NYT: He was a Marxist revolutionary and minister in Afghanistan’s short-lived communist government. But Sulaiman Layeq spent the last decades of his life writing an epic poem about an Islamist insurgent. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News: Afghans across the country on Saturday marked the 31st anniversary of former Soviet Union troops withdrawal from the country. Meetings and gatherings were held in various parts of the country where the speakers paid homage to the “bravery” of those who fought against the then Soviet forces and forced them to end the
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty December 27, 2019 By Frud Bezhan KABUL — Afghanistan’s communist President Hafizullah Amin was lying unconscious in his bed. A KGB agent who had infiltrated Amin’s staff as a cook had poisoned the president and his ministers during lunch at the Tajbeg presidential palace in Kabul. It was December 27, 1979.
The National Interest: It’s well past time to let Afghans decide Afghanistan’s future without foreign “assistance.” During the early days after the 9/11 attacks and the initiation of the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, it was relatively common to reference the woeful Soviet experience in that country. Here was a clear paradigm of what not to do
AFP: Gholam Mahaiuddin sighs softly as he thinks of his 14-year-old son, who was killed in the spring by a bomb dropped last century in the hills of Bamiyan province in central Afghanistan. “We knew the mountain was dangerous,” said Mahaiuddin, who found his son’s remains after he didn’t come home one day. “We were aware
By Frud Bezhan & Petr Kubalek Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty KRASLICE, Czech Republic — In the winter of 1978-79, Afghanistan’s communist regime deployed a hit squad to find and kill Babrak Karmal, the high-profile ambassador to Czechoslovakia. Fearing for his life, Czechoslovak authorities secretly hid Karmal and his family in a remote hunting lodge in
Tolo News: Afghanistan’s top cleric Ayatollah Sheikh Mohammad Asif Mohseni passed away due to an illness in Kabul, his family confirmed on Monday. Mohseni was born in 1935 in the southern province of Kandahar and was widely considered to be the most powerful cleric among the Shias in Afghanistan. Mohseni who was the founder of the
This year, Russia marks 30 years since Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan. The nine-year long military campaign that claimed the lives of nearly 15 thousand Soviet servicemen even today is the subject of a heated debate in Russian society. The upcoming release on May 10th of Russian director Pavel Lungin’s Leaving Afghanistan, a film on
The Guardian (UK): A row has broken out in Russia over a film about the Soviet Union’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, after politicians and former servicemen criticised its unflattering depiction of Red Army soldiers as unpatriotic. Leaving Afghanistan, directed by Pavel Lungin, is based on the experiences of Nikolay Kovalyov, a veteran of the Afghan war who went
Tolo News: Hundreds of Afghans, who said they are families of war victims, gathered at the Loya Jirga tent in Kabul on Friday to mark the 30th anniversary of Soviet troops withdrawal from Afghanistan. The war lasted nine years and, in that time, an estimated one million civilians, including children, were killed, along with 90,000 Mujahideen