‘Senseless’: attacks on schools soar in Afghanistan – report

Unicef research shows more than 1,000 schools were closed by the end of last year due to ongoing conflict

Attacks on schools in Afghanistan tripled between 2017 and 2018, surging from 68 to 192, according to the UN children’s agency, Unicef, the first increase since 2015.

According to figures collected by the agency, the ongoing conflict had left more than 1,000 schools closed by the end of last year, with half a million children unable to get an education.

Continue reading...

Afghan security forces kill six civilians during insurgent raid

The deaths come as UN reveals pro-government forces killed more civilians than insurgents in first three months of 2019

Afghan security forces have killed at least six civilians, including a woman and two children, in a night raid on insurgents, government officials said.

Soldiers mistook the group, who were in a car, them for Taliban trying to escape the area, a spokesman for the provincial governor told the Associated Press. Attahullah Khogyani said 10 militants were also killed in the attack in eastern Nangarhar province.

Continue reading...

American who fought for Taliban to be freed early from US prison

John Walker Lindh to be released but some politicians say he may still be security risk

John Walker Lindh, the American captured in 2001 fighting for the Taliban, is to be released early from federal prison despite some US politicians expressing concerns he may still be a security risk.

Lindh, photographed as a bearded 20-year-old when captured in Afghanistan, will leave a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, on probation on Thursday after serving 17 years of a 20-year sentence, according to a prison official.

Continue reading...

‘There is less fear’: restoration of Kabul repairs the ravages of war

Afghanistan rebuilds the old town and creates register of dwellings to promote peace and help residents feel safer

Amir Gol first arrived in Kabul after fleeing his home – a Taliban stronghold – in Nangahar. He had no idea where to settle, so he rented a small mud house and started collecting and selling used plastic to make a living. Almost a decade later, little has changed for the 60-year old father of eleven. He sits cross-legged on a cushion outside the house he rents for 600 Afghani (£5) a month. Occasionally, he says, members of insurgent groups come to his neighbourhood, a settlement specked with poorly constructed mud houses and plastic tents in the city’s outskirts.

Continue reading...

Global neglect of millions forced from their homes by conflict branded ‘pitiful’

Top official condemns lack of focus on record 41 million people left homeless in their own countries after fleeing violence

Record numbers of people have been forced from their homes by conflict in a crisis that has received “pitiful” international attention, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council has said.

A total of 41.3 million people were living in a state of internal displacement by the end of 2018 due to violence, researchers for the organisation found, with increasing numbers unable to return home for protracted periods. This is a rise of more than a million on the previous year.

Continue reading...

Beaming young Afghan amputee dances on new prosthetic leg – video

Video of a young Afghan boy dancing for joy with his new prosthetic leg has gone viral. The video, shot by physiotherapist Mulkara Rahimi, shows Ahmad Rahman rejoicing after finishing four years of physiotherapy which gave him full control over his new prosthetic leg. Ahmad, 5, was only eight months' old when he was shot during fighting in his village

Continue reading...

‘When I get tired of it all, I escape into poetry’: book clubs bloom in Afghanistan

Reading groups are springing up across Kabul, broadening youthful horizons in a country where books are often censored

In a dimly lit room in west Kabul, stacked with shelves full of books, a small crowd gathers around the warmth of a gas heater. Books clamped under their arms, they are eager to share the stories they’ve read over the course of the week.

Members of Afghanistan’s youngest reading club, the Book Cottage, range in age from four to 13. The club is just one of many reading circles that are springing up across the capital and reviving a book culture that, once lost, is now vibrant, liberal and expanding once again.

Continue reading...

Afghan telecoms ministry hit by blast as attackers enter Kabul building

Officials report gunfire as unknown attackers battle security forces in Afghan capital

An explosion has hit the centre of the Afghan capital Kabul and unidentified attackers appear to have entered a multistorey building housing the communications ministry where they were battling security forces, officials have said.

Gunfire could be clearly heard by witnesses in Kabul on Saturday, but the area around the site was cordoned off by security forces.

Continue reading...

‘I lost consciousness’: woman whipped by the Taliban over burqa without veil | Haroon Janjua

Aziza’s story reflects the growing number of violent public assaults on women deemed to be in breach of sharia law in Afghanistan

One of four women who was recently subjected to a brutal public lashing by armed Taliban fighters in Afghanistan has spoken about her experience, amid an increase of violent punishments given to those violating its strict interpretation of religious law.

Aziza, who like many other Afghan women only uses one name, was rounded up by the Taliban’s shadow police for being out of her house without her husband and not being fully veiled. She was beaten so badly she lost consciousness.

Continue reading...

US revokes ICC prosecutor’s visa over Afghanistan inquiry

Fatou Bensouda wants to open investigation into alleged war crimes, including by US troops

The US has revoked the visa of the international criminal court’s chief prosecutor in response to her intention to investigate potential war crimes by US soldiers in Afghanistan.

A statement from the office of Fatou Bensouda, a Gambian national, said she would continue to pursue her duties for the court, in The Hague, “without fear or favour” and that she would continue to travel to the US. She has not been restricted from visiting the UN headquarters in New York.

Continue reading...

US woman kidnapped in Afghanistan says husband’s abuse was just like captors’

Caitlan Coleman says her Canadian husband, Joshua Boyle, was violent towards her before, during and after their kidnapping

A Canadian man who was kidnapped with his wife in Afghanistan was controlling and violent towards her before, during and after their five-year hostage ordeal, she told a Canadian court on Friday.

Caitlan Coleman, 33, gave testimony for a second day at the trial of Joshua Boyle, 35 who faces 19 criminal charges, including sexual assault, unlawful confinement and uttering death threats.

Continue reading...

US efforts to rebuild Afghanistan beset by ‘theft and abuse from security forces’

Government watchdog reveals contract workers subjected to assault and unlawful detention, with property confiscated

A report into US efforts to rebuild Afghanistan’s war-damaged infrastructure has called for urgent action after revealing that Afghan security forces have been harassing, abusing and stealing from contractors at military bases.

Members of the Afghan national defence and security forces (ANDSF) have held workers at gunpoint and confiscated their equipment, costing the US hundreds of thousands of dollars, a US government watchdog said.

Continue reading...

‘The country could fall apart’: drought and despair in Afghanistan

As a funding appeal languishes, conflict, poverty and the worst drought for a decade have left millions facing desperate hunger

Shafiqa watches closely over her six-month-old niece. Lying on a bundle of fabric, Maryam’s legs jut out, thin and pale. When they arrived at hospital two weeks ago, she could hardly breathe. Her body was swollen with malnutrition, her lips and fingers were blue.

There are 24 children being treated at Mofleh paediatric hospital’s malnutrition ward, on the outskirts of Herat city, western Afghanistan. Mothers and aunts lean next to hospital beds, some rocking tiny babies back and forth.

Continue reading...

US to deny visas for ICC members investigating alleged war crimes

Washington also threatened economic sanctions if war crimes court goes ahead with inquiry into US troops in Afghanistan

The United States has announced it will revoke or deny visas to members of the International Criminal Court involved in investigating the actions of US troops in Afghanistan or other countries.

The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said Washington was prepared to take further steps, including economic sanctions, if the war crimes court goes ahead with any investigations of US or allied personnel.

Continue reading...

Fighting a ‘double curse’: Afghanistan’s hopefuls for Paralympic gold | Stefanie Glinski

Prejudice faced by Afghan women with a disability has proved no barrier to its national wheelchair basketball team

Nilofar Bayat played her first game of wheelchair basketball in an open court in the middle of Kabul, surrounded by mainly male onlookers who shouted insults and called her names.

She decided to keep playing anyway.

Continue reading...

Fugitive Taliban leader lived short walk from US base, book reveals

Exclusive: account exposes failures of US intelligence, which put $10m bounty on Mullah Omar

The Taliban’s elusive one-eyed leader Mullah Omar lived within walking distance of US bases in Afghanistan for years, and American troops once even searched the house where he was hiding but failed to find a secret room built for him, a new biography claims.

The account exposes an embarrassing failure of US intelligence, which put a $10m bounty on Omar’s head after the 9/11 attacks in the US. Officials repeatedly suggested that, like the al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, he was hiding in Pakistan and died there.

Continue reading...

‘Chilling reality’: Afghanistan suffers worst floods in seven years

Thousands of homes swept away as rains follow devastating drought, with UN ‘shocked’ by lack of crisis funding support

Afghanistan has been hit with the worst flooding in seven years, with 20 dead, thousands of homes swept away and many families, already displaced by drought, forced to leave their homes for the second time.

The latest climate shock, which affected eight provinces including Kandahar, came as the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan criticised the European Commission for its “wholly insufficient” response to hunger and suffering in a country already in the grip of what analysts describe as the world’s deadliest conflict.

Continue reading...

Swedish student fined for plane protest against Afghan’s deportation

Elin Ersson received a £250 fine for refusing to take her seat on a plane in Sweden last year

A Swedish student who livestreamed her protest against the deportation of an Afghan asylum seeker last year has been found guilty of violating Sweden’s aviation laws and fined £250.

Elin Ersson, 22, avoided a prison sentence at the Gothenburg district court, where she was sentenced to a fine of 3,000 Swedish krona.

Continue reading...

Afghanistan’s long road to recovery | Letter

We should not walk away from Afghanistan even if it needs another 25 years of outside support, says Simon Diggins

Simon Tisdall’s denunciation of the US-led western involvement in Afghanistan as “17 or so years of ultimately pointless, criminal mayhem” (The US ruined Afghanistan. It can’t simply walk away now, Opinion, 8 February) is about as far wide of the mark as it is possible to be, unless you are Donald Trump. Even more curious, Tisdall then enjoins the US, presumably the “criminals” in this enterprise, not to scuttle away.

I served in Iraq and Afghanistan and am not naive enough to believe that one was the “good war”, while the other one wasn’t. But Tisdall seems to forget why we intervened in Afghanistan in the first place: to remove a monstrous regime, the Taliban, that had allowed the perpetrators of 9/11 to set up camp in their country and also terrorised its own people. Destroying the Taliban regime was the right thing to do.

Continue reading...