PAN: A NATO airstrike killed three teenage boys in the Baraki Barak district of central Logar province, an official said on Tuesday. The strike took place on Sunday evening in the Tokal village, the district chief, Mohammad Rahim Amin, told Pajhwok Afghan News. The dead included two 18 years old and one 12-year-old boys, he said, adding an investigation had been launched into the attack.

HRW: Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s appointment of a weakly qualified human rights commission with little public consultation raises concerns about the country’s most important rights body. On June 15, 2013, Karzai announced the appointment of five new commissioners to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), most of whom appear to have little or no record defending human rights.

Los Angeles Times: Outsiders may have trouble distinguishing between the turbans worn by Afghan Sikhs, with their tighter folds, varied colors and tucked-in edges, and those worn by Afghan Muslims, usually black or white with the end hanging down the wearer’s back. The subtle differences, however, and what they represent, have fueled widespread discrimination against Afghan Sikhs, members of the community say...

Pakistan Today: Six civilians were killed and four others sustained injuries when a roadside bomb ripped through their vehicle in Afghanistan’s central province of Uruzgan on Sunday. The early morning blast took place in the Chura district, a statement from the governor’s house media centre said.

The Telegraph: War-weary Britain is experiencing its own “Vietnam phenomenon” as the Afghan mission draws to a close, the Defence Secretary told The Telegraph during a trip to Afghanistan. His candid assessment of Britain’s appetite for future conflict comes as David Cameron and other Western leaders edge towards greater military intervention in Syria.

PAN: Afghanistan remains at the rock bottom -- in 162nd position -- on the 2013 Global Peace Index (GPI), faring poorly in terms of political stability and respect for human rights. Launching the index at the GPI headquarters in New York on Thursday, experts said the world had become less peaceful in the past year, calling Afghanistan the biggest faller.

IWPR: Bombs have become so common in Afghanistan that the attacks themselves, still less the human costs months and years later, are rarely reported. When a bomb went off at a clinic in Logar, a province south of Kabul, in July 2011, 30 people were killed instantly and at least ten died afterwards as a result of the injuries they sustained.

Khaama Press: The United Nations Children’s Fund – UNICEF expressed concerns regarding children’s casualties in Afghanistan war and violence and urged all parties involved in the Afghan war to take necessary precuations in a bid to prevent civilian and children casualties.

PAN: Protestors in northern Sar-i-Pul province on Tuesday accused a doctor of raping a midwife, demanding his trial, officials said. Hundreds of people took to the streets in the provincial capital, blaming the doctor for assaulting the midwife at his private clinic, said Sharifuddin, one of the protestors.

VOA: The United Nations said civilian casualties from the conflict in Afghanistan have increased dramatically this year. News of the figures came as 14 people were killed by a Taliban suicide bomber Tuesday near Afghanistan’s Supreme Court. The increasing number of civilians killed could impact Afghanistan national elections next year and its transition to security independence as international combat forces leave next year.

Los Angeles Times: A suicide bomber detonated his vehicle in front of the Supreme Court in the Afghan capital on Tuesday, several hundred yards from the U.S. Embassy, killing 17 people and wounding 38, police said. The Taliban claimed responsibility in a statement sent to reporters, adding that the bomber, whom it identified as an engineer named Abdul Wajid, detonated his explosives-packed Toyota Corolla...

Khaama Press: Around four hundred cases of rape and honor-killing have been filed with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Comission (AIHRC) during the past two years. AIHRC officials called the latest statistics as “shocking” and expressed concerns that majority of similar cases have not been recorded due to strict traditional sensitivities.

The Killid Group: Human smuggling to Iran has put many undocumented immigrants from border villages in Afghanistan at risk. The bodies of 172 youth have been brought to Kelefgan. Residents of Kelefgan district in Takhar province say many of their relatives have been hanged in Iran. There is not a single month in which the bodies of two or three young men have not been brought to the district for burial.

Reuters: Taliban fighters beheaded two boys aged 10 and 16 as a warning to villagers not to cooperate with the Afghan government, local officials said. The boys, named Khan and Hameedullah, had travelled to Afghan army and police checkpoints near their home in the southern province of Kandahar, scrounging for leftover food to bring to their families, the officials said.

The Killid Group: Engineer Ewaz Ali Wafa was among thousands of innocent people who were imprisoned in Sadarat (the prime minister’s palace) and Pul-e-Charkhi jail in the 1980s. Wafa has many bad memories of torture by security officials of the communist government. He has never dared to share these.

PAN: A man gunned down his sister on suspicion of having an illicit relationship with a boy in northeastern Kunduz province, an official said on Sunday. The incident took place on Saturday evening when the 18 years old was killed with a Kalashnikov in Khak Kani area on the outskirts of Kunduz City.

PAN: Residents of various districts of the eastern Nangarhar province complain of deteriorated security situation elsewhere in the province amid raging terror attempts, abduction, and roadside bomb blasts, blaming the authorities of turning blind eye to check the situation. However, concerned officials of the province while refuting residents’ complain of mayhem and turmoil...

Diplomatic Courier: The opportunity to rebuild Afghanistan has been squandered, and America is losing the war. Since the fall of the Taliban in November 2001, Afghanistan has not evolved into a functioning state. Democracy never had a chance to take root. Without exception, the country’s elections were rigged, allowing the worst elements of society to rise to the top.

ToloNews: A foreign force’s drone strike killed at least three civilians and wounded six others in the eastern Kunar province of Afghanistan on Wednesday, officials said. Kunar Provincial Governor Fazlullah Wahidi confirmed the attack and said that these civilians were killed Wednesday night when foreign forces wanted to target the Taliban insurgents in the Dara Pech area of Nangam district.

The Fiscal Times: The number of contractors working in Afghanistan now vastly outnumbers American troops stationed there, according to a Congressional Research Service report. CRS, along with the Government Accountability Office, also determined that the Pentagon is unable to properly document the work these contractors are doing.