Afghanistan
Kim Sengupta talks to Ahmed Rashid
[video:brightcove:1657894487] Ahmed Rashid spoke recently at the Frontline Club with the BBCs Lyse Doucet and today it’s another Frontline Club member’s turn Kim Sengupta. He talks to the fighter turned foreign correspondent in The Independent today. He recalls how the Pakistani authorities banned him from working and the Taliban said he must be killed, “It […]
Taliban shadow governor killed?
In a little-reported story from the north-west of Afghanistan – no doubt overshadowed by the car-bomb attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul – villagers in Qayser district used “a machine gun, sticks and stones” to chase away Taliban members, killing, in the process, the shadow-governor for Faryab province. The militants had tried to abduct […]
15 months of reporting
[video:youtube:N3_ZKBwv3V0] Mike Boettcher, ex-CNN, NBC, Peabody award winning journalist, is heading to Iraq and Afghanistan to report on the soldier’s stories. He’ll be out there for 15 months and will file all his work to the web on a site called NoIgnoring. He says he’ll make all the material free for news networks to use […]
Navigating the counterinsurgency field manual
John D. McHugh’s latest film for The Guardian is up. This is his fourth piece and we find John talking to Charlie Company in Afghanistan about what it’s really like to work as an American soldier trying to follow the guidance in the Counterinsurgency Field Manual Click the image above to watch John’s film.
Sean Langan talks after Taliban ordeal
Sean Langan drops by in the comments to say thanks to all those who worried about him during his kidnap ordeal at the hands of the Taliban in the borders area between Pakistan and Afghanistan, Just wanted to pass on my deep gratitude to all those in the foreign press corp. I lost my phones […]
Road trips down south
Another timely reminder of the dangers on Afghanistan’s southern ringroad. 35 police officers were suspended a couple of days ago following protests by truck drivers about police corruption and kidnappings on the road from Herat to Kandahar. Incredibly, 12 drivers were kidnapped last week on the road (and I think that that’s probably a conservative […]
Sean Langan freed
Sean Langan, regular at the Frontline Club and an award winning Channel 4 reporter who works on Dispatches, was freed yesterday after a three month kidnap ordeal in a deal forged by his family, “We are absolutely thrilled that Sean is back in the UK and free,” they said. “We can’t thank Channel 4 enough […]
War reporting is too expensive
[video:youtube:CT-Hq117w8s] Following on from Lara Logan’s broadside on the American media coverage of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars – the CBS Chief Foreign Correspondent said she would “blow her brains out” if she had to watch what passed for news in the US – The New York Times follows up with a round up of […]
Australian journalist shot in Kandahar
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that an Australian journalist was shot in the arm near Kandahar. The journalist is believed to be 36-year-old Jamie Kidston, a former cameraman for SBS Television, A [Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade] spokesman said the Australian, from NSW, was being treated at medical facilities inside Afghanistan. “Australian government officials […]
Afghanistan: Medieval Warfare?
The savagery of medieval warfare is widely acknowledged and understood; yet the idea of chivalry as an important and influential force in the conflicts of the Middle Ages somehow lives on in seemingly comfortable juxtaposition with this awareness. In By Sword and Fire I show that such notions of incongruent compatibility do not reflect the […]
Green Grass
I write this from my beautiful green garden in Kabul, which has changed so much as to be almost unrecognizable. We now have aubergine, mint, coriander, roses, grapes and mulberries growing, along with a lot of other stuff that I’m sure is edible but don’t know the names of. As always, there’s lots happening in […]
Are we just numb?
[video:youtube:zh2A_SYuhls] That’s the question Jon Stewart, presenter of the Daily Show, asked Lara Logan, chief correspondent for CBS News, on the show he presents last night, I mean, there were 51 people killed today in a Shia neighborhood in Iraq. Are we just numb? Have we lost our humanity with this entire situation? Yeah, we […]
In the frame with Véronique de Viguerie
Véronique de Viguerie‘s image on Afghan men in Kandahar is profiled on the excellent Verve Photo blog, “I took this picture in Kandahar. I was doing a story on the growing influence of the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. I was told that the Taliban were using poor people to work for them. So early morning […]
Returning to Afghanistan
Flying back to Kabul tomorrow and then on to Kandahar later in the week. Photo above is of the kit I’m taking with me (minus clothes and my aging Sony Vaio FS750P/W). Am looking forward to seeing how my new mini Asus copes in Kandahar (dust, heat, speed etc). Finally replaced my old Ipod mini […]
Alex heads back to Afghanistan
Live from the streets of London via Twitterpower. Alex begins the process of heading back to Afghanistan.
Silent mourning for Abdul Samad Rohani
TV and radio stations across Britain mourned the loss of Abdul Samad Rohani with a two minute silence. Meanwhile a memorial to the young reporter, who worked for the BBC in Helmand province, has been organised, The memorial had been organised by Afghan journalist unions for their murdered colleague. Some speakers read poems, a traditional […]
Films from the frontline
John D. McHugh’s latest video report from Afghanistan is live on The Guardian website. John also has another film, “Captain McChrystal’s Thanksgiving” and a new audio slideshow called “Not fit for task” up on the site too. Both are part of a “flash” presentation. John dropped me an email to say he’s working hard on […]
Banned from Afghanistan?
Sir Max Hastings says he’s been banned from the battlefields of Afghanistan by Defence Secretary Des Browne. Hastings has been a regular visitor to war zones for more than 20 years. Talking to The First Post he explains further, “I asked to go, as I’ve so often gone to British battlefields all over the world, […]
Are the Taliban winning?
Live streaming video from the Frontline Club events room tonight. Just click the image above to go to the live channel page at 7.30pm UK time, 11 June. Taking part will be Alastair Leithead (BBC), James Fergusson (journalist and author), James Appathurai (NATO), John D McHugh (photojournalist) and Mawlavi Abdulsalam Zaeef (Taliban) The British death […]
Abdul Karim al-Khaiwani sentenced to six years
Abdul Karim al-Khaiwani, a veteran journalist and one of Yemen’s most prominent democracy advocates, has been sentenced to six years in jail with hard labour for supporting an alleged terrorist group. He spoke with Amnesty shortly before he was imprisoned, “The authorities in Yemen are trying to silence me and they even appear to be […]
Murdered BBC journalist buried
Abdul Samad Rohani, the 25 year old BBC journalist murdered in Helmand province on Sunday, was buried in his home cemetery in the district of Marja today, “Unknown armed men had abducted Rohani and his body was found yesterday. He had four bullets shot at his chest. We are investigating the case.” A relative who […]
Abdul Samad Rohani killed in Lashkar Gah
BBC journalist Abdul Samad Rohani was found shot dead in Lashkar Gah in southern Helmand province, Afghanistan today, A BBC statement said Rohani’s “bravery – and that of his colleagues – have allowed us to tell a key story for audiences in the UK, in Afghanistan and around the world”. It added: “His death is […]
Foreign minister’s memorial
Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s Foreign minister, is in Afghanistan agreeing aid deals with Hamid Karzai’s government. He also unveiled a plaque in honour of his friend, Andy Skrzypkowiak, a British war correspondent who was killed in 1987. Back then Sikorski was himself a war correspondent, ‘I have the feeling I’m paying off a debt to my […]
Doug Schmidt outside the wire
Doug Schmidt will spend six weeks filing stories from the frontline in Afghanistan. He’ll be reporting for the Canadian newspaper, The Windsor Star, and blogging on his Outside the Wire blog.
Interview with Alex Strick van Linschoten
Frontline blogger Alex gets interviewed on BBC Radio 5 Live – great bit of insight into how one the Frontline bloggers operates, where he goes, how he approaches work and travel. Worth a listen.
Declan Walsh in Garmser
The Guardian’s Declan Walsh reports from Garmser, on the frontline of the fight with the Taliban in Afghanistan via audio slideshow on the newspaper’s website.
BBC Radio 5 Interview
This link will take you to an MP3 of my interview yesterday with Chris Vallance on my way home from the airport. Light listening.
Reporting restrictions
David Carr writes in the New York Times about The Wars We Choose To Ignore. With war coverage shrinking to a mere drip – “3% of all American print and broadcast news as of last week” – down from 25% last September according to Project for Excellence in Journalism’s News Coverage Index, Carr highlights some […]
Who is Asne Seierstad?
Stephen Moss asks the question – Who is Asne Seierstad? A journalist, a writer, or something inbetween? Maybe a “literary journalist” he argues, The nomenclature matters. I met the American reporter Dahr Jamail, author of Beyond the Green Zone, recently, and while I admired the way he had gone to Baghdad to report on the […]
Interview with Peter Jouvenal
Kabul based Peter Jouvenal, one of the original Frontline agency journalists and an Afghan specialist is interviewed by TalkRadioNews military affairs correspondent Richard Miller. You can read about and listen to the 20 minute interview here or play it directly here. Peter touches on how he came to live in Afghanistan, his early days as […]