Afghanistan with Roh Yakobi

On 14 November 2001, a small CIA team and U.S. Special Forces secretly inserted Hamid Karzai into southern Afghanistan. Less than a month later, Karzai would become Afghanistan’s interim leader. In Part 1 of this exclusive interview, Don Parnell, former CIA Chief of Ground Branch , who was by Karzai’s side throughout the mission, tells the inside story of one of the most consequential operations o...

In this episode, renowned British photographer Jenny Matthews reflects on nearly four decades of documenting Afghanistan, from the final years of the Soviet occupation to the return of the Taliban. She recalls arriving in Kabul in 1988, photographing Afghan women during a time of war and uncertainty, and witnessing a society far more complex and vibrant than many outsiders imagined. The conversati...

In this third and final part of a remarkable conversation, Milton Bearden reflects on the aftermath of the anti-Soviet jihad, the collapse of Afghanistan into civil war, and the decisions that helped shape the world that followed. He speaks candidly about Pakistan’s uneasy relationship with the United States, arguing that Washington often treated Islamabad as a temporary necessity rather than a tr...

In this second part of a remarkable conversation, Milton Bearden reflects on what came after the Soviet withdrawal and the decisions that helped shape Afghanistan’s next, far more chaotic chapter. He explains how the CIA shifted tactics in dealing with Ahmad Shah Massoud, funnelling cash rather than weapons into a war that had effectively become a vast arms marketplace. He offers a more measured a...

Milton Bearden was the CIA officer tasked by Director William Casey in 1986 with using $1 billion and Stinger missiles to help drive Soviet forces out of Afghanistan, one of the most consequential covert operations of the Cold War. In this first part of a remarkable conversation, Bearden takes us inside the secret machinery of Operation Cyclone. He recounts how Washington shifted from simply "blee...

Former U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret) and Team Alpha member Justin Sapp recounts his role in the clandestine CIA mission that landed behind Taliban lines immediately after 9/11. He describes working alongside General Dostum and later travelling to Bamiyan to meet Karim Khalili and help organise forces to retake the region. Justin details witnessing the aftermath of Taliban savagery against...

Mark Urban is a British journalist, broadcaster, and best-selling author of many books, including War in Afghanistan and The Skripal Files. He has covered Afghanistan extensively since the late 1980s, witnessing firsthand the withdrawal of Soviet forces, accompanying Ahmad Shah Massoud as he took Kabul in 1992, and other key events. In this interview, he shares his stories of the country and his t...

Former U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret) and Team Alpha member Justin Sapp recounts his role in the clandestine CIA mission that landed behind Taliban lines immediately after 9/11. He describes working alongside General Dostum and later travelling to Bamiyan to meet Karim Khalili and help organise forces to retake the region. Justin details witnessing the aftermath of Taliban savagery against...

Former U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret) and Team Alpha member Justin Sapp recounts his role in the clandestine CIA mission that landed behind Taliban lines immediately after 9/11. He describes working alongside General Dostum and later travelling to Bamiyan to meet Karim Khalili and help organise forces to retake the region. Justin details witnessing the aftermath of Taliban savagery against...

Tom Tugendhat is a British Member of Parliament and former Security Minister who served multiple tours in Afghanistan in various civilian and military capacities. In this exclusive interview, Tom speaks with unusual bluntness about the war’s outcome, rejecting euphemism and insisting that the West was decisively defeated. He argues that this was not the product of inevitability or fate, but of pol...

Charlie Gammell is a former British diplomat, author and historian who has worked extensively in Afghanistan and Iran. Speaking fluent Farsi and Pashto, with Herati and Khosti accents, Charlie reflects on his time in Afghanistan, how he fell in love with Herat and its history, and why he wrote 'The Pearl of Khorasan: A History of Herat'. 👍🏼 Support the show: Leave stars, comments, share with fri...

James Cowan has seen Afghanistan at its most intense: the frozen, “medieval” Kabul he first stepped into after the Taliban’s fall in 2001, the brutal peak of the NATO campaign in Helmand, and the country’s stunning collapse two decades later. He later took on a very different mission as head of the Halo Trust, working to clear the country of the deadly remnants of its wars. In this interview, he r...

In this profoundly personal and powerful interview, the UK's Minister for the Armed Forces, Al Carns MP, tells his story of Afghanistan from the eyes of a soldier who fought there. Al recounts his first tour as a 26-year-old commando in the hellish frontline of Helmand, from the dust of Camp Bastion and countless relentless gun battles in different parts of the country. He shares harrowing near-de...

Fred Smith is an Australian diplomat, author, singer and songwriter who served alongside Australian forces in Uruzgan, as well as in Kabul. He didn’t just take his diplomatic skills to the country, but his guitar too. He wrote songs and held concerts there. He has released two albums, Dust of Uruzgan  and  The Sparrows of Kabul, and two books of the same titles, which tell the stories be...

Born to a mid-level government official and an illiterate mother in Afghanistan’s northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, Zalmay Khalilzad has a remarkable and, in many ways, inspiring story. As a teenager, he travelled to America through a cultural exchange programme in 1996 – an experience that had a profound, life-changing impact on him. After completing a PhD at the University of Chicago, he joined t...

Born to a mid-level government official and an illiterate mother in Afghanistan’s northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, Zalmay Khalilzad has a remarkable and, in many ways, inspiring story. As a teenager, he travelled to America through a cultural exchange programme in 1996 – an experience that had a profound, life-changing impact on him. After completing a PhD at the University of Chicago, he joined t...

Alexander Matheou, Regional Director for Asia Pacific of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC). In this interview he unpacks the scale of Afghanistan’s humanitarian emergency. In the past year, over two million people have been forced back from Iran and Pakistan - returning to drought, collapsing livelihoods, and shrinking international aid. Matheou shares first-han...

On 15 August 2021, the Taliban captured Kabul, reclaiming power after 20 years of war. Despite promises to the contrary, they have imposed severe restrictions on the rights of women and girls, ethnic minorities, free speech, and all civil liberties. Marking the fourth anniversary of the Taliban’s return to power, Fereshta Abbasi, Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch, shares her reflections...

Heidi Meyer is a former NATO, Pentagon, and US State Department official with over a decade of experience in Afghanistan, including time spent working inside the Arg Palace. In this interview, she shares candid reflections on her time in the country — from witnessing widespread corruption and travelling across Afghanistan, to whether the Taliban should be recognised, along with some weird and wond...

Nathalie Paarlberg is an art historian and the Chief Operating Officer at Turquoise Mountain. In this interview, she takes us on a journey through Afghanistan’s rich cultural history and art, as well as sharing her personal story of living and working in the country for several years. Her book, 'Je Ogen Zijn Mooi' (Your Eyes Are Beautiful), has been published in the Netherlands. Support the show:...

In this exclusive and gripping interview, acclaimed historian Professor Mary Beard explores how the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan reflects enduring patterns of patriarchal control throughout history. Drawing on examples and stories of ancient Greek and Roman history, Professor Beard examines how societies have historically silenced women, excluded them from public life, and...

Pascal Maitre is a world-renowned French photojournalist whose decades of work from around the world, particularly in Afghanistan, have produced some of the most iconic images of people, war, culture, nature, and more. He first travelled to Afghanistan in the 1970s and has since covered the Soviet–Afghan War and the Mujahideen civil war; he travelled through Bamiyan and Hazarajat, capturing breath...

David Tyson is a retired CIA officer who served for 25 years, much of it in Central and South Asia. He cultivated relationships with anti-Taliban leaders and commanders in northern Afghanistan prior to the 9/11 attacks, making multiple trips into the country and meeting figures such as Ahmad Shah Massoud. A member of Team Alpha - whose story was told in a previous episode with Toby Harnden - David...

David Tyson is a retired CIA officer who served for 25 years, much of it in Central and South Asia. He cultivated relationships with anti-Taliban leaders and commanders in northern Afghanistan prior to the 9/11 attacks, making multiple trips into the country and meeting figures such as Ahmad Shah Massoud. A member of Team Alpha - whose story was told in a previous episode with Toby Harnden - David...

David Tyson is a retired CIA officer who served for 25 years, much of it in Central and South Asia. He cultivated relationships with anti-Taliban leaders and commanders in northern Afghanistan prior to the 9/11 attacks, making multiple trips into the country and meeting figures such as Ahmad Shah Massoud. A member of Team Alpha - whose story was told in a previous episode with Toby Harnden - David...