Word: afghanistan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...outposts, but also to carry out dangerous combat missions that thinly spread troops couldn't do without the helicopter's ability to hopscotch hundreds of miles. It was precisely such an antidrug mission that a twin-rotor Army MH-47 Chinook was flying when it went down in western Afghanistan, killing 10 Americans including three civilians with the Drug Enforcement Administration. Earlier in the day, a Marine UH-1 Huey troop helicopter collided in midair with an A-1 Cobra helicopter gunship over southern Helmand province, killing four. U.S. officials said they don't believe hostile fire caused either crash...
...Americans who died in Afghanistan on Monday were a reminder that U.S. troops who die in Afghanistan are twice as likely to be killed in helicopter crashes as are their counterparts in Iraq. And the reasons for that discrepancy are not to be found in the country's skies, but on the ground - the Taliban's growing footprint has forced the U.S. to be far more reliant on moving troops and supplies by air. And the rugged terrain often makes helicopters the only option, even as the altitudes involved greatly increase the risks...
...Afghanistan's few roads are now increasingly monitored - and mined - by insurgents, meaning that many of the 180 U.S. outposts spread across the country can now only be reached by helicopters. "We don't have freedom of movement on the ground," a senior Army logistics officer says. "We're resupplying between 30% and 40% of our forward operating bases by air because we just can't get to them on the ground." (See pictures of a U.S. Marine offensive in Afghanistan...
Election observers have asked for more such stations to be closed, citing fears of continued abuses, but they also recognize the need to balance rural areas' right to vote with the risk of fraud. Haroun Mir, director of Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies, says such an approach risks alienating the very people whom a new President needs most to ensure his legitimacy. "If the Independent Election Commission doesn't open sites where the Taliban is strong, they are telling the Pashtuns in the south that your vote doesn't count," he says...
Most Afghans, however, say the efforts at fraud prevention will be worthless if people don't turn out to vote. Safora el-Khani, a Member of Parliament from Bamiyan, the mountainous center of Afghanistan, points out that for many parts of her district, which is largely inhabited by a minority ethnic group, it is already too late. Winter arrives early in the mountains of Afghanistan, and heavy snowfall will make it impossible for voters to get to the polls or for ballots to make it back to Kabul for tabulation. "We will not have access to some polling stations...