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Ethnic tensions, Taliban attacks pose traps for Afghan leader
[REUTERS] Taliban advances and a shootout between gunnies from rival ethnic groups in Kabul...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the Worldand didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... that carried echoes of Afghanistan's 1990s civil war have underlined the threats facing President Ashraf Ghani  ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. ..two years after he came to power. The skirmish earlier this month in the capital, sparked by a row over plans to re-bury a former Tajik king, was relatively minor by Afghan standards, but also a rare open display of hostility between ethnic groups that often simmers under the surface yet defines decades of conflict. At the same time, the Taliban have stepped up operations only weeks before a major conference of international donors to Afghanistan in Brussels. Last Thursday, the bully boy movement's fighters appeared to walk right into the center of Tarin Kot, capital of the central province of Uruzgan, and though the faceless myrmidons were pushed back, residents say it is now a ghost town of empty roads and shuttered shops. The fighting in Uruzgan and other provinces including Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... in the south and Kunduz in the north, plus a string of attacks in Kabul in the last few months, provide stark evidence of the Western-backed government's inability to guarantee security, 15 years after the fall of the Taliban. NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... and Afghan security officials are on alert for more attacks after the Eid holiday this week. So far, opposition groups have avoided calling openly for Ghani to go, wary of creating a power vacuum at a time when the Taliban insurgency is gaining in intensity. But this month is the deadline by which the government was to have introduced a new structure following the disputed election of 2014, which forced Ghani to divide power with his rival, Abdullah Abdullah ... the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against Karzai. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun... , in an awkward "unity" administration. The deadline is set to expire with none of those changes in place, which experts say undermines Ghani's legitimacy at a time when the Afghan public is far from happy with his performance. "It's a manageable situation, but the risk of it getting out of hand becomes acute around September," said Scott Worden, director of Afghanistan and Central Asia Programs at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington. Ghani has the support of the United States, Afghanistan's key ally; Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... said in April that Washington does not consider the deadline binding and expects the government to serve a full five-year term. Whether it lasts that long may depend on how Ghani gets on with his chief executive Abdullah, who recently accused the president of being unwilling to listen to his ministers and unfit to hold office. Senior aides say they have ironed out their differences after a series of meetings, and government unity is undamaged. "There's an environment of better understanding and agreement," said government spoEthnic tensions, Taliban attacks pose traps for Afghan leaderkesman Shahhussain Murtazawi. "What you see in the media doesn't reflect reality." Posted by: Fred 2016-09-13 |
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