Category Archives: Taliban

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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Female Afghan judge wins legal battle to come to UK

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‘Overjoyed’ justice and son, who spent two years in hiding in Pakistan, reunited with family after landmark case

A female Afghan judge who was in hiding in Pakistan after fleeing the Taliban has won a landmark right to sanctuary in the UK.

The 53-year-old judge, whose true identity cannot be disclosed due to security concerns but is referred to as Yosra, was granted the right to come to the UK after a long legal battle with the Home Office.

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Tory MP Tobias Ellwood apologises for video praising Taliban

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MP ‘sorry for poor communication’ after he credited group with improving safety in Afghanistan

A senior Conservative MP has apologised and deleted a video in which he praised the Taliban and credited them with improving safety in Afghanistan.

Tobias Ellwood said he was “sorry for my poor communication” after his actions outraged fellow Tory MPs and military veterans, and an attempt was launched to challenge his role as chair of the Commons defence select committee.

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Taliban order closure of beauty salons in Afghanistan

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Morality ministry decrees another reduction of Afghan women’s access to public spaces

The Taliban administration in Afghanistan has ordered beauty salons to close within a month, the morality ministry said, in the latest shrinking of access to public places for Afghan women.

“The deadline for the closing of beauty parlours for women is one month,” Mohammad Sadiq Akif, a spokesperson for the Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and Propagation of Virtue, said on Tuesday, referring to a ministry notice.

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Scathing report on US withdrawal from Afghanistan blames Trump and Biden

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State department’s findings also reflect poorly on Antony Blinken as it outlines the agency’s failure to expand crisis taskforce

A US state department report on Friday criticized the handling of the 2021 evacuation from Afghanistan, saying decisions by President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump to withdraw troops had “serious consequences for the viability” and security of the former US-backed government.

Adverse findings in the report also reflected badly on Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, without naming him. They included the department’s failure to expand its crisis-management taskforce as the Taliban advanced on Kabul in August 2021 and the lack of a senior diplomat “to oversee all elements of the crisis response”.

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EU accused of ‘staggering neglect’ after just 271 Afghans resettled across bloc

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Many in need of permanent protection remain stuck in ‘prison-like’ camps on Greek islands, leading refugee charity says

Just 271 Afghans were resettled in the EU in 2022, 0.1% of the 270,000 identified as in need of permanent protection, it has emerged.

Leading charity the International Rescue Committee accused EU leaders of “staggering neglect” of Afghan refugees with many remaining trapped in “prison-like” conditions on Greek islands.

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Taliban kill mastermind of 2021 Kabul airport bombing, say US officials

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Islamic State suicide attack that killed 180 including 13 US service members occurred during US withdrawal from Afghanistan

The Islamic State leader behind the 2021 Kabul airport suicide bombing that killed about 180 people including 13 US service members has been killed by the Taliban, according to US officials.

The IS leader, whose identity has not yet been released, was killed in southern Afghanistan in early April as the Taliban conducted a series of operations against the Islamic State group, according to one of the officials. The Taliban at the time were not aware of the identity of the person they killed, the official added.

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UN ready for ‘heartbreaking’ decision to pull out of Afghanistan

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Officials say it will leave in May if Taliban cannot be persuaded to let local women work for organisation

The UN is ready to take the “heartbreaking” decision to pull out of Afghanistan in May if it cannot persuade the Taliban to let local women work for the organisation, officials have said.

The warning comes after UN officials spent months negotiating with the group’s leaders in the hope of persuading them to make exceptions to a hardline edict this month barring local women from working for it, according to the head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Achim Steiner.

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UN tells Afghan staff to stay home after Taliban ban on female workers

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Review launched into operations in Afghanistan as men and women told not to go to work at least until May

The United Nations has launched a review of its operations in Afghanistan and asked all Afghan staff not to come to work at least until May after the Taliban barred its female staff from working.

The UN said last week that the Taliban, who swept to power in 2021, had communicated that Afghan women would not be able to work for the global organisation. Taliban officials have not commented on the order.

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Two Britons held by Taliban speak to families for first time since arrest

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Calls described as ‘great relief’ after Kevin Cornwell, 53, and an unnamed man were detained in Afghanistan

The families of two British men held in custody by the Taliban in Afghanistan have been able to speak to them for the first time since their arrest.

Kevin Cornwell, a 53-year-old charity medic, and another British national, who has not been named, were detained by the Taliban’s secret police on 11 January.

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