U.S. AFPAK-IRAQ bleeding SUNDAY

Clinton in Islamabad, Pakistan, full court theater heading into Tuesday’s international donors’ conference in neighboring Kabul, Afghanistan
Re-reporting, compiled and edited by Carolyn Bennett
Sunday July 18

IRAQ
Worsening in governing void
More than 40 people have died and 40 more suffered wounds when a suicide bomb exploded today in western Baghdad. The incident occurred as government-backed Sahwa fighters gathered, lined up outside a military base in the Sunni district of Radwaniya, to collect their pay. Near the Iraq’s border with Syria in the far western town Qaim, another suicide bomb exploded. Backed by the United States since 2006, Sahwa militia (or “Awakening movements”) in Iraq reportedly have been fighting al-Qaeda.

AFGHANISTAN
Worsens daily
Escalation in the war on Afghanistan has taken enormous tolls on the Afghan people ─ and (as in Iraq) the war as weighted most heavily on the children. More than a thousand civilians have died this year alone in Afghanistan. The Afghanistan Rights Monitor say recent statistics show more than 1,000 civilians died in the first six months of 2010, with over half of them dying in suicide attacks and roadside bombings. Among those killed and injured were children.


Last month was the deadliest for international troops in this nearly nine-year-old war. One hundred and three international troops including 60 Americans have died. This month (July) 54 have died of which 39 were from the United States.

• Kandahar

Taliban fighters today freed 14 inmates from a jail in western Afghanistan after staging a daring prison break. In November 2009, 13 prisoners escaped from the same prison via a tunnel. In June that year, more than 1,000 Taliban inmates escaped from Sarpoza prison in Kandahar city after an exploded suicide bomb blew open the front gates and destroyed prison walls.


Sunday’s prison break comes two days before Afghanistan is scheduled to host a major international donors’ conference to be attended by scores of foreign ministers including U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

• Kabul

Three people died and some 30 suffered wounds today when a suicide bomb exploded in central Kabul where on Tuesday more than 70 international representatives including some 40 foreign ministers are expected to meet in conference and hear the Afghan government’s plan to take over security of its country.


Afghan president Hamid Karzai is reportedly getting ready to announce an official timetable for foreign troops to leave his country. At the international donors’ conference on Tuesday in Kabul, the Afghan government is expected also to present a long-term development strategy in exchange for more aid pledges for Afghanistan; and more control over the spending of international aid.

“Despite the high-profile spin in Washington and Kabul about progress made in Afghanistan, the Afghan people have only witnessed and suffered an intensifying armed conflict over the past six months. Contrary to President Barrack Obama’s promise that the deployment of additional 30,000 US forces to the country would ‘disrupt, dismantle and defeat’ Taliban insurgents and their al-Qaeda allies in the region, the insurgency has become more resilient, multi-structured and deadly. Information and figures received, verified and analyzed by Afghanistan Rights Monitor (ARM) show about 1,074 civilian people were killed and over 1,500 were injured in armed violence and security incidents from 1 January to 30 June 2010. This shows a slight increase in the number of civilian deaths compared to the same period last year when 1,059 deaths were recorded,” writes ARM [Afghanistan Rights Monitor] Mid-Year Report Civilian Casualties of Conflict, January-June 2010 Kabul, Afghanistan, http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWFiles2010.nsf/FilesByRWDocUnidFilename/NROI-87A9PB-full_report.pdf/$File/full_report.pdf

PAKISTAN
Neighbors against neighbors
The U.S. Secretary of State is in Pakistan today and Monday reportedly promising hundreds of millions to that country and pressing its government to escalate war against [its people] armed groups in the country’s northwest ─ particularly the so-called ‘Haqqani network’ ─ supposedly the deadliest group operating in Afghanistan whose fighters often take sanctuary in Pakistan. Reports say Clinton also will press Pakistan on ‘reconciliation’ talks between anti-government fighters and the Afghan government.

Sources and notes
KABUL [Persian Kābol] is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan ─ its cultural and economic center ─ lying along the Kābul River (elevation about 5,900 feet, 1,800 meters) in the east-central part of the country. Roads connect Kabul with most other areas of Afghanistan; to the north with Uzbekistan, to the east with Pakistan [Britannica].

“Suicide bombers target Iraq militia,” July 18, 2010,
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/07/20107181483330423.html
“Afghanistan violence soars” (Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr reports), July 18, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/07/2010716135511780796.html
“Taliban stage daring jail break,” July 18, 2010,
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/07/20107187115691869.html
Karzai ‘sets withdrawal timeline.’ July 18, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/07/2010718131825950716.html
“Clinton in Pakistan for talks,” July 18, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/07/201071842649336595.html