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The Los Angeles Times is reporting this morning that American soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division took photos of themselves in Afghanistan posing with body parts of a suspected suicide bomber. The US Army has reportedly launched a criminal investigation but it is not the first time such photos have come to light. The attitudes of US soldiers toward Afghans have repeatedly exacerbated the unpopularity of the US/NATO occupation.

An 18 hour sustained attack on the Afghan parliament and Eastern Afghan provinces by militants over the weekend has also brought the Afghanistan war under greater scrutiny. The attack was launched from two partially constructed buildings in Kabul and involved the use of rocket propelled grenades and machine guns. More than 35 of the militants were reportedly killed, along with 8 Afghan security forces, and 3 civilians. It is being reported that the Pakistan-based Haqqani network was responsible for the attacks, considered to be the deadliest in six months.

President Hamid Karzai has called the attacks a failure of Afghan intelligence, as well as NATO. The violence has strained on-going talks between the US and the Afghan Central Government over the “strategic partnership agreement” that will outline the departure of over a hundred thousand troops by 2014. Australian troops, numbering at 1,500, are planning on leaving a year earlier, it was announced this week. Karzai insisted on Monday that the US commit to $2 billion in annual aid to Afghanistan as part of the agreement. In an interview he did this week on CNN, the President also insisted that the Taliban will not return to power.

Major protests against the US and NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan are planned for this May in Chicago at the upcoming NATO summit. However, a group calling themselves the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers contends that the strategic partnership agreement between Afghanistan and NATO will have been signed well before the summit. In a statement released over the weekend, the group called for Americans to take to the streets earlier.

Meanwhile, a girls school in northern Afghanistan suffered what is being called an anti-education attack. One hundred and fifty female students were reportedly poisoned and suffered violent physical reactions after their drinking water was found to be deliberately contaminated.

GUEST: Kathy Kelly, with Voices for Creative Nonviolence, has traveled to Afghanistan.

Visit www.vcnv.org for more information. Also, on April 21st, there will be an opportunity to hear directly from Afghans via Skype at www.globaldaysoflistening.com.