Life in Talibanistan - Part One: Throw these infidels in jail
Pepe Escobar - Asia Times (09/03/2010)
Ten years ago, Taliban Afghanistan - Talibanistan - was under a social, cultural, political and economic nightmare. Arguably, not much has changed. Or has it?

The disconnect between pipelines and transparency
John Foster - Globe and Mail, Canada (09/03/2010)
Politicians offer plenty of reasons for our presence in Afghanistan. But what they leave out may be more important than what they say...

Of women, cosmetics & electioneering
Abasin Zaheer - Pajhwok (09/03/2010)
Many believe some women candidates who had used extra facial makeup in campaign photos wanted to attract voters, but candidates say it is wrong to presume the use of cosmetics is meant to attract voters...

Karzai orders huge shakeup in Ministry of Interior
Khwaja Basir Ahmad - Pajhwok (09/03/2010)
Former deputy minister of counternarcotics, Maj. Gen. Daud Daud, has been posted as commander of the 303rd Pamir Regional Police Zone and Maj. Gen. Muhammad Wasim Azimi as general director for planning and operation...

Afghan banker warns of 'revolution'
United Press International (09/03/2010)
In an interview with The New York Times, Khahil Frozi - one of the two largest shareholders in Kabul Bank - rejected suggestions the bank has lost as much as $300 million during the financial...

Karzai tells Afghans not to panic in rush for withdrawals
Andrew Higgins, David Nakamura and Ernesto Londoño - The Washington Post (09/03/2010)
As depositors thronged branches of Afghanistan's biggest bank, President Hamid Karzai told Afghans on Thursday not to panic shortly after his brother, a major shareholder in the beleaguered Kabul Bank, called for intervention by the United States...

What Led Kabul To Sack Ambassador To U.S.?
Ron Synovitz - RFE/RL (09/02/2010)
Analysts say Jawad's outspoken opposition to Kabul's drive for peace talks with the Taliban may be the real reason he is being sacked...

Karzai's brother calls for U.S. to shore up Kabul Bank as withdrawals accelerate
Andrew Higgins and Ernesto Londoño - The Washington Post (09/02/2010)
"We are 100 percent sure that Kabul Bank is safe," Zakhilwal said. "I, as finance minister, am giving you my guarantee that your money is safe — if it's one Afghani, one dollar, one euro, up to millions. ... Kabul Bank is not in danger..."

Interviews With Said Jawad, Afghan Ambassador To U.S
CNN, The Situation Room (09/02/2010)
"A few hard-working, ethical Afghan that are in the Afghan government are subjected to a broad campaign smear both by the opportunistic inside the government, and the fanatics outside the government...."

Afghans Pull Money From Weakened Bank
Dexter Filkins - The New York Times (09/02/2010)
One of the principal owners of the Afghan bank at the center of an accelerating financial crisis here said depositors had withdrawn $180 million in the past two days. He predicted a “revolution” in the country’s financial...

Afghan finance minister: "Every penny of the deposits would be guaranteed by the government"
The Associated Press (09/02/2010)
"We are 100 percent sure that Kabul Bank is safe," Zakhilwal said. "I, as finance minister, am giving you my guarantee that your money is safe — if it's one Afghani, one dollar, one euro, up to millions. ... Kabul Bank is not in danger..."

Lessons in Crony Capitalism
Malou Innocent - The Huffington Post (09/02/2010)
Who owns Kabul Bank? And where has its money gone? Last night, after Obama had finished his speech about how we were sort of almost done in Iraq but still had a lot of lives to lose and money to spend in Afghanistan....

Too Corrupt to Fail?
Amy Davidson - The New Yorker (09/02/2010)
Who owns Kabul Bank? And where has its money gone? Last night, after Obama had finished his speech about how we were sort of almost done in Iraq but still had a lot of lives to lose and money to spend in Afghanistan....

A.Q. Khan
Fasih Ahmed - Newsweek (09/02/2010)
Abdul Qadeer Khan, widely considered the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, has kept a low profile since his unprecedented 2004 television address accepting sole responsibility for providing nuclear know-how to Iran, Libya, and North...

'It's premature to begin pulling troops' from Afghanistan, says Greg Mortenson
Trudy Rubin - Pioneer Press (09/02/2010)
Mortenson, a bear of a man, travels to the most remote rural areas of Afghanistan, including those where Taliban are active. His views are shaped over endless cups of tea with village elders. Only one of his schools...

Lonq queues at Afghan bank amid corruption claims
AFP (09/02/2010)
Long queues formed at branches of Kabul Bank in cities across Afghanistan Thursday, a day after authorities denied allegations of corruption at the country's biggest bank...

14 Candidates Removed from Parliamentary Elections List
Tolo News (09/02/2010)
"The Electoral Complaints Commission decided that 14 candidates do not have the right to run for elections since they did not resign from their governmental positions,.."

Few signs of run on Afghanistan's Kabul Bank
Amir Shah - The Associated Press (09/02/2010)
Larger than usual crowds gathered to withdraw funds from Afghanistan's largest bank Thursday, but there was little sign that questions surrounding its viability had sparked a major panic...

Nervous Afghans pull money from Kabul Bank, raising fears
David Nakamura and Andrew Higgins - The Washington Post (09/02/2010)
A swarm of customers at the headquarters of Kabul Bank in the Afghan capital on Wednesday raised the prospect of a full-scale bank run that would further alienate dispirited Afghans from their government...

Afghan ambassador to US to leave post, slams smears
- AFP (09/01/2010)
Afghan ambassador to the United States, Said Jawad, said Wednesday he had been ordered to leave his post after seven years, and lashed out at what he called a "broad campaign smear" against him...

Afghanistan takes over biggest private bank to avert collapse
AFP (09/01/2010)
Authorities have intervened to try to avert the potentially disastrous collapse of Afghanistan's biggest bank, after uncovering a web of shady transactions involving well-connected insiders...

Karzai in panic as graft probe closes in
Jean MacKenzie - Global Post (09/01/2010)
An FBI-backed anti-corruption team has struck too close for the Afghan president's comfort...

Where Did The Money Go?
Ted Rall - Yahoo News (09/01/2010)
OK. The roads are impressive. Specifically, the fact that they exist. When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001, more than two decades of civil conflict had left the country bereft...

Afghanistan's biggest bank in near disastrous collapse
World News (09/01/2010)
Karzai's brother, who has a minority stake in Kabul Bank, distanced himself from the bank's former chairman and its ousted chief executive Khalilullah Frozi...

After Obama's Iraq Speech, Afghans Worry About U.S. Commitment
Jason Motlagh - TIME (09/01/2010)
..many Afghans say the American President's remarks are cause for more even more concern. Though the big news of the day was a massive re-shuffle of Interior Ministry officials, the speech in Washington was parsed on radio and TV talk shows...

Afghan Police's Lack of Guns and Gas Shows U.S. Exit Plan Flaw
Eltaf Najafizada and James Rupert - Bloomberg (09/01/2010)
The Afghan police unit rated best by U.S.-led forces last year now can’t function on its own and has ceded up to half its district to the Taliban, showing how hard it will be for U.S. troops to carry out a planned withdrawal...

"Afghan concern about Pak is legitimate" - Gen. Petraeus
The Associated Press (09/01/2010)
President Hamid Karzai’s recent complaints that international forces should focus on militant leaders hiding in neighboring Pakistan instead of Afghan villages doesn’t mean the government no longer supports the US war strategy, the top NATO commander said Tuesday...

Birthplace of the Taliban: the next battleground
The Associated Press (09/01/2010)
As some 400 U.S. and Afghan soldiers gather to honor their first fallen comrade, mournful Muslim prayers mingle with the stutter of machine gun fire and the thud of exploding grenades just beyond their heavily fortified camp...

Afghan Ambassador Said T. Jawad leaving his post in Washington
Rajiv Chandrasekaran - The Washington Post (09/01/2010)
After serving as Afghanistan's top diplomat in Washington for seven years, Ambassador Said T. Jawad said Tuesday that his government has ordered him to vacate his post in September...

Afghanistan bomb attacks kill twenty-one US soldiers in 48 hours
Ben Farmer - The Telegraph (09/01/2010)
The death toll among in the Nato-led coalition has reached 484 this year and is predicted to far surpass 2009’s total of 521...

Pressure Rises on Shaken Afghan Bank
Dexter Filkins - The New York Times (09/01/2010)
Mr. Fitrat, for all his efforts, failed to address some of the larger questions surrounding Kabul Bank, one of the country’s largest private financial institutions. He did not mention the $300 million in losses — compared to just $120 million in assets...

Troubles at Afghan Bank Jolt Financial System
Dexter Filkins - The New York Times (09/01/2010)
The Afghan government intervened to shore up a deeply troubled bank on Tuesday, sending shock waves through the capital and prompting fears that Afghanistan’s pervasive corruption had now put...

Kabul Bank safe, says central bank governor
- AFP (08/31/2010)
Afghanistan's central bank governor said Wednesday the country's biggest bank, Kabul Bank, was in no danger of collapse following US media allegations of corruption...

A drop in Afghanistan’s drug ocean
Andrew Hammond - Reuters (08/31/2010)
THE Australian government should use the intelligence exposed on the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks to confront the US over its war plans in Afghanistan, before even more Australians soldiers are killed...

Afghanistan intelligence flawed, says ex-CIA man
Natalie O'Brien - Sydney Morning Herald (08/31/2010)
THE Australian government should use the intelligence exposed on the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks to confront the US over its war plans in Afghanistan, before even more Australians soldiers are killed...

Suit Challenges Reach of U.S. 'Targeted Killings'
Evan Perez - The Wall Street Journal (08/31/2010)
Civil-liberties groups filed a lawsuit Monday challenging the legality of the Obama administration's expansion of the U.S. fight against al Qaeda terrorists beyond Pakistan and Afghanistan...

The Iraq war leaves a fog of ambiguity
Eugene Robinson - The Washington Post (08/31/2010)
Now that the Iraq war is over -- for U.S. combat troops, at least -- only one thing is clear about the outcome: We didn't win...

A better way in Afghanistan
Theo Caldwell - National Post, Canada (08/31/2010)
Ayoung couple died a cruel death last week. According to BBC News: "A man and a woman who allegedly had an adulterous affair have been stoned and killed in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz..."

Defining the Afghan Deadline
The Wall Street Journal (08/31/2010)
Down The president's advisers agree: We're not leaving next July...

20 Million Acres of Land Seized in Afghanistan
Tolo News (08/31/2010)
CSA officials say most of the governmental land seized by influential people belong to the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, and the rest of the land belongs to Afghan citizens...

Petraeus Finishes Guidelines for Afghan Security Transition
Thom Shanker - The New York Times (08/31/2010)
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Afghanistan, has completed work on new guidelines for turning some security duties over to Afghan forces in the months ahead...

The Surge and Afghanistan
John McCain - The Wall Street Journal (08/31/2010)
Unless he understands the reason for success in Iraq, the president is unlikely to lead a successful strategy against the Taliban...

The media is obsessed with how Muslim women look
Fatemeh Fakhraie - CNN (09/01/2010)
Muslim women are more high profile than ever in 2010. However, a problem remains: news stories about them are fixated on appearance...

Afghan corruption official denies report he was fired
AFP (08/31/2010)
"The New York Times has invented that story about me, I strongly dismiss (the) report," Faqiryar told AFP...

A muted 'victory' points to similar exit from Afghanistan
The Age, Australia (08/30/2010)
With combat operations at an end in Iraq, the even longer war in Afghanistan is due for reassessment. ''Operation Enduring Freedom'' came under the same rhetorical banner as the Iraq war - although the architects...

Occupation politics stymie Afghanistan
Sreeram Chaulia - Asia Times (08/30/2010)
Filling the pockets of unscrupulous Afghans and elevating their unconstitutional weight in the nation's fragmented polity may not even be fetching the touted benefits that the US Army and intelligence...

971 killed in Afghan conflict over past month
Xinhua (08/30/2010)
Continued Taliban-led insurgency in the war-torn Afghanistan have claimed 971 lives including 618 Taliban militants, 229 civilians and 124 personnel of Afghan National Police (ANP) over the past month...

For Arms Sales Suspect, Secrets Are Bargaining Chips
Scott Shane - The New York Times (08/30/2010)
Immersed since the early 1990s in the dark side of globalization, Mr. Bout has mastered the trade and the transport that fuel drug cartels, terrorism networks and insurgent movements from Colombia to Afghanistan...

Will Chinese Mining Venture Bring Wealth - or Heartbreak - to Afghanistan?
Politics Daily (08/30/2010)
The United States initially welcomed China's $3.4-billion investment to develop Afghanistan's largest copper mine. But today, three years later, China has made little progress on the roads and power plants...

U.S. Scans Afghan Inmates for Biometric Database
Spencer Ackerman - Wired.com (08/30/2010)
Don’t think of the U.S. military’s new Detention Facility In Parwan as just a holding pen for suspected insurgents. It’s also an emerging datafarm, storing biometric...

"We are who we fund" - Gen. David Petraeus
Rachel Martin - NPR (08/30/2010)
Paying For Friends In Afghanistan Doesn't Buy Loyalty...

Bombing villages feeds Taliban war
Toronto Star, Editorial (08/29/2010)
The Pentagon calls it "a good strike." Last Friday, United States-led coalition and Afghan troops radioed in U.S. warplanes to bomb the village of Nawabad, where the Taliban leader Mullah...

Abdullah Abdullah : Karzai would seek to remain in office beyond 2014
Ben Farmer in Kabul - Telegraph (08/29/2010)
Abdullah Abdullah, who was defeated in last year's disputed poll, warned that the president's allies were lavishly funding loyalists' campaigns in an effort to tame the lower house of parliament...

American Concerns Over Karzai Deepen
Adam Entous - The Wall Street Journal (08/29/2010)
State Department Seeks Information About Ouster of Afghan Prosecutor as Tensions Grow Over Anticorruption Effort...

Analysis: Will battle for Kandahar win the war?
Denis D. Gray - The Associated Press (08/29/2010)
Now, as U.S. and allied forces wrestle with urban warlords and take on die-hard insurgents in booby-trapped orchards and grape fields, the battle for Kandahar is being described as the decisive campaign, a linchpin...

Karzai Aide Scandal Underscores Afghan Anticorruption Failures
Abubakar Siddique - Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (08/29/2010)
For years, Mohammad Zia Salehi managed to keep a low profile, even while wielding significant influence in the murky world of Afghan politics...

7 US troops killed in latest Afghanistan fighting
Christopher Bodeen - The Associated Press (08/29/2010)
Seven U.S. troops have died in weekend attacks in Afghanistan's embattled southern and eastern regions, while officials found the bodies Sunday of five kidnapped campaign workers for a female candidate...

Afghan gov't denounces U.S. media report of Afghan officials on CIA payroll
Xinhua (08/29/2010)
Afghan government on Saturday termed the U.S. media reports that some officials are on the payroll of United States intelligence agency CIA as baseless and denounced it...

US pullout plans give Taliban a boost in Afghanistan, says Hamid Karzai
Stephen Bates - The Guardian (08/29/2010)
Afghan leader echoes views of US general that naming July 2011 as withdrawal start date has invigorated insurgents...

School 'gassing' shows Afghanistan's theological chaos
Nushin Arbabzadah - The Guardian (08/29/2010)
The alleged Taliban attack on Totia high school reflects how the conflict is now about interpretations of Islam vying for power

Intelligence chief tells his spies to zip it
The Associated Press (08/29/2010)
The director of national intelligence is telling his people to zip it, after a string of recent leaks to the media...

Five missing campaign workers in Herat found dead
The Associated Press (08/29/2010)
An Afghan official says villagers have found the bodies of five kidnapped campaign workers for a parliamentary candidate in the western province of Herat...

Top Karzai aide says U.S. must alter its strategy
David Nakamura and Joshua Partlow - The Washington Post (08/29/2010)
In a rare extended interview, Mohammad Umer Daudzai, who usually plays a behind-the-scenes role at the presidential palace, said he was speaking out because media reports of worsening U.S.-Afghan relations...

Graft-Fighting Prosecutor Fired in Afghanistan
Dexter Filkins, Alissa J. Rubin - The New York Times (08/29/2010)
One of the country’s most senior prosecutors said Saturday that President Hamid Karzai fired him last week after he repeatedly refused to block corruption investigations at the highest levels of Mr. Karzai’s government...

Several girl students poisoned in Kabul
Xinhua (08/28/2010)
Several students of a girl school in the Afghan capital of Kabul were mysteriously poisoned and went unconscious on Saturday, a private television channel reported...

A Pashtun Writes
Sharifullah Shahak - The New York Times (08/28/2010)
When I heard about the pregnant woman who was executed by the Taliban, I felt deep sorrow for her — sorrow because she was just a widow who was without a man in her life for four years...

MP defends Panjsher's provincial status
Muhammad Hassan Khitab - Pajhwok (08/28/2010)
In an interview with a private TV channel two days back, Ghafoori said the population of Panjsher was 141,000 and that it was upgraded as a province because of political considerations...

Gas pipeline deal in October
Rahmatullah Afghan - Pajhwok (08/28/2010)
KABUL (PAN): A deal to lay a pipeline taking gas from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India through Afghanistan is expected to be signed in October this year, officials said on Thursday...

President Karzai Modifying Election Law in His Favor
Aunohita Mojumdar - EurasiaNet (08/28/2010)
The Canadian chairman of the previous ECC, Grant Kippen, a veteran of Afghan electoral processes, remained unflappable during the August elections despite "considerable domestic political pressure....

Afghan politicians 'on CIA payroll'
Al Jazeera (08/28/2010)
Multiple members of the Afghan government are on the payroll of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), according to US media reports citing unnamed officials...

Military contractor pleads guilty in $200K Afghan kickback scheme
Bruce Golding - New York Post (08/28/2010)
Daniel Freeman admitted accepting "illegal payments" from Afghan companies to award them millions in U.S. Army sub-contracts between 2007 and 2009...

Taliban attack NATO bases in E Afghanistan, 13 suicide bombers killed
Xinhua (08/28/2010)
"A group of Taliban terrorists raided two bases of NATO-led troops in Khost province early Saturday but all the attackers were killed," provincial police chief Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai told Xinhua...