Michael Hughes: Former U.S. diplomat Carter Malkasian in his recent book on the war in Afghanistan says Ashraf Ghani as president had felt “centralized reform” was the strategy to defeat the Taliban and raise the country into modernity. Malkasian also points out what turns out to be quite a prescient passage in Ghani’s own book, Fixing Failed States
Natiq Malikzada: Although the Taliban now controls almost the entire territory of Afghanistan, its government faces serious legitimacy issues. On the other hand, the National Resistance Front (NRF) is, though militarily overwhelmed by the Taliban, a more legitimate entity to lead the modern Afghan nation. Click here to read more (external link).
Daily Beast: While on the surface, ISIS’s shift toward mass-casualty attacks, accompanied by a targeted anti-Taliban media campaign, can be seen as signals of confidence—it’s far more likely that the group is acting out of pure desperation. Both locally and globally, the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan threatens ISIS in profound new ways, and marks yet
Al Jazeera: Today, the conditions in Afghanistan check every box on the radicalisation checklist: Afghans have suffered trauma and violence. They feel betrayed by an external force that allegedly came to “help” them, but ended up leaving them worse off. They live in economic deprivation with one million children at risk of starvation. They also
Michael Hughes: Considering the Americans – for years – have gone to great lengths to obfuscate the reality on the ground in Afghanistan, it is only fitting that Washington is trying to muddy the waters as to how and why the war ended in such a disastrous manner and who bears the most responsibility. Of
Javid Ahmad via WSJ: The collapse of the Afghan republic was no accident. It was the culmination of many collective failures, but at the heart of the tragedy was the role played by one country: Pakistan. Pakistan has long followed a dual-track approach in Afghanistan, hosting the Taliban on its soil while ostensibly working as
Press TV October 26, 2021 By Syed Zafar Mehdi With the last US troops beating a hasty and humiliating retreat from Afghanistan, the war has entered a new phase, where Americans and Daesh terrorists find themselves on the same side. The resurgence of Daesh terrorist group, on the back of the US exit, has created
ME Reports: Political de-legitimization was the intent behind the use of “warlord.” It is a smart missile that only strikes Tajik, Turk, and Hazara political leaders, but cleverly avoids striking Pashtun warlords. How does one judge if a person is a warlord and engaging in vile conduct? Is he, like the Taliban, killing and bombing
Michael Hughes: When the Taliban first seized power in the 1990s they introduced a twisted Deobandi Sunni-based ideology, with a twist of Wahhabism, completely alien to Afghanistan and anathema to the country’s tradition and culture. As they now re-impose this barbaric creed some commentators are suggesting the doctrine is mixed with elements derived from the
Arthur Herman via The Hill: For more than three decades, our supposed ally in South Asia has systematically lied to and manipulated successive presidential administrations – Republican and Democratic – in ways that have made the U.S. and the world less safe. Islamabad has been the recipient of more than $33 billion in American assistance