"I showed it to my two young sons, 9 and 12, who both immediately felt sorry for Aisha and asked why anyone would have done such harm to her." [WARNING: Graphic image.] Richard Stengel, managing editor of Time magazine, on why he chose to run on the magazine's cover a photo of a young woman whose nose and ears had been cut off at the insistence of the Taliban. It accompanies the article "Afghan Women and the Return of the Taliban."
posted by ocherdraco on Jul 29, 2010 - 142 comments

How the U.S. Killed the Wrong Soldiers I read the original report of this attack and discounted the possiblity that it was a major screw up but it looks like it was. The same story from Knight Ridder
posted by onegoodmove on Feb 4, 2002 - 27 comments

U.S.' first Afghanistan conflict casualty may be C.I.A. operative "Mike" Time magazine's Alex Perry reported from the scene outside Mazar-i-Sharif that at least one American, whom he identified as "Mike'' and said belonged to U.S. special operations forces, was missing and presumed dead after prisoners began firing smuggled weapons. If the man was confirmed as a soldier, it would be the first known U.S. combat death in Afghanistan since Washington began attacking Taliban forces -– although it is suspected that "Mike" is a covert CIA operative.
posted by marc-hamilton on Nov 25, 2001 - 4 comments

'I Feel A Great, Personal Loss' Conservationist Rakhaldas Sengupta spent nine years restoring the world's tallest Buddha statues...
This has been covered by MeFi before but Sengupta has a perspective on the statues that hasn't come to light yet. To think that the Taleban is destroying these 1700 year old statues breaks my heart. I hope I never understand the reasoning of religious zealots.
posted by gen on Mar 9, 2001 - 8 comments