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SUMMARY OF PANEL DISCUSSION ON
AFGHANISTAN IN 2007: AN UPDATE AND OVERVIEW
OF MILITARY OPERATIONS
Sponsored by BASIC and the George Washington
University Conflict Prevention Forum
March 27, 2007 10:00-11:30 am
at the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George
Washington University
1957 E St. St., NW, 6th Floor, Washington, DC
Biographies
Ali
A. Jalali
Ali A. Jalali is currently serving as both a Distinguished
Professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic
Studies (NESA) and as a researcher at the Institute for National
Strategic Studies (INSS). From January 2003-September 2005,
Mr. Jalali was the Interior Minister of Afghanistan. Prior
to assuming his post as Minister, Mr. Jalali was the Director
of the Afghanistan National Radio Network Initiative and Chief
of the Pashto Service at the Voice of America (VOA) in Washington,
DC. As a journalist, he traveled extensively while covering
the war in Afghanistan (1982-1993) and the former Soviet Central
Asia (1993-2000). His work includes hundreds of analytical
reports for the VOA on political, economic and social developments
in the region. He is a frequent commentator on Afghan issues
at major U.S. and European TV and radio networks. He is a
published writer in three languages (English, Pashto, Dari/Farsi)
and the author of numerous books and articles on political,
military and security issues as well as the Islamic movements
in Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia. A former Colonel in
the Afghan Army and graduate of high command and staff colleges
in Afghanistan, the United Kingdom and the United States,
Mr. Jalali served as top military planner with Afghan Resistence
following the Soviet invasion in 1979.
Seth
Jones
Seth
Jones is a political
scientist at the RAND Corporation
and an adjunct professor in Security Studies at Georgetown
University. He earned his MA and PhD in political science
at the University of Chicago. He is a well-known expert on
Afghanistan
and
U.S.
foreign policy,
having travelled there as recently as January to conduct field
research on the progress of counter-insurgency efforts.
Dr.
Jones attracted considerable
attention for his frank assessment of the use of
Pakistan territory
by Afghan insurgent and terrorist groups. In a well-publicized
interview with
the New York Times
in 2006, he said there
was widespread evidence from NATO,
Afghan, and UN
sources
that Pakistani intelligence agents had been financing, training,
and providing intelligence to
Taliban
insurgents based in
Baluchistan
and the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas of
Pakistan.
Dr.
Jones also received considerable
attention for his work with Ambassador James Dobbins on nation-building.
Their RAND book,
America's Role in Nation-Building,
which examined the U.S. history of nation-building since
World
War II,
suggested that the U.S. needed nearly 500,000 soldiers to
stabilize
Iraq
after the overthrow
of Saddam
Hussein's
government. Dr.
Jones has published articles
on counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency in journals such
as Survival and in print media, including the Financial
Times, the International Herald Tribune and the
New York Times.
Steven
Monblatt
Steven Monblatt is the Co-Executive Director of BASIC in Washington,
DC. He was previously Executive Secretary of the Inter-American
Committee Against Terrorism at the Organization of American
States (OAS) and before that, Deputy Coordinator of Counter-Terrorism
at the U.S. Department of State and Professor of Strategic
Studies at the National War College. Mr. Monblatt is a counter-terrorism
professional with a broad geographic and substantive security
background. He is an innovative communicator with over 30
years of experience in the U.S. Information Agency in the
United States and abroad, and a political analyst with a strong
record of problem solving. While he was at the OAS, he built
from scratch a Secretariat whose organization and programs
have been recognized by the U.N. Counter-Terrorism Committee
as a model for other regional organizations.
Homira
Nassery
Homira
Nassery was born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1961. She was five-years
old when her family immigrated to the United States of America,
where she acquired a Bachelor's Degree in Biology and Chemistry
and a Master's Degree in International Development. Following
10 years of working with the World Bank in post-conflict countries,
Ms. Nassery returned to Afghanistan in 2003 to assist in reconstruciton
and development. Her background is primarily social development,
with 13 years of working as a registered respiratory therapist
in emergency rooms and critical care units prior to joining
the World Bank. In the four years that she has been in Afghanistan,
she has worked in all regions of the country as a consultant
for NGOs, the United Nations, NATO, and USAID contractors,
as well as writing free-lance pieces for various publications
such as the Afghanistan National Human Development Report.
She has recently returned after living and working as Gender
Specialist and Monitoring & Evaluation Coordinator for
the Alternative Livelihoods Project South (ALP/S) based in
Lashkargah, Helmand - covering the three provinces of Helmand,
Kandahar, and Uruzgan.
Cameron
Scott
Cameron
Scott is a Program Associate with BASIC. He completed his
undergraduate degree at the University of St. Andrews and
recently completed a masters in international security at
the University of Bristol. Since September 2006, his work
has focused on BASIC's Trans-Atlantic security program, with
a particular emphasis on NATO and operations in Afghanistan.
He authored the BASIC Report "Assessing
ISAF: A Baseline Study of NATO's Role in Afghanistan,"
and he will continue to work on this project for the near
future.
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