_James Cogan_ describes how the US/NATO occupation force in Afghanistan recently suffered the largest number of casualties in a 24-hour period for more than three years.

There are signs that the US military and the Iraqi government are preparing a new operation to shatter Shiite fundamentalist influence in the city and its surrounds, writes James Cogan, including the oil industry and the country’s only port, Umm Qasr.

The situation in the southern city of Basra is a microcosm of how the invasion and occupation of Iraq have destroyed the country’s institutions, shattered its national cohesion and set the stage for intractable violence, according to a June 25 report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. By James Cogan.