The photojournalist Danish Siddiqui was shot dead last week while documenting the Taliban offensive in Afghanistan. His award-winning work for Reuters spanned some of the world’s most era-defining crises.
He said: ‘I shoot for the common man who wants to see and feel a story from a place where he can’t be present himself.’
Siddiqui leaves behind his wife, Rike, and two children. And a breathtaking body of work
Category Archives: Afghanistan
British general’s ‘discreet’ effort to revive Afghan peace negotiations
General Sir Nick Carter has been arranging meetings with contacts in Kabul and Pakistan to try to prevent a descent into civil war
Britain’s top general, Sir Nick Carter, has been using his personal connections with Afghan and Pakistan leaders in a behind-the-scenes effort to stop Afghanistan sliding into full-blown civil war, and help bolster stalling US-brokered peace talks in Qatar.
At the weekend a senior Afghan delegation arrived in Doha to try to restart the virtually dormant negotiations, after months which have seen the Taliban sweep across much of rural Afghanistan, although they still do not hold any cities.
Continue reading...Daughter of Afghan envoy abducted and ‘severely tortured’ in Pakistan
Silsila Alikhil, 26, was badly beaten and held for over five hours in Islamabad, according to diplomatic sources
The daughter of Afghanistan’s ambassador to Pakistan was abducted in the middle of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, held for several hours and brutally attacked, officials in both countries said on Saturday.
No one has been arrested in connection with Friday’s assault on Silsila Alikhil, 26. The Afghan foreign ministry issued a statement demanding a quick investigation, saying she was “severely tortured”.
Continue reading...Marcus Rashford mural and Cuba protests: human rights this fortnight – in pictures
A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Turkey to Colombia
Continue reading...Afghans flee to eastern Turkey as Taliban takes control amid chaos
Some pay smugglers to take them to Istanbul as withdrawal of US troops rekindles fears of civil war
Twenty-eight days into their journey out of Afghanistan, a woman and her five children are sitting in the shade near a bus station in Tatvan, a town on the shore of Lake Van in eastern Turkey.
She is waiting for a smuggler, who was paid in advance, to take the family to Istanbul. Tired and dirty, the younger children are playing in the dust and laughing; the youngest boy wants a piggyback. The smuggler is two days late.
Continue reading...Taliban claim Afghan border crossing with Pakistan in major gain
Militants say they have made what could be their most significant advance in a nationwide offensive
The Taliban have claimed to have seized control of a crucial border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan, as their forces continue to rapidly advance in the wake of US troops pulling out, fuelling fears of the conflict spilling into Pakistan.
In one of their most strategic gains yet, on Tuesday night Taliban forces descended on the district of Spin Boldak in Afghanistan, just a few miles from the Pakistan border, and attacked several posts of Afghan troops, who reportedly surrendered immediately.
Continue reading...Afghanistan stunned by scale and speed of security forces’ collapse
More than 1,000 have fled across the border, and hundreds more have handed over weapons to the Taliban
Last autumn, with the departure of American troops from Afghanistan looming after the US signed a withdrawal deal with the Taliban, several of the most senior security officials in Kabul urged President Ashraf Ghani to make some hard choices.
The Afghan army and police needed to retrench, figures including the then defence minister, Assadullah Khalid, told Ghani. Remote outposts, and rural areas where troops held little more than the cluster of government and security buildings that make up a “district centre”, should be abandoned.
Continue reading...Taliban sweep through Herat province as Afghan advance continues
Fears grow for Kabul government after militant group seizes two key border crossings
The Taliban has swept through western Herat province, seizing two key border crossings to Iran and Turkmenistan, and much of the countryside beyond city limits.
It was the latest part of Afghanistan to collapse in the face of a rapid militant advance, during which they have taken control of areas far beyond their original southern strongholds. Their speed has fuelled fears the government in Kabul could fall within months.
Continue reading...Iran and Russia move to fill diplomatic vacuum in Afghanistan
Iranian foreign minister meets Taliban negotiators in Tehran, while Turkey offers troops to protect Kabul airport
Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and Russia have moved to fill the military and diplomatic vacuum opening up in Afghanistan as a result of the departure of US forces and military advances by the Taliban.
In Tehran the Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, met Taliban negotiators to discuss their intentions towards the country, and secured a joint statement saying the Taliban do not support attacks on civilians, schools, mosques and hospitals and want a negotiated settlement on Afghanistan’s future.
Continue reading...Biden says no ‘mission accomplished moment’ as US troops withdraw from Afghanistan – video
Joe Biden has said the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan after 20 years of war will conclude on 31 August and added there will be no ‘mission accomplished’ moment to celebrate. ‘We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build,’ the US president said. ’It is the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country.’
His remarks come as the Taliban makes advances in the country, which some senior Afghan officials have blamed on the abrupt departure of US troops
Continue reading...Biden says ‘I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan’ – live
- Biden speaks on US troop withdrawal after 20 years at war
- President to receive update on military withdrawal process
- ‘Radicalized’ anti-abortion movement posed increased threat
Michael Avenatti, the former lawyer to Stormy Daniels who repeatedly clashed with Donald Trump during his presidency, has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison for trying to extort Nike.
Reuters reports:
U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe in Manhattan said Avenatti, 50, ‘had become drunk on the power of his platform’ in betraying his client, a youth basketball coach, in order to obtain riches for himself.
The sentencing caps a precipitous downfall for a once-obscure lawyer who in 2018 became a cable news fixture, disparaging then-President Trump and even flirting with a White House run himself.
Joe Biden rejected comparisons between the end of the Vietnam War and the conclusion of the war in Afghanistan, insisting the two events are nothing alike.
However, some American veterans have said they feel the US military is leaving a job undone in Afghanistan, just as it did in Vietnam. Some also fear that Kabul will soon fall to the Taliban, as Saigon fell after US troops departed Vietnam.
Continue reading...Taliban close in on Helmand capital as UK Afghan mission ends
Lashkar Gah still under control of government forces but local activist says city is under siege
As Boris Johnson announced the end of Britain’s military mission in Afghanistan, Taliban fighters pressed in on the capital of Helmand province, once the centre of the UK’s presence there.
Militants are less than a mile from Lashkar Gah, now also home to tens of thousands of people who have fled the fighting or Taliban rule across the rest of the province, local officials said.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson announces end to UK military mission in Afghanistan – video
Boris Johnson has announced the end of Britain’s military mission in Afghanistan, following a hasty and secretive exit of the last remaining troops 20 years after the post-9/11 invasion that started the 'war on terror'. Speaking in the Commons, the prime minister confirmed to MPs that the intervention, which claimed the lives of 457 British soldiers, would end even as the insurgent Taliban have been rapidly gaining territory in rural areas as UK and other forces withdraw
- Boris Johnson announces end to UK military mission in Afghanistan
- Armed Afghan women take to streets in show of defiance against Taliban
Armed Afghan women take to streets in show of defiance against Taliban
Women in north and central regions of country stage demonstrations as militants make sweeping gains nationwide
Women have taken up guns in northern and central Afghanistan, marching in the streets in their hundreds and sharing pictures of themselves with assault rifles on social media, in a show of defiance as the Taliban make sweeping gains nationwide.
One of the biggest demonstrations was in central Ghor province, where hundreds of women turned out at the weekend, waving guns and chanting anti-Taliban slogans.
Continue reading...Afghan anger over US’s sudden, silent Bagram departure
Military officials say troops turned off power and slipped away without notifying new commander
US forces plunged their main operating base in Afghanistan into darkness and abandoned it to looters when they slipped away in the middle of the night after two decades at the site without notifying their Afghan allies.
The furtive departure from Bagram airbase, which is vital to the security of Kabul and holds about 5,000 mostly Taliban prisoners, infuriated the Afghans. Many saw it as emblematic of a withdrawal they say is being carried out entirely to fit an American political schedule, with no heed for the collapsing security situation on the ground.
Continue reading...Inside Afghanistan’s looted Bagram airbase after US departure – in pictures
After nearly two decades, the US military has left Bagram, now Afghan forces have invited the press inside the huge, eerily quiet facility
Continue reading...Hundreds of Afghan security forces flee as districts fall to Taliban
Militants’ advance continues as Britain nears end of its two-decade deployment to country
The Taliban’s rapid advance through northern Afghanistan continued on Sunday with more than a dozen districts falling to the militants, as Britain entered the final days of its two-decade deployment to Afghanistan.
More than 300 members of the Afghan security forces fled across the border into Tajikistan to escape the militants, and Badakhshan and Takhar provinces are now largely under Taliban control, beyond the respective regional capitals.
Continue reading...Afghanistan: America’s ‘longest war’ ends amid accusations of betrayal
Analysis: Washington did not learn the lessons of Vietnam and more death and suffering are inevitable
The US war in Afghanistan was not supposed to be another Vietnam. “I don’t do quagmires,” said Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of the original US invasion, who died last week. In the end the former US defence secretary did two quagmires, airily assuming Afghanistan was “won” in the spring of 2003 when he sent American troops to fight in Iraq.
US combat troops were in Vietnam for eight years, but they have been in Afghanistan for 20. It has been America’s longest war by far.
Continue reading...After the retreat: what now for Afghanistan?
As the west departs, the Taliban are resurgent. They say they have changed – but misogyny and brutality still mark their rule
The public flogging in Obe district, captured on video that quickly went viral this spring, was a mistake, a local Taliban judge admitted. Commanders were angry.
As the footage spread between urban Afghans, who shared it on their smartphones, it revived memories of darker times when the militants ruled the country, and an outpouring of revulsion.
Continue reading...US troops leave Afghanistan’s Bagram airbase after nearly 20 years
Departure marred by poor liaison with local forces and comes just before 20th anniversary of start of US operations to topple Taliban
US troops have left Bagram, the sprawling airbase north of Kabul that was the symbolic and operational heart of the American military operation in Afghanistan.
With that hub handed over to Afghan security forces, it sets the scene for the final departure of American forces from the country only months before the 20th anniversary of the start of US operations to topple the Taliban, launched in response to the 9/11 attacks.
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