10. Kashke

11/03/21 • 27 min

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If only - Lyse Doucet talks to poet, former ambassador and former Mujahideen fighter, Massoud Khalili. Now 74, he’s lived through many of the pivotal moments of 43 years of war in Afghanistan. He and Lyse reflect on the missed opportunities and the mistakes that haunt Afghanistan's recent history. And in the last of our ten part series, Lyse asks Afghans what they want for their country: their main wish, peace.

Series Producers: Louise Hidalgo, Tim Mansel, Ed Butler, Neal Razzell Series Editor: Penny Murphy Commissioning Editor: Steve Titherington Series music composed by Arson Fahim Production Coordinators: Maria Ogundele & Iona Hammond Studio Managers: James Beard & Tom Brignell

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9. The power couple

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An eyewitness account from the presidential palace as the Taliban encircle Kabul.

He was the president’s chief of staff, she was the ambassador in Washington. Both were appointed by President Ghani: Matin Bek, the son of a warlord, and Adela Raz, the daughter of an intellectual. They were Afghanistan’s ultimate power couple. Matin was in the presidential palace the day the capital fell to the Taliban. He describes the moment he realised, uncomprehending, that the president had fled. The palace, he says, was “the safest place in Afghanistan” that day. Adela, in Washington, had just woken up when she realised that something was terribly wrong. “Get out now,” she told her husband. Matin’s assessment looking back on the past few years: “The government failed and I was part of it.”