Tag: Afghanistan

Instead of suicide bombers, it is possible to groom "nurses, teachers, beautiful housewives and good husbands" at Tora Bora, one of the "scariest" areas of Afghanistan and where Osama Bin Laden was long thought to be hiding, Mina Wali, founder of a private school in the disadvantaged area, told EurActiv in an interview.

The death of Osama Bin Laden represents a significant victory for the United States and its European allies. However, it will have little effect on Al-Qaida's "leaderless" model for terrorism, nor does it resolve the continuing serious difficulties in Pakistan, argues security analyst Scott Stewart.

Little in the way of surprise or revelation has come out of the WikiLeaks cables, writes the Geopolitical Diary at Stratfor.

US President Barack Obama will meet EU leaders for a two-hour meeting in Lisbon on the sidelines of a NATO summit on Saturday (20 November).

Afghan forces should be leading security operations throughout their country by 2014, an international conference said on Tuesday (20 July), and they should be aiming to take over from foreign troops in some areas this year.

The Dutch coalition government collapsed on Saturday (20 February) after the two largest parties disagreed over whether to withdraw the Netherlands' 2,000 troops from Afghanistan as planned this year.  A general election is widely expected to be held in May or June.

US President Barack Obama's national security team heads to Congress on 1 December to address concerns from sceptical lawmakers on expanding the war in Afghanistan by sending another 30,000 troops.

Following the agreement on 20 October by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to face a second round of voting in Afghanistan's disputed election, the EU called on all parties to ensure a "credible" and "legitimate" second round. A UN-led fraud inquiry tossed out enough of Karzai's votes to trigger a run-off.

Berlin's involvement in a NATO air attack in Afghanistan on 4 September that killed dozens of people, including civilians, sparked antiwar sentiments in Germany ahead of national elections on 27 September and put the government on the defensive.

The EU welcomed as a victory of democracy the presidential elections held in Afghanistan yesterday (20 August), in spite of reported irregularities and violence, which took the lives of at least 26 people.

"Afghanistan reveals Europe's incapacity to formulate coherent collective security strategies and dedicate the resources required to implement them," writes Fabrice Pothier, director of Carnegie Europe, in an April paper.

US Vice President Joe Biden appealed to NATO allies on Tuesday (10 March) to help the United States tackle worsening security in Afghanistan, saying the alliance was struggling to deal with a threat to the West as a whole.

"Europe got the [US] president it wanted on 4th November," writes Tomas Valasek, director of foreign policy and defence at the Centre for European Reform (CER), in a November commentary.

The European Union has engaged in in-depth discussions with the United States over the last three years to harbour prisoners detained in the controversial US Guantanamo centre in Cuba, EU counter-terrorism chief Gilles de Kerchove revealed in an exclusive interview with EurActiv.

Which countries' troops will have to face the growing danger in Afghanistan? That is the tricky issue under discussion at NATO's Riga summit.  

NATO defence ministers meeting in France did not agree to expand training of Iraqi military on the ground, but the alliance will gradually take over full command in Afghanistan.

NATO's secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer wants more co-operation between the EU and NATO plus an enhanced NATO presence in Afghanistan.

Representatives of four Afghan rival factions signed an agreement on 5 December, creating an interim government to replace the Taliban regime. The interim administration will be headed by a Pashtun leader, Hamid Karzai, and will take power in Kabul on 22 December for a period of six months.

The European Union will host an international donors conference for Afghanistan on 17-18 December in Brussels, a spokesperson of the European Commission has announced.

The United Nations has called for a two-year transitional government for Afghanistan backed by a multinational security force after the Taliban forces fled the Afghan capital Kabul. While world leaders said the UN should have a leading role in the pacification of Afghanistan, EU diplomats expressed fears that Europe will be left out of the peace talks.