Original version

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

The Documentary

Documentaries

Factual

Investigating global developments, issues and affairs.

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service East Asia

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service

The Documentary: A Soldier's Eye View of Afghanistan

A Soldier's Eye View of Afghanistan

15/04/2017 GMT

BBC World Service - The Documentary, A Soldier's Eye View of Afghanistan

Russian, American, British and Afghan soldiers talk about fighting in Afghanistan

Russian, American, British and Afghan soldiers talk about fighting in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan, strategically located between South, Central and West Asia has been invaded and fought over by the world’s superpowers for centuries. Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, the British Empire, the Soviet Union have all tried and failed to control Afghanistan. And war rages in the country today: the US-led military coalition has been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001, and it has already become the longest war in US history.

Dawood Azami talks to the British, Russian, American and Afghan fighters and soldiers who fought in what some historians have called the Graveyard of Empires. He finds out what drew them to this formidable battlefield, what they found there, how they view their enemy and how their experience changed them as soldiers and as individuals. 

Azami looks for patterns in history: the British fought three wars in Afghanistan in the 19th and 20th Century before they sent in troops after 2001. Some of the British servicemen were aware of their predecessor’s defeats as they came up against stiff Afghan resistance; as were the Taliban fighters. 

From a US General whose ancestor also governed in Afghanistan in the 19th Century, and an infantryman caught up in a close quarter’s firefight with the Taliban, to a Mujahedeen fighter ambushing a Soviet military convoy in the mountains, Azami follows the twists and turns of conflict in Afghanistan.

Image: Afghan security personnel on a military vehicle, Credit: Noorullah Shirzada/AFP/Getty Images

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Documentary

A Soldier's Eye View of Afghanistan

Genres

Brand

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

About BBC World Service