Archive of Joshua Foust

Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust

Joshua has written 1801 articles at Registan.


Just… Wow

by Joshua Foust
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Tara McKelvey reports on human rights in Uzbekistan, sort of: As I stood at the gate, I held my passport and a notebook filled with the names of both kinds: dissidents who had been outspoken about human rights abuses, along with others who were willing to talk as long as they could remain anonymous. The [...]

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Atambaev the Unreliable

by Joshua Foust
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ITAR-TASS has some unkind things to say about new Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambaev: Russian-Kyrgyz relations have deteriorated sharply. Russia is dissatisfied with Kyrgyz plans to shut down a russian military base, and Bishkek demands to replace the General Secretary of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). The new apple of discord became the Dastan torpedo [...]

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Jill Metzger Abduction Confirmed

by Joshua Foust
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The U.S. Air Force has completed a lengthy investigation into the brief disappearance of Jill Metzger (remember her?) and concluded that she was abducted. After talking to hundreds of people, canvassing areas of Kyrgyzstan and conducting a forensic analysis of the evidence, investigators determined that all of the evidence supported Metzger’s account of what had [...]

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The Denver Post’s Astounding Coverage of the Mukhtarov Case

by Joshua Foust
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The Denver Post has been following the saga of Uzbek refugee turned terror suspect Jamshid Muhtorov, since he settled in the U.S. in Aurora, a city next to Denver, Colorado (when I was doing my undergrad in Boulder, I would teach classes for the Princeton review in Aurora and Columbine, if you can believe it). [...]

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Sunday’s Massacre in Afghanistan

by Joshua Foust

The massacre on Sunday of 16 innocent Afghans — 9 of them children — is appalling. It is impossible to imagine, even as we see images floating over the TV and newspapers. But what does it mean? I tried to answer this a bit on Sunday and over the last two days. On Aljazeera English, [...]

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Thinking About Post-Karimov Uzbekistan

by Joshua Foust
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Scott Horton is absolutely right about this: NATO should be honest about Islam Karimov’s Uzbekistan—indeed, honesty presents cost-cutting opportunities… Islam Karimov won’t live forever—it would be surprising if he were still alive a decade from now, or if his family continued to cling to power. NATO’s operations in Uzbekistan will inevitably benefit him and the [...]

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Jihad in Kyrgyzstan?

by Joshua Foust
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A previously unheard of group is declaring jihad against the Manas Transit Center in Kyrgyzstan: Мы не хотим быть рабами и жертвами праведной ответной атаки иранских ракет! Уже 10 лет нашу родную землю топчет сапог американского солдата. Центральный аэропорт страны, носящий имя Великодушного Манаса, превращен в склад и базу захватнической армии. Армия, которая ведет войну [...]

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Award-Winning Blogging

by Joshua Foust
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Tom Ricks’s award-winning blog has posted a curious broadside against me over my misidentifying the charity Paula Broadwell is contributing some of her book royalties to. The author, a Major currently teaching at West Point who founded the charity she does contribute to, spends about a thousand words calling me shameless while expressing outrage I [...]

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Another Year, Another Year of Turning Points

by Joshua Foust
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Just about a year ago, I noted a disturbing trend in reporting on Afghanistan: every single year was a critical turning point in the war, going back to 2002. 2011, we were told, was the turning point where things would either get better or get worse. Anyway, now that it’s 2012 we have a fresh [...]

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The Putin Plot

by Joshua Foust
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Another election, another “assassination plot” against Vladimir Putin. Security forces have uncovered a plot to assassinate Russia’s Vladimir Putin and have arrested suspects linked to a Chechen rebel leader known for other terror attacks, Russian state television reported Monday. The gist of the plot is that an explosion at an apartment building in Odessa, Ukraine, [...]

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