Project

Afghanistan: Civilians Under Siege

In 2008, there were over 2,100 civilians casualties across Afghanistan. US airstrikes accounted for 552 deaths, up more than 70% compared to the year before. Militants were responsible for more than half the overall total. The bitter truth is that most of these incidents could be avoided. And yet they continue as public support for the Afghan government and its international supporters sinks to new lows.

Although some attention has accompanied the mounting casualties, media coverage has seldom explored the long-term effects of these traumas on Afghan communities: How have insurgents tried to exploit local grievances? Have more young men joined their ranks, looking for revenge? Have affected communities turned against the government, irrevocably? Or, when insurgents are responsible, shifted toward the government? A survey of major incidents that have taken place in the past year will lay the groundwork for a case study of a locality where innocent civilians have recently been killed. By returning to the scene in the following weeks to measure the fallout, this project aims to illustrate the cost when bystanders become war victims.

June 16, 2010 | TIME

In an Afghan Valley of Death, Good News — for Now

Jason Motlagh

Fifteen months ago, coalition and Afghan forces traveling the road that slices through this rugged mountain valley, less than an hour's drive from the capital Kabul, were attacked so frequently by Taliban gunmen it was nicknamed the "Valley of Death" — one of the country's many. Today, school children walk home on the pavement and apple farmers tend their orchards without fear of firefights.

May 18, 2010 | TIME

A Sunni Awakening: Not So Easy in Afghanistan

Jason Motlagh

It was hailed as a game-changing breakthrough in the U.S. military's effort to rally Afghan tribes against the Taliban-led insurgency. In late January, elders of the Shinwari, an influential Pashtun tribe in eastern Nangarhar province, pledged to confront militants operating in their territory and punish anyone who cooperated with them. Within weeks, however, they turned their guns on each other: a land dispute between two subclans erupted into a firefight that has left 13 people dead and another 35 injured. It has cast doubt over a U.S.

May 17, 2010 | Pulitzer Center

Afghanistan: After a Deadly Night Raid

Jason Motlagh

Jason Motlagh, for the Pulitzer Center
Jalalabad, Afghanistan

It was late Friday afternoon when we heard that a nighttime US Special Forces raid had allegedly killed civilians in a village about nine miles west of Jalalabad, our reporting base in eastern Afghanistan's Nangarhar province. Our local fixer had waited to pass the news; he feared that we'd insist on going straight to the scene where a brick-throwing mob might have attacked us once they learned we were American journalists. He was right.

May 17, 2010 | Democracy Now

Afghans Protest Deadly Nighttime Raid

Richard Rowley

Mourners continued to gather on Saturday in the small farming village of Koshkaky, in eastern Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, where an early Friday morning raid by US and Afghan Special Forces left eight people dead. The military issued a statement saying that their forces came under attack, and in the firefight a Taliban subcommander and seven militants were killed. They reported that no civilians were harmed. But residents here tell a different story. Independent journalist Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films was at the scene and filed this report.

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