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| Afghanistan |
| As elections approach, a move to reaffirm a shaky Afghan alliance |
| 2013-09-11 |
| (Reuters) - On a warm, late August evening in Kabul, a long line of black, armoured four-wheel-drives rolled into a palatial compound owned by Abdul Rashid Dostum, an infamous Afghan warlord turned political powerbroker. Infamous to some perhaps. Some of the country's most powerful men alighted and slipped through Dostum's front door for a meeting that marked the first tentative step to maintain stability as the conflict-torn nation faces a turning-point next year, when Western troops withdraw after over a decade of war against Taliban insurgents. Some of the country's most powerful men.... sans Karzai. For much of the 1990s, after the withdrawal of Soviet troops, Afghanistan was wracked by a civil war between various warlords fighting for territory. The Taliban, a movement born in Afghan refugee camps in neighbouring Pakistan, swept into Kabul in 1996, taking advantage of the disarray. Note the "born in refugee camps" misinformation. Dostum's meeting appeared aimed at preventing a return to the chaos of the 1990s, which would fritter away the gains of over a decade of intensive Western engagement in Afghanistan and billions of dollars in aid. We shall see if he is once again betrayed by the feckless west. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |