29 January 2010

Taliban's Leadership Council Runs Afghan War from Pakistan, The Guardian, 29 January 2010

EXCERPT: "The Quetta shura has long been the aching achilles heel of western efforts to defeat the Taliban. While the war is fought in Afghanistan, the thinking part of the Taliban - the one-eyed leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and a council of about 14 other men - is sheltering on the far side of the border, in the western Pakistani province...

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29 January 2010

UN Official Met Taliban in January, The Wall Street Journal, 29 January 2010

EXCERPT: "The United Nations' top representative to Afghanistan met with Taliban officials earlier this month, amid heightened efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the eight-year-old conflict, a U.N. official said Friday. The official declined to say how high-level the Taliban officials were. He said the Afghan government was informed of the meeting, which...

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29 January 2010

Afghan Construction Fund to Spend $2.6 Billion over Three Years, Reuters, 29 January 2010

EXCERPT: "Donors will provide around $2.6 billion to finance development in Afghanistan through a World Bank-administered reconstruction fund over the next three financial years, the fund said on Friday. Representatives of donor countries met in London on Friday, a day after a major international conference on Afghanistan, to discuss the Afghanistan...

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29 January 2010

Interview: Georgian President Proposing Supply Route for US Arms to Afghanistan, The Canadian Press, 28 January 2010

EXCERPT: "Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili says he has proposed to the United States that his country become a logistics hub for the expanding U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. That might be a difficult offer for the Obama administration to accept. In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Saakashvili outlined a...

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