South East Asia

On the eve of the withdrawal of US troops, the increasingly powerful Taliban began occupying important cities and districts in various provinces of Afghanistan. Especially during July and August, the Taliban were rapidly occupying the cities of Afghanistan. They captured Kabul on the 15th of August after capturing almost all the cities by the second week of August.

More than a week has passed since the Taliban takeover of Kabul after 20 years of their previous regime. There have been significant developments of the Taliban and the situation of Afghanistan in the past few weeks. So far, the Taliban seems to be different in their approach to the Afghans and to the world community than their previous tenure in Afghanistan.

When something completely unexpected happens, we ascribe it to providence. But when there are a series of such occurrences revolving around a single event, it’s but natural to suspect that something’s amiss and in absence of any rational explanation, conspiracy and coverup theories abound. The latest such issue that’s caught the world’s attention is the crisis in Afghanistan.

In the wake of intense fighting and the rapid transfer of power to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (also known as the Taliban), people are facing widespread instability, mass displacement, and the disruption of basic services, including health care. Despite the challenges, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams continue to provide essential medical care across all five of our projects in Afghanistan—in Herat, Helmand, Kandahar, Khost, and Kunduz provinces. Here, two medical staff members working in Lashkar Gah (Helmand province) and Khost city describe the recent changes they have witnessed, and how they have affected patients and health care providers alike.

Names withheld to protect anonymity.
Lashkar Gah: “We are receiving over 700 patients a day in our emergency room”

As the barack obama administration considers modifying the current U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, it is useful to understand the social, religious and historical forces that influence Pashtun society. Pashtuns form the single largest community in Afghanistan, consisting of approximately 38% of the population.[1] Pakistan also hosts a significant Pashtun population, primarily in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), where they make up 78% of the population, and in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), where they make up 99% of the population.[2] Overall, 15% of Pakistanis are Pashtun.[3]

Supravegherea sporită la frontierele extracomunitare ale Ungariei și Croației a deviat către România ruta pe care mii de migranți și refugiați afgani încearcă să ajungă în centrul UE, scrie publicația spaniolă El Confidencial.

The Islamic State offshoot that Americans blame for Thursday’s deadly suicide attacks outside the Kabul airport coalesced in eastern Afghanistan six years ago and rapidly grew into one of the more dangerous terror threats globally.

Despite years of military targeting by the U.S.-led coalition, the group known as Islamic State Khorasan has survived to press more assaults as the United States and other NATO partners withdraw from Afghanistan, and as the Taliban return to power.

When the tears dry, it is worth considering why there is so much upset about the fall of Kabul (or reconquest) by the Taliban and the messy withdrawal of US-led forces. A large shield is employed: women, rights of the subject, education. Remove the shield, and we are left with a simple equation of power gone wrong in the name of paternalistic warmongering.