Insurgents killed six Afghan civilians and wounded three more in roadside bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan yesterday, military officials reported. Four civilians were killed and three others were wounded when a bomb detonated in Zabul province's Mizan district. The wounded were airlifted to a military medical facility in Qalat.
In Nimroz province's Khash Rod district, two Afghan civilians were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb. Earlier yesterday, numerous civilians reportedly were killed when their bus struck a roadside bomb in the Khash Rod district, officials said.
ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT, July 27, 2010 - The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said he is "appalled" by the breach of security represented by the Wikileaks case.
Navy Adm. Mike Mullen told reporters traveling with him that the leaks could put American servicemembers at risk. Investigators are still sifting through some 90,000 classified documents to determine the exact harm that the release could bring, he said.
The chairman said the information is older – from 2004 to 2009 – and this may mitigate the situation to an extent. Many of the documents are field reports covering the situation in Pakistan.
Thousands of classified documents offer a view more bleak than official portrayal.
A six-year archive of classified military documents made public on Sunday offers an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in Afghanistan that is in many respects more grim than the official portrayal.
The secret documents, released on the Internet by an organization called WikiLeaks, are a daily diary of an American-led force often starved for resources and attention as it struggled against an insurgency that grew larger, better coordinated and more deadly each year.
The New York Times, the British newspaper the Guardian and the German magazine Der Spiegel were given access to the voluminous records several weeks ago on the condition that they not report on the material before Sunday.
The documents - some 92,000 reports spanning parts of two administrations from January 2004 through December 2009 - illustrate in mosaic detail why, after the United States has spent almost $300 billion on the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban is stronger than at any time since 2001.
Special Report - 07/29/10
