Opposition Cautious on Taliban Talks, Karzai's Call for Loya Jirga on US Relations
12 April 2011
Afghanistan's main opposition leader is warning that talks with the Taliban could set back efforts on the ground and is telling the United States that the real problem is President Hamid Karzai. Abdullah Abdullah, who lost to Karzai in a 2009 election marred by fraud allegations, arrived Sunday on a 10-day visit to the United States for talks with officials as they plan the future US role in the war-torn nation. Abdullah, who served as foreign minister...
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Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation in Afghanistan [March 2011]
12 April 2011
The number of security incidents continued to be significant, as it has over the past several years, with 1,664 incidents in January 2011, compared to a monthly average of 1,620 in 2010, and 960 in 2009. Armed clashes and the use of improvised explosive devices constitute the majority of incidents. At the end of 2010, suicide attacks remained at an average of 2.8 per week compared to the weekly average of 2.6 through 2009. Abductions and assassinations...
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12 April 2011
A border police guard and three civilians were injured when Iranian forces shelled an Afghan security post in southwestern Nimroz province, an official said on Tuesday. The cross-border attack came after Afghan police stopped Iranians from diverting water from the Sikhzar canal on Monday, said the provincial border police chief, , Col. Ghulam Haidar. The 30-kilometre canal, located inside Afghanistan, was built last year at a cost of $700,000 (32...
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Kabul Bank To Be Dissolved as Karzai Blames Foreigners
12 April 2011
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Monday that Kabul Bank, the largest private lender in the country, will be dissolved and that he has ordered the Afghan attorney general's office to investigate corruption allegations at the lender and to begin prosecutions. The announcement appears to end six months of tensions between the Afghan government and the international community, which pushed Mr. Karzai to dissolve Kabul Bank and to pursue an investigation...
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Afghan Spy Agency Arrests Insurgent Leaders; Roadside Bombs Kill Workers, Police
12 April 2011
A roadside bomb on Tuesday killed five construction workers in eastern Afghanistan who were in a car driving near the Pakistani border, an Afghan official said. [...] Earlier, a similar bomb killed two Afghan police officers as they were destroying opium poppies in the southern province of Kandahar, while three children died from an insurgent grenade tossed during a NATO operation in the north. [...] NATO said in a statement that during the operation...
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