In Afghanistan, the Taliban has been accused of beheading 17 people in northeast Helmand province. The killings reportedly resulted either from the victims’ attendance at a risqué party or as a punishment for being government informants. In a separate attack, Taliban fighters killed 10 Afghan soldiers. A rogue Afghan soldier also killed two U.S. troops, the latest in a string of attacks by members of the Afghan forces on the NATO occupation. NATO spokesperson Günter Katz said about a quarter of such attacks can be traced back to the Taliban.

Günter Katz: “We can clearly identify a direct insurgent connection to the attackers in about 10 percent of the cases. In other 15 percent of the cases, we suspect an insurgent link with the attacker; however, the tie cannot be definitely proven. Given these two points, our conclusion is that about 25 percent of these attacks are in some manner related to the insurgency.”