Five people were killed and nearly 40 wounded in two bomb blasts in Afghanistan Dec. 29. Two US soldiers and their interpreter were among about 20 people wounded in a suicide car bombing in the small town of Charikar, 50 kilometers north of Kabul. There has been a suicide car bombing in Afghanistan every day since Dec. 26. A purported member of the Hezb-i-Islami faction of insurgent leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar claimed responsibility for the Charikar bombing, claiming by telephone to AFP that several US soldiers were killed. A second, remote-controlled blast hit the southern town of Spin Boldak, on the border with Pakistan, killing a two-year-old and two adults, and leaving 19 injured.

A deadly US military raid on an Afghan house Dec. 25 sparked protests and produced conflicting reports over who was killed. The US said the dead were 11 armed Taliban militants, part of a bomb-making cell in the Maiwand district west of Kandahar, on Thursday. US forces said they found dozens of land mines, grenades and bomb-making materials. But local Afghan officials said eight militants and four civilians were killed. Angry Afghans protested by blocking the highway between Kandahar and Herat with burning tires. (NYT, Dec. 26)

At least two missiles believed to have been fired from a US drone struck villages near Wana in Pakistan's South Waziristan region Dec. 22, killing seven people. Tribesmen reportedly opened fire on the drones after the attacks. US forces have carried out nearly 30 air-strikes in Pakistan this year despite objections from Pakistan. The attacks have killed more than 220 people, according to a tally of reports from Pakistani intelligence agents, local officials and residents. (AlJazeera, Reuters, Dec. 22)

Militants used patrol bombs to torch 25 supply trucks and oil containers for Afghanistan-based coalition forces near Peshawar, Pakistan early Dec. 13. It marked the fifth attack on a Peshawar area freight terminal within ten days, bringing the number of destroyed containers and oil tankers to around 325. (Xinhua, Dec. 13) The following day, three police officers were killed and 12 others wounded in a bomb blast in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, the latest in a fast-escalating wave of attacks. (Reuters, Dec. 14)

Inmates resisting the inspection of their cells clashed with guards searching for weapons and mobile phones at Afghanistan's overcrowded Pul-i-Charki prison in Kabul Dec. 4. Eight prisoners were killed and 13 injured. The prisoners also burned mattresses, and gunfire was heard during the rioting that wasn't quelled until the next day. The two cellblocks affected by the uprising were at double capacity. (NYT, Dec. 6)

Pakistani Taliban militants torched supplies destined for NATO forces in Afghanistan for a second day running Dec. 8, raiding a container terminal on the outskirts of Peshawar—just over a mile from the previous day's attack, in which gunmen torched more than 100 trucks. About 50 containers were destroyed in the new raid. "The militants came just past midnight, firing in the air, sprinkled petrol on containers and then set them on fire," a security guard at the terminal told Reuters. "They told us they would not harm us, but they asked us not to work for the Americans."

Some 200 Taliban militants destroyed more than 160 Humvees and trucks bound for NATO forces in Afghanistan Dec. 7 in a pre-dawn raid on the terminal where they were parked in Peshawar, Pakistan. The war material was offloaded for transit to Afghanistan at the Pakistani port of Karachi. Meanwhile, the Pentagon reveals that most of the additional US troops arriving in Afghanistan early next year will be deployed near the capital, Kabul—in what the New York Times calls "a measure of how precarious the war effort has become."

Another missile strike by a suspected US drone on Mir Ali village (North Waziristan) killed at least three presumed militants Dec. 5. (AFP, Dec. 5) That same day in Peshawar, a car-bomb attack on a crowded market near a Shi'ite mosque killed at least 27, including a 12-year-old boy, and wounded 100. The mosque and adjacent buildings were wrecked. The bazaar was crowded with shoppers in the run-up to the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. (AlJazeera, Dec. 6)