The Washington Post's Pam Constable has an excellent piece about the knock-on effects of the Israeli ground campaign – in Afghanistan.
The Gaza offensive has sparked protests throughout the Arab world; in Britain, protesters threw shoes outside the gates of the Prime Minister's residence. In Afghanistan, Constable finds, Israel's war against Hamas "has become conflated in the minds of some Afghans with U.S. motives and actions in Afghanistan."
Constable visits the Miladul Nabi mosque in Kabul, where young men are organizing a drive to collect blood plasma, money and volunteers to fight Israel. The imam, Ehsan Habibullah, says: "Israel is a terrorist state, and the Americans are supporting it, so how can they claim to be against terrorism? In Afghanistan, they are bombing civilians and setting dogs against women and children. They are not killing al-Qaeda – they are killing us."
As we've noted here before, the United States and its NATO allies have been facing growing resentment in Afghanistan. Reliance on air power has stoked perceptions that the coalition is indiscriminately killing civilians; the Taliban has capitalized on civilian casualties as part of a successful information campaign. While I wouldn't expect a long-running backlash over the events in Gaza, things are off to an even more precarious start this year in Afghanistan.
[PHOTO: dailymail.co.uk]
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