Afghanistan Feature: US "Night Raids" Kill More than 1500 People in 10 Months (Porter)

UPDATE 1344 GMT: The Afghanistan International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has responded to this article, which we were sure would spark debate, on Twitter. Here is the conversation between EA's James Miller and @ISAFmedia.

ISAFmedia: That story is utterly false. Accurate civilian casualty numbers for that period in this report.

JMiller_EA: @ISAFmedia your stats, according to Porter - 6,282 dead in SOF night raids in 10 months. He's arguing that they aren't all insurgents...so, Porter is arguing that there are discrepancies between insurgents killed and total killed.

JMiller_EA: @ISAFmedia actually, I encourage you to see stats on original article. my mistake on "6282" number. [6,282 is the number of raids claimed over the period]

ISAFmedia: Methodology based on # of shots fired. Story says somebody dies every time a shot is fired. WRONG...@jmiller_ea It's ridiculous to state that a target dies every time a shot is fired, then base casualty totals on the number of gunshots.

JMiller_EA: @ISAFmedia somebody from ISAF leaked some very high, very confusing numbers bit.ly/sMLC8D and official report does not clarify...@ISAFmedia IPS is claiming that they got data from WaPo, leaked from ISAF bit.ly/sMLC8D [Some data was also obtained from the New York Times, but the ISP article doesn't contain a single hyperlink to the original source material.

ISAFmedia: @JMiller_EA Fact remains: His claim of 1500 civ dead in period cited is completely untrue... Official report cites the most accurate CIVCAS # available. No idea where they're getting this other info... act also remains: Insurgents cause +80% of CIVCAS. Any assumption that ISAF is leading cause is also utterly false

JMiller_EA: @ISAFmedia worth noting that EA reposted the article to spark this discussion. These are serious claims by major publication, IPS... IPS claim: "2,599 (targets) killed from May 2010 to mid-February 2011" in night raids. Accurate?

This conversation is, hopefully, not finished, as we'd like to properly investigate Porter's claims, and ISAF's response.

The original article by Gareth Porter is below:

Gareth Porter writes for Inter Press Service:

U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) killed well over 1,500 civilians in night raids in less than 10 months in 2010 and early 2011, analysis of official statistics on the raids released by the U.S.-NATO command reveals.

That number would make U.S. night raids by far the largest cause of civilian casualties in the war in Afghanistan. The report by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on civilian casualties in 2010 had said the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by insurgents was the leading cause of civilian deaths, with 904.

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Iran Analysis: Sometimes A Plot is a Drug Deal Gone Wrong (Porter)

Sketch of Manssor Arbabsiar at Court HearingIn the [US] complaint, the closest to a semblance of evidence that Arbabsiar sought help during that first meeting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador is the allegation, attributed to the DEA informant, that Arbabsiar said he was "interested in, among other things, attacking an embassy of Saudi Arabia". 

Among the "other things" was almost certainly a deal on heroin controlled by officers in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Three Bloomberg reporters, citing a "federal law enforcement official", wrote that Arbabsiar told the DEA informant he represented Iranians who "controlled drug smuggling and could provide tons of opium".

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Iran Feature: The Squeeze of Ahmadinejad's Subsidy Cuts (Baji)

Owners of industrial and agricultural enterprises who initially welcomed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's plan to reduce subsidies by lifting the price-support system for basic goods have now become its chief critics.

Six months after the controversial plan took effect, these producers are still awaiting the promised financial support for their companies and worry that, with the sharp rise in fuel prices, they will not be able to stay afloat. 

"What do people think? That we make so much profit that despite astronomical cost increases we can still produce?" asked one food producer in exasperation, who spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity. "The reality is that sectors of production can't continue and are reducing their production, if not being shut down altogether." 

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Iraq: Secret US Offer to Leave 15,000 Combat Troops after 2011 (Porter)

A special envoy from President Barack Obama raised the possibility in a secret meeting with senior Iraqi military and civilian officials in Baghdad Sep. 23 that his administration would leave more than 15,000 combat troops in Iraq after the 2011 deadline for U.S. withdrawal, according to a senior Iraqi intelligence official familiar with the details of the meeting.

But the White House official, Puneet Talwar, special assistant to the President and senior director for the Gulf States, Iran, and Iraq on the National Security Council (NSC) staff, said the deployment would have to be handled in a way that was consistent the president's pledge to withdraw U.S. troops completely from Iraq under the 2008 agreement, the official said. 

Talwar suggested that the combat troops could be placed under the cover of the State Department's security force, the Iraqi intelligence official told IPS.

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