ISLAMABAD, Feb 24 (Reuters) – Tensions have heated up again between Islamabad and Kabul this week after Pakistan launched airstrikes on militant targets in Afghanistan.
Pakistani security sources said the strike killed at least 70 terrorists, while the United Nations said at least 13 civilians were killed.
The attack threatens a fragile ceasefire following border clashes in October that killed dozens of soldiers, the worst fighting between the two countries since the Taliban took over Kabul in 2021.
WHY ARE THE NEIGHBOURS AT ODDS?
Pakistan welcomed the return to power of the Taliban in 2021, with then-Prime Minister Imran Khan saying that Afghans had “broken the shackles of slavery”.
But Islamabad soon found that the Taliban were not as cooperative as it had hoped.
Islamabad says that the leadership of militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and many of its fighters are based in Afghanistan, and that secular armed insurgents seeking independence for the southwestern province of Balochistan also use Afghanistan as a safe haven.
Militancy has increased every year since 2022 with attacks from the TTP and Baloch insurgents growing, according to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, a global monitoring organization.
Kabul for its part has repeatedly denied allowing militants to use Afghan territory to launch attacks in Pakistan.
Even as the fragile ceasefire has held there have been repeated clashes and border closures that have disrupted trade and movement along the rugged frontier.
WHAT SPARKED SATURDAY’S OFFENSIVE?
The day before the strikes, Pakistani security sources said they had “irrefutable evidence” that militants were using Afghan soil to attack Pakistan.
The sources listed seven planned or successful attacks by militants since late 2024 that they said were connected to Afghanistan.
One attack last week that killed 11 security personnel and two civilians in Bajaur district was undertaken by an Afghan national, according to Pakistani security sources. This attack was claimed by the TTP.
WHO ARE THE PAKISTANI TALIBAN?
The TTP was formed in 2007 by several jihadist outfits active in northwest Pakistan. It is commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban.
The TTP has attacked markets, mosques, airports, military bases, police stations and also gained territory – mostly along the border with Afghanistan, but also deep inside Pakistan, including the Swat Valley, where they later shot schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai.
They also fought alongside the Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan and hosted Afghan fighters in Pakistan. Pakistan has launched military operations against the TTP on its own soil with limited success, although an offensive that ended in 2016 drastically reduced attacks till a few years ago.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
After the attack, the Taliban warned “an appropriate and measured response will be taken at a suitable time.”
Analysts say this is likely to come in the way of cross-border action. Two attacks targeted security forces in northwest Pakistan in the days after Pakistan’s airstrikes.
On paper, there is a wide mismatch between the two sides. At 172,000, the Taliban have less than a third of Pakistan’s personnel.
Though the Taliban do possess at least six aircraft and 23 helicopters, their condition is unknown and they have no fighter jets or effective air force.
Pakistan’s armed forces include more than 600,000 active personnel, have more than 6,000 armoured fighting vehicles and more than 400 combat aircraft, according to 2025 data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies. The country is also nuclear armed.
Reporting by Lucy Craymer in Islamabad and Saad Sayeed in Bangkok; Editing by Aidan Lewis
What’s behind the latest tension between Afghanistan and Pakistan?
War has shaped the lives of several generations of Afghans, with many pushed to travel beyond the country’s borders, seeking sanctuary or opportunity in more peaceful places. That includes the hundreds of thousands who have embarked on the dangerous journey to Europe. In this instalment ofThe Daily Hustle, AAN’s Rohullah Sorush hears from one man who made that journey in 2015 when theBalkan route was the main land gateway to Europe for many Afghans. The route opened during the Syrian refugee crisis and stretched from Turkey via Greece, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Serbia to the European Union. Over a million people travelled through the Western Balkans on foot, by bus, car or train in 2015 alone, including more than 250,000 Afghans. Our interviewee ended up in Spain, where he had uncles who helped him rebuild his life from scratch, and he went on to become a citizen and an entrepreneur.
A new era, a new beginning
My family are from Baraki Barak district in Logar province, but I wasn’t born there. They’d fled to Pakistan during the civil war in Afghanistan before I was born. And this is how, in 1993, I came to be born in Parachinar in the Kurram district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
I was in grade four in 2003 when my parents decided to move the family back to Afghanistan. A new government had been installed two years earlier and people were saying that Afghanistan had entered a new era — one that promised hope and opportunity.
We settled in Kabul’s Dehdana area, where I finished primary school and then went on to the Ghazi Abdullah Achekzai High School. School was important to me. I enjoyed learning and did well in class. I got my high school diploma, sat the university entrance exam and was accepted into the Faculty of Accounting at Badghis University.
But life had other plans.
Stepping up for my family
The summer before I was meant to start my university studies, my father was diagnosed with cancer and had to stop working. I had to step up and start working to support my family. I didn’t go to Badghis. I had to stay close to home in Kabul, so I enrolled in a computer science course at Hazarat Muhammad Mustafa Institute.
My days were long and demanding. I went to school from seven in the morning until noon. After that, I got work tending my family’s livestock. We owned cows, sheep and goats. I looked after them, taking them to graze in nearby pastures and when there was no grass, I bought feed from the market. I sold the milk, yogurt and butter that we got from the animals to support the family.
Crossing borders in the dark
The promise of hope and prosperity in Afghanistan’s new era hadn’t lasted. Security had deteriorated and suicide attacks and explosions become commonplace, even in Kabul. Anxiety and fear were a part of daily life. So, in October 2015, I made one of the hardest decisions of my life. I left Afghanistan and migrated illegally to Europe.
It was a gamble — a dangerous one — but it was what I had to do to secure a better future for myself and my family. It was a long and exhausting journey. I travelled from Afghanistan to Pakistan, then to Iran and Turkey – much of it on foot, crossing borders under cover of night. From Turkey, I crossed the sea by boat to Greece. From there, I continued through Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, Austria, Italy and France. And finally, 45 days after I had said goodbye to my family in Kabul, I arrived in Spain.
I could have been caught by border guards or police at any moment along the journey. But I was determined. I spoke some English and managed to make the journey mostly on my own.
A new life in Spain
When I arrived in Spain, I went to the police. They registered my fingerprints and biometric data and took me to a refugee camp in Getafe, Madrid. I stayed there for six months. During that time, I began learning Spanish and took a six-month course to learn how to make pizza and wait on tables.
With my certificate in hand, I began looking for work. I found a job in a small restaurant in Madrid. I made pizza and other snacks and learned how to prepare barista-style coffee. At first, I worked six hours a day, mostly in the afternoons. Later, I increased my hours. I worked from eight in the morning to four in the afternoon, took a two-hour break and went back to work until midnight – seven days a week. It was grueling, but I was determined to make a go of things. That job helped me improve my Spanish and start to understand Spanish culture.
Later, I found a job in a Pakistani restaurant. I worked there for two months – every day from noon to four in the afternoon and again from six in the afternoon until eleven at night. After that, I went to work in an Iranian restaurant in Madrid with a similar schedule. All in all, I worked in these restaurants for two and a half years. Then, a phone call changed everything.
The phone call that changed everything
I was working at the Iranian restaurant in Madrid when my maternal uncles – who’d been living in Spain since 2010 – called me and said they wanted to start a business and asked me to join them.
We began selling dry fruits, baklava and Turkish delight. We bought baklava from an Iranian company in Madrid and imported dried fruit and other sweets from Turkey and Belgium. We sold our products to shops and supermarkets across Spain. We ran that business together for four years. I learned a lot about how to run a business in those four years, everything from imports to distribution, from negotiating prices to customer relations.
It was time for me to stand on my own two feet. So, with my uncles’ blessing I set up my own business. For the past three years, I’ve been importing and selling the same sort of products. It’s still a small business, but it’s mine. I work long hours and I travel across Spain, spending a couple of months in different cities – Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Seville, Cadiz, Malaga, Huesca, Alicante.
Loss, family and a new beginning
In 2020, my father lost his long battle with cancer. We’d done everything we could and spent a lot on his treatment, but finally we had to accept that there was nothing more we could do except make him as comfortable in the time he had left. I went back to Kabul that year to spend time with him before we lost him and support my family through that difficult period.
After my father passed away, I set the wheels in motion to bring my mother, sister and younger brother to Spain. I also got married and brought my wife here. Today, we have a son. Recently, I became a Spanish citizen — something I once thought was impossible. Through years of hard work and sacrifice, I’ve been able to grow my business, buy an apartment for my small family and another for my mother and siblings.
The long road home
When I look back on the journey from a refugee child in Parachinar to a business owner and Spanish citizen, I feel proud of how far I’ve come. Life has taken me across borders and brought me face to face with many challenges. But my story is not unique. I’m not the first person forced by circumstance to leave their home with nothing but the hope for something better, nor will I be the last. If my journey proves anything, it’s that even when life begins in hardship, it’s still possible, through determination, sacrifice, opportunity – and a bit of luck – to build something strong and meaningful.
But I couldn’t have made a go of things alone. Along the way, I was helped by the goodwill of many people who saw a chance to help and did. I now feel an obligation to help others, as I was helped. I know all too well that, given the chance to work and contribute, those who arrive as strangers can become part of the fabric of the place they’ve come to call home.
Edited by Roxanna Shapour
Forty-Five Days to Spain: One man’s journey from Afghanistan in search of a future
Kabul’s winters bring a suffocating haze, as residents burn coal, wood and even plastic to heat their homes and use outdated vehicles, releasing toxic fumes into the city’s dry air. However, perhaps surprisingly, the worst air quality in Afghanistan is found not in the capital, but in the southwest and north, where dust storms, made worse by climate change, blow in across the borders. Pollution is also not confined to the air. In urban areas, open sewage channels spread foul odours across city streets, badly kept septic tanks contaminate groundwater and rubbish piles up, uncollected. Noise adds another layer of disturbance, with vendors’ loudspeakers blaring by day and stray dogs barking through the night. These overlapping forms of pollution leave Afghans exposed to multiple hazards and reflect the decades-long failure of state institutions to provide basic services, particularly in urban areas. In his new report for AAN, guest author Mohammad Assem Mayar* looks into the where and why of Afghanistan’s pollution crisis and lays out strategies for survival and mitigation.You can preview the report online and download it by clicking here or the download button below.
Afghanistan’s rapid population growth and urbanisation have overwhelmed its cities, which lack even basic infrastructure. Particularly Kabul, but also Herat, Mazar-e Sharif, Kandahar, Nangrahar and Khost, have seen rapid growth, leading to the spread of unplanned settlements and peri‑urban fringes. These expanding informal and peri-urban settlements face chronic shortages of water, sewerage and waste services, exposing residents to multiple environmental hazards. Yet even in the city centres, pollution has become a defining feature of urban life, driven by winter heating fuels that spew acrid smoke into the air, exhaust fumes from the outdated vehicles that clog city streets, diesel generators, contaminated groundwater, unmanaged waste and persistent noise. In the southwest and west, north, and east of the country, dust storms blown in from across Afghanistan’s borders devastate the air quality in rural and urban areas alike. The climate crisis, making for more frequent droughts and a reduction in those natural cleansers of the air – rain and snow – has only exacerbated many of the hazards facing Afghans.These environmental stresses carry profound social and economic costs. Preventable illness and premature deaths are widespread, with all the concomitant cost to the economy. Given the failure of state institutions to provide basic services or protection, households are left carrying the financial burden, with the need to purchase water, filters, masks and medicines. Yet private solutions can never substitute for state action. The persistence of polluted air, contaminated water, unmanaged waste and chronic noise reflects decades of weak coordination, uneven enforcement and a failure to reach even basic environmental standards.
This report, which consolidates the available scientific data into readable English, maps out the various types of pollution afflicting Afghans. It looks at whether and how pollutions is being monitored, and at government actions – or inaction – over the decades. It also lays out remedies.
Edited by Kate Clark and Jelena Bjelica
* Dr Mohammad Assem Mayar is a water resources management and climate change expert and former lecturer at Kabul Polytechnic University in Afghanistan. He is currently an independent researcher based in Germany. He posts on X as @assemmayar1.
You can preview the report online and download it by clicking here or the download button below.
Children are denied education, women are barred from work, and minorities live under constant threat.
Four years after the Taliban returned to power, Afghanistan is experiencing what many call a “great muting.” This is not just the result of war or economic problems, but a deliberate effort by the Taliban to erase voices. In communication theory, a group is considered “muted” when those in power control the main ways people can express themselves, such as language, law, and media. This leaves marginalized groups unable to share their experiences in a way others can understand.
For Afghan journalists, women, and ethnic minorities, this is not just a theory; it is a daily reality enforced by the Taliban. The streets are quiet, not because there is peace, but because the Taliban has created a culture of silence where speaking out can cost someone their life.
Women and girls have suffered the most dramatic and visible losses under Taliban rule. UNESCO estimates that more than 22 million girls are barred from secondary school and university, reversing decades of educational progress. Many will never see the classroom again. Women are prevented from working in most sectors, must travel with male guardians, and are constantly monitored by morality police. Public spaces, workplaces, and recreational areas have effectively been closed to them.
Observers describe watching an entire generation of girls vanish before their eyes. The consequences extend far beyond classrooms. Hospitals operate without female staff, businesses lose vital contributors, and families struggle to survive. In Afghanistan today, half the population is effectively silenced, unable to participate in shaping the society around them.
Amid these restrictions, Afghanistan’s Hazara minority faces a quiet but persistent crisis. Predominantly Shia Muslims, Hazaras have long endured discrimination. Under Taliban rule, forced evictions, land confiscations, and targeted attacks have intensified. Reports documentextrajudicial killings, torture, and intimidation against Hazara civilians.Hazara women are particularly vulnerable, facing oppression both for their gender and their ethnicity. Many live under constant fear, with little protection from the state. Their plight is often overlooked internationally, yet it reflects a systematic targeting of a minority population and the fragility of rights under the Taliban.
The Taliban govern without elections, independent courts, or political parties. Laws are issued by decree, arbitrary detention is routine, and peaceful protests are violently suppressed. Journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens live in fear, weighing every word, every social media post, every public gesture against the possibility of retaliation. The absence of accountability has created a culture of impunity, where silence is often the only means of survival and courage comes at great personal risk.
State of Impunity and Economic Ruin
Economic collapse has compounded these hardships. International sanctions, combined with the reduction of foreign aid, have left millions at risk of hunger. Nearly half of Afghan households rely on humanitarian aid, and over 23 million people face food insecurity, including nearly 10 million on the brink of famine, according to the United Nations. Restrictions on women’s work have further reduced household income, while humanitarian agencies struggle to deliver aid because female staff are barred from many essential roles.
Children remain idle at home, schools are shuttered, and families struggle daily to survive. The country faces not just a humanitarian crisis but a social and generational one, as opportunities for learning, work, and basic freedoms vanish.
Four years under Taliban rule have left Afghanistan quieter, but not peaceful. Voices are silenced, not absent. International legal bodies, including the International Criminal Court, have begun investigating senior Taliban leaders for crimes against humanity, particularly gender-based persecution. Yet enforcement remains difficult. Meanwhile, ordinary Afghans continue to endure life under fear and deprivation.
What Can the World Do?
If the global order continues to treat the “silencing” of Afghanistan as a domestic Afghan issue rather than a violation of international norms, it risks setting a precedent that gender apartheid and minority persecution are acceptable costs of regional stability.
To break the current deadlock, the international community should consider these policy changes:
Make Gender Apartheid a Crime Against Humanity: The UN and its member states should back adding “gender apartheid” to the draft Crimes Against Humanity Convention. This would create the legal tools needed to hold Taliban leaders responsible for excluding women and girls as described above.
Set Up a Permanent International Monitor for Minority Rights: Because the Hazara community has been targeted, the UN Human Rights Council should create a dedicated, well-funded team to track and report on ethnic violence and land seizures as they happen.
Link Diplomacy to Media Freedom: No future diplomatic talks or technical assistance should occur unless the Taliban restores independent media licenses and ends the arbitrary arrest of journalists.
Back a “Digital Sanctuary” for Higher Education: International donors should move from building physical schools to funding strong, accredited online education platforms and satellite Internet. This will help make sure that the Taliban’s school closures do not create a “lost generation.”
Afghanistan today is a nation muted. Children are denied education, women are barred from work, and minorities live under constant threat. For many, hope has become a quiet, private act, hidden behind closed doors. But the people endure, they survive, and they wait. And in their silence lies a stark reminder: four years of Taliban rule have changed Afghanistan, and the world cannot ignore it.
Nasratullah Taban is a freelance journalist covering Afghanistan and Central Asia, with a focus on media, extremism, and human rights issues.
Afghanistan’s Institutionalized Silence and the Cost of Inaction
New Restrictions on Women and Girls, Media; Forcibly Returned Refugees at Risk
(Bangkok) – The Taliban authorities in Afghanistan in 2025 increased their repression of women and girls and enforced new regulations further curbing media freedom, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2026. The country’s humanitarian crisis worsened because of cuts in foreign aid and the forced return of millions of Afghan refugees.
“Governments need to press the Taliban to end their horrific abuses while also alleviating Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis and extending protections to Afghan refugees,” said Fereshta Abbasi, Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Taliban’s unrelenting repression should push governments to support efforts to hold all those responsible for serious crimes in Afghanistan to account.”
In the 529-page World Report 2026, its 36th edition, Human Rights Watch reviewed human rights practices in more than 100 countries. In his introductory essay, Executive Director Philippe Bolopion writes that breaking the authoritarian wave sweeping the world is the challenge of a generation. With the human rights system under unprecedented threat from the Trump administration and other global powers, Bolopion calls on rights-respecting democracies and civil society to build a strategic alliance to defend fundamental freedoms.
The Taliban issued new draconian laws that further restrict women’s freedom of movement and access to public spaces while enforcing existing bans on post-primary education and limitations on employment, abuses that United Nations experts have described as “gender apartheid.” In July the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for senior Taliban leaders for the crime against humanity of gender persecution.
On October 6, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a landmark resolution creating an independent mechanism to investigate past and ongoing rights abuses in Afghanistan.
The Taliban imposed new restrictions curbing media freedom and arbitrarily detained critics. The authorities also detained people for alleged infractions of “morality” laws, such as wearing inappropriate hijabs or failing to maintain separate workplace facilities for women and men. Fewer journalists were working due to foreign aid cuts and Taliban policies.
Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis grew more acute in 2025 as the US government imposed massive cuts to foreign aid and other countries followed suit, and countries forced millions of Afghan refugees to return to Afghanistan. More than 22 million people were at risk of food insecurity, with women and girls disproportionately affected.
Governments should press the Taliban to end human rights abuses and should also provide humanitarian assistance to the Afghan population, Human Rights Watch said. No country should forcibly return Afghans who could face persecution or threats to their lives. UN member countries should fund and support the new investigative mechanism on Afghanistan.
Major powers have renewed diplomatic links while others seek deals to deport migrants. And all the while gender repression is getting worse
Last weekend, on the international day of education, UN agencies sounded the alarm on a situation that is far too neglected. It was just over four years ago that Afghanistan’s Taliban government banned all girls from secondary education. Since then it has extended the ban to include higher education. In a situation that has been rightly condemned as “gender apartheid”, the UN tells us that a staggering 2.2 million girls have been denied their chance at school.
The waves of repression, which should be classified by United Nations legal authorities as a crime against humanity, mark the victory of the extreme Kandahar clerical faction over Kabul-based government ministers. They are also part of the plan of supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada to erase girls and women from public life.
The appalling situation exposes, too, the miscalculations and errors being made by foreign governments that, even as the regime has stepped up the suppression of women, have recently sought to rebuild diplomatic relations with the Taliban regime. Four-and-a-half years into the Taliban’s ascent to power, more children than ever are being denied education.
In successive edicts since 2021, women have now been banned from universities and most employment, including with the government and NGOs. They have been required to cover their faces, to be accompanied by male relatives for any long-distance travel, and have been warned they face arrest if seen in public spaces such as parks, gyms and beauty salons.
This appeasement of the Taliban, led by Russia, China and India and followed by some European governments, has led Afghans’ religious rulers to believe they can act with impunity.
December saw the arrest of a female journalist, Nazira Rashidi, in the northern city of Kunduz. Another young woman, Khadija Ahmadzada, was imprisoned in Herat for being in “violation” of rules by running a women’s sports gym and spent 13 days in jail until Richard Bennett, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, successfully pressed for her release.
Bennett is warning that conditions for girls and women are deteriorating and that the Taliban’s newly issued criminal procedure code foreshadows even more violations of girls’ and women’s rights.
The latest repression marks the triumph of Akhundzada, the supreme ruler, and has seen key government departments and functions, including the control of weapons, redirected from Kabul to Kandahar. While the Kabul faction acknowledges that the economy requires women’s participation and access to technology, Akhundzada has become increasingly determined to impose a strict Islamic emirate, isolated from the modern world, where religious figures loyal to him control every aspect of society.
His ideology is so rigid that he approved of his son’s choice to become a suicide bomber. He lost out – but only momentarily – when, within days of his 29 September order for a complete internet shutdown that would have severed Afghanistan’s links with the world and prevented girls from enjoying online education, he was defied by the Kabul-based telecommunications ministry, which switched the service back on. But by December, as a UN monitoring team noted, Akhundzada’s consolidation of power had also involved “a continued buildup of security forces under the direct control of Kandahar”.
Central to the latest repression are internal disagreements within the Taliban, not least about the future of education and women’s employment. Indeed, evidence compiled by the BBC includes a tape of Akhundzada from January 2025 warning that “as a result of these divisions, the emirate will collapse and end”. The rifts are significant. After warning publicly of the regime “committing injustice against 20 million people” – the entire female population of the country – and saying the denial of education was “straying from the path of God”, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, the then-deputy foreign minister, had to flee the country.
European countries have increased engagement with the Taliban as part of a push to deport failed Afghan asylum seekers, lending credibility to the regime despite its persecution of girls and women. Yet the 59th session of the UN human rights council, held in June–July 2025, debated this matter, and Bennett, the UN special rapporteur, has persistently advocated making girls’ rights a condition for engagement with the Taliban and devising mechanisms to hold the regime accountable, including referring the denial of education to the international criminal court (ICC).
They want to make gender apartheid an international crime, and already the UN’s sixth committee (legal) has advanced a draft global treaty targeting the denial of girls’ and women’s rights as crimes against humanity. In July, the pre-trial chamber of the ICC issued arrest warrants for Akhundzada and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, the two most senior Taliban officials charged with gender-based persecution. But because of the Taliban’s refusal even to discuss girls’ rights, and their insistence on excluding women’s organisations from any talks, international negotiations held in Doha, hosted by the UN and Qatar, have secured no concessions on girls’ schooling or women’s rights.
Whereas India, Iran and Russia backed forces that put the Taliban under real pressure in the 1990s, there is no organised armed anti-regime force within Afghanistan this time.
There is underground schooling in areas such as the Panjshir valley, where radio broadcasts cover everything from breastfeeding to basic school science lessons for women and girls. Girls also study in what are called “home schools”, or leave for Pakistan or Iran to continue their education abroad, even in the face of those countries’ repatriation of 2.6 million Afghan refugees in 2025. Some young women have recently come to Scotland on scholarships to study to become doctors.
There is a good reason why a failure to educate girls will eventually bring down the regime: Afghanistan’s population has swelled to more than 43 million and is only growing, with a predicted 17.4 million people food-insecure by March and 4.9 million mothers and children suffering from malnutrition. But building an economy that will take millions from poverty to prosperity will be impossible so long as the Taliban deny half their population the chance to be educated and to join the workforce. That is their failure. If we are in any way sanguine about this medieval repression, that will be ours.
Gordon Brown is the UN’s special envoy for global education and was UK prime minister from 2007 to 2010
As the Taliban continue their war on women and girls, it is clear that appeasement has failed
For women – and often not for men either – marriage is rarely a personal choice. It is usually decided by families, most often by fathers. In Panjshir province, some young women try to escape unwanted marriages by taking refuge in the home of a man they do wish to marry – a practice known as shingari. A Panjshiri girl arriving alone and unannounced at a family’s door is likely not just paying a visit – nor is she just asking for a husband – she is challenging a system. In this instalment of the Daily Hustle, AAN’s Hamid Pakteen hears from a man in Panjshir about how a girl’s refusal to marry her cousin reshaped his family, forcing him to weigh up tradition, financial survival and his hopes for his son’s future against his sense of what was right and to recognise the courage of the woman who would become his daughter-in-law.When a girl comes to your doorThere’s something every Panjshiri family secretly fears – a girl turning up at your door saying she’s come to marry one of your sons.
In Panjshir, we call this shingari. It often happens when she falls in love with a boy and shows up at his house, asking to marry their son. Sometimes, though, a girl runs away not because of love, but because her home has become unbearable. In those cases, she might take refuge in a house where she barely knows anyone.
Once she’s crossed that line, there’s no easy way back. If the boy refuses to marry her, things can turn ugly. In the worst cases, both the girl and the boy could be killed, but this happens very rarely. Most of the time, the marriage goes ahead because, to be honest, the boy doesn’t really have a choice. If there’s no unmarried son, or if the boy refuses, another male relative is expected to step in and marry her.
The day this trouble landed on our doorstep, I was working in Parwan, a neighbouring province. My wife was alone at home when there was a knock at the front door. When she opened it, she found a young girl standing outside. She said she’d come to marry our youngest son. She told my wife that she and my son had been secretly talking on the phone and had fallen in love.
But when a girl takes the drastic step of leaving her father’s house and turning up at a stranger’s home asking to be married to one of their sons, there’s almost always more to the story.
What waited for me at home
After my wife called, I got myself home as quickly as I could. All the way back on that journey to Panjshir, I thought about what this would mean for our lives. We were not well off. I had lost my job when the Islamic Republic fell in 2021 and was working as a day labourer, taking work wherever I could find it. My son was barely 18 years old – too young to start a family. I had hopes he’d go to university and make something of himself. And then there was our reputation. What would people say? How would the community react? And what about the girl’s family?
By the time I got home, the girl was in the kitchen helping my wife prepare dinner. My wife looked at me with pleading eyes, silently asking me to be gentle with this girl and our son.
I sat on the kitchen floor and started talking to the girl. I wanted to understand why she had done this to our family and to talk some sense into her. She told me she’d been engaged to her cousin when she was seven, but she didn’t want to marry him because he was mentally ill. She begged her family not to force her into the marriage, but her father had refused to back down – even if it meant condemning his daughter to a life of misery. When she realised her father would never change his mind, she decided to take control of her own future. She ran away and came to our house, hoping we would take her in as a daughter.
I told her we had no money. I couldn’t afford to pay for a wedding party or pay a toyana (bride price). I said I’d take her home and when my financial situation improved, I’d go with my son to ask her father for her hand. I told her my son was still very young and couldn’t manage his own expenses, let alone support a wife.
But she wouldn’t budge. “I’m not going anywhere, she said, “I’ve taken refuge in your house. You must marry your son to me. I don’t want a big wedding – just a simple nikah [marriage ceremony]. If I go home, my brothers will kill me.” I tried to reason with her. I said we’d make up an excuse and tell her family she’d come to visit one of my daughters. She shook her head: “Either you marry me to your son,” she said, “or I’ll kill myself.”
Seeking help from the elders
I had no choice but to go to her family. I took four of our neighbours, some elders from the area and the imam of our mosque along with me. It was a delicate matter. I told her father that his daughter was in my house and that we’d come to resolve the matter quietly, before things got any worse. Then I asked for his daughter’s hand for my son, so the issue could be settled honourably.
He was furious. He said she’d been promised to her cousin since childhood. “What am I supposed to tell my brother?” he demanded. “How do we live with this shame?”
The imam told him that promising children in marriage was against Islam and that, in his experience, this was one of the main reasons girls in our area ran away from home.
We asked him why his daughter had run away. He said the problem had started two years earlier when his daughter turned 18 and his brother wanted to make things official by throwing an engagement party. But his daughter refused, saying she wouldn’t marry “a crazy man.” The stand-off continued and the situation became increasingly tense – tempers rose, unkind words were spoken and threats made— but his daughter would not agree and now she had run away.
Breaking the engagement
I asked the village elders and our local imam to help me find a solution. We held several meetings with both families – the girl’s and her cousin’s – to convince them that forcing through this marriage was wrong and that, according to Islamic principles, the engagement should be annulled. We told them that the die was cast and by committing shingari, the girl had left the families little choice. My son had to marry her. This is our custom.
Eventually, her father agreed to cancel the engagement and allow her to marry my son. I suggested that, to save face, we should return the girl to her family home and hold the wedding there, but he refused. He said she was no longer his daughter and he wanted nothing to do with her.
After several days, he softened – but only slightly. He agreed to hold the wedding at his house, but made it clear he would neither help organise it nor would he spend a single afghani on her. Finally, her maternal uncle stepped in and said he’d help organise the wedding so that his niece could go to her husband’s home with honour.
Borrowing money for the wedding
In Panjshir, the mahr[1] and the toyana for a girl who has committed shingari are both much higher than normal, as a way of setting an example for other boys and girls who get ideas. The elders usually set the amount and the groom’s family is obliged to pay it. Normally, the toyana is between 200,000 and 300,000 afghani (about USD 2,880 to 4,320), but in shingari cases it can be as high as 1,000,000 afghani (USD 14,400). In this case, knowing my financial situation, the elders set the bride price at 200,000 afghani. It was far less than usual for shingari cases, but still, a fortune for me.
My earnings were barely enough to cover our household expenses and I had no savings. I tried to borrow money from friends and relatives, but at the time, no one had money to spare. Even if they did, they wouldn’t lend it to me because they knew I had no way of paying them back. A friend suggested I take a loan from the bank. The bank’s conditions were strict, but I had no other choice. Using my house as collateral, I took a loan from the MicroFinance Bank for 250,000 afghanis (USD 3,650). I had to pay off the loan with interest within two years. I paid 11,300 afghani (USD 165) monthly, of which 11,000 (USD 160) was deducted from the principal and 300 afghani (USD 5) was taken by the bank as interest.
I gave 200,000 afghani to the girl’s father and used the rest for the wedding. We had the nikah ceremony at her family home and held a modest celebration at ours. True to his word, her father didn’t contribute to the wedding. He just took the money. He didn’t even buy her a wedding dress. Her uncle and I paid for the wedding and did our best to make it as joyous as possible. It was not right that a girl of 20 should start her married life like a widow.
Three years on
It’s been three years since my son’s wedding and my daughter-in-law still doesn’t have a good relationship with her father. For the first year, no one from her family came to see her. Sometimes, during the holidays, I’d take her to see her family, but they weren’t very welcoming. Later, her mother and sisters started coming over to see her, but only occasionally. There was a thaw after my grandson was born and for the past year, the families have been visiting each other and my daughter-in-law can once again go to her father’s house.
People often talk about shingari as if it is only a scandal or a crime against honour. Few talk about the courage it takes for a young woman to say no when no one is listening. My daughter-in-law risked everything to refuse a marriage she had not chosen and put her trust in strangers to protect her when her own family would not. Those tense and uncertain days are now in the past, but I will always remember them as the moment that a frightened, but brave girl claimed her future.
Edited by Roxanna Shapour
References
References
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Mahr is a gift given by the groom to the bride at the wedding, as mandated by sharia.
When a Girl Turns Up at the Door: How an Afghan custom helped one young woman refuse a forced marriage
Much has been written about Afghanistan’s police force during the Islamic Republic, but so far almost nothing about policing under the Islamic Emirate. In August 2021, when the Taliban took over the Ministry of Interior and more than 500 police stations spread across the country, the Emirate’s ability to police the country became a key test for its survival. In this report, AAN guest author Antonio Giustozzi* draws on interviews with police officers, intelligence officials, Ministry of Interior staff, drug smugglers and poppy farmers to provide a ground-level picture of policing across Afghanistan’s districts and cities. It traces both continuity and change from earlier periods, examining how the Emirate’s police operate in practice, how effective they are in curbing crime and where they struggle the most.
You can preview the report online and download it by clicking here or the download button below.
The police of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan were known for inefficiency and corruption, weaknesses that contributed to the Republic’s collapse. Yet, despite the change in regime and the Emirate’s assertion that it now polices according to sharia, much is familiar. The techniques for controlling population and territory have changed little since the pre-1978 era; they include a reliance on community elders to handle disputes as a means of reducing police workload. However, the author, who visited police stations in the early years of the Republic when police were also largely civil war veterans, finds that compared to then, the Emirate’s chiefs of police and senior officers are at least all literate and some record-keeping is in place. Compared to the Republic’s police, the IEA’s are also more proactive and more determined to assert control.
Overall funding is now much smaller than under the Republic due to the end of international support to the Afghan armed forces. Even so, half of all government spending goes to the Ministries of Interior and Defence and the General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) and the security forces have expanded since August 2021. That expansion has come despite the country now largely being at peace – previously, one of the police force’s main duties was combatting the insurgency. The most significant driver of this expansion appears to have been competition among Taliban leaders. That has led to personnel inflation and, in the Ministry of Interior, an excessive concentration of manpower in special forces.
Even so, the police are short of the manpower needed to carry out their duties. To help compensate for this, the IEA relies on informal local militias, composed of Taliban commanders and their former fighters. These militias have the authority to detain thieves and are known to have sometimes exceeded their mandate and acted arbitrarily. Some key police functions have also been transferred from the police to the GDI, including intelligence, counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism. Criminal investigations, beyond the preliminary stage, which used to be the preserve of the Attorney-General’s Office, have been transferred to the GDI and the courts.
The Emirate believes there is no need for a police academy and scorns the ‘Western style’ training received under the Republic as having been ineffective. It points to the practical experience gained in the years when it policed insurgency-controlled areas of the country and, in terms of training, prefers courses carried out by clerics. However, the research points to relatively few policemen having received any training as yet. Many police are, in fact, illiterate. Another hurdle is that the Taliban are not immune to abuses of power and nepotism.
At present, controlling population and territory is likely the IEA’s top priority and its police force can deliver on that. This is no mean achievement compared to other Afghan governments since 1978. However, if the Emirate is to deliver on its aspirations to attract investment and boost the economy, it will need to make greater efforts to create a rule-of-law environment that investors deem adequate and improve its capacity to fight urban crime. Any increase in spending on policing, however, would come at the expense of other sectors also critical to the economy, including health, education, agriculture and infrastructure.
Edited by Fabrizio Foschini, Jelena Bjelica and Kate Clark
* Antonio Giustozzi is a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). He took his PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and is the author of many books, articles and papers, primarily on Afghanistan and Pakistan. On Afghanistan, his main contributions on are Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency, 2002-2007 (Columbia University Press), Empires of Mud: War and Warlords in Afghanistan (Columbia University Press), Policing Afghanistan (with M Ishaqzada, Columbia University Press, 2013), The Army of Afghanistan (Hurst, 2016), The Islamic State in Khorasan (Hurst, 2018, second edition 2022), and Taliban at War (OUP USA, 2019, second edition 2022).
You can preview the report online and download it by clicking here or the download button below.
In 2025, AAN followed many major developments in Afghanistan as the Islamic Emirate continued to consolidate its rule, implementing its ‘vice and virtue’ law and making efforts to control the narrative about its rise to power in books, films and on TV. We examined the consequences of the United States stopping all aid and the mass return of Afghans from Iran and Pakistan. We also traced the difficulties now for women trying to get a divorce and the slightly easier situation for those trying to inherit, as well as the slowly mounting international legal efforts to hold the Taliban accountable for curbing the rights of women and girls. Among the 50 reports published last year, we also delved into longer-term trends, such as the changing role of rural mullahs in Afghanistan and how climate change is affecting urban water supply and the all-important wheat harvest. Kate Clark has been taking a look back at 2025 – what we wrote and which reports you were most interested in reading – and, as 2026 begins, introduces some of AAN’s research plans for the coming year.What we wrote in 2025In 2025, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) celebrated its fourth anniversary of rule. United Nations and United States sanctions remain in place and the Emirate has yet to occupy the country’s UN seat. Although to the north, relations with its Central Asian neighbours look increasingly solid, based on mutual, pragmatic, economic concerns, Pakistan and Iran continued their mass return of Afghans and there were clashes and border closures along the Durand Line. The US also cut all aid. Even so, the IEA appears increasingly confident.
Our coverage looked at many of these issues, drilling down into the IEA promoting its version of recent history in books,films and on TV, and by banning books and closing whole university courses. Allied to the re-establishment of the Emirate, we looked at how members of the Taliban are moving into the private sector in urban areas and at the rise of a once fairly marginal group, rural mullahs, politically and economically and in terms of learning. Part of the consolidation of IEA rule has also been about taking control of resources, including mines and through urban planning, and attempting to control how men and women should dress and behave – see our reports on the IEA’s vice and virtue law, an Islamic scholar’s reading of it, how it is being implemented and a full translation. A dossier of reports on women’s rights brought together all of our publications on women since the re-establishment of the Emirate. We also published two separate reports on women’s struggles to get a divorce (now almost impossible) and secure their inheritance (which the Emirate backs, so now slightly easier, despite continuing opposition from many families and communities).
We also covered some positive stories: drought-resistant wheat seed that saved at least some Afghan farmers from catastrophic crop failure in dry 2025 and a decline in blood feuds in Khost province and areas of life where little seems to have changed since the days of the Republic, such as the maddening struggle that Afghans face trying to negotiate state bureaucracy.
What sort of reports were prominent in 2025?
At AAN, we try to cover a broad range of topics, aiming to cover eight thematic categories:
Culture and Context
Economy, Development and the Environment
International Engagement
Migration
Political Landscape
Regional Relations
Rights and Freedoms
War and Peace
Whether a particular category features more or less strongly in our publications varies from year to year. Before 2021, reports on the theme of War and Peace often topped the list. Last year, we only published one report in that category, on allegations that British special forces had carried out dozens of summary executions in Helmand province in 2010-2013. Instead, reports to do with the Economy, Development and the Environment and Rights and Freedoms dominated our research agenda (see the table below).
Publications by Thematic Category
Economy, Development, Environment
16
Rights and Freedoms
13
Context and Culture
7
Migration
5
Political Landscape
4
International Engagement
1
War and Peace
1
Regional Relations
1
Dossier of reports on women’s rights
1
Resources
(a full translation of the vice and virtue law)
1
Total
50
What you read in 2025
We also monitor how many readers each individual report gets. Looking through the list of AAN reports that were most widely read in 2025 (see the list at the end of this report), some clear themes emerge: reports about women occupied the top four slots, with Afghan men’s thoughts about the curbs on women’s rights also coming into the top-twenty most-read publications.
Reports exploring Taliban policy and thinking also featured strongly: for example, on the vice and virtue law and a 2023 report on how former Taliban fighters had experienced living in the capital – a surprisingly positive read. Analysis of the impact of the US decision to abruptly cut all aid to Afghanistan, when it had supplied 40 per cent of aid in 2024, was widely read. There were also reports with a very long shelf life: two reports on cannabis – production and consumption – published in 2019 and another from 2020 on the largest standing Buddhist stupa in Afghanistan, again made the top-twenty most-read reports. Historic insights, such as the continuing impact of the PDPA, with a piece written on its 60thanniversary, also featured.
As for our readers in Dari and Pashto, a rare look at the portrayal of Afghanistan’s Uzbeks, published in 2015, again topped that most-read list (English version: ‘From ‘Slavers’ to ‘Warlords’: Descriptions of Afghanistan’s Uzbeks in Western writing’), along with reports on how people who live along the Durand Line are faring in the wake of Pakistan fencing the border, the 2024 Herat earthquake and reports on opium and the wider economy (see the list of most-read reports in Dari and Pashto at the end of this report).
The year ahead
Several themes are already emerging for our research this year. Migration looms large, both returns from Pakistan and Iran and potentially from Europe (including what that could mean for Emirate relations with European countries), and the continuing push to leave. We will continue to follow Taliban policies and actions on women’s rights, but also look into less-covered social dynamics, for example, the evolution of authority within families and communities. Climate change will again be a major topic, as will other environmental issues, including how pollution affects people and the economy, and the crucial issue of land ownership.
Early reports on our agenda include a scrutiny of Afghanistan’s police force under the Taliban. Much was written about police during the Islamic Republic, but, as far as we know, this will be the first look at the Emirate’s police force – their numbers, training, priorities and what the Emirate believes the police are for. We are also looking into radio education, a growth sector since the Emirate stopped education for girls beyond grade six, but is it useful and engaging? Is it, in any way, an alternative to school?
We began this year with a review of a book written in the last century and recently translated from Bengali to English, Mujtaba Ali’s Shabnam. The author had been a teacher in Kabul in the 1920s and his novel draws on his experiences at King Amanullah’s court, including during its overthrow, as well as on Persian epic poetry and mystical traditions. The review of Shabnam will be the first of several reports marking 100 years since the failure of that significant period of reform in Afghan history.
Finally, as 2026 begins, we wish all our readers – and Afghanistan – a Happy New Year.
Many of the Afghan refugees who have entered the United States in recent years are heroic allies of this country. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when American forces went to war in Afghanistan to crush Al Qaeda and topple the Taliban, they joined the fight. They took extraordinary risks during the long conflict that followed, working as soldiers, intelligence agents, interpreters, medics and more.
Since the Taliban won that war in 2021, more than 190,000 refugees have come to the United States under two programs, Operation Allies Welcome and Operation Enduring Welcome, that were designed to protect these heroes and their families from retaliation. Those programs are part of the most honorable tradition of American immigration policy, in which this country welcomes people who have reason to fear imprisonment or death for political reasons. Refugees from Cuba, Iran, Vietnam, the former Soviet Union and other countries have arrived via similar programs over the past several decades. Most of them end up becoming proud and productive Americans.
Yet President Trump has betrayed the loyalty of Afghan refugees by conducting a mass crackdown against them. Shortly after taking office, he called into question the legal right for many of them to be in the United States. Now, in response to the Nov. 26 shooting of two National Guard members, Mr. Trump has gone even further. His administration has prevented the admission of Afghans still trying to find safety here. It has cut off support services for Afghan immigrants who have made it here and has detained some people for more than a month without charges. Stephen Miller, a top Trump official, has threatened to deport refugees who came here legally.
Those affected include Afghans who protected U.S. forces and who, with their families, may face retribution from the Taliban. They also include human rights advocates who worked with American officials, journalists who helped U.S. news organizations report on Taliban atrocities and tens of thousands of others who face credible fears of persecution. Mr. Trump is threatening to return them to a country where punishment for the most basic expression of dissent includes maiming or death. Afghan women forced to return home face a particularly brutal future, given the Taliban’s violent, state-enforced misogyny.
To be clear, there are legitimate questions to ask about the Afghan resettlement program after the horrific shooting in Washington. It killed Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and seriously wounded Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, both members of the West Virginia National Guard. Authorities have charged Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, an Afghan refugee who was reportedly a member of a C.I.A.-directed Zero Unit in Afghanistan. The federal government should take every reasonable step to avoid any similar cases. More than a year before the shooting, the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security found flaws with the vetting and monitoring of some Afghan refugees and made five sensible recommendations about how agencies can better flag risks.
The Trump administration, however, has threatened to turn that process into an excuse for hunting down and deporting refugees who have done nothing wrong and who have every reason to fear that a return to Afghanistan could threaten them and their families. If any group of people deserves to qualify as refugees, it is the brave Afghan men and women who worked alongside Americans. The Trump administration’s betrayal of them is inhumane and contrary to America’s national interest.
It is inhumane because fair-minded countries do not punish all members of a group for the actions of a single person. Over the past decade, members of a wide variety of demographic groups, with varying ideologies, have committed political violence. Each act is abhorrent. The answer is not to punish all people of the same race, religion or nationality. Refugees are among the most scrutinized migrants, and immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than U.S.-born citizens. There is no evidence that refugees from war-torn countries are more prone to violence when given shelter here.
The Trump policies are contrary to America’s national interests because of the message they send to the world. The United States relies on local allies to accomplish its goals — be it in Venezuela, Ukraine, the Middle East or any other hot spot. In peace and war, the United States asks foreign nationals to take risks to help us. The C.I.A. goes to great lengths to protect its sources, not just for their safety but also to show others that Americans can be trusted. Mr. Trump’s moves against Afghans send the opposite message, suggesting that the United States will turn on those who risk their lives for us once we no longer need them. As a former Marine and intelligence officer, Elliot Ackerman, has said, “Breaking faith with former allies projects weakness to current and future partners.”
Mr. Trump should confirm the legal status of all the Afghan refugees who came to the United States under the resettlement programs and reopen their pathways to permanent lawful residence here. He should instruct the U.S. immigration services not to use investigations triggered by the November shooting to deport refugees without proving they are an imminent threat. He should reopen asylum consideration for Afghans abroad.
America owes a debt to those who risked their lives to fight alongside this country against Osama bin Laden’s militants and their Taliban allies. Mr. Trump’s dishonorable treatment of those refugees is morally wrong and makes Americans everywhere less safe.
The Cruelty of Trump’s Crackdown on Afghan Refugees
The United Nations says aid workers are still in a “race against time” to remove rubble and rebuild after the devastating earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan last month, killing at least 2,200 people and cutting off remote areas.
The 6.0-magnitude quake on Aug. 31 was shallow, destroying or causing extensive damage to low-rise buildings in the mountainous region. It hit late at night, and homes — mostly made of mud, wood, or rocks — collapsed instantly, becoming death traps.
Satellite data shows that about 40,500 truckloads of debris still needs to be cleared from affected areas in several provinces, the United Nations Development Program said Wednesday. Entire communities have been upended and families are sleeping in the open, it added.
The quake’s epicenter was in remote and rugged Kunar province, challenging rescue and relief efforts by the Taliban government and humanitarian groups. Authorities deployed helicopters or airdropped army commandos to evacuate survivors. Aid workers walked for hours on foot to reach isolated communities.
“This is a race against time,” said Devanand Ramiah, from the UNDP’s Crisis Bureau. “Debris removal and reconstruction operations must start safely and swiftly.”
People’s main demands were the reconstruction of houses and water supplies, according to a spokesman for a Taliban government committee tasked with helping survivors, Zia ur Rahman Speenghar.
People were getting assistance in cash, food, tents, beds, and other necessities, Speenghar said Thursday. Three new roads were under construction in the Dewagal Valley, and roads would be built to areas where there previously were none.
“Various countries and organizations have offered assistance in the construction of houses but that takes time. After the second round of assistance, work will begin on the third round, which is considering what kind of houses can be built here,” the spokesman said.
Afghanistan is facing a “perfect storm” of crises, including natural disasters like the recent earthquake, said Roza Otunbayeva, who leads the U.N. mission to the country.
Afghanistan Peace Campaign
