Afghanistan Mired in War as US Combat Command Ends
American and NATO troops closed their operational command in Afghanistan on Monday, lowering flags in a ceremony to mark the formal end of their combat mission in a country still mired in war...
By: WochitGeneralNews
Read the original:
Afghanistan Mired in War as US Combat Command Ends - Video
U.S. Army resident Spc. Surprises Girlfriend at Mall for Christmas from Afghanistan
At Coral Square Mall in Coral Springs FL. Movie courtesy of Christina Lambard .
By: Coral Springs-Talk
Read the original here:
U.S. Army resident Spc. Surprises Girlfriend at Mall for Christmas from Afghanistan - Video
Farid New Song Qari Farid faryadi Afghanistan song 2013 Ustad Mangal4
By: janana song
See more here:
Farid New Song Qari Farid faryadi Afghanistan song 2013 Ustad Mangal4 - Video
Editor's note: Shabana Basij-Rasikh is one of National Geographic's 2014 emerging explorers, a designation that honors tomorrow's visionariesthose making discoveries, making a difference, and inspiring people to care about the planet.
Shabana Basij-Rasikh thinks she knows the secret to healing ethnic tensions that arose from more than 30 years of war in Afghanistan, improving the struggling economy, and fixing the devastated infrastructure: girls.
Having co-founded her home country's first boarding school for girls in 2008, Basij-Rasikh believes that women are the nation's most valuable untapped natural resource. Her nonprofit School of Leadership, Afghanistan in Kabul offers college prep courses and helps graduates get into universities around the world.
The hope is that they come back to pursue careers in Afghanistan.
"These young women are the generation that can bring peace and prosperity back to our country," says Basij-Rasikh, 24, who was educated in secret during the repressive Taliban regime. (Read a Q&A with Basij-Rasikh.)
From 1996 until 2001, when the Taliban was toppled by U.S.-led forces, Afghanistan's women were barred from participating in politics and business. The fundamentalist Islamic regime also made it illegal for girls to go to school.
By 2007, only 6 percent of Afghan women 25 years or older had received any formal education. Even today, the illiteracy rate for rural women hovers around 90 percent. (Related: "New Afghan Law Disastrous for Women, Says National Geographic Photographer.")
To chip away at that number, the School of Leadership has helped students from across Afghanistan access more than ten million dollars in scholarships. The school has 35 students, ages 12 to 18, and is working to boost enrollment to 340 in the next five years.
"The most effective antidote to the Taliban is to create the best educated leadership generation in Afghanistan's history," says Basij-Rasikh. "Our girls todaythe women of tomorrowwill make it happen."
Key to meeting that goal, she says, is involving women from around the world. Each student at School of Leadership, Afghanistanor SOLA, which means "peace" in the Pashtun languageis matched with a volunteer mentor from abroad to Skype with twice a week. Mentors and students discuss current events and books and talk through communications challenges, college applications, and personal problems.
See original here:
A Native Daughter Returns to Afghanistan on Daring Mission: Educating Girls
Washington The United States military and NATO officially shuttered their combat command in Afghanistan in a little-noticed ceremony Monday, more than 13 years after the start of the longest war America has ever fought.
But what had long promised to be a major milestone in the war has been overshadowed by recent strategic changes on the ground. Even as troops lowered the flag of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) joint command which was in charge of combat operations Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel made it clear that the US will be jettisoning its original plan to cut forces to 9,800 by years end.
The Pentagon has announced that up to 1,000 more US troops than initially planned will stay in Afghanistan into 2015. In addition, recent reports have suggested that US forces will conduct counterterrorism operations rather than combat operations.
The moves will not change our troops missions or the long-term timeline for our drawdown, Secretary Hagel said in a news conference with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in Afghanistan Saturday.
But they make the mission of US troops murky, many analysts say.
Originally, December was meant to mark the end of US combat operations in Afghanistan. After 2014, US forces had been slated to become trainers of Afghan troops, rather than fighters. Then came President Obamas decision, reported last month, to allow US troops to continue to target Taliban fighters.
US officials insist that this is different from "combat" operations, and bristle at the notion that this is an expansion of the troops original post-2014 mission. US forces will now simply have a so-called counterterrorism mission alongside their training mission, they said.
This comes on the heels of a spate of recent Taliban attacks, though US officials insist that logistics, rather than an uptick in Taliban activity, is the reason for the extension of US troop deployments.
Still, US military officials have struggled to clarify what the "counterterrorism" mission will entail.
While we wont target Taliban for the sake just merely for the sake of the fact that theyre Taliban and quote unquote belligerents, should members of the Taliban decide to threaten American troops or specifically target and threaten our Afghan partners in a tactical situation, were going to reserve the right to take action as needed, said Rear Adm. John Kirby, Pentagon press secretary, in a briefing with reporters late last month.
Originally posted here:
Symbolic 'end' to Afghanistan war overshadowed by new Obama plans (+video)