Word: kabul
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...Qaeda has its eyes set on Germany," Guido Steinberg, an analyst at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, tells TIME. "We've seen a growing number of attacks on German troops in Afghanistan," he says, including January's suicide bombing near the German embassy in Kabul. Steinberg, a former government adviser on terrorism, says there are lessons to be drawn from the 2004 Madrid commuter-train bombings that killed 191 people. "The attacks took place before the elections, with the aim of influencing the outcome of the vote, so that Spain would pull its troops out of Iraq...
...With reporting by Shah Mahmood / Kabul...
...That question is especially urgent in Afghanistan. Germany is the third biggest troop contributor to the NATO-led international peacekeeping force there, with 3,700 German troops serving in Kabul and in northern Afghanistan, around Mazar-e-Sharif, where Germany heads the northern regional command. More German soldiers are now being sent to Afghanistan in the run-up to the elections in August, bringing the total number to 4,200 by late summer. There are also plans to send 300 more German troops to the country to help support NATO's deployment of surveillance aircraft...
...expanding role in the region. Resource-hungry Beijing has steadily made inroads west, tying up lucrative energy contracts in Kazakhstan, while committing tens of million dollars to infrastructure and hydropower projects in impoverished Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. China has also become the single largest investor in Afghanistan, building roads through Kabul and setting up a massive $3 billion copper mine. In 2001, China formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a geo-political grouping aimed at improving economic and political relations with Russia and other Central Asian nations - as well as a vehicle for Beijing to quash support for separatists...
...know whether Blair intends to appoint a uniformed officer chief in Kabul or not. But if he does, we need to know whether that chief will be in the military's chain of command or remain an independent voice, one the President needs to hear as we get deeper and deeper into Afghanistan...