A US delegation is headed for Kabul to persuade President Hamid Karzai to approve a program of glyphosate spraying over the opium-producing lands of southeast Afghanistan. The private contractor Dyncorp is to carry out the spraying in cooperation with a specially-trained Afghan force. The US is willing to negotiate, but makes clear it will not take glyphosate off the table. "There has to be a stick that goes with the carrot," said Thomas Schweich, State Department co-ordinator for counter-narcotics in Afghanistan. Eradication had to be a component of US policy, he emphasized.

Pakistani security forces clashed with militants at an al-Qaeda camp near the Afghan border May 22, leaving at least three dead. Maj.-Gen. Waheed Arshad, an army spokesman, said that after receiving reports about the training camp in North Waziristan, tribal elders were sent in to tell its leaders to shut it down. They came under fire, triggering a gun battle. "Security forces returned the fire and are in the process of clearing the miscreants' training facility," the military said in a statement. (AlJazeera, May 22)

Taliban leader Mullah Omar has formally confirmed the death of top commander Mullah Dadullah, through a spokesman, and nominated Mullah Bakht Mohammad as his replacement. The elusive Mullah Omar also claimed there are thousands of fighters ready to avenge Dadullah's death and called for an immediate return of Dadullah's corpse to his family. Dadullah's brother, Shah Mansoor, and two other senior Taliban officials released from prison in exchange for the safe release of a foreign journalist in March have also been killed, according to Afghan intelligence officials. The trio, including commanders Mullah Ghaffar and Mullah Hamdullah, were killed hours before US forces killed Mullah Dadullah in Helmand province on May 12. (Afgha.com, May 16)

Two years ago, following rumors that Osama bin Laden had taken refuge in Nuristan, we warned that the remote mountain region immortalized as "Kafiristan" in Rudyard Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King would be drawn into Afghanistan's war. Now, alas, our prediction has been vindicated. A roadside bomb killed seven Afghan soldiers in Nuristan's Kamdesh district May 14, and the following day Afghan soldiers killed six Taliban insurgents in the province, governor Tamim Nuristani said. Over 1,300, mostly said to be Taliban militants, have been killed in Afghanistan this year. (Pakistan Online News, Reuters, May 16)

The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has brought in trainers from Colombia to prepare a new Afghan anti-narcotics force. Opium cultivation has steadily grown in Afghanistan since the US invasion of 2001, leaping from 183,000 acres in 2002 to 408,000 last year. So far this year, about 20,000 acres have been destroyed, according to the United Nations. The crop is expected to yield more than 6,500 tons of opium, exceeding global demand. The export value—about $3.1 billion—is equivalent to about half of the legal Afghan economy. The Taliban, which banned opium cultivation when they were in power, are now said to be overseeing its cultivation to fund their insurgency. (NYT via Pakistan Tribune, May 16)

Thousands of Afghans protested outside the Pakistani embassy in Kabul May 16, chanting "Death to Pakistan, Death to Musharraf!" The rally comes days after the bloodiest clash in decades on the disputed border between the two countries. Pakistani forces crossed into Afghan territory and killed 13 people, including children and police, in two days of clashes over the weekend, according to the Afghan Foreign Ministry. Many of the protesters come from Paktia, the southeastern province where the clashes took place.

A US and Pakistani soldier are purported to have been killed [May 14] after meeting Pakistani troops near the Afghan border. NATO announced that two of its soldiers, as well as two civilian employees, were injured in the incident. [BBC, May 14] [In Pakistan,] at least 24 people have been killed, and 25 to 30 wounded, in a bomb blast at a Peshawar hotel. [The Guardian, May 15]

Street fighting in Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, left at least 39 dead over the weekend, as competing rallies timed for a visit by suspended chief justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry exploded into violence. Fighting spread to neighborhoods dominated by rival ethnic groups, keeping Chaudhry trapped at the airport until he finally returned to Islamabad. Firefighters were called after a funeral procession for a man killed in the clashes left a row of shops in flames. The fighting pitted ethnic Pashtuns against Urdu-speaking supporters of the pro-government Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). (The Guardian, May 14)