Mustafa Sarwar is a senior news editor for RFE/RL's Radio Azadi, one of the most popular and trusted media outlets in Afghanistan. Nearly half of the country's adult audience accesses Azadi's reporting on a weekly basis.
Afghan authorities are investigating a presidential candidate over allegations that he used force and threats against journalists when an interview about his presidential ambitions turned personal.
During the past two decades, poverty prompted Mir Ali's men to look for work in Iran. But most never return. They have either been killed or imprisoned for drug smuggling by Iranian authorities. Most of the Mir Ali's current 250 residents are women and children.
An Afghan girl wants her heroin-addicted father punished for hacking off her mother's nose and lips for refusing to sell her jewelry to fund his habit. "I want my father to be punished before my mother’s eyes," 10-year-old Parisa told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan.
As Afghanistan moves toward a crucial presidential race next spring, some in the country want to keep regional strongmen and former warlords off the ballot.
Once the center of the Taliban insurgency, Afghanistan's Helmand Province has seen improved security in recent years. But as the withdrawal date for international troops nears, locals are increasingly pessimistic about their future.
Afghanistan's northeast Badakhshan Province, once a mainstay of peace, has become embroiled in violence. With security in the province in the hands of Afghan forces, Badakhshan has become a test case for the country's ability to provide its own security as international forces prepare to leave.
A local NGO working in support of open media has called out the government in Kabul after the closure of a local radio station in southeastern Afghanistan, saying it must do more to protect hard-fought gains in media freedom.
Afghan photographer Massoud Hossaini says that he will never forget the horrific circumstances under which he shot the image that would win him a Pulitzer Prize.
An investigation is yet to be completed into the suspected poisoning of 140 schoolgirls and their teachers in Afghanistan. But authorities strongly suspect the incident was the result of a Taliban attack.
At 36 years of age, Afghan lawmaker Fawzia Koofi can already boast a number of pioneering achievements. Now in her second term in parliament, she has been a leader in the effort to restore women's rights in the country. She has served as the Afghan parliament's only female deputy speaker; and she has found time to raise a family and become an accomplished author. Now, in her latest book, Koofi describes her harsh past and ambitions to one day become Afghanistan's first woman president.
Talk of the planned U.S. troop withdrawal has Afghan citizens mulling their future.
Under the Taliban, morality police patrolled Afghan weddings. Now a draft law threatens to bring the morality patrols back.
Afghan election officials have announced final results from all but one voting district in September's parliamentary elections -- disqualifying a total of 24 candidates who had been announced as winners in preliminary results.
The talks are aimed at reaching a negotiated end to the Afghanistan war. They follow inconclusive meetings hosted by Saudi Arabia that ended more than a year ago.
The Afghan government is pushing forward with plans to arm and pay militia fighters as local police in their home districts. But experts warn that the so-called Local Police Initiative could strengthen the power of warlords or plant the seeds of future conflict between rival Afghan tribes.
