Hashim Shingal News Today

The unassuming white leather high-top sneakers with green-and-yellow trim are a best seller for a roughly half-dozen shoe vendors in a sprawling bazaar in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. But they are not in demand because they’re the latest fashion trend. For many Afghans, the sneakers evoke only one emotion: fear. That’s because they’re beloved by Taliban fighters as a status symbol even as they have become a gruesome marker of an unending war, the sneakers’ white silhouette...

In Afghanistan, Follow the White High-Tops and You’ll Find the Taliban The sneakers have been worn by Afghan fighters over multiple generations, but they’ve become a gruesome marker of the Taliban’s violent insurgency. Members of a Taliban Red Unit in Laghman Province, Afghanistan, in March. The sneakers they wear have become synonymous with violence.Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times Photographs by Jim Huylebroek MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan — The unassuming whit...