Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: Helmand

Helmand

Afghans Gird to Go It Alone As U.S. Shuts Down Bases

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Wall Street Journal, 3 February 2013 Excellent report about the ups and downs for Afghan forces in Khaneshin district (Helmand) when Marines will withdraw in a month. With a worrying statement of the Marine commander: Afghan troops don’t have to be perfect; ‘we just want them to be a little bit better than the Taliban’.

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In southern Afghanistan, concerns about what comes next

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Washington Post, 30 September 2012 A reportage from Garmser, Helmand, where again ‘tribal leaders are the backbone of this strategically vital region near. If they refuse to support the government after NATO forces leave, U.S. officials say there’s a good chance the Taliban could make a vigorous return. But if traditional leaders present a united […]

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Afghan schools and clinics built by British military forced to close

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The Guardian, 27 September 2012 The British military in Helmand ‘had built too much … trying to win “hearts and minds”‘, ‘without enough consultation with the Afghan government and without thinking through how [it] would be maintained’, according to a new report. Now the PRT commander has to sort out which schools and clinics have […]

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Visit Afghanistan’s ‘Little America,’ and See the Folly of For-Profit War

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The Atlantic, 1 June 2012 Read David Rohde’s long piece about USAID’s work in Helmand province, as it is forced to hire more and more contractors, even to oversee other contractors. With some reminiscences to the 1950-70s USAID project in the same province.

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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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Can Afghan Forces Manage Alone in Helmand?

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IWPR, 4 January 2012 The Kabul-based agency reports people’s perceptions of the security handover in three districts in Helmand. One resident quotes says that the handover was ‘a good thing but had come too soon for Helmand, where the Taleban were fully in control of some areas while the government only held major urban centres […]

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Rising Opium Production in Helmand

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IWPR, 3 January 2012 Farmers in Afghanistan’s Helmand province say they are determined to grow as much opium poppy as they can this season. Some blame official efforts to encourage them to switch to other crops, which they say have failed to lift them out of poverty. Others say the Taleban intimidate them into colluding […]

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Licensed Banditry in Helmand: Armed employees of local security firms accused of robbery and worse

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IWPR, 19 December 2011 In Helmand, people interviewed say they were tired of the men working for commercially-run security firms who were making their lives a misery because they ‘seemed to be above the law’. In return, PSC owners accuse local officials of forcing bribes out of them.

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A picture of peace in Afghanistan – but have the Taliban gone for good?

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Independent, 2 August 2011 A reportage from Nadali in Helmand about the question that really counts: How sustainable is the West’s miltary progress against the Taleban?

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Proliferation of Bad Analysis on Afghanistan

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The Captain’s Journal, 21 June 2010 Hershel Smith’s interesting blog takes on the assumption that the Sons of Iraq option can be copied in Afghanistan (see our discussion of LDI) and looks at why Helmand ‘went wrong’ and on what he calls a ‘horrible deal’ with Mulla Salam in Musa Qala.

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Elvis Ain’t Dead: The story of Marja

Thomas Ruttig •

He has been spotted in Marja (Helmand, Southern Afghanistan). The only problem is: Marja does not exist. Because it is not on Google Earth. And Operation Moshtarak in Helmand is a fake. But let me start from the beginning. Back in Kabul, as usual the unexpected happened: The rumour of the day did not come […]

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