Afghanistan: the dark ages

Part of the BBC Panorama television series, this documentary presents a personalised view of Afghanistan spanning the years 1989 through to 2001 by reporter John Simpson. Simpson has made many trips to Afghanistan, his first being in 1989 when the Soviet Union was finally withdrawing its soldiers after ten long years of a bloody war of occupation. Through graphic images (including smuggled footage), interviews with President Najibullah (Soviet installed leader of Afghanistan who was eventually overthrown by the Mujahideen in 1992), Ahmad Shah Masood (former Head of Afghan Armed Forces), and personal stories from Afghan women and children, and Afghan men from the various warring factions, John Simpson manages to untangle the complicated web of the brutality and wars which have dominated Afghanistan for so long. He provides a background history of Osama Bin Laden; the US involvement in arming and training the Mujahideen and the fundamentalist extremists; the invasion of Kabul by the Mujahideen and the subsequent attempts by the Northern Alliance to overthrow the US backed Mujahideen; the eventual removal of the moderates in the Afghan government and the takeover of Kabul by a new movement called the Taliban who had already conquered the south of Afghanistan. The Taliban, with their extreme Islamic fundamentalism, turned Kabul back to the dark ages with their strict laws, public executions, ethnic cleansing and making women into non-existent beings by ordering them to stay at home or cover themselves in the burqua denying them access to schools or any form of education. Simpson also touches briefly on September 11, 2001, Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda and where to now for Afghanistan as the US and their allies set about to destroy and remove the Taliban from Kabul. A moving, at times distressing, insight into the plight of the down-trodden war-torn citizens of Afghanistan. Photography by cameraman Peter Jouvenal.