Brutal, tribal justice in Afghanistan
On his knees, Nawroz prays. He is a condemned man about to die in a brutal way.
His crime: The killing of his lover's husband.
The judge: A local warlord in Kand, Afghanistan.
The executioner: The victim's father.
A mobile phone video captured the grisly scene.
Read the full story from CNN's Nick Paton Walsh and Moni Basu
In rural Afghanistan, many don’t know 9/11
Most Americans probably remember the moment they first saw images of airplanes flying into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
In rural Afghanistan, where the United States struck the Taliban and al Qaeda the following month, you may be hard pressed to find someone who knows what the attacks were. FULL POST
Photo spotlight: Afghan women
iReporter Naeem Muhsiny recently submitted these pictures he took of Afghan women in traditional Muslim garb outside the "Blue Mosque" in northern Afghanistan.
Muhsiny told iReport that he feels these photos represent the struggle between religious tradition and the modern world faced by many Afghans. "Religion controls every aspect of one's life under the banner of God and secularism frees one from fear and greed, the very theory found in all four major religions," he said.
"Religion divides people under different names and affiliations and secularism breaks those walls by recognizing one value and that is humanity."
Muhsiny was stationed in Afghanistan from January 2010 through August 2011 as the country manager for Afghanistan at the American Councils for International Education, an organization that provides educational programs for Afghan youth.
Child labor in Kabul
Filmmakers, Jawad Wahabzada and Jon Bougher raise awareness for child labor victims in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Former child refugee becomes hero to hundreds of orphans
Afghanistan has been called the worst place to be a child.
One in five will die before their 5th birthday, according to UNICEF. More than 600,000 children sleep on the streets. More than 2 million are orphans.
But one woman is trying to improve the lives of Afghan orphans and change the sobering statistics.
Andeisha Farid, 28, founded the Afghan Child Education and Care Organization in Kabul in 2008 to create orphanages that were safe environments, places to learn and paths to the future.
From Kabul, Farid talked with CNN about her own devastating childhood, teaching kids about tolerance and security concerns living in Afghanistan. FULL POST
Number of Afghanistan refugees has doubled
They are the faces of civilians caught in the crossfire in Afghanistan. Facing internal conflict, the number of people fleeing their homes in Afghanistan has more than doubled compared to this time last year, says Refugees International, an advocacy group for displaced persons.
"In the first five months of 2011, we have more than 91,000 people fleeing their homes. And this is in comparison to last year at the same time period when there was 42,000," Refugees International advocate Lynn Yoshikawa said. FULL POST
Voices from inside Afghanistan
Three veterans of Afghanistan's conflict reflect on their years there and their hopes for the embattled country. Journalist Carlotta Gall, American John Christopher Turner (who has worked on and off in Afghanistan since the 1960s) and Afghan opposition leader Dr. Abdullah Abdullah weigh in on what it will mean when the U.S. troops begin withdrawing.
"I think you're going to have instability and insurgency still," says Gall. "And you're going to have people very nervous - who are anti-Taliban - who will start agitating to say we have to defend ourselves. ... There's great trepidation in 'what's next?'" FULL POST
Madrassa teaches children to hate U.S.
CNN's Stan Grant visits a madrassa, an Islamic school, in Kabul, Afghanistan, where children learn to hate America.
Updating technology in Afghanistan
A company is adding jobs and producing electricity for residents in Afghanistan.
Will destroyed Buddha statue be reconstructed?
The giant Buddhas of Bamiyan, once painted in bright colors, remained silent sentinels as they reacquired the hues of the sandstone cliffs from which they were carved.
The statues, which looked upon a visually stunning region of central Afghanistan for about 1,500 years, have been gone for 10 years, victims of the Taliban, who destroyed them as part of its campaign to destroy pre-Islamic artifacts considered an assault on the faith. FULL POST
