Anna Badkhen

I returned to a place I saw liberated in 2001. Now the Taliban are back, and the only thing that has improved is the cell-phone reception.

Nearing the end of the road, our diarist reflects on the unlikely sanctuary she found in a blighted land.

Our correspondent visits two Afghan villages hardened by centuries of hatred — and separated by only a short stretch of road.

Visiting the pediatrics center at an Afghan city hospital, in a country where only three out of four children live to be five.

Refugees from a place that no longer exists, these Afghan settlers live in a slapped-together collection of tents on land that belongs to their ancestral enemy.

No. But the question itself poses more questions than you might think.

In a tiny room with no door, in a village with no roads, a drugged woman ties thousands of knots to weave a rug for others to walk on.

Stopping through Mazar-e-Sharif, our correspondent witnesses one of the most disturbing side effects of the region’s poverty: young boys with old faces.

With cops like these, who needs robbers? Our diarist meets one of Afghanistan’s finest.

They go take a hike — and so does our diarist, spending a day of leisure on hills that were once bloody battlefields.