Category Archives: Taliban

Delays by Home Office risk return of vulnerable Afghan families to Taliban

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Families of those who helped British forces could be deported from Pakistan despite promise to resettle them in UK

Afghan families who helped UK forces and then fled to neighbouring Pakistan are in danger of being deported back to the Taliban due to Home Office delays in bringing them to the UK.

In the chaotic evacuation period in the Afghan capital, Kabul, in August 2021 some family members eligible for resettlement in the UK became separated from the rest of their families. Some boarded flights while others were unable to due to crushes at the airport and instead fled over the border to Pakistan.

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Taliban edict to resume stoning women to death met with horror

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Afghan regime’s return to public stoning and flogging is because there is ‘no one to hold them accountable’ for abuses, say activists

The Taliban’s announcement that it is resuming publicly stoning women to death has been enabled by the international community’s silence, human rights groups have said.

Safia Arefi, a lawyer and head of the Afghan human rights organisation Women’s Window of Hope, said the announcement had condemned Afghan women to return to the darkest days of Taliban rule in the 1990s.

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Biden administration failures drove the fall of Kabul, say top former US generals

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Retired generals Mark Milley and Frank McKenzie, who oversaw evacuation of Afghanistan, said it was poorly planned

The top two US generals who oversaw the evacuation of Afghanistan as it fell to the Taliban in August 2021 blamed the Biden administration for the chaotic departure, telling lawmakers on Tuesday that it inadequately planned for the evacuation and did not order it in time.

The rare testimony by the two retired generals publicly exposed for the first time the strain and differences the military leaders had with the Biden administration in the final days of the war. Two of those key differences included that the military had advised that the US keep at least 2,500 service members in Afghanistan to maintain stability and a concern that the state department was not moving fast enough to get an evacuation started.

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UK special forces blocked resettlement applications from elite Afghan troops

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MoD conducts review but stands accused of conflict of interest while public inquiry investigates conduct of SAS in Afghanistan

Elite Afghan commandos who fought alongside the British military have had their applications to relocate blocked by UK special forces despite evidence that they had served alongside them in dangerous missions against the Taliban.

Documents leaked and shared with BBC Panorama show that Britain’s secretive special forces were given a veto power over resettlement, prompting claims that hundreds of Afghan veterans have been left in limbo or danger in their native country.

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Human rights in decline globally as leaders fail to uphold laws, report warns

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Human Rights Watch’s annual report highlights politicians’ double standards and ‘transactional diplomacy’ amid escalating crises

Human rights across the world are in a parlous state as leaders shun their obligations to uphold international law, according to the annual report of Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In its 2024 world report, HRW warns grimly of escalating human rights crises around the globe, with wartime atrocities increasing, suppression of human rights defenders on the rise, and universal human rights principles and laws being attacked and undermined by governments.

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Afghan girls detained and lashed by Taliban for violating hijab rules

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Girls as young as 16 arrested in shops, classes and markets in Kabul by the Taliban, who labelled them ‘infidels’ for wearing ‘bad hijab’

Girls as young as 16 have been arrested across the Afghan capital, Kabul, in the past week for violating the Taliban’s hijab rules.

The girls – who were detained in shopping centres, classes and street markets – were accused of “spreading and encouraging others to wear a bad hijab” and wearing makeup.

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‘I need mum and dad here’: the charity helping young Afghan footballers reunite with relatives

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The Refugee Council is welcoming those who fled the Taliban and providing legal advice on resettlement in the UK

• Donate to our charity appeal here

Two years on from their arrival in South Yorkshire, young footballers Elaha Safdari, Najma Arifi and Narges Mayeli are still baffled by the array of regional accents in the UK. “I’m always like, ‘Pardon? Can you please repeat? What did you say?’” laughs Arifi, now 20.

This barrier is only a minor hurdle for the trio, who were forced to flee for their lives when the west pulled out of Afghanistan and the Taliban seized power in August 2021.

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Taliban causing ‘irreversible damage’ to whole education system in Afghanistan

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Human Rights Watch warns bar on women means unqualified men now teach boys, fewer subjects are taught and beatings are routine

The Taliban is causing “irreversible damage” to Afghanistan’s education system through the reintroduction of corporal punishment, curriculum changes and the use of unqualified teachers to replace women, most of whom have been barred from schools, Human Rights Watch has warned.

After taking power in 2021, the Taliban banned girls from secondary schools. A new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW), published on Wednesday, warns that boys’ education has also suffered under the Taliban, although this has gone largely unreported.

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Heavily pregnant Afghan women eligible to come to UK stuck in Pakistan

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People who worked for or were affiliated with the British Council may lose babies as government delays relocation to UK

Pregnant Afghan women who are eligible for resettlement in the UK have been told their babies may not survive unless they are urgently evacuated.

The women, who worked for or are affiliated with the British Council, should be entitled to relocation through the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme (ACRS). Despite Foreign Office and Home Office instructions to move to Pakistan and await relocation, they are stuck in hotels with limited access to medical care nearly two years after the scheme launched.

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Taliban could be convinced to open girls’ schools, says Afghanistan ex-education minister

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Global governments should engage with the Taliban because some in the regime support reversing the ban, says Rangina Hamidi

There are many Taliban officials who would support reversing the ban on schooling for girls in Afghanistan, according to the country’s last education minister before the takeover.

Under Taliban rule, Afghanistan has become the only country in the world where girls are banned from schooling beyond the age of 11. The group has also imposed what has been described as a policy of “gender apartheid”, banning women from most work and public spaces.

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Pakistan starts mass deportation of undocumented Afghans

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Authorities go ‘door to door’ to round up and return thousands – many who fled from the Taliban – on first day of nationwide crackdown

Pakistan has begun arresting and deporting Afghan refugees who missed Wednesday morning’s deadline for them to leave, a government minister has announced. At least 200,000 people have already returned to Afghanistan voluntarily, said Pakistan’s acting interior minister, Sarfraz Bugti.

The crackdown on unregistered foreigners, part of Pakistan’s new anti-immigrant policy, affects some 2 million Afghans thought to be in Pakistan without documentation.

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Four British men freed by Taliban after being held in Afghanistan

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The men were all detained over allegedly breaking the country’s laws earlier this year

Four British nationals who were held in Taliban custody in Afghanistan have been released and are to return to the UK on Tuesday.

The Presidium Network, a British not-for-profit organisation that works in conflict zones and has assisted the men, named three of them as Kevin Cornwell, a charity medic; Miles Routledge and Ian Purchase. The other cannot be named for legal reasons.

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Afghanistan earthquake has killed more than 2,000, Taliban say

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Magnitude-6.3 earthquake struck near Herat on Saturday, with hundreds of houses reported destroyed

The death toll from a series of earthquakes in western Afghanistan has risen sharply to more than 2,000 people, according to a Taliban spokesperson, as rescuers searched for survivors among the ruins of razed villages.

“More than 2,060 people are dead and over 10,000 are injured,” he told the Guardian. “Many more people are still under the rubble.”

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Twin suicide attacks underline the depth of Pakistan’s crisis

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Escalating violence comes at a time when the economy is in tatters and the caretaker government powerless

The scenes of horror pictured on Friday have become all too familiar in Pakistan. This time it was a twin attack. A procession to mark the birthday of the prophet Muhammad and a police station were both targeted by suicide bombers, killing almost 60 people and injuring hundreds more.

No one has yet claimed responsibility, but suspicion among officials and analysts was directed towards Islamic State – Khorasan (IS-K), which has recently regrouped and revived its militant activities in Pakistan to devastating effect, and with little sign of being contained. Alongside a recent resurgence of its rival, the Pakistan Taliban, which has been behind dozens of deadly attacks over the past few months, the country’s security situation continues to deteriorate to its worst in years.

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‘Despair is settling in’: female suicides on rise in Taliban’s Afghanistan

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Unofficial figures point to a mental health crisis amid severe restrictions on Afghan women’s lives

First, her dreams of becoming a doctor were dashed by the Taliban’s ban on education. Then her family set up a forced marriage to her cousin, a heroin addict. Latifa* felt her future had been snatched away.

“I had two options: to marry an addict and live a life of misery or take my own life,” said the 18-year-old in a phone interview from her home in central Ghor province. “I chose the latter.”

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Taliban ban women from national park in Afghanistan

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Minister says women visiting the lakes of Band-e-Amir have not been wearing their hijabs properly

The Taliban have banned women from visiting one of Afghanistan’s most popular national parks, adding to a long list of restrictions aimed at shrinking women’s access to public places.

Thousands of people visit Band-e-Amir national park each year, taking in its stunning landscape of sapphire-blue lakes and towering cliffs in the country’s central Bamiyan province.

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Colourful kites fill London sky in solidarity with people of Afghanistan

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Event celebrates Afghan culture and protests against restrictions on women and girls two years after Taliban offensive

Hordes of colourful kites soared into the sky over London in solidarity with the people of Afghanistan on the second anniversary of the fall of their homeland to the Taliban.

Participants said the event, at Primrose Hill in north London, was intended to demonstrate how “colourful” the culture of Afghanistan once was and to provide “a voice, far from our home” for all the Afghans, especially women and girls, living under the Taliban’s oppressive regime.

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Thousands of Afghan judges and legal staff remain at risk post-Taliban takeover

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Two years on, people who worked in the country’s now-defunct legal system remain in grave danger from reprisals for their work

Nearly 4,000 prosecutors and legal staff members face the threat of violence from the Taliban in Afghanistan, where at least 28 prosecutors and their families have reportedly been killed.

When the Taliban seized back power in the country in August 2021, Sara*, who was 28 at the time, was just a few weeks shy of completing three years serving as a prosecutor in the Afghan attorney general’s office.

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Gordon Brown calls for Taliban to face crimes against humanity charges

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Ex-PM urges UK and allies to impose sanctions on Afghan regime over its ‘brutalisation’ of women and girls

Gordon Brown has called for the Taliban to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity, as he urged the UK government and its allies to impose sanctions against the Afghan regime.

The former Labour prime minister appealed to the international criminal court to prosecute those responsible for the “systematic brutalisation of women and girls”.

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Islamic State says it carried out Pakistan suicide bombing that killed 54

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Blast took place at political rally for a pro-Taliban party as country faces a rising tide of militant attacks

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed 54 people in Pakistan, as the country battles a rising tide of militant attacks.

The bombing took place at a rally for a pro-Taliban party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a province bordering Afghanistan that has faced a rapidly declining security situation due to attacks from militant groups including the Pakistan Taliban and Islamic State’s regional affiliate.

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