Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

Not to Remain Ignorant of Issues that Matter

Over the last one year, much focus has been paid to dealing with the insurgents and Taliban militants. Both international community and Afghan government have been trying to find a political settlement to the country's protracted conflict. In the meanwhile, international forces have been using intelligence and drones to target some senior and high-ranking militants and insurgents inside and outside Afghanistan with the aim to break the momentum gained by the insurgent groups over the last four to five years.

For instance, the US Special Forces carried out attack to kill Osama Bin Laden in area close to Pakistani capital, Islamabad. The latest development shows that a senior Haqqani network leader and two of his associates were killed during a precision airstrike in southeastern Khost province as said by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on Wednesday, October 05, 2011.

According to a statement from ISAF, the man killed is named Dilawar who operated along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border between Khost and Paktiya provinces. The statement said that "Prior to Khan's capture, he worked closely with Dilawar planning attacks throughout the area.

Specifically, Dilawar had just conducted an ambush on Afghan forces in Paktia province last month." ISAF says that during 2011 Afghan and NATO-led forces have carried out more than 530 operations to disrupt Haqqani network activities in eastern Afghanistan.

They also inform of the death of 20 network leaders and the capture of more than 1,400 suspects. It shows that there has been a considerable amount of effort and energy put to crack down on the insurgents and miscreants.

But it should be said that to win the hearts and minds of Afghan people and to remove the context for Taliban's operations there has to be sufficient attention paid to cleaning up the government agencies both at national and local levels and enabling them to provide services to Afghan people.

But unfortunately this area remains ignored and the government is evading the responsibility to address corruption issues and improve services for the citizens.

Security and stability will not come without addressing the corruption and building a transparent and functioning system and without bringing about accountability and reward and punishment system. Afghan government is trying to remain ignorant of these critical issues.