Today's AfPak round-up:
2010 is Afghanistan's most violent year: rights group. It would take "a miracle" for NATO to win its war in Afghanistan, says a report by the Afghan Rights Monitor, given rising violence and a "resilient, multi-structured and deadly" insurgency. The report notes that more civilians have been killed in the first half of 2010 than in the first half of 2009, and that June 2010 was the most violent month in the country since 2002. The report condemned the Taliban, responsible for around two-thirds of civilian deaths this year, for showing "little or no respect" for Afghans' welfare. [Reuters, Al Jazeera English]
Karzai wants more control over international aid. Afghan President Hamid Karzai will use an international summit slated to take place in Kabul next week to request that donors channel through his government at least half of the nearly $13 billion they have pledged for his country over the next five years. Donors, who at present give 20% of their aid to the Afghan government, are reluctant to hand even more of their aid budgets to a regime widely seen as among the world's most corrupt. However, Karzai claims development funds outside his control have been the most susceptible to graft. [Reuters]
Kabul pushes UN to take 50 Taliban leaders off terror blacklist. The Afghan government says Taliban leaders' removal from the list, which freezes assets and bans travel, is a prerequisite for an Afghan peace settlement. U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke reportedly traveled to UN headquarters last week to make Karzai's case, asking that the names be removed before next week's Kabul summit. But UN officials are pushing back, insisting Kabul has not given sufficient evidence to suggest the Taliban they want delisted have genuinely renounced terrorism. [WashPo]
Taliban kill 11 Afghan police, district governor in three separate attacks. Investigators say one of the attacks, on a unit of policemen near the border of Tajikistan, was orchestrated by a member of the police force allied with the Taliban. All of the attacks took place in Kunduz province, which, like much of northern Afghanistan, was relatively peaceful in the early years of the Afghan war, but has become steadily more violent over the past two years. [NYT]