The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has brought in trainers from Colombia to prepare a new Afghan anti-narcotics force. Opium cultivation has steadily grown in Afghanistan since the US invasion of 2001, leaping from 183,000 acres in 2002 to 408,000 last year. So far this year, about 20,000 acres have been destroyed, according to the United Nations. The crop is expected to yield more than 6,500 tons of opium, exceeding global demand. The export value—about $3.1 billion—is equivalent to about half of the legal Afghan economy. The Taliban, which banned opium cultivation when they were in power, are now said to be overseeing its cultivation to fund their insurgency. (NYT via Pakistan Tribune, May 16)

From the Zochrot (Remembering), a group of Israeli citizens working to raise awareness of the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948:

International Nakba Day, May 15, 2007
The Nakba is the story of the Palestinian tragedy: the destruction of communities, civilization, culture and identity, the expulsion and the killing that took place in 1948. It is a story that constitutes the past and present of the Palestinian people and shapes a large part of Palestinian identity. Yet in many respects the Nakba is also the story of Jews who live in Israel. A story that is not easy to cope with, a story that raises difficult questions about the possibilities of life together in the space that is today the state of Israel.

An interesting report from IraqSlogger, May 15:

An unknown left-wing group calling itself the Iraqi Armed Revolutionary Resistance distributed leaflets in the Mid-Euphrates area around Najaf, Hilla and Karbala calling for "resistance against American, British and Zionist occupiers in order to liberate Iraq and form a free socialist, democratic alternative," according to the Al-Badeel Al-Iraqi website. The group, which described itself as a "movement of Iraqi Communists and Marxists experienced in armed struggle, leftist Iraqi nationalists, and their supporters," claimed responsibility for an attack against U.S. troops at the Khan Al-Nus area between Najaf and Karbla on Sunday. The leaflets, which carried a photo of Cuban Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara, announced the launch of the resistance in the Mid-Euphrates and condemned the "puppet government, the so-called Council of Representatives, terrorist Salafis, militias, the Interior Ministry, Iraqi traitors who came on American tanks, the American and British mercenaries, contractors, and their servants from the South Lebanese Army." Printed in both Arabic and English, the statement said car bombs and roadside bombs killing Iraqis are planted by the above groups to damage the reputation of Iraqi resistance groups.

A Pakistani man held at Guantanamo Bay denied belonging to al-Qaeda and accused US authorities of torturing him, according to a document released by the Pentagon May 15. Majid Khan, who lived in the US for several years, was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and held in a secret network of CIA-run prisons before he was transferred to Gitmo last year. "I am not an enemy combatant. I am not an extremist," Khan told a panel of military officials on April 15, according to the edited transcript released by the Pentagon. The hearing was held to determine whether Khan, 27, meets the US definition of an enemy combatant but no decision has been reached. The hearing was closed to the public.

With all the paranoia about al-Qaeda and ETA, it seems the latest bomb scare in Spain may be the work of radical urban preservationists. Police say they deactivated an explosive device May 15 found outside an industrial warehouse in Lugo, in the remote and usually peaceful northern region of Galicia. A police spokesman said the device—a pressure cooker loaded with shrapnel and armed with a detonator—could have caused a "massacre" if it had gone off. Two local newspapers received warnings by e-mail, which accused the construction company of being responsible for "urban destruction" in Lugo. (TypicallySpanish, May 15)

A statement by supposed al-Qaeda affiliate in Europe, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, pledged to launch attacks in Paris in response to the election of Nicolas Sarkozy as president. "As you have chosen the crusader and Zionist Sarkozy as a leader...we in the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades warn you that the coming days will see a bloody jihadist campaign...in the heart of Sarkozy's capital," the group's "Europe division" said in an Internet statement addressed to the French people. The statement said Sarkozy was "thirsty for the blood of Muslim children, women and old people and eager to carry out the mission set by his masters in the Black [US White] House."

Algerian troops killed 13 Islamist fighters east of Algiers May 14, local media reported. Special forces backed by helicopters killed 11 militants said to belong to the "al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb" in an offensive on rebel hideouts in Tebessa province. In a separate operation, the army killed two Islamist rebels in Boumerdes. The attack in Tebessa near the border with Tunisia was launched after security forces received word that 20 rebels were preparing to transport large quantities of arms to Boumerdes and the neighboring province of Tizi Ouzou, also the scene of recent clashes. (Reuters, May 15)

An African Union convoy was struck by a road-side bomb in the Somali capital of Mogadishu [May 16], killing an unknown number of Ugandan peacekeepers. [AlJazeera, May 16] A pair of aid workers—a Kenyan and a Briton—remain in the custody of their kidnappers in northern Somalia. The kidnappers are demanding "minor" political concessions from the authorities of Puntland, the semi-autonomous and relatively stable northern region of the country. [Reuters, May 15] Two South Korean fishing boats have been seized by pirates off Somalia's increasingly unprotected coast. [BBC, May 16]