Amid the thousands of pages of classified US military documents released July 25 by the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks are details of nearly 200 incidents that involve Task Force 373, an elite Special Forces unit tasked with hunting down and killing enemy combatants in Afghanistan. Documents indicate the unit has also been responsible for the deaths of numerous civilians, Afghan police officers, and, in one particularly bloody raid, seven children.

US drones fired missiles at a target in the Angoor Adda area of Pakistan's South Waziristan region July 24, killing 18 suspected militants. (PTI, July 24) According to a count by the BBC Urdu service, nearly 2,500 people have been killed in Pakistan by US drone strikes and Taliban attacks since January 2009. (Pakistan Daily Times, July 24)

By the end of 2011, 81 US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) special agents will be deployed in Afghanistan, up from 13 just three years ago, according to the agency's chief of operations Tom Harrigan. "Afghanistan is the most prolific producer of opium," said Harrigan. "We are working very closely with our Afghan counterparts. We're there to extend the rule of law." (Federal News Radio, July 23)

A mosque and adjoining shrines were destroyed in an explosion at Ashkail village in the Khyber tribal region's Landi Kotal tehsil (district), near the Afghan border in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on July 15. The Ishkhel mosque was 100 years old, and the adjacent shrines were older, some holding the remains of Sufi saints. There were no casualties, but hours later a bomb blast tore through a crowded market at Meharban Kaley in the Khyber Agency's Tiraah Valley, killing 10, including three children, and injuring 20. Five people were also killed and 55 others wounded that same day when a suicide blast ripped through a busy bus stand in Mingora Swat, North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), where local residents were celebrating an Aman Mela (Peace Festival) to promote reconciliation efforts.

Twin suicide attacks on the shrine of a Sufi saint in the Pakistani city of Lahore July 1 left 44 dead and 175 injured. The first blast went off at 11:20 PM in the basement of the tomb, an area reserved for ablutions; the second bomb exploded minutes later in the main prayer area which was crowded with worshipers who gather every Thursday for special rituals.

A US drone fired two missiles at a guesthouse next to a home in Khushali Torikhel village in Mir Ali sub-division of North Waziristan, killing four suspected militants, including foreigners, Pakistani sources said. According to a count by Iran's Press TV, the US has launched 36 drone strikes in Pakistan since January, killing at least 390. (Hindustan Times, Press TV, June 26)

At least nine ethnic Hazara men were killed in an ambush June 24 in a remote area of central Afghanistan that is largely controlled by the Taliban. The Hazaras had come to the district center of Khas Uruzguan, in a Pashtun area of Uruzgan province. Authorities did not confirm widespread reports that the men were beheaded, and there were conflicting reports on whether the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. The Taliban frequently execute those accused of spying for the government or coalition forces, but there may have been an ethnic-religious element to the attack; the Taliban carried out a campaign of genocide against the Shi'ite Hazaras during their years in power. (NYT, Central Asia Online, June 25)

Barack Obama's ouster of Gen. Stanley McChrystal as commander of US forces in Afghanistan—and his replacement by Gen. David Petraeus, who will step down as chief of Central Command—appears to represent a strategic shift within the administration. As a senator, Barack Obama opposed Petraeus' "surge" in Iraq, declared it would fail, and called for troop withdrawals. Now President Obama has turned to Petraeus to revive his own "surge" in Afghanistan.