A helicopter transporting 30 American servicemen, including Navy Seals, was shot down by insurgents over Afghanistan on Saturday, marking the single deadliest day for American forces in the war in Afghanistan.

American and Afghan officials confirmed that 30 Americans and 8 Afghans were killed in the attack, according to the New York Times.

The 22 Navy Seals on board were part of Seal Team 6, the unit that killed Osama Bin Laden.

The Taliban took responsibility for the attack on those that killed their leader. However, it is reported that none of the Seals killed in the attack were involved in Bin Laden’s death.

The Chinook Helicopter was on a night-raid mission and was most likely struck by a rocket-propelled grenade, the New York Times reports. The attack occurred around 1 a.m. on Saturday after an attack on a Taliban compound lasting about two hours, Gen. Abdul Qayum Baqizoy, police chief of Wardak, said to the Times.

“All of those killed in this operation were true heroes who had already given so much in the defense of freedom. Their sacrifice will not be forgotten,” said Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of the international military mission in Afghanistan.

President Obama expressed his concern and offered condolences to the families of those killed.

Parliamentary elections in Afghanistan will go ahead tomorrow, marred by allegations of fraud and tampering against election candidates, and, most recently, by the kidnapping of a candidate and 18 election workers by Taliban members.

Earlier this week printers in Peshawar claimed they were told by Afghan election candidates to produce and laminate fake voter cards for the election. The Afghan Electoral Complaints Commission expressed concern and said the issue should be dealt with, but has yet to take any action.

Former presidential candidate Dr. Abdullah Abdullah told reporters at a press conference that the appropriate measures to combat fraud are not being taken.

Meanwhile, workers were frantically transporting materials around the country earlier today in an effort to prepare for the election tomorrow. Fear in the streets is not as widespread as it was during the 2009 presidential election, though the Taliban has again threatened to attack.

The group has already been blamed for the kidnapping of 19 people, including one election candidate.

About 450,000 policemen and soldiers will guard polling stations, armed, in an effort to dissuade Taliban members from attacking.

Despite allegations of fraud and kidnappings by the Taliban, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the country has the “structure” for a “successful election”, according to Agence-France Presse.

As ballots are counted in Afghanistan, reports have surfaced, despite the media blackout, that at least 27 people, including nine civilians, have been killed across the country in a slew of attacks on voting day, according to Global Post.

Despite the killings, voter turnout only grew as the day went on, and officials extended voting time by one hour to accommodate the crowd.

Hamid Karzai, the front-runner of the 30 presidential candidates, praised the courage of the Afghan people. “The Afghan people defied rockets, bombs and intimidation and came out to vote, that is great” he said.

He also added that 73 attacks were conducted in 15 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. Security forces, according to Afghan officials, stopped five suicide attacks.

Scared to vote

In the morning, all over the country, polling stations stood empty. “Maybe everyone is drinking tea, or sleeping” said Abdul Mubir, manager of a polling centre in Kabul, Global Post reports.

By the afternoon it seems people emerged from their shells. Officials say more citizens began filing in around lunchtime and lines began to form outside official polling stations. By the end, turnout was apparently so strong that voting time had to be extended by one hour. In contrast, Al Jazeera reports that during the last hour of voting, a station being monitored in the capital by correspondent James Bays saw only one voter go in and out.

Despite the fairly small voting population (in comparison to larger countries) the results are not expected for several days. The deadline for the release of preliminary results is Sept. 3.

Exit polls give no indication of which candidate leads, mostly because voters are reluctant to reveal their choices so candidly. Opinions polls however suggest the possibility of a runoff election between Karzai and his main opposition Dr. Abdullah Abdullah.

Fraud

Many are already predicting fraud and fixing. Several voters, who mostly chose to remain unnamed, told reporters they have no faith in the electoral process in their country, a country heavily affected by U.S. presence and the Taliban insurgency.

Many analysts predict a win for the incumbent Karzai. His endorsements from former presidential candidates and the advances he’s made in his campaign in the past weeks have all but ensured victory.

However because Karzai needs 50 per cent of the vote for an outright victory, it is likely he will face a runoff election against Abdullah in the near future.

A few weeks ago it seemed like Afghanistan’s main candidates for president, the incumbent Hamid Karzai and his former foreign minister Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, were locked in a dead heat, running side by side toward that coveted post; to govern a country rocked by economic troubles and war.

But now, just two days before the election, Karzai has emerged as the unquestioned front-runner and will seemingly sprint back into his governing chair, a seat in which he will remain for another five years.

On Monday 10,000 supporters rallied at Ghazi stadium in Kabul, wearing blue caps, waving blue flags, holding signs depicting the Abdullah’s smiling visage. But despite the doctor’s prominence and reputation, despite his reformist ideals and want for change, he will lose.

As much as his campaign’s support parallels that of Iran’s Mir Hossein Mousavi, unlike Mousavi, this candidate has no chance of winning (neither did Mousavi, if you think about it).

Karzai will be back.

Polling day violence

What the people must worry about now, besides being ruled by Karzai for another five years, is what will happen on August 20^th. Violence at the polling stations is almost a certainty, especially now that the Taliban has vowed to disrupt the voting process.

“The election is propaganda from America and its allies,” said the Taliban in a statement, according to Al Jazeera.

On Tuesday, Kabul was hit by a blast that killed seven. It is highly likely that Thursday will see much of the same type of blasts scattered across the highly vulnerable country.

Voter turnout is already expected to be low, according to a local Afghan man interviewed by Al Jazeera. He told the interviewer that he was afraid to go out and vote because of what the Taliban had promised. He knows what they are capable of, he said.

We all know.

Peaceful election

Unfortunately, even from the beginning, these elections looked bleak. None of the candidates offer any real solutions to any of the country’s most dire issues. Also, the Afghanistan itself is not stable enough to hold a proper democratic election for two reasons: because the country is so often bombed by the Taliban that setting up secure, safe polling stations is not a reality, and because the parties involved have a history of engaging in bribery and intimidation tactics to gain desirable results.

According to several news outlets, entire villages have been threatened with violence if their population refuses to vote for a certain candidate.

Of course, internationally we are all hoping for at least one peaceful, democratic election to be completed in the Mid-East in the near future.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the one we should look to to satisfy that want.

Pakistan is in bad shape. A lot of horrible things have been going on in the distressed nation for a while: people are being displaced, people are dying, the Taliban is taking over areas, the army is claiming it’s killed more than 1,000 insurgents.

The Taliban is bombing mosques and the civilians, until now, were standing idly by.

For a long time it was difficult for civilians in Pakistan to publicly show their disloyalty to the Taliban. After all, Pakistan supported the Taliban organization for nearly seven years with arms and aid, while the Taliban imposed very, very strict Sharia law on all under them, in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan.

Then they were ousted in 2004 by NATO forces and have been regaining muscle ever since.

Now the Taliban is waging war on Pakistan, a former provider and new enemy. They are attacking civilian establishments in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), most recently suicide bombing a mosque and killing at least 40 people.

So as you can imagine by having read all that has been happening to the residents of Swat Valley and NWFP, and the displacement of millions and the deaths of thousands, the civilians have had enough.

On Saturday, nearly 500 residents of the Upper Dir district (near Swat Valley, where the suicide mosque bombing took place) banded together to form a small but determined civilian army, known as a “lashkar” and attacked the Taliban.

The angry, armed mob attacked five villages and destroyed 20 houses suspected of belonging to Taliban forces. Seven Taliban fighters were killed in the surge and the villagers now occupy three villages and are attempting to push the Taliban out of the other two.

“We are Muslims, we pray regularly and read the Koran. We don’t want them, they have to go,” said Upper Dir resident Samiullah Khan, Reuters India reports.

“Attacking a mosque is not Islam. They’re not Muslim” he said.

The U.S. is hoping for sustained fighting from the Pakistani army to help push out the Taliban and neutralize their forces. By doing this, support for the insurgency in Afghanistan will be cut off, potentially leading to the defeat of al Qaeda and the war in Afghanistan.

It’s safe to say the residents are rising up. They are angry with their army for taking so long to act and for allowing the displacement of so many of their own people. They are angry with the Taliban for thinking they can act in any way and claim Islam as their defense.

They are angry that their way of life has been so disrupted. Now they are taking it back.

Pakistan officials are blaming the Taliban for a bomb attack in Lahore that killed 23 people and left hundreds injured, BBC reports.

This morning at approximately 10:30 a.m. local time, a group of men shot at police officers before detonating a powerful car bomb that damaged buildings belonging to police and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s version of the CIA.

Officials warn the death toll, as is customary in these cases, may rise. Some have been injured‚ severely, suffering broken limbs and third-degree burns.

This could be the first of many attacks on Pakistan cities since the Taliban vowed to strike urban centers as revenge for the military’s increased operations in Swat Valley, where they claim to have killed more than 1,000 Taliban operatives.

“Enemies of Pakistan who want to destabilize the country are coming here after their defeat in Swat. There is a war, and this is a war for our survival” said Interior Minister Rehman Malik, BBC reports.

The attack killed at least one ISI agent, 12 officers and one child. BBC reports officials are speculating that the ISI building was the target for the attack, though it is uncertain at this time.

Lahore, which is located in Punjab province near the Indian border, was the scene of two sieges in March as well. Militants flooded the city and killed at least eight people in late March, and weeks earlier attacked the Sri Lanka cricket team.

The BBC reports that the area is being targeted since it is believed to be the secure home for the country’s “Punjab-dominated army.”‚ 

Pakistan’s Swat Valley has become the site of yet another humanitarian crisis as nearly half a million inhabitants flee in efforts to escape the battle between the Taliban and government troops, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The Pakistani government estimates that nearly 200,000 innocent civilians have made it out of the northwestern region, with another 300,000 attempting to escape alive. This latest evacuation effort brings the total number of people displaced by the on going violence to near a million, Al Jazeera reports.

A military spokesman claims the government military killed 143 opposition fighters on Thursday. Reinforcement troops were sent to Swat Valley Friday, just one day after Pakistani Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani ordered the army to remove the Taliban as they battle to control the North Western Frontier Province (NWFP).

“The armed forces have been called in to eliminate the militants and terrorists,” he said. He also accused the Taliban of violating the peace deal and threatening the nation’s independence.

The outcome of the battle in Swat Valley could very well determine the future of Pakistan’s military. If the Taliban overcome government forces, they could easily advance on Islamabad and put the entire nation at risk.

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, after a meeting with U.S. senators, said the military operation would continue “”¦until life in Swat comes back to normalcy.” These people must have lost hope for normal life now. Normal is long gone.

A democratic nation whose capital is infiltrated by a terrorist insurgency would no doubt pose a serious threat to the whole world, especially when that nation is a known nuclear power. That’s why world leaders, like Obama, are really, really trying to end this as soon as possible. It’d be an international disaster if they advanced further into the country.

The equivalent of like 1000 different swine flues.

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There’s been a lot of public Taliban activity in Pakistan over the last little while.

The Taliban is slowly trying to make its way toward Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital. The Pakistani armed forces have been verbally scolded by both American officials and Pakistani politicians over their lack of action and unwillingness to shift troops from the India-Pakistan border to help concentrate on combating the Taliban threat.

General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani defended his military’s actions on Friday, saying that they are committed to fighting and halting the Taliban insurgency. American and Pakistani officials however have expressed concern over the army’s lack of performance, insinuating that they merely stood by as hundreds of Taliban insurgents made their way into the Buner district, just 70 miles from Islamabad.

Also on Friday, after meeting with government officials, Taliban executives said they would withdraw from Buner. However, residents of the district say that this promise has not been honored and that few insurgents have vacated the region.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited the distressed country for two days earlier this week. “The situation there is definitely worse than it was two weeks ago” he said. “They need aggressive leadership that takes action.”

General Kayani attended an operational meeting in Rawalpindi Friday in an effort to prove his military is committed to dislodging the Taliban insurgency. “The army is determined to root out the menace of terrorism from society” the military said, according to the New York Times, in a statement afterward. “It will not allow the militants to dictate terms to the government or impose their way of life on the civil society of Pakistan.”

The general said the military is currently preparing to carry out a mission in Swat Valley, where Taliban insurgents have refused to disarm, disengage and evacuate, in violation of a February peace treaty.

Kayani said the army’s lack of action over the past while was an “operational pause” an effort to let the peace treaty work out the differences on its own.

Admiral Mullen has met with the general many times and has discussed with him many different ways to approach a solution to the insurgency conflict.

The admiral said he was quite impressed after watching the army in training sessions.

Hopefully the operation heading into Swat Valley takes place quick and is as effective as many are hoping.

The Bush Era stem cell funding ban will be lifted on Monday.

March 7 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama‘s expected reversal of an 8-year-old restriction on U.S. funding for embryonic stem cell research has excited scientists and health advocates who say the action will accelerate the search for cures to major illness.

Obama plans to lift the funding ban, imposed by former President George W. Bush, in a March 9 signing ceremony, said two government officials, who spoke yesterday on condition of anonymity. Bush objected to the use of the tissue because the process caused the destruction of human embryos.

In a wide ranging NYT interview, Obama mulls reaching out to elements of the Taliban.

WASHINGTON “" President Obama declared in an interview that the United States was not winning the war in Afghanistan and opened the door to a reconciliation process in which the American military would reach out to moderate elements of the Taliban, much as it did with Sunni militias in Iraq.

Mr. Obama pointed to the success in peeling Iraqi insurgents away from more hard-core elements of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a strategy that many credit as much as the increase of American forces with turning the war around in the last two years. “There may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and in the Pakistani region” he said, while cautioning that solutions in Afghanistan will be complicated.

He will also start easing restrictions on trade and travel to Cuba.

President Barack Obama is poised to offer an olive branch to Cuba in an effort to repair the US’s tattered reputation in Latin America.

The White House has moved to ease some travel and trade restrictions as a cautious first step towards better ties with Havana, raising hopes of an eventual lifting of the four-decade-old economic embargo. Several Bush-era controls are expected to be relaxed in the run-up to next month’s Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago to gild the president’s regional debut and signal a new era of “Yankee” cooperation.

The administration has moved to ease draconian travel controls and lift limits on cash remittances that Cuban-Americans can send to the island, a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of families.

Haji Juma Khan, otherwise known as Haji Juma Khan Mohammadhasni, has been arrested on charges of trafficking narcotics with the intent of financing a Taliban terrorist insurgency.

According to documents recently released by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, for at least nine years Khan has been internationally trafficking opium, heroin and morphine from headquarters based in Kandahar and Helmand, Afghanistan.‚  The trafficking ring is known as the “Khan Organization.”

The report states the Khan Organization planned on selling morphine base, which can be used to create heroin, in amounts as large as 40 tons to worldwide drug markets. Forty tons of morphine base would be able to satisfy the heroin needs of the U.S. for more than two years.

The organization also supposedly operated its own labs, producing refined heroin and selling it in quantities of 220 pounds or more.

According to DEA reports, Khan has been closely linked with the Taliban. The group draws much of its funding from drug organizations like Khan’s. In return for this funding, the Taliban provides protection over drug routes, labs and poppy fields.

Khan has supported the Taliban’s efforts to forcibly remove the U.S. and its allies from Afghanistan by backing their policy and funding their organization.‚  The terrorist group has repeatedly attacked U.S. forces and civilians in Afghanistan.

In January, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing of a hotel in which an American was killed.

“His arrest disrupts a significant line of credit to the Taliban and will shake the foundation of his drug network that has moved massive quantities of heroin to worldwide drug markets,” said Michele M. Leonhart, acting DEA administrator.

If convicted, the 54-year-old faces a minimum of 20 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life.‚  A conference will be held Tuesday before a judge.

Khan is one of the first to be prosecuted under the federal narco-terrorism statute drafted in 2006.