#return to Kandahar

[abs0luteb4stard]

#Oliver Reed #Black Kes #hammer horror #Gladiator (2000) #Oliver! (1968) #The Assassination Bureau (1969) #The Devils (1971) #Tommy (1975) #The Three Musketeers (1973) #The Brood (1979) #The Curse of the Werewolf (1961) #The Four Musketeers (1974) #The Return of the Musketeers (1989) #Paranoic (1963) #The Big Sleep (1978) #Captain Clegg (1962) #Night Creatures (1962) #The Damned (1961) #These are the Damned (1961) #The Brigand of Kandahar (1965) #Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype (1980) #folk song #true stories #celebrity #famous people #legendary #legend #not many people have songs written about their last night alive anymore these days #bless that crazy wild son of bitch #drinking songs

[curtwilde]

Taliban has announced that women in Afghanistan will be stoned to death in public for adultery.

The Afghan Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, has issued a disturbing proclamation, vowing to implement brutal punishments against women in public. In a chilling voice message broadcasted on state television, Akhundzada directly addressed Western officials, dismissing concerns about violating women’s rights by stoning them to death.

"You say it’s a violation of women’s rights when we stone them to death," Akhundzada stated. "But we will soon implement the punishment for adultery. We will flog women in public. We will stone them to death in public," he declared, marking his most severe rhetoric since the Taliban seized control of Kabul in August 2021.

These grim statements, purportedly from Akhundzada, who has seldom been seen in public except for a few outdated portraits, emanate from Afghanistan’s state TV, now under Taliban control. Akhundzada is believed to be located in southern Kandahar, the Taliban's stronghold. Despite early assurances of a more moderate regime, the Taliban swiftly reverted to harsh public penalties reminiscent of their previous rule in the late 1990s, including public executions and floggings. The United Nations has vehemently criticised these actions, urging the Taliban to cease such practices.

In his message, Akhundzada asserted that the women's rights advocated by the international community contradicted the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law. Akhundzada emphasised resilience among Taliban fighters, urging them to oppose women's rights persistently. "I told the Mujahedin that we tell the Westerners that we fought against you for 20 years and we will fight 20 and even more years against you," he stated.

His remarks have sparked outrage among Afghans, with many calling for increased international pressure on the Taliban.

"The money that they receive from the international community as humanitarian aid is just feeding them against women," lamented Tala, a former civil servant from Kabul.

"As a woman, I don’t feel safe and secure in Afghanistan. Each morning starts with a barrage of notices and orders imposing restrictions and stringent rules on women, stripping away even the smallest joys and extinguishing hope for a brighter future," she added.

"We, the women, are living in prison," Tala emphasised, "And the Taliban are making it smaller for us every passing day."

Taliban authorities have also barred 330,000 girls from returning to secondary school for the third consecutive year. University doors were closed to women in December 2022 and participation in the workforce is heavily restricted.

#please keep the women of afghanistan in your prayers #afghanistan #taliban #women's rights #feminism #tw violence #south asia #afghan

[privateanxieties]

to the shadows, we return

Summary: When Frank goes to the woods of Kentucky in search of Gunner Henderson, you come along for the ride. And when the man you're looking for shoots an arrow at him, well— it isn't Frank that gets hit. Feelings ensue in the aftermath.

Words: 4.4K

Pairing: Frank Castle x f!Reader (no y/n); hurt/comfort, fluff, light angst, blood and injury, near death experiences, whumptober 2023

--------------------------

You can tell the place is liable to be booby trapped all to hell before you've even gotten out of the van.

In a way, that's good. It means you're going to be of use and Frank didn't bring you here for nothing. In another, it's annoying, because you're going to be advancing at a snail's pace the whole way and the November sun is quick in its descent.

What you're here to provide is a one-woman navigation system, courtesy of your tactical training at Quantico. It's not that Frank didn't go through similar procedures; but he doesn't specialize in this type of operation, and he most definitely isn't used to extracting his way out of a predicament delicately. When it comes to these scenarios, he's the blunt object to your scalpel.

Gunner isn't someone you look forward to seeing again, but if you're to survive this whole ordeal, Frank needs to find answers. It sucks that this is what you're doing the first time you've left the bunker in weeks, but at this point you'll take a bear trap over listening to David Lieberman detailing any more Greek legends. Frank orders him to stay put— not that he'd have come with, anyway. Three's a crowd and all that. He seems content with his current level of involvement and you can't blame him for being reluctant to (very likely) get shot at. You're not very keen on it yourself, and knowing Gunner even as little as you do, it's something you worry about more than the traps themselves.

"Let's go before it gets any darker," you say, slinging your backpack over your shoulder. Frank nods, throwing another warning look at David.

The forest is barren this time of year, and an untrained eye might give into a false sense of security. Not a lot of places to hide traps, or at least not very well, a novice might think. Not the case. Gunner, from what you were able to intuit back in Kandahar, is the survivalist type. He's guaranteed to know his way around more than a few… creative snares.

It's not long into your trek inside the forest before you spot the black wire, but its placement is so obvious and exposed that it can't be more than an early-warning system for non-threats. No one looking for traps would trigger this one. It means you're getting close, but not quite close enough that you'd pose any real danger to his territory. Which means anything you encounter from now on will definitely try to take a finger with it. Though, if you're being honest— it's more like a limb or two.

Frank is quiet and cautious behind you, never closer than a three-step interval: the ideal distance for only one of you to get snared if you both happen upon a trap. It's a wonder he's letting you have the lead. If you've known Frank Castle to be anything, then that's a stubborn mule with absolutely no respect for safety. He'll take a bullet both out of stubbornness and sheer disregard for his life. He's old-fashioned like that. The fact that you're somewhat in charge in this particular instance means that he's laser-focused on getting to the bottom of Operation Cerberus. You know he wants the truth more than anything else. It's not just justice for what was done to his family, but for what he himself has done while on the covert task force.

Personally, your only goal is to avoid dying in the name of loose ends. It was somewhat of a miracle that you even survived the hit that made yours and Frank's paths cross again. Distantly, you think you can still feel the tingle in your knuckles from the right hook you served Carson Wolf. You appreciate Frank letting you have that after the fucker blew up your apartment.

Shaking off the chill of the biting November wind, you grit your teeth against the mounting stress of not having found any traps thus far. The place should be crawling with them, which means that if you don't see them, either you're not on the right path or Gunner's contraptions have been detected by others and swiftly removed. He could very well be dead out here and you'd have no idea. It's a grim thought; if that's the case, any information will have died with him.

"Over there," Frank calls in a hushed tone, stopping you in your tracks.

You follow his line of sight to a small shape in the middle distance, and even shielded by trees as it is, you can clearly distinguish the outline of a tiny cabin. Your first thought? You're uncomfortably close to it for no aggression to veer its head. You almost expect something to drop on both your heads from the clear skies, a cartoonish outcome if there ever was one. Before you can open your mouth and voice any of these concerns, however, Frank steps away from you.

"Hey—" you warn, tone sharp, but he only holds up a hand and motions for you to follow him.

You're forced to do so against your sharper instincts. Frank knows Gunner much better than you do. They were on the ground together in Afghanistan, while you did pre-mission recon under Cerberus. The only reason you ever talked to the guy was because you stuck your nose where it didn't belong. You looked for trouble and it found you, at the same time that you found unidentified crates of smuggled weapons, which was decidedly not how the military armed its personnel. Gunner was there. He'd already been onto something, and who knows what else he'd seen. Your piece of the puzzle might be nothing compared to his, and you desperately need it if you want your life back.

Frank, you've gathered, doesn't care much for his own. He moves through the woods carefully, though with an air of nonchalance that worries given the territory. Or maybe it's trust, you figure, because it doesn't take long for him to call out Gunner's name.

"Brother, I just wanna talk!"

The backpack is deposited on a pile of dry leaves, and you watch curiously as Frank also removes his weapon, placing it atop the bag. He motions for you to do the same, and the look you throw him is one of vehement defiance.

"No."

"He needs to see we don't want to hurt him," Frank argues.

"Then I'll wait over here," you return, a grim smile scrunching up your features.

It's not that you want to hurt Gunner, but you are not opposed to it whatsoever if that's the direction this will go.

"He'll think it's an ambush. C'mon, we—" he pauses, looking away and back at you with his mouth turned down. "We came this far. We need to talk to him. Leave the goddamn gun. He's got the advantage anyway," he pleads, though you sense an amount of command in that tone.

He's right that you're out here, exposed, while Gunner could shoot you both through the rickety door or one of the windows of the cabin. You're not comfortable being unarmed, though— you haven't been in years. Although, you suppose, some things are too great to get away from with just the use of a pistol. It sure as shit didn't help when you almost got blown all the way to hell four months ago. A deep sigh from Frank rattles your hesitation. The question in his eyes is tinged with desperation, and for a brief moment, he looks younger than you know he feels. He's not accustomed to asking people for anything, and the slightest doubt on the part of those he asks for help is enough to make him regret ever thinking of it in the first place.

You don't want him to doubt you. You also don't want to make him think you don't trust him, because you do. You woudn't have gotten this far with him and David if you didn't. Sure, you didn't seek them out; they found you and in the process saved your life. Back in the war, your unit relied on you before anyone else. The purpose of reconnaissance is simple: gather intel. Make sure that when you go in, you have a way out. You liked that job and you liked feeling unquestionably needed.

Despite recent revelations, the sting of what happened before you were abruptly sent home is still fresh somehow. It lingers on the surface of your days, waking or slumbering. For almost three years, you lived with the belief that you sent your unit into a death trap, and it took nearly dying for the record to be set straight. What happened in Kandahar, that last mission that killed more than half of the Cerberus unit— it wasn't on you. It wasn't on you, and yet guilt isn't easy to do away with.

It's the same kind of guilt you're witnessing in Frank right now, with his brows pulled so tight that a deep ridge has formed between them. He's restless and full of regret, and that's what makes your decision barrel into you. You simply don't want to add the fact of your company to that list for him. If you're going to be here, you might as well be the support he needs.

Nodding somewhat unconvincingly — because you're still dreading this — you copy his actions and discard your backpack and weapon next to his own, at once feeling more uneasy than you have in a long time. The gratitude you can sense in his relaxing posture is a little too much to bear, so you settle for diffusing the tension with a warning.

"If he shoots you, I will leave your ass here."

Frank bites back a reply you can guess almost word for word, but his face tells the story his lips won't: yeah, sure you will. It's comforting to know that he at least trusts you not to abandon him, at the same time that the thought feels heavy considering your history. You owe him in more than one regard, but that's not truly why you wouldn't leave him, even to save yourself. Frank is pretty much the only family you've got left. You didn't have many people in your life to begin with, and he's lost the most important ones to rogue government dealings. The only way you'll be removed from his side is if either he is dead or you are. It's funny, the way you grow attached to someone while living in a shithole bunker and hiding from men who want to kill you.

The sun inches lower as you approach the cabin, gaze firmly set on the windows. It's instinctive to watch them, though you aren't neglecting your surroundings either. Frank calls out towards the house again, taking cautious steps to close the distance. You follow in a mirror of your previous formation, no more than three steps behind him.

The place appears desolate, but the trail of smoke from a minuscule chimney is all the sign of life you need to confirm someone else's recent presence. You're now less than ten feet away from the door, and all of a sudden your muscles go stiff. You scan the trees around you for anything you might have missed, but they are free of threats and as barren as the furnishings you can glimpse inside the cabin when you turn to look over Frank's shoulder. The wet crunch of the leaves beneath your boots is dampened by Frank calling out again.

"C'mon Gunner, it's Frank!"

Once close enough, he takes a peek inside one of the smaller windows to the right, and you take your place at his side so that you both line the wall in the least vulnerable positions. Frank, however, is taking more chances than you think he ought to by looking so unabashedly through the windows on the left side.

"Gunner!"

"Hey—" you whisper, realizing immediately how stupid that is. It's not like you haven't announced your presence plenty. "Frank, get away from the goddamn windows."

"He's a good man. He's not going to shoot me. Right, Gunner?" he says in the same tone and volume, making you turn away so you can roll your eyes in privacy, knowing Frank has a bit of a sore spot for that. It's all you have time to do, anyway, because once you've widened your field of vision, you spot a shape that wasn't there just a minute ago.

It's funny how the body can respond to stimuli before the brain has even processed them, and it's even funnier how it chooses to do things without any input whatsoever from logic or reason. Self-preservation has no business here, is what your body seems to have decided is the working philosophy for today.

Consequently, you're pushing Frank down and out of the way before you even realize you've moved. The pain, for its part, is not without delay either. Your scream echoes through the woods and you register it as if it's not your own, but some distant sound — and then you're looking down at your shoulder and realizing exactly what hit you. It makes sense that it's a carbon arrow, you think, because anything else would've been snapped in two by the force of the compound bow now aimed at you both.

You cry out when Frank's arm winds around you and hauls you to your feet, dragging you behind the nearest wall and out of the line of fire, but not before another arrow embeds itself in the window frame next to his head. He sets you down with more care this time, and though you're a bit out of it, you don't miss the sheer emotion in his face. It goes hand in hand with the lightning-sharp pain filtering through your veins and making reason depart swiftly. It's why your fingers begin to grasp at the arrow's shaft, ready and willing to expel it from your body without hesitation. They're only stopped by Frank's own hand, gently but firmly guiding yours back down to rest on your stomach.

"Gunner, goddamn it—" Frank shouts, so close to you that you can feel the vibration of his rough tone. "You proud of yourself, huh? You just shot an unarmed woman!"

This time, the eye roll is in full view and you want him to see it.

And why is it that I'm unarmed, Frank?

You don't say that, though you want to. There's something in Frank's eyes that tells you his mental state right now is veering towards self-blame, and he's not the one responsible for this outcome. The guns, however— those are his fault.

You're both defenseless.

And just like that, you're suddenly scared. It doesn't creep up on you like usual, where you wait and wait until the signs are clear that the future will hold unpleasant things. This fear is cold and dense like the woods around you. The woods you might die in. A whimper flows past your lips as your eyes go wide.

Frank takes notice in an instant.

"Shh, hey— Look at me, right at me."

His palm has cupped the side of your face, warming it up against the surging chill of the forest and giving you something to fixate on to stave off the ensuing panic. It's too bad you close your eyes so you can fully focus on the texture of his skin, because the jolt that comes in response is none too gentle. Frank is shaking you awake.

"Hey! Don't you do that. You hear? Don't close your eyes. Keep 'em on me. Just focus on me, sweetheart."

You try for reassurance through touch, but this is a mistake, you soon realize. When your hand comes up to brush along Frank's cheek, it's with distant horror that you notice it's your right hand. You are moving your right hand, because that is the only one that you can move without blinding pain.

Which means the arrow has found a home in your left shoulder. Your left shoulder, not far above your heart.

"Frank—"

He can see you looking. He can probably see how terrified you've become.

And he, in turn, becomes terrifying.

The next time he calls out Gunner's name, you don't hear Frank Castle. You only witness his shadow being left behind as the Punisher comes forward. And then you get swallowed by your own shadows.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

It's a silly little dream— of that, you're certain. But it doesn't mean you can't enjoy the brush of the soft blanket under you or the gentle carding of fingers through your hair.

The warmth of the air borders on unpleasant, and you might be sweating a little more than you'd want in this scenario, but overall you wouldn't trade it for the world, being here with him. Calm. Unhurried. Ignorant of all discomfort, even as your arm has gone numb from lying on your side, gazing at the fire. Well, maybe occasionally at the fire. Mostly, you're just looking at him.

Tracing the contours of his face with your eyes and wishing your fingers could follow, you take everything in as a light euphoria settles over you. His skin is lit up by the wash of warmth from the fire, each imperfection softened— or perhaps that's your eyes' doing, wistfully hooded and completely unashamed in their observation. It feels like gazing upon him for the first and last time, like you're only truly seeing him now that he might disappear. There's a weight in your chest, neither pleasant nor concerning.

Then, his lips are on your cheek and reality slips away. You forget that this is just a dream the moment his mouth trails over your jaw and down the column of your neck, and your eyes fall blissfully closed. He's touching you everywhere, the reassuring press of his body to yours further melting every muscle and easing every current of something like pain travelling through your chest and down your arm. Absent any willpower, you lose grasp of words that aren't his name and thoughts not curved around this moment. You're as relaxed as you can be.

That's when the screaming begins.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Curtis should really make some kind of declaration soon, or he's going to lose his goddamn mind.

He hasn't said anything the entire time he's been working and— Frank trusts him. He trusts Curt with his life. But it isn't his life on the line right now, and worst of all, it should've been. It should've been him taking that arrow to the chest and bearing it only an inch away from his heart. It should've been him, delirious with sepsis and burning from a killer fever. It always should've been just him in those woods. Only him.

It's his fault. It always is. People always die at his side or because of shit he's done. He always drags them to hell with him, and they never make the journey back together. Only he ever emerges from that blackened pit, crawling out on a bruised soul to fight another day, and the carnage left behind is made up of enemies and loved ones alike.

He's a fucking plague. He's—

"Frank. I need you to focus, brother."

His eyes are wide and gaze distant; he notices that immediately upon Curt's warning, but it's hard to bring his expression under control. It's equally hard to keep his eyes focused, because they will fix themselves upon the only thing in the room that matters and his thoughts will spiral soon thereafter.

Frank's never seen anyone look so frail. He's had comrades die out in the field. He's held onto Curt while the corpsman was in the worst pain of his life — his fucking fault, again — and he's witnessed the worst crimes of humanity against one another. He's perpetrated some of those crimes. Yet everything always happened in the blink of an eye. Everyone he's ever lost, he's lost quickly. In each of the worst moments he's ever lived through, there was none of this waiting, and the hands of the clock didn't spit and curse at him for daring to have hope.

She's been looking worse by the hour. Ever since Curt got here, the medic has had to restrain him from doing something stupid like calling an ambulance. It's a wonder Lieberman managed to make the tough decision and drive them all back here, instead of going to a hospital like Frank demanded. Threatened. Gently asked with his finger on the trigger.

But David was right— it would've been over for them all if they went to an ER. The people that want to kill them would encounter no problems taking out one of their targets while she's unconscious and defenseless in a hospital bed. Frank would be arrested, if not shot on sight. And David would soon follow after them both. So, they're here.

And Frank is still losing his mind as time drags forward and the blood keeps dripping. He keeps an eye on the line between her arm and Lieberman's, delivering the life-saving substance at a pace controlled by Curtis. David's a universal donor, a fact that almost makes Frank believe in some higher power. With odds this stacked against him, it's a miracle he gets this one kindness.

Don't let her die.

The thought startles him briefly, since he meant not to ask. The words manifested from seemingly nowhere, a little echo of them bouncing around his mind. Frank doesn't have any illusions of a higher power granting him leniency, even if one exited. If anything, his mere involvement here, the fact that he cares— might be enough to entice whoever's out there to just deal him another blow, no matter who gets swallowed up in the process.

Either God doesn't exist, or he does and is an asshole. No third way around it, in Frank's view.

An hour passes, then another. Lieberman is recovering on the cot at the edge of the bunker, now with almost a fifth less blood running through his veins. Frank says nothing about how if it was necessary, it could've been more than a fifth. Substantially more— all of it, even. He's not sure Curt would approve of this perspective… murdering a man with a family just so he doesn't lose his again. He'd do it. He would. He'd do anything, he decides on a quiet exhale.

When exactly his heart made the decision to latch on this tightly — both hands, it recalls — he isn't sure and he doesn't care. What's done is done, and boy was it done without his fucking approval. It terrifies more than comforts him, the fact that he is still able to feel like this after everything he's been through. It also frustrates him, despite his best efforts, because he can't seem to let it go. Part of him knows it's because he can't escape it or her, since they're in this together. There's nowhere for him to run, no place to crawl to and wait out these feelings; they're both stuck on the other side of lives they used to have, leaning on each other for support they never ever asked for.

And why in the goddamn hell did she—

A groan. Quiet, almost inaudible to anyone whose ears aren't listening for any sign of pain. His heart jumps, and he's on his feet in less than a second. On the other side of the room, Curt startles.

"Frank—"

He blinks down at her form, eyes flitting over the bandages and blood and fragile skin.

"Frank, come on—"

"Did you give her something?" he grunts, almost surprised at the sound of his own voice. It's rougher than even he is used to.

"What?" Curt asks, taking a few steps closer.

"For the pain. Did you give her anything for it?"

Curt's hesitation is all he needs to see red.

"Her body's working through a lot right now. Painkillers would get swallowed up by everything else running through her system, and we don't have morphine—"

Frank isn't too proud of the look he throws his friend.

"You should've told me. I would've gone—"

"I need you to calm down," Curtis tries, keeping calm for the both of them. Frank, however, isn't having it. He steps into the corpsman's space, jaw clenched and nostrils flaring. His voice bellows.

"And what does she need? Huh, Curt? If she needs drugs, you tell me. If she needs surgery, you tell me. If I have to take her to a real goddamn doctor, I'll do that! So what is it? What do I gotta do?!"

Frank's rage only ever takes on two forms: the destructive, when he's capable of leveling an entire enemy squadron by himself, and the stifling, when he feels as helpless as humanly possible and will try anything he can to take back control.

Curtis, for his part, doesn't give in to Frank's rage. He holds himself in that same dignified way, eyes too knowing and too kind for the words that were just thrown at him. He's seen Frank in worse states, but back then there was a war raging all around them. This bunker, though dark and decrepit and reeking of blood, is not a war zone; but Curt knows it makes little difference in his friend's mind. He understands. For hours now, Frank has been too close to reliving his worst fear, and his worst fear has always been losing those he loves. A sigh blows past Curt's lips, and then he takes a deep breath.

"Listen—"

"…s'ole."

Both their heads turn to look at the source of the faint sound, though only one of the men crosses the room in two seconds flat, argument completely forgotten. Frank leans over the makeshift bed, shoulders tense as she displays early signs of consciousness. It's like he's restless and rigid at the same time, his body a taut wire about to snap. Curt sighs again. Watching Frank like this isn't easy, but it's also not the worst thing in the world. If only it would get him to realize what everyone else is seeing, but Curt knows his friend is too stubborn for that.

"What is it?" Frank whispers, lightly caressing her cheek with a trembling finger.

Curt sees her lips move, but no sound comes out.

"C'mon sweetheart, what's wrong?"

It's almost sweet, in a way. If her state weren't so delicate, it would be almost endearing — the small touches, his protective stance over her form. The way Frank leans closer, making sure she doesn't have to strain in order to get her message across.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

"… Asshole."

It's only quiet for a moment.

And then David laughs until Curtis is sure he hears something pop in the man's neck.

.

.

A/N: This was supposed to be a short and sweet oneshot. It was, of course, never going to be that. I felt bad abandoning it, though, so here you go. Not my best work, but I do love this idea. Let me know if you'd like an update from her perspective regarding what happens after! Thank you for reading and please know that I always love to read your comments.

#frank castle x reader #frank castle x you #frank castle imagine #frank castle #the punisher x reader #frank castle fanfic

[mariacallous]

Al Qaeda is back to its old tricks in Afghanistan. Much as it did before masterminding the 9/11 attacks, the terrorist group is running militant training camps; sharing the profits of the Taliban’s illicit drug, mining, and smuggling enterprises; and funneling the proceeds to affiliated jihadi groups worldwide.

An unpublished report circulating among Western diplomats and U.N. officials details how deeply embedded the group once run by Osama bin Laden is in the Taliban’s operations, as they loot Afghanistan’s natural wealth and steal international aid meant to alleviate the suffering of millions of Afghans.

The report was completed by a private, London-based threat analysis firm whose directors did not want to be identified. A copy was provided to Foreign Policy and its findings verified by independent sources. It is based on research conducted inside Afghanistan in recent months and includes a list of senior al Qaeda operatives and the roles they play in the Taliban’s administration.

To facilitate its ambitions, al Qaeda is raking in tens of millions of dollars a week from gold mines in Afghanistan’s northern Badakhshan and Takhar provinces that employ tens of thousands of workers and are protected by warlords friendly to the Taliban, the report says. The money represents a 25 percent share in proceeds from gold and gem mines; 11 gold mines are geolocated in the report. The money is shared with al Qaeda by the two Taliban factions: Sirajuddin Haqqani’s Kabul faction and Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada’s Kandahar faction, suggesting both leaders, widely regarded as archrivals, see a cozy relationship with al Qaeda as furthering their own interests as well as helping to entrench the group’s overall power.

The Taliban’s monthly take from the gold mines tops $25 million, though this money “does not appear in their official budget,” the report says. Quoting on-the-ground sources, it says the money “goes directly into the pockets of top-ranking Taliban officials and their personal networks.” Since the mines began operating in early 2022, al Qaeda’s share has totaled $194.4 million, it says.

After regaining power in August 2021, the Taliban integrated a large number of listed terrorist groups that fought alongside them against the U.S.-supported Afghan republic. The Biden administration, however, has persistently denied that al Qaeda has reconstituted in Afghanistan or even that al Qaeda and the Taliban have maintained their long, close relationship.

Those denials ring hollow as evidence piles up that the Taliban and al Qaeda are as close as ever. The U.N. Security Council and the U.S. Congress-mandated Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) have consistently reported on the Taliban’s symbiotic relationship with dozens of banned terrorist outfits, including al Qaeda.

Few experts believed Taliban leaders’ assurances, during negotiations with former U.S. President Donald Trump that led to the ignominious U.S. retreat, that the group’s relationship with al Qaeda was over; bin Laden’s vision of a global caliphate based in Afghanistan was a guiding principle of the war that returned the Taliban regime, which one Western official in Kabul said differs only from the previous regime in 1996-2001 in that “they are even better at repression.”

The historic relationship hit global headlines when bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was killed on July 31, 2022, in a U.S. drone strike as he stood by the window of a Kabul villa. The property was linked to Haqqani, the head of the largely autonomous Haqqani network and a member of al Qaeda’s leadership structure. He is also a deputy head of the Taliban and its interior minister, overseeing security. He is believed to harbor ambitions for the top job of supreme leader, with aspirations to become caliph.

Now that they can operate with impunity, the reports says, the Taliban are once again providing al Qaeda commanders and operatives with everything they need, from weapons to wives, housing, passports, and access to the vast smuggling network built up over decades to facilitate the heroin empire that bankrolled the Taliban’s war.

The routes have been repurposed for lower-cost, higher-return methamphetamine, weapons, cash, gold, and other contraband. Militants from Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and the Palestinian territories also circulate through the al Qaeda training camps that have been revived since the Taliban takeover. Security is provided by the Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence.

The report includes a list of al Qaeda commanders, some of whom were bin Laden’s lieutenants when he was living in Afghanistan while planning the attacks on the United States. Those atrocities precipitated the U.S.-led invasion that drove him, and the Taliban leadership, into Pakistan, where they were sheltered, funded, and armed by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

The report’s findings “demonstrate that, as expected, the Taliban leadership continues to be willing to protect not only the leadership of al Qaeda but also fighters, including foreign terrorist fighters from a long list of al Qaeda affiliates,” said Hans-Jakob Schindler, the senior director of the Berlin- and New York-based Counter Extremism Project and an expert on terrorism. “It is clear that the Taliban have never changed their stance toward international terrorism and, in particular, al Qaeda.”

Many analysts believe President Joe Biden’s decision to stick to Trump’s withdrawal deal led to Afghanistan becoming an incubator of extremism and terrorism. Leaders of neighboring and regional states, including Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and countries in Central Asia, have expressed concern about the threat posed by the Taliban’s transnational ambitions. U.N. figures, including Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett, have repeatedly called out Taliban suppression of rights and freedoms and the imprisonment and killing of perceived opponents.

In February, the George W. Bush Institute released the first report in its three-part Captured State series titled “Corruption and Kleptocracy in Afghanistan Under the Taliban,” which recommends action by the United States and the U.N. to rein in Taliban excesses. It calls on the United States and allies “to pressure foreign enablers of Taliban corruption and reputation laundering to stop facilitating corrupt economic trading activities, illicit trafficking, and moving and stashing personal wealth outside Afghanistan.”

Pointedly, it says the U.N. and other aid organizations “should demand greater accountability for how aid is spent and distributed” and urges international donors to support civil society, which has been decimated by the Taliban.

It’s a reference to the billions of dollars in aid that have been sent to Afghanistan since the republic collapsed—including, controversially, $40 million in cash each week, which has helped keep the local currency stable despite economic implosion. The United States is the biggest supporter, funneling more than $2.5 billion to the country from October 2021 to September 2023, SIGAR said. Foreign Policy has reported extensively on the Taliban’s systematic pilfering of foreign humanitarian aid for redistribution to supporters, which has exacerbated profound poverty.

The Bush Institute paper is one of the few comprehensive studies of the impact of the Taliban’s return to power to publicly call for the group to face consequences for its actions. It suggests, for instance, the enforcement of international travel bans on Taliban leaders, which are easily and often flouted.

Recognition of the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan “would reinforce the Taliban’s claim to power and strengthen their position” by giving them even greater access to “cold, hard cash,” the report says, a warning that comes amid growing fears that the United States could be preparing to reopen its Kabul embassy, which the Taliban would see as tacit recognition.

By “capturing the Afghan state, the Taliban have significantly upgraded their access to resources,” the Bush Institute argues, putting the group “in the perfect position now to loot it for their own individual gain.”

That plundered resource wealth also appears to be boosting the coffers of like-minded groups. The London firm’s unpublished report identifies 14 al Qaeda affiliates—most of them listed by the U.N. Security Council’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team—that are directly benefiting from the mining proceeds. They include seven inside Afghanistan (among them, the anti-China East Turkestan Islamic Movement, the anti-Tajikistan Jamaat Ansarullah, and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, which is fighting the Pakistani state) and seven operating elsewhere: al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al Qaeda in Yemen, al Qaeda in Iraq, al Qaeda in Syria, al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, al Qaeda in the Mahgreb, and al-Shabab, largely active in East Africa.

For Western governments that might be pondering a closer relationship with the Taliban regime or even diplomatic recognition, Schindler of the Counter Extremism Project sounded a note of warning. The Taliban, he said, are “not a viable counterterrorism partner, even on a tactical level.” Instead, the group “remains one of the prime sponsors of terrorism” worldwide.

[mapsontheweb]

The Shibanid (Shaybanid) Conquests, 1500-1510.

by u/Swordrist

This is my attempt at covering an underapreciated area of history which gets next-to no coverage on the internet. Here's some historical context for those uneducated about the region's history:

Grandson of the former Uzbek Khan, Abulkhayr, Muhammad Shibani (or Shaybani) was a member of the clan labeled in modern historiography as the Abulkhayrids, who were one of the numerous tribes which were descended from Chingis Khan through Jochi's son, Shiban, hence the label 'Shibanid' which is used not only in relation to the Abulkhayrids who ruled over Bukhara but also for the Arabshahids, bitter rivals of the Abulkhayrids who would rule Khwaresm after Muhammad Shibani's death and for the ruling Shibanid dynasty of the Sibir Khanate.

After his grandfather's death in 1468, Shibani's father, Shah Budaq failed to maintain Abulkhayr's vast polity in the Dasht i-Qipchak, as the tribes elected instead the Arabshahid Yadigar Khan. Shah Budaq was killed by the Khan of Sibir and Shibani was forced to flee south to the Syr Darya region when the Kazakhs returned and proclaimed their leader, Janibek, Khan. Shibani became a mercenary, serving both the Timurid and their Moghul enemies in their wars over the eastern peripheries of Transoxiana. After the crushing defeat of the Timurid Sultan Ahmed Mirza, Shibani succeeded in attracting a significant following of Uzbeks which formed the powerbase from he launched his conquests.

Emerging from Sighnaq in 1499, Muhammad Shibani captured Bukhara and Samarkand in 1500. In the same year he defeated an attempt by Babur (founder of the Mughal Empire) to take Samarkand. Over the course of the next six years, Shibani and the Uzbek Sultans conquered Tashkent, Ferghana, Khwarezm and the mountainous Pamir and Badakhshan areas. In 1506, he crossed the Amu-Darya and captured Balkh. The Timurid Sultan of Herat, Husayn Bayqara moved against him however died en-route and his two squabbling sons were defeated and killed. The following year he crossed the Amu-Darya again, this time vanquishing the Timurids of Herat and Jam and subjugating the entirety of Khorasan east of Astarabad. In 1508, he raided as far south as Kerman and Kandahar, however he moved back North and launched two campaigns against the Kazakhs, but the third one launched in 1510 ended in his defeat and retreat to Samarkand at the hands of Qasim Sultan.

The Abulkhayrid conquests heralded a mass migration of over 300 000 Uzbeks to the settled regions of Central Asia from the Dasht i-Qipchak. They heralded the return of Chingissid political tradition and structures and the end of the Persianate Timurid polities which had dominated the region for the last century. It forever after changed the demographic of the region. His reign was also the last time Transoxiana was closely linked with Khorasan, as following the shiite Safavid conquests the divide between the two regions would grow into a permanent one.

In 1510, Shibani faced his end when he moved to face Ismail Safavid, who was making moves on Khorasan. Lacking the support of the Abulkhayrid Sultans, who blamed him for their defeat against the Kazakhs earlier that year, he faced Ismail anyway, where he was defeated, killed and turned into a drinking cup.

Shibani's death caused a complete reversal of the Abulkhayrid fortunes. Khorasan and the rest of his empire fell under Safavid dominion. However in Khwaresm, Sultan Budaq's old rivals the Arabshahids expelled the qizilbash and founded their own Khanate, based first in Urgench and then Khiva. In Transoxiana, Babur lost the support of the populace when he announced his conversion to Shiism and his loyalty to Shah Ismail, which allowed the Abulkhayrids to rally behind Shibani's nephew, Ubaydullah Khan and expel the Qizilbash. Nonetheless, the Abulkhayrids would never again hold as much power as they briefly did when led by Muhammad Shibani Khan.

#maps #Swordrist #shaybanids

[bullet-prooflove]

Whumpvember: Shaking Hands (Greg ‘Mouse’ Gerwitz x Reader)

It had been a shitty day, one of the worst and Mouse was struggling. His brain was chaotic, his thoughts running rampant, tumbling over one another. Those memories were flashing through his brain like snapshots, the convoy explosion in Kandahar, the car bombs in Chicago. They seemed to run parallel to one another, one flowing into the next.

His hands were shaking, he could feel the tremble as he stared down at his slim fingers. It had been a while since something had triggered him like this. That nervous energy was like a current, strumming through his veins as his knee began to jingle. He could hear your footsteps coming down the stairs to his workspace, he would know the sound of them anywhere. He pressed his hands between his knees, his gaze on the door as it swung open.

You were smiling, that brilliant bright smile that usually lit up his world. He tried to return it, the corners of his mouth tilting up.

“Hey Greg, a few of us are going to Molly’s. You coming?”

“Yea.” He told you, pursing his lips together as he averted his eyes towards the screens. “I’ll meet you there.” You stepped into the room. He felt your presence lingering behind him before your hand came to rest on his shoulder, thumb caressing the tense spot at the nape of his neck.

“I know how hard today was for you and I just want to know how proud I am.” You told him. “I don’t think we could have done it without you.”

He inclined his head, tilting it just slightly towards you in acknowledgment.

“OK.” You said quietly. “I’m here when you’re ready.”

Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

#greg gerwitz #greg mouse gerwitz #greg gerwitz x reader #greg gerwitz imagine #greg mouse gerwitz x reader

[typingtess]

Director Vance made a few phone calls so Dom's parents and sister were flown to Los Angeles on a private government jet. Col. Vail asked to see his son before the casket was closed. He regretted that decision and would for the rest of his life.

There was a funeral mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels downtown. Dom's non-work, LA friends – there were only a handful, he wasn't in town that long – were all there. Thinking Dom worked for a fictitious NGO, Dom's friends were told he was in Afghanistan working as part of a health care initiative – a last minute addition. They were told after a long day of working in a clinic treating sick children, Dom's jeep turned over just outside of Kandahar. Three aid workers were badly hurt, Dom was killed. A fabricated tale of Dom's true hero's death.

The entire Office of Special Projects attended the funeral. Sam arrived in his Navy dress uniform. He introduced himself to Col. Vail and explained that he would travel with the family and Dom's casket back to Virginia. Col. Vail said that wasn't necessary but Sam explained it was. Dom died saving Sam's life, that sacrifice must and would be honored. Col. Vail understood.

That night, Sam flew across the country with Dom's family and Dom's casket. A day later, Sam stood at the back of the funeral home as family members, friends and the colleagues of the Vails paid their respects at Dom's wake. The following morning, Sam sat with the driver in the hearse as they drove to the Vail family plot. Dom was buried next to his grandfather Louis, a member of the 92nd Infantry Division in Italy in WWII who returned home to start a family and a career at the DoD, and near his uncle Edward who fought and died in Vietnam.

A small ceremony at the gravesite ended with the family members hugging. Once again, Sam offered his condolences to Dom's parents and sister as the family started walking to their cars.

Alone at the grave, Sam looked at the casket one last time, hoping that Dom found the peace he deserved.

#NCIS: Los Angeles #NCIS: LA #head canon #NCIS Los Angeles #ncis la #dominic vail #sam hanna

[usafphantom2]

RAF Tornado GR4 from 2(Army Cooperation) Squadron at Kandahar Air Base, Afghanistan returning from a Ground Close Air Support (GCAS) mission in support of coalition troops.

@ron_eisele via Twitter

[socially-awkward-skeleton]

Thanks for the tag @adelaidedrubman <3

tagging: @natesofrellis @direwombat @harmonyowl @confidentandgood @funkypoacher @marivenah @roofgeese @clonesupport @strangefable @clicheantagonist @aceghosts @lethal-justice @captastra @galaxycunt @sstewyhosseini @thomrainer (no pressure of course) and anyone else who'd like to tag me

I've been struggling to write much of anything lately so these are very likely to get scrapped in the end, but what the hell.

I've been working on writing Kit's main timeline out in full rather than just shorts because it was feeling disjointed to me. So here we are right from the very opening in the helicopter:

Helicopter blades sliced through the air and her headphones crackled with static. Her seat vibrated into her very bones, turbulence causing the whole craft to shake from time to time. Amidst the roaring din, Kit focused on her breathing, of the slow, methodical in and out, and the rise and fall of her chest. She was referred to as a rookie, but this wasn’t the first time she was expected to land in the middle of the shit, this was a friendly return to form for her, as if eight years hadn’t dragged by since she came back home from Kandahar. 

As part of the Hope County Sheriff’s Department she was expected to perform her duty as part of the federal takedown of one of the most powerful cult leaders America had seen since Waco. She’d personally seen the footage of him crush a man’s eyes from his very skull all while touting that he was a religious man who heard the voice of God. It only sunk in just how deep they were as they flew to the compound, into the heart of the cult’s territory. They were utterly alone out here, a few against the many. Legion. She grabbed at the cross pendant on her necklace, running it back and forth against the chain, the quiet buzz she normally found relaxed her was swallowed by the sounds of the helicopter. 

Burke, the US Marshal who had dragged them into this, sat across from her. His face was gruff but there was an undeserved smugness to it, like he somehow thought these were all the numbers he'd need to take on an army of half-crazed believers who'd put their faith and their lives in the hands of a man and his siblings. But she knew better. 9mm handguns wouldn’t be enough to quash the hordes. It was like snapping elastic bands at a dragon, all they’d end up doing was pissing them off. But it wasn’t her place to argue or complain, she was given her orders and she’d see them through, for better or for worse. 

The mood in the copter was tense, she hadn't felt this sort of tightness in her chest since she'd gone to war twelve years ago. Flying over the grounds that led to Joseph's compound was eye-opening for Kit. She'd never flown over them before. She'd driven the roads, travelled all the way up into the Whitetails and down to the Henbane, but the Valley was where she spent most of her time and being up above it all suddenly made the life she had seem very small, sheltered even. 

The massive statue of Joseph put her at unease. Religion had always made people do stupid things. To act out in ways where there was a for and an against and there was always bloodshed. It begged for war. She'd seen it herself, been wrapped up in the middle of it and now here she was facing that same type of enemy again. Someone who thought they knew what an unknowable God could possibly want, someone who claimed to be His messenger. A shiver coursed down her spine, it seemed to be a shared feeling as the other Deputies and Whitehorse all became more skittish at the sight of the Peggie idol.

At the compound, smoke rose up into the air. The already dying light of dusk greyed out even further by the fires scattered as their source of light below. Rows of white houses and sheds surrounded the old weather worn church. It looked like a ghost town from up above, no power, paint peeling from the wood walls, seemingly abandoned. But knowing this was where the Father presided meant all of its appearances were a lie. This was a viper’s nest and they were about to walk right in. 

and a little bit from a smut prompt I'm working through too (it's not very spicy yet, fyi):

Prompt: I told you to stay still

The cold metal of the cage bars burned into her flesh as he pushed her back against them, his thigh pressed between her legs spreading them open. A sharp hiss pulled through her gritted teeth.

One hand held on her jaw, the other pinning her wrists above her head. She was immobilized in her cage once more by the Herald of the Whitetails. 

He loomed over her, head and shoulders above. His mass blanketed her in shadow, even the flames of the fires along the perimeter couldn't find her.

"Now Deputy, I told ya to stay still. You have no one to blame this on but yourself."

His thumb stroked her full lower lip, fingers brushing through the waves of auburn that framed her face. She stared up at him through her lashes, her heat already pooling between her thighs.

"I thought you liked it when I put up a fight - Sir."

His brow furrowed, his normally stoic exterior breaking for just a moment. His scowl morphing into a smirk.

#wip whenever #tagged #fan fiction #far cry 5 #kit cross x jacob seed #oc: kit cross

[mywifeleftme]

294: Nashenas // Life is a Heavy Burden

Life is a Heavy Burden Nashenas 2022, Strut (Bandcamp)

Nashenas is one of Afghanistan’s most beloved twentieth century singers. Born in Kandahar in 1935, he was raised in Karachi, British India (now Pakistan) before his family returned to Afghanistan during his adolescence. By his early 20s he had become a popular vocalist, with a weekly national radio slot singing traditional poetry, adaptations of popular Bollywood songs, and (with increasing frequency) his own compositions in Dari and Pashto.

Most of his work is in the ghazal tradition, a form of Arabo-Persian poetic ode (classically a simultaneous address to an absent lover and to God) that has remained popular in the East for nearly 1,500 years. The songs have a meditative consistency of rhythm, his vocals carrying the melody as he accompanies himself with drones on the harmonium while a tabla player supplies percussion, verses broken by instrumental refrains that answer the vocal melody. Nashenas has a panged yet resigned style suitable to the form, never leaning into cheap emotional theatrics. He spools out his words patiently, great feeling leavened by enlightened reservation. I picture him with his eyes closed, sitting cross-legged as he hums and croons the words that billow from the incense burning within him till the room has filled with it. Despite the focus on his voice though, this is quite dynamic music: the drumming on songs like “Life is a Heavy Burden” provides a raw, intense counterpoint to Nashenas’s steady vocal, while the blissful harmonium drone of “I Am Happy Alone” finds a common note with the primary colours of music made by children, outsider folkies, and the untrained.

Physical media wasn’t common in Afghanistan when Nashenas was establishing himself, and radio broadcasts were the primary outlet for performers. What recordings he did make were largely for radio archives, and many of these were apparently destroyed in the wars that have ravaged the region for decades. As a result, little of Nashenas’s prime is well-documented, and prior to this compilation virtually none of what does exist had been released in the West. Life is a Heavy Burden: The Songs and Poetry of Nashenas collects highlights from a brief run of Iranian 45 pressings of Radio Afghanistan recordings from the late ‘50s. The liners elaborate:

Although hard to fully confirm, it appeared these records were part of an arrangement between someone in Radio Afghanistan and Royal, one of the major labels in Iran. …Recordings were presumably supplied to the pressing plant in Tehran to be manufactured and then sold to the Afghan diaspora in the country, or exported back to Afghanistan. It was ultimately unsuccessful, with a few singles released by Nashenas, Zaland, his wife Sara, and others such as Ustad Mahwash, Ghulam Dastagir Shaida, and Ahmad Wali. Whoever arranged it apparently did not inform the artists themselves!

You’d never know how screamingly rare these pieces are, or that they were not sourced from masters, from the job Strut Records has done with Life is a Heavy Burden. The fidelity is brilliant, clearly of another epoch in terms of technology but unmarred by the dust and rough handling endured by near-70-year-old second-hand discs. I’d recommend this one to anyone with an interest in mid-century music from the Middle East and South Asia, or its influence on Western pop and experimental music from the ‘60s onward.

294/365

#nashenas #afghan music #afghanistan #middle eastern music #ghazal #ghazals #urdu music #dari music #pashto music #urdu #dari #pashto #'50s music #music review #vinyl record #strut records

[benbamboozled]

BENBAMBOOZLED’S JASON TODD (mostly smutty) ONE-SHOT REC LIST EXTRAVAGANZA!!!

Omg I actually did it!

As per a request from @disniq that actually was an ask that I will put up when this is posted—my rec list of (mostly) smutty one-shots that is NOTICEABLY LONGER than my other fic rec list, heh.

So, before I get into it—cards on the table…

In the interest of limiting any possible controversy—because I’m just here to have a good time—my personal parameters as I went through all of my fave Jason Todd fics to create this particular rec list were:

-No Batcest (or whatever I think counts these days…I honestly can’t keep up and I don’t care to.)

-No noncon (however you can pry dubcon from my cold dead hands)

-No underage (whiiiich p. much takes out all my Robins-as-Robin recs)

-Nothing that I will personally define as “really weird” (and you can just use your imagination there)

Please keep in mind that a whole lotta good fic and a lot of my faves had to be left off of this particular rec list due to those parameters.

Okay, so…what’s left, HA! Welp, that’s what I’ve cobbled together here! There are a few non-smutty ones sprinkled in because I just liked them, but for the most part these are…yeah, they’re smut.

MIND THE TAGS. I know you all get that, but I still need to put up the disclaimer.

If you like any of these, pleeeease drop a comment on the fic! Doesnt matter if it seems like the author might not be in the fandom anymore—it’s still nice to see your work was enjoyed by someone! (I got a really nice comment a few months ago on a one-shot I wrote MORE THAN A DECADE AGO and it made my friggin year.)

(And if you don’t like ‘em…that’s fine but you’re wrong…but it’s fine…but you’re wrong.)

NOW…without further ado…your rec list!

A Stitch In Time

—BearlyWriting

—Rated E

—Jason Todd/Clark Kent

—Summary (abridged): “Jason is dying again, his throat slit open by the man who’s supposed to be his father. This time, lying in the rubble of an explosion, he calls Superman instead.”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33371341

these games we play

—forestgreen

—Rated E

—Apollo/Midnighter/Jason Todd/Slade Wilson, Jason Todd/Slade Wilson, Jason Todd/Midnighter, Jason Todd/Apollo

—Summary: “Something warm unfurls inside of Jason. It takes him a moment to realize what it is: trust.”

(OKAY MIND THE TAGS ON THIS ONE. Like, all of the recs, obviously, but ESPECIALLY this one.)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/41939268

replace the feathers in our vests

—Gen

—likewinning

—Summary: “Bruce Wayne was actually a crimelord; the Robins were all boys who met on the street and were adopted as his ‘sons’; finally, Dick grabs his little brothers and runs. Written for Comment Fic.”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/3239156

funambulism

—mici (nobarlembeat)

—Rated T

—Technically tagged as JayDick BUT Dick is Renegade and there’s not a whole lot of shippiness in it so I’m adding it.

—Summary: “Talia has one last teacher before she funds Jason to return to Gotham, and that teacher has only one thing to teach him.

Or that's what Jason thinks.”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28230840

catch a tiger by the

—mici (noharlembeat)

—Rated E

—Ra’s al Ghul/Jason Todd, Tiger King of Kandahar/Jason Todd, Tiger King of Kandahar/Jason Todd/Ra’s Al Ghul

—Summary: “It begins with a shadow and a stalking; it ends with an offer to become a triple-agent.

Or: Tiger meets an infuriating assassin, who offers him an infuriating deal. He wouldn't be so infuriating if his mouth wasn't so pretty.”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/31404734?view_adult=true

there’s something better wrong with you

—noctiphany

—Rated E

—Jason Todd/Midnighter (Jaynighter? Hoodnighter?)

—Summary: “Why are the tragic ones always so fucking pretty?”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/6148897

Seeds of Redemption

—Scandalsavage

—Rated E

—Arkham-verse, Jay/Bane

—Summary: “After Jason's brief tenure as the Arkham Knight, he tries to make up for his actions by fighting the crime and corruption of Gotham as the Red Hood.

On a recon mission to observe Black Mask, Jason runs into one of his old torturers and discovers he's not the only one looking to atone.”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21814987?view_adult=true

Shameless

—scandalsavage

—Rated T

—Kon-el/Jason Todd (mentioned Bart/Tim)

—Summary: “Kon has a one-track mind.”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32273284

Don’t let your yearnings get ahead of your earnings

—Skalidra

—Rated T

—Jason Todd/Slade Wilson (Hoodstroke)

—Summary: "Slade."

The tension that draws Todd up a little is interesting, as is his immediate, "As in Wilson?"

Slade quirks an eyebrow, watching the side of the kid's face. "Heard of me, hm?"

"Yeah," Todd says, after a couple seconds, "once or twice." Then, quieter and with more feeling, "Fuck."”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20909573/chapters/49706528

In the corner of his eye

—Skalidra

—Rated T

—Technically tagged JayTim but it’s not like super shippy (also it’s Talon!Jay, so).

—Summary: “For weeks, Tim's been seeing a shadow in the corner of his eye. Just barely there, and he struggles to catch it for more than a moment, or identify it. Then, things start showing up in his apartment; small gifts, with no clue as to who's left them. Tim's determined though; he's going to find out who it is.”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/9794663

And there you have it!

#fic rec list #Jason Todd #a lot of rare pairs that don’t have cool names yet. #or they do and I don’t know them. #I’m gonna go with hoodnighter and hoodstroke #Clark Kent #Midnighter #Slade Wilson #Tiger King of Kandahar #it’s also possible that I forgot to add some…I think I did pretty good though! #my secret rec list is a helluva lot longer. #🤫 #thank you dis for pushing me to make this! #at least I get to pimp some Jay rare pairs! #why yes I *did* put a lot of work in this post that will likely be seen by like 5 people max.

[wishesofeternity]

Zeb-un-Nisa, Aurangzeb’s eldest daughter, is born in Daulatabad in 1638 when Aurangzeb is governor of the Deccan. While Daulatabad fort dominates the horizon from a hilltop, Aurangzeb is building a new capital at Khadki town, stronghold of Jahangir’s old nemesis, Malik Ambar the ‘rebel of black fortune’. Malik Ambar is now long dead, having never allowed the Mughals to claim the Deccan while he lived. Zeb-un-Nisa, daughter of the Persian noblewoman Dilras Banu Begum, grows up in this provincial capital, far from the intrigues of the Mughal court. In the Deccan, the supremacy of her father is unchallenged and Zeb-un-Nisa is given a rigorous education under the supervision of Hafiza Mariam, a scholar from a Khurasani family. Zeb-un-Nisa is an excellent student and excels in the Arabic and Persian languages. Her father is so delighted when she recites the entire Quran from memory as a child that he gifts her 30,000 gold mohurs. In her erudition and her quick wit she is very like her aunt, Shahzaadi Jahanara, whom her father respects above all the other women of the court. When she is fifteen years old, she visits Shahjahanabad with Aurangzeb’s zenana as they return from the doomed Kandahar campaign. She is enchanted with the sparkling new city, the elegant women with their refined tehzeeb, their every gesture studied and full of grace. In the travelling court of her father, in these wildering years, it is a more pragmatic and pared down zenana but in 1658, when Zeb-un-Nisa is twenty years old, Aurangzeb deposes Shah Jahan and his household moves to Shahjahanabad.

Dilras Banu Begum, the somewhat haughty senior wife of Aurangzeb, is now dead. Even Aurangzeb, when giving marital advice to a grandson, will later admit that ‘in the season of youth’, he ‘too had this relation with a wife who had extreme imperiousness’. Since the other wives of Aurangzeb have less illustrious backgrounds, the senior women of the royal zenana are Roshanara and her eldest niece, Zeb-un-Nisa.

For twenty years Zeb-un-Nisa will be one of the most influential women of the zenana at Shahjahanabad. Her particular area of interest is poetry and literature. She collects valuable manuscripts and books and her library is one of the most extensive in the country. When Aurangzeb begins to retrench imperial patronage towards music and poetry, it is the royal women, the shahzaadas, the noblemen and then, later still, the wealthy middle class of Shahjahanabad who will continue the patronage of the arts. The governor of Shahjahanabad, Aqil Khan, is himself a poet and writes under the pen name Razi. Indeed, despite Aurangzeb’s later disfavour, Shahjahanabad fairly pulses with music. It tumbles from the kothis of the courtesans, the women thoroughly trained singers themselves, who bring Delhi Qawwali singing to mainstream attention. It vaults out of the large mansions of the newly wealthy, who prefer the lighter Khayaal and Thumri styles. In the gloaming of a tropical evening, it throbs out of the immense havelis of the princes and the noblemen, in the tenuous hold that Dhrupad still has amongst the elite of the Mughal court. And the poets keep gathering at Shahjahanabad, despite Aurangzeb’s dismissal of them as ‘idle flatterers’. They come from very far, like Abd-al-Qader Bidel, whose family is Chagatai Turkic but whose poetry so defines a phase of Shahjahanabadi poetry that he becomes Abd-al-Qader Dehlvi. Some will come from the Deccan, like Wali Dakhni, and some are born in the narrow, winding galis (lanes) of Shahjahanabad itself. They will write in Persian, in Urdu, in Braj and later in Rekhti. They will write in obscure philosophical quatrains, in flamboyant ghazals or in erotic riti styles but many will glow with the high-voltage mysticism of Sufi thought, for the ghosts of Shahjahanabad’s Sufi saints will enchant all the poets of the city.

Zeb-un-Nisa, like Jahanara who returns to court as padshah begum in 1666, is instrumental in supporting the work of writers and poets through her patronage. She supports the scholar Mulla Safiuddin Adbeli when he translates the Arabic Tafsir-i-Kabir (Great Commentary) into Persian and he dedicates the book to the shahzaadi—Zeb-ut-Tafasir. She also sponsors the Hajj pilgrimage of Muhammad Safi Qazwini. Qazwini will write an extraordinary account of his voyage, the Pilgrims’ Confidant, unique in its genre and magnificently illustrated and will dedicate it to Zeb-un-Nisa. For a few years, the courts of Jahanara and Zeb-un-Nisa will nurture this eclectic maelstrom of a culture, which has much more in common with Babur and Humayun’s camaraderie of artists than it has with Aurangzeb’s increasingly austere one. When Aurangzeb bans opium and alcohol, the easy complicity that the noblemen and padshahs shared in the ghusal khaana or the Deewan-e-khaas while drinking wine, is now forbidden. The imperial women, however, continue to drink wine, often made from grapes in their own gardens, flavoured with spices.

In 1669, Zeb-un-Nisa attends the lavish marriage ceremony of her cousin, Jaani Begum, to her brother, Muhammad Azam, at the haveli of Jahanara. There will be other weddings too: her sister Zubdat-un-Nisa will marry Dara Shikoh’s youngest son Siphir Shikoh and Mehr-un-Nisa will marry Murad Baksh’s son Izad Baksh. But for Aurangzeb’s oldest daughters, there are no more cousins to marry. There is an understanding, also, that these oldest daughters, like their aunts, possess a powerful charisma as Timurid shahzaadis and must be kept within the controlling orbit of the imperial zenana. The decades pass and still Aurangzeb rules, as resolute and restless as a young man. His sons, meanwhile, are growing old and impatient. Muhammad Akbar is Zeb-un-Nisa’s youngest brother and she is particularly close to him, as their mother Dilras Banu died soon after giving birth to him, when Zeb-un-Nisa was nineteen. The other sons are middle-aged men, and there have been skirmishes, the shahzaadas jostling for power, always subdued immediately by their unforgiving father. In 1681, when Muhammad Akbar decides to challenge his father, with the support of a Rajput alliance including the Rathors of Jodhpur, Zeb-un-Nisa is in a particularly vulnerable position.

In 1681, Jahanara dies. The imperial zenana has glowed with her ambition and talent for more than half a century. If the shahzaadas are uncertain about the future leadership of the Mughal empire, then the stakes are almost as high in the imperial zenana. Zeb-un-Nisa believes she may become the next padshah begum. She is a woman of letters, like Jahanara, with the same Sufi inclinations too. She is the eldest of the Timurid shahzaadis and presides over an astonishingly talented salon. It is time, surely, for a shahzaada to ascend the Peacock Throne as Aurangzeb is already an old man, sixty-three years old. So Zeb-un-Nisa sides with the young prince Muhammad Akbar, hoping to ensure her legacy in the next court.

But Aurangzeb is able to defeat Muhammad Akbar, using a mixture of duplicity and treachery. In the process, he discovers letters which incriminate Zeb-un-Nisa, demonstrating her ardent support for her brother. ‘What belongs to you is as good as mine,’ Muhammad Akbar writes in a letter to Zeb-un-Nisa, ‘and whatever I own is at your disposal.’ And in another letter he writes: ‘The dismissal or appointment of the sons-in-law of Daulat and Sagar Mal is at your discretion. I have dismissed them at your bidding. I consider your orders in all affairs as sacred like the Quran and Traditions of the Prophet, and obedience to them is proper.’ Muhammad Akbar is exiled to Persia, and Zeb-un-Nisa is imprisoned at the Salimgarh fort in Delhi. Her pension of four lakhs rupees a year is discontinued and her property is seized.

Very soon after this rebellion, Aurangzeb leaves Shahjahanabad for the Deccan with an entourage of tens of thousands, all of his sons and his zenana. He will never return to Shahjahanabad, which will slowly be leached of all of its nobility, craftsmen, soldiers and traders. Zeb-un-Nisa will live more than twenty years imprisoned in Salimgarh fort. She will grow old here as Shahjahanabad empties of its people and becomes a shadow of its former self. But the poets and the singers do not desert Shahjahanabad, their fortunes and their hearts are too inextricably linked to the great city, to this paradise on earth. Other patrons take over the role of the nobility, humbler people, so that a critical poet will later write:

Those who once rode elephants now go barefooted; (while) those who longed for parched grains once are today owners of property mansions, elephants and banners, (and now) the rank of the lions has gone to the jackals.

Not only do the poets remain but their poetry becomes saturated with the haunted longing and nostalgia which becomes the calling card of all the great poets of Delhi. This city of beauty and splendour, abandoned and then desecrated, and then bloodied, will inspire reams of poetry on the twin themes of grief and remembrance. In the future, one of these poets will court eternity when he writes:

Dil ki basti bhi Sheher Dilli hai;

Jo bhi guzra usi ne loota

As for Zeb-un-Nisa, she waits for Muhammad Akbar to claim the Peacock Throne but he dies, in 1703, outlived by his father. From her lonely prison on the Yamuna, the shahzaadi can see Shah Jahan’s magnificent fort. The Qila-e-Mubaarak remains locked up for decades and the dust and ghosts move in. The bats make their home in the crenelated awnings and sleep as the relentless sun arcs through the lattice windows. Bees cluster drunkenly around the fruit trees in the Hayat Baksh, the overripe fruit crushed on the marble walkways like blood. Moss skims over the canals and the pools, though the waterfall still whispers its secrets to itself in the teh khana (underground chamber) as Zeb-un-Nisa waits. Zeb-un-Nisa writes poetry while she waits for a deliverance that will never come. She is a poet of some repute, and writes under the pseudonym Makhvi, the Concealed One. This is a popular pseudonym, however, and it is difficult to establish which lines are truly written by the shahzaadi but it is likely that the following wistful and delicate lines are hers, written in the grim solitude of Salimgarh fort:

Were an artist to choose me for his model—

How could he draw the form of a sigh?

She dies in 1702, unforgiven by Aurangzeb, and is buried in the Tees Hazari Garden, gifted to her by Jahanara.

- Ira Mukhoty, “Daughters of the Sun: Empresses, Queens and Begums of the Mughal Empire”

#history #historicwomendaily #indian history #india tag #mughal empire #mughal era #Zeb-un-Nissa #mine #queue

[mariacallous]

As if Coca-Cola gave up making soft drinks, the Taliban announced to great fanfare last year that they were getting out of the drug business. The group that rode big opium profits to a takeover of Afghanistan in the summer of 2021 suddenly, seemingly, swore off the stuff. Poppy planting was banned and drugs were off the menu. Or that, at least, is what they want the world to believe.

And they actually are—sort of. Satellite images seem to show a sharp decline in poppy acreage and methamphetamine manufacture since Taliban Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada announced his ban on producing and trading drugs in April 2022. Some Western officials, diplomats, and analysts see it as a welcome counternarcotics move, achieving with a simple decree what billions of dollars in U.S.-funded programs couldn’t do in two decades.

In reality, though, the Taliban haven’t changed their stripes—just their product. The drugs trade was estimated to account for up to 14 percent of Afghanistan’s GDP last year, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). If new figures from the UNODC are to be believed, that’s about to get a lot higher.

The Taliban didn’t curtail the drug trade. They cornered it. And then they branched out. What the Taliban did with heroin was stand on the hose, driving up prices. Since Akhundzada’s decree—which did not apply until this year—opium prices have skyrocketed, rising a hundredfold in local markets in eastern and southern Afghanistan, the main growing regions. Seizures of heroin and meth are up, from Australia to India, the Gulf, Central Asia, and at European ports like Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, and Antwerp, in Belgium. Experts say the one-year lag between the decree’s announcement and enforcement gave producers and traffickers time to boost output and stockpiles, while stoking fears of a looming shortage that’s driven an inflationary panic-buying frenzy.

The Taliban are to heroin and meth what the Sinaloa cartel is to cocaine. Southeast Asia still makes a bit, but otherwise, Afghanistan has a stranglehold on the $55 billion-a-year heroin trade. Drug lord Bashir Noorzai, who was a major war financier and a close associate of the supreme leader, was greeted as a hero when he returned to Afghanistan last year upon early release from a life sentence in U.S. prison for heroin smuggling, swapped for an American hostage. Afghan sources say he is back in business.

But the Taliban are upscaling. While they had dabbled—and quite extensively—with meth in the past, they used plant-based precursors. But that takes labor. What’s easier, cheaper, quicker, and more profitable is chemical-based meth.

The UNODC annually assesses Afghanistan’s poppy acreage, opium yield and prices, and heroin production, though since the Taliban regained power, access and visibility, like the reports, are hamstrung. What does seem apparent is that the Taliban have cut down on poppy production. Recent satellite images provided by Alcis show a dramatic reduction in poppy planting. Anecdotal evidence from on-the-ground reporting backs up statements by Alcis researchers that poppy planting could have fallen by as much as 99 percent in some areas.

Afghan journalist Mirwais Khan said his sources in the southern Helmand province, where much of the country’s supply of heroin is sourced, tell him that poppy planting is close to zero for the current season. In the markets, he said, prices have surged from 30,000 Pakistani rupees, or about $100 a kilo a year ago, to 520,000 rupees. (Opium is priced in Pakistani rupees.) Last month, RFE/RL reported opium markets in Helmand and Kandahar operating as usual and said traffickers had amassed ���strategic stockpiles” to take advantage of high prices.

Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director of the Berlin- and New York-based Counter Extremism Project, doesn’t believe the ban is genuine, let alone long-term. He regards it as an attempt to maximize profits while lulling the international community into recognizing the Taliban. Or it’s a diversification play.

“If I was a Talib, I’d be getting into meth,” Schindler told Foreign Policy. The raw material for plant-based methamphetamine, ephedra, grows wild in Afghanistan. The Taliban have cracked down on that, too. But the drug can be synthesized simply and cheaply with easily acquired precursor chemicals and cooked in labs that are almost undetectable on satellite imagery. The costs and returns are many times that of heroin.

“They can ramp up meth production. You can tell [on satellite photos], but you have to know what you’re looking for, and at. It will be much harder to prove,” as the labs often look like any other building, Schindler said.

The UNODC agrees, with an assessment released on Sunday describing the illegal manufacture of meth in Afghanistan as a “growing threat” that is “changing illicit drug markets traditionally focused on the trafficking of opiates from Afghanistan.” Chemical precursors have become the main ingredient, the report said, derived from legally available sources like cold medicine or bulk industrial ephedrines that are smuggled into Afghanistan year-round. One kilogram of pure meth can be produced from less than 2 kilos of industrial ephedrine, compared to 200 kilos of ephedra plant that have to be harvested and prepared by human beings who like to get paid.

The Taliban have been moving into meth for some years, building markets by including it in shipments of heroin. Australian media has reported huge seizures of Afghan meth, sent through the mail from Pakistan to motorcycle gangs that dominate the trade. Compared to heroin, a little goes longer, and the UNODC report shows the Taliban are trading it to every corner of the world.

As industrial-scale manufacture of chemical drugs ramps up, the biggest losers are Afghanistan’s farmers, who languish at the bottom of the economic pyramid, among the poorest people in one of the world’s most indigent countries. For decades, they’ve been Taliban serfs, forced to grow poppies to help fund the war against the Western-backed Afghan state. The Taliban provided inputs, including seeds and fertilizer. Farmers found themselves in a debt trap they could and did pay off at times by fighting for the Taliban against Afghan and international coalition forces.

News footage of lathi-armed goon squads destroying poppy fields is a déjà vu of failed counternarcotics programs during the past two decades, which at least offered farmers alternatives, like growing wheat or saffron. Insurgent suicide bombers would destroy seed distribution centers, and Taliban operatives would sometimes even kill farmers who tried to make the switch. The U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction reported that the U.S. government spent, between 2002 and 2017, about $8.6 billion on counternarcotics efforts. Opium remained Afghanistan’s largest cash crop.

But wheat and other crops are just not a viable option. “If they grow grain, they will starve,” Schindler said, as Afghan farmers need cash crops to cover their costs. A long-term drought has cut their ability to grow food. If the ban continues, many men will be forced off the land to look for work elsewhere, adding to the huge numbers of internally displaced and, potentially, to the numbers flooding out of the country—to Pakistan, Iran, and beyond—in search of work.

Little farmers and big landowners both stand to lose from the continued ban, even if that was the endgame of all those years of U.S. and international efforts. Akhundzada seems to have put his prestige on the line with the ban, regardless of the collateral damage.

“The economic shock and human suffering will continue and worsen as long as the ban is implemented,” warned William Byrd, an expert on Afghanistan at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

[juancarlosphotog]

Very excited to have won an Emmy with my video work from Kandahar while covering the taking over of Afghanistan by the Taliban which was part of the VICE piece, along with the talented @bcsolomon and @joelittlemountain, Huge shout out to @jesseseidman for bringing me in to this project. * Muy emocionada de haber ganado un Emmy con mi trabajo de video de Kandahar mientras cubría la toma de Afganistán por los talibanes que fue parte del documental de VICE, junto con el talentoso Ben Solomon y Joe Hill, muy agradecido con a Jesse Seidman por haberme tomado encienta para este proyecto. BEST NEWS COVERAGE: LONG FORM “Return of the Taliban: A Vice News Special Report” (Showtime) https://www.instagram.com/p/CjGRI4ROUSt/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[red-riding-wood]

Heroes - Chapter 4

Chpt. 1 , Masterlist , Chpt. 5

Pairing: Sgt. Elias Grodin x Female OC (Alexis Ryder)

Fandoms: Platoon (1986), Cherry (2021)

WARNINGS: I'm just going to put down a blanket for the entire book/all chapters: graphic depictions of violence and gore, torture, explicit sexual content, attempted sexual assault, language, marijuana use

It had been two weeks since I’d been captured and tortured by the al-Qaeda. I was back in Kandahar, the main base of operations for the U.S. army in Afghanistan and also where I’d gone through basic.

Though I didn’t remember much of what had happened during our escape, I did know that the NCOs in our platoon had rushed us to the LZ as quickly as possible. They’d lost a lot of men and supplies, and a few captured or in combat bore serious wounds. I had been one of the luckier ones, though I’d still spent my time in the med-bay. My wrists and ankles still bore ugly red marks, though the pain was gone, and they were fading with time. Same with the bruises; they’d mostly cleared.

The burn of the hot iron was permanent, however. It hadn’t completely healed, either, still stung, especially if I brushed against it. But it wasn’t anything to go home over, or stay cooped up with the nurses. I’d been prescribed some painkillers and I put a cold press on it whenever I caught the chance in the barracks.

I’d been temporarily assigned to one of the security patrols in Kandahar, along with Taylor and a few other guys from my platoon who only bore minor injuries. Others, like Elias and Barnes, and the medics, had been deployed again, though we expected their return at any minute now.

Even though I was no longer on the battlefield, Kandahar didn’t feel any less of one. Given its more central location in the country, its heat was even drier than the alpines, making us sweat through our layers of uniform and FLAK. And the buildings were dotted with endless windows, impossible to keep tabs on, impossible to know if they’d give shelter to a sniper. And every car that rolled by I anticipated to have an IED; often, we’d have to stop them before they drove by densely-populated areas. Since bin Laden had been assassinated in the spring, politicians had predicted a drop in domestic terrorism, but it never seemed to subside in this place.

And in truth, the people scared me, too. Ever since being captured, I couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy around every pair of dark eyes I saw flash beneath a niqab.  

“Ay, welcome back, Cherry!” Crawford – one of Elias’ men, tall guy with a heavy Californian accent and bleached curls before he’d been buzzed – called out as the recently-deployed soldiers made their way down one of the dusty roads.

I sought out my friend beneath the glaring sun, and grinned at him, waving.

“They’re back?” Taylor asked me, coming up around my right shoulder. I’d been lucky enough to have been assigned to the same unit as him during my stay here, without Bunny or the rest of Barnes’ goons, and we’d gotten to know each other fairly well. We’d even talked plenty about books.

“Looks like it,” I said, and stepped forward as Cherry approached, but hesitated, because his attention was on Crawford. The two fist-bumped, and Crawford pretended to tussle his hair through his helmet.

I didn’t know Crawford very well. He seemed nice enough, but he’d only just taken up a position in our unit yesterday; he’d been one of the guys who’d suffered more than a flesh wound when he’d been captured. A bandage was still wrapped around the finger he’d lost.

After several moments, my heart sank a bit and I turned back to Taylor, but he was fixated on the returning soldiers, on Elias, who wore a lopsided smile as he talked with a couple of his troops, and on Barnes, whose gaze sliced fiercely through the dust-ridden air around him. O’Neill, who’d claimed to have broken his leg, jogged up to him and began chatting his ear off.

My gaze couldn’t help but travel back to Two Alpha’s sergeant, at his smile that never seemed to lose its cheer. Like Cherry, we’d exchanged so few words since the capture. Both had been busy with their duties. And I still found it wise to keep my distance, despite still wanting to ask those questions that I’d thought of back in that al-Qaeda camp.

“Hey, Alex, you comin’ to the Underworld tonight?” Cherry’s voice snapped me from my observations, and I turned to my friend, the twinge of a smile pulling at my mouth as I realized that I hadn’t been forgotten.

“What’s that?” I asked, and Taylor and I exchanged confused looks.

“You haven’t heard of the Underworld?” Cherry said, shaking his head. “Man, you guys in B Squad really have it rough.” He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, and cast a look around before lowering his tone. “Elias gets a bunch of the guys together at base, in one of the abandoned buildings by the barracks. Last time, when you two were in med-bay, we got so blazed. It was fuckin’ great. You should totally come tonight.”

My stomach stirred from something in his words. I wasn’t sure if it was a warning or an excitement, or perhaps both, but I shook my head.

“I don’t know, Cherry…” I said. Though I missed spending time with my friend, had even grown slightly envious of his new friends in Two Alpha, the last thing I wanted was to get caught sneaking off to get high by one of the NCOs – least of all Barnes, or O’Neill.

“You’re coming,” he told me. “You too, Taylor.” He gave the man a jostle on the shoulder.

I eyed Cherry. Despite returning from another deployment, he seemed happier, more free. I wondered if it really was all that better in Two Alpha, or if it was just the weed talking.

“C’mon, Ryder, can’t be that bad,” Taylor said to me.

“Alright,” I agreed, finally.

“Let’s go, move it along!” Sergeant Wallace, our CO, urged Cherry and the others past.

My friend and I exchanged brief goodbyes, and I cast him another wave. As the rest of the soldiers walked by, a bright blue gaze caught mine, and my breath hitched in my chest, but not far behind strode Barnes, and I turned my back, lips parting to strike up a conversation with Taylor.

Any words that I could’ve come up with, however, froze on my tongue, and I squinted, eyeing the Afghanis that were gathering into a huddle in the square about forty yards from us.

“Hey, I think something fishy’s going on over there,” I told Taylor, nudging him to turn.

He did, and when his gaze met mine again, his eyes had widened to nearly twice their size. “Do you think we should do something?” he said.

I glanced over at Wallace, biting my lip, and called, “Sergeant Wallace, sir, we might have a situation! Check your six.”

I’d gotten his attention well enough, and he spun around, his shoulder tensing as he readied his rifle.

It wasn’t long until he’d assessed the situation and began barking orders, and my heart increased its palpitation and my veins began to buzz with adrenaline knowing we could have terrorists on our hands.

“Everyone, weapons hot. I want you four, left flank, now! You six, on me. You five, clear the civvies through the alley on your four o’clock.” The officer then pulled a radio from his vest, and said, “HQ, HQ. This is Wally. We need an engineer, three klicks north on Falcon, Zone Red. Over.”

Engineers were usually called in to assist with IEDs, which meant we very well could’ve had a suicide bomber or the like on our hands.

Taylor, Crawford, and one of the other guys and I flanked left, weapons hot. Once in position, we aimed our rifles at the group – which, at a glance, consisted of Afghan men and women alike.

As Wallace settled into his position with his men, and the three he’d ordered to clear the civvies were doing their work, coaxing along a few confused children, Wallace shouted at the group of now slightly-disgruntled targets.

“Hands in the air! Back away, slowly!”

I held my rifle with more conviction now; my finger didn’t twitch where it was held above the trigger, and my elbow didn’t tremble with the same uncertainty, the same weakness as it had on my first deployment. I was, for all intents and purposes, ready to kill if commanded.

“Crawford! Taylor! Back up about five meters! You’re in the blast zone, dammit!”

The four of us shuffled back, correcting our position, and rose our rifles again almost in unison to the strange gathering.

The men and women didn’t move, merely darting their gazes around at the soldiers that were pointing roughly fifteen or so rifles at their heads.

Wallace increased his volume now as he shouted, “This is your final warning! Back up, touch the fucking sky! Or you will be executed!”

My heart beat a little faster in my chest, but my finger stayed unflinching, firm, above my trigger.

Still, they didn’t move.

“C’mon,” I heard Taylor mutter under his breath. “Move, you idiots.”

Wallace cast us a glance, and nodded.

That was our queue.

Fifteen guns discharged at once, the shots like uneven drumbeats in the loudest symphony on earth. Screaming followed suit, and the tangos scattered; some tripped over black robes, others were paralyzed with shock, but none got away. Not even the children, who had only been revealed when the crowd had dispersed.

The bodies all hit the ground in a matter of seconds – men, women, and children alike.

“Cease fire!” Our sergeant shouted, and I brought my gun back to my chest, smoke curling from its barrel and weaving into the air over the image of our neutralized targets, all now lying still against the sandy pavement and dirt roads.

Behind them, the nearest building had been peppered with bullets, windows shot out of rectangular frames and even two men who I don’t think that been involved at all were slumped against the outer walls.

Wallace was using his radio again, yelling for engineers, but one had already arrived, jogging up between our soldiers. I watched with Crawford and Taylor as he had a conversation with our patrol leader, and they began suiting him in an EOD – or a “blast suit”, as it was also commonly called.

Taylor shuffled his feet beside me, and murmured, “There were kids out there, man.”

“I know,” I replied, still feeling numb to it all. The weight of what we’d just done hadn’t really had the time to sink in yet. I was still trigger-ready, counting the beating of my heart every time it struck my ribcage.

We all waited with bated breath as the engineer took a hike out to the bodies, slowly, lumbering over in that blocky blast suit. He began to examine each of the bodies, and Crawford decided to speak up in our quad.

“I got a bad feelin’ about this, man,” the Californian said.

I was trying to ignore my bad feeling, my festering weight that was threatening to culminate into something malignant in my gut.

Finally, the engineer called back that he couldn’t find any explosives, and Wallace told us four to advance, check the bodies for any other weapons.

Flies were already swarming the dead meat, and from each body, a revolting cocktail of blood and lymphatic fluid had collected on the earth beneath them, draining from limp, ragdoll shapes.

I had to check the pockets of one of the kids – a young boy, his dark eyes hollow and abyssal – and I swallowed, swallowed whatever emotion came bubbling up to my throat.

We did the right thing, I told myself. They were terrorists.

I noticed Taylor bring his mouth to his sleeve out of the corner of my eye.

Next, I checked the pockets of a man, and when I stared into his eyes, though equally as empty, it brought me momentarily back to that torture room, and whatever humanity I had felt seconds before for the boy was vanquished.

Only two of the bodies had contained weapons, which we seized, and as I walked from the carnage, I took one last look around at the citizens that were hesitantly emerging from their markets or their shops, fear glazing their eyes as they whispered to one another.

And then, like a bullet from a barrel, a woman shot across the square, her mouth agape to unleash a mournful wail to the eerily-silent air of the city, and three guns – Wallace's included – shot her down without a moment of hesitation. She fell, blood spurting from a kneecap, her skull, and chest all at once, about ten meters from us.

“Fall back!” Wallace commanded, and the four of us left the slaughter behind us, though there was a tension in the air between each of us that was so palpable, I felt as if I were almost suffocating on it.

---

Captain Harris’ office was bursting at its gills with sweating, filthy, off-duty soldiers who’d been in Wallace's patrol earlier. He’d called us in for a debrief, which was unusual for a captain, but I allotted it to him being in charge of Bravo Company’s second platoon, of which the majority of these soldiers – including myself – were a member of.

I’d never met the captain – hadn’t had to, because even though I’d fucked up making my bunk, or organizing my footlocker plenty of times, I’d never been one of the unlucky ones who’d had to pay a visit for insubordinate actions.

Harris nearly resembled Barnes, if you gave him another fifteen or twenty years, a receding hairline, and fewer scars, though his gaze didn’t have the same intensity to it. Instead, it possessed an almost sullen quality, like he just wanted to go home.

“I’ve gathered you here about what happened today,” he said, pacing back and forth in what little room he still had between his desk and the door. I was crammed in between Taylor and Crawford, and the stench of their sweat mingled with my own was enough for me to take shorter breaths.

“The terrorist action that you thought you’d neutralized was actually a gathering of civilians.” He stopped pacing, leaned back against his desk. “I’m not angry with any of ya – I wanted to let you know that every one of you made the right call. From Wallace's report, it sounds like they were a threat. And you all took care of that threat.”

That weight in my gut now sank in, and I didn’t hold it back, not even when it twisted my innards as I imagined the hollowness of the boy’s eyes, the misshapen limbs of his corpse.

“Now, it’s important to our cause here that we keep quiet about this. That’s why I wanted to speak with all of ya. Word gets out about this, any one of you could be taken to court, and I need you guys on the field. Most of you…” His gaze swept over myself, Crawford, Taylor, and some of the others from the platoon. “… are shippin’ out tomorrow to go kick some Taliban ass. And we can’t stand to lose good soldiers to an innocent mistake.”

I averted my gaze to the floor, bile rising to my tongue. Though Wallace had made the call to fire, I’d been the one to alert him to the crowd. But a court-martial, in this moment, wasn’t what I feared. What I feared was something less tangible, something inside myself that tore and gnawed at my guts. Something I’d seen in Barnes, in Bunny. Something that made me a little less human than when I’d enlisted.

---

I peeled my elbows off of the ceramic of the toilet, rolling my head back with a few laboured huffs of air. The stale air reeked of shit and my own vomit, and my stomach lurched again, but I swallowed it back. I staggered, onto shaking knees, and made my way to the sink. Thankfully, the bathroom was vacant, no one here to witness the misery I had stooped to.

Once I’d washed my hands, I let my knuckles rest against the countertop, slicked wet with water and cheap soap, and I let my gaze travel to the mirror in front of me. It was smudged, cracked, and had been vandalized with what I hoped was just period blood, but past its sordid imperfections, I glimpsed myself.

And man, I looked like hell.

Messy, tangled blonde locks clung to my sweat-slicked cheekbones, which had sunken in ever-so-slightly after surviving off of MREs – or rather, lack of; I’d missed many meals thanks to Bunny and Junior, and all the men in Barnes’ squad who thought I could stand to lose just a pound or two to outline my hips a little sharper beneath my uniform, and who thought that they could put the calories to better use than I could.

But it wasn’t my dishevelled, even sickly appearance that startled me, that raptured something in my chest, but my gaze – pale green, once soft and pleasant, kind and maybe even innocent, now hardened, piercing, maybe even feral.

And then images of the day’s events flooded my mind, danced with pain across those green irises. Images of a woman, drawing her robes closer to her cowering body, her eyes, bright with fear, catching mine as she shrunk away and blocked her son’s body with her own. Images of corpses, laying in a mass across the bloodied earth, flies swarming the air thick with smoke and guilt. Another woman, running for the corpse of her son or daughter or husband and lamenting her cries from lungs punctured and filled full of lead. 

I’d told myself I’d done the right thing, just like when I’d shot those Afghans back in the woods, pinned the blame on Barnes and his words.

“If you start justifyin’ the blood on your hands because of what Barnes says, you ain’t gonna like what you see the next time you look in a mirror,” Elias had told me that night, and I swallowed another rush of bile in my throat as I stared into my eyes and realized that I didn’t like what I saw – in fact, I loathed it.

And for once, I asked myself, not if I was tough enough, not if I was enough like my father, not if I was enough like Barnes, but if what I was doing here was even just – was even human.

#fanfiction #elias grodin #platoon #platoon 1986 #my writing #sgt. elias #oc: alexis #there's smut in this story i'm just not saying where because spoilers but you've been warned #heroes

[kspp]

Afghan Women: Flag bearers of hope and change

“Afghan women should not be allowed to work alongside men”. “They are not allowed to come to our offices and work in our ministries.” “Women could study at university, but must be segregated from men.”

In the days following the conquest of Kabul, sampling of such statements, issued by the spokespersons and even the country’s new education minister, have made clear the views of the Taliban. Ever since the February 2020 deal between the United States and the Taliban, the international community hopelessly hung on to the promises by odd Taliban spokespersons outlining their reformed agenda on women and minorities. This new set of statements now prove that it is simply not a case of broken promises by the insurgency-turned-governing entity but a reaffirmation of its orthodox views.

Having travelled and worked in Afghanistan for more than a decade, for me, one of the beacons of hope for the conflict-ravaged country was to see an increase in the number of women workforce participation and enrolment of girl child in schools. As flag bearers of change, these women took significant risks to reak the structural stereotypes and faced threats to their lives in provinces like Kandahar, Herat, Badakshan, Balkh and Nangarhar. In Kandahar, young women, provincial councillors and security personnel I met were always optimistic about their future and took great risks to fulfil their duties. Today, those dreams have been shattered and promises broken.

When the Taliban last ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001, women were barred from employment and education. During the last two decades, considerable progress was made, although improved women’s rights were more noticeable in urban centres than remote rural areas. Even as girls marched fearlessly into educational institutions, several women became members of the Afghan parliament (MPs) and provincial councils, joined the bureaucracy, security forces, sports, media and even the fashion industry. Conservatism bared its fangs occasionally but not so much.

According to the World Bank, the female labour participation rate in 2020 stood at 23 per cent. Although by no means a satisfying state of affairs, the last twenty years was in a way marked by hope— hope for improvement and change. The Taliban wants to reverse these achievements by returning to the earlier obscurantist ways. The initial euphoria of the possibility of engaging or recognising a reformed and moderate Taliban is gradually waning away as hard-line elements consolidate their positions in Kabul.

On September 7, the Taliban announced their male-only cabinet. Taliban fighters have broken up odd protests led by women demanding equal rights with men. The Taliban spokespersons have said that their fighters have not been trained to respect women, who must stay at home for their safety. However, a former police officer in the Ghor province has been killed at her home and her face mutilated by Taliban fighters. She was pregnant at the time. Most women MPs, community, and thought leaders have either fled the country or are in hiding. There have been widespread reports of women being sent back home from their workplaces.

In 2012, I interviewed Maulvi Qalamuddin, former deputy minister for the General Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Elimination of Vice (Amr-e-Bil M’arouf Wa Nahi Anil Munkar) in the Taliban regime ( 1996-2001), at the High Peace Council in Kabul. Qalamuddin was responsible for imposing strict laws and physically punishing women who violated those laws. Initially, he seemed to be a reformist advocating favouring women working in offices and attending universities. It is now evident that this shift was a mere tactical one to make the group amenable to the international community. Not surprisingly, the attempts by the Taliban to rebrand itself in the initial days of the takeover, which captured much of the international media attention, has started disappearing.

Idealism has hardly been a factor in global politics. The 9/11 attacks on the American homeland and not the violation of women’s rights were behind the US intervention in Afghanistan. However, the United States did cite an increased female workforce as one of the major successes of its 20-year operation. It remains to be seen whether the Taliban’s regressive approach to women rights, which is now nearly formalised, would matter to the international community as it prepares for a massive aid package to an impoverished Afghanistan. Poverty levels in the country, according to the UNDP, could rise from 72 to 97 per cent. A small but effective step would be to link future international aid to Afghanistan to the Taliban’s inclusivity, women and minority rights. More importantly, a more extensive global campaign to protect women and human rights in Afghanistan is required to prevent the backsliding of the gains made in the last two decades.

Dr Shanthie Mariet D’Souza is a Founding Professor, Kautilya School of Public Policy, Hyderabad. She has worked for more than a decade in various provinces of Afghanistan in the governmental and non-governmental sectors. @shanmariet