Tag Archives : Afghan elections

‘Democracies make elections, elections don’t make democracies.’ This applies particularly to Afghanistan that has been trying to be a democracy since the Bonn Agreement that created the country’s post-Taliban government in 2001. Even more desperate than this attempt are the never-tiring efforts of the West, especially the United States, [...]

7 Afghan civilians were killed and 91 were wounded as a suicide car bomb exploded near the main gate of the NATO-led international military mission in Kabul. The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the bombing. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid signified the claim and proceeded to describe the explosives that weighed 1,100 pounds or 500 kilograms [...]

More than 4,000 US marines and 650 Afghan soldiers have launched a major offensive against Taliban strongholds in the southern province of Helmand, according to military sources. The Afghan and US troops descended on the region in helicopters and armored vehicles. NATO planes add strategic support. ‘Operation Khanjar’ (Sword Strike) is the first [...]

Barely three months to the Afghan elections, efforts at detailed security accelerate to prevent attacks in a time when the whole world would be looking at Afghanistan. “At the end of 2008, there was a time when the Taliban were able to besiege the capital and controlled the main access roads. That would not be repeated,” says a UN official who [...]

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai recently signed a law that legalizes rape in marriage. When marital rape is a cause of disdain and concern all across the globe, here is one country where it is permitted by virtue of law. It is said that Karzai signed the law in his desperate bid to win the votes of fundamentalist groups of the country’s Shiite [...]

It seems that the Taliban gets ammunition, money, and training from the people expected to eradicate them. The powerful and influential secret service of Pakistan (ISI) provides crucial support to different factions of the Taliban fighting in Afghanistan, as published by The New York Times, quoting U.S. and Pakistani sources in Washington and Islamabad. The [...]