As Afghan peace talks open, Mideastwire.com announces free access to the Taliban Source Project

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Through a partnership with Thesigers, the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment (FFI) and the University of Oslo, Mideastwire.com has translated and is now making available 1,452 separate translations drawn from nine years of the Taliban’s Arabic language magazine, Al-Samood (Issues 1-99/2006-2014), which together constitute the overwhelming bulk of the Taliban Source Project (TSP) database.

Unfortunately, the TSP as a whole and our translations of Al-Samood specifically were only made available this year because of what we believe was a fundamental misunderstanding of the project and its implication. Indeed, several years ago, the British Library, which was supposed to serve as the main repository, judged that the archive contained some material that could contravene the Terrorism Act.

Thankfully, the University of Oslo recently stepped up and hosted the project, thereby recognizing how freely available, high-quality translations – especially of one’s purported adversary – can actually lead to greater understanding and, potentially, peace-building.

The material in both the original Arabic (downloadable PDF for each month) and English are all searchable in full.

Register via our 15 year anniversary site and download the searchable Index: https://www.mideastwire15years.com/

Or directly via: https://tsp.hf.uio.no/auth/login/