Afstan: Stories you'll not see in the Canadian media

1) Fewer airstrikes in Afghanistan mirror tactical shift

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By Jack Gruber, USA TODAY
In this Dec. 4 image, U.S. Air Force 455th Air Expeditionary Wing airmen cover the engines of an A-10 attack jet at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan.

Military commanders in Afghanistan reduced their reliance on airstrikes in 2008, records show, a change that experts say reflects the limitations of air power against a resilient insurgency.

From 2004 to 2007, the overall tonnage of munitions dropped from planes rose from 163 tons to 1,956 tons, a 1,100% increase, Air Force data show.

However, the total tonnage dropped in 2008 fell to 1,314 tons, a 33% decrease [but there were more actual missions].

The limits of air power show why more ground troops are needed to provide security, said Dakota Wood, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

So far this year, President Obama ordered 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan to help tame the insurgency...

Commanders depend on airstrikes in Afghanistan more than in Iraq because jets can respond quickly to ambushed troops spread thinly across mountainous countryside...

By the way, the USAF is flying UAVs, MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers, out of Kandahar Air Field:

...
"(Both the MQ-1 and MQ-9 are weapons-carrying aircraft,) and both have a hunter-killer role in addition to their intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities," said Lt. Col. Scott Miller, the 62nd ERS [Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron] commander, who is deployed from the 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing at Creech AFB...

2) NATO: Drop in Afghan civilian casualties seen

The number of Afghan civilian combat-related deaths has gone down by nearly 40 percent in the first three months of this year compared with the same time frame last year, NATO officials said Wednesday.

Officials said the number included deaths caused by both NATO and Taliban forces.

The reduction in civilian deaths was "at least in part" a result of efforts by Western forces to reduce the number of civilian casualties.

Over the last year, Western forces have come under increased criticism by Afghan politicians and people for the deaths, which complicate support for the government.

Civilian casualties in the country reached record levels last year, and NATO military officials have ordered several measures to reduce the number of deaths.

3) Afghan capital teeters amid building boom

Afghan construction workers clean the windows on a new office building in Kabul, reflective of the Afghanistan capital's soaring growth.
By Paula Bronstein, Getty Images

Overwhelmed by a red-hot building boom, Afghanistan's capital decided last year to crack down on haphazard development and impose a moratorium on most large projects.

So it galls the man in charge of building permits to look out his window and see a massive shopping and office complex going up across the street.

"They didn't get a permit from us," Abdul Ahad Wahid, who oversees the department that approves building permits, says as he points out his office window.

Kabul is bursting at the seams. The capital's population has doubled to about 4 million since the Taliban regime was in power, from 1996 to 2001.

Supermarkets, malls and apartments are springing up everywhere. The city is struggling to control the growth, but corruption and influence-peddling sometimes get in the way.

Most builders have complied with the city-imposed moratorium, "except for people who are more powerful than us," Wahid says.

The soaring growth in Kabul is the result of several factors. People are fleeing violence in the countryside or seeking jobs in Kabul, where the economy is boosted by an influx of aid groups and reconstruction money, much of it from the United States. The rapid expansion of the Afghan military gives thousands of people a regular paycheck.

"There's clearly a ton of money coming into the economy there," says Rick Barton, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.

Afghanistan's economy has risen steadily since 2004 when the government got inflation under control and established new banking and other regulations, says Enrique Gelbard, an International Monetary Fund official...