Afghanistan
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Don’t waste the opportunity at UN SC
India’s thirty-day tenure through August as the president of the UN Security Council has got mired in needless controversy. The issue is about the “emergency meeting” regarding Afghanistan that India convened on Friday. According to Pakistan, it had made a “a formal request” for participation in the meeting but India turned it down. Continue reading
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Spectre of Syria haunts Afghanistan
The Moscow daily Vedomosti with links to the establishment has reported that Russia will give “limited military support” to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the event of attacks from Afghanistan, including weapons supplies, air support and deployment of special forces, but there are “no plans to deploy major ground forces” to the region. Continue reading
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Biden approves algorithm war in Afghanistan
This is the second time that a US president uses Afghanistan as punch bag. Thirteen years ago, Bill Clinton, chaffing under the steamy Monica Lewinsky affair, ordered the firing of some 100 cruise missiles right into Kandahar where late fugitive Taliban amir Mullah Omar was reportedly quartered. Clinton displayed that he could still put the… Continue reading
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UK scripts new Afghan plot for US
The ministerial meeting at Dushanbe last week of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the SCO contact group with Afghanistan left a trail of disappointment. The SCO statement on Afghanistan was a baby step — significant, nonetheless, considering the group’s growing inner contradictions. Continue reading
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China explains its Afghan motivations
The ministerial meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the meeting of the SCO-Afghanistan working group at Dushanbe on July 13-14 have thrown light on the templates of China’s approach to the evolving situation in Afghanistan. Continue reading
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Sicko UK
On the 73rd birthday of the National Health Service, the queen awarded the beloved NHS the George Cross for the valor of its staff during the Covid-19 pandemic. No one doubts the dedication of NHS staff, and its worthiness for the highest honor, but this medal now serves to cover the insidious dismantlement of the… Continue reading
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China opens the SCO pathway to Kabul, India should go along
The untimely remarks by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on the situation in Afghanistan during a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov at Moscow on Friday does no good for his reputation as a scholar-diplomat with integrity or for India’s standing on the global stage as a responsible regional power. Continue reading
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Taliban Reject U.S./Turkish Plans To Keep A Foothold In Kabul
In mid June Turkey floated a plan to occupy the airport of Kabul with Turkish troops to allow for emergency evacuation of ‘western’ embassies. The plan seems to have originated on the U.S. side. I had speculated on what might be behind it: Continue reading
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Say Hello to the Diplo-Taliban
A very important meeting took place in Moscow last week, virtually hush-hush. Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council, received Hamdullah Mohib, Afghanistan’s national security adviser. There were no substantial leaks. A bland statement pointed to the obvious: They “focused on the security situation in Afghanistan during the pullout of Western military contingencies and… Continue reading
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A Saigon moment in the Hindu Kush
The Taliban are on a roll. Earlier this week their PR arm was claiming they hold 218 Afghan districts out of 421 – capturing new ones every day. Tens of districts are contested. Entire Afghan provinces are basically lost to the government in Kabul, which has been de facto reduced to administer a few scattered… Continue reading
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Afghanistan – U.S. Sneaks Out At Night – Taliban Take Multiple Districts Per Day
There is video from the empty base. Hundreds of cars were left behind. The network equipment in the headquarter was ripped out but the base hospital seems to have been left intact. There are even some useful medical supplies stocked there. Continue reading
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A hybrid war to replace Afghan ‘forever war’?
The British newspaper Daily Telegraph did some kite-flying in the weekend that London is considering open-ended deployment of a contingent of elite special forces to Afghanistan “ to provide training to Afghan units and deploy with them on the ground as advisers.” Continue reading
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Afghanistan – Taliban Capture Baghlan
The Taliban spring offensive in Afghanistan is more successful than expected. Today they took the center of Baghlan, a city north of Kabul with some 150,000 inhabitants. Continue reading
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Post-American Afghanistan through the looking glass
Ex-CIA officer Bruce Riedel at Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, whose familiarity with Afghanistan is never in doubt, has held a looking glass to figure out the future course of events even as the US troop withdrawal commences. Continue reading
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Afghanistan: US exit is with caveats
The United States and NATO are yet to begin the withdrawal of their forces from Afghanistan but the eyes are cast over the horizon at what lies after the ‘forever war’ formally ends. The US exit strategy in Afghanistan assumes the look of that random arbitrariness of a lottery that was the case with its… Continue reading
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Chronicle of the unavailing Afghan war
One missing part in US President Joe Biden’s remarks Wednesday announcing troop withdrawal from Afghanistan was that he didn’t order a commission of inquiry into the disastrous military invasion of 2001. Continue reading
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Biden’s Claim To Be Ending America’s Longest War Misleading
On Wednesday April 14th, President Joe Biden announced that he would end the U.S.’s longest war and withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan on the 20th anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks. Continue reading
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Neoconservatives Demand More Meddling In Afghanistan
The wickedness of the imperial U.S. vanguard is well expressed in an Atlantic piece by Eliot A. Cohen, the dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Continue reading
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Will U.S., NATO Give Up and Leave Afghanistan By September 11?
Pentagon and CIA are reluctant to vacate Afghanistan by May 1. Turkey will be overseeing an open-ended US-NATO presence. The US hopes to retain a strong intelligence presence backed by special operations forces. A report Friday in the CNN disclosed that “CIA, which has had a significant say in US decision-making in Afghanistan, has “staked… Continue reading
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A “win-win” for US, Turkey in Hindu Kush
The zeal with which Washington is soliciting Turkey’s services to plot the pathway leading to the mainstreaming of Taliban in Afghanistan raises some troubling questions. Acting on Washington’s request, Turkey will be hosting high-level talks on the Afghanistan peace process (likely April 16) to bring together the Afghan government and the Taliban. Turkey has appointed… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 