Asia

Burhan al-Din Rabbani’s assassination late Tuesday was a further signal that things are going very badly in Afghanistan. Rabbani is a former president of Afghanistan (1992-1996) who, however, was impossible to work with and was therefore sidelined after the overthrow of the Taliban (whom he fought) in 2001. He was recently brought back by President […]

Ten years ago, a horrific suicide bombing carried out by Algerian al-Qaeda operatives posing as journalists snuffed out the life of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the great Afghan Mujahidin leader and among the few Afghans who could have hoped to unite the country against the Taliban. Massoud told journalist Sebastian Junger that he opposed the religious […]

Another US helicopter got into trouble on Sunday, and had to make a hard landing in the eastern Paktia province, though no one aboard was hurt. It may have been forced down by Taliban fire. Seven US & NATO troops have been killed in fighting in Afghanistan in the past 48 hours, on top of […]

The murder Tuesday of Ahmad Wali Karzai, the behind-the-scenes authority over Qandahar province and brother of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, shows the continued instability in that country. It is not entirely clear the killing was a political assassination. The bodyguard who pulled the trigger is rumored just to have had a personal grudge with his […]