Daily brief: Taliban attack NATO base

Attack: repelled

At 7:30 this morning local time, Taliban fighters attacked a NATO airfield in Jalalabad, eastern Afghanistan, with a car bomb and rocket propelled grenades, injuring two service members (AFP, CNN, AP, BBC, Reuters, NYT). Eight attackers, who did not penetrate the perimeter of the base, were killed in the ensuing gunfight. June is the deadliest month for NATO troops in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban; at least 100 soldiers were killed (AFP, Times).

Nearly 1,600 Afghan police officers have been killed in the last two years, and the force continues to struggle with attrition, lack of training, and illiteracy (Wash Post). McClatchy reminds of the danger and importance of the highway between Kabul and Kandahar (McClatchy). And Marjah, the town in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province that was the site of a coalition offensive earlier this year, "appears to some to be stagnating" (Independent). Bonus read: what Marjah portends for Kandahar (FP).

Official actions

As expected, yesterday the Senate Armed Services Committee promptly approved the nomination of Gen. David Petraeus to lead troops in Afghanistan, clearing the way for the full Senate to approve him today and for the general to be in Kabul by Friday (AP, AFP, Reuters, NYT). During the hearing, Gen. Petraeus stuck to his support of the Obama administration’s July 2011 deadline for the beginning of the U.S. withdrawal, though said the military did not "propose or recommend" such a date, and while tempering expectations about the likely pace of violence in the coming months (WSJ, BBC, FT, Tel, Reuters, Guardian, LAT). The general also plans to review the concept of ‘courageous restraint,’ restrictions on the use of airstrikes and artillery in Afghanistan, which decreased civilian casualties but have been "bitterly criticized by American troops who say they have made the fight more dangerous" (NYT, AJE, Times, Dawn).

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Gen. Petraeus’s predecessor who was fired last week, will be allowed to retire with his four-star rank even though he had not served the full amount of time normally required to qualify for those benefits (CNN, Reuters).

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is in Kabul to hold talks with Afghan and U.S. officials about improving Afghanistan’s justice system and battling corruption (AFP, AP). Holder’s Afghan counterpart, Muhammad Ishaq Aloko, disputing allegations that he has been pressured by Afghan political leaders to derail corruption investigations against powerful Afghans, accused U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry of pressuring him to bring two particular cases forward or resign (Pajhwok, Wash Post, NYT, AP). Afghanistan’s finance minister, Omar Zakhilwal, called yesterday for an investigation into the country’s hawala network, which is reportedly helping move billions of dollars out of Afghanistan (WSJ, AFP).

The back channels

Nick Schifrin reports on the Afghan government’s efforts to work with the Pakistani military and intelligence services to discuss peace talks with the Haqqani network (ABC). A senior Afghan official commented, "We don’t need to deal with Haqqani directly. We can deal with the ISI," Pakistan’s intelligence service. The LA Times, writing that "Pakistan has begun trying to seed a rapprochement" between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Haqqanis, describes the major obstacle to an agreement: Haqqani links to al-Qaeda (LAT).

The high court in Lahore has urged the Pakistani government to halt U.S. drone strikes in the country’s northwest if they occur without the consent of the government (Geo, Dawn, ET). Twenty suspected militants were killed earlier today in airstrikes in Orakzai agency (AP). And the AP profiles the political scandal in Pakistan over some 160 lawmakers who have allegedly lied about their academic degrees (AP). The chief minister of Baluchistan protested, "A degree is a degree! Whether it’s fake or genuine, it’s a degree! It makes no difference!" (AP, The News).

The underground classroom

Some 20,000 Afghan girls are enrolled in school in Kandahar, compared with nearly 60,000 boys, and girls there learn at a number of underground schools to avoid threats from the Taliban (FT). The number of families setting up clandestine classrooms at home has grown along with the amount of insurgent violence, according to officials in Kandahar.

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