OZY | 13.02.2018
By Mohammed Harun Arsalai
A wave of insurgent attacks in recent weeks in Afghanistan has led both President Donald Trump and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to call for an end to negotiations with the Taliban militant group and to intensify efforts on the battlefield.
After 16 years of fighting, Afghanistan is America’s longest war in history. In 2017, eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province was also the deadliest place on Earth for U.S. troops. Amid all the chaos live the Afghan people, who have suffered immensely over the past 40 years of nearly nonstop violence. Many who can manage to afford a smuggler opt to leave Afghanistan on an arduous journey through Iran into Turkey and over the Aegean Sea toward the Greek islands, where they hope to make it to the Greek mainland and head north to one of the more prosperous and supposedly friendly EU countries.