In Afghanistan the Taleban forces continue to get crushed, and since opium season will soon be over expect that fighting to subside quite a bit over the next months. The Taleban are now relegated to attacking isolated police stations, suicide bombings, and attacks on girl’s schools, as the Nato forces are doing very well. For the reason’s why they fear educated women, visit Planck’s Constant.

The hardline fundamentalist Taleban are daunted by women who are educated, which demonstrates the basic weakness of hardliner Islamic faith: Free will versus Allah’s will. Any faith in which adherent’s must be coerced to believe and in which adherents must not know reality has an underlying weakness that makes it dirt beneath one’s feet. You can see other signs in the Islamist’s war on soccer in Baghdad, Somalia, and Iran. If soccer is stronger than your faith, then your faith is weak indeed.

With this fundamental flaw Islam will eventually die, whether in 200 years or a 1000 unless Islamic scholars come to grips and solve this paradox via reformation. Any faith which denies human nature and reality will crumble over time, and perhaps all of the trouble we are seeing now is because of that recognition by old hard-liner fundamentalists. And if Islam dies over time, is it not Allah’s will? If these fundamentalists truly follow the will of Allah, then by actively interfering with what is happening in the world they interfer with the will of Allah it would seem. If in north Pakistan there are soon to be none but mullahs, Imams, and women left, then who will the Imams teach, and what will they teach?

Here’s the airpower power and space command summary from Centaf:

In Afghanistan Aug. 2, Royal Air Force Harrier GR-7s provided close-air support for coalition troops taking small-arms fire from Taliban extremists near Musah Qal’eh. The GR-7s expended an enhanced Paveway II 1,000-pound bomb on the extremists’ location, ending the engagement.

In a separate engagement in Musah Qal’eh, Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs and GR-7s provided close-air support for coalition troops in contact with Taliban extremists. The GR-7s expended rockets on the extremists’ locations, ending the engagement.

A-10s provided close-air support to coalition troops in contact with Taliban extremists near Lashkar Gah. The engagement ended after A-10s conducted passes on the extremists’ location and expended general-purpose 500-pound bombs.

Air Force B-1 Lancers provided close-air support to coalition troops in contact with Taliban extremists near Kandahar and Musah Qal’eh.

In Iraq , Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons provided close-air support to coalition troops in contact with anti-Iraqi forces near Al Taji, Ar Ramadi and Mosul.

Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles provided close-air support to coalition troops in contact with anti-Iraqi forces near Al Mahmuduyah and Baquba.

Meanwhile in Iraq the insurgency has mostly evaporated in the face of sectarian fighting, which if you read history is a normal occurrence, and a matter of various factions vying for power in the new country. A similar pattern was observed at the end of white rule in South Africa, with tribal factions warring over control of taxi-cab franchises and like things.

This will stabilize over time and it’s not likely that we will see full-bore civil war. This bears close watching however, as more and more areas are turned over to Iraqi control and US forces concentrate in Baghdad to quell the violence there. Expect the Sadr factions aligned with Hezbollah to become more active, and expect some confrontations there.

Here’s a summary from Colonel Jones of the factors in the Diyala province. It’s beginning to dawn on the Iraqis that we will be leaving and now factions are vying for power, politically, economically, and criminally, in other words across all strata of society there’s push and shove to establish the new bounds:

Q: Good morning, colonel. It’s Lolita Baldor with the Associated Press. Could you tell us a little bit about the types of violence that you’re seeing there? There’s been a lot of discussion here about civil war. Are you seeing more Sunni against Shi’a violence or is it violence against troops or the security forces?

And can you, with that, tell us if that’s changed over the last six months while you’ve been there?

COL. JONES: Yes, ma’am, I think I can address some of that. The types of violence we see range everything from improvised explosive devices to assassination to plain out murders, but also some level of kidnapping. And that kidnapping is normally associated with an extortion attempt as a fund-raising element, we believe, for some of the criminal elements.

I would not characterize all of the violence we see as strictly Sunni on Shi’a. And although that’s how it may come out in the initial press reports, we’re finding, as we go back and more or less peel the onion back after three or four days, that some of it is associated with financial gain, such as extortion; some of it is criminal, and purely criminal, activity; some of it is sectarian; some of it is, in fact, political because there is, of course, a lot at stake in terms of gaining political power here at this time.

Has there been a change over the last six months? What we saw when we initially got here was the breakdown in targeting in Diyala Province specific, and there’s not been much of a change, really, over in southern Salahuddin. But in Diyala specifically, initially we were the target of just about 60 percent of the attacks, and over the six- to-eight months we’ve been here, that has now shifted, where we are seeing anywhere from 20 to 25 percent of the attacks and the majority of the attacks are now amongst the civilian population.

Lawhawk has a great roundup of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict here, and I recommend you stop by and read.

In the Philippines 7 Abu Sayef members were killed and three captured:

Seven members of the Abu Sayyaf were killed on the fourth day of a major offensive in Jolo against al-Qaeda-linked Muslim militants, including two suspected Bali bombers, military statements said.The military launched a major land, air and sea operation on known Abu Sayyaf positions on Tuesday in an attempt to destroy the group.

Three suspected Abu Sayyaf members were also captured by a navy ship while trying to flee. One of those captured was wounded when the navy fired on their boat after they defied orders to stop, the military said

Indonesian Islamofascists threaten Australia:

Mr Hidayat said he wanted to fight Australia because it always “supported Israeli movements”.

“Not only am I prepared to carry a gun, but if I have a bomb attached to my body – so long as I can damage Israel – I am ready for that,” he told The Weekend Australian.

As the men enlisted to fight, the Howard Government said it would investigate claims that another radical group was sending Southeast Asian suicide bombers around the world to attack Jewish interests in countries that supported Israel, such as Britain, the US and Australia.

The revelations about the plot by the Asian Muslim Youth Movement have been raised with the Indonesian National Police by the Australian Federal Police.

An INP spokesman said it was investigating and may have enough reason to question and detain AMYM leader Suaib Didu if he and the alleged would-be suicide bombers were found to have violated the law by being in possession of improper travel documents.

In Chechnya, Russia and the US have partnered to recover radiological material sufficient to make five dirty bombs:

Radiological material that could have been used to make as many as five “dirty bombs” was safely removed from Chechnya and returned to the Russian government in July, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) told Associated Press news agency.

The material was taken from a petrochemical production site in Chechnya and moved to a region near Moscow. “It is critical to international security that high-risk, radiological material is safely removed and secured before it falls into the hands of terrorists,” NNSA head Linton Brooks said in a statement on Wednesday.

The U.S. funded the operation, but Russians carried out the recovery mission in Chechnya accompanied by armed security forces, NNSA spokeswoman Julianne Smith said. “Because of the situation in Chechnya, we were not there,” she said.

The NNSA is part of the U.S. Department of Energy and is responsible for military applications of nuclear science, including maintaining the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile, responding to nuclear and radiological emergencies and providing the U.S. Navy with nuclear propulsion.

In Germany US troops are warned after authorities discovered two explosives packed suitcases:

U.S. European Command officials have issued a travel advisory encouraging “increased vigilance” for troops traveling in Germany after explosive material was found in two suitcases Monday in Koblenz and Dortmund.

The first suitcase, containing a propane gas tank, a detonator, batteries and three bottles of gasoline, was discovered on a regional train and reported to the Dortmund central train station, according to The Associated Press.

The second piece of baggage, found in the main train station in Koblenz, also contained a propane gas tank. A German television report said it also contained batteries and a detonator and was similar to the device found in Dortmund.

Federal prosecutors have taken over both cases to try to determine if and how they are linked. Prosecutors told the AP they are searching for potential suspects and are investigating a possible link to terrorism.

Pakistani and Indian relations have soured a bit, in the wake of the Mumbai bombings, and they have tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions.