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	<title>Registan.net</title>
	<link>http://www.registan.net</link>
	<description>Central Asia News -- All Central Asia, All The Time</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:00:21 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Operation Kandahar is go</title>
		<description><![CDATA[According to Dawn Operation Omaid to clear Taliban from Kandahar has already begun.
Well sort of.
&#8220;US General Stanley McChrystal, said the offensive had begun with initial military and political efforts, including operations to secure key roads and districts.&#8221;
Alternatively:-
“We have been making preparation and plans concerning Operation Omaid,”said General Sher Mohammad Zazai, Afghan army commander in the country’s
south.
“We’re [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.registan.net/index.php/2010/03/18/operation-kandahar-is-go/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Counterinsurgency Is Not Just Talibans</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Bing West—with an apparently unlimited travel budget?—has a report up about Operation Moshtarak, asking if we can learn any lessons from it. While the obvious answer is, &#8220;yes,&#8221; there are some things to consider.
First, nowhere in the first four pages does West mention even tangentially the needs or concerns of the local population. Since the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.registan.net/index.php/2010/03/18/counterinsurgency-is-not-just-talibans/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Possible Proof of Iranian Support for the Taliban</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
For several years, U.S. officials have alleged that &#8220;Iranian weapons&#8221; were being supplied to Taliban militants, mostly in Farah and Herat but also elsewhere in the country. Most often, the official would make the charge in the passive voice, leaving it open to interpretation whether the arms shipments—assuming they were even identified correctly—were official Iranian [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.registan.net/index.php/2010/03/18/possible-proof-of-iranian-support-for-the-taliban/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Registan.Net does the Alyona Show (again)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Ms. Alyona Minkovski was kind enough to have me back on her show to discuss what&#8217;s going on with the bizarre Michael Furlong/AfPax/NY Times &#8220;private spies for hire&#8221; thing.

Yes, that was over Skype, yes it was a terrible connection, yes that is medical tape barely holding my glasses together, and yes I need to buy [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.registan.net/index.php/2010/03/18/registan-net-does-the-alyona-show-again/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Life Under Marjah</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Anand Gopal has an excellent piece on Marjeh before Moshtarak:
Many Marjah residents say that the two years of Taliban rule were better than the six years of Afghan government rule that preceded it. The Taliban ruling apparatus was not sophisticated, but for the rugged, simple town of Marjah it met the bare-minimum requirements. This was [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.registan.net/index.php/2010/03/18/life-under-marjah/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Burst dam in Kazakhstan</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This just in &#8211; a dam burst in Kazakhstan killing dozens and injuring hundreds.  A particularly quick Wiki-response was in the offing, perhaps due to the romanticized notions of famous dam-burstings and their apocalyptic wrath.  This particular dam is identified as the &#8220;Kyzyl-Agash&#8221; [Red Tree] dam, which I guess provides electricity and/or water for drinking/agriculture [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.registan.net/index.php/2010/03/18/burst-dam/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Handling Marjeh&#8217;s Poppy &amp; Other Concerns</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Two weeks ago, I wrote in the New York Times:
Good government will matter little, though, if the local economy is in a shambles. Marja’s agricultural base relies primarily on opium, and any new counternarcotics policies will wreak havoc; arresting or killing the drug traffickers will ultimately be the same as attacking local farmers. The timing [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.registan.net/index.php/2010/03/17/handling-marjehs-poppy-other-concerns/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Economic purge in Uzbekistan</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A report in Asia times implies Uzbekistan has gone Mugabe-esque.
Seems that Karimov has ordered the arrest of a whole slew of Uzbekistan&#8217;s richest.
And what do you know -
&#8220;Uzbek officials are portraying this campaign as a sort of anticorruption drive&#8221;
Alternative theories are &#8211; &#8220;the crackdown could be connected to the president&#8217;s daughters. Such reports say Gulnara [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.registan.net/index.php/2010/03/16/economic-purge-in-uzbekistan/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Antonio Maria Costa on &#8220;Sinister Affairs&#8221;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Today I had the opportunity to hear Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) give a short talk on what he does and what he is trying to do. He had lots of interesting things to say (as someone who went to University of Turin, Moscow State, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.registan.net/index.php/2010/03/16/antonio-maria-costa-on-sinister-affairs/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Holbrooke, Foot, Mouth</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Richard Holbrooke, everyone&#8217;s favorite envoy they love to hate to love, has an almost Biden-esque talent for saying things that make people angry. His most recent comment, that &#8220;Taliban is woven into the fabric of Pashtun society on both sides of the border with Pakistan and almost every Pashtun family has someone involved with the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.registan.net/index.php/2010/03/15/holbrooke-foot-mouth/</link>
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