Jason Burke

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‘The Taliban have clearly indicated their desire for international recognition, or at least acceptance.’ Fighters on guard outside Kabul airport. Photograph: EPA

MundoOriente PróximoInternacionalTerrorismo Internacional,

After the bloodshed at Kabul airport, the grim reality for those who want to prevent Islamic State’s affiliate causing further murder and mayhem in Afghanistan is that in practice their best partner for this complex and difficult battle would be the Taliban.

Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) – the name is borrowed from that used by early Islamic empires to describe much of modern Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan – was founded six years ago. Until this week it had been something of a failure. Though the group made early gains, these were rapidly lost as the Taliban fought back hard: they were not going to allow an upstart newcomer, particularly one largely composed of disaffected former Taliban commanders, Pakistanis and Uzbeks, to take over.…  Seguir leyendo »

James Fields is accused of driving into protesters against a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Photograph: Eze Amos/AP

ReflexionesSocialInternacionalTerrorismo Internacional, ,

This week, dozens of analysts and officials will be spending days huddled over desks, screens and phones, busy pursuing parallel inquiries into two young men of a similar age but dramatically divergent backgrounds. Many will be working for the same three-character organisations – the CIA, FBI, MI6, MI5 etc – in the US, UK or Europe. All will be seeking clues to help them achieve what has become one of the more pressing goals of our world: understanding extremism.

One set of investigators will be looking at the background of Younes Abouyaaqoub, the 22-year-old suspected of driving a van into crowds of tourists in Barcelona last Thursday afternoon, killing 14 and injuring scores more.…  Seguir leyendo »

South African president Jacob Zuma. Photograph: Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP

MundoÁfrica,

A pitted dirt track links the village to the main road. There is intermittent electricity and only haphazard municipal deliveries of water. Children take a bus to school in a township 10km away. The nearest clinic is as far. In the summer, the sun scorches the breeze-block and brick homes. In the winter, a cold wind blasts across the low hills and fields. On a battered fridge in Sibongile Sibeko’s front room is a faded sticker of South Africa’s president, with his trademark wide grin. “Am I a fan? You’re joking. Once, perhaps. Now, no way,” she says.

Few have much time for politicians these days, but rare are those who have attracted as much opprobrium recently as Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, leader of the “rainbow nation” since 2009.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

In two weeks, or six if there is a run-off, Afghanistan will have a new president for the next five years. Whether in five years the new president will still have Afghanistan is uncertain. It depends not on the elections themselves but on what happens afterwards.

These elections, as part of a broader strategic review, will, it is hoped, re-energise the troubled international effort to secure and stabilise Afghanistan by bringing a new legitimacy to a government elected by an imperfect but theoretically universal suffrage.

However, as Benazir Bhutto once explained to me patiently and somewhat ironically given the records of her own governments, if in developed countries a leader's legitimacy comes from being chosen in free and fair elections, in her own Pakistan and in states like it, legitimacy comes more from post-election performance.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente PróximoInternacionalTerrorismo Internacional,

Behind the rise of Baitullah Mehsud in Pakistan lie factors that are not going to be resolved by a missile fired from a drone.

Firstly, there is the fusion of Pashtun tribal identity with a radical Islamic identity. The latter has only ever really thrived when grafted onto a sense of local belonging. Hamas in the Gaza Strip represent radical Islam and Palestinians. Al-Qaida in the Maghreb, about the only off-shoot of the terror group that is thriving at the moment, are, as their name suggests, firmly fixed on a real location. Al-Qaida in Iraq failed through being insufficiently Iraqi, reduced at the end to pretending leaders were from Baghdad when they were Egyptian.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

Saudi Arabian efforts against terrorism in recent years can be characterised as both a velvet glove and an iron fist. The iron fist can be seen in the allegations, denied by Riyadh, made by Amnesty of illegal detention, widespread torture and official immunity. The velvet glove is the well-publicised and generally lauded deradicalisation programme. Two other key elements are often forgotten however and these are probably the most important: an impressively serious research effort to understand the process which underlies radicalisation and a well-targeted and typically well-funded public relations campaign to exploit public anger and disgust at the effects of the violence.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente PróximoEuropaUnión Europea,

So we are sending more troops to Afghanistan. Yesterday, the British government announced a major new deployment. Another 230 soldiers will be heading east. Yes, a whole 230. This is apparently worthy of a speech by the defence secretary to parliament. The Taliban must be laughing into their beards.

Last week 1,200 inmates broke out of the main jail in Kandahar, Afghanistan's second biggest city. During the operation, which lasted several hours, the militants in effect held half the town. The Afghan national army, the local forces on whom the international coalition is pinning its hopes of an early exit from the country, took hours to respond.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

Just over six years ago, in the chaotic days that followed the fall of Kabul and the disintegration of the Taliban regime, I drove out of the Afghan capital, heading south-east. Across the country every individual warlord, exiled commander, senior cleric, returning politician or tribal leader was trying to manoeuvre to be best placed for the post-Taliban era, whatever it might bring.In Gardez, a market town halfway to Khost, I found the local governor in his hujra, the guestroom in which males usually come together to meet, eat and talk. In long ranks around its walls, some reclining on cushions, others leaning forward intently, were three dozen grey-bearded men.…  Seguir leyendo »