Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

Washington Post
By Associated Press
May 21, 2013

As of Tuesday, May 21, 2013, at least 2,091 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan as a result of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to an Associated Press count.

The AP count is one less than the Defense Department’s tally, last updated Tuesday at 10 a.m. EDT.

At least 1,732 military service members have died in Afghanistan as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers.

Outside of Afghanistan, the department reports at least 124 more members of the U.S. military died in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Of those, 11 were the result of hostile action.

The AP count of total OEF casualties outside of Afghanistan is four more than the department’s tally.

The Defense Department also counts three military civilian deaths.

Since the start of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, 18,535 U.S. service members have been wounded in hostile action, according to the Defense Department. …

Read on: www.washingtonpost.com/national/at-least-2091-us-military-deaths-in-afghanistan-since-2001/2013/05/21/57c44542-c23d-11e2-9642-a56177f1cdf7_story.html

Tags: by caab
No Comments »

Washington Post
By Associated Press
May 9, 2013

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has irked Washington with his frequent criticism of American military operations in his country, said Thursday that his government is now ready to let the U.S. have nine bases across Afghanistan after most foreign troops withdraw in 2014.

A border spat with Pakistan and a desire to test public opinion led Karzai to break months of public silence on this issue, according to Afghan analysts. They said Karzai is concerned that Pakistan is using the Taliban to give it greater leverage, and that he wants to find out if Afghans, tired of 12 years of war, will support that size of a U.S. military footprint.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Thursday that the U.S. “does not seek permanent military bases in Afghanistan.” The U.S. military presence in Afghanistan after 2014 would be “only at the request of the Afghan government,” Carney said. …

Read on: www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/president-karzai-says-afghans-willing-to-let-us-hold-on-to-9-bases-in-the-country-after-2014/2013/05/09/29b0e5ae-b881-11e2-b568-6917f6ac6d9d_story.html

Tags: by caab
No Comments »

UPI.com
March. 5, 2013

Some U.S. bases in Afghanistan are undergoing major expansion even as the United States continues to pull troops out of the country, military officials say.

The contradiction is occurring as U.S. outposts in remote parts of the country are closed and the soldiers there are resettled into a few larger bases in preparation for full withdrawal next year, McClatchy Newspapers reported Monday.

Some 800 U.S. and NATO bases were in Afghanistan in late 2011. More than 600 of them have been shut down.

One of the bases being renovated, Forward Operating Base Apache, is taking in troops from a half dozen front-line bases in Zabul province. It’s adjacent to Camp Eagle, a large Afghan army base where U.S. troops are performing new tasks as advisers and trainers. …

Read on: www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2013/03/05/As-troops-withdraw-US-bases-growing/UPI-64001362508435/

Tags: by caab
No Comments »

Fox News
February 26, 2013

The Obama administration appears to have relied on misleading figures to characterize progress in the war in Afghanistan, as the U.S.-led military coalition acknowledged Tuesday that it had incorrectly reported a decline in Taliban attacks last year.

Throughout the campaign season, President Obama and his top officials claimed the Taliban were on the decline. …

Read more: www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/26/us-military-report-showing-drop-in-taliban-attacks-found-to-be-incorrect/

Tags: by caab
No Comments »

Los Angeles Times
By Shashank Bengali
February 25, 2013

The U.S. military has determined that its forces weren’t involved in the alleged abduction and killing of civilians in a troubled province in eastern Afghanistan, officials said Monday.

“In recent months, a thorough review has confirmed that no coalition forces have been involved in the alleged misconduct in Wardak province,” Lt. Col. Les Carroll, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, said in a statement.

A day earlier, Afghan President Hamid Karzai accused U.S. special forces troops and Afghans working for them of torturing civilians in Wardak, a strategic but violence-wracked province southwest of the capital, Kabul. Karzai ordered the elite U.S. troops to end operations in Wardak and to leave the province within two weeks, dealing a blow to U.S. counterterrorism efforts in an area rife with Taliban and allied insurgents. …

Read on: www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-american-military-afghanistan-20130225,0,2789149.story

Tags: by caab
No Comments »

Press TV
February 7, 2013

A new UN report says the US forces in Afghanistan have killed hundreds of children during their military operations in the war-torn country since 2008

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child on Wednesday also expressed deep concern at the arrest and detention of Afghan children by US-led forces.

According to the UN report, some of the children were abused in US detention facilities.

The report also said “those responsible for the killings have not been held to account even as the number of children killed doubled from 2010 to 2011.”

The committee has issued recommendations to Washington regarding US practices during armed conflicts, which are harmful to children.

The committee called on the US to take measures to prevent the killing and maiming of civilians and children.

Read on: www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/02/07/287770/us-has-killed-100s-of-afghan-kids-since-2008/

Tags: by caab
No Comments »

U.S. News & World Report
By Deb Riechmann, Associated Press
August 26, 2012

NATO has closed more than 200 bases in Afghanistan and transferred nearly 300 others to local forces, a concrete step toward its 2014 target of handing over security responsibility, NATO officers said Sunday.

All 202 closed facilities were small, ranging from isolated checkpoints to bases of a dozen to 300 soldiers, said Lt. Col. David Olson, a NATO forces spokesman. Most of the closures have been along the country’s main highways, spread across nearly every province, Olson said.

Another 282 bases of the same size have been handed over to the Afghan government, he said.

That means international forces now operate about half as many bases in Afghanistan as in October of 2011, when they ran about 800 bases.

The closures are part of the large-scale drawdown over this year and next as international forces prepare to transfer security tasks to the Afghan government at the end of 2014. …

Read on: www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2012/08/26/nato-202-afghan-bases-closed-more-to-come

Tags: by caab
No Comments »

SBS
August 21, 2012

A rocket fired on a US airbase in Afghanistan has damaged the aircraft of America’s top military officer and wounded two maintenance crew.

Two rockets fired by insurgents struck the vast Bagram airfield early on Tuesday, with one causing damage to the C-17 used by General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who left the base using another plane, his spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan said.

Shrapnel from the rocket struck the door of the plane while it was parked on the runway, with two American maintenance crew suffering minor injuries in the attack, Lapan said.

The attack posed no threat to the safety of Dempsey or his staff, who were asleep in their quarters at the time of the incident, officers said.

Although sporadic shelling of Bagram is not uncommon, Taliban insurgents rarely manage to inflict serious damage or casualties at the base, according to military reports. …

The attacks are unprecedented in US military history and they have spawned so much mistrust that foreign troops have been ordered to be armed at all times, even within bases, officers said. …

Read in full: www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1684543/Afghan-rocket-hits-US-army-chief%27s-plane

Tags: by caab
No Comments »

Voice of America (blog)
August 22, 2012

The number of U.S. military members killed in the war in Afghanistan has surpassed 2,000, with more than half the deaths coming in the past 27 months.

The increased casualty rate came after U.S. President Barack Obama sent thousands of extra troops into the country to intensify the U.S.-led NATO coalition’s battle against insurgents.

Those troops are withdrawing, along with their international counterparts, as Afghan forces take increasing security control ahead of a 2014 deadline for foreign combat troops to leave Afghanistan.

The Afghan army and police have endured a larger number of casualties since the war began in 2001. Statistics dating back to 2007 show more than 6,500 Afghan security forces have been killed.

The United Nations has reported that more than 13,000 Afghan civilians have also died as a result of the conflict since 2007.

U.S. military officials have expressed concern about a recent series of attacks by Afghan forces on international troops that have killed 10 service members, mostly Americans. At least 39 coalition members have been killed in such attacks this year. …

read on: http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2012/08/22/us-troop-deaths-top-2000-in-afghanistan/

A pointless hopeless war. CAAB supports the call to bring home all the US military and other troops involved/their Agencies/corporations before more lives are lost.

Tags: by caab
No Comments »

Star-Telegram
By Joshua Partlow (The Washington Post)
July 1, 2012

The United States is spending $92 million to build Afghanistan a new “Pentagon,” a massive five-story military headquarters with domed roofs and a high-tech basement command center that will link Afghan generals with their troops. Even with American troops beginning their withdrawal, the U.S. government is still working its way through a $10 billion menu of construction projects. The United States is also building a $54 million Kabul headquarters for the Interior Ministry, which oversees the Afghan police, and a $102 million base for the military’s 201st Corps in eastern Afghanistan. …

Read in full: www.star-telegram.com/2012/07/01/4072462/us-building-afghanistan-a-huge.html

Tags: by caab
No Comments »