CIC's Afghanistan Regional Project (ARP) has developed unparalleled expertise on the country's political dynamics and on issues of reconciliation along with influence with the Afghan government, regional stakeholders, the UN, the US and its NATO allies. ARP's current focus is on its work supporting regional dialogue and on issues of reconciliation and reintegration. ARP is led by Senior Program Coordinator and Fellow, Tom Gregg.

Project Staff: Tom Gregg

Program Staff: Parnian Nazary

Current Projects: Regional Cooperation, Political Settlements

Upcoming Projects: Education

Funders: Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade of Canada, Government of Norway, Open Society Institute, UK Foreign Commonwealth Office, United Nations Development Programme-Japan Partnership Fund

Separating the Taliban from al-Qaeda : The Core of Success in Afghanistan
A CIC Study
February 2011

Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn are researchers and writers based in Kandahar. They have worked in Afghanistan since 2006, focusing on the Taliban insurgency and the history of southern Afghanistan over the past four decades. This paper published by CIC, expands on the following key findings:

• The Taliban and al-Qaeda remain distinct groups with different goals, ideologies, and sources of recruits; there was considerable friction between them before September 11, 2001, and today that friction persists.

• Elements of current U.S. policy in Afghanistan, especially night raids and attempts to fragment the Taliban, are changing the insurgency, inadvertently creating opportunities for al-Qaeda to achieve its objectives and preventing the achievement of core goals of the United States and the international community.

• There is room to engage the Taliban on the issues of renouncing al-Qaeda and providing guarantees against the use of Afghanistan by international terrorists in a way that will achieve core U.S. goals.

Separating the Taliban from al-Qaeda : The Core of Success in Afghanistan | A CIC Study

Read the exclusive article in the New York Times entitled: N.Y.U. Report Casts Doubt on Taliban's Ties With al-Qaeda

Arif Jamal, former visiting scholar at CIC, latest book is Shadow War: The Untold Story of Jihad in Kashmir.

For nearly sixty years, India and Pakistan have battled over the territory of Kashmir. The two nuclear-armed states have fought three bloody wars in the region, but the countries have also fought in the shadows.

Having interviewed nearly a thousand militants in war-torn Kashmir, Arif Jamal presents a news-breaking account of Pakistan's secret battles with India. From the early 1980s, when the Kashmiri conflict lurked in the background of the CIA's proxy war in Afghanistan, to the eruption of insurgent violence in 1988, to recent Kashmiri connections to terrorist financing and training, Jamal brings much to light.

Jamal reveals that the Pakistani military has trained nearly half a million insurgents and, as a matter of defense policy, continued the conflict at great human cost. He also shows how CIA money destined for the Afghan mujahideen was funneled to Kashmiri jihadis, leading to a twenty-year insurgency rarely discussed in Western media.

A contributing writer to The New York Times, Arif Jamal is currently a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University. A leading Pakistani reporter, he has written for the Pakistan Times, The News, and international media such as Radio France International and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.