Category Archives: Taliban

Afghanistan: more than 100 believed killed despite Taliban amnesty offer, says UN

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Extrajudicial killings allegedly carried out despite Taliban assurances of safety for those linked to previous leadership or foreign forces

The United Nations says it has received “credible allegations” that more than 100 members of the ousted Afghan government, its security forces and those who worked with international troops have been killed since the Taliban took over on 15 August.

Secretary general Antonio Guterres said in a report that “more than two thirds” of the deaths were alleged to have resulted from extrajudicial killings by the Taliban or its affiliates, despite the Taliban’s announcement of “general amnesties” for those affiliated with the former government and US-led coalition forces.

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Joe Biden demands release of Mark Frerichs, US Afghanistan hostage

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  • President marks second anniversary of engineer’s capture
  • Family says safe return should be Biden priority

Joe Biden on Sunday called for the release of Mark Frerichs, a US Navy veteran taken hostage in Afghanistan nearly two years ago.

Frerichs, a civil engineer and contractor from Lombard, Illinois, was kidnapped in January 2020 in the Afghan capital, Kabul. He is believed to be held by the Taliban-linked Haqqani network.

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Pregnant New Zealand journalist stranded by quarantine rules says she turned to Taliban

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Charlotte Bellis says group offered her safe haven while quarantine backlog prevented return home

A pregnant New Zealand journalist says she has had to turn to the Taliban for help after being prevented from returning to her home country due to quarantine rules.

In a column published in the New Zealand Herald on Saturday, Charlotte Bellis said it was “brutally ironic” that she had once questioned the Taliban about their treatment of women and she was now asking the same questions of her own government.

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Change to aid rules needed to prevent famine in Afghanistan, say UK experts

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Former security and diplomatic chiefs warn that country is at risk of economic collapse as Taliban begin talks in Norway

Afghanistan can only be saved from state collapse and widespread starvation if the definition of legitimate humanitarian aid to the country is broadened, some of Britain’s most senior former security and diplomatic chiefs have said.

The group, including two former national security advisers, a former chief of defence staff and a former ambassador to Afghanistan, write in a letter published in the Guardian that the aid that can be sent to the Taliban-controlled country without fear of sanctions is too restricted.

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Kill the Bill and period protests: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Cambodia to Costa Rica

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Taliban launch raids on homes of Afghan women’s rights activists

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Campaigners arrested by armed men days after anti-hijab protest in Kabul, with beatings reported

Taliban gunmen have raided the homes of women’s rights activists in Kabul, beating and arresting female campaigners in a string of actions apparently triggered by recent demonstrations.

Tamana Zaryabi Paryani and Parawana Ibrahimkhel, who participated in a series of protests held in Kabul over the last few months, were seized on Wednesday night by armed men claiming to be from the Taliban intelligence department.

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‘The Taliban hate us’: a former senior female police officer

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Fahima fears she is being targeted because of the role she had, which included recruiting other women

*Fahima was the most senior policewoman in her province. Since the Taliban took over, women who worked in the police force have been targeted for assassination and beatings. She believes Taliban officials are particularly focused on tracking her down because of both her seniority and her role recruiting other women.

I fled to another city just two days after the country fell to the Taliban, because I knew they were looking for me in my home province. They found my address, and have been to my house and asked my family about me.

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Afghan female MPs fight for their country in exile

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After a harrowing escape from the Taliban, Afghanistan’s female politicians are regrouping in Greece to fight for their country. Amie Ferris-Rotman reports on the work of the Afghan women’s parliament in exile

In November, 28 former female MPs from Afghanistan gathered in Greece. They’d fled the Taliban in dramatic fashion, and were now reunited in a community centre run by Melissa Network, a grassroots organisation for female migrants and refugees that played a role in their evacuation.

The journalist Amie Ferris-Rotman was there; she tells Nosheen Iqbal about the emotional first meeting of the Afghan women’s parliament in exile in Athens. There, the women – some junior politicians, some elder stateswomen, some from prominent wealthy political families, some from poorer backgrounds – traded stories of their escapes and shared hopes for the country they left behind. Shagufa Noorzai, 22, who had been the youngest member of parliament before the Afghan government fell, says she wants the women left behind in Afghanistan to know they have not been forgotten.

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‘Gunmen were looking for my mum’: daughter of Afghan ex-radio boss

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Farkhunda’s sister and two brothers have disabilities and left their wheelchairs behind when fleeing a Taliban raid

Farkhunda’s* mother has run a feminist radio station in her conservative province for the best part of 20 years, in defiance of Taliban threats. She has three children with disabilities who were forced to abandon their wheelchairs when gunmen attacked their home about two months after the Taliban takeover. They are in hiding in a city safe house, but don’t know how they will survive longer term.

When the fighting closed in on our city in August we were moving around – one night in one place, one night in another place – staying with different relatives because my mum had received a lot of threats in the past.

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‘We’ve been forgotten’: the British embassy security guard in Kabul

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Abdullah says guards who risked their lives for the British cannot understand why they have been abandoned

Abdullah*, 34, was a security guard for the British embassy, employed under contract by GardaWorld, and had a senior management role, looking after other locally employed embassy guards. He and about 180 colleagues had hoped to be evacuated to the UK at the end of August, but the evacuation was stopped by a bomb at the airport. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) made a clear commitment that all GardaWorld staff would be allowed to travel to the UK, but this has not happened.

We’ve heard nothing from the Home Office or the FCDO and life is becoming very hard for everyone who worked for the British embassy. Surviving when there is no income and no work is very difficult. We’re still hoping we will get an email about evacuation plans, but we haven’t heard anything. The UK government is helping footballers and writers to leave the country, but there has been no help for us. We feel like we should be first in line because we risked our lives for the British government. It’s a huge disappointment for all of us.

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‘My nightmares came true’: ex-prosecutor of Afghan women’s abusers

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Negin overcame significant disadvantages to obtain her role but now fears those seeking revenge

The Taliban blighted *Negin’s childhood with their ban on girls’ education, but she overcame the late start to her schooling to become a senior prosecutor. Afghanistan’s legal system was slow and often corrupt, but it offered women some hope of escaping abusers and seeing their tormentors jailed. Now she fears that some of those men, freed in a Taliban-orchestrated mass jailbreak last summer, want revenge.

My life was already affected by the Taliban long before they took over Afghanistan this summer. I only started school at 14, because they were in power in the 90s and did not allow girls to study. Once I could go to school, I graduated and went to university.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.

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Taliban forces pepper-spray women’s rights protesters in Kabul

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One woman reportedly taken to hospital after protest calling for right to work and education is stopped

Taliban forces have fired pepper spray at a group of women protesting in Afghanistan’s capital to demand rights to work and education.

Since seizing control of the country by force in August, the Taliban authorities have imposed creeping restrictions on Afghans, especially on women.

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‘We are struggling’: two former officials at Afghan women’s affairs ministry

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Gul Bano and Karima’s former offices are in the hands of the Taliban – and they fear for their lives

Gul Bano* and Karima* are activists who ran provincial branches of the ministry of women’s affairs in two different parts of Afghanistan. Their former offices have been taken over by the Taliban’s feared enforcers, the ministry for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice. They are now in hiding, afraid of the men they helped put in prison for domestic violence and other abuses, many of them in the Taliban or with family links to the militants.

In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org

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Calls for release of Kabul University professor detained by Taliban

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Prof Faizullah Jalal, an outspoken critic of Afghanistan’s ruling group, was arrested for alleged remarks on social media

Supporters of a prominent university professor, and one of Afghanistan’s most vocal critics of the Taliban, are calling for his release after he was arrested on Saturday.

Faizullah Jalal, a professor at Kabul University, was detained by the Taliban after the group claimed he was responsible for a series of messages on social media attacking them.

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Joy as baby given to US soldier during Afghan withdrawal is reunited with relatives

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Sohail Ahmadi, who was being raised by a local Kabul taxi driver, will hopefully now travel to the US to live with his parents

An infant boy handed in desperation to a US soldier across an airport wall in the chaos of the American evacuation of Afghanistan has been found and reunited with his relatives.

The baby, Sohail Ahmadi, was just two months old when he went missing on 19 August as thousands of people rushed to leave Afghanistan as it fell to the Taliban.

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Taliban stop Afghan women using bathhouses in northern provinces

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Decision to close public hammams – most people’s only chance for a warm wash – sparks anger in light of country’s mounting crises

The Taliban sparked outrage this week by announcing that women in northern Afghanistan would no longer be allowed to use communal bathhouses.

The use of bathhouses, or hammams, is an ancient tradition that remains for many people the only chance for a warm wash during the country’s bitterly cold winters.

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Ashraf Ghani blames international allies over Afghanistan’s fall to Taliban

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In first interview since fleeing Kabul in August, former president says US ‘erased’ Afghans in years of peace talks with militants

The former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani has broken his silence with his first interview since fleeing Kabul four months ago, in effect blaming the international community and in particular the Americans for the fall of the republic.

Ghani told the BBC he was rushed into fleeing Kabul on a helicopter by his “terrified” national security adviser, Hamdullah Mohib, and the commander of the collapsing presidential security detail.

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‘On the brink’: drought and politics leave Afghans fighting famine

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Aid collapse after Taliban took control means just 2% of people have enough to eat, UN says

In his seven decades, Mehrajuddin has been a police commander, a fighter for the mujahideen, a district governor and a prosecutor, and even briefly worked in Europe. Until this year, he has never struggled to feed his family.

Now they have just one meal a day, hard discs of stale bread soaked in water until they soften to mush. “All the family are starving,” he says bluntly as he waits at a food distribution centre in Kabul for a handout of lentils, rice, flour and oil. “I even worry about dying, because if it happens tomorrow, how will my family pay for my funeral?”

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Gordon Brown: west is sleepwalking into Afghanistan disaster

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Ex-PM warns poverty and starvation mean country is at risk of world’s biggest humanitarian crisis

The west is “sleepwalking into the biggest humanitarian crisis of our times” in Afghanistan, Gordon Brown has warned, as he called for a support package to save the country from economic and social collapse after the Taliban’s takeover.

Four months after the western-backed government was overthrown following a mass military withdrawal, the former UK prime minister said the case for action was not based only on morals but also “in our self-interest”.

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Briton missing in Afghanistan after reports of Taliban arrest

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Grant Bailey was working as security consultant in Kabul where he liaised with US state department

A British man is missing in Afghanistan after a report he has been detained by the Taliban. Grant Bailey was arrested in the Afghan capital, Kabul, where he has been working as a security consultant.

The arrest came during a Taliban security clampdown, according to the Daily Mirror.

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