Afghanistan

Tall tales of the Golden East: the fabulous fabrications of two 20th-century con artists

27 July 2024 9:00 am

Capitalising on his Afghan-Indian heritage, Ikbal Shah claimed to have crucial inside knowledge of Central Asia, while his son Idries later purveyed a rebranded Sufism for the West

Under the Taliban, Afghan light entertainment accrued unusual weight

8 June 2024 9:00 am

For a television talent show, Afghan Star had unusually high stakes. When it first hit Afghanistan’s screens in 2005, four…

Ahmad Massoud: ‘I’m 100% sure I can topple the Taliban’

18 May 2024 9:00 am

It’s fighting season in Afghanistan again. When the Americans were in charge, after the poppy fields had been harvested in…

A war reporter bravely faces death – but not from sniper fire

2 March 2024 9:00 am

As a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, Rod Nordland learned to expect many dangers, but a brain tumour wasn’t one of them

A Guardsman’s life as not as glamorous as it might seem

27 January 2024 9:00 am

Besides taking part in dangerous operational tours abroad, units of the Household Division keep up a gruelling schedule of ceremonial duties at home

How dangerous is the Sunni-Shia schism?

6 January 2024 9:00 am

What unites the two groups is more fundamental than what divides them, says Barnaby Rogerson, and the more serious conflict among Muslims concerns ethnicity and language

Broken dreams

8 July 2023 9:00 am

Interviewing the Continent’s refugees and poorest rural inhabitants, Ben Judah reveals a world far removed from Brussels politics or Eurovision optimism

Isis is wreaking havoc in Afghanistan

4 October 2022 12:10 am

The bomb tore through an examination hall in Kabul on Friday, where students – mostly minority Hazara, mostly young women…

The agony and frustration of reporting from the Middle East

1 October 2022 9:00 am

For 25 years, Abed Takkoush assisted foreign reporters like Jeremy Bowen when they arrived to cover the chaos and conflicts…

A shaggy drug story: Industry of Magic & Light, by David Keenan, reviewed

20 August 2022 9:00 am

The Scottish writer David Keenan has published five novels in five years: This is Memorial Device (2017), For the Good…

Afghanistan, one year on

14 August 2022 6:56 pm

Afghan women’s meetings on Zoom with their supporters outside the country often now end in tears as the stories of…

A letter won't educate Afghan girls

26 March 2022 3:26 am

Well, that’ll show ‘em. Liz Truss has released a joint statement with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declaring themselves…

A Canadian’s experience of the migrant’s ordeal

12 February 2022 9:00 am

No one boards an overladen dinghy and sets out across a choppy sea without very good reason. Laden into migrant…

Could an uprising succeed against the Taliban?

6 February 2022 6:30 pm

The social media accounts of the new so-called ‘National Resistance Front’ (NRF) in Afghanistan give the impression of a raging…

Operation Save Big Dog and the real scandal of Boris’s leadership

27 January 2022 5:41 am

There is a theory which states the primary reason for Boris Johnson’s political longevity is that there are simply so…

What happens to Afghan migrants when they reach the UK?

18 December 2021 9:00 am

What happens to Afghan migrants when they reach the UK?

Afghanistan: five shocking claims made by the Foreign Office whistleblower

7 December 2021 10:55 pm

Dominic Raab faced the media round from hell this morning. The former Foreign Secretary faced a series of questions about…

We should never have been in Afghanistan

9 October 2021 9:00 am

Two important studies have been published this autumn on the apparent failure of our almost 20-year war in Afghanistan. In…

How Muslim are the Taliban?

30 September 2021 6:53 am

I first met Haji Mir, a tribal elder from Helmand, in Herat in western Afghanistan in 2002, not long after…

Now I’m a backbencher, I’m free to speak my mind

25 September 2021 9:00 am

Politicians are supposed to have a survival instinct. Mine didn’t kick in last week, so I had no idea that…

Biden is losing Nato

19 September 2021 4:00 pm

The forming of the Australia-UK-US (Aukus) military alliance in the Pacific shows how everything Trump can say, Biden can do.…

Should we listen to Shamima Begum's verdict on the hijab?

16 September 2021 5:00 pm

What should one make of Shamima Begum’s appearance on Good Morning Britain? The London schoolgirl left the UK in 2015 to…

How stable is the Taliban government?

13 September 2021 7:38 am

Some western governments and media have been involved in a collective act of wishful thinking in recent months over the…

The rise of Taliban Twitter

12 September 2021 8:00 am

The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was swift, but this victory wasn’t won overnight. For years, the Taliban has been waging…

You can't keep an American exceptionalist down

12 September 2021 7:34 am

Like millions of other Americans I was riveted by the images of chaos and despair at the Kabul airport as US…