Category Archives: Afghanistan

Wrong peace deal could mean ‘return to chaos’ for Afghanistan

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US-Taliban agreement will not be successful without involvement of government and citizens, say Afghan women’s rights groups

Afghanistan could “return to chaos” with the wrong peace deal, say women’s rights groups in the country. A poorly negotiated agreement without proper representation of Afghan citizens and a clear counterterrorism strategy would place the democratic gains of the past 18 years at risk, says Suraya Pakzad, founder of the Voice of Women Organisation.

Talks between the US and the Taliban are running alongside campaigning for twice-postponed presidential elections, now due to take place on 28 September.

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With Kabul wedding attack, Isis aims to erode Taliban supremacy

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As the US and Taliban negotiate peace, Isis sees a chance to sow fresh chaos in Afghanistan

Even by the bloody standards of Afghanistan, it was a brutal attack: a suicide bomber at a wedding celebration, detonating his device as children danced and the happy couple completed their marriage rituals. In an instant more than 60 of the 1,000 guests were dead, hundreds injured.

Few events are so joyous and optimistic as a wedding. So why would a terrorist group – even one as brutal as Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility – want to attack one?

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Afghanistan wedding hall blast: more than 60 killed, 180 injured

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Explosion in packed Kabul venue comes as Donald Trump talks up prospects of peace deal with Taliban

An explosion ripped through a wedding hall on a busy Saturday night in Afghanistan’s capital, leaving more than 60 people dead and more than 180 injured, a the interior ministry has said. More than 1,000 people were believed to be inside.

Women and children were among the casualties, the interior ministry spokesman, Nasrat Rahimi, said on Sunday.

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‘I know how to use a gun’: children living on Afghanistan’s frontline – in pictures

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In a war that has been raging for decades, a third of the casualties are children. Last year, the UN recorded 927 child deaths and 2,135 injuries. In the first half of this year, 327 children were killed and 880 wounded.

Children across the country continue to live on the frontlines – and sometimes get caught in the middle of it all. Here, they share their experiences

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Kabul attack: nearly 100 injured in Taliban bombing, say officials

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Car explodes by police station as violence continues despite looming US-Taliban pact

A car bomb exploded on Wednesday outside a police station in the Afghan capital, Kabul, wounding at least 95 people, government officials said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for what it said was a suicide attack.

There has been no let-up in violence in Afghanistan, despite the Taliban and the US appearing to be close to reaching a historic pact for American troops to withdraw, in exchange for a Taliban pledge the country would not be used as a base from which to plot terrorist attacks.

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British Museum to return Buddhist heads looted in Afghan war

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Stolen artefacts likely removed by Taliban will go on display before being sent to Kabul

Fourth-century Buddhist terracotta heads probably hacked off by the Taliban and found stuffed in poorly made wooden crates at Heathrow are to be returned to Afghanistan where they will be star museum exhibits.

The British Museum gave details on Monday of one of the most significant repatriation cases it has dealt with relating to the illegal looting of artefacts from Afghanistan and Iraq.

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‘It’s ripped families apart’: the border wall no one is talking about

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Construction of a fence along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, one of the world’s most dangerous crossings, is splintering families while failing to halt the flow of smugglers and terrorists

Keramat used to visit her sons all the time, crossing the border between her home in Afghanistan’s Kunar province into Pakistan, where they live and work.

But a fence built to mark a border between the two countries, which has not been recognised by the Afghan government, has made the 55-year-old’s journey much longer, and more bureaucratic.

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Canada: trial of Taliban hostage accused of abusing wife resumes after delay

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  • Joshua Boyle faces 19 charges including sexual assault
  • Boyle and wife Caitlan Coleman spent five years in captivity

The trial of Joshua Boyle, the former hostage of a Taliban-linked group in Afghanistan who was accused of violence against his wife, has resumed after the court ruled it would hear testimony about the couple’s sexual history.

Boyle was arrested at the couple’s former Ottawa apartment on New Year’s Eve 2017, just two months after he and Caitlan Coleman were released from five years of Taliban captivity.

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Patients sleep under the stars in long queue for medical visas | Stefanie Glinski

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Sick and elderly Afghans queue outdoors for several nights for their chance to get into Pakistan for medical care

Surrounded by barbed wire and without shelter from rain or dust, outside Pakistan’s embassy, hundreds of sick Afghans pass days and nights waiting for their visa appointment.

Abdul Ajan is first in the queue for when the embassy opens the next morning, squeezed into a space that smells of urine and is littered with rubbish and stale bread.

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

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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.

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Afghan security forces kill six civilians during insurgent raid

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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Beaming young Afghan amputee dances on new prosthetic leg – video

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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

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

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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.

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Afghan telecoms ministry hit by blast as attackers enter Kabul building

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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.

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

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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.

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US revokes ICC prosecutor’s visa over Afghanistan inquiry

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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.

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