Afghanistan

CIC's Barnett Rubin was interviewed in this Gandhara article about the demands to release Hajji Bashar Noorzai, a Taliban leader who is incarcerated in a U.S. prison.

"'He is politically important to the Nurzais in Loya Kandahar,' Rubin said of Noorzai’s status as an important tribal figure among the Nurzai, a large Pashtun tribe in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar and adjoining regions collective referred to as Greater Kandahar by Afghans. 'That is a very important constituency for the Taliban,' he added."

CIC's Barnett Rubin was interviewed by Gandhara about Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan, which have been flagged as the "number one impediment to defeating the insurgency inside Afghanistan that now controls one-third of the country’s rural areas."

“If and only if the political agreement between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Taliban provides for demobilization and repatriation of Taliban fighters, including those in Pakistan, Pakistan will help implement the agreement and move against any who resist it,” Rubin said.

CIC Research Associate Said Sabir Ibrahimi was quoted in The New Arab about the appointed of Mawlavi Mahdi as a Taliban district chief—the first Shia Hazara to be selected for the group's ranks.

“The Taliban has never been an inclusive force; their leadership in Quetta and Peshawar and their political office in Doha are run by Sunni Pashtuns. They have had token Tajik commanders in the field, particularly in the north, but now they are trying to include some token Shia Hazaras in the mix,” Ibrahimi said.

CIC's Barnett Rubin is quoted in this article in War on the Rocks on U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.

"Barnett Rubin and Sultan Barakat have made a heartfelt plea in these pages to save the U.S. deal for a settlement in Afghanistan," Martin Skold writes, engaging their argument at length and reaching a different conclusion.

Read the full article in War on the Rocks here.

CIC's Barnett Rubin appeared on this week's episode of the Council on Foreign Relations podcast The President's Inbox to discuss the future of the US presence in Afghanistan.

Rubin told podcast host James M. Lindsay that "the United States needs to stay engaged in a positive way, with the political actors, as they meet in these negotiations. Because both sides, in particular the side we have been supporting, will have to make some tough decisions."