U.S. military reaches 2,000 dead in Afghanistan

Somber milestone

According to a New York Times analysis of Department of Defense records, the number of U.S. armed forces killed in the war in Afghanistan reached 2,000 late last week (NYT).  The analysis shows that half of those 2,000 troops died in the last 27 months, one of every two died in the southern province of Kandahar or Helmand, and the Marine Corps has suffered the highest fatality rate of any branch of the armed forces.

Drone wave

A U.S. drone strike near Shnakhura village in North Waziristan on Tuesday killed between five and nine suspected militants, the third such attack in as many days (AP, ET, The News, AFP).

An Indian Border Security Force official said Wednesday that Pakistani paramilitary forces had violated a ceasefire by firing at three Indian border posts along the Jammu and Kashmir border on Tuesday evening, but that Indian troops had not responded and there was no loss of life or property damage (ET). The official claimed that Pakistan has violated the ceasefire 15 times in the past 18 days. Meanwhile, a delegation of Pakistani legislators and businessmen traveled to India on Wednesday to discuss bilateral trade and visa policies with their counterparts across the border (Dawn).

The Post’s Michele Langevine Leiby reports Wednesday on how Pakistan’s myriad economic problems appear to be making it increasingly difficult for employees across multiple sectors to get paid on time (Post). Newly hired doctors in Punjab Province (recruited to replace the doctors on strike to demand higher wages) say they have not been paid in six weeks, and last year the country’s train system was halted for days when Pakistan Railways employees staged a protest over their overdue wages.

Wake me up before you go, go

Flight attendants must have thought that a woman flying from Lahore to Paris on a recent Pakistan International Airways flight looked too peaceful to disturb (ET). The plane landed in France, where all other passengers disembarked, made its way to Italy, and then back to Lahore before the woman finally woke up.

— Jennifer Rowland