‘AFGHANISTAN IS THE FRONT LINE’
ON THE MORNING OF MAY 31, A GIANT PLUME OF SMOKE SPREAD ACROSS THE SKY ABOVE THE ARG, THE 19TH CENTURY KABUL FORTRESS THAT HOUSES THE AFGHAN PRESIDENT’S OFFICE AND RESIDENCE.
On the ground, just down the road from its gates and around the corner from the German Embassy, a busy thoroughfare was transformed into a gaping debris-filled crater some 13 ft. deep. The remains of the morning rush hour were everywhere: shattered windscreens, twisted metal, flattened tires. Once again, Kabul was bleeding.
The smoke came from a powerful bomb that killed at least 90 people and wounded more than 400 in what was one of the worst terrorist atrocities to shake Afghanistan. A decade and a half after a U.S.-led invasion aimed at dislodging terrorists, the Kabul bombing was a jolting reminder of the worsening war there, the longest America has ever been involved in. As victims were rushed to the surrounding hospitals, it underlined, in the bloodiest possible terms, what the country’s President Ashraf Ghani told TIME just weeks earlier: “This is the front line.”
And it is an increasingly dangerous one. Last year, nearly 3,500 Afghan civilians died in the conflict, a record number that included close to 1,000 children, as Taliban insurgents and terrorists from ISIS and other groups gained ground. As of February, the Afghan government’s control or influence extended only to about 60% of Afghanistan’s 407 districts. All told, some 3 million Afghans—almost 10% of the population—now live in areas under insurgent control or influence. And of the 98 U.S.-designated terrorist organizations worldwide,
