The Observer, 4 July 2021 An interesting reportage from Herat, giving first insight into Taleban behaviour in newly conquered districts, here Obe in Herat: On 14 June, the last government forces in the district were helicoptered out of a besieged outpost. The militants are confident enough of their control that last week they called a […]
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Just Security, 30 June 2021 Guest article by AIHRC chairwoman Shaharzad Akbar: While for Western governments the departure of international troops from Afghanistan represents an end to war, civilians harmed by these incidents live with the often-permanent consequences of lives lost and rights violated to this day. Without committing to concrete actions to address these […]
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Stars and Stripes, 7 June 2021 U.S. and NATO forces are expected to hand over Bagram Airfield to the Afghan military in about 20 days, or by the end of this month. Local officials have also been told to help the military find recruits to defend Bagram, he said. The base’s transition to the Afghan military […]
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New York Magazine, May 2021 While the US and other troops are leaving Afghanistan on the basis of a US-Taleban agreement that also covers contractors, at least some companies deploying contractors to the country seem to continue operating and even expecting to remain in the country, as they are “under private payroll.” For instance, the […]
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RFE/RL, 15 May 2021 Ron Synowitz’s must-read about a rapidly disappearing trade in Afghanistan: “Now, with photography digitized, the karma-e-faoree has disappeared” and also spare parts and the right type of photo paper are nowhere to be found anymore. An edict in the 1950s by Afghanistan’s king, Zahir Shah, to introduce a black-and-white photo ID […]
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Pajhwok News Agency, 10 May 2021 A table of the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum (MoMP) shows that of 748 mining areas in different parts of Afghanistan, about 283 are controlled by the Taliban, 281 by government and the remaining by power full individuals. The ministry collected information on nationwide mining sites. A source in […]
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New York Times, 3 May 2021 “The scenes over the weekend were almost as if a multitrillion-dollar war machine had morphed into a garage sale. At the airfield’s peak in 2010 and 2011, its famous and much derided boardwalk housed snack shops, chain restaurants, a hockey rink and trinket stores. Tens of thousands of U.S. and NATO […]
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BBC, 29 April 2021 At least 13 Afghans in Indonesia have taken their own lives in the past three years. Each had been waiting between six and 10 years for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to tell them if they’d be given resettlement elsewhere. Nearly 8,000 Afghan refugees and asylum seekers were registered with the UNHCR […]
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PLoS ONE, 7 (3) (2012) This 2012 article sheds interesting light, based on scientific data from genetics research, on the much-discussed ethnic diversity of Afghanistan – pointing to little-known and important commonalities: Afghanistan … has been inhabited since the Paleolithic and later became a crossroad for expanding civilizations and empires. Afghanistan’s location, history, and diverse […]
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War on the Rocks (blog), 9 April 2021 This piece by Ashley Jackson and Antonio Sampaio is particularly interesting for the abundance of data compiled on the growth of Afghanistan’s urban centres. Meanwhile, their statement about a “growing consensus that the Taliban is behind many, if not the majority” of the recent assassinations in the cities lacks the […]
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Kabul Now, 9 April 2021 A summary of the dire security situation in one of Afghanistan’s most volatile provinces, Ghor. The Taleban attacked three district centres over the last few weeks,, local authorities say, and have been besieging two others for three years now. Meanwhile, a civil society activist says“The government and security officials lie […]
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Vanity Fair, Spring 2021 Experienced Afghanistan reporter May Jeong’s reportage about two Afghans, one deported with his family, one ‘voluntarily’ returned, and Abdul Ghafoor, the one man who helps people like them in Kabul, and his small organisation AMASO. With some sobering information: In 2017, when the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental body associated […]
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