News.com.au: Australian Federal Police officers are raiding the Sydney headquarters of the ABC over reports published two years ago regarding alleged unlawful killings and misconduct by Special Forces troops in Afghanistan. The public broadcaster’s Ultimo offices and studios, as well as three employees, are the subject of a search over The Afghan Files special investigation in 2017.      Full news...

Xinhua: Armed clashes between Afghan security forces and Taliban militants as well as attacks had claimed numerous lives and injured dozens during Ramadan, the Muslim holy fasting month. In Afghanistan, Ramadan began on May 6 and ended on June 3, during which, Taliban militants and Islamic States (IS) fighters have carried out series of deadly operations in different parts of the country and national capital Kabul.      Full news...

The Diplomat: IClick, an online shopping company, based in Kabul, optimistically followed news on the peace talks between the United States and the Taliban group. The peace talks raised hopes for the end of the violence in Afghanistan — and the growth of iClick and other startups. But criminals, rather than terrorists, are now ruining hopes of business growth.      Full news...

Fair Observer: The question of drugs is one that will determine Afghanistan’s future. While the talks between the United States and the Taliban continue, one key factor contributing to Afghanistan’s instability is not discussed — opium cultivation and drug trafficking. Afghanistan is the top producer of opium in the world, generating more than 90% of the world’s supply.      Full news...

The New York Times: One of the investigators of the American University in Afghanistan summed things up this way: If the United States government had paid to send every Afghan graduate to college in the United States, it would have spent less money than it did on financing a troubled, English-language university for them in the Afghan capital. The university graduated 1,281 Afghan degree students over the past decade, at a cost of 126,000 USD each to American taxpayers, or a total of 162 million USD.      Full news...

The Defense Post: Taliban fighters have stormed several security posts providing protection to Afghanistan’s historic minaret of Jam, cutting access to the UNESCO World Heritage Site and killing 18 security forces, officials said Wednesday, May 29. The attack comes less than a week after the revered 12th-century minaret, located in a remote part of the western province of Ghor, was threatened by surging floodwaters.      Full news...

UN News: The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Monday that much greater protection for educational facilities was needed across Afghanistan where attacks against schools have increased three-fold in just one year. The call coincides with the third International Conference on Safe Schools, taking place this week in Mallorca, Spain.      Full news...

The Washington Post: Khal Bibi is a 23-year-old widow. Her family has been destroyed by the 18-year war that afflicts Afghanistan. Bibi’s husband and one of her three children were killed in an airstrike during clashes between government forces and the Taliban. She, with her remaining two children, is among the 550,000 internally displaced people who have been forced to flee their villages.      Full news...

Foreign Policy: The respiratory ward of Kabul’s Indira Gandhi Children’s Hospital, built with Indian aid, is filled with children gasping for breath. Some scream as they’re treated, their cries echoing off the concrete walls. Amid the shrieks, doctors, parents, and patients struggle to heal, soothe, and breathe. The ward follows a seasonal rhythm—in the summers, it’s used to treat gastric issues, but during the winter, doctors treat Afghanistan’s vulnerable population for chronic respiratory illnesses that they attribute to pollution in the air, a mix of heating from homes and pollution from industrial sources.      Full news...

Al Jazeera: In a recent address to Afghanistan’s healthcare providers, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah said, “With what we spend on a single day of war, we could build a state-of-the-art hospital.” With that statement, Abdullah - a medical doctor himself - summed up the state of healthcare in the country plagued by limited resources and an ongoing war.      Full news...

Al Jazeera: Air raids in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand and eastern Kunar provinces have killed at least 14 civilians, the UN said on Thursday. Seven children were among those killed in the attacks that took place in Helmand’s Gereshk and Kunar’s Chawki districts on Monday and Wednesday, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a statement.      Full news...

VOA: The collapse of the Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq is doing little to slow down the terror group’s branch in Afghanistan. Newly unclassified intelligence suggests IS-Khorasan, as the group is known, is growing both in numbers and ambition, now boasting as many as 5,000 fighters — nearly five times as many as estimates from last year — while turning its focus to bigger and more spectacular attacks.      Full news...

TRT World: US president’s decision to pardon US soldiers who carried out murders in Afghanistan and Iraq is just one way in which Washington avoids accountability for its actions. Donald Trump is preparing to pardon several US military members this Memorial Day, including a soldier who admitted to murder in Afghanistan in 2010, according to the New York Times.      Full news...

Al Jazeera: Five children were killed when an explosive device attached to a motorbike went off in a market in Afghanistan’s western province, an official said. Another 20 people were wounded in the incident on Saturday, which took place in Herat province's Oba district, according to provincial governor spokesman Jelani Farhad.      Full news...

The Washington Post: U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan killed as many as 18 Afghan police officers late Thursday during heavy ground fighting with Taliban forces near the capital of Helmand province, Afghan officials and provincial leaders said Friday. U.S. military officials here said the airstrikes, in what they described as a “tragic accident,” killed members of the Afghan security forces and Taliban fighters, but they did not say how many from each side died.      Full news...

The New York Times: It’s easy to reach for metaphors to describe the war in Afghanistan — quagmire, money pit, a boulder that must be rolled up the Hindu Kush for eternity. John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, told The Times this month that a recent decision by the Trump administration to stop releasing important metrics about the war...      Full news...

The Guardian: A prominent Afghan journalist and political adviser has been gunned down in Kabul, just days after she warned on social media that she feared for her life. Mena Mangal was shot dead on Saturday morning in south-east Kabul. The attack, in broad daylight in a public place, prompted an outpouring of grief and anger from women’s rights activists, directed at authorities who had left her unprotected in the face of threats.      Full news...

The New Humanitarian: Twice a week, Farid Rahimi gets up at dawn, wraps a blanket around his shoulders to keep warm, gathers his empty jerrycans, and waits beside the tap outside his house in a hillside neighbourhood above Kabul. At 7am sharp, water bursts from the pipes, filling Rahimi’s tank and buckets. He labours away, saving every drop until – just an hour later – the last drop falls.      Full news...

Time: It was a sunny morning in early December last year when 23-year-old Khadija set herself on fire. She kissed her three-month old son Mohammed goodbye and said a short prayer. “Please God, stop this suffering,” she pleaded in the sun-soaked courtyard of her home in Herat, Afghanistan as she poured kerosene from a copper lamp over her small frame. She then struck a match. The last thing she heard were birds chirping.      Full news...

The New York Times: At least 12 people were killed on the outskirts of Kabul on Tuesday when explosives in a vehicle detonated near a convoy of security forces, Afghan officials said, and at least 12 others were wounded. It was the deadliest of several violent attacks across Afghanistan on Tuesday that left a total of more than 30 dead, most of them members of security forces.      Full news...

TOLOnews.com: The Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA) survey shows that Afghanistan’s legal, judicial and educational institutions remain the “most corrupt” among government institutions. Based on the survey, after insecurity, unemployment and corruption are among the major concerns of the Afghan people.      Full news...

Associated Press: Wheat and opium farmer Murad Khan Ishaqzai, 80, has never seen a drought as bad as the one ravaging western Afghanistan where more than 250,000 people have been forced to abandon their homes. After his crops dried up in Gormach district of Badghis province earlier this year, Ishaqzai rented a truck and drove his family hundreds of kilometres through Taliban-infested areas to the neighbouring province of Herat.      Full news...

Telegraph: In a statement issued to the Telegraph on Wednesday, the AFF said it “vigorously rejects the false accusations recently made with regard to the women national team”, adding that “should the AFF receive specific factual information and/or evidence, it will not hesitate to initiate further investigations immediately.”      Full news...

NBC News: Afghanistan has overtaken Iraq to become the world’s deadliest country for terrorism, according to a report released Wednesday. One-quarter of all worldwide terrorism-related deaths during 2017 occurred in Afghanistan, according to the latest Global Terrorism Index. It cited a surge in attacks by the Taliban and the Islamic State group.      Full news...

The Guardian: Fifa is examining allegations that members of the Afghanistan national women’s team were sexually and physically abused by men from the country’s football federation, including its president, Keramuudin Karim. The claims have prompted the team’s principal sponsor, Hummel, to cut ties with the Afghan federation (AFF) and call for new leadership.      Full news...

Reuters: At least 30 Afghan civilians have been killed in US air strikes in the Afghan province of Helmand, officials and residents of the area said on Wednesday, the latest casualties from a surge in air operations aimed at driving the Taliban into talks. Afghanistan’s NATO-led force said Afghan government forces and US advisers came under fire from Taliban fighters in a compound in Garmsir district and called in an air strike.      Full news...

Global Voices: Over the past three weeks the Hazara-populated districts of Malistan and Jaghori in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province, and the district of Khas Uruzgan in Uruzgan province have been at the centre of a violent assault planned and carried out by the Taliban. Reinforcements were belatedly sent in, expelling the Taliban from Malistan, while military operations are still ongoing in Jaghori and Khas Uruzgan.      Full news...

Al Jazeera: “Every woman in this country has a hundred owners. It’s always been like that. Fathers, brothers, uncles, neighbours. They all believe they have the right to speak on our behalf and make decisions for us. That’s why our stories are never heard but buried with us underground.” - Sahra Mani Mosawi, filmmaker      Full news...

Associated Press: An explosion ripped through a mosque inside an Afghan army base in the country’s volatile eastern Khost province as Friday prayers were drawing to a close, killing 27 soldiers and wounding 57, the military said. The blast may have been set off by a suicide bomber or a remotely detonated bomb but nothing was officially confirmed and details were sketchy. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the explosion.      Full news...

TOLOnews.com: Some residents of Parwan province, in the center of Afghanistan, closed the Kabul-Mazar highway to traffic early on Friday morning to protest against a military operation carried out by Afghan and foreign forces in Jabal Saraj district in the province. The residents claimed that three civilians have lost their lives in the military operation.      Full news...