War Glance
Military police are investigating claims that British soldiers may have trafficked heroin from Afghanistan. The Ministry of Defence said they were aware of "unsubstantiated" claims that troops were using military aircraft to ship the drug out of the country.
The inquiry is focusing on service personnel at airports in Camp Bastion and Kandahar. Security has been tightened, with additional sniffer dogs being used as part of the crackdown at the bases.
An MoD spokeswoman said: "We are aware of these allegations.
British troops investigated for heroin smuggling
The Karzai empire: more than a dozen villas in Dubai
The family of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has been linked to more than a dozen expensive homes in the Gulf, raising fears that Western aid money sent to Afghanistan is being misused. The Daily Telegraph today reveals a property empire in Dubai assembled at a cost of £90 million that is owned or occupied by close relatives and associates of Mr Karzai.
The property holdings emerged as Mr Karzai, who leads one of the world’s poorest and most deprived countries, has struggled to salvage Afghanistan's biggest private bank, Kabul Bank, which bankrolled the purchases.
28% of interpreters hired in Afghanistan failed language test
American soldiers in Afghanistan are relying on civilian interpreters who in some cases don't know the languages they were hired to speak, resulting in dangerous military mistakes.
A former screener of translators alleges in a lawsuit that his former employer overlooked cheating on language proficiency exams, according to an ABC News report. The whistleblower, Paul Funk, told ABC that 28 percent of the interpreters hired by the firm between November 2007 and June 2008 failed the U.S. government's language requirements. The company denies the charges and is fighting the lawsuit.
U.S. soldiers play 'video prank' on Iraqi motorist - by planting a LIVE grenade in his car
The description that runs next to the video reads: 'This is my partner and I working at a Traffic control point in Iraq.
'We decided to scare one of the locals a bit by placing a grenade in his trunk while he wasn't looking.
'This was all in fun and never in any intent to harm anyone.'
US Expects to Subsidize Afghan Training for Years
The United States expects to spend about $6 billion a year training and supporting Afghan troops and police after it begins pulling out its own combat troops in 2011, The Associated Press has learned. The previously undisclosed estimates of U.S. spending through 2015, detailed in a NATO training mission document, are an acknowledgment that Afghanistan will remain largely dependent on the United States for its security.
That reality could become problematic for the Obama administration as it continues to seek money for Afghanistan from Congress at a time of increasingly tight budgets.
Outgoing NATO deputy regrets early optimism on Marjah
NATO commanders were overly optimistic when they predicted quick success taking the key Taliban-held town of Marjah last winter, the outgoing deputy commander said.
There are now fledgling signs of a turnaround, but burned once by Marjah's unpredictability, the military will be more restrained in forecasting success, British Lt. Gen. Nick Parker told reporters Saturday at the headquarters of the NATO-led force.
Powell: Iraq invasion was avoidable, regrets false WMD intelligence
Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has told the Mainichi he believes the Iraq War -- which began while he was in office in 2003 -- could have been averted.
Powell also stated during an Aug. 24 telephone interview that he regretted the false intelligence that led the United States to claim the Saddam Hussein regime possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which Powell presented to the United Nations and which underpinned the U.S. case to invade Iraq.
More Articles...
Page 45 of 114
