Current News Articles | Afghanistan peace campaign

Afghan Officials Say Hundreds Dead in Pakistani Airstrike on Kabul

March 17, 2026 Current News Articles

By Safiullah Padshah and Elian Peltier

Safiullah Padshah reported from the site of the airstrike in Kabul, Afghanistan. Elian Peltier reported from Herat, Afghanistan.

The New York Times

March 17, 2026

The attack hit a drug rehabilitation facility, Afghanistan said, suggesting that its victims included civilians. Pakistan said it had targeted an ammunitions depot.

At least 400 people were killed and 250 others injured on Monday night after a Pakistani airstrike on a drug rehabilitation center in Kabul, Afghan officials said, in the deadliest attack of the three-month conflict between the two neighbors.

As emergency workers pulled bodies from smoking rubble in the Afghan capital, Pakistani military and government officials called statements from their Afghan counterparts “false claims.” They claimed responsibility for the strike, as part of six strikes carried out on Afghanistan, but said the target had been an ammunition depot.

A Taliban spokesman warned on Tuesday that Afghanistan would retaliate, further escalating the risk of all-out war between the countries, whose populations share deep cultural bonds and whose government officials regularly met until tensions sharply escalated in late February.

Pakistan accuses the Taliban government of harboring an Islamist terrorist group responsible for hundreds of attacks in Pakistan in recent years. Though Pakistan’s ultimate objective remains unclear, it has pummeled Afghan military infrastructure with strikes that have also hit or damaged civilian homes, refugee camps and more than 20 health facilities, according to the United Nations.

The compound hit by the Pakistani airstrike on Monday housed a drug rehabilitation facility run by the Taliban government and was widely recognized as such by local residents and nonprofits. A spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Health said 200 patients were staying in the building that had been struck and left in ruins.

A billboard atop an adjacent, charred building read “Support and Treatment Center, Omid” — or “hope” in the Dari language. On Tuesday, hundreds of people pressed against the compound’s entrance, many inquiring after relatives admitted to the center.

On Tuesday, Basmina Khudadadi stood in front of the compound’s entrance as she asked for news about her brother, whom she said had been admitted there about six weeks ago. She had brought him fresh clothes last month, she said.

“We have not informed his wife yet,” Ms. Khudadadi said.

Dejan Panic, the country director for Emergency, a nonprofit operating a hospital in Kabul, said 27 people had been admitted to the hospital, including one woman.

“Among the locations hit was an addiction treatment center,” Mr. Panic said. “We call for health care facilities to always be respected.”

A reporter who visited the site of the strike shortly after it was hit on Monday, and again on Tuesday, saw at least 80 bodies being pulled from the rubble or in body bags.

“The numbers are in the hundreds,” Jacopo Caridi, the head of the Afghanistan office for the Norwegian Refugee Council, a nonprofit, said about casualties after visiting the site. He said he had seen no military facilities in the immediate area.

In a statement on Tuesday, Pakistan’s minister of information, Attaullah Tarar, said: “All targeting has been done with precision only at those infrastructures which are being used by Afghan Taliban regime.”

Pakistani officials declared an “open war” against the Taliban government on Feb. 26, and have launched dozens of attacks on Afghanistan.

As of Sunday, at least 75 civilians had been killed and 115,000 others had been displaced, according to the U.N. mission in Afghanistan.

The United States has said that Pakistan has a right to defend itself — a stance that Pakistani officials have in private said they interpret as a green light to conduct their operations. Pakistan has ignored calls for dialogue made by China, its primary partner, despite public mediation efforts over the past week.

Some facilities built during the U.S. war in Afghanistan have been repurposed by the Taliban authorities, including former military bases now housing religious schools. The Omid drug rehabilitation center was set in a former U.S. military base, less than three miles away from Kabul’s international airport.

By Tuesday, dozens of bloodstained mattresses lay scattered among the debris as firefighters and emergency teams carried bodies into ambulances, under the close watch of hundreds of armed personnel.

The destroyed building, Afghan officials said, was a 180-foot-long structure that was used for meals and prayer. In smaller adjacent buildings, the debris contained white and blue patient gowns, identical sandals, and bottles of medicinal syrup.

Pictures taken throughout the night and shared by emergency workers with The New York Times showed no sign of weapons, ammunition or military equipment in the targeted building.

Other buildings adjacent to the large structure, each containing 20 to 30 bunk beds, also caught fire. White and blue gowns and identical sandals that looked like part of uniforms distributed to patients, as well as bottles of syrup and pills, could be found in the debris.

Afghanistan has long been the world’s leading source of illegally produced opium, but a ban by the Afghan authorities led to a sharp decline in opium production in 2023. Still, the use of cannabis, methamphetamine and other synthetic drugs remains a major public health concern and Afghan officials have interned thousands of people suffering from drug addiction in recent years.

Mr. Tarar, the Pakistani minister, said that there had been secondary detonations at the site, a sign that ammunition depots had been hit.

Across the compound, the smell of burned flesh, mixed with those of explosives and melted iron, filled the air.

As flames were still raging in the early hours of Tuesday, Muhammad Haidari, 23, stood dumbfounded near the facility, in search for answers about his two uncles that he said had been admitted at the center in February.

“I don’t know if they are alive or dead,” Mr. Haidari said. “Each one has children and family waiting for them to return home.”

Elian Peltier is The Times’s bureau chief for Pakistan and Afghanistan, based in Islamabad.

Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of targeting homes in airstrikes that kill at least 6 civilians

March 13, 2026 Current News Articles

By ABDUL QAHAR AFGHAN and MUNIR AHMED

Associated Press

March 13, 2026

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan’s Taliban government accused Pakistan’s military Friday of targeting homes in overnight airstrikes in Kabul and other areas of the country, saying at least six civilians were killed and more than a dozen injured, as fighting between the neighbors entered its third week.

Afghan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on X that Pakistani aircraft also struck fuel depots belonging to the private airline Kam Air near the airport in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. “This company supplies fuel to civilian airlines as well as to United Nations aircraft,” he said.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s state-run television reported that the country’s armed forces carried out “successful airstrikes inside Afghanistan” as part of the ongoing operation, targeting what it said were four alleged militant hideouts and their support infrastructure in Afghanistan.

The developments come amid a dramatic increase in tensions between the two countries which Pakistan has referred to as “open war. ” They are adding to concerns about the stability in the region as the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran continues with no end in sight, generating great uncertainty.

The dispute is rooted in Pakistan’s belief that Afghanistan’s Taliban government is harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it and also of allying with its archrival India. The Taliban deny harboring the militant groups.

Tensions erupted in late February

Pakistan and Afghanistan have been targeting each other’s military installations since late February, when Kabul said it struck Pakistani posts in response to Pakistani attacks along the border. Pakistan’s military has said its operations targeted the Pakistani Taliban and their support networks along the border.

Both sides have claimed to inflict heavy losses in what has become their deadliest fighting in years.

In Kabul, the Defense Ministry said Afghanistan’s air force responded to the Pakistan attacks by targeting Pakistani military installations in the Kohat district, causing heavy losses.

Pakistan’s Ministry of Information rejected the Afghan Defense Ministry’s claims as baseless. In a statement, it said the Pakistani Taliban attempted to deploy three rudimentary drones in Kohat, but Pakistani forces shot them down. Two civilians were injured by falling debris, it said.

In his posts on X, The Afghan government spokesman, Mujahid, alleged that Pakistani strikes hit multiple civilian sites and uninhabited locations in Afghanistan’s Paktia and Paktika provinces, as well as other areas. He said the attacks “will not go unanswered.”

Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran said at least four civilians, including children, were killed in the city and 15 others were injured.

Additionally, Afghanistan’s Department of Information and Culture in Nangarhar province said a Pakistani mortar shell killed a woman and a child there.

The total number of casualties around Afghanistan was unclear.

Diplomatic efforts have failed to stop the attacks

The latest Pakistani strikes came a day after China’s special envoy, Yue Xiaoyong, arrived in Islamabad and met with his Pakistani counterpart, Mohammad Sadiq, following a visit to Kabul.

Sadiq, Pakistan’s special envoy for Afghanistan, said he and Yue “discussed threats posed by terrorist groups” and agreed on the need for collective efforts to ensure lasting peace and stability.

Repeated calls from the international community for restraint have had little effect. Pakistan has previously said its strikes along the border and inside Afghanistan are aimed solely at Khawarij, a phrase Islamabad uses for the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP.

On Friday, a roadside bomb targeting a police vehicle killed six officers in Lakki Marwat, a district in northwest Pakistan, police official Sajjad Khan said. No one claimed responsibility but suspicion is likely to fall on TTP which often claim such attacks.

Since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in 2021, the TTP has intensified attacks inside Pakistan and along the border. Islamabad says its military operations will continue until Kabul takes verifiable steps to curb the TTP and other militants operating from its territory.

A Qatari-mediated ceasefire ended the intense fighting in October, but several rounds of peace talks in Turkey in November failed to produce a lasting agreement.

Ahmed reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writers Riaz Khan and Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this story.

‘A few beatings won’t kill you’: judge rejects divorce request of woman abused by husband in Afghanistan

March 13, 2026 Current News Articles

Zahra Joya, Tom Levitt and Ziba Balkhi from Rukhshana Media

The shocking level of physical violence against women permitted under the Taliban’s new laws has been revealed this week by the case of a woman in northern Afghanistan, who said she was beaten with a cable wire by her husband and told by a judge: “You want a divorce just because of that? … A little anger and a few beatings won’t kill you.”

Farzana* said her husband was quick-tempered and often resorted to beating her. He regularly humiliated her and called her “disabled”, she said, because her right leg was slightly shorter than the left. She had tolerated the abuse for the sake of their children, but one evening, she said, his violence went too far.

“One day I was very sick and had no energy to cook dinner. When he came home from work, he said: ‘Now you don’t even do the housework?’ I told him I was sick, but he beat me with a mobile phone charger cable. The marks on my back and arms remained for several days, but I didn’t think of taking photos that might one day help me in court.”

After the attack, she decided to seek an end to the violence by filing for divorce, but when her case reached a Taliban court recently, Farzana said the judge not only rejected her application but belittled her claims of abuse.

“When I said he beats me and constantly humiliates and insults me, and that I want a divorce, the judge asked: ‘You want a divorce just because of that? Don’t you have another reason?’” When Farzana went on to describe the attack she had recently suffered, she said the judge asked whether she had proof of the abuse.

“When I said no, he told me: ‘You were young and enjoyed your husband. Now that he is getting older you are making excuses to divorce him so you can marry someone else. Go back, you have a nice husband, live with him. A little anger and a few beatings won’t kill you. Islam allows a man to beat his wife if she disobeys him, to discipline her. Go, and don’t come again asking for divorce over such things.’”

Shaharzad Akbar, the head of the human rights organisation Rawadari, said such cases were now commonplace in Afghanistan. Women either had to live with domestic violence or seek justice from the Taliban courts, she said, “where they are often lectured and sent back to the same abusive houses or worse, punished for ‘disobeying’ husbands”.

Women’s rights activists, UN experts and lawyers have long argued that the conditions being imposed on Afghan women, including banning them from schools, most jobs and speaking in public, amounts to gender apartheid.

But a new criminal code given to courts last year – and publicised in January – has gone further by permitting violence against women and preventing them from seeking justice. According to the code, men are allowed to beat their wives as long as they do not use “obscene force”, defined as causing fractures, wounds or visible bruises, which the wife must prove in court. For this crime a man may be sentenced to only 15 days of imprisonment. Akbar said the code gave husbands a “licence for domestic violence and punishments, short of breaking bones”.

Speaking about the code to the UN this week, Malala Yousafzai, a Nobel laureate, said: “This is not culture. It is not religion. It is a system of segregation and domination. We must call the regime in Afghanistan by its true name: gender apartheid.”

After the court verdict, Farzana said she was forced to return to her husband, who had now become more violent than before. “He tells me: ‘Either endure it or die.’ He doesn’t even allow me to go to my father’s house.” The judge also told Farzana she could not object to her husband taking a second wife.

UN Women special representative in Afghanistan, Susan Ferguson, said: “If we allow Afghan women and girls to be silenced – and punished purely because they are women – we send a message that the rights of women and girls everywhere are disposable, and that is an immensely dangerous precedent.”

* Name has been changed

Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of air attacks on homes in Kabul, Kandahar

March 13, 2026 Current News Articles

By Al Jazeera Staff, AFP and AP

Afghanistan’s Taliban government has accused Pakistan of targeting civilian homes in overnight air attacks, killing four people in the capital and two in the east, as fighting between the two neighbours entered its third week, overshadowed by the United States-Israel war on Iran igniting the Middle East.

Women and children were among those killed in the attacks, according to the Taliban.

Government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on X Friday that Pakistan’s aircraft also struck fuel depots belonging to the private airline Kam Air near Kandahar airport.

Pakistani security sources said they carried out “successful airstrikes” against “four terrorist hideouts” in Kabul and frontier provinces, and destroyed an oil storage facility at Kandahar airport.

Abdul Wahid, a 29-year-old daily labourer, told the AFP news agency that he and four family members were wounded when his house was hit at about 12:10am local time (19:10 GMT on Thursday).

“Suddenly, a noise came from another house. I don’t know what happened afterwards. All these bricks fell on me. Women and children were under the rubble as well,” he said.

“I was there for 10 minutes as if it was my last breath. Then my neighbours came and removed the bricks … and took us to the clinic.”

Calls for restraint from the international community have gone unheeded by both sides.

On Thursday, the Taliban government said four members of the same family, including two children, were killed by Pakistani artillery and mortar fire in eastern Afghanistan.

The deaths reported on Thursday brought the toll to seven people killed in Afghanistan since Tuesday in cross-border clashes, according to authorities in Kabul. That could rise with the latest attacks on Friday.

Fighting between the two countries intensified on February 26 when Afghanistan launched an offensive along their shared border in retaliation for earlier Pakistani air attacks on the Pakistan Taliban, just two days before the US and Israel attacked Iran, starting a sprawling regional war.

Pakistan maintains that it does not target civilians, and casualty claims from both sides are difficult to verify independently.

Islamabad accuses Kabul of harbouring fighters from the Pakistan Taliban, which has claimed responsibility for a series of deadly attacks inside Pakistan, and from the ISIS (ISIL) affiliate in Khorasan province. Afghan authorities deny the charge.

The United Nations mission in Afghanistan has said 56 civilians have been killed there, including 24 children, by Pakistani military operations from February 26 to March 5.

Pakistani officials have confirmed about 12 soldiers were killed and 27 wounded in the latest bout of fighting, while the Taliban claims to have killed more than 150.

About 115,000 people have been forced to leave their homes, according to the UN.

Pakistan bombs airline fuel depot near Afghanistan’s Kandahar airport: Taliban

March 13, 2026 Current News Articles

Reuters

13 March 2026

Afghanistan’s defence ministry said it carried out drone strikes in response to a Pakistani military base in the northern city of Kohat, causing heavy damage.

Pakistan bombed the fuel depot of private airline Kam Air near Afghanistan’s Kandahar airport, the Taliban said on Friday, a significant escalation in the worst conflict in years between the neighbours despite China’s efforts to mediate.

Following Beijing’s stepped-up mediation efforts, no Pakistani air strikes were reported by either side in over a week until the bombing in Kandahar. Ground clashes along the 2,600 km (1,600-mile) border had also tapered off, although there had been intermittent bouts of fighting.

“The company (Kam Air) supplies fuel to civilian airlines as well as to United Nations aircraft,” Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said.

Pakistan also carried out bombings in other areas, including the capital Kabul, with women and children among those killed as civilian homes were targeted in some locations, he said, adding that the aggression would “not go unanswered”.

Pakistani security sources said the military had carried out overnight strikes on four militant hideouts in Kabul, Kandahar and Paktia province, including one targeting an oil storage facility at the Kandahar airfield.

Afghanistan’s defence ministry said it carried out drone strikes in response on a Pakistani military base in the northern city of Kohat, causing heavy damage.

Pakistan’s military and information ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

The fighting erupted last month with Pakistani air strikes inside Afghanistan that Islamabad said targeted militant strongholds. Afghanistan called the strikes a violation of sovereignty as it launched retaliatory attacks.

Militancy has been a bone of contention between allies-turned-foes Pakistan and Afghanistan, with Islamabad saying Kabul provides a safe haven to militants executing attacks on Pakistan.

The Taliban, however, denies the allegation and says militancy is Pakistan’s internal problem.

Reuters had reported on Thursday that mediation efforts by China, which had been urging an end to the violence, had helped ease the fighting.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry spokesperson Tahir Andrabi had also said that Islamabad and Beijing were engaged in a “dialogue process” on Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s Taliban government rejects US allegation that it engages in ‘hostage diplomacy’

March 11, 2026 Current News Articles

Associated Press

10 March 2026

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan’s Taliban government on Tuesday rejected U.S. allegations that it detains foreigners to obtain leverage over other countries, saying Afghan authorities arrest people for violating laws not to make a deal.

The U.S. State Department on Monday announced the designation of Afghanistan as a sponsor of wrongful detention, accusing it of engaging in “hostage diplomacy.” Afghanistan joined Iran as countries singled out by the U.S. in the past two weeks for detaining Americans in hopes of extracting policy concessions.

On Tuesday, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kabul called that designation “regrettable.”

In July, the Taliban delegation to a U.N.-led meeting in Doha said that Afghans detained at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay should be exchanged for Americans detained in Afghanistan. The ministry on Tuesday described ongoing diplomatic discussions with the U.S. on the matter as constructive. But it underlined that any foreigners detained in Afghanistan had violated Afghan law.

“The government of Afghanistan underscores that no foreign nationals have been detained for purposes of a deal,” the ministry said. “Certain individuals have been detained on charges of violating established laws, and in many instances, they have been released in the normal course following the completion of legal procedures.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday warned Americans not to travel to Afghanistan, saying that the Taliban “continues to unjustly detain our fellow Americans and other foreign nationals.”

“The Taliban continues to use terrorist tactics, kidnapping individuals for ransom or to seek policy concessions. These despicable tactics need to end,” Rubio said.

Rubio called for the release of two Americans believed to be in Taliban custody: Dennis Coyle, an academic researcher detained in the country since January 2025, and Mahmood Habibi, an Afghan American businessman who worked as a contractor for a Kabul-based telecommunications company and vanished in 2022.

The FBI and Habibi’s family have said they believe Habibi was taken by Taliban forces, but the Taliban has denied holding him.

In September, 2025, the Afghan Taliban government freed U.S. citizen Amir Amiri from Afghan prison in a bid to normalize relations with the United States.

40 Countries at UN Condemn Restrictions on Women in Afghanistan

March 11, 2026 Current News Articles

By Fidel Rahmati

Khaama Press

March 11, 2026

Representatives of 40 countries at the United Nations Security Council issued a joint statement condemning the restrictive policies imposed on women and girls in Afghanistan.

The statement was released on Wednesday to mark International Women’s Day, with the countries expressing solidarity with Afghan women and girls facing increasing limitations on their rights and freedoms.

The announcement was made ahead of a Security Council briefing on the work of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), where the situation of women’s rights remains a key concern.

The joint position was presented by countries with shared commitments on women, peace, and security, along with members of the “Group of Friends of Women, Peace and Security” at the United Nations.

The countries criticized what they described as systematic violations of the rights of Afghan women and girls and called for greater international attention to the issue.

They also warned that preventing girls from accessing education and restricting women from working could have long-term consequences for Afghanistan’s economic development and social stability.

According to new findings by UNAMA, women in Afghanistan face significantly greater barriers in accessing justice, with the process being four times more difficult for women than for men.

Diplomats and rights advocates say the international community continues to urge stronger engagement and policy changes to improve the situation of women and girls in Afghanistan.

UN Official Says Afghans Flee War in Iran Only to Face Another Crisis in Afghanistan

March 10, 2026 Current News Articles

By Fidel Rahmati

Khaama Press

March 10, 2026

A United Nations official says thousands of Afghan migrants living in Iran are crossing the border back into Afghanistan every day due to ongoing attacks by the United States and Israel. The UN refugee agency warns that many Afghans are leaving Iran amid growing insecurity and fear caused by the escalating conflict.

Arafat Jamal, the UN refugee agency’s representative in Afghanistan, told Al Jazeera that returning Afghans are effectively “fleeing one war only to arrive in another.” He said many of the returnees are heading back to a country already facing tensions and instability.

According to Jamal, Afghanistan is currently experiencing heightened tensions along its border with Pakistan, making the situation even more difficult for returning migrants. “For these people, there are no good choices,” he said, describing the harsh realities facing displaced Afghan families.

The UN official said many Afghans are escaping the wartime conditions that people inside Iran are currently experiencing. Fear of airstrikes and the deteriorating security situation have pushed many migrants to leave the country.

Jamal said that since the beginning of this year alone, around 110,000 Afghan migrants have left Iran. He added that the departures appear to be largely preventive, as families attempt to avoid the worst consequences of the conflict.

Afghanistan has long hosted large numbers of returnees from neighboring countries, particularly Iran and Pakistan, where millions of Afghans have lived as refugees or migrant workers for decades.

Humanitarian organizations warn that Afghanistan’s fragile economy and limited aid funding make it difficult to absorb large numbers of returning migrants, many of whom arrive with few resources or support networks.

The UN refugee agency says urgent humanitarian assistance will be needed to support the growing number of returnees, as continued regional tensions risk worsening displacement across the region.

Taliban Official Threatens To Kill Americans With US-Supplied Weapons

March 10, 2026 Current News Articles

ATaliban official in northern Afghanistan has threatened to kill Americans using weapons seized from US forces, as tensions between Washington and the Taliban escalated following America’s designation of Afghanistan as a state sponsor of wrongful detention.

Ataullah Zaid, spokesman for the Taliban governor of Balkh province, issued the threat on Tuesday after resharing a post by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on X. Writing directly to Rubio, Zaid said: “You once brought us to our knees here. If you wish to do so again, we are ready, and we will give you a devastating response.”

He added: “Do not forget that we will kill you with your own weapons, the very weapons we have acquired.”

The remarks came a day after the State Department placed Taliban-controlled Afghanistan on its list of governments that wrongfully detain American citizens, only the second entity to receive the designation, after the Islamic Republic of Iran.

At least three US nationals are currently believed to be held in Taliban custody. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who announced the designation on Monday, accused the Taliban of using hostage-taking as a tool of political leverage and said the tactic would not yield results against the current administration.

The fate of the detained Americans has been a central issue in Washington’s dealings with the Taliban in recent months. US special envoy for hostage affairs Adam Boehler travelled to Kabul in late 2025 alongside former US Special Representative for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad for talks with Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi on securing their release.

Rubio designates Afghanistan as ‘state sponsor of wrongful detention’

March 10, 2026 Current News Articles

By Max Rego

The Hill

03/09/26 8:27 PM ET

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday designated Afghanistan as a “state sponsor of wrongful detention” and urged the ruling Taliban to release two U.S. citizens he said are “unjustly detained.”

“Today, I am designating Afghanistan as a State Sponsor of Wrongful Detention. The Taliban continues to use terrorist tactics, kidnapping individuals for ransom or to seek policy concessions. These despicable tactics need to end,” Rubio said in a release.

“It is not safe for Americans to travel to Afghanistan because the Taliban continues to unjustly detain our fellow Americans and other foreign nationals,” he added.

Rubio also called on the Taliban to release Dennis Coyle, Mahmood Habibi and “all Americans unjustly detained in Afghanistan now and commit to cease the practice of hostage diplomacy forever.”

Coyle, 64, was detained in January of last year without charges by the Taliban General Directorate of Intelligence, according to a website run by his family. At the time, Coyle was “legally working to support Afghan language communities as an academic researcher” and has still not been charged with a crime, his family said.

The State Department declared last June that Coyle was wrongfully detained.

“Dennis has been held in near-solitary conditions, requiring permission even to use the bathroom, and without access to adequate medical care,” Coyle’s family said. “His family is deeply concerned for his health and well-being. … Dennis’s elderly mother, Donna, and his three sisters—Amy, Patti, and Molly—miss him profoundly. This past year has been marked by absence and grief.”

In August of 2022, the Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence abducted Habibi, an American citizen who was born in Afghanistan, and his driver from their vehicle in the capital of Kabul, according to the State Department.

Habibi, 38, was previously Afghanistan’s director of civil aviation and worked for the Kabul-based telecommunications company Asia Consultancy Group, according to the FBI. The bureau, which is seeking information regarding Habibi’s disappearance, notes that the Taliban detained 29 other employees of the company and has released all but Habibi and one other.

Habibi has not been heard from since his arrest, while the Taliban has not provided information on his whereabouts or condition, according to the State Department and FBI.

The Taliban retook power in Afghanistan in 2021, upon the U.S. military’s chaotic withdrawal from the country after two decades of war under Trump and former presidents Bush, Obama and Biden.

The conflict, the longest in American history, cost $2.3 trillion, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University. That initiative also determined 2,324 U.S. service members, 3,917 U.S. contractors, 1,144 allied troops and 46,319 civilians died in the war.

The cost of caring for veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will reach between $2.2 trillion and $2.5 trillion by 2050, according to the project.

Meanwhile, the Taliban has no “political or armed opposition that represent a serious threat to the group or its authoritarian rule” and places “severe restrictions” on Afghan women and girls, according to a March 2025 report from the Congressional Research Service.

Diplomatic efforts have failed to stop the attacks

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