Category Archives: Afghanistan

Shia mosque suicide bombing kills at least 47 in Afghanistan

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More than 80 injured in explosions at building in southern city of Kandahar after Friday prayers

A suicide bombing at a mosque in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar has killed at least 47 people and injured more than 80, in the second major attack on Shia worshippers in Afghanistan in a week.

The Imam Bargah mosque was particularly crowded when the attackers struck, because the community had been holding memorial prayers for the victims of the previous bombing, in northern Kunduz province.

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Afghan refugees accuse Turkey of violent illegal pushbacks

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Migrants, many fleeing the Taliban regime, claim they are being beaten, harassed and turned back by Turkish border forces

As the sun sets over a dusty ravine on the outskirts of Van city in eastern Turkey, Muhammdullah Sangeen and dozens of other Afghans are preparing for another night sleeping rough.

The 22-year-old, who has a bruised left eye and fresh cuts all over his arms, arrived from Iran a few days earlier with the help of smugglers. “I am not OK,” said Sangeen, his legs trembling. “I’m not feeling human.”

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Afghan refugee stabbed to death in London in front of schoolchildren

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Hazrat Wali, 18, who came to UK two years ago, attacked near sports field where children were playing rugby

A teenage Afghan refugee was stabbed to death on a sports field in south-west London in front of schoolchildren playing rugby.

The victim, named as 18-year-old Hazrat Wali, from Notting Hill, was attacked at about 4.45pm on Tuesday on Craneford Way, Twickenham, yards away from Richmond upon Thames College, which he attended.

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Critically ill Afghans suffer as Taliban tighten Pakistan border

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Shortage of specialised doctors in Afghanistan means patients seek lifesaving care in Pakistan, but conventions have changed

Fareed Ullah has crossed Afghanistan’s border to Pakistan 10 times for treatment for his three-year-old son, Taha, who has thalassaemia major, an inherited blood disorder. Up until the Taliban takeover in August he had never experienced a problem, but when he tried to transit via the Torkham crossing late last month, he was stopped by the Taliban from entering.

Doctors and family members of patients say conventions at the border have changed since the Taliban takeover, which has made it more difficult for Afghan patients to seek lifesaving care in Pakistan. “There is no system, still,” said Ijaz Ali Khan, the founder and chairman of Hamza Foundation, a charity organisation in Peshawar that provides treatment for thalassaemia and other blood disorders.

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Afghanistan ‘at make-or-break point’ says UN as G20 ministers meet

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Leaders will discuss UN proposal to channel funds to Afghanistan to ease growing humanitarian catastrophe

G20 leaders and ministers will meet by video conference on Tuesday to discuss a United Nations proposal to channel funds to Afghanistan to ease its worsening humanitarian catastrophe.

It will be the first time the world’s richest nations have met to discuss the consequences of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover on 15 August. Afghanistan was 75%-dependent on foreign aid before the takeover, and funds held overseas have been frozen by the US.

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US to hold talks with Taliban over easing evacuations

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Focus of talks in Qatar will be allowing foreigners and at-risk Afghans to leave Afghanistan, says US official

US officials will meet senior Taliban figures this weekend for talks aimed at easing the evacuation of foreign citizens and at-risk Afghans from Afghanistan, a US official has said.

The focus of talks on Saturday and Sunday in Doha, Qatar, would be holding Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders to commitments that they would allow Americans and other foreign nationals to leave, along with Afghans who once worked for the US military or government and other Afghan allies, the official said.

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Shia mosque bombing kills dozens in Afghan city of Kunduz

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Large number of worshippers killed or wounded in blast during Friday prayers

At least 100 worshippers have been killed or injured in a suicide bombing that targeted a packed Shia mosque in Afghanistan during Friday prayers.

The blast took place in Kunduz, the capital city of Kunduz province in the north-east of the country. There was speculation that the attack was carried out by Islamic State (IS), which has a long history of attacking Afghanistan’s Shia minority.

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Civilians killed in deadliest Kabul attack since US withdrawal

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Islamic State suspected of carrying out bombing outside mosque in Afghan capital

At least five civilians have been killed in a bomb blast at the entrance to a Kabul mosque on Sunday, a Taliban official said, the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital since US forces left at the end of August.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but suspicion fell on Islamic State extremists, who have stepped up attacks on the Taliban in recent weeks, particularly in the IS stronghold in eastern Afghanistan.

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Inside the CIA’s secret Kabul base, burned out and abandoned in haste

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A Taliban commander invited the media to inspect the site where America plotted killing raids and tortured prisoners

The cars, minibuses and armoured vehicles that the CIA used to run its shadow war in Afghanistan had been lined up and incinerated beyond identification before the Americans left. Below their ashy grey remains, pools of molten metal had solidified into permanent shiny puddles as the blaze cooled.

The faux Afghan village where they trained paramilitary forces linked to some of the worst human rights abuses of the war had been brought down on itself. Only a high concrete wall still loomed over the crumpled piles of mud and beams, once used to practise for the widely hated night raids on civilian homes.

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‘I don’t know where to go’: uncertain fate of the women in Kabul’s shelters

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Women in refuges have been sent home to their abusers or to prison since the Taliban takeover. Those in the few shelters still open fear what lies ahead

Zari was seven years old when her parents died, forcing her to move in with her uncle. But when he died four years later, his two widows beat Zari and forced her to work long hours weaving carpets. During her teenage years, Zari tried to kill herself.

After her suicide attempt, Zari, now 28, moved into a shelter for abused women. For the past eight years she has held on to the belief that things would get better. She made friends and learned to sew clothes, eventually teaching others to do the same.

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‘I pleaded for help. No one wrote back’: the pain of watching my country fall to the Taliban

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As the fighters advanced on Kabul, it was civilians who mobilised to help with the evacuation. In the absence of a plan, the hardest decisions fell on inexperienced volunteers, and the stress began to tell

In the weeks before Kabul fell, my mind was strangely calm. There is a moment just before the world falls apart, when human beings almost believe they can reverse the sequence of events that has brought them to this point – a flash of magical thinking in which they can will a different reality into existence.

On 2 July, when the Americans left Bagram airbase, I woke up in London with a horrible headache. My phone was inundated with messages of disbelief. “I am so sorry about it,” a few friends wrote, but they couldn’t name “it”. I couldn’t name it either.

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Trump-Taliban deal had ‘psychological’ effect on Afghan government says top US general – video

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The collapse of the Afghan government and its security forces can be traced to a 2020 agreement between the Taliban and the Trump administration that promised a complete US troop withdrawal, senior Pentagon officials have told Congress.

Gen Frank McKenzie, the head of central command, told the House 'the signing of the Doha agreement had a really pernicious effect on the government of Afghanistan and on its military'. He identified a troop reduction ordered by Joe Biden as the 'second nail in the coffin'.

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Top US general says Afghan collapse can be traced to Trump-Taliban deal

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The Doha agreement, signed in February 2020, set a date for the US to fully withdraw troops by May 2021

The collapse of the Afghan government and its security forces can be traced to a 2020 agreement between the Taliban and the Trump administration that promised a complete US troop withdrawal, senior Pentagon officials have told Congress.

Gen Frank McKenzie, the head of central command, told the House armed services committee that once the US troop presence was pushed below 2,500 as part of President Joe Biden’s decision in April to complete a total withdrawal by September, the unraveling of the US-backed Afghan government accelerated.

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Fears grow for photojournalist arrested by Taliban as executions resume

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Taliban deny Morteza Samadi, 21, has been sentenced to death but family concerned for his safety after he was detained while covering women’s protests in Herat

Fears are growing for a photojournalist who has been detained by the Taliban for more than three weeks after being arrested while covering the women’s protests in Herat.

Morteza Samadi, 21, a freelance photographer, was one of several journalists who were arrested at street protests at the beginning of September. All were quickly released except Morteza, whose whereabouts is not known. Some of those detained in Kabul have alleged they were badly beaten and tortured.

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‘Living in a cave is no life’: Pakistani villagers trapped by Taliban and poverty

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Seven years after fleeing army clashes with militants, 100 families eking out an existence on a hillside near the Afghan border are unable to return home

“Don’t talk to me about the government. They don’t help.”

Ninety-year-old Shah Mast is angry. He has been living in the cave he calls home for seven years, ever since an offensive by the Pakistan army against the Islamist militant group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) destroyed his home.

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Blame-shifting over US withdrawal ignores deeper failings in Afghanistan

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Analysis: Senators’ questions to military leadership a contest in sharing out responsibility for failures

The deeply partisan US Congress is rarely a conducive place for national introspection and Tuesday’s Senate hearing on the Afghanistan withdrawal did not provide an exception.

In the midst of the point-scoring and blame-shifting on display in the senators’ questions to the nation’s military leadership, it was clear that it was a contest to apportion shares in failure.

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US Afghanistan withdrawal a ‘logistical success but strategic failure’, Milley says

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  • General and other military leaders in heated cross-examination
  • Milley defends loyalty to country and rejects suggestion to quit

The withdrawal from Afghanistan and the evacuation of Kabul was “a logistical success but a strategic failure,” the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff has told the Senate.

Gen Mark Milley gave the stark assessment at an extraordinary hearing of the Senate armed services committee to examine the US departure, which also became a postmortem on the 20-year war that preceded it.

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Fears for Afghan psychiatrist abducted by armed men

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Dr Nader Alemi, who opened the country’s first private psychiatric hospital, had received death threats before being taken on his way home from work last week

One of Afghanistan’s most prominent psychiatrists has been abducted on his way home from work by a group of armed men.

Dr Nader Alemi, 66, who opened the country’s first private psychiatric hospital in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, was stopped by seven men in a white car last week, said his family.

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