Author: |Posted: 2:24 pm on 21/08/09
Category: World News Blog
It was a simple and unoriginal idea.
Stick your finger in the indelible ink, then see how easily it washes off.
Across Afghanistan, the plan was to prevent repeat voting by putting this ink on the right index finger of each person brave enough to vote.
There were drawbacks; the Taliban had threatened to hang, behead, or remove the finger of anyone caught with such a stain.
But there was another more complicated problem.
Author: |Posted: 1:11 pm on 19/08/09
Category: World News Blog
Alex Thomson casts an eye over the main rivals to President Karzai in this week’s Afghanistan presidential election.
Three leading candidates – and even by Afghan standards there’s a lot to choose from.
No leading women in this race of around 36 presidential wannabees. But hey, this whole pooling gig is in its early days just now.
So what have you got as you peruse your ballot paper (and probably do that as fast as possible in case the Taliban decide to target your friendly local polling station)?
Author: |Posted: 2:48 pm on 27/07/09
Category: World News Blog
It is very hard today to read the foreign secretary’s new strategy for Afghanistan.
The aims of Nato are laudable. They are invariably necessary and they are vital for the security of both Britons and Afghans alike.
But, worringly, they are becoming more unattainable every day. read more
Author: |Posted: 12:49 pm on 02/07/09
Category: World News Blog
British troops feel an understandable hatred when you say this. They’re experiencing record casualties and have done a remarkable job in one of the worst provinces in Afghanistan for five years.
But there’s no getting away from it: they simply can’t do what the Americans can, and they know it.
Today 4,000 Marines are doing what the British have not done for the last few years: pushing deep and forcefully into Taliban territory in Helmand. read more
Author: |Posted: 4:10 pm on 03/06/09
Category: World News Blog
I blame journalists. If we didn’t demand numbers, governments wouldn’t have to make them up.
How many people have been displaced by the fighting in Pakistan? According to the government, 2,882,642. read more
Author: |Posted: 5:28 pm on 01/06/09
Category: World News Blog
MALAKAND, PAKISTAN – In Pakistan they have have a great sense of the continuity of history.
These days, local government officials are called district coordination officers or DCOs rather than political agents, but when I visited Malakand yesterday I noted that the sign on the gate still read “Political Agent’s Residence” as it must have done since 1895 when the British took control of the area.
Above the DCO’s desk was a wooden board listing the names of all the political agents of Dir, Swat, Chitral, Bajaur and Malakand Agency. read more
Author: |Posted: 2:57 pm on 29/05/09
Category: World News Blog
My Pakistani journalist friend was clear. “This is the first serious effort by the Pakistani army since 9/11 to eliminate the Taliban.” In other words, the military assault to oust the militants from Swat shows that Pakistan’s strategic thinking has changed.
An intelligence contact reinforced the point. “It may have been America’s war in the past, but it’s no longer so,” he said. “It’s now our war and our security at stake.”
After General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani took over as army chief last year, he read more
Author: |Posted: 1:12 pm on 27/05/09
Category: World News Blog
MARDAN, PAKISTAN – The Taliban said they would take revenge for the attacks on them in the Swat valley, and they might do it anywhere in Pakistan.
It seems they have been as good as their word. This morning, we were in Mardan visiting refugees from the fighting in Swat when we heard about the blast in Lahore.
The refugees are the most obvious victims of this war, but the impact is being felt all over the country. read more
Author: |Posted: 1:23 pm on 14/05/09
Category: Snowblog
Yesterday in Downing Street I asked Gordon Brown whether Saudi Arabia is still funding the Taliban. I was attending a news conference he was hosting with Pakistan’s President Zardari.
Mr Brown did not address my specific question. Sidestepping the Saudi aspect, he described the MI6 financial units that are now hard at work tracking Taliban transactions and bank accounts.
Author: |Posted: 5:33 pm on 11/05/09
Category: World News Blog
In quieter times, Taj Mahmad pulls a cart loaded with vegetables for a living. But today’s Washington Post quotes him as saying that he fled government shelling so quickly that he and his wife were forced to leave their son and three-year-old daughter behind. “My wife cried and said the rest of us would be killed if we stayed, so we kept going,” Mr Mahmad says. “I have no idea what happened to them”.
Another refugee, Bakhte Rwan, tells the Associated Press that he found his wife and two sons dead after he’d returned home from prayers at his local mosque. read more
