Longreads

If, just over a decade ago, you had looked north through binoculars from frontline Taliban positions 30 miles north of Kabul, you would have seen an old Soviet-built airbase, little more than a…

Minutes later I came across a group of teenagers huddled by Edmonton Working Men's Conservative Club. Most of them were girls, and in a state of panic. I saw they were holding a topless boy, who looked about 17. "He's been stabbed," one said. As soon as he was in the ambulance, his friends fled, telling police they did not want to talk to "Feds" (slang for the police). One screamed: "We hate you." Another shouted: "You're the reason this is happening."