Human Rights Watch has called on the US government to investigate thoroughly and impartially the deaths of 18 people allegedly killed by American forces in Afghanistan. ● “The Nerkh incidents should be investigated rigorously, impartially, and transparently,” Andrea Prasow, senior counterterrorism counsel and advocate at Human Rights Watch, said on Wednesday. “While it is clear that crimes occurred, US authorities need to establish what exactly happened and who is responsible,” Prasow added. Rolling Stone magazine earlier on Wednesday reported that US forces were implicated in the killings in Nerkh district, Wardak province in late 2012 and early 2013. In November 2012, many local residents claimed they were connected to operations by a new US Special Forces unit in the district, known as ODA 3124. In February, the body of a man named Nasratullah was found in Nerkh with his throat slit. His family said that US forces had earlier arrested him.

In Washington, 13 year old Zubair Rehmen along with his 9 year old Nabeela, spoke with members of Congress in a briefing organized by Alan Grayson, to send a message to our elected representatives who authorize our blowback inducing bull in a geo-political china shop of military budget what the rest of the world can see as plain as day: Drone attacks in countries that have not declared war on us and pose no threat to us are illegal, immoral, and create more enemies then they kill.

From Huffpo: He thought little of the U.S. drone buzzing over his family's house one day last year, its incessant sound just one more addition to the rhythm of daily life in northwest Pakistan. As he walked home from school, his grandmother told him to eat a snack before coming to the field to help her pick okra. It was the eve of one of the holiest holidays in Islam, when they would gather for a favorite family dish. He went outside. Dum, dum -- the sounds of missiles pierced the air.

"All of a sudden things became very dark," Zubair Rehman, 13, remembered. The next thing he knew, his grandmother, Mamana Bibi, was gone. "It was like she was exploded to pieces."

Zubair traveled from his home in mountainous North Waziristan with his father, Rafiq ur-Rehman, and sister Nabeela, 9, to Washington for a grim first on Tuesday. The drone victims will appear before Congress to explain for the first time the human fallout of the U.S. program. The briefing was organized by Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.). The Rehmans' story, documented extensively in a report released last week by Amnesty International and in a new documentary from filmmaker Robert Greenwald, serves as a wrenching, first-hand rebuke to the Obama administration's frequent claims that drone strikes have caused few if any civilian casualties. Bibi was the only person killed in the strike. Nine people, including the two children, were hurt.

Medea Benjamin: Drones Have Come Out of the Shadows

PressTV: New book: Obama said he is really good at killing people - Video

A U.S. drone strike killed three people in northwest Pakistan earlier today, marking the first such attack since Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif publicly called for President Obama to end the strikes. Just last week, Amnesty International said the United States may be committing war crimes by killing innocent Pakistani civilians in drone strikes. Today we air extended clips from the new documentary, "Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars," and speak to filmmaker Robert Greenwald. The film looks at the impact of U.S. drone strikes through more than 70 interviews with attack survivors in Pakistan, a former U.S. drone operator, military officials and more. The film opens with the story of a 16-year-old Tariq Aziz, who was killed by a drone just days after attending an anti-drone conference in Islamabad. We are also joined by human rights attorney Jennifer Gibson of Reprieve, co-author of the report, "Living Under Drones." ( + Transcript)

Pathologist gives evidence to trial of three marines accused of murdering wounded prisoner in Afghanistan's Helmand province ● An injured Afghan insurgent was still alive when he was allegedly shot by a Royal Marine, a pathologist has told the court martial of three marines accused of his murder. Dr Nicholas Hunt said that although the Afghan was seriously injured and covered in blood he was clearly alive when a British serviceman shot him in the chest at close range with a 9mm pistol. The pathologist was giving evidence in the court martial of three marines, known only as A, B and C, who are accused of murdering the unknown Afghan national on 15 September 15 2011 in Helmand province.

UN Urges More Transparency in Killings ● The UN conference on drone strikes opened today in New York with calls from UN experts to see more transparency around the use of drones for extraterritorial executions by nations, and condemnations by several nations of the unlawful use of the attacks en masse by the United States. The Obama Administration was quick to dismiss any complaints, insisting the killings of several thousand people worldwide without any legal oversight by CIA drones was “legal and just.”

Larry Klayman, who runs the nonprofit watchdog group Freedom Watch, has filed suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the Pentagon, as well as the Air Force, Army and Navy. He wants a judge to order the military to turn over an array of documents under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. He said the Defense Department stonewalled his written requests, so Freedom Watch went to court last month and succeeded in forcing the government to turn over records.

Barry Grey: Reports document US slaughter of civilians in drone strikes ■ A series of reports released over the past several days document the killing of thousands of people, including hundreds of non-combatant civilians, in US drone strikes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and other countries. The reports, issued by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on Tuesday and the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions last Friday, expose as lies the claims of President Obama and administration officials that the drone strikes are “surgical” attacks that kill few civilians. ● All three reports suggest that the United States is concealing the extent of the carnage caused by its program of extrajudicial executions and is in violation of international humanitarian law. The reports were timed to coincide with a United Nations General Assembly debate on drone attacks to take place this Friday. ● Amnesty International devoted its report, “Will I be Next?” US Drone Strikes in Pakistan, to the results of an on-the-spot investigation into nine of the 45 reported strikes that occurred in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal agency, which borders Afghanistan, between January 2012 and August 2013.

Reuters: U.S. drone strikes killed Pakistani grandmother, laborers: Amnesty
Drone Victims Recount Horror of Follow-Up Strikes Launched Against People Rescuing Wounded
CNN: In Swat Valley, U.S. drone strikes radicalizing a new generation
Jason Ditz: White House Defends Drone Strikes
David Swanson: A New Kind of War Is Being Legalized

Taliban militants fighting US troops in Afghanistan taunted Washington over the government shutdown on Wednesday, accusing US politicians of "sucking the blood of their own people". ● The Islamist militants issued a statement describing how US institutions were "paralysed", the Statue of Liberty was closed and a fall in tourist numbers had hit shops, restaurants and hotels in the capital. "The American people should realise that their politicians play with their destinies as well as the destinies of other oppressed nations for the sake of their personal vested interests," the Taliban said.

At least five civilians, including three children, were killed overnight in a NATO airstrike in eastern Afghanistan after they went hunting for birds with air guns, local officials said Saturday. ● "Last night around 11:00 pm, five civilians aged between 12 and 20 carrying air guns wanted to go hunting birds some eight kilometers (five miles) from the center of the city of Jalalabad. They were targeted and killed by a foreign forces airstrike," said Hazrat Hussain Mashreqiwal, a provincial police spokesman. A NATO spokesman said Afghan and Coalition forces had responded to an attack with a "precision strike" and that "initial reports indicate there were no civilian casualties." Civilian deaths have been a source of friction between the Afghan government and U.S.-led NATO troops, who are winding down operations as they prepare to withdraw by the end of 2014.

Radio Free Europe/Turkish Weekly ■ Afghanistan's mineral wealth is closely tied to its future prospects. If managed well, the theory goes, the mining sector could be the backbone of a sustainable economy, fund national security, and stabilize the government. The Mines and Petroleum Ministry estimates that Afghanistan boasts oil, gas, iron ore, copper, and gold deposits worth about $1 trillion. Kabul hopes to generate about $4 billion a year in mining and energy revenue over the next decade. Yet in 2012, the two sectors brought in less than $150 million combined. ● Stephen Carter, the Afghanistan campaign leader at Global Witness, a London-based nongovernmental organization that investigates links between natural resources, conflict, and corruption, says the government has lacked control over its resource wealth.

Charles Glass: Afghan Mine Field ■ Afghanistan is sitting on an estimated trillion dollars worth of gold, copper, silver, graphite and cobalt. There is also lithium, which may come in handy to treat depression among those who will be ordered to die for the new wealth. Let’s suppose for a moment there really are minerals worth $1 trillion dollars waiting to be plucked from the Afghan earth. (I love the figure $1 trillion. It smells like… victory.) Nobody is going to get his hands on all that rock without a fight. Not in Afghanistan.

New York Times: An Afghan Mystery: Why Are Large Shipments of Gold Leaving the Country?
Alex Lantier: Washington discovers Afghanistan’s mineral wealth
Michel Chossudovsky: Afghanistan's Vast Reserves of Minerals and Natural Gas

US-led soldiers have opened fire on a group of Afghan schoolchildren in the central-eastern province of Maidan Wardak, killing at least one pupil and injuring several others, security sources say. Local provincial officials said the teenager student was killed in Syedabad district of the volatile province on Thursday. An investigation has been launched into the fatal incident.

PressTV: Breaking: US assassination drone strike kills 4 in Afghanistan
Antiwar.com: US Drone Strike Kills Seven People in North Waziristan (Pakistan)

An American assassination drone strike has killed at least four people in Afghanistan's northeastern province of Kunar.

● 5 Afghans killed in US drone attacks
● 5 killed in US-led strikes in Afghanistan
● US-led airstrike kills six in Afghanistan
● US-led airstrike kills 16 Afghans
● US drone raid kills 5 in Afghanistan
● US terror drone kills 3 Afghan children

Under Obama, America more than ever is a global menace
● US assassination drone strikes kill 11 Afghans in 24 hours - Video

The US terror drone campaign has displaced thousands of civilians in the troubled southern and eastern regions of war-ravaged Afghanistan, Press TV reports. ● Thousands of people fled their homes in Helmand, Kandahar, Kapisa and several other provinces after the US escalated drone strikes across the troubled regions. The Afghan government plans to relocate thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) currently living in camps on the outskirts of Kabul. The latest US-led airstrike killed a young girl and injured three other civilians in the east of Afghanistan. The attack took place on September 11 in Nejrab district in the northeastern province of Kapisa. Thousands of people have died in US-led airstrikes and drone attacks in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion of the country.

Taliban militants attacked a US consulate in western Afghanistan Friday, killing an Afghan guard and injuring six others, police said. ● "Two attackers detonated their explosives-laden truck at the first entrance of the US consulate at 5:30 am (0100 GMT) in Herat city, injuring four guards of a private security company and two policemen," Rahmatullah Safi, police chief for Herat province said. "Following the explosion, three others who were in another vehicle opened fire on the guards," Safi told dpa. "One of the injured guards died due to bleeding," he said.The three remaining assailants were killed when the police returned fire, he said. Another police officer said consulate staff were evacuated by helicopter, but Safi denied this, saying the diplomats were safe inside the compound. Earlier news reports said three security personnel were killed. The US State Department confirmed the attack, but not the casualties.

A US-led airstrike has killed a young girl and injured three other civilians in Afghanistan, which has been occupied by foreign forces since 2001. ● The attack took place on Wednesday in Nejrab district in the northeastern province of Kapisa, reports said. According to local sources, the injured are all in critical condition. The US military confirmed the attack, claiming that it targeted Taliban "militants". The attack came just a day after a US airstrike left six people dead in Ghazni province. Civilian casualties from US and NATO operations have been a serious bone of contention between Kabul and Washington.

Army PFC Bradley Manning’s sentencing hearings concluded Monday as US government prosecutors and Manning’s defense presented closing arguments. Earlier this month, Manning was convicted on 19 criminal counts—including five violations of the Espionage Act—for making public information detailing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. The government used the final pre-appellate phase of the trial to call for a 60-year prison term for the young whistleblower. Army Colonel Judge Denise Lind is expected to issue a sentence today. If you “betray your country, you do not deserve the mercy of a court of law,” said the government’s lead prosecutor, Army Captain Joe Morrow. Repeating the government refrain that Manning is a traitor, Morrow declared that Manning’s leak “wasn’t a greater good. It wasn’t a good at all. It was destructive,” and that the whistleblower serves as an example of “arrogance meet[ing] access to sensitive information.” Morrow emphasized that the sentence “must send a message to any soldier contemplating stealing classified information” to “ensure we never see an act like this again.”

The verdict is in and the sentencing phase has begun in the trial of Bradley Manning, the young Army private who transferred more than 700,000 pages of classified data to WikiLeaks. ● Retired Brig. Gen. Robert Carr said [...] [the] relationship [between the US military and the local Afghan population] had already been damaged by the numerous airstrikes and night raids that caused thousands of civilian deaths — how many has never been adequately documented, but researchers estimate the total number of civilian casualties to be close to 20,000. ● One such incident, an airstrike near the village of Garani, in Farah province, in May 2009, figured prominently in Manning’s trial. He was charged with having leaked a video of the raid, which, according to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, "documented a massacre, a war crime." The Garani airstrike allegedly killed as many as 147 villagers, making it the worst civilian casualty incident up to that time. The US military never acknowledged the full scale of the tragedy, insisting that 20 to 30 civilians had died, along with 60 to 65 militants. They did, however, issue a report documenting procedural errors that could have led to the deaths.

Insists US Committed to Stay Beyond 2014. - Secretary of State John Kerry was the latest in the Obama Administration to undercut claims that a “zero option” was being seriously considered, insisting today that the US was absolutely not going to leave by the end of 2014. “We have been very clear about that. We are not withdrawing,” Kerry insisted. He didn’t provide any specifics on how long the US intends to remain in Afghanistan, but President Obama has signed a deal to potentially stay through 2024. Kerry’s comments echoed similar statements from the Pentagon, which insisted that they didn’t even consider leaving a real option. This is in contrast to official claims from the White House that the “zero option” is real.

A series of US airstrikes have claimed the lives of more than 80 people and severely injured several others in different regions of war-ravaged Afghanistan over the past 24 hours, local security sources say. - According to Afghan security officials, one of the airstrikes took place on Tuesday in the central-eastern Logar Province where ten people were killed. The other rocked the northeastern province of Kunar, killing six people, all Pakistani nationals. Local and US military officials have confirmed both attacks, saying all victims were Taliban militants. Also on Monday, at least 65 people lost their lives in a series of US airstrikes in Paktia Province. US military confirmed separate air raids in three villages, saying those killed were militants. The Taliban militants have not yet commented on the attacks. [...] The United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror. The offensive removed the Taliban from power, but insecurity remains high in the country.

At least 65 have been killed in overnight airstrikes carried out by US forces in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Paktia, Press TV reports. ■ The casualties came after a series of airstrikes happened in an area of Paktia Province on Sunday night. The US military has confirmed separate air raids in three villages, saying those killed were militants. While Washington claims that its airstrikes target militants, local sources say civilians have been the main victims of the attacks. The Taliban have not yet commented on the deadly incident. ■ Just two days ago, at least 60 people were killed and several others severely injured in similar airstrikes. American forces have increased their air attacks in Afghanistan in recent weeks. ■ The raids are a source of friction between Kabul and Washington as they often result in civilian deaths. The Afghan government has on numerous occasions warned Washington to stop attacks on innocent civilians. ■ Many civilians have lost their lives in US-led strikes and operations in various parts of Afghanistan over the past decade, with Afghans becoming increasingly outraged at the seemingly endless number of the deadly assaults.

New Zealand’s defense minister said Monday that an investigation is underway into a report that U.S. intelligence agencies helped his nation’s military track the mobile telephone calls of a freelance journalist while he worked for McClatchy Newspapers in Afghanistan. - New Zealand Defense Minister Jonathan Coleman said he’d seen “no evidence to support these claims at this point. However, the Defense Force is carrying out extensive record checks to see if there is any evidence that his occurred.” Coleman issued the statement in response to a report published in the Sunday Star Times of Auckland that said that the New Zealand military asked “U.S. spy agencies” to help them collect the “metadata” of cellular calls made by Jon Stephenson, a New Zealand freelance journalist who was based in Afghanistan. The data collection occurred in the latter half of last year while Stephenson was under contract in Kabul for McClatchy and was aimed at identifying Stephenson’s contacts, the report said, citing unidentified sources.

Three American and four Afghan soldiers and an interpreter were killed Tuesday morning in Wardak Province after an insurgent riding a donkey detonated a bomb in one of the most hotly contested districts in the country, officials said. - The attack occurred around 8:30 a.m. as the Americans and Afghans were conducting a joint patrol in a violent stretch of Sayadabad District, close to the main highway leading to Kabul, the capital. At least three more American soldiers were wounded in the bombing, which the Taliban claimed responsibility for.

Russia Today: CIA scales down Afghanistan operations amid troop pullout

At least ten people have been killed after American forces carried out an airstrike in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Logar, Press TV reports. - Local officials said on Saturday that the attack took place in the Mohammad Agha District of the province late on Friday. The authorities identified the victims as Taliban militants, who were holed up at a house in the area when the air raid took place. The Taliban have not yet confirmed any casualties and made no comments on the airstrike. The US-led forces have increased their airstrikes against civilian areas of Afghanistan in recent months.

● At least two people were killed and one more injured on July 6, when US forces launched an airborne assault on the city of Gardez, situated some 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Kabul.
● On July 3, twenty people were killed and nine others injured when foreign forces carried out an airstrike in the Musa Khel district of Afghanistan’s eastern province of Khost.
● It came a day after four people were killed in a US-led airstrike in the Miyanishin District of the southern province of Kandahar.
● On June 29, eight people were killed when US-led foreign forces launched two separate airstrikes in Paktia and Kandahar provinces.
● Also on June 22, at least 30 people lost their lives after US-led forces mounted an airstrike in Afghanistan’s southeastern province of Paktika. The incident took place at a border checkpoint in the province as Taliban militants were attacking the checkpoint.

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Taliban "militants" in Afghanistan claim they have killed 19 US soldiers in an attack on a military convoy in the eastern province of Ghazni, Press TV reports. - A spokesman for the militant group said the attack was carried out on Monday in Khogyani District of the province. There has been no word of confirmation by the US military. Attacks on foreign troops are expected to rise in the coming months, as Taliban militants have announced the beginning of their ‘offensive’ across Afghanistan. The militant group said it would use “every possible tactic” to inflict casualties on Afghan and US-led forces. They specifically mentioned insider attacks.

Seven people were killed on Tuesday in a suicide car bomb attack in Kabul targeting a foreign logistics company supplying NATO forces, police said. A plume of smoke rose above the scene of the attack in the north of the Afghan capital, which has been hit by a series of recent suicide strikes including on the Supreme Court, the airport and close to the presidential palace. "Four Nepali guards, one Afghan guard and two Afghan civilians have been killed," Kabul police chief Mohammad Ayoub Salangi told AFP. Up to four other people were wounded.

Afghan security forces have battled militants who launched a gun and bomb attack near the presidential palace, in one of the most secure areas of Kabul. - Officials say all the insurgents were killed after heavy clashes. The Taliban say they carried out the attack. President Hamid Karzai was in the palace, but the target appears to have been the nearby Ariana hotel, believed to house a CIA base. This is the latest in a string of attacks on Kabul in recent months. Most recently a suicide bomber in the capital targeted a prominent Afghan politician on 18 June, just hours before Nato formally handed security responsibility to the Afghan forces. With this attack the Taliban infiltrated one of the most heavily-guarded areas of the capital, with several key buildings such as the defence ministry and Nato headquarters located very close by. The Afghan Taliban have showed no sign of abating their assault on security targets, despite last week's announcement that it had set up an office in the Gulf state of Qatar for US-led peace talks.

Michael Hastings, a journalist for BuzzFeed, reportedly died in a fiery car crash early Wednesday morning. The 33-year-old reporter was most famous for his profile of General Stanley McChrystal in Rolling Stone magazine, which led to the general’s ouster. [...]

While it is certainly possible that the car crash was an accident, it must be noted that Hastings no doubt had enemies, including among top military and intelligence officials. As such, the circumstances of his death should be treated as suspicious. Hastings was reportedly deeply troubled by the revelations of government surveillance and spying on journalists. Edward Snowden’s revelations about the National Security Agency’s widespread spying came on June 6. Hastings, who was widely known for his use of new media, stopped tweeting on the June 12, and the car crash came one week later on June 19. [Video]

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The US is to open direct talks with Taliban leaders within days, it was revealed on Tuesday, after Washington agreed to drop a series of preconditions that have previously held back negotiations over the future of Afghanistan. - In a major milestone in the 12-year-old war, political representatives of the Taliban will shortly meet Afghan and US officials in Doha, the capital of Qatar, to discuss an agenda for what US officials called "peace and reconciliation" before further talks take place with Afghan government representatives soon after. The move came on the day that Nato forces handed official control of nationwide security to Afghan troops. Less than 12 hours later the US confirmed that four US personnel died at Bagram air base near Kabul, in what was thought to be a mortar attack. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

Three children have died in a US killer drone strike carried out in Afghanistan’s northeastern province of Kunar, Press TV reports. - The airstrike was conducted during the early hours of Thursday near the Pakistani border. Local officials said six other people, including women, were also injured in the attack. On May 20, at least eight people were killed and several others injured in a similar strike in the eastern province of Kapisa. Hundreds of civilians have been killed in the US airstrikes in various parts of Afghanistan over the past few years, with Afghans becoming increasingly outraged over the seemingly endless number of deadly assaults.