Word: uruzgan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...went immediately to his neighbor's house. "There was blood everywhere, Faiz recalls. "There were dead bodies." He says six members of the Daad family had been killed - three men, two women and a young girl. Australian Defence officials say the house, in Chenartu village in southern Afghanistan's Uruzgan province, was raided by Australian troops of the Internatonal Security Assistance Force (ISAF) because it was an "extremist Taliban compound." They said several of the people inside - including one of the women killed - were armed and that they initiated a fierce firefight. Australian commando Luke Worsley was shot dead...
...Local residents confirm that Taliban members were meeting in the house that night. Mullah Baz Mohammed, the Taliban-designated "governor" of Uruzgan, was also expected for dinner but failed to appear. "Some of the men in the house were Taliban," says district chief Malim Faiz Mohammed (no relation). "But people like the Daad family do not have the resources or backing to tell the Taliban to stay away. They have a problem from both sides: they are frightened of the ISAF and of the Taliban," who intimidate villagers into helping them and kill those who refuse...
...Australian and Dutch troops responsible for security in Uruzgan are using an "ink blot" counterinsurgency strategy, securing small areas and steadily expanding them. Outside the secure zones, they aim to disrupt the enemy with regular attacks and win people's trust with aid projects. The Taliban are reading from the same playbook, even installing governors and Sharia judges in areas they control. But while the ISAF operates under strict rules of engagement, the Taliban visit savage retribution on anyone they suspect of collaborating with the ISAF or Afghan government forces. Thousands of families face an impossible choice: cooperate with...
...Taliban were driven from power in Afghanistan by U.S.-led special forces and local irregulars. But in the past two years the Taliban have redoubled their efforts to get back their former power bases in southern provinces like Uruzgan. That has brought the ISAF into the area in force and increased the number of clashes - and casualties. In the past year, three Australians, nine Dutch troops and a U.S. soldier have been killed in Uruzgan. More than 100 Afghan civilians have died in the fighting, and some 1,600 families have fled their homes...
...Friday's air strike follows a three-day battle between Coalition and militant forces in Uruzgan province in which it is thought that upward of 50 civilians may have been caught in the crossfire, though investigations are still being carried out. And on Monday, seven boys were killed when a US warplane bombed a religious seminary in Paktika, eastern Afghanistan. A coalition press statement released shortly after the attack said that the compound, which contained a mosque and a madrassah, was "a suspected safehouse for al-Qaida fighters" and that coalition forces had confirmed the "presence of nefarious activity occurring...