As the world commemorates 16 Days of Activism to end gender-based violence, Afghans discuss their experiences under the Taliban.
Right now, women and feminist organizations around the world are commemorating the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women with the 16 Days of Activism campaign. Starting on November 25 and running through December 10, this year’s campaign calls on governments worldwide to share how they are investing in the prevention of gender-based violence.While the campaign itself is worldwide, 16 Days of Activism should pay special heed to Afghanistan. In just 28 months, the Taliban have dismantled Afghan women’s and girls’ rights — imposing draconian restrictions regarding their education, employment and freedom of movement. Any perceived violation of these oppressive policies is often met with harassment, intimidation, and verbal and physical abuse orchestrated by the Taliban’s Ministry of Vice and Virtue. And when women are detained by authorities, they have been subjected to cruel treatment, including torture.The Taliban’s anti-women policies, combined with an emboldened patriarchal system, have made Afghanistan the lowest-ranked country in the 2023 Women, Peace and Security Index. With humanitarian aid to Afghanistan drying up, the 16 Days of Activism offers a chance to renew international attention so that Afghan women and girls are not left behind.
To ensure that Afghan voices are included in this year’s conversations, USIP launched an online survey asking Afghans both inside and outside the country about their personal experiences and views about the impact of the Taliban’s policies toward women to better understand where their needs lie.
Taliban’s Policies Have Rolled Back Two Decades Worth of Gains
Almost immediately after the fall of Kabul in August 2021, the Taliban began rolling back the over two decades of gains women had achieved in politics, governance, education, health and the private sector.
Within months, the Taliban suspended the Afghan Constitution, which had obligated the government to protect and promote human rights; replaced the Ministry of Women’s Affairs with the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice; ordered professional and working women to stay home until further notice; prevented women from travelling on long-distance (72 km/45 miles) road trips without a mahram; and imposed a strict dress code on women.
Those we interviewed, both men and women, underscored the immense impact that stringent measures on women and girls have had on Afghan society. Particularly, they pointed to the prohibitions on employment and education, the mandated dress code, and the requirement for a mahram as encroachments on fundamental women’s rights.
Additionally, a number of respondents highlighted instances of public humiliation — where the Taliban’s religious police employed loudspeakers from moving vehicles or within crowds to critique women and their mahram, focusing on elements such as clothing choices, hijab styles and shoe colors.
One woman from Kabul said, “The Taliban view us as criminals. As soon as we step outside our homes, the religious police run to us to intimidate us, to scare us and to remind us that we belong at home.”
These restrictions only intensified when women interacted with government agencies, where they were subjected to degrading behaviors, harassment and insults.
In this context, women are treated as second class citizens, with no agency over decisions about their own body and life. The mental toll has been enormous — women we talked to expressed feeling suffocated, depressed, isolated and worthless. Consequently, there has been a surge in suicide attempts among Afghan women and girls, and they now account for three out of every four suicides and suicide attempts in the country.
“The Taliban have robbed us of our identity and are taking our agency away,” said a woman from Paktia. “They want us to hide behind the walls of our homes. They don’t see us as human beings.”
They want us to hide behind the walls of our homes. They don’t see us as human beings.
In the numerous responses, the Taliban were not the only underlying cause of violence against women. The widespread lack of awareness regarding women’s rights among members of the Taliban has also allowed deeply ingrained and traditional perceptions regarding gender roles to resurface in Afghan society — with the Taliban sparking a resurgence in other forms of gender-based violence.As a woman from Nangarhar noted, “The Taliban’s policies have unfortunately normalized various forms of abuse, including physical, mental and financial abuse of women.” Meanwhile, a teacher from Jawzjan expressed a sense of loss under Taliban rule: “Over the past two years, our society has regrettably regressed by several decades.”
Forced Marriages and Domestic Violence
Financial hardship further compounds the challenges faced by women, with the prevalence of underage and forced marriages on a significant uptick. The dismal state of the Afghan economy, along with the lack of education for girls, has compelled families to wed their daughters out of perceived economic necessity. Furthermore, there is a disturbing trend of marrying young girls to much older men.
The abrupt decline in women’s employment and economic standing — many women were employed teaching in girls’ schools that are now closed, or in beauty parlors that are banned — coupled with restrictions on education and freedom of movement, has taken a toll on their mental well-being. Meanwhile, soaring unemployment and poverty in Afghanistan mean families are spending more and more time within the confines of their home, fostering an environment that is often rife with distress, tension and domestic violence.
Beyond acts of physical abuse, domestic violence can also take the form of isolating women from social engagements, publicly or privately disrespecting women, ignoring their opinions, taking control of their financial affairs, and restricting financial independence.
Tragically, honor killings further compound the issue of domestic violence, and husbands who display negative behavior toward wives who give birth to girls represents another distressing manifestation of gender-based violence within familial settings.
A Justice System Steeped in Anti-Women Sentiments
For victims of domestic abuse, the Taliban’s justice system is a nightmarish ordeal. Perpetrators routinely go unprosecuted in Taliban courts (with cases involving murder an exception), allowing abusive Afghan men to no longer fear repercussions for the harm they cause women and girls.
As one woman from Jawzjan told USIP: “In the republic era, individuals facing charges related to violence against women and those avoiding legal consequences sought shelter in regions controlled by the Taliban, deeming them safe havens. Currently, the entire country has transformed into a sanctuary.”
Women who attempt to leave their marriages encounter further obstacles in exercising their legal rights. In March 2023, the Taliban invalidated numerous cases of divorce that were settled under the previous government. These women, who had once managed to secure independence, now find themselves coerced to reunite with their ex-husbands. Even those who manage to maintain their divorce face issues over child custody and the collection of alimony.
Meanwhile, the Taliban Supreme Court’s recent disclosures do not include any initiatives to reel in child and forced marriage, or the practice of Taliban officials taking multiple wives. Despite their previous claims to the contrary, it’s clear where the Taliban’s legal priorities lie regarding violence against women and girls.
The cumulative effect of these impositions is a stifling environment where women’s voices are devalued, their rights are curtailed, and their overall wellbeing is compromised. In assessing life under Taliban rule, it is crucial to address not just the external threats posed by Taliban decrees, but also how those restrictions perpetuate and worsen harmful behaviors in a domestic setting.
The Taliban have only emboldened already-existing patriarchal norms in Afghanistan. Any attempts to foster a more equitable and just society must also address these root causes so that every individual, regardless of gender, is treated with dignity and respect.
Protecting Afghan Women and Girls
Comprehensive and immediate measures to address the challenges faced by Afghan women and safeguard their rights and well-being is urgently needed.
During this year’s 16 Days of Activism, Afghan women are calling on the international community, particularly the United States and Europe, to utilize the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and the global human rights sanctions regime adopted by the European Council in 2020 “to target individuals, entities and bodies – including state and non-state actors – responsible for, involved in or associated with serious human rights violations and abuses worldwide, no matter where they occurred.” The Magnitsky sanctions could send a message that Taliban rule cannot be normalized without addressing fundamental violations of women’s rights.
Meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council bears the responsibility of preserving international peace and security. In Afghanistan, over 50 percent of the population faces severe marginalization by the Taliban —treated as criminals for exercising what should be protected freedoms and systematically excluded from all facets of society. A commissioned report from the U.N. Security Council’s special coordinator for Afghanistan, Feridun Sinirlioglu, calls for a new U.N. envoy to lead efforts to normalize the international community’s relationship with the Taliban if the Taliban observe international rights and security norms. The U.N. Security Council should not do this, however, without clear conditions on women’s rights and women’s security that must be met for the Taliban to increase their international standing.
In the meantime, it is essential to provide robust support and resources to U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in Afghanistan Richard Bennett. He has a mandate to document and report on human rights violations, with a particular focus on the rights of women and girls. It is crucial that he is able to provide comprehensive oversight on the Taliban’s discriminatory practices to provide authoritative benchmarks for rights-based conditionality.
Outside the U.N., the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) can take more concrete steps to address human rights violations against Afghan women and girls as a way to uphold Islamic values. The Taliban’s national restrictions on education, movement and employment are unprecedented among OIC states and inconsistent with classical interpretations of Sharia. The OIC can deliver this message most forcefully in support of women’s rights.
Inside Afghanistan, religious scholars and the media have a vital role in raising awareness and educating male family members about the significance of respecting the rights of women and girls, both within households and in the broader societal context. Promoting an understanding of Islamic rights through diverse channels, including social media, conferences and community initiatives, is essential in fostering positive change. Together, these measures can contribute to creating a more equitable and supportive environment for Afghan women.
While the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) maintains that it deserves full-scale recognition, it has not been given the country’s seat at the United Nations. In early December 2023, the UN General Assembly will again consider whether or not to allow the Islamic Emirate to take Afghanistan’s seat at the world body. The argument plays out in the context of a worldwide discussion about whether and how governments should deal with a regime that critics say denies women and girls almost every individual right, has a dire general human rights record and is narrowly based. AAN’s Thomas Ruttig has been analysing the impasse, noting the intra-Republic rivalry to also represent Afghanistan at the UN, and scrutinising UN procedures and considerations to try to make sense of it all.
A view of delegates inside the General Assembly Hall during the first day of the 78th session of the General Assembly held on 19 September 2023. Photo by UN Photo/Paulo FilgueirasThe Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s quest for diplomatic recognition
Since the Taleban returned to power in August 2021, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has rebuffed the IEA’s attempts to take the country’s seat. However, diplomatic recognition, including by the UN, is perhaps the IEA’s foremost foreign policy goal. It figures prominently in many speeches and statements of its leaders. Most recently, the IEA’s designated UN representative, Muhammad Suhail Shaheen, accused the world organisation of acting “without neutrality in determining the seat of Afghanistan” and using the matter to put “pressure” on the Emirate (see ToloNews here). The IEA argues that it is the legitimate government of Afghanistan based on the claim that it has full territorial control, has ended the war and brought security to all Afghans.
Yet, so far, only China appears to have come closest to recognising the Emirate, if recognition is measured by an acceptance of the other’s ambassadors. [1] This is in contrast to the Taleban’s first time in power, from 1996 to 2001. Back then, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates maintained diplomatic relations at the ambassador level until they eventually severed ties under US pressure after the 9/11 al-Qaida attacks.
The IEA seems more fully isolated diplomatically this time. A closer look, however, shows a more ambiguous picture. An overview of the IEA’s current diplomatic relations and interactions compiled by Aaron Y Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, in August 2022, concluded that it is actually “far less isolated today” than during the 1996-2001 period (see here).
When his piece was published, Zelin counted eight countries where Afghanistan’s diplomatic missions were under IEA control. By November 2023, IEA deputy foreign minister Sher Muhammad Abbas Stanakzai said this number had risen to “up to 20” (ToloNews here), including the Afghan embassy in Tehran (see ToloNews here) and the strategically important consulate-general in Istanbul (Pajhwok here).[2] Turkey reportedly also accepted a new IEA-appointed diplomat in October 2023 at the Afghan embassy in Ankara (see Iran International here).
Zelin found 378 publicly announced meetings between representatives of the Taleban and diplomats from 35 other countries, mostly Middle Eastern states (35 per cent), but with China engaging “more often than any other [individual] country.”[3] (See this AAN report by the author on China-Taleban relations.) The volley of diplomatic interactions has continued since Zelin’s August report, without interruption.
Even more importantly, a number of countries still have ambassadors officially posted to Afghanistan. They include China and other neighbouring countries such as Pakistan, Iran and most of the Central Asian republics, along with Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Japan. Indonesia, which was involved in mediation between the former government and the Taleban before 2021, reopened its embassy in Kabul in February 2022 and although its diplomats continue to work from Islamabad, it does have a charge d’affaires in Kabul (see Indonesia’s The National Kompas here). In July 2023, a Taleban delegation paid an “unofficial visit” to Jakarta (see VoA here). While some ambassadors seem to be based more or less permanently in Kabul, such as those of China, Iran and Russia,[4] most others appear to be coming and going.[5]
Western countries have not officially closed their embassies in Kabul nor have they officially broken off diplomatic relations. [6] Rather, they do not maintain diplomatic personnel in the country, as was the case for many countries during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (1979-1989) when they either withdrew their staff from the country or downgraded relations to the chargé d’affaires level.[7] Some countries still have non-Kabul-based acting ambassadors or more junior diplomats and there is also a (shrinking) number of special representatives for Afghanistan (ranked as ambassadors). Most Western engagement with IEA officials takes place in Qatar’s capital Doha with diplomats below ambassador level representing their countries in meetings. [8]
The United Nations’ political mission (the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA) has been operating in Afghanistan without interruption since March 2002 (mandated by UNSC resolution 1401). [9] Most recently, the UN Security Council (UNSC) has started deliberating the findings and recommendations of a recently completed independent assessment on Afghanistan carried out by senior Turkish diplomat Feridun Sinirlioğlu. His mandate from resolution 2679was to “provide forward-looking recommendations for an integrated and coherent approach among relevant political, humanitarian, and development actors.” The assessment, delivered on 28 November, proposed among other things, a conditions-based “roadmap” with the “end state” of “the reintegration of the State of Afghanistan into the international system.” (In April 2023, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed senior Turkish diplomat, Feridun Sinirlioğlu, to conduct an independent assessment to “provide forward-looking recommendations for an integrated and coherent approach among relevant political, humanitarian, and development actors, within and outside of the United Nations system, in order to address the current challenges faced by Afghanistan,” as mandated by UNSC resolution 2679 (see Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News here).[10] Many are reading this goal to mean diplomatic recognition.
While all this activity is of a distinctively higher level than it was during the first emirate, at the UN itself, the firewall that has so far prevented the Emirate from taking Afghanistan’s UN seat is holding. The IEA believes the decision to deny it the seat – or more accurately, the lack of a decision to change the status quo – is keeping it from achieving international recognition, more generally, and is denying it access to, among other things, more extensive development aid and sanctions relief.
This report analyses the UN rules and procedures and aspects of international law that come to bear in the debate about Afghanistan’s UN seat. In this area, UN rules often seem arcane and opaque, so are worth unpicking. They allow ‘non-decisions’ and the absence of debate on the matter of the IEA’s claim to the seat, useful for maintaining the status quo without really having to talk about it publicly. The report will also show that the competition to occupy the seat is not only a two-horse race between the Taleban and the former government, but also a power struggle between the current acting representative, who inherited the seat after the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan-appointed envoy resigned, and other former officials of Republic, now in exile.
Rules and procedures at the UN
For the second time since the establishment of the IEA, on 16 December 2022 in the 55th plenary meeting of its 77thsession, the United Nations General Assembly deferred a decision on granting Afghanistan’s new rulers the country’s seat at the UN (see the Credentials Committee’s 12 December report A/77/600), UNGA resolution A/RES/77/239 and the transcript of the 16 December 2022 55th plenary meeting A/77/PV.55). [11]
Importantly, while the UNGA deferred the decision on the Emirate’s request to take over Afghanistan’s seat, it also did not explicitly reject the request (more on the committee’s reasons for this deferral below). At the same time, as well, it did not explicitly stipulate that the previously-credentialled representative should remain in place. However, as Rebecca Barber wrote, in a paper published in the International and Comparative Law Quarterly, “based on the Assembly’s practice and procedural rules there was little doubt that this was to be the case.” [12] This standstill over who should rightfully represent the country has resulted in the continuation of the status quo, leaving a relatively junior diplomat, who has not been formally appointed by any government, occupying the country’s seat.
If earlier decisions are an indication, UNGA should consider the matter for a third time in early December 2023 and take a decision by adopting a resolution (see last year’s here) proposed in the UN Credentials Committee report. [13] Every year, this body of nine annually changing members checks the credentials of member-states’ representatives and, based on the documents it has received, takes note of who has been put forward to be credentialled for that year’s upcoming UN General Assembly. [14]
The credentials are usually straightforward procedural matters, except in unusual cases such as Afghanistan under the IEA. [15] (Other current controversial cases are Myanmar, Libya and, somewhat differently, Venezuela.) [16] Whether the Committee does anything more than just pass on information to the UNGA is debated. Barber argues that: “This delineation of the credentials process as being only about the procedural requirements of representation at the UN, and not about the recognition of the status of governments more broadly, was articulated in a 1970 memorandum by the UN Legal Counsel. That memorandum described the examination of credentials as a ‘procedural matter’, limited to assessing compliance with the Assembly’s procedural rules, and not involving questions of ‘recognition’ or ‘substantive issues concerning the status of governments’.”
However, in 1996, the Committee’s report, which includes the Legal Counsel’s opinion on Afghanistan, provides a fuller record of proceedings and shows just how active the ‘non-decision’ on Afghan representation at that time was: it followed a debate about what to do between the Committee members. Moreover, judging by its membership, this committee is powerful – in a committee where the General Assembly appoints the members yearly, China, Russia and the United States have been members every year since 1947. [17] That fact and the opacity with which it works do not give the appearance of a mere rubber-stamping body (see also Euronews reporting here).
Neither the committee nor the UNGA have a debate or hold a formal vote on credentials, even for controversial cases. The General Assembly always adopts, by acclamation, the Credential Committee’s report with a short resolution. The decision is valid for one annual session of the UNGA (September to September). What can be said is that the procedures allow for controversial questions of recognition to be deferred without public discussion or even a decision to do something having to be made.
Interestingly, another important multilateral institution, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, sought clarification from the UN about who represented Afghanistan in the context of its Afghanistan investigation. In October 2021, it sent letters to the UN Secretary-General and the ICC Bureau of the Assembly of States Parties (ie, the ICC member-states) for “information on the identification of the authorities currently representing the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan by Monday 8 November 2021” (author’s emphasis). The letter showed that, as Ehsan Qaane wrote in a 2021 report for AAN Delaying Justice? The ICC’s war crimes investigation in limbo over who represents Afghanistan, the ICC judges “are not convinced that the diplomats appointed by the former regime can truly represent Afghanistan before the court. However, they themselves cannot contact the Taleban authorities directly, as that would imply recognition.” In this letter, the judges reasoned that “they believe the decision of who represents a state is of a “political nature” and a matter of “constitutional and international law,” beyond their mandate. The responses to the ICC’s query, wrote Qaane, offered no further clarification on the issue:
The two institutions did respond, but were of little help. The Bureau of the ICC Assembly of States Parties said, on 26 October 2021, that “due to its nature and functions, it [the Bureau] does not hold the type of information that is requested.” The UN Secretary General, meanwhile, told the judges on 18 October 2021, that the decision of government recognition was not his to make, but was “a matter for individual Member States.”
How was the last decision on Afghanistan’s UN seat taken?
The committee’s relative obscurity allows it to be opaque. Indeed, International Crisis Group’s UN Director Richard Gowan described it to the Associated Press as one of the “least transparent U.N. bodies” (see here), adding that “the fact that it isn’t transparent allows it to fudge certain decisions and kick hard decisions down the road.”
Its most recent recommendation on Afghanistan, which was adopted by the UNGA on 16 December 2022 and was valid for UNGA’s 77th session from 13 September 2022 to 5 September 2023, reads:
The Chair proposed that the Committee postpone its consideration of the credentials pertaining to … the representatives of Afghanistan … to the seventy-seventh session of the General Assembly, and to revert to consideration of these credentials at a future time in the seventy-seventh session. The proposal was adopted without a vote.[18]
Given that the Credentials Committee usually meets three times a year, in March, June and September, its recommendation on Afghanistan’s seat for the current 78th UNGA should have already been taken, but will not be made public before the UNGA makes it official by adopting the Credentials Committee report.
The case of Afghanistan: competing requests
According to the UN’s rules of procedure for credentials, a head of state or foreign minister must submit credentials for their representatives at least one week before the opening of the UN General Assembly. [19] In Afghanistan’s case, the Credentials Committee has a problem, as it received in both 2021 and 2022 (the committee’s 2023 recommendation is not yet publicly available) what it described in similar wording in both its reports as “two communications concerning the representation of Afghanistan … indicating different individuals as representatives.”
In 2021, it had one letter dated 14 September 2021 from the Permanent Representative of Afghanistan to the United Nations in New York and “another dated 20 September 2021 from Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs” (see here). In 2022, the first letter, dated 6 September 2022, came from Afghanistan’s Chargé d’affaires ad interim to the United Nations in New York, followed by a second one, on 17 September 2022 from “the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan” (see here).
At first glance, the Credentials Committee left the matter of who exactly sent both communications unclear (see here). In both years, the first letter obviously came – as is usual – through Afghanistan’s permanent mission in New York and should represent the credentials submitted by the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (IRoA) continues to be registered on the UN’s list of “Official Names of the United Nations Membership” (here) and its protocol list (here). The country is simply recorded as Afghanistan on the list of member states, but with the pre-1978 and Republic-era green, black and red flag still shown (here).
Although not spelled out, it seems the second communications were from the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s foreign ministry. [20] Indeed, IEA foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi did send a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in September 2021, nominating the Emirate’s Doha-based spokesman Suhail Shaheen as their permanent representative and asking for credentials for him. A UN spokesman confirmed that Muttaqi’s letter was received and forwarded to the Credentials Committee (see Reuters here). [21] The Credential Committee references the letter in its 1 December 2021 report (see here):
The Committee had before it two communications concerning the representation of Afghanistan at the seventy-sixth session of the General Assembly, indicating different individuals as representatives to the seventy-sixth session of the Assembly. The first was dated 14 September 2021 from the Permanent Representative of Afghanistan to the United Nations in New York. The second communication was dated 20 September 2021 from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan.
The Chair proposed that the Committee defer its decision on the credentials pertaining to … the representatives of Afghanistan to the seventy-sixth session of the General Assembly. The proposal was adopted without a vote.
The result is a diplomatic oddity, a junior diplomat appointed by a government that no longer exists currently occupying Afghanistan’s seat at the UN. Naseer Ahmad Faiq has declared that he no longer represents the old government, which has never officially abdicated, and that he does not represent the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan either, but only the “oppressed groups in Afghanistan” (comment made to media – full quote below). [22]
Afghanistan’s Chargé d’affaires ad interim to the United Nations, Naseer Ahmad Faiq, speaking at the UN Security Council on the situation in Afghanistan. Source: UN Web TV, 20 December 2022.
Faiq assumed the helm at Afghanistan’s Permanent Mission in New York after the country’s permanent representative, veteran diplomat Ghulam Mohammad Isaczai (also spelled Ishaqzai) resigned in December 2021. [23] Faiq’s new role was made public “in an official tweet” by Afghanistan’s Permanent Mission to the UN on 16 December 2021, without mentioning who had appointed him (see Ariana news here). The letter to the UN – if there was indeed a letter – naming him heading Afghanistan’s mission to the UN has not been publicly released. [24]
Isaczai had notified the UN of his resignation on 16 December 2021, according to a UN spokesman (see AP report here). He had been scheduled to address the final day of the UNGA high-level meeting on 27 September 2021 (six weeks after the fall of the Islamic Republic), but he later withdrew the request to speak (see the German news website RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND) here). [25]
There was speculation in the media about the reason behind the resignation. The Associated Press said he had resigned “after the country’s current Taliban rulers sought to replace him with their own envoy” (see here). Foreign Policy quoted one Afghan diplomat saying he had resigned because he thought there was no government in Afghanistan for him to represent at the UN and two other diplomats saying he expected to be appointed to a senior UN post in Ethiopia.[26]
After the credentials committee’s decision to defer any action in 2021, the chair, Sweden’s UN Ambassador Anna Karin Enestrom, declined to respond to questions from journalists about whether the current ambassador for Afghanistan still represented his country (see Reuters here).
Intra-Republic conflict
Further controversy about the country’s permanent representation in New York played out in early 2022, before the UN credentials committee’s most recent (non-)decision. On 9 February, reports emerged in the Afghan media that the mission had announced the appointment of Muhammad Wali Naeemi as Afghanistan’s Permanent Representative and Chargé d’affaires to the UN, replacing Faiq (ToloNews here and Khaama Press here).
The statement said that Naeemi, who had been deputy permanent representative under Isaczai, had not been able to assume his post earlier for health reasons, but “considering that Naeemi as the deputy representative has recovered, and based on the UN’s standards that after the ambassador and the permanent representative his deputy will take over responsibilities, Naeemi has taken the responsibilities as Chargé d’affaires from 4th February 2022” (quotes from the ToloNews report).
The last of the Republic’s foreign ministers – who has maintained that he still holds this position – Muhammad Hanif Atmar, also sent a letter to the UN communicating Naeemi’s appointment. Faiq, however, continues to hold himself to be Afghanistan’s representative and posted a copy of the letter on X (formerly Twitter) here. The media also reported on 8 February 2022 that Faiq had accused “corrupt individuals and traitors from the former corrupt government” of having staged “evil plots and conspiracies” against him, following a statement he made at a UNSC meeting discussing the situation in Afghanistan on 26 January 2022. In that statement, he had also announced that he was “not representing the former corrupt government” and demanded “the confiscation and freezing of Afghanistan’s assets illegally transferred to [bank] accounts of the former corrupt government officials” (see the text of his statement here). Later, he claimed that after that speech, he had “received a call from one of the top Taliban leaders asking him to represent them at the UN” but had declined (see the UAE’s English-language daily The National here). Indeed, in a series of interviews in 2023, Faiq underscored that he was not the Emirate’s representative either. For example, he told the Turkish Anadolu news agency: “We are not in contact with the Taliban. We are not representing the Taliban. We are the only voice of the oppressed groups in Afghanistan” (see here).
The UN did not act on Atmar’s letter. Instead, it deleted the names of Ashraf Ghani as Afghanistan’s head of state and Atmar as foreign minister from its official protocol list, leaving their places blank but retaining the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan as the country’s official designation. ToloNews first reported this on 22 February 2022, saying that the updated list had been published on 15 February (see ToloNews here and the current UN Protocol and Liaison Service list, as of 6 November 2023, here).
Although these approaches have further obfuscated Afghanistan’s place at the UN, it seems that the decision has simply been left open and not taken in favour of any of the two Afghan contenders for the seat, leaving Faiq as Afghanistan’s default representative to the world body, only because no decision has been made to choose someone else. The most recent list of UN member states heads of mission (as of 1 November 2023) continues to list Faiq as Afghanistan’s representative (see here). For the third year running, however, Faiq did not make a statement in Afghanistan’s name at the 2023 General Assembly, due, reported AP, to “the credentialing dispute.”
Faiq can, nevertheless, still attend UN meetings as Afghanistan’s representative in the current General Assembly (see here). He also attended and spoke at the 26 September 2023 UNSC meeting, where the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, former Kyrghyz president Roza Otunbayeva, briefed the council on the situation in Afghanistan (see here). Most recently, on 1 November 2023, he spoke at the UNGA’s Third Committee, discussing the report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (see his post on X here) and on 5 October during the discussion on the advancement of rights of women and girls (here). Faiq unsuccessfully put Afghanistan forward as a candidate for the UN Human Rights Council in October 2022 (see his post on X here) and voted in favour of a UN resolution that condemned Russia’s war on Ukraine, which Afghanistan had reportedly co-sponsored in March 2022 (see his post on X here).
Faiq’s 2022 request to be re-accredited has a further weakness. After the controversy over Atmar’s letter and Faiq’s distancing himself from the former government, it is very likely that his letter did not carry Atmar’s signature and, therefore, did not fulfil the UN requirement that such a request must come from a foreign minister. However, this appears to have had no influence on the Credential Committee’s stance.
The Emirate’s position
International diplomatic recognition is a major foreign policy goal for the Islamic Emirate. It has repeatedly called on governments to establish full diplomatic relations, although so far, to little avail. It hailed the acceptance by the People’s Republic of China of the credentials of its ambassador on 1 December 2023 as an “important chapter” (see VoA here): it was the first time a country had formally done so and followed another first for China, in September 2023, the appointment of a new ambassador to Kabul. This was a sign, the BBC reported the Emirate as saying, for other nations to establish ties with its government. However, in reality, the number of countries with embassies and some even with ambassadors in Kabul as well as the number of countries which have allowed the IEA to either take over their embassies/consular offices or post an Emirate official at Afghanistan’s diplomatic missions is relatively few. And none have, so far, fully recognised the regime.
The stated obstacles have remained consistent. Immediately after the Taleban took power, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, for example, made full recognition dependent on, among other things, the Taleban’s willingness to form an “inclusive government” (see Russian foreign ministry’s press release here). This position was repeated during the September 2023 meeting of the Russia-hosted Moscow Format consultations on Afghanistan, which was also attended by the five Central Asian Republics, China, India, Iran and Pakistan. Participants at the meeting repeated their demand for the establishment of “a balanced, broad-based, inclusive, accountable and responsible government in Afghanistan.” While they made no explicit reference to recognition, they did, however, express “their interest for expanding engagement with the current Afghan authorities in the areas of culture, sport and education” (author’s emphasis; see the meeting’s final declaration here).
Yet the IEA has repeatedly insisted that it has the right to Afghanistan’s seat at the UN as it controls all of Afghanistan.Mutaqqi’s 2021 letter requesting the UN to accept the Emirate, according to UN spokesperson, Farhan Haq, argued that former president Ashraf Ghani had been removed and was no longer recognised as the country’s head of state and that the mission of the Republic-appointed representative “is considered over and that he no longer represents Afghanistan”(see German news site Web.de here).
The IEA also criticised the UN General Assembly’s 6 December 2021 decision to continue acknowledging Ghulam Mohammad Isaczai as Afghanistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations (see Ariana news here), calling it “unfair.” Abdul Qahar Balkhi, theIEA foreign ministry’s spokesman, tweeted: “The new Afghan government, as an accountable authority with sovereignty over entire Afghanistan (sic), which has ensured security for all Afghans, has a legitimate right to represent the Afghan people in the UN” (see ToloNews here). “Giving Afghanistan’s seat to Ishaqzai, who has no working relation with Kabul and no authority over any part of Afghan territory is deemed a blatant denial of the Afghan people’s legitimate right,” ToloNews reported Balkhi as saying.
During the Faiq/Naeemi controversy, Inamullah Samangani, the Emirate’s deputy spokesperson, said “the only solution is that Afghanistan’s chair at the UN is given to the current government of Afghanistan” (see Pakistan-based The Frontier Post here). In March 2023, the Emirate again raised its claim (see Pajhwok news here) for its ambassador-designate, Suhail Shaheen, to take over Afghanistan’s permanent mission in New York. “It is our right to be represented at the United Nations,” the Emirate’s spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid told ToloNews (see here).
From the Emirate’s point of view, the opaqueness with which the Credentials Committee operates, the lack of debate in the General Assembly and the non-decisions make it impossible to find purchase to argue its case.
What does international law say?
International law distinguishes between the recognition of states and the recognition of governments. In general, states recognise other states, rather than governments. There is no “formalised procedure and, in particular, no international body” (and certainly not the UN) that determines “whether a state exists or whether a government is authorized to act on behalf of a state,” as a 2020 memo by the Academic Services of the German Bundestag (parliament) looking at the legal framework for a decision on Taleban recognition made clear (see here). This means that individual “state practice and customary international law resulting from it” are used by each state to decide questions of recognition. The memo stresses that there are “discrepancies” in the practice of various states.
Under normal circumstances, ie in times of peace and constitutional order, “state identity is not affected by the change of its government,” write Federica Paddeu and Niko Pavlopoulos in a piece published on the Just Security website (see here). In other words, states tend to continue diplomatic relations with an incoming government without issuing a formal expression of recognition
Since World War II, most states have narrowly focussed on a new government’s effective control of territory and have thus avoided complex political pronouncements about legitimacy. Switzerland, for example, enshrines neutrality as a core virtue of its foreign policy and adheres to “the principles of universality (the principle that wherever possible, Switzerland maintains diplomatic relations with all states) and of effectiveness (the requirement that the state to be recognized must have undoubted sovereignty),” as laid out in a legal memo published by its Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (last updated in April 2023 see here). The memo adds:
For the sake of the certainty of international law, Switzerland as a general principle refrains from setting additional conditions for recognition.…
The only precondition for the recognition of a government under international law is its effective exercise of sovereign power (first and foremost, control of a substantial part of the territory and of the apparatus of administration).…
If a state maintains normal diplomatic relations with a new government, this is merely a declaration that the new government is effective, not that it is legitimate [author’s emphasis].
Such an approach by any state may be rooted in the consideration that debates about legitimacy are complex and may not be politically expedient – whether disputatious, contrary to trade or other state interests or simply time-consuming.
However, sometimes concerns about legitimacy outweigh the principle of effective control and then states can be forced to consider questions of the legitimacy of the new government and whether to recognise it. For example, as the Bundestag paper highlights, this can happen when there has been “a change in the form of government by a change of the form of the state or due to an unconstitutional or otherwise irregular transfer of sovereign power within the state” such as “civil war, military coups [or] disputed election results.”
In Afghanistan’s case, statehood is uncontroversial, as is the IEA’s effective control of territory. What is controversial is whether the Emirate is a legitimate government. In August 2021, Afghanistan’s form of state changed from an Islamic Republic to an Islamic Emirate, and not by peaceful means. [27] It would appear, therefore, that UN member-states have considered the new regime’s legitimacy and, as a result, have refrained from recognising the IEA and re-establishing full diplomatic relations. Most have either not sent any diplomats, or only lower-ranking ones, and only a few an ambassador to Kabul. Also, in most cases, they have not received IEA diplomats. Many still seem to recognise the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan or at least allow diplomats appointed by it to continue their work.
The legitimacy question also plays out between the various Afghan political forces, all of whom interpret the issue of Afghanistan’s seat in New York as ‘recognition by the UN’. The Taleban, for their part, have always insisted on the continuity of the Emirate, and the 20 years of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan as an interregnum; they have never recognised the Republic as Afghanistan’s legitimate government, describing it as a puppet of foreign forces. They are unswerving in their demands for recognition “by the UN,” as the UN’s envoy to Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, pointed out in her comments to the Security Council in July 2023.
It is worth noting, however, that the United Nations is neither a state nor a government and does not have the right to ‘recognise’ a government (see UN website here).
The UN’s practice in the Credentials Committee should turn on this same question of legitimacy, particularly regarding upholding the UN Charter, although by not discussing the matter publicly or making an active decision on who gets the Afghan seat, neither the Committee nor UNGA are actually grappling with the issue of legitimacy. Otunbayeva used the language of recognition – in her UNSC comments in July: “The Taliban ask to be recognized by the United Nations and its members, but at the same time they act against the key values expressed in the United Nations Charter” (see the full transcript of her statement here). The Emirate took issue with her claims that its governance structures were “highly exclusionary, Pashtun-centred and repressive,” calling her assessment “baseless and biased” (see ToloNews here).
On balance, and based on the body of UN resolutions and repeated calls by member states for an inclusive government and respect for human rights, especially those of women and girls, it could be surmised that it is because states do not consider the Emirate legitimate that they have rebuffed its attempts to be recognised and admitted to the United Nations. However, this has never been publicly discussed or debated by either the Credentials Committee or the UNGA, so it is just surmise.
Importantly, while sending or keeping ambassadors in Kabul, as China, Russia, Iran and some other countries have done, could be seen as de-facto recognition of the IEA, this or indeed even establishing full diplomatic ties with the Emirate would still not constitute de-jure recognition and would not imply that the country in question considers the Emirate to be legitimate. [28]
Still, even partial diplomatic relations, such as existing lower-level diplomatic contacts, without the full gamut of diplomatic relations, are highly controversial and have drawn sharp criticism among the general public outside of Afghanistan and among some in the Afghan diaspora. Such pressure is another factor that governments need to take into account when deciding to recognise another government. In the eyes of many who are not well-versed in the intricacies of international law, recognition might imply legitimacy.
Recognising governments-in-exile
The Swiss legal memo also mentioned ‘special cases’, particularly after a coup or civil war, where “a legitimate government loses all or part of its power over the state and even flees abroad, becoming a government in exile.” In these instances, the memo says, “the former government sometimes continues to be recognized as the legitimate government (the de jure government) even if it has lost effective control of the state – at least temporarily – and this control is being exercised on the ground by a new, different government (the de facto government).”
One recent example is Yemen. There, the Houthis took effective control over large swathes of the country, yet the former government, in exile in Saudi Arabia, continues to be recognised by many states (see Reuters here). The Houthi government is even subject to a range of sanctions by the UN Security Council, including asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo (see UNSC here and here), not unlike the current IEA.
In Afghanistan, a similar situation emerged in 1996 after the Taleban had toppled the government in Kabul, which called itself the Islamic State of Afghanistan (ISA). After extensive deliberations, the committee decided to “defer any decision on the credentials of the representatives of Afghanistan until a later meeting.” In other words, the ISA (headed by the late Burhanuddin Rabbani, himself president by dubious means) was allowed to continue to occupy Afghanistan’s seat at the UN, even as its territorial control shrank to the full control of only one province. In 1996, the Taleban also nominated their representative, who was not credentialed (see the Credential Committee’s 23 October 1996 report A/51/548). [29]
During the Soviet occupation (1979-89), Afghanistan’s governments were not considered legitimate by most UN member-states. At the time, significant majorities in the UNGA supported resolutions condemning the Soviet occupation. While many countries withdrew their ambassadors or closed their embassies in Kabul, most did not completely break off relations,[30] and the governments of the time were able to retain the country’s seat at the UN. This is another example of how many states do not consider legitimacy to be the prime argument when it comes to diplomatic recognition of other governments.
In the current situation, Afghanistan’s former government (or president) never formally abdicated. Ashraf Ghani and other politicians have repeatedly made statements from abroad, using the Republic’s black, red and green flag as a backdrop, sometimes still claiming to represent the Islamic Republic (see for example, Ghani in this late August 2021 Khaama Press report or former foreign minister Atmar’s bio on X, where he still calls himself “Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan”). At the same time, the former government is bitterly disunited and has not declared itself a government-in-exile, with one small exception: the former first vice-president, Amrullah Saleh, who, in the immediate aftermath of the Taleban takeover, claimed on 17 August 2021 that he was still the legitimate head of state because he, unlike Ghani, was still on Afghan soil (see his post on X, here). In September 2021, the Afghan embassy in Switzerland announced that Saleh would be leading a government-in-exile (see Khaama Press here). Saleh is no longer in Afghanistan and, at any rate, does not seem to have broad support among his former government colleagues. The existence of a government-in-exile, led by Saleh or any other person, has never been publicly mentioned again.
The absence of continuity, consensus and, at the very least, some degree of cohesion among the Republic-era political elite, as well as the gap left after the collapse of the old regime, could prove a hurdle to widespread recognition of any Afghan ‘Republican’ government-in-exile that ever did come into existence.
Conclusion
The matter of who represents Afghanistan at the UN remains unresolved and the country’s seat continues to be held by a diplomat from the government toppled by the Taleban, but not appointed by it. While the UN has been using a procedural ruse to withhold the seat from the Islamic Emirate, its de facto authorities continue to assert their right to occupy it.
If state practice is that states usually recognise other states, but not governments, that effective control of a country by the government is considered the main (if not only) criteria for recognition and that even diplomatic recognition does not imply legitimacy, then why do UN member-states not just go ahead and give the green light to the UN General Assembly to hand over Afghanistan’s UN seat to the Emirate?
In reality, the situation is more complicated. Legitimacy has emerged as a criterion in state practice for the recognition of governments, at least in a few cases where power is taken by force and human rights violations of entire social groups are at play, as the open decisions on Myanmar’s and Afghanistan’s seats show (with the collective denial of citizenship to the Rohingya ethnic group and the forced displacement into neighbouring countries of two-thirds of them in the former and the systematic denial of almost all rights to the entire female population in the latter). The acceptance and implementation of obligations under the UN Charter and other international conventions should be, according to UNGA resolution 396 of 1950, of central importance for UN member states. In Afghanistan’s case, one of the founding principles of the UN, “faith … in the equal rights of men and women” – is of particular significance. [31]
In a situation where no UN member-state, including those who have more active diplomatic interactions with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, such as China and Russia, seems to have plans to upgrade their prevailing partial to full diplomatic relations, the UN Credentials Committee will likely maintain its previous course over the question of who should occupy Afghanistan’s UN seat and, as it has done since 2021, defer the decision for another year. Up to now, all other member-states, including Russia, China and other countries in the region continue to point to the need for substantial changes in Taleban policies on women’s rights and the formation of an ‘inclusive government’ as a precondition for full diplomatic recognition and have supported UN resolutions to this avail.
There is, however, no sign from the Emirate’s leadership that they are willing to oblige these demands. Restoring full relations in the absence of any movement from the Emirate on these demands would implythat previous concerns over legitimacy no longer exist. It would mean that the current, curious situation will continue, and Afghanistan will have a representative occupying its seat at the UN who claims not to represent either the current or previous government, but to speak for the country’s people.[32]
What might change matters is the Special Coordinator Sinirlioğlu’s independent assessment and the Security Council’s response to it. It might be possible for UN member-states to offer some goodwill gesture, in an attempt to break the deadlock, but giving Afghanistan’s seat to it now would be premature and meet strong international opposition. Public opinion in donor countries, many in the Afghan diaspora and those critical of IEA policies inside the country would be aghast at such a step under the current circumstances.
Slow and cumbersome procedures at the UNGA and its Credential Committee give member-states another year to deliberate and discuss the independent assessment report and establish mechanisms to implement whatever they decide is the right path forward. Such an approach also gives the Emirate’s leadership time to consider whether it wants to shift on what appear to be the preconditions (even if the UN does not call them that) for recognition and for gaining the UN seat. These seem pretty clear: a major one is that the IEA starts, as its critics would see it, interacting more positively with the Afghan population, civil society and non-Taleban political actors and to amend its policies on women and girls in particular.
It is also possible to foresee the Credentials Committee and the General Assembly continuing to delay, defer and take non-decisions, leaving the situation to drift and an exasperated Emirate’s quest for recognition frustrated.
Edited by Roxanna Shapour, Jelena Bjelica and Rachel Reid
References
References
↑1
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin refuted speculations that Beijing had formally recognised the Emirate: “China has always believed that Afghanistan should not be excluded from the international community.… We hope that Afghanistan will further respond to the expectations of the International community, build an open and inclusive political structure (and) implement moderate and stable domestic and foreign policies…. As the concerns of all parties receive stronger responses, diplomatic recognition of the Afghan government will naturally follow,” he told the media on 5 December. See this AFP report published by India’s English-language daily the Hindu.
↑2
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ website provides a list of IEA’s diplomatic missions.
↑3
In September 2023, the Taleban accredited a new Chinese ambassador. See Al-Jazeera here.
↑4
Russia was the first to meet IEA representatives in Kabul “within 48 hours of the takeover,” as reported by the BBC.
↑5
At the same time, many ambassadors appointed by the former government have clung to their posts as the last bastions of the fallen Islamic Republic (see Foreign Policy here), such as the one in Tajikistan who continues as Afghan ambassador to the country’s Central Asian neighbour, while the Afghan consulate in Khorog, in eastern Tajikistan, has fallen into the Emirate’s hands (see Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) here). Some are tacitly in contact with Kabul, as former AAN colleague Ehsan Qaane wrote in 2021 (see this AAN report), or with roving Taleban envoys, as became apparent when one of them showed up in Germany on 16 November, crossing the border with a Schengen visa from the Netherlands where he had attended an international WHO conference (here).
↑6
There are some exceptions, such as Australia, which has closed its embassy.
↑7
The United States and the United Kingdom, for example, maintained a small team at their embassies in Kabul from the start of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979 until the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, after which they closed their missions along with France, Italy and Japan.
↑8
The exceptions are Norway’s ambassador, who met the Emirate’s foreign minister in Kabul in October 2022 (see the Afghanistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs website here) and the UK’s chargé d’affaires, who did the same in summer 2023 (see Middle East Monitor here).
↑9
In 1996, the Taleban asked UNAMA’s predecessor mission, UNSMA (United Nations Support Mission to Afghanistan), to leave the country. However, UNSMA staff continued to visit Kabul; they included the author of this report in 2001-02.
↑10
The assessment report, which was due to be presented to the UNSC by 16 November 2023, has not been publicly released, but has been leaked and is widely distributed. The report can be found on the PassBlue website here.
↑11
The first decision was taken in December 2021, four months after the Taleban took power as noted in the Credentials Committee’s report UNGA A/76/550.
↑12
See Rebecca Barber, ‘The Role of the General Assembly in Determining the Legitimacy of Governments,’ International and Comparative Law Quarterly 71, no. 3 (2022): 627–56 (here).
↑13
UNGA appointed the current members of the UN Credentials Committee during the first session of the 77th plenary on 5 September 2023. They are Andorra, China, Grenada, Nigeria, Russia, Solomon Islands, Suriname, Togo and US. See UN Web TV here, from 27:20min.
↑14
This year’s official UNGA schedule, does not list this as an agenda item, but it will likely be amended to include it once the final schedule is published, as was the case last year when the report of the Credentials Committee was listed as an agenda item. See last year’s the official schedule here.
↑15
In 1950, UNGA Resolution 396 set out the procedure for deciding on who is entitled to represent a member state: “whenever more than one authority claims to be the government entitled to represent a Member-State in the United Nations (…), it should be considered by the General Assembly, or by the Interim Committee if the General Assembly is not in session.” See this UNGA Resolution A/RES/196 on Interim Committee from 1948.
↑16
In Venezuela’s case, the US registered its objection to credentials given to the Maduro government but did not block the decision or insist on a debate or vote.
↑17
See A/77/PV.1 for members appointed to the committee by the 77th general assembly in September 2022 and those of the previous year here.
↑18
The UNGA resolution 2022 simply reads:
The General Assembly,
Having considered the report of the Credentials Committee and the recommendation contained therein,
Approves the report of the Credentials Committee.
55th plenary meeting
16 December 2022
↑19
Rule 27 of the UNGA Rules of Procedure: The credentials of representatives and the names of members of a delegation shall be submitted to the Secretary-General if possible not less than one week before the opening of the session. The credentials shall be issued either by the Head of the State or Government or by the Minister for Foreign.
↑20
The UN does not use the Taleban’s chosen name for their state and usually only refers to it as the country’s ‘de facto authorities’ (see, for example, the UN statement after the IEA banned Afghan women from working for UN agencies in Afghanistan) and, recently, as the ‘State of Afghanistan’ (see, for example, the recent assessment of the UN Secretary-General’s Special Coordinator for Afghanistan which has not been released but was leaked and can be found on the PassBlue website here.
↑21
Muttaqi reportedly also requested to be allowed to address the General Assembly during its annual high-level meeting which ended a day later, on 21 September 2021.
↑22
Faiq is a 46-year-old career diplomat who has served in various positions in the foreign ministry in Kabul and twice before at the Afghan UN mission in more junior positions (see Afghans Bios here). In Geneva, the UN’s second main hub, another Republic-appointed diplomat, Nasir Ahmad Andisha, is still in charge as Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the United Nations Office in Geneva, see here.
↑23
Isaczai is a seasoned Afghan diplomat with over two decades of experience working for the UN and had been appointed to this position in June 2021, four months before the fall of the Republic, by then President Ashraf Ghani, after Adela Raz moved into the role of Afghan ambassador to the US. Before taking up his post as Afghanistan’s permanent representative to the UN, Isaczai had served in various UN positions, most recently as Resident Coordinator in Azerbaijan (2016-2021) and in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (2013-2015). He is currently the Deputy Special Representative and Resident Coordinator at the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) (see his UN bio here).
↑24
In a bizarre detail, the residence of the head of mission of Afghanistan – among the poorest countries in the world – is in New York’s Trump Tower, one of the city’s most expensive pieces of real estate. One of Faiq’s predecessors, Zaher Tanin (Observer Daily here), oversaw its purchase and Faiq is still using it. The number of staff at the mission has reportedly dropped from 16 before the Taleban takeover to four, including Faiq (here).
↑25
The high-level UNGA meeting is reserved for heads of state or government and foreign ministers. Representatives of countries who nominate lower-ranking diplomats are scheduled to speak according to their rank, with the lowest at the end.
↑26
In January 2022, Isaczai became the UN’s ad interim Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Jordan and was then appointed Deputy Special Representative for Iraq in the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and UN Resident Coordinator there by Guterres in July 2022. here.
↑27
The most recent cases include Mali (2020), Myanmar (most recently in 2021) and Niger (2023). In these countries, military governments control most of their countries’ territories after military coups, but came to power by unconstitutional means and many countries considered whether to express or withhold explicit recognition. Similar developments occurred after Venezuela’s controversial elections in 2018.
↑28
For a good explainer on legitimacy and the differences between de facto and de jure recognition, see Stefan Talmon, ’Recognition of governments in international law with particular reference to governments in exile’, Chapter 2: ‘Recognition and its Variants’, Oxford University Press, 2004.
↑29
Senior Taleban politician Abdul Hakim Mujahed used to reside in New York and had some unofficial diplomatic contacts there. He later returned to Afghanistan under a reconciliation programme. For details on efforts in this regard during the first emirate, see Bette Dam. ‘Looking for the enemy: Mullah Omar and the unknown Taliban’, HarperCollins, 2021.
↑30
No state officially broke off diplomatic relations with Afghanistan either during the first Emirate or the second Emirate – with the exception of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE after 9/11.
↑31
All UN Security Council members, including China and Russia, voted in favour of a UNSC resolution 2681 on 27 April 2023. The resolution, which was co-sponsored by the United Arab Emirates and Japan, urged the Taleban “to swiftly reverse the policies and practices that restrict the enjoyment by women and girls of their human rights and fundamental freedoms “and ensure their “full, equal, meaningful and safe participation” (see AP here).
↑32
One aspect adding a degree of uncertainty is what calculations are made in Beijing and Moscow. Russia and China have used Afghanistan-related matters to score points in their global tug-of-war with ‘the collective West.’ But judging from the latest meeting of the Moscow Format, where they upheld their demand of an ‘inclusive government’ in Afghanistan, this is not very likely.
Whose Seat Is It Anyway: The UN’s (non)decision on who represents Afghanistan
After the Islamic Emirate banned older girls from education, many girls found alternative avenues to continue their studies, find intellectual stimulation – and even, as this Daily Hustle found out, make a living in the private education sector. AAN’s Rohullah Sorush hears from one young Afghan woman about how, even in the face of overwhelming setbacks and personal tragedy, she has managed not only to succeed in her learning endeavors but to thrive with the love and support of her family.
Every morning, after I drop my younger sister at school, I teach an online English class to a group of lively girls my own age. My students are intelligent and all are fast learners, except for two who are in grade six and younger than the others – it is a little difficult for them. But they work hard and, with some extra attention from me, mostly keep up with their classmates. After the class ends, I take a moment to think about the road I’ve travelled to get to this place. I thank God for the support I get from my family and for his blessings.
A life-changing tragedy
I was born in Kabul, near the famous Darulaman Palace, in 2007 to a middle-class family. My father is a shopkeeper. He couldn’t finish his education because he had to start working to support his mother and two sisters when he was in eighth grade after his father died. But my mother was a high school graduate. Her schooling was disrupted when she was in grade 10 and girls were banned from school during the first Emirate. But later, during the Republic, my father encouraged her to go back to school.
An NGO near our house ran a school for older girls and young women who had been left behind in education. In that school, my mother finished grades 11 and 12 and got her high school diploma.
A lifetime ago, we used to be a very happy family. Back then, my two younger sisters, my parents and my grandmother and I lived together. But like all families, we’d had our share of tragedies. My parents had lost two sons before I was born and then a daughter after I came along. Then, four years ago, I lost my mother and my little sister. They’d gone to Ghazni to spend the summer with family, but as they were driving into our village in Jaghatu, their car hit a landmine. My mother and little sister were killed in the blast. along with two other family members. And, then four months later, my grandmother died. It felt like my world had ended.
There were just the three of us left – my father, my sister and me. Our house, which was once filled with joy and laughter, became silent and gloomy and my father, who used to be lively and come home with chocolate and candy in his pockets for me and my siblings, sank into a dark mood. About a year after my mother died, my father remarried and, after that, things went from bad to worse. It didn’t take long for my stepmother to start quarrelling with my dad. She wasn’t too keen on having my sister and me living with them and demanded that my father send us off to live with my maternal grandparents, which my father refused to do. She even tried to get my father to marry me off, but my mother’s family interceded and told him I was too young to get married.
Family support makes all the difference
Education is a big thing in my family, for my father who couldn’t finish his own education and for my mother and her family who rank education above all riches. My maternal uncle, in particular, has always taken an interest in my education. He has encouraged me to keep my head down and be dedicated to my studies. When I turned 10, he arranged for me to start learning English in one of the private language institutes near our house. During the Covid-19 pandemic, when all the schools were closed, he made sure I kept up with my English language studies and that I had an online meeting with my teacher twice a week so that he could check my homework. After my mother died, it was my uncle who coaxed us out of our misery. He came around every afternoon to make sure my sister and I were keeping up with our schoolwork and brought us presents when we got good marks in our classes. He told us that learning was the greatest of all distractions and that a good education would be our ticket to a better life.
In August 2021, girls were banned from going to school, and like my mother before me, I had to stop going to school. Otherwise, I would be in grade 11 now. I kept up with my English classes and also took up a job at the language centre as a teaching assistant, helping the teacher with the younger kids in the lower grades. A year later, when I finished the course and graduated first in my class, the institute hired me as a teacher. My uncle, who used to be a teacher himself, helps me with my lesson plans and gives me books to read to improve my English and help me become a more proficient teacher.
With more knowledge comes more responsibility
This year, I was promoted to be a manager at the centre. I still teach two classes a day, but now I’m also responsible for overseeing the work of other teachers. I monitor their classes and have quarterly meetings with them on the progress of their classes. I make plans for new courses and prepare weekly reports for my superiors. There are separate classes, at different times, for boys and girls, but girls can only attend in-person classes up to grade 6. After that, we have online classes for them. We have male teachers for the boys and female teachers for the girls.
Once, the Taleban came to our institute to see if we were observing the rules. Back then, the older girls also came to classes at the centre. Although the classes were separate, they told the institute’s owner that the older girls weren’t allowed to come. After that, we started our online courses for the older girls because we didn’t want the Emirate to shut us down.
These days, I keep myself busy and try to stay out of my stepmother’s way. My father isn’t around much. He stays late at his shop and when he’s home there are endless arguments with my stepmother. There is no space or time for us to be together as a family anymore. The money I bring into the house helps keep my stepmother’s complaints about me and my sister down. It’s a lifeline that allows me to make sure my sister and I pay our own way and also contribute to household expenses.
Making dreams come true
Every morning, I get my younger sister ready and take her to school before I get behind my computer to teach the online class for the older students who cannot attend classes in person. After that, I go to the centre from 9 to 12 o’ clock to carry out my managerial responsibilities, before picking up my sister and taking her home. Then I have a quick lunch and go back to the centre for a class I teach to the younger girls. My afternoons, until 5pm are spent making sure everything is on track at the centre. On Fridays, when I’m not working, I take my sister to my grandparents’ house and spend the day with my mother’s family. This is my routine.
The hours are long and it’s a lot of responsibility for someone as young as I am, so I work hard every day to make sure I do my job well and show everyone that I’m up to the challenge.
I’m very unhappy that I can’t continue my education. But when I lose all hope, I remember my mother and how she was finally able to go back and finish high school. I hope one day, when this ban is removed, all girls can go to school and to university. I count my blessings every day. I am lucky to have this opportunity to work as a manager at the institute and also teach other girls. I am happy I can help girls and boys learn something. The girls who study in the centre all have dreams. I’d like to think that I’m playing a part in helping their dreams come true.
Edited by Roxanna Shapour
The Daily Hustle: “Helping the dreams of girls come true”
Afghanistan and Iran have been at loggerheads for much of this year over the Helmand River and its water. As the region grappled with a punishing drought for the third year running, the two neighbouring countries have been locked in a tense melee over shared transboundary rivers. While Iran seeks to assert its rights over water from the Helmand River based on the 1973 Afghan-Iranian Helmand River Water Treaty, Afghanistan maintains that there is simply not enough water to provide Iran with a greater amount. AAN guest author, Mohammad Assem Mayar, looks into what has driven the recent upsurge in the long-running dispute over water between these two countries and provides insights into how their ‘water relations’ might develop.You can preview the report online and download it by clicking the link below.
As drought continued to exact a heavy toll on the human and natural environment for the third year running, the dispute between Kabul and Tehran, now well into its second century, over water once again took centre stage in 2023. Iran complains that it has not been receiving its fair share of the Helmand water and has highlighted the damage done to its agricultural sector and the devastation wrought on the Hamun Wetlands. Conversely, Kabul argues that decades of inadequate water management under successive ineffective Afghan governments, with water flowing downstream unchecked, has meant that Iran has been getting more than its share. Now, after three years of punishing drought, according to Afghanistan, there is simply no more water for Iran to have.
This report:
Examines the geographic and environmental nature of the Helmand River Basin and its vital importance to communities on both sides of the border, before delving into the factors driving the most recent dispute between Afghanistan and Iran;
Traces the history of the water dispute between the neighbours back to the late 19th century when the border was first established and looks into the various attempts to settle the issue since that time;
Hones in on the existing legal frameworks, especially the Afghan-Iranian Helmand River Water Treaty (hereafter referred to as the Helmand Treaty), which is the only operative agreement defining how water should be shared and what Iran’s rights amount to;
Examines Afghanistan and Iran’s attempts to secure additional water from the Helmand River;
Looks at the divergent interpretations of the Helmand Treaty and why it has never been fully implemented in the half-century since it was signed.
Concludes that the current dispute may ease in the short term if winter rains fall heavily, as predicted. However, the climate crisis will bring more frequent droughts of increasing intensity to this region, putting more pressure on people and governments already struggling to balance water needs against diminishing water resources. This report presents some ideas as to how the impasse could be resolved, including some technological innovations and changes to water usage aimed at reducing demand.
Edited by Roxanna Shapour, Martine van Bijlert and Kate Clark
* Dr Mohammad Assem Mayar is a water resources management expert and former lecturer at Kabul Polytechnic University in Kabul, Afghanistan. He is currently working as a post-doctoral researcher at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) in Müncheberg, Germany. He posts on X as @assemmayar1.
You can preview the report online and download it by clicking the download button below.
Tensions over anti-Pakistan TTP terrorist group, expulsion of Afghan refugees will have implications for U.S. interests.
On November 8, in an unprecedented press conference, Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwar ul-Haq Kakar offered a blistering critique of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. He announced that the Taliban leadership was supporting the anti-Pakistan insurgency of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and that had contributed to a major increase in violence in Pakistan — leading to 2,867 Pakistani fatalities since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021.Over the last two years, the Pakistani government had been careful in its characterization of Taliban-TTP ties despite evidence of the Taliban’s support to the TTP, popularly known as the Pakistani Taliban, through provision of a safe haven and other forms of material assistance. This time, Kakar broke from that diplomatic hedging, saying “in a few instances” there was “clear evidence of [the Taliban] enabling terrorism” by the TTP. A few days after Kakar spoke, Pakistan’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Asif Durrani, followed up on Kakar’s critique of the Taliban, noting that “peace in Afghanistan, in fact, has become a nightmare for Pakistan.”While Kakar is Pakistan’s “caretaker” prime minister until the country goes through an election (now rescheduled for early next year), he is believed to be close to Pakistan’s military. His statement also comes on the heels of Pakistan’s controversial decision to expel 1.7 million undocumented Afghan refugees from Pakistan — with over 327,000 refugees having already been forced to return to Afghanistan since the expulsion decision was announced. It was also preceded by significant attacks by the TTP, including an audacious attempt at the land grab of a border district in northern Pakistan. Thus, Kakar’s statement and its timing are significant. It indicates not just his views as the interim leader of the country but also the latest policy turn led by the military that Pakistan has had enough of the Taliban’s support for the TTP and wants to pressure the Taliban, at least until they revisit support for the TTP.
Under the new policy, Pakistan has set in place a broader pressure campaign to coerce the Taliban into reviewing and revoking its support for the TTP. Pakistan shares a long border with landlocked Afghanistan; it also supported and provided safe haven to the Taliban for nearly 20 years, all of which gives it unique leverage over the politics of Afghanistan. The main step to that end is Pakistan’s expulsion of refugees, which Kakar admitted is meant to pressure the Taliban. The other significant step Pakistan has taken is the scaling backing of economic and trade ties to impose economic pain on the Taliban. Pakistan has also announced that it will “not advocate the Afghan Taliban’s case at the international level,” which likely means Pakistan will not advocate for the formal recognition of the Taliban-led government and downgrade engagement with the Taliban as it has consistently done since August 2021.
The Taliban’s support for the TTP and Pakistan’s emerging pressure campaign sets the Taliban-Pakistan relationship on a path of long-term deterioration.
Taliban’s Calculus on the TTP and Pakistan
The Taliban leadership has deflected on Pakistani concerns on the TTP, calling it Pakistan’s internal problem. They have instead focused on the Pakistani decision to expel Afghan refugees — in recent weeks, they have broken from relative restraint in their public posture on Pakistan. This has ranged from a statement by the Taliban’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, expressing concern over the treatment of Afghan refugees to Taliban Prime Minister Hassan Akhund calling on Pakistan’s government and “military generals” to adhere to “Islamic principles.” Taliban Defense Minister Mohammad Yaqub has warned Pakistan that it should be mindful of the “consequences” of its decisions and that it will reap what it is sowing. Most significantly, Taliban Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani — a longstanding ally of Pakistan — has also condemned Pakistan, describing its decision to expel refugees as “unIslamic.”
These statements by Taliban leaders partly reflect the depth of anger among Afghans and within the Taliban over Pakistan’s expulsion of Afghan refugees. Taliban leaders also seem frustrated at Pakistan’s mounting pressure on them and unwillingness to negotiate with and make concessions to the TTP, in particular since the breakdown in Taliban-brokered talks between the TTP and Pakistan in late 2022. Yet the convergence of leaders representing different factions and groups within the Taliban on this issue is also instructive on Taliban internal politics, suggesting that they may be increasingly on the same page when it comes to Pakistan.
Since their return to power in 2021, as argued by USIP senior expert Andrew Watkins, the Taliban have indicated two distinct impulses: jihadism versus state-building. The jihadist camp champions the cause of foreign fighters. To that end, it seeks to not only protect them inside Afghanistan but also to support their jihadist campaigns. The state-builders have appeared more inward-focused, seeking to limit the activities of foreign fighters to improve relations with regional and Western countries for the end goal of stabilizing the country and economy. The push and pull between these two factions contributed to the Taliban’s dual policy over the last two years of supporting the TTP inside Afghanistan on the one hand and assurance to Pakistan on the other.
Over the last year, Taliban leaders with state-building instincts appear to have soured on Pakistan and see Pakistan’s refugee expulsion as a conspiracy to undermine the Taliban government. There are other grievances among state-builders toward Pakistan, including unmet expectations on economic and trade issues as well as questions about the level of autonomy of a Taliban-led government that Pakistan is willing to accept. Some are suggesting that Pakistan is bent on weakening the Taliban to keep them pliant. There is a possibility that the Taliban state-builders may be advocating use of hard-power leverage, perhaps through violence of the TTP, to counter Pakistan’s purported attempts to weaken them and realize their state-building agenda. If so, the divide between state-building and jihadism-inclined factions on the level of support for the TTP may be shrinking.
Still, some Taliban leaders with a state-building bent will be nervous about a hostile relationship with Pakistan. Irrespective of their public posturing, they are aware that Pakistan has made the more significant contribution to the downfall of multiple Afghan governments over the last four decades. Even if pragmatic leaders are overcome with anger for now, they will worry about the future of their regime if Pakistan remains opposed to them — and may adjust their positions, even realign themselves politically if hostilities persist.
What Next? Pakistan’s Options and Likelihood of Success
Pakistan appears to be ready to sustain and increase economic pressure to compel the Taliban to review its support for the TTP. Pakistan’s economic leverage is rooted partly in being landlocked Afghanistan’s main artery of transit trade and Taliban-led Afghanistan’s main export market — accounting for over 50 percent of exports. Border crossings with Pakistan contribute more than 40 percent of Afghanistan’s customs revenues, which makes up nearly 60 percent of the Taliban’s total revenues. Pakistan has already tightened rules for transit trade, imposed stringent bank guarantee requirements on Afghan traders for imports, expanded a list of goods Afghanistan can’t import via Pakistan and slapped a 10 percent duty (referred to as processing fees) on select commodities imported by Afghanistan. Pakistan has also slowed down the movement of Afghanistan-bound containers arriving at Pakistani ports, as per the Taliban. These measures will have some impact on Pakistan’s economy, but it is far less reliant on the Afghan economy — at one point Pakistan was importing a large volume of Afghan coal, but as international coal prices have dropped, Pakistan’s coal imports from Afghanistan have decreased. Thus, overall, Pakistan’s measures will put more significant pressure on an isolated Taliban regime by cutting into its revenues and trade volumes. Pakistan retains other tools, like closure or disruption of border crossings to dry out Taliban revenues, to exert more economic pain.
If economic pressure fails, an escalatory step, which Pakistan’s military hinted at recently, can be a cross-border military action striking leaders and camps of the TTP in Afghanistan. The outcome of such an action is not clear. There is deep anger in Afghanistan toward Pakistan. Pakistani military action may increase support for the TTP in Afghanistan and also trigger retaliatory violence. Yet it is possible that cross-border action forces the Taliban to revisit its position, at least tactically. There is a precedent for this. In April 2022, Pakistan carried out cross-border airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan, soon after which the TTP, presumably at the insistence of the Taliban, agreed to a cease-fire against Pakistan.
Another more escalatory option for Pakistan is to support opposition to the Taliban, but it is not clear if Pakistan can work with the Taliban’s fragmented opposition. The opposition, dominated by political and military leaders of the former Afghan republic, has a history of poor ties with Pakistan, partly due to Pakistan’s support for the Taliban during the years of the insurgency. Pakistan has also struggled to forge ties with non-Pashtun political leaders — who are a key part of the Taliban’s opposition. Nevertheless, the region has seen strange bedfellow alliances emerge before — and the opposition is paying attention to the deterioration in Taliban-Pakistan ties and may be positioning to improve relations with Pakistan. For its part, Pakistan has helped forge opposition coalitions to balance against the government in Kabul in the past — and given its geographic position, arguably, can be effective at it.
Taliban’s Options and Likelihood of Success
The Taliban have some options of their own in a bid to blunt Pakistan’s pressure campaign and compel Pakistan to make political space for the TTP. For one, the Taliban can seek to improve ties with neighbors in Central Asia and Iran to weather economic pain and Pakistani coercion. The Taliban have already reached out to Iran recently — with Taliban Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Ghani Baradar making a trip seeking more port access and trade concessions from Iran. Iranian access may help cushion the blow of losses from restricted transit trade with Pakistan, but it is unclear if it can be a full replacement.
The Taliban may also seek to backchannel with Pakistan. In the past, amid moments of tension with Pakistan, the Taliban have leaned on sympathetic Pakistani officials to de-escalate tensions. It is possible that some Taliban leaders (such as those from the state-building camp) may seek such help again. There are a handful of international actors as well who the Taliban can ask for help to de-escalate. The country best positioned and most accessible to the Taliban to play the role of a third-party mediator is Qatar, but it is unclear if the Qatari government, currently consumed by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, has the bandwidth or even interest to mediate Pakistan-Taliban tensions. China can also try to mediate, but it has security concerns of its own regarding Afghanistan-based terrorist groups and may share Pakistan’s perspective on the rising insecurity in Pakistan.
Another option for the Taliban is to seek a thaw in ties with the Western world in general and the United States in particular in a bid to open up bilateral trade and economic ties as well as gain multilateral assistance. Taliban actions that are most likely to create greater Western openness to normal ties are reversing the restrictions on girls’ education and on women’s employment, though lesser actions like allowing women to work for nongovernmental organizations and the United Nations may also open some doors. The Taliban can also look to play on Pakistani paranoia by increasing engagement with Pakistan’s archrival India and offering India more diplomatic access in the country in exchange for economic assistance.
Perhaps the most obvious option on the table which the Taliban may believe gives them sufficient leverage is violence against Pakistan through proxies — a variant of a military strategy referred to as “escalate to de-escalate.” The Taliban may be drawn to it due to their successful violence-driven bargaining with the United States as an insurgency as well as Pakistan’s ongoing economic downturn and domestic political turmoil. For this purpose, the Taliban can relax limits on actions and activities of various militant allies against Pakistan. If so, the TTP will be the key ally for the Taliban — directly and through its cover organization which undertakes complex militant attacks, the Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan. The Taliban can also turn to other militant factions in Afghanistan with ongoing activity or a history of violence in Pakistan, such as al-Qaeda in the Indian Sub-continent, Hafiz Gul Bahadur group and Lashkar-e-Islam. The Taliban are also providing haven to separatist Baloch insurgents, which plausibly gives the Taliban leverage over parts of Pakistan with significant Chinese interests.
Still, violence may not lead to the change the Taliban want to see in Pakistan’s behavior. As there is no Pakistani domestic political constituency calling for negotiations with the TTP, it is unlikely more attacks, even if they bring additional economic cost, will create pressure on Pakistani military leadership to revive negotiations with TTP. If anything, it may spur Pakistan into exerting more pressure on the Taliban.
Implications for U.S. Policies on Afghanistan and Pakistan
In an unusual turn of events, Pakistan has come to oppose the Taliban in a way that U.S. policymakers worked for two decades of the U.S. war in Afghanistan to bring about but ultimately failed. Taliban-Pakistan tensions will create feelings of schadenfreude within the U.S. policy community, but also challenge long-standing policy models and assumptions on how the United States should deal with both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In the near term, there are three main implications for U.S. interests regarding Pakistan’s pressure campaign against the Taliban and the Taliban’s hardening on support for the TTP.
On the one hand, the shift in Pakistan’s policy improves the United States’ position to press the Taliban on issues of concern, such as human rights, political inclusion and perhaps even counterterrorism. A pressured Taliban regime’s pragmatic elements will see greater value in economic and assistance opportunities through the Western world — and that may create incentives for some Taliban leaders to offset Pakistan’s pressure by reconsidering U.S. demands and taking them up with hardliners in the movement, like Akhundzada. U.S. policymakers can leverage the Pakistani pressure to explore what the new trade space on human rights, political inclusion and counterterrorism looks like with the Taliban. If policymakers believe more pressure can lead to holistic change in the Taliban’s behavior, including that of hardline Taliban leaders, they can coordinate with Pakistan to amplify the pressure, though policymakers will be skeptical of a long-term convergence of interests with Pakistan over Afghanistan.
On the other hand, the Taliban’s strong support for the TTP despite Pakistan’s pressure suggests that the TTP’s threat to Pakistan will continue to grow, even metastasize. Not only does that raise concerns about risks to U.S. interests due to the TTP’s growing violence in Pakistan, for example by adding to Pakistan’s fragility and nuclear security concerns, but it is also instructive on how enduring the Taliban’s support for jihadist groups ultimately is. This points to the need for beefing up the U.S. counterterrorism posture in the region.
At the same time, a competing priority for the Biden administration is mitigating the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. Some policymakers may worry that Pakistan’s decision to put economic pressure on the Taliban, especially at a time when international humanitarian assistance is going down, will disturb the already precarious equilibrium of the Afghan economy and aggravate the humanitarian situation — and they may seek to defuse Pakistan-Taliban tensions to save the Afghan economy. However, chances of the United States changing Pakistan’s mind on the pressure campaign are slim.
Beyond the immediate implications, the growing tensions also pose longer-term questions about U.S. policy in the region should Pakistan sustain pressure against the Taliban. U.S. policymakers will need to reckon with the implications of a weakened Taliban regime, including increased risks of renewed conflict inside Afghanistan, and whether mitigating such risks is worth trying to limit Pakistani pressure at some stage. While these questions are somewhat distant for now, the trajectory of Taliban-Pakistan ties over the last two years and the history of Afghanistan suggests they may come up sooner rather than later.
In a Major Rift, Pakistan Ramps Up Pressure on the Taliban
Despite some signs of stabilization, Afghanistan now faces renewed crisis as humanitarian aid dries up.
More than two years into Taliban rule, Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries in the world with some of the highest humanitarian needs. The situation has shown some signs of stabilizing over the last year — but many Afghan households are still struggling to procure basic needs, and many women have been driven from the workforce altogether. Unfortunately, financial troubles loom ahead, and the already beleaguered Afghan economy is now projected to decline. Combined with population growth and the influx of thousands of Afghans forced to return from neighboring Pakistan, this is a recipe for increased humanitarian need over the longer term in the absence of major structural and political reforms.
USIP’s Belquis Ahmadi, William Byrd and Scott Worden discuss what two new World Bank reports can tell us about Afghanistan’s economic outlook, why the Taliban’s decrees targeting women’s participation in the workforce have only exacerbated the country’s instability, and what can be done to improve the situation amid dwindling humanitarian aid.
The Taliban have claimed progress in countering corruption and revenue collection, yet Afghanistan is also one of the largest recipients of humanitarian aid. What is the Afghan economy’s capacity to provide for the needs of its people?
Byrd: Two recent World Bank reports — which were launched at a USIP event last week — lay out the landscape of the Afghan economy and the situation of Afghan households. Despite some signs of economic stability over the past year, the economy remains weak and unable to generate the jobs and livelihoods needed to accommodate the growing population — hence unemployment and underemployment are widespread and increasing. Poverty remains very high, and large numbers of Afghans are still unable to meet their basic food and non-food needs.
Moreover, there are storm clouds ahead — some but not all of which are noted in the World Bank reports. International humanitarian aid in 2023 will likely only amount to around half of its 2022 level, which was roughly $3 billion. The Taliban’s opium ban will also reduce the earnings of rural households by more than $1 billion per year without an alternative livelihood program for farmers, which will only further aggravate poverty and deprivation.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s deportation of an estimated 400,000 Afghans (and counting) exacerbates the country’s financial woes at exactly the wrong time. Afghans should be working in other countries and sending back remittances. Instead, even more will now need to look for work in the already meager Afghan economy.
Macroeconomic factors are not promising either. Afghanistan is encountering disinflation, which the Taliban see as good news because it lowers prices. But in reality, this is bad news because it will shrink the value of the overall economy and lead to greater unemployment and lower government revenue.
Finally, Afghanistan’s export growth is weakening. Coal, for example, had exploded as an export good when Pakistan was facing a shortage and global prices were high in comparison. That seems to have plateaued now as the markets shift.
The Taliban’s ability to collect taxes effectively led to impressive revenue totals in the first two years of their rule. But this revenue growth will falter as long as the economy is stagnant.
How has women’s participation in the Afghan economy changed since the Taliban took over in 2021?
Ahmadi: During the Afghan Islamic Republic, government institutions put in place measures to encourage women to apply for vacant positions. While the environment was not always enabling — cultural norms, bad security caused by Taliban insurgency, and lower access to education often impeded female job applicants — women were willing to face these challenges to exercise their right to employment and to earn an income.
Both Afghan government policy and donor-funded programs were successful in building the female workforce of Afghanistan. More than 6,000 women served as judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, police and army personnel. Government data counted about 10,000 women among the country’s doctors, nurses and health professionals. Schools and universities were the largest employers of women, with more than 68,000 women teachers, including 800 university professors, working in private and public institutions.
Since 2021, the Taliban have issued over 140 decrees, 90 of which specifically restrict the rights and movement of women and girls. In a particular blow to women’s economic freedom, the Taliban blocked women from working in the government and replaced the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and its related departments — which employed thousands of men and women — with the Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
Women are still employed as teachers, nurses and doctors, but in fewer numbers and with lower wages. Overall, the professional workforce that was once a source of economic growth, family welfare and vital services for women has shrunk dramatically. Many professionals are now struggling to make ends meet with small, in-home enterprises like sewing and mending, which does little to replace both the income and the dignity of a salaried, professional position.
Women face fewer official restrictions from the Taliban in the private sector, but the Taliban’s overall social policies and a vastly shrunken economy mean that women are much worse off as entrepreneurs and private sector employees than they were under the Republic.
In 2020, the Afghan Women Chamber of Commerce and Industries reported that there were 2,471 licensed and 54,000 informal/unlicensed businesses owned and operated by women, employing more than 130,000 people.
While the Taliban have not issued a formal decree banning women altogether from the private sector, their targeted decrees concerning beauty parlors in the summer of 2023 alone have left some 60,000 women out of job. Women have also been banned from parks where women had kiosks selling food, snack and handicrafts. Women have been banned from public baths, some owned by women. Other general restrictions such as the enforcement of segregated offices and work stations and mandates that women be accompanied by a mahram while outside their homes have had an enormous effect in pushing women out of the workforce in the private sector. Many employers have opted for replacing their female employees with men altogether to avoid being harassed by the Taliban’s religious police.
What can be done to improve the Afghan economy and reduce its need for a shrinking supply of international humanitarian aid?
Worden: There are no quick fixes to the Afghan economy, and the World Bank’s recent reports show that demographic pressures from population growth and the return of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Pakistan will likely outpace economic growth in the short term.
When it comes to maintaining — let alone increasing — Western donor assistance and removing the formal and informal sanctions that have been hindering the Afghan economy, the Taliban would have to moderate their severe restrictions against female education and women working, which seems most unlikely to happen in the light of past experience.
While Afghanistan’s banking sector has been largely moribund since the Kabul Bank crisis of 2010-2011, things have gotten even worse since the Taliban takeover. The banking sector cannot be fixed in the short run, but it is important to ensure smooth payments to facilitate trade, aid and — not least — remittances from Afghans in other countries.
One priority is to arrange for third-party monitoring for anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism, which the Afghan Central Bank cannot handle — due both to loss of institutional capacity and to the potential conflicts of interest entailed by the Central Bank being currently led by sanctioned Taliban individuals.
Another potential option is to arrange for a portion of the $3.5 billion of Afghanistan’s frozen foreign exchange reserves funds that have been sequestered in the Swiss Afghanistan Fund to be returned to private sector commercial banks that had deposited extra amounts of their funds in the Central Bank, and then onward to private sector depositors in the commercial banks.
Increased agricultural production is key to improving livelihoods on a broad scale, but the opium ban increases the headwinds against the rural economy. Irrigation projects (one of which, Qush-teppe in northern Afghanistan, is currently underway) and expanding agricultural exports will be needed.
Over the medium term, increased regional trade could provide a boost to the Afghan economy if the Taliban are able to improve transportation infrastructure and manage Afghanistan’s borders in a way that gives neighbors greater confidence that refugees, terrorists and traffickers will not cross over from Afghanistan along with trade goods.
Ultimately, Afghanistan’s longer-term economic development will require political and policy choices the Taliban are unwilling to make. For example, no country can move up the scale of development as long as women and girls are categorically excluded from public life.
Afghanistan’s Economy Once Again Nears the Precipice
Two new reports, one from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and another by David Mansfield and Alcis, show that Afghan farmers have largely complied with the Islamic Emirate’s ban on opium cultivation. They chart a swingeing cut in cultivation in 2023 – just 10,000 to 30,000 hectares of land sown with opium poppy compared to more than two hundred thousand hectares the previous year. AAN’s Kate Clark and Jelena Bjelica have been assessing the consequences of the Emirate’s crackdown on the cultivation of such a highly significant cash crop for people, government and the national economy and also ask whether the ban is now being extended to the trade of opiates out of Afghanistan.A poppy farmer and a labourer by the farmer’s crop in Nad Ali district, Helmand Province in spring of 2015. Photo by Andrew Quilty, 2015.
In April 2022,the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) announced a ban on the cultivation and production of opium and the use, trade and transport of all illegal narcotics (see AAN reporting from April 2022 about the ban). Since the ban was announced at the beginning of harvest season, the IEA allowed farmers to harvest the opium crop that was already in the ground. However, they began to enforce the ban strictly in the autumn, when farmers normally sow the seeds for the next season (see AAN reporting about the Emirate’s counter-narcotics strategy from June 2023). But just how severely the Emirate did enforce the ban is now evident in the two newly released reports.Alcis and Mansfield found that, country-wide, the area under opium cultivation dropped by 86 per cent, from 219,744 hectares in 2022 to 31,088 hectares in 2023.[1]The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimated the reduction to be even higher, 95 per cent, from 233,000 hectares in 2022 to 10,800 hectares in 2023. Although the figures differ, the direction of travel does not.[2] UNODC also calculated that the reduction in potential opium production was 95 per cent, with about 33 tons of fresh opium produced nationwide in 2023, compared to 6,200 tons in 2022.
Both reports agree on the potential momentous consequences for livelihoods and the national economy: the ban has deprived millions of people who would have grown poppy in 2023 of an income at a time when the rest of the economy is contracting (by 20.7 per cent in 2021 and 6.2 per cent in 2022, as reported by the World Bank, with AAN analysis here). Poppy income has always been so large that there are national implications of the ban: opiates have generally brought in the equivalent of around 10 to 15 per cent of Afghanistan’s licit Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the value of all the goods and services produced in the country in any one year. Not all of that was lost in 2023 as trade in opiates continued, but a continuation of the ban on cultivation into a second year and a clampdown on trade would cut into Afghanistan’s national income.
The ban and the now apparent sharp reduction in the cultivation of poppy raise any number of questions – which this report will try to address: What has been the impact on the household economies of farmers and others who get/used to get an income from opium poppy? Will the IEA extend the ban on cultivation into a second year, and will it extend it to traders? What are the political and economic consequences of this policy?
The significance of opium
Opium has been a critical part of the Afghan economy for many years. In the years between 2006 and 2022, Afghanistan produced between 3,300 and 7,400 metric tons of raw opium annually, according to UNODC’s annual estimates.[3] The relative importance of the crop varied in any given year according to the area under cultivation, yield and price and the size of other sectors of the economy, but an indication of opium’s importance can be seen by comparing it to Afghanistan’s licit GDP. In 2015, UNODC valued the opiate economy, including domestic consumption and exports,as equivalent to about 16 per cent of licit GDP (valued at USD 19.2 billion by the World Bank). In 2021, UNODC valued it as equivalent to 9-14 per cent of licit GDP (valued at USD 14.94 billion by the World Bank). As for 2022, although UNODC did not give a figure, it calculated that the opiate economy likely represented an even greater share of the total economy, not surprising, given how severely licit GDP has contracted since the Taleban takeover. UNODC did say the value of opiates was equivalent to 29 per cent of the entire agricultural sector in 2022. However, in its latest report, UNODC estimated that the value of opiate exports dwindled to USD 190-260 million in 2023, a drop of 90 per cent from USD 1.4-2.7 billion in 2022.
The importance of this sector for income and jobs is also vast. One indicator is Mansfield and Alcis’ estimate that the ban on cultivating poppy has hit 6.9 million people. From a report they published in June 2023, they give other indicators: in the south, the landless typically earn up to a third of their annual income weeding and harvesting poppy. In Helmand alone, in 2022, they say the poppy crop provided almost 21 million days of work and USD 61 million in wages.
Yet, the ban has hit different people differently. Indeed, while many Afghans will have been thrown into economic distress as their income from poppy dried up, others have seen a windfall.
The variable impact of the ban on farmers and labourers
Anyone who had stocks of opium paste (which stores well and is used as a means of saving and borrowing in Afghanistan) – likely richer farmers and traders – will have benefited from the ban. This is because it triggered a hike in prices and initially, at least, trading was not affected.
Opium prices had been increasing since the re-establishment of the IEA in August 2021, but in August 2023, said UNDOC, they reached “a twenty-year peak,” surpassing even the price hike following the first IEA ban in 2000/2001. Opium prices had then peaked at USD 383 a kilogramme in 2003. This time round, twenty years later, in August 2023, they were as high as USD 408 a kilogramme. That meant that anyone possessing an inventory of opium paste who decided to sell it has seen bumper profits.
Poorer farmers, on the other hand, who borrow opium seeds ahead of the harvest, sharecroppers who are paid a portion of the harvest, or labourers who get seasonal work weeding and harvesting poppy fields will all have seen their income dry up or severely curtailed because of the ban. See the chart below from Mansfield and Alcis showing the differing impact of the ban on different farmers and workers.
Graph from David Mansfield and Alcis, ‘Uncharted Territory: Does the Taliban’s new edict signal a crackdown on the drugs trade is looming?’, 2 November 2023.
In their June 2023 report, Mansfield and Alcis elaborated on different farmers’ strategies in the face of the 2022 ban:
The natural response to the prospect of a pending ban was for farmers to hoard what opium they could. Were a ban imposed, prices would inevitably rise providing a potential windfall for those that had the financial means to retain the crop that they had grown that year. In some cases, farmers would have sold other assets just so that they could retain all or part of their final yield: some livestock, or a motorbike – assets that would diminish in value – in order that they could keep their opium and gain from a future rise in prices.
Not all farmers had opium stocks or assets to sell to buy opium. Richer farmers employing others in 2022, could typically buy back the opium they have given in wages to itinerant workers or sharecroppers at harvest time, when prices are at their lowest, and would then have been able to keep the whole crop to sell as prices rose in anticipation of the ban on cultivation being enforced.
Mansfield and Alcis said those best placed to profit were farmers with large landholdings [three to four hectares of land] in the south and southwest who “not only have sufficient land for food and other crops to meet their family’s needs but also plenty of land for poppy.” Much of this is new land in what was formerly desert brought under cultivation by using solar-powered pumps to bring up groundwater. By contrast, they say, landholdings are far smaller in the east and northeast: those with more than a hectare of irrigated land are considered land-rich and poppy is concentrated in areas where landholdings are much smaller. In that June report, Mansfield and Alcis pointed to “growing evidence” of heightened economic distress among households in Nangrahar province who have been compelled to abandon poppy, for example, selling productive assets such as farm equipment and land and jewellery to meet basic expenses and sending male family members abroad.
Income lost to the poor, they also point out, translates into savings in outgoings for the largest landowners who have not had to pay sharecroppers and travelling harvesters this year, but have still had opium stocks themselves to sell.
Farmers’ income from selling the 2023 opium harvest, in total, declined by more than 92 per cent from an estimated USD 1,360 million for the 2022 harvest to USD 110 million in 2023. However, those earnings will have been concentrated in the hands of farmers with stocks or farmers who did manage to cultivate poppy. Both reports found that the ban was not enforced/complied with evenly across the country. Mansfield and Alcis found that opium poppy cultivation is now limited to only 15 provinces, with just under half of Afghanistan’s total opium poppy cultivation concentrated in the northeastern province of Badakhshan.” It gave the following breakdown.
Helmand by far the largest cultivator of opium,[4] saw, they said, a 99 per cent reduction in cultivation, Farah (5th largest) 95 per cent and Uruzgan (3rd largest) 88 per cent, but neighbouring Kandahar (2nd largest) only 65 per cent. The area of land under poppy in Nangrahar (6th largest) was 88 per cent reduced, but in Daikundi (7th largest) only 41 per cent. In Badakhshan (4th largest), farmers planted more opium: the area under opium cultivation there increased by 11.5 per cent in 2023 compared to 2022. Such variations, if allowed to continue, would seem inevitably to increase tension between those who are able and those unable to grow opium. Compounding any tension is the inadequacy of other annual crops to provide an equivalent source of income and demand for labour.
Ranking in 2022
Province
% of change in area under cultivation
1st
Helmand
-99
2nd
Kandahar
-65
3rd
Uruzgan
-88
4th
Badakhshan
+11.5
5th
Farah
-95
6th
Nangrahar
-88
7th
Daikundi
-41
Change in area under poppy cultivation in the main poppy-growing province as percentage of 2022 provincial total. Data from David Mansfield and Alcis, ‘Uncharted Territory: Does the Taliban’s new edict signal a crackdown on the drugs trade is looming?’, 2 November 2023. Table by AAN.
The switch to wheat
According to UNODC, 68 per cent of fields that had previously been planted with poppy were planted with wheat in 2023. In Farah, Helmand, Kandahar and Nangrahar provinces, all major opium poppy cultivators — together, they made up 74 per cent of the country’s total opium cultivation in 2022 – UNODC recorded an overall increase of 160,000 hectares in cereal cultivation in 2023 compared to the previous year. However, that will have earned farmers a relative pittance – USD 770 per hectare for wheat, compared to USD 10,000 for poppy. The ban and the switch to wheat would have cost farmers in these four provinces, said UNODC, around one billion dollars in potential income.
UNODC said that:
Some farmers reported that the sudden implementation of the ban prevented them from transitioning to high-value pomegranate, almond, pistachio and hing (asafoetida), which can take years to fully mature. The availability of wheat seeds has been reported as a reason to choose wheat over other annual crops such as okra or peas.
Veteran agriculturist, Anthony Fitzherbert, was not convinced by this argument. He said:
Pomegranate, almond, pistachio, grape-vines etc … are all long term investment orchard crops and anyway do not usually occupy the same land as opium poppy, or have the same water and irrigation requirements.
As for asafoetida, the deep-rooted plant from the carrot (umbelliferous) family, which produces a pungent spice widely used especially in Pakistani and Indian cooking, a wild plant now increasingly cultivated, it also needs years to produce an income, says Fitzherbert: “The plant takes several years to mature before it is ready to be harvested. This is done by a process of tapping the roots to extract the gum. A process which usually kills the plant.” He points out that, like the orchard crops, asafoetida does not occupy the same ground as opium poppy. “Usually [it is] grown on rain-fed and otherwise waste land, so is not a direct competitor crop to opium poppy anyway.”
Wheat is the most important cereal crop in Afghanistan. The country produces on average 4.6 million tons of wheat annually (see US Department of Agriculture website). However, it is not self-sustainable in wheat and every year imports wheat and wheat flour.[5] For most Afghan farmers, says Fitzherbert, wheat is grown as a subsistence staple, not a cash crop and in poppy-growing areas is traditionally grown in rotation with poppy, which is sown every other year or every third year. Significantly for those looking for an alternative to poppy is the fact that, unlike most other crops, wheat is also sown and harvested at the same time as poppy – both crops are sown around October/November in Afghanistan. It seems most likely the availability of wheat seeds and the concurrence of the sowing and harvesting cycles of wheat and poppy were the main factors behind the nationwide switch from poppy to wheat.
In locations where double cropping is possible (such as Helmand and Kandahar), says Fitzherbert, opium poppy has the advantage of having a shorter growing period before being harvested and therefore, requires fewer irrigations and less water. The opium crop is harvested earlier than wheat or any other possible alternatives, so that a second summer crop of maize, beans, mung, sunflowers or okra can be sown earlier.
Opium has been an important cash crop for Afghans for many decades and the ban on cultivation has already hit many farmers hard. However, both UNODC and Mansfield and Alcis noted something else already referred to in this report, that trade in opiates continued after the ban.
Trading
UNODC noted that traders have had “to rely on their potential opium inventories to make up for the income they lost during the 2023 harvest” and that “[d]ata on seizures in and around Afghanistan indicate that following the ban, opium inventories from past record harvests are being sold off…” In their June 2023 report, Mansfield and Alcis said:
There are few restrictions on trade. Opium grown prior to the imposition of Haibatullah’s ban continues to be sold and seizures by Afghanistan’s neighbours and further afield, suggest a continued supply of both opiates and methamphetamine. In March 2023, the Taliban even removed the formal tax they imposed on the export of opiates since coming to power, easing the transactions costs for the cross border trade.[6]
One eyewitness visiting Helmand province at the end of September also said it was “business as usual” there. “After the issuance of the [April 2022] decree of Mullah Akhundzada,” he said, “there has been no change in the buying and selling of opium in any of the districts of Helmand province.” In their most recent, 2 November 2023 paper, however, they reported “growing evidence that the Taliban are ratcheting up the pressure on those involved in the opium trade.” They spoke of a decision in July 2023 to shut down catapults that had proliferated on the Afghan border with Iran following the Taleban takeover which had been used to get drugs across the border. They also noted:
Smuggling costs have also increased along the primary routes following the announcement of the new law. Of particular note is the recent closure of the route from Nangarhar to Peshawar via Durbaba and Tirah, and the claim that drugs are now being rerouted south. We have not seen these kinds of pressures before under Taliban rule. As yet, the only route that has not experienced a rise in smuggling costs is the journey via Bahramchar [sic] in Helmand province, possibly reflecting continued privileges afforded to those in Helmand. This is clearly a dynamic environment – and like the ban on cultivation – reflects the uneven nature of Taliban rule in which some groups are favoured over others.
However, Mansfield and Alcis cite a new law issued by the IEA on 1 October 2023 which may signal its intention to carry the ban on cultivation into a second year and, possibly, start hitting trade.
Tightening the knot
The new drugs law that Mansfield and Alcis say has been in the making since August 2023 prescribes penalties and punishments for the cultivation, trafficking, trade, collection, etc of drugs and other psychoactive substances, such as alcohol (see the text of the Pashto original and an English translation by Alcis).[7] It is an elaboration of the succinct, two-paragraph-long, April 2022 ban.[8] A maximum prison sentence prescribed is up to seven years for trafficking and trading different types of narcotics in the amounts defined by the law. It is noticeable that the new law was promulgated at a time when farmers were weighing up what to sow. Opium and cannabis farmers are also punishable by the new law (six months in prison for cultivating less than half a jerib of land, nine months for half a jerib and one year = for more than one jerib).
Mansfield and Alcis suggested that there is “evidence that the new drugs law is already having an effect, with many provincial authorities receiving a copy of the ordinance and a number disseminating news of the prescribed penalties through meetings with elders and in mosques.” It is not yet clear then how far the ban on cultivation will be enforced in its second year, or in the words of Mansfield and Alcis whether the authorities will “engage in a robust effort against the trade” and in particular, whether “they move against inventory and processing.”
The new law has pushed prices up even further, although with geographic variations, according to Mansfield and Alcis, by 40 per cent in the east, 20 per cent in the northeast, but only 10 per cent in the southwest, “possibly reflecting the high levels of inventory in provinces like Helmand and Kandahar.” As prices rise, the potential benefits of disobeying the ban mushroom. Yet, the new law also highlights the increased risk of growing poppy.
Already, the landless and land-poor have lost income. A second year of the ban on cultivation will be hard for many to bear. Any farmer who has sold his inventory will also start to see the ban biting into their household economies. If the authorities block trade, the damage to households would spread even to wealthier farmers and traders.
Any perceived geographic variation in how the IEA treats opium farmers and traders could be potentially destabilising. If, for example, the authorities allow Badakhshi farmers to benefit from high prices but continue to clamp down on farmers elsewhere or ignore the opium trade in Helmand while blocking other routes, there could be a political price to pay. In general, Afghans have learned to be wary of bans and eradication. In the past, they have often been used to consolidate the market, favouring those with more political influence to grow richer and more powerful as their weaker rivals are taken out.
There are other potential consequences to government income. The Ministry of Agriculture was taking ushr on opium, as on the harvest of other crops, and passing the proceeds to the office of the Supreme Leader who is in charge of its distribution. That is now lost, as is the tax on trade and exports, which also apparently never came to the Ministry of Finance, but was an informal income stream for the authorities. Income from opium poppy has also been valuable, nationally, for covering imports, significant because Afghanistan runs a trade deficit and many imports are essential – medicine, food and fuel. (For a recent in-depth look at the economy, including the balance of trade, see our recent publication, ‘Survival and Stagnation: The State of the Afghan economy’.)
Any tightening of the knot against Afghan opium cultivation and trade could also have regional and global consequences, but probably only eventually, if the ban on cultivation continues. According to UNDOC, it takes a couple of years for opiates produced in Afghanistan to reach their destination. Moreover, there are stockpiles of opiates everywhere, not just in Afghanistan. In other words, supply will outstrip demand for some time. However, if Europe’s supply dropped significantly, there would be pressure on old illicit opium producers like Turkey and North Macedonia to return to poppy cultivation. If Asian markets were left short of supply, another old producer, Myanmar, which is already seeing an increase in cultivation – a consequence of its internal instability – could also see more poppy cultivated. But if this were to happen, it would take years, maybe a decade of the IEA maintaining a strict drugs ban.
For now, the main consequences are in Afghanistan. We are now in the autumn sowing season when farmers in poppy-growing areas have to decide which crop to sow, and the authorities whether they take action against those who disobey the law. If farmers do choose to sow poppy, they risk seeing their crop eradicated and losing everything. If they do not, some may be unable to cover household expenses this year. For the authorities, eradication carries risks if people feel they are being unfairly targeted or that the government is forcing them into penury. And will the IEA really put a good portion of its rural, work-able population in prison? As the IEA’s policy on narcotics moves into its second year, it is clear that the consequences are not just economic, but could have repercussions for politics and social peace.
Edited by Roxanna Shapour
References
References
↑1
Alcis first reported in June 2023 (AAN analysis here) a significant drop in poppy cultivation in Helmand province, from more than 120,000 hectares in 2022 to less than 1,000 hectares in 2023. Helmand is Afghanistan’s leading poppy cultivator.
↑2
UNODC and Alcis both use satellite imagery to measure opium cultivation.
Alcis’ estimates, it says “are the result of analysis of satellite imagery collected across the whole of Afghanistan repeatedly throughout the winter cropping season. As such, it is a method that “reviews every field in Afghanistan multiple times through its growing cycle.” They say this method also estimates the amount of land “dedicated to wheat, orchards, vineyards, and other crops – the agricultural alternatives to poppy – and thereby insights into how enduring a ban will be, and how this varies by area.”
UNODC describes using 900 “very high-resolution satellite images on a field-by-field basis,” obtained as a particular province’s poppy is likely to be coming into bloom, a variation based on climate difference.
↑3
To put this in perspective. More than 15 million people globally, UNODC estimated in 2010, use opiates (opium, heroin and morphine), which means that in opium equivalents, they use approximately 3,700 tons of opium annually. See UNDOC’s World Drug Report from 2010. This is the most recent estimate of the number of opiates users globally, known to us.
↑4
Helmand dwarfs all other provinces in terms of hectares under opium poppy. In 2022, poppy was grown on almost 130,000 hectares of land. The next largest province, Kandahar, grew poppy on just over 164,000 hectares.
↑5
In the 2022/23 marketing year (July/June) are forecast at an above‑average level of 3.4 million tonnes, over 8 per cent less than in the previous year, the FAO reported.
↑6
UNODC reported a different motivation for the reported temporary lifting of the tax on opium exports: “The goal was reportedly to end the opium trade in Afghanistan by liquidating all remaining stocks and discouraging future poppy cultivation.”
↑7
The law was agreed upon in a meeting chaired by Mullah Hibatullah on 28 August 2023 with the head of the Supreme Court, five provincial governors and other members of the Taliban leadership in attendance, according to Alcis.
↑8
The official English translation of the April 2022 ban, taken from the Al-Emarah website, is:
As per the decree of the supreme leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), All Afghans are informed that from now on, the cultivation of poppies has been strictly prohibited across the country.
If anyone violates the decree, the crop will be destroyed immediately and the violator will be treated according to the Sharia law. In addition, usage, transportation, trade, export and import of all types of narcotics such as alcohol, heroin, tablet K, hashish and etc., including drug manufacturing factories in Afghanistan are strictly banned. Enforcement of this decree is mandatory. The violator will be prosecuted and punished by the judiciary.
Prosperity or Penury: The political and economic fallout of the opium ban in Afghanistan
The deportation campaign by Islamabad is cruel. Other countries have let down these refugees too
Human Rights Watch reports that refugees are now facing detentions, beatings and extortion by police. Others have been evicted by landlords or fired from jobs. The result is that Afghans believe they have no choice but to return to a country where they face a serious risk of harm. Iran, too, has repeated its threat to expel hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghans. The UN high commissioner for refugees has repeatedly called for a bar on the forced return of Afghan nationals. It warns that minorities, journalists and women are at particular risk. “Due precautions,” says Pakistan’s foreign ministry, will be taken to ensure that those under greatest threat are not forced to return. But few have confidence given the abuses already taking place.
With a caretaker government in Islamabad, there is little political accountability for a decision thought to be driven largely by the country’s real rulers, the military. Afghans have become a scapegoat for Pakistan’s unquestionable economic woes. But the deterioration in bilateral relations is thought to be the primary cause of these expulsions. Islamabad wants to pressure the Taliban to act on surging cross-border terror attacks, and has also alleged that Afghan nationals in Pakistan have been involved in some of these attacks.
The acting interior minister, Sarfraz Bugti, is wrong to seek to justify this cruel policy, which saw the Taliban regime’s defence minister chide Pakistan with a proverb in Pashto: “As you sow, so shall you reap.” Mr Bugti has observed that the west should have done more to relocate Afghans if it is concerned about them. This might be a self-serving argument, but it is true. According to humanitarian groups, the $613m regional refugee response plan to support 7.3 million Afghans hosted in neighbouring countries is only 15% funded.
The failure of western countries to live up to their promises and their responsibilities is shameful. For hundreds of thousands of Afghans desperate to escape their country in 2021, nearby Pakistan was the only option. Yet EU states resettled just 271 Afghan refugees in 2022. Afghans had to move to a third country to apply for resettlement, but have been left vulnerable because their visas have expired during the lengthy process.
Astonishingly, around 3,000 Afghans who have been approved for refuge in Britain are stranded in UK-funded hotels in Islamabad, which Pakistani police have raided. Another 25,000 may reportedly be eligible for resettlement in the US. Other countries must press Pakistan to halt these removals; they have leverage since it needs international support to prop up its failing economy. But the rest of the world must make good on its promise to aid vulnerable Afghans.
The Guardian view on Pakistan’s expulsion of Afghans: don’t send them back to the Taliban
The earth has continued to shudder in Herat province ever since the first of a series of deadly earthquakes hit the province on Saturday 7 October around 11am local time. They have destroyed entire villages and killed and injured thousands of people. Since then, dozens more tremors, including three powerful earthquakes have caused additional havoc in the region, leaving survivors wondering if the ground beneath their feet will ever stop moving. Later, they searched for relatives and neighbours in the rubble, burying their dead in mass graves and grappling to make sense of the scale of the disaster. In this report, AAN’s Roxanna Shapour, with input from Thomas Ruttig, looks at the damage and the science behind the quakes, at what the response has been so far and what is needed to help the victims of this disaster rebuild their lives and cope with their loses.
The first earthquake hit on 7 October at 11 in the morning, but there have been more earthquakes since. The earth hasn’t stopped moving for days. At first, people slept outside on the roadside, but then some people (whose houses were still standing) went back inside their homes. Unfortunately, another strong earthquake hit at night and they came rushing outside. Now, those who have tents are sleeping in them and those who don’t sleep in the open. People are panicked and afraid.
MASUMA JAMEH, A RESIDENT OF ZENDEJAN DISTRICT, 29 OCTOBER 2023.
Where were the earthquakes
The epicentre of the 7 October earthquake, which measured 6.3 in magnitude on the Richter scale,[1] was in Zendejan district to the west of the provincial capital. About 30 minutes later, another 6.3 magnitude tremor hit the same area, followed by a third measuring 5.9. There have been no fewer than 35 aftershocks, all measuring 4 or above, as well as two more 6.3 magnitude earthquakes on 11 October and 15 October, according to data from the US Geological Survey (USGS).[2] In other words, the ground beneath people’s feet in Herat shuddered some 39 times in the span of three weeks. The dots in Figure 1 below, which uses InSAR satellite data, show the epicentres of quakes as of 10 October 2023, while the rings show where there were particularly strong changes to the earth’s surface.[3]
Figure 1: The Herat earthquake region, including epicentres as of 10 October. Source: GFZ/Najibullah Kakar (here).
The Herat earthquakes happened on fault lines on the Eurasian Plate,[4] The Indian Plate is pushing north-north-westwards at a rate of about 38mm a year, while the Arabian Plate pushes north at a speed of 23mm a year. The result, wrote Afghan seismologist Zakaria Shnizai with three colleagues, is that Afghanistan is “one of the most seismically active intercontinental regions in the world,”[5] with active faulting distributed widely across it. The north is “cut through by numerous earthquake faults,” they wrote, while in eastern Afghanistan, active faults raised “the great mountain ranges of the Hindukush and Pamir.”
The epicentre of the October earthquakes in Herat was between the Siakhubulak Fault in the north and Herat Fault in the south, as well as a third hitherto unmapped fault line between these two, which was detected in satellite images, as reported by Earthquake Insights (see figure 3). The first two major quakes were in Zendejan district and the second two in Injil district, both about 30 km from Herat city.
The fact that these earthquakes were very shallow, about 10 km, is one of the reasons they had such devastating effects, according to the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam – GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, which also reported that a region measuring 20 km x 30 km around the epicentre had risen by about 40 cm (see here).
Figure 3: Map of fault lines for the 7 October 2023 earthquakes. Source: Earthquake Insights.
What astonished seismologists was that there were earthquakes in this location at all. On a geological timescale, wrote Afghan Seismologist Najibullah Kakar in the GFZ report cited above, the Herat Fault, which stretches across Afghanistan east to west, must have played an active role, but it had seen no earthquakes for a thousand years.[6] Another seismologist, Jascha Polet, who is professor emeritus at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, told National Geographic, “When the first two very similar magnitude 6.3 earthquakes occurred, I already thought that this was a fairly unusual sequence,” adding: “When the sequence then produced a quadruplet of these events, I was very surprised” (see here).
To understand what caused this unexpected quartet of tremors, National Geographic spoke to several seismologists. Some, such as the director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network at the University of Washington, Harold Tobin, have hypothesised that it was “most likely a domino effect”:
When the first quake struck on October 7, some of the stress from the geologic fault that slipped was transferred to another, already stressed fault. That caused it to rupture as well soon after –and this process happened twice more. This sort of transferal of stresses is seen all over the world, but in the case of these earthquakes, what’s unusual is that they have all been around the same magnitude and occurred in a very short period of time.
While most scientists agree with this theory, there are those who believe the earthquakes were a seismic event called a swarm, or a series of quakes of more or less the same magnitude happening around the same time and in the same region. Swarms of magnitude 6 or above are not common, Zachary Ross, a Geophysicist at the California Institute of Technology, told National Geographic, but he believes the ones in Herat were “fairly normal for earthquake swarms, in which we often see many earthquakes with similar magnitudes.”
Whatever natural phenomenon caused earthquakes, the absence of previous significant seismic activity in the region meant that residents, the government and humanitarian responders were caught off guard and were ill-prepared to deal with a disaster of this magnitude.
What do we know about the damage?
In its Herat Earthquake Response Plan (more on this later), which was released on 16 October 2023, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated:
Between 7 and 15 October, four powerful (6.3 magnitude) earthquakes struck Herat Province, affecting 1.6 million people with high intensity shaking (MMI 6+)[7] and leaving at least 114,000 in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Preliminary assessments show that the first two earthquakes on 7 and 11 October left 1,480 people dead and 1,950 wounded, with available satellite imagery indicating that 289 villages were very highly (11), highly (110) or moderately (168) impacted. An estimated 30 new villages across two districts were affected by the 15 October earthquake, with assessments ongoing.
Preliminary reporting by humanitarian responders estimated that 7,165 families were affected by the quakes (more than 43,000 people, based on an average of six persons per family) in six districts – Gulran, Herat, Injil, Kohsan, Kushk/Rabat-e Sangi and Zendejan (see OCHA Flash Update #6).
A later update, published on 2 November, put the number of households that have been affected at 48,000 in nine districts, mostly in Injil and Zendejan. It reports that some 48,000 household have been affected, including 30,430 houses either severely damaged (20,430) or completely destroyed (10,000), according to UNOCHA (see Afghanistan: Herat Earthquake Response Situation Report No. 2 here). The report also said:
More than 175,000 people in nine districts have been directly affected by these recent seismic events, with Injil and Zinjadan districts suffering the most severe consequences. Injil witnessed the destruction and damage of over 15,000 homes.
UNOCHA has also reported that 21,3000 non-residential structures, including 21 schools and 40 health facilities serving approximately 580,000 people, had also been damaged (see UN reporting here, here and OCHA Flash Update #7). Those affected included 7,500 pregnant women, many of whom were also bereaved (see this UN report). The extensive scale of the disaster means these figures are still likely to be adjusted upward as humanitarian teams continue to assess the damage.
• Initial multi-sectoral rapid assessments (MSRAF) indicate that more than 48,000 households have been affected by the recent earthquakes in Herat Province, including approximately 10,000 homes which have been completely destroyed and 20,430 severely damaged.
Table1: Number of people directly affected. Source: Herat Earthquakes: Flash Update #6/OCHA, 16 October 2023.
AAN spoke to Masuma Jameh from Zendejan district, who stressed how women and children were the prime victims of the earthquakes, but also that some children are now orphans:
Most of the casualties were women and children. Everyone is afraid, there is increasing anxiety and panic especially among women and children. The children are frightened every time the earth shakes. Also, hundreds of children are left without a parent or guardian. Their families were martyred [killed in the earthquake]. They need places to grow up and people to take care of them and look after their wellbeing and education.
Reports from the UN and others confirm her eyewitness testimony: women and children accounted for about 90 per cent of fatalities (see UNICEF here). Preliminary assessments of 178 villages that had been assessed as of 17 October 2023 found that women accounted for 58 per cent of adults who had lost their lives, 60 per cent of the injured and 61 per cent of persons reported missing, according to a report published by the Gender in Humanitarian Action (GiHA) (see Gender Update #2: Earthquake in Herat Province here).
The reason lies not just in the fact that many men from the region have gone to Iran for work, UNFPA’s representative in Afghanistan Jamie Nadal told the Associated Press, but also the time of the quake, 11 in the morning: “At that time of the day, men were out in the field…. The women were at home doing the chores and looking after the children. They found themselves trapped under the rubble.” AP also heard from the Norwegian Refugee Council which said that, “Early reports from our teams are that many of those who lost their lives were small children who were crushed or suffocated after buildings collapsed on them.” Increasing the casualties, said head of UNICEF’s office in Herat Siddig Ibrahim was that, “When the first earthquake hit, people thought it was an explosion, and they ran into their homes.”
Figure 4: The location and number of people directly affected. Source: Herat Earthquakes: Flash Update #7/OCHA, 20 October 2023.
The Herat maternity hospital has also sustained significant damage, with cracks that make it unsafe to provide services inside. The UN has provided tents for pregnant women to receive medical care (see CNBC here). Herat’s exquisite blue mosque and the Citadel, which dates back to 330 BCE, also suffered (see Xinhua reporting here). Indeed, said the head of the province’s Department of Information and Culture Ahmadullah Muttaqi, “There are no historical monuments in this province that were not damaged by the earthquake” (see this Salam Watandar report and these photos posted on X, formerly Twitter).
The earthquakes damaged several reservoirs, which are important sources of water and also caused the water table to rise in some areas. There are anecdotal reports that in Herat it has risen by 10 to 15 metres, architect Jolyon Leslie, an architect working on the restoration of historic monuments and is a long-term resident of Afghanistan, told AAN on 2 November: “It’s not unusual for aquifers to open up and come to the surface after an earthquake when the plates adjust.” Managing director of the media organisation, The Killid Group, Shahir Zahine, who had just returned to Kabul from Herat on 1 November, also confirmed these reports and said that there were reports of streams and other surface waters in locations that would not ordinarily see water at this time of year. The photo below, sent to AAN by Zahine, shows a wadi near Siah Ab village in Zendejan district; the water has appeared unexpectedly and out of season.[8]
A wadi near Siah Ab village in Zendejan district, filled with water out of season due to seismic shifts. Photo: Shahir Zahine/The Killid Group, 1 November 2023.
In a crushing turn of events, on 12 October, a sandstorm in Zendejan, Kohsan and Kushk/Rabat-e Sangi districts, which lasted for 24 hours, destroyed several hundred tents where survivors had been sheltering, including 60 per cent of those at the Gazergah Transit Centre (GTC) (see OCHA Flash Update #5 and these photos on the Indian magazine Outlook’s website). The storm had another unlucky consequence: “People took refuge from the storm inside buildings,” said Masuma Jameh. “Unfortunately, another strong earthquake hit at the same time as the storm and many more people were killed and injured.” Rescue operations continued after the storm ended, as a local journalist, who asked not to be identified, told AAN on 28 October:
The tents that had been given to the people couldn’t withstand the storm and those who were providing aid had to stop working for a time. As soon as the storm stopped, people started helping again. Around this time, special tools arrived and rescue dogs came from Uzbekistan. They searched and pulled many people out from under the ground – alive or dead.
Satellite imagery analysed by the Geographical Information Services (GIS) organisation Alcis has provided a more comprehensive picture of the extent of the quakes and the complexities associated with the response (see Figures 5 and 6.) According to Alcis estimates, based on its analysis of satellite imagery, the number of people affected by the October earthquake could be significantly higher than preliminary estimates reported by UNOCHA and the Emirate. It estimates that as of the earthquake on 15 October (which Alcis counts as the third), a total of 512,992 compounds (residential dwellings) were affected. “Working on the assumption there are an average of 10 people per household,” it calculated that more than five million people – or about 12.5 per cent of the Afghan population – have been affected by the earthquakes. It also said that 160,706 of the household compounds were located more than four kilometres from a main road, meaning many communities had, at the time of the report, not yet been reached for assessment or assistance.
Figure 5: Residential compounds affected by the Earthquakes, by intensity. Source: Alcis website, based on the organisation’s 2023 mapping of all houses in Afghanistan. Figure 6: Locations of household compounds within the affected area and their distance to main roads. Source: Alcis website, see interactive map here.
The level of destruction in Herat province, especially by earthquakes classed as ‘moderate’,[9]) can be attributed, in part, to the nature of most structures in the area, according to seismologist Zakaria Shnizai speaking on the BBC’s Science in Action:
The houses [are] mostly of adobe construction with traditional building materials, flat or domed roofs made of dry mud which is supported by timber sitting on walls of mudbricks or stone blocks, cemented with dry mud…. [T]hese buildings are suited actually with Herat’s climate conditions including the cold winter and the hot summers…. The proximity of active faults when combined with traditional building styles make active villages very susceptible to even moderate earthquakes in the area.
The architect, Jolyon Leslie, acknowledges that traditional adobe constructions are more susceptible to earthquakes and that the dust from collapsed or damaged structures, which suffocates victims, has contributed to the high number of fatalities. Nevertheless, he argues that with proper reinforcement and the use of better fortifications, these structures remain the most appropriate options for housing in the area:
There’s a reason why the houses are built this way. Mud brick structures are cool in the summer and warm in winter, which is exactly what’s needed in this arid region. They do need to be better reinforced to withstand earthquakes, but I really think they’re the right structures instead of the modern prefabricated housing that is usually the default solution after natural disasters. Sure, they are easy solutions that are quickly delivered, but will people use them in the long term? With some support and technical assistance, people could build mud brick houses themselves and this could also create short-term jobs and put money back in the economy.
What has the response been?
Earthquakes are notoriously difficult to respond to. They happen suddenly and, most often, without any warning. They destroy homes and infrastructure, such as roads and disrupt communications, all of which hampers efforts by first responders and relief workers scrambling to get to the area. Rescuers are left working against the clock to pull survivors to safety from the rubble. Affected communities are devastated, shocked and stricken by grief, homeless and many with livelihoods also destroyed. All this was the case in Herat, as the local journalist described:
On the first day, there was little help for the people because Zendejan district is almost two hours away from Herat city by car. Most of the homes in the area were traditional mudbrick houses and none were left standing. No houses. The phone networks were down and it was difficult to get any information in or out. It was only on the second day, when news spread of the devastation, that members of the public and the local authorities started arriving. People were left to rescue family and neighbours in their own village and couldn’t go to the aid of people in other villages. And anyway, they were so consumed by the destruction in their own village that they couldn’t imagine that the same thing had also happened in other places.
In some villages, no one’s left alive and the living are either consumed by grief for their [lost] relatives or tending to injured family members. Most of the wounded have been taken to the hospital in Herat city. That first day, the public, the government and the institutions did not go to the rescue of the people. When help arrived the next day, [in many villages] there was no one left to guide [the rescuers] and because the houses were mostly destroyed, it wasn’t clear what was where and who was missing or needed help. The late arrival of assistance and the absence of locals to guide rescue teams contributed greatly to the high number of casualties.
In such times, it is often community members and ordinary citizens who rush to the aid of their neighbours. Local residents speaking to ToloNews told of how people from elsewhere in the province and further afield rushed to their villages to lend a helping hand (see ToloNews’ extended coverage here). Nearly everyone we spoke to told us about the extraordinary public response,[10]) including the local journalist:
There have been a lot of donations. Everyone’s helped as much as they could. And a lot of help came from Herat city and other provinces as well as from the local administration. They’ve been providing food, tents and other necessities.
Jolyon Leslie also told us how labourers on a historic site that is being restored responded to a call for help:
The public response has been really impressive. This isn’t surprising in Afghanistan where people show up to help each other. This time, the general public and also the private sector have really mobilised to help. The next morning after the earthquake, local officials went door to door to all the NGOs and asked what they could do to help. They came to us too and 70 of the men working on the site volunteered to go. They helped find survivors and dig graves.
Domestic response
The Emirate was quick to respond to the disastrous events in Herat province by sending search and rescue teams and an official delegation to survey the damage. The morning after the first two earthquakes, the spokesman for the Ministry of State for Disaster Management, Janan Saiq, gave a detailed account of the Emirate’s immediate response at a press conference. 35 teams, made up of more than a thousand people, had “gone to the site to help those trapped in villages under the rubble,” he said (see ToloNews here and an interview with Saiq on the channel’s Farakhabar programme here). He also said that acting Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was already in the province, heading a delegation of officials who included the provincial governor and officials from the Ministries of Economy, Refugees and Repatriation and Disaster Management, tasked with “addressing the challenges of earthquake victims and monitoring the fair distribution of aid.”
Saiq initially put the number of fatalities at over 2,400, later revised down to 1,000, with more than 2,000 people injured (see this Reuters report). He also estimated that 1,320 houses had been totally destroyed.[11]) A significant number of livestock were also lost in the earthquake, he added, but could not provide exact figures because the Emirate was focusing on rescue and relief efforts. These included providing water and sanitation, food and shelter. Acting Minister of Public Health, Qalandar Ebad, told ToloNews that nearly 60 health teams had been sent to the area, with “ambulances… and in every team of doctors, there are nurses and midwives who provide services for women.”
In an emergency cabinet meeting on 8 October, acting Prime Minister Mullah Muhammad Hassan Akhund ordered 100 million afghanis (USD 1.35 million) to be allocated for cash distributions to earthquake victims and appointed a special cabinet-level commission to oversee relief efforts.
The commission, which is comprised of the ministries of rural reconstruction, defence, interior, public health, disaster management and the Afghan Red Crescent Society, is “responsible for ensuring that everyone gets the help it needs and that there is no corruption involved,” Emirate Spokesman member Zabiullah Mujahid told DW (see here).[12]
The Emirate has also suspended the required administrative hurdles that are a requisite for NGO operations, an aid worker told the UAE’s English-language daily The National:
We don’t need any of the usual permits to do our relief work in the earthquake-affected areas…. Normally we face a lot of challenges and restrictions – getting permission can take up to four months. But the DFA [de facto authorities] recognises the seriousness of the situation. They have just asked us [international aid groups] to co-ordinate our activities with one another.
The only challenge we have faced is the DFA’s requirement that no female staff are allowed to work in the disaster area without a male escort. But we are very familiar with this restriction by now, so we were well prepared.
The Emirate is also building “2,146 modern houses in 20 affected villages,” which it hopes to complete before the onset of winter (see Tolonews here and BBC Pashto here). Shahir Zahine told AAN that he had seen some of the houses being constructed during his visit: “I’m not an expert in architecture, but they are building the houses quickly and the material being used seems to be of good quality.”
Zahine said he had travelled to the province to check on the well-being of the organisation’s staff –the building housing The Killid Group in Herat had been destroyed – and see what Killid could do to support the victims. It has now set up three mobile radio stations in the most affected districts (Gulrun, Rabat-e Sangi and Zendejan). During natural disasters, when means of communication are largely down, radio remains the most vital source for quickly disseminating up-to-date, accurate and lifesaving information to the public (see the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) here).
International response
UNOCHA launched an appeal on 16 October on behalf of UN agencies and NGOs, requesting 93.6 million USD to support some 114,000 people. The plan will focus on supporting those whose homes were severely damaged or destroyed for six months (October 2023 – March 2024). It clarifies that the emergency appeal’s activities and requirements are a sub-set of the 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan.
As Figure 7 shows, according to the Plan, over the next six months, aid organisations will work with local and national government officials to support the most vulnerable people in affected communities on a whole range of needs: “emergency shelter and basic household items; provision of trauma care, referrals to the medical facilities, provision of the medical kits/supplies and equipment, as well as mental health and psychosocial support services; therapeutic and supplementary feeding for those acutely malnourished, as well as malnutrition screenings; dignity kits; water trucking, latrine construction and hygiene kits; as well as food commodities and cash packages” (for a detailed breakdown by sector, see the Herat Earthquake Response Plan).
In the days following the earthquakes, several UN agencies launched separate appeals to mobilise funds for the victims of the Herat earthquakes in support of their earthquake response activities, including WFP (USD 19 million), UNHCR (USD 14.4 million), UNFPA (USD 11.6 million) and UNICEF (USD 20 million).[13] Several national and international NGOs have also launched appeals to raise funds for their planned responses to the earthquake. However, as Figure 8 shows, the response has, so far, fallen significantly short of the appeal, only USD 30 million (USD 15 million from donors and another USD 15 million from humanitarian pooled funds) or about 33 per cent of the amount needed to support survivors for the next six months (see the table below for a breakdown of pledges made and assistance provided so far).[14]
Table 2: International cash or in-kind responses as of this writing. Source: OCHA reporting and media reports.
The aftermath
The view from the ground is that assistance to the victims of Herat’s October 2023 earthquakes is, as yet, not nearly enough.
Aid has been distributed, Including tents, food, hygiene and other necessary items, but it’s not enough. Many people have lost their entire family and their houses have been razed to the ground. They have lost everything. Entire villages have been turned into dust. Most of the aid is from businessmen and from people from different provinces, Afghans living abroad and also some charities. Most of the work is being done by civil activists, especially women. From time to time, there are aid distributions from members of the public, but assistance from the government and international institutions has been slow to arrive.
MASUMA JAMEH, A RESIDENT OF ZENDEJAN DISTRICT
The local journalist we spoke to said the most pressing concern was the weather: “It’s getting colder every day and those who’ve lost their homes need shelter. They can’t go on living outdoors for very much longer.” Winters are harsh in this semi-arid region of Afghanistan, with overnight temperatures regularly falling to below freezing. Last year, Afghanistan witnessed the harshest winter in nearly 30 years, with temperatures falling in this area to below minus 25 degrees Celsius, according to UNOCHA (see here).
There are numerous photos and videos in news reports and on social media showing tents among the rubble heaps that were once villages. Matters are especially bleak in Herat city where many survivors, with nothing left in their home villages, have gone in search of shelter and other support. The provincial capital is now “a tent city: families are sleeping in open spaces in parks in small tents,” wrote the Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a post on X on 16 October. The local journalist also described the scene to AAN:
The parks and streets of Herat city are filled with people who’ve arrived from the districts and also [the city’s] local residents. Those who have houses go home every day, but people aren’t spending the night there. They sleep on the street outside their houses or in parks or on pavements. Since the day of the earthquake, many people have been leaving Herat for Kabul and other provinces, but there is a shortage of cars [for hire], so it’s not easy to secure transport. The situation is very worrying because it’s so cold. Some people have tents, but most don’t and are forced to sleep in the open air in the cold. There are no tents for sale in the market, but some people have managed to find tarpaulin and plastic sheeting. Women and children are sleeping outside in the open during these cold nights. Many of them, especially the children, are sick with colds and more serious chest infections.
While there are plans underfoot by the Emirate to build over 2,000 permanent homes for Herat’s earthquake victims, aid workers are doubtful that such a massive undertaking will be completed in time to protect them from this winter’s freeze. They point to their previous experience in other disaster zones and argue for urgent distributions of winterised tents and assistance to help victims either rent housing or find shelter with host families.
The psychological fallout from the disaster is also significant. Not only have people lost their friends and families, their homes and their livelihoods, but the ground has been moving under their feet for the better part of a month. Many people whose homes have remained undamaged are fearful of being indoors when the next earthquake hits:
People are afraid to sleep indoors. They’re afraid of what might happen if a quake hits when they’re sleeping. So even those whose homes are still standing sleep outside. It’s remarkable to see how the number of tents swells up in the evenings. All open spaces – parks, the courtyards of mosques, even highways – fill up with tents. Families who don’t have proper tents use makeshift ones made of mosquito netting. In the morning, those who still have a house, take down their tents and go home – only the ones who have come [to Herat] from the districts or have lost their house stay.
SHAHIR ZAHINE, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF KILLID GROUP
It is not just the damage and loss of life from the earthquake that is a big worry. Money is also an ongoing concern. After the dead have been buried and the injured tended to, after survivors have been provided with adequate shelter and basic services such as health care and education, after provision has been made for the children who have lost their family, after all that, the government and aid organisations must turn their attention to making sure affected communities have appropriate support to rebuild their lives and get back on their feet. Local communities who have lost not only their homes and families but also farms, livestock, jobs and businesses need help to rebuild their lives, rehabilitate their farms, find jobs and restore at least some of what they lost in the disaster.
Edited by Kate Clark
References
References
↑1
According to the Richter Scale that measures earthquakes, those measuring 6.0 to 6.9 are considered ‘strong’ and 5.0 to 5.9 ‘moderate’ quakes. A 6.3 earthquake like the ones in Herat is capable of causing considerable damage to “ordinary substantial buildings with partial collapse” and “great damage in poorly built structures poorly,” according to this explainer on the Puerto Rico Seismic Network. Most well-built structures can withstand a 5.9 magnitude tremor, it says, but poorly built, weaker structures can sustain considerable damage.
↑2
In reporting the number of quakes and aftershocks, we are using data from the US Geological Survey (USGS) (see here). There are conflicting reports about the number of earthquakes with many, including the United Nations, reporting that four earthquakes took place. However, the region experienced 28 magnitude 4.1 or above aftershocks, which means that there were a total of 32 tremors in 7-19 October.
↑3
InSAR (Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar) is a technique for mapping ground deformation using radar images of the Earth’s surface that are collected from orbiting satellites (see USGS here).
↑4
The Earth’s rigid outer shell is fractured into seven or eight major plates and many ‘platelets’ which all slowly move.) the world’s third largest tectonic plate (67,800,000 km2) which spans Europe and most of Asia and sits between the North American and African Plates to the north and west, as well as many smaller ‘platelets’ (see figure 2). All of them are slowly moving. Afghanistan lies on “a southward-projecting, relatively stable promontory of the Eurasian tectonic plate,” wrote Boyd, Mueller and Boyd, but is surrounded by “active plate boundaries” to the west, south and east.(( Oliver S Boyd, Charles S Mueller and Kenneth S Boyd, ‘Preliminary probabilistic seismic hazard map for Afghanistan’, 2007, US Geological Survey Open-File Report 2007-1137.
There have been there have been ten magnitude 6.0 or greater earthquakes in Iran’s Khorasan province bordering Herat (see Wikipedia for a list of earthquakes in Iran), including the 7.3 magnitude Qayen earthquake in May 1997 (see USGS here) and the 7.1 tremor in September 1978 (see USGS here), which claimed some 15,000-25,000 lives (an estimated 80 per cent of the local population) and all but destroyed the historic city of Tabas and 90 surrounding villages (see ‘The 1978 Tabas, Iran, earthquake: An interpretation of the strong motion records,’ Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 1988, 78 (1), 142–171.
↑7
The Modified Mercalli intensity scale (MMI) measures the effects of an earthquake at a specific site using “key responses such as people awakening, movement of furniture, damage to chimneys, and finally – total destruction…. [It is considered to be] more meaningful measure of severity to the nonscientist than the magnitude because intensity refers to the effects actually experienced at that place” (see USG here).
↑8
A wadi is a valley or ravine that is dry except in the rainy season.
↑9
See footnote 1.
↑10
In addition to the numerous media reports and videos on social media also show members of the public helping with the rescue, there are also reports of Afghans inside the country and abroad responding with cash and in-kind donations (see for example ToloNews here and here, as well as this Deutsche Welle report). The private sector and celebrities have pledged support for the earthquake victims. For example, Afghanistan’s star cricketer, Rashid Khan, donated all his earnings from the 2023 Cricket World Cup and has launched a campaign to raise additional funds (see his post on X, formerly Twitter here).
↑11
While this figure is considerably lower than the numbers reported by other sources, including the UN, such inconsistencies are not unusual, especially in the days immediately after a natural disaster. It is often in the days and even weeks afterwards that a full picture emerges of the extent of the damage.
↑12
Several line ministries have announced donations from staff members to support victims of the Herat earthquakes, including the General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) 24 million Afs (USD 325,000) from their salaries; Ministry of Education 11.34 million Afs (USD 153,000); and Ministry of Defence 36.57 million Afs (USD 494,000).
↑13
WFP’s USD19 million appeal will assist earthquake victims with food and cash-based transfers for three to seven months. Earlier this year, WFP was forced to reduce the amount of food families receive and to cut 10 million people in Afghanistan from life-saving food assistance due to a funding shortfall (see here). UNHCR has also launched an urgent appeal for USD 14.4 million to support some 8,100 earthquake-affected families, including refugees and IDP returnees, with tents, cash assistance, psychosocial and cash support and other relief items. UNHCR also plans to support orphaned, separated or unaccompanied children and persons with special needs, such as the disabled and the elderly (see here). UNFPA has asked for USD 11.6 million to support women and girls in the earthquake zone with maternal, reproductive health and psychological services; life-saving adolescent sexual and reproductive health services; and emergency supplies, including health, mother and child, dignity and menstrual kits as well as non-food items such as blankets and tarpaulin sheets for women and girls (see here). UNICEF has also launched an appeal asking for USD 20 million to support 200,000 beneficiaries, including 96,000 children with health, psychological and hygiene services, water and sanitation, cash assistance for 1,400 families and temporary learning spaces for children (see here).
↑14
According to media reports the Emirate declined an offer of assistance from Pakistan (see Khaama Press here and VoA here).
Joe Biden has quietly begun to soften Washington’s stance on the Taliban as a sponsor of terrorism, despite an authoritative report by United Nations experts in June 2023 noting the “strong and symbiotic” links between the Taliban, the Haqqani network, al-Qaida and other terror groups. Ongoing U.S. consultation with Taliban authorities at a technical level, based on the reality of the group’s physical control of Afghanistan, is necessary to advance specific and urgent interests, such as the release of U.S. hostages and out-migration of Afghans processed for U.S. residency. But additional and relatively senior overtures to Taliban leadership would require a shift in the policy landscape.
That may explain some actions taken by the Biden administration, such as proposing in September that the Taliban be removed as potential targets from congressional Authorizations for Use of Military Force legislation, or AUMFs. Other moves that would signal serious policy shifts are under consideration would be any efforts to water down U.N. sanctions targeting the Taliban when they are renewed in December 2023; reopening a U.S. diplomatic mission in Kabul; and delisting the Taliban as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity and the Haqqani network as a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.
One rationale for improving relations with the Taliban, paradoxically, is to try to recover counterterrorism capabilities the U.S. lost after its withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, including military and intelligence bases in a country bordering Iran, China, Pakistan and three nations of Central Asia. Administration officials who testified to Congress about removing the Taliban from the AUMFs argued that the Taliban regime is not a threat to the U.S. and might even be a potential partner against the Islamic State-Khorasan, or IS-K, the ISIS-affiliated group that operates within Afghanistan.
This rationale is shortsighted, however. First, any battlefield losses the U.S. could help the Taliban inflict on IS-K are relatively insignificant and would come at the cost of legitimating the Taliban’s consolidation of power. It would also offer encouragement to other extremist groups in the region and worldwide, including Hamas, whose leadership congratulated the Taliban in August 2021 for having seized power militarily, instead of falling for “flashy words such as democracy and elections.” Second, although Biden made it clear in 2021 that human rights are not a “vital U.S. national interest” in Afghanistan, promoting human rights and fighting extremism are inextricably linked. The U.S. should safeguard international norms of human rights and sanctions enforcement, not undermine them, since these tools are crucial to U.S. national security policymaking.
Despite these costs, the signs that Washington is preparing to soften its stance on the Taliban are evident to anyone familiar with the techniques the U.S. government routinely uses in similar situations. These include:
Changing the narrative. The Haqqani network, a designated terrorist organization guilty of murdering U.S. citizens, is an integral element of the Taliban regime, but this fact is carefully elided in U.S. official communication. The U.S. State Department still lists Sirajuddin Haqqani as a terrorist, with a $10 million reward for any information about his “whereabouts” leading to his capture; the FBI, which has similarly offered a $5 million reward for information leading to Haqqani’s capture, considers him a most-wanted criminal who “is thought to live in Pakistan.” In fact, Haqqani lives openly and freely in Kabul as Afghanistan’s de facto interior minister. And when the U.S. killed Ayman al-Zawahiri with a drone strike in July 2022, the leader of al-Qaida was staying in a Haqqani-owned residence, leading to speculation about whether the Haqqani network leadership would be “next” on the list of U.S. targets. Yet after the most recent meeting between representatives of the U.S. and the Taliban in July, the State Department’s readout puzzlingly stated that “U.S. officials took note of the Taliban’s continuing commitment to not allow the territory of Afghanistan to be used by anyone to threaten the United States and its allies.”
Denigrating trusted experts. U.N. experts’ reports are frequently used as a basis for U.S. policy actions and adopted by consensus, which includes the U.S. mission. But after the U.N. sanctions committee released its June 2023 report, which stated that the Taliban and al-Qaida maintained a strong working relationship and that al-Qaida operatives held senior positions training Taliban fighters, various “unnamed U.S. government sources” cited by the media claimed that the report was “wildly out of whack” with U.S. assessments. However, those sources declined to explain how and why their assessments diverged from that of the U.N.’s team.
The signs that Washington is preparing to soften its stance on the Taliban are evident to anyone familiar with the techniques the U.S. government routinely uses in similar situations.
Enlisting high-level cover. Judging by Biden’s unguarded statement to the press in June 2023 that the U.S. is “getting help from the Taliban” in the fight against al-Qaida, he had been briefed about the evolving U.S. security relationship with the regime in Kabul. He clearly was not supposed to mention it out loud, however; in a subsequent clarification of Biden’s remarks, national security adviser Jake Sullivan stated only that the U.S. was “holding the Taliban to account” on its commitment as part of the Doha Agreement not to allow Afghan territory to be used for terrorist groups threatening the U.S. and its allies. That would not amount to the kind of “help” Biden suggested, but Biden’s remarks should be seen as much as an attempt to soften public views of the Taliban as a gaffe or misrepresentation.
Launching expert-level trial balloons. In a May 2023 opinion piece in “Foreign Policy,” former CIA operations officer Douglas London and former Afghan diplomat Javid Ahmad laid out a case for recognizing the Taliban as a way to both achieve a U.S. presence in Afghanistan to fight ISIS and develop working ties with the Taliban’s so-called pragmatists. The Middle East Institute later hosted a roundtable in July with these authors, where the same ideas—as well as fiercely opposing perspectives—were discussed.
Reordering priorities. The U.S. readout after meeting with the Taliban in July 2023 also praised the Taliban’s counternarcotics efforts, including their ban on poppy cultivation as well as the production and trafficking of opium and heroin. In September, members of the Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce traveled to Kabul, where they praised the Taliban government for what they called its astute handling of the Afghan economy, eliciting no public disavowal by the U.S. government.
Launching a mainstream media trial balloon. One unmistakable signal of an upcoming administration policy change is often an article by an influential columnist in a paper of record filled with insider leaks. In this case, that took the form of Washington Post columnist David Ignatius’ mid-September opinion piece that again featured unnamed intelligence officials as well as an unnamed National Security Council official. The NSC official conveniently provided a declassified version of a brand-new CIA assessment, not otherwise made public, pushing back on the U.N. report’s assessment of al-Qaida’s strength and relationship with the Taliban. The article also claimed that some members of the Taliban “probably” knew that Zawahiri was hiding in Kabul at the time of his killing, and that he was “likely sheltered by members of the extremist Haqqani faction,” once again eliding the fact that the leader of the Haqqani faction is Afghanistan’s interior minister.
Despite all these signals, however, a policy shift is not necessarily guaranteed. Trial balloons can and do get shot down by those paying attention, in this case the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which has cautioned the State Department several times on the matter. In a July 2023 letter, for instance, Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul warned U.S. officials against potentially visiting Kabul. In early October, McCaul and other committee members reacted strongly to statements made by Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland at an earlier committee hearing. McCaul publicly expressed his opposition to what he described as the administration’s desire to “normalize” relations with the Taliban. He cited the decision to remove the group from the AUMF and Nuland’s assertion that there was no evidence of systematic Taliban retribution against former Afghan government or military officials, despite multiple reports to the contrary.
Whether this opposition will be enough to prevent such a policy shift remains to be seen. Should the Biden administration go through with it, the wider implications would go beyond damaging the already shaky efforts by Afghan opposition groups and human rights defenders to maintain international support for their cause. Although that is important enough, there is more at stake. Undermining U.N. experts’ reports on sanctions undercuts a key U.S. policy tool often used to hold Russia, North Korea, Iran and other U.S. adversaries accountable. The argument that the Taliban are no threat to the U.S. ignores the fact that their impact extends beyond Afghanistan’s borders, serving as an inspiration to other extremist movements. Normalizing relations with the Taliban as a realpolitik recognition of their hold on power undercuts important U.S. policies on condemning coups and promoting democracy. And the idea that the U.S. should “work with bad guys to fight worse ones” is a dangerous illusion in the long run, even when it offers temporary success.
The U.S. has important interests at stake in Afghanistan, but these should be advanced on the basis of ensuring the Taliban’s respect for human rights and its verifiable rejection of terrorist groups, not appeasement.
Annie Pforzheimer served as deputy chief of mission in Kabul and acting deputy assistant secretary of state for Afghanistan during her 30-year career as a U.S. diplomat. She is currently a volunteer advocate on Afghanistan human rights issues, a policy expert with the Center for a New American Security and Center for Strategic and International Studies, and an adjunct professor of international relations at the City University of New York and Pace University.
Biden Could Be Preparing to Upgrade Ties With the Taliban
Afghanistan Peace Campaign
A view of delegates inside the General Assembly Hall during the first day of the 78th session of the General Assembly held on 19 September 2023. Photo by UN Photo/Paulo FilgueirasThe Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s quest for diplomatic recognition 
A poppy farmer and a labourer by the farmer’s crop in Nad Ali district, Helmand Province in spring of 2015. Photo by Andrew Quilty, 2015.
