Against all predictions, the Taliban took the Afghan capital in a matter of hours. This is the story of why and what came after, by a reporter and photographer who witnessed it all.

Did Afghan forces target the M.S.F. hospital?

How a young Afghan trucking-company owner became spectacularly rich.

A remote nation and a burgeoning humanitarian catastrophe.

Even ISIS’s opponents are hard men who understand terror.

Following the money and the opium in Afghanistan.

After 13 years of war, the United States has helped create a nation ruled by drug lords.

Seven days with Syria’s first responders.

While war raged across Afghanistan, expats lived in a bubble of good times and easy money. But as the U.S. withdraws, life has taken a deadly turn.

The fight to vaccinate children in the border regions between Pakistan and Afghanistan as part of an attempt to eradicate polio worldwide.

Last fall, a team of American Special Forces arrived in Nerkh, a district just west of Kabul. Six months later, amid allegations of torturing and murdering locals, the team was gone. Shortly after they left, the remains of 10 missing villagers were found outside their vacated base. An investigation into a possible war crime.

Investigating the spike in Afghan-on-American military murders.

An account of the night last September when 15 Taliban, dressed as American soldiers, snuck onto one of the largest air bases in Afghanistan.

How a corporate network engineer became one of Aleppo’s most prolific weapons manufacturers.

The disappearance of the mysterious “Pakistani asset” that helped the CIA zero in on Bin Laden.

Inside Moammar Gadhafi’s secret surveillance network.

Inside the attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul.

On the Balkan musical genre Turbo-Folk, its ties to Serbian ultranationalism, and the strongman nightclub owner who brought it to Croatia.

Abdul Raziq, a 33-year-old warlord, is an increasingly powerful player in Afghanistan and the recipient of substantial U.S. support. He may also be the perpetrator of a civilian massacre.

A bridge, a preventable leap, and the politics of barriers for “suicide hotspots.”

An undercover report on Afghanistan’s drug-smuggling border police that is now heavily used for intelligence training.

The apparatus of counterinsurgency and occupation has funneled billions of dollars into Afghanistan, and much of it has ended up in the hands of insurgents. For those who have profited—be it through aid, extortion, corruption or legitimate business—there is very little incentive to bring the conflict to an end.