Tolo News: Afghan writer, poet and former politician, Suleiman Layeq, passed away at the age of 90 on Friday, according to his family. His family said Layeq’s death was due to the wounds he received in an explosion in the Shash Darak area in downtown Kabul last year. Layeq was the founder of the Parcham
Arwin Rahi: On July 17, 1973, former Prime Minister Mohammad Daoud Khan staged a coup against Afghanistan’s last king, Mohammad Zahir Shah, Daoud’s cousin and brother-in-law. Exactly what motivated Daoud to topple his cousin is a matter of contention. At the time neither Daoud nor his allies had the slightest idea that they were setting
Al Jazeera: Some of the earliest statues of the Buddha are among precious items housed at the National Museum of Afghanistan. But the US estimates that nearly 70 percent of the treasures have been looted from the museum or destroyed during four decades of war or under strict Taliban rule. Now, historians at the
Michael Hughes: Today’s headlines about the ongoing U.S. exit from Afghanistan eerily resemble those published more than 30 years ago vis-à-vis the Soviet withdrawal, especially with respect to the infighting among the anti-government elements who had the most to gain by the expulsion of a foreign invader. The Peshawar 7 mujahideen factions never really operated
FP: With Afghanistan again facing a political crisis, Mohammed Najibullah’s tarnished memory is being rehabilitated by some. But the crimes of the last Soviet-supported president, who was killed by the Taliban, are hardly forgotten. Click here to read more (external link).
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty May 19, 2020 The son of Ahmad Shah Masud, the revered anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban commander, says he and several members of his family have tested positive for the coronavirus. In a May 19 post on Twitter and Facebook, Ahmad Masud said his COVID-19 symptoms were not “so serious,” while warning that
Frud Bezhan Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty April 26, 2020 When most of Afghanistan was under Taliban rule in the late 1990s, the fundamentalist regime drafted a new constitution. The document was never officially ratified, and it was unclear how much of it was ever implemented before the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 toppled the extremist Islamic
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty April 5, 2020 By Frud Bezhan KABUL — Ahmad Zia was sitting behind his wooden registration table when a suicide bombing ripped through Kabul’s Maiwand Wrestling Club, where scores of athletes were in the middle of a training session. The blast flung Zia, the club administrator, off his chair and into
Frud Bezhan Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty March 23, 2020 In the mid-1990s, U.S. oil company Unocal attempted to secure a gas-pipeline deal with the Taliban, which had seized control of the Afghan capital, Kabul, after a devastating civil war. It was the United States’ first attempt to forge a partnership with the fundamentalist Taliban regime,
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty March 19, 2020 By Freshta Jalalzai Five years ago — on March 19, 2015 — a 27-year-old Afghan woman was beaten and burned alive in the very heart of Kabul by a mob of angry men. Hundreds of people watched the killing of Farkhunda Malikzada, a student of the Koran and Islamic