Taliban fighters take over several Afghan villages

[maddezmom]

Source: AP

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Hundreds of Taliban fighters took over several villages in southern Afghanistan on Monday just outside the region's largest city, and NATO and Afghan forces were redeploying to meet the threat, officials said.

Mohammad Farooq, the government leader in the Arghandab district of Kandahar province, said around 500 Taliban fighters moved into his district and took over several villages.

Arghandab lies just north of Kandahar city — the Taliban's former stronghold — and a tribal leader from the region warned that the militants could use the cover from Arghandab's grape and pomegranate orchards to mount an attack on Kandahar itself.

"All of Arghandab is made of orchards. The militants can easily hide and easily fight," said Haji Ikramullah Khan. "It's quite close to Kandahar. During the Russian war, the Russians didn't even occupy Arghandab, because when they fought here they suffered big casualties."



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080616/ap_on_re_as/afghanistan

[ananda]

1. So what I want to know is why Gordon Brown is..

.. now Bush's poodle too.

I'm thinking maybe England is America's poodle,
no matter who the PM is.

Sue

[sabra]

2. the lost war is becoming center stage..... :-(

[High Plains]

3. Maybe McCain will get his 100 years war here.

[skooooo]

4. Hundreds of Taliban occupy Afghan villages

Source: CNN



KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Hundreds of Taliban fighters have taken over several villages in the same southern Afghanistan province where about 400 Taliban militants recently escaped from prison, local officials and police said.

About 400 to 500 Taliban militants were seen streaming into the Arghandab district of the Kandahar province late Sunday night on motor bikes and pickup trucks, said Haji Aka Jan, a tribal elder in the district.

Abdul Wali Karzai, younger brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and head of the provincial council, also said a large number of militants entered the district, and Afghan and NATO forces were preparing to come into the area.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/06/16/afghanistan/index.html

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Things are not going well in Afghanistan....

[Bragi]

5. Afghanistan is NOT "the good war"

The left has had a tendency to want to portray the Afghanistan war as "good" in contrast to Iraq, which is obviosuly "bad".

From all my reading, I disagree profoundly. There is no chance whatsoever that anything good is going to come out of the Afghan war.

The Mulsim fundamentalists have been running the show there for 200 years, and they'll be running the show there 200 years from now (in the unlikely event humankind lasts another 200 years.)

We can send as many soldiers to their death as pleases our leaders, and spend as many billions as we want blowing the place up and killing locals, but no good will come from it.

As for Karzai's recent threats against Pakistan, this corrupt puppet wouldn't last two weeks without the backing of foreign armies.

His threats are intended to lay the groundwork for a broader war against Pakistan, which is about the only way he can hang on to power.

I hope against hope that Obama will break with Bush on his Afghanistan policy, and will focus on finding out a way of getting out of that hellhole.

- B