Update for Sunday, August 23, 2015

Today in Afghanistan Car bomb attack on a vehicle carrying mercenaries kills 12 people including 3 Americans working for DynCorp. Sixty-seven people are said to have been injured by the powerful explosion. The attack occurred near a private hospital in Kabul. A local television station identifies one of the dead Americans  as Barry Sutton, a former Floyd County, Georgia Deputy and SWAT Team member.

This was one of several attacks including a bombing that injured 4 Afghan soldiers elsewhere in Kabul, and a bombing that injured 3 Afghan National Civil Order Police in Nangahar.

Bodies of 3 border police abducted last week are found in Ghazni.

A school principal is murdered in Parwan, north of the capital, the second such incident in a week.

Four Pakistani soldiers are killed near the Afghan border by a rocket which the Pakistanis say came from Afghanistan.

Afghan special forces evacuate 60 villagers from a besieged district of Uruzgan. While the army, and Khamaa, portray this as an accomplishment it is of course the abandonment of territory to the insurgency. Meanwhile, the governor of Musa Qala in Helmand says the Taliban are closing in on the center of the district and pleads for reinforcements. A politician says that 45 Afghan soldiers were killed and 20 surrendered in an attack on a security post.

Today in Afghanistan