Category Archives: South and Central Asia

‘Lost generation’: education in quarter of countries at risk of collapse, study warns

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Covid, climate breakdown, poverty and war threaten return to school after pandemic kept 1.5bn children out of classes

The education of hundreds of millions of children is hanging by a thread as a result of an unprecedented intensity of threats including Covid 19 and the climate crisis, a report warned today.

As classrooms across much of the world prepare to reopen after the summer holidays, a quarter of countries – most of them in sub-Saharan Africa – have school systems that are at extreme or high risk of collapse, according to Save the Children.

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Four men arrested over violence at Kabul women’s rights march, say Taliban

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Spokesman says men ‘mistreated the women and a reporter’ but tells Afghans it is ‘not a time for protest’

The Taliban have arrested four men who hit protesters and held journalists at gunpoint to break up a women’s rights’ demonstration in Kabul on Saturday, the spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.

The demonstration came amid fierce fighting in Panjshir valley, the last holdout of anti-Taliban forces from the fallen government, and as Afghanistan waits for the country’s new rulers to reveal how they plan to govern.

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Relatives of late Kashmir separatist leader charged under anti-terror law

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Son of Syed Ali Shah Geelani alleges police in Indian-controlled area snatched body and carried out burial without family present

Police in Indian-controlled Kashmir have charged family members of the late resistance leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani under an anti-terrorism law for wrapping his body in the Pakistani flag and raising anti-India slogans, officials said on Sunday.

Geelani, who died on Wednesday at the age of 91, was a leading figure in Kashmir’s defiance against New Delhi and had been under house arrest for years.

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Afghan musicians silently await their fate as Taliban’s ban looms

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Amid upheaval across the country, it remains unclear whether a new government will forbid music as it did 25 years ago

The shutters have been down all along Kharabat Street, the storied heart of Afghan musical life, since the Taliban swept into Kabul in mid-August.

Musicians have taken their instruments home, or crammed them into store rooms, waiting to see if the group will do the unthinkable again, and ban music as they did 25 years ago.

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Afghanistan: militia endure ‘heavy assaults’ from Taliban in Panjshir Valley

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Rebels say they are holding on despite celebratory gunfire in Kabul amid reports that hardliners have wiped out last pocket of resistance

Militia forces say they are enduring “heavy assaults” as they battle the Taliban in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley, the final holdout against hardline Islamist control.

The Taliban face the enormous challenge of shifting gears from insurgent group to governing power, days after the US fully withdrew its troops and ended two decades of war.

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Evidence contradicts Taliban’s claim to respect women’s rights

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There are signs of a return to something worryingly close to the hardline restrictions of the past across Afghan life

When Taliban fighters moved into Herat city in western Afghanistan last month, one thing mattered more to some of them than the battle itself. As gunmen faced off around the governor’s office, a group of militants came to Shogofa’s* workplace and ordered all the women home.

“They hadn’t even taken all the city, but they came to our headquarters. The manager called an emergency meeting and they told all the women to leave,” she said.

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‘My homeland, my only love’: fleeing Afghans embrace 1998 song

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Lyrics to My Homeland strike powerful chord with new generation of refugees from war-torn country

As yet another generation of Afghans fled their homeland over the past fortnight, one song has resonated as a poignant anthem for the exodus.

My Homeland – Sarzamin i Man in Farsi – was written in 1998 by the singer Dawood Sarkhosh, who himself had to leave Afghanistan in the civil war that erupted following the Soviet withdrawal.

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‘Monsters at the door’: migrant workers trapped in UN Afghan compound

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Security contractors among hundreds from the Philippines, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka stuck without clear plans for evacuation

When Taliban fighters started to kick at the door of a UN compound in a northern province 250 miles (400km) from the Afghan capital, Kabul, Rajesh* was certain he was going to be killed.

The Taliban had taken control of the area on that day. Rajesh, a UN security contractor from India, hurried with his colleagues into an emergency steel-doored room. Before they sealed themselves in, they saw a group of seven or eight heavily armed men.

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Evacuations from Kabul may resume ‘in near future’, says Raab

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Foreign secretary says UK must engage with Taliban in Afghanistan after meeting with Qatari officials

Evacuations may be able to resume from Kabul airport “in the near future”, the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has said as he expressed a need for direct engagement with the Taliban.

Speaking after talks in Qatar on Thursday, Raab raised hopes that the Britons and Afghans left behind may be able to leave on flights from Afghanistan’s capital.

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Some slept, some cried, all were now refugees: inside one of the last Afghan airlifts

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Those on board the cramped military plane weren’t granted a last glimpse of their homeland before the difficult journey ahead, while all knew thousands still waited desperately below

The American marine shouted “push!”. And hundreds of people did, shoving inside the Boeing C-17 military aircraft; tumbling over, then pulling their bodies into tight huddles on the floor to let as many others in as possible.

As the rear door closed and the deafening engines started, lifting the heavy plane off the runway at Kabul’s international airport, people broke down wailing; crying. Now refugees.

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‘It’s possible’: US military chief could work with Taliban on IS counter-terror strikes

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Mark Milley says it's possible the US will seek to coordinate on strikes in Afghanistan, though defence secretary Lloyd Austin remains sceptical

US Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said it was “possible” the United States will seek to coordinate with the Taliban on counterterrorism strikes in Afghanistan against Islamic State militants or others.

The extent and nature of a US-Taliban relationship, now that the war is over, is one of the key issues to be worked out. US military commanders have coordinated daily with Taliban commanders outside Kabul’s international airport over the past three weeks to facilitate the evacuation of more than 124,000 people, but that was a matter of convenience for both parties.

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UK has little option but to talk with the Taliban

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Analysis: Insurgents’ cooperation is needed for evacuations, but PM could face criticism for engaging with them

Boris Johnson’s decision to dispatch a senior spy chief to talk directly to the Taliban in Qatar reflects an uncomfortable but necessary reality: the UK has little option but to engage with the insurgent group now in control of Afghanistan.

Thousands of Afghans eligible for resettlement in the UK are believed to remain trapped in the country – UK ministers refuse to say how many – and hundreds of British nationals. With western troops withdrawn, it is only with Taliban cooperation that people will be able to leave safely and smoothly.

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Afghanistan: fewer than 100 out of 700 female journalists still working

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Women forced out of jobs despite Taliban promises to allow them to keep working, survey finds

Female journalists in Afghanistan are being forced out of jobs and told to stay at home despite Taliban promises to allow them to keep working and to respect press freedom, according to a report.

Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) says it believes fewer than 100 of Kabul’s 700 female journalists are still working and only a handful are continuing to work from home in two other Afghan provinces. Others have been attacked and harassed.

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Pope inadvertently quotes Vladimir Putin in Afghanistan comment

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Francis ‘moved’ by Angela Merkel’s words on western intervention – in fact said by Russian president

Pope Francis has criticised the west’s recent involvement in Afghanistan – inadvertently quoting Vladimir Putin in doing so.

In a wide-ranging interview with Spanish radio station COPE, the pope was asked for his thoughts on the redrawn political map of Afghanistan following the withdrawal of the US and its allies from the country after 20 years of war.

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Taliban inspect destroyed US planes after last US troops withdraw – video

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Taliban soldiers inspected damaged aircraft and equipment at Kabul airport after the last US troops withdrew from a shattered Afghanistan. US troops destroyed more than 70 aircraft and dozens of armoured vehicles before they left. A day after their departure, Taliban supporters celebrated across the country, with even a mock funeral held with coffins draped with US, British and French flags

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Afghanistan’s neighbours offered millions in aid to harbour refugees

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Bordering states such as Pakistan urged to temporarily take in Afghans bound for Europe and the US

Countries neighbouring Afghanistan have been offered millions in aid if they are prepared to temporarily harbour tens of thousands of refugees, prior to security checks clearing them for transit to Europe and the US, but Pakistan and other bordering states have warned they will not take more refugees permanently.

Iran could see a large influx of refugees – mainly Hazara Shias – reaching the country overland. Refugee specialists inside Iran have suggested as many as 7,000 people were crossing the border illegally a day, with no serious control over the entire 980km (608-mile) border, and very little international aid.

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Taliban enjoy moment of victory as focus shifts to challenges ahead

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As guards dismantle barricades at airport, leadership holds talks on how the spoils of power will be shared

The Taliban marked the start of their first day in full control of Afghanistan with celebratory gunfire, minutes after the last US plane of soldiers and their ambassador lifted off from Kabul airport, sealing Washington’s humiliating defeat in its longest war.

Twenty years, tens of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars separated the arrival of the first US troops on Afghan soil after 9/11 and the Taliban’s triumphant restoration in the Afghan capital.

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Does the fall of Kabul increase the terror threat to the west?

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Analysis: Experts are divided over whether events in Afghanistan will significantly increase risk of attacks

In three days in earlier this month Islamist militants killed more than 120 civilians in a series of attacks in the Sahel, a belt of increasingly anarchic and violent territory across Africa, where such groups have gone from strength to strength in recent years. Thousand of miles to the east, fighters from the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Shabaab stormed a military base in the centre of Somalia.

None of these attacks received much attention – nor did the recent arrest of IS sympathisers in Australia, the attempted murder of a moderate politician in the Maldives or a court case against militants who attacked LGBT activists in Bangladesh.

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Celebratory shots ring out above Kabul after US troops leave – video

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Celebratory shots rang out in Kabul as the United States completed the withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan, ending 20 years of war that culminated in the militant Taliban's return to power. Footage from inside the city in the early hours of Tuesday morning showed loud gunfire ringing out, lighting up the skyline as Taliban fighters fired into the sky to mark the end of two decades of US military presence. Video released by the Taliban shows Taliban fighters walking through Kabul airport after the US forces had left.

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