Daily brief: Coalition troops attack Taliban stronghold in Helmand

Bombs away

U.S., NATO and Afghan forces stormed into the Taliban-held town of Dahaneh in Helmand province before dawn today, battling to gain control of the strategically important village ahead of next Thursday’s presidential election (AP). Operation Eastern Resolve II is designed to cut off the Taliban from a main base and reclaim the area’s main market district, breaking the months-long stalemate between coalition forces and insurgents.

Dahaneh is a main trading route through the northern parts of Helmand, which produces 60 percent of the world’s opium (Al Jazeera). Casualty figures are as yet unavailable (Voice of America).

The number of effective IEDs in Afghanistan for the month of July is triple what it was during the same month last year, suggesting that Taliban militants are becoming more sophisticated at placing and setting off the roadside bombs that are the source of the majority of U.S. and NATO deaths (AP). August is on pace to be the deadliest month yet for foreign troops in Afghanistan, surpassing July, when 75 U.S. and NATO soldiers were killed.The Pentagon figures are available here (JIEDDO).

As an example of the danger from roadside bombs, two Associated Press journalists embedded with the U.S. military in southern Afghanistan were wounded early this morning when an IED exploded their vehicle (AP). And seven policemen were killed in Kabul and northern Afghanistan this morning, including a district police chief in the northern province of Kunduz (AFP and Quqnoos).

Incumbent Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s supporters are reportedly at work trying to rig next week’s presidential election, attempting to collect or buy voter registration cards (Times of London). Reports of security concerns and corruption are widespread, particularly in largely Pashtun areas of Afghanistan (AP).

Money makes the world go ’round

U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan General Karl Eikenberry has told the State Department that an additional $2.5 billion in nonmilitary aid is necessary "if we are to show progress in the next 14 months" (Washington Post). Since 2001, the U.S. has spent around $38 billion on reconstruction, more than half of it training and equipping Afghan security forces.

Nukes, lawsuits, and refugees

A Pakistani military spokesman denied that Taliban militants have attacked any of the country’s nuclear facilities, in reaction to claims by a U.K. professor that militants have made three attempts in two years to strike them (AP). Shaun Gregory’s article, which appeared in the July issue of West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center’s journal, is available here (CTC Sentinel, 24 pp, pdf).

Pakistani police yesterday filed a criminal case against former president General Pervez Musharraf for ordering the illegal detention of judges during Pakistan’s 2007 political crisis (Wall Street Journal and Dawn). Currently living in London, Musharraf could be arrested if he returns to Pakistan and faces up to three years in prison if convicted (Los Angeles Times).

Of the more then two million refugees from this spring’s conflict in the Swat Valley and surrounding districts, some 765,000 have returned (Daily Times), but Taliban militants are still carrying out acts of violence in the region, torching seven primary schools in Buner (Bloomberg).

Please don’t stop the music

Some Pakistani youths are taking to the studio and the concert hall to vent against the Taliban militants who are causing such violence in their country (Reuters). The Taliban, opposed to music, theater and film, have not asked these musical entrepreneurs for a theme song.