,000 US and NATO troops to Afghanistan and kills about 2,000 Afghan civilians a year, according to the UN.  Read more... (747 words, 1 image, estimated 2:59 mins reading time)

Nato foreign ministers have snubbed Gordon Brown‘s plans for a staged withdrawal from the districts of Helmand by agreeing to handover reponsibility to local officials on a province by province basis.

British troops could be the last to leave Afghanistan after it emerged that a new “road map” for handing over control would not include the southern provinces.  Read more... (404 words, 1 image, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)

Inquest told of 500lb bomb dropped on wrong target in Afghanistan ‘friendly fire‘ incident.

A commanding officer today relived the “grim” moment a US aircraft dropped a 500lb bomb on a position held by British troops, killing three soldiers.

Privates Aaron McClure, Robert Foster, both 19, and John Thrumble, 21, were under intense fire in Afghanistan’s Helmand province when the F15 fighter jet, called in to help, dropped the bomb on them instead of a Taliban position a kilometre further north.

The inquest had previously heard that grid co-ordinates communicated between an air controller and an American weapons officer “did not marry up”.  Read more... (537 words, 1 image, estimated 2:09 mins reading time)

The role of British troops in Helmand, the province in southern Afghanistan where they have been deployed for four years, is coming under unprecedented scrutiny as US commanders draw up plans for what they hope will be a final and conclusive push against Taliban-led insurgents.

Contingency plans include the possible wholesale withdrawal of the 9,500 British troops from Helmand to neighbouring Kandahar, the Taliban heartland, where US-led commanders are finalising plans for the largest counterinsurgency and “hearts and minds” operation since 2001.Canada, which has provided the bulk of Nato troops in Kandahar, says it will withdraw all its forces there next year.  Read more... (804 words, 1 image, estimated 3:13 mins reading time)

In Sangin, says a farmer, ‘people are sick of night raids and being treated badly by the foreigners’

As with so many of the Helmand towns where the British are present the bazaar in Sangin is officially “thriving”.

Indeed, recent visitors have to admit that there are signs of commerce in the long thin strip of shops. But the rest, says David Gill, a photographer who visited Sangin three times last year, is like “a ghost town in Death Valley where you drive through and all you see is a sign flapping in the wind”.  Read more... (709 words, 1 image, estimated 2:50 mins reading time)