Killers said they were Taliban but government denies responsibility and says two of them have been arrested
Gunmen presenting themselves as Taliban attacked a wedding in eastern Afghanistan to stop music being played and killed at least three people, the government has said.
Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Saturday that two of the three attackers had been arrested, and denied they were acting on behalf of the Islamist movement.
Continue reading...Students and activists in group that British foreign ministry hopes will be ‘the first of many’ in coming months
A group of LGBT+ Afghans has arrived in Britain, the first since the Taliban’s return to power in August caused panic among gay and transgender Afghans, who feared persecution and even death under the Islamists’ rule.
The evacuation of the 29 Afghans is “hoped to be the first of many” in the coming months, Britain’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday, hours after a Taliban spokesman said LGBT+ rights would not be respected.
Continue reading...Pentagon says Afghan-based group and al-Qaida have intention to attack US and Taliban’s ability to fight them is ‘to be determined’
The US intelligence community has assessed that Islamic State in Afghanistan could have the capability of attacking the United States in as little as six months – and has the intention to do so, a senior Pentagon official has told Congress.
Colin Kahl, under secretary of defense for policy, also said it was still “to be determined” whether the Taliban – which is an enemy of Islamic State – has the ability to fight Islamic State effectively following the US withdrawal in August.
Continue reading...Zahra Mirzaei pioneered ‘groundbreaking’ maternity services in Kabul, but has been forced to flee. She says she won’t stop fighting for dignified care for Afghanistan’s women and girls
When Afghanistan’s first midwife-led birth centre opened in the impoverished district of Dasht-e-Barchi in western Kabul this year it was a symbol of hope and defiance.
It began receiving expectant mothers in June, just over a year after a devastating attack by gunmen on the maternity wing at the local hospital left 24 people dead, including 16 mothers, a midwife and two young children.
Continue reading...One of just six female judges who have so far managed to reach Britain speaks of fleeing Kabul and finding refuge in Manchester
The day the Taliban arrived in Kabul, Dina* went to her office in the city’s law courts as normal. It was deserted. “Only the cleaner was there,” the 41-year-old supreme court judge remembers. “The cleaner said: what are you doing here? Go home!”
Dina gathered as many legal papers and personal documents as she could carry and drove back to the four-storey home she shared with her husband and three children. There, she scanned in the most important bits of paper and burned the lot on her roof terrace. It was painful watching evidence of everything she worked so hard to achieve going up in flames.
Continue reading...An economic crisis aggravated by conflict and drought have caused a collapse in food security since the Taliban takeover
More than half of Afghanistan’s population is facing acute hunger as the country has been thrown into one of the world’s largest food crises.
Almost 23 million Afghans will be hungry due to conflict, drought and an economic downturn that is severely affecting livelihoods and people’s access to food as a harsh winter looms, the UN has warned; an increase of nearly 35% compared with last year.
Continue reading...Complaints emerge of ‘chaotic’ system as local councils try to find suitable homes for refugees
The Home Office will not say how many of the airlifted Afghans qualify to be rehoused in the UK and has refused to reveal how many families have already moved out of hotels and into homes.
By calling around local authorities and devolved administrations, however, the Guardian has started to build a fractured picture of which areas have stepped up to do their bit.
Continue reading...The Taliban has whitewashed Kabul’s political murals – and those who created them have fled into exile
Negina Azimi felt shock and fear like never before when she heard that Taliban fighters had entered Kabul on 15 August. As an outspoken female artist in Afghanistan, she knew they would come for her.
“We heard reports that the Taliban might raid houses. I was scared because I live in a very central neighbourhood and every room in my house is adorned with the kind of art the Taliban won’t approve of,” she says, referring to paintings that feature messages about women’s empowerment and are critical of the Taliban’s atrocities.
Negina Azimi, who is now in a refugee camp in Albania with others of the ArtLords collective. They are now planning an exhibition
Continue reading...Human Rights Watch has logged illegal seizures of land and homes then given to Taliban supporters
Thousands of people have been forced from their homes and land by Taliban officials in the north and south of Afghanistan, in what amounted to collective punishment, illegal under international law, Human Rights Watch has warned.
Many of the evictions targeted members of the Shia Hazara community, while others were of people connected to the former Afghan government. Land and homes seized this way have often been redistributed to Taliban supporters, HRW said.
Continue reading...Moscow calls for aid to avert refugee crisis but also demands more inclusive government in Kabul
Russia has hosted the most high-profile international talks on Afghanistan since the Taliban took power, calling for an injection of aid to help the crippled economy but also demanding a more inclusive government.
Senior Russian diplomats made clear that formal recognition of the Taliban regime was not on the table until it does more to improve human rights and broadens an all-male cabinet, most of them clerics from the Pashtun ethnic group.
Continue reading...The WHO and Unicef campaign will restart after three years, and the hardliners say they will assist and allow frontline female staff
Afghanistan will restart nationwide polio vaccinations after more than three years, as the new Taliban government agreed to assist the campaign and to allow women to participate as frontline workers, the UN said on Monday.
The World Health Organization and Unicef said the vaccination drive would begin on 8 November with Taliban support.
Continue reading...More than 80 injured in explosions at building in southern city of Kandahar after Friday prayers
A suicide bombing at a mosque in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar has killed at least 47 people and injured more than 80, in the second major attack on Shia worshippers in Afghanistan in a week.
The Imam Bargah mosque was particularly crowded when the attackers struck, because the community had been holding memorial prayers for the victims of the previous bombing, in northern Kunduz province.
Continue reading...Migrants, many fleeing the Taliban regime, claim they are being beaten, harassed and turned back by Turkish border forces
As the sun sets over a dusty ravine on the outskirts of Van city in eastern Turkey, Muhammdullah Sangeen and dozens of other Afghans are preparing for another night sleeping rough.
The 22-year-old, who has a bruised left eye and fresh cuts all over his arms, arrived from Iran a few days earlier with the help of smugglers. “I am not OK,” said Sangeen, his legs trembling. “I’m not feeling human.”
Continue reading...Hazrat Wali, 18, who came to UK two years ago, attacked near sports field where children were playing rugby
A teenage Afghan refugee was stabbed to death on a sports field in south-west London in front of schoolchildren playing rugby.
The victim, named as 18-year-old Hazrat Wali, from Notting Hill, was attacked at about 4.45pm on Tuesday on Craneford Way, Twickenham, yards away from Richmond upon Thames College, which he attended.
Continue reading...Shortage of specialised doctors in Afghanistan means patients seek lifesaving care in Pakistan, but conventions have changed
Fareed Ullah has crossed Afghanistan’s border to Pakistan 10 times for treatment for his three-year-old son, Taha, who has thalassaemia major, an inherited blood disorder. Up until the Taliban takeover in August he had never experienced a problem, but when he tried to transit via the Torkham crossing late last month, he was stopped by the Taliban from entering.
Doctors and family members of patients say conventions at the border have changed since the Taliban takeover, which has made it more difficult for Afghan patients to seek lifesaving care in Pakistan. “There is no system, still,” said Ijaz Ali Khan, the founder and chairman of Hamza Foundation, a charity organisation in Peshawar that provides treatment for thalassaemia and other blood disorders.
Continue reading...Leaders will discuss UN proposal to channel funds to Afghanistan to ease growing humanitarian catastrophe
G20 leaders and ministers will meet by video conference on Tuesday to discuss a United Nations proposal to channel funds to Afghanistan to ease its worsening humanitarian catastrophe.
It will be the first time the world’s richest nations have met to discuss the consequences of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover on 15 August. Afghanistan was 75%-dependent on foreign aid before the takeover, and funds held overseas have been frozen by the US.
Continue reading...Focus of talks in Qatar will be allowing foreigners and at-risk Afghans to leave Afghanistan, says US official
US officials will meet senior Taliban figures this weekend for talks aimed at easing the evacuation of foreign citizens and at-risk Afghans from Afghanistan, a US official has said.
The focus of talks on Saturday and Sunday in Doha, Qatar, would be holding Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders to commitments that they would allow Americans and other foreign nationals to leave, along with Afghans who once worked for the US military or government and other Afghan allies, the official said.
Continue reading...Large number of worshippers killed or wounded in blast during Friday prayers
At least 100 worshippers have been killed or injured in a suicide bombing that targeted a packed Shia mosque in Afghanistan during Friday prayers.
The blast took place in Kunduz, the capital city of Kunduz province in the north-east of the country. There was speculation that the attack was carried out by Islamic State (IS), which has a long history of attacking Afghanistan’s Shia minority.
Continue reading...A group of 20 men hold British passports and call for help for themselves and their families to leave Afghanistan in a recorded message aimed at UK officials. More than 60 British nationals stranded in Afghanistan have criticised the UK government for abandoning them in an increasingly dangerous situation
Continue reading...The Taliban fighters who were once embedded in Afghanistan’s rugged mountains are now a feared urban police force. Felipe Dana joins them on patrol
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