Word: uzbek
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Taliban is predominately based among Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group. Increasing Pashtun power in government would exacerbate ethnic tensions in the capital and in the relatively stable north, where Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara groups that helped Karzai into power are in the majority. Success in Iraq, moreover, was based on the presence of security forces numbering some 600,000 troops and police officers (Iraqi and foreign), whereas in Afghanistan, which is larger both in land mass and population, there are only 160,000 troops. The moderate Sunni insurgents in Iraq could be confident that they would be protected...
...Hafiz Gul Bahadar, based in Waziristan. These men, from the Ahmedzai Wazir tribe, which straddles the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, had formed an alliance with the Pakistani army against Mehsud and other militants. In fact, backed by the army, Nazir and his men had routed some 250 al-Qaeda-aligned Uzbek militants from Wana, in South Waziristan, in 2004. But despite their nonaggression pact with the Pakistani military, both men continued to mount cross-border attacks on U.S. and NATO troops. The fact that they became targets of U.S. drone attacks prompted critics in Pakistan to suggest that the Musharraf government...
...Obama Administration signals that it intends to devote more attention to the war in Afghanistan, many Afghans claim that in the name of fighting the Taliban, the West is ignoring abuses committed by its Afghan proxies. One of the worst offenders, alleges Samimi, is Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic-Uzbek warlord who helped in the triumphant ousting of the Taliban in 2001, when, backed by U.S. special forces, he led hundreds of men on horseback to liberate the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Dostum's militia is accused of that war's worst human-rights atrocity, in which hundreds...
...More recently, Daniel Schneider, Fritz Gelowicz and a third man are alleged to have formed the core of a cell known as the Sauerland Group linked to the Islamic Jihad Union, an Uzbek terror organization with ties to al-Qaeda. The group is believed to have been focusing on striking at U.S. targets as well. German police say that they observed the men purchasing and storing highly concentrated peroxide, which Germany's federal prosecutor believes was for making car bombs. The police further allege that the men scoped out U.S. military facilities or clubs where they believed frequented by Americans...
...head of NATO forces in Afghanistan, has said that he needs to successfully conduct the war. Meanwhile, allied forces have been forced to rely on local militia leaders for intelligence gathering, delivery of supplies and to better understand the country's southern tribal networks. In the north, where the Uzbek and Tajik warlords' historic hatred of the Pashtun-dominated Taliban has maintained a stability that has so far been unattainable elsewhere, both national and coalition leaders are loathe to upset the balance by pushing for prosecution. One former NATO official in Afghanistan compares the warlords to shrapnel lodged...