Afghanistan
Tall tales of the Golden East: the fabulous fabrications of two 20th-century con artists
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
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’
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
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
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?
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
Isis is wreaking havoc in Afghanistan
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
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
The Scottish writer David Keenan has published five novels in five years: This is Memorial Device (2017), For the Good…
Afghanistan, one year on
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
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
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?
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
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?
What happens to Afghan migrants when they reach the UK?
Afghanistan: five shocking claims made by the Foreign Office whistleblower
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
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?
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
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
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?
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?
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
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
Like millions of other Americans I was riveted by the images of chaos and despair at the Kabul airport as US…
Broken dreams
Oliver Balch 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