Category Archives: Afghanistan

The US is pulling out of Afghanistan. But it will never leave those of us who served there

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Historians will judge America’s longest war. Now, the sounds of helicopters over my home take me back to Losano Ridge, Gardez, the men I fought for and those who did not return

I am one of more than 800,000 American military veterans who have served in Afghanistan since 2001. Tens of thousands more served in other capacities, from intelligence and diplomacy to aid and development. It’s fair to ask whether the end of the war affects how one views his or her own small role in the effort. If we didn’t “win”, whatever winning means in a war like this, did we matter? Were the sacrifices in vain?

Related: Damned either way, Biden opts out of Afghanistan as US tires of ‘forever wars’

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US has ‘low to moderate confidence’ in reports of Russian bounty on US troops

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  • US intelligence evaluates claims of Afghanistan bounties
  • Press reports sparked outrage and calls to confront Kremlin

US intelligence agencies have only “low to moderate confidence” in reports last year that Russian spies were offering Taliban militants in Afghanistan bounties for killing US soldiers.

The reports in the press citing intelligence sources sparked outrage and demands from Democrats for the Trump administration to confront the Kremlin over the issue.

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Joe Biden: ‘It’s time for American troops to come home from Afghanistan’ – video

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Joe Biden has declared that it is time ‘to end America’s longest war’, announcing that nearly 10,000 US and Nato troops would return home in the run-up to the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Biden said he was the fourth US president to serve in office during the US-led fight against the Taliban. ‘I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth,’ he said

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‘Terrible days ahead’: Afghan women fear the return of the Taliban

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After 20 years of liberty, female education is once again threatened by hardline Islamists

Outside a college from which their mothers were banned, the women waited for friends finishing exams they fear will be some of the last they can take. “The Americans are leaving,” said Basireh Heydari, a Herat University student. “We have terrible days ahead with the Taliban. I’m worried they won’t let me leave the house, let alone what I’m doing now.”

The Biden administration’s decision to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan by 11 September will bring an end to the US’s longest war. With Nato allies such as Germany already announcing on Wednesday that they will follow Washington’s lead and exit the country, Afghans fear an intensification of fighting between the national government and the Taliban, who were ousted by the US-led intervention two decades ago.

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Damned either way, Biden opts out of Afghanistan as US tires of ‘forever wars’

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Analysis: Despite warnings not enough has been done to stablise the country, the president has decided to set aside the rule ‘if you break it, you fix it’

Joe Biden has decided that 20 years is enough for America’s longest war, and has ordered the remaining troops out no matter what happens between now and September.

Biden’s withdrawal is one area of continuity with his predecessor, although unlike Donald Trump, this administration consulted the Afghans, US allies and its own agencies before announcing the decision. But both presidents were responding to a national weariness of “forever wars”.

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Biden to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan by September 11

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  • Biden expected to make formal announcement on Wednesday
  • About 800,000 troops have served at least once in Afghanistan

Joe Biden will withdraw all the remaining US troops from Afghanistan by September 11, the 20th anniversary of the al-Qaida terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, a senior administration official has confirmed.

Related: Secretary of state Blinken hits out at China over Taiwan and Covid

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‘Out of Trump playbook’: UK accused of ‘abandoning’ women with cuts to aid

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Charity warns of 22,000 additional deaths in poorest countries if Wish reproductive health programme ends

The director of a leading sexual and reproductive health charity has accused the government of “abandoning” women and girls it promised to help, as aid cuts derail a leading Tory programme to reduce maternal deaths and prevent unsafe abortions in poor countries.

The threat to the women’s integrated sexual health (Wish) programme could mean 7.5m additional unintended pregnancies, 2.7m unsafe abortions and 22,000 maternal deaths over the next year, said Dr Alvaro Bermejo, director general of International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).

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‘I miss school’: 800m children still not fully back in classes

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Rights groups warn that children across the world are being pushed into abusive situations, from early marriage to child labour

Across the world 800 million children are still not fully back in school, Unicef is warning, with many at risk of never returning to the classroom the longer closures go on. There are at least 90 countries where schools are either closed or offering a mix of remote and in-person learning.

The UN agency’s chief of education, Robert Jenkins, told the Guardian that the closures are part of “unimaginable” disruption to children’s education.

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‘Every year we dig mass graves’: the slaughter of Pakistan’s Hazara

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Decades of persecution has left the Shia minority with little space left in its graveyards but prime minister Imran Khan is in no hurry to listen

Ahmed Shah had always dreamed of bigger things. Though just 17, the high school pupil had taken a job in the coalmines of Balochistan, Pakistan’s south-western province, one of the harshest, most dangerous working environments in the world. Shah was determined to earn enough to educate himself, so he could escape the tough life of the Hazara Shia community, the most persecuted minority in Pakistan.

Related: In Pakistan, tolerant Islamic voices are being silenced | William Dalrymple

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Taliban denies killing three female Afghan polio workers

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Murders of two volunteers and a nurse come one day after relaunch of national vaccination campaign

Two female volunteers and a nurse working door to door to vaccinate children against polio were shot dead by gunmen in two separate incidents in the Afghan city of Jalalabad on Tuesday.

On the same day, government officials confirmed that an explosion had rocked Jalalabad’s health ministry headquarters but no casualties were reported.

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US defense secretary Austin visits Afghanistan as exit deadline looms

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  • Surprise visit and meeting with President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul
  • Trip comes ahead of 1 May deadline to bring US troops home

Lloyd Austin, the US secretary of defense, made a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Sunday, meeting President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul.

Related: Afghan peace summit includes just one female delegate

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‘Music is my life’: ban on schoolgirls singing in Afghanistan met with protest

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Government appears to backtrack on decree after women take to social media to sing in defiance under #IAmMySong hashtag

Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education appears to be backtracking on a decision to impose a nationwide singing ban on schoolgirls.

In a letter to school boards last week, which was leaked to the media, Kabul’s Education Department said girls aged 12 and above would no longer be able to sing at public events, unless the events were attended solely by women. The letter also stipulated that girls couldn’t be trained by a male music teacher.

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Afghan TV station ‘can’t hire women’ over security fears after four killed

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Government blamed for not ensuring safety as broadcaster’s female staff told to stay home after attacks by Isis

A radio and television broadcaster in eastern Afghanistan that has had four of its female employees murdered since December has said it will not hire any more women until security in the country improves.

The broadcaster, Enikass Radio and Television, has also told all female employees to work from home. Islamic State (Isis) has claimed responsibility for killing all four women, but Enikass also blames the Afghan government for not providing adequate security.

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Secretary of state Blinken proposes steps to boost Afghanistan peace talks

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  • Top diplomat warns US forces could be withdrawn by 1 May
  • Proposes UN conference and Kabul-Taliban talks in Turkey

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has proposed a series of steps to help restart stalled peace talks between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban, according to a letter from Blinken to President Ashraf Ghani published on Sunday by Afghanistan‘s TOLONews.

Related: Afghans dread the ‘danger hours’ as fragile gains of 20 years slip away

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Civilian deaths in conflict plummeted during pandemic, report finds

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The number of civilians reported killed in explosions nearly halved in 2020 to the lowest level in a decade

The number of civilian casualties in conflicts around the world plummeted during the Covid-19 pandemic, a new report shows.

Last year, an average of 10 civilians a day were reported killed by explosive weapons, compared with 18 in 2019, according to analysis by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), a London-based charity.

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Three female media workers shot dead in Afghanistan

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Broadcaster Enikass TV confirms deaths of three workers in two separate attacks in Jalalabad

Three women who worked for an Afghan television station have been shot dead in the eastern city of Jalalabad, the latest in a string of targeted assassinations that are increasingly overshadowing US-brokered attempts to negotiate an end to the country’s civil war.

Zalmai Latifi, the director at Enikass TV, said the women worked in the station’s dubbing department and were killed in two separate attacks. “They are all dead. They were going home from the office on foot when they were shot,” he told Agence France-Presse.

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‘I’d like to join Pixar one day’: meet Afghanistan’s first female animator

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Born under Taliban rule, Sara Barackzay studied abroad and now hopes to start her own school

A woman in traditional dress breaks open the bars of a prison. A young child dances, oblivious to a backdrop of tanks and explosions. The drawings by Afghanistan’s first professional female animation artist, Sara Barackzay, reflect the struggles of her young life.

Barackzay, who lost her hearing as a child, left Afghanistan to study in Turkey, but has returned with the hope of starting a specialist school for animation arts.

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‘Falling off a cliff’: pandemic crippling world’s most fragile states, finds report

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The world’s poorest are becoming poorer as the impact of Covid compounds existing crises, says Disaster Emergency Comittee

Thousands could starve in the world’s most fragile states as the pandemic comes on top of existing crises, warns a new report today which found aid workers are deeply pessimistic about the coming year.

The survey of aid workers by the Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC) found that they believed humanitarian conditions were at their worst in a decade.

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‘Shot at by both sides’: Families flee as Taliban battles for territory in Kandahar

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Villages in southern Afghanistan have become frontline of conflict as peace talks stall and uncertainty surrounds US withdrawal

The people who lived in Spairwan village spent two days huddled in their homes, besieged by fighting, before the Taliban came and told them all to leave the area. Qayoom and his family were among 10,000 families pushed out of their homes as government and Taliban forces battled for territory in southern Afghanistan last month.

Qayoom found his new home was to be a couple of large sheets propped up over cold, bare earth, a shelter among many others in a camp for internally displaced people (IDP) on the outskirts of Kandahar city. But the shelter barely checks the icy blasts of bitter winter winds.

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Huge blasts on Afghanistan-Iran border spotted from space

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At least 60 injured in explosions at Islam Qala crossing that consumed 500 natural gas and fuel trucks

A fuel tanker exploded on Saturday at the Islam Qala crossing in Afghanistan’s western Herat province on the Iranian border, injuring at least 60 people and causing a massive fire that consumed more than 500 trucks carrying natural gas and fuel, according to Afghan officials and Iranian state media.

Two explosions at the border crossing were powerful enough to be spotted from space by Nasa satellites. One blast erupted around 1.10pm Afghan time (8.40am GMT), the next around a half hour later at 1.42pm local (9.12am GMT).

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