War Games

Rifle shots, hurried footsteps, and distant explosions. The rat-a-tat of a firefight. Cars mangled from grenades.

It could have been any day in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, where assassinations, terrorist attacks, and random violence have become routine, and the city often feels as if it’s under siege. But Safiullah Sharifi was sitting on a dusty stoop in the Qala-e Fatullah neighborhood, and the death and destruction unfurled on his phone, held landscape-style in his hands.

“On Friday I play from early morning to around 4 p.m.,” says Sharifi, 20, with a sly grin. “Almost every night, it’s 8 p.m. to 3 a.m.”

The game is called PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, but to its millions of players worldwide, no matter the language, it’s referred to as PUBG (pub-gee). It’s violent. And it’s widely played across Afghanistan, almost as an escape from reality as the war in that nation—the real one—grinds on.

Rifle shots, hurried footsteps, and distant explosions. The rat-a-tat of a firefight. Cars wrecked by grenades.

It could have been any day in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. Assassinations, terrorist attacks, and random violence have become routine there. As a result, the city often feels as if it’s under siege. But Safiullah Sharifi was sitting on a dusty stoop in the Qala-e Fatullah neighborhood. And the death and destruction took place on his phone, which he held landscape-style in his hands.

“On Friday, I play from early morning to around 4 p.m.,” says Sharifi, 20, with a sly grin. “Almost every night, it’s 8 p.m. to 3 a.m.”

The game is called PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. But to its millions of players worldwide, no matter the language, it’s referred to as PUBG (pub-gee). It’s violent. And it’s widely played across Afghanistan. It’s almost an escape from reality as the real war taking place in that nation grinds on.

In the game, the player drops onto a large piece of terrain, finds weapons and equipment, and kills everyone, all of whom are other people playing the game against each other. The last person or team standing wins.

That can seem eerily like life in Afghanistan, a country that has essentially been at war for more than 40 years (see timeline, below). The most recent conflict began in 2001, when the United States invaded in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which were orchestrated by Al Qaeda leaders operating in Afghanistan. Despite a swift initial victory by U.S. forces, which drove the radical Islamic group the Taliban from power, the war has never really ended, and American troops have been bogged down in Afghanistan for almost two decades (see “Is Peace at Hand?” below).

In the game, the player drops onto a large piece of land, finds weapons and equipment, and kills everyone. The other characters are all other people playing the game against each other. The last person or team standing wins.

That can seem all too real in Afghanistan, a country that has essentially been at war for more than 40 years (see timeline, below). The most recent conflict began in 2001. Late that year, the United States invaded in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Al Qaeda leaders operating in Afghanistan planned and carried out those attacks. U.S. forces had a swift initial victory. That drove the radical Islamic group the Taliban from power. Still, the war has never really ended. For almost two decades, American troops have been stationed in Afghanistan (see “Is Peace at Hand?” below

This endless war has left deep scars on young Afghans, who have no memory of living in a country at peace. Since 2001, more than 150,000 Afghans—including more than 40,000 civilians—have died in the fighting. Amid the violence, millions of Afghan children are out of school. Many have lost parents, relatives, or friends, and seen the devastation of war firsthand.

“Life in Afghanistan means living in daily fear of explosions, missing school because it’s too unsafe, and not knowing if your parents or siblings will make it home,” says Onno van Manen, who leads Save the Children’s operations in Afghanistan.

While negotiations to end the war continue in Qatar, Afghan lawmakers are trying to ban PUBG, arguing that it promotes violence and distracts young people from their schoolwork. (India banned PUBG in September because of the violence depicted in the game.) Sharifi just laughs at the mention of the proposed ban, knowing he could circumvent it easily with software on his phone.

He says he uses the game to communicate with friends and sometimes to talk with girls who also play it. That’s a remarkable feat on its own since only in the last few years has Afghanistan’s cellphone service become capable of delivering the kind of data needed to play a game like PUBG, let alone communicate with people at the same time.

Gaming centers became popular in Kabul in the years after the 2001 U.S. invasion, which reversed the Taliban’s ban on entertainment, including video games and music. But PUBG and other mobile games are replacing gaming centers because they’re downloadable on a smartphone, and free, in a country where 90 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.

Abdul Habib, 27, runs a video gaming den in West Kabul that features mostly soccer games. It’s a closet-size room on the lower floor of a shopping center, with TVs, couches, and Playstations. There are other gaming dens in the shopping center, separated by doorways and different owners, but connected by neon lights and a dimly lit atrium where youths scurry back and forth looking for couch space and controllers. A snack stand sells sausage sandwiches.

“If you can’t fight in the real war, you can do it virtually,” Habib says of violent video games, including PUBG.

This endless war has left deep scars on young Afghans, who have no memory of living in a country at peace. Since 2001, more than 150,000 Afghans have died in the fighting. That includes more than 40,000 civilians. Amid the violence, millions of Afghan children are out of school. Many have lost parents, relatives, or friends. They have also seen the devastation of war firsthand.

“Life in Afghanistan means living in daily fear of explosions, missing school because it’s too unsafe, and not knowing if your parents or siblings will make it home,” says Onno van Manen, who leads Save the Children’s operations in Afghanistan.

Negotiations to end the war remain ongoing in Qatar. At the same time, Afghan lawmakers are trying to ban PUBG. They argue that it promotes violence and distracts young people from their schoolwork. India banned PUBG in September because of the violence depicted in the game. Sharifi just laughs at the mention of the proposed ban. He knows that he could get around it easily with software on his phone.

He says he uses the game to communicate with friends and sometimes to talk with girls who also play it. That’s a remarkable feat on its own. It’s only been a few years since Afghanistan’s cellphone service became capable of delivering the kind of data needed to play a game like PUBG, let alone communicate with people at the same time.

Gaming centers became popular in Kabul in the years after the 2001 U.S. invasion. The invasion reversed the Taliban’s ban on entertainment, which included video games and music. But PUBG and other mobile games are replacing gaming centers. That’s because they’re downloadable on a smartphone. And they’re free, which is crucial in a country where 90 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.

Abdul Habib, 27, runs a video gaming den in West Kabul that features mostly soccer games. It’s a closet-size room on the lower floor of a shopping center, with TVs, couches, and Playstations. There are other gaming dens in the shopping center. They’re separated by doorways and different owners. These spots are connected by neon lights and a dimly lit atrium. Youth go back and forth between the dens looking for couch space and controllers. A snack stand sells sausage sandwiches.

“If you can’t fight in the real war, you can do it virtually,” Habib says of violent video games, including PUBG.

Habib has rented his space for four years; usually about 100 people a day come through. They pay around 65 cents to play for an hour. But his business was hit hard in the first months of the coronavirus pandemic when he—and dozens of other Kabul gaming dens—shut down for two months. That’s when the fixation on PUBG took off.

Now its popularity is cutting into Habib’s business and that of others in the industry. Abdullah Popalzai, 20, has his own game center across the street from Sharifi’s house in Kabul. It’s a little shop, with a generator, four TVs, four Playstations, and an aging foosball table.

“I used to earn 800 afs a day,” Popalzai says, using the abbreviation for Afghan currency. That’s about $10. “Now I barely have enough to get bread and food for the family.”

Habib has rented his space for four years; usually about 100 people a day come through. They pay around 65 cents to play for an hour. But his business was hit hard in the first months of the coronavirus pandemic. He and dozens of other Kabul gaming dens had to shut down for two months. That’s when the fixation on PUBG took off.

Now its popularity is cutting into Habib’s business and that of others in the industry. Abdullah Popalzai, 20, has his own game center across the street from Sharifi’s house in Kabul. It’s a little shop, with a generator, four TVs, four Playstations, and an aging foosball table.

“I used to earn 800 afs a day,” Popalzai says, using the abbreviation for Afghan currency. That’s about $10. “Now I barely have enough to get bread and food for the family.”

Mohammad Ali, 23, sees PUBG as an escape. Ali points to the headphones around his neck, bought specifically to play PUBG, so he can disappear into the game with his friends.

“I get so busy with the game I forget about the world,” he says. “It distracts me from the city, the attacks, the robberies, the thieves, and the crime.”

The website PlayerCounter puts PUBG’s total at around 400 million players worldwide since its release in 2017, on phones, computers, and video game consoles. But aside from anecdotal evidence, it’s hard to say how many Afghans play. An Afghan cellphone company official estimated that more than 100,000 people were playing the game across the country on one recent night.

Mohammad Ali, 23, sees PUBG as an escape. Ali points to the headphones around his neck. He bought them specifically to play PUBG, so he can disappear into the game with his friends.

“I get so busy with the game I forget about the world,” he says. “It distracts me from the city, the attacks, the robberies, the thieves, and the crime.”

The website PlayerCounter puts PUBG’s total at around 400 million players worldwide since its release in 2017. People can play the game on phones, computers, and video game consoles. But it’s hard to say how many Afghans play. An Afghan cellphone company official estimated that more than 100,000 people were playing the game across the country on one recent night.

PUBG isn’t the first form of entertainment to anger the Afghan government. In 2008, several Turkish soap operas were taken off the air because they did not align with “Afghan religion and culture.”

Wedged between the oppressive Taliban regime of the 1990s and the growth of the internet and social media in the 21st century, Afghanistan’s government has long tried to balance its religiously conservative population with democratic freedoms.

For Mohammad Akbar Sultanzada, the chairman of the Afghan Parliament’s Transportation and Telecommunications Commission, the problem with PUBG is not just its violence. He says it has also invaded the country’s already strained, frequently threatened, and understaffed classrooms. PUBG was banned in Iraq last year for similar reasons.

“It can be really negative for children’s mental health,” says Freshta Karim, an Afghan education activist. “I feel like it encourages and normalizes violence and makes them a part of it.”

But PUBG isn’t handed out in school; it’s played under desks and in courtyards and when some children skip school, on street corners. Many people say if PUBG is banned, they’ll just turn to virtual private networks and keep playing.

“If they don’t want people to be violent,” says Habib, the owner of the video gaming den, “they should stop the war on the battlefield.”

PUBG isn’t the first form of entertainment to anger the Afghan government. In 2008, several Turkish soap operas were taken off the air because they did not align with “Afghan religion and culture.”

The nation is wedged between the oppressive Taliban regime of the 1990s and the growth of the internet and social media in the 21st century. Afghanistan’s government has long tried to balance its religiously conservative population with democratic freedoms.

For Mohammad Akbar Sultanzada, the chairman of the Afghan Parliament’s Transportation and Telecommunications Commission, the problem with PUBG is not just its violence. He says it has also invaded the country’s already strained, frequently threatened, and understaffed classrooms. PUBG was banned in Iraq last year for similar reasons.

“It can be really negative for children’s mental health,” says Freshta Karim, an Afghan education activist. “I feel like it encourages and normalizes violence and makes them a part of it.”

But PUBG isn’t handed out in school. Instead, it’s played under desks and in courtyards. It even gets played on street corners when some children skip school. Many people say if PUBG is banned, they’ll just turn to virtual private networks and keep playing.

“If they don’t want people to be violent,” says Habib, the owner of the video gaming den, “they should stop the war on the battlefield.”

Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Fatima Faizi cover Afghanistan for The New York Times. Additional reporting by Patricia Smith.

Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Fatima Faizi cover Afghanistan for The New York Times. Additional reporting by Patricia Smith.