Taliban
Afghan Women Are Devastated by Suspension of Aid Under New Taliban Law
For years before the Taliban seized power and the economy collapsed, Jamila and her four children had clung to the edge of survival. After her husband died trying to cross the Iranian border, she and her children moved to a camp for displaced people in northwestern Afghanistan and relied on aid organizations. One group brought […]
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How the C.I.A. Tracked the Leader of Al Qaeda
WASHINGTON — Intelligence officers made a crucial discovery this spring after tracking Ayman al-Zawahri, the leader of Al Qaeda, to Kabul, Afghanistan: He liked to read alone on the balcony of his safe house early in the morning. Analysts search for that kind of pattern-of-life intelligence, any habit the C.I.A. can exploit. In al-Zawahri’s case, […]
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For the Taliban, a New Era of Isolation Has Arrived
Hours after an American drone strike killed the leader of Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, in downtown Kabul, Taliban security forces rushed to seal off the site. Green tarps were thrown over destroyed windows. Checkpoints were put up, and shops were closed. But there was no hiding the damage that had been done to the Taliban’s […]
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In Afghan Quake: ‘I Did Not Expect to Survive’
SHARANA, Afghanistan — As the earth shook, she said, speaking through her tears, she felt the walls of the room collapsing on her. Then everything went dark. When Hawa, a 30-year-old mother of six, regained consciousness, she was choking on dust, and struggled to make sense of the scene around her. “I did not expect […]
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U.S. Repatriates Afghan Whose Guantánamo Detention Was Unlawful
The United States on Friday complied with a federal court order and released a former Afghan militiaman from detention in Guantánamo Bay, in a case that reflects the changing political realities of Afghanistan. Assadullah Haroon Gul, who is in his 40s, was held for 15 years at the military prison under the name Haroon al-Afghani […]
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Attack at Sikh Temple in Afghanistan Kills Several People
KABUL, Afghanistan — Militants stormed a Sikh temple in Afghanistan’s capital on Saturday, leaving several people dead and others wounded, and stoking already heightened concerns among the country’s religious minorities about whether the new Taliban government will be able to protect them from rising violence by extremist groups. The assault, which lasted over an hour, […]
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Afghanistan Tries to Stamp Out Opium Again
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — For years, opium has been the monster too big to slay. One Afghan government after another has pledged to stamp out opium production and trafficking, only to prove unable to resist billions of dollars in illicit profits. The Taliban government of the 1990s ultimately managed to reduce opium cultivation. But after the […]
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Afghans Urge Court Not to Give Frozen Central Bank Assets to Sept. 11 Families
WASHINGTON — Exiled Afghans are urging a federal judge to reject the effort by relatives of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks to seize $3.5 billion in frozen Afghan central bank funds to pay off judgment debts owed by the Taliban, recent court filings show. In three filings, groups of Afghans argued that the frozen […]
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Eid Under the Taliban Shows a Changed Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan — Thousands of Afghans had piled into buses and set out down the country’s once perilous highways bound for relatives they had not seen in years. Afghanistan’s only national park was filled with tourists who had only dreamed of traveling to its intensely blue lakes and jagged mountains when fighting raged across the […]
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