Kevin Sites
The Islamic State and Kurdish Peshmerga Are Clashing Over a Small Town in Iraq
Over the summer I embedded with a unit of the Peshmega, the Kurdish troops fighting the Islamic State in northern Iraq.
The Former Beauty Queen Lawyering in Afghanistan's Sharia Courts
An excerpt from journalist Kevin Sites's new book, Swimming with Warlords.
Introducing the Holding Court Issue
This month's cover by Marcel Dzama is the kind of strange painting you’d want to cut out and put on your wall, only you can’t if you’re just looking at it on your computer like a putz. Get a subscription already.
The Kabul Zoo Is a Rare Afghan Success Story
The tale of Marjan the lion became an entry point for many Americans in understanding the larger story of Afghanistan. It was a narrative of war, hardship, and survival presented through a battle-scarred symbol of the Afghan people, their outlast-them...
Afghanistan's Game of Drones
Geography rules in eastern Afghanistan. Rugged mountains and rocky plains make it a difficult trek for people, but well-suited for drones. The Shadow 200, made by the AAI Corporation, is the width of a garage door. Depending on its configuration, it...
Afghanistan's Great Wall of Bones
The wall’s creation story is a dark one. King Zamburak in the sixth century was said to have been a brutal monarch, forcing all his male subjects to work on the wall, which runs along the Sher Darwaza mountains. Those who refused were said to have been...
Afghanistan's Combat Sport Makes Peaceful Warriors
In a warehouse in Kunduz City, young athletes train like madmen. They are dressed in dirty, mismatched gees and colored belts that signify their need to improvise rather than the achievement of a certain skill level. They make due using the only...
Afghanistan's Carpet Loomers Are Feeding Their Kids Hashish
Poverty drives both the carpet and drug business. Husbands tend to be farmers, working long hours in the fields. The only income opportunity for women, who are not able to work anywhere but their homes, is carpet making. But who takes care of the...
Swimming with Warlords
Nabi Gechi is a killer and a warlord, a militia commander in Afghanistan formerly paid by NATO who fights the Taliban and taxes the local population in exchange for the security he provides them. I visited him at his compound recently and went swimming...
What We Can Learn from the Uzbek and Tajik Conflict in Afghanistan
If the world was wondering what Afghanistan might look like following the pullout of international forces in 2014, what happened on Saturday in the city of Taloqan could offer some insight. Ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks fought in the streets with sticks and...
Killing Up Close
William Wold seemed fine when he came home from Iraq. Wold had begged his mother to sign a parental-approval form when he wanted to join the Marines at 17, taking extra online classes to graduate a year early in order to do so. But after four years of...