[12] In 2022, Aikins was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting, as part of a New York Times team that investigated civilian casualties from US airstrikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.

[9] His half-Asian features and command of Persian allowed him to blend in as an Afghan, and Aikins began filing stories while traveling in local transportation and sleeping in roadside tea houses.

[8] He wrote several breakthrough articles in 2009, including "Unembedded in Afghanistan" for The Coast, which led to his second Canadian Association of Journalists prize in two years, after his first for "Adam's Fall".

His 2011 article "Our Man in Kandahar", about the Afghan Border Force commander, Brigadier General Abdul Raziq, was a finalist in the reporting category for the National Magazine Awards.

[17] In 2013, he published an article called "The A-Team Killings" in Rolling Stone, which investigated allegations against a U.S. Army Special Forces unit in Wardak Province, Afghanistan, received the 2013 George Polk Award for magazine reporting, and the 2014 Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism.