Gen. David Petraeus congratulated the Afghan Ministry of Defense on Wednesday for reaching its goal of having 134,000 trained national army soldiers - two months ahead of schedule. FULL POST
Three Afghan civilians were killed and two more wounded when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in the Waghaz district of Ghazni province in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said. FULL POST
A woman in a burqa and gloves sells gum on the streets of Kabul. Under Taliban rule women were not allowed to leave their homes without being escorted by a male relative and were required to wear a burqa which covered their bodies from head to toe. Though women have more freedom now than under Taliban rule, some still wear the burqa.
Photo by CNN's Jill Dougherty
Editor’s Note: Abbas Daiyar began his blog, Kabul Perspective, last year to look at issues in Kabul and around the world. He has worked with newspapers in Pakistan and reported for news agencies in the past and is now a member of the editorial board of the independent Daily Outlook Afghanistan newspaper in Kabul. The opinions expressed in this guest blog are solely those of Abbas Daiyar.
Why is it that every policy change is doomed to failure in Afghanistan? From the community-security and reach-out policy to the fight against drugs, all have shown little success so far. FULL POST