The AfPak Channel has become a premier clearinghouse of news and analysis from and about Afghanistan, Pakistan, and issues of transnational terrorism. Edited by Peter Bergen and Jennifer Rowland, dozens of contributing experts weigh in at the center of an important conversation about this most pressing foreign-policy challenge facing the United States, its allies, and the rest of the world.
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A suicide bomber detonated his explosives outside a mosque as worshippers were leaving after finishing prayers for Eid al-Adha in Maymana, the capital of the northern Afghan province of Faryab, killing at least 40 and wounding dozens more.
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The biggest debate surrounding the Afghanistan-Pakistan region today concerns the U.S. drone program in Pakistan's tribal regions, which target the militants who terrorize and kill local residents, and who attack American soldiers inside Afghanistan. Ironically, the anti-war group CODEPINK -- members of which visited Pakistan last week to protest drone strikes -- along with much of the American left, the Pakistani establishment, and the Taliban are all on the same side in their opposition to drone strikes. While silent on the many more targeted killings of innocent civilians by Taliban militants in the tribal areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Pakistani establishment and the American left both loudly criticize U.S. drone strikes, albeit for different reasons. Read More »
In a remarkable act of 'pin the war on your opponent' Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday evening worked to portray Paul Ryan as the candidate most in favor of continuing the unpopular fight in Afghanistan, a conflict President Barack Obama once called the "war that has to be won" and to which he added 33,000 American soldiers. Read More »
In recent personal interviews with three would-be suicide bombers aged 15-19, who were caught in April 2010 by security forces in Pakistan, I was told a strikingly different story than one might expect of a Pakistani youth's journey towards militancy. These young men from North Waziristan were not religious, nor motivated by supposedly Islamic ideas, and had no substantial animosity toward the United States or the Pakistan Army - in fact they knew very little about the world outside their small tribe. How, then, were they recruited to carry out something as violent and psychologically traumatic as suicide bombing? Read More »
Afghanistan provides all too many examples of the wisdom of Winston Churchill's saying "those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it." Great Britain forgot the hard-learned lessons from the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839-42) and got caught in the misadventure of the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-80). The Afghan Communist government that took power in a military coup in 1978 did not appear to have learned from the failed westernization and reform experiment of King Amanullah (1919-29); it imposed radical changes and engaged in brutal repression, quickly stirring up a violent reaction that threatened the new regime. The Soviet Union optimistically viewed its military intervention in Afghanistan at the end of 1979 as a limited action with a short time horizon-assumptions that proved unfounded and whose lack of realism would have been apparent from a review of Afghan history. And it does not seem that the United States and its NATO allies reflected on lessons from the Soviet occupation when they initiated the international military intervention in Afghanistan after 9/11, even though, as Bruce Riedel noted: "A country rarely fights the same war twice in one generation, especially from opposite sides. Yet that in many ways describes the U.S. role in Afghanistan today." Read More »
A significant step was taken on Sunday by 20 Afghan political groupings and factions in Kabul to sign a Democratic Charter and announce the formation of a cooperation and coordination council as a prelude to the political transition and presidential elections expected to be held in 2014. This initiative, in the works for weeks, aims to forge a consensus to strengthen democratic governance, assure free and fair elections and act as a pressure point on President Hamid Karzai to commit to electoral reforms and a legitimate process for a peaceful transfer of power when his term ends in less than two years. Read More »
Partnership is an essential aspect of our counterinsurgency strategy. It is also an indispensible element of the transition of responsibility to Afghans. Read More »
When people began pouring out onto the streets in Pakistan to protest on Friday, there was little chance that the government would take any action against them. After all, it was a declared public holiday to mark love for Prophet Mohammad, and religious and political groups had taken the government's move as a sign that the protests were sanctioned by the state. Read More »
A month ago today, Rimsha Masih was unknown to the world. A month later - probably the worst of her life - the 14-year-old Christian girl from a slum near the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, has stirred up a storm not only at home but the world over, putting Pakistan's notorious blasphemy laws in the spotlight like never before. Read More »
[Below is Part Two of David H. Young's analysis of the summer uprisings in eastern Afghanistan. Read Part One here] Read More »
Revolt is a loaded word, conjuring up images of the Free Syrian Army, the Anbar Awakening, and the Libyan civil war. In small pockets across eastern Afghanistan, however, farmers, shopkeepers and others are taking the fight to the Taliban over the group's abusive tendencies. Though entirely isolated from one another, instances of violent resistance to harsh Taliban rules have spiked this past summer-brought on by school closings in Ghazni, music bans in Nuristan, beheadings in Paktia and murders in Laghman, among other causes. While a small number of Afghans admire the Taliban, most who support it do so because they are coerced, or believe that the group is less predatory than the government, though that's hardly an endorsement. So what precisely does it take for Afghans to stand up to the Taliban, and what are their options? Read More »
On Sunday, there will be a "splendid ceremony" marking the handover of the United States' Bagram prison. Yet despite the pomp, the handover hides the real story - the Afghans wanted this to mark the end of U.S. detention power in Afghanistan, while the U.S. has other ideas. Read More »
On Wednesday August 29, the dismissal of Afghan intelligence chief, Rahmatullah Nabil was officially confirmed. The news, which first began circulating some 48 hours earlier on BBC Persian, was met with shock by many Afghans in the capital city of Kabul. Read More »
The AfPak Channel's book reviews
Who is Mansoor Ijaz, the Pakistani-American businessman at the center of this twisted tale?
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