UNITED NATIONS -- Afghanistan's ambassador to the UN has urged the Security Council to remove more members of the Taliban from its international sanctions list, saying the move is "critical for achieving lasting peace and security."
Russia’s recent involvement in an anti-drug operation in Afghanistan indicates that the exigencies of the present crisis outweigh the burdens of past actions for Moscow. While Russian leaders appear ready to take Kabul’s feelings into account, the Kremlin is no longer willing to let its past sins keep Russia on the sidelines in Afghanistan.
President Hamid Karzai’s plan to shut down private security forces in Afghanistan has many military contractors and assorted peace-builders in a panic. But some humanitarian aid workers in the country contend that a ban isn’t such a bad idea.
It would be up to the Afghan National Police (ANP) to provide security for US military fuel and supply convoys bound for Afghanistan, along with storage depots inside the country, if a ban on private security firms is implemented. Experts believe such a potential development would be a disaster waiting to happen.
The US Defense Department has gained an inordinate amount of influence over the distribution of security assistance in Central Asia, exerting an “oversized impact” on US foreign policy in the region, according to a report released October 15.
Uzbekistan wants to help the United States transform the Northern Distribution Network from a supply route for military cargo bound for Afghanistan into a broader trade network, government officials say.
It is dawn in Jangalak, and the former industrial park has the appearance of an apocalyptic fairground. The drug addicts melt away at first light, leaving their syringes littering the ground. Schoolchildren walk down dusty paths among shelled, machinegun-strafed buildings.
Set up in southwestern Kabul in 1961 during the reign of King Zahir Shah, Jangalak quickly became the nucleus of Afghanistan’s emerging proletariat and took center stage during strikes and labor protests. In the late 1980s, the upwardly mobile neighborhood was being inhabited by western-educated technocrats and civil servants.
The High Peace Council, Afghanistan’s new vehicle for promoting reconciliation between President Hamid Karzai’s administration and Taliban militants, is set to convene on October 13. But even before its first session gets underway, civil society activists in the country are condemning the council as a charade.
A diplomatic tussle between the United States and Pakistan, coupled with a recent series of attacks on fuel tankers destined for coalition facilities in Afghanistan, is refocusing the Pentagon’s attention on the Northern Distribution Network (NDN), a US-NATO supply line running through Central As
