Taliban fighter Fazal Rahman Malang sat cross-legged outside Ghazni city’s main military base, his small checkpoint decorated with plastic flowers, his gun resting on a metal bed frame next to him.
Just a few months ago, the base was run by the Afghan army, but when the Taliban advanced, its soldiers either fled or surrendered, leaving behind billions of dollars' worth of military equipment – now in the hands of the militants.
Today it is just Malang, 25, and a small squad of Taliban who keep watch over the sprawling military zone. In the early 2000s, it was home to a US-Polish reconstruction team that worked on supporting rebuilding efforts throughout the impoverished rural province.
The base is located strategically, just south of the capital on the Kabul-Kandahar motorway.
But the foreigners have left and most aid funds have dried up. Afghanistan’s future is for now with the Taliban and major reconstruction efforts are needed throughout the country.
“Around two years ago, the base was handed to the Afghan [forces], but now it is ours,” Malang says, smiling proudly.
Surrounded by stacked-up hesco blocks – bulletproof wire mesh containers filled with dirt – the remains of the US presence are everywhere.
Inside the base, about a dozen MRAPs – Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles – sit in a gravel car park. They are in great condition, the Taliban say, their price estimated between $500,000-$1 million each.
The vehicles look like they have been left in a rush; their insides are still fully stocked. The odd phone charger, a pack of chewing gum, some bread – now stale – have been left behind.
Nearby, there are dozens of Humvees – the high-mobility military vehicles often used during patrols. Some are burnt out or otherwise damaged. Others are seemingly new. They usually sell at almost $250,000 with Ghazni residents saying they believed the Taliban would at least sell some of the equipment to neighbouring Pakistan.
In a far corner of the base, a cluster of containers sits in the sand, the insides filled with ammunition, hand grenades and even a rocket launcher. Hundreds of military uniforms and helmets are stuffed into another container, leftovers from the Afghan forces who escaped.
Tayyed Ahmad, 30, keeps count here, adding the stocks to a handwritten list.
How much it is, he does not know exactly. “A lot,” he said.
The fighters seem euphoric and proud as they sort through countless bullets, some hanging the chains around their necks, and posing for photos.
Nearby, a different container, once a refrigerator, is filled with thousands of small packages of Ranch dressing – leftovers from the Americans that even the Afghans who manned the base for about two years did not touch.
Most of the base lies deserted, the soldiers’ sleeping quarters empty and desolate, their offices raided, the furniture scattered, the windows broken. Air conditioning fans hang from the ceiling, broken lockers litter the floor, some of them personalised. “University of Kentucky” reads a sticker glued to a bent locker door.
The Taliban drive down the former airfield proudly, guns propped up as they sit on pickup trucks, passing barracks, satellite dishes and a large military radar.
The US Provincial Reconstruction Team Ghazni opened in March 2004 to deliver “security and dramatically [accelerate] reconstruction, development and long-term stability”, potentially reaching 1.86 million people – including in neighbouring provinces – according to the website Global Security.
From here, soldiers would go into Ghazni’s rural districts, speaking to local communities and listening to their needs.
Little is seen of such achievements throughout the province. Most roads are full of craters, left by roadside IEDs that harried the very foreign forces that set up bases in Ghazni city. Poverty is widespread, with people outside the capital lacking access to clean water, health care or education.
When the US and coalition forces reduced their presence in Afghanistan over the years – packing up for an eventual full withdrawal – many Afghan forces initially took over enthusiastically, but were soon left disillusioned.
Many had not been paid in months, while the numbers of casualties – their colleagues – were routinely hidden by the Afghan government. Their commanders lived lavish lives, while many soldiers barely survived.
When the Taliban took over, many knew they did not want to risk their lives for an army that did not value theirs.
What remains at the Ghazni base are Afghan soldiers’ sleeping quarters, decked out with black, red and green Afghan flags, and slogans of victory.
One of the Taliban, Abdul Wali Usama, 18, said he was glad the Americans and the Afghan soldiers were gone.
“I fought hard in this war,” he said. “My brother died as a martyr. We all made sacrifices. Now I’m happy, because we won victoriously.”
UAE v Zimbabwe A
Results
Match 1 – UAE won by 4 wickets
Match 2 – UAE won by 5 wickets
Match 3 – UAE won by 25 runs
Match 4 – UAE won by 77 runs
Fixture
Match 5, Saturday, 9.30am start, ICC Academy, Dubai
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Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
In%20the%20Land%20of%20Saints%20and%20Sinners
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Company%20profile
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The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
THE APPRENTICE
Director: Ali Abbasi
Starring: Sebastian Stan, Maria Bakalova, Jeremy Strong
Rating: 3/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
Why are you, you?
Why are you, you?
From this question, a new beginning.
From this question, a new destiny.
For you are a world, and a meeting of worlds.
Our dream is to unite that which has been
separated by history.
To return the many to the one.
A great story unites us all,
beyond colour and creed and gender.
The lightning flash of art
And the music of the heart.
We reflect all cultures, all ways.
We are a twenty first century wonder.
Universal ideals, visions of art and truth.
Now is the turning point of cultures and hopes.
Come with questions, leave with visions.
We are the link between the past and the future.
Here, through art, new possibilities are born. And
new answers are given wings.
Why are you, you?
Because we are mirrors of each other.
Because together we create new worlds.
Together we are more powerful than we know.
We connect, we inspire, we multiply illuminations
with the unique light of art.
Ben Okri,
US households add $601bn of debt in 2019
American households borrowed another $601 billion (Dh2.2bn) in 2019, the largest yearly gain since 2007, just before the global financial crisis, according to February data from the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
Fuelled by rising mortgage debt as homebuyers continued to take advantage of low interest rates, the increase last year brought total household debt to a record high, surpassing the previous peak reached in 2008 just before the market crash, according to the report.
Following the 22nd straight quarter of growth, American household debt swelled to $14.15 trillion by the end of 2019, the New York Fed said in its quarterly report.
In the final three months of the year, new home loans jumped to their highest volume since the fourth quarter of 2005, while credit cards and auto loans also added to the increase.
The bad debt load is taking its toll on some households, and the New York Fed warned that more and more credit card borrowers — particularly young people — were falling behind on their payments.
"Younger borrowers, who are disproportionately likely to have credit cards and student loans as their primary form of debt, struggle more than others with on-time repayment," New York Fed researchers said.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
MO
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Other must-tries
Tomato and walnut salad
A lesson in simple, seasonal eating. Wedges of tomato, chunks of cucumber, thinly sliced red onion, coriander or parsley leaves, and perhaps some fresh dill are drizzled with a crushed walnut and garlic dressing. Do consider yourself warned: if you eat this salad in Georgia during the summer months, the tomatoes will be so ripe and flavourful that every tomato you eat from that day forth will taste lacklustre in comparison.
Badrijani nigvzit
A delicious vegetarian snack or starter. It consists of thinly sliced, fried then cooled aubergine smothered with a thick and creamy walnut sauce and folded or rolled. Take note, even though it seems like you should be able to pick these morsels up with your hands, they’re not as durable as they look. A knife and fork is the way to go.
Pkhali
This healthy little dish (a nice antidote to the khachapuri) is usually made with steamed then chopped cabbage, spinach, beetroot or green beans, combined with walnuts, garlic and herbs to make a vegetable pâté or paste. The mix is then often formed into rounds, chilled in the fridge and topped with pomegranate seeds before being served.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha
Starring: Ajay Devgn, Tabu, Shantanu Maheshwari, Jimmy Shergill, Saiee Manjrekar
Director: Neeraj Pandey
Rating: 2.5/5
GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.
The tours
A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages.
The%20specs
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