South Asia

8 American troops have died in Afghanistan in the past 24 hours. One of the operations involved a suicide bombing at the gates of an elite police HQ in Qandahar, followed by an attack with small arms, leaving 3 US troops dead along with an Afghan policeman and 5 civilians. Qandahar is the major southern […]

Guerrillas killed 5 US Troops in Afghanistan on Saturday, along with a dozen civilians. Another American soldier died in an accidental explosion. Two were killed in the south of the country, a stronghold of the Old Taliban of Mullah Omar. Three were killed in the east, by small arms fire or roadside bombs, in an […]

Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele has provoked a furor by remarks he made on President Obama’s Afghanistan policy at a GOP fundraiser in Noank, Ct. (where he mumbled on for all the world like a third-rate lounge lizard at an off-off the Strip Vegas discount casino before an audience mesmerized into zombiehood by its […]

As the Senate confirmed Gen. David Petraeus as commander of US troops in Afghanistan, CNN estimated that 101 NATO troops (including Americans) were killed in June, the highest total ever since the NATO presence began in 2001. The Pentagon maintains that such a spike in troop deaths is to be expected given the counter-insurgency push […]

The LAT reports on the lightning speed with which the Senate Armed Forces Committee confirmed the appointment of Gen. David Petraeus as commander of US troops in Afghanistan. The full senate votes on Wednesday. I was talking to an Afghan hand today who observed that in his view someone among the senators should have asked […]