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By Chris Abani $14.20
By John W. Dean; Barry M. Goldwater, Jr.
$21
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 The U.S. Army (CC BY 2.0)
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By Ann Jones, TomDispatch —
Compromise, conflict or collapse. Ask an Afghan what to expect in 2014 and you’re likely to get a scenario that falls under one of those three headings.
Posted on Jan 29, 2013
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 The Guardian
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A teenage suicide bomber who had posed as a street hawker killed six people, including four children gathered around an iPhone, when he detonated explosives hidden in his backpack near the headquarters of the NATO-led military force in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Saturday.
Posted on Sep 8, 2012
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A congressional inquiry revealed that a high-ranking U.S. Army general in Afghanistan attempted to obstruct an investigation into conditions at a $180 million American-funded hospital in Kabul where patients were treated and kept in “Auschwitz-like” conditions. Michael Hastings with Rolling Stone has followed the story closely.
Posted on Aug 1, 2012
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 Secretary of Defense (CC BY 2.0)
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By Nick Turse, TomDispatch —
The official American reaction to the coordinated attacks in Kabul, the Afghan capital, as well as at Jalalabad airbase, and in Paktika and Logar Provinces, reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of guerrilla warfare.
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 AP/Musadeq Sadeq
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai has branded the Taliban’s 18-hour siege of Kabul and places across eastern Afghanistan on Sunday an intelligence failure and called for an investigation into NATO security operations.
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 AP / Rahmat Gul
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Pointing to “the shaky, erratic and vague standpoint of the Americans” as one key reason for their decision, Taliban leaders in Afghanistan put the kibosh on plans to meet with U.S. envoys, releasing a statement on Thursday explaining the change of plans.
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 bbc.co.uk
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Claims made by NATO that Pakistan is in cahoots with the Afghan Taliban are tantamount to “old wine in an even older bottle,” according to Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar. However, this particular batch of wine represents thousands of mandatory conversations (read: interrogations) versus Khar’s official denial.
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 cnn.com
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At least 63 people were killed in a series of bomb attacks in Afghanistan on Tuesday during ceremonies marking the Shiite holiday of Ashura in three different targeted locations, but the majority of the deaths occurred in Kabul. A Pakistani group claimed responsibility for this sudden and ominous outbreak of sectarian violence.
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 AP / Ahmad Nazar
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The Obama administration vowed to relentlessly pursue Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents who, using suicide bombers, assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, attacked the U.S. Embassy in Kabul on Tuesday.
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 AP via Washington Post
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s half brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, was fatally shot at his home in Kandahar on Tuesday by a local police official, Sardar Mohammad, whom Karzai had included in his inner circle. The Taliban took credit for the assassination ... (more)
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 Wikimedia Commons / The White House
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Come July, foreign forces will begin withdrawing from Afghanistan, coinciding with President Hamid Karzai’s plan to begin returning seven regions of his country back to local control.
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Two years ago, we first caught wind of “Skateistan,” a project started by Australian skateboarding enthusiast Oliver Percovich with the aim of giving kids in Kabul, Afghanistan, a new outlet for fun and camaraderie, instead of war-stoked fear.
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 AP / Gemunu Amarasinghe
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On Monday, just two days after the parliamentary elections in Afghanistan, reports that the polling process was corrupted by incidents of voting fraud had sparked an investigation, according to the Los Angeles Times.
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 AP / Saurabh Das
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With an eye on Saturday’s parliamentary elections, the Taliban is evidently making sure that Afghans don’t forget the recent Quran-burning hubbub in the U.S. (thanks a lot, Pastor Jones), as some 800 people gathered in Kabul for ... (continued)
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No doubt Gen. David Petraeus had a certain Rolling Stone interview in mind when he conducted a lengthy interview, which aired Sunday, with “Meet the Press” anchor David Gregory about his hopes, fears and prognosis about the war in Afghanistan.
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Monday was the deadliest day so far in 2010 for U.S. troops in Afghanistan. According to the Los Angeles Times, five American soldiers died in a bombing in the east and two in the country’s southern region.
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The Taliban has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing Tuesday that targeted a U.S. convoy in Kabul, killing 19 people and marking the deadliest day so far this year for American troops in Afghanistan. In additional to the bomber, the dead included five Americans. Tuesday was also the day ... (continued)
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 bbc.co.uk
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Although Afghan President Hamid Karzai acknowledged Thursday that last year’s presidential election had been greatly hindered by fraud, his assessment as to the source of the problem came as a surprise to the president’s main target.
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 AP / Musadeq Sadeq
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More than 165 people have been killed by a series of deadly snow avalanches in a mountain pass in northeast Afghanistan that trapped dozens of victims in their vehicles and sent others into the valley below on Monday. Rescuers were still digging and searching for possible survivors in the Salang Pass on Thursday.
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 Wikimedia Commons / The White House
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s office released a statement in which he said he “strongly condemns” a military operation involving “international forces”—one in a series that reportedly occurred over the weekend—in which at least eight Afghan schoolchildren were said to be among the civilian casualties.
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 cbsnews.com
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Tough break, ArmorGroup North America. The U.S. State Department has decided not to re-up its contract with the rent-a-guard company that made the worst kind of headlines earlier this year with lurid stories about, and compromising photographs of, AGNA’s alarmingly hard-partying Kabul embassy crew.
Posted on Dec 8, 2009
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Something just doesn’t add up about the stated logic of sending 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, says Jamal Dajani, who has a theory about the president’s real reason for escalating the war.
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By Garrison Keillor —
The former Marine officer Matthew Hoh, who resigned his Foreign Service post in Afghanistan because he feels the war is pointless and not worth dying for, deserves all the attention he’s gotten and more.
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 bbc.co.uk
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United Nations officials said Wednesday that at least five U.N. workers and three Afghans were killed and nine others wounded by three Taliban militants, who were themselves shot dead during the attack at a private residence in Kabul, Afghanistan.
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 irfwp.org
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Afghanistan may be nearing yet another political crisis as officials fear that President Hamid Karzai will not accept results of an investigation outlining massive fraud in the country’s presidential elections two months ago. The inquiry is expected to drop Karzai’s vote total to under 50 percent, requiring a runoff election.
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 Project on Government Oversight
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Much of the furor over the conduct of private embassy guards in Kabul appears preoccupied with what one whistle-blower describes as the “gay shit” rather than the exploitation of young Afghan women or the deteriorating security situation at the embassy. The latter, after all, was the major focus of the complaint that blew this story open.
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 cbsnews.com
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There’s yet more egg on the faces of hired contractors paid to guard U.S. officials in the Middle East—this time in Afghanistan, where ArmorGroup guards are under scrutiny by the State Department for their allegedly undiplomatic antics at their private quarters near the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
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 AP / Rafiq Maqbool
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In December 2002, Mohammed Jawad was accused of throwing a grenade into a Jeep carrying U.S. troops and shipped off to Guantanamo Bay from Afghanistan. Jawad’s now home after seven years, and there’s a bit of a difference between his side of the story and the Pentagon’s—namely, he claims he was just 12 years old when he was arrested.
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 AP / Kevin Frayer
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Tensions continue to build before Thursday’s presidential election in Afghanistan. After a spate of violence in the capital city of Kabul on Tuesday, including a suicide car bombing that killed at least eight people and wounded 53, the government banned local news outlets from reporting any similar incidents on election day.
Posted on Aug 18, 2009
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 AP / Rahmat Gul
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This week’s presidential election in Afghanistan may not be the cleanest polling event, if the BBC’s findings about corruption and voting fraud are indicative of larger trends. The British news outlet reported Tuesday that bribery and bids to buy voting cards, combined with threats of violence from militant groups, could muck up the works come Thursday.
Posted on Aug 17, 2009
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 AP photo
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An overturned truck filled with timber and, it turned out, explosives blew up early Thursday morning in Logar province, Afghanistan, killing 25 people. Thirteen of the victims were children on their way to school, according to the Associated Press.
Posted on Jul 9, 2009
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 Wikimedia Commons / The White House
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In an attempt to weaken Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s grip on power, certain powers that be from the West are creating a brand new prime minister position and planning to redirect funds from Karzai’s headquarters in Kabul to the provinces.
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Oliver Percovich, a 34-year-old Australian skateboarding enthusiast, has found willing pupils among the youths of Kabul, Afghanistan, who are learning some new tricks in borrowed and donated spaces, making a play for a bit of adolescent normalcy amid the signs of war. Updated
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 army.mil
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By Ann Jones —
The vision of a reconstructed, peaceful, stable, democratically governed Afghanistan faded fast after the U.S.-led invasion. Most Afghans now believe that it was nothing but a cover story for the Bush administration’s real goal—to set up permanent bases in Afghanistan and occupy the country forever.
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 AP photo / Xinhua, Xie Xiudong
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By Anand Gopal —
Who exactly are the Afghan insurgents? Every suicide attack and kidnapping is usually attributed to “the Taliban.” In reality, however, the insurgency is far from monolithic.
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 AP photo / Rahmat Gul
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By Robert Fisk — The collapse of Afghanistan is closer than the world believes. Kandahar is in Taliban hands—all but a square mile at the centre of the city—and the first Taliban checkpoints are scarcely 15 miles from Kabul.
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 independent.co.uk
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By Robert Fisk — Incredibly, as Afghanistan sinks back into the anarchy which became its natural state these past 29 years, Afghan film-makers are producing movies of international quality, turning out pictures which prove—even amid war—that a country’s tragedy can be imaginatively recreated for its people.
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 AP photo / Jae C. Hong
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Before leaving Kabul for Baghdad, Barack Obama spoke to his intention to increase America’s troop commitment to Afghanistan by 10,000 soldiers. “We have to understand that the situation is precarious and urgent ... and I believe this has to be the central focus, the central front, in the battle against terrorism,” the candidate told CBS.
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 AP photo
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Barack Obama embarked on his international diplomacy tour—a key step in raising his profile on the world stage and demonstrating his readiness to take over the American presidency—with an important first major stop. The Illinois senator landed in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Saturday as part of congressional delegation surveying the current situation in that troubled nation.
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 AP photos / Pajhwok News Agency
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Details have emerged about Monday’s deadly blast at the Indian Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, raising suspicion that the bombing was done by Pakistani militants associated with the Taliban. The fact that the Indian Embassy was targeted is one substantial indication, considering the long-standing conflict between India and Pakistan. The blast killed 41 and injured over 130.
Posted on Jul 7, 2008
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 news.bbc.co.uk
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A suicide bombing apparently tied to the one-year anniversary of the Red Mosque raid killed at least 15 in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad Sunday night. The next morning, a bomber drove an explosives-laden car into the Indian Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing 41—including India’s ranking defense attaché—and injuring more than 140 others.
Posted on Jul 7, 2008
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A suicide bomber set off a deadly explosion near a mosque in a popular marketplace in Zaranj, Afghanistan, Thursday evening as men were gathering for prayer, killing 20 people and injuring about 30.
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 serenahotels.com
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The Taliban has taken responsibility for the bombing Monday of Afghanistan’s only five-star hotel. The luxurious Serena Hotel, in Kabul, is popular with diplomats and therefore makes for an attractive target.
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 laapush.org
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German citizen Khaled el-Masri’s quest for justice, following his “extraordinary rendition,” has come to an end. Masri claims he was kidnapped by CIA operatives in late 2003 and tortured for months in an Afghan prison, but his case was closed on Tuesday when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider his appeal.
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The Taliban, once a powerful and oppressive presence in Afghanistan, does not “have the guts” to face down the government, Afghan President Hamid Karzai told the BBC. The real problem that needs attention in his country, Karzai said, is the ever-rising civilian death toll.
Posted on Jun 21, 2007
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An Afghan official said civilian homes were bombed in an air raid led by U.S. troops in the country’s Sangin district Wednesday. Tragically, this latest reported incident is not an isolated occurrence in the battle zones of Afghanistan.
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Why did we lower flags to half-mast for students and faculty killed in the Virginia Tech shootings but do not do the same for our fallen soldiers in the Middle East? That’s the provocative question posed by Sgt. Jim Wilt from his Army outpost near Kabul, Afghanistan.
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Human Rights Watch issued the sobering news Monday that 2006 was the deadliest year in terms of civilian casualties in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban. Almost 700 deaths are linked to insurgent groups—and of that number about two-thirds resulted from suicide bombings—while 230 more have been chalked up to NATO-led troops.
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 nytimes.com
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Iran has flooded Afghanistan with both good works and propaganda, writes The New York Times’ David Rohde, in an effort to spread its influence. While the U.S. has resisted Tehran’s ascendancy in Iraq, it seems the Bush administration’s growing disinterest in Afghanistan extends to Iran’s presence there.
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