Afghanistan

By Abubakar Siddique | – ( RFE/ RL ) – China has played a visible role in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power in 2021. Beijing is among only a handful of countries to maintain a diplomatic presence in Kabul, where the Chinese ambassador regularly meets with Taliban officials. There has also been a surge […]

Afghanistan

It’s Not Just Iran: Conflict over Water Resources is on the Rise as Climate Crisis Grows

Sustainability Times

By Laureen Fagan ( Sustainability Times ) – The clash over water rights led to fighting between Iran and Afghanistan recently, in the latest battle over water resources among neighboring nations—clashes that are expected to become all the more common in hot and arid regions like the Middle East and Africa’s Sahel. At least two […]

Afghanistan

The Water Wars Begin: Did Climate Change contribute to Saturday’s Deadly Iran-Afghan Border Clash over Helmand River?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Iran’s Tasnim News Agency reports that on Saturday deadly clashes broke out between Iranian border guards in the Zabul district of Sistan and Baluchistant Province and their opposite numbers on the Afghanistan side in the Keng District of Nimruz Province. Tasnim wrote, “Conscript “Mehdi Ahmadi” was martyred while guarding the […]

Afghanistan

Women’s secret war: the inside story of how the US military sent female soldiers on covert combat missions to Afghanistan

The Conversation

By Jennifer Greenburg, University of Sheffield | – A US Army handbook from 2011 opens one of its chapters with a line from Rudyard Kipling’s poem The Young British Soldier. Written in 1890 upon Kipling’s return to England from India, an experienced imperial soldier gives advice to the incoming cohort: When you’re wounded and left […]

Afghanistan

The Taliban is not playing Straight with the west over Easing of Sanctions – and Women and Girls are paying much of the Price

The Conversation

By Kambaiz Rafi, SOAS, University of London | – The economic and political isolation of Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover in August 2021 has worsened a humanitarian crisis in the country. The World Food Program has projected that between November 2022 and March 2023 the number of food-insecure Afghans would rise to 20 million – […]

Afghanistan

The Decline and Fall of Republican Afghanistan (Review)

Marc Martorell Junyent

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 […]