Herat, Afghanistan News

In Afghanistan's darker times under the Taliban, almost anything that brought a smile to people's faces was banned under the oppressive regime; kite flying, music, dancing and most sports were off limits.

Experts say that saffron is being grown in 16 provinces of Afghanistan, but the bulk of the product comes from Herat, in the west of the country, reports IWPR trainee Farooq Faizi.

An Afghan woman looks at merchandise at a burqa shop in Herat in western Afghanistan.

Reuters 07/07/2009 By Golnar Motevalli [Printer Friendly Version] HERAT - Nehmatullah Yusefy's burqa sales have dropped 50 percent since the Taliban were toppled in 2001 and he says he will soon need to start stocking other styles of Islamic dress to make up for lost profits.

As August 20, the date set for Afghan presidential election, is getting nearer, election campaign in Afghanistan is gaining momentum.

The U.S. military is concerned about Iran's activities in Afghanistan: As we have reported here before , the Army has commissioned its social science researchers to probe Tehran's influence in some Afghan provinces, and top U.S. officials have suggested that Iran is trying to make life difficult for coalition forces.

Mohammed Faqiri, spokesman for Herat University's New Generation Club, is sure his untraditional group is in the mainstream on one issue: Iran.

Students at Afghanistan's Herat University thought they were living in new era of openness, one in which the right to criticize authority was increasing.

In the deadliest incident, extremists attacked a district headquarters in the southwestern province of Farah on Saturday, deputy provincial police chief Mohammad Naeem Popal told AFP.

New Four Star General Stanley McChrystal recently ordered the fifth strategic review in five months of the Afghanistan war, presumably because the previous four were lacking in some way.

Amid the tire irons and crowbars in a disabled Russian armored personnel carrier-turned Afghan teahouse, Iranian truck drivers Wednesday debated allegations that their government rigged Iran's June 12 presidential elections - and whether it did so by the thousands or by the millions.

Khadija Ahadi used to be the most active journalism student in town. At press conferences in Herat, she would always be there with her video camera, usually the only woman in the room.

Behind a parade of old mud brick shops, through narrow winding alleys, a tiny door opens onto a sundrenched courtyard, where school children giggle and play alongside the ghosts of Afghanistan's Jewish past.

The United States should cooperate fully with Afghan police in investigating the death and alleged torture of a member of an Afghan armed faction who appears to have died at a US airbase, Human Rights Watch said today.

Three Afghan soldiers were killed when a suicide bomber rode a motorcycle packed with explosives into a military convoy in Kandahar province on Monday, officials said.

Four foreign soldiers were killed and dozens of Afghans, mostly Taliban militants, have been killed in two days of violence across insurgency-hit Afghanistan, authorities said Saturday.

Comments OPINION/ANALYSIS: Regardless of whether Afghan President Hamid Karzai is re-elected in August, of whether the Taliban can adapt to the new counterinsurgency strategy of Central Command leader Gen.

Four foreign soldiers and dozens of Afghans, mostly Taliban, have been killed in two days of violence across insurgency-hit Afghanistan, authorities said Saturday.

Mullah Mahmoud, a Taliban commander in the Golestan district of Afghanistan's Farah province, which borders Iran, also said most Taliban fighters in Afghanistan were foreigners.

The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan pedaled a green swan-shaped boat across the deep blue waters of the Band-e-Amir lakes Thursday during a dedication of the country's first national park.