Baghdad, Iraq: A woman walks a group of young girls to school while a fire rages following a large explosion on the morning of December 22 in the Karada neighborhood of Baghdad. At least one person died in the attack, and many more were wounded. The Karada bombing one of a dozen coordinated attacks on December 22 targeting shops, schools, and government office that killed at least sixty people and wounded over a hundred.

I spent four weeks in December 2011 and January 2012 in Iraq on behalf of Bloomberg Businessweek, working on a feature about the state of the country after the withdrawal of U.S. troops. The result is a cover story for the week of January 23 with an accompanying photo essay. Here’s the intro to the slideshow:

“The day after the last U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq, I arrived in Baghdad to explore the country they left behind. It was Dec. 19, 2011, the same day that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issued a controversial arrest order against a senior Sunni rival, throwing the country into yet another political crisis. In the ensuing weeks, the government ground to a halt and a wave of violence swept the country, leaving some 250 Iraqi civilians dead.

The explosions were evidence enough that Iraq’s problems are far from over, but so too were the daily blackouts, the heaps of smoldering garbage, and the universal sentiment among Iraqis that their own political leaders—especially al-Maliki—are responsible for the continuing malaise. Time and again, Sunnis and Shiites swore to me that the nightmare of street-level sectarianism was over—but normal Iraqis may not have the power to prevent the meltdown. As they navigate warrens of concrete blast walls and security checkpoints, trying to breathe life back into their cities, Iraqis are united by a common fear: that their politicians will drag them into another sectarian war, one in which civilians, again, will be the victims.”

See the full story and accompanying photo slideshow at Bloomberg Businessweek.

Here’s an excerpt from their write-up:

The site features beautifully-produced multimedia videos and slideshows of Elliott’s reportage and an interaction map built on a Google map interface that plots his, and user-generated, stories geographically. Weaving together stunning stills, dramatic video and captivating audio, the pieces transport visitors into the field. In the hopes of fostering dialogue, site visitors can also contribute their own stories and comment on site content.

See the whole write-up here.

To mark the release of Granta 116: Ten Years Later, in which my newest article appears, I’ll be participating in three events on the East Coast in early September.

Here are the event details:

MADISON, CT
R.J. JULIA BOOKSELLERS
6 September, 7 p.m., 768 Boston Post Road, Madison, CT 06443
One day in September, a decade ago, all eyes were turned towards New
York. Where are we looking now? Through fiction, reportage, memoir,
poetry and photography, Granta 116: 10 Years Later looks at how an event
like 9/11 reverberates, with stories from Tunisia to Toronto. As part of
an event series that spans the nation, Granta 116 contributor Elliott
Woods and others will explore this topic through readings and
conversation with Granta Assistant Editor Patrick Ryan. Free.

PHILADELPHIA, PA
ROBIN’S BOOKSTORE AND MOONSTONE ARTS CENTER
7 September, 7 p.m., 110 A S. Thirteenth Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107
With poet Daisy Fried, author Whitney Terrell and Granta 116 contributor
Elliott Woods. Free.

WASHINGTON DC
POLITICS AND PROSE
13 September, 7 p.m., 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 20008
One day in September, a decade ago, all eyes were turned towards New
York. Where are we looking now? Through fiction, reportage, memoir,
poetry and photography, Granta 116: 10 Years Later looks at how an event
like 9/11 reverberates, with stories from Tunisia to Toronto. As part of
an event series that spans the nation, novelist Olga Grushin, Granta 116
contributor Elliott Woods and foreign affairs journalist Robin Wright
will explore this topic through readings and in conversation with Steve
Coll, the president of the New America Foundation. Free.

Come on out and say hello at one of these events if you can make it. I’ll be talking about my ongoing work in Afghanistan and here at home with young veterans of America’s 21st century wars.

— Elliott

Following my photo-essay “Afghanistan’s Burned Brides” from the January-February issue of Mother Jones, about the growing phenomenon of self-immolation, I decided to produce my own multimedia treatment of the story based on from the audio recordings, photos, and video I shot in the western city of Herat in September and October 2010. I posted “Herat Burning” on Assignment Afghanistan last week, and I hope you’ll share it.

Women in Afghanistan commit self-immolation out of desperation, as a protest against forced child marriage, spousal drug abuse, domestic violence, and extreme poverty. In recent years, the rate of self-immolation has increased in western Afghanistan, though no one is quite sure why. In the video, you’ll meet several young survivors of self-immolation and two women—a burn unit nurse and Afghanistan’s first female chief provincial prosecutor—who are trying to help them.

Assignment Afghanistan—my ongoing collaboration with the Virginia Quarterly Review—won the 2011 National Magazine Award from the American Society of Magazine Editors for Best Multimedia Package, beating out National Geographic and New York Magazine.You can see the press release and see a photo of my editor Ted Genoways accepting the award (I was in Afghanistan) here.

I’m beyond thrilled, of course, and mostly take the “Ellie” as inspiration to go out there and tackle new stories. I’ve just returned from Afghanistan, where I worked on a photographic project about all different types of work and workers in Kabul. I’m busy scanning the negatives now (yes, I shot film!) and will be putting together a multimedia project for the website. Last week, I posted a new multimedia piece called “Herat Burning,” about survivors of self-immolation and women who are trying to help them. I’ve also got a series about Zhari District in Kandahar forthcoming, and new trips lined up for summer 2011.

I’d like to take a moment to thank all of the people who have helped put Assignment Afghanistan together, in no particular order (and who have helped keep my life together): Ted Genoways, my longtime editor at VQR, who was at least half the brains behind the project from a conceptual standpoint, and who saw the potential for a totally new type of collaboration between a magazine and a journalist; Jesse Dukes, who patiently sat with me and dutifully took notes while I explained the stories behind hundreds of photos and dozens of audio recordings from Marjah, in Helmand Province, where I spent July of last year with the Marines—Jesse turned those interviews into stunning audio slideshows, and I’m still spellbound every time I watch them even months later; Mary Anne Andrei, who graciously allowed Ted, Jesse and I to invade her basement and kitchen and even occasionally fed us during December and January while we cranked hard on building the material for the project; Bluecadet Interactive, the web gurus and creative geniuses who did an incredible job with the development of the website itself; William Bonnet, a former NATO TV cameraman who kept me company, and managed to crack me up, during some particularly rough spots in Zhari last fall, and whose brilliant video will be featured in upcoming productions from Zhari; my mom, dad, and sisters, who have unflinchingly supported me as I pursue my work in Afghanistan, despite the fact that its the last place they want me to be; and Alexandra Arango, my partner and best friend, whose voice on the other end of a shaky Skype connection is all the salve my heart needs to keep it all going, with a smile even.

I also want to say a word about my friend and former battle buddy Todd Weaver, with whom I served in Iraq in 2004-2005 when we were both enlisted engineers. Todd went on to finish his degree at William & Mary after we got back from Iraq, and I went on to UVA. Both of us graduated near the tops of our classes, and our lives seemed to follow different but somehow parallel courses in the years that followed; he went on to become and infantry lieutenant, and I went on to cover his new war as a journalist. In August 2010, I was within a stone’s throw of his Combat Outpost, but there was another journalist there and I couldn’t get permission to go see him. We emailed and mused on the insane coincidence, and promised we’d get together back in the States. On September 9, Todd stepped on an IED while leading his platoon on a patrol near Combat Outpost Stout in Arghandab District. He left behind his young wife, Emma Louise, and his one year-old daughter, Kiley. I’ll carry his memory with me everywhere and always.

Voices of Tahrir — Wust El-Balad from Elliott Woods on Vimeo.

“On the eighteenth night of protests in Tahrir Square, Cairo, the legendary Egyptian band Wust El-Balad (Downtown) took to the stage, singing songs about liberation and freedom and Egyptian culture. At the end of this song, the crowd erupted into a chant of “Horriya!” or, “Freedom!”

Tens of thousands of other protesters began gathering in Tahrir Square and in other locatioins throughout Cairo and other cities in Egypt on 25 January 2011 in a “Day of Anger.” The demonstrations have continued for three weeks since with no signs of stopping.

These short videos give voice to one protester at a time.”

When I unzipped my rolling suitcase for the customs official at Cairo International Airport on Thursday night, February 3, a look of horror seized his face. “Koolu memnouaa,” he whispered to himself. “Everything is prohibited.”

Read the rest of my account my first day coming into the country that I used to call home here.

This from the header of my new “Afghanistan’s Burned Brides” slideshow at MotherJones.com:

“The head nurse at Herat Regional Hospital’s Burn Unit guesses that she’s seen at least a thousand self-immolation cases since she started working here 13 years ago. Almost all of them are young women who’ve been beaten, starved, or forced into abusive marriages they can’t leave without also abandoning their children. But not all women who douse themselves in kerosene and light a match succeed in killing themselves. Some of the survivors are featured in this slideshow, along with photos of the Herat burn unit and Afghan prosecutor Maria Bashir. Click here to read a profile of Bashir, a woman risking everything to bring Afghanistan’s abusive husbands to justice.”

“Another Day in the ‘Dab” is about an artillery unit from the 101st Airborne Division that finds itself exchanging orders to Iraq for another mission as part of the 2010 Afghan “surge” in one of southern Afghanistan’s most dangerous regions—Arghandab, a key point on the smuggling trail from Helmand to Pakistan, where insurgents had deployed hundreds of IEDs in the pomegranate orchards and grape vineyards, and where no major troop presence had ever deployed since the beginning of the war.

Assignment Afghanistan is the home for this new story and its accompanying video, as well as a series of new stories from me and from the project’s public users.

Voices of Tahrir — Fathi Saleh from Elliott Woods on Vimeo.

Fathi Saleh, 30, a protester in Tahrir Square, Cairo, calling for the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt for three decades—since Fathi was born.

Tens of thousands of other protesters began gathering in Tahrir Square and in other locatioins throughout Cairo and other cities in Egypt on 25 January 2011 in a “Day of Anger.” The demonstrations have continued for two weeks since with no signs of stopping.

The short videos in Voices of Tahrir give voice to one protester at a time.