Afghan President Hamid Karzai issued a decree Dec. 26 allowing the country's Supreme Court to go forward with its plan to set up a tribunal to hear complaints of fraud during the September parliamentary elections. The tribunal brings doubt over the legitimacy of the elections, already tainted by irregularities that forced authorities to invalidate a significant number of votes and disqualify candidates. The decision comes less than a month before the 249-seat parliament is set to convene on Jan. 20, but officials say Karzai is committed to inaugurating the parliament by then.

From War Resisters League, Dec. 17:

Whose stories are we telling about the war in Afghanistan?
On the day following the White House report on the war in Afghanistan that names the war as a qualified success and calls for the US to "stay the course," we must lift up the alternative stories and reports of this near-decade of occupation, including yesterday's Veterans for Peace action at the White House.

A US soldier is being held in connection with the fatal shooting on Oct. 17 of a Taliban detainee, who was found dead in a holding cell in Kandahar province. The US Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID) and Afghan officials have launched separate investigations into the death. Officials stated that detainee, Mullah Muhibullah, was a senior leader of the Taliban network in Arghandab district of Kandahar province. Arghandab is currently the focus of a major US-led military offensive to dislodge the Taliban from its strategic stronghold in Kandahar province. Mullah Muhibullah was detained during a Taliban operation the day before he was killed.

NATO forces in Afghanistan launched two airstrikes against Taliban fighters on the Pakistani side of the border, killing more than 30 people on Sept. 24 and 25, military spokesmen confirmed. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) initially denied that its forces had launched the airstrikes, although they were confirmed by Afghan police officials. On Sept. 27, however, a statement from ISAF confirmed the attacks. Initially, a base close to the border in Khost province, known as Combat Outpost Narizah, came under fire from insurgents. When what ISAF described as an "air weapons team" responded, they came under fire from the insurgents across the border in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area, and returned fire. When two ISAF helicopters returned to the area the next day, they were again fired on from the Pakistani side of the border, and again returned fire.

As we've had plenty of occasion to say before: Isn't it funny that those who invoke the supposed superiority of Western culture the loudest are the quickest to betray those values which supposedly make it superior (pluralism, tolerance, etc.)? And we'll also add—Way to win hearts and minds in Afghanistan! From ABC News, Sept. 4:

A suicide bombing at a Shi'ite demonstration in solidarity with the Palestinians in the western Pakistani city of Quetta (Balochistan province) on Sept. 3 left at least 65 people dead. That same day, a suicide attack during Friday evening prayers at an Ahmadiyya mosque in the town of Mardan (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province) killed at least two people. Local Ahmadi spokesman Saleemudin faulted authorities for not taking adequate security measures at the mosque given recent deadly attacks on the Ahmadiyya elsewhere in Pakistan. But he added that the Ahmadiyya would remain peaceful and not take the law in their own hands. (WP, Kashmir Observer, Pakistan Daily Times, Sept. 4)

In the latest in a series of jihadist attacks on mosques in Pakistan, three suicide bombers blew themselves up amid a procession of thousands of the faithful outside a Shi'ite mosque in Lahore Sept. 1, killing at least 37. Shi'te protesters clashed with police following the attack. Both Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (Army of Jhangvi, named for an anti-Shia cleric) and Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud are said to have claimed responsibility for the attack. Thousands of Shi'ites marched in mourning in Lahore the following day. (Indian Express, Foreign Policy Journal, Sept. 3; MEMRI, NYT, Sept. 2)

The US Department of Justice announced Sept. 1 that it has charged Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimulla Mehsud in connection with the Dec. 30 attack on CIA Afghan outpost Camp Chapman that left nine people dead. Mehsud identifies himself as the head of Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP).