Afghanistan

Review of Ahmad Shuja Jamal and William Maley, The Decline and Fall of Republican Afghanistan (London: Hurst and Co., 2023). Munich, Germany (Special to Informed Comment) – The Republic of Afghanistan unraveled quickly after May 2021 when US-led foreign troops prepared to abandon the country. This defied the forecasts of most experts on the capacity […]

Afghanistan

Art As Therapy: Afghan Women Paint Their Experiences Under Taliban Rule

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

women Afghanistan Taliban patriarchy male chauvinism art creativity

Afghanistan

Women’s Sports Going Downhill In Afghanistan As Taliban Denies The Right To Ski

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

By Mansoor Khosrow | – ( RFE/ RL ) – The majestic mountains in the central province of Bamiyan are known as Afghanistan’s skiing capital. But due to a new Taliban ban, women are no longer welcome on the slopes. Hundreds of amateur and professional skiers took to the mountains to hone their skills far […]

Afghanistan

The Taliban’s War Against Afghan Women And Girls

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi / Abubakar Siddique | – ( RFE/RL ) – Fahima witnessed many of her rights and freedoms disappear in 2022 as the Taliban imposed sweeping restrictions on Afghan women. An aid worker in Afghanistan’s southern province of Uruzgan, Fahima was employed in one of the few fields that the militant group […]

Afghanistan

Muslim Authorities Condemn Taliban Ban on Women in Universities, as NGOs Close in Protest

Michael Jansen

By Michael Jansen | – ( The Irish Times ) – Four global aid agencies have suspended services in Afghanistan in response to a Taliban ban on women working at non-governmental organisations (NGOs). In a joint statement, Care, Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council and the International Rescue Committee said: “We cannot effectively reach […]

Afghanistan

U.S.-Trained Afghan Soldiers Angry Over Their Plight Are Ready To Join Russia’s War Against Ukraine

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

By Michael Scollon ( RFE/RL ) – Lost status and a desperate existence in Iran are driving thousands of former Afghan troops — many of them elite commandos trained by the United States — to consider fighting as mercenaries in Ukraine and other battlefields. Many ex-Afghan security personnel accuse the United States of abandoning them […]

Afghanistan

Taliban’s University Ban Signals Return To Past Repression Of Women

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

I’m Mustafa Sarwar, a senior news editor at RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi. Here’s what I’ve been tracking and what I’m keeping an eye on in the days ahead. (RFE/RL ) – The Taliban banned women from attending universities in Afghanistan on December 20. In a statement, the Taliban’s Higher Education Ministry said the decision was effective […]

Afghanistan

America’s Night Raids in Afghanistan: An Ongoing Nightmare

ProPublica

By Lynzy Billing. Video by Mauricio Rodríguez Pons | – Prologue March 2019 • Rodat District, Nangarhar Province This story contains graphic descriptions and images of war casualties. ( ProPublica ) – On a December night in 2018, Mahzala was jolted awake by a shuddering wave of noise that rattled her family’s small mud house. […]

Afghanistan

How the Bush “War on Terror” Fed US White Nationalism and brought the Terror Home

Andrea Mazzarino

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Recently, an agent of the Department of Homeland Security called me and started asking questions about a childhood acquaintance being investigated for extremism. I put him off. My feelings about this were, to say the least, complex. As a military spouse of 10 years and someone who has long written about […]