Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: US

US

At U.S. Base, Afghan Endgame Begins

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Wall Street Journal, 29 December 2011 Article not only describes how Obama’s decision to withdraw troops puts the brakes on $300 million in projects for FOB Shahrana (Paktika), but also illustrates the contradicitons in US policy; ‘hearts and minds counterinsurgency’, kill/capture, moving the surge to the east, and now ‘rationalising’ and handing over

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U.S. deal with Taliban breaks down

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Washington Post, 23 December 2011 Karen DeYoung reports that a ‘tentative accord’ with Taliban negotiators that would have included the transfer of five Afghans from U.S. detention at Guantanamo Bay to house arrest in Qatar, where the Taliban planned to open an office, and the Taliban’s public renunciation of international terrorism has broken down. Reasons […]

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America’s mini-city on the Tigris

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Al Jazeera, 16 December 2011 What leaving looks like: The new billion-dollar US Embassy in Baghdad will house up to 17,000 employees (now 8,000); a $1.5 dollar contract to secure the diplomatic staff in 2012 is awarded to Triple Canopy; and a $1 billion programme to train the Iraqi police (in 2011 just 12% of […]

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Life on the Frontline (1): Travelling on Wardak’s Roads: ’We feel we are dead’

AAN Team •

In a new occasional series of blogs AAN will be looking at what it is like to live in areas contested by Taleban and the Afghan government/US forces. In this first contribution, a reporter from Wardak who asked not to be named, spoke to men from Jaghatu district about travelling on the province’s roads. How […]

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US Leaving Iraqi Comrades-in-Arms in Limbo

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New York Times, 13 December 2011 What leaving looks like: The Iraqi government wants the US-supported Sunni Awakening militias to disband by 31 December, now that the US is leaving,but it is doubtful that most of them will give up their weapons. An estimated 50-80,000 are still organised in irregular tribally-based units.

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Bargaining over US bases: Will they stay or will they go?

Kate Clark •

US intentions – what it wants or plans or thinks it might possibly do in Afghanistan after 2014 – are again in the news. Will Washington want bases? Will US soldiers ‘just’ be training Afghan troops or participate in fighting? And how many soldiers might remain in Afghanistan? On the Afghan side, both President Karzai […]

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AAN In the Media – December 2011

AAN Team •

Over 560 ISAF troops die in Afghan war in 2011 AFP, 31 December 2011 Article on violence in Afghanistan ends by quoting AAN’s Fabrizio Foschini: “The hope is that as foreign troops hand security to Afghan forces fewer local people will become radicalised. And the insurgents won’t kill as many civilians collaterally by using highly […]

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Crucial plan to reintegrate Afghan insurgents falling flat

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McClatchy Newspapers
, 3 November 2011 Shashank Bengali and Habib Zohori’s rendering of how the reintegration programme in Ghazni is failing.

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Pakistani civilian victims vent anger over US drones

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BBC, 3 November 2011 When tribal elders from the remote Pakistani region of North Waziristan travelled to Islamabad last week to protest against CIA drone strikes, a teenager called Tariq Khan was among them. Four days later, he was dead – beheaded by a drone strike.

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The Ally From Hell

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The Atlantic, 1 November 2011 On the US-Pak relationship, the lies Pakistan is telling the US, the lies the US is telling itself – and about how much (or not) the Pakistani nuclear programme is protected, details about how the US want to render it useless in the case of an islamist coup and what […]

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