Four suspected militants were killed Sept. 30 when a presumed US drone fired missiles at two vehicles in Nurak, a village just east of the city of Miran Shah, in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area. It was the third suspected US drone strike in Pakistan's tribal areas in the past 24 hours. (CNN, Sept. 30) Tahir Yuldashev, leader of Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), was killed in an Aug. 27 drone attack in South Waziristan, local media report. (Xinhua, Oct. 2)

Tribal elders said Oct. 1 that eight people—at least five of them civilians—were killed in an airstrike in southern Afghanistan on the previous day. A US military spokeswoman, Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, confirmed the strike, in the Nad Ali district of Helmand province, but declined to estimate the number of casualties before a review of the attack. According to Hajji Talib, a district council member from the area, the strike killed a farmer, his family and three guests in the village of Khushal. (NYT, Oct. 1)

Human rights activists and legal experts reacted swiftly Sept. 14 to disclosures that the US government is planning to introduce new measures officials claim would give inmates at Afghanistan's notorious Bagram prison more opportunities to challenge their detention. Their views range from cautious optimism to total condemnation.

The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan Sept. 7 accused troops from the US Army's 10th Mountain Division of storming through the charity's hospital in central Wardak province, breaking down doors and tying up staff in a search for militants. "This is simply not acceptable," said the charity's country director, Anders Fange, adding the the troops entered the female ward in violation of local customs. The US military says it is investigating. (AP, CNN, Sept. 7)

A Sept. 2 report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime boasts that 800,000 Afghan farmers have stopped cultivating poppies—but warns that drug lords are forging stronger ties with both insurgent groups and corrupt officials. The UNODC report, "Afghan Opium Survey 2009," documents a decline in opium cultivation in Afghanistan for the second consecutive year, dropping by as much 22% since 2008. Prices for opiates are also at a 10-year low. But, signaling improved efficiency, heroin production was down only 10%.

Like their counterparts in Pakistan, Afghanistan's Taliban demonstrate once again that they aren't above blowing up their cannon fodder at mosques—during Ramadan—to enforce their supposedly purist version of Islam. Now didn't we hear somewhere, "Do not fight them at the Holy Mosque"? We've got a word of advice for these jokers: read the Koran. From the LA Times, Sept 3:

Supposedly temporary restrictions on freedom of expression in the run-up to Afghanistan's presidential vote are drawing protests from the country's press. Media outlets are standing firm against a government call not to broadcast reports of violence on election day, charging that it violates their constitutional rights. Fahim Dashti, the editor of the English-language Kabul Weekly newspaper, told Associated Press that the demand was "a violation of media law" and a constitution that officially protects freedom of speech. Kabul fears that voters will be scared away from polling booths by the reports.

A bomb blast killed at least seven—including women and children—Aug. 17 in the Pakistani town of Charsadda, NWFP. The bomb was hidden in a box of medicine given to the driver of the vehicle to deliver in a nearby village. It was a time device that went off when the driver stopped at a fuel station. Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the blast, saying the victims belonged to a tribe that had raised an anti-Taliban militia.