Word: taliban
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...commander of the alliance's 43,250 troops in Afghanistan, has lobbied for reinforcements to help battle the rising insurgency in the country's south. But commanders on the ground would also like a little more help from the Afghans on whose behalf they're fighting. "Frankly, defeating the Taliban is the least of our worries," says one. "They are not going to beat us. It's not them that are crippling the economy. What is killing this country is corruption and drugs. That is not for NATO to deal with; that is for the Afghan government to deal with...
...Transparency International ranked Afghanistan 172nd out of the 179 countries surveyed last year on its corruption-perceptions Index. Hardly surprising, then, that despite thousands more troops on the ground and billions of dollars in aid, the Taliban insurgency has only grown stronger. Ordinary Afghan people are fed up with a government that has squandered their faith and hope by pillaging whatever small treasures remain after 27 years at war. Yet they also resent the international forces that put that government in power but look away when it doesn't fulfill its duties. And the distance between the people...
...squatter off his land. But it turned out OK, says Mumtaz. The cousin went through a broker who was a friend of the judge, paid $6500, and was released a month early. Such stories take on a more somber note when criminals and alleged members of the Taliban are involved - such as Timur Shah, sentenced to death for kidnap, rape and murder, who "escaped" on the eve of his execution last October, while the other 16 men on death row met their intended fate...
...Romania. Those new troops are to join France's current contingent of 1,600. But while those currently in Afghanistan patrol the relatively calm area in and around Kabul, most or all of the new units are expected to be sent to the south of Afghanistan, where the reformed Taliban and their allies have strengthened. Indeed, deaths among Canadian combat personnel in the area have been so high that Ottawa had threatened to pull its military from Afghanistan if NATO allies did not contribute reinforcements. That echoed even sterner U.S. demands for more effort from underperforming NATO members...
...stepped Sarkozy, who in London this week explained his decision by warning, "We can not accept a return of the Taliban and al-Qaeda to Kabul. Defeat is not an option to us, even if victory is difficult." Few in French politics or public opinion disagree with that view. "Afghanistan is still linked in the French mind to the response to 9/11 ... (and) is still widely seen here as the right war" says François Heisbourg, a military expert and special adviser to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Paris...