Afghanistan Is Trying to Save Its Child Bombers
In a room full of loud teenagers, 17-year-old Mohammad Ehsan is the quietest. (The names of the boys in this piece have been changed to protect their identities.) The other boys in this juvenile ...
Every morning for the last 27 years, Ahmad Zaki has gone to work without fail; come rain, sunshine, or the years of war that have plagued his country, Afghanistan. Zaki joined the Afghan postal service – or Afghan Post – right after high school and has worked out of the Central Post Office in the...
Graan carries his assault rifle everywhere, even to the event organised by staff of the Afghan Telecom Regulatory Authority in Kabul to honour him and his colleagues for defending them from an ISIS attack. In fact, the 32-year-old member of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) forces was the only one of the 12 Afghan...
Afghan musician Shafiq Baksh closes his eyes in reverence as the call to prayer wafts from the loudspeaker of a nearby mosque, marking the end of the day-long Ramadan fast. “The azaan is a kind of music that brings us close to God,” he says. “”But music in itself is a path to God.” Baksh,...
Ezatullah Nizami Ahmadzai, a young Afghan policeman stationed at a small checkpoint on the outskirts of Kabul, was just sitting down with his compatriots, on Saturday, for iftar, the breaking of the fay-long fast that Muslims observe during Ramadan. Hardly had they said their short prayers and taken a morsel, when explosions disrupted their moment...
In a tea-drinking culture, coffee and cupcakes are signs of social change
As the sun set, we hurried through the streets of Dasht-e-Barchi on the western edge of Kabul. Our host, 40-year old Baqir Sangari, had called several times to check the instructions to his house in the largely Hazara Shiite community. Arriving a few minutes after iftar, we were welcomed by Baqir and invited to sit...
The grief of Talib Jan Mangal is insurmountable. His voice quivers with emotion as the 66-year-old Afghan fields calls from around the world. They are all asking after his 26-year-old daughter Mina, who shot dead in broad daylight in the Afghan capital of Kabul on Saturday. Despite his sorrow, Mr Mangal answers every calling journalist,...
The sun was setting over the Afghan capital on the second day of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, prayer and good deeds, but municipality cleaners Zabihullah and Fahim were still out on the streets of Kabul, hours after their shifts had ended. “The money we make isn’t enough to survive, which is why after...
It’s hard to imagine a happier face. But it’s a bittersweet story. A joyful video of a 5-year-old Afghan boy, Sayeed Rehman, has gone viral. He had just been fitted with a new prosthetic leg, and he couldn’t stop dancing while flashing a wide smile. He said he was happy to have a leg that...
Five-year-old Sayeed Rehman does not know what resilience means, a word used several times over the last few days to describe him. The young Afghan is just happy that he can dance again with his new prosthetic leg, one of many that he has worn during his short life. “I like to dance, and I...
