Afghanistan: Two Decades of War and Its Legacy
Schedule
Thu Feb 12 2026 at 06:15 pm to 07:30 pm
UTC+00:00Location
The Conduit | London, EN
About this Event
Jon Lee Anderson has documented Afghanistan’s recent history like few others, from the late 1980s mujahideen resistance to the post 9/11 intervention and the Taliban’s return in 2021. His new book, To Lose a War, brings together almost twenty-five years of reporting, combining earlier dispatches with new material to present a clear, chronological account of how the conflict unfolded and why it ended in collapse.
He is joined by Christina Lamb, Chief Foreign Correspondent at The Sunday Times, whose long-standing reporting across Afghanistan and Pakistan provides essential regional insight, and Saad Mohseni, co-founder and chairman of the Moby Group, Afghanistan’s largest media organisation.
Together, the panel will examine the early expectations of 2001, the misjudgements and strategic shifts that shaped the war, and the legacy now confronting Afghans and Western policymakers. They will also consider the regional implications of Taliban rule, the future of media and civil society, and what meaningful international engagement with Afghanistan might look like.
Jon Lee Anderson has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1998 and is one of the leading chroniclers of war and political transition. He has reported from conflict zones across the world, including Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Angola, Somalia and Lebanon, and has also produced extensive work from Latin America, including profiles of figures such as Augusto Pinochet, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez and Gabriel García Márquez.
His books include To Lose a War: The Fall and Rise of the Taliban, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, Guerrillas, The Fall of Baghdad, and The Lion’s Grave: Dispatches from Afghanistan. He has received numerous international reporting awards, including the Maria Moors Cabot Prize, and has been writing from the field since beginning his career in Peru in 1979.
Christina Lamb is Chief Foreign Correspondent at The Sunday Times and one of the UK’s most acclaimed international reporters. She has covered conflicts across the world for more than three decades, earning sixteen major awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Editors and Foreign Correspondent of the Year Award six times. She was appointed OBE in 2013.
She is the author of ten books, among them the global bestseller I Am Malala (with Malala Yousafzai), What War Does to Women, Our Bodies, Their Battlefield, Farewell Kabul, and The Africa House.
Saad Mohseni is the co-founder and chairman of the Moby Group, Afghanistan’s largest independent media organisation and a major regional broadcaster. Since 2003, he has been central to building Afghanistan’s modern media sector, creating new platforms for news, public debate and entertainment after the fall of the Taliban.
He is the author of Radio Free Afghanistan: A Twenty-Year Odyssey for an Independent Voice in Kabul, which charts the effort to establish a free press in Afghanistan and the struggle to sustain it following the Taliban’s return to power in 2021.
Where is it happening?
The Conduit, 6 Langley Street, London, United KingdomEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
GBP 16.96
