gone ghazi.

2011-01-19

Winter in Afghanistan

Photo gallery by Tolo News.

…that Afghanistan is torn apart by competing warlords like in the early nineties? Huh? Newsweek reports on the promotion of two Taliban commanders to fill the vacuum created by Mullah Baradar’s arrest last February. However, each of the new figures is even more brutal and less amenable to reconcilation than their predecessor, as Josh Foust points out over at Registan.net.

Well-played, ISI. America keep hoping.

(Photo by AP)

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Sufi Mixtape

Inshallah I’ll figure out a way to post some longer pieces in the future.

2011-01-12

Sufi Mixtape

Long lost qawwali cassette. More to come.

2011-01-10

Shah do Shamshira Masjid, Kabul, 1971.

Photo by American Geographical Society.

2011-01-09

Sufism Under Attack in Pakistan

Sufism, Pakistan’s most popular branch of Islam, has seen a rise of attacks against its worshipers at shrines. The bombings are part of an ongoing battle to enforce a more conservative brand of Islam.

Source: The New York Times

2010-12-31

Market Lessons from the Pashtun

War Nerd Gary Brecher argues that Afghanistan won’t specifically remember the Americans any more than they remember the British or Russians before them. Rather, it’s the Americans, British and Russians, who will singularly never forget Afghanistan.

Source: exiledonline.com

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Afghanistan in 2010: A Survey of the Afghan People

Say what you will about polling in Afghanistan, but nevertheless:

On November 9, 2010, The Asia Foundation released findings from Afghanistan in 2010: A Survey of the Afghan People – the broadest public opinion poll in the country. Conducted by The Asia Foundation’s office in Afghanistan, the 2010 survey polled 6,467 Afghan citizens across all 34 provinces in the country on security, development, economy, government, corruption, and women’s issues to assess the mood and direction of the country.

PDF (3.6MB)

Source: asiafoundation.org

2010-12-16

Canada wastes cash in Afghanistan: Kandahar mayor

The mayor of Kandahar is complaining that Ottawa’s contracting practices are contributing to the culture of misconduct in Afghanistan and expressed similar concerns about the United States and Britain.

“Your prime minister, [U.S.] President [Barack] Obama and the prime minister of England are complaining that we didn’t clean the corruption in Afghanistan, [and] they will stop helping,” Ghulam Hayder Hamidi said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press.

“Who is doing the corruption? You are doing the corruption.”

…

Source: cbc.ca

2010-12-02

Boston.com - Afghanistan, November, 2010

Amazing stuff as usual.

(Photo above by ISAF Public Affairs/LS Paul Berry)

Source: Boston.com

2010-11-25

Presence of US, allies allowed in Quetta

Uh, what?

WASHINGTON: Pakistan has allowed the US military and its coalition partners in Afghanistan to maintain a presence in Quetta, says a Pentagon report to Congress.

The report, which was released to the media on Wednesday, also notes that tensions between India and Pakistan have a direct impact on Afghanistan and therefore, the United States must consider relations between South Asia’s two nuclear neighbours while making any strategy for Kabul.

“Pakistan Army General Headquarters recently approved a US Office of Defence Representative and Coalition presence at the Pakistan military’s 12 Corps HQ in Quetta,” the Pentagon tells Congress.

Earlier reports in the US media said that Pakistan also had allowed the CIA to expand its presence in the Balochistan capital.

…

Source: dawn.com

2010-11-23

Veterans: Soviets in Afghanistan

A look at the doomed military adventure dubbed the “Soviet Vietnam” and its aftermath.

And part two.

Source: english.aljazeera.net

2010-11-19

Afghanistan Transition: Missing Variables (ICOS)

Afghanistan Transition: Missing Variables draws on findings from field research interviewing 1,500 Afghan men in October 2010. The research, conducted by Afghan interviewers, asked questions of 1,000 men in Kandahar and Helmand provinces, the two provinces currently suffering the most violence in southern Afghanistan; and 500 men in the provinces of Parwan and Panjshir in the north of the country. Interviews in the south took place in the Kandahar districts of Zhari, Panjwai and Kandahar City; and in the Helmand districts of Lashkar Gah, Marjah, Nawa, Sangin, and Garmsir […]

Of serious concern, 92% of respondents in the south are unaware of the events of 9/11 or that they triggered the current international presence in Afghanistan.

PDF (5.3MB)

Human Security Gateway Resource Details

ICOS Press Release

Source: icosgroup.net

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High and dry in Kabul

As NATO extends Afghan mission to 2014, finding booze in Kabul gets more urgent

KABUL, Afghanistan — The transaction had all the earmarks of a minor drug deal — a whispered phone conversation, a furtive meeting, a hurried exchange of cash for an unmarked package. At the end of it all I had forked over $100 for four bottles of a sweet, fizzy Italian red wine that would not make a half-decent sangria.

Welcome to Kabul’s underground alcohol market. Since it looks like today’s NATO summit in Lisbon is likely to extend a military commitment to the Afghanistan War until 2014 and beyond — it seems appropriate to look at where one can find some alcohol here.

Few topics engender as much discussion in Kabul as the logistics of acquiring booze.

…

Source: globalpost.com