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    Akbar Shahid Ahmed

    Akbar Shahid Ahmed

    Foreign Affairs Reporter, HuffPost

  • Donald Trump Is Pressuring U.S. Allies To Endorse His Favorite Conspiracy Theory

    A wounded president who lost the popular vote is seeking foreign help to validate himself and attack his enemies.

  • Now Can We Talk About Iran's American Prisoners?

    Tuesday's announcement of a deal between Iran, the U.S. and five other world powers restricting the controversial Iranian nuclear program has drastically cut the risks of future U.S. conflict in the Middle East, secured a legacy achievement for President Barack Obama and shown that diplomacy can bear fruit even on issues once thought intractable. The Obama administration maintained throughout the negotiating process that it wanted the talks with Iran to focus exclusively on nuclear security, lest Tehran try to leverage the imprisoned Americans to win concessions on other issues important to the U.S. Still, U.S. negotiators said they raised the plight of the Americans each time they met with their Iranian counterparts. Three of the Americans -- Saeed Abedini, Amir Hekmati and Jason Rezaian -- are held in Iranian prisons under charges relating to state security.

  • Four Americans Are Still Trapped In Iran, Deal Or No Deal. Here Are Their Stories.

    If the U.S., five other world powers and Iran can finalize a deal this week to restrict the Islamic Republic's nuclear capabilities, America will be well on its way toward a warmer relationship with Iran. Four American citizens are presently in captivity in Iran. Three who have dual Iranian and American nationality and are therefore considered by Tehran to be under its jurisdiction are known to be in Iranian prisons.

  • Congress Voted Against Directly Arming Iraq's Kurds. Here's What That Means For The ISIS Fight.

    President Barack Obama's strategy for combating the extremist Islamic State group is still evolving. “ISIS is deadly and determined, and Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces -- our critical partner in the fight against ISIS -- need U.S. weapons as quickly as possible," Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said last month. Ernst, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, recently failed to secure passage of a measure that would have allowed the administration to directly ship weapons to the Kurds.

  • Dem Senator: Obama Has Been Pushing Foreign Policy Through Trade All Wrong

    Hours after it became clear that President Barack Obama's trade agenda would make it through Congress, a top Democratic voice on foreign policy told The Huffington Post that while he respected the Obama administration's foreign policy goals, it was pursuing them in a dangerous fashion with its current approach to international trade. "I think the president is compelling in that there's an economic element to statecraft ... but the question here is whether the potential benefits when it comes to America's economic and diplomatic relationships in the region are worth the potential job loss back here at home," said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

  • Were Schools A U.S. Win In Afghanistan? Maybe Not So Much.

    With Afghanistan's situation already looking more precarious than ever because of a re-energized Taliban insurgency and potential Islamic State growth, a congressional watchdog is now suggesting that one rare success story of the post-U.S. invasion era may have been oversold. John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, revealed Thursday that he had recently written to the U.S. Agency for International Development to highlight his concerns about the $769 million USAID has spent on education in Afghanistan as of March 2015.

  • Obama Brokered Secret Deal Between 2 Arab States That Could Help End Libya's Civil War

    Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, two U.S. allies that have been fighting a proxy war in Libya since shortly after the 2011 overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, have agreed in principle to resolve their differences, The Huffington Post has learned. This previously unreported commitment, made between top leaders under pressure from President Barack Obama during talks at Camp David on May 14, suggests that peace negotiations in Berlin between the Gulf states' Libyan proxies may yet bear fruit. The Qatar-backed, Islamist-aligned Tripoli government controls most of western Libya, while the UAE-linked, internationally recognized Tobruk government dominates the east.

  • With ISIS At Its Door, Kurdistan Struggles To Accommodate Sunni Arabs And Yazidis

    Asked about Kurdistan in Iraq, the autonomous region that has become the United States' favored partner on the ground against the Islamic State group, most officials and analysts speak of constant attacks, military strategy and weapons supplies. This means that amid its existential battle, Kurdistan is struggling with a question that has plagued other humanitarian havens around the world: Can a government under pressure accommodate all the new arrivals? Kurdistan's challenge is especially important.

  • U.S. Sends Another 450 Military Personnel To Iraq To Combat ISIS

    The United States will send another 450 military personnel to Iraq to help forces there combat the extremist Islamic State group, the White House announced Wednesday, signaling a shift in focus for the U.S. and a tacit acknowledgement that the militants have not been weakened as much as the Obama administration has claimed. The additional personnel will establish a new U.S. training site -- the fifth in Iraq -- at Taqaddum military base in Iraq's Sunni-majority Anbar province, according to White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

  • Oil Agreement Central To Iraq's Unity In ISIS Fight May Be Crumbling

    A December 2014 oil agreement struck between Iraq's central government and the country's autonomous Kurdish region is in jeopardy and could soon need to be renegotiated -- only adding to Iraq's difficulties as the country attempts to push back well-armed militants tied to the extremist Islamic State group. When Baghdad and the Iraqi Kurds concluded the agreement, it was seen as a major positive development for the effort to push the Islamic State out of Iraq. The U.S. said the deal would aid both the Iraqi military and the Kurdish forces tackling the Islamic State, or ISIS.

  • Kurdish Leader Reaffirms Partnership With U.S.

    Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, who visited the U.S. for the first time since 2012 earlier this month, believes the U.S. has effectively affirmed its commitment to his region of Iraq, according to his top representative in Washington. "What I would say the visit achieved was a reiteration of the strong relationship that there is between the United States and the Kurdistan region in Iraq," said Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman in an interview with The Huffington Post the week following Barzani's visit.

  • Kurds In Iraq And Syria Move Closer In ISIS Fight Because Blood 'Trumps Everything'

    In an important development for the fight against the Islamic State group, the Kurdish forces in Iraq and Syria are drawing closer together, according to the top U.S. representative of the Iraqi Kurds. "We're ready to defend Kurds wherever they are, and our relationship with the PYD is better than it was," Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman told The Huffington Post. The PYD is the most powerful political party in Syria's quasi-autonomous Kurdish regions.

  • "What Happened To The Yazidis Is Nothing But Genocide"

    When the Obama administration began military action against the Islamic State back in August 2014, one of its stated goals was to defend Iraq's Yazidi religious minority from mass killings by the militant group. Almost a year later, hundreds of thousands of Yazidis have fled their historic homes in northwestern Iraq to escape what many argue is a genocide perpetrated by the Islamic State. After successfully conquering the Yazidi areas of Iraq in August, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, summarily executed hundreds of Yazidi men over the age of 14 and took hundreds of women as hostages.

  • Why Is The U.S. Desperate To OK Slavery In Malaysia?

    On Friday night, in an impressive display of dysfunction, the U.S. Senate approved a controversial trade bill with a provision that the White House, Senate leadership and the author of the language himself wanted taken out. The provision, which bars countries that engage in slavery from being part of major trade deals with the U.S., was written by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.). At the insistence of the White House, Menendez agreed to modify his language to say that as long as a country is taking "concrete" steps toward reducing human trafficking and forced labor, it can be part of a trade deal.

  • Two Children Killed In U.S. Airstrike In Syria, Pentagon Says

    The military made the announcement by declassifying an internal investigation into a Nov. 5, 2014, raid near the town of Harim in northern Syria. The investigation states that the strike was aimed at the meeting places of militants linked to the Khorasan Group, an al Qaeda subsidiary that the U.S. says is plotting to attack Europe or the U.S. and has described as the most dangerous element in the Syrian conflict. The strikes "likely resulted in the destruction of Khorasan Group-affiliated targets that had been converted to military use," the investigation says, adding that "the children had not been assessed as residing at any one of the targets."

  • New Details On Wasteful $36 Million Army Facility In Afghanistan Could Threaten Joint Chiefs Nomination

    A congressional watchdog on Wednesday provided new details on a $36 million facility in Afghanistan that was regarded as unnecessary by commanders on the ground, and ultimately was never used by the United States. Per the investigations, Vangjel instructed that the project continue even after the top Marine commander in the province, along with other generals, had informed the Army that he did not see a need for the $36 million facility.

  • Top Dem Blasts Iraq's ISIS Strategy As Baghdad's U.S.-Friendly Leader Struggles

    Days after it lost a vital provincial capital in its fight against the Islamic State group, Iraq's fragile government is now seeing setbacks in another battle: the struggle for U.S. approval and support. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and a prominent congressional voice on foreign policy, blasted Baghdad in a Tuesday morning Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters. "If Iraqis aren't willing to fix the security problem, we shouldn't send the U.S. military to do the job for them," Schiff said, raising the question of whether the U.S. should expand its footprint in Iraq beyond its airstrike campaign and the 3,000 advisers it presently has posted there.

  • For The Record, Yes, George W. Bush Did Help Create ISIS

    Jeb Bush isn't even an official presidential candidate yet, but he's already facing a serious challenge to his candidacy -- and it just got worse because of a 19-year-old. "Your brother created ISIS," college student Ivy Ziedrich told Bush during a town-hall-style meeting in Reno, Nevada, on Wednesday. "ISIS" is a common name for the militant group that calls itself the Islamic State, and the "brother" in question, of course, is former President George W. Bush.

  • The $60 Billion Question: Can Afghanistan Take The Taliban And ISIS On Its Own?

    American taxpayers have spent $62.5 billion on Afghanistan's military and police forces since the U.S. invaded that country in 2001. It could all go to waste -- or, worse, to extremists -- if the Afghan and U.S. governments don't increase their vigilance, according to the top watchdog for U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. "The evidence strongly suggests that Afghanistan lacks the capacity -- financial, technical, managerial or otherwise -- to maintain, support and execute much of what has been built or established during more than 13 years of international assistance," said John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, in an address at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Wednesday.

  • Kurdish Leader Aligns With White House Over Congress On ISIS Strategy

    Visiting the U.S. for the first time in three years, the leader of one of the chief forces combating the Islamic State group had a message on Wednesday for his hosts in Washington: Don't forget who's making the sacrifices in this fight. "This has not been an easy task," said Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, at an invite-only event co-hosted by the Atlantic Council and the United States Institute of Peace. Barzani is the commander-in-chief of the Kurdish peshmerga forces, which have retaken significant territory from the Islamic State group since last summer with the help of airstrikes and other support from a U.S.-led coalition.