In Kabul’s largest cemetery, the weather is winter morning air. Jagged headstones fan up the mountainside with a view over a sprawling swampy lake. The Shuhada-e-Saliheen cemetery (the name means “pious martyrs”) is built near a crumbling citadel, ancient stone walls tracing the mountains’ ridge. Rusted Soviet tanks are scattered across the high ground. A ragged Afghan flag—black, red, and green—whips in the wind. Dust. During the summer, this swamp sometimes dries to field.
