This Week in Afghanistan (Dec 21 - Dec 27, 2009)

 "Operation Christmas" distributes gifts in Kabul (AP)

Christmas week in Afghanistan was filled with brief glimpses of holiday spirit, and regardless how ephemeral those moments were hopefully they gave a jolt to troop morale, because joy was soon replaced by death and terror.  Peace on earth was indeed fleeting, if it ever has been present within the last thirty years in this war-torn country, as Taliban suicide bombers launched unremitting assaults in Eastern and Southern Afghanistan.

  Violence erupts in Eastern Afghanistan (aljazeera)

Monday, December 21
Taliban fighters launch assault against police HQ
A group of suicide bombers attacked police headquarters in the city of Gardez in Paktia province in Eastern Afghanistan, an area near the Pakistani border which has seen some of the worst violence from Taliban insurgents.  Apparently aimed at a training class of Afghan police and their foreign mentors, the attack led to a long firefight that paralyzed the city. At least two Taliban were killed while four Afghan officers and one civilian were wounded. One of the key components of the U.S. war strategy in Afghanistan is to ensure enough Afghan soldiers are trained so that the U.S. can begin to withdraw by 2011.

Tuesday, December 22
British troop killed by IED in Helmand
The soldier from The Parachute Regiment was killed Tuesday from the detonation of an improvised explosive device (IED) while foot patrolling in Sangin in Helmand Province. The soldier brings the British death toll since the US-led invasion in October 2001 to 243, with 106 killed since the beginning of this year. Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government recently announced a $240-million-dollar program to combat the threat of IEDs, which cause the vast majority of British troop deaths.

Wednesday, December 23
Canadian soldier killed by bomb in Panjwaii
Lt. Andrew Richard Nuttal, a Canadian paratrooper, was killed after a bomb attack in the Panjwaii district, near the city of Kandahar. The explosion also killed an Afghan soldier and injured an interpreter. Nuttal was the 134th Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan since 2002. Canada currently has 2,500 soldiers in the country as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization mission.

  Horse-drawn cart kills 8 in Kandahar (AP)

Thursday, December 24
Horse-drawn cart kills eight people in Kandahar
A militant rode a horse pulling an explosive-laden cart into the town of Kandahar Thursday night that blew up in front of the Intercontinental guesthouse where government officials often stay. The explosion shook the central part of town and killed eight people altogether, including one child. Five of the victims killed sat in a nearby automobile, while three others were killed on the street, including one Intercontinental security guard. Eight other people were wounded, two of them severely.

The horse and cart were laden with explosives and were heading towards a specific target,” said Ahmad Shah Farooqi, the deputy provincial police chief. “The police spotted the cart and called to the man driving the horse cart to stop. When he did not pay attention to the request, the police fired at the cart and as a result it detonated.”

Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second largest city, lies in the heart of hostile Taliban-controlled territory in the south. Yet, this was the first major incident since a truck bombing in August that killed 46 and wounded 65 people.

Friday, December 25
Afghanistan Yuletide Bash with a Bang
NATO Soldiers improvised at Camp Phoenix outside of Kabul by building an ersatz Christmas tree out of approximately $10,000 worth of communications equipment. They also partied – well, sort of. U.S. troops in Afghanistan are prohibited from consuming alcohol, so they pounded virgin iced teas all night instead. Then, after a dinner of prime rib and shrimp, they cleared the dance floor and blasted hip-hop music into the wee hours. At one point during the festivities, a group called ``Operation Christmas'' came by and delivered more than 2,800 bags of gifts.

Meanwhile, in Jalalabad, a radio blared Christmas classics as soldiers sucked on cigars and merrily tilted cans of eggnog. Later that night a gaggle of troops gathered round a fire pit and joyously began breaking into their favorite carols. The makeshift choir hit the high notes of a well known ditty, but was cut-off when they heard a muddled thump that seemed to shake the entire camp - a mortar had landed in a nearby base. After the soldiers exchanged glances in a few moments of silence, the apparent song leader jumped right back into the chorus, braying:  “Hark! The herald angels sing!” and the rest of the unit followed heartily: “Glory to the newborn king…”.    Merry Christmas, from Afghanistan.

  MATV (left) will take over for MRAP (right) (MCT)

Saturday, December 26
New state-of-the-art All Terrain Vehicle deployed
U.S. introduced its new $500,000-to-$1 million Mine Resistant Ambush Protected All Terrain Vehicle, which is tailored to Afghanistan's mountainous terrain, and the Pentagon is sending 5,000 of them to the battlefield. The vehicles climb mountains at angles that approach 45 degrees, and they glide across rocky roads. The M-ATV's lighter frame can maneuver through Afghanistan's lawless traffic much better than the previous MRAP model.

  310 Americans killed in 2008 vs. 155 in 2008 (AP)

Sunday, December 27
U.S. death toll in Afghanistan doubles in 2009
NATO-run International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said a U.S. soldier was killed by an improvised explosive device (IED), the biggest killer of foreign troops in the eight-year Afghanistan war. The soldier is the 310th American to die in 2009 versus a total of 155 American deaths in 2008. According to independent website icasualties.org that takes the international military casualty number to 506 for 2009. Experts say this number is only going to go up with the addition of 30,000 US soldiers and 6,800 NATO troops in 2010 because of President Barack Obama’s surge strategy. Earlier this month, US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mike Mullen warned the violence will get worse before getting better because the Taliban dominate at least a third of the country.

One of the keys to successfully keeping the troop death level number down is how effectively and rapidly NATO forces can train Afghan military personnel at all levels, from grunt all the way up to General. Case in point - a senior Afghan military official, General Mohammad Qasum Betanai, said NATO forces killed 12 militants in an air strike in eastern Afghanistan. However, ISAF spokesman denied any NATO military activity in Kunar province at the time. Thus, we all should that a major portion of this training to be given to the Afghan military will be focused in areas such as intelligence acquisition, analysis and communications.

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