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Sekundar works in national security, and has worked and studied in Central and South Asia.

has written 24 articles at Registan.


What the Andar Uprising Is and Is Not

by Sekundar

I would’ve liked to get to this sooner, but the fantastic, first-of-hopefully-many Registan conference was occupying my time. During the conference, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by the Kagans on the Andar “Uprising” (which I think could be more correctly termed “the Andar-settling-of-scores-by-and-large-unrelated-to-ISAF-or-the-Karzai-government”) as an indicator of success. Despite returning to focus [...]

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Afghanistan’s Future

by Sekundar

To concur with Foust’s most recent post, the outlook for Afghanistan is grim. The surge, unfortunately, did not work as it was supposed to, and partnership efforts are a bloody mess. According to Gilles Dorronsoro’s recent paper, Waiting for the Taliban in Afghanistan (well worth a read), “The Afghanistan regime will most probably collapse in a [...]

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Afghan Local Police on Hold

by Sekundar

As Registan readers know, forming and arming paramilitary groups in Afghanistan is not a new idea (Josh wrote of it most recently last year here). The British and the Soviets did it.  Pakistan does it with its Pashtuns (or really, just kept the British programs in place). NATO has embraced the concept with gusto, creating [...]

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Last Days of FRI

by Sekundar

There have never been as many Westerners in Afghanistan as there have been in the last decade. The Soviets barely had half as many, including the civilians and contractors. People came to Afghanistan in the last decade for a myriad of reasons: for money, curiosity, honor, because they were ordered to, because of some sort [...]

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Religious Tolerance and Belief in Central and South Asia

by Sekundar

Recently the Pew Reseach Center conducted a poll addressing religious tolerance in the Muslim world (h/t Dawn), titled The World’s Muslims: Unity and Diversity. Of note to Registan readers, they interviewed about 1500 subjects from Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and about 1000 from Uzbekistan. I wish they’d been able to do some [...]

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Karzai’s Misdirection

by Sekundar
Thumbnail image for Karzai’s Misdirection

Going after President Karzai is something I’ve so far (more or less) avoided, but recently he stated “Sometimes I hear that some businessmen are fleeing and moving their businesses to outside Afghanistan… Curses be upon such businessmen that made tons of money here and now that the Americans are leaving they flee. They can leave [...]

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Tajik Photo Set

by Sekundar

The BBC has a very nice photo series up right now called Tajik Village Life. It’s a quick nine, with the obligatory old person looking wistful and remembering the good ol’ days, but the the photos are nice and the scenery stunning.

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Losing the Peace in Paktya

by Sekundar

Emilie Jelinek has a good piece up at FP about the decreasing sense of security in Gardez, Paktya. While the province itself has not been terribly peaceful, Gardez, besides the odd shelling/wanton murder by a disgruntled warlord, was relatively calm until this last year, when attacks, especially the spectacular kind, picked up dramatically. Since then, [...]

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Don’t call it a drawdown

by Sekundar

…It’s a “surge recovery.” No joke. Thank you, IJC and ISAF. You will be missed.

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We are ready

by Sekundar

“We are ready” –Gen Zahir Azimi, Afghan MoD, NYT. Unfortunately, most of the country is not. Thomas Ruttig over at FP (by the way, who the hell is Michael Waltz and why did anyone print his anecdotal and poorly thought-out piece? Is Waltz seriously advocating an endless commitment?) seems to have hit the nail on the [...]

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