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3 Sep, 5 tweets, 2 min read
If there's only piece of reporting you read about Afghanistan this week, I think it should be this:

WHEN THE RAIDS CAME - by @andrewquilty: harpers.org/archive/2021/0…

He spent 2.5 years reporting it, only to have it come out the day after Kabul fell & get lost in the cycle. But...
It a story that illuminates essential context about the war that Americans have missed over the last month:

from the urban-rural divide and unemployment that drove a mass exodus of young Afghans...

to the 2019 deluge of night raids/airstrikes and how the Taliban recruited...
These CIA-trained & funded 01 units you've been hearing so much about these days...

read this deep reporting about the operations they conducted on the ground in Wardak province...
So many bits of this story broke me. Here's just one:

Seeking economic opportunity, Nasratullah left Afghanistan for Iran. He was miles away when his family members were killed. He scrimped & saved, but couldn't afford the flight. So he did the thing he knew would get him home. Image
I know I've tweeted it many times already (), but if you still haven't read @andrewquilty's 2020 investigation into CIA-backed 01 units in Wardak, it's an important companion piece to the Harper's story:

theintercept.com/2020/12/18/afg…

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More from @AzmatZahra

Azmat Khan Profile picture
10 Sep
Context for #The911Wars panel:

"But in the areas where most U.S. funding was concentrated — territories that were key to winning the war — American efforts have fallen woefully short of the grand claims the government made, claims that it knew were false."
In some cases, American efforts to provide education have actually backfired, embittering local people rather than winning their hearts and minds. ...
a fmr USAID manager on education in Afghanistan for years, watched the military’s counterinsurgency goals steadily creep into the agency’s work. USAID officials & contractors were summoned to presentations by generals, who asked how their work fit into the military’s strategy...
Read 7 tweets
Azmat Khan Profile picture
9 Sep
Throughout America's war in Afghanistan, reporters told story after story of the politicians, contractors, commanders & warlords who filled their pockets with billions meant for the Afghan people.

We've heard the numbers, but what were the true costs to Afghans?

🧵...
Many who pilfered the country have now escaped to luxury homes in places like Dubai & London, where they're desperately trying to re-write their histories.

When confronted with evidence of their corruption or wrongdoing, they're telling lies that are easy to fact check.
Some claim they have no ties to a company they founded.

Or pretend they didn't close one & start another under a new name.

That they didn't move business ops to the UAE to hide profits & a paper trail.

But perhaps the most brazen lie is the one they tell themselves...
Read 15 tweets
Azmat Khan Profile picture
6 Sep
Most of the war in Afghanistan has been fought in rural battlefields, places like Sangin and the Kandahar countryside, where Americans rarely hear the voices of women who have experienced decades of conflict.

Read this deeply reported story about women in Helmand's Sangin Valley
On a more true civilian toll:

"But the vast majority of incidents involved one or two deaths—anonymous lives that were never reported on, never recorded by official organizations, and therefore never counted as part of the war’s civilian toll."

newyorker.com/magazine/2021/…
"There was Muhammad, a fifteen-year-old cousin: he was killed by a buzzbuzzak, a drone, while riding his motorcycle through the village with a friend. 'That sound was everywhere,' Shakira recalled. 'When we heard it, the children would start to cry, and I could not console them.'
Read 15 tweets
Azmat Khan Profile picture
5 Sep
A must-read:

"I Helped Destroy People," @janetreitman's @NYTmag cover story about @TerryAlbury, an FBI agent who provided journalists key documents about the war on terror—and went to prison for it.

Amid the Trump news cycle, many ignored the revelations from his leaks, but... The cover of the New York Times Magazine Sunday edition on S
Don't ignore this now.

@TerryAlbury's firsthand account is an unvarnished view from the inside of what the FBI has been doing to Muslim and immigrant communities across the United States for two decades:

nytimes.com/2021/09/01/mag…
"His first partner, who worked primarily on cases involving Palestinians, used to argue to keep open cases that even his bosses wanted to close... “You invest years in it and begin to believe it’s your duty to find evidence, no matter how small, confirming your suspicions.”
Read 6 tweets
Azmat Khan Profile picture
29 Aug
I went on @ReliableSources with @brianstelter today to talk about U.S. media coverage of the war in Afghanistan, which has been its lowest in recent years, despite record pace.

There are many negative consequences, but one I want to emphasize the most is this...

(a thread)
Because most Americans are only now waking up to the war, they're informing themselves about the debate over withdrawal based ​mostly on sudden coverage from Kabul over the last few weeks—not the the years of context that's essential to having an informed debate about this war.
Most of the war in Afghanistan over the last 20 years has been fought in rural areas — not Kabul.

These areas are harder to access, admittedly, and some reporters have really gone to great lengths to report from them.
Read 11 tweets
Azmat Khan Profile picture
27 Aug
If you weren't familiar with ISIS-K until yesterday, here's some important context:

In April 2017, the United States dropped a 21,600-pound, $170,000 bomb in a small village in Nangarhar province Afghanistan—intended to target ISIS-K.

Better known as the “Mother Of All Bombs...
Here is a video CENTCOM made public of this bombing:

Is is "the most powerful conventional bomb in the American arsenal" — so large that it had to be dropped from the rear of a cargo plane...

nytimes.com/2017/04/13/wor…
Read 5 tweets

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