The New Yorker, 28 October 2019 “Trump upended peace talks. Civilian casualties keep climbing. After eighteen years of war, Afghans are suffering more than ever.” A tour-de-force about Afghanistan’s present: a refugee boy-turned-Taleb-turned-IS fighter-turned reconcilee; Achin militiamen; victims of the N.D.S./C.I.A. “hybrid units” which are “N.D.S. in name only” in Sherzad, Nangrahar. Doha talks, elections, women talking to the […]
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New York Times, 25 October 2019 “The heart is like a mirror,” Mr. Wujodi said. “If it is cleansed of the dust and fog, whichever way or object you aim it at the reflection of it would be reflected in the mirror.” A lovely reportage by Mujib Mashal about Haidari Wujodi, a Sufi poet-librarian, who has […]
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Human Rights Watch, 7 October 2019 On the day the US-led military intervention in Afghanistan was started exactly 18 years ago, the human rights organisation says the Afghan government and international donors are failing in providing mental health services to a heavily traumatised population: Forty-one years of war have had a devastating impact on the […]
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United Nations, 2 October 2019 Between 2015 and 2018, the country task force verified 14,202 grave violations against children throughout the country. Of serious concern, the killing and maiming of 12,599 children was verified, representing almost a third of all civilian casualties and an increase of 82 per cent in child casualties compared with the […]
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USIP, September 2019 A special report by Scott S. Smith on the politicisation of Loya Jirgas in post-2001 Afghanistan, with an annex with key characteristics of Loya Jirgas since 1915, a lot quotes from of AAN and a key recommendation: Should a loya jirga be required to resolve an electoral crisis or ratify a new political order […]
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Foreign Policy, 26 September 2019 Reportage by Austrian-Afghan reporter Emran Feroz from Baghlan, about a family split by the war, with the younger brother a Taleban fighter and others supporting the government: Sayed Shah, a local medic… has known the Rahman family for decades and is still in touch with Lemar. “Sometimes he appears with […]
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Brown University, 19 September 2019 A new report by the Brown University, Watson Institute’s Costs of War project: Afghanistan ranks as one of the most landmine- and unexploded ordnance-impacted countries in the world, even after thirty years of clearance operations supported extensively by the United Nations and a number of major donors, including the United […]
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War on the Rocks (blog), 4 September 2019 Very interesting summary of facts and of the discussion about a crucial issue: how fragmented, or not, are the Taleban by Thomas Watkins – at the end of which the question marks shrinks somewhat.
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Asia Times, 6 September 2019 Ahmad Massud, the son of slain Ahmad Shah Massud, starts a political movement, still with no name, in the Panjshir, aiming at setting up a new, anti-Taleban and pro-decentralisation “United” or “National Front” based on the old “Northern Alliance” – but it is unclear who is really supporting him so […]
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The Daily Beast, 5 September 2019 Andrew Quilty’s reportage from Nadali district in Helmand, where Taleban briefly fired at a US convoy from a civilian compound, drawing an airstrike during which two people were killed and several severely wounded. “In May this year, The U.S. Department of Defense released its Annual Report on Civilian Casualties. […]
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The Daily Telegraph, 17 August 2019 “In telephone conversations with the Sunday Telegraph, fighters from across the country showed themselves to be both tired of war, and at times suspicious of their leaders. But they were also often uncompromising in their demands for an American defeat and Islamic government, with little sign they wanted to […]
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Reporterly (Kabul), 14 August 2019 An eyewitness account of the daily terror in Afghanistan.
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