Alla inlägg den 12 december 2013

Av loren adams - 12 december 2013 12:25

Thirty-two Taliban insurgents surrendered their weapons and joined the government's reconciliation program, local officials of southern Kandahar province said on Tuesday.

Panjwai District Security Chief Sultan Mohammad said two Taliban commanders joined the peace process along with their 30 fighters in the district on Monday.

Sultan Mohammad said that the insurgents were fighting against the government in Zherai and Panjwai districts of the province.

"Two Taliban commanders, Mullah Juma Gul and Mullah Yousufullah joined peace process. We hope security improves in the districts as a result of their joining the process," he added.

The Taliban has not yet commented about the surrender of the insurgents.


 

Av loren adams - 12 december 2013 10:56

A local Afghan brought one of his donkeys in for treatment. The complaint? The donkey had tripped a mine and gotten shrapnel wounds. Fortunately, the trip wire it triggered was a long way from the actual mine and it suffered only minor lacerations. But mines from the Soviet occupation and civil war remain a major threat to the civilian population here.

 

Av loren adams - 12 december 2013 10:49

The resident veterinarian, went to work on donkeys that are used by the Afghanistna National Army to haul supplies up the steep mountain trails of Kunar Province. These donkeys are tougher than they look!

 

Av loren adams - 12 december 2013 09:01

  Sometimes the help we provide is small-scale indeed, like when I managed helping a local man to treat his donkey which had fallen down a mountainside. When the man brought his donkey for treatment, he also brought his kids to watch!


 

Av loren adams - 12 december 2013 08:12

(Reuters) - The Obama administration is 'nowhere near' deciding to pull out all troops from Afghanistan at the end of 2014, a top U.S official said on Tuesday, despite mounting frustration President Hamid Karzai has not signed a security deal allowing the military to remain there after next year.

"I have no doubt that the (bilateral security agreement with Afghanistan ultimately will be concluded," Ambassador James Dobbins, U.S Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told the U.S Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

While Dobbins said that an ongoing delay to finalizing the deal - which U.S officials had hoped Karzai would sign weeks ago - would impose "damages and costs" on Afghans, he said the Obama administration was not on the verge of abandoning its effort to extend its troop presence.

"We're nowhere near a decision that would involve our departing Afghanistan altogether," he said.

The administration has been urging Karzai to sign the bilateral security agreement (BSA) it negotiated with Karzai's government, which would permit it to keep troops in Afghanistan beyond the end of 2014 to support Afghan forces and conduct limited counterterrorism activities.

After Afghan elders and politicians endorsed the pact last month, Karzai surprised Washington by introducing new conditions for his signature.

If no deal can be finalized, Washington says it will withdraw its entire force of 47,000 troops in a little over a year. Other NATO nations are likely to follow suit.

The absence of foreign troops would likely dampen donor nations' willingness to fund Afghan troops and provide civilian aid.

"My judgment is no troops, no aid, or almost no aid," Dobbins said. If security conditions were to worsen sharply, he said, United States could conceivably even close its embassy in Kabul.

There are fears that the Taliban and other militants ultimately could regain strength, the central government could founder, and Afghanistan be plunged anew into civil war.

The possibility of a full withdrawal of foreign forces is already having a dangerous impact on Afghanistan, Dobbins said, as people pull money out of the country, property prices fall and the Afghan currency slips in value.

Larry Sampler, a senior official at the U.S Agency for International Development, told senators that it would be more difficult to find ways to carry out promised civilian assistance for impoverished Afghanistan without a security deal and a foreign troop presence.

 

Av loren adams - 12 december 2013 07:28

If my inheritance of storms have been

In other elements, and on the rocks

Of perils, overlooked or unforeseen,

have sustained my share of worldly shocks.

The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen

My errors with defensive paradox;

I have been cunning in my overthrow,

The careful pilot of my proper woe.


Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward.

My whole life was a contest, since the day

That give me being, gave me that which marred

The gift, - a fate, or will, that walked astray:

and I at times have found the struggle hard,

And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay;

But now I fain would for a time survive,

If but to see what next can well arrive.


 

Skapa flashcards