Navy veteran exchanged for Bashir Noorzai, who had been held in US since 2005 on drugs charges
The Taliban have freed an American engineer in exchange for an Afghan tribal leader linked to the group whom the US had held on drugs charges since 2005.
Mark Frerichs was exchanged at Kabul airport for Bashir Noorzai, the acting Taliban foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, told a news conference in the Afghan capital.
Continue reading...UN refugee agency urges authorities to end forced deportations as families say they are too scared to leave their homes
The Tajikistan authorities are rounding up Afghan refugees and forcing them to cross the border back into Afghanistan, despite some having been granted asylum in other countries.
According to reports from Tajikistan’s 10,000-strong Afghan refugee community, people are being picked up off the street and houses raided in a spate of recent round-ups of Afghan families, who have been sheltering in the country since the Taliban seized power in August 2021.
Continue reading...Human Rights Watch says Taliban is failing to protect Shia minority from violent attacks on mosques, schools and workplaces
Hazara communities in Afghanistan are being targeted in violent attacks by the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan, with more than 700 people killed in 13 attacks in the past year, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.
In the report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the Taliban of doing little to protect Hazara and other religious minorities from suicide bombings and deadly attacks, and failing to provide adequate medical care and assistance to victims and their families, despite pledging to do so when they took power in August 2021.
Continue reading...Moscow says two embassy staff killed and several people injured, as Afghan official says attacker was shot dead
A suicide bomber struck near the Russian embassy in Kabul, killing two staff from the diplomatic mission and wounding several other people, the foreign ministry in Moscow has said.
In the first attack targeting a foreign mission since the Taliban seized power in August last year, the bomber struck on Monday near the entrance of the embassy’s consular section.
Continue reading...Thomas Mark Rickard, who served in ADF, avoids conviction but is ordered to pay $1,000 good behaviour bond for leaving reporter abusive and threatening voicemail
A Victorian man who served with the Australian Defence Force has pleaded guilty to harassing the ABC journalist Mark Willacy after he reported on alleged war crimes committed in Afghanistan.
Thomas Mark Rickard, from Lara, near Geelong, was arrested late last year after phoning Willacy and leaving an abusive and threatening voicemail.
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Continue reading...Lawyers say the woman, who is in hiding in Pakistan with her son, will be killed if sent back to Afghanistan
A female former senior judge from Afghanistan who is in hiding from the Taliban with her son has filed an appeal to the Home Office after her application to enter the UK was denied.
Lawyers for the woman – who is named as “Y” – said on Saturday they had submitted an appeal on behalf of their client and her son at the Immigration Tribunal, saying she had been left in a “gravely vulnerable position” by the withdrawal of British and other western troops.
Continue reading...UN expresses concern over rising number of civilian casualties from explosions
A blast that tore through a Kabul mosque during evening prayers on Wednesday killed 21 people, police said, as the United Nations expressed concern over a growing number of civilian casualties from explosions.
The police spokesperson Khalid Zadran said another 33 people had been injured in the blast, which witnesses said shattered the windows of buildings near the mosque in a northern Kabul neighbourhood.
Continue reading...Police report multiple casualties after powerful explosion during evening prayers
A huge bomb attack at a mosque in Kabul during evening prayers has killed at least 10 people, including a prominent cleric, and wounded at least 27 others.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack on Wednesday, the latest to strike Afghanistan in the year since the Taliban seized power.
Continue reading...MoD sources accuse other parts of Whitehall of failing to do enough to help Afghans who worked with British forces
Two RAF flights carrying as many as 500 Afghans who worked with British forces and their relatives are landing in the UK each month from Pakistan but there is deep frustration within the Ministry of Defence about how the rest of government is struggling to accommodate arrivals.
It comes as the Taliban and western allies mark the first anniversary of Nato’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Continue reading...Families who fled Taliban rule say they are grateful for the help they have received but long for a home where they can settle
The west London hotel where Fawzia Amini, a senior Afghan judge, her husband and their four daughters have lived for the last nine months has comfortable sofas in the foyer, a restaurant serving tasty meals on the first floor, and friendly reception staff – but it isn’t home.
After the turmoil and danger of fleeing their spacious home in Kabul when the Taliban seized control of the Afghan capital, the family say that while they are grateful for everything the UK government has done for them, they long to be in a place of their own where they can cook their own food, work, study, and entertain relatives and friends.
Continue reading...Those without a male relative to act as a mahram are in legal limbo and unable to travel long distances
Hasina* cannot send her two daughters to school, because they are teenagers and high school is banned for girls in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
But she cannot take them out of the country to finish their education because she is a divorced single mother, and women are barred from long-distance travel without a male “guardian” to escort them.
Continue reading...Ed Husic pushes for ‘brain regain’
Industry minister Ed Husic will this week host a series of five roundtable meetings with science and technology leaders in the lead-up to the federal government’s jobs summit, in a bid to kickstart what he called “brain regain” – attracting Australia’s bright minds working overseas to return home, to combat the so-called “brain drain”.
These discussions will also include ways to increase the representation of women and people of diverse backgrounds in skilled occupations. One of my priorities is on “brain regain” – encouraging Australian researchers and innovators to return home. I am interested to hear ideas on how this can be best achieved.
I can’t emphasise strongly enough that this is the start of engagement with these industry sectors. After the jobs and skills summit I will continue the work with industry leaders to ensure we apply practical solutions to accelerate Australia’s pathway to high-skilled, high-value economy.
He’s applied for a job and that’s coming with a significant degree of scrutiny, as it should do. That’s part of the territory if you’re going to put yourself forward for those roles.
If he felt the need to protect the environment from offshore drilling for gas off Sydney’s northern beaches and he felt he needed to swear himself in as minister, that’s something I support.
Continue reading...One year since the Taliban regained power, charities say urgent action needed to address economic crisis
One year on from the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, a group of 32 Afghan and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are urging the international community not to abandon the country’s people, but instead address the root causes of the its economic crisis, stand up for human rights and increase humanitarian aid.
Reflecting a concern that the deep ideological deadlock between the Taliban and the international community is consigning millions of Afghans to destitution, they call for a clear roadmap that will lead to the restoration of the basic functions of the Afghan central bank and the release of Afghanistan’s assets frozen abroad, mainly in the US. The NGOs call for the disbursement of badly needed Afghan banknotes that have been printed but are impounded in Poland.
Continue reading...A year after the fall of Kabul, Abdullah Sayyid is in hiding, his wife has been murdered and the Home Office seems to have lost his case file
Abdullah Sayyid often thinks about the moment the Taliban broke down his door, burst inside and shot his wife. The gunmen left, but would soon redouble their efforts to kill him because of his work for the British government.
Sayyid’s wife was murdered during the chaotic aftermath of Operation Pitting, the UK’s emergency mass airlift from Kabul that began on 13 August last year.
Continue reading...Shots fired into air and rifle butts used to attack dozens of women protesting outside Afghan education ministry
Taliban fighters beat female protesters and fired into the air on Saturday as they violently dispersed a rare rally in the Afghan capital, days before the first anniversary of the hardline Islamists’ return to power.
Since seizing control on 15 August last year, the Taliban have rolled back the marginal gains made by women during two decades of US intervention in Afghanistan.
Continue reading...Since returning to power the Taliban have banned secondary school-aged girls from getting an education. Here Farzana*, 16, tells her story
Last year I was in 11th grade, the second highest-placed student in my class, with an average grade of 95%. Now I sit at home all day doing almost nothing. Sometimes I help my mum with housework, but really there are no distractions for me.
I can’t even read books, because I have lost the will to continue. After you lose 11 years of effort all at once, you can’t hold on to your dreams to make something of your life.
Continue reading...Girls forced to stop attending school under Taliban are taking huge risks to keep studying – as are the teachers helping them
When inspectors arrive at the school gate, which is most weeks now, the older girls know the drill. They slip away from their classes, race to a musty room and huddle together for long minutes that sometimes stretch into hours, hoping they won’t be discovered by the men who want them shut up at home.
The Taliban have banned secondary education for girls, the only gender-based bar on studying in the world.
Continue reading...Taliban in Kabul investigating death of prominent figure they describe as a ‘huge loss’
A prominent Taliban cleric, Sheikh Rahimullah Haqqani, was killed in an attack in a seminary in Kabul when the attacker detonated explosives hidden in a plastic artificial leg, according to officials and Taliban sources.
“Very sadly informed that respected cleric (Sheikh Rahimullah Haqqani) was martyred in a cowardly attack by enemies,” said Bilal Karimi, a spokesperson for the Taliban administration.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Father of one of three soldiers slain by Hekmatullah says Australia was ‘sidelined’ in deal between US and Taliban to release terrorist from prison
The family of one of the Australian soldiers killed by rogue Afghan national army sergeant Hekmatullah says Australia was treated with contempt by its closest ally, the US, after it agreed to release the self-professed terrorist from prison.
The Guardian revealed on Monday that the former Afghan national army sergeant, and Taliban plant, Hekmatullah, is again at liberty, and housed under Taliban protection, in the former diplomatic quarter of the Afghan capital Kabul.
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Continue reading...Exclusive: Hekmatullah, who killed three Australian soldiers, is living in a heavily protected luxury Kabul home after being freed from prison
Hekmatullah, the rogue Afghan soldier who killed three unarmed Australian diggers in Afghanistan a decade ago, is living in a luxury home in the capital Kabul, treated as a “returning hero” by the Taliban who released him from prison.
He has said he does not regret killing Australian soldiers, and has vowed he would again kill Australians, or anyone who opposes the Taliban.
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