Yesterday we reported on the "guidance" of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander for Europe General John Craddock, which ordered NATO soldiers in Afghanistan to kill anyone involved in the drug industry, even if there was no evidence they were insurgents. The story has...
Karzai’s Term Extended by Election Delay
The Afghan Election Commission has decided to delay the upcoming presidential elections until at least August 20, effectively giving President Hamid Karzai another several months in office and threatening to throw the war-torn country into a constitutional crisis....
Iraq Bans Blackwater
The Iraqi government has informed the US embassy today that it will decline to renew Blackwater Worldwide's license to operate in the nation. This will require the security contractors, still being used by the State Department, to leave the nation once the joint...
Draft Letters Hope to Improve US-Iran Ties
ts been nearly three months now since Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad offered a congratulatory letter to then-President-elect Barack Obama. The move was seen as one of the most significant overtures toward better relations between the two countries in years,...
Israel Continues Gaza Attacks: Insists It Isn’t Violating Ceasefire
The Israeli military attacked what it described as a "weapons manufacturing facility" in Rafah today, and continued to strike tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border, in what it said was retaliation for an apparent Qassam launch by militants in the Gaza Strip. The Qassam...
An Olive Branch to Obama: Russia to Stop Kaliningrad Missile Deployment
In a significant effort to repair the strained relationship between them and the United States, the Russian government has announced that it will abandon its threatened deployment of Iskander missiles to the exclave of Kaliningrad. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir...
Top NATO Commander Orders Troops to Kill All Opium Dealers
The German magazine Der Spiegel has obtained classified documents in which NATO top commander and US General John Craddock, a long time advocate of steering the international forces in Afghanistan toward fighting the drug export industry, issues a "guidance" advising...
At Least 11 Civilians Killed as Pakistani Forces Shell Swat Valley
The Pakistani military continued to shell the Swat Valley today, and reported that only seven militants were among the at least 18 people killed. 11 militants and an unknown number of civilians were also wounded the attacks. The military has been escalating its...
NATO Dramatically Underreports How Many Civilians It Has Killed
NATO spokesman James Appathurai told reporters today that the international forces were responsible for killing 97 Afghan civilians in 2008 based on what he referred to as their "new tracking system." The number is just the latest in an ongoing trend of dramatic...
France Summons Israeli Ambassador Over Convoy Attack
The French Foreign Ministry summoned Israeli ambassador Daniel Shek today over an incident in which a convoy of French diplomats, including the nation's consul general were blocked from crossing the Gaza border for over six hours and shot at by Israeli troops. The...