Feature / Analysis

Karzai: US gives funds to national security team

KABUL, Afghanistan: Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Monday that his national security team has been receiving payments from the U.S. government for the past 10 years. Karzai confirmed the payments when he was asked about a story published in The New York Times saying the CIA had given the Afgha...

India, Russia agree on Afghan peace, but differ on drawdown

Moscow: The Istanbul Process conference on Afghanistan held in Kazakhstan’s Almaty on Friday confirmed a close affinity of views between India and Russia, even as they differ in their assessments of the planned withdrawal of the U.S.-led NATO mission. “India and Russia have a strong convergence of...

Summary amputations: Taliban justice in Afghanistan

Two cases of forced amputations in Afghanistan's Herat province have served as a grim reminder of Taliban-style justice almost 12 years since the movement was ousted from power. Just over a month ago, Fayz Mohammad and his neighbor Zarin were two ordinary young Afghan men. They held down good jo...

Departing French Envoy Has Frank Words on Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan: It is always hard to gauge what diplomats really think unless one of their cables ends up on WikiLeaks, but every once in a while, the barriers fall and a bit of truth slips into public view. That is especially true in Afghanistan, where diplomats painstakingly weigh every word a...

With Bags of Cash, C.I.A. Seeks Influence in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan :For more than a decade, wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan’s president — courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency. All told, tens of millions ...

I could justify fighting in Afghanistan — until the Boston bombing

Thomas Gibbons-Neff, a sergeant in the Marines, is president of the Georgetown University Student Veterans Association. He served as a rifleman in the 1st battalion, 6th Marines in Afghanistan in 2008 and 2010. This past week, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev reportedly told investigators that he and his brother...

Seeking asylum in Afghanistan

The plight of Afghan refugees is known, but less familiar are the dissidents and victims of civil war who have sought refuge in Afghanistan although the war-torn country has no asylum law as yet. Amir Hamza Halimov fled to Kabul in the early 1990s. He was one of tens of thousands of Tajiks who cro...

In Afghanistan, focusing on the details

Brody describes the ground beneath his feet in Zabul Province. Qalat, Afghanistan - EDITOR’S NOTE: Eastern Afghanistan was hit with an earthquake and flash flooding this week, which killed as many as 33 people and demolished thousands of homes. The epicenter of the quake was 17 miles from Jalalabad...

Afghans stranded in Pakistan's no-man's land

Quetta, Pakistan: Ali Muhammad, an Afghan resident of Chaghai, in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, was born in 1981, as his family was fleeing the Afghan-Soviet war for the relative safety of Pakistan. Today, 32 years later, he and 12 of his family members are returning to their homel...

Comprehensive Report Finds Evidence of US Torture at Guantánamo

The Constitution Project, a non-profit organization that brings together legal and policy experts to foster dialogue about pressing constitutional challenges, has published a comprehensive report examining the treatment of people detained by U.S. forces under the War on Terror.In addition to finding...

‘Americans don’t have good intelligence about almost anything’ – Guantanamo lawyer

With Gitmo authorities saying only 92 detainees are taking part in the hunger strike, lawyer Clive Stafford claims they know little about what is really happening on the base, expressing concerns of "systematic torture" and a high risk of inmate death.Clive Stafford Smith, the well-known human right...

THE ISLAMIC JIHAD

Journalists are doing the terrorists a favor when they use the word ‘jihad’ in connection with terrorist acts attributed to Muslims. The terrorists like to think that they are involved in jihad, but the fact is they are committing acts of ‘irhad,’ which is not permissible in Islam. The word ‘jihad’...

The US Perpetrates a Boston Bombing Weekly in Pakistan, Yemen & Afghanistan

"Antiwar" - The Boston Bombings left three dead and more than 100 injured and some have suggested circumventing the rule of law to prosecute the perpetrator. Yet, in Pakistan the unconstitutional drone war continues to kill innocents. On April 14, between 4 and 6 Pakistanis died in drone strike and ...

The ‘Poisoned’ Girls of Afghanistan

It’s happening again. On April 21, the authorities in Takhar Province in northeastern Afghanistan announced that up to 74 girls at Bibi Maryam School had fallen ill and were suspected of having been poisoned by gas. On April18, more than a dozen girls were hospitalized at a nearby school with simi...

Digital Piracy Kills The Pashtun Music Star

When future generations ask who silenced Pashtun music, the Taliban won’t get the blame – it will be piracy. The “pirates” are easily identifiable – they are the young men armed with laptops who can be found on street corners throughout northwestern Pakistan. Word on the street is that they are th...

Afghan Diplomats Do Not Return, Seek Asylum: Experts

A number of experts said Tuesday that some of the Afghan diplomats, especially ambassadors to other countries, have not returned to the country after their working term ended and have sought asylum, an act which according to the pundits is caused for inattention from foreign ministry while employing...

‘A Chinese Threat to Afghan Buddhas’

When I first traveled to Afghanistan in 2004, I immediately fell in love with the country and its people, and I was optimistic that the young people in Kabul would soon have better lives. Yet my hopes dimmed as I learned about a revolving door of exploitation at the hands of the Russians, Americans ...

Afghanistan's female police officers fight for women-only toilets

Female police officers often suffer harassment from colleagues amid lack of dedicated facilities, says Human Rights Watch Kabul: It is the smallest but most telling of details that reveals Afghanistan's real attitude towards the women it claims to want at the heart of the national police force. T...

A Superheroic Caped Crusade to Keep Troops Safe in Afghanistan

Bagram Batman TV Spots Educate Military; 'He Acts Just as Well as Adam West Did' BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan: In fictional Gotham City, Batman protects citizens from crime. Here, at the largest U.S. base in Afghanistan, another Dark Knight is on a different kind of crusade: making sure soldiers c...

In model Afghan city, kidnappings surge

HERAT, Afghanistan :Nine-year-old Ali Sena Nowruzee’s disappearance was disturbingly predictable, even in a city largely untouched by the Taliban and often held up as an example of what a peaceful Afghanistan might look like. As in dozens of other kidnappings targeting Herat’s burgeoning middle cl...

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