Mohammad Sadiq Rashtinai is a correspondent for RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan in Kandahar.
An offensive by Afghanistan’s Taliban militants appears to be aimed at reclaiming Afghanistan’s second city, which once served as the capital for the hard-line movement nearly a quarter-century ago.
In a sign that some rural Afghan farmers are attempting to protect themselves amid the looming uncertainty wrought by the coronavirus pandemic, poppy cultivation has increased in a southern Afghan province.
More than 1.5 million Afghans were killed during the decadelong Soviet occupation of their country, which began with the December 27, 1979, invasion that first killed the country’s communist President Hafizullah Amin.
John Bass, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, says that despite some progress in negotiations between the U.S. government and the hard-line Islamist Taliban movement, the insurgents have yet to seriously engage with Kabul or Afghan society.
The weeks-long closure of roads leading to and from a rural district in southern Afghanistan has raised fears that its 120,000 residents might soon suffer a food shortage.
Their life was far from ideal, but young Afghan policeman Hashmat and his wife, Bibi Gul, were happy in their humble house in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
Officials in southern Afghanistan hope that the fields of saffron will soon replace the bright red flowers of opium poppy, which partially fuels conflict in the region.
Rauf is one the 15 former Taliban leaders and senior officials that Raziq recently claimed have returned from Quetta, the capital of the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan, to live peacefully in Kandahar.
Afghan farmers are opposing a government campaign to eradicate their poppy crops in the southern province of Kandahar.
Officials in a restive southern Afghan province say disparate fighters associated with the Islamic State (IS) militants have now established training camps in remote mountains.
Until recently, the southern Afghan province of Kandahar was seen as an oasis of security and stability amid a Taliban onslaught that saw the hard-line militants overrunning large swaths of neighboring provinces.
Unemployment is leading youth in southern Afghanistan to question whether the time, effort and money they invested in getting education was worth the trouble after some are unable to find work years after graduation.
Afghanistan's army is attracting a large number of recruits in restive southern provinces despite fighting the biggest Taliban offensive during the past 13 years.
Afghan officials claim to have killed scores of militants in a new offensive against the Islamic State in a restive southern province.
The Mohmand Hospital intends to charge patients fees for seeing some doctors, but it is admitting the sick for free and providing them with free tests, medicines, and surgical procedures.
