...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. ..said Monday.
I generally dump them all into "Taliban" or "ISIS" groups unless there's a particular identification as to faction -- Haqqani network, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, East Turkestan Islamic Movement, or Hizb-i-Islami-Hekmatyar. Pak Taliban's Mullah Fazlullah lives and operates from Afghanistan and probably within the country. So does Jamaat ul-Ahrar. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi flits back and forth across the Durrand Line with seeming impunity. There have been U.S. and Afghan air strikes on Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad camps and, if I remember correctly, HuJI. And of course there are the friendly Arab invaders affiliated with core al-Qaeda. No doubt Ghani and Abdullah and the intel community are aware of more.
In remarks made during a first-of-its-kind "Day of Security Forces" ceremony at the military airbase in the capital 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....
, Ghani said: "There is not much of a difference between these terror groups. All of them, God forbid, want to destroy Afghanistan but use different tactics."
He paid tributes to the sacrifices of thousands of security personnel, many of whom have bit the dust and limbs in the ongoing violence in the country.
The president said Afghanistan did not want war but it was imposed on it. He questioned the legitimacy of the Taliban’s insurgency, and vowed to take more measures to strengthen and further equip Afghan forces in a bid to scale down casualties.
According to the U.S. government's Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction figures, 6,785 Afghan security personnel were killed between Jan. 1, 2016, and Nov. 12, 2016, with another 11,777 maimed. This is about 35 per cent more than in 2015, when some 5,000 security forces were killed after taking the nation-wide security responsibilities from the NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants...
forces.
Also on Monday, Gen. John Nicholson, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, reiterated support for a peaceful, stable and prosperous Afghanistan. In a message to mark the "Day of Security Forces", Nicholson said NATO would continue providing training, assistance and support o the Afghan forces.
Taliban confirm commander’s death
In a rare admission, the Taliban in Afghanistan have acknowledged the death of their key commander in a U.S.
Afghan Taliban on their website Monday said Abdul Salam Akhund was killed in a U.S. air raid in the province’s restive Dasht-e-Archi district bordering Tajikistan.
The Afghan Ministry of Defense had announced the myrmidon’s death on Sunday.
Asadullah Omarkhail, front man for the provincial governor, told Anadolu Agency: "This is a major blow to the murderous Moslems who have been forced to flee Kunduz after a clean-up operation was launched by the security forces upon reclaiming Kunduz last year."