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The International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC, called Saturday for the safe and unconditional release of two staff members abducted in northern Afghanistan earlier this month.

The abductees were part of an ICRC convoy transporting food for livestock of poverty-stricken farmers in the northern Jowzjan province on February 8 when they were ambushed, allegedly by Islamic State militants.

The assailants killed six ICRC employees before taking two others to an unknown location, according to Afghan security officials.

Operations suspended

The charity has since suspended its humanitarian operations across the country, where millions of people are in urgent need of aid because of the intensification of a Taliban-led insurgency.

We call on the abductors sense of humanity and request the immediate, safe and unconditional release of our colleagues and to avoid taking any action that could endanger their lives a statement Saturday quoted the ICRCs country chief, Monica Zanarelli, as saying.

We do not want the agony and heartache of this tragedy to deepen, she added.

Zanarelli appealed to authorities and armed groups operating in northern Afghanistan to help secure the safe release of the two ICRC staff members. The deadly attack on its staff is the worst such incident against ICRC in the country.

Charity in country 30 years

The charity has been active in Afghanistan for three decades, impartially assisting victims of the conflict with medical care, food assistance, family contacts and the dignified handling of human remains.

Afghan authorities say they have been making efforts to locate the abductees, while the Taliban has distanced itself from the incident.

The Islamist insurgency has vowed to find and punish those behind the deadly attack, saying it respects ICRCs contributions in helping Afghans and has even called on the charity to resume its activities.

See the article here:
ICRC Appeals for Release of Staff Abducted in Afghanistan - Voice of America

ISIS launched an attack on Afghan security posts killing 17 soldiers, an Afghan official said Friday.

Ahmad Ali Hazrat, chief of the provincial council in the province, said the attack Thursday night took place in the Dih Bala district in eastern Nangarhar province.

Hazrat said ISIS fighters attacked army security posts from three directions and after several hours of heavy fighting, 17 army soldiers were dead.

General Doulat Waziri, spokesman for the Ministry of Defence, said soldiers killed 21 ISIS fighters.

Also on Friday, an Afghan provincial official saidTalibanforces stormed several Afghan security posts in easternKunarprovince, killing five police officers.

Provincial Gov. Waheedullah Kalimzai said the daring attacks lasted nearly two hours and were apparently co-ordinated but police, aided by other security officials, managed to repel the attackers and drove the insurgents from the area.

Kalimzai said another police officer is missing after the attack. He said Taliban fighters used heavy machine-guns and explosive devices in the assault. Kalimzai added that the Afghan police killed several Taliban fighters.

Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province borders Pakistan. Insurgency groups have a strong presence in the area.

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ISIS raid in Afghanistan kills 17 soldiers - CBC.ca

Germany needs to reassess its integration policy, the Bundestag'shuman rights commissioner,Brbel Kofler (SPD), said on Saturday,amid growing concerns over the deportation of rejected Afghan asylum seekers back to their home country.

"The situation in Afghanistan hasn't changed," Kofler told the German "Passauer NeuePresse"newspaper. "Rather, it's the domestic political situation here that has changed. People shouldn't be the ones carrying the burden of this upheaval."

Kofler: People should not bear the burden of Germany's domestic political upheaval.

Of the 250,000 Afghans living in Germany, 11,900 have been asked to leave the country since mid-December, according to the German Interior Ministry. The policy has prompted outcry and protests across Germany, as large parts of Afghanistan remain violent and under Taliban control. The country is not on Germany's official list of "safe countries of origin."

"The security situation in Afghanistan may vary from region to region, but one cannot say that the situation anywhere in the country is particularly good," Kofler said.

She also indicated that many Afghan asylum seekers, legal or otherwise, had integrated successfully in Germany and "found their place in society." They, and the Germans who have supported them,cannot understand "why they are suddenly being torn away from their homes," she said.

The issue of deportations has put the federal government at odds with some states. While deportations are a state matter, the federal government has made clear that it wants to play a bigger role in them. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party has been pushing for speedier repatriations of failed asylum seekers following December's terrorist attack on a Berlin Christmas market.

Last week, Merkel agreed to a 16-point plan with German state leaders that would see the creation of a central coordination center in Berlin, as well as federal deportation centers near airports that would facilitate collective deportations.

However, on Tuesday the state of Schleswig-Holstein announced that it would immediately suspenddeportations back to Afghanistan on "humanitarian grounds."

dm/rc(AFP, dpa, KNA)

Link:
German human rights official urges end to Afghanistan deportations ... - Deutsche Welle

David Holahan , Special for USA TODAY 11:33 a.m. EST February 17, 2017

by Gregg Zoroya

(Da Capo Press)

in Non-Fiction

In 2008, seven years after America invaded Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11, it was a largely forgotten war. George W. Bushs administration had diverted its attention and much of the nations military resources to Iraq, where a second war was not going well.

But in remote sections of Afghanistan, aptly named the Graveyard of Empires, American soldiers still were being tasked with holding forbidding chunks of real estate, battling insurgents, and winning the hearts and minds of local residents.

The Chosen Few: A Company of Paratroopers and Its Heroic Struggle to Survive in the Mountains of Afghanistanis about one such godforsaken place and the sacrifices made there by some 150 Army soldiers from Chosen Company. It is a remarkable story, whose telling raises myriad questions without resorting to polemics. It is unlikely that those who read it will ever utter the phrase, Thank you for your service, quite the same way again.

Author Gregg Zoroya.(Photo: Jack Gruber)

The Chosen Few (Da Capo Press, 370pp., *** out of four stars) is a gripping, exhaustively reported account of modern warfare: The GIs versus the Jihadis. Author Gregg Zoroya a veteran USA TODAYwar correspondent, and now a member of its editorial board cuts through the fog of war by drawing on numerous sources, among them hundreds of interviews with participants and their families, official postmortems, and videos of the action taken by soldiers and insurgents alike.

Zoroya delivers the adrenaline of combat right to the readers easy chair. His prose is direct and clear, and never upstages the action. He also brings the warriors to life, chronicling their trials and triumphs before, duringand after three searing firefights. Some are wounded and fight on. Some die horrific deaths. Astounding bravery is commonplace. Be prepared to flinch.

Chosen Company, circa 2008, was a motley crew of mostly very young men, or lost boys, as the author dubs them. Many hailed from broken homes and troubled pasts, and the Army provided not only a challenge and an escape hatch, but also a surrogate family.

Ryan Pitts, who never knew his father, joined the Army at 18. Four years later riddled with shrapnel and unable to walk or fully use one hand Pitts gathered what weapons he could, crawled to a defensive position and fought on, fully expecting to die, either from loss of blood or enemy bullets.

Sgt. Ryan Pitts, left, and Sgt. Israel Garcia in Afghanistan.(Photo: From 'The Chosen Few')

Pitts was the last man alive in Topside, a makeshift observation post high above an unfinished base in the remote village of Wanat. Its residents had fled, leaving their houses as cover for the insurgentsto use. They had neglected to tell the Americans of the impending attack. The local police, though they feigned innocence later, took part in the assault. It is unlikely that the hearts and minds of these people were winnable from the get-go.

The inevitable question is why the Americans were there in the first place, in the remote Waigal Valley. Previous attacks had led them to abandon two nearby posts, and, like them, Wanat was vulnerable, flanked by mountains that provided ideal cover for attackers. The Army abandoned the base three days after the deadly assault.

Zoroya doesnt take sides. He lets the facts and comments of others fall where they may. Pitts was not among those who blamed higher-ups, whether in his company, in Kabul or in Washington. He didnt see himself as a victim.

In a remarkable statement, reflecting a sentiment shared by many of his brothers in Chosen Company, he said, Its crazy to say, but I had some of the best times in my life with those guys in Afghanistan.

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'Chosen Few' is a searing account of war in Afghanistan - USA TODAY

Things were going reasonably well for a group of Special Forces soldiers looking to disrupt Taliban operations in a small Afghanistan village last year, until the team came upon a 20-foot-tall steel gate that no one had anticipated.

Surrounded on two more sides by 10-foot walls, the 59-man group -- 10 special operators from 2nd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group, two U.S. support elements and a handful of Afghan soldiers -- found themselves in a harrowing firefight on Nov. 2.

"The spider senses were definitely tingling, being up there at that gate," Sgt. 1st Class Sean Morrison said in a Feb. 9 Army release.

For two hours the group held back the attack, dubbed the Battle of Boz Qandahari, killing 27 insurgents and three high-value Taliban commanders, the release said.

The attack took the lives of two Green Berets: Sgt. 1st Class Ryan Gloyer and Maj. Andrew Byers.

Gen. John Nicholson, commander of the Resolute Support mission and U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, left, congratulates Sgt. 1st Class Brian Seidl, 10th Special Forces Group, after presenting him with the Silver Star award Feb. 1, 2017 at Fort Carson, Colorado. For his heroism, Byers was posthumously awarded the Silver Star on Feb. 1. Two of his surviving teammates, Sgt. 1st Class Brian Seidl and Staff Sgt. Andrew Russell, also received the Silver Star, the nation's third-highest award for valor.

'Into machine gun fire'

The team was dropped into a flooded field near the Boz Qandahari village in Kunduz province that night, where they slogged a mile in waist-deep mud to get to the village, which one soldier described as castle-like.

"Just steep, 100-foot-high cliffs on all sides of the village with only one entry way," Morrison said.

To get in, they had to climb the cliff face carved with switchback trails to the top.

Drones above let them know that enemy combatants were closing in on the group, but they pushed ahead, clearing two compounds uneventfully while collecting contraband and intelligence.

Because of bad weather in the forecast, they decided to skip to the fourth compound on the list, where they ran into the huge gate and found themselves surrounded by insurgents.

Gloyer, who had been at the gate with Seidl and Staff Sgt. Adam Valderrama, was mortally wounded by the first grenade blast. He managed to run back to the group, but didn't survive.

As enemy fire surrounded them, then-Capt. Byers did not hesitate.

"Byers sprinted past me," Seidl said. "He just ran straight into the smoke and the dust."

Seidl followed Byers into the kill zone to rescue a fallen Afghan soldier.

Maj. Andrew Byers, left, was posthumously awarded the Silver Star on Feb. 1. Two of his surviving teammates, Sgt. 1st Class Brian Seidl, center, and Staff Sgt. Andrew Russell, right, also received the Silver Star for their actions. Photo Credit: Army Meanwhile, Russell, a junior weapons sergeant, risked his own life to save a wounded warrant officer.

"I grabbed [Warrant Officer 1 Meade] by his plate carrier," he said, "dragged him back a few feet and tried to get in front of him, between what was basically a three-way kill zone. ... I thought I was dead."

And thanks to him, Meade made it, and is recovering from his injuries at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

"He ran into machine gun fire to get me," said Meade, "Then, whenever he couldn't drag me any further, he laid down on top of me and protected me with his own body."

"He's engaging [the enemy] in three different directions," Seidl said. "And all the while, he managed to get tourniquets on both of [Meade's] legs, saving his life."

Byers and Seidl worked together to set up a defensive area to care for the wounded, choosing one of the village's compounds. After throwing grenades inside to clear it, Byers tried to kick the gate open, but an object on the other side held it shut, so he reached through to move it.

"And that's when I watched the rounds rip through the gate and into [Byers]," Seidl remembered.

With Byers and Meade, the team and assistant team leaders, wounded, Seidl was left to call in MEDEVACs. A third of the group had been killed or injured, so it was up to him to hold on until a quick reaction force could get there.

It was past dawn by the time the exfiltration team showed up, forcing the operators to move the wounded 300 meters to a covered treeline for concealment, using a village donkey to carry Gloyer's body.

In addition to the three Silver Stars, the team earned three Bronze Stars (two with "V" device), four Army Commendation Medals with "V" device and six Purple Heart Medals.

"Some of the things that I saw of the men that night was some of the most courageous and amazing things I'd ever seen," Seidl said, "or could ever hope to see."

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3 Green Berets receive Silver Star for deadly Afghanistan ambush - ArmyTimes.com