Tag Archives: Afghanistan

US marines with a female engagement team in southern Helmand province, Afghanistan, in May 2012. Cpl. Meghan Gonzales/DVIDS 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 …

Resistance leader: the NRF’s Ahmad Massoud. NRF/Twitter Kambaiz Rafi, SOAS, University of London It has become axiomatic that in Afghanistan, once an armed resistance group gains a foothold in an area it becomes hard to route out. This is more so if it musters a degree of local support and is in a geographically remote region. During the past year, …

Michele Groppi, King’s College London The killing of the al-Qaida leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in Kabul by a US drone strike on July 31 raises some crucial questions. It appears the ruling Taliban were aware of, and gave their blessing to, al-Zawahiri staying in one of the residential areas in Kabul. But did someone in their hierarchy turn him in to …

Who will replace the man who replaced bin Laden? Visual News/Getty Images Haroro J. Ingram, George Washington University; Andrew Mines, George Washington University, and Daniel Milton, United States Military Academy West Point Ayman al-Zawahri, leader of al-Qaida and a plotter of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has been killed in a drone strike in the Afghan city of Kabul, according to …

Sippi Azarbaijani Moghaddam, University of St Andrews Afghan children and teenagers have not had much to look forward to since the Taliban took power in August last year. They have endured six months of uncertainty, anxiety and fear as they waited to see what Taliban rule would bring for them. Women could not help but dread the return of draconian …

Mia Bloom, Georgia State University The Taliban reportedly captured 40 people in Mazar-e-Sharif, a medium-sized city in Afghanistan, at the end of January 2022. Taliban members then allegedly gang-raped eight of the women. The women who survived the gang rape were subsequently killed by their families. The fact that the women had been raped violated a societal honor code called …

Lily Hamourtziadou, Birmingham City University The Taliban recently announced it will establish a battalion of suicide attackers as part of the national army of Afghanistan. These “martyrdom brigades” will be “under the control of the ministry of defence and will be used for special operations,” according to Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. This was condemned as “horrific and appalling” by Shaharzad …

Michael Reynolds/EPA/AAP Azadah Raz Mohammad, The University of Melbourne and Jenna Sapiano, Monash University As the Taliban takes control of the country, Afghanistan has again become an extremely dangerous place to be a woman. Even before the fall of Kabul on Sunday, the situation was rapidly deteriorating, exacerbated by the planned withdrawal of all foreign military personnel and declining international …

M Niaz Asadullah, University of Malaya Since the return of the Taliban to power, concern has been growing over the “Islamisation” of Afghan society – including the education sector. Many fear that either schools will be shut down or girls will be excluded. This could reverse 20 years of progress in narrowing the gender gap in school enrolment. There have …

Weeda Mehran, University of Exeter Afghanistan is in a major humanitarian crisis: the health sector is failing, the economy is collapsing, and amid the COVID pandemic, famine is inflicting ever-larger numbers of casualties. According to the most recent report by the UN World Food Programme, more than half of the resident population of 38 million are facing acute hunger and …