| December 18, 2012 | - Dynamite was found inside a high-end department store in Paris after an unknown group warned that explosives were hidden there. The group demanded France withdraw its military from Afghanistan, and threatened further attacks.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| November 12, 2009 | - A bomb-sniffing dog that went missing in action in Afghanistan more than a year ago after its handler was wounded in a gunfight was found by U.S. soldiers and returned to its Australian unit; Sabi, a black lab, is eligible for both the War Dog Operational Medal and the Canine Service Medal.
| Source:
CBC
|
| October 30, 2009 | - Abdullah Abdullah, presidential challenger to Hamid Karzai, announced that he was quitting the runoff election. In a choked-up voice he cited concerns about increased violence in Afghanistan and outrage at the fraudulent election process. The election was cancelled and Karzai was declared president. More U.S. troops died in Afghanistan in October than in any month since that war began eight years ago. A suicide bombing by Taliban militants killed six U.N. staff, and Major General Mike Flynn, director of intelligence for General Stanley McChrystal's headquarters in Kabul, warned that the number of insurgents in Afghanistan (many of whom were from other countries) was now between 19,000 and 27,000, a ten-fold increase since 2004. “I wouldn't say it's out of control right now,” Flynn explained, “but this is a California wildfire and we're having to bring in firemen from New York.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Washington Post
Source 3:
Associated Press
Source 4:
Airforce Times
|
| October 12, 2009 | - As the United States marked the eighth anniversary of its war in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal asked President Barack Obama to send 40,000 more troops there. Senator John McCain was in favor of the surge, while Vice President Joe Biden argued for unmanned drones. Within days of Pakistan's announcing a new anti-Taliban offensive in Waziristan, the tribal area that borders Afghanistan, a suicide bomber dressed as a paramilitary officer blew himself up inside a U.N. aid agency in Islamabad, two car bombs killed dozens in markets in Peshawar, and ten gunmen disguised in army fatigues attacked the country's military headquarters, holding 45 hostages until a commando raid freed 42 of them; the remaining hostages and nine of the militants were killed.
| Source 1:
AP via Yahoo News
Source 2:
foxnews.com
Source 3:
AP via Yahoo News
Source 4:
AP via Yahoo News
|
| September 20, 2009 | - A quarter of the votes in Afghanistan's presidential elections were under review for fraud, including hundreds of thousands from polling stations where every vote went to incumbent Hamid Karzai; General Stanley McChrystal, America's top commander there, said that without additional troops the war “will likely result in failure,” adding that Afghans have “little reason to support their government.” President Barack Obama said that sending more troops would put the cart before the horse.
| Source 1:
The New York Times
Source 2:
The New York Times
|
| September 7, 2009 | - Officials in Afghanistan found that hundreds of thousands of votes were cast for Afghan President Hamid Karzai at 800 fake polling sites. “If Karzai is re-elected,” said one tribal elder, “people will leave the country or join the Taliban.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 14, 2009 | - In Afghanistan, where the Taliban threatened to chop off the fingers of anyone who votes in the upcoming elections, the government passed a law allowing men to starve wives who refuse sex.
| Source 1:
NYT
Source 2:
Guardian
|
| August 6, 2009 | - General Stanley McChrystal, top commander of the war in Afghanistan, called Vietnam War historian Stanley Karnow for advice. The main lesson to be learned from Vietnam, Karnow said, was that “we shouldn't have been there in the first place.”
| Source:
AP via Boston Globe
|
| July 2, 2009 | - Four thousand U.S. Marines were deployed to the Helmand Province in Afghanistan, where they are under orders to counteract the influence of the Taliban by befriending the locals. “We're not going to drive to work,” said the brigade's commander. “We're going to walk to work.”
| Source 1:
NYT
Source 2:
WP
|
| May 7, 2009 | - The U.S. Navy reported that 12 crewmembers aboard the amphibious transport ship USS Dubuque had been diagnosed with influenza A (H1N1), bringing the total number of U.S. cases of the flu to 1,600, with 2,500 cases reported worldwide in 25 countries. Afghanistan, despite having no cases of swine flu, took its only known pig, a gift from China named Khanzir (which means “pig”), away from the friendly goats and deer with which it grazed at Kabul Zoo and placed it in solitary confinement.
| Source 1:
CNN
Source 2:
BBC
|
| April 10, 2009 | - The Obama Administration announced plans to appeal a court decision that gives some military prisoners in Afghanistan the right to sue for their release,
| Source:
NYTimes
|
| April 5, 2009 | - NATO leaders promised Obama only 5,000 more troops for Afghanistan. “No one will say this publicly,” said one European diplomat speaking on the condition of anonymity, “but the true fact is that we are all talking about our exit strategy from Afghanistan. We are getting out.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| March 27, 2009 | -
President Barack Obama announced new military policies for Pakistan and Afghanistan, reserving, as had George W. Bush, the right to attack the tribal areas of Pakistan, but adding that the United States would create “opportunity zones” for investment in the areas of Pakistan most likely to be shelled. Obama also ordered that 4,000 U.S. military trainers be used to develop a 134,000-man national army in Afghanistan to combat the “uncompromising core of the Taliban.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 8, 2009 | -
President Barack Obama said the United States was not winning the war in Afghanistan.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 23, 2009 | - Obama announced that 17,000 more troops would be sent to Afghanistan, an increase of 50 percent, partly to help secure the border with Pakistan. General David D. McKiernan said he would like yet another 10,000 troops, adding that it was “very unhealthy” to compare the current war to British and Russian debacles in Afghanistan. “You can't look like the likely loser of the war,” explained Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations. “No warlord is going to change sides to join the loser.”
| Source 1:
LAT
Source 2:
The New York Times
Source 3:
The New York Times
Source 4:
The New York Times
Source 5:
AFP via Google
|
| January 26, 2009 | - A New Zealand man named Chris Ogle bought a used MP3 player from a thrift shop in Oklahoma that contained U.S. Army files, including mission details and the personal information of soldiers stationed in Afghanistan. “The more I look at it,” said Ogle, “the more I see.”
| Source:
TVNZ
|
| January 4, 2009 | - Earthquakes struck the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan, killing no one, and the West Papua province of Indonesia, killing four people.
| Source 1:
CNN
Source 2:
VOA
|
| December 27, 2008 | - It was revealed that the CIA has been bribing Afghani tribal leaders with Viagra.
| Source:
CBS News
|
| December 22, 2008 | - A suicide car bomb at a school in Shalbandi, Pakistan, killed more than 30 people, suicide bombs in Afghanistan killed at least 20 people, including 13 schoolchildren, a car bomb in Baghdad killed at least 24 people, and cancer rates were on the rise worldwide.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Times
Source 3:
New York Times
Source 4:
New York Times
|
| December 4, 2008 | - The exhumed body of Mohammad Daud Khan, first president of Afghanistan, who was executed in a coup in 1978 and buried in a mass grave in Pul-e-Charkhi, was identified by a small golden Koran.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| November 12, 2008 | - Assailants sprayed acid in the faces of 15 schoolgirls in Kandahar, Afghanistan,.
| Source:
BBC
|
| October 13, 2008 | -
Taliban militants attacked Lashkar Gah, in the opium-rich Helmand province of Afghanistan. NATO responded with airstrikes that killed 62 insurgents, and 40 more were killed in another battle in the region. Villagers in Nad Ali, six miles away, claimed the airstrikes had also killed civilians, and they protested by carrying 12 corpses to the home of the local governor. The Taliban then seized a bus that they said was en route to Lashkar Gah, executed at least 24 passengers, and beheaded at least six.
| Source 1:
LAT
Source 2:
LAT
Source 3:
LAT
Source 4:
LAT
|
| September 23, 2008 | - Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for vice president, visited New York City and met with world leaders from Afghanistan,
Iraq, and Colombia, as well as Henry Kissinger and Bono, and agreed to speak to the press. “It was great,” she said.
| Source 1:
CNN
Source 2:
MSNBC
|
| August 26, 2008 | - A United Nations investigation of last week's coalition airstrikes in Afghanistan found that the United States had killed 90 civilians, including 60 sleeping children.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 1, 2008 | - American intelligence officials claimed that Pakistani spies helped plan the July 7 bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan,.
| Source 1:
NYT
Source 2:
AFP via Breitbart
Source 3:
NYT
|
| July 19, 2008 | - Barack Obama began his week-long foreign tour in Afghanistan, where he met with President Hamid Karzai, and continued on to Iraq. There, he flew in a helicopter to the Green Zone with General David Petraeus. Before he left the United States, he was asked what he would say to foreign leaders. “I'm more interested in listening,” Obama replied, “than doing a lot of talking.”
| Source 1:
CNN
Source 2:
New York Times
Source 3:
Politico
Source 4:
BBC
|
| June 16, 2008 | -
Taliban forces raided a prison in Kandahar, Afghanistan, allowing 870 prisoners to escape. Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened to send troops across the Pakistan border to fight the Taliban.
| Source:
Christian Science Monitor
|
| May 26, 2008 | -
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier resigned shortly before his ex-girlfriend Julie Couillard told a television interviewer that Bernier had left classified NATO documents about Afghanistan in her apartment and had encouraged her to wear a low-cut blouse to his swearing-in in order to attract media attention. It subsequently came to light that Couillard, a former model, had lived with one member of the Quebec Hell's Angels (who was arrested for possession of submachine guns and marijuana, then turned police informant, and was found dead in a ditch), married and divorced another, and was marked for death by the head Angel, a man named “Mom.” “I don't care about her cleavage,” said MP Michael Ignatieff, deputy leader of the Liberal opposition. “But this stuff is not only my business, it is the business of all Canadians.” Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a Conservative, rejected calls for an investigation into the scandal.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
National Post
|
| May 24, 2008 | - President George W. Bush gave a radio address for Memorial Day weekend, invoking the sacrifice of 4,071 U.S. soldiers in Iraq and 432 in Afghanistan. Later, for the last time in his capacity as President, he placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.
| Source 1:
AP
Source 2:
Bloomberg.com
|
| May 22, 2008 | - In Afghanistan, at Chaghcharan Airfield in Ghor, two civilians and a Lithuanian soldier were killed in protests over the shooting of a Koran in Iraq,.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| May 17, 2008 | - The Pentagon announced that it will build a permanent 40-acre detention complex in Afghanistan to replace crumbling Bagram prison. “This place,“ explained a military official regarding Bagram, ”was not made to keep people there indefinitely.”
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| April 28, 2008 | - Suspected Taliban assailants in Kabul killed a tribal chief, a member of Parliament, and a ten-year-old boy in an attempt to assassinate Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
| Source:
International Herald-Tribune
|
| April 18, 2008 | -
Suicide bombers struck in Gaza, Afghanistan, and Iraq. “We are seeing the globalization of suicide bombs,” said Mohammed Hafez, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School; U.S. officials revealed that suicide bombing was on the rise, with more than 658 attacks worldwide last year, double the number in any of the past 25 years.
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
Calcutta News
Source 3:
Canada East Online
Source 4:
Washington Post
|
| April 3, 2008 | - President George W. Bush snuck out early from a summit meeting on operations in Afghanistan,.
| Source:
Washington Post.com
|
| March 27, 2008 | - It was revealed that a Miami Beach company supplied U.S. allies in Afghanistan with defective, 40-year-old, Chinese-made bullets; the president of the company, 22-year-old Efraim Diveroli of Miami Beach, has been a defense contractor since he was 18. “I'm basically just working,” Diveroli explained on his MySpace page, “and chilling with my boyz.”
| Source 1:
NYT
Source 2:
Miami Herald
Source 3:
MySpace
|
| March 13, 2008 | - President George W. Bush spoke with soldiers in Afghanistan. “I'm a little envious,” he said via a remote video link. “It must be exciting for you—in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger.”
| Source:
Reuters
|
| March 12, 2008 | - It was reported that the richest man in Great Britain, the Duke of Westminster, was a client of the same high-end prostitution agency as Eliot Spitzer. The Duke allegedly haggled over pricing, requested sex without a condom, and bored prostitute Zana Brazdek with conversation “about the Army, going to Afghanistan, and bin Laden.”
| Source:
DailyNews
|
| March 1, 2008 | - Prince Harry of Wales, once photographed dressed as a Nazi, was called home after press accounts revealed that he was serving as a British
Army forward air controller in the Helmand province of Afghanistan. “We ask God to enable our beloved brothers in Taliban to seize this priceless booty,” wrote user Sweeping Army on an Internet jihadist message board, “because nothing would break the heart of his grandmother [more] than if she lost him. My dear brothers in Allah, carry on provoking to kidnap this precious infidel.”
| Source:
The Guardian
|
| February 18, 2008 | - A suicide bomber killed at least 100 spectators at a dogfight near Kandahar, Afghanistan.
| Source 1:
BBC
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| January 2, 2008 | - Soldiers were being sent to Afghanistan wearing high-tech helmets that gather data on how bomb blasts impact their brains.
| Source:
USAToday.com
|
| December 2, 2007 | - Khaled Hosseini, the author of the novel on which the film is based and a resident of California, implored the United States not to abandon Afghanistan. Without U.S. support, he wrote, “Afghanistan is doomed.”
| Source:
'Kite Runner' author urges US to hang on in Afghanistan
|
| November 28, 2007 | - Farmers in Afghanistan were growing fewer poppies and more pot.
| Source:
Afghans turn from growing poppies to pot
|
| November 10, 2007 | - At least 75 people, including 59 children, were killed in Afghanistan's deadliest suicide bombing since the fall of the Taliban.
| Source:
Guardian unlimited
|
| October 11, 2007 | - The Marine Corps was seeking to withdraw its 25,000 troops in Iraq and redeploy them to Afghanistan,.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 19, 2007 | - A car bomb in Kandahar, Afghanistan, killed 13 civilians.
| Source:
NYT
|
| July 23, 2007 | - The former King of Afghanistan died in Kabul.
| Source:
Andhra News
|
| July 2, 2007 | - NATO air strikes killed 45 civilians and 62 Taliban fighters in the Helmand province of Afghanistan.
| Source:
Guardian
|
| June 24, 2007 | - The military was concerned about a marked drop in the number of African-American recruits since the start of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars; “We just want to make sure,” said Marine Commandant General James Conway, “that we continue to look like America.”
- The military was concerned about a marked drop in the number of African-American recruits since the start of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars; “We just want to make sure,” said Marine Commandant General James Conway, “that we continue to look like America.”
| Source:
ABC News
|
| June 19, 2007 | - Seven children were killed during a coalition-led airstrike in Afghanistan,.
- Seven children were killed during a coalition-led airstrike in Afghanistan,.
| Source:
NYT
|
| June 10, 2007 | - The Taliban fired rockets at Afghan President Hamid Karzai as he gave a speech to some elders. Karzai paused to quiet the audience after the rockets landed a few hundred yards away, then finished his speech.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| May 28, 2007 | - In Britain, anonymous sources close to Queen Elizabeth II reported that the monarch was “exasperated and frustrated” with the legacy of the outgoing prime minister; in particular, she was said to be deeply concerned about Blair's actions in Iraq and Afghanistan and the outlawing of fox hunting.
| Source:
Telegraph
|
| May 21, 2007 | - Ten people, including a schoolboy, were killed in an Afghanistan
suicide bombing.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| May 10, 2007 | -
British prime minister Tony Blair announced that he will resign next month after ten years in power. Much speculation ensued about what the 54-year-old Blair would do next, and it was thought that he might establish a foundation to fight poverty in Africa. “[Blair] was the worst thing that ever happened to Africa,” said Bright Matonga, the deputy information minister of Zimbabwe. “We hope that the children of Iraq and Afghanistan he is killing everyday will haunt him for the rest of his life.”
| Source 1:
Daily Mail
Source 2:
The Australian
Source 3:
Guardian
|
| May 10, 2007 | - In Afghanistan,
NATO leaders were concerned about news reports that they had killed almost 90 civilians in the past two weeks, and residents of the town of Herat claimed that as many as 80 civilians were killed on Tuesday.
| Source 1:
USA Today
Source 2:
NYT
|
| May 2, 2007 | - The U.N. Refugee Agency reported that more than 36,000 Afghans had been deported from Iran since late April.
| Source:
BBCnews.com
|
| March 17, 2007 | - Between 10,000 and 30,000 people marched in Washington to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Anti-antiwar protesters, organized by a group called Gathering of Eagles, were angry that someone had put a pink tiara on a Navy memorial statue. “That was the real catalyst, right there,” said one Navy veteran. “They showed they were willing to desecrate something that's sacred to the American soul.”
| Source 1:
WP
Source 2:
WP
|
| March 6, 2007 | - The United Nations announced that Afghanistan's yield of heroin poppies rose 25 percent last year.
| Source:
BBCnews.com
|
| February 28, 2007 | - A suicide bomber attacked Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, killing twenty Afghans, a South Korean, and two Americans but missing his prime target, Vice President Dick Cheney, who has taken to speaking in the first person on the condition of anonymity. “I've seen some reporting,” said the “senior administration official” of his meeting with Pakistani authorities, “that says, ‘Cheney went in to beat up on them, threaten them.' That's not the way I work.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
San Jose Mercury News
|
| February 2, 2007 | -
Taliban forces were on the rise in Afghanistan,.
| Source:
BBC
|
| December 11, 2006 | - The Taliban established a “mini-state” in Peshawar.
| Source:
NYT
|
| October 25, 2006 | -
German soldiers serving in Afghanistan snapped commemorative photographs of themselves with the skull of a reputed Taliban militant.
| Source:
Deutsche-Welle
|
| October 12, 2006 | -
Canadian troops in Afghanistan were finding it difficult to destroy forests of ten-foot-tall marijuana plants where the Taliban hide. “That damn marijuana,” said one soldier.
| Source:
Reuters via CNN.com
|
| October 9, 2006 | - In Afghanistan, it was reported that NATO and Afghan troops had killed 52 insurgents.
| Source:
Irish Examiner
|
| October 5, 2006 | - An aid group in Afghanistan was showing children a movie about landmines. “I learned,” said an 11-year-old girl, “that you should stay away from fields that have red stones.” At the end of the film, a puppet named Chuche is given back his arms and legs.
| Source:
The Christian Science Monitor
|
| September 28, 2006 | - President George W. Bush served Presidents Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan sea bass with stuffed tomatoes, fondue, and a pomegranate-dressed endive salad at a White House dinner.
| Source 1:
BBC News
Source 2:
The Australian
|
| September 25, 2006 | -
Congress was about to go into recess; bills passed in the final days included a provision to allocate $70 billion to the Pentagon for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a clause that will allow the president to define enemy combatants at his discretion; the bill also legalized torture and suspended the writ of habeas corpus.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 20, 2006 | - In Afghanistan,
Marine General James L. Jones claimed to have killed as many as a third of the Taliban's “hardcore” fighters, leaving only the “weekend warriors.”
| Source:
New York times
|
| September 8, 2006 | - In Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai said he was “very happy to hear” Pakistan was not sponsoring terrorist attacks on his country.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 5, 2006 | - “Little America,” a model city built in Afghanistan during the Cold War, came under attack by Taliban forces. “Our government is weak,” said one resident. “Anarchy has come.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 2, 2006 | -
Afghanistan's
opium production was expected to increase by 59 percent this year, making the country the source of 92 percent of the world's supply.
| Source:
BBC
|
| August 22, 2006 | - Thousands of U.S. Marine reserves were involuntarily recalled to active duty to offset a lack of volunteers for the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
| Source:
CNN
|
| July 16, 2006 | - In Afghanistan 700 coalition troops occupied the town of Sangin in the Helmand province.
| Source 1:
Reuters AlertNet
Source 2:
Reuters AlertNet
Source 3:
Reuters AlertNet
Source 4:
Reuters AlertNet
Source 5:
Reuters AlertNet
Source 6:
Reuters AlertNet
Source 7:
Reuters
Source 8:
BBC News
|
| May 29, 2006 | - Riots broke out in Afghanistan after a U.S. military truck went out of control and killed some civilians.
| Source:
The Washington Post
|
| May 3, 2006 | - In Afghanistan the power of the Taliban was growing.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| May 1, 2006 | - A minivan in Kandahar, Afghanistan, was bombed, killing ten people.
| Source:
CNews
|
| April 15, 2006 | - Officials in Afghanistan said that 41 Taliban and six police officers had been killed in fighting in the Helmand province; a Taliban spokesman claimed 15 Afghan police and one Taliban were killed.
| Source:
Al Jazeera
|
| March 21, 2006 | - Eighty-seven percent of the world's opium was made from poppies grown in Afghanistan.
| Source:
St. Louis Today
|
| March 1, 2006 | -
President Bush, after a brief stop in Afghanistan, visited India, where he was met by 100,000 protesters in New Delhi; he promised to provide India with nuclear fuel and expertise.
| Source 1:
Democracy Now!
Source 2:
CNN.com
|
| February 19, 2006 | - The U.S. Army was using a computer game called “Tactical Iraqi” to teach Marines how to interpret Iraqis' gestures; “Tactical Pashto” and “Tactical Levantine” are in development.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| February 10, 2006 | - Riots over blasphemous cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad broke out in India, Indonesia, Kashmir, Palestine, Thailand, the autonomous Somali region of Puntland, and Afghanistan—where 11 demonstrators were killed, at least 4 of them by NATO troops. A Taliban commander offered 100 kilograms of gold to anyone who killed those responsible for the cartoons. Other anti-Muhammad-cartoon protests were held in London and Philadelphia. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called on newspapers to stop re-publishing the drawings, and U.S. President George W. Bush condemned the riots but also criticized publishers. "With freedom," said the President, "comes the responsibility to be thoughtful about others." An Iranian newspaper announced that it would publish cartoons mocking the Holocaust. Flemming Rose, the Danish newspaper editor who published the original caricatures of Muhammad, said that he'd like to re-publish the Holocaust cartoons and was subsequently put on leave by his boss. Danes were increasingly concerned that their country would be singled out for terrorist attacks. "We make fun of everything here," said a carpenter in Copenhagen. "One shouldn't take it so seriously."
| Source 1:
Arab News
Source 2:
Al Jazeera
Source 3:
BBC News
Source 4:
Channel 4
Source 5:
ReviewJournal.com
Source 6:
CBC News
Source 7:
Al Jazeera
Source 8:
ABC News Online
Source 9:
Bloomberg News
|
| February 6, 2006 | - The Bush Administration submitted a $2.77 trillion budget to Congress calling for a 7 percent increase in Pentagon spending and a $36 billion cut to the growth of Medicare spending. The Administration is expected to ask for an additional $120 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| January 18, 2006 | - In Iraq 30 people were killed at makeshift checkpoints, 22 people died in suicide bombings, 9 people were killed in an ambush, 5 bodies were found in the Qaid River, 4 children were killed by rocket-propelled grenades, and 2 American civilians were killed in a roadside bombing. Suicide bombings killed at least 22 people in Afghanistan and injured 30 people in Tel Aviv.
| Source 1:
Democracy Now!
Source 2:
The Boston Globe
Source 3:
CRI Online
Source 4:
Sign On San Diego.com
|
| January 5, 2006 | - A suicide bombing in Afghanistan killed ten people.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| October 31, 2005 | - Two U.S. soldiers were charged with assaulting two Afghan prisoners in violation of the Geneva Convention.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| October 20, 2005 | - A video recording was released that showed U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan shouting insults through a loudspeaker after setting alight the corpses of two Taliban fighters. "Wow, look at the blood coming out of the mouth on that one," said a soldier. "Fucking straight death metal."
| Source:
The Guardian
|
| October 11, 2005 | - Eighteen police officers were killed in an ambush in southern Afghanistan.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| October 10, 2005 | - It was claimed that President Bush had told a group of Palestinian ministers in 2003 that he acted on divine orders. “God would tell me,” Bush said, “‘George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.’ And I did, and then God would tell me, ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq . . .’ And I did.” The White House described these claims as “absurd.”
| Source 1:
BBC Press Office
Source 2:
New Zealand Herald
|
| October 3, 2005 | - Thirty-one suspected Taliban members were killed in fighting in Afghanistan.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| September 28, 2005 | - The U.S. Army was looking into claims that its soldiers had traded digital pictures of burned and dismembered Iraqi and Afghani bodies in exchange for online access to amateur porn.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| September 25, 2005 | - A Chinook helicopter crashed in Afghanistan, killing the entire crew.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| September 19, 2005 | -
Afghanistan held its first parliamentary elections in over three decades; about 6 million people went to the polls to elect 249 people to the Wolesi Jirga.
| Source:
Muslim American Society
|
| August 21, 2005 | - In Afghanistan four more U.S. soldiers were killed, bringing the year's total to 65.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| July 19, 2005 | - A British court, acting under the legal principle of “universal jurisdiction,” convicted a man named Faryadi Zardad on torture charges for events that took place while Zardad lived in Afghanistan, where he would often unleash a “human dog”--a crazed man he kept in a hole--on captives he was holding for ransom. In London, where he has lived since 1998, Zardad ran a pizza parlor.
| Source:
GlobeAndMail.com
|
| July 11, 2005 | -
Terrorists set off bombs on three trains and a bus in London, killing fifty-two people, despite the fact that in 2003 Dick Cheney said that “our military is confronting the terrorists, along with our allies, in Iraq and Afghanistan so that innocent civilians will not have to confront terrorist violence in Washington or London or anywhere else in the world.”
| Source 1:
The Scotsman
Source 2:
The White House
|
| July 10, 2005 | - In Afghanistan, the Taliban beheaded ten Afghan soldiers and killed a Navy SEAL.
| Source:
The Guardian
|
| June 29, 2005 | - Sixteen people died when a U.S. Chinook helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| June 25, 2005 | - Seventy-six insurgents were killed in Afghanistan, although the United States said that number might only be fifty-six, and that they were having trouble keeping a tally of the dead.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| June 25, 2005 | - The United States admitted to the United Nations that U.S. prisoners have been tortured in Iraq and Afghanistan, and at Guantánamo Bay.
| Source:
The Independent
|
| June 6, 2005 | - A bomb in Kandahar, Afghanistan, killed twenty people.
| Source:
The New Zealand Herald
|
| May 13, 2005 | - The United States was investigating claims that someone flushed a copy of the Koran down a Guantánamo Bay toilet. In Afghanistan, news of the flushing led to riots, where hundreds chanted “death to America” and at least fifteen people died.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| May 4, 2005 | - It was revealed that soon after September 11, 2001, the CIA sent a team of agents to Afghanistan with orders to “capture Bin Laden, kill him, and bring his head back in a box.”
| Source:
BBC News
|
| April 25, 2005 | - It was revealed that Condoleezza Rice ordered a German citizen released from an American-supervised prison in Afghanistan after it was determined that the man had been wrongly detained and tortured.
| Source:
SMH.com.au
|
| April 25, 2005 | - A United Nations investigator in Afghanistan who criticized the abuse of prisoners by United States Army personnel was forced out of his role under pressure from the United States.
| Source:
The Independent
|
| April 23, 2005 | - A woman in Afghanistan was stoned to death for adultery.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| April 15, 2005 | - After returning to Afghanistan from the United States, where he underwent heart surgery, an Afghan toddler died.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| April 7, 2005 | - Eighteen people died when a U.S. helicopter crashed in Afghanistan. The Taliban claimed they shot down the helicopter; the United States blamed bad weather.
| Source 1:
BBC News
Source 2:
Chicago Tribune
|
| April 4, 2005 | - Taliban militants killed nine policemen in southern Afghanistan.
| Source:
Arab News
|
| March 31, 2005 | - Laura Bush said that she and President George W. Bush both have living wills, then spent six hours in Afghanistan.
| Source 1:
Sydney Morning Herald
Source 2:
CNN.com
|
| March 31, 2005 | - The United States announced that it will establish nine new military bases in Afghanistan, bringing the total to twelve; Afghanistan announced that it will once again postpone parliamentary elections.
| Source:
Aljazeera.com
|
| March 20, 2005 | - Floods in Afghanistan killed more than two hundred people.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| March 16, 2005 | - The Pentagon admitted that many of the prisoners who have died in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002 were victims of criminal homicide.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| March 11, 2005 | - The United States announced plans to reduce the number of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay by freeing some and sending others to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Yemen.
| Source:
The Guardian
|
| March 2, 2005 | - Four Iraqis and four Afghans sued Donald Rumsfeld for torture.
| Source:
Chicago Tribune
|
| February 22, 2005 | -
Senator
John McCain called for permanent U.S. military bases in Afghanistan.
| Source:
The Guardian
|
| February 22, 2005 | - One woman was dying of a pregnancy-related illness every thirty minutes in Afghanistan.
| Source:
ArabNews.com
|
| February 18, 2005 | - It was revealed that the Army, seeking to avoid scandal, destroyed photos of U.S. soldiers holding mock executions of hooded Afghan detainees.
| Source:
AP
|
| February 12, 2005 | - In Afghanistan, a French soldier committed suicide.
| Source:
News.com.au
|
| February 1, 2005 | - A Marine general described the pleasures of shooting Afghan men.
| Source:
NBC San Diego
|
| January 26, 2005 | - The Bush Administration requested an additional $80 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year,
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| January 16, 2005 | - Sixty Afghans were released from Guantánamo Bay and returned home.
| Source:
The Malaysia Star
|
| January 10, 2005 | -
Osama bin Laden was rumored to have returned to Afghanistan.
| Source:
USA Today
|
| December 13, 2004 | - Hamid Karzai was sworn in as Afghanistan's first elected president.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| November 22, 2004 | - U.S. and Afghan forces were looking for three kidnapped U.N. workers in Kabul.
| Source:
SFGate/AP
|
| November 12, 2004 | -
Television was banned in Afghanistan.
| Source:
WJLA
|
| October 10, 2004 | - Opposition politicians complained that the Afghan presidential election was fraudulent.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 23, 2004 | - After maintaining for three years that Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American citizen captured in Afghanistan, was so grave a threat to the United States that merely permitting him to meet with his lawyer would fatally compromise national security, the Bush Administration (having been told by Justice Antonin Scalia that "the very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive") declined to defend its case against Hamdi in open court and announced that he will be stripped of his citizenship and released in Saudi Arabia.
| Source:
Boston Globe, Washington Post, ZNet
|
| September 18, 2004 | -
NATO was short of troops in Afghanistan.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 3, 2004 | - The president formally accepted his party's nomination and promised to make the world a safer place.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| August 29, 2004 | - Nine children and one adult were killed in a school bombing in Afghanistan's Paktia province.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| August 29, 2004 | - Several people died in a truck bombing in front of a security company in Kabul; the Taliban claimed responsibility.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| August 20, 2004 | -
bombs went off at United Nations voter registration offices in Afghanistan, and
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| August 14, 2004 | - There was heavy fighting in western Afghanistan.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| July 29, 2004 | - Doctors Without Borders pulled out of Afghanistan, and
| Source:
New York Times
|
| July 22, 2004 | - The Government Accountability Office said that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are running $12.3 billion over budget this year.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| July 9, 2004 | - President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan was planning to delay parliamentary elections once again.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 30, 2004 | - President Hamid Karzai begged NATO to send security troops to the country, and to "please hurry" in advance of September elections, but his request was rejected.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 28, 2004 | - In Afghanistan, Taliban fighters killed fourteen unarmed men for registering to vote.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 18, 2004 | - A civilian contractor from North Carolina who worked for the CIA was indicted for beating a detainee to death in Afghanistan.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 17, 2004 | - Al Jazeera broadcast what it said was an Al Qaeda training video recently shot at an Afghan camp.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| June 17, 2004 | - A remote-controlled roadside bomb in Kunduz hit a NATO vehicle, killing four people, including two schoolchildren.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 16, 2004 | - The president held a news conference and said that Afghanistan represents the "first victory in the war on terror"; meanwhile, heavy fighting with the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and other forces continued, an official from the Ministry of Refugees and Rehabilitation was assassinated outside his home.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 4, 2004 | - Doctors Without Borders suspended its activity in Afghanistan after one of its teams was massacred by the Taliban.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| May 22, 2004 | - Evidence continued to emerge that the United States has systematically used torture on prisoners in Afghanistan, Iraq, and in its secret detention centers around the world.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| May 15, 2004 | - It was reported that the Abu Ghraib torture fiasco was a product of a covert Pentagon operation — a so-called special-access program, authorized by Donald Rumsfeld and run by his undersecretary Stephen Cambone — that applied unconventional interrogation techniques developed for use in Afghanistan to the situation in Iraq.
| Source:
New Yorker
|
| April 30, 2004 | -
Child abductions were on the rise in Afghanistan, and the United Nations was having a hard time recruiting peacekeepers for its mission in Haiti.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| April 10, 2004 | - Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, which produced three quarters of the world's opium last year, was said to be up 30 percent.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| April 7, 2004 | - President Hamid Karzai declared a jihad on drugs.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 27, 2004 | - Political violence continued in Kosovo, Gaza, Ivory Coast, Iraq, Sudan, Pakistan, Taiwan, Afghanistan, Thailand, and Syria; there was unrest in Haiti, where armed gangs continued to terrorize the people; in Congo, where the government put down a coup attempt; and in France, where firefighters battled police during a strike over retirement benefits. The firefighters threw garbage cans, firecrackers, and smoke bombs; the police fired tear gas.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 22, 2004 | - Richard Clarke, the former head of counterterrorism under Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, published a book in which he claims that George W. Bush has done a "terrible job" fighting terrorism. Clarke says that prior to September 11, Bush ignored warnings about the threat from Al Qaeda and that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in the days just after the attacks, wanted to bomb Iraq rather than Afghanistan because Iraq had better bombing targets. Clarke charges that the president made it very clear that he wanted to find a connection between September 11 and Saddam Hussein even though there was no evidence of such a link.
| Source:
CBS News
|
| March 16, 2004 | - An Afghan soldier was caught having sex with a donkey.
| Source:
News.com.au
|
| March 2, 2004 | - A video store was blown up in Afghanistan.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 27, 2004 | -
Afghan president Hamid Karzai declared that the Taliban has finally been defeated.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 19, 2004 | - The Taliban was handing out fliers in Afghanistan warning people that they will be killed if they register to vote.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 17, 2004 | - Seven women signed up for the new Afghan national police force.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| February 3, 2004 | -
President Bush submitted a $2.4 trillion budget to Congress but failed to include the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The budget, which projects a record $521 billion deficit, calls for big increases in military spending and cuts for programs that help people without much political influence.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| January 29, 2004 | - A Canadian soldier was killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan, as was a British peacekeeper.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| January 17, 2004 | -
Afghanistan's supreme court reimposed a ban on television images of women singing on TV, just a few days after the Taliban-era ban was lifted.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| January 9, 2004 | - The Taliban were still killing people in Afghanistan.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| January 5, 2004 | -
Afghanistan's loya jirga approved a new constitution; the country will be known henceforth as the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and no law will be made contrary to Islamic belief. "There is rain coming," said Sebaghatullah Mojadeddi, the council chairman, "and flowers are coming from my body."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| December 28, 2003 | - Five Afghan soldiers died when a man they had detained blew himself up.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| December 26, 2003 | - A bomb went off near some UN housing in Kabul.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| December 16, 2003 | - Sebaghatullah Mojadeddi, the chairman of Afghanistan's constitutional convention, told women delegates that they should not try to be equal with men, that even God considers a woman to be half the worth of a man.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| December 10, 2003 | - U.S. forces killed six children in Afghanistan, along with two adults, just four days after nine children were killed during another air strike. A military spokesman admitted that "such mistakes" might hurt America's reputation in the area.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| December 7, 2003 | - A United States airstrike near Kabul failed to kill its Taliban target ("a known terrorist") but did kill nine young children who were playing ball inside the wall of their family compound. Their hats and shoes were scattered all over a bloody field.
| Source:
Los Angeles Times
|
| December 6, 2003 | - Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld went to Afghanistan to reassure its people that America has not forgotten them.
| Source:
BBC
|
| December 2, 2003 | - The First Lady was thinking of taking a trip to Afghanistan — "I hope I'll have a chance in the spring," she said.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| November 23, 2003 | - A rocket hit a hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| October 31, 2003 | - A new study from the Center for Public Integrity revealed that the 70 companies that have benefited the most from $8 billion in government contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan collectively contributed more than $500,000 to President Bush's 2000 presidential campaign.
| Source:
Boston Globe, New York Times
|
| October 9, 2003 | -
Fighting was heavy in Afghanistan.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 26, 2003 | -
Donald Rumsfeld claimed that the president's $87 billion request for the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan constituted an "exit strategy."
| Source:
Financial Times
|
| September 23, 2003 | - The International Monetary Fund called for the destruction of Afghanistan's poppy fields, which supply a $2.5 billion opium export industry. The fund said that opium accounts for up to 50 percent of the Afghan economy.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| September 21, 2003 | - The government of Afghanistan was trying to explain why the homes of 30 families in Kabul were being demolished to build new houses for government officials.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 11, 2003 | - Taliban fighters killed four Afghan aid workers.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 8, 2003 | - and surface-to-air missiles were fired at a transport plane in Baghdad.
Donald Rumsfeld, who was nearby, said that such attacks are just a cost of doing business.
Rumsfeld claimed that there has been "breathtaking" progress in Afghanistan since the war ended.
"I'm not being Pollyannaish," he said.
"I'm telling the truth."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 6, 2003 | - Gunmen fired on a Sunni mosque in Baghdad just after morning prayers and injured three people, a car bomb exploded near the headquarters of the Baghdad police department, a British bomb squad expert was killed, an American Humvee was blown up, and Lt.
Gen.
Ricardo Sanchez said that attacks on American forces were down to about 14 or 15 a day.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was touring Iraq and Afghanistan, complained that the news media was ignoring "the story of success and accomplishment" in Iraq.
| Source:
Austin American-Statesman
|
| September 2, 2003 | - Heavy fighting continued in Afghanistan,
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 25, 2003 | - and American diplomats revealed that President Bush, after sizing up the situation in Afghanistan "like a businessman," has concluded that an additional investment in that country could lead more quickly to an American withdrawal.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 23, 2003 | -
Fighting continued in Afghanistan between government troops and Taliban guerrillas.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| August 22, 2003 | -
Islamic militants burned down a girls' school south of Kabul,
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| August 4, 2003 | - In Afghanistan, the Taliban assassinated a senior Muslim religious leader, the third in forty days.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 1, 2003 | - Three Afghan officers were shot and wounded by U.S. soldiers, who said that the taxi in which the officers were riding was "driving aggressively" toward them.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| July 30, 2003 | - The Saudis were continuing to capture suspected Al Qaeda militants in police raids; the government insisted that most of those captured had been trained in Afghanistan, but admitted that a few "perhaps were trained on farms and the like inside the country."
| Source:
Los Angeles Times
|
| May 2, 2003 | - Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared that "major combat" was over in Afghanistan;
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 4, 2003 | -
The sale of young girls was on the rise in Afghanistan, and President George W. Bush declared that making war on Iraq will lead to peace in the Middle East.
| |
| March 12, 2002 | -
There was heavy fighting in Afghanistan; eight American soldiers were killed.
“First let me say that our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and the friends of the service members who have lost their lives in our ongoing operations in Vietnam,” said General Tommy Franks, who oversees Operation Enduring Freedom from Tampa, Florida. “Certainly that sacrifice is appreciated by this nation.” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that “the United States is leaning forward and not back.”
| |
| February 5, 2002 | -
President Bush said he would reconsider his decision to deny Afghan war prisoners the protection of the Geneva Conventions but said that the men were “killers” and as such did not deserve to be classified as prisoners of war. “I will listen to all the legalisms,” he declared, “and announce my decision when I make it.”
| |
| December 25, 2001 | - Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun militia chief, was sworn in as the interim leader of Afghanistan. “Let us be good to each other,” he said. “And be compassionate and share our grief. Let us forget the sad past.”
| |
| December 25, 2001 | - American warplanes attacked a convoy of trucks that reportedly was carrying Afghan tribal elders to Karzai's inauguration; 65 people were killed.
| |
| December 18, 2001 | - American warplanes were dropping fewer bombs on Afghanistan.
| |
| December 18, 2001 | - American planes dropped 46,000 pounds of cake on Afghanistan to mark the end of Ramadan.
| |
| December 18, 2001 | - Hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters made their last stand in Tora Bora, Afghanistan; Osama bin Laden was not found, however, and there were reports that he had escaped to Pakistan.
| |
| December 11, 2001 | - The Taliban surrendered Kandahar, the last Afghan city under its control, to a loose confederation of warlords, who immediately began fighting among themselves and looting stores.
| |
| December 11, 2001 | -
Afghan refugees, particularly children, were dying in great numbers; Uzbekistan finally agreed to allow humanitarian aid to cross its border at the “Friendship Bridge.” The CIA asked Pakistan for help in finding Osama bin Laden, whose mother told a Saudi newspaper that she was disappointed in her son.
| |
| December 11, 2001 | - Bandits in Afghanistan stopped a bus and cut off the ears and noses of six men who had shaved their beards.
| |
| December 4, 2001 | -
Afghan women returned to school, and dervishes were whirling once again in Kabul.
| |
| November 27, 2001 | -
Afghan
farmers were planting opium again.
| |
| November 27, 2001 | - Boxes of American food aid fell through the roofs of several houses in Herat, Afghanistan; an old shrine to a Persian poet was also damaged.
| |
| November 27, 2001 | - Several children in Afghanistan were injured and killed when they picked up remnants of American cluster bombs, which did precisely what they were designed to do.
| |
| November 27, 2001 | -
Germany's
Green Party, rejecting one of its defining principles, voted to go along with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's decision to send troops to Afghanistan.
| |
| November 27, 2001 | - The animals in Kabul's zoo were barely hanging on.
| |
| November 20, 2001 | - American Special Forces were roaming the hills of Afghanistan on horseback searching for Osama bin Laden and Mullah Muhammad Omar, who were on the run after the Taliban lost most of its territory.
| |
| November 20, 2001 | - Foreign Taliban fighters in Kunduz executed more than 400 of their Afghan comrades to keep them from defecting.
| |
| November 20, 2001 | - Northern Alliance forces entering Kabul were photographed beating and summarily executing a wounded Taliban soldier as he begged for his life.
| |
| November 20, 2001 | - Retreating Al Qaeda
terrorists in Afghanistan left behind nuclear designs written in Arabic, German, Urdu, and English; foul-smelling liquids; and a recipe for building a nuclear bomb that included detailed descriptions of how TNT can cause plutonium to begin its deadly chain reaction.
| |
| November 13, 2001 | - A 16-year-old Latvian girl who struck Prince Charles in the face with a red carnation to protest the bombing of Afghanistan was charged with endangering the life of a high official.
| |
| November 6, 2001 | - Fog, 100-mile-per-hour sandstorms, and freezing weather slowed the deployment of 100 American special forces “stealth” troops to the front lines in Afghanistan.
| |
| November 6, 2001 | - The Air Force was planning to deploy more of its Predator surveillance drones in Afghanistan even though an internal Pentagon report recently concluded that the drone doesn't perform well at night or in cold or rainy weather.
| |
| November 6, 2001 | - Reporters visited the village of Chowkar-Karez in Afghanistan where a man named Mehmood moved his family to keep them safe from the American bombs: “I brought my family here for safety,” he said, “and now there are 19 dead, including my wife, my two children, my brother, sister, sister-in-law, nieces, nephews, my uncle.” United States forces apparently thought the refugees were Taliban soldiers.
| |
| November 6, 2001 | - America recalled its ambassador from Venezuela after President Hugo Chávez denounced the Afghan
war as “fighting terrorism with terrorism” and a “slaughter of innocents.” A Michigan fisherman was attacked by an enraged 200-pound deer; he wrestled the beast for 45 minutes, strangled it with his belt, and finally clubbed it to death with a piece of wood.
| |
| October 30, 2001 | -
President Bush said the bill would protect constitutional rights while “preventing more atrocities in the hands of the evil ones.” American planes again bombed and this time destroyed the Red Cross complex in Kabul. One plane that had been ordered to bomb the complex missed and instead hit a residential neighborhood. Another American bomb killed seven children who were sitting at home having breakfast.
| |
| October 30, 2001 | - Northern Alliance soldiers in Afghanistan were upset that the American bombing was so paltry that it was raising Taliban morale: “If the United States did this for a hundred years, it's not enough.” There was a report that American forces had passed up a chance to destroy a convoy carrying Taliban leader Mulla Omar Mohammed because they didn't have authority to do so.
| |
| October 30, 2001 | - Other Pentagon officials were telling reporters that the Afghan
war will probably just make things worse, that short-term tactical gains may well lead to catastrophic strategic losses.
| |
| October 30, 2001 | -
Donald Rumsfeld asserted that the Afghan
war is “not a quagmire.” Israelis and Palestinians continued to make war on one another; the death count rose to 728 Palestinians and 186 Israelis.
| |
| October 23, 2001 | -
President Bush, who has taken to using the phrase “the Bush doctrine” to describe his war on terrorism, collected $1 donations from American schoolchildren to help feed starving Afghan refugee children. He praised a young girl from Virginia who raised $45 by feeding chickens.
“One way to fight evil is to fight it with kindness and love and compassion,” he said.
“Winter arrives early in Afghanistan.
It's cold, really cold, and the children need warm clothing and they need medicines.
And thanks to the American children, fewer children in Afghanistan will suffer this winter.” That day, at least one American bomb landed in the Red Cross compound in Kabul, setting several warehouses on fire.
| |
| October 23, 2001 | - In response to reports of heavy civilian casualties near Darunta, the Pentagon spent millions of dollars buying up exclusive rights to civilian satellite photos of the Afghan bombing zone to prevent the images from falling into the hands of the news media.
| |
| October 23, 2001 | - One hundred Army Rangers and other elite American troops carried out a nighttime assault in Afghanistan.
| |
| October 16, 2001 | - The United Nations suspended its food convoys into Afghanistan because of the American bombing campaign.
| |
| October 16, 2001 | - U.S. forces dropped over 100,000 yellow ration packets into Afghanistan, where there are thought to be 7.5 million people facing starvation. Each packet, decorated with an American flag, contains one day's worth of food, a book of matches, and a Moist Towelette: “Here is your Moist Towelette,” the packet says in English. “It will clean and refresh your hands and face without soap and water. Self-dries in seconds, leaving your skin smooth and soft.”
| |
| October 16, 2001 | - As a result of a “targeting process error,” an American bomb went astray and landed in a residential neighborhood in Kabul.
| |
| October 9, 2001 | - America and Britain fired cruise missiles and dropped bombs on targets in Afghanistan.
| |
| October 9, 2001 | - Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, a tick-borne virus similar to Ebola, was killing
Afghan refugees and health workers.
| |
| October 2, 2001 | - American troops were reportedly on the ground in or near Afghanistan.
| |
| September 25, 2001 | -
President George W. Bush declared that all the nations of the earth must choose sides in the coming crusade against terrorism, and he promised to attack Afghanistan if its leaders refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, the famous terrorist, whom the President has described as “Wanted: Dead or Alive.” Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld told reporters that the preliminary brand-name of the American military campaign, Operation Infinite Justice, would probably be changed, because it was offensive to Muslims, for whom infinite justice is a divine attribute. Some Christians also found the name offensive.
| |
| September 25, 2001 | -
Afghanistan's leading clerics said they would try to persuade Osama bin Laden to leave their country voluntarily, an offer that was quickly scorned by the White House. There was a report from Islamabad that bin Laden was last seen in a training camp outside Kabul, just before he rode off into the desert on the back of a horse.
| |
| September 25, 2001 | - One Afghan diplomat scoffed at President Bush's threats: “So the only master of the world wants to threaten us. But make no mistake: Afghanistan, as it was in the past, the Great Britain, he came, the Red Army, he came. Afghanistan is a swamp. People enter here laughing, are exiting injured.”
| |
| September 18, 2001 | - Mullah Muhammad Omar, supreme leader of Afghanistan's Taliban, condemned the Attack on America and claimed that Osama bin Laden was not responsible. “Mullah Omar condemns this act. Mullah Omar says Osama is not responsible,” said a Taliban spokesman. “We have brought peace to this country and we want peace in all countries.”
| |
| September 18, 2001 | - The United States was said to be preparing a massive assault on bin Laden's positions in Afghanistan.
| |
| September 18, 2001 | -
Pakistan agreed to American demands that it allow a multinational force to attack
Afghanistan from within its borders, though the military establishment there was divided, with some generals calling for a holy war against the West.
| |
| June 26, 2001 | -
Communists in the Italian
senate protested the upcoming Group of 8 summit, which will be held in Genoa next month, by holding up little signs that read, “Let's throw the G-8 into the sea.” Afghanistan's Taliban agreed to let the World Food Program employ local women to survey food needs there even though this would seem to violate God's
Law.
| |
| June 5, 2001 | -
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban decreed that foreign women may no longer drive cars because such driving is “against Afghan traditions” and has a “negative impact” on Afghan society.
| |
| May 29, 2001 | - Refugees in Afghanistan were suffering from scurvy.
| |
| March 27, 2001 | - The Taliban explained that they destroyed Afghanistan's ancient Buddhist statues because a group of Europeans had recently visited and offered money to preserve the statues, but none to feed starving Afghani children.
| |
| March 20, 2001 | -
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban sacrificed 100 cows to atone for being so slow to destroy ancient stone statues of the Buddha.
| |
| March 6, 2001 | -
Afghanistan's supreme leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, ordered the destruction of all statues in the country, which has some of the most significant ancient Buddhist statuary in the world, including two giant standing Buddhas carved out of a mountainside in the seventh century.
| |
| March 6, 2001 | - Important clerics in Egypt, Pakistan, and Iran pointed out that the Mullah's interpretation of the Koran was incorrect. Mawlawi Qudratullah Jamal, the Taliban's minister of information and culture, replied that it was “not a big issue,” that the statues were “objects only made of mud or stone.” After announcing that the destruction of the Buddhas had begun, Jamal noted that “it is easier to destroy than to build.”
| |
| February 13, 2001 | - Political violence continued in Afghanistan, China, Colombia, Congo, Ecuador, Guinea, Indonesia, Iran, Kashmir, Liberia, Nigeria, Palestine, the Philippines, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Zimbabwe, and elsewhere.
| |
| February 6, 2001 | - Refugees in Afghanistan were freezing to death.
| |
| January 16, 2001 | -
Afghanistan's chief mullah decreed that encouraging a Muslim to convert to Christianity was a capital crime; Mullah Muhammad Omar also let it be known that selling any kind of anti-Islamic literature would be punished by five years in prison.
| |
| 0, 2000 | - Fourteen Americans were killed in two helicopter crashes in Afghanistan, and the Department of Defense announced that 72 members of the U.S. military had recently died while serving in Operation Enduring Freedom in Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines, the Seychelles, the Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Yemen, as well as at Guantanamo Bay.
| Source 1:
The New York Times
Source 2:
The Washington Post
|
| 0, 2000 | - Forty people died in a bombing in Afghanistan.
| Source:
Al Jazeera
|
| 0, 2000 | -
Afghanistan's Interior Ministry was trying to determine whether it was terrorists, robbers, or thieves that attacked a bank in Kabul, and international forces in Ghazni province mistakenly killed four Afghan policemen. Both Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah claimed victory in Afghanistan's presidential election.
| Source 1:
BBC News
Source 2:
NY Times
|
| 0, 2000 | - President Obama appeared likely to surge 40,000 troops into Afghanistan, thus adopting the key military tactic that the Bush Administration defined as successful in Iraq.
| Source:
NY Times
|
| 0, 2000 | -
Barack Obama claimed that the same groups that attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001, were “plotting to do so again,” that the eight-year conquest and occupation of Afghanistan were a “necessity,” and that free-spending congressional legislators were conspiring with the military-industrial complex to weaken national security with “exotic” defense projects.
| Source:
NY Times and Yahoo News
|
| December 0, 2000 | - In Afghanistan, a country with no duly elected president, citizens were turning to Taliban “shadow courts” for justice, and, in a series of unannounced government actions, an additional 13,000 U.S. military engineers, medical personnel, military police, and intelligence officers were already deploying.
| Source 1:
VOA Newsm
Source 2:
NY Times
Source 3:
Washington Post
|
| September 0, 2000 | - A truck bomb in Afghanistan killed 25 people, most of them civilians.
| Source 1:
Sky News
Source 2:
RTE News
|
| August 8, 2000 | - The supreme leader of the Taliban said that Afghanistan's severe drought was sent by God to punish the people for neglecting their religious duties and failing to show proper gratitude toward their rulers.
| |
| August 1, 2000 | - In Afghanistan, poppies were banned by the Taliban.
| |
| August 0, 2000 | - A draft U.S. National Intelligence Estimate reported that the government of Afghanistan, plagued by corruption and at war with a resurgent Taliban, is in a “downward spiral.”
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| July 25, 2000 | -
Afghan authorities arrested and shaved the heads of a group of visiting Pakistani boys for wearing shorts during a soccer game.
| |
| January 9, 2000 | - World leaders converged in Pittsburgh for the G-20 summit, as did protesters. City officials freed 300 prisoners so that they would have 1,000 cells available, but ended up arresting only 149 people in two days. The protesters held demonstrations against pollution, global warming, automobiles, homophobia, African debt exploitation, corporate subsidies, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, child labor, the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the Burmese junta, and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's presence at the summit. Anarchists in black sang, to the tune of the Beatles' “Yellow Submarine,” “We all live in a fascist bully state.” “I feel like it's real exclusive,” said 15-year-old Rosi Lowe of the summit, “and doesn't represent the entire world.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Post-Gazette
Source 3:
MSNBC
|
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