Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: US

US

General Allen Leaves with an Improved Report Card on Civilian Casualties and Torture

Kate Clark •

Today, 10 February 2012, the commander of ISAF and US forces in Afghanistan, General John Allen, leaves after a year and a half in the job. ‘When I got here,’ he told The New York Times, ‘I measured success in how well and how often we were fighting. Today, it’s a very different environment. The […]

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

admin •

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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A New ‘Foundation Force’? The ever murkier future of Afghan Special Operations Forces

Gary Owen •

One of the outcomes of the current US-Afghan summit in Washington reported by Afghan media is the apparent emergence of a new Afghan special operations force, the “Foundation Force for Afghanistan”. Still there is no official confirmation of this. Our guest blogger Gary Owen(*) writes, however, that this would be very much in line with […]

War and Peace Read more

The January 2013 Obama-Karzai meeting: sovereignty in exchange for immunity

Kate Clark •

The words of Presidents Karzai and Obama, who met in Washington, are now being weighed and scrutinised in an attempt to determine what they are planning for Afghanistan over the next few, crucial years. The headline news was ISAF moving to a support and advisory role sooner than planned, with phase 5 of the security […]

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Zero or Zero Plus? US-Afghan negotiations over the war

Kate Clark •

Presidents Obama and Karzai are due to start the wrangling over their countries’ post-2014 military relationship during the Afghan president’s current visit to Washington. US soldiers, bases, training, equipment, money, immunity all need to be hammered out, although no-one is expecting results just yet. Figures floated in recent days by US government and military officials […]

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U.S. policy and troops in Afghanistan

admin •

Washington Post, 11 January 2013 A soft-spoken but dramatic analysis of a tacit US policy change by former US Ambassador to Kabul Ronald Neumann: ‘A presence of 3,000 to 6,000 troops is a counterterrorist policy that gives up on serious support for the Afghan military and focuses on killing our enemies. It offers nothing to […]

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Truppenabzug aus Afghanistan – Ist das Land stabil genug?

Other AAN •

Detektor.fm (German internet radio), 10 January 2013 Listen to an audio (in German) with an interview with AAN’s Thomas Ruttig, commenting on the so-called ‘zero option’ of a US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and about the country’s post-2014 prospects of stability.

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Efter 11 års krig og Nato’s modoffensiv stiger antallet af Talebanangreb igen

AAN Team •

Politiken (Denmark), 29 December 2012 Quotes by AAN’s Thomas Ruttig in an extensive article about the Danish and the US military mission in Afghanistan.

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U.S. Commandos’ New Landlord in Afghanistan: Blackwater

admin •

Danger Room/Wired, 5 December 2012 ‘U.S. Special Operations Forces have a brand new home in Afghanistan’ writes the security blog Danger Room. It’s owned and operated by the security company formerly known as Blackwater, now called Academi, ‘thanks to a no-bid deal worth $22 million. […] Academi’s private 10-acre compound outside Kabul, called Camp Integrity, […]

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U.S. Planning a Force to Stay in Afghanistan

admin •

New York Times, 26 November 2012 US and NATO planners are ‘drawing up the broad outlines of a force that would remain in Afghanistan following the handover to Afghan security after 2014’. This would include ‘a small [US] counterterrorism force with an eye toward Al Qaeda’ of ‘less than 1,000’ as well as ‘about 10,000 […]

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US opens Afghan talks on long-term troop presence after 2014

AAN Team •

The Guardian, 19 November 2012 ‘Afghanistan and the US have opened talks to keep American troops in the country, but the thorny question of immunity for American soldiers, which in effect ended the US role in Iraq last year, is likely to prove a stumbling block.’, writes Emma Graham-Harrison. And quotes AAN’s Thomas Ruttig: ‘To […]

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