Widening roads and replacing monuments, officials erase relics of adversaries and fulfill long-awaited plans.
KABUL — Taliban authorities have embarked on an ambitious project to change the face of the Afghan capital, a crowded metropolis of 5 million that still displays the scars, monuments and fads of periods of civil conflict, foreign invasion and new-money opulence.
In Dasht-i-Barchi, a rundown district across the city dominated by minority ethnic Shiites, municipal crews are smashing old houses to rubble as they prepare to build a connecting road to a major highway. The thoroughfare was originally envisioned 43 years ago by the first Afghan president, Mohammed Daoud Khan, who overthrew the monarchy and designed a master plan for the centuries-old capital that was never fulfilled.
Unlike Afghan kings and the Soviet-backed modernizers of earlier eras, the Taliban religious militia did not leave a physical stamp on Kabul when it first took power in 1996 after a civil war that left much of the capital in ruins. That five-year reign was infamous for destroying non-Islamic, rural antiquities and landmarks, especially the towering 6th-century Buddha statues carved into cliffs in the northern province of Bamian.
One such change has been the dismantling of an urban fortress once occupied by Abdurrashid Dostum, a former army general, vice president and brutal militia leader now living in Turkey. For years, the structure loomed over a narrow city intersection, slowing traffic to a crawl. Once, police trying to arrest Dostum were unable to get past the blast walls, barbed wire and gun turrets. Now, those defenses are gone and pedestrians stroll in the surrounding lanes.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Military Investigation Reveals How the U.S. Botched a Drone Strike in KabulWASHINGTON — In the chaotic final days of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, U.S. military analysts observed a white Toyota Corolla stop at what they believed was an Islamic State compound. The Americans were already on edge. Three days earlier, a suicide bomber had killed scores of Afghans and 13 U.S. troops at a main gate of the Kabul airport. Now, officials had intelligence that there would be another attack there, and that it would involve a white Corolla. They tracked the
Read more »
Errant Kabul drone strike was 'deadly blunder,' US military misled public about children killed: reportAfter reviewing an internal U.S. military investigation of the 2021 U.S. drone strike that killed civilians in Kabul, the New York Times called the attack a 'deadly blunder.'
Read more »
New Docs Show US Lied About Civilians Killed in 2021 US Kabul Drone Strike.amnestyusa's deviatarcalls a report revealing the U.S. military lied about a 2021 drone strike that killed 10 Afghan civilians 'more evidence that we need a huge change in how the U.S. uses lethal force and assesses and reveals its consequences.'
Read more »
Ex-Marine Pen Farthing forced to evacuate from Kabul — because of Prince Harry memoirPen Farthing slammed Harry’s autobiography, “Spare,” which was released prematurely in Spain last week, as “badly judged.”
Read more »
As Taliban erases women’s rights, Biden encounters limits of U.S. swayThe Biden administration is contemplating actions to punish the Taliban for its treatment of women and girls, but U.S. officials are struggling to exert influence over the Taliban more than a year after American's chaotic exit from Afghanistan.
Read more »
A Chinese company has signed an oil extraction deal with Afghanistan's Taliban | CNN BusinessThe ruling Taliban has signed a deal with a Chinese company to extract oil from northern Afghanistan's Amu Darya basin as the radical Islamist group attempts to bolster the South Asian nation's increasingly impoverished and isolated economy.
Read more »