P.O.Box 21375, Washington, D.C. 20009

The terrifying spectre of an internet shutdown in Afghanistan

September 22, 2025

By Hujjatullah Zia

A Kabul-based journalist.

Al Jazeera

22 Sep 2025
A partial shutdown of fibre-optic internet has spread fear. Afghans do not want to be cut off from the world.

When I was a child, Afghans had to travel to Pakistan whenever they needed to make a phone call to their relatives outside the country. Today, we face the real possibility that we may also be forced to travel to a neighbouring country just to use the internet.

Last week, fibre-optic internet services were stopped in several provinces, including Kandahar, Helmand and Balkh – a move that may extend to the entire country. Afghanistan may be cut off from the rest of the world if the Taliban leadership does not reconsider its policy.Soon, you may no longer read my stories and those of millions of Afghans because we may not be able to connect to the internet. A total silence would prevail in the country.

After the shutdown of fibre-optic internet in Balkh province, Haji Zaid, a spokesperson for the Balkh provincial government, said on X that the ban was a direct order from Taliban leader Haibatullah Akhunzada to prevent “vice”.

However, many reacted negatively to his post, arguing that a proper alternative had to be introduced before the implementation of this policy.

A nationwide cutoff of internet access would affect Afghan citizens in many ways. Business activities and banking systems would be immediately disrupted. The opportunities for online learning and scholarships would be lost. Many national and international organisations, NGOs and e-government services would encounter serious challenges, and online workers would lose their jobs. Communications with the world would be cut off.

My family would also suffer. As someone who has struggled with unemployment for a few years now, I have found on the internet various opportunities to earn some kind of income, including launching a YouTube channel to showcase beautiful parts of my country. More importantly, if it was not for a good internet connection, we would struggle to keep in touch with family who now live abroad and who we are unlikely to see for years.

Shutting down the internet would marginalise Afghanistan at the global level. It would be like implementing a self-imposed embargo on the country, which would have an adverse effect on many public spheres in Afghanistan, especially the already struggling economy.

Instead of going to this extreme, Afghanistan should heed the example of China. It should be noted that China, as the world’s second largest economy, owes its economic development to reform and a policy of opening-up, adopted by Deng Xiaoping in 1978. This agenda transformed China from a poor country into a manufacturing giant.

When internet use spread across the country in the 2000s, the authorities in Beijing saw some risks. But instead of cutting off their country from being connected to the rest of the world and reversing the policy of openness, they instead invested in building home-grown internet infrastructure and filters. Thus, internet content that is considered risky is filtered out without the need to largely shut off 1.4 billion Chinese citizens from the rest of the world.

In Afghanistan, videos considered immoral are already censored, preventing citizens from accessing such content. If the government is concerned that these filters are failing, there is certainly a technological solution to make them more effective. It should also be recognised that shutting down the internet for everyone will not prevent “immorality” in real life.

If the aim of the policy is to pressure the international community for formal recognition, this will not work either. It would simply harm the Afghan people rather than effectively move other countries to change their policy on Afghanistan.

The internet is now an essential part of daily life, comparable to fundamental needs such as food and water. After two decades of being a netizen, living the life of my forefathers – being cut off from the rest of the world in the era of technological innovations and AI – seems scary to me.

While writing this piece, I have had to check my internet connection every few minutes, worried that I would lose access before I could send it. I am terrified to imagine living like in the old days when listening to the radio was the only way to get information about what was going on in Afghanistan and the rest of the world.

Our stories matter, and we want the world to listen to us and to support us in times of hardship. A marginalised, disconnected and poverty-stricken Afghanistan is in the interests of no one. Afghans want to remain part of the global community and interact with the rest of the world, not be forced into full isolation.

Hujjatullah Zia is a journalist and senior writer in Daily Outlook Afghanistan Newspaper

The terrifying spectre of an internet shutdown in Afghanistan
read more

A U.S. return to Bagram isn’t a bad idea

September 21, 2025

Editorial

The Washington Post

September 21, 2025

The abandoned airfield in Afghanistan was once a symbol of American power. Trump wants it back.

For nearly 20 years, the Bagram air base stood as the sprawling symbol of American power in Afghanistan and as the heart of the long U.S. military intervention there. The Biden administration secretly evacuated the base on July 1, 2021, a few weeks ahead of its chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Afghan army left in control of the base surrendered to the Taliban.

Now, President Donald Trump says he wants Bagram back. “We gave it to them for nothing,” he said in in London on Thursday. “We’re trying to get it back, by the way. … We’re trying to get it back because they need things from us.” Good. Bagram is worth pursuing, though not at any cost.

Bagram is strategically important because of its proximity to the border with China and to a nuclear testing range at Lop Nur in a remote part of Xinjiang province. The testing range was long believed abandoned, but there have been reports of increased Chinese military construction activities in the area.

An American military presence at Bagram would also allow the U.S. to conduct counterterrorism operations in a volatile region against the Islamic State-Khorasan terrorist group, which is also at war with the Taliban and has also spread its tentacles into Europe.

What the Taliban wants most from the U.S. is recognition. The country’s seat at the United Nations is still held by the former government. The Taliban would also like to access $7 billion in assets frozen in the U.S. to boost its flagging economy.

Taliban officials don’t sound eager for American troops to return to Bagram. “Afghans have never accepted foreign military presence in their land throughout history,” a senior foreign ministry official, Zakir Jalaly, said. But there’s room to negotiate. As Jalaly pointedly added: “Afghanistan and America need engagement on economic and political relations based on bilateral respect and common interests.”

Trump has leverage. This month, the Taliban’s foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, and Trump’s special envoy for hostages, Adam Boehler, said they had reached a deal on a prisoner exchange. The Wall Street Journal reported that talks about a small American contingent basing out of Bagram were in the early stages.

But there’s little reason to believe that the U.S. diplomatic boycott of Afghanistan, more than four years after the Taliban took over, is exerting meaningful pressure that will make the government crack. Other actors are filling the void. Better for Washington to have more influence in Kabul than less.

The return of a small American military contingent to Bagram would be a far cry from the commanding presence that existed before. But it would give the U.S. a toehold in a strategically vital region as competition with China continues.

A U.S. return to Bagram isn’t a bad idea
read more

Afghanistan’s Urban Water Dilemma: Why are Afghan cities running out of water?

September 17, 2025

Mhd Assem Mayar 

Afghanistan Analysts Network

 

Water scarcity, once thought to be a problem only for Afghanistan’s driest provinces like Farah and Nimruz, is now gripping Afghan cities. Predictions that Kabul’s groundwater will be exhausted by 2030 have already made international headlines, but Kabul is not alone. In cities across the country, taps are running dry, wells are having to be deepened and government systems are collapsing under the weight of rising demand and institutional paralysis. Urban water supply has long sat on the margins of Afghanistan’s development agenda – underfunded, uncoordinated and poorly understood. With climate change accelerating and urban populations swelling, that neglect is becoming catastrophic. A crisis, decades in the making, is now unfolding in real time. Guest author Mohammad Assem Mayar* discusses a key question in this, his latest report for AAN: Why are Afghan cities running dry and what can be done about it – before it is too late?

You can preview the report online and download it by clicking here or the download button below

Once an oasis of underground reserves and natural springs, Kabul is now facing a steady and alarming decline in its groundwater. Yet the water crisis in Afghan cities is neither new nor limited to the capital. Urban water shortages have developed for multiple reasons. Climate change has altered the seasonal rhythms that once recharged aquifers, while rapidly growing urban populations have increased demand for water, outpacing the expansion of infrastructure. Most consequentially, the systematic mismanagement of the country’s water resources – including fragmented institutions, weak regulation and chronic underinvestment – has left cities without the necessary infrastructure to deliver safe and reliable water. Urbanisation has continued apace also without regard for safe sewage disposal, leading to the contamination of groundwater.

There is also a glaring disparity in the ability of Afghans to access water. While the urban poor have to buy their water from tankers – spending up to 30 per cent of their household income – the rich can continue to squander water without personal consequences. Ironically, it is those with the power to change policy who are least motivated, personally, to do so. For them, water is free and, if the water table falls, they can always ‘buy’ their way out of any shortage by digging their own private wells deeper.

Each of these stressors – climate change, urbanisation, mismanagement and the political economy of water – magnifies the others. The result is a emerging urban water crisis, one that is no longer limited to low-income neighbourhoods or informal settlements.

There are potential solutions and the report considers these – from managed aquifer recharge to institutional reform. As of now, however, with snowmelt dwindling and rainfall erratic, city populations still growing and institutions remaining fractured, access to safe water is slipping out of reach for many urban residents. The question is no longer whether Afghan cities are facing a water crisis, but can Afghanistan still avert a collapse of its urban water systems.

Edited by Kate Clark 

* Mohammad Assem Mayar is a water resources management and climate change expert with a PhD in water resources management and environmental engineering from the University of Stuttgart in Germany. He is a former lecturer at Kabul Polytechnic University in Afghanistan and currently, an independent researcher based in Germany. He posts on X as @assemmayar1.

 

You can preview the report online and download it by clicking here or the download button below

 

20250918 Urban Water FINALDownload

Revisions:

This article was last updated on 17 Sep 2025

Mhd Assem Mayar

Afghanistan’s Urban Water Dilemma: Why are Afghan cities running out of water?
read more

How the United Nations Can Turn Afghanistan’s Seat Into a Path Forward

September 17, 2025
PeaceRep
Download Report (PDF)

Dostyar, A. (2025). How the United Nations Can Turn Afghanistan’s Seat Into a Path Forward (Afghanistan Research Network Reflection). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh

http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/6483

How the United Nations Can Turn Afghanistan’s Seat Into a Path Forward

Author: Aref Dostyar

This paper examines Afghanistan’s seat at the United Nations, which reflects the country’s broader political reality of uncertainty and inertia. Four years after the collapse of the Islamic Republic, the question of who should represent Afghanistan at the UN remains in limbo. The Taliban claim the seat, the remnants of the former government hold it without voting rights, and the UN defers decision. This paper proposes to the UN Secretary-General, the UN General Assembly, and Afghanistan’s movements, to treat the status of the seat as an opportunity for constructive diplomacy, analysing different possible scenarios and arguing in favour of a joint nomination as the most strategic option for Afghanistan.

This publication is part of a series highlighting the work and analysis of the Afghanistan Research Network (ARN), a project convened by LSE / PeaceRep, and the Civic Engagement Project (CEP). The network brings together over 20 Afghan researchers (and several non-Afghans) with diverse expertise and backgrounds investigating a range of issues. This project aims to support Afghan researchers who were recently forced to leave Afghanistan; to ensure expert and analytical provision; inform contextually-appropriate international policies and practices on Afghanistan; and to deepen understanding of evolving political, security, and economic dynamics.

Learn more about the Afghanistan Research Network

Browse all Afghanistan research publications

How the United Nations Can Turn Afghanistan’s Seat Into a Path Forward
read more

The Daily Hustle: How one mother cares for her family through sickness, hunger and debt

September 8, 2025

Rama Mirzada • Roxanna Shapour

print sharing button

In Afghanistan, years of conflict, economic collapse, and rising poverty have left hundreds of thousands of families struggling to survive. For those already on the brink, a single illness can be life-altering, pushing the household into crisis and making even the most basic necessities, such as bread, cooking oil, or school uniforms, unaffordable. In this instalment of The Daily Hustle, Rama Mirzada hears from a mother of four who has spent the past three years caring for her bedridden husband while trying to keep her family afloat. Her story tells of the struggles of many Afghan families who, like her, face hunger, debt and illness, but continue to hold out hope that, with education, their children will find a way out of poverty and have better futures.
A woman knits at a small tailoring business supported by UNDP in western Afghanistan. Photo: UNDP, 18 April 2023

I was born during the civil war in Afghanistan, but I don’t know my exact age because my parents were unable to register my birth. Based on what they and other family members have told me, I think I am in my mid-thirties. Three years ago, my family’s life was turned upside down when my husband fell ill. At first, things weren’t so bad and he mostly managed, but over time, he got worse. Now he is bedridden and feels a burning sensation all over his body. It is heartbreaking to see my husband, who used to be strong and energetic, suffer in pain. All I can do is hold his hand and use cold compresses to make him more comfortable.
We rent an old, dilapidated house in Kabul for 3,000 Afs (about USD 40) per month. The municipality has marked the house for demolition because it wants to widen the road. I don’t know where we’ll go when we finally have to move. House rents are increasing with each passing day, and I don’t think we’ll be able to find another we can afford. Even now, there are times when I don’t have enough money to pay the rent, and I must beg the landlord for more time. He is kind and doesn’t pressure me, perhaps because he knows he won’t be able to rent a house marked for demolition to anyone else.

Afraid to step outside alone

As if trying to keep my family afloat and caring for a bedridden husband weren’t enough, I also struggle with an illness. I suffer from seizures, which began when I was still a girl. Back then, my husband and I were secretly courting. One day, my brother caught us and threatened to tell my father. The fear and trauma triggered my first seizure, and I’ve suffered from them ever since. I need daily medication to manage them. I can’t go out alone, because I’m too scared that I’ll collapse in the street.

Here in Afghanistan, seizures are misunderstood. People mistakenly believe they are a sign of possession, and some even attempt to “exorcise” the person who is having a seizure. Others take advantage and seize the moment to rob them. Because of this, I hardly ever leave the house by myself and must depend on others for even the simplest tasks.

The weight of family ties

On top of my illness and my husband’s, we face pressure from relatives. My husband’s four brothers take him to doctors and pay his medical costs, but only because my mother-in-law insists. They lend us the money for treatment, but don’t help with daily expenses. Now we’re buried in debt to them – some 300,000 Afs (about USD 4,000) – that we are expected to repay one day.

Even so, they don’t believe my husband is truly ill. They often accuse us of pretending and rarely visit. This hurts my husband deeply. Everyone knows that my husband is a proud, hardworking man who has never missed a day of work before he fell ill. Sometimes he cries and says, “No one comes anymore because I have nothing to offer.” All I can do is hold his hand and tell him it isn’t true. I try to console him by saying everyone is struggling and anyone can fall sick, but in my heart, I know he feels his dignity has been damaged and that he misses his family.

Living on bread and the kindness of others 

Still, I try my best to find ways to make ends meet. To earn a little, I embroider khamak (an intricate form of embroidery using white silk thread). In a good month, I can earn 1,000 Afs (around USD 14) and I use the money to buy flour, oil and other groceries. Doctors say my husband needs meat, fruit, broth and vegetables, but we cannot afford to buy them. Most days, we eat bread for breakfast and lunch. For dinner, we eat potatoes. I buy the smallest potatoes because they’re cheaper. My husband eats what we eat.

My own family isn’t doing well either. Only my younger sister visits and helps when she can. She sometimes brings clothes for my children or a little food, but she cannot do much more. Once, we didn’t have money for gas to cook dinner. I couldn’t bear to tell the children we had nothing, so I took them to my sister’s house, saying they missed their cousins. We ate dinner there.

My eldest son, now 18, went to Iran for work when he was 14 but was deported this past spring. He had just finished eighth grade when he left. At first, he got a job in a tailor’s shop and later he worked in a plastic factory. He used to send us 5,000 Afs (about USD 66) each month, and after my husband fell ill, we relied on that money to pay the rent and other expenses. He started looking for a job as soon as he got back to Kabul, but he hasn’t managed to find one yet. We also tried to put him back in school, but the school would not accept him because he needs a new electronic tazkira (ID card). He has to go to our village to get one, but we don’t have the money to send him there.

My middle son is 13 and in grade nine. He works after school in a tailor’s shop. My daughter is 10 and in the third grade. My youngest son is seven and has just started school. This year, the government changed the uniform of schoolchildren from the Western-style ones introduced during the Islamic Republic to traditional clothing. My second son bought his own uniform with the little he earns at the tailor’s – 200 Afs a week. My sister paid for a uniform for my youngest. My daughter wears one of her cousin’s old clothes because I couldn’t afford one for her.

There are days when one of my children comes home from school in tears, because their classmates bring food and snacks to school, but they sit with nothing to eat. Sometimes I give them bread, so at least they have something in class.

Sometimes a relative brings us flour, oil or meat and a family we know regularly helps with food. Last Ramadan, the family said they would give us oil. On the way to their house, I met a man distributing aid. I begged him to see my home. He did, and when he saw how we lived, he gave us flour, rice, beans, oil and even some meat. But he never came back, and we haven’t received any other assistance.

Some people have told me to go to the office of Ayatullah Fayaz in Kabul,[1] because they may be able to help, but I can’t go there alone without a mahram. The office is only open while my children are in school and I can’t risk being out by myself and having a seizure in the street. Once, I took my husband’s health documents to our mosque’s mullah and the street representative, begging for aid. They looked but did nothing.

Holding on to hope for my children

Some nights I feel overwhelmed by how hard life can be. I stay up thinking about how we will make it through the next day, how I will repay all our debts and how I can keep going. I cry quietly when the children are asleep, wondering how much longer we can survive like this and if my husband will ever recover.

My children are the only thing that keeps me going. I look at them and dream of a day when they will finish school, find good jobs and make better futures for themselves and our family. I tell them to study hard every day, to become doctors, engineers and teachers, and to build lives better than the one we are living now. That is what keeps me going. Hope—for them and for their future.

Edited by Roxanna Shapour 

 

References

References
↑1  Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Ishaq Fayaz is one of most senior Shia marja (sources of emulation). He was born in Jaqhori, Ghazni province, in 1936.

 

The Daily Hustle: How one mother cares for her family through sickness, hunger and debt
read more

BREAKING NEWS: Urgent need for aid.

September 8, 2025 ,

A devastating 6+ magnitude earthquake has struck Afghanistan, killing at least 800 people and leaving over 2,500 injured in communities across the country.

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is on the ground, mobilizing emergency shelter and lifesaving relief items to affected areas. However, we need your help to provide emergency aid. Your donation will rush aid within 72 hours to the most vulnerable communities.

This disaster is another blow for the people of Afghanistan, who are already living through multiple crises. Millions are facing extreme poverty and hunger, as well as the impact of decades of conflict, a severe drought and economic collapse. More than 2.4 million Afghans have returned or been forced to return to Afghanistan this year, to communities that are already struggling.

Multiple crises are unfolding at once, and our resources are stretched to the breaking point. Supporters like you are needed now more than ever.

Please rush an emergency gift.

UNRefugees.org/AfghanistanRelief

Sincerely,

-USA for UNHCR

August 5, 2025

BREAKING NEWS: Urgent need for aid.
read more

The Mining Sector in Afghanistan: A picture in black and gold

September 2, 2025

Fabrizio Foschini

Mining is an industry of contrasts. For elites, it presents the potential for increasing their wealth and power, while for miners, the work is harsh and dangerous, often being the only alternative to subsistence farming. Afghanistan’s mineral wealth has long been viewed through the lens of its promise rather than the complex realities that come with exploiting the vast reserves of coal, gold, copper, iron ore and rare earth minerals believed to lie beneath its rugged mountains. Yet the hype about Afghanistan’s untapped riches masks a long history of mining, with the mountainous topography both a barrier to settlement and a source of mineral wealth. While these resources could be a driver for achieving economic independence, they have historically fuelled conflict, environmental damage and exploitation.

While the control of mines has shaped Afghan politics since the early Islamic era, modern industrial practices only emerged in the 1950s. However, they largely collapsed during the decades of conflict that followed. Only gem extraction – lapis lazuli in Badakhshan and emeralds in Panjshir – provided consistent exports, though often at the cost of fuelling local conflicts.

Under the Islamic Republic, contracts were plagued by corruption, elite capture and insecurity, with many projects collapsing before they could deliver tangible benefits. After the Taliban takeover in 2021, mining emerged as a top priority for the cash-strapped Islamic Emirate, seeking to generate revenue in the face of sanctions, the loss of aid and economic collapse. Contracts with foreign companies have also had an added benefit as a tool for international engagement for an isolated IEA hoping to win international recognition.

In the absence of the sort of international financial support enjoyed by the Republic and the emergence of mining as a key source of government revenue, there was an impetus for the IEA to standardise licensing and fees. It has also promoted large contracts with regional actors, particularly China, and turned coal exports into a critical revenue stream. However, risks remain. Substandard mining practices degrade mineral deposits, contaminate water resources and in general, significantly damage the environment. Outdated and hazardous mining practices continue to expose workers to longstanding risks. Finally, minerals are often exported in their raw form and illegally, with little in-country processing, and therefore little benefit to the national economy.

This report, based on interviews with miners and traders across Kabul, Sar-e Pul, Baghlan, Takhar and Badakhshan, provides an in-depth examination of coal and gold mining in particular. It explores contracts, production, trade and the lived experiences of miners and their communities, highlighting both the opportunities and the persistent risks shaping Afghanistan’s mining economy.

From afar, Afghanistan’s hidden mineral wealth can sound like a fabulous alchemic quest to create gold and solve all the country’s problems. But as in magic lore, when you look closely, the divide between a boon and a curse is often revealed to be a narrow one.

Edited by Kate Clark and Rachel Reid

 

You can preview the report online and download it by clicking here or the download button below.

20250830 Mining in Afghanistan FINALDownload

Authors:

Fabrizio Foschini

 

The Mining Sector in Afghanistan: A picture in black and gold
read more

Don’t give up on Afghanistan

August 30, 2025
by Melanne Verveer and Mariam Safi
Opinion contributor
The Hill
08/29/25

No school. No work. No speaking outside. No healthcare without an increasingly scarce female provider. No dissent. No justice.

This is the horrific reality for women and girls in Afghanistan since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan four years ago. The Taliban’s assaults are making life increasingly unbearable. Since August 15, 2021, over 100 edicts have targeted women and girls’ fundamental rights, freedoms, and legal protections.

The Law for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice represents the most extreme form of gender-based oppression in modern history. Afghan women’s rights activists have described these laws and edicts as a form of imprisonment for women, driving an “epidemic of suicidal thoughts.” The situation is so dire that it meets the criteria of “gender apartheid.”

Sadly, the international community has turned its attention away from the systematic oppression of women in Afghanistan by failing to uphold its commitments, protect at-risk Afghans, and meet dire humanitarian needs. Confronted with the Taliban’s gender apartheid, many of the very same countries that for decades were stalwart defenders of the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan and supported their progress are disturbingly quiet. Instead of tying diplomatic engagement to measurable human rights benchmarks and enforceable consequences for violations, some countries have begun to treat the Taliban’s actions as normal and have quietly reopened embassies and consulates inside the country.As the need for international support increases, the international community is failing to step up. When it does provide funds, it is unpredictable and reactive. The global reduction in funding for humanitarian assistance is having devastating impacts on the 23.7 million Afghans in need.

The World Food Program reported recently that one in three Afghan children is stunted due to acute food insecurity. States should continue to provide funds for life-saving humanitarian assistance — including food and healthcare — and fund vital programs that support the rights of Afghan women and girls. In humanitarian settings, early marriage of girls is a common response to crises.

In Afghanistan, families facing acute economic hardship have sometimes married off or even sold their daughters to cope. One woman told us, “Families want their daughters to marry soon and in exchange for money … so they can meet the expenses of the rest of the family.”

The U.S. has a particular duty to the women of Afghanistan. During the 20-year war, the U.S. made a strong commitment to improving the well-being of women and girls. That commitment has now been abdicated, and the disastrous deal with the Taliban and the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Now, the U.S. has also ended its Temporary Protective Status for Afghans in the country, eliminating a critical pathway for legal status in the U.S. This will de facto force many Afghans who stood with the U.S. and risked their lives fighting for the values we hold dear to leave the U.S., putting them in grave danger and exposing them to severe punishment.

Other nations, like the United Kingdom, are also terminating their Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy and the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme programs — key resettlement pathways.

These decisions and impending deportations place Afghans — many of whom are at risk because of their work to advance human rights or support the international coalition — in grave danger and expose them to severe punishment. Afghan women and girls are being abandoned to the most horrific fate.

The hard-won progress of the last 20 years has been lost. The Taliban would like us to think that these losses are irreversible, but many Afghan women and girls don’t believe this is true — they still have hope and continue working for a better future.

Despite reporting negative consequences from their work to strengthen peace and security — including community exclusion, mental health impacts, and loss of economic opportunity — women reported a continued commitment to this work and shared a range of priorities, including legal support, capacity building and the need for funding. The majority of women respondents also felt that their work to advance peace and security provided them with positive community impact personally. They are not giving up, despite the odds.

There are clear measures that the international community can and must take to improve conditions for women and girls. States must resist the normalization of the Taliban’s repressive regime. International actors must use a rights-based approach in all its engagements with the Taliban, while also restoring and increasing humanitarian assistance and reinstating and expanding resettlement pathways for at-risk Afghans.

For instance, the U.N.-led Doha Process should integrate Afghan women’s representation at all levels since their exclusion in past negotiations emboldened the Taliban’s regressive policies and undermined the international community’s leverage. And the international community must be firm, clear, and constantly communicating that the Taliban’s worsening attack on women and girls will not be tolerated.

The Taliban would like states to quietly retreat from the fight for a peaceful, equitable, and inclusive Afghanistan. Afghan women and girls refuse to accept that Afghanistan is a “lost cause.” The international community should rally behind them.

Don’t give up on Afghanistan
read more

Even this old U.S. enemy shouldn’t be permanent

August 30, 2025
Editorial Board
The Washington Post
August 30, 2025

Four years after the evacuation of Afghanistan, U.S. engagement could help combat terrorism and hunger.

The United States lost its longest war four years ago. Saturday marks the anniversary of the ignominious end to two decades in Afghanistan. A suicide bombing during the pullout killed 13 U.S. troops. America abandoned countless allies and billions of dollars in military hardware. President Joe Biden’s standing never recovered from the foreseeable and preventable disaster.

Just as the Taliban takeover of Kabul in August 2021 invited comparisons to the fall of Saigon in April 1975, a related parallel is now worth considering. The departure of the last American helicopters from Vietnam 50 years ago brought a long period of diplomatic isolation and an economic embargo against the victorious Communist government in Vietnam. It took 20 years to establish diplomatic relations in 1995, when the U.S. opened its first liaison office in Hanoi. In the three decades that followed, Vietnam emerged as one of America’s most important trade and security partners in Southeast Asia — despite the country’s dire track record of internal repression.

It is still challenging to imagine the United States establishing formal diplomatic ties with the Taliban, a group that harbored Osama bin Laden and led an insurgency that killed more than 2,400 U.S. troops. The Treasury Department still lists the Taliban as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group. It is even harder to imagine Afghanistan becoming a strategic partner.

On the other hand, as President Donald Trump declared in May when he lifted sanctions on the Syrian government, the United States has no “permanent enemies.” According to that worldview, engaging with the Taliban is in the national interest. The alternative is to cede strategic influence to rivals while further abandoning the Afghan people who bought into promises that America would not cut and run.

The Taliban’s human rights record is abysmal. Their treatment of women and girls remains abhorrent. Girls and women are prohibited from pursuing an education beyond primary school and banned from most jobs. Former Afghan government officials and members of the U.S.-trained security forces continue to be hunted down and killed.

As with Vietnam and other countries with which the United States has profound differences, engagement has often proved more effective than isolation, particularly in areas of common interest.

The main concern is counterterrorism. The largest threat now is the Islamic State-Khorasan, or ISIS-K, which was responsible for the August 2021 suicide bombing and operates mostly out of eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan. The Taliban and ISIS-K are sworn enemies, with the Islamic State offshoot seeing the country’s new rulers as insufficiently pure, or perhaps insufficiently brutal. ISIS-K carried out a concert siege in Moscow last year that left more than 140 dead and has been extending its reach into Europe, deftly using encrypted messaging apps and slickly produced videos for recruitment, while relying on cryptocurrencies to evade attempts to disrupt its financial networks. Engaging with the Taliban would allow for intelligence-sharing to disrupt ISIS-K command and control.

China and Pakistan have already held a series of trilateral talks with Afghanistan about fighting terrorism. China is interested in securing its 47-mile border with Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor to prevent infiltration by Uyghur militants into the neighboring Xinjiang region. So far, Russia is the only country to establish formal diplomatic relations with Afghanistan, but others have named ambassadors to the country, including China, Iran, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. A dozen other countries have missions led by a lower-level diplomat, including Turkey, India, Pakistan and the European Union. The U.S. need not cede that diplomatic ground.

Beyond strategic concerns, engaging the Taliban could facilitate the flow of humanitarian assistance. More than half the Afghan population needs help urgently. Most official U.S. aid was cut off this year, and the lack of American recognition of the government in Kabul, combined with sanctions, hampers the flow of other international aid to people in desperate need.

The United States is sitting on billions of dollars in frozen funds of the Afghanistan central bank, crippling the country’s banking system. The freeze is causing a liquidity crisis and a shortage of banknotes, deterring international investment. This gives Washington leverage.

There could also be cooperation on exploiting Afghanistan’s mineral deposits, which include potentially trillions of dollars in untapped reserves of rare earths as well as lithium, copper, iron and cobalt. The United States conducted extensive mapping during its 20-year military presence. Now, China is inking deals and reaping the benefits.

Finally, engaging the Taliban could also resolve the fate of missing Americans who are believed to still be held there.

The U.S. must be clear-eyed; engagement is unlikely to bring immediate change in the Taliban’s treatment of women or their barbaric use of sharia. But it could bolster more moderate factions within the Taliban. Recognition could be limited to start, with the carrot of full relations down the road.

Washington ignores Afghanistan at its peril. That happened after 1989 when the United States disengaged from the region after the Soviet Union’s withdrawal and collapse, which allowed Afghanistan to become a crucible for those who would attack America on Sept. 11, 2001.
Even this old U.S. enemy shouldn’t be permanent
read more

Recent Posts