Word: helmand
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...There were some bright spots. Turnout in the northern provinces was extremely high - some districts were reporting 100% turnout by mid-afternoon. Residents of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, which is at the center of the Taliban insurgency, defied a Taliban directive not to vote and turned out by the hundreds, according to a voter reached by phone. "Yes, the Taliban has told us that if we vote, they will cut off our fingers, but I don't care," says Assadullah, 24. Fellow voter Golalai Khan, 29, agrees, saying, "We need to vote, as it says...
Election officials have already warned that about 10% of the 7,000 planned voting stations may not open due to insecurity, mostly in Helmand and Kandahar provinces. In Kandahar city, Afghan and NATO forces have reinforced checkpoints and shut down traffic near central voting stations. Police chief General Mirwais Khan says that while several surrounding districts are "hostile," security is "assured" for a peaceful election in the city as a whole. The Afghan intelligence chief has confirmed reports that Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president's half-brother and head of the Kandahar provincial council, has brokered deals with some influential...
...Stewart recommended, among other things, that U.S. troop numbers be reduced and that the military strategy should focus on counterterrorism, not counterinsurgency. How depressing, then, to read that the U.S. is planning to increase the number of troops in the country and is pursuing a counterinsurgency strategy in Helmand province, with running ground battles with the Taliban. The new policy of refraining from air strikes that might kill innocent Afghans is good, but a much broader strategic change is required. Perhaps you should reprint Stewart's article. Jefferson Peck VanderWolk, Hong Kong...
...speed of the Taliban's capture of Kabul in a matter of months back in 1996. The same phenomenon saw its regime collapse even more rapidly when the U.S. invaded at the end of 2001. General McChrystal, in a recent interview in New Perspectives Quarterly, explained the offensive in Helmand largely on the basis of the impression it made on the minds of Afghans. "The reason I believe we need to be successful is ... everybody's watching. I don't mean just in the United States or Europe. The Taliban is watching, the people of Afghanistan are watching," said McChrystal...
...British forces recently completed a major offensive against insurgents in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province - Operation Panther's Claw - that cleared the Taliban from swathes of the area. Now British war planners have called for an increase in troops to hold the land gained in that offensive. A report due out later this month by U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, head of NATO forces in the country, is widely expected to call for an even further increase of British commitment across the region. (Read TIME's interview with McChrystal...