Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Aug. 1 called upon NATO to remain in Afghanistan until it has prevailed over the jihadist insurgency. "It is regrettable that many participants in this operation are thinking about how to pull out of there," Putin said at a meeting with paratroopers in Ulyanovsk. "They took up this burden and should carry it to the end.. If there is no order in Afghanistan, it will not be calm on our southern borders. The current [Afghan] leadership will have difficulties keeping the situation under control. NATO member states are present there, and are performing this function. We need to help them [NATO]. We should not be fighting there again. Let them sit there and fight."

...is that it happened before he was repudiated by the American left. Here is this icon of principled journalism (please note sarcasm, irony-challenged readers) cheering the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the Village Voice, Jan. 21, 1980:

We all have to go one day, but pray God let it not be over Afghanistan. An unspeakable country filled with unspeakable people, sheepshaggers and smugglers... [I]f ever a country deserved rape it's Afghanistan. Nothing but mountains filled with barbarous ethnics with views as medieval as their muskets, and unspeakably cruel too... [Preserved for posterity in the book The Left at War by Michael Bérubé]

UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women Rashida Manjoo on July 18 urged the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan to end violence against women and to initiate investigations into the recent killings of two women. Fareeda Afridi, a human rights defender in Pakistan [Federally Administered Tribal Areas], was recently shot dead by two men when she was walking to her office. The second case involved a public execution of a woman [22 years old and identified only as Najiba] accused of adultery in Afghanistan [at an unidentified location north of Kabul]. [The report also noted the slaying of Hanifa Safi, local head of the Ministry by a roadside bomb in Laghman province.] Manjoo stated that such violence against women amounts to "State crime when tolerated by public institutions and officials—when they are unable to prevent, protect and guarantee the lives of women, who have consequently experienced multiple forms of discrimination and violence throughout their lifetime."

It was reported July 9 in the Times of London that the US will retain control of non-Afghan detainees at Parwan Detention Center at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, despite plans to transfer control of the facility to the Afghan government in two months. Under the terms of the agreement with Kabul, the Afghan government is to assume control of all prisons in the country, including the Bagram facility. The US, however, will retain control over about 50 non-Afghan detainees in a separate US-run section of the compound, with US officials claiming the agreement does not cover foreign nationals. The detainees apparently will be held without access to legal assistance or prospect of release. Such quarantining of prisoners and officials' attempts to distinguish between "prison" and "detention facility" have reportedly led many commentators and human rights activists to condemn the deal, questioning its legitimacy. The Bagram facility has widely become known as "the other Guantánamo" since its opening in 2009.

Right-wing and Islamist political leaders and activists united under the Difa-i-Pakistan Council (Pakistan Defense Council, DPC) launched a cross-country march from Lahore to Islamabad on July 8 to oppose the resumption of NATO supply lines to Afghanistan through Pakistan. A convoy of some 200 vehicles is accompanying the march of some 8,000. The DPC is made up of several Islamist parties, including the Jamatud Dawa, Ahle Sunnat Waljamat (formerly known as Sipah-e-Sahaba), Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI), and Jamat-e-Islami. (Pakistan Observer, July 9; Pakistan Tribune, The Nation, Pakistan, July 8)

Three people, including two children, were killed when a bomb planted in a donkey cart exploded at a Sufi shrine in Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, on June 21. Worshippers had gathered for a weekly event at the at the Panj Peer shrine, which houses the graves of several Sufi saints, as well as popular Pashto poet Rahman Baba. The donkey, whose front legs were tied with a rope, was blown to pieces. Almost simultaneously, another bomb exploded at a mosque in Quetta, Baluchistan, killing two worshippers and wounding 13 others. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blasts, but militants such as the Taliban vehemently oppose Sufism, a form of "folk Islam" that they consider heretical. (Pakistan Express Tribune, June 22; AFP, June 21)

Responding to outcry over civilian casualties, the Pentagon is preparing to deploy a new generation of drones the size of model planes, with miniscule warheads that can allegedly be delivered with pinpoint accuracy. The Predator and Reaper drones now in use typically carry 100-pound laser-guided Hellfire missiles or 500-pound GPS-guided "smart bombs" that can reduce buildings to smoldering rubble. The new Switchblade drone weighs less than six pounds and are supposedly designed to kill a sniper on a rooftop without destroying the building. (LAT, June 11) The announcement comes days after UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on a visit to Pakistan said: "Drone attacks do raise serious questions about compliance with international law. The principle of distinction and proportionality and ensuring accountability for any failure to comply with international law is also difficult when drone attacks are conducted outside the military chain of command and beyond effective and transparent mechanisms of civilian or military control... I see the indiscriminate killings and injuries of civilians in any circumstances as human rights violations." (AFP, June 7)

A Pakistani doctor who helped the US government find Osama bin Laden was convicted last week for his association to a militant group in Pakistan, not for his ties to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as was originally reported. A court document released to the press indicates that Dr. Shakeel Afridi was sentenced to 33 years in prison because of his association with a banned militant group (Lashkar-e-Islam, according to Reuters). The document noted that the court did not have jurisdiction to address Afridi's association with the CIA. Afridi was part of a CIA attempt to gather DNA samples from residents of bin Laden's Abbattobad compound in an effort to determine whether bin Laden was present there. Pakistani court officials originally reported that Shakil was imprisoned because of his work with the CIA. It is unclear why these false reports were made.