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Afghan govt under pressure as Taliban threaten new district
[DAWN] Taliban...the Pashtun equivalent of men... fighters closed in on another district in Afghanistan on Sunday as officials sought to reassure an increasingly angry public that security would improve. On Sunday, the holy warriors were besieging the governor’s compound in Ajrestan district in Ghazni, south of the capital Kabul, although officials said reinforcements had arrived and were relieving police defending the town. The fighting in Ghazni, which has long had a heavy Taliban presence, follows several days of fighting in Farah province, on the other side of Afghanistan on the border with Iran where the holy warriors came close to overrunning the bustling provincial capital. General John Nicholson, the top US commander in Afghanistan visited Farah on Saturday with the ministers of the interior and defence and the head of the NDS intelligence service. "Farah did not fall and Farah will never fall," he said, calling on the Taliban to accept 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. ..’s offer of peace talks. "We will stay with you until we bring this war to a peaceful conclusion," he said. He met local officials in the governor’s compound and heard a bitter litany of complaints about the failure of the government to protect the city and the province, where the Taliban control many areas. "If you want to make Farah better, then please, you should help before there’s an incident," said Belqis Roshan, a former senator. "We have 10 districts, and apart from the centres, they’re under Taliban rule," she said. Posted by: Fred 2018-05-22 |
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