Karzai says NATO should leave or focus on Pakistan

by | Aug 4, 2016 | News

 

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai says that foreign forces should either leave Afghanistan to deal with its civil war, or focus on the Taliban’s foreign backers in Pakistan. And he says that bombing Taliban positions just makes things worse.

He told The Guardian:

Karzai emphasized to The Guardian that he is not “anti-Western”, and that he is “very, very sorry” for Western military lives lost in Afghanistan. But,  “he warned that if foreign forces don’t change approach, those soldiers may have died for nothing.”

‘“NATO has been here for 14 years,’  he said, adding that foreign forces are fighting for the same districts as they were when they had 150,000 troops. ‘Are we better off? Do we have more security? No.

“’It means something is wrong. The way things are done, it has been in vain for us.”’

To read The Guardian’s story, please hit this link.

 

NATO and Afghans make progress against the Taliban

by | Jul 21, 2016 | News

 

U.S. and other NATO forces, working with an increasingly  well trained and effective Afghan military, are making considerable progress against the Taliban insurgency.

The Washington Post reports: “The operations are part of a broader effort by Afghan forces, backed by increasing U.S airstrikes, to treat the Taliban more as a foreign enemy than as a domestic insurgent group worthy of some military restraint, according to Afghan officials and analysts. As a result, they say, there are signs the Taliban is under strain this summer while Afghan security forces, at least the elite ones, are finally becoming a battle-ready force.”

To read The Post’s story, please hit this link.