Brown University, 19 September 2019 A new report by the Brown University, Watson Institute’s Costs of War project: Afghanistan ranks as one of the most landmine- and unexploded ordnance-impacted countries in the world, even after thirty years of clearance operations supported extensively by the United Nations and a number of major donors, including the United […]
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War on the Rocks (blog), 4 September 2019 Very interesting summary of facts and of the discussion about a crucial issue: how fragmented, or not, are the Taleban by Thomas Watkins – at the end of which the question marks shrinks somewhat.
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Asia Times, 6 September 2019 Ahmad Massud, the son of slain Ahmad Shah Massud, starts a political movement, still with no name, in the Panjshir, aiming at setting up a new, anti-Taleban and pro-decentralisation “United” or “National Front” based on the old “Northern Alliance” – but it is unclear who is really supporting him so […]
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The Daily Beast, 5 September 2019 Andrew Quilty’s reportage from Nadali district in Helmand, where Taleban briefly fired at a US convoy from a civilian compound, drawing an airstrike during which two people were killed and several severely wounded. “In May this year, The U.S. Department of Defense released its Annual Report on Civilian Casualties. […]
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The Daily Telegraph, 17 August 2019 “In telephone conversations with the Sunday Telegraph, fighters from across the country showed themselves to be both tired of war, and at times suspicious of their leaders. But they were also often uncompromising in their demands for an American defeat and Islamic government, with little sign they wanted to […]
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Reporterly (Kabul), 14 August 2019 An eyewitness account of the daily terror in Afghanistan.
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Foreign Policy, 8 August 2019 The article doesn’t give much evidence about the assumption in the headline (which also would be difficult, not least because “The CIA did not respond to several requests for comment”) but provides a rare insight into the CIA-financed and -backed Khost Protection Force militia, including through interviews with members. The […]
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Vice, 6 August 2019 A rare and insightful photo reportage by Andrew Quilty from the government-controlled enclave near Kajaki dam.
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The Hill, 18 July 2019 An interesting inside (ex-government) look at the US attempts to reach an agreement with the Taleban by former US ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald E Neumann (from 2005-2007), also former deputy assistant secretary of State, and now president of the American Academy of Diplomacy, with some warnings: An agreement on paper […]
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Foreign Policy, 15 July 2019 Apart from the fact that the report largely glimpses over that the major part of the damage to Kunar’s forests was done long before the IS emerged, an interesting look at the current state of affairs in one of Afghanistan’s few forested habitats.
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International Crisis Group, 5 July 2019 In this commentary, ICG analyst and former AAN colleague Borhan Osman revisits “war-torn districts of rural Afghanistan” in Wardak, Ghazni, and Paktika provinces where he had travelled in June this year, over the Eid al-Fitr holidays, as he did the previous year. He was told about a “dramatic worsening […]
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The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 3 June 2019 The story of a whole family killed by an American bomb – except the father, working in Iran – in a Taleban-controlled part of Jaghatu, Wardak province; another story of denial (“we don’t have a report” on a bomb drop on such-and-such day at that place). Following The Bureaus’s […]
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