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The signing of the strategic partnership agreement by the United States President Barack Obama and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai becomes a historic landmark in the geopolitics of Central Asia...The sum total of Obama’s message is that the US is going to stay put in Afghanistan for at least another decade.
Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR | 09.05.2012 |
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As I was writing this last instalment of my analysis of the Afghan situation we heard of President Obama’s secret visit to Kabul to sign the Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement with President Karzai and to make a prime time Television broadcast to the American nation. What should be noted is that the agreement is termed a legally binding “executive agreement” i.e. an agreement that has not been ratified by the US Senate and therefore has a much lower legal status in American law than a treaty...
Najmuddin A. SHAIKH | 05.05.2012 |
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While the international community is taking stock of the past one year’s developments in the annals of international terrorism and fundamentalism post-bin Laden, an interesting development takes place in Pakistan. A young man of 30 named Farman Shinwari, earlier active commander with Harkat-ul-Mujahideen known for its Kashmir activities, is appointed head of Pakistan wing of Al Qaeda...
Aurobinda MAHAPATRA | 03.05.2012 |
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It is increasingly apparent that the US will maintain a sizeable military presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014… Washington has also resuscitated the New Silk Road project, which is an important dimension to the post-2014 scenario…: Afghan-Pakistan trade and transit agreement…; Uzbek and Turkmen supply of electricity to Afghanistan; new rail connections being built between Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan; new rail line from the Uzbek border to Mazar-i-Sharif; progress in the negotiations over a Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project; India’s iron ore project in Hajigak in Afghanistan; bids by American companies in the upcoming six mining tenders in Afghanistan (3 in copper, two in gold and one in lithium); creation of the Border Management Staff College in Dushanbe and the Customs Training Facility in Bishkek, and so on...
Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR | 03.05.2012 |
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During a recent visit to Kabul Afghan friends pointed out that according to the World Bank, the contribution of the Services sector to the Afghan GDP was 50%. An optimistic but hopelessly unreal assessment was offered-this would be only marginally affected by the withdrawal of foreign forces. The truth of the matter is that again according to World Bank estimates 90 to 97% of economic activity in Afghanistan was driven, in the last few years, by the foreign presence. It would not be wrong to assume that once the foreign troops withdraw and foreign aided projects begin to be abandoned for lack of funding the services and construction sector of the economy will contract much more drastically perhaps by as much as 90 %...
Najmuddin A. SHAIKH | 29.04.2012 |
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The “spectacular” Taliban attack on numerous venues in Kabul and in three provinces seen in conjunction with the suspension of talks between the Americans and the Taliban in Qatar and the vehement Taliban rejection of talks with the Afghan government has reinforced the apprehensions of the Afghan people that peace and stability in Afghanistan remains a distant dream and exacerbates fears that the completion of the foreign troop withdrawal will not only bring economic hardship but chaotic security and political conditions.
Najmuddin A. SHAIKH | 27.04.2012 |
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The recent attacks in Afghanistan singly points to the faulty nature of the peace process in the war torn country... The attacks in Heart, Helmand and Kabul on 15 April 2012, which killed about 15 people, were claimed by the Taliban. The Taliban declared that the attacks were orchestrated to give ‘a message to those foreign commanders who claim that the Taliban lost momentum.’ The differentiation of moderate Taliban and radical Taliban has not actually worked on ground despite repeated efforts at London Conference and Kabul Conference, held in 2010...
Aurobinda MAHAPATRA | 19.04.2012 |
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It became clear after the Seoul nuclear summit that the USA sticks to the old policy that goes back to 1945 – to monopolize the right to use nuclear weapons by making their non-proliferation part of international law in combination with new restrictive measures against others including Russia. It all should lead to the return of US global nuclear superiority...
Leonid SAVIN | 09.04.2012 |
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Over the past few weeks the news from Afghanistan has been grim. Videos showing American soldiers urinating on the corpses of Taliban insurgents; Afghan cleaners discovering at Bagram airbase that American soldiers were burning copies of the Holy Quran; subsequent demonstrations and even riots in Afghan cities in which 30 Afghans died and 200 were injured; a security cleared Afghan official killing two high ranking American military officials in the most secure part of the Afghan Interior Ministry... American soldier, Staff Sergeant Robert Bales entrusted with the task of training the Afghan Local Police in a Kandahar village, engages in that very village in a shooting rampage killing 16 people, 9 of them women and children. This series of events, each important in itself, but having catastrophic consequences in the totality of their impact have exacerbated almost to breaking point the tension between the Karzai and Obama administration...
Najmuddin A. SHAIKH | 21.03.2012 |
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The Afghans have something to hate for those who intruded into their country and have been occupying it for the second dozen of years. The videos of US Marines urinating on a dead Afghan, mockery of Koran by a US pastor, Koran’s burning by US soldiers, regular night raids and living quarters searching, GIs shooting point blank at unarmed people, including children - all of it has led to external manifestation of strong hatred between the population and the occupants that dooms the West’s adventure in Afghanistan to miserable failure...
Dmitriy SEDOV | 19.03.2012 |
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