It was reported on Friday that a NATO air strike on hijacked oil tankers in northern Afghanistan claimed the lives of sixty people, many of them civilians. According to the local police chief Gulam Mohyuddin, the air raid occurred in Kunduz province, near the Afghanistan Tajikistan border. Reports regarding the raid are confused, with the Taliban emphasising the scale of civilian deaths while the Afghani government have stressed the presence of Taliban forces at the targeted location.
The governor of Kunduz province, Mohammad Omar, has said that those killed in the strike included many Taliban and at least one senior Taliban commander. The Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has stated that up to 90 civilians were killed as they waited to receive fuel from the hijacked tankers. The spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Jon Stock, has limited his comments to stating that there was an air strike ‘late last night or early this morning' and that ‘ISAF's target in this air raid was insurgents'.
The ToD verdict: This latest incident underscores the media's role in the war against the Taliban. The Taliban's ability to proactively articulate their position in a way that further undermines the international coalition's efforts against them is but one example of the increasing sophistication of their strategy. Regardless of the final official body count, this air strike will deal a severe blow to joint NATO-US commander General Stanley McChrystal's doctrine of working to minimise the deaths of non-combatants.
Regardless of how many of those killed were Taliban insurgents it is very likely that most of those present had links to the Taliban, hence their knowledge that cheap fuel was being distributed at the dead of night away from any urban centres in Kunduz province. The two key aspects of note are that, firstly, there is such a gap in the delivery of key services on the part of the Afghan government for the Taliban to fill and, secondly, that grass root communities are more than willing to go to the Taliban to receive these services.
The Taliban were distributing cheap fuel to poor Afghans who have limited access to such facilities. The fact that they are able to do so, hundreds of miles away from their traditional strongholds of Helmand and Kandahar in Afghanistan's south and south east, and the fact that ordinary Afghan people are willing to avail themselves of this alternative route to vital services makes apparent that the Taliban comprise nothing less than an alternative government in Afghanistan. In light of the controversies surrounding the presidential election, it is one that may seem increasingly credible to many Afghan communities.
North Korea reaches ‘final stage of uranium enrichment'
KNCA, North Korea's state media agency has reported that the country has reached the final stage of uranium enrichment. If successful, this will provide the Communist state with a second route to producing nuclear weapons. North Korea's attempts to produce a nuclear weapon have so far focused on reprocessing plutonium, a program centred on their reactor at Yongbon. North Korea's nuclear weapon tests carried out in 2006 and then subsequently in May 2009 were both based on this technology.
Concurrently, KNCA reported that the North Korean United Nations delegation had written to the Security Council, saying that North Korea was both ready for sanctions and dialogue. Officials from South Korea and the United States condemned the move, with the US special envoy to Pyongyang, Stephen Bosworth, saying that this latest claim from the DPRK was of concern.
The report from KNCA represents a diplomatic volte-face, with North Korea saying as recently as three months ago that they were not pursuing the uranium enrichment route. The announcement also comes at a time of conciliatory gestures from the North, with the first meeting between officials from North and South Korea in two years taking place less than two weeks ago, and Pyongyang stating that it is interested in resuming cross-border tourism and industrial partnerships with Seoul.
Fighting in North Yemen continues
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has reported that hostilities between Yemeni government forces and the Al Houti militant group are continuing, placing the lives of civilians in north Yemen in further jeopardy. The fighting in north Yemen's Sa'ada governorate is now entering its fourth week. The UNHCR reports that some 35,000 internally displaced persons have been trapped by the fighting and are unable to reach safe havens or access vital services. In Sa'ada City, which has lacked both running water and electricity since 12 August, the problems are particularly acute.
The Sa'ada insurgency began in 2004 and government action has proved unable to address its root causes. The Yemeni government claims that the insurgency is bent on its overthrow in favour of a Shi'ite religious regime and is backed by Iran in achieving this end. The Sa'ada insurgents claim that they are merely opposing government oppression and discrimination.