Category Archives: Afghanistan

CIA-linked unit accused of atrocities in Afghanistan

Posted on by

Document details 14 deadly raids by pro-government units with support of US intelligence

The Afghan soldiers who swept through Kulalgo village one late August night shot three of Dr Ulfatullah’s relatives carefully, a single bullet through their left eye, faces otherwise untouched as blood pooled below their bodies on the floor of the family home.

The last killing was less precise, and left the face of university student Ansarullah badly disfigured. His family thought perhaps he had heard the muffled gunshot that ended a cousin’s life, and briefly tried to struggle against his captors.

Continue reading...

Dressing Afghanistan: young designers get creative in Kabul

Posted on by

In a deeply conservative society ravaged by years of war, Afghan women still want to be free to wear clothes with style

Photography by Ivan Armando Flores

There’s a steady stream of customers coming through the doors of Rahiba Rahimi’s fashion studio. The 25-year-old’s bold, intricate designs are fitted on mannequins and hung on rails around her showroom in Kabul.

Rahimi is the lead designer and co-proprietor of Laman, a clothing label she helped build in the Afghan capital five years ago.

Continue reading...

Afghanistan mosque bombing: death toll rises

Posted on by

State blames Taliban for blasts targeting worshippers during Friday prayers

Police and local residents were searching for bodies in the rubble of a mosque in the eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, after bomb blaststhat killed at least 69 people during Friday prayers.

The explosives had been placed inside the mosque in the Jawdara area of Haska Mena district.

Continue reading...

‘They were all killed in front of my eyes’: the brutal cost of war in Afghanistan

Posted on by

In a country where decades of conflict have taken a profound toll on mental health, professional support is scarce

Human Rights Watch has raised alarms over the lack of mental health support in wartorn Afghanistan, where more than half of the population is experiencing psychological distress.

The advocacy group said that, despite the high prevalence of psychological and mental health conditions, the Afghan government is failing to provide adequate help, with fewer than 10% of the country’s population receiving assistance.

HRW cited a 2018 EU survey that said the overwhelming majority of the country’s population (85%) have seen or been involved in at least one traumatic event in their lives.

Continue reading...

Prosecutors say ex-Taliban hostage intentionally tried to mislead court

Posted on by

Prosecutors say Joshua Boyle, Canadian man on trial for assaulting his wife, advanced a narrative that’s ‘incompatible with reality’

The testimony of Joshua Boyle, the former Afghanistan hostage on trial for assaulting his wife, was intentionally crafted to mislead the court, prosecutors have argued in closing arguments.

Crown lawyers once again took aim at Joshua Boyle’s credibility on Wednesday, suggesting he had manipulated his testimony for self-serving ends.

Continue reading...

Safe space: the new cinema welcoming women in male-dominated Kabul

Posted on by

Cinema once thrived in Afghanistan until Taliban censorship. Now, new ventures are slowly reviving it

The majority of Kabul’s cinemas cater largely to audiences of young men, and tend to show Bollywood films produced in Pakistan and India. For some young Afghan men, the cinema is a rare occasion for public expressions of joy: audience members cheer on the films’ heroes and sometimes dance along.

For most women, however, fears of harassment in a male-dominated space have made cinemas feel unwelcoming.

Continue reading...

Afghanistan polls close after day of violence, fraud claims and chaos

Posted on by

Bomb wounds 15, despite 70,000 police and troops at polling stations, and turnout set to be low

Afghanistan’s presidential polls have closed amid accusations of fraud and misconduct. Insurgent attacks aimed at disrupting voting in the country’s north and south caused dozens of casualties.

An upsurge in violence in the run-up to the elections, following the collapse of US-Taliban talks to end America’s longest war, had already rattled Afghanistan in the past weeks. Yet many voters yesterday expressed equal frustration over relentless government corruption and widespread chaos at polling stations.

Continue reading...

‘Voting means you’re crazy’: violence and fraud overshadow Afghanistan poll

Posted on by

Incumbent president says election is vital to give government a democratic mandate in talks with Taliban

Afghanistan must choose a new president this week, but every election over the last decade has been riddled with fraud and marred by violence, and fears are growing that the poll on may be the worst yet.

It comes as the war is raging with unprecedented intensity. Last week alone, dozens were killed when the Taliban flattened a hospital in an attack in the south, and a US drone strike hit a group harvesting pine nuts in the east. And looming over the poll is the future of controversial US efforts to negotiate a troop withdrawal with the Taliban, suspended after a tweet by President Donald Trump but not entirely dead.

Continue reading...

Afghanistan: dozens dead as country is rocked by triple attacks – video report

Posted on by

At least nine people have been wounded in eastern Afghanistan by a suicide bomber and gunmen in an attack on Wednesday, that came 24 hours after two other attacks in the country left more than 48 people dead.  

The Taliban have claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attacks, while no one has yet said they were behind Wednesday’s attack. 

Continue reading...

Trump confirms US has killed Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza

Posted on by

Death of son of the al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was reported but not confirmed in July

Donald Trump confirmed on Saturday that the US has killed Hamza bin Laden, a son of the former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Related: Hamza bin Laden: the end of a dynasty, but not al-Qaida

Continue reading...

How will John Bolton’s dismissal affect US foreign policy?

Posted on by

Trump’s anti-interventionist instincts likely to come to the fore in flashpoint countries

Donald Trump’s abrupt dismissal of John Bolton, his national security adviser, may reflect the near breakdown in personal relations between the two men, as well as Bolton’s rivalry with the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, but it will also have implications for US foreign policy in a range of flashpoints.

Related: John Bolton fired as Trump's national security adviser – live news

Continue reading...

Man held hostage by Taliban-linked group says wife is ‘incompetent mother’

Posted on by

Joshua Boyle, charged with sexual assault, tells court estranged wife Caitlan Coleman was unfit to parent the their four children

The Canadian man who spent five years held hostage in Afghanistan with his American wife has accused her of “incompetence” as a mother as his trial for sexual assault nears its conclusion.

Related: Canadian man held hostage by Taliban denies assaulting wife after release

Continue reading...

Donald Trump’s cancelled Taliban talks are typical of a president who blows hot and cold

Posted on by

President’s snakes-and ladders approach to diplomacy raises eyebrows in Kabul and Washington

Donald Trump’s boundless faith in his own magnetism and negotiating skills has taken a knock after the cancellation of his bizarre plans for talks with Taliban chiefs. Most Afghans, including the president, Ashraf Ghani, can live with that. Since they believe Trump was selling them out, they will be glad the talks bombed.

The fact that Trump secretly planned a personal meeting with a murderous group proscribed by the US as terrorists days before the 18th anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks that they assisted, is said to have raised eyebrows in Washington. That’s diplomat-speak for shock-horror.

Continue reading...

Republicans and Democrats denounce Trump’s shock Taliban talks revelation

Posted on by
  • Amy Klobuchar: ‘This isn’t a gameshow. These are terrorists’
  • Liz Cheney says Taliban should never visit Camp David

Donald Trump’s shock announcement that he had canceled secret peace talks with the Taliban this weekend has prompted criticism and confusion, including from his own Republican party.

The Democratic presidential 2020 hopeful and Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar ridiculed the president on Sunday morning, saying he approaches foreign policy like “some kind of gameshow”.

Continue reading...

Taliban warns of more US dead after Trump says he cancelled peace talks

Posted on by

President tweets that he called off planned Camp David meeting after Kabul attack killed US soldier

Donald Trump says he has cancelled secret peace talks on Afghanistan scheduled for Sunday that would have brought him face to face with Taliban leaders at Camp David, the presidential retreat in the hills of Maryland state – with the Islamist militant group warning on Sunday that the snub meant more American lives would be lost.

The US president made the remarkable claim in a series of tweets on Saturday evening declaring he had “called off” the negotiations after the Taliban claimed responsibility for a blast in Kabul that killed 12 people including a US soldier on Thursday.

Continue reading...

Canadian man held hostage by Taliban denies assaulting wife after release

Posted on by

Trial testimony wraps up in case of Joshua Boyle and Caitlan Coleman, who married in 2011 and were kidnapped in Afghanistan

A Canadian man once held hostage with his American wife in Afghanistan denied assaulting her following their release, in trial testimony that wrapped up on Thursday.

Joshua Boyle, 35, was arrested and charged with assault, sexual assault and forcible confinement at the end of 2017 just two months after he and his wife Caitlan Coleman, 33, returned to Canada after their five-year hostage ordeal.

Continue reading...

Afghanistan: current US withdrawal plan risks ‘total civil war’, top envoys say

Posted on by
  • Nine ambassadors condemn US approach to negotiations
  • Letter says full withdrawal must come ‘only after real peace’

The majority of America’s ambassadors to Afghanistan since the removal of the Taliban government have condemned the US approach to negotiating a troop withdrawal, warning it risked a return to “total civil war”.

Writing the day after a draft agreement was announced, the nine men, including a former deputy secretary of state, said they supported peace talks in Afghanistan.

Continue reading...

US and Taliban close to deal to allow peace talks, Trump envoy says

Posted on by

Zalmay Khalilzad, the US envoy for peace in Afghanistan, says agreement would reduce violence and allow ‘intra-Afghan’ talks

US and Taliban negotiators are close to an agreement that would reduce fighting and allow full peace talks among Afghans, a top US official said on Sunday, a day after insurgent forces stormed the strategic northern city of Kunduz.

But only hours after Zalmay Khalilzad, the Afghan-born US diplomat overseeing negotiations for Washington, spoke the Taliban attacked a second Afghan city, Puli Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province, an official said.

Continue reading...

Taliban launches ‘massive’ attack on Kunduz in northern Afghanistan

Posted on by

Assault comes as US continues to seek agreement with insurgent group on ending what is America’s longest war

The Taliban have launched a new attack on one of Afghanistan’s largest cities, Kunduz, the government said on Saturday, even as the insurgent group continued negotiations with the US on ending America’s longest war.

The militants, who have demanded that all foreign forces leave the country, now control or hold sway over roughly half of the country and are at their strongest since their 2001 defeat by a US-led invasion.

Continue reading...

Attacks escalate against Afghanistan’s human rights defenders – report

Posted on by

Amnesty says activists have been attacked and killed with impunity, with their plight ‘largely ignored’ at home and abroad

Human rights defenders in Afghanistan are suffering relentless attacks, intimidation and harassment amid escalating violence, Amnesty International has warned.

In a damning report castigating both the government and armed groups including the Taliban and Islamic State, Amnesty said activists and members of civil society organisations have been shot at and killed in attacks that remain uninvestigated by the authorities.

Continue reading...