Albuquerque Journal/Los Angeles Times, 22 October 2017
Reporting the latest attacks on Shia mosques in Afghanistan, this article’s authors quote twice from recent AAN analysis:
But since 2011, the annual Shiite religious festival of Ashura has been attacked almost every year, according to the Afghanistan Analysts Network, a Kabul-based research organization.
(…)
In a paper published last month, the Afghanistan Analysts Network warned that armed, lightly trained civilians would not be able to stop a major attack against a crowd of worshipers. But government officials have indicated the civilian guards would remain in place for the time being.
“All in all, the plan looks much more like a symbolic act of reassuring the Shia communities that the government is ‘doing something,’ rather than achieving a real improvement [in] security,” the group wrote.
Revisions:
This article was last updated on 9 Mar 2020