
Latest Articles about Afghanistan

Uzbekistan Considers the Strategic Implications of NATO’s Drawdown In Afghanistan
US President Barack Obama has set 2014 as a deadline for the withdrawal of coalition forces from Afghanistan. The future of the country and its neighbors following the withdrawal by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is unclear, even though the US government pledges its... MORE

Is Tajikistan Capable of Defending Its Own Borders?
After a year of media speculation and contradictory remarks by Tajik and Russian officials, the authorities in Dushanbe have finally made it clear that Tajikistan does not want Russian troops to return to defend the country’s southern border with Afghanistan.Tajikistan and Russia are expected to... MORE
September 2011 Briefs
FORMER AFGHAN MUJAHIDEEN LEADER KILLED IN SUICIDE BOMBING Former major mujahideen figure, one-time Afghan president, and current head of Hamid Karzai’s High Council for Peace Ustad (Professor) Burhanuddin Rabbani was killed in a suicide bombing at his home in Kabul’s relatively posh Wazir Akbar Khan... MORE

Pakistan Seeks Administrative Solution to Terrorism on the Northwest Frontier
Although new changes to colonial-era laws known as the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) are aimed at giving more political freedom to the people living in the lawless Pakistani tribal areas, one of the unstated objectives of the government seems to be defeating the militants with... MORE

Quadripartite Summit On Afghanistan Falls Short of Russian Expectations
Presidents Dmitry Medvedev of Russia, Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan, and Emomali Rakhmon of Tajikistan held a quadripartite meeting on September 2 in Dushanbe. The presidents gave preliminary consideration to possible security and cooperation arrangements for the region, in anticipation of... MORE

A Threat to the Khyber Pass: An Extended Portrait of Mangal Bagh Afridi
Coming from obscurity, Mangal Bagh Afridi rose to power and notoriety by controlling Lashkar-e-Islam (LI- the Army of Islam), the biggest and most influential militant group in Pakistan’s Khyber Agency. Khyber Agency is the most strategically important of the seven Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in... MORE

China or the SCO: Who will supervise Afghanistan?
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit at Astana on June 15, 2011 signalled Asia’s regional security order is slowly shifting as Afghanistan appears to be angling to become a new observer member in this decade-old Central Asian body (Ria Novosti, May 16). The Sino-Afghan relationship... MORE

Militants Striking Both Sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Border to Disrupt Security Cooperation
Eleven cross-border incursions over the last four months in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region have taken place despite several army operations in Pakistan and the NATO presence across the border in Afghanistan, demonstrating the continued strength of militants in the border region. The incursions, allegedly carried... MORE

From Islamic Emirate to Nationalist Insurgency: Reckoning with Afghanistan’s Taliban Irreconcilables
Though the concept of Afghan and Western reconciliation with the Mullah Mohammad Omar-led Taliban has gained much momentum, the consequences of some kind of ad hoc settlement between the Islamists and the government of President Hamid Karzai have not been clearly defined. Opposition is growing... MORE

Vice, Virtue, and Vitriol: The Resurrection of Former Taliban Minister Maulvi Qalamuddin
Maulvi Muhammad Qalamuddin, the former chief of Amr-e-Bil M’arouf wa Nahi Anil Munkar (the General Department for the Preservation of Virtue and the Elimination of Vice) in the government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996-2001, has been chosen as... MORE