The Washington Post: Interviews with Afghan and U.S. officials and seven self-described Islamic State members now in Afghan custody paint a picture of a group that has a history of persevering despite territorial and leadership losses, thanks in part to a sophisticated recruitment system and the use of extreme violence to control civilian populations. Click
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty February 10, 2020 A film about girls skateboarding in conservative Afghanistan has won an Oscar for best documentary short at the Academy Awards. Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl) shows international charity Skateistan’s work in teaching young girls in Kabul how to skate on ramps and quarter
Tolo News: The provincial governor and a Farah MP both claim that an airstrike killed five civilians who were businessmen traveling on Saturday from Farah city to Abu Nasar Farahi Port when their vehicle was targeted. “The governor is in charge here … the governor must answer about who killed them,” said Abdul Ghafar Arman,
1TV: Afghan government is a corrupt government, US Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren said on Friday. “What has all these years of war brought us? Right now, the Afghan Government controls less than 60% of the land. People don’t have faith in it. It’s a corrupt government. The opium trade is higher than ever,” Senator
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty February 9, 2020 KABUL — Two U.S. soldiers have been killed and six wounded in a firefight in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar Province, with the U.S. military saying initial reports indicate an attack was carried out by a man in an Afghan National Army (ANA) uniform. Colonel Sonny Leggett, a spokesman for
Press TV February 8, 2020 American and Afghan forces partaking in a reported joint operation are said to have come under “direct attack” in Afghanistan’s flashpoint eastern province of Nangarhar. The attack took place in the province’s Shirzad district military headquarters on Saturday, AFP reported. The agency, citing local media, described the incident as an “insider
Asia Times: Nobody is talking after Michael D’Andrea, the CIA’s top Iran Mission Center chief, is allegedly killed in plane crash – A USAF Bombardier E11A intelligence gathering jet was cruising over Afghanistan on a secret mission, transporting two crewmen and allegedly, a mysterious chain-smoking CIA operative, Michael D’Andrea — also known as Dark Prince
Foreign Policy: As dissidents are attacked and murdered, critics liken the National Directorate of Security to the brutal intelligence service of the Afghan communists in the 1980s. When Nazar Mohammad Motmaeen talks about the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the Afghan intelligence service with close ties to the CIA, he becomes nervous. “They are dangerous,
Frud Bezhan Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty February 7, 2020 When Syria’s civil war erupted, Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) recruited, trained, and deployed thousands of Shi’ite fighters to prop up the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Among them was the Fatemiyoun Brigade, comprised mainly of Afghans from the country’s Shi’ite Hazara minority. From
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty February 7, 2020 U.S. officials say an American appears to have been kidnapped in Afghanistan by a group linked to Taliban militants. The officials on February 6 said they believe that 57-year-old Mark Frerichs of Illinois was kidnapped by the Haqqani network, which is based in Khost. It was not immediately