An Afghan army soldier stand guard as smoke rises from a burning fuel tanker on the Jalalabad-Kabul highway, east of Kabul, Afghanistan.
Security personnel remove a damaged minibus after a bomb explosion in Kabul Afghanistan. The bus attack caused numerous deaths and injuries according to police.
Locals inspect the site of a car bomb attack in Herat province, west of Kabul, Afghanistan. A powerful car bomb killed numerous people and injured dozens more in Afghanistan's west...
Security personnel inspect the site of a deadly bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan. The bomb attached to minibus exploded in the capital, Kabul, killing and wounding several people....
Afghan women attend an event to mark International Women's Day in Kabul, Afghanistan.
A military helicopter flies over people during the Afghan Security Forces Exhibition, at the Darul Aman Palace in Kabul. The three-day military exhibition allowed civilians to have...
Afghan girls practice taekwondo during a training session in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Afghan security personnel receive India's AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine from health officials during a ceremony at the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghanist...
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during a ceremony of India's AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccination at the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghanistan has start...
Afghan security personnel remove a damaged vehicle from the site of a bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan. Three separate explosions in the capital Kabul on Saturday killed and wound...
Security personnel inspect the site of a deadly bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Security personnel inspect the site of a deadly bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Afghan security personnel inspect the site of a deadly bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan. A string of attacks in Afghanistan killed several government employees and several policem...
Afghan health ministry workers unloads boxes of the first shipment of 500,000 doses of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine made by Serum Institute of India, donated by the Indian g...
Boxes of the first shipment of 500,000 doses of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine made by Serum Institute of India, donated by the Indian government, await distribution at the cu...
Security personnel inspect the site of a bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan. A roadside bomb exploded in the capital, Kabul, wounding several people.
Afghan security personnel remove a damaged vehicle after a bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan. A sticky bomb attached to an army vehicle exploded Monday in the capital, Kabul, killi...
Afghan security officers inspect the site of a bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan. A sticky bomb attached to an armored police Land Cruiser SUV exploded Saturday in the western part...
Afghan security officers inspect the site of a bombing attack in Kabul, Afghanistan. A roadside bomb exploded in Afghanistan's capital Sunday, killing at least a few people in a ve...
A patient is connected to oxygen tank in the intensive care unit ward for COVID-19 patients at the Afghan-Japan Communicable Disease Hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan.
K.P. Nayar spells it out as the prime minister, Manmohan Singh prepares to visit Washington:
Notwithstanding New Delhi’s known opposition to bracketing India along with Pakistan and Afghanistan, there are many policy-makers in the Obama administration who believe that the US cannot win the war in Afghanistan unless they also push for a solution to Kashmir and that the problem of a failing state in Pakistan cannot be adequately addressed unless New Delhi and Islamabad are nudged towards a reconciliation...
...there is lack of comprehension now in New Delhi that the Obama administration intends to eventually legitimize the Taliban: what Washington is looking for is a way to put the best front on that eventuality and justify such an about-turn...
Read the full piece at the Telegraph
C. Raja Mohan adds:
...the cynical view of the prime minister’s visit to Washington is that it will be long on rhetoric but short on substance. But the unfolding developments in Afghanistan and Pakistan are too consequential for the national security of both India and the United States for their leaders to waste the opportunity for thinking at the highest levels about political cooperation on stabilising the north-western parts of the Subcontinent.
Read on at the Indian Express
Golnar Motevalli reports for Reuters:
Afghanistan's only known pig has been locked in a room, away from visitors to Kabul zoo where it normally grazes beside deer and goats, because people are worried it could infect them with the virus popularly known as swine flu.
The pig is a curiosity in Muslim Afghanistan, where pork and pig products are illegal because they are considered irreligious, and has been in quarantine since Sunday after visitors expressed alarm it could spread the new flu strain.
More here
This is perhaps also an opportunity to put in the joke received on SMS today: "They said pigs would fly if a black man became President. Well, swine flu."
