Government watchdog says £3.5bn aid in 20 years to 2020 failed to achieve aim of stabilising Afghan governmentThe UK’s £3.5bn aid to Afghanistan between 2000 and 2020 was implicated in corruption and human rights abuses and failed to achieve its primar…
Coalmining in Afghanistan – in pictures
From men in their 60s to boys as young as 10, hundreds of miners work every day in Chinarak for just a few euros Continue reading…
Afghan supreme leader orders full implementation of sharia law
Public executions and amputations some of the punishments for crimes including adultery and theftAfghanistan’s supreme leader has ordered judges to fully implement aspects of Islamic law that include public executions, stonings, floggings and the amput…
Taliban ban women from parks and funfairs in Afghan capital
Women ‘bored and fed-up’ at being forced to stay home after latest edict which has hit business hardThe Taliban have banned Afghan women from entering the capital’s public parks and funfairs, just months after ordering access to be segregated by gender…
Retrograde review – extraordinary insider’s view of US withdrawal from Afghanistan
Documentary maker Matthew Heineman watches a tragedy unfold as he follows the Green Berets supporting the Afghan army in the last months of the war against the TalibanAcclaimed documentary maker Matthew Heineman is known for his remarkable ability to s…
‘No darkness is for ever’: can an activist in exile persuade the Taliban to allow teaching on TV?
The regime’s closure of her support and literacy centres for women and girls was crushing, but Jamila Afghani is looking for ways to build a brighter future for the Afghan women she left behind Jamila Afghani was settling into her new home in Kitchener…
Afghan special forces being recruited by Russia to fight in Ukraine
Russians want to attract thousands of former elite commandos who fear being returned to Taliban-controlled homeland from IranAfghan special forces soldiers who fought alongside American troops and then fled to Iran after the chaotic US withdrawal last …
Ben Roberts-Smith v the media, part four: the tunnel
On 12 April 2009, the SAS arrive in the village of Kakarak in Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province. It’s a Taliban stronghold where an Australian soldier was killed just a month earlier. It’s here, in a compound known as Whiskey 108, that one of the most con…
Ben Roberts-Smith v the media, part two: death in Darwan
In the aftermath of an attack on Australian soldiers by a rogue Afghan soldier, the SAS is sent to the Taliban-controlled village of Darwan. They arrive by helicopter at dawn, looking for Hekmatullah, the soldier who shot dead three of their comrades. …
Afghans left in legal limbo in Greece while ‘real refugees’ helped to settle
International Rescue Committee points to unequal treatment, saying welcome for Ukrainians proves integration and support is possible for allIt is 3.30pm and Suna Hamanawa, 25, is doing what she and dozens of other Afghan mothers do most days: whiling h…
Taliban beat women protesting against school bombing, say witnesses
Forces said to have opened fire on crowds demonstrating over attack targeting Hazara communityWomen protesting against the suicide bombing of a school in Afghanistan, which killed 35 young Hazara women and girls on Friday, have been beaten and shot at …
‘These people had our backs’: US veterans lobby to rescue allies trapped in Afghanistan
The Afghan Adjustment Act would offer permanent resident status to Afghans who fled the Taliban but Congress has not taken actionA group of 12 people sit in camp chairs – chatting, smoking, listening – in the dark. Behind them, the Capitol building i…
Afghanistan blast: 19 killed and dozens wounded at Kabul education centre, say police
No immediate claim of responsibility for the attack in which suicide bomber detonated explosives, say police A suicide blast at an education institute in the Afghan capital of Kabul has killed 19 people and wounded 27, police said on Friday.The explosi…
My Sunny Maad review – Czech-Afghan love story told as culture-shock animation
Despite its visual appeal, the characters in Czech animator Michaela Pavlátová’s clash-of-values family drama struggle to get past sorrowful stereotypesPost-Taliban Kabul is seen through the eyes of a Czech bride in this new film from acclaimed animati…
My Childhood, My Country: 20 Years in Afghanistan review – desperately sad study of a boy’s life
Phil Grabsky and Shoaib Sharifi have followed Mir for two decades in what is almost a brutal companion piece to Richard Linklater’s BoyhoodThis documentary following one boy’s life in Afghanistan feels like a brutal, desperately sad companion piece to …