As the US gears up for withdrawal of its its troops from Afghanistan, which will begin in July, RFE/RL quotes Frants Klintsevich, who served as a colonel during the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s and now heads up Russia’s Union of Afghan Veterans as saying that ‘as soon as the Americans and Europeans leave, the Taliban will crack down on everything’. 

Hardly an outcome likely to please Russia, which is battling an ongoing Islamic insurgency within its own borders.  The idea of having radical Islam return to the war-ravaged state is scarcely palatable for Moscow, who may well fear that the rebels currently undermining the Kremlin’s position in the North Caucasus would find economic and spiritual sustenance in a re-emergent neighboring caliphate.  Today Reuters examines how Russia plans to establish a foothold in the territory: