War GlanceU.S. forces are not allowed near the teeming border when it is open, so they have never seen quite how Colonel Abdul Razziq, the 30-something Afghan border police boss in Spin Boldak, single-handedly rules over billions in international trade. They say he has done a good job keeping the border moving and secure. They also believe he is, as one senior military official put it, "a crook."
Or, as Lieutenant-Colonel Pat Keane, head of a NATO unit trying to improve Afghanistan's border controls, put it more delicately: "He keeps the peace down here. Trucks flow, commerce flows. At the same time, he is getting additional incomes."
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At least 10 civilians have been killed and seven others wounded after a bomb exploded near a crowd of people celebrating the Afghan new year in Helmand province, a government official said. A suicide bomber had apparently been trying to blow up an Afghan army convoy but missed his target, Daud Ahmadi said on Sunday.
The UN's former envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, has strongly criticised Pakistan's recent arrest of high-ranking Taliban leaders. Mr Eide told the BBC the arrests had completely stopped a channel of secret communications with the UN.
When President Barack Obama took office last year, he promised to “restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great.” Toward that end, the president issued an executive order declaring that the extra-constitutional prison camp at Guantánamo Naval Base “shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order.” Obama has failed to fulfill his promise.
The U.S. military says an American soldier has died in combat in Baghdad.A statement by the military says the soldier from the U.S. Central Division was killed in combat on Thursday in the Iraqi capital.
