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Taliban

‘Nowhere is safe’: The teenage guitarists who fled Afghanistan — and are now in limbo

Conflict & Justice

A group of Afghan teenage girls once found hope through music. They were then forced to escape Taliban rule and take refuge in Pakistan. Now, Pakistan wants to send them back.

Afghan women and children sit in front of a bakery waiting for bread donations in Kabul's Old City, Afghanistan, on Sept. 16, 2021.

‘It is a catastrophe’: Afghans are in desperate need of food, humanitarian aid, refugee worker says

Afghanistan
Newly trained female officers from the Afghan National Army sit in front seats as a new batch of officers attend their graduation ceremony at National Army's training center in Kabul on Sept. 23, 2010. 

Two decades of war and daily life in Afghanistan

Afghanistan
US Black Hawk military helicopters fly over the city of Kabul, Afghanistan, April 19, 2021.

Afghans who fled to Turkey are worried — and hopeful — about the prospect of peace at home

Refugees

Afghanistan’s Antiquities in Peril

Arts, Culture & Media
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A still image from a video posted by the Taliban on social media on Dec. 19, 2016, shows American Caitlan Coleman, left, speaking next to her Canadian husband Joshua Boyle and their sons.

Pakistan describes freeing US Canadian family from the Taliban, but officials doubt the story

Conflict

American Caitlan Coleman and her Canadian husband Joshua Boyle, who were kidnapped while backpacking in Afghanistan in 2012 and had three children while in captivity, have left Pakistan after being freed.

Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar speaks during a welcoming ceremony at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan May 4th, 2017

Notorious Afghan warlord returns to Kabul on May the Fourth

Conflict

Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar returned to Kabul Thursday after ending 15 years of rebellion against the Afghan government. He happens to bear an uncanny resemblance to Star Wars character Count Dooku, the Sith Lord.

A police cadet injured during the attack on the Police Training Center lies in bed in a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan.

Attackers kill dozens of sleeping cadets at Pakistani police academy in Quetta

Conflict

Who’s to blame? Two militant groups have taken credit. Pakistan’s army blames a third group. And some point fingers at the army itself, accusing security forces of fostering the very extremist groups now attacking the country.

An Afghan National Army (ANA) soldier speaks on a radio at an outpost in Helmand province, December 20, 2015.

Afghanistan can’t control the Taliban since the Taliban controls the drug trade

Conflict

The war against the Taliban continues. And some rural residents hope the group wins as they allow them to produce opium.

'Solar mamas' bring light to Zanzibar

Saving Christians, fighting a scourge, bringing light: The year in hope

Conflict

They wouldn’t yield to terrorists, dictators or diseases. They brought light to the world. A look at seven stories in 2015 that inspired us.

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