Afghanistan

On February 5, the New York Times published a front-page story by Carlotta Gall and myself, Time Runs Out for an Afghan Held by the U.S., about Abdul Razzaq Hekmati, a 68-year old Afghan detainee who died in Guantánamo on December 30, 2007, in which we established that Mr. Hekmati, known to the authorities in [...]

They say journalists provide the first draft of history. With the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, that draft led to an almost universal consensus, at least among Americans, that the attack was a justifiable act of self-defense. The Afghanistan action is commonly viewed as a “clean” conflict as well — a war prosecuted with minimal loss [...]

In an important front-page story in the Guardian, Michael Semple, the Irish UN official arrested in Afghanistan at Christmas — along with British EU official Mervyn Patterson — and subsequently expelled for posing a threat to national security by making contact with the Taliban, has robustly defended his actions.

British Royal Marines in Helmand province. Expelled [...]

Today the New York Times runs an exclusive front page article by Carlotta Gall and myself, Time Runs Out for an Afghan Held by the U.S., relating the story of Abdul Razzaq Hekmati, a 68-year old detainee who died of cancer at Guantánamo on December 30, after being held for five years without charge or [...]

In the first part of this article, Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison, looked at the background to the recent release of 13 Afghans from Guantánamo, explained that nine of these men had been identified, and related the stories of the first of the [...]