New York Times, 18 July 2016 Hair-raising account on a story of a recurrent theme: under-age marriages and domestic violence against Afghan women – a case from Ghor.
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Washington Post, 18 June 2016 A primer for the upcoming NATO summit which also has Afghanistan and the future NATO involvement there on its agenda, with some interesting facts and statements. The United States and its allies, it reports, “will try to raise $15 billion to fund Afghan security forces through 2020. About $10.5 billion […]
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The Guardian, 3 June 2016 An excellent piece by Sune Engel Rasmussen about Helmand’s marble industry between corruption and the insurgency.
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Washington Post, 17 May 2016 Money is drying up two months after the United States and other countries invested about $200 million in the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Program. Now this effort is effectively suspended “amid broader scrutiny here and in Washington of de-radicalization efforts as the Taliban leadership shuns peace talks. … The High Peace Council […]
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al-Jazeera, 17 May 2016 “How do I explain 31 years of problems?” In Iran, many Afghan refugees are forced to exist off the grid and say they lack basic human rights. And, as HRW has reported, Iran has been recruiting thousands of Afghan refugees to fight in pro-government armed groups in neighbouring Syria – while some had been […]
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ABC News, 16 May 2016 “China on Monday said Afghanistan has expressed support for Beijing’s stance on the South China Sea dispute.” This is one outcome of CEO Abdullah’s visit to Beijing. In exchange, Afghanistan was admitted to China’s One Belt One Road project and was assured of China’s willingness “to help with Afghanistan’s national reconciliation […]
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Pajhwok, 14 May 2016 The Afghan news agency has obtained an exclusive interview with Hezb-e Islami (Gulbuddin)’s chief negotiator Eng. Karim who deflated hopes that a peace deal with the Afghan government would be signed soon. He said the HIG leadership needs to agree first, and he reckons this would take “a few weeks or […]
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Reuters, 12 May 2016 The NDS has set up a new, 300-strong under-cover unit in Helmand province “with a mission to exploit divisions within the Taliban insurgency,” government officials and a militant spokesman said. “One provincial official said the unit was operating in Musa Qala and Nawzad, two central districts abandoned by government forces in […]
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Reuters, 9 May 2016 Another useful dissection of the 2015re-capture of Kunduz, the lack of US rules of engagement, Afghan and US forces on the ground and the MSF hospital attack by Josh Smith: Amid fierce fighting after the Taliban captured the northern Afghan city of Kunduz last year, U.S. special forces advisers repeatedly asked […]
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The Observer, 8 May 2016 Important article by Emma Graham-Harrison and Rob Evans, concluding from investigations into two cases that a probably significant number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan remains unreported. It reminds us that the UN monitoring system set up in 2007 (only) requires “three independent sources to verify each civilian killed. … But the strict standards that […]
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The Intercept, 28 April 2016 May Jeong’s excellent investigation into the (missing) chain of command and control in the US bombing of the Kunduz MSF hospital, with new detail on how Afghan ANSF unit commanders looked at MSF (almost as an enemy, as it also treated wounded Taleban) and their complete lack of understanding of […]
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The Diplomat, 27 April 2016 A necessary look at the “cottage industry of Russian officials overblowing the ISIS threat to Afghanistan” by unsourced figures. What should have been added here, though, is that also (the lower but possibly also overblown) US military figures are unsourced, too.
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