AFGHANISTAN: THE NEXT PHASE by ZALMAY KHALILZAD

The Taliban's recent conquest of Taloqan and other military successes against its United Front opponents in northern Afghanistan has brought the war to another turning point. Unless the United Front reverses these gains, the Taliban will have reduced the opposition to a minor military nuisance, making itself the unquestioned master of Afghanistan. Such a development could have a profound effect for Afghanistan and for Central Asia and beyond.
In this article, I first describe the situation in Afghanistan and the factors responsible for its current condition.

WHY WAR IS GOING ON IN AFGHANISTAN:
THE AFGHAN CRISIS IN PERSPECTIVE by OLIVIER ROY

The continuation of war in Afghanistan is linked to both domestic and regional factors, and has led to a strategic realignment in the area, with Pakistan and Turkmenistan siding along with the Taliban, while Tajikistan, Iran, Russia and India try to prevent the fall of the United Front, more in order to check a Pakistani breakthrough in the area than to prevent the spread of 'Islamic fundamentalism', which in fact is limited to Uzbekistan. But, Uzbekistan, caught between its fight against the Islamic opposition and its fear of a greater Tajikistan, tries to keep neutral in the present conflict.

TALIBAN'S AFGHANISTAN: LOOKING INTO FUTURE An Indian Perspective * by SREEDHAR

Historically Afghanistan is part and parcel of the Indian psyche at two levels. It is the land of Gandhari (a princess from today's Kandahar), the wife of the king Drutrashtra, one of the principle characters in the 5000-years old Indian epic Mahabharata. It is a land of brave warriors, kings and emperors and a cradle of civilisation. At a popular level, it is the land of Kabuliwallah, a fictitious character in a short story written by the Nobel Laureate Ravindranath Tagore.

ON THE SITUATION IN AFGHANISTAN by MARIANNA ARUNOVA

The peculiarities of the current situation in Afghanistan appear to be largely determined by the ethnic and political processes. These gained momentum in the aftermath of the fall of Najibullah's regime, when Mujahidin rule was established under the name of the Islamic State of Afghanistan (ISA) and, later, during the rise of the Taliban movement.
The Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Chaharaymaks and representatives of other ethnic groups populate the country.

PEACE IN AFGHANISTAN? THE PROBLEM AND PROSPECTS * by MAQSUDUL HASAN NURI

Conflict resolution and peacemaking is an incremental and painstaking task that may not bring immediate laurels nor does it make headlines. Yet the quest for normalisation and peace in Afghanistan, symbolised by the '6+2 Group' initiative, may present a new window of opportunity to the lingering Afghan imbroglio.

CONTAINING THE TALIBAN: PATH TO PEACE IN AFGHANISTAN by ISHTIAQ AHMAD

Taliban, the Islamic warriors of Afghanistan, live up to their words. "Taliban victory will set a model for other Muslim nations to follow," Maulvi Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil, the Taliban Foreign Minister, told me in an interview in Kandahar in February 1995. The Taliban had by then captured only one-third of Afghanistan and their victory in the rest of the country was far from certain.

GEOPOLITICS OF AN AFGHAN SETTLEMENT by PETER TOMSEN

The road to an Afghan political settlement must proceed through two challenging rings: an inner ring of conflict among Afghans, plus an outer ring of nations manoeuvring for influence against each other inside Afghanistan. The two rings overlap. External powers use Afghan factions as surrogates to serve their own competing objectives in the region. This essay will concentrate on the outer ring, examining the geopolitical incentives and disincentives motivating outside powers to promote - or to prevent - an Afghan political settlement.

COULD AFGHANISTAN BE A KEY TO ASIAN CO-OPERATION AND SECURITY? by TIMUR KOCAOGLU

Afghanistan became one of the most significant points of international conflict just overnight on 27 December 1979 when a large Soviet airborne force occupied Kabul, signalling the Soviet invasion of this land-locked Asian country sandwiched between Iran, Soviet Central Asian, China and Pakistan.2 The world perceived the Soviet offensive in Afghanistan as a bold step to instigate Moscow's long-standing imperial goal of expanding its borders towards south Asia to gain access to the Indian Ocean. 

THE SHADE OF EXTREMISM OVER CENTRAL ASIA by ASKAR AYTMATOV

Nowadays international terrorism, religious extremism, organised crime and drug trafficking has developed into real threats to peace and stability in Central Asia.

The 1999 Batken incidents in south Kyrgyzstan were a serious test for the whole of our peaceful nation. At that time, Kyrgyzstan was not ready for military action on neutralisation on its territory of armed bandit groups of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. They captured hostages, including Japanese citizens, and demanded that the authorities provide them with a great amount of money and a corridor for free access to neighbouring Uzbekistan

RESISTING THE TALIBAN AND TALIBANISM IN AFGHANISTAN: LEGACIES OF A CENTURY OF INTERNAL COLONIALISM AND COLD WAR POLITICS IN A BUFFER STATE by M. NAZIF SHAHRANI

The Afghanistan people's jihad victory over the Afghan Communist regimes and their Soviet Russian patrons, which lasted for a decade and a half (1978-1992), turned quickly into a bitterly disappointing inter-ethnic sectarian war of all against all, culminating in new foreign proxy wars and the rising menace of Talibanism, which is threatening peace and stability in Central and south-western Asia.

BOOKREVIEW

ATATÜRK
by Andrew Mango, London: John Murray, 1999, pp. xii, 666
YÜCEL GÜÇLÜ

BOOKREVIEW

AFGHAN BUZKASHI :
POWER GAMES AND GAMESMEN
By Sreedhar and Mahendra Ved, Vols. I-II, Delhi: Wordsmiths, 2000.
TIMUR KOCAOGLU

BOOKREVIEW