Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Sudhansu Verma

U.S. Military Waste A Smoldering Afghan Health Issue

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RFE/RL, 28 October 2011 Not that Afghans were particularly environmentally aware (smell all the burning plastic at night), but this has another dimension: Afghan workers on the US base at Bagram report that the US military is burning ‘TVs, radios, mobile phones, and all sorts of electronics’ as well as more human remains in a […]

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Hazara: another ‘abandoned’ community

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Friday Times (Pakistan), 21 – 27 October 2011 In the Lahore-based independent Pakistani weekly, commentator Khaled Ahmad decries the systematic, fatwa- supported killing of Quetta Hazaras by sectarian terrorist groups, and the government’s failure to stop this, as ‘nothing short than ethnic-cleansing’ and ‘a sign of the demise of the Pakistani state’.

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Lawmakers want foreign reporters barred from Parliament

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Pajhwok News Agency (Kabul), 23 October 2011 The Kabul-based agency reports another unfortunate anti-foreigner rant of Afghan MPs who even want to have parliament staff prosecuted if they do not pick up this demand.

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New AAN Report: A Knock on the Door: 22 Months of ISAF Press Releases

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ISAF officials have long presented the capture‐or‐kill operations as one of the most effective parts of the military mission in Afghanistan. They regularly release large figures describing the number of ‘leaders’, ‘facilitators’ and ‘insurgents’ that were killed or captured, to illustrate the success of the campaign. AAN’s latest report, by Alex Strick van Linschoten and […]

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Watershed of Waste: Afghanistan’s Kajaki Dam and USAID

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Global Times, 11 October 2011 Jean MacKenzie reports about the history of the Kajaki dam project in Helmand that was billed as the linchpin of the military effort in that province and Kandahar, intended to deliver power to Kandahar – the story of a failure.

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Afghan government blocks bribery probe, apparently to avoid prosecutions

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AP, 11 October 2011 Corruption case against former Kapisa governor has been dropped. NATO official adds: most of the approximately 2,000 cases investigated by the anti-corruption unit since its birth in 2009 have stalled; the 28 convictions so far have all been of minor players; the attorney general’s office has been infiltrated by power brokers, […]

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Pakistan’s Tiny Hazara Minority Struggles To Survive

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RFE, 8 October 2011 Abubakar Siddique and Khudainoor Nasar report about the background and context of recent anti-Hazara/Shia violence in Pakistan and about the particularly vulnerable situation of Hazaras in Quetta.

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US Envoy: New Silk Road Would Bring Prosperity

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RFE/RL, 7 October 2011 US envoy Marc Grossman unveils the emerging new narrative: “The idea [of the conference] in Istanbul is for the neighbors and near-neighbors of Afghanistan to show their support for the future of a secure and stable and prosperous Afghanistan inside of a secure, stable and prosperous region. And the idea of […]

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Zalmay Khalilzad’s not-so-excellent Afghan oil adventure

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Foreign Policy (Oil & Glory), 6 October 2011 Zalmay Khalilzad and his son Alexander Bernard, who head Gryphon Capital Partners and who teamed up with Tethys Petroluem to bid for the Shiberghan oil fields, now complaining that the deal went to the Chinese.

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Taliban Using Modern Means to Add to Sway

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New York Times, 4 October 2011 Article describes Taleban pressure on the telecomm companies, forcing companies to switch off the networks at night (although it fails to note that this has already been going on for years).

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