Foreign Digest: Afghanistan and Nicaragua

Afghanistan: A United Nations study found, as I have been posting, that the Taliban regime that took over Afghanistan last year after an American-led international force supporting the Afghan government withdrew, is intertwined with and backed by Islamist terrorists, and is failing to live up to its assurances about not being as repressive as when it ruled before and of forming a more inclusive government. The Taliban ruled most of Afghanistan from 1997 to 2002, when they were overthrown by the United States, its international and Afghan allies after the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks on New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., the deadliest in history, committed by the al-Qaeda Islamist terrorists whom the Taliban harbored and who has been supporting the Taliban. The U.N. report raised the concern about Afghanistan becoming a source of terrorism again if al-Qaeda and its offshoot, the Islamic State, become more capable of launching attacks beyond the Afghan-Pakistani theater. The Taliban have not received diplomatic recognition from any foreign State. Also as I have posted, the repot also found that there is a growing guerilla opposition made up of former Afghan military and security personnel and representing ethnic minorities excluded by the Taliban. Nicaragua: The Marxist Sandinista regime of Nicaragua, which has become increasingly authoritarian, has reportedly been eliminating hundreds of civil organizations, including both those that are political or associated with opponents of the regime, but also those that are non-political, in an attempt to destroy Nicaraguan civil society and establish totalitarianism, whereby the only institution of any significance would be the State. The Sandinista regime was reelected last year after arresting all opposition candidates. They had seized power in a revolution in 1979 and received backing by the Soviet Union during the Cold War until U.S.-backed rebels forced free elections in 1990, in which the Sandinistas were defeated and gave up power until being elected again nine years ago by promising not to take away the freedoms of Nicaraguans, a promise they have been breaking.