region:northern afghanistan

a href="▻http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2017/08/20/afgha...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/5987946

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Afghanistan is ripe for proxy war | Indian Punchline

by M.K. Bhadrakumar August 20, 2017 Russia has hinted in the past that the United States is covertly sponsoring the Islamic State in Afghanistan. On Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson raised the bar by alleging that “foreign fighters” who were transferred by “unknown helicopters” have perpetrated a massacre of Hazara Shias in the Sar-e-Pol province in northern Afghanistan. The spokesperson said:

We can see attempts to stir up ethnic conflict in the country… Cases of unidentified helicopter flights to territory controlled by extremists in other northern provinces of Afghanistan are also recorded. For example, there is evidence that on August 8, four helicopters made flights from the airbase of the Afghan National Army’s 209th (...)

’Democracy was hijacked. It got a bad name’: the death of the post-Soviet dream | World news | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/08/central-asia-tajikistan-kazakhstan-kyrgyzstan-uzbekistan-turkmenistan

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The road out of Kommunizm, a small town in southern Tajikistan, is badly paved and bumpy. Like most things here it was built long ago, when the ruling ideology that gave the settlement its name was still thriving.

Home to just 7,000 inhabitants, Kommunizm was at the very edge of the Russian empire, first tsarist then Soviet; a mere 50 miles from Kunduz in northern Afghanistan.

All around the former collective farm is the once splendid iconography of the Bolshevik order. Busts of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin look on to what used to be the main square, while a trio of heroically poised Soviet archetypes have been cast to one side in a car park

#asie_centrale #soviétisme #ex-urss #urss #union-soviétique

Prosecuting gender-based violence in Afghanistan

BALKH, Afghanistan – It was after midnight and Bibi Gul* was in critical condition when her husband and eldest daughter brought her to a hospital in Balkh, a province in northern Afghanistan.

▻http://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/prosecuting-gender-based-violence-afghanistan
#genre #femmes #Afghanistan #violence

The Doctors Without Borders bombing is a symptom of foreign occupation | Medea Benjamin | Comment is free | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/08/the-doctors-without-borders-bombing-is-a-symptom-of-foreign-occupation

But more is needed. The US government must be pressured to provide for the long-term healthcare needs of the wounded survivors and must compensate the families of the deceased. A new hospital must be built to replace the facility that was the only free trauma care hospital in northern Afghanistan, treating 22,000 and performing more than 5,900 surgical procedures in 2014.

The bombing should also be a moment to reflect on the 14 years of US intervention. This intervention has cost the lives of 2,350 US servicemen, plus the lives of thousands of Afghans and servicemen from our Nato partners. It has cost US taxpayers over a trillion dollars, money that could have made an enormous difference funding vital domestic needs.

And what do we have to show for it? Despite 14 years of US involvement at an estimated cost of $33,000 for every man, women and child in Afghanistan (or $14m per hour since 9/11, according to one study), Afghanistan remains mired in poverty, corruption and political strife. Despite the massive amount of effort spent on women’s empowerment, #Afghanistan remains a deeply misogynist culture where only 17% of women can read and write. Despite the massive effort to train and equip the Afghan army, Afghan soldiers have not been able rout the Taliban.

#msf #aide_américaine

Various Items
▻http://www.moonofalabama.org/2015/09/various-items.html

#Afghanistan:

NYT, November 26 2001:

Northern Alliance commanders said Sunday night that their troops had captured the city of Kunduz in the dark, overrunning the last Taliban stronghold in northern Afghanistan.

The deputy defense minister of the Northern Alliance, Atiqullah Baryalai, said that his men had taken control of the city
...
The claims could not be verified Sunday, but the rumble of artillery fire could be heard this morning on the outskirts of Kunduz. The situation in and around the city has clearly been worsening for the Taliban, with several days of mass defections and intense American bombings.

NYT, September 28 2015:

After months of besieging the northern Afghan provincial capital of Kunduz, Taliban fighters for the first time seized control of significant parts of the city on Monday, officials said, sending government security forces retreating toward the airport.
...
Some soldiers who had fallen back to the airport on the outskirts of Kunduz reported that by nightfall, the Taliban effectively had the run of the provincial capital, with no security forces remaining within the city proper.

Afghans Form Militias and Call on Warlords to Battle Taliban - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/25/world/asia/as-taliban-advance-afghanistan-reluctantly-recruits-militias.html?smid=tw-s

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KABUL, Afghanistan — Facing a fierce Taliban offensive across a corridor of northern Afghanistan, the government in Kabul is turning to a strategy fraught with risk: forming local militias and beseeching old warlords for military assistance, according to Afghan and Western officials.

Des voyous (étasuniens) qui promeuvent des voyous (afghans) qui font appel à des (compatriotes) voyous, quoi de plus cohérent ?

« #nos_valeurs » #mascarade

In Spite of the Law, Afghan ‘Honor Killings’ of Women Continue - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/world/asia/in-spite-of-the-law-afghan-honor-killings-of-women-continue.html?emc=edit_t

KABUL, Afghanistan — An 18-year-old runaway named Amina agreed two weeks ago to leave the women’s shelter in which she had taken refuge in northern Afghanistan and go home with her brother and her uncle.

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What happened next is a cautionary tale for two young people from Bamian Province who eloped and are still in hiding, even as some activists are trying to persuade them to turn themselves in.

#afghanistan #crime_d_honneur

Diplomats: Despite crisis, NATO to keep working with Russia in Afghanistan - News - Stripes
▻http://www.stripes.com/news/diplomats-despite-crisis-nato-to-keep-working-with-russia-in-afghanistan-1.

NATO would continue using a key overland supply route through Russia for its forces in Afghanistan known as the Northern Distribution Network, which carried about 40 percent of all alliance supplies to Afghanistan in 2013. The rail route, leading from northern Afghanistan to Poland and the Baltic nations, is considered crucial because it is safer than the ambush-prone alternative route through Pakistan.

The diplomat said cooperation in equipping and training the Afghan air force in the use of Russian helicopters also would continue, as would joint efforts to fight the Afghan drugs trade.

“These are issues that are vital to both sides, so it’s natural to continue working together,” the official said.

In Washington, a Defense Department official said there had been no problems with Russia when it came to moving freight through the northern route since the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis.

“Everything is flowing well,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media on this topic.

But he noted that even if the Russians did cut off the supply route, “it wouldn’t stop our operations in Afghanistan, but it would be more expensive … and more challenging” to ship via other routes.

Unlike for NATO as a whole, only about a quarter of all supplies for U.S. forces in Afghanistan flow through the northern route, according to the Pentagon.