The images of humanitarian chaos and the deteriorating situation for women after the swift Taliban takeover of Kabul have left the international community grasping for options. In the face of Afghan women’s desperate pleas for support, women’s rights NGOs in the United States recently called for a United Nations peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan. There is no question that such an […]

“Only the dead have seen the end of war.” This is a powerful and blunt truth. The quote is usually attributed to Plato, although the reality seems to be that it was George Santayana who said it in 1922. He’s also the same guy who said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” How appropriate. To […]

The images are already splashed all over the media: an Air Force C-17 Globemaster III rolling down the taxiway of Kabul’s airport while Afghan civilians run alongside it. Views cut to civilians clinging on to the wheel well doors, then long-distance shots of bodies falling from the ascending jet. Still shots all over the news and social medial show the […]

The speed and scope of the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan have prompted introspection in the West over what went wrong, and how, after billions of dollars spent on a 20-year war effort, it could all end so ignominiously. China, though, is looking forward. It is ready to step into the void left by the hasty U.S. retreat to seize a […]

A number of lawmakers on Friday said that it would be challenging to build the same army the country established in the past two decades. They said that the poor management by Ashraf Ghani and his adviser Hamdullah Mohib led to the collapse of the nation’s armed forces. The lawmakers said that the escape of the former government officials from […]

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of HIzb-e-Islami party, on Friday said that formal talks between the Afghan political leaders and the Taliban will start once the Taliban leaders arrive in Kabul. He said the recent meetings were informal meetings. Meanwhile, Mohammad Younus Qanooni, the former vice president of Afghanistan, warned the Taliban against pursuing their past policies. He said that such […]

With Herat now in the hands of the Taliban as the militant group consolidates power over the last outposts of government-held territory, protecting Afghanistan’s heritage has become a grave concern for many. Last month Unesco, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, accepted a request by the Afghan government to include the city in a list of world cultural […]

Joe Votel was only a few weeks into his new job as commander of the 75th Ranger Regiment, the US Army’s elite special operations force, when Al Qaeda hijackers attacked New York. At his base in Fort Benning, in the southern state of Georgia, his secretary came into his office and told him to switch on the TV. “It was […]

The leader of Afghanistan’s only region not to have fallen to the Taliban has said he would be willing to join a Taliban government, but only if the group proved itself to be inclusive and respect the rights of all Afghans. Ahmad Massoud, 32, leads forces in the Panjshir valley and said that war was on the cards if the […]

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday (17 August) called on the Taliban to prevent Afghanistan from lapsing back into being a breeding ground for terrorism, and said the Western defence alliance has agreed to send additional evacuation planes to Kabul. Western powers are scrambling to respond to the fall-out from their decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, and the Taliban’s […]