Quoting russell@coker.com.au (russell@coker.com.au):
Yes I do have trouble following what's happening in Afghanistan, I have to rely on reports in English.
For the Middle East but, alas, not Afghanistan, https://www.memri.org/ is useful even though the project has USA and Israeli origins and occasional bias. ISTR that Middle East Media Research Institute got its start after people kept pointing out that local coverage and official pronouncements in Arabic and Farsi often differed greatly from the versions of the same news items released to the West in European languages. I've checked a bit using my paltry knowledge of Arabic and (more usefully) asked native speakers, and the latter vouched for the accuracy of MEMRI's translations. Also of note, though no longer available in dead-tree form as it once was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Review