Gary Gibbon
Poll shows the public are losing confidence in the Afghanistan war
Gordon Brown has cleared his diary to give a speech on Afghanistan, as a new poll shows opposition to the war has risen sharply in the past fortnight.
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Gary Gibbon
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Deaths of British soldiers in Afghanistan raise strategy questions
Five dead is the biggest single loss of British life in one incident in Afghanistan since 2006 when 14 died in the Nimrod aircraft crash. And it comes at a time when British public opinion is increasingly sceptical of the war. But the way in which it happened is even more damaging. The five British…
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America's options in Afghanistan are shrinking
Channel 4 News reporter Lindsey Hilsum examines the shrinking number of options available to the US in Afghanistan.
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For Vietnam, read Iraq – and Afghanistan
The longer the US administration takes making up its mind about whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, the more comparisons are made with Vietnam.
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'An all too predictable loss of life'
The sad truth about the deaths of 8 US soldiers in Afghanistan this weekend is that they were not even meant to be in the remote military base that was attacked. They should have moved out months ago. Their commanders had been planning to pull out since Dec 2008 but various problems – from a…
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Winning Afghanistan boils down to hearts and minds
General McChrystal says more troops are needed in Afghanistan. But the lesson of Iraq is that you have to win over the local population.
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Jon Snow
Stephen Farrell and the lethal pursuit of truth
“We’re entitled to the protection of the First Amendment – no more.” So read my angry overnight text from an old New York Times friend with whom I survived reporting the civil war in El Salvador in the early nineteen eighties. We can be scandalised that the journalistic activities of Stephen Farrell, working in Afghanistan…
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Gary Gibbon
Putting low voter turnout claims to our man in Afghanistan
The UK ambassador in Kabul gave journalists in London a teleconference briefing today about the Afghan elections.
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Poor turnout at the Afghan polls
Nothing in my morning today amounts to anything like scientific research. But it does chime with what the scientific experts are now saying. I’ve been along to a number of Kabul high schools in the past hour or two with some simple questions. Ana I have received simple answers from the helpful and…
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Fearing the indelible mark of democracy
It was a simple and unoriginal idea. Stick your finger in the indelible ink, then see how easily it washes off. Across Afghanistan, the plan was to prevent repeat voting by putting this ink on the right index finger of each person brave enough to vote. There were drawbacks; the Taliban had threatened…
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The monk, the money man, and the Lion of Panjshir
Alex Thomson on the main rivals to Hamid Karzai in the Afghan elections: Ramazan Bashardost, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani.
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Greeting the litany of Afghanistan's casualties
Nima Elbagir guest blogs from Kandahar hospital, Afghanistan. When the Obama administrations’ then nominee for the top job in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal faced the Senate Armed Services committee in early June his message was unequivocal – civilian casualties were the major operational issue. “This is a critical point. It may be the critical point.…
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Inside an Afghan hospital
Channel 4 News reporter Nima Elbagir went to Afghanistan’s Mirwais hospital to uncover the civilian casualties caught up in the fight between Nato and the Taliban.
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Understanding Afghanistan through a journalist's eyes
Journalists and soldiers have very different ways of looking at the world. Journalists question everything; soldiers accept the task assigned by politicians. Journalists stand back to see how what’s happening fits into the big picture; soldiers set a limited goal and make it happen. Journalists are sceptics; soldiers have to believe in the rightness of…
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On the edge in Afghanistan
We made two good decisions yesterday. First, when we walked into the stadium (the one where the Taliban used to stone people to death) for Abdullah Abdullah’s rally, we took a look at the rickety wooden stage they’d built for the camera crews to stand on, and decided to set up our tripod on the…
