Author Ahmad Shuja
This attack is an assault on the already-shrinking space considered safe by international civilian personnel – dignitaries, diplomats, consultants, aid workers, journalists, others.
UNHCR statistics show that in 2010, three million refugees out of the 15.6 million worldwide – nearly one in every five – were Afghans.
Former head of Afghanistan’s intelligence service, Amrullah Saleh, wrote an article on Bloomberg.com tacitly agreeing to the idea of negotiations with the Taliban and, rather curiously, calling for a truth commission as a way of reconciliation.
The violence perpetrated by the Taliban has not only caused serious deterioration of security but also dangerously skewed the focus of US aid projects in Afghanistan.
The July transition is happening when the war is at its worst and civilian and military casualties are higher than they have ever been.
A former National Security Council member under both George W. Bush and President Obama, Douglas A. Ollivant, writes an op-ed in the Washington Post that is symptomatic of why the US is still not getting its longest war right and how Afghanistan is still misunderstood, even by high-level policymakers.
Local sources have confirmed to me that clashes have broken out in the Maidan-Wardak province of Afghanistan over grazing rights as Kuchi nomads begin their annual migration. In the past, these localized ethnic conflicts have had serious national -- and even international -- implications.
After just one day, the Taliban's English language Twitter account is already showing greater new media savvy than the Afghan Government.