Tag Archives: Taliban

ince the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, speculation has been rife over whether the group would achieve the global recognition that has long eluded it. Early on, analysts predicted that in a quest for legitimacy, a reformed Taliban, whose rhetoric promised a modern and moderate approach to governance, would honor basic human rights and prevent Afghanistan from again becoming …

In the past year, Congress has allocated roughly $113 billion in support of Ukraine’s efforts to beat back Russia’s brutal invasion. More or less overnight, Kyiv became far and away the largest single recipient of U.S. military and economic support. In order to track all that spending, government watchdogs have taken some notable steps to expand oversight. The inspectors general …

n the wake of the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul and the ouster of the Afghan national government in August 2021, alarming reports indicated that the insurgents had potentially accessed biometric data collected by the U.S. to track Afghans, including people who worked for U.S. and coalition forces. Afghans who once supported the U.S. have been attempting to hide or destroy …

Pakistan must continue to treat Afghanistan as a policy priority, despite its internal issues. It must also convince the international community of its commitment to peace in Afghanistan and continue to fight for humanitarian assistance to be given to Afghanistan.

For Afghanistan, al-Zawahiri’s death may have dire implications. Accusations of cooperating with the Americans will affect the already divided Taliban leadership – which could lead to bitter internecine fighting within it. And the presence of a terrorist as prominent as al-Zawahiri supposedly under the protection of senior Taliban cadres will not help US-Taliban relations. It is a direct breach of the Doha accords.

Will the administration take additional steps to help Afghanistan or sit on the sidelines because it won’t recognize the government?

The first sentence of an interim report released yesterday on the collapse of the Afghan military concludes that “the single most important factor in the [Afghan National Defense and Security Forces’] collapse in August 2021 was the U.S. decision to withdraw military forces and contractors from Afghanistan through signing the U.S.-Taliban agreement in February 2020.” Reuters adopted this sentence in its headline covering …

Talibanization has resulted in a strengthening of a strict, close to the Wahabi form of Islamic practice that today has been radicalized and does have connections to terrorism. Coping with the residual legacy of the Afghan war will take decades and demand considerable economic and intellectual effort.

Will the West sanction Afghanistan even if the Taliban and other stakeholders manage to cobble together a mutually inclusive and acceptable government comprising representatives of women and all ethnic groups from across Afghanistan?

Afghan soldiers chose safety in numbers by surrendering together.