By Austin Wright

HELLHOLE AFGHANISTAN

EYES ON AFGHANISTAN — “Whether more violence follows Friday prayers in Afghanistan could be an indicator whether the protests are still building, or beginning to peter out.”
“There is a sense that America is lurching from one image crisis to the next in Afghanistan, with no clear path for U.S. officials to defuse the latest uproar,” writes Phil Stewart of Reuters. http://reut.rs/w8ztfg
AT LEAST 13 DEAD — “Violence over the incident escalated ominously with the killing of two American troops by an Afghan army soldier during a demonstration in eastern Afghanistan,” Laura King of the Los Angeles Times reports from Kabul. http://lat.ms/xQUJ8d
THE HOME FRONT — Meanwhile, the Koran-burning incident in Afghanistan has turned political here in the United States, with Gingrich saying Obama has “surrendered.”
“It is an outrage that President Obama is the one apologizing to Afghan President Karzai on the same day two American troops were murdered and four others injured by an Afghan soldier,” the GOP hopeful said in a statement. “It is Hamid Karzai who owes the American people an apology, not the other way around.”
On the campaign trail, Gingrich went on to suggest the U.S. military should end its mission in the war-ravaged country. “Candidly, if Hamid Karzai the president of Afghanistan doesn’t feel like apologizing then we should say good bye and good luck,” he told a crowd in Spokane, Wash. “We don’t need to be here risking our lives and wasting our money on somebody who doesn’t care.” POLITICO’s MJ Lee has more. http://politi.co/AaLOt7
WHITE HOUSE RESPONDS — “That’s a fully false, fallacious and ridiculous narrative that is not borne out by any facts,” Jay Carney told reporters aboard Air Force One yesterday. The White House press secretary said Obama’s apology to Karzai was part of “a long letter on a variety of issues” and called it “the right thing to do.”
“The message that we’re trying to convey here is that this was inadvertent,” Carney added.
LEVERAGE — Will Karzai use the incident to bolster his argument that the U.S. should hand over control of Bagram prison? “The sooner you do the transfer of the prison, the fewer problems and unfortunate incidents you will have,” the Afghan president told Ashton Carter, according to The Daily Telegraph’s Ben Farmer. The issue has been one of the main sticking points in negotiations over a long-term strategic partnership agreement between Afghanistan and the United States. http://tgr.ph/yc3olH

The other hellhole: Syria

UPPING THE PRESSURE — Diplomats from more than 50 countries together will demand a ceasefire in Syria. The diplomats, part of the “Friends of Syria” group, meet today in Tunis to craft plans for getting aid to civilians in the Middle Eastern country. Hillary Clinton “said on Thursday Syria’s opposition would ultimately arm itself and go on the offensive if diplomacy failed to resolve the crisis,” Reuters reports. http://reut.rs/yj5SW5
DIVIDED OPPOSITION — From the front page of today’s New York Times: “Nearly a year after the uprising began, the opposition remains a fractious collection of political groups, longtime exiles, grass-roots organizers and armed militants, all deeply divided along ideological, ethnic or sectarian lines, and too disjointed to agree on even the rudiments of a strategy to topple President Bashar al-Assad’s government.” http://nyti.ms/xxfzdb
UNDER SIEGE — French journalist Edith Bouvier, injured by the Wednesday explosion that killed Marie Colvin, pleads for help in the besieged Syrian city of Homs. “I have a broken leg,” Bouvier says. “I need to undergo surgery as soon as possible. … I need a ceasefire and an ambulance or car in good enough shape to get us out.” Video here. http://bit.ly/zlX2IH

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