Men of war mondays full#

It was an excuse, they said, so the Taliban could move fighters and equipment back to the front lines without fear of being attacked. His men seemed strangely unfazed, as if they knew this had been coming or, at the least, resigned to their fate.Ī three-day cease-fire was announced by both sides beginning Thursday to commemorate Eid, leaving the troops here incredulous. “You’ll have to keep fighting,” Captain Tofan explained. The document, Captain Tofan said, indicated that the police and local militias would not return to their posts any time soon. Ezzatullah Tofan, laid it out plainly, showing a screenshot on his phone to his troops as the PKM machine gun on the roof fired away. The group chat of messages, pictures and grid coordinates is a virtual meeting room for Afghan and American forces planning daily bombing runs in the province.īut until the police returned to their positions, Corporal Hamza would have to stay on the line, doing a job that was supposed to be someone else’s. Despite his geographical distance, the American captain continues to help direct airstrikes as a key member of a WhatsApp group: the Helmand Targeting Team. military is now back at Bagram, a sprawling base in Afghanistan that will become one of the United States’ last before the country fully withdraws sometime this summer. The smell of musk and body odor still lingered in the rooms once inhabited by American troops when the Afghan soldiers came to retrieve anything left behind.Ĭaptain Safi’s link to the U.S.

Men of war mondays full#

The American flag folded for the last time at Antonik on May 2, leaving freezers full of apple pies, chicken and bean burritos, boxes of medical supplies and fluorescent glow sticks that have since been harvested by Afghan forces nearby. Army captain who helped him for months by coordinating airstrikes from nearby Camp New Antonik, a scab of a base built between the ruins of Bastion and Leatherneck, former British and American installations that are now decaying relics of the war’s last chapter. “They won’t leave us,” Captain Safi said of the Americans, convinced that the withdrawal was not really happening.Īlmost every day Captain Safi talks to the U.S. departure, because the Americans, their foreign-sounding names, and aircraft and drones are still ingrained into almost every part of the war. Shir Agha Safi, an intelligence officer who moves around Helmand Province, had not come to terms with the planned U.S. A Growing Threat: A local affiliate of the Islamic State group is upending security and putting the Taliban government in a precarious position.Ĭapt.But many artists have fled, fearing for their work and their lives. Can Afghan Art Survive? The Taliban have not banned art outright.Far From Home: Some Afghans who were abroad when the country collapsed are desperate to return, but have no clear route home.Vanishing Rights: The Taliban’s decision to restrict women’s freedom may be a political choice as much as it is a matter of ideology.Across the country, there is widespread anxiety about the future. 30, Afghanistan quickly fell back under control of the Taliban.