China appears to be standing firmly with its “iron brother” Pakistan, but there are good reasons to believe that all’s not as honky-dory as it seems
As Pakistan had been frequently warning Afghanistan of military action if it didn’t act against Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan [TTP] terrorists (who Islamabad alleges operate from bases inside Afghanistan), the declaration of an “open war” against Afghanistan by Pakistani Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif in late February shouldn’t have come as a surprise.
But it did, because with Field Marshal Asim Munir at the helm of affairs, no one expected that Pakistan would pursue this extremely violent and inconclusive course of action. Furthermore, as the Pakistan army is already over-stretched due to its prolonged involvement in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan, opening yet another battlefront makes little military sense.
It’s inconceivable that Asif could have dared declare war without explicit authorisation from Pakistan’s Field Marshal. So, the question that arises is: Why did Field Marshal Munir decide to wage a war that wouldn’t achieve the terminal objective of forcing Kabul to oust TTP when both have not only common religious ideologies but have also fought shoulder-to-shoulder against the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan?
A probable reason could be Field Marshal Munir’s self-created compulsion to walk his talk. Pakistan’s chief of armed forces (CDF) has a habit of displaying belligerence and also saying things that incite ultra-nationalist fervour. For example, media reports from early 2004 quote him as stating that “The life of a single Pakistani is more important than the entire Afghanistan.” Needless to say, especially after this utterly repulsive alleged comment, the masses expect visible action from a man who has publicly declared that “God made me Pakistan’s protector.”
However, Field Marshal Munir’s woes don’t end here. While launching the military operations against Afghanistan (codenamed Operation Ghazab-lil-Haq, meaning “wrath for the truth/Fury for the sake of justice”), he had pompously declared that this operation would continue unabated until “terrorist safe havens and use of Afghan soil against Pakistan is decisively brought to an end.” However, instead of being pushed on the back foot by Pakistani airstrikes against attacks on its alleged bases, TTP has struck back hard, with both the intensity and frequency of its attacks.
In short, Field Marshal Munir’s plan of arm-twisting Kabul to get TTP evicted from Afghanistan has not only failed but also backfired, further aggravating the existing animosity between Pakistanis and the Afghan people. With the Pakistan army failing to achieve its slated military objectives, the Field Marshal has been forced to eat his words and settle down to negotiate with Kabul under a Beijing-brokered initiative. The contentious Durand Line is unlikely to remain peaceful in the foreseeable future, for which no one else but Rawalpindi is to be blamed.
China appears to be standing firmly with its “iron brother” Pakistan, but there are good reasons to believe that all’s not as honky-dory as it seems. While Islamabad’s cavorting with Washington would definitely be a matter of concern for Beijing, the Pakistan army’s abysmal failure to subdue armed sarmachars (freedom fighters) in Balochistan is adversely affecting its $60 billion investment in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor [CPEC] project and mineral mining activities in the province.
Pakistan’s emergence as the main peace broker between the US and Iran is a significant diplomatic achievement that would have definitely brought cheer to Islamabad. However, controversies and contradictions have emerged even here. The Pakistani Prime Minister’s initial post on X requested Washington to postpone its attack on Iranian infrastructure by allowing a two-week time window “to allow diplomacy to run its course.” It carried the transcription “*Draft-Pakistan’s PM Message on X*”, a clear indication that the text posted was composed and transmitted to Sharif by someone from outside Pakistan.
The fact that the otherwise obdurate US President Trump who showed no signs of reconsidering his announcement of bombing Iran to “the stone ages” and even declaring that “whole [Iranian] civilization will die tonight” accepted the Pakistani prime minister’s request in toto suggests that Sharif may well have used by Washington as a pawn to facilitate Trump’s honourable exit from the mess he himself created. But there’s more.
Secondly, according to media reports, while Sharif had announced that the US and Tehran had reached an agreement that was applicable “everywhere, including Lebanon and elsewhere,” US Vice President JD Vance has outrightly rejected the Pakistani Prime Minister’s assertion about Lebanon being included in the agreement.
How Sharif could commit such a humongous faux pas is difficult to comprehend, but since it’s apparent that Pakistan is, in fact, an American “proxy” disguised as a peace negotiator, one can expect a few more bloopers in the days to come. For starters, multiple reports, like WION’s, claim that a section of the “Pakistani media are [sic] of the view that Pakistan’s diplomacy and its role in brokering a ceasefire by stopping the war that could lead to devastation merit a Nobel Peace Prize.”
The author is a retired Indian Army officer
Pakistan’s faltering offensive in Afghanistan has pushed it towards negotiations
Afghans in the UK who do not have permanent residency are facing years of insecurity and hardship amid a hardening of British immigration policy. Those who were granted refugee status within the last five years may face a lengthy wait before they get settled status under new policies proposed in November 2025 that are intended to deter those seeking asylum coming to the UK. Around 38,000 Afghans had a chance to get special humanitarian resettlement after the fall of the Islamic Republic though these pathways are now closed. Thousands who have been refused asylum are stuck in limbo, without the right to work, but with the government unable to deport them. Rachel Reid and Francesca Gilks have been hearing from Afghans and lawyers, encountering a few positive experiences alongside a great deal of insecurity and frustration. In the dying days and aftermath of the Islamic Republic, the UK government offered two special routes for Afghans to come to the UK, via humanitarian resettlement. Most were selected by the UK government as being particularly worthy of protection or vulnerable to the new regime, including Afghans who had served with UK forces in Afghanistan. These safe routes were closed in 2025, leaving only the asylum route open. Between 2021 and 2025, there were almost 38,000 Afghans resettled in the UK through these three humanitarian routes (UK Home Office).
Outside such schemes, the UK does not make it easy for refugees to reach its island shores. There are no visas for those seeking asylum, so every year, tens of thousands make perilous journeys to get here, often making the final miles by boat with the help of unscrupulous smugglers. The hazards mean the make-up of Afghans seeking asylum in the UK is heavily skewed towards young men, who are culturally more likely to take the risks of clandestine travel.
However, for those seeking asylum, the initial generosity of the UK has waned. Following the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, in 2022, 98 per cent of Afghans who requested asylum were accepted as refugees; by 2025 that had dropped to 34 per cent (Home Office), as more stringent eligibility criteria were applied. The UK government considers the security situation in Afghanistan no longer as severe as previously assessed, and that risks to claimants must be judged on an individual basis (Guidance here). This means most Afghan claimants are no longer believed to be fleeing persecution. Afghans who are rejected are not – yet – being sent back to Afghanistan, but are left in legal limbo.
In November 2025, the government proposed radical changes to its immigration system, which will make refugees’ paths to British citizenship longer, more costly and more complex, including most of those Afghans who have arrived since 2021. It will also affect their chances for family reunion. As part of the same drive, as of March 2026, Afghans became one of four nations no longer eligible for student visas, while people from Afghanistan were singled out as no longer eligible for skilled worker visas either (Home Office).
This more hostile reception is not unique to Afghans trying to make a new life in the UK; similar struggles face migrants of most nationalities. While the UK has seen significant numbers of asylum seekers in recent years, stretching an already tight economy, the reforms say as much about a domestic — and global — wave of political populism which scapegoats refugees and migrant workers. The combined effect is that for Afghans seeking a new life, the UK is becoming an increasingly unwelcoming place.[1]
This report is based on thirteen interviews, conducted between September 2025 and February 2026 — eight with Afghans who have come to the UK since 2021 and five with immigration lawyers and people working with newly arrived Afghans, as well as a review of policy and data. Since the experiences of Afghans vary according to their path to legal status, the report will start by looking at the situation of those who got humanitarian resettlement, before looking at Afghan asylum seekers and refugees, followed by their shared problems around employment, study, mental health, as well as their contrasting experiences of welcome and hostility that Afghans receive. It does not address the situation of Afghans who came on work or family visas, or those who came prior to 2021.[2]
The easier path? Resettlement routes
A large group of Afghans came to the UK under resettlement routes, which, rather than providing refugee status, provided Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK as soon as an application was approved. Almost 38,000 Afghans were resettled under three schemes: the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP), run by the Ministry of Defence, for Afghans who worked with the UK, the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS), mostly for vulnerable groups and scholars and a third, initially secret policy, described below (UK Home Office).
Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP)
ARAP was for Afghans who had worked for the UK government, such as military interpreters who would be at risk of Taliban retaliation. The largest number came in the initial evacuation in 2021, with the scheme closed in July 2025 (Ministry of Defence). Candidates were vetted by the UK’s defence and foreign ministries.[3]
The scheme was criticised by some human rights advocates for narrow or unclear parameters, including the requirement that to be eligible someone needed to have held a “publicly recognisable” role and have contributed to the “success of UK operations” (see this 2023 report by the legal organisation, Justice).
The closure of the scheme is being challenged by lawyers, including Jamie Bell, who said, “Its abrupt closure has left these individuals with no safe and legal routes to the UK” (Duncan Lewis Solicitors). The UK Defence Minister, John Healey, had, however, warned in December 2024 that he considered the scheme had “fulfilled its original purpose,” according to a Home Office briefing.
Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS)
From January 2022, ACRS offered resettlement to around 5,000 Afghans who had already been evacuated to the UK in 2021, with a ceiling of resettling up to 20,000 more. This scheme also closed in July 2025, having resettled more than 12,800 Afghans (Migration Observatory). The ACRS had three main categories:
At-risk individuals who were selected by the UK government, mostly evacuated or notified in 2021, as well as subsequent family reunifications.
Vulnerable groups such as women and girls at risk and members of ethnic and religious minorities, mostly referred by the UN’s refugee agency, the UNHCR, from third countries (mostly Pakistan or Iran).
Afghans who worked with the British Council, or the British security company GardaWorld, or Afghan alumni of the Chevening master’s programme. This pathway was suspended in June 2023.
The scheme was also criticised by NGOs and lawyers for its delays, inconsistent decisions and narrow eligibility criteria, as well as its failure to reach its ceiling of 20,000 (see reports by the Afghan Pro Bono Initiative and Safe Passage). A government minister, Luke Pollard, defended the UK’s efforts, telling the House of Commons that the combined relocation schemes had offered “one of the most generous Afghan resettlement programmes in the world.”
A third, ‘secret’ route – Afghanistan Response Route (ARR)
A third route for relocating Afghan nationals to the UK was only revealed by the government in July 2025, though it had been in operation since April 2024 (BBC). It was set up after the personal details of almost 19,000 Afghans who had asked for refuge in the UK after the Taliban takeover was accidentally leaked in February 2022 by the UK’s Ministry of Defence (BBC). This extraordinary data breach, which came amid widespread reports about assassinations of those associated with the Republic’ security forces and international military, put many Afghans at risk (NYT). The existence of this scheme, as well as the fact of the data breach, was subject to a ‘super-injunction’ – a media blackout, which also banned disclosure of the injunction itself (Guardian).
An estimated 7,355 Afghans will be resettled in the UK through ARR, including 1,531 individuals whose data was leaked, plus family members (National Audit Office). Since the data leak involved applicants to ARAP and ACRS, many of those affected were likely already included in one of the two other resettlement schemes.
This avenue was closed, along with ACRS and ARAP, in July 2025, despite concerns that some Afghans remain in jeopardy. The government argued that those at risk had been given years to apply (UK parliament). However, there are plausible reasons why some at risk might have been wrongly rejected, not least the low levels of documentation that is common in Afghanistan. There are also reasons why someone might not have previously applied for resettlement to the UK but now finds themselves in need of protection, including those who had decided to settle in Pakistan or Iran but are now at risk because of the mass forced returns of Afghans from those countries (FIDH). Others might have been waiting for humanitarian protection routes to other countries, some of which have closed, such as those to the United States in April 2025 (AAN).
Director of the Scottish based Afghan Human Rights Foundation, Naveen Asif, told AAN that he knew people affected by the data breach who remain “very worried,” both in the UK and in Afghanistan. “Even when people are here, they are worried about their families – in Afghanistan, there is a culture where if your enemy cannot find you, they go after your family. If you are in Britain, and if the Taliban find out, they will punish your family.”
Rona Panjsheri, who supports Afghan refugees in Suffolk, in eastern England, says she works with one woman whose husband’s name was leaked. She says the family was so worried that they stopped going out and became “very depressed and isolated.” A February 2026 survey by Refugee Legal Support found that of 231 respondents who had been notified of the leak by the British government, 49 reported that a family member or colleague had been killed as a direct result, while almost 90 per cent reported risks and threats to their family members, ranging from house searches to violence. Most respondents said the information provided by the government had not answered their security concerns, as captured by this respondent, who was relocated:
My family – who remain in Afghanistan – are terrified. They ask me every day: Are we in danger? Did you share our names, phone numbers, addresses, or photos in your emails to the UK? Could the Taliban find us because of this?
Afghan seeking asylum in the UK
In addition to the cohort of Afghans who received humanitarian resettlement, from 2021 to 2025, over 37,000 Afghans and their dependents claimed asylum in the UK (see table below). Individuals can only claim asylum on arrival in the UK and then will wait months or over a year for an initial decision (Migration Observatory).
While an individual waits to hear if they are eligible, they are an asylum seeker, with very limited rights or privileges (more on that later). If they are granted asylum and given refugee status, they can apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain. This is a non-revokable, settled status. A subsequent application for British citizenship can then be made as soon as one year after that.
There is no way to claim asylum from outside the UK, which means most Afghans seeking asylum make unofficial and often very dangerous journeys to reach the UK, travelling over 3,000 miles, typically involving getting across Iran, Turkey and continental Europe. Small numbers hide in vehicles to cross into the UK, but most end up in small boats to cross the English Channel. The numbers of Afghans arriving by small boats peaked in 2022, when over 9,000 made it to the UK. They remained the largest group of those arriving by boat until 2024 (Home Office, see also table below).
The boats — often no more than dinghies — are overcrowded and unsafe, but still set off to try and cross the busiest shipping lane in the world. Every year there are deaths, despite lifeboats and other vessels saving many in peril: in 2024, for example, British lifeboats rescued 1,371 people (RNLI).
One interviewee described the impact of losing two family members in one of these disasters, in which 18 others were lost:
It was probably the most difficult day of my life, learning about their deaths after hearing the voices of my loved ones in distressed voice messages, telling us they are alive. Every one of them, saying we’re alive. Each one of them sent those voice messages.
A new crime of endangerment of life, targeting smugglers and those piloting boats, came into force in January 2026 in the UK, with an Afghan national the first person charged with the new offence (Crown Prosecution Service). Advertising illegal journeys to the UK has also been criminalised.
As noted above, the difficulty of the journey, combined with particular dangers facing women, means that it is mostly young men making boat crossings. In the first nine months of 2025, only 5 per cent of Afghans arriving in small boats were adult women (compared to 25.5 per cent for all nationalities), while 85 per cent were men aged between 18 and 40 (UK Home Office).
A smaller number of Afghans claimed asylum after coming to the UK on study or work visas. However, as part of its wider effort to reduce what it called “visa abuse,” the government announced in March 2026 that Afghans would no longer be given student or work visas, noting that 95 per cent of Afghans on study visas claimed asylum between 2021 and September 2025. Afghanistan was the only country singled out for the work visa ban, though three other countries were also included in the study visa ban – Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan.
After the return of the Taliban to power, several new schemes to help Afghan women study in British universities were set up. The government’s own global Chevening scholarship has also enabled many Afghans, men and women, to come and study in the UK. The ban on study visas closes yet another door for Afghan women wanting the higher education they are denied at home, and also – for now – blocks one of the few legal and safe ways for them to get to the UK and claim asylum, although the government described it as a “brake” that will be “regularly reviewed” (Home Secretary Shahbana Mahmood’s statement).
A long wait in ‘asylum hotels’
Even when someone makes it to the UK, they are far from secure. Many of those who claim asylum face over a year while they wait for their application to be considered. For the first year, asylum seekers have no right to work, but they can access free health care and children have a right to education. The UK government provides a subsistence level of financial support and temporary accommodation, mostly in budget hotels, often sharing rooms with strangers. To put this in context, however, there is a shortage of social housing generally in Britain and a problem with homelessness: as of 31 March 2026 (latest figures) 131,000 households in the UK were living in temporary accommodation (UK Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government), while the average waiting time for council housing is 2.9 years, increasing to 6.6 years in Greater London (LocalGov).
The use of hotels to house asylum seekers became a political flashpoint in 2024 and 2025. There was some justification for consternation about the increased use and expense of hotel accommodation: in 2019, there were 423 asylum seekers of all nationalities in hotels; four years later it had jumped to over 50,000, with Afghans among the largest number of those housed in hotels. The cost of hotel accommodation also soared: from £64 (USD 85) a night per person in 2020/21 to £170 (USD 234) 2022/23, falling back in 2025 to £119 (USD 159); at the same time, the daily cost of other accommodation types has remained broadly stable, at an average of £27 (USD 36) a night (Migration Observatory). (See also reports by the University of Bristol, University of Durham and a parliamentary enquiry report, including detail on eye-wateringly high profits made by four big hotel contractors.) Beyond the cost, however, public and political concerns were exacerbated by the fact that those housed in these hotels are predominantly male, given the demographic tilt of asylum seekers. The issue of asylum hotels was seized on by right-wing anti-immigrant groups, and there were simmering protests outside hotels all over the UK in the summers of 2024 and 2025 (Reuters, Al Jazeera).
For many Afghans, this has felt like a stark display of hostility to their very presence in the UK. Naveen Asif of the Afghan Human Rights Foundation, based in Scotland, said he understands how British people and the media can get the wrong idea about the hotels, which create an idea of luxury, “but living in that condition, isolated from their communities, not allowed to work, sharing rooms with strangers while their mental health gets worse and worse, it’s very difficult.”
While Scotland has a better reputation for tolerance towards refugees and newcomers than many parts of England, Asif said anti-immigrant mobilisation is also “spreading rapidly” in Scotland, with weekly protests against asylum seekers, often outside hotels. He recalled a protest in Falkirk in central Scotland in front of a hotel which was known to be housing asylum seekers, most of whom were Afghan. He said that right in front of police, “there were banners which said, ‘Kill them all and let god decide what to do with them.’” He said fear is widespread:
I get calls every day from asylum seekers who are scared that they might get attacked. You can’t provide security; you can only advise them to talk to the police. People shouldn’t feel what they felt in Syria or Iraq or Afghanistan, they shouldn’t be scared here, this is a free country. People have the right to express their views, but they have no right to beat or threaten people.
Former Afghan Minister of Women’s Affairs Hasina Safi spent three years housed in a hotel on the outskirts of London with her family. She is uncomplaining about it, telling AAN that after being forced to leave Afghanistan, “everywhere was the same for me.” She was initially worried by the protests, but found the counter-protests, in support of refugees, very moving: “On one side of the street, there were banners saying no to immigrants, other side, we welcome refugees… it was quite peaceful… I saw young children saying, ‘We welcome refugees,’ which made me cry.” Safi said the use of hotels that she witnessed was, if nothing else, highly inefficient:
To be honest, just in the hotel we were housed in – so much money was spent on this group, if that money was given to each person individually, they could have bought a house. It’s also about thinking about the efficiency of the budget which can help.
The government is phasing out the use of hotels to house asylum seekers in favour of cheaper alternatives such as disused army bases, which can house hundreds at a time (BBC). However, they are facing the same protests from local people near the new sites (BBC).
If an asylum seeker is still awaiting a decision on their status after a year, they can apply for the right to work, if the delay is judged not to be their fault. Even if successful, they are only granted the right to work in a narrow range of jobs where labour is deemed to be in short supply (UK Parliament). Although for government finances, it would be better for asylum seekers to be working and paying taxes, successive governments have feared it would incentivise migrants to come to Britain to seek asylum (House of Commons). However, the inability to work legally frustrates many. Hadia Azizi is an Afghan who was given settled status in 2023, who now works for a local council in London, supporting refugees, who said it is particularly hard for young men to remain jobless:
Employment is a huge challenge for many Afghans here. Officially, many cannot work but most work illegally because they need to send home remittances – they have to support their families back home. It’s a big emotional and financial burden, particularly on men. When you’re in Afghanistan, your expectation and imagination about life here is very different from reality. But these poor men, they have to work illegally and send money home.
Azizi says many end up in the informal economy, earning cash as van drivers, doing deliveries or removals, or working in Afghan restaurants or supermarkets, or in hawalas.
Legal support
Interviewees described how hard it is to navigate the complexities of UK bureaucracy. This is compounded by the current crisis in the UK’s immigration system, which has a massive backlog and a shortage of state supported legal aid (see this 2026 parliamentary report). Farhad Basharyar, a former diplomat under the Republic who came to the UK in 2021 and claimed asylum, found that even though he was a lawyer with fluent English, he still struggled: “There is a lack of legal aid, firstly. The second thing is – once you find legal aid, a lot of the solicitors aren’t helpful.”
One lawyer, Roberta Haslan from Bindmans, told AAN that the general shortage of legal aid lawyers means that, increasingly, they were seeing asylum seekers without any form of legal representation. Without language skills, or any legal education or understanding of the British system, “people are really struggling,” she said.
Asylum approvals plummet
The need for a lawyer is becoming more acute as acceptance rates for asylum seekers plummet. Following the fall of the Republic, the UK government gave near blanket approval to all Afghans who made it to the UK to claim asylum, assuming any Afghan fleeing was an opponent of the Taliban and had a legitimate fear of persecution Since October 2021, almost 36,000 Afghans have claimed asylum in the UK (Home Office briefing). The initial approval rate for Afghan claims peaked at 98 and 99 per cent in 2022 and 2023, but dropped to 34 per cent by the year ending December 2025 (Migration Observatory, figure 5).
The change is a result of a shift in UK guidance to immigration officers, which removed the default assumption that returnees would be at risk of reprisal from the Taliban. Rather than a blanket approval for Afghans, it placed the burden of proof on each person to demonstrate the individual risk they faced. Those deemed “likely to be at risk from the Taliban” include former members of the Republic’s security forces or who worked with the international military, as well as members of groups deemed to be at greater risk, including women, Hazaras, religious minorities, journalists and human rights defenders.
While the initial grant rate of 34 per cent has sunk to a low level for Afghans, many will appeal. At present, almost two thirds of (all) asylum rejections are overturned, either through a successful appeal or because the government withdraws its rejection (Guardian, Free Movement). Jamie Bell said that, for many Afghan cases, he has seen, “the quality of decision making is appalling,” with plenty of grounds for appeal. Bell represented one woman, known as Mina, whose initial rejection of an asylum claim was overturned in June 2025 (Guardian). For Afghan men, however, the prospects of rejections being upheld are far higher.
Rejected but not deported
For those Afghans who are rejected, the situation is grim. Already, thousands of Afghans have been refused asylum, leaving them without the right to employment and with limited access to financial support or education.[4] They are, at present, unlikely to be deported, since enforced and voluntary returns to Afghanistan have been suspended. This is partly because the UK government does not recognise the Islamic Emirate, which, in turn, does not recognise travel documents issued by the Afghan embassy in London (Guardian).
The UK did, however, deport at least eight Afghans who had been convicted of crimes between 2021 and 2024.[5] Growing numbers of European countries have been deporting Afghan offenders, including Germany, which announced a deal with the Emirate in February 2026 to allow it to deport Afghan offenders directly to Afghanistan, where previously they had sent them via Qatar (AFP/CTV). In October 2025, twenty countries called upon the European Union to seek a formal return agreement with Afghanistan, to allow for deportations (Euronews).
Deportation of failed asylum seekers who are not convicted of crimes is not inconceivable. While the UK has not yet crossed that line, some British opposition politicians have proposed that Afghans – even Afghan women – should be eligible for deportation (Sky).
Until something shifts politically, however, Afghans who are refused asylum face untold months or years in limbo, without any prospects of integration. In contrast, as soon as someone is granted refugee status, they get the right to work and study. This does not mean life is necessarily straightforward, as discussed next.
Afghans with settled status – rights with more hurdles
Once someone is granted refugee status, under the existing system, they enjoy the same rights as those Afghans who came via the resettlement schemes described above, in terms of the right to work, study, claim benefits and family reunion. Once recognised as refugees, they are asked to find their own housing, moving out of government-funded asylum accommodation, and to find work. They may also be eligible for the same benefits as UK citizens such as Universal Credit (if unemployed or on a low wage) or help with rent (housing benefit) (Citizens Advice).Both asylum seekers and refugees are entitled to free health care. Much of this will be more restrictive under the 2026 reforms.
Having a right to work or study, however, is often a long way from being able to realise that entitlement. Afghans interviewed by AAN talked about a myriad of difficulties, often interrelated, from limited opportunities for employment, to housing shortages and limited or slow educational opportunities.
Sorya is from Kabul, and arrived in the UK in December 2024 after a perilous crossing by boat at the age of 21. In Afghanistan, she had almost completed a diploma in midwifery in Herat when the Taliban ordered midwifery and female nursing students not to return to university in early December 2024, preventing her from taking her final exams. Getting into college in the UK has been a struggle:
Everywhere I ask how I can continue my studies. I left my family, I left everything just so I can come here and study in this country. But here I can’t find my way, it’s really stressful, it’s been 11 months that I’ve lived here, but I can’t manage anything here. … I’ve said to lots of organisations that I want to study, maybe training or university – anything at all. I want to work, I want to study, but it’s not important to them.
Getting her refugee status added to these problems, since it meant her temporary accommodation was withdrawn. She only got one months’ notice: “They said to me was: ‘This house is for asylum seekers, and now you are a refugee. You need to go and find a place for yourself.’” The council only offered her a house with three single men she did not know and which she could not accept. Then, when she was offered a place at a college, she lost it, because she did not have housing.
Educational opportunities can be hard to access. Naveen Asif says there are huge waiting lists to enrol in college, so Afghans he knows have waited “a year or more,” with similar access difficulties for community-based language classes. Educational or and professional qualifications may not be recognised as of similar standard, with similar problems faced with professional qualifications, meaning the need to re-train and re-qualify, often a very expensive and complicated process, and all that on top of getting the necessary fluency in English. Without adequate training or language-learning opportunities, Rona Panjsheri says refugees can only do the most menial jobs:
I work with a lady who’d studied at university, but she struggled with the official at the job centre, who said that “language can’t be an excuse” and told her to [take] a cleaning job. It was very hard for her to go from her high goals to cleaning toilets. She became depressed quite quickly. It was so humiliating for her. It’s not just her – many refugees face this.
Hassan (not his real name) was a medical doctor in Afghanistan who arrived in the UK in August 2024 and was granted refugee status. He was an experienced doctor in Afghanistan and had a medical degree which is recognised in the UK, though he needed to qualify as a General Practitioner (GP) before he can practice, which takes around 18 months. In the meantime, work opportunities have been a struggle:
After receiving my refugee status, I tried to find any type of work. I joined a company as a warehouse operative, but it was very difficult for me because I have no experience of that, though I have ten years’ experience as a medical doctor in Afghanistan. I worked in a warehouse for around two months until around Christmas, when they fired 25 employees and I was one of them.
For Hasina Safi, this is her second experience of being a refugee. Since arriving in the UK, she began and completed a masters’ degree and is more sanguine about the diversity of experiences:
I’m in contact with different women located in different parts of UK, and most of them have access to whatever they need – health, education, many things. There are women with big health needs, who had limited support there [Afghanistan] who’ve received far more support here, which is free, and there are women who can go out and go to the park. For them it’s fun, they have more freedom. But then there are women who were working there [Afghanistan] and came here and they became housewives, which leaves a big gap in their lives. So, there are very different experiences.
This challenge, of adjusting to a new life and identity in the UK, is something that another, Sonia Eqbal, who came through a resettlement programme, was open about experiencing. After a successful career in Afghanistan working in international development, she focused on supporting her family while they resettled, while her own mental health took a blow:
What I had discounted was the level of trauma I’d brought. I was trying to deny and suppress it, but it crept into me. That sense of purpose that had driven me for the past twenty years, that had driven me since I started college, I lost it. I’m trying really hard to find it again, and to find a sense of identity. Who am I anymore?… here I am with little ability to impact even my own life.
Some interviewees spoke of the difficulty in accessing mental health care, though this reflects wider shortages in the system, as Naveen Asif recognised: “I know asylum seekers who are begging to see someone about their mental health issues. But not even local people can access mental health specialists.”
The 2026 reforms: the road for refugees will be longer and harder
For Afghans who receive their refugee status the situation is – or was – brighter. Until late in 2025, someone whose asylum claim was recognised was granted refugee status for five years, after which they could apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR). As soon as a year after that, if they passed a citizenship test, they could apply for citizenship. However, the proposed reforms, issued in November 2025 and set to be brought into law in stages through 2026 and 2027, throw this system up into the air and would affect any migrant who has not yet secured an Indefinite Leave to Remain.
The most significant change is that it will take up to twenty years, rather than five, for a refugee to be granted settlement. Secondly, during that time, their status as a refugee, which is now described in the government’s proposals as “core protection,” would be reviewed every two-and-a-half years. This means that if the government’s assessment of risk in a home country alters over that twenty-year period, so do the prospects of an individual keeping their leave to remain.
The route to permanent settlement is also being tightened for migrants arriving on work, study or family visas, with higher language and earnings requirements for all and the standard wait time increased from five to ten years (with some notable exceptions, see this briefing by the Migration Observatory). The government is seeking to reduce the “pace and scale of migration,” as well as the assumption that settlement is “near automatic” (statement by the Home Secretary).
For Afghan refugees who have arrived since 2021, this means that they may be kept in a state of limbo for up to two decades, repeatedly having to prove their right to remain in the UK and unsure as to whether they will be granted the right to stay indefinitely. They may be able to “earn reductions,” according to the new policy proposal, by getting a job or being accepted for certain kinds of study. Automatic family reunion would not flow from core protection status, though historically, family reunification for refugees has been treated as a distinct right, as enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is blunt about the policy changes, which she described in parliament as “the most sweeping asylum reforms in modern times,” designed to make the UK a less attractive place to seek asylum. The result will be that “refugee status becomes temporary – lasting only until a refugee can safely return home.”
The underlying assumption is that by raising the bar to asylum seekers, far fewer people will make the unauthorised journey to the UK. The factors that influence asylum seekers’ destinations, however, are highly complex and hotly contested (Electronic Immigration Network). Regardless of these new policies, pull factors of the English language and social networks in the UK will likely still be a draw for many.
For Afghans who already have refugee status in the UK, the greatest shock is that the government intends to apply the new policy to those who have arrived since 2021, even though, when they received their refugee status, they were told they would only have to wait five years to get settled status (Parliamentary Briefing).
Several interviewees told AAN that the prospect of losing their five-year pathway to settled status was devastating, including Farhad Basharyar, who was less than a year away from permanent status in the UK.
After a couple of years living in this country and our kids going to school here, we integrated in this country, so this, it’s a big punishment. It’s a big punishment for those who think of a bright future and are thinking “Once I get citizenship I can be more energetic to work, to settle in this country.” If we receive this news that the government is deciding to put more pressure on us, we lose our hope and we lose our energy to work hard.
As a lawyer, Farhad also believes the proposals would be unlawful:
I’ve already spent four years here. In one year, I will be applying for ILR [Indefinite Leave to Remain] so if they implement this white paper, or this new rule, of course it will impact on me and people like me, so it’s not fair and it’s not lawful as well… There is one principle that says that laws should not be retroactive, so that laws cannot be applied to those events, situations and acts which occurred in the past, and prior to the implementation of the law.
Another refugee, Sorya, was similarly dismayed that the reforms could mean a fifteen or twenty year wait for security:
If I’m not completely sure I can settle in this country, how can I start, how can I plan for the future? How can I plan my work? For someone who wants a car here, or a house here, how can they manage this if they don’t have citizenship? For me it’s a huge problem because I want to go to university. How can I take a loan without citizenship? I was very stressed when I heard about this, and all the people in my position are like me – they are stressed about this and saying, “What do we need to do? What about our future? What will happen to us?”
Family reunification
Another enormous blow for many was the suspension of the Refugee Family Reunion route in September 2025, which was already causing great difficulties for many Afghans. Under existing rules, refugees as well as those with settled status have the right to request family reunification for their immediate family, comprising spouse and child dependants. This was already a meagre definition of family for many Afghans, whose extended families tend to be more interdependent than is culturally typical the UK. So, for example, an individual’s parents, even if they are financially dependent, may not be eligible for reunification, except in “extreme circumstances,” often health related.
However, with the Refugee Family Reunion visa suspended for new applicants, existing refugees’ families are left in limbo. This is a temporary suspension: further Home Office announcements on the issue are expected, but the expectation is that it will become harder for refugees to bring their families to the UK (UK parliament). There is a lack of clarity around these reforms, but it appears the changes would bring family reunification for refugees into line with citizens and settled residents who, to bring a spouse into the country, need to show they have a combined annual income of £29,000 (USD 38,800), with additional costs for children, and for the partner to have a good knowledge of English (details here). That salary level, said Migration Observatory, is higher than comparable countries in Europe, which means some applicants “will never expect to find jobs that earn above the threshold.” For many refugee families, whose situations are typically far more precarious than most citizens, it will simply be an impossibly high bar (for more see this briefing by the NGO Right to Remain).
Hassan, the medical doctor who arrived in the UK in August 2024 has been granted refugee status. He is very worried about his wife and three young children, aged two, four and six, who are in Pakistan:
I have heard that there will be changes to family reunification rules and that family members will have to go through normal [visa application] routes, and pay fees, have at least 29 or 30,000-pound income and pass other requirements. It’s very difficult for families to be separated, especially when they have children under five years old… I find it very difficult because I’m very safe and secure in the UK – I have food here, I have access to healthcare here, but it depresses me and I can’t sleep because I think about my children who have nothing.
Racism and fear
The policy reforms are driven by a melange of factors, from legitimate concerns about strains on public services to distorted assumptions about the numbers of ‘legal’ versus ‘illegal’ migration routes, confusion about how the immigration system works, and a global backdrop of anti-immigrant sentiment becoming more politically mainstream across the UK, the rest of Europe and the United States (Guardian, Mixed Migration Centre).
Young men are often the focus of scaremongering, with tabloid newspapers jumping on stories of crimes that are said to involve asylum seekers or migrant workers. Afghans have sometimes been singled out in media and social media reporting, with one news cycle in the summer of 2025 exemplifying some of the problems with such reports. In August, a notoriously anti-immigration politician, Robert Jenrick MP, accused Afghans, wrongly, of being “twenty times more likely to be committed to a sexual crime than a British national” (Guardian). Jenrick was drawing on a report which used data from the Metropolitan police in London, which showed that Afghans were charged (rather than convicted) with a comparatively large number of sexual offences. However, the claim was based on dodgy statistics: it used sexual crime figures for 2018-2024, but population figures from 2021, thereby missing the subsequent significant increase in the number of Afghans living in the UK, and ignored the higher proportion of young men among Afghans than in the general population, important given the greater likelihood of offending by young men (InfoMigrants, Sky, New Statesman). Nor did the data take account potential biases in policing, with studies showing that ethnic minorities, particularly those in contact with immigration services, can face disproportionate police checks (BBC, Liberty).
Naveen Asif said the negative news reports have demonised all Afghan men:
Afghans in the UK are accused of being sex offenders, deemed to be backwards people, there’s hardly any support available, it is a shock to many who thought the British government had respect for Afghans. Many Afghans are highly talented, but they face a lot of discrimination, racism and scapegoating. All refugees face discrimination, but especially Afghans. Yes, we don’t deny that there are a few who maybe commit crimes, but there is the rule of law, it doesn’t need to be based on your race.
Hadia Azizi said the subject was hard to discuss, but acknowledged that
there is a lot of domestic violence in our community, as well as sexual abuse and harassment. It should be taken seriously. But this doesn’t mean that they should make the immigration laws stricter, they can use other measures to respond to crimes.
She fears that the debate overshadows why she and so many Afghans are in the UK:
I want people to understand that people who are fleeing war or a group of barbarians like the Taliban, they are fleeing to have a safe place to live… They are seeking refuge because they don’t have another place to go. Then you find you are being judged, being labelled in the news, being counted as a number not as a human being with emotions. You’re just a statistic in the news, it’s dehumanising.
While some settle, many face harder times ahead
The experience of Afghans in the UK is as diverse as the Afghans themselves. Some thrive, but many are struggling. Those who are in the UK as part of a humanitarian resettlement programmes had the good fortune to receive settled status upon arrival and to bring their families with them, something which looks even more halcyon given the uncertainty their countrymen and women with refugee status are now facing. Sonia Eqbal says she holds on to the feeling of relief she felt when she was first offered humanitarian protection:
While we see a lot of issues and problems with the policies here, there are lots of things that we’re not happy about. Still, we remember, coming from crisis, almost losing our hope and humanity, to receive an offer [of humanitarian protection] like that was massive. I remember telling myself that whether it works out or not, that gesture was big enough to make me feel some humanity again.
While acknowledging that many Afghans were having “tough times” because of the language barriers, employment and housing, Hasina Safi was determined “not to hide the good” that she’s encountered. She uses the garden of her new family house as an example:
When I came to this house, the garden of this house was like a trash corner, but today, it’s become a beautiful garden, because volunteers came, they brought roses, they planted them, it’s beautiful. This is humanity.
But for Afghans who might have been months away from getting settled status and the near prospect of applying for citizenship, it is hard to look ahead without trepidation. This has “a big impact on the mental health of people,” said Farhad Basharyar. “Some people are very stressed.” Not only might they face another fifteen or more years before they get settled status, but the assumption that they would also be able to see their family settle in the UK is in doubt. The greatest uncertainty, however, faces those Afghans whose refugee status has been rejected. For them, neither integration nor deportation is possible for the foreseeable future.
Edited by Kate Clark, Jelena Bjelica and Fabrizio Foschini
References
References
↑1
To give an idea of the numbers of Afghans living in the UK, the 2001 census recorded 14,875 people born in Afghanistan and living in the UK, with 7 in ten living in London (BBC). The 2011 census recorded 63,5000 people born in Afghanistan, overwhelmingly in England. The 2021 census recorded 86,000 Afghan-born residents in England and Wales (Muslim Council of Britain).
↑2
A note on terms: a refugee is someone who has fled war, violence, conflict or persecution and has crossed an international border in search of safety. A person seekingasylum is someone who has left their country of origin and has applied for protection, but whose claim has not yet been legally concluded. Leave to remain is the term used for non-UK nationals who are given permission to stay in the UK for a limited period of time. After a qualifying period of residency in the UK, someone may be eligible to apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR), though this is in flux, as discussed in the report. For more, see The Truth About Asylum by the Refugee Council or these definitions by the United Nations.
↑3
There was some controversy about more than 2,000 Afghans who served in specialist units alongside UK special forces having their request for protection sponsorship denied, apparently by UK Special Forces officials, as well as delays in reviews of those rejections. There was speculation that this might relate to ongoing inquiries into alleged war crimes by UK special forces in Afghanistan, since the Afghan partner forces might have witnesses or been party to alleged war crimes. For more see a report by this author from December 2025, Who Dares, Kills? Alleged war crimes and cover-ups by Britain’s special forces, p29-30.
↑4
Failed Afghan asylum seekers who cannot be deported were entitled to basic accommodation and support, known as “Section 4,” which was more restrictive than the UK’s main welfare system. Claimants in private housing were given £49.18 to cover food, clothing and toiletries those in hotels where meals were provided got £9.95 (UK Home Office). This was replaced in March 2026 with a “conditional approach,” so that those caught working illegally, breaking the law, or refusing deportation can have support revoked (UK Home Office). This may not apply to Afghans, however, because they have no means of being deported. Education must be provided to children up to age 16 who are refused asylum, though they can still face deterrents (Asylum Information Database). The rules in Scotland are somewhat different (Scottish Refugee Council).
↑5
This is based on a Freedom of Information request by Hyphen journalist, Samir Jeraj, who shared the information he received from the Home Office with this author by email.
A senior Taliban foreign ministry official said Pakistan’s insistence on raising its internal security concerns caused China-hosted talks between the two sides to end without a breakthrough.
Mohammad Naeem Wardak said Islamabad was trying to shift responsibility for its domestic security failures onto Afghanistan, hardening the Taliban’s public tone after a week of diplomacy in China.
Wardak described Pakistan’s position as “unreasonable,” saying Islamabad wanted to export its internal problems instead of addressing them at home. His remarks reflect Kabul’s long-running rejection of Pakistani accusations that the Taliban are sheltering militants behind attacks inside Pakistan, especially fighters linked to Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP.
The talks between Taliban and Pakistani delegations ended in Urumqi after about a week without any announced agreement, despite Chinese efforts to lower tensions. China said officials from foreign affairs, defence and security institutions of the three sides met from April 1 to 7 and held what Beijing called candid and pragmatic discussions.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the meetings were held in a “sound atmosphere” and focused on problem-solving and practical steps. She said both the Taliban and Pakistan appreciated China’s mediation and agreed to keep working toward reducing tensions while avoiding moves that could further complicate the situation.
But the absence of a concrete outcome underlined how far apart the two sides remain on the core dispute of militancy and cross-border violence. Pakistan continues to demand verifiable Taliban action against armed groups it says use Afghan territory to launch attacks, while Kabul insists the insecurity is rooted inside Pakistan itself.
The Urumqi process followed months of unusually intense fighting and diplomatic strain between the two neighbours, marking their most serious confrontation since the Taliban returned to power in 2021. China stepped in as mediator after repeated clashes, border closures and military escalation threatened to push relations into a deeper regional crisis.
Beijing has strong reasons to prevent a wider breakdown, including border stability, regional trade and fears that militancy could spill into western China. For Pakistan, the talks were also part of a broader attempt to ease pressure on multiple fronts as it confronts insurgent violence, border insecurity and diplomatic strain in the region.
The latest exchange shows that while China may have reopened a diplomatic channel, the political mistrust between Kabul and Islamabad remains deep. Without movement on the security file, the Urumqi talks may have reduced immediate escalation, but they did little to resolve the conflict driving the crisis
The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) said potential threats and security risks emanating from Afghanistan territory remain high, after officials and regional representatives met in Moscow to review the situation in Afghanistan.
The warning came at the 43rd meeting of the Afghanistan working group under the CSTO Council of Foreign Ministers, held on Wednesday at the organization’s secretariat.
The meeting brought together delegations from CSTO member states as well as representatives from the U.N. Office of Counter-Terrorism, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the CIS anti-terror bodies and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Participants exchanged views on Afghanistan’s military, political and humanitarian situation and discussed its implications for regional stability.
In a statement, the CSTO said participants stressed the need to continue humanitarian and economic support for the people of Afghanistan despite persistent instability. Officials also backed continued monitoring of developments in Afghanistan and called for efforts to encourage peaceful processes and reduce the risk of wider regional spillover.
The Moscow meeting reflects continuing concern among Central Asian and Russian-led security institutions that instability inside Afghanistan could affect neighboring countries. The CSTO has repeatedly warned in recent years that extremist and militant groups operating in or around Afghanistan could exploit weak governance, porous borders and regional tensions.
The concern is not only military but also strategic, as countries bordering Afghanistan remain worried about cross-border militancy, trafficking and the movement of armed groups. Regional security organizations have increasingly coordinated their assessments, especially as Afghanistan remains outside formal regional security frameworks while still influencing them heavily.
At the same time, international organizations continue to warn that Afghanistan’s internal fragility is being compounded by humanitarian and economic strain. The United Nations says millions remain dependent on aid, while reduced international funding and the return of large numbers of Afghans from neighboring countries have added new pressure to an already fragile environment.
The CSTO has long viewed Afghanistan as one of the main external security concerns for its Central Asian members, particularly Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. That concern has only sharpened since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, even though large-scale regional spillover has so far remained limited.
The latest CSTO warning suggests that, despite no immediate regional crisis, Afghanistan remains at the center of overlapping security and humanitarian concerns. For Moscow and its allies, the challenge is now to contain risks without allowing Afghanistan’s instability to further unsettle Central Asia.
CSTO warns of persistent security threats from Afghanistan
Roberts-Smith previously failed in his attempt to sue three newspapers which published allegations he murdered unarmed civilians and bullied comrades
Australia’s most decorated living soldier, Ben Roberts-Smith, has been arrested at Sydney airport and charged with war crimes.
The Australian federal police and the Office of the Special Investigator announced details of the investigation in Sydney on Tuesday after midday.
They said Roberts-Smith was expected to be charged with “five counts of war crime – murder”, in relation to three incidents. The maximum penalty for the offence is life imprisonment.
He was subsequently charged and was due to appear in bail court on Wednesday. He spent Tuesday night in a cell at Silverwater prison where it was understood he had a cell to himself.
The Victoria Cross recipient was previously found in a defamation suit – using the civil standard of the balance of probabilities – to have murdered unarmed civilians while serving in the Australian Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) in Afghanistan. Roberts-Smith has denied any wrongdoing.
The three incidents allegedly involved Afghan nationals being shot dead by Roberts-Smith, or a subordinate under his control, while he was present, the AFP commissioner, Krissy Barrett, said on Tuesday.
Guardian Australia understands the charges relate to allegations that Roberts-Smith was involved in the deaths of two Afghan males at a location known as Whiskey 108 in Kakarak in 2009, and the death of a man named Ali Jan in 2012 in Darwan. The third incident relates to the deaths of two civilians at Syahchow in 2012.
The federal court found to the lower civil standard that Roberts-Smith kicked Ali Jan in the chest, sending him falling backwards over a cliff before he landed on the ground. The court found that Roberts-Smith then ordered another soldier to shoot him dead.
Barrett, who did not name Roberts-Smith, said it would be alleged that the 47-year-old was involved in the death of Afghan nationals between 2009 and 2012 in circumstances that constituted war crimes.
“It will be alleged the victims were not taking part in hostilities at the time of their alleged murder in Afghanistan,” she said.
“It will be alleged the victims were detained, unarmed and were under the control of ADF members when they were killed.”
Barrett confirmed Roberts-Smith was arrested at the domestic terminal after travelling from Brisbane to Sydney on Tuesday morning. She would not comment when asked whether it was suspected he was due to board an international flight.\
The director of investigations at the Office of the Special Investigator, Ross Barnett, said the probe started in 2021.
He said it was a “careful and professional investigation under challenging circumstances … the seriousness of these charges has deserved nothing less”.
Barnett added that, given the difficulty in even speaking to people in Afghanistan, those affected by the alleged murders may not be aware there had been an arrest.
“The challenge for investigators is that … we are 9,000km [away]. The challenge for investigators is that because we can’t go to the country, we don’t have access to the crime scene. So we don’t have photographs, site plans, measurements, the recovery of projectiles, or blood spatter analysis.
“All of the things that we would normally get at a crime scene. There’s no postmortem. Therefore, there’s no official cause of death. So there are a lot of practical challenges that confront the investigators.”
Roberts-Smith, once lionised as the country’s most decorated Afghanistan veteran, sued three newspapers over allegations he committed war crimes, murdered unarmed civilians and bullied his comrades.
Roberts-Smith appealed to the full bench of the federal court but lost, and the high court refused to hear a further appeal.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, refused to comment on Tuesday.
“I have no intention of prejudicing a matter that clearly is a legal matter, and that’s before the courts, and any comment would do so,” the prime minister told reporters in Canberra.
Roberts-Smith, a former SAS corporal, was awarded the Victoria Cross for “most conspicuous gallantry” during the battle of Tizak in 2010.
He was named father of the year and served as chair of the government’s Australia Day council.
But in 2017 and 2018, the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times published a series of articles that alleged he engaged in war crimes, including murdering civilians, and ordering subordinate soldiers under his command to execute civilians in so-called “blooding” incidents.
Roberts-Smith sued the newspapers, telling the court their stories portrayed him as a criminal “who broke the moral and legal rules of military engagement” and “disgraced” his country and its army.
The newspapers defended their reporting as true, including its allegations that Roberts-Smith was complicit in murder.
The most high-profile allegation proven in court was that Roberts-Smith, on a mission to the southern Afghan village of Darwan in 2012, marched a handcuffed Ali Jan to the edge of a 10-metre high precipice that dropped to a dry riverbed below.
Ali Jan survived the fall, though he was badly injured, and was trying to get to his feet when the Australian soldiers, having walked down a diagonal footpad cut across the cliff, reached him.
Roberts-Smith ordered a soldier under his command, known before the court as Person 11, to shoot Ali Jan dead, an order that was followed, the court found. Ali Jan’s body was then dragged to a nearby field.
The other major allegation concerned a raid on a bombed-out compound code-named Whiskey 108 in 2009.
Two men were found hiding in the tunnel: one, an elderly man, the other a younger man with a prosthetic leg. The men came out of the tunnel unarmed and surrendered.
Justice Anthony Besanko found that Roberts-Smith ordered a junior soldier on his patrol to execute the older man, before he forcibly manhandled the disabled man outside the walls of the compound, where he threw him to the ground and fired his para minimi machine gun into his prone body, killing him.
The disabled man’s prosthetic leg was later souvenired by another soldier and used by Australian SAS troops as a macabre celebratory drinking vessel at their on-base bar, the Fat Ladies’ Arms.
The Australian War Memorial on Tuesday said it would “review the wording of the interpretive panel” associated with a display of Roberts-Smith’s uniform, equipment and medals.
“The memorial will continue to monitor developments and consider updates as appropriate,” it said in a statement.
Recent floods in Afghanistan have worsened an already severe shelter crisis, with 4.2 million people now needing emergency housing support, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) said on Wednesday.
The agency urged immediate action, saying safe housing is a basic human need as repeated climate-related disasters continue to destroy fragile homes and deepen humanitarian vulnerability across the country.
In a message marking the scale of the crisis, UN-Habitat said “every family deserves a safe place to live,” highlighting the urgent pressure on communities already affected by poverty, displacement and weak infrastructure.
Taliban authorities said more than 958 homes were completely destroyed and 4,155 others partially damaged in the latest wave of floods and heavy rains across several provinces.
Much of Afghanistan has been hit by severe rainfall and flash flooding over the past two weeks, with aid groups warning that shelter losses are compounding wider risks linked to displacement, disease and lack of services.
Afghanistan already faces one of the region’s most acute housing emergencies, with millions of returnees, displaced families and urban poor living in fragile or informal shelters highly exposed to floods and other climate shocks.
UN-Habitat says decades of conflict, underinvestment, rapid urbanisation and worsening climate impacts have left large parts of the country dangerously unprepared for recurring disasters such as floods, drought and earthquakes.
The latest floods have once again exposed Afghanistan’s housing vulnerability, with aid agencies warning that without rapid support, thousands more families could be left without safe shelter.
UN says Afghanistan floods worsen shelter crisis for 4.2 million people
BEIJING — China’s government said Afghanistan and Pakistan have agreed not to escalate their conflict and to “explore a comprehensive solution” after several weeks of cross-border fighting between the two countries that has killed hundreds of people.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Wednesday that after seven days of peace talks in the western Chinese city of Urumqi under China mediation, all the parties also agreed to keep the dialogue.
“The three parties agreed to explore a comprehensive solution to the issues in the relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and clarified the core and priority issues that need to be addressed,” Mao said during the daily briefing in Beijing.
She added that they acknowledged that “terrorism is the core issue affecting the relationship.”
Afghanistan and Pakistan said that they won’t “take actions that would escalate or complicate the situation.”
The talks began last week in Urumqi at the invitation of China, in an effort to stop the conflict that began between the two countries in February.
Pakistan, which declared it was in “open war” with its neighbor, has also carried out airstrikes inside Afghanistan, including in the capital Kabul.
Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that the talks had been constructive.
The United Nations’ office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs in Afghanistan said on Tuesday that the conflict had displaced 94,000 people overall, while 100,000 people in two Afghan districts near the border have been completely cut off by the fighting since February.
Even during the talks, Afghanistan has accused Pakistan of carrying out shelling across its border on several occasions.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of providing a safe haven to militants who carry out deadly attacks inside Pakistan, especially the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. The group is separate from but allied with the Afghan Taliban, which took over Afghanistan in 2021 following the chaotic withdrawal of U.S.-led troops. Kabul denies the charge.
China says Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed to explore a ‘comprehensive solution’ to conflict
Inside a dark cargo container on a recent drizzly morning in Kabul, two dozen people stared at pictures of hundreds of bodies scrolling by on a projector, hoping to catch sight of a missing relative.
Brothers, wives or parents often asked a morgue employee to return to the previous photograph, desperate for an identifiable detail, even though many bodies were barely recognizable.
“I can’t see this again,” said Rokhshana Shah Mohammadi, 60, as she stepped out and into the morgue’s courtyard, falling into the arms of a relative. “I need to know what happened to my son.”
With Pakistan and Afghanistan in open conflict, on March 16 at least two Pakistani airstrikes hit a drug rehabilitation facility in the Afghan capital in the deadliest single attack on civilians in Afghanistan since the Taliban regained power in 2021.
Pakistan’s military says that the strike hit an ammunition site and a drone storage facility, and was launched as part of its military campaign against the Taliban government, which it accuses of supporting terrorist groups.
But Taliban officials say more than 400 people were killed, a death toll that international humanitarian organizations operating in Afghanistan say is credible. The United Nations’ mission in Afghanistan told The New York Times that it had so far confirmed at least 269 civilian deaths and 122 injured, but that the death toll was likely higher.
The center, called Omid, or “Hope” in the Dari dialect, was well known among local communities and had been covered in news reports and documentaries.
“With the technology they have now, they must know that addicts or civilians were there,” said Ali Mohammad, 34, a patient at Omid who was recovering from his injuries at a Kabul hospital. “So why did they bomb it?”
Our reporting and preliminary investigations by the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch and other international bodies have reached the same conclusion: Pakistan hit the wrong target — a facility housing civilians and tucked in a military compound.
“I do not know what they kept there,” Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, Pakistan’s military spokesman, said in an interview on Pakistani television. “They were not our target.”
A few hours after the strikes, we saw dozens of bodies on the site; later, we saw hundreds of pictures of the bodies collected from Omid at a local morgue.
The drug center had been operating for a decade on the site of a former NATO base. The Taliban carry out military activities in parts of the compound, some as close as 300 feet from the center, with little more than a blast wall shielding the facility.
The strikes abruptly ended the lives of husbands, brothers and sons who struggled with depression, grief or the shame of unemployment, their families said. Many said their relatives had ebbed for years between erratic behaviors, domestic violence and glimmers of hope shattered by relapses.
The last time Abida Stanikzai saw her husband, Zakaria, he told her he would soon come home, she said. Previous episodes of addiction had made Zakaria so violent that the family subdued him at times by tying his wrists and ankles.
Ms. Stanikzai looked at the photos hoping to recognize her husband, to no avail, then went inside the morgue to look at the remains of a single foot, which she believed may have belonged to him.
Their 15-year-old son, Muhammad, held his mother’s purse as he waited in silence in the courtyard.
Since early 2023, the Taliban have rounded up thousands of drug users and placed them in facilities like Omid, where they face unmedicated, forced withdrawal in conditions that foreign officials have described as arbitrary detention.
Abdul Sabir Husseini, 36, had become addicted to heroin and hashish nearly a decade ago after he lost a son to leukemia, according to his brother, Abdul Latif Husseini. He would often borrow a motorcycle and drive to his son’s grave, Mr. Husseini said. In recent months, his violent relapses affecting neighbors, his wife and three other children pushed the family to send him to Omid.
“He threw himself at me and asked me to take care of his sons,” Mr. Husseini said about Abdul Sabir on a recent morning in the family home. A poster of his brother was folded next to him. “He told me, ‘I have no one else. I’ll be back healthy.’”
In the aftermath of the strike, Pakistani officials suggested that the drug rehabilitation center was something else.
“If they had addicts there, it was likely a training facility for bombers,” said Lt. Gen. Chaudhry, Pakistan’s military spokesman. “Not all drug addicts are suicide bombers, but all suicide bombers are drug addicts.”
Pakistani officials have not provided evidence backing that claim.
“Pakistani authorities need to carry out an impartial investigation to determine why it hit a drug treatment center filled with civilians and who should be held to account,” said Patricia Gossman, senior associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
The previous U.S.-allied government in Afghanistan had opened Omid in 2016, with 2,000 beds on the former NATO base known as Camp Phoenix. After the Taliban took control of the country, and the base, in 2021, they continued running the center under the Ministry of Interior. (A second drug center, run by the Ministry of Health, also sits at Camp Phoenix, 1,000 feet from the Omid facility. It was not hit in the strikes.)
Employees of the ministry guarded the camp, according to interviews with survivors of the strike, but most of the chores, from running the kitchen to calling people for prayer, rested on the patients.
One of the Pakistani strikes hit a building that served as a dining hall, kitchen and prayer room, according to patients and guards. A Pakistani military official said at least two other strikes hit two adjacent installations that were used to store drone parts, though he provided no evidence.
Even after an international outcry over the civilian deaths from the strike, Pakistan has maintained that it hit a legitimate military target. It has publicly said that secondary detonations proved it hit an ammunition depot.
Nearly a week after the strikes, fires still smoldered on-site and body parts lay in puddles of blood.
In the burned kitchens, large ovens were covered in soot, and rotting potatoes floated in buckets. A deflated volleyball and a sewing machine sat abandoned in a nearby building, while dozens of syringes and boxes of gloves littered the ground of what Taliban officials described as an emergency ward.
Insinuations by the Pakistani military that the Omid center served as a training center for suicide bombers have angered survivors and families of victims.
Abdul Wasi Noori lost his 26-year-old son, Hekmatullah, a father of two young children who ran a supermarket near the family’s apartment. Mr. Noori said Hekmatullah became addicted two years ago to a popular synthetic drug known as Tablet K.
Hekmatullah had grown verbally abusive and violent with relatives, said Mr. Noori, the owner of a construction company. “But he was not a criminal,” he added, referring to Pakistan’s accusations.
“I tried so hard to give him a new life,” Mr. Noori said. “Now we won’t see him again.”
Still, the Pakistani strikes have shed new light on the Taliban’s use of military facilities to house civilians. Two days before the strikes in Kabul, Pakistan hit an empty military building adjacent to a drug rehabilitation center in the southern province of Kandahar. No civilian casualties were reported.
In Kabul, the Taliban carry out military activities less than 300 feet from the center, according to six officials who were briefed on their operations. Two of them said drone parts were being stored and assembled on-site. They requested anonymity because they weren’t allowed to publicly discuss the military activities of the Taliban.
The Afghan Ministry of Defense did not respond to a request for comment.
But the drug center sites were clearly separated from the military site by blast walls, the officials said, and there was no evidence of military activity in the part of the compound hit by the Pakistani strikes.
One weapons and detonations expert interviewed by The Times said footage of the strike shared by the Pakistani military appeared to show secondary blasts — suggesting the potential presence of explosives or ammunition on site — but that their nature remained unclear.
But Human Rights Watch said in a statement that it “saw no indication of secondary detonations caused by bulk explosives, propellants, or ammunition with tracer elements typically associated with ammunition depots.” Two other experts from a private consultancy and an international body, who requested anonymity to discuss ongoing investigations into the strikes, said they saw no evidence of secondary detonations either.
The Taliban have buried nearly 100 victims in mass graves over the past few weeks, including many who were not recognizable or had not been claimed by families.
Sakina Arif, 42, watched as the coffins were taken down from ambulances at one of the mass funerals held on a hill overlooking Kabul. She was overcome with grief at the thought of her missing 20-year-old son, Muhammad Arif. She had brought him beef kebabs at Omid a day before the strike, and had been unable to find him at the morgue or at hospitals.
As groups of men carried the coffins to a mosque, Ms. Arif wailed and said, “Which coffin are you in, my son? Come and call out to your mother.”
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) says around 50 people are killed or injured every month in mine-related and explosive ordnance incidents across Afghanistan, warning that children continue to bear the brunt of the country’s long-running contamination crisis.
In a statement issued for International Day for Mine Awareness on April 4, UNAMA said nearly 80% of the monthly casualties are children.
UNAMA said Afghanistan has the third-highest explosive ordnance casualty rate in the world, with most of the incidents linked not to newly planted devices but to unexploded ordnance and abandoned munitions left behind by decades of war. Nick Pond, head of UNAMA’s Mine Action Section, said about 90% of casualties in Afghanistan are caused by such remnants, many of which remain buried in former military sites, open land and even urban areas.
According to the UN mission, more than 1,000 square kilometres of land in Afghanistan are known to be contaminated, while nearly 3 million people, around 900 schools and more than 200 health facilities are located within one kilometre of explosive hazards. UNAMA said the true scale could be even larger because many districts have still not been fully surveyed.
Pond said one of the biggest obstacles to faster clearance is a severe funding shortage, despite improved access in many parts of the country and broad support for demining work. He said stronger funding would allow contaminated land to be cleared more quickly so families can safely return to farming, schooling and daily life without the threat of hidden explosives.
Afghanistan remains one of the countries most heavily affected by the legacy of war, with mines and unexploded bombs still scattered across farmland, roads, villages and former battle zones after more than four decades of conflict. UN-linked reporting says 471 casualties were recorded in 2025 alone, many of them children and women.
The crisis is especially dangerous for children, who are often injured while playing outdoors, collecting scrap metal or walking through contaminated areas. Aid agencies say the contamination also blocks agriculture, delays reconstruction and deepens hardship in already vulnerable communities.
UNAMA said sustained international support is urgently needed if Afghanistan is to reduce daily casualties and free communities from one of the deadliest legacies of its past wars.
UNAMA Says Mines and Explosives Kill or Injure 50 People Monthly in Afghanistan
Floods have killed at least 77 people this week and destroyed or damaged thousands of homes, and an earthquake on Friday killed a dozen more.
A deadly earthquake rocked northern Afghanistan on Friday, deepening the misery of a country suffering from days of heavy rain and flash floods that have swept away people and homes, as well as a hunger crisis and armed conflict.
The floods have killed at least 77 people and injured 137 others across eastern, central and southern Afghanistan this week, destroyed almost 800 homes and damaged more than 2,600 others, according to the Ministry of Disaster Management. They have also severed roads, leaving large parts of the country disconnected.
Abdul Zahir, 24, said heavy rain destroyed the mud brick house his uncle built in Spin Boldak, on the border with Pakistan. “Yesterday afternoon, after heavy rains, the roof of the house collapsed, killing three of my cousins, who were between the ages of eight and 14, and injuring six others,” he said.
The earthquake on Friday night, with a magnitude of 5.8, was centered in the Yamgan district of mountainous Badakhshan Province but also shook the capital, Kabul, well over 100 miles away. The Afghan authorities said it killed at least 12 people and damaged 33 houses in Kabul Province.
Devastating floods are an annual threat to Afghanistan in the winter and spring, and two years ago they claimed the lives of more than 300 people in the northern provinces, but the country is especially vulnerable now.
The country is still trying to recover from two deadly quakes last year and the loss of $1.8 billion in aid cuts driven primarily by the Trump administration’s closure of the U.S. Agency for International Development. In addition, Pakistani and Afghan forces have clashed repeatedly over the last two years, a conflict that escalated early this year with Pakistani airstrikes on Afghan cities.
The flooding this week closed the connecting roads between the southern and central provinces, increasing the price of basic food items in the central region.
Mr. Zahir lamented, “I do not know what sin we people of Afghanistan have committed that we are safe neither from war nor from natural disasters.”
Deadly Earthquake and Floods Worsen Afghanistan’s Troubles
The United Nations says aid workers are still in a “race against time” to remove rubble and rebuild after the devastating earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan last month, killing at least 2,200 people and cutting off remote areas.
The 6.0-magnitude quake on Aug. 31 was shallow, destroying or causing extensive damage to low-rise buildings in the mountainous region. It hit late at night, and homes — mostly made of mud, wood, or rocks — collapsed instantly, becoming death traps.
Satellite data shows that about 40,500 truckloads of debris still needs to be cleared from affected areas in several provinces, the United Nations Development Program said Wednesday. Entire communities have been upended and families are sleeping in the open, it added.
The quake’s epicenter was in remote and rugged Kunar province, challenging rescue and relief efforts by the Taliban government and humanitarian groups. Authorities deployed helicopters or airdropped army commandos to evacuate survivors. Aid workers walked for hours on foot to reach isolated communities.
“This is a race against time,” said Devanand Ramiah, from the UNDP’s Crisis Bureau. “Debris removal and reconstruction operations must start safely and swiftly.”
People’s main demands were the reconstruction of houses and water supplies, according to a spokesman for a Taliban government committee tasked with helping survivors, Zia ur Rahman Speenghar.
People were getting assistance in cash, food, tents, beds, and other necessities, Speenghar said Thursday. Three new roads were under construction in the Dewagal Valley, and roads would be built to areas where there previously were none.
“Various countries and organizations have offered assistance in the construction of houses but that takes time. After the second round of assistance, work will begin on the third round, which is considering what kind of houses can be built here,” the spokesman said.
Afghanistan is facing a “perfect storm” of crises, including natural disasters like the recent earthquake, said Roza Otunbayeva, who leads the U.N. mission to the country.
Afghanistan Peace Campaign
