5 December 2011
Ten years after the 2001 Petersberg Conference, States have re-convened in Bonn to deliberate on the future of Afghanistan after the foreign troop withdrawal scheduled for 2014. While about 100 countries are attending the conference, Pakistan, one of the key players in the region, is boycotting the conference in protest of a NATO attack on a border checkpoint last month.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk
28 November 2011
NATO’s claim that it was retailing against gunfire from the Pakistani side of the border has been denied by Pakistan, which in return has lodged protests against both the United States and NATO in connection to the incident in which NATO air forces killed at least 25 soldiers in strikes against two military posts at the northwestern border with Afghanistan. Pakistan’s government already ordered the US to vacate an airbase used for drone strikes in Afghanistan, and announced that it would would “revisit and undertake a complete review of all programmes, activities and co-operative arrangements” with the US, and US-led forces in Afghanistan, “including diplomatic, political, military and intelligence”.
Source 1: Guardian – Pakistan orders US to leave airbase in row over deadly Nato assault
Source 2: NY Times – Tensions Flare Between U.S. and Pakistan After Strike
28 November 2011
On Saturday 24 November 2011, 25 Pakistani soldiers were killed during air strikes conducted by Afghan and ISAF forces at the Pakistani border. While the incident is lifting up tensions between the US and Pakistan, its circumstances remains unclear. NATO is investigating the incident, including the possibility that it resulted from a communication problem. Possibly, NATO came under fire from insurgents at the border and mistakenly fired back at Pakistani soldiers.
Source 1: www.nytimes.com
Source 2: www.bbc.co.uk
1 July 2011
The United States will have spent a total of $3.7 trillion on wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, costing 225,000 lives and creating 7.8 million refugees, by the time the conflicts end, according to a report released on Wednesday by Brown University. There are many costs of these wars that have not yet been quantified and assessed. Also, there is still much more to know and understand about how all those affected by the wars have had their health, economies, and communities altered by the decade of war, and what solutions exist for the problems they face as a result of the wars’ destruction and the shared acts of the troop contributing nations.
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com