Category Archives: Afghanistan

Pete Hegseth’s plan to livestream execution puts US in dubious company

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Only Iran and Afghanistan routinely carry out sentences in public, with Saudi Arabia appearing to have ended practice

If the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, goes ahead with plans to livestream the execution of a soldier radicalised to extremist Islam who killed 13 people at a military base in Texas, his country will join a motley assembly of lesser powers and rogue actors who have conducted public executions in recent years.

Only two countries currently systematically carry out capital sentences in public: Iran and Afghanistan. In 2025, the Taliban authorities carried out six such killings and the regime in Tehran 11, according to Amnesty International.

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UK to open new refugee resettlement routes for Afghan women and Palestinians

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Exclusive: Move by Shabana Mahmood comes after closure of Afghan scheme last year but experts say numbers too small to deter Channel crossings

Shabana Mahmood will announce a new legal route for refugees that prioritises Afghan women and girls and Palestinians, unfreezing a scheme that will put the most vulnerable refugees on a faster path to permanent status.

The change marks a shift in Mahmood’s approach to asylum seekers after the abrupt closure of the Afghan resettlement scheme last year and changes that will keep refugee status under constant review for two decades.

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Poorest countries hit hardest by UK aid cuts under Keir Starmer government, new figures reveal

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Aid to lower-income countries fell by almost 7%, while higher-income countries saw their share of Britain’s aid budget increase

The world’s poorest countries were worst hit by British aid cuts under Keir Starmer’s government, while higher-income countries saw their share of aid increase, new figures reveal.

The latest figures released by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office show a 6.7% decrease in funding to the least-developed countries and low-income countries, amounting to cuts of £118m.

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IS member sentenced to 20 years in prison for role in 2021 Kabul airport bombing

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Mohammad Sharifullah, 28, was convicted of aiding the terrorist group that took credit for the suicide bombing

An Islamic State group member was sentenced on Wednesday to 20 years in prison for aiding the terrorist organization that took credit for a suicide bombing that killed 13 US service members and about 160 Afghans at the Kabul airport five years ago during the US military’s chaotic withdrawal from the country.

A federal jury in Virginia had convicted Mohammad Sharifullah in April of providing material support to the IS affiliate known as Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP). But jurors could not agree whether he bore some responsibility for the airport bombing on 26 August 2021.

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CIA releases dozens of presidential daily briefs on Bin Laden and al-Qaida from before 9/11

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The presidential briefing documents were declassified on the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks

Several dozen presidential briefing documents declassified on Friday, the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, detail intelligence that government officials had gathered about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida leading up to the hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people and upended American national security.

The documents illustrate security analysts’ tracking of Bin Laden’s movements and support system, as well as concerns about possible threats to US targets. They also detail officials’ understanding of his network in the United States and other countries, including how his operations were financed.

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British family pleads with French authorities to release body of relative who died in Channel

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Jasmeet Wadhwa, who fled Taliban persecution in Afghanistan, lost his life while trying to reach UK in April

A British family is pleading with French authorities to release the body of a relative that officials have held for five months after he died in the Channel in April.

Jasmeet Wadhwa, 32, died while attempting to reach the UK on a dinghy on 1 April with his mother, Harbans Kaur Wadhwa, after they fled Taliban persecution in Afghanistan in January.

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Taliban threaten former Afghan police worker after MoD leak reveals identity

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UK has refused resettlement application despite ‘years of loyal service’ that have resulted in ‘constant fear’ of reprisals

A man has received threats from the Taliban after his work for the Afghan police was revealed by a Ministry of Defence leak and the UK refused his application for resettlement.

Hamid* worked for the Afghan national police special unit and received certificates for his work signed by senior British figures praising his “dedication, unparalleled service and leadership”. His details were also included in an accidental 2022 leak by an MoD official that identified 18,700 Afghans who had worked with or for the British government.

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Concerns grow over increased global ties with Taliban in Afghanistan

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Campaigners fear deeper diplomatic contacts are undermining demands for improvements in human rights

The Taliban in Afghanistan have launched a diplomatic effort to end their isolation as major regional and international powers show a readiness to engage more closely with the repressive regime despite its systematic human rights abuses.

Five years after the Taliban took power, an increasing number of countries are renewing ties or scaling up diplomatic contacts with the hardline Islamists, who seized power in Kabul in 2021 after 20 years of brutal insurgent warfare.

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Pakistani airstrikes kill dozens in eastern Afghanistan

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Pakistan says strikes were aimed at a terrorist group while Taliban condemn ‘cowardly act of aggression’

Pakistani airstrikes in three eastern provinces of Afghanistan killed 36 civilians and wounded 163 others, Afghan officials have said, as attacks between the two countries showed no sign of abating.

Pakistan’s information minister, Attaullah Tarar, said the operations on Sunday night were aimed at a terrorist group his country blamed for a deadly militant attack in Karachi that killed three security personnel over the weekend.

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EU faces fierce criticism over plans to host Taliban in Brussels

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Rights campaigners and MEPs say meeting would normalise regime that erases women from public life

Rights campaigners and MEPs have warned that a meeting between EU officials and a Taliban delegation in Brussels risks normalising a regime that has banned girls from school beyond the sixth grade and sought to erase women from public life, while its ranks include two leaders accused of crimes against humanity.

A spokesperson for the Afghan foreign ministry confirmed that a delegation representing the ⁠Taliban had travelled to Brussels after the Belgian foreign ministry issued five single-day visas.

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US lawmakers demand Trump officials halt plan to send Afghans to DRC

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Government urged to reconsider proposal for 1,100 Afghans, currently stranded in Qatar, who worked with US forces

Dozens of US lawmakers urged the Trump administration on Thursday to roll back any plans to ship to unsafe third countries Afghan nationals who worked with US forces during the war in their homeland.

In a letter seen by Reuters, more than 80 House of Representatives members, including at least three Republicans as well as Democrats, appealed to secretary of state, Marco Rubio, to reconsider plans for 1,100 Afghans who have been stranded in Qatar awaiting relocation.

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Eighteen people killed in Afghanistan truck crash, including 10 children

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Truck was carrying Afghan families returning Pakistan when it overturned, official says

A truck overturned in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing 18 people on board including 10 children, a provincial official told Agence France-Presse.

Deadly traffic crashes are common in Afghanistan, due in part to poor roads after decades of conflict, dangerous driving and a lack of regulation.

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Taliban ‘legitimising child marriage’ with new law, activists warn

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Up to 70% of girls may be in early or forced marriages but law now makes divorce impossible if husbands disagree

Child marriage appears to have been legally recognised for the first time by the Taliban in Afghanistan, as activists say “shameful” new laws make it almost impossible for girls and young women to seek divorce against their husbands’ will.

There are no official statistics on forced and underage marriages in Afghanistan, but activists say it has risen at an alarming rate in recent years, driven by the ban on girls being in education after the age of 11.

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Calls for humanitarian corridor through strait of Hormuz as Iran war hits vital aid

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Soaring oil prices and the blockade are preventing food, fuel and medicine being delivered to millions of people in desperate need, say NGOs

The volatility of global oil prices caused by the US and Israel’s war on Iran is taking a toll on the most vulnerable people, by slowing or blocking food and medical aid from reaching them.

Now aid organisations are calling for a “humanitarian corridor” to be opened through the strait of Hormuz amid rocketing transportation costs.

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Afghanistan says Pakistani strikes kill seven and wound 85 in first attack since peace talks

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Pakistan officials dismiss Afghan media reports and official statements about strikes on university in Kunar province as ‘blatant lie’

Mortars and missiles fired from Pakistan on Monday struck a university and civilian homes in north-eastern Afghanistan, killing seven people and wounding at least 85, Afghan officials said.

Pakistan denied the accusation of targeting a university.

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Shabana Mahmood does not rule out sending back refused Afghan asylum seekers

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Home secretary indicates Whitehall talks about returns programme, a move that would shock humanitarian groups

Shabana Mahmood has refused to rule out sending rejected Afghan asylum seekers back to the Taliban-controlled country.

The home secretary said she is “monitoring very closely” talks between Kabul and EU countries about a returns programme for refused claimants. She also indicated that “additional conversations” about Afghan returns were happening inside Whitehall.

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Trump officials consider sending 1,100 Afghans who aided US forces to Congo

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Discussions reportedly come after Trump’s decision to stop initiative that allowed group to apply to resettle in the US

The Trump administration is in discussions to potentially send up to 1,100 Afghans who helped US forces during the war in Afghanistan to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a non-profit confirmed on Tuesday.

The resettlement talks, first reported by the New York Times, come after Donald Trump’s decision to stop an initiative that allowed Afghans who assisted US war efforts to apply to resettle in the US.

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Ben Roberts-Smith is back in court, now as a defendant. His case reminds us that there are laws even amid war

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The former soldier’s previous defamation trial presents the rare situation of there being hours of evidence of his alleged crimes already on the public record

For almost every day of his marathon defamation trial, Ben Roberts-Smith VC, sat in the same spot in the federal court. A chair by the window, bathed in sunshine, from where he could glare at witnesses giving evidence.

He sits now in a very different position.

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WHO warns of health crisis ‘unfolding in real time’ across Middle East

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Hostilities should halt and healthcare facilities must be treated as ‘safe havens’, WHO’s regional chief has said

A total stop to hostilities in the Middle East is needed to halt a “health crisis unfolding in real time”, the World Health Organization’s chief in the region has said.

Hospitals and other healthcare facilities must be treated as “safe havens”, urged Dr Hanan Balkhy, the WHO’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean.

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Taliban release US academic held in detention for more than a year

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Marco Rubio welcomes release of Dennis Coyle, who was detained in January last year for violating unspecified laws

Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities have released the American academic Dennis Coyle after holding him for over a year, with the foreign ministry saying the release came on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday that marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

A statement from the ministry said the academic researcher had been released in Kabul on Tuesday, following an appeal from his family and after Afghanistan’s supreme court “considered his previous imprisonment sufficient”.

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