‘I cannot return to Afghanistan because certain death is waiting for me and I want to live. For myself and my beautiful family.’ By Lachlan Markay.

An all-girls robotics team from Afghanistan who hit the headlines when they were briefly denied entry to the US over the summer, have won a major European competition. The Entrepreneurial Challenge at the Robotex festival in Estonia challenged entrants to solve a real-world problem that would also appeal to potential customers.

A language dispute has erupted in Afghanistan after the BBC labeled the Facebook page of its local service BBC Dari, a name rejected by Afghan Persian speakers who prefer their language to be known as Farsi.

A new inspector general report released Thursday found that while the Pentagon did not have formal guidance discouraging the reporting of child sex abuse in Afghanistan, several troops say they were still informally told to ignore it.

Strong increases in cultivation were recorded in almost all major poppy producing provinces, with restive Helmand in the south seeing the biggest rise of 79 percent. By Usman Sharifi.

A nonstrategy for Afghanistan. By Andrew J. Bacevich.

A U.S. soldier has been killed and six more wounded in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan, the military said on Saturday. The Resolute Support mission said that the crash occurred on Friday night in the eastern province of Logar, which is located south of the capital, Kabul. The mission said that the crash was not caused by militant groups. Both the Taliban and the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) operate in Afghanistan and are waging an insurgency against the Afghan government and western forces present in the country.

A North American family of five are released from Afghan Taliban captivity by Pakistani troops.

Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai on Sunday questioned how ─ under the watch of US intelligence and military ─ the militant Islamic State (IS) group emerged in Afghanistan over the past few years. Karzai, during an interview on RT, also questioned why extremism and violence had increased in Afghanistan when the US had come to the country to bring peace and stability.

In January 2009, two trucks packed with explosives careened toward the front gate of a remote United States Army base in the Khost Province of Afghanistan. The first truck exploded near the gate, injuring a pregnant Afghan woman and several others. But the terrorist plot to kill American soldiers was foiled when the second truck crashed into the blast crater left by the initial explosion.

The American Military’s Repetition-Compulsion Complex. By Ann Jones.

The C.I.A. is pushing for expanded powers to carry out covert drone strikes in Afghanistan and other active war zones, a proposal that the White House appears to favor despite the misgivings of some at the Pentagon, according to current and former intelligence and military officials. If approved by President Trump, it would mark the first time the C.I.A. has had such powers in Afghanistan, expanding beyond its existing authority to carry out covert strikes against Al Qaeda and other terrorist targets across the border in Pakistan.

Up to 30 Taliban fighters were killed and three soldiers injured in a clash took place between the government forces and militants loyal to the Taliban, in eastern Afghan province of Nuristan, a senior provincial official said Monday. The incident took place early Monday morning, in the restive Barg-e-Matal district of the province, where as many as 30 insurgents were killed and three security personnel injured, said Hafiz Abdul Qayum, the provincial governor, adding that the conflict continues.

A suicide bombing on Tuesday in a busy commercial area in Kabul, near a string of banks and not far from the U.S. Embassy, killed at least five people, Afghan officials said. According to Basir Mujahid, spokesman for the Kabul police chief, the explosion likely targeted a branch of the privately owned Kabul Bank. The U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan's compound is located about 500 yards down the road from the bank.

Bibikhal Uzbeki from Afghanistan is reputed to be the world’s oldest refugee. Under difficult circumstances, she and her family escaped the Taliban’s invasion of the city of Kunduz to Sweden. Blankspot can now reveal that she is to be deported.

As President Donald Trump vents his frustration with the United States' "losing" strategy in Afghanistan, the "notorious mercenary" and Blackwater founder Erik Prince has seized the moment to offer his favored alternative: privatize the war. "A private air force and a bombing app! From the people who brought you Blackwater; an even more disturbing idea."

When the Afghan female robotics team, made up of teenage students from the western city of Herat, finally made it to a global competition in the United States, the cameras were focused on them. Here was a glimmer of hope from a place so often associated with bloodshed. The girls had made it against all odds, including being denied visas twice.

Afghan security forces battled gunmen following a suicide attack outside the Iraqi embassy in the capital, Kabul. A bomber blew himself up at the gate of the embassy in the central Shar-e-Naw neighbourhood, then three other attackers entered the compound, the Afghan interior ministry said. Although the ministry said the siege had ended, reports of gunfire continued. So-called Islamic State (IS) said it carried out the attack.

The reason we first sent soldiers to Afghanistan—to hunt bin Laden and al Qaeda—is long gone, yet we’re sending 4,000 more troops there. Is it time to rethink our 16-year war? By Roy Scranton.

In the midst of Trump administration developing its policies on Afghanistan and Pakistan, the experts in Washington, are divided. The key question seems to be how to make Pakistan cease its support to the Haqqani Network and other militant groups that are destabilizing the region, especially Afghanistan… By Hussain Nadim.