Shapoor Saber is a correspondent for RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s western province of Herat was once home to a thriving Jewish community that has now all but vanished from the region.
Mohammad Akbar, known as Afghanistan’s “saffron father,” died on September 14 at the age of 83 in his home province of Herat in the country’s west.
In a worrying sign, wealthy businessmen are threatening to move their capital abroad to escape growing insecurity in a strategic western Afghan province that has turned into a key commercial and industrial hub in recent years.
The son of a respected scholar of ancient Islamic works who was denied Iranian citizenship for a half century set himself alight to protest the plight of his father and other Afghans living there.
Iranian border guards have been accused of torturing and then forcing a group of Afghan migrants to jump into a river, where some of them reportedly drowned.
Authorities in Afghanistan have locked down a western province bordering Iran as the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus infections in the country continues to rise despite fewer people being tested.
Afghanistan has so far reported seven confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. But the war-torn country is bracing for more as thousands of Afghans return home from Iran each day.
A range of hard-line Islamist groups including the ultra-radical Islamic State (IS) are attempting to recruit on Afghan university campuses to turn the seats of higher learning into sanctuaries and breeding grounds for their violent campaigns and revolutionary ideologies.
Some Afghans impoverished by a devastating drought face a life-or-death decision: either sell a child, or let the whole family starve.
An impoverished couple in the western Afghan city of Herat are trying to sell their kidneys to pay off their debts.
An upstart challenger is adding some muscle to its claim that it is the legitimate leader of the Taliban.
In a sign of a budding power struggle, a regional strongman in western Afghanistan has engaged in public bickering with the Afghan government still struggling to balance competing interests.
A former Afghan strongman has warned of 'unprecedented fighting' in the near future as reports emerge of Islamic State militants in Afghanistan.
During the past two decades, poverty prompted Mir Ali's men to look for work in Iran. But most never return. They have either been killed or imprisoned for drug smuggling by Iranian authorities. Most of the Mir Ali's current 250 residents are women and children.
An Afghan girl wants her heroin-addicted father punished for hacking off her mother's nose and lips for refusing to sell her jewelry to fund his habit. "I want my father to be punished before my mother’s eyes," 10-year-old Parisa told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan.
