The US military said coalition and Afghan troops killed six Taliban fighters and arrested four in eastern Afghanistan May 30, but a provincial official and residents said the casualties were villagers. The coalition statement did not mention the location in Nangarhar province, but Dadak Zalmai, the chief of Khogiani district, said there was a pre-dawn raid on a house in his district. "The troops killed three civilians and took four with them," Zalmai said. Several residents said seven civilians, including women and children, were killed and eight wounded in the raid. (Reuters, May 30) NATO forces also acknowledged that a Chinook transport helicopter went down in southern Afghanistan May 30. (Reuters, May 30)

At least 13 people were killed and more than 32 wounded in Shiberghan, capital of Afghanistan's northern Jowzjan province, when police opened fire to break up a protest against governor Juma Khan Hamdard on May 28. Provincial spokesmen said protesters hurled stones and police fired to stop them from raiding government offices. Provincial authorities also said the casualties were caused by the protesters, who were armed supporters of supporters of northern warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum. (AlJazeera, May 28)

A US delegation is headed for Kabul to persuade President Hamid Karzai to approve a program of glyphosate spraying over the opium-producing lands of southeast Afghanistan. The private contractor Dyncorp is to carry out the spraying in cooperation with a specially-trained Afghan force. The US is willing to negotiate, but makes clear it will not take glyphosate off the table. "There has to be a stick that goes with the carrot," said Thomas Schweich, State Department co-ordinator for counter-narcotics in Afghanistan. Eradication had to be a component of US policy, he emphasized.

Pakistani security forces clashed with militants at an al-Qaeda camp near the Afghan border May 22, leaving at least three dead. Maj.-Gen. Waheed Arshad, an army spokesman, said that after receiving reports about the training camp in North Waziristan, tribal elders were sent in to tell its leaders to shut it down. They came under fire, triggering a gun battle. "Security forces returned the fire and are in the process of clearing the miscreants' training facility," the military said in a statement. (AlJazeera, May 22)

Taliban leader Mullah Omar has formally confirmed the death of top commander Mullah Dadullah, through a spokesman, and nominated Mullah Bakht Mohammad as his replacement. The elusive Mullah Omar also claimed there are thousands of fighters ready to avenge Dadullah's death and called for an immediate return of Dadullah's corpse to his family. Dadullah's brother, Shah Mansoor, and two other senior Taliban officials released from prison in exchange for the safe release of a foreign journalist in March have also been killed, according to Afghan intelligence officials. The trio, including commanders Mullah Ghaffar and Mullah Hamdullah, were killed hours before US forces killed Mullah Dadullah in Helmand province on May 12. (Afgha.com, May 16)

Two years ago, following rumors that Osama bin Laden had taken refuge in Nuristan, we warned that the remote mountain region immortalized as "Kafiristan" in Rudyard Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King would be drawn into Afghanistan's war. Now, alas, our prediction has been vindicated. A roadside bomb killed seven Afghan soldiers in Nuristan's Kamdesh district May 14, and the following day Afghan soldiers killed six Taliban insurgents in the province, governor Tamim Nuristani said. Over 1,300, mostly said to be Taliban militants, have been killed in Afghanistan this year. (Pakistan Online News, Reuters, May 16)

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)

Thousands of Afghans protested outside the Pakistani embassy in Kabul May 16, chanting "Death to Pakistan, Death to Musharraf!" The rally comes days after the bloodiest clash in decades on the disputed border between the two countries. Pakistani forces crossed into Afghan territory and killed 13 people, including children and police, in two days of clashes over the weekend, according to the Afghan Foreign Ministry. Many of the protesters come from Paktia, the southeastern province where the clashes took place.