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Afghan artist paints Kabul’s walls of war to help heal city

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(Last Updated On: October 25, 2022)

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A city at war, the Afghan capital is among the ugliest in the world.

Wide avenues once lined with rose gardens are today gridlocked streets sandwiched by concrete blast walls protecting those inside from the bombs and bullets that form the backbeat of a 14-year insurgency. After recent deadly attacks, the towering walls multiplied almost overnight, appearing in double rows outside government buildings, businesses, embassies and the homes of powerful people.

The impression is one of division. Inside the walls, the elite are protected; outside, it’s every man for himself.

For Kabir Mokamel, an artist who returned to Kabul from the Australian capital Canberra four years ago, the blast walls present the perfect canvas for transforming not only how the city looks, but how its residents think about themselves, each other, their environment, and their future.

Calling his group Art Lords — a swipe at the warlords who still dominate Afghan politics and are publicly celebrated as warrior heroes — Mokamel uses street art to highlight social problems in Afghanistan after almost four decades of war.

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“I want people to define who really are the heroes of my city — the people who clean the city, for instance,” the 46-year-old said. “Throughout the history of Afghanistan, it’s all about the people who fought, who have swords, who have guns. We want to include something else, like the people who take part in the betterment of the city and of our lives. It moves people away from the mentality of war and conflict.”

Artists from his group recently painted street sweepers in orange work jackets and traditional scarves on a concrete wall surrounding Afghanistan’s secret service headquarters in Kabul. Alongside is a slogan, stenciled in large black letters clearly seen by motorists in the nearby traffic-choked roundabout: “The Heroes of My City: The Street Sweepers.”

Ahmad Jan, a 26-year-old day laborer, paused on a recent sunny afternoon to look at the mural. “It’s interesting to Afghans. Everybody crossing the street will take a look and read the message and then get a different perspective.”

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Volunteer Maryam Kohi comes every day to help paint. “These cement walls are blocking the commuting routes and make the city look like a prison,” she said. “Afghanistan is going through a prolonged fight and the city is polluted with dirt and corruption. With these paintings we want to take our anti-corruption message to the people.”

This week, Ghani singled out corruption as a “cancerous lesion” threatening the survival of the state. He said it was Afghanistan’s shame to be consistently named by graft watchdog Transparency International as one of the most corrupt nations on earth, and that the government had developed a “comprehensive plan” to deal with the problem through reforms and crackdowns.

“People’s perception (of corruption) is always bribery, but it’s much bigger than that,” Mokamel said, listing social ills such as poor work ethics, not standing in line, dangerous driving and street harassment of women.

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Kabul was originally built for 450,000 people. The population is now estimated at 4.5 million, though infrastructure such as transport, water and sewage has not kept up. It used to be a congenial and convivial place to live, Mokamel said.

“People were very trusting and very friendly,” he recalled. “These values have disappeared because of the ongoing conflict and the breakdown of normal social behavior and interaction.”

Mokamel hopes to cultivate a return to the pre-conflict values he remembers before fleeing war as a teenager. That was his motivation in returning to Kabul in 2010. In Australia, he was a graphic artist, studying for his Master of Fine Arts at Australian National University. “I learned a lot outside and I wanted to bring it back,” he said.

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The Art Lords’ work includes a series that Mokamel described as “healing the wounds of Afghanistan,” featuring red hearts along a stretch of white wall — one is a balloon held by a little girl and one is being pulled in a traditional handcart.

A red map of Afghanistan is covered with a Band-Aid. The next series will center on suicide bombings, which have claimed more than 50 lives in the capital in recent weeks. Mokamel carries an official letter to show to police who fear he might be a vandal.

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The first installment of street art appeared in July, at the front entrance of the National Directorate of Security. A pair of beautiful, feminine eyes gazes out from the blast walls, a warning to corrupt officials.

The eyes were a sensation among local residents, who immediately understood the meaning. Along with unemployment, corruption is cited by Afghans as among the toughest problems facing their country.

While visual arts are making a tentative return to Afghanistan, little is accessible to ordinary Afghans, who are overwhelmingly poor.

Fans of the Art Lords’ street art come back day after day to take part. “I tell them it’s really important because the minute you put the stroke of a brush on a wall, that much of the wall has disappeared,” Mokamel said.

By: Associated Press

 

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ISIS-K leader reportedly living in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

Sanaullah Ghaffari, also known as Shahab al-Muhajar, is reportedly the ISIS-Khorasan (Daesh) branch leader and is holed up in Pakistan, Reuters reports.

The 29-year-old took over as leader in 2020 and under his leadership the group has carried out extreme attacks as a means of recruiting, Reuters reported.

Reuters noted that little was known about Ghafari before the deadly 2021 ISIS attack on Kabul Airport, which killed 170 Afghan civilians and 13 American soldiers.

But after Friday’s deadly attack in a concert hall in Moscow, which left 139 people dead, Ghaffari’s group has come under intense scrutiny.

Reuters reports that Ghaffari is said to have been involved in several attacks in Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan.

Pakistani officials said months ago that Ghaffari had been killed in Kunar province in Afghanistan in June last year, but Reuters has reported that he did not die and instead fled to Pakistan and lives in the border province of Baluchistan.

Abdul Matin Qani, the spokesman of the Ministry of Interior of Afghanistan, says that Daesh has been suppressed in Afghanistan for more than two years and has lost its operational capacity.

The last attack carried out by Daesh in Afghanistan was the attack on the Kabul Bank office in Kandahar last week which left three dead and 12 wounded.

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IPL: Sunrisers thump MI in record breaking match

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

It was raining records at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Wednesday with the hosts Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) clinching a 31-run victory over Mumbai Indians (MI) in Match 8 of the Tata Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024.

Sunrisers’ batting rewrote the record books on a batting belter after the posted 277 for three.

SRH now have the highest team score in the history of the IPL – beating Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) 263 for five from the 2013 season.

In reply, MI made a spirited effort, and at one stage, were contenders to do the near impossible. In the slog overs, the enormity of the target proved a bit too much, and SRH clinched victory, but not without numerous nervous moments.

To put into perspective the carnage we witnessed – Heinrich Klaasen’s 23-ball half-century was the slowest fifty of the SRH innings.

Travis Head, playing his first match for SRH, raced to the milestone in 18 balls. Abhishek Sharma got there even faster – in 16 balls – to record the quickest fifty by an SRH batter in IPL history.

While Sunrisers notched up the highest total in the 16-year history of the IPL, just as incredibly, Mumbai Indians almost paid them back with the same coin, their batters coming out with a nothing-to-lose attitude.

The sixes kept rolling off the Mumbai bats too, helping them keep up with the asking rate for most of the chase, eventually however, they ran out of steam and finished on 246 for 5, the highest IPL total in a losing cause.

As ESPNcricinfo reported, never were more runs scored in a men’s T20 match (523). Never were most sixes hit in a men’s T20 (38). At the end of the close to four-hour six-fest, only two bowlers returned with an economy rate of under ten an over.

Thursday, March 28 : Match 9

Thursday’s match at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur sees Rajasthan Royals go up against Delhi Capitals.

Fans in Afghanistan can tune in to Ariana Television to watch the match live from 6.30pm. Alternatively the match can be screened live on arianatelevision.com

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Magnitude 5.2 quake jolts Afghanistan

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

An earthquake measuring a magnitude of 5.2 on the Richter Scale jolted Afghanistan on Thursday afternoon, the National Center for Seismology reported.

The quake was at a depth of 70km and epicentered in the mountainous north-eastern area of Ashkāsham.

The jolt was felt across the region including in Kabul, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan

There were no immediate reports of any casualties.

In October last year, over 2,000 people were killed when four 6.3-magnitude earthquakes struck in Herat province.

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