President Hamid Karzai's recent visit to the United States highlighted recent progress toward reconstructing Afghanistan. On the economic front, the U.S. State Department's Bureau of South Asian Affairs noted on June 15 that Afghanistan's "legal" economy grew at a rate of almost 30% in 2002... MORE

Suffering from two decades of civil war and five years of drought, Afghanistan's infrastructure was in shambles when the United States and coalition forces overthrew the Taliban regime in December 2001. The top national priority was keeping the country united in the face of the... MORE

There are fears that tribal insurgency in South Waziristan is connected to wider terrorist activity elsewhere in Pakistan. The June 17 killing of pro-Taliban tribal leader Nek Mohammad, presumably with US technical help, has added more fuel to the fire of extremist Islamic militancy in... MORE

On June 17, Chaghcharan, the capital of Ghor province in northwestern Afghanistan fell to the hands of a renegade commander Abdul Salam. The governor appointed by the central government has fled for his life. This is the third time in as many months that an... MORE

The sudden and unexpected killing of 29-year old pro-Taliban tribal leader Nek Mohammad by a laser-guided missile on the night of June 17 is fueling speculation about a broader "secret" cooperation between US forces in Afghanistan and the Pakistani military operating in the tribal territory... MORE

The June 15 meeting between US President George W. Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai failed to seriously address the upsurge in opium cultivation in Afghanistan and its role in fuelling insurgency and instability in that country. Discussing that meeting, Robert Weiner, the former Clinton... MORE

For the second time this year, the Pakistani military has begun another massive foray into the Waziristan tribal belt on Afghanistan's southeastern border to capture elusive pro-al Qaeda foreign militants sheltered by the tribesmen. After its humiliating failure in March during a similar operation, the... MORE

The spreading insurgency in Afghanistan has slowed down voter registration to such an extent that election officials are talking about postponing the polling from September to October. "The election cannot happen in September," electoral commission spokeswoman Ghutai Khawrai said on June 12. Khawrai explained that... MORE

The US-led coalition is obsessed with establishing a corridor sanitaire along the Afghanistan border with Pakistan, creating other security holes inside Afghanistan. Most notably, suspected Taliban insurgents are now operating in districts well inside the border and are blatantly attacking foreign aid workers and their... MORE

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in a rare news conference broadcast by Afghanistan Television from his Golkhana Palace in Kabul on June 3, defended the steps he has taken so far to ensure that the September national elections are fair and free. Karzai also used the... MORE