Night Raid Controversies

The night raids by Special Operations forces are upsetting President Hamid Karzai. The raids are controversial because Karzai claims that there are civilian casualties and that women and children are being involved. Karzai insists that the Americans stop and that any raid "has to be done by the Afghan government, within the Afghan laws." The raids usually consists of troops surrounding a house or compound (in some cases, there are helicopters involved). The occupants are demanded to come out or they will be faced with violence. The raids have been proven to be very successful in capturing/killing insurgents, according to the NATO statistics:

• Special Operations forces have been averaging 17 missions a night
• They have been conducting 1,572 operations over three months
• 368 insurgent leaders killed or captured
• 968 lower-level insurgents killed
• 2,477 lower-level insurgents captured
• About 80% of the occupants are captured rather than killed

From the Afghan perspective the raids have been flagrant and a symbol of American power. Karzai hopes there will be a decrease in American troops in Afghanistan but U.S. General David Petraeus says that if the raids were to be discontinued then it would be a disaster for the "Petraeus strategy" which is currently relying on night raids.

Girls' Primary School Burned Down, Hundreds of Qurans Destroyed

A girls' primary school located in Laghman province (eastern Afghanistan) was torched at night. There were about 850 copies of the Quran in the school's library, all of which were destroyed. Nangyalai Seddiqi, the district governor, stated that the fire was set by drug addicts and theives that attempted to rob the school. Investigations are still ongoing. There have been many cases where Taliban militants have attacked girls' school since the Taliban are against the idea of allowing Afghan girls attend school. This school that was burned down was built by an American provincial reconstruction team. UNICEF estimated that about 2 million Afghan girls are attending school since schools began reopening after the Islamist regime toppled. It is common that young schoolgirls, female-only educational facilities, and their teachers have been viciously attacked. Some of the ways they have been targetted are through poisoning, murder, and arson.

Drug Raid

Afghanistan produces 90% of the world's opium

Russia teamed up with the United States to destroy Afghan drugs laboratories. The raid occurred in Nangarhar Province (eastern Afghanistan) in which four opium refining laboratories and over 2,000 pounds of heroin were destroyed--worth $55.9 million. The joint operation was conducted by the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the Department of Defense, NATO, the Afghan Ministry of Interior, and the Russian Drug Control Agency. Of about 70 people taking part in the drug raid, only four were from Russia's Federal Counter Narcotics Service.

Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of heroin and much of the drugs are sold in neighboring countries and Russia. 90 percent of Russia's heroin comes from Afghanistan. Russia's H.I.V. epidemic is growing faster than almost anywhere else in the world, killing thousands annually due to injected drugs. Russian officials have criticized the United States for not doing enough to stop the production of the drug in Afghanistan. Some have even suggested that the United States are behind the production and are encouraging the drug trade in an effort to weaken Russia. Afghanistan's opium production has been a major source of financing for the Taliban. This has been the reason why the Obama administration is hesistant about the eradication programs, fearing that farmers would turn to the Taliban for assistance.

"The goal is to identify, disrupt and deny material support to terrorism, and very specifically to the Taliban elements that are supporting this drug trade." --Eric Rubin, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow