From the Wall Street Journal:
In “Children of the Taliban,” documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy interviews two 15-year-old boys, Abdurrahman and Wasifullah, who are living in Kachegori Camp, a refugee settlement in Pakistan.
The boys, best friends since childhood, fled their hometown in northern Pakistan in October 2008, when it became a target of both a Pakistani army bombing campaign and a U.S. missile attack intended for Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders.
In the film, Abdurrahman, who blames the Taliban for the October raid, says he wants to be a Pakistan army soldier when he grows up. Wasifullah, whose cousin was killed by a U.S. missile, wants to join the Taliban.
Later, Ms. Obaid-Chinoy asks the two boys separately: Are they willing to fight each other on the battlefield?
“Definitely, I will kill him,” says Abdurrahman.
“Yes,” says Wasifullah, “I will retaliate fiercely.” More:
From the New York Times:
Kabul – Through two decades of war, Abdul Ahad never contemplated leaving Afghanistan. But as his country started to deteriorate rapidly in 2007, so did his life. He was laid off from his full-time driving job and forced to take the only work he could find: a once-a-week driving gig through Taliban territory.
In the past eight months, a suicide bomb and a firefight nearly took his life. Now, Mr. Ahad, 26, has had enough. He has begun scouting potential smugglers to take him to Europe, he said, looking to join the surge of young Afghans who are abandoning their country, frustrated by endless war, a lack of prospects and the slow pace of change.
While foreign diplomats hold out hope that the August presidential elections and President Obama’s new troop deployments could change things here, Afghans are voting with their feet. More:
A harrowing account of a Doctors Without Borders mission to Afghanistan; part photojournalism, part graphic memoir. In the New York Times a review of “The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan With Doctors Without Borders,” By Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre and Frédéric Lemercier.Translated by Alexis Siegel. Illustrated. (First Second).
It is impossible to know war if you do not stand with the mass of the powerless caught in its maw. All narratives of war told through the lens of the combatants carry with them the seduction of violence. But once you cross to the other side, to stand in fear with the helpless and the weak, you confront the moral depravity of industrial slaughter and the scourge that is war itself. Few books achieve this clarity. “The Photographer” is one.
A strange book, part photojournalism and part graphic memoir, “The Photographer” tells the story of a small mission of mostly French doctors and nurses who traveled into northern Afghanistan by horse and donkey train in 1986, at the height of the Soviet occupation. The book shows the damage done to bodies and souls by shells, bullets and iron fragments, and the frantic struggle to mend the broken. More:
In The Times, Tim Albone reports from Baghdad:
The Gota restaurant was packed. Cars lined the streets, you had to wait for a table and laughter filled the air as families gathered to break their Ramadan fasts in the upmarket Baghdad neighbourhood.
Even the crackle of gunfire in the background could not spoil the mood – for once, it was not caused by insurgents but a wedding party, firing off some rounds in celebration. “It’s like a dream, but it’s become truth,” said Sarmad, 29, a trendy, confident young professional. This is the first Ramadan since violence spiralled out of control in 2005 that Iraqis have felt safe enough to break their fasts in restaurants. In recent months people have even had the confidence to visit parks and spend the afternoons shopping; an unimaginable scenario as recently as six months ago.
For young, single men such as Sarmad it is a godsend. “We can meet girls now,” he said.
More:
