Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Sudhansu Verma

12 April 2012: Our World in Transition: Impact on Human Security and EU Response

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AAN’s Sari Kouvo chairs a panel on Afghanistan’s transition at the international student conference organised at the Brussels School of International Studies (BSIS). Read more about the conference here.

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Militiamen including commander join Taliban

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Pajhwok News Agency (Kabul), 23 March 2012 Five members of a tribal militia, ‘drug addicts who belong to one family, [and] had been appointed directly by US Marines’, according to the district governor, have defected to the Taleban in Marja district, Helmand province.

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Karzai’s team clash over relations with US

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al-Jazeera, 21 March 2012 The Qatar-based channel reports how on 8 March members of Karzai’s team clashed, involving physical violence and mutual accusations of spying, over the strategic agreement with the US during a meeting in the presidential place and in the presence of US diplomats and military who had to separate them.

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Why do the Taliban Oppose Nowruz?

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Bamdad website, 21 March 2012 The Taleban recently released a statement calling Nowruz an unlawful celebration and had declared ceremonies would be targeted for attack.

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A Former Military Psychologist on the Afghanistan Massacre

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The New Republic, 20 March 2012 That’s my quote of the week, from the article recommended: ‘It would be drastically wrong, not only morally, but also psychologically, to think of murder as a normal response to the experience of combat.’

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6 April 2012: Combattre en Afghanistan?

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AAN’s Sari Kouvo speaks about Afghan women’s rights and reconciliation at a one-day seminar on Afghanistan organised by the Institut International des droits de l’homme et de la paix (Caen, Normandie). Read more about the seminar here.

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No one asked their names

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al-Jazeera, 19 March 2012 al-Jazeera did: Here are the names of the killed and wounded by the US soldier Bates’ killing spree in Pamjwai – we are grateful that they do not remain anonymous.

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Amount of dollars flown out of Kabul doubled last year

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Financial Times, 18 March 2012 Some interesting figures: Afghanistan’s central bank found that the amount of declared dollars flown out of Kabul doubled to $4.6bn last year; this was almost equivalent to Afghanistan’s 2010-11 state budget of $4.8bn. The sum amounts to more than $150 for each Afghan citizen, in a country with average per […]

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Their drill may be out of step, but Afghan army is ready for the fight

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Sunday Telegraph, 11 March 2012 A nice piece of uncommented inteqal propaganda, just read this: ‘[T]he aim is to get the [ANA] recruits to a level where they are “Afghan good enough”. It is a phrase that rings around the ISAF headquarters and represents a more qualified understanding of what is achievable.’ More quotes to […]

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Afghan Air Force Probed in Drug Running

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Wall Street Journal, 7 March 2012 And one more report on corruption: ‘The U.S. is investigating allegations that some officials in the Afghan Air Force, which was established largely with American funds, have been using aircraft to ferry narcotics and illegal weapons around the country […]. An AAF spokesman, Lt. Col. Mohammed Bahadur, denied the […]

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Intractable Afghan Graft Hampering U.S. Strategy

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New York Times, 7 March 2012 An update on the KabulBank scandal and a rendering of a fascinating ‘new’ corruption case, involving Afghan Army’s former surgeon general, Gen. Ahmad Zia Yaftali ‘suspended in December 2010 after Gen. David H. Petraeus, then the coalition commander, told Mr. Karzai that NATO investigators had found that the Afghan […]

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The battle for Kurram

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Friday Times, 2-8 March 2012 The quality Pakistani weekly takes a look at the situation in the Kurram agency after 43 people were killed in a suicide attack outside a mosque in Parachinar in February, on the various Pakistani Taleban splinter groups involved and the role of the Haqqani network in it.

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