Afghan security forces said to foil a suicide bomb plot in Laghman province.
M.P. Farkhunda Zahra Naderi discusses the status of women in Afghanistan. She sees real change in women's assertiveness, and also a backlash. "Ms. Naderi said, in fact, the focus on women’s rights had changed the Afghan women to the extent that men, used to decades of superiority, were seeing them as a challenge. She said, men wouldn’t take women seriously. Now, they feared women’s empowerment so much that they got together in July to decrease the 25 per cent quota for women in Parliament, guaranteed by the 2004 Constitution."
India begins training Afghan special forces, an indication of growing military ties between the two countries. Note that it is in part fear of this development which has led Pakistani Interservices Security to maintain ties with the Afghan Taliban, as a means of maintaining influence. Afghanistan is of no real importance to the U.S. but it does matter in regional rivalries. --
The Indian Republic and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan are bounded in brotherly relations since independence these honest ties are deep as oceans and high as skies. With consideration of these honest and brotherly cooperation and relations, the Indian governments have supported the war-devastated Afghanistan in all spheres including health, transportation, high education and infrastructural projects. Considering vitality of the relations with India, Afghanistan signed the first strategic cooperation partnership with India. India provided huge financial and moral assistance to Afghanistan after the country initiated its new political chapter in international politics. The Afghan people are hopeful that India continues backing the country in all sectors in the future including training of Afghan national security forces and equipment for them in order to support Afghanistan to get on its own feet.
There are about 18,000 Afghan refugees currently in India. They do not wish to return under current circumstances, fearing violence and ultimately, Taliban ascendancy.
However, there are millions of Afghan refugees in Pakistan, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province ("KP" in the linked article).
Two thirds of Americans think the Afghan war was not worth fighting in a new WaPo-ABC poll.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, the civil war continues, with 15 soldiers, including 5 officers, killed in a battle with al-Qaeda in Anbar. Remember Anbar province? A brigadier general escapes an assassination attempt in Kirkuk, a police officer and a civilian are killed in Mosul, on Friday six people were killed and 22 injured by explosions in Touzkhormatoo, and on and on it goes.
