Archive for the ‘Afghanistan’ Category

The Wrong Enemy in Afghanistan – New York Times


New York Times
The Wrong Enemy in Afghanistan
New York Times
KABUL, Afghanistan For the last month, American and Afghan forces have been engaged in a new offensive against an Islamic State offshoot based in Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan. The Trump administration dropped what it boasted was the ...
Afghanistan IS head killed in raid - US and Afghan officialsBBC News
Officials confirm head of ISIS in Afghanistan is deadNew York Post
Top ISIS Leader in Afghanistan Killed in RaidNew York Magazine
Bloomington Pantagraph -ABC News -VICE News
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The Wrong Enemy in Afghanistan - New York Times

Coach Harbaugh Donates $1.5K In Hats To Soldiers In Afghanistan … – CBS Baltimore / WJZ

May 9, 2017 11:00 PM

Photo/ Baltimore Ravens

BALTIMORE (WJZ) Ravens Coach John Harbaugh receives $1,500 every year from sports company New Era at the NFL League Meetings to spend on personal use or giveaways throughout the season.This year, Coach Harbaugh decided to put the money to special use and bought hats for troops serving overseas.

Harbaughs money was used to buy 154 New Era hats to give away to soldiers in Afghanistan.

Certainly cant underestimate how appreciative we are of the great sacrifices made by our military members overseas, and so our goal with the caps was to try and brighten the days of as many Army men and women as we could, Harbaugh says in a report from the Ravens.

He didnt buy just Ravens hats, but team caps from all the major leagues, including NFL, MLB, and NBA and colleges too.

I know that, unfortunately, not everyone is a Ravens fan, so I thought we should send hats of all teams, says Harbaugh.

But I made sure there were some Ravens, and Michigan, caps in there in case anyone wants to change allegiances. Coach Harbaughs brother Jim Harbaugh is coach for the Michigan Wolverines.

Harbaugh has a close friend in the Army, Maj. Gen. JT Thomson, whom he met eight years ago during his trip to Afghanistan, and had the hats sent to him.

The packages arrived at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan on April 27, and Thomson has been distributing them to troops across the country since.By Saturday, the Ravens report, the hats had made it to a remote location in the northern Kunduz Province.

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Coach Harbaugh Donates $1.5K In Hats To Soldiers In Afghanistan ... - CBS Baltimore / WJZ

Playing for ‘Our Own,’ Afghanistan’s Cricket Stars Return Home as Heroes – New York Times


New York Times
Playing for 'Our Own,' Afghanistan's Cricket Stars Return Home as Heroes
New York Times
The International Cricket Council, the sport's organizing body, gives Afghanistan about $1.4 million a year, around 33 percent of the game's overall budget, Mr. Mashal said. The rest comes from private sponsors, their willing numbers increasing with ...

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Playing for 'Our Own,' Afghanistan's Cricket Stars Return Home as Heroes - New York Times

Mattis: US Faces ‘Determined Enemy’ in Afghanistan – Voice of America

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Tuesday that American forces in Afghanistan face a determined enemy but are dealing significant blows to the enemy.

Speaking at a news conference in Copenhagen alongside his Danish counterpart, Claus Hjort Frederiksen, Mattis said both the Islamic State group and al-Qaida are losing ground and power in Afghanistan as the government, under President Ashraf Ghani, wins the affection, the respect and the support of the people.

In Afghanistan, the enemy has lost about two-thirds of its strength and this past weekend, President Ghani announced the death of the emir of IS Khorasan this is the IS group in Nangarhar..., Mattis said. In our anti-IS campaign, were dealing that group one more significant blow with the loss of their leader.

U.S. and Afghan officials announced recently that Abdul Hasib, the head of so-called Islamic State in Afghanistan, had been killed in a military raid. He was believed to have been behind an attack that killed 50 people in a Kabul military hospital earlier this year.

Mattis said the United States will continue integrating its military and non-military efforts in Afghanistan and do everything possible to prevent civilian casualties.

We have to remember that the battlefield that we are fighting on is also a humanitarian field where innocent people live right now, sometimes forced to stay on a battlefield by IS, he said.

The comments from Mattis come as U.S. media report the Trump administration may significantly increase the number of U.S. troops and intensity of the fight in Afghanistan.

According to reports, Trump is weighing whether to send as many as 5,000 more troops to Afghanistan. The U.S. currently has about 8,400 troops stationed in the country.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump has asked military advisers "to relook at the entire strategy" in Afghanistan.

News accounts say the prospective plan would give the Pentagon, not the White House, the final say on the number of troops in Afghanistan, while the U.S. military would have greater range in using airstrikes to target Taliban fighters and remove Obama-era policies limiting the movements of military advisers in the country.

Trump will reportedly make a decision on the Afghanistan policy prior to a May 25 NATO summit in Brussels.

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Mattis: US Faces 'Determined Enemy' in Afghanistan - Voice of America

ISIS chief in Afghanistan killed in April raid, US military says

The head of ISIS in Afghanistan was killed in a raid by U.S. and Afghan forces last month that also resulted in the death of two American soliders, the military said Sunday.

A statement by U.S. Forces, Afghanistan confirmed that Sheikh Abdul Hasib, described as the Emir of ISIS in the Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), was killed in the April 27 raid insouthern Nangarhar province, eastern Afghanistan.

The raid that killed Hasib was carried out in the same area where the U.S. dropped the so-called "Mother of all Bombs" last month.

TWO US ARMY SOLDIERS KILLED FIGHTING ISIS IN AFGHANISTAN

The Pentagon said that more than50 U.S. Army Rangers and dozens of other partnered Afghan forces battled ISIS for over three hours in the mountain terrain. Two of the Rangers were killed and a third was wounded. Defense officials told Fox News that friendly fire was the suspected cause of the Rangers' deaths.

Gen. John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said Hasib's death marked "another important step in our relentless campaign to defeat ISIS-K in 2017."

"This is the second ISIS-K emir we have killed in nine months, along with dozens of their leaders and hundreds of their fighters," Nicholson added. "For more than two years, ISIS-K has waged a barbaric campaign of death, torture and violence against the Afghan people, especially those in southern Nangarhar."

Hasib is suspected of directing the March 8 attack on a military hospital in the Afghan capital, Kabul, that killed 50 people.

The U.S. currently estimates that around 800 ISIS fighters are based in Afghanistan.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report.

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ISIS chief in Afghanistan killed in April raid, US military says