Donald Trump loves a good deal. And sitting in Afghanistan, much of it in Taliban-controlled regions, there’s a doozy: deposits of rare-earth minerals once estimated to be worth $1 trillion. So the president is considering keeping troops in the country so that they can blaze the way to the country’s untapped natural…
The price tag for the never-ending, but occasionally paused, war in Afghanistan is well north of a trillion dollars by now. Nearly $100 million of that is attributable to our generous decision to buy uniforms for the struggling Afghan National Army—and a newly released inspector general report says that as much as $28…
In Afghanistan, springtime means one thing: the start of another brutal fighting season. And if 2017 is anything like 2016 was, this fighting season could be the one that breaks the fledgling Afghan National Army for good.
The United States Air Force dropped a 21,600-pound Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or MOAB, bomb on what it said were ISIS militants in Afghanistan on Thursday. At least 36 people were killed in the explosion from the largest American non-nuclear bomb.
Last week, bioengineering’s most advanced prosthetics were shown off at the world’s largest orthopedics event in Germany. But in Afghanistan, things are a little different.
Traditional gas masks are designed to seal to your face and neck, protecting you from breathing harmful chemical or biological agents. But they won’t work with full beards, which is a problem if you’re a Sikh warrior like Harjit Sajjan. His solution?
A major earthquake has hit northern Afghanistan this morning. It was also felt in Pakistan and northern India.
We’ve heard report after report about ISIS looting and destroying ancient archaeological sites in Iraq and Syria. But across the Mediterranean, the looting of antiquities is also posing a problem in economically-strained Greece.
In March 2001, the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan, a pair of giant statues dating to the 6th century in the Bamyan valley in central Afghanistan. Now, the statues have been resurrected with 3D light projection technology.
This is a story about how the U.S. military built a lavish headquarters in Afghanistan that wasn’t needed, wasn’t wanted and wasn’t ever used at a cost to American taxpayers of at least $25 million.
"The guys who make our flip flops? They used to farm cocaine." The two ex-Army Rangers behind Combat Flip Flops still see it as their mission to defeat Islamic extremism in Afghanistan and they think they can do so more effectively with jobs than they ever could by dropping bombs.
I recently met two ex-Army Rangers in a bar, and got onto the topic of the war against ISIS. They told me they knew the solution: flip flops. I scoffed, which probably isn't something you should do to an Army Ranger's face. And they put me in my place.
Contemporary art is sometimes bizarre, but images of weapons appearing on traditional Afghani rugs may be the strangest change in modern art. The tradition was started during the Soviet occupation started in 1979, and these items are still made by most of the local ethnic groups.
NATO formally ended combat operations at the end of 2014, but the U.S. military couldn't just...leave. No, pulling out of Afghanistan was a massive operation in itself, one that took three years of planning and cost an estimated $28 billion—just to get out.
The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan formally ended its combat mission yesterday, handing responsibility to the country's own military. The U.S. will keep 10,000 personnel there in support roles. Reconstruction efforts in the war-torn nation will also continue — but they've already cost $104 billion.
The Taliban reportedly has a new weapon in its crusade against the heretical West: remotely detonated birds. No, seriously, think birds wearing suicide vests. Why not just load explosives into a coconut and deliver them by swallow already?
I can't stop staring at this overwhelming photo of British troops in Afghanistan. Both serene and stressful at the same time, the dusty Chinook silhouette hangs frozen in time over the soldiers' heads.
This is a male musk deer, knowing for growing fangs during the breeding season. A recent survey by the Wildlife Conservation Society confirmed that Kashmir musk deer, one of seven related Asian species, still live in Afghanistan's Nuristan Province, some 60 years after its last recorded sighting.
The average pedestrian walks around with more sophisticated navigation and communication technology in his pocket than our soldiers have on the battlefield. That's why the military is working hard on developing a battle-ready smartphone that would bring our troops up to speed. According to the soldiers who've…
When I recently set out for the Pentagon's R&D department, I instead found myself in front of a downtrodden shopping mall in Arlington, Virginia. I'd been navigating the old fashioned way—with my eyes—but when I pulled out my smartphone there it was, clearly marked in the Google Maps app: DARPA.
