Category Archives: Afghanistan

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

Posted on by

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’

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by
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...

Trump wants out of America’s longest war, but Afghans can’t just walk away

Posted on by

Hope is real after landmark Taliban talks, but fears remain about what might happen if US troops depart

The start of 2019 has brought for Afghanistan a tantalising hope of peace, fragile but very real, as the Taliban sat down for talks first with Americans in Qatar and this week with senior members of the Afghan elite in Moscow.

These discussions come fraught with fears, that the progress for women and civil rights will be traded away too easily, and that the Taliban may renege on any deal once US troops and their coercive power are gone.

Continue reading...

US framework deal with Taliban raises hope of Afghan peace

Posted on by

US troops would withdraw from Afghanistan within 18 months of full agreement

US and Taliban officials have agreed in principle to the framework of a deal that could pave the way for peace talks in Kabul and ultimately the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, raising hopes of a breakthrough in the country’s 17-year conflict.

Under the terms of the draft framework, the insurgents would promise to stop Afghan territory being used by terrorists. The US special envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, confirmed the existence of the draft in an interview with the New York Times (NYT).

Continue reading...

US-Taliban talks offer glimmer of hope on path to Afghan peace

Posted on by

Insurgents demonstrate their commitment by naming top commander as chief negotiator

Taliban and US negotiators have reportedly agreed parts of a potential peace deal a day after the Afghan insurgents signalled their commitment to talks by naming one of their most senior commanders as chief negotiator.

News of progress in the Qatar talks, and the appointment of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, appeared to offer for the first time in nearly two decades a glimmer of real hope for a path to peace in Afghanistan.

Continue reading...

Taliban kill ‘more than 100 people’ in attack on Afghan military base

Posted on by

Attackers detonated car bomb inside complex in Maidan Wardak province, say officials

The Taliban have launched a major attack on an Afghan military compound in central Maidan Wardak province, officials have said, with some putting the death toll at more than 100 people.

Monday’s incident at a campus of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) is the latest in a series of deadly attacks in recent months by the Taliban, which has seized control of about half of Afghanistan.

Continue reading...

Justin Trudeau lookalike found in Afghan talent show

Posted on by

Wedding singer Abdul Salam Maftoon was called the Canadian prime minister’s ‘lost twin’ after appearing on Afghan Star

An Afghan talent show contestant’s striking resemblance to Justin Trudeau has turned him into an unlikely celebrity in the war-torn country.

Abdul Salam Maftoon, a wedding singer from a village in the remote and impoverished northeastern province of Badakhshan, had never even heard of his more famous doppelganger until a judge on the popular television music contest Afghan Star pointed out the uncanny likeness.

Continue reading...

Afghanistan bucks global trend with sharp rise in civilian casualties

Posted on by

Number of innocent people killed or maimed in Afghan war rises 36% despite overall fall in casualties worldwide

Civilian deaths and injuries in Afghanistan from explosive weapons rose by more than a third last year, against a downward trend globally, according to a survey seen by the Guardian.

Most of the 4,260 civilians killed or injured in explosions in the country in 2018 – up from 3,119 in 2017 – were victims of suicide attacks, found a report by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV).

Continue reading...

Inside Mother Camp: the woman tackling Afghanistan’s drug problem

Posted on by

Laila Haidari risks her life to run the country’s only private rehabilitation centre, helping hundreds of addicts a year

Laila Haidari is considered a criminal, despite never committing a crime. The 40-year-old works with drug addicts in Kabul. “The addicts I work with are considered criminal and dangerous and by extension I am considered criminal,” she says.

Despite opposition and death threats, eight years ago, Haidari opened the city’s only private drug rehabilitation centre, which so far has helped nearly 4,800 Afghans who would otherwise have ended up on the streets, or worse, dead.

Continue reading...

Trump says U.S. in ‘very strong’ negotiations in Afghanistan

Posted on by
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday the United States was "in very strong" peace negotiations in Afghanistan but he did not known whether they would be successful. "I really think the people of Afghanistan ... are tired of fighting," Trump told reporters after delivering a Thanksgiving holiday message to U.S. troops in Afghanistan, scene of one of America's longest-ever wars.

Trump hints could make first visit to Afghanistan

Posted on by
U.S. President Donald Trump hinted on Thursday he may visit Afghanistan, scene of one of America's longest wars but a country he has yet to visit almost two years into his presidency. Delivering a Thanksgiving holiday message by teleconference to troops in Afghanistan, Trump told a U.S. Air Force general he would see him back in the United States, before adding: "Or maybe I'll even see you over there.

Mayor of Utah city killed in ‘insider attack’ in Afghanistan

Posted on by
The mayor of a Utah city was killed during an attack in Afghanistan while he was serving with the state's National Guard, the town's temporary mayor Brent Chugg confirmed to CBS Salt Lake City affiliate KUTV. North Ogden Mayor Brent Taylor died Saturday in an apparent "insider attack" in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.