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Ministry of defense
PAO
Media Analysis section
Media Analysis Executive Summary for
8 June – 2015
Return of Bamyan Buddhas with help of 3D image display
Khaama press
The historic Bamyan Buddhas made a return for the first time with the help of 3D image display which was projected in the empty place of the original Buddha that was destroyed by Taliban militants.
The device through which the 3D image could be displayed, has been invented by a Chinese couple and was gifted to Afghan people as a gift from the people of China, according to a report by Voice of America (VOA) TV Ashna.
The couple – Janson Yu and Liyan Hu said the projector was built with a cost of over $120,000.
According to reports, a similar plan was recommended to the Ministry of Information and Culture of Afghanistan around ten years ago but the plan was not implemented.
The Bamiyan Buddhas were destroyed after the Taliban militants group blew up the world’s two largest standing Buddhas – one of them 165ft high, earlier in 2001.
Among the Afghanistan’s historical remains, Taliban’s biggest targets, literally and figuratively, were the two monumental Buddha statues carved out of the sandstone cliffs in central Afghanistan. The destruction work concluded in almost three weeks period which sparked global objection.
Taliban group tried to destroy the Buddhas by firing artillery rounds towards the Buddhas but later used explosives after they did not achieve any results by firing artillery.
One stood nearly 180 feet tall and the other about 120 feet high and together they had watched over the dusty Bamyan Valley since the sixth century, several centuries before Islam reached the region.
The Buddhas of Bamyan were two 6th century monumental statues of standing buddhas carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan, situated 230 km (143 miles) northwest of Kabul at an altitude of 2,500 meters (8,202 ft). Built in 507 A.D, the larger in 554 CE, the statues represented the classic blended style of Gandhara art.
13 Insurgents Killed in ANSF Military Operations
Tolo news
At least 13 insurgents have been killed and seven others injured in a series of coordinated operations over the past 24 hours by the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), the Ministry of Interior (MoI) said in a statement on Sunday.
The operations were conducted in Kandahar, Uruzgan, Ghazni, Khost, Paktika, Paktiya, Badghis and Helmand provinces, the statement said.
"Also, during these operations, Afghan National Security Forces discovered and confiscated light and heavy rounds of ammunition," it said.
The MoI, however, did not comment on whether any security force members were injured during the operations.
Three insurgents killed while planting bomb on public way in Kandahar
Khaama press
Three militants have been killed while planting landmine on public way in southern Kandahar province.
Officials say the three rebels were busy planting a roadside bomb that exploded on them in Dabibank area of Maiwand District last night.
The incident comes a day after a roadside bomb blast claimed six lives in Kandahar’s Shah Wali Kot District.
A civilian vehicle ran over a planted landmine in Taghrook area leaving six members of a single family killed on Friday.
According to a UN report published earlier the civilian casualties have increased by 16 percent in Afghan war.
The report was made from the casualties recorded in the first four months of this year which showed an increase by 16 percent from that of the first four months of 2014.
Afghan forces retake area in Zabul after over a decade
Khaama press
Afghan National Security Forces have pushed back Taliban from Tabakhsur Tapa area in the capital of southern Zabul province after 13 years.
Officials say Tabakhsur Tapa which is located in the northern part of Qalat is strategically an important location for militants from where they could conduct their supply to four northern districts.
Tabaskhur Tapa was in the hands of Taliban for 13 years and this area was also a hideout for the militant group.
Asif Khan Tokhi, commander of police operations in Zabul said that the area has several small jungles and gardens which militants were using as their hiding places.
Tokhi said that army and police have been deployed to Tapaskhur Tapa which will also reduce security threats in this part of Kabul-Kandahar highway.
Local residents of Tabaskhur Tapa said that because of the longer presence of armed insurgents and clashes in this area they were disappointed from their lives, even some women and children developed mental illnesses.
Ata Jan Haqbayan, head of the provincial council of Zabul province urged government for a medical facility and to provide opportunities for the children of this area to study since the area does not have a school.
Two Taliban leaders killed in east Afghanistan: Nato
DAWN news
KABUL: Nato said its air strikes have killed two key local Taliban leaders in eastern Afghanistan.
The international military alliance said in a statement issued on Monday that its forces killed the Taliban shadow administrator for Nangarhar province's Hisarak district in a strike last Friday. Nato had previously announced the strike but said they were unsure if Maulawi Anwar had been killed.
Nato also said that it killed a Taliban operative in Logar province's Pul-i-Alam district in a strike on Sunday. The coalition says the man, Abdul Bari, helped Taliban leaders get weapons and vehicles.
SEAL Team 6, the CIA and the secret history of U.S. kill missions in Afghanistan
Washington post
As the U.S. military focused heavily on the Iraq war in 2006, the general in charge of the secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) noticed something alarming: The Taliban was regrouping in Afghanistan, and the United States didn’t have the manpower there to stop it.
That commander, then-Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, responded by unleashing the Naval Special Warfare Development Group — popularly known as SEAL Team 6 — on a variety of missions in which the unit wouldn’t have typically been involved, according to an investigative report published by the New York Times on Saturday. Some of those operations resulted in civilians being killed, several former SEALs said in interviews, according to the report.
“No figures are publicly available that break out the number of raids that Team 6 carried out in Afghanistan or their toll,” the Times reported. “Military officials say that no shots were fired on most raids. But between 2006 and 2008, Team 6 operators said, there were intense periods in which for weeks at a time their unit logged 10 to 15 kills on many nights, and sometimes up to 25.”
The report, long-rumored in the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence world, details the evolving use for the elite force that is one of America’s most revered but least understood. It also notes the lack of oversight team members receive. Among the details reported:
SEALs and the CIA’s Omega Program
SEAL Team 6 members joined with the CIA in something known as the Omega Program, which hunted down Taliban fighters with fewer restrictions than other military units, the Times reported. Together, they performed “deniable operations” in Pakistan using a model with similarities to the Phoenix Program, a Vietnam-era effort in which Special Operations troops performed interrogations and assassinations, the newspaper reported.
The existence of Omega teams has been reported previously. In September 2011, The Washington Post’s Greg Miller and Julie Tate reported that “omega” units comprising CIA personnel and troops with JSOC were using co-mingled bases in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen. The story noted that on at least five occasions, they had ventured into Pakistan.
Those employed in Afghanistan were “mostly designed against specific high-value targets with the intent of looking across the border” into Pakistan, a former senior U.S. military official said in an interview at the time about the “omega” teams. They wore civilian clothes and traveled in Toyota Hilux trucks, rather than military vehicles, the officials added. That story did not report that SEAL Team 6 specifically was involved.
Little outside oversight
The Times reported that there are numerous instances in which SEAL Team 6 members have been accused of killing civilians during raids, spawning investigations by JSOC. A “half-dozen” former members of the unit told the Times they were aware of civilian deaths that the team had caused.
“Do I think bad things went on?” one former officer told the newspaper, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified operations. “Do I think there was more killing than should have been done? Sure.”
That same person added that there was a “natural inclination” to kill what were perceived as threats but that he doubted SEALs intentionally killed people who didn’t deserve it.
One example raised was a 2008 operation in Afghanistan’s Helmand province in which a Taliban official identified as Objective Pantera was to be taken out. Numerous allegations were made that civilians in the village involved were killed, prompting a SEAL Team 6 commander, Navy Capt. Scott Moore, to ask for a JSOC investigation, the Times reported.
JSOC cleared the SEALs involved of any wrongdoing in the Pantera operation, the Times reported, citing two unnamed team members. But SEALs were sometimes sent home from deployments when concerns about questionable killings were raised, the story added.
Tomahawks used in combat
Some SEAL Team 6 members used specialized tomahawk axes in raids, and at least one SEAL killed an insurgent with one, the Times reported.
The newspaper quoted one former team member, Dom Raso, who said the tomahawks were used for breaching doors, in hand-to-hand combat and for other roles.
According to the Times, one former senior enlisted SEAL said: “It’s a dirty business. What’s the difference between shooting them as I was told and pulling out a knife and stabbing them or hatcheting them?”
At times, the SEALs cut off fingers or patches of scalp from dead militants so that DNA analysis could be performed, the story adds. It does not specify which weapons were used to do so.
Syrian army regains ground against Islamic State in Hasaka city
Reuters news
The Syrian army said on Sunday it had repulsed a major offensive by Islamic State militants in the northeastern city of Hasaka and drove out fighters who had taken over key installations on the southern edge of the city.
The northeastern corner of Syria is strategically important because it links areas controlled by Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Syrian Kurds have also sought to expand their territorial control over a region that stretches from Kobani to Qamishili they see as part of a future historic Kurdish state.
The militants, approaching from their stronghold the city of Shadadi, further south of Hasaka city, made lighting advances this week after conducting around a dozen suicide attacks using explosives-laden trucks on army checkpoints in the city.
But Syrian state television, quoting an army source, said in a newsflash they had taken back an electricity station, a juvenile prison and two villages almost two kilometers (one mile) south of the city that had been occupied by militants.
The attacks were the biggest push launched by the ultra hardline militants on Hasaka, the provincial capital of the oil and grain producing province of Syria, that is divided into zones run separately by the government of President Bashar al Assad and a Kurdish administration.
The offensive was meant to relieve pressure on hardline jihadists who have otherwise lost significant ground recently to Kurds and some local Arab tribes backing them after their loss of Arab inhabited villages around Ras Al Ayn and Tal Abyad, both major towns that lie north west of Hasaka along the Turkish border.
The Kurds, whose well-organized militia YPG receives air support from a U.S. led alliance bombing Islamic State, had been helping government forces to repel last week's attack, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Observatory, which tracks violence across the country, said at least 71 army and loyalist militias were killed in the week-long battles with Islamic State.
The United States and its allies said on Thursday they staged 17 air strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq with four of the raids near Hasaka.
Greece and Ukraine crises drown out G7 summit agenda
Reuters news
Leaders from the Group of Seven (G7) industrial nations meet on Sunday in the Bavarian Alps for a summit overshadowed by Greece's debt crisis and ongoing violence in Ukraine.
Host Angela Merkel is hoping to secure commitments from her G7 guests to tackle global warming to build momentum in the run-up to a major United Nations climate summit in Paris in December. The German agenda also foresees discussions on global health issues, from Ebola to antibiotics and tropical diseases.
But on the evening before the German chancellor welcomes the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Japan and the United States, she and French President Francois Hollande were forced into their fourth emergency phone call in 10 days with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to try to break a deadlock between Athens and its international creditors.
The two sides have been wrangling for months over the terms of a cash-for-reform deal for Greece. Without aid from euro zone partners and the IMF, Greece could default on its loans within weeks, possibly forcing it out of the currency bloc.
An upsurge of violence in eastern Ukraine will also play a prominent role at the meeting at Schloss Elmau, a luxury hotel perched in the picturesque mountains of southern Germany near the Austrian border.
European monitors have blamed the bloodshed on Russian-backed separatists and the leaders could decide at the summit to send a strong message to President Vladimir Putin, who was frozen out of what used to be the G8 after Moscow's annexation of Crimea last year.
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Ahead of the gathering, thousands of anti-G7 protesters marched in the nearby town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen on Saturday. There were sporadic clashes with police and several marchers were taken to hospital with injuries, but the violence was minor compared to some previous summits.
The Germans have deployed 17,000 police around the former winter Olympic games venue at the foot of Germany's highest mountain, the Zugspitze. Another 2,000 are on stand-by across the border in Austria.
Merkel is due to hold talks with U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday morning before the summit gets underway, with Ukraine, Middle East turmoil and the TTIP free trade agreement being negotiated between Washington and the European Union at the top of the agenda.