In this essay, Majid Saeedi shows a variety of scenes, captured throughout the country, that reveal the different ways in which both the landscape and the people of Afghanistan have been brutalized over the yea… Read More

Even as war has ravaged much of Afghanistan, an urban middle class has emerged in cities like Kabul and Herat and Mazar-i Sharif — a product, largely, of the influx of foreign money that has attended the coalit… Read More

Political analyses and the media often overlook the complexities of daily life in war-torn countries. Afghanistan as a concept is different than Afghanistan as a lived reality. But daily life continues nonethel… Read More

America's military presence in Afghanistan is slowly but steadily decreasing. The surge is officially over. The 33,000 extra troops that President Obama dispatched to Afghanistan in early 2010 are no more. Desp… Read More

Afghanistan has been called the land of 30,000 villages. What is remarkable is that every one of them is unique. The dramatic variations in power, ethnic, tribal, religious, and family dynamics from one village… Read More

Last year, the fighting in Afghanistan killed over 3,000 civilians — a record for the war. Many more were maimed and wounded. Insurgents escalated their use of I.E.D.s and suicide attacks, while "collateral dam… Read More

At the Kabul Military Training Center, on the outskirts of the capital, Afghan recruits go through a 16-week basic training course to become regular infantry soldiers. Upon graduation, they can be deployed anyw… Read More

Friday afternoon is the busiest time of the week at Pamir Cinema in the Old City of Kabul. A standing-room only crowd of several hundred young men in a smoke-filled room cheer on the hero of a Pakistani film as… Read More