The Islamic Emirate’s law on the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice lays out the behaviour and actions which it deems obligatory or forbidden for Afghan men and women. It also lays out the powers of the enforcers, who have been given extensive authority to impose penalties on those they deem wrongdoers. Today, we publish a commentary on the law by Islamic scholar John Butt,* together with his full translation of the law, complete with its extensive footnotes. John Butt comes from much the same theological background as the Taliban, as well as being a former BBC journalist, which is why AAN asked him to consider the law through the lens of Islamic teachings. In his insightful commentary, he delves into the theological, historical, and cultural influences that have shaped the Emirate’s thinking. He sheds light on why it has prioritised certain themes and explores alternative interpretations from within Islamic theology that challenge the Emirate’s definitions of virtue and vice. While most commentary on the law has considered it within a human rights framework, our aim in commissioning John Butt was to view it from a scholarly perspective, deeply rooted in Islamic legal traditions and informed by both the Afghan cultural context and the wider Muslim world.
October 2024You can preview the report online and download it by clickinghereor the download button below.The full translation of the law can be read here.
This report aims to place the Emirate’s August 2024 Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Law within a broader Islamic context. John Butt argues that the two basic concepts – amr bil-maruf and nahi an il-munkar – are simple: encourage people to do good and discourage them from wrongdoing. To clarify these concepts, he says, one can make them even simpler: Stand up for good; Take a stand against wrong. Seen in this bare and basic light, amr bil-maruf, he believes, is an upstanding and admirable principle and practice of Islam.
Yet, from this, has emerged a colossal document. The Emirate’s law, in essence a decree by its Supreme Leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, stands somewhere in the region of 45,000 words when translated into English. Its copious footnotes are used to back up the Emirate’s decisions on what to ban, what to make obligatory and how to determine the powers and responsibilities of those enforcing the law. The authority of the enforcer is wide-ranging and includes the ability to order extra-judicial punishments. Many of the sources cited in the footnotes are in Arabic, a language understood by relatively few Afghans, or non-Arab foreigners, which is one reason why we thought it important to translate the whole law to better understand the thinking behind it.
Butt looks at the meaning and practice of the Emirate’s amr bil-maruf law, first in the context of fundamental Islamic principles, including the obligation of Muslims to present a positive image of their faith to the outside world, and second, as amr bil-maruf has been interpreted at crucial stages of Islamic history. He focuses on the reigns of two caliphs cited in the footnotes of the IEA law, before considering a nineteenth-century Pashtun project to encourage amr bil-maruf. He also hones in on how it affects two groups that see the full weight of the Amir’s decree – women and, to a lesser extent, the media.
Butt’s report clarifies how the Emirate’s version of propagating virtue and preventing vice fits into the wider Islamic and Afghan historical context, asking questions such as: Have those who framed the law referenced a wide range of sources and done so objectively, or have they been selective? Is the establishment of a dedicated ministry, such as the one set up by the IEA, the normal way to conduct amr bil-maruf? And how does the law measure on the scales of the crucial Islamic balance that seeks to steer a course between harshness and leniency?
* John Butt is a graduate of the Darul Uloom Deoband in India. This is the key seminary informing the Islamic thought of most Afghan Sunni clerics, including the Taliban. Butt went on to have a career in journalism and broadcasting – including reporting for the BBC from Kandahar in the early 1990s on the men who would go on to form the Taliban movement – and setting up radio serial dramas. He published an autobiography, A Talib’s Tale: The Life and Times of a Pashtoon Englishman, in 2021 and a previous AAN report, A Taleban Theory of State: A review of the Chief Justice’s book of jurisprudence, was a review of Emirate Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani’s book, The Islamic Emirate and Its System of Governance, which is the fullest and most authoritative account yet of what the Taliban believe an Islamic state should be like.
Edited by Kate Clark and Roxanna Shapour
You can preview the report online and download it by clickinghereor the download button below.
Once dubbed the ‘Afghan Rupert Murdoch’, Mohseni’s media business was founded after the fall of the Taliban and is now navigating their return
“If a woman menstruates, [the showing of an uncovered female face] is haram [forbidden], right?” Mohseni said. “But as soon as they go through, you know, menopause, then you can have them uncovered. It’s ridiculous, it’s so offensive. So now we try to negotiate with [the Taliban] to do a soap opera that’s going to have these women over the age of 50. We have to try.”
Mohseni, 58, described as Afghanistan’s first media mogul or the ‘Afghan Rupert Murdoch’ is the chief executive of Moby Group.
Founded by Mohseni and his siblings – Afghan emigres who returned to their childhood home from Australia after the removal of the Taliban in 2001 – Moby was the country’s largest media conglomerate until the Taliban returned to Kabul nearly four years ago.
What has been established since 2021 is a hardline Islamic emirate shunned by much of the world. Political and media freedoms have deteriorated sharply but, most glaringly, the rights of women have been swept away. Women have been erased from nearly every aspect of public life: schools, universities and most workplaces.
It might have been thought that such a regime would be the end of a media company in which Rupert Murdoch once had a stake and which lost seven members of staff in a suicide bombing in 2016 after being cited by the Taliban as a “military target”.
Yet the company remains, not just hanging on, but a dominant player in the Afghan market, producing TV and radio entertainment shows and a 24-hour news channel that employs about 400 people.
The result is an odd co-existence with the Taliban – a “strange dance”, as Mohseni put it – that offers an insight into the complicated politics in the country.
Mohseni was on a trip out of the country at the time of the chaotic and sudden withdrawal of the US in summer 2021, an event about which he says he had given the former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani repeated warnings. “I was very angry, and I’m still very angry about his arrogance,” he said of the president, who fled Kabul as his administration collapsed.
Mohseni has not been back to Afghanistan since, partly because he does not want to be seen to be endorsing the new regime. “The other [reason] is that there’s always the risk of them saying, ‘You can’t leave, you know, you’ve got important media assets, you’ll be our guest’”, Mohseni said.
Instead, he oversees affairs from his homes in Dubai and London. It was not clear at first whether he would have any affairs in Afghanistan to look after.
He wrote a memoir, Radio Free Afghanistan, after being locked out of his country, believing the empire he had built was dead in the water. But Moby has survived – albeit within tight confines.
The current rules are there is to be no criticism of the Taliban’s reclusive supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, he says.
Men and women cannot share the same space. A curtain separates the two sexes in Moby’s offices. A split screen is used to facilitate conversation during a show on his Tolo TV network. Female news presenters must have their hair and faces covered.
The first show to be canceled was Afghan Star, the popular music reality show based on American Idol and the X Factor, which was taken off air in 2021 followingthe Taliban’s ban on music.
“You know, women performing on stage and people voting for them … They are the enemies of fun, right?” Mohseni said. “It was understood that we would not be able to continue with that. With the [ending of] soap operas and so forth it was gradual.”
There has been more latitude given to Moby’s news operation.
“I’m not saying they have an appreciation for free press, but I think there’s an understanding of how important media is,” he said. “I think they need to have their announcements or whatever amplified, echoed. People need to understand. They need to be able to sell their narrative to the public.”
Mohseni’s journalists have been able to push to a degree, at one point confronting ministers over the extra judicial killings of opposition figures.
The male presenters also wore masks in solidarity with their female colleagues for a week and even persuaded a minister to try it out, before he complained that it was too difficult to breathe. “Afterwards, he threatened to lock my guy up,” Mohseni said.
There is, nevertheless, just enough space for the journalists to do their work to make it worthwhile, he said.
The news channel has heavily covered criticism of the Taliban’s ban of secondary education for girls. The regime had initially said the move was a temporary pause to allow it to reorganise the system.
As a result, Unesco reported about 1.4 million girls over the age of 12 have been deliberately deprived of schooling, with that number exceeding 2.5 million when taking into account those already kept out of education by their families.
“In 2024, we counted, we’ve done like two and a half or three thousand stories on girls education: town hall meetings, discussion, current affairs, programs, individual news stories,” Mohseni said. “It’s not just about like [former US secretary of state] Anthony Blinken says, ‘Girls need to go to school’. More importantly it was about Afghan voices and amplifying those voices, Taliban voices, religious voices, saying we need to allow our girls to go back to school.”
They also run educational programs on its Tolo TV network, supported by Unicef, that provides help to boys attending classes and the girls at home with mathematics, physics, biology and chemistry.
“Not even the Taliban will reinvent mathematics,” Mohseni said of the programmes which follow the national curriculum.
“It’s not an alternative to real education,” he added. “It’s sort of a band aid solution between when schools are banned and when they reopen. Whenever that may be, it’s a bridge. It may be a long bridge, but it’s a bridge.”
He is under no illusion the small freedoms could disappear, and that “on this trajectory, eventually, the country is going to become more conservative, more radical”. But there is still time to try to engage with the more reform-minded within the Taliban, he said.
“The movement itself is not monolithic,” Mohseni said. “You have different characters who view things, you know, sometimes more moderately or more pragmatically. And they all have ambitions.”
The country is nevertheless gripped by what Naheed Farid, a former member of the parliament of Afghanistan, has described as a system of “gender apartheid”. Mohseni worries that the lack of international engagement will only exacerbate a trend towards ever greater repression. “You ignore Afghanistan at your peril,” he said.
A ‘strange dance’: media mogul Saad Mohseni on making TV under the Taliban
Born in Kabul, Maiwand Banayee aspired to become a Talib when he was 16. In 1994, living in a Pakistan refugee camp, there was little to do except sleep, eat, pray and dream of the afterlife: “Islam dominated every aspect of life in Shamshatoo. Even during the volleyball and cricket games the spectators were prevented from clapping because it was seen as un-Islamic.” Banayeejoined the camp’s madrasa when he was 14 in an attempt “to fit in”. The only educational opportunity open to Afghans at that time, the religious school offered structure and purpose, although “instead of teaching us to live, they were teaching us to die”.
In this illuminating book, Banayee, now resident in England, describes the circumstances that led to his indoctrination, and what eventually saved him.Brutalised by conflict, his Pashtun family lived through the Soviet-Afghan war, followed by the period of bitter infighting between warlords. As a child, Banayee saw his neighbourhood torn apart and corpses rotting in the street: “By the winter of 1994, Kabul had turned into a deserted place, as if hit by Armageddon – a place of daily bombardments, looting and arbitrary arrests. The savagery and violence had no limits.” Banayee, his siblings and brother’s family eventually sought refuge in Pakistan, while his parents remained in Kabul with his disabled sister, Gul, fearing she would not survive the journey.
In the refugee camp, Banayee came to see the west as “a world stripped of miracle and wonder” as opposed to one where “ordinary people could obtain miracles directly from God”. Within a year his greatest desire was to take part in jihad. In 1996, following the Taliban takeover of Kabul, Banayee witnessed a “gruesome and medieval” execution ceremony. This experience of intolerance, his growing realisation that Taliban ideology is utterly “tied to seventh-century Saudi Arabia”, and an opportune period of study in a secular institution, changed Banayee. He feels that impressionable boys in camps were “the victims of bad ideas and indoctrination… In a culture riddled with poverty… abstinence and crazed religious fervour, they turned to [radical] Islam for solace.”
Describing the conflict that followed in the wake of September 11 as one where “boots fought sandals, helmets fought turbans and reality fought myth”, Banayee found himself caught between the two warring sides. Despite having renounced his “infatuation with the Taliban”, he writes how he “was on record as having argued with enough people to leave the impression that I was some fanatical Talib”. Fearing for his safety, Banayee managed to escape to Europe, landed in England, and found refuge in Ireland.
The final third of Delusions of Paradise follows a more familiar refugee narrative about the struggle for acceptance and the relentless threat of deportation while waiting to be granted status. Banayee taught himself to read and write in English in order to tell his story and his eye-opening observations about the lure of jihadism and unflinching descriptions of his own experiences of radicalisation make compelling reading.
Delusions of Paradise: Escaping the Life of a Taliban Fighter by Maiwand Banayee is published by Icon (£20).
Delusions of Paradise by Maiwand Banayee review – a compelling rejection of fundamentalism
Kristi Noem is wrong to assert that conditions in Afghanistan have improved.
Four men accused of murder were executed by gunfire last Friday in crowded sports stadiums across Afghanistan. The Taliban leader defended these public killings as necessary under sharia law.
That night, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem announced that the Trump administration would revoke temporary protected status (TPS) for Afghans who evacuated to the United States after their country fell to the Taliban in 2021. This sets the stage for more than 9,000 people to be deported, beginning May 20. A DHS spokeswoman says Noem made this decision based on a “review of the conditions in Afghanistan.”
To claim the situation has improved enough for Afghans to safely return is to turn a blind eye to the Taliban’s draconian rule, which is especially barbaric for women and girls. The government does not allow girls to receive education beyond sixth grade. In December, seeking to close what it saw as a loophole, the Taliban banned women from studying to become midwives or nurses. Some provinces bar male doctors from treating female patients, which means denying women any medical care. No wonder Afghanistan has the world’s highest rate of maternal mortality outside Africa.
Many women in Afghanistan don’t leave home because they fear the morality police, who enforce strict gender segregation and require that they wear hijabs. Women are not to look at men other than their husbands or relatives. Last year, the Taliban restricted women from even raising their voices in public.
In 2023, Alejandro Mayorkas, Noem’s predecessor as DHS secretary, extended TPS for Afghans for 18 months. The people needed protection, he said, because there was a “serious threat posed by ongoing armed conflict; lack of access to food, clean water and healthcare; and destroyed infrastructure, internal displacement and economic instability.” These conditions still exist.
Adding insult to injury, as DHS seeks to repatriate Afghans, the Trump administration has cut critical humanitarian assistance to the country. Last week, the White House reversed recent cutoffs in emergency food aid to Somalia, Syria and Iraq but maintained the cuts on Afghanistan. The U.N. World Food Program says this will mean the end of food assistance for 2 million Afghans, including more than 650,000 malnourished children, moms and pregnant women. The country’s total population is about 40 million.
Action Against Hunger, an aid agency, warns that the cuts threaten children’s lives. This week, the group is closing its therapeutic feeding unit in Kabul because of earlier cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development. “The children who came to the feeding unit often could not walk or even crawl,” the Associated Press reports. “Sometimes they were unable to eat because they didn’t have the energy.”
In pushing to expel Afghan refugees, the United States finds itself aligned with Pakistan and Iran. All three governments say they’re no longer willing to support large migrant populations. Pakistan wants to expel more than 3 million Afghans this year. Iran announced plans in September to send away 2 million.
Afghans who can prove that they directly assisted the U.S. war effort are still able to stay in America through the Special Immigrant Visa program. But advocacy groups say TPS has offered a layer of stability to people going through the arduous process of trying to secure the special status, which requires documentation that can be difficult to obtain. Applying for asylum is another option, but this system has a backlog of more than 2.6 million cases, and applicants must credibly demonstrate a specific personal risk if they’re sent home, rather than general fear or systemic oppression.
The Taliban craves international recognition. In the interest of “normalizing” ties, the group has freed four Americans from its custody since the start of the year. Last month, the U.S. government lifted bounties on three Taliban leaders, including the interior minister, who organized attacks against the U.S.-based government that fell in 2021.
Ideally, U.S. courts will step in before any Afghans are forced onto planes headed back to Kabul. On March 31, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen temporarily paused DHS’s attempt to revoke TPS status for Venezuelans, because letting it take effect could “inflict irreparable harm,” and said the Trump administration had failed to show “real countervailing harm” in letting the program continue.
The same is true in the case of Afghans. There is no harm in letting their TPS status continue — and no good that can come from sending them back, subjugating innocent women and children to Taliban abuse.
Afghanistan is often called the “graveyard of empires”—a romantic label used to suggest that no foreign power can conquer it, that the country has single-handedly humbled giants like Afghanistan is often called the “graveyard of empires”—a romantic label used to suggest that no foreign the Soviet Union and the United States. It’s a phrase etched into the rhetoric of resistance and frequently deployed to invoke Afghan valor and perseverance. But behind the slogan lies a dangerously simplified version of history—one that clouds the past and impedes a realistic understanding of Afghanistan’s present and future.
The idea that Afghanistan defeated two superpowers alone is a myth, and one that does more harm than good.
A Russian soldier-internationalist guards roads during the Soviet-Afghan War. Photo Credit: RIA Novosti, Wikipedia Commons.
Behind the Soviet Retreat: A Cold War Coalition
When Soviet troops withdrew in 1989, it was certainly a landmark moment in Afghan history. But it was not the result of isolated, indigenous resistance. The Mujahideen were backed by a coalition of countries with converging geopolitical interests—chiefly the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and China.
Operation Cyclone, the CIA’s covert effort to fund and arm the anti-Soviet insurgency, was one of the most expensive covert operations in U.S. history. Billions of dollars in weapons and intelligence flowed into the country through Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which served both as facilitator and gatekeeper. Saudi Arabia matched U.S. funding dollar-for-dollar and provided ideological backing. China, too, saw the opportunity to undermine Moscow through indirect involvement.
What unfolded in Afghanistan was not a lone insurgency, but a classic proxy war—one shaped, sustained, and ultimately resolved not by local fighters alone, but by the calculations of distant capitals.
The U.S. Withdrawal: Exit by Design, Not Defeat
The images of Taliban fighters entering Kabul in August 2021 gave fresh life to the “graveyard” narrative. But once again, the surface optics obscure the deeper truth.
The United States did not leave Afghanistan because it was militarily defeated. By 2020, U.S. combat deaths were in the single digits annually. The decision to withdraw was a political one, rooted in a sense of strategic fatigue and shifting global priorities. Successive administrations, starting with President Obama and continuing through Trump and Biden, grappled with an enduring question: What was America still doing in Afghanistan, and at what cost?
Washington’s exit was not precipitated by Taliban military dominance, but by a growing belief that a military solution was neither feasible nor affordable. The collapse of the Afghan Republic came not from a final Taliban offensive alone, but from within—a failure of political cohesion, institutional rot, and loss of public confidence.
Collapse from Within
This pattern isn’t new. The People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), the Soviet-backed regime, didn’t fall immediately when Soviet troops left. It held on until 1992, when the USSR’s collapse ended the flow of support and internal fissures became unmanageable. Similarly, the Western-backed Republic of Afghanistan had years of international support but was undone by factionalism, corruption, and elite disconnect from the broader population.
The fall of these regimes says more about internal fragility than about the strength of those who opposed them.
External Hands in Every Era
From the 19th century Anglo-Afghan Wars to the 21st-century global war on terror, foreign involvement in Afghan conflicts has been constant. During the British invasions of 1839, 1878, and 1919, Afghan rulers capitalized on great power rivalries, sought arms from competing empires, and engaged in complex diplomacy. Even Afghanistan’s eventual assertion of independence in 1919 came as Britain reeled from the exhaustion of World War I.
Afghan resistance has always been shaped by its ability to attract and exploit external support. Heroism alone didn’t win wars—strategy, geography, and foreign alliances did.
Mythmaking and Its Consequences
The mythology of Afghanistan defeating empires may offer a moment of national pride, but it comes at a cost. It obscures the enormous toll exacted on the country itself: millions dead or displaced, generations born into war, cities and institutions reduced to rubble. It feeds a self-image of righteous resistance while ignoring the hard truths of dependence, fragmentation, and lost opportunities.
More importantly, it undermines honest dialogue about what went wrong—and what comes next. A nation that believes it never needed help may not recognize when it needs cooperation. A people told they always win may not prepare for the hard work of building stable institutions and peaceful coexistence.
The future of Afghanistan does not lie in repeating myths, but in confronting realities: that no victory was ever achieved alone, and that no lasting peace can be forged without sober reflection and regional collaboration.
Advocate Mazhar Siddique Khan is a Lahore based High Court Lawyer. He can be contacted at mazharsiddiquekhan@gmail.com.
The ‘Graveyard Of Empires’ Myth Distorts Afghanistan’s Story
My home country, Japan, is one of the safest places in the world to give birth: it has one of the very lowest mortality rates in Asia. A few years ago I had the opportunity to work on a story about midwives in Japan, and I became very interested in their role. In November 2023 I travelled to Badakhshan province in the northeast of Afghanistan, the country with the highest maternal mortality rate in Asia. I wanted to meet midwives there and see how they support women.
The Badakhshan province is far from Kabul, with rugged terrain and poor transportation and medical infrastructure. In winter, heavy snowfall blocks roads for months. Women who are about to give birth are sometimes carried on donkeys escorted by family members or neighbours on multi-day trips to clinics. The literacy rate for women there is extremely low compared to other provinces – less than 10% – which is partly why there’s a serious shortage of midwives. This combination of geographic, social and cultural factors means there are often delays responding to emergencies, and deaths from complications like excessive bleeding or infection, which might otherwise have been preventable.
This picture was taken in a small village while I was following a mobile health team of six, organised by the United Nations Population Fund. The midwife, Anisa, was giving medical checkups to women who had recently delivered a baby at home. One of these mothers took us to another woman in the neighbourhood who was nine months pregnant but had never had a checkup. Anisa is listening to the baby’s heartbeat with a stethoscope in the picture, and telling the woman: “Your baby is growing well, and if you start having contractions, be sure to call me and I’ll come right away.” Ten days later, Anisa assisted the delivery at her home.
After she finished a long day at work, I was in the same car with Anisa. She looked out the window at the narrow mountain road, and I saw a snowy peak in the distance, and said it must be so tough to travel from village to village every day, especially in winter. She replied that, even so, she would continue to do this work in an area where so many women have died – that being able to save a single life at birth is reward enough. I was really touched.
Midwives like Anisa are saving pregnant women in many ways – not only helping them give birth but also acting as unofficial therapists. Afghan women are often isolated and disconnected from society, but with the midwives they can share personal problems they would never be able to otherwise, such as struggles with mothers-in-law, or their marriages. Women who have been pregnant for years – some have 10 children – ask their midwives to help persuade their husbands to use birth control. It’s not easy, but they do succeed sometimes.
The UN team is in charge of 13 villages that don’t have any medical facilities. In conservative rural areas, it was customary for women to be accompanied by male relatives when travelling, even before the Taliban regained power in 2021. Since then, this rule is followed more stringently. This makes it difficult for women to travel to distant clinics.
After the Taliban took over, many international donors that had supported Afghanistan’s healthcare system withdrew, and hospitals and clinics have been forced to close amid concern that the maternal mortality rate will worsen. In December 2024, the Taliban banned the midwifery schools, having already banned women’s wider education. While those who had already graduated could still work, women who had not completed their studies could not.
Last month I found out that Anisa has not been able to work as a midwife since January. Since the withdrawal of international donors and US aid after Donald Trump’s suspension order to cut US foreign aid for 90 days, the mobile health team can no longer function. Anisa and her husband, who was a vaccinator on the mobile team, are both jobless for now.
A lifesaving midwife in Afghanistan: Noriko Hayashi’s best photograph
This report examines the Taleban’s incorporation of six Hazara commanders into its ranks and how they have fared since the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate. Three of the commanders joined the Taliban during the insurgency after fleeing criminal prosecution, while the others assisted the movement’s capture of their locality in 2021. The position of all these men, whether they joined early or late, has been precarious. Based on a study of these cases, Ali Yawar Adili argues that, during the insurgency, the Taliban were keen to showcase Hazara commanders willing to fight against the Islamic Republic in their respective provinces as proof that this was a nationwide movement. In its aftermath, they were appointed to local government positions in the Islamic Emirate as both a reward for their cooperation and to establish the appearance of local representation. As the new administration consolidated its power, it has treated influential figures in Hazara-majority areas, including those within its own ranks, with suspicion and has been intent on keeping them in check.
This report looks at the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) relations with the following six local Hazara commanders, who either joined the Taliban before the collapse of the Islamic Republic or supported the movement during its final takeover of the country.
Muhammad Ali Fedayi and Esmatullah Salehi are both from Miramor district of Daikundi province, and each joined the Taliban after being accused of murder, Fedayi in 2013 and Salehi in 2019. Fedayi served as the Taliban’s military commander for Shahristan before their takeover of the country. Together with Salehi, he carried out increasingly frequent attacks against the security forces in Daikundi in the months leading up to the fall of the Republic. Since August 2021, both men have served in various positions, including as district governors or police chiefs in different districts of Daikundi.
Muhammad Aref Dawari served in the first Islamic Emirate as head of the Taliban’s reserve unit in his home district of Shahristan in Daikundi. He served in various capacities in Shahristan during the Republic before assisting the Taliban in their capture of Shahristan and Miramor districts in August 2021. He has since served as district governor, initially in his home district, until he was removed from his power base and appointed to Nawamesh district, also then in Daikundi, in late 2022.[1]
Muhammad Baqer Muballeghzada is from Ishtarlay district of Daikundi and, during the Republic, headed an ‘illegal armed group’, ie one that was not part of the insurgency and who also had no authorisation from the state to operate. Muballeghzada did not work for the Taliban until the final days of the Republic when he helped the movement capture Ishtarlay. Since then, he has served as head of the provincial Urban Development and Land Department in Daikundi. His relationship with the IEA has been fraught and he has been arrested and disarmed, re-appointed and finally removed from his post.
Muhammad Ali Sadaqat comes from Khedir district and is one of the Hazaras in Daikundi who worked with the Taliban during the first Emirate (1996-2001). After they were ousted from power, he, like Muballeghzada, commanded an illegal armed group under the Republic. Sadaqat was reintegrated into the Republic several times but remained a destabilising force in Daikundi. Shortly before the fall of the Republic, he tried to form an anti-Taliban resistance group, but quickly surrendered the district to the Taliban on 14 August 2021. He then worked with the new authorities, but saw his forces disarmed and he himself, was also temporarily detained.
The late Mawlawi Mahdi Mujahed was from the Hazara-majority district of Balkhab in Sar-e Pul province and joined the Taliban during the last years of the insurgency. Following the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate, Mujahed was appointed head of the intelligence department in Bamyan province but soon fell out with the new government after a dispute with another local official and/or because he supported girls’ education and opposed the establishment of a military base in Balkhab (accounts vary). He returned to his home district, where he was soon joined in opposition by other former commanders, including Muhammad Taher Zuhair, who had served both as governor of Bamyan and Minister of Information and Culture under the Islamic Republic. After a clash with the district governor over coal mine revenues, Mujahed seized control of the district. In response, the Emirate launched a military operation, forcing Mujahed and his men to retreat into the mountains. Two months later, in August 2022, Mujahed was reportedly arrested and executed while trying to escape to Iran. Zuhair remained in hiding until his surrender in May 2023.
This report is a follow-up to a February 2023 paper, The Politics of Survival in the Face of Exclusion: Hazara and Shia actors under the Taleban, in which the author discussed how the main Hazara and Shia Muslim[2] leaders and factions inside and outside the country had adopted a ‘politics of survival’ following the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate.[3] In practice, this meant that all leaders and factions ceased fighting the Taliban once the Republic’s fall became inevitable. Since then, they have avoided taking up arms against the new government and have instead chosen to engage with officials pragmatically and, in some cases, cooperate with them. The aim has been twofold – to minimise harm to their community under a government which is avowedly Sunni Muslim and to secure some form of political representation.
These ambitions have largely been unmet. The Islamic Emirate’s rhetoric has been full of assurances about inclusion, but in practice, the IEA has continued to exclude Hazaras and Shias from the cabinet and also to appoint Pashtuns to senior positions at the local level in Hazara-dominated provinces. The question of how the Emirate rules in provinces where it did not have a strong insurgent presence and a local cadre to draw appointed officials from is a wider one. AAN’s Fabrizio Foschini looked at this in detail in his September 2024 report, Ruling Uncharted Territory: Islamic Emirate governance in northeastern Afghanistan, which examined the various tactics used by the new administration to consolidate its rule in the provinces of Takhar, Badakhshan, Panjshir and Andarab in Baghlan. However, especially in Takhar and Badakhshan, while support for the insurgency was not deep or widespread, there were senior Taliban from those provinces able to draw on or be influenced by local non-Taliban elites. The commanders featured in this report were more like opportunists who joined the Taliban after falling out with the Republic, or as it collapsed.
Another difference is how the Emirate, an avowedly Sunni Muslim administration, has dealt with Shia Muslims. Since the takeover, it has taken policy decisions that appear aimed at reversing the legal recognition of the Shia (Jafari) sect. The Republic’s constitution, which did recognise Shia jurisprudence, was suspended and has not been replaced.[4] After the takeover, the Emirate purged almost all Republic-era judges (see p 36 of this March 2023 AAN report on government spending), replacing them with Taleban judges, of necessity Sunnis trained in Hannafi jurisprudence; this was even in districts populated only by Shias. In spring 2022, acting Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani argued in his newly-published book, endorsed by Supreme Leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, Al-Emarat al-Islamiya wa Nidhamuha (The Islamic Emirate and its System of Governance), that only judgements based on jurisprudence from the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam were acceptable.[5] In June 2022, Shia jurisprudence was removed from the curriculum at Bamyan University and replaced with Hanafi (see this media report) and in April 2023, the higher education ministry rejected the Shia Ulema Council’s demand to include Shia jurisprudence in the curriculum. The ministry argued that multiple curricula would require separate classes and specialised lecturers and pave the ground for disputes among the students (see a BBC report here). Finally, in September 2023, supreme leader Akhundzada issued a series of decrees on the formation of Ulema Councils for provinces, including the Hazara-Shia majority provinces of Bamyan and Daikundi and mixed provinces of Maidan Wardak, Ghor and Sar-e Pul and appointed only Sunni religious scholars to these councils (see the Anis Daily report here and Etilaat Roz report here).
The author’s earlier report looked at how Hazara/Shia community leaders were trying to navigate the new polity, largely in order to protect their community and promote its interests. The six commanders featured in this report are somewhat different. All but one, who fell out with the new authorities almost immediately, were appointed to government jobs by the Emirate, but it is moot whether local people would have chosen them as their ‘representatives’ vis-à-vis central government or the provincial authorities: all had been, to a greater or lesser degree, at odds with the Republic and several have criminal records. This assessment of the fate of the six Hazara commanders featured in this report is therefore different from the first report: it does not look at how successfully they have managed to work on behalf of their communities, but rather, how easily it was for them to survive and prosper in the new dispensation. All were initially showcased, as proving the inclusiveness of the Islamic Emirate, but how well have they actually fared in practice since the takeover?
The five Daikundi commanders: Dawari, Fedayi, Salehi, Muballeghzada, Sadaqat
These five men, all local Hazara commanders from Daikundi province, joined the Taliban during the insurgency, actively fighting the forces of the Republic, or in the Republic’s last weeks or days, helping the Taliban capture their localities and consolidate their rule there. After August 2021, all but one was appointed to a government position and were a useful symbol of local Hazara representation as the Emirate established its writ in this Hazara-majority province.
Fedayi and Salehi, the two early joiners
Muhammad Ali Fedayi and Esmatullah Salehi both joined the Taliban well before the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate, Fedayi, as early as 2013, and Salehi in 2019. After the takeover, they were rewarded with district governor positions.
Esmatullah Salehi at his desk as governor of Miramor district, Daikundi province. Photo: Hussain Ali Ghaleb via Facebook, 26 September 2021
Fedayi, who is from Charkh village of Miramor district, joined the Taliban after he was accused of killing the director of Shahristan district prison, Ghulam Ali Mujahed, along with his son.[6] The accusation was made by another of the commanders featured in this report, Muhammad Aref Dawari, who was then an advisor to the districtchief of police. The murder victim, Ghulam Ali Mujahed, a former commander, was affiliated with Dawari, while the alleged murderer, Fedayi was supported by Dawari’s rivals, such as MPs Raihana Azad and Muhammad Nur Akbari (also a former senior commander) and the influential figure, Dr Muhammad Ali, who became deputy governor of Daikundi under the Republic.
Fedayi rejected Dawari’s accusation of murder, saying his intention was to defame him. He fled to Kabul and then to Quetta in Pakistan, where he joined the Taliban. The Taliban subsequently released a video in 2013, introducing him as “one of the famous Hazara commanders of Shahristan district.” In the video, Fedayi claimed he had joined the Islamic Emirate with 50 commanders and mujahedin (though he only named four who were with him in Quetta).[7] He said the Taliban represented the law and were Muslim, that jihad against the US was the same as jihad against the Soviets and that reports that the Islamic Emirate “beheaded and cut the throats of the Hazaras” was enemy propaganda. The video aimed to portray the movement as multi-ethnic and nationwide.
Esmatullah Salehi joined the Taliban in 2019. Originally from Siyah-Dara of Miramor district, Salehi had been working as a bicycle mechanic in Jawz Bazar, Miramor, after spending a few years in prison for adultery. In June 2019, he killed three relatives in an ambush in Siyah-Dara over a legal dispute, according to a former prosecutor from Daikundi. When the government tried to arrest him, he fled to Jalrez district of Maidan Wardak province, where he joined the Taliban. Later, he moved to Ghazni, where the Taliban told him to join Fedayi whom he was already close to.
Fedayi and his forces, now including Salehi, started carrying out attacks against the Republic’s security forces in Miramor in 2020 (see for instance, this 10 July 2020 report by Hasht-e Sobh).[8] In the months leading up to the fall of the Republic, Fedayi’s attacks became more frequent. For instance, on the night of 16/17 June 2021, Fedayi and Salehi attacked a security post in Jawz Bazar of Miramor district but were repelled by security forces (see this RTA report).[9] On 14 July 2021, RTA, quoting district governor Aref Yasa, reported that a police vehicle had been destroyed by a mine planted by the Taliban in Tirah Bargar village, also of Miramor. Less than a month later, Fedayi and Salehi’s forces had attacked security posts in Chahar Sad Khana of Miramor but were again repelled, according to Yasa, quoted in this Bakhtar news report. Salehi was wounded and went to Ghazni, where he had just recovered when the Islamic Republic government collapsed.
A screenshot of a video released by the Taleban during their insurgency showing Muhammad Ali Fedayi saying he had joined their ranks. Photo: Al Emarah via The Internet Archive, 14 February 2013
Fedayi received a promotion on 18 July 2021, appointed as military commander of Shahristan (see this video on social media showing Fedayi in the Khalaj area of Gizab district with an appointment letter from the Taliban’s shadow governor for Daikundi).
Aref Hussein Dawari, a local strongman under all regimes
Aref Hussain Dawari was one of the three commanders who helped the Taliban forces as they seized control of Daikundi in 2021. He had been a powerful and sometimes destabilising force in his district under the Republic. Dawari comes from a powerful family affiliated with Hezb-e Wahdat-e Islami and is from the Olqan area of Shahristan. He and his two brothers effectively ruled Shahristan from 1994 to 2001.[10]
Aref Hussein Dawari meeting then Second Vice President Muhammad Sarwar Danish concerning his appointment as chairman of Hezb-e Wahdat’s security and military affairs committee. Photo: Farzandan-e Daikundi via Facebook, 7 September 2020
When the Taliban took over the area in 1998, Dawari cooperated with them and was appointed as the head of their reserve unit in Shahristan. He was accused of numerous human rights abuses during the jihad, the civil war years and under the previous Taliban government; under the Republic, alleged victims and their relatives petitioned the courts in Daikundi and Kabul to put him on trial, including for the alleged murder of 39 people, and for rape and looting, in Shahristan and Miramor districts (see this detailed article from 2018 in Hasht-e Sobh). Under the Republic, Dawari, who was considered close to Mohaqeq, served as Shahristan district chief of police, chief of NDS and head of criminal investigation. His wife, Shirin Mohseni, an MP from Daikundi, was a senior member of Mohaqeq’s party.
Muhamad Ali Sadaqat
Sadaqat has switched sides many times over the years, including spending periods of time with the Taliban. He is originally from the Posht-e Roq area of Khedir district and started as an ordinary fighter at the beginning of the civil war in the early 1990s, slowly becoming an influential figure at the district level (according to this 2019 report by Etilaat Roz). When the Taliban took Daikundi during the first Emirate, Sadaqat was, according to Niamatullah Ibrahimi, one of their “most significant” allies, along with Dawari, but he did not have an official position within the administrative or military structure.[11]
Muhammad Ali Sadaqat (wearing sunglasses) and Zulfiqar Omid showcase their armed militia during their attempt to form an anti-Taliban resistance about four months before the Taleban takeover. Photo: Zulfiqar Omid via Facebook, 22 April 2021
After the Taliban were ousted from power in late 2001, many key positions were doled out to former jihadi commanders, but Sadaqat was not given a post. In response to this perceived affront, he turned against the Republic, sometimes in open confrontation, operating in the districts of Khedir, Ishtarlay and Sang-e Takht wa Bandar (as then-chief of police of Daikundi Abdul Rezaq Elkhani noted in this November 2012 Radio Azadi report). Sadaqat was persuaded to join the Republic’s various peace and reintegration initiatives several times over the years and was even offered the rank of brigadier general in command of the Badghis-Faryab highway brigade in October 2012, a post he never took up (see BBC Persian report). He was an unsuccessful candidate in the 2018 parliamentary elections and continued to be a troublesome presence in the area.
In April 2021, as the Taliban offensive started to gain strength, Sadaqat gathered his men in the Ghamqul area of Khedir. On 13 April 2021, the head of the Labour and Development Party, Zulfiqar Omid, posted photos of himself and Sadaqat with a caravan of armed men, whom he described as “the most experienced guerrillas,” who had formed what they called the “Dai Chahar unit.” Omid described them as part of the “Second Resistance Front,” about which there was much talk at the time (the name echoes what the anti-Taliban forces of the United Front, more commonly known as the Northern Alliance, called their fight against the first Emirate, the ‘resistance’ – see AAN reporting here). Then, in a murky chain of events, Republic security forces arrested five of Sadaqat’s men and confiscated their equipment — guns, AK-47s, blankets, a Wi-Fi system, a solar panel, Second Resistance Front posters and cash (Radio Nasim).[12] It appeared that Sadaqat’s initiative had not been authorised. Indeed, a resistance front in Daikundi never did materialise. Instead, Sadaqat surrendered the district to the Taliban on 14 August 2021 and went to the provincial capital Nili the day after.
Baqer Muballeghzada
Muballeghzada is the third Hazara commander in Daikundi who switched to the Taliban during the last days of the Republic. He is the son of the Harakat-e Islami commander, Sheikh Anwar Muballegh, from Ishtarlay district, who was locally influential. The Muballeghzadas’ allegiance to the Republic government was always in question, but according to a former prosecutor, Muballeghzada really turned against it after he lost his seat in the 2014 provincial council election; although he had a high number of votes in the preliminary results, another candidate, Sayed Zakaria Hashemi, affiliated with former MP Nur Akbari, was declared the winner.[13]
Baqer Muballeghzada before he was injured during a military operation in Ishtarlay Daikundi province. Photo: Nasim Radio via Facebook, 27 June 2019
In the last years of the Republic, the government made several attempts to either co-opt or defeat the Muballeghzadas. On 27 June 2019, a clearance operation was launched in Ishtarlay district to disarm Baqer Muballeghzada and hisbrother and their men, which resulted in four dead, six wounded and two arrests (see this report by the then governor’s office). In October 2020, an attempt was made to find a peaceful settlement, with a 19-member delegation comprising members of political parties, the provincial council, ulema council, the security agencies, women, civil society activists and judges, sent to Ishtarlay to talk with the ‘illegally armed men’ (see this Radio Nasim report quoting Daikundi governor Zia Hamdard). The negotiations did not succeed.[14] On 18 May 2021, Muballeghzada issued a statement in response to another incursion by security forces from Ishtarlay, Sang-e Takht and Khedir in which he warned that if the local government did not give up its unacceptable behaviour, he would take ‘necessary actions’ against it.
As the Taliban were poised to take over Daikundi in August 2021, Muballeghzada – like Sadaqat – is said to have collected weapons and supplies from Ishtarlay and its surrounding districts. He then helped the Taliban capture Ishtarlay on 14 August 2021. A few days later, according to local sources, he travelled to Nili and announced his support for the new Taliban governor of Daikundi.
How Daikundi’s Hazara commanders have fared under the Taliban
After their return to power, the Taliban authorities appointed four of the five commanders from Daikundi discussed in this report to local government positions: three as district governor (Dawari for Shahristan, Salehi for Miramor, and Fedayi for Ishtarlay)[15] and Muballeghzada as provincial head of the Urban Development Department. Two of the five – Dawari and Sadaqat – had already worked for the first IEA in the 1990s.
Sadaqat was not given any position after the takeover. Indeed, he fell out of favour with the Emirate almost immediately. He moved into the provincial capital, Nili, before the Taliban arrived. It had turned into a ghost town, he said, and he wanted to “serve as a bridge between the Taliban and the people” (see this August 2021 interview with Radio Nasim). The following day, after Emirate forces had also arrived, he was detained with several of his men after an altercation. According to most accounts, the argument began when Sadaqat and his men carried the body of a man they said had been killed by the Taliban to the governor’s office building to demand an explanation. There, they were reportedly mistreated by the guards. Sadaqat and his men returned to the temporary base he had set up in the building of the mostofiat, or finance department, where they were subsequently surrounded, disarmed and detained (see, for instance, this Radio Nasim report).[16]
The following day, 17 August 2021, a large group of elders from Nili and Khedir requested the new Daikundi governor, Amanullah Zubair, to release Sadaqat. Zubair told them that Sadaqat must first hand over his weapons and ammunition. However, the chief of police, Sediqullah Abed, refused to allow Sadaqat to go, saying he had, Radio Nasim reported, “taken up arms against” him the day before. Sadaqat and his men were eventually released on 18 August (see Radio Nasim reports here and here).[17]
During a press conference on 19 August, police chief Abed dismissed the incident as insignificant and a “personal issue” and said that Sadaqat himself had released his men and had acknowledged that what they had done constituted “a rebellion according to the Islamic Emirate’s principles.”[18]
Sadaqat was not appointed to any formal position after his release but continued to work with the new authorities, at least in the early period immediately after the takeover. According to this Etilaat Roz report, he led the Taliban forces in an incident in Khedir on 30 August 2021, where the attempted disarmament of former government security forces resulted in the death of 13 people – two civilians and 11 former members of the security forces (according to Amnesty International, 9 of the 11 former ANDSF were executed after they had surrendered). Sadaqat spent some time in Iran shortly after the Khedir incident, but ultimately settled back in Daikundi. Despite not having any official role in the local administration, he was again accused of assisting the Emirate forces in another controversial raid, this time in Sewak Sheber village in the provincial centre on 22 November 2022 (see media reports here and here), an accusation Sadaqat has denied (see his media interview here). In that raid, the Emirate forces executed nine members of a family, including three children, a woman, and five men (see the statement by a family member here). On 8 August 2024, Sedaqat survived a targeted attack by unknown men in the Kotal Siwak area in Nili, which killed one of his affiliates and wounded two other people, including his wife. Sedaqat himself was only slightly injured (see media report here).
Muballeghzada was appointed early on as the provincial head of Urban Development. Then, on 9 May 2023, provincial intelligence forces arrested him in Nili while Emirate forces conducted house searches in his home district of Ishtarlay. They besieged his house and, reportedly, confiscated weapons and vehicles. According to media reports (see Independent Persian here), one of Muballeghzada’s brothers and several nephews were arrested in the centre of the district, while one or two other brothers fled to the mountains. The trigger for the arrest seems to have been the discovery, or suspicion, that Muballeghzada had hidden weapons and military vehicles near his house in Ishtarlay (several reports mentioned the unearthing of two buried Humvees).[19] Muballeghzada was released after several people from Ishtarlay, including his relatives and brothers, met the governor to seek his help. After Daikundi governor Aminullah Obaid, with whom Muballeghzada had good relations, intervened, he was acquitted and reinstated in his post. Reports on how long Muballeghzada was detained vary – from a few days to a few weeks. On 17 February 2025, he was replaced with Salehi (see the 17 February 2025 announcement by the press office of Daikundi governor here) and has not been given a new role since then.
When Muballeghzada was arrested, there were unconfirmed reports that the Emirate had also arrested Dawari (see, for instance, the Etilaat Roz article cited earlier), which turned out not to be true, although local sources reported that he had fled.[20] Dawari has since returned to his post, but local sources from Daikundi told the author that Emirate security forces had arrested several commanders affiliated to him (includingHekmatyar, Sayed Habib, Jafari and Khoda Rahem) and confiscated their weapons.
Less dramatic, but still notable, is that the three other Hazara commanders working for the Emirate – Dawari, Fedayi and Salehi – have been moved out of their home districts, apparently in an effort to prevent them establishing a power base. In late December 2022, the Emirate removed Dawari from his district of Shahristan and appointed him as district governor of Nawamesh. After the Emirate declared, in April 2023, that Nawamesh was no longer part of Daikundi, but was now in Helmand province, there was talk that Dawari would be dismissed, but he apparently travelled to Bamyan and utilised his good relations with Bamyan governor Abdullah Sarhadi to keep his post.
The positions of both Fedayi and Salehi have also been changed, several times. Fedayi has so far served as district governor of Ishtarlay, chief of police of Pato district, chief of police of Miramor, deputy commander of the provincial police’s operational unit (mo’win-e kandak amaliati polis) in Nili, and, as of 18 February 2025, chief of the first police district in Nili. Salehi has been district governor of Miramor, chief of police of Sang-e Takht wa Bandar, chief of police of Kejran, head of state-owned Afghanistan Oil and Gas Corporation in Daikundi and is currently the director of the provincial Urban Development Department.
A local journalist told the author he believes the IEA keeps moving these commanders from one district to another so that they cannot establish a foothold or influence in any one place. While this seems to be the Emirate’s normal practice in its dealings with both Pashtun and non-Pashtun officials (see Foschini’s paper on the northeast cited earlier), the local journalist also said that the Daikundi commanders featured in this paper are also under surveillance, and are restricted and unable to do anything without the Emirate’s permission – especially since the local administration is dominated by the provincial governor and his men, who are mainly Pashtun.[21] The former prosecutor told the author that, in his opinion, these local Hazara commanders were mainly focused on clinging onto their own positions within the administration and therefore unable to do anything for the local population, even if they had wanted to.[22]
The case of Mawlawi Mahdi Mujahed in Balkhab
Mujahed, from Hush village in Balkhab, Sar-e Pul, also joined the Taliban during the insurgency after falling out with the Republic. In the early years of the Republic, as detailed in a previous AAN report here, a land dispute with Ali Joma Akbari – a local commander affiliated with Muhammad Mohaqeq’s Hezb-e Wahdat faction – forced Mujahed to flee to Iran. After his return in 2010, Mujahed and his associates abducted Akbari’s son. While local elders intervened to mediate in the case, Mujahed and his comrades were arrested and charged with kidnapping. Mujahed was sentenced to 14 years in prison and incarcerated in neighbouring Jowzjan province. During his time there, he came into contact with Taliban members, particularly Mawlawi Abdul Haq Mansur, and studied religious texts. When he was released in 2017, Mohaqeq wrote that he had sought to mediate and resolve the dispute. However, Mujahed started to furtively receive weapons and resources from the Taliban, based on his links from prison and began to fight the local government. He attacked Balkhab’s district centre six days before the 2018 parliamentary election to impede the poll. Following this incident, security forces carried out a clearance operation, pushing him into Taliban-controlled areas. Afterwards, he played a role in Taliban-led attacks in other parts of the Sar-e Pul province.
A poster published on the Al Emarah website publicising an interview with Mawlawi Mahdi Mujahed. Source: Al Emarah website, 22 April 2020
Mujahed gained increased public and media attention in April 2020 when the Taliban introduced him in a 25-minute video as their (shadow) district governor for Balkhab. What distinguished Mujahed from other Taliban commanders and officials that had been interviewed for their Al-Emarah website, as AAN’s Thomas Ruttig reported at the time, was his Shia Hazara ethno-religious background and the fact that the Taliban introduced him as such, in an attempt to portray themselves as a countrywide movement.[23] In the video, Mujahed called on his Hazara and Shia followers to join the Taliban’s fight against the US-led “Jewish and Christian invaders” in the same way they had fought alongside their “Sunni brethren” against the Soviets from 1979 to 89. More importantly, he praised the Taliban as “inclusive” and devoid of ethnic discrimination.
Following the Taliban takeover of the country in August 2021, Mujahed was appointed head of intelligence in Bamyanprovince. It seemed that by appointing him to an important position in the heart of Hazarajat, the Taliban wanted to reward him for fighting in their ranks, to entice others into cooperating with them as they consolidated their writ, and to use him as a Hazara face for their rule.
However, there were soon disputes and tensions. On 4 November 2021, there was a clash between Mujahed and head of the Bamyan Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Mawlawi Maqbul Waqas – a Sunni Tajik from Bamyan – over the possession of a government vehicle. The confrontation, during which three members of Mujahed’s forces were injured, required the deputy governor of Bamyan to mediate between the two sides. In a statement (available here), Mujahed called Mawlawi Waqas “law-breaking, extortionist and rebellious” and accused him and his men of an “assassination attempt and terrorist attack” against other “IEA mujahedin.” Mujahed identified himself as a senior member of the IEA and accused Waqas of stealing people’s vehicles and properties, something which he said would tarnish the government in the eyes of the people. He further warned Mawlawi Waqas against “misus[ing] the IEA name” and causing disorder. Mujahed said the incident had been reported to “the competent authorities” in Kabul and would be investigated.
A day later, the Taliban sent a delegation comprised of members of the General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) and the Ministry of Defence from Kabul to Bamyan to settle the dispute. A report by Radio Nasim quoted the head of Bamyan’s Information and Culture Department, Mawlawi Saif ul-Rahman Muhammadi, who confirmed that the clash had been over a vehicle and said that it had resulted from “a misunderstanding.” There are no public reports about the delegation’s findings.
Mujahed’s relationship with the IEA began to sour in other aspects as well. He expressed his support for girls’ education in speeches in Bamyan and Balkhab at a time when secondary schools had not been officially allowed to open (they were officially closed in March 2022). During a trip to Balkhab in January 2022, for example, he visited the Fatemiya Girls’ School (listed as a secondary school by the Ministry of Education in 2019), where he encouraged girls to continue their education and distributed notebooks and pens (see the video of his visit here).
Mujahed also raised the Emirate’s ire by increasingly expanding his influence and support base in Bamyan and Balkhab and seeking a say in decisions about those areas, as journalist Ayub Arvain highlighted here. For example, when the Emirate decided to establish a military base in Balkhab, Mujahed called on the district elders to prevent non-local forces from entering the district and to allow such a base only if residents of Balkhab were recruited (see this media report).
The Emirate removed Mujahed from his position as head of Bamyan Intelligence Department in January 2022 and appointed him Deputy Director for Conflict Resolution in the General Directorate of Intelligence in Kabul. When Mujahed refused to accept the new position, he was summoned to Kabul where he met several officials (see this 27 January 2022 Etilaat Roz report here). In an interview with Subh-e Kabul daily on 17 February 2022, he said the reason for his dismissal from Bamyan was not clear and he could not say whether it had been due to the clash over the government vehicle with Waqas. He recounted that when he was summoned by the “Islamic Emirate seniors” to Kabul and had meetings with them, the only thing they told him was that he was the “only [ethnic Hazara] person who had stood by the people in the jihad [alongside the Taliban]” and that it was in Kabul that he would be best positioned to address the people’s myriad problems in the Shia-majority provinces. It seems that by appointing Mujahed to a government post in the capital, however, the Taliban wanted to sever him from his local power base to keep him in check.
Mujahed retreated to Balkhab where he began criticising the IEA for excluding Hazaras from the government. In an interview there, he said, “After the Islamic Emirate came to power, the Hazaras have suffered the most” and that Hazaras “cannot spend their entire lives like this, whether or not they want to now, one day the people will stand against the Islamic Emirate” (see this report by The New York Times).
Mujahed quickly came into confrontation with Balkhab’s district governor, Mawlawi Attaullah (a Tajik), in his home village, Hush, over the exploitation of the local coal mines. Attaullah had, according to this media report, increased coal mining to both raise revenues for the Emirate and safeguard his personal share, while Mujahed asserted his rights to the coal-mine revenues (despite no longer having an official position).[24] On 31 May 2022, Mujahed and Ataullah’s forces clashed for several hours.
On 7 June, Mujahed used his connections to get one of his aides, Ali Hussain Hakimi, appointed as district governor of Balkhab (see this report by Hasht-e Sobh), wresting control of the district from Attaullah, who had been out of the district after the 31 May clash with Mujahed. In response, the chief of police for Sar-e Pul issued a statement putting his weight behind Attaullah as the district governor, until a new figure was appointed.
The Emirate dispatched several delegations to Balkhab in an attempt to entice Mujahed away from his home district and restore central authority, but he refused to leave the district. He told a delegation that he would stop working with the government and live as an ordinary person under Taliban rule (see this 11 June 2022 report by Etilaat Roz). In the meantime, former commanders and fighters from among the local Hazara and Shia communities continued to join Mujahed in Balkhab – by this time, he was becoming known as ‘Amir Mahdi, according to one of his aides, speaking to the author in June 2023. The aide claimed that Mujahed had, at that time, gathered up to 2,000 men under his command, showing a sense of grievance many Hazaras felt towards the current rulers, as hundreds of people, mainly locals, rallied around Mujahed as he sought to demand the Hazara community’s rights.
Hazara-Shia actors’ failed attempt at precluding the Balkhab conflict
As the tension between the Emirate and Mujahed escalated towards armed conflict, most of the main Hazara and Shia actors refrained from open support for him. Instead, many voiced concern, called for dialogue or attempted to mediate. Among the old guard leaders outside the country, Mohaqeq was the most vocal critic of the IEA’s treatment of Mujahed. In a Facebook post on 15 June 2022, he said the massing of forces around Balkhab demonstrated the Taliban’s determination to “purge” their ranks of commanders of different ethnic backgrounds. He called on them to resolve their issues with their only Hazara commander through dialogue and described the intended crackdown as a “war against the Hazara people,” which, he said, would grip all Hazara-majority areas. Sources close to Mohaqeq told the author at the time that he had privately ordered his affiliates in Balkhab to support Mujahed. (Mohaqeq is a member of the High Council of National Resistance to Rescue Afghanistan; the council had earlier announced general support for the “ongoing armed resistance” against the Emirate – but did not, explicitly, come out in support of Mujahed.)
The Shia Ulema Council of Afghanistan announced on 16 June 2022 that it had appointed a delegation comprised of influential people from ten provinces to seek a “peaceful resolution of the Balkhab issue” and that “a high-ranking Islamic Emirate official” had assured them there would be no military action until the delegation had completed its work. Grand Ayatollah Vaezzada Behsudi had been asked to lead the delegation, as demanded by Mujahed, but Vaezzada introduced his chief of staff, Dr Yaqubi, as his representative and made a host of demands from the government, including “full guarantees” for the implementation of any agreement (see this Facebook post from 18 June 2022). It is unclear whether the Emirate accepted his conditions or not, but in the end, the delegation did not carry out its mission.
The most active mediators seem to have been Sayed Sufi Gardezi, Sheikh Madar Ali Karimi and Hussain Sangardost – the (former) aides respectively of Mohaqeq, Khalili and Mudaber, who engaged in several rounds of attempted mediation.[25] Since the re-establishment of the Emirate, the three had been working together as part of an ad hoc coalition to represent the Hazara and Shia community to the new government (see AAN’s previous report for more details). In this case, it seemed they mainly tried to get Mujahed to comply with the Emirate’s orders. Sources in Kabul told the author at the time that a delegation including Madar Ali Karimi and Sufi Gardezi had asked Mujahed on behalf of the IEA to hand over Taher Zuhair, the former governor of Bamyan, who had come out of hiding to join Mujahed’s forces (more on Zuhair later). In June 2023, a supporter of Mujahed from Balkhab told the author that Karimi and Gardezi wanted Mujahed not only to come to Kabul but also to allow two battalions of Taliban forces to be deployed in Balkhab, with no local representation – thus asking him to accept one of the Emirate’s policies that had first sparked his opposition. According to this source, they told Mujahed there was no point in voicing his demands. They essentially sought to persuade him to give in to the Emirate’s demands.
After several high-ranking Taliban delegations failed to cajole Mujahed into returning to the government and coming to Kabul, the Emirate decided to take military action. It dispatched forces from neighbouring provinces and attacked Balkhab district on the night of 22/23 June 2022.[26] The following day, Mujahed’s associates accused the Emirate of “imposing war” on the district and claimed their forces had successfully repelled two attacks in the Ab-e Kalan area of Qom-Kotal, one of the entrances to Balkhab district (see BBCreport here). Mujahed’s aides said that, in addition to carrying out air strikes, the Emirate had used a suicide bomber in the attack (who they said had self-detonated when Mujahed’s forces captured two Emirate fighters, thereby killing at least four people and wounding nine others) (see BBC report here).
Mujahed’s forces were unable to withstand the superior power of the Emirate. After three days, on 25 June 2022, the defence ministry announced that the “clearance operation” had ended, claimed its forces had captured the “areas where the rebels were present” without resistance and that clearance operations were ongoing in remote areas of the district “without obstacles.” Mujahed and some of his men fled to the mountains, where they laid low and refrained from further military activities, while “hundreds of others hid their weapons and melted back into their villages,” as reported by (The New York Times).
The capture of Balkhab by a dissatisfied Hazara commander from within the Emirate’s own ranks had been followed with great interest, both inside and outside Afghanistan, including by the National Resistance Front (NRF), led by Ahmad Massud and former Vice-President Amrullah Saleh. When IEA forces launched their incursion into Balkhab, NRF spokesman Sibghatullah Ahmadi described them on X as “occupiers” that had “carried out an assault … on the brave and justice-seeking people of Balkhab.”[27]
Iran, on the other hand, accused the United States of orchestrating the conflict. Iran’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, wrote on X on 26 June 2022 that the conflict illustrated America’s priority to create “targeted chaos” in Afghanistan by inciting an “ethnic and religious war” in which Hazaras and Tajiks would be the main victims.[28]
Following the IEA forces’ entry into the district centre, reports of human rights abuses emerged. For example, UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Situation in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, tweeted that he had received “[d]isturbing reports of extrajudicial killings, civilian displacement, property destruction and other human abuses.” He said that an information blackout, internet cuts and denial of access to media and human rights monitors hampered verification. The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission in exile said in a statement posted on its website (which is no longer active) that they had evidence the security forces had shot and killed a number of civilians, set fire to houses, killed detainees, including those who had surrendered, carried out airstrikes on civilian areas, caused displacement of families into the mountains, cut telecommunication and the internet and closed connecting routes. Etilaat Roz reportedthat it had received a list of more than 50 civilians killed by Emirate forces, 36 of whom had already been buried. A month later, on 19 July 2022, UNAMA reported that around 27,000 people had been displaced following the fighting, and that humanitarian partners had provided aid to “more than 10,000 people in Balkhab and 6,000 in Bamyan.”
The IEA rejected all such reports. For example, on 27 June 2022, in response to Amnesty International that had expressed grave concerns at “reports of summary executions and harm to civilians in Balkhab,” spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed called the reports “baseless” on X, saying there had been no cases of civilian harm in Balkhab.[29]
A person from Balkhab who was based in Mazar-e Sharif told the author in June 2023 that, following the fighting, there had indeed been widespread arrests, which in many cases had involved people being required to pay money, hand over weapons or provide guarantees to ensure their release. He said the Emirate’s security forces continued to have a heavy presence in Balkhab a year after the clash: “There are groups of Taliban forces in almost every village. And they treat the people however they wish. There is no accountability.”
A few months after the fighting, Hussain Sangardost, a Hazara from Behsud district of Maidan Wardak, was appointed district governor, a move which could be seen as an effort to placate the local population. However, according to the same local source, Sangardost did not have much authority and could not do much to intervene with the Emirate forces in the area or help the local population, given the Emirate’s heavy military presence.
Mawlawi Mujahed’s arrest and reported death
Two months after the operation in Balkhab, on 17 August 2022, the Ministry of Defence unexpectedly announced that the border forces had killed Mujahed in the area between Herat province and Iran “while he was trying to escape to Iran.” The statement called him “the leader of the rebels of Balkhab” and added that he had been “identified and punished for his actions.”[30]
Photo of Mawlawi Mahdi Mujahed reportedly taken before his execution. Photo: Tajuden Soroush via X, 17 August 2022
Hasht-e Sobh on 18 August 2022 quoted a Taliban source who said that Emirate forces had killed Mawlawi Mujahed hours after arresting him and after contacting Kandahar [presumably for instructions] and had buried his body in the mountainous border area between Iran and Afghanistan. According to the source, “They put a turban on his head, took his confession and then executed him.”[31]
Mawlawi Mujahed’s aides responded to the Emirate’s announcement with confusion. They sent a message to the BBC confirming his arrest but said he was “still alive” and called on the Taliban to treat the captive “in accordance with Islamic instructions and human rights norms” and to not harm him without trial. They also provided details about his arrest, saying he had been arrested from Bonyad village at the Islam Qala border at 2 am on 17 August 2022 and transferred to the Herat intelligence department. Other sources close to Mujahed told Hasht-e Sobh that he had not been arrested or killed and that they would soon release a video of him (which they never did). Up till now, his aides and relatives have not been able to confirm his death. One of his supporters told the author in June 2023 that they still considered the report of Mujahed’s death merely “a claim” since the Emirate, other than their statement, had provided no evidence to support it.[32]
Mohaqeq provided his own account of the circumstances surrounding Mujahed’s flight to Iran. After the Taliban’s assault on Balkhab, he said, Mujahed’s father and family had fled to Iran, along with thousands of other families. Mujahed, he said, had been travelling to visit his family when he was arrested in “an ambush” in Bonyad village and then summarily executed. Mohaqeq called the manner in which Mujahed was killed a war crime and warned that the seeds of resistance would now take stronger roots (see his Facebook post on 17 August 2022 here).
Former Vice-President Danesh, on the other hand, cast doubt on the Emirate’s report, saying the Taliban had provided no evidence for Mujahed’s death, but if it were true, his “martyrdom,” as a result of “torture, summary execution and without fair trial,” would be “a crime against humanity.”[33]
Except for the criticism by Mohaqeq and Danesh from outside the country, the reaction from other Hazara and Shia leaders was, once again, muted. This aligns with the overall posture of Hazara and Shia leaders under the Emirate of avoiding any action that could provoke reprisals. It probably also relates to the fact that, after the routing of the resistance in Panjshir, these leaders did not believe there was any chance of an armed revolt being successful. The suppression and reported killing of Mawlawi Mujahed served as a clear indication – and warning – that standing against the Emirate would not be tolerated. Indeed, the whole Balkhab episode showed what could happen in response to a potentially legitimate demand – that local resources should, at least in part, benefit locals – and the figure making it – who had been praised when he served the Emirate’s interests, but who was in no way part of the core group. The escalation into violence, suppression and subsequent heavy-handed rule made Hazaras and Shia Muslims feel vulnerable. It has also proved a deterrent against them trying to assert their rights under the current rule.
Since then, people from Balkhab have accused the Emirate of continuing to target Mujahed’s supporters. For example, on 3 May 2023, Muhammad Hussain Ehsani, an influential figure from Balkhab, was, according to his relatives (cited by the Independent Persian here), taken from a hotel in Mazar-e Sharif by armed men and later tortured and killed. His body was delivered to his relatives at a hospital the following day. They were reported as blaming the Emirate[34]
If the IEA was behind Ehsan’s killing, it is unclear whether he was targeted for his local political advocacy or his involvement in Mujahed’s uprising the previous year. He sustained a minor injury during the three-day attack on Balkhab in June 2022 and lost one of his bodyguards, according to a local source speaking to the author. He went on the run after the Emirate captured the district centre, but officials had apparently contacted him to offer assurances that he would be safe, the local source said.[35] According to the Independent Persian report cited above, Ehsani had in the months before his killing lobbied officials in Kabul to persuade them to give Balkhab’s mine contracts to local companies so that residents of Balkhab would be employed. The local source confirmed Ehsani’s advocacy on behalf of Balkhab residents. His death had a chilling effect on the Hazara community.
On 6 November 2024, Yusuf Ali Rastagar, a local Hazara elder, was killed in Balkhab possibly because of his affiliation or what was believed to be his association with Mujahed.[36] According to media reports, his body had been thrown down from the mountains. Reports vary about his affiliation. Some said Rastagar was affiliated with Mohaqeq and was returning from Iran to Balkhab hoping to benefit from the general amnesty under the Emirate. A second account indicated that Rastagar had recently met Ahmad Massud in Tehran and was sent to Balkhab to open a new front against the Emirate there. According to that account, his arrival was reported to the Emirate forces who attacked him; after he fled to the mountains, an Emirate infiltrator shot him and then threw his body down the mountain. Other media reported that he had been affiliated with Mawlawi Mujahed, led the resistance for a while after Mujahed’s reported death and then fled to Iran. He was said to be returning to Balkhab to resume the resistance when he was killed. A source from Balkhab confirmed this final account to the author on 14 January 2024.
Another Mujahed ally, Taher Zuhair, had earlier chosen to surrender, perhaps fearing he would meet the same fate as Mujahed. On 11 May 2023, the media reported that he had surrendered to the Emirate and published a photo showing him standing among local officials (see Etilaat Roz here; Tolonews here). Zuhair was the last governor of Bamyan under the Republic. He fled the provincial centre during the night of 14 August 2021, together with other government officials, after which the Taliban captured the city the following morning without any resistance (see media report here). During and immediately after the Taliban takeover, Zuhair rejected proposals by other Bamyan officials to leave Afghanistan, according to a 12 May 2023 report by the Independent Persian. Instead, he remained in hiding and later joined Mujahed as his adviser after he fell out with the Emirate.
Following the ousting of Mujahed by the Emirate, Zuhair made several attempts to exit Afghanistan through illegal routes and take refuge in Iran. However, after the reported killing of Mawlawi Mujahed in August 2022, he abandoned this plan, according to the Independent Persian report. The Emirate launched several search operations in Bamyan and Samangan to capture him, but failed to apprehend him – until his surrender on 11 May 2023.
The Emirate was quick to spin his surrender as an endorsement. The day after, Taliban-affiliated Hurriyat Radio tweeteda short video in which Zuhair said he had “trusted the Islamic Emirate,” something which had been difficult at first because of what he called “the widespread negative propaganda against the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in the past years.” He addressed “all those who still insist on continuing the war,” saying that war and violence were not the solution to Afghanistan’s problems. Two days later, on 14 May 2023, Zuhair attended a press conference by Samangan provincial officials where provincial governor Abdul Ahad Haji Fazli welcomed him into “the fold of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” and called on the opposition inside and outside the country to denounce war. The Samangan head of intelligence, Muhammad Hashem Shafiq, said Zuhair had joined the Emirate as a result of mediation by a delegation from Upper Dara-ye Suf. Zuhair echoed Shafiq’s statement, saying he “joined the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” as a result of efforts by the governor and mediation by what he called “people’s peace delegation” (see this BBC Persian report).
There are contrasting reports, however, that say Zuhair surrendered under duress. Sources close to Zuhair told the media that the Taliban authorities had gained access to Zuhair after the arrest of one or more of his relatives (see this 12 May 2023 BBC report). This was also reported by Bamyan TV on 14 May 2023, which said the Taliban had arrested five of Zuhair’s family members about three months earlier, after which a group of elders negotiated an agreement with Emirate officials that Zuhair would denounce war and the Emirate would release his family members (see the video here). People close to Zuhair told the media that he had surrendered on certain conditions, including a “safe exit” from Afghanistan.[37] Since then, he seems to have left the country and has started criticising the Emirate (for example, on 15 August 2024, on the occasion of the third anniversary of the fall of the Republic, Zuhair said in a Facebook post that capturing power by force in a multi-ethnic country would never bring stability.)
Zuhair’s surrender was met with approval from at least one senior Hazara, Asadullah Sadati, a former Daikundi MP and senior member of Khalili’s Hezb-e Wahdat-e Islami, who remains in Afghanistan. Sadati said in a Facebook post that, by surrendering, Zuhair had followed the Hazaras’ general policy of “opposing war and hostility,” which he said, “stemmed from the Hazaras’ collective wisdom under the current situation.” It was “exactly for the same reason,” Sadati said, that “the elders of our people cooperated in this case [Zuhair’s negotiated surrender].” Both Zuhair’s surrender and Sadati’s response illustrate the overall Hazara and Shia approach under the Emirate – of negotiation, acquiescence and avoidance of conflict.
While Mujahed’s reported death had already dealt a major blow to the continuation of the Balkhab resistance, Zuhair’s surrender more or less ended the possibility of a revival of the front, especially since the Emirate has kept a watchful eye on the district as evidenced by the recent killing of Rastagar. Zuhair’s surrender also dampened the potential for any other uprising against the Emirate among Hazara communities in the foreseeable future.
Conclusion
The Taliban’s accommodation of local Hazara commanders in Daikundi province and Balkhab district of Sar-e Pul can be scrutinised in three phases: the insurgency years, the IEA’s initial consolidation period after 15 August 2021, and the current, more settled situation.
During the insurgency, the Taliban sought to co-opt Hazara commanders who were on the run from the government and showcase their allegiance in order to signal that the movement was nationwide, multi-ethnic and multi-sectarian. This was demonstrated by the release of promotional videos when Mujahed and Fedayi joined the Taliban. In this phase, the Taliban used these commanders against the former government in their respective provinces by appointing them as shadow district governors or military commanders and using them to destabilise these provinces from within. This was especially important because the Taliban had little or no local sympathy or support.
After their return to power, the Taliban went through a consolidation period. They were still fighting the National Resistance Front in Panjshir, intent on preventing armed resistance from spreading to other provinces, and solidifying their control of areas that they had been unable to significantly infiltrate prior to their return to power. During this phase, the IEA appointed five of the six commanders discussed in this report to local government posts (and may well have also appointed the sixth, had he not, almost immediately, fallen out with the new administration). These appointments seemed motivated by a number of reasons. First, the Taliban rewarded those who had fought in their ranks or assisted them in their final takeover. Second, given the Taliban’s political rhetoric of an “inclusive political system,” both before and after the takeover (see, for example, their then deputy leader Serajuddin Haqqani’s February 2020 op-ed for The New York Times), these commanders were useful in providing a façade of inclusiveness. Third, the Taliban may well have needed their help in disarming the population and seeking out former government forces (as can be inferred from Sadaqat’s involvement in the incident in Khedir just after the takeover that resulted in the death of 13 people).
Once the Emirate had routed the Panjshir resistance and established full control of the country, they entered a post-consolidation period. Now, their primary objective in areas where they had never had strong support, appears to have been to ensure that the local commanders they had relied on to establish their writ did not gain influence in their respective districts and provinces.
While Mawlawi Mujahed asserted himself and sought to have a say in the decisions about his home district, or province of assignment, it appears the commanders in Daikundi have so far avoided defying Emirate orders or being seen to seek autonomy. From the outset, the Emirate has reacted harshly towards behaviour that it regards as being too demanding (for example, detaining Sadaqat after he asked for an explanation for the killing of his bodyguard) or as amounting to disobedience or outright rebellion (as exemplified by the arrest and reported execution of Mujahed). The commanders in Daikundi have endured detentions and relocations, reflecting their extremely limited power. At the same time, their acquiescence seems mirrored by a Taliban posture of not pushing them too hard as long as they keep themselves in check, so as not to risk completely losing their support (as illustrated by the reinstatement of Muballeghzada after his arrest and the early mediation attempts in the conflict with Mujahed).
Whether the IEA accommodates or suppresses these commanders, it is all too often the local population that suffers. If the commanders get into trouble with the Emirate authorities, the consequence is often a broad targeting of people suspected of affiliation with them, regardless of whether they are, in fact, linked. If they keep their heads down, local people are still left with local leaders with murky records and limited political clout – who, if they did want to bring the needs of the people to the higher authorities, cannot lend much weight to these requests. The result is that little benefit has been seen for the Hazara and Shia citizens in areas where they hold office.
Edited by Martine van Bijlert and Rachel Reid
* Ali Yawar Adili worked for AAN from 2016 to 2021, including as Country Director, and is now a Non-Resident Fellow at New York University’s Centre on International Cooperation. He holds a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University in New York.
References
References
↑1
President Hamed Karzai approved Nawamesh as a separate district, splitting it off from Baghran district in Helmand in 2013. The decision was, however, not enforced until 9 December 2016, when Nawamesh was inaugurated as part of Daikundi province. This was several months after President Ashraf Ghani had approved it to be ‘temporarily’ administered from Daikundi on 30 March 2016. Almost two years after the takeover, in April 2023, the Emirate declared Nawamesh to be a separate district as part of Helmand province.
↑2
Afghanistan’s Shia Muslim population includes Sayeds, Qizilbash and Farsiwan, with Hazaras by far the largest group. Among ethnic Hazaras, the overwhelming majority are Shia ‘Twelvers’ (believing in twelve divinely appointed Imams after the Prophet Muhammad), but there are also smaller communities of Ismaili Shias that parted ways with Twelver Shia based on their belief that Ismail the son of the sixth imam should have succeeded him as the seventh imam) and Sunni Muslim.
↑3
The report, The Politics of Survival in the Face of Exclusion: Hazara and Shia actors under the Taleban, published in February 2023, explored the response of Hazara and Shia Muslim leaders and groups, at both the national level and in the diaspora, to the Taliban’s dramatic return to power and domination of Afghanistan. It analysed the words and actions of: (1) the ‘old guard’ leaders, who have been outside the country since the Taliban takeover (Muhammad Mohaqeq, Muhammad Karim Khalili, Sarwar Danesh and Muhammad Sadeq Mudaber); (2) the aides to these leaders who remained in Kabul, formed an ad hoc coalition, and engaged with the new IEA authorities in an effort to secure Hazara/Shia representation in the government; and (3) several cleric-led Shia organisations who have sought to represent the community, including the old Shia Ulema Council of Afghanistan, the newer General Council of Hazaras, established by Kabul-based Grand Ayatollah Vaezzada, and the Assembly of Shia Ulema and Influential Persons of Afghanistan led by Sayed Hassan Fazelzada.
↑4
The 2004 constitution was apparently suspended, according to UNAMA, quoting the acting Deputy Minister of Justice, who said on 22 September 2022, that it was unnecessary. See TOLO News, ‘Officials: Afghanistan Does Not Need a Constitution’, quoted in UNAMA’s May 2023 report ‘Corporal Punishment and the Death Penalty in Afghanistan’ p10. Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada is the highest authority in the Emirate: he holds legislative, executive and judicial powers.
Local sources told the author that Mujahed and his son were killed in an ambush in Charkh in May 2012.
↑7
Fedayi identified the four as Mobarez, Sharifi, Arefi and Niazi.
↑8
Hasht-e Sobh reported that the clash killed one of Fedayi’s fighters and a civilian. The spokesman for then Daikundi governor, Abbas Kamyar, told the daily that Fedayi was an illegally armed man accused of “bullying, disruption of law and order in Miramor and parts of Shahristan and Ishtarlay.”
↑9
The RTA report introduced Fedayi as the Taliban’s military commander for Miramor and Salehi as the shadow governor of Shahristan.
↑10
Dawari’s brother, Kazem Afkari, was killed in 1999 – according to a Hasht-e Sobh report, by one of his bodyguards, although other sources told the author the killer had been a splinter commander, Muntazari. Dawari’s other brother, Abdul Ali, died in 2009 while he was Miramor district governor. He is said to have died a natural death.
↑11
See Niamatullah Ibrahimi, The Hazaras and The Afghan State: Rebellion, Exclusion and The Struggle For Recognition, London, Hurst, p 206.
↑12
On 27 September 2023, the Emirate closed Radio Nasim and detained its journalists, Sultan Ali Jawadi, Mojtaba Qasimi and Saifullah Rezayi. The journalists were released later that day but detained again ten days later, on 7 October. While Qasimi and Rezayi were freed again after ten days, Jawadi was sentenced to one year in prison. The radio station remained closed for more than five months, until early March 2024 (see media report here). Many of Radio Nasim’s online reports cited in this report have disappeared during its temporary closure. Nonetheless, the author has retained the URLs in case they do re-appear.
↑13
The Muballeghzada brothers had already turned against the government over a provincial council seat, once before. A former employee of Daikundi police provided the following account to the author:
During the interim and transitional administrations under Karzai, Muballeghzada’s father was the district governor of Miramor and then the head of the provincial Juvenile Rehabilitation Centre, administered by the Ministry of Justice. He was elected to the provincial council in 2005, but died from cancer shortly after. When the government asked his sons for the money their father owed the Juvenile Rehabilitation Centre, they said they would pay the amount only if one of them was given their father’s provincial council seat. When the government did not agree, they turned against the government and seized control of the Nawa-ye Chawosh area of Ishterlay district.
↑14
In November 2020, the Taliban released a video saying that the Muballeghzadas had joined them, but Baqer rejected the claim and called it a conspiracy by his rivals (see this Radio Nasim report here). Dur Muhammad Mesbah, a resident of Nili, who is a member of Hezb-e Harakat-e Islami and once served as an advisor to former Chief Executive Dr Abdullah, is also seen in the video, pledging allegiance to the Taliban. Later, speaking to Radio Nasim, he denied that he had joined the Taliban. He said that the Taliban had taken him from a vehicle in Maidan Wardak and transferred him to an unknown place and that he pledged allegiance to the Taliban to save his life.
↑15
See this report by Daikundi-based Radio Nasim. The Taliban appointed Pashtuns from their ranks as governors for the rest of the districts: Mullah Ismail Shir Agha for Khedir, Mullah Hekmatullah for Kiti, Mullah Khairmal for Kejran, Sayed Asad for Sang-e Takht wa Bandar and Mullah Mahmud Mosafer for Gizab. In 2018, the Republic had inaugurated Pato as a separate district as part of Daikundi, splitting it off from Gizab of Uruzgan. After the Emirate’s takeover, Gizab was also initially considered part of Daikundi province. Since then, the Emirate has located Gizab in Uruzgan again and Pato in Daikundi, as separate districts.
↑16
In his interview with Radio Nasim published on 20 August 2021, Sadaqat said he has been cooperating with the authorities and had asked the Daikundi governor to refrain from house searches to prevent tension, after which the governor had promised to follow his advice. When there was an incident anyway, Sadaqat contacted the governor, who told him to investigate the matter. Sadaqat then discovered that one of his bodyguards had gone missing the previous night and that a body had been found in the mountains. The body was brought to the mostofiat where Sadaqat was stationed at the time. He notified Taliban officials, but when he received no response, he said they took the body to the governor’s office, where he said the guards ‘mistreated’ them. They left the body there and returned to the mostofiat, where they were surrounded and detained.
↑17
In his interview with Radio Nasim, Sadaqat claimed that the Taliban had confiscated 101 weapons of various kinds from him and his men.
↑18
Abed denied that the Taliban had been involved in the killing, saying that Sadaqat’s man was also their own man. Abed said the man had been killed in a location unknown to the Taliban, and that had they wanted to kill him, they would have done so in front of the governor’s office building.
↑19
A journalist in the province told the author on 16 June 2023 that a number of local officials, including Daikundi’s deputy provincial governor, had gone to Ishtarlay district under the pretext of inaugurating a new project. There, they investigated and discovered that Muballeghzada had buried some military vehicles underground. The intelligence service then arrested Muballeghzada from Nili. After they interrogated him and retrieved the hidden weapons, they released him. A prosecutor told the author that while Muballeghzada was in detention, his house was searched and two Humvees, one Ranger, one Mazda and an unknown number of weapons were confiscated and that Muballeghzada additionally agreed to surrender 25 other weapons.
↑20
See also the X account of journalist Mukhtar Wafayee, who posted that, after detaining Muballeghzada, the Taliban had intended to arrest Sadaqat and Dawari, but that both had managed to escape and evade arrest.
↑21
According to the journalist, there were also internal power struggles among the senior (Pashtun) officials in the province, evidenced by that fact that, on 5 January 2023, governor Obaid dismissed chief of police Sediqullah Abed and replaced him with his own man, Mullah Abdul Hakim Rahbin.
↑22
Some local sources said these commanders were actually involved in abuses against the local population. A journalist said he had received several calls from people complaining about harassment and beatings by (men affiliated with) Salehi, Dawari and Fidayi. For instance, on 20 August 2022, the journalist heard that Dawari’s men had arrested a resident of Shahristan called Niamatullah and subjected him to torture, to the extent that he lost consciousness – reportedly because he had objected to Emirate forces bathing in a kariz (a type of water channel) near his house, as it intruded upon his family’s privacy. A former prosecutor confirmed the incident, but said that Taliban forces, not Dawari’s men, had carried out the arrest and torture.
↑23
The introduction to the 2020 video on al-Emarah said:
Al-Emarah Studio has conducted a comprehensive interview with Mawlawi Mahdi Mujahed, Governor of Balkhab District, Sar-e Pul province, which we invite you to listen to. The respected Mawlawi Mahdi Mujahed is one of the ethnic Hazara brothers and Shias in the ranks of the Islamic Emirate, who has not spared [himself] any kind of sacrifice in the jihad against the American occupation.
The video is no longer available on the website.
↑24
According to the Independent Persian report quoted in the main text, two members of Mujahed’s forces and four members of Attaullah’s forces were killed in the clash and six more were wounded. The fighting ended after four hours and only after Taliban officials from the provincial centre intervened. A source close to Mujahed told the author that fighting erupted after Attaullah’s brother, Esa, beat a civilian, apparently a driver, and Muhammad Mujahed (not a relative of Mawlawi Mujahed) who was in charge of the coal mines objected. Attaullah’s brother then fired at him, leading to the clash.
↑25
Gardezi, a Shia from Gardez in Paktia province, also served as district governor of Yakowlang during the first Emirate, and became, after 2001, a close aide to Mohaqeq, serving as his contact person with the Taliban. Sangardost, a Hazara from the Behsud district of Maidan Wardak province, surrendered to the Taliban in 1998 when he was a local commander in Mudaber’s then-breakaway faction of Harakat-e Islami. He was later an MP and one of the founding members of Mudaber’s Republic-era Ensejam-e Melli party. Karimi, a Hazara from Bamyan, has long been a close aide to Khalili and was his contact point with the Taliban before the takeover.
↑26
See, for example, this 13 June 2022 BBC report that describes a 200-strong force from the neighbouring province of Faryab being sent to Balkhab. The report also said that a delegation led by Bamyan governor Abdullah Sarhadi had travelled to the area for talks, but that Mujahed had demanded that Emirate forces should first retreat from around his district.
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Sibghatullah Ahmadi tweeted:
Today, at 7 o’clock in the morning, Taliban occupiers carried out an assault from Qom-Kotal of Sancharak on the brave and justice-seeking people of Balkhab; Taliban’s casualties are heavy and they have been forced to retreat. More details later.
Although there were reports that the NRF was supporting the Balkhab front, there have been no indications of actual logistical or military support.
America’s priority for targeted chaos in Afghanistan is [through] ethnic and religious war-making in order to make Hazara and Tajik victims of their plan and to regionalise the Afghan crisis. The war in Balkhab is America’s introductory sedition (fitna); whoever incites it has played into the scenario of that country. Compassionate leaders of all ethnic groups in Afghanistan should distance themselves from the conflict in Balkhab. The conflict in Balkhab has no result for anyone except the bloodshed of people and the destruction of Afghanistan. All well-wishers of Afghanistan should take a stand against the Balkhab conflict; the conflict is driven by multinational intelligence services.
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On 15 September 2022, Amnesty International reported that, on the night of 26 June 2022, Emirate forces had carried out a raid on the house of Muhammad Ali Muradi, a former commander of an Uprising Force, in Hazara majority district of Lal wa Sarjangal, killing him, his two daughters and three other men who had been at his home at the time of the raid. According to the report, the Emirate claimed they had carried out a “targeted operations” after fighters linked with Mawlawi Mujahed had attacked the Taliban in Balkhab and then fled to Lal wa Sarjangal. Amnesty International rejected the Taliban’s account as “incorrect,” saying that Muradi had not been a member of Mujahed’s force and had not taken part in the fight in Balkhab. It called the Emirate’s justification “a pretext for targeting ethnic minorities and soldiers associated with the former government.”
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The full tweet from the Ministry of Defence reads:
Mawlawi Mahdi, leader of the rebels of Balkhab district of Sar-e Pul, was killed.
The border forces of the Islamic Emirate killed [a person] named Mahdi, the leader of the rebels of Balkhab district of Sar-e Pul province, in the border points between Herat province and Iran, while he was trying to escape to Iran.
After the rebellion against the Islamic Emirate in Balkhab, Sar-e Pul province, the so-called Mahdi had fled to the mountains with several of his companions. During the past few days, [while he intended] to flee to Iran, he was identified and punished for his actions by border detective and intelligence forces in the border points between Herat province and Iran.
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The Hasht-e Sobh report discussed conflicting accounts of Mujahed’s death. According to one, he was taken at night from a house on the Afghan side of the border. Another account suggested he entered Iranian territory illegally, after which the Iranian border guards intercepted him and handed him over to Emirate forces. An Emirate source told Hasht-e Sobh they had known that Mujahed intended to cross at the Islam Qala border crossing, but arrested him at night from a house in Bonyad village. According to a resident of the village, Mujahed had been hiding in the house and had planned to exit Afghanistan early in the morning. He said Mujahed had received two calls warning him of the impending siege, which he had not taken seriously.
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At the time, the Emirate released images of Mujahed, which they said were taken after his arrest, at which point he was still alive. They have not presented any proof of his death since, nor have they presented his body to the family. This has led some to speculate that Mujahed may not actually be dead.
↑33
Danesh’s statement was also a post-mortem glorification of Mujahed for having quickly parted ways with the Taliban government, a denouncement of its “monopolistic and reactionary thoughts,” a statement advocating justice and equality among all ethnic groups, and a declaration of his “loyalty to the path and thoughts of Abdul Ali Mazari [the founder of Hezb-e Wahdat-e Islami- Afghanistan].”
↑34
One of Ehsani’s acquaintances who had been at the hotel at the time of his arrest told the author in June 2023 that two or three men had come in a black Toyota Fielder and taken Ehsani from in front of the hotel. The acquaintance said that the following day, Ehsani’s family members had seen the same car at the District 5 police headquarters, leading them to conclude that he had been taken by the police. When they received the body from a hospital, they said officials told them he had been killed in Balkh district, but refused to show them the site of the murder.
In a Facebook post, Mohaqeq blamed “Taliban intelligence” for killing Ehsani, in contravention of what he called the “false general amnesty” declared by the Emirate’s leadership, and the assurances of safety Ehsani had received from local officials.
↑35
The local source said that, while on the run, Ehsani had obtained several amnesty letters, including one from acting Defence Minister Mullah Yaqub, as well as a weapons licence from local officials in Balkhab (even though he did not carry a weapon or have a bodyguard). However, the Emirate’s forces had also taken a Toyota Fielder car from his house and Ehsani had to surrender more than 50 pieces of weapons and kill many sheep to feed the forces.
↑36
A week before, on 31 October 2024, Gul Ahmad Muradi, a former commander of the public uprising force, was killed by unknown gunmen in his home at night while he was sleeping. According to media reports, he had sided with the Emirate during their conflict with Mawlawi Mujahed in June 2022. The Emirate had promised him he would be appointed as the chief of Balkhab police, but he was not given any role after Mujahed was defeated and did not carry out any political and military activities (see this Independent Persian report here).
↑37
Etilaat Roz additionally quoted a source saying that, as a precondition for denouncing the fighting, Zuhair had also demanded that Bamyan’s local administration be shared between his supporters and the Taliban on a 50-50 basis. Although it is unclear whether Zuhair had indeed raised this, it would have been an unlikely prospect from the start, given the Emirate’s widespread exclusion of non-Taliban actors, especially Hazaras, and the fact that Zuhair was putting no military pressure on the Emirate and would have had little leverage in any negotiation.
The Politics of Survival in the Face of Exclusion (2): The Emirate’s accommodation and suppression of local Hazara commanders
Pakistan: Amnesty International launches #undothedeadline campaign against unlawful deportation of Afghan nationals
With the Pakistani authorities beginning a new round of deportations for Afghan nationals, including refugees and asylum seekers, living in the country, Amnesty International is launching its new campaign #undothedeadline by releasing a compendium of stories titled ‘ “Treat us like human beings”: Afghans in Pakistan at risk of unlawful deportation.’
Through the #undothedeadline campaign, Amnesty International aims to amplify the voices of Afghans at risk of unlawful deportation, advocate for the respect of their human rights and raise awareness about the urgent need to stop their forced deportations from Pakistan. The compendium spotlights ten stories of Afghan migrants, refugees and asylum seekers who are artists, journalists and women who cannot afford to go back to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and not only risk their lives but also stand to lose decades worth of lives built in Pakistan.
“Afghan nationals including refugees and asylum seekers in Pakistan have been living in a state of fear since the Pakistani authorities announced their phased deportation plans in October 2023. Many Afghans have been in Pakistan for more than four decades. Their lives stand to be completely upended as a result of the Pakistan government’s insistence on violating their obligations under international human rights law, specifically the principle of non-refoulement,” says Babu Ram Pant, Deputy regional director for South Asia at Amnesty International.
Many Afghans have been in Pakistan for more than four decades. Their lives stand to be completely upended as a result of the Pakistan government’s insistence on violating their obligations under international human rights law…
Babu Ram Pant, Deputy regional director for South Asia at Amnesty International
“Afghans seeking refuge and asylum in Pakistan after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 are particularly at risk. These include Afghan women and girls, journalists, human rights defenders, women protestors, artists, and former Afghan government and security officials who fled Taliban’s persecution. Pakistan must reverse its existing policy of forced return to ensure the safety of these individuals.”
Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the Pakistan government to reverse its latest decision to expel Afghan nationals from Islamabad and Rawalpindi and formally suspend the ‘Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan.’
Amnesty International launches #undothedeadline campaign in Pakistan
The Take: Why are Afghan activists facing deportation?
Afghans in Pakistan face deportation, including women’s rights activists at risk under Taliban rule.
Afghan women’s rights activists are facing deportation from Pakistan, along with hundreds of thousands of Afghans living there. The activists risk imprisonment or death if they return to life under the Taliban in Afghanistan. Afghans have sought refuge in Pakistan for years, but the government says they cannot remain there indefinitely. As international resettlement programmes shut down and Pakistan accelerates removals, where can Afghans go?
Podcast: Why are Afghan activists being deported from Pakistan?
Afghanistan’s last female ambassador, Manizha Bakhtari, continues her fight against Taliban from Austria, advocating for women’s rights and leading resistance.
A day before Kabul fell to the Taliban, Manizha Bakhtari asked Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Haneef Atmar: “What will we do if the government falls?” “The government won’t fall,” Atmar assured his ambassador to Austria.
Manizha Bakhtari, the Afghan Ambassador to Austria(Golden Girls Film)
Hours later, Taliban troops walked into the capital after America pulled its last forces out of Afghanistan. The Foreign Minister soon fled the country, seeking refuge in Turkey. Bakhtari didn’t. Defying the Taliban’s order dismissing her, she remained in the embassy and still continues to represent her country in Vienna while fighting for the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan as the last Afghan woman envoy in the world.
Last week, Bakhtari, 52, was given a standing ovation by the audience at the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (CPH:DOX) in Denmark where a new documentary on her had its world premiere. The Last Ambassador, directed by Austrian filmmaker Natalie Halla, shows a determined diplomat refusing to give up and launching a lasting resistance against the Taliban on the global stage.
The Last Ambassador, a new documentary on Manizha Bakhtari, premiered at the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival in Denmark on March 22 (Golden Girls Film)
The 80-minute film, which premiered at CPH:DOX on March 22, spans the long journey of Bakhtari from her position as an envoy of the Ashraf Ghani government in Afghanistan to an ambassador that the Taliban doesn’t want. As she campaigns against international recognition for the Taliban regime, Bakhtari also sets up a clandestine learning network in Afghanistan for girls banned from schools.
Austrian lawyer-turned-filmmaker Natalie Halla, the director of The Last Ambassador (Amina Stelle Steiner)
“Manizha Bakhtari is still the Ambassador of Afghanistan to Austria. She is also still the representative of Afghanistan before the United Nations and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD),” says Halla, a lawyer-turned filmmaker who first saw Bakhtari on television news as she called the Taliban terrorists a few days after the fall of Kabul on August 15, 2021.
Legal limbo
The Taliban takeover in 2021 left Afghan embassies worldwide in a legal limbo as some envoys started cooperating with them while others refused. A few others dared to openly oppose the Taliban. Among them was Afghanistan’s last remaining woman ambassador, Bakhtari. It was a move that would invite swift punishment from the Taliban.
Soon Bakhtari received a letter signed by a Human Resources director in Kabul relieving her of duties. Her response too was prompt: “I am not taking orders from you, Mister,” she told herself, characterising the HR director as “probably a Taliban gunman”.
Manizha Bakhtari, the Afghan Ambassador to Austria and the country’s last woman envoy, refused to resign after the Taliban takeover in 2021 (Golden Girls Film)
As the legal vacuum continued, Bakhtari was asked on Austrian television whom she represented in Europe. “It is important to represent the people of Afghanistan. That is a mission for us now,” she replied, emphasising her resignation would happen only when the Taliban receive international recognition.
Situated on a busy thoroughfare, the Afghan embassy in Vienna was like any other mission until August 2021. The embassy would go on to pay a heavy price for its defiance. Several employees were let go after the Taliban stopped the flow of funds, forcing embassy drivers to cover vacant posts.
Manizha Bakhtari, the Afghan Ambassador to Austria and the country’s last woman envoy, refused to resign after the Taliban takeover in 2021 (Photo: Golden Girls Film)
On the third day of the fall of Kabul, the Taliban held a press conference, promising the world they will allow women to work “within the framework of Sharia” and declaring “women are an essential element of the society and we respect them”. “The Taliban were selling the idea that they had changed,” says Bakhtari in the film, which is dedicated to the women and girls of Afghanistan.
In the days following their proclamation to the world, women in Afghanistan began protesting they weren’t allowed back to work and girls crying they were denied entry to schools.
Managing mission
Bakhtari, a former ambassador to the Nordic countries, was watching the events back home with rapt attention. Five months after the Taliban takeover, she moved the embassy to an affordable house in Vienna, managing the mission with income from consular services. She also launched a campaign in Afghanistan called Dukhtaran, which means daughters in Persian, to secretly provide lessons to girls banned from schools.
Raising the pitch of resistance, Bakhtari also hosted a summit, called Vienna Conference, gathering Afghan representatives from all ethnic and religious groups in the Austrian capital in April 2023 to forge a united strategy against the Taliban. Among them were many women activists as well as Ahmad Massoud, the son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, who fought the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Manizha Bakhtari moved her embassy to an affordable house in Vienna after the Taliban cut funds (Golden Girls Film)
The Taliban hit back by blacklisting the Vienna embassy and declaring documents issued by it as invalid. Bakhtari also has to deal with death threats and abuse online from Taliban supporters. In July last year, the OECD bloc of developed countries bestowed the White Ribbon Award on Bakhtari for defending the rights of women in Afghanistan. A month later, the Taliban introduced a series of new laws that escalated their policy of gender apartheid, effectively erasing women from public life.
More than three years after leading resistance against the Taliban, Bakhtari, who taught journalism at the Kabul University before joining the Afghan Foreign Ministry as Chief of Staff in 2007, is optimistic. “Our efforts have prevented international recognition of the Taliban regime,” beams Bakhtari, who became Afghan’s ambassador to the Nordic countries in 2009. “The Taliban won’t stay forever. They will be gone one day.”
Though no nation has recognised the Taliban government, many countries, including India, have held talks with the regime. In January this year, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri met the Taliban’s acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Dubai, the first high-level engagement with the Taliban since the fall of Kabul.
Raising resistance
Bakhtari, one of three daughters of well-respected Afghan poet Wasef Bakhtari, found herself on the side of those resisting fundamentalism early in her life following an arranged marriage at 19 to businessman Naser Hotaki. When her father published his new book of poetry in exile in the US, he dedicated it to her. “For my daughter, who is better than 100 sons,” read the dedication.
“Peace is not the absence of war, but the presence of justice,” Bakhtari is shown saying in the film, which she didn’t want to be made initially. “When I first approached her with the idea of a documentary on her, she said very diplomatically and politely, ‘No,'” recalls the film’s director Halla.
Produced by Golden Girls Film, a Vienna-based collective that also produced the 2025 documentary Girls & Gods, about a group of women in Europe and the US pushing back against power structures, The Last Ambassador exposes the enablers of the Taliban return, including America, which secretly signed the Doha Deal in 2020 with the Taliban paving the way for its return. For Afghans, it was a deal that ignored women’s rights to study and work, and the collective achievement of the previous two decades without the Taliban.
Halla, who convinced Bakhtari about the importance of making the film weeks after the Taliban takeover, shot the movie, which is in Dari language and English, for nearly three years following her in the embassy and outside. “I did not expect the embassy to continue work till even now,” says the filmmaker. “They receive no money from the Foreign Ministry in Afghanistan, so they survive how they can. For them it’s not about the money, but the importance of keeping the embassy open as a place of resistance against the Taliban. And a platform to advocate for the rights of women and girls.”
Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Austria is confronting the Taliban and fighting oppression of women in her country
Afghanistan Peace Campaign
