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
The Washington Post: At any one time, 6,500 Afghans are studying Russian across Afghanistan, and the center helps manage their hopes for a free-ride scholarship to a Russian university. Veterans from Moscow’s decade-long war in Afghanistan are also frequent guests, occasionally facing their erstwhile opponents on the soccer pitch. Click here to read more (external link).
1TV: Pompeo said this while testifying before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the State Department budget request. Asked by a Senator Jeanne Shaheen why do the US believe the Taliban will be honest, Pompeo said that it will be about actions on the ground. “Trust but verify. It will be about actions on the
Tolo News: In reaction to a new research by a Dutch writer which says Mullah Mohammad Omar, Taliban’s founding leader, had lived in Afghanistan before he died in 2013, former head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Rahmatullah Nabil, said on Tuesday that Mullah Omar never lived in Afghanistan following April 2001. Nabil told TOLOnews
Tolo News: One of the five minarets, each 55 meters tall, in downtown Herat city, is on the verge of destruction while others have a ruined image due to “inattention” by relevant departments, local officials said. The minaret is protected by steel cables for the past two decades but the cables have lost their strength
Tolo News: Afghan politicians and hundreds of their supporters at a gathering in the Loya Jirga tent in Kabul marked the fifth anniversary of Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim, who was a prominent Jihadi leader and served as vice president during former President Hamid Karzai’s government. Five years ago, Marshal Fahim died on this day, 09th March
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
By Frud Bezhan Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty February 14, 2019 n February 14, 1979, Adolph Dubs, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped at gunpoint, held hostage in a Kabul hotel, and killed in a botched rescue attempt. Forty years on, the precise circumstances surrounding the death of the 58-year-old diplomat remain shrouded in mystery.
RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan February 13, 2019 Afghanistan is mourning Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, the country’s first president after Soviet forces withdrew 30 years ago following a war of occupation. Mojaddedi, a mujahedin commander who fought against the Soviet Army in the 1980s, died late on February 11 in a Kabul hospital. He was 93. A mourning
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty February 12, 2019 A commander of the so-called Muslim Battalion of Soviet troops in Afghanistan, retired Colonel Boris Kerimbaev, has died at the age of 71 in Kazakhstan. Kerimbaev died in Almaty on February 12. He gained prominence in 1981-83 when he commanded the Soviet Army’s 177th special battalion, which was