There is still doubt in the minds of serious people about Israel’s attack on the Free Gaza flotilla and the events that lead to the death of 9 of the activists aboard. There can be little surprise of…
COUNTRY » Afghanistan
Why buy the Taliban?
Published: 30/01/2010After almost nine years of international military operations, billions of dollars in aid and thousands of Afghan and international lives, what Afghanistan needed was a new vision to deal with the complex set of problems. Instead, world leaders pledged £87m…
I Talebani possono riconciliarsi con Kabul?
Published: 28/01/201028/01/2010
Original Version: Could the Taliban reconcile with Kabul?
Il tentativo occidentale di aprire un dialogo con i Talebani, o di comprarli con offerte di denaro, è probabilmente destinato a fallire – scrive il giornalista pakistano Rahimullah Yusufzai…
Afghanistan rocked by Taliban attacks on govt buildings in Kabul (video)
Published: 19/01/201019/01/2010 – The Afghan president Hamid Kazai says security’s been restored to the capital, after Taliban militants launched a series of attacks on government buildings and the presidential palace. At least 5 people were killed and 38 injured after a gunbattle broke out near the Defence and Justice Ministries, and a luxury hotel used by westerners. Police sealed off a large part of the centre of Kabul, as explosions rocked the city. The militants struck as cabinet members were being sworn in (Russia Today)
La guerra segreta degli USA in Afghanistan
Published: 17/01/201017/01/2010
Original Version: The shadow war in Afghanistan
La guerra che gli Stati Uniti stanno combattendo in Afghanistan non è più una guerra tradizionale, ma una guerra “privatizzata” e “appaltata” a contractor e mercenari, sulla base di informazioni…
The shadow war in Afghanistan
Published: 14/01/2010It was a Christmas and a New Year from hell for American intelligence, that US$75 billion labyrinth of at least 16 major agencies and a handful of minor ones. As the old year was preparing to be rung out, so…
Afghanistan: come un attentatore suicida ha aperto un nuovo fronte nella guerra di al-Qaeda
Published: 10/01/201010/01/2010
Original Version: How this suicide bomber opened a new front in al-Qaeda’s war
I dettagli dei gravi errori che hanno portato all’uccisione di sette agenti della CIA in Afghanistan, segnando una perdita e una sconfitta gravissima per…
Inside Story – Is the CIA effective? (video)
Published: 10/01/201010/01/2010 – The reputation of U.S. military intelligence is in tatters after al-Qaeda inflicted a devastating blow on the CIA in Afghanistan.
This week seven Americans working for the CIA were killed in a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan. The deceased bomber is now alleged to have been a double agent, working for al-Qaeda as well as the CIA. Jordananian intelligence have disputed this, however.
So is Washington loosing the intelligence war there? And why? (al-Jazeera English)
US spies walked into al-Qaeda’s trap
Published: 06/01/2010ISLAMABAD – The suicide attack on the United States Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA’s) forward operating base of Chapman in the Afghan province of Khost last week was planned in the Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan.
The attacker – a…
The many faces of the double agent CIA bomber (video)
Published: 06/01/201006/01/2010 – US intelligence sources say a Jordanian double agent who attacked CIA operatives in Afghanistan last week, had provided high-quality intelligence leading to the deaths of several al-Qaeda leaders.
Hammam Khalil al-Balawi blew himself up at a US base in Khost province, killing seven CIA agents and a Jordanian Intelligence official (al-Jazeera English)
Afghan Parliament Rejects Most Cabinet Nominees (video)
Published: 03/01/201003/01/2010 – Afghanistan’s parliament dealt a stinging rebuke to President Hamid Karzai on Saturday by rejecting 70 percent of his nominees for a new cabinet, including a regionally powerful warlord and the country’s only female minister (Associated Press)
Surging for Answers: Afghan war aims vague? (video)
Published: 10/12/200910/12/2009 – The top American military in Afghanistan faced Congress for his testimony on the infusion of 30,000 additional American troops. General Stanley McChrystal said the next 18 months would be “critical” to the future of Afghanistan and that of the United States. But critics, including former Afghanistan war veterans, still disagree with President Obama’s plans (Russia Today)
Face The Nation – US and the war in Afghanistan (video)
Published: 08/12/200908/12/2009 – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates discuss the war in Afghanistan (CBS)
Taliban fighters to be lured from fighting with cash
Published: 13/11/2009The scheme being drawn up would provide jobs and protection for fighters who gave up their struggle against Nato-led troops and Hamid Karzai’s regime.
Mr Karzai is expected to reach out to fighters in his inauguration speech next week and…
Una via di uscita dalla trappola afghana
Published: 05/11/200905/11/2009
Original Version: A way out of the Afghan quagmire
Il dibattito sulla nuova strategia da seguire in Afghanistan ha ignorato il potenziale insito nell’idea di dispiegare nel paese forze musulmane sotto la guida dell’ONU – scrive l’ex…
A way out of the Afghan quagmire
Published: 04/11/2009The blood spilt daily means Afghanistan is rarely out of the headlines. Fresh attacks, presumed to be by Taliban militants, in Kabul and Peshawar, only increase the pressure on the US and Nato to settle on a new strategy. The…
Afghan Strategy Takes Time (video)
Published: 01/11/200901/11/2009 – President Obama met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff about troop levels in Afghanistan. As David Martin reports, the military now admits just getting troops there would take a long time (CBS)
Rivals fiddle while Kabul burns
Published: 30/10/2009Political tensions are on the rise in Afghanistan as the country braces for a challenging presidential runoff on November 7.
On October 26, incumbent President Hamid Karzai rejected demands from his election rival, former foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, that key…
Il ballottaggio divide l’Afganistan in tre
Published: 29/10/200929/10/2009
Original Version: Runoff splits Afghanistan in three
Coloro che tengono al processo elettorale sono divisi secondo linee etniche, fra pashtun e tagiki. Coloro che invece non credono a queste consultazioni vedono solo affarismo e corruzione – scrive…
AfPak: rompicapo in Asia Centrale
Published: 28/10/2009
Lo sviluppo degli eventi nell’area che va dall’Asia centrale ai confini dell’India ad est e dell’Iran ad ovest, passando per l’Afghanistan e il Pakistan, sembra aver subito un’accelerazione impressionante in queste ultime settimane.
In Afghanistan è stato fissato al…
Inside Story – Afghan election runoff (video)
Published: 25/10/200925/10/2009 – Two months after Afghanistan’s presidential elections, Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, is forced to face Abdullah Abdullah, his main rival, in a runoff vote.What are the chances of president Karzai remaining in power and what could it mean for the country? And how will this affect the imminent deployment of more foreign troops to the country? (al-Jazeera English)
Al-Qaeda emigra in Asia Centrale
Published: 18/10/200918/10/2009
Original Version: هجرة القاعدة إلى آسيا الوسطى
L’espulsione dei salafiti jihadisti dalle loro roccaforti in Pakistan e Afghanistan, per mano delle offensive condotte dall’esercito pakistano, spingerà questi gruppi nelle vicine regioni dell’Asia centrale che si estendono fino…
Pakistan warns India to ‘back off’
Published: 17/10/2009The Indian embassy in Kabul has been targeted for bomb attack for a second time in the past 15 months. A least 17 people were killed in Thursday’s attack, when a car loaded with explosives rammed into the embassy’s compound…
Obama shifting focus to Al Qaeda over Taliban
Published: 09/10/2009Reporting from Washington – President Obama and his top advisors are moving toward a strategy on Afghanistan that defines Al Qaeda as a greater threat to U.S. security than the Taliban, a view that could help them avoid the major…
Afghanistan: Go All-In, Or Fold
Published: 30/09/2009Sitting in an air-conditioned office within this gargantuan NATO encampment in southern Afghanistan, a U.S. officer pointed to a map of Kandahar province that indicated, with small, rectangular boxes, where soldiers deployed by President Obama earlier this year were now…
Miti e verità sull’Afghanistan
Published: 23/09/2009
Negli ultimi mesi, e ancor più nelle ultime settimane, la “guerra dimenticata” dell’Afghanistan sta drammaticamente tornando al centro dell’attenzione dei media in Occidente, soprattutto a causa di un inasprimento del conflitto e del sempre maggior numero di vittime fra…
In Afghanistan, la verità è semplice
Published: 23/09/200906/09/2009
Original Version: In Afghanistan, Let’s Keep It Simple
Per gran parte del XX secolo, prima dell’invasione sovietica del 1979, l’Afghanistan fu un paese pacifico che viveva in armonia con i suoi vicini.
Vi era un re e…
L’Afghanistan ha bisogno della Cina e della Russia
Published: 23/09/200918/09/2009
Original Version: Afghanistan Needs China and Russia
La preoccupazione per le contestate elezioni presidenziali dell’Afghanistan è comprensibile. Per porre fine alla violenza del paese, sarà necessario un governo che abbia sia la legittimità che la capacità di…
A dangerous new Afghan road opens
Published: 23/09/200918/09/2009 - Increased insurgent activity in northern Afghanistan in recent months is likely to force the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to once again re-evaluate its and the United States’ escalation of the war.
Recent events in Kunduz province due south…
How to Lose in Afghanistan
Published: 23/09/200931/08/2009 – The United States cannot win the war in Afghanistan in the next three months — any form of even limited victory will take years of further effort. It can, however, easily lose the war. I did not see…
A Fresh Approach in Afghanistan: An End to War?
Published: 23/09/200909/09/2009 – Left out of the options under consideration in “Obama’s war” is the only one with any chance of success.
Despite assurances to the contrary in Washington and a major policy speech in London, one need not…
McChrystal seeks more US troops for Afghanistan (video)
Published: 22/09/200922/09/2009 – The senior US military commander in Afghanistan has warned that he needs more troops on the ground, or else risk the mission failing. The White House says that McChrystal has not made a formal request for more soldiers yet, but McChrystal’s strategic assessment could fuel US public anxiety over an escalating to the eight-year conflict (Al-Jazeera English)
Afghanistan Needs China and Russia
Published: 19/09/2009Preoccupation with Afghanistan’s disputed presidential election is understandable. Ending the country’s violence will require a government with both the legitimacy and capacity to tackle the underlying sources of the Taleban insurgency.
But achieving success in Afghanistan – defined as…
Italian soldiers killed by blast in Afghanistan (video)
Published: 17/09/200917/09/2009 – Italy lost six of its troops in Afghanistan to a suicide car bombing on Thursday, when two military vehicles were struck by a car filled with explosives. Alessandra Baldini, the New York bureau chief of the Italian news agency ANSA, joins Daljit Dhaliwal to discuss how Italians view the war in Afghanistan and the Obama administration (World Focus Online)
Affonda il progetto democratico afghano
Published: 16/09/2009
A quasi otto anni dall’inizio dell’invasione militare a guida americana che avrebbe dovuto spazzar via il regime talebano e portare diritti umani e democrazia in Afghanistan, il definitivo naufragio del progetto democratico promosso dall’Occidente sembra essere sancito dal fallimento…
I preoccupanti sviluppi della situazione afghana
Published: 16/09/200911/09/2009
Original Version: Disturbing developments in Afghanistan
La Commissione elettorale indipendente afghana (Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan, IEC), sfidando le direttive e le richieste della Commissione per i reclami elettorali (Electoral Complaints Commission, ECC), un’organizzazione a direzione canadese…
Come l’Afghanistan può evitare di diventare un altro Vietnam
Published: 16/09/200910/09/2009
Original Version: How Afghanistan Can Avoid Becoming Another Vietnam
Sebbene il temuto leader talebano Baitullah Mehsud sia stato ucciso, i Talebani hanno ancora il pieno controllo della situazione.
I vari gruppi collettivamente noti come “i Talebani” sono…
La Turchia e la guerra in Afghanistan
Published: 16/09/200902/09/2009
Original Version: تركيا والحرب في أفغانستان
Il segretario generale della NATO Rasmussen – che non è molto amato dai turchi, e che ha chiesto a questi ultimi di incrementare il numero delle forze armate turche presenti in Afghanistan e…
Ovunque e in nessun luogo – I confusi obiettivi della guerra al terrore
Published: 16/09/200907/09/2009
Original Version: All over the place
Questa settimana segna l’ottavo anniversario dell’11 settembre. Quasi un decennio dopo l’inizio della guerra al terrore, una sola cosa è certa: nessuno sa realmente cosa essa stia producendo. La lotta contro…
Lasciate che siano gli afghani a guidare le riforme
Published: 16/09/200903/09/2009
Original Version: Let Afghans Lead Reform
Sebbene il risultato rimanga incerto, le elezioni presidenziali in Afghanistan hanno dimostrato che il popolo afghano desidera una leadership più affidabile. Ma non è, del resto, meno chiaro che questa aspirazione…
Afghanistan by the numbers
Published: 16/09/200910/09/2009 – Here may be the single strangest fact of our American world: that at least three administrations – Ronald Reagan’s, George W Bush’s and now Barack Obama’s – drew the United States “defense” perimeter at the Hindu Kush; that…
Eight years after 9/11 Taliban now have a permanent presence in 80% of Afghanistan
Published: 16/09/200910/09/200 – LONDON – The Taliban now has a permanent presence in 80% of Afghanistan, up from 72% in November 2008, according to a new map released today by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS). According to ICOS,…
Afghanistan’s ethnically split ballot box
Published: 16/09/200927/08/2009 – The BBC’s Afghan desk recently asked the three leading candidates of the presidential election the following question: “What would you do, if you were to lose the election?” All three – Hamid Karzai, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani,…
All over the place – The fight against terrorism continues to be amorphous
Published: 13/09/2009THIS week will mark the eighth anniversary of 9/11. Almost a decade into the global war against terror, only one thing is clear: no one really knows what they’re doing. The fight against terrorism continues to be amorphous, peppered with…
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