I increasingly get the sense of living in an Afghanistan different from the one portrayed in the news media. As the international community prepares to disengage militarily by 2014, much of what makes news is the coalition's justification for withdrawal rather than the actual condition of the countr...
Kabul was once a relatively lush haven for several hundred thousand residents. But decades of war, migration and chaotic sprawl have turned the Afghan capital into a barely functioning dust bowl. The tired infrastructure is crumbling under the weight of nearly 5 million people. And 70 percent of K...
KABUL: A group of Afghan militia troops has joined the Taliban-led insurgents, officials said on Wednesday; apparently the first surrender of its kind by the force created as part of a U.S. initiative to keep the militants at bay and help break the battlefield stalemate. There were few details and...
KABUL: Former Taliban fighter Mullah Rassoul is a man with few friends. After he joined a NATO-backed program to pacify lower-level insurgents this year, he says he was harassed by a government-supported militia in his area of north Afghanistan. He considered rejoining his former Taliban comrade...
Scientists have discovered a treasure trove of coal, natural gas, oil, and other mineral wealth under Afghanistan’s dusty earth. It could be just what the battered nation needs as Western donors leave—but exploiting it could lead to economic and environmental disaster. Before Afghanistan exploded i...
Even with the reopening of critical supply routes through Pakistan, the U.S. military confronts a mammoth logistical challenge to wind down the war in Afghanistan, where it must withdraw nearly 90,000 troops and enormous depots of military equipment accumulated over the past decade. Assuming Pakis...
Using violence and intimidation, the Taliban is trying to disrupt Afghanistan's school system. While the government watches on helplessly, pupils and parents are mounting their own defense against fundamentalism. Two months ago, ten-year-old Mitra of Kabul addressed the following words to the Tali...
KABUL: Ryan Crocker is the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan. He has served as ambassador to Lebanon, Kuwait, Syria, Pakistan and Iraq. I do two things each week at our management meeting: Read aloud the names of colleagues, mostly military but occasionally civilian, who have given their lives in ser...
A recent spate of incidents in which dozens of girls have been forced from school, feeling sick, has set Afghanistan in a tizzy over what the source of the mysterious maladies may be. On April 17, 150 girls were transported from their school in the Afghan province of Takhar to a hospital, report...
KABUL: Abdullah Dowrani’s obscure government office didn’t even exist during the early years of Kabul Bank’s meteoric rise, when the bank took advantage of a fast-and-loose wartime boom and political connections so that it could lavish illegal loans on its shareholders and attract depositors with lu...
When international donors meet in Tokyo on Sunday to chart Afghanistan’s economic future, they will be asked to pledge another decade of support in exchange for the Afghan government’s promises to clean up rampant corruption. It won’t be the first time such vows are made, along with pledges to res...
Ten years after the first Afghanistan reconstruction conference was held in Tokyo in 2002, Japan will host a second donors' gathering on July 8 to formulate a strategy to ensure the sustainable development of Afghanistan beyond 2014 - the date set for NATO's withdrawal. Tokyo 1 took place at a time ...
TOKYO :International donors will pledge $16 billion in aid for Afghanistan over the next four years in hopes of stabilizing the country after most foreign combat troops return home, a U.S. diplomat said Sunday, but the money will come with conditions to ensure it doesn't fall victim to rampant Afgha...
In this extract from his latest book, Little America, Rajiv Chandrasekaran exposes the ways in which the supposed allies were at loggerheads when it came to strategy in Afghanistan American marines and British civilian advisers were waging two wars in the hilly northern half of Helmand province by ...
Though forced to flee from Lahore in August 1947, I do not have the slightest ill-will against Pakistan. On the contrary, I describe myself as a man of dual nationality. I am Indian as well as Pakistani. Although I no longer receive visitors from India or abroad, I make an exception in the case of P...
HAVE our writers and artists met the challenges posed by the 21st century? Have they played the role expected of them to promote human rights in our society?These were the questions posed to the participants of the Sindh Writers/Artists Convention organized by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan...
Depending on the geographical location and season, the duration of the daily fast also changes from 12 to 18 hours. With Ramzan round the corner, Muslims the world over are gearing up for month long fasting. But a good number, who are not in the pink of health, are caught on the horns of dilemma --...
The stories are as remarkable for their banality as for their detail.On February 8, 2006, the imam at a Bronx mosque advised congregants to boycott Danish products in response to caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published by a Danish newspaper. In November 2006, a member of the Muslim Students As...
The al Qaeda-linked Islamist fighters who have used pick-axes, shovels and hammers to shatter earthen tombs and shrines of local saints in Mali's fabled desert city of Timbuktu say they are defending the purity of their faith against idol worship.But historians say their campaign of destruction in t...
It is no longer shocking to hear the news of desecration of local shrines by radical Islamists in the Malian town of Timbuktu. I say it is no longer shocking because sadly this is not an isolated incident. It is part of a general trend within radical Islam and has shown its ugly face from time to ti...
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US, Germany, Italy vow key Afghan roles post-2014
BRUSSELS: Germany and Italy will join the United States as "lead nati...
Soldier pleads guilty in massacre of 16 Afghans
JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash: The American soldier accused of killin...
Coalition Deliberates Afghan Presence
Brussels: The top commander of the U.S.-led military coalition in Afg...
In Afghanistan, grief for a husband who shouldn't have died
Khosh Gombat, Afghanistan: Whenever Bibi Laila heard the all-too-fami...
