5435. ON CONTINUE DE MOURIR EN AFGHANISTAN

BOMB KILLS 4 NATO SERVICE MEMBERS

Jun 4, 2011
The Associated Pres
CBC
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/06/04/afghanistan-nato.html

A roadside bomb killed four NATO service members Saturday in eastern Afghanistan, the coalition said.

It was the deadliest day for NATO service members since May 26, when a total of nine U.S. troops were killed in three incidents.

That day, six were killed in a roadside bombing in Kandahar province, two died in another roadside bomb blast in the same province and one died of injuries from a helicopter crash in Paktika.

Earlier, the coalition said two service members were killed Friday in separate insurgent attacks in southern Afghanistan, where fighting has picked up since the Taliban launched a spring offensive against Afghan and international troops last month.

There have been reports of heavy fighting in southwest Helmand province between U.S. forces and insurgents trying to regain territories they lost in the fall and winter following a surge of 30,000 mostly American troops.

The Taliban have made it one of their goals to try to once again take control of the provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, which are both the wellspring of their movement and the main source of their funding — mostly from the cultivation and sale of opium.

[Donc la culture, la récolte, le traitement (en héroïne) et l'exportation semble se faire à la vue de tous. Il est difficile de cacher des champs entiers de pavots qui sont si jolis. Mais les satellites, les avions AWAC, les hélicoptères, les dirigigeables BLIMP, les drônes ne les voient pas. Sans compter les convois de soldats qui passent et repassent. Oh! Les belles fleurs bleues! Mais qu'est-ce que c'est joli! Ce qui doit être normal.]

The coalition did not disclose further details of the deaths, or the troops' nationalities, from any of the attacks.

More than 200 NATO troops have died so far this year in Afghanistan.

KANDAHAR

In Kandahar city, a bomb hidden in a motorcycle killed two students and wounded another when it detonated on Saturday outside Kandahar University in southern Afghanistan.

University vice-president Hazrat Mir Totakhail said another bomb detonated in the same place as police rushed to the scene a few minutes later.

It was unclear if anyone was injured in that attack. [?]

In another incident in Kandahar city, the director of the provincial justice department, Haqel Shah, was shot by gunmen as he was driving to his office.

Deputy provincial police chief Sher Shah Yussoufzai said the official was wounded and hospitalized.

ITALIAN CITIZEN WHO WOUNDED YOUTH KILLED

Police were also investigating the death Friday of an Italian citizen in northeastern Panjsher province.

Panjsher provincial police chief Gen. Mohammad Qasim Janghalbagh said a group of three people, an Italian man, an American woman and an Afghan-American were involved in an altercation on a narrow street in a village in Khenj district.

He said a teenager brushed up against the woman and the incident led to an argument.

[Il voulait sans doute tâter la femme impure qui se déplace le visage non voilé. Ou qui se déplace en compagnie d'hommes dont personne n'est son époux ni ses parents ce qui la range au range de prostitutée à lapider. Les endroits touristiques occasionnent souvent ce genre de conflits ethnologiques. ]

According to Janghalbagh, the Italian allegedly fired his pistol and wounded the youth, aged 18 or 19. Janghalbagh said villagers then fired their own weapons and killed the Italian.

He could not provide further details but said the teenage boy was hospitalized.

Italian officials in Afghanistan could not be reached for comment.

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7 U.S. TROOPS AMONG 8 NATO DEAD IN AFGHANISTAN

May 26, 2011
AP
KABUL, Afghanistan –
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/05/26/501364/main20066499.shtml

Eight NATO service members were killed Thursday in Afghanistan, including seven U.S. troops who died when a powerful bomb exploded in a field where they were patrolling on foot, officials said.

Two Afghan policemen also died and two others were wounded in the explosion in mountainous Shorabak district of Kandahar province, 12 miles from the Pakistan border, said Gen. Abdul Raziq, chief of the Afghan border police in the province.

"Two months ago, we cleared this area of terrorists, but still they are active there,"

Raziq said.

THE TALIBAN CLAIMED RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE BLAST.

"A bomb was planted for them in a field,"

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi told The Associated Press in a telephone call.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information, confirmed that seven American service members died in the bombing.

The international military coalition reported that one additional NATO service member was killed Thursday when a helicopter crashed in the east.

It was the deadliest day for coalition forces in Afghanistan since April 27, when a veteran Afghan military pilot opened fire at Kabul airport and killed eight U.S. troops and an American civilian contractor.

Thursday's blast was the worst single attack against NATO forces by one of the Taliban's crude, homemade bombs since October 2009.

Seven soldiers from a unit based in Fort Lewis, Washington, died Oct. 27, 2009 when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Arghandab district, also in Kandahar province.

"It was a big, powerful blast,"

said Gen. Tefeer Khan Ghogyaria, who oversees Afghan border police in three provinces in the south.

"A container of explosives was placed in the ground and it exploded when the NATO forces were passing. They were on a foot patrol."

Roadside bombs killed 268 American troops in Afghanistan last year,

a 60 percent increase over the previous year,

even as the Pentagon employed new measures to counter the Taliban's makeshift weapon of choice.

Defense officials attributed the rise in casualties to the surge in U.S. forces in Afghanistan last year.

[Suite à la décision de monsieur Obama, il y a 30,000 soldats US de plus. Ce qui fait encore plus de cibles.]

The number of U.S. troops wounded by what the military terms improvised explosive devices also soared, according to the most recent U.S. defense figures.

There were 3,366 U.S. service members injured in IED blasts

up from the 1,211 hurt by the militants' crudely made bombs in 2009, the figures show.

Officials with the Pentagon's Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, based outside Washington, D.C., has said that additional explosive sensors, bomb analysts and specially trained dogs have helped battle the roadside bombs.

[Comme il y a plus de victimes, ou les gadgets ou les chiens ne marchent pas ou il y a plus de bombes d'enterrés. On dit qu'on en retrouve 90% sans préciser le nombre. Donc il en reste 10% de beaucoup en augmentation constante. ]

Last year, the Pentagon provided $495 million to buy 34 tethered surveillance blimps that give troops a bird's eye view of certain areas

and sent in more unmanned surveillance aircraft [Drône]

so route-clearance patrols would have the benefit of full-motion video.

[Les drônes permettent aussi les attentats ciblés ou frappe chirurgicale sur les ennemis pendant leur sommeil car ils se déplacent aussi la nuit.]

The Pentagon also delivered more than 5,000 hand-held bomb detectors, improved training and sent additional equipment to Afghanistan to counter the threat.

SOUTHERN AND EASTERN AFGHANISTAN ARE THE MOST VOLATILE AREAS IN AFGHANISTAN.

Tens of thousands of U.S., NATO and Afghan forces have been working for months to rout the Taliban from their strongholds in the south.

The Taliban have retaliated with targeted assassinations of Afghan officials and attacks on Afghan and coalition forces. Eastern Afghanistan, along the Pakistan border, also has been the scene of heavy violence.

ON MAY 1, INSURGENTS DECLARED THE START OF A SPRING OFFENSIVE AGAINST NATO AND THE AFGHAN GOVERNMENT.

NATO has been expecting the Taliban to stage a series of spectacular and complex attacks, and the group has already carried out a number of them recently.

The effectiveness of the Taliban's long-awaited spring campaign, code-named Badr after one of the Prophet Muhammad's decisive military victories, could affect the size of President Barack Obama's planned drawdown of U.S. troops in July.

Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has said the size of the withdrawal will depend on conditions on the ground.

The alliance has committed itself to handing over control of security in the country to Afghans by 2014.

Thirty-eight international service members have been killed so far this month, including at least 13 Americans.

So far this year, 189 coalition troops have died in Afghanistan. [Cette annéeé]

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AFGHANITAN

Capital: Kabul

Area: 647,500 km sq. (same size as Manitoba)

Population: 32,738,376 (2008)

Head of State: Hamid Karzai

Unemployment: 40%

GDP (2007): $9 billion US (est.)

Growth rate (2007): 12.7%

Exports to Canada (2007): $753,889

Imports from Canada (2007): $13,580,685

Median Age: 17.5

Literacy Rate: 28.1%

Life expectancy at birth: 42.46

Ethnic groups: Pashtun 42%, Tajik 27%, Hazara 9%, Uzbek 9%, Aimak 4%, Turkmen 3%, Baloch 2%, other 4%

(Source: CIA World Fact Book, Government of Canada)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2008/08/20/f-afghan-analyze.html