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TheWashington Posts report on The Afghanistan Papers, which tells the secret history of the war in the country, is set to be turned into a documentary series and a scripted drama after Amblin Television acquired the rights.

The television division of Steven Spielbergs production company has closed a deal with the Jeff Bezos-owned newspaper for the rights to At War with the Truth, the papers investigation into the six-part report.

It has tied with Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney, who runs Jigsaw Productions, to develop the project as both a limited documentary series and limited scripted series.

The report was the result of a three-year investigation and a battle between the news organization and the U.S. government to have the documents released under the Freedom of Information Act. It tells the secret history of the war in Afghanistan, exposing behind-the-scenes frustrations, concerns, and blunt acknowledgements of failures from military and government insiders, both Democrat and Republican, who were publicly proclaiming confidence and progress.

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As part of the deal, Amblin and Jigsaw will work closely with The WashingtonPost and have access to files, recordings, research and materials obtained as part of their investigation and will work with investigative journalist Craig Whitlock, who uncovered the story.

Gibney will exec produce with Jigsaw Productions Stacey Offman and Richard Perello, along with Amblin Televisions Co-Presidents Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey.

Amblin, Jigsaw and Gibney recently worked together on the documentary seriesWhy We Hate, which aired on Discovery last year, and music documentaryLaurel Canyon, which will air on Epix from May. No broadcaster or streaming platform is currently attached.

Amblins Frank and Falvey said, The opportunity to definitively tell this extraordinary and important story is an exciting one. Thanks to the efforts of Craig Whitlock and all the journalists atThe Washington Post, the public finally learned the truth about what has been going on behind closed doors in Washington as it relates to the war in Afghanistan which has spanned almost two decades, three administrations and cost trillions of taxpayer dollars. Alex, Stacy and the team at Jigsaw are the very best at what they do, and we can imagine no better partner to work with in bringing this story to television audiences.

Gibney said, This is a vital story at a critical moment. For once we will hear an honest, intimate account from insiders of the epic tale of the forever war: politicians regale us with victory speeches while day by day, casualties mount and the battle for hearts and minds are lost. Why? Because no one bothered to wonder why we are there.

Marty Baron, executive editor ofThe Washington Post, added, When Post reporter Craig Whitlock became aware that senior U.S. officials had given confidential interviews about the war in Afghanistan, we knew it was imperative to examine them. When the government sought to maintain secrecy, The Post felt it had to challenge a policy of concealment. The public had a right to a full accounting of why this war has been the nations longest, with such a heavy cost in lives, injuries and money. Central to journalisms role in a democracy is holding government accountable and giving citizens the information they need and deserve to know. In documenting how the public was misled about the war, we believe this work was faithful to that mission.

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Amblin Television & Alex Gibney To Adapt The Washington Posts Afghanistan Papers Into Limited Documentary Series & Drama - Deadline

Two bodies were recovered after a U.S. military aircraft crashed in a Taliban-held area of Afghanistan.

A U.S. defense official told the Associated Press Tuesday that the two bodies recovered were the only people aboard the Air Force E-11A plane that crashed on Monday in the countrys Ghazni province. The identities of those killed have not yet been identified, pending notification to their families.

(Saifullah Maftoon/AP)

The team sent to recover the bodies didnt meet resistance from Taliban fighters, who have controlled the area since 2015. The incident came as the United States and the Taliban have been negotiating a possible peace deal in the region.

The official also said that there is no evidence, despite Taliban claims, that the aircraft was shot down.

The Washington Examiner reached out to the NATO-led Operation Resolute Support mission for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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Bodies of two US service members recovered from Afghanistan crash site - Washington Examiner

KABUL: American warplanes dropped more bombs on Afghanistan in 2019 than at any other time in at least a decade, according to the US Air Force, as Washington intensified attacks in the country amid withdrawal talks with the Taliban.

In 2019 alone, the US dropped 7,423 separate munitions on targets in Afghanistan, where the US has been enmeshed in fighting several militant groups since it invaded the country following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The figure - published online by US Air Forces Central Command -represents a dramatic surge in bombings in Afghanistan compared to the peak of President Barack Obama's "surge" in 2009, when 4,147 bombs were dropped.

Since President Donald Trump was elected in 2016 the US has ramped up bombing runs over Afghanistan as the White House removed earlier restrictions that provided greater oversight over air raids aimed at preventing civilian casualties.

The UN and rights groups have repeatedly voiced concerns that the increase in air strikes across the country by US and Afghan forces have resulted in a major upswing in civilian casualties.

During the first half of 2019 pro-government forces, including the US, killed 717 civilians, an increase of 31 percent from a year earlier, the UN reported last year.

Most of the deaths came from US and Afghan air strikes, often in support of national forces on the ground, the report said.

The increase in bombings comes as Washington and the Taliban continue to wrangle over a possible agreement that would see US troops begin to leave Afghanistan in return for security guarantees.

The Taliban have been pushing to reach a withdrawal agreement with Washington by the end of January and are prepared to "scale down" military operations ahead of signing a deal, their chief spokesman said earlier this month.

The two sides had been negotiating an agreement for a year and were close to an announcement in September 2019 when US President Donald Trump abruptly declared the process "dead", citing Taliban violence.

Taliban sources told AFP earlier this month they had offered to initiate a brief ceasefire of seven to 10 days in order to restart the talks formally, but there has been no announcement of the proposal by either party.

Excerpt from:
US bombing of Afghanistan hits 10-year high - CNA

The removal of Qassem Soleimani from the regions political chessboard will have implications not only across the Middle East and its various conflict zones but is also likely to reverberate through South Asia, affecting the conflict in Afghanistan and Irans bilateral ties with Pakistan.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force has remained an active player within the Afghan theatre since the days of Afghan Jihad, yet it remained a marginal player during the 1980s as its overwhelming focus was the western front with Iran. It was only in the mid-1990s that it became an active player. Iran was concerned by the ascendancy of the Taliban and sought to undermine the Sunni fundamentalist regime that had appeared on its eastern border.

It was during this time that Qassem Soleimani emerged as a prominent player in Afghanistan. When Soleimani became the chief of the IRGC's Quds Force in 1998, Iran and the Afghan Taliban government were on a war footing. And the confrontation only got worse: the 1998 Taliban takeover of the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif from the Uzbek warlord Abdur Rashid Dostum resulted in the killings of nine Iranian diplomats and a journalist. Yet Soleimani argued against the use of direct force and advocated instead for increasing the support for the Northern Alliance, the main anti-Taliban front at that time.

Meanwhile, Iranian ties with Pakistan remained on a downward trajectory during the 1990s as the country witnessed some of the worst sectarian violence perpetrated by Sunni and Shia militant groups backed by Saudi Arabia and Iran respectively. As Pakistan was one of the erstwhile supporters of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, Tehrans active support for the Northern Alliance was not well received in Islamabad.

The US invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the Taliban regime was finally removed from Kabul and the political factions associated with the Northern Alliance were back in power. Yet, for Tehran, a bigger problem was the presence of NATO troops in Afghanistan. This led to Irans multifaceted engagement with a range of political and militant actors within Afghanistan. Soleimanis successor, Ismail Qaani, also played a significant role in Irans strategy.

Iran has traditionally supported and held stronger ties with the ethnic Hazara Shia community in Afghanistan. As the Hazaras suffered severe persecution during the Taliban days, they found a natural patron in Iran. Iran also exercised influence over Tajiks in Afghanistan, particularly in the western province of Herat which borders Iran. But the most spectacular aspect of this Iranian engagement was their courting of the Afghan Taliban who resurrected themselves as a powerful insurgent force challenging the authority of the Afghan government and NATO troops across the length and breadth of the country.

Recently disclosed pictures circulating in the Afghan media suggest that General Qaani was operating as the deputy ambassador of Iran to Afghanistan as late as 2018, a story which only emphasises his prime role in managing Irans Afghan policy. This does nothing to improve Irans relationship with Pakistan, which maintained strong links with the Taliban leadership and considered this incursion by the Iranians as an effort to weaken its hand within Afghanistan.

If Iranian manoeuvres in Afghanistan raised eyebrows in Islamabad, developments on the IranPakistan border further weakened the bilateral relationship. The 2016 capture of the alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Yadav, who entered Pakistan from Iran, was an eye-opener for Pakistans security establishment. The episode meant that the PakistanIran border could not be considered a safe zone anymore, and the alleged Indian presence in the Iranian port of Chabahar was a potential threat to Pakistans security and strategic interests. It is highly unlikely that the Quds Force was unaware of these activities. Pakistan lodged a strong protest against this development with the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and demanded that Iran was not used as a launch pad for actions against Pakistani national interests.

As IranPakistan relations soured following the Kulbhushan affair, another issue involving the Quds Force came up on the radar of Pakistans security circles. This was the recruitment of Pakistani Shias to fight for the Bashar Al-Assad regime in the Syrian civil war. These fighters were grouped under a militia named Liwa Al-Zainabiyoun (or the Zainabiyoun Brigade). General Qaani was a central figure in this recruitment drive in Pakistan. The Pakistani authorities eventually clamped down on a charity organisation that was used as a front group for these activities.

Yet another episode where the Quds Force and the Pakistani authorities had a face-off was the border security situation across the Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchestan and Pakistani Balochistan. The Jundullah, a Sunni Baloch separatist organisation, had waged a low-intensity insurgency within Sistan-Baluchestan, and although Pakistan helped Iran in apprehending its chief, Abdolmalek Regi, the bilateral distrust on the issue never went away. The deaths of 27 IRGC troops in an attack on their bus near the border town of Zahedan in early 2019 prompted a severe response from Iranian authorities. Soleimani cautioned the Pakistani government to stop cross-border terror attacks from its territory and vowed a strong response from Iran if significant progress hasnt been made by Pakistan on the issue.

The government of Imran Khan in Pakistan tried to address the trust deficit issue with Iran, yet there was no structural change on any of these clash points. Instead of acknowledging and appreciating Pakistans efforts to defuse regional tensions, when the Pakistani prime minister visited Iran in October 2019 in an effort to mediate between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the Iranian supreme leader advised Imran Khan to focus instead on addressing the border security issues between the two sides.

The assassination of Soleimani has propelled General Qaani, the Quds Forces eastern front commander, to the position of overall leader. This development has serious implications for the security situation in Afghanistan and Irans relationship with its eastern neighbour.

Under the Trump administration, Pakistan and the US have developed a working relationship and both sides have agreed upon the need for a negotiated settlement of the Afghan conflict. Pakistan has used its influence with the Taliban, essentially keeping the Doha Dialogue, which takes place periodically in the Qatari capital, alive even after President Trump cancelled talks with the insurgent group.

Yet, Pakistan has been wary of Irans attempts to sway the Taliban away from the negotiating table and towards a renewed confrontation with the US on Afghanistans battlefields. With Qaani now in charge someone who knows the Afghan political landscape just as Soleimani knew that of Iraq there remains a serious possibility that Iran could exact its revenge on the US, not in the Middle East as most commentators have alleged, but in the Afghan theatre, by attempting to derail the Afghan peace process. For Pakistan, ominous signs are already there, with the public appearance of an IRGC spokesperson in a press briefing with the Zainabiyoun groups flag behind him, alongside the banners of Irans other proxy forces across the region.

Perhaps this posturing from Iran has been a direct response to Pakistans rather cautious and restrained reaction to the killing of General Soleimani, which evidently infuriated Iran. It also appears that close deliberation between US officials and the Pakistani government on the Soleimani affair has not gone down well in Tehran. By openly admitting its patronage of the Zainabiyoun militia, Tehran has sent a clear message to Islamabad, reminding Pakistan of its capabilities and willingness to use proxy forces against Pakistani interests.

These new developments require enhanced coordination between the US, Pakistan and all other stakeholders involved in Afghanistan to ensure that the Afghan peace process is not derailed, and that Afghanistan does not become a new front in the USIran rivalry.

Umer Karim is a Visiting Fellow at RUSI. He is also a doctoral researcher at the Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham.

BANNER IMAGE: Courtesy of Maryam Kamyab, Mohammad Mohsenifar / Mehrnews.

The views expressed in this Commentary are the authors, and do not represent those of RUSI or any other institution.

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Death of Qassem Soleimani: What to Expect in Afghanistan and Pakistan - RUSI Analysis

A U.S. Air Force (USAF) E-11A Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) aircraft crashed in Afghanistan on Jan. 27, 2019.

The E-11A, which is a converted Bombardier BD-700 Global Express Business jet equipped with specialized communications equipment, went down in a Taliban-controlled area of Ghazni Province, north of its operating base at Kandahar Airfield. The E-11A serial number 11-9358 was assigned to the 430th Expeditionary Electronic Combat Squadron, a geographically separated unit of the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing at Bagram Airfield.

There are no indications the crash was caused by enemy fire, U.S. Forces-Afghanistan spokesman Col. Sonny Leggett said in a statement. Taliban claims that additional aircraft have crashed are false.

According to Air Force Magazine, the USAF maintains a small presence of four E-11 aircraft at Kandahar. The BACN works to ensure a consistent and effective form of communication in nearly any location or environment, significantly reducing the possibility of communication failure and increasing the rate of mission success. The payload, or package of sensors carried on the E-11A, allows command and control to get in contact with the troops on the ground, and vice versa, to enable mission accomplishment. The aircraft was developed as an urgent operational need after communication shortfalls were identified during Operation Red Wings in Afghanistan in 2005. The operation became well known following the success of the book and subsequent movie Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell, a former Navy SEAL and the only surviving member of the mission.

Speaking to reporters, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein confirmed the E-11 crash Monday morning, but said he did not have details on the status of the aircrew.Five crew members were on board, FOX News said.

Unlike most other USAF aircraft, E-11 crews come from other airframes and often fly the plane the first time while deployed. The aircraft flies over Afghanistan constantly it surpassed 10,000 sorties in 2017 about eight years after deploying to the country for the first time.

The following video was posted onlineand shows the wreckage, with the cockpit and main fuselage heavily damaged and burning. The tail of the aircraft is largely intact, with the tail markings of the Air Combat Command seal, tail number 11-9358, and USAF roundel clearly visible.

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force

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Video Surfaces of USAF E-11A BACN aircraft crashed in Afghanistan - The Aviation Geek Club