Word: afghanization
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...Jungle lived up to its name on Tuesday as hundreds of French riot police stormed the camp and arrested 278 people - almost all Afghan, and nearly half of them children. The French government says the raid was a much-needed crackdown on human traffickers. But even as police were leading immigrants out of the camp, refugee organizations warned that the action would do little to deter desperate people from making the hazardous journey across Europe, and instead blamed French officials for failing to deal with them. "The French government has effectively washed its hands of the problem and deliberately held...
...sight of Afghan men camped in squalid settlements around Calais is hardly new. Over the past decade - and even before the 2001 Afghanistan war began - thousands of Afghans have traveled illegally on epic journeys that last weeks and cross several borders. They all have one goal in mind: to sneak aboard container trucks on ferry boats bound for Britain, where they see their best prospects. With no national identity cards in Britain, illegal immigrants for years have found it easier to escape notice there than in France, where police frequently check immigrants' documents in the streets. (Read "Postcard from Calais...
...Sadder still is Najib Akhel Jabar, a rail-thin 12-year-old from the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, who said his father sold a piece of land to pay smugglers to take him and his cousin, also 12, to Europe, after Taliban fighters had repeatedly tried to press the boys into fighting with them. French Immigration Minister Eric Besson said on Tuesday that the 132 children arrested would be housed in special immigration youth centers until officials determined whether they qualified for asylum. In the camp on Monday Jabar described how he and his cousin hid in container trucks...
...terms of disrupting terror networks, there have been notable successes in Pakistan's tribal badlands. Straddling the Afghan border, this region has long been notorious as a base for al-Qaeda, Taliban and foreign fighters who threaten both Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is from here that Western governments fear that the next 9/11-style attack could emanate unless action is taken. Over the past year, Washington has intensified CIA-operated drone strikes - yielding a flurry of successes. Air strikes may have killed two prominent al-Qaeda commanders over the past fortnight. If confirmed, the deaths would be further blows...
...That's a question that still has to be answered. A month on, the final count has been paralyzed while U.N. and Afghan officials argue over what to do next. Some want to declare Karzai the winner quickly, arguing that even with the fraudulent ballots subtracted, the incumbent may still have gathered more than 50% of the vote. This, they say, would spare Afghanistan and the international community another costly and potentially violent vote in the midst of winter blizzards. Hence all that talk of a backroom deal between Karzai and Abdullah, in which Karzai would remain President but Abdullah...