Azam Ahmed

Lisbon

International Investigative Correspondent at The New York Times

International investigative correspondent for @nytimes, [email protected]. Author of Fear Is Just A Word https://t.co/4R5VXFazAF

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Articles

How America created the enemy it feared most

Jan 4, 2025 | nzherald.co.nz | Azam Ahmed

The United States killed its own allies, sabotaging itself in a part of Afghanistan where it never needed to be. The Taliban war hero scans the crowd. From the back, he snatches a man with a flop of dusty hair and a face marred by shrapnel. The man’s head is bowed, and he is missing an arm and an eye. “This,” the Taliban commander says, “was the last ally of the Americans here”.
‘This is all coming to an end’: The once booming drug town going bust under Taliban rule

Jan 1, 2025 | irishtimes.com | Azam Ahmed

An oasis stretched far into the desert, a vast sea of emerald stalks and scarlet poppy flowers that grew to the horizon. The Taliban operated openly, running a social experiment unlike anything in the country. Tens – then hundreds – of thousands of people flocked here to escape the war and grow poppy, fleeing the American efforts to wipe out the crop.
Takeaways From a Times Correspondent's Return to Afghanistan

Dec 28, 2024 | nytimes.com | Azam Ahmed

The Talib looked as ragged as his outpost, a trailer banked on a snowy mountain pass. Holes were bored into its sides to ventilate a sputtering wood stove. Upon seeing foreigners, the Talib, with an unkempt beard and layers of ill-fitting sweaters, ordered us out of the car. For more than an hour, my colleague Bryan Denton and I waited on the trailer floor as he reviewed our documents. Beside him, two guards slept beneath heaped blankets. It smelled as if they had been there a while.
Our Reporter Returned to Afghanistan, Seeking Lessons and Secrets

Dec 27, 2024 | nytimes.com | Azam Ahmed

The Talib looked as ragged as his outpost, a trailer banked on a snowy mountain pass. Holes were bored into its sides to ventilate a sputtering wood stove. Upon seeing foreigners, the Talib, with an unkempt beard and layers of ill-fitting sweaters, ordered us out of the car. For more than an hour, my colleague Bryan Denton and I waited on the trailer floor as he reviewed our documents. Beside him, two guards slept beneath heaped blankets. It smelled as if they had been there a while.
Estados Unidos creó al enemigo que más temía. Así fue como lo hizo

Dec 25, 2024 | nytimes.com | Azam Ahmed |Bryan Denton

En esta remota provincia, el comandante llevó a cabo uno de los ataques más mortíferos contra las fuerzas estadounidenses en Afganistán, una batalla campal que fue una alerta temprana de un conflicto que se desvió de manera terrible y alteró la historia de la guerra. Ahora, años después de que los estadounidenses abandonaron este valle, y todo Afganistán, el comandante sacude al hombre que localizó entre la multitud para explicarle cómo Estados Unidos perdió ambas cosas.
How Afghan Militias, Unleashed by the U.S., Proved Worse Than the Taliban

Dec 24, 2024 | nytimes.com | Azam Ahmed |Bryan Denton

Trump blamed Biden. Biden blamed the Afghan military. Our investigation found that the U.S. unwittingly laid the groundwork for the Taliban's victory long ago. A member of the Afghan Local Police, a militia organization formed to fight the Taliban, outside the unit's hilltop base in 2012 in Taloqa, Kunduz Province, Afghanistan. Trump blamed Biden. Biden blamed the Afghan military. Our investigation found that the U.S. unwittingly laid the groundwork for the Taliban's victory long ago.
The Once Booming Drug Town Going Bust Under Taliban Rule

Dec 18, 2024 | nytimes.com | Azam Ahmed |Bryan Denton

"I was surprised at the amount of water they had in the area," said Darren Richardson, who had commissioned the study. "That was a significant aquifer."And yet, only a decade later, the water was growing scarce. Despite the American airstrikes and water worries, Bakwa remained a center of the drug trade. Poppy had a long shelf life once harvested. Its watering needs coincided with the spring snowmelt from the neighboring mountains. The trade could hold on, residents reasoned. But then the war ended.
What I Learned From a Reclusive Taliban Commander

Dec 11, 2024 | nytimes.com | Azam Ahmed

For more than 20 years, American journalists had largely covered one half of a war. As a former Afghanistan correspondent and Kabul bureau chief, I had, too. Much of the country had been off limits. The Taliban perspective was often limited to their propaganda. And the true story was unknown. I'd read every after-action report about the Battle of Want, every Lesson Learned. But now that the fighting was over, I wondered what we'd missed.
Un monstruo en Afganistán: detrás de la investigación sobre el general Abdul Raziq

May 24, 2024 | elespectador.com | Azam Ahmed

Lee este contenido exclusivo para suscriptoresEl general Raziq era el jefe de policía responsable de la seguridad en todo Kandahar. Durante años, el ejército de Estados Unidos lo consideró como un combatiente feroz y un socio leal. Sin embargo, se le atribuyen terribles crímenes. Combatientes talibanes montados en vehículos Humvee en una carretera para celebrar después de que Estados Unidos retirara todas sus tropas de Afganistán, en Kandahar el 1 de septiembre de 2021.
Un monstruo en Afganistán: detrás de la investigación sobre el general Abdul Raziq

May 23, 2024 | es-us.noticias.yahoo.com | Azam Ahmed

Las fuerzas del general Raziq, aliado de EE. UU., desaparecieron a miles de personas para cimentar su poder como comandante en Kandahar. Lo único más rápido que la retirada estadounidense de Afganistán podría ser la rapidez con la que el mundo siguió adelante. El gobierno de Joe Biden dejó de hablar del tema. Y la mayoría de las organizaciones noticiosas ya estaban reduciendo su presencia en Afganistán cuando los talibanes tomaron el poder. Pero quedó una pregunta, a la vez básica y vasta.