The two sides discussed cooperation between the United Nations and Qatar, particularly in the humanitarian and development sectors related to Afghanistan.
Qatar has once again reaffirmed its pivotal role in hosting dialogues and supporting international efforts to address the situation in Afghanistan.
In this context, Mariam bint Ali bin Nasser Al-Misnad, Qatar’s Minister of State for International Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, met with Indrika Ratwatte, Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and Resident Coordinator in Afghanistan.
During the meeting, the two sides discussed cooperation between the United Nations and Qatar, particularly in the humanitarian and development sectors related to Afghanistan.
The Qatari minister emphasized Doha’s position as a key platform for Afghanistan-related dialogue and assured that Qatar will continue to host these discussions. She reiterated that Qatar remains a political, humanitarian, and logistical partner of the UN and will support UNAMA’s mission in Kabul.
A portion of the Qatari Foreign Ministry’s statement reads: “The Minister of State for International Cooperation affirmed that Doha would remain a platform for dialogue and a logistical, political, and humanitarian partner for the United Nations to facilitate its missions in Afghanistan.”
She also stressed Qatar’s ongoing commitment to supporting the Afghan people and called for continued and enhanced international cooperation to respond to Afghanistan’s urgent humanitarian needs, particularly in health, education, and economic empowerment.
Khalil Ahmad Nadim, a political analyst, stated: “Qatar acts as a protector of U.S. interests and holds a strong position in the international community. It has consistently coordinated UN and global aid to Afghanistan.”
This meeting comes as the Doha Process continues to serve as one of the most important diplomatic frameworks for discussions on Afghanistan’s future. Qatar is actively working to maintain its mediating role and host these processes to enhance coordination between the United Nations and the global community.
Qatar Reaffirms Key Role in UN-Led Efforts on Afghanistan
António Guterres added that engagement with the Islamic Emirate in some areas has had positive effects.
António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, said at a press conference in New York that the organization is pursuing four objectives in Afghanistan.
He said a fundamental condition for sustainable peace in Afghanistan is that the country’s institutions must be genuinely inclusive and represent all ethnic groups and all segments of Afghan society. He also stressed respect for human rights, especially the rights of women and girls, as well as preventing the activities of terrorist groups and combating drug trafficking, noting that progress has been made in some areas.
Guterres said: “We remain totally committed to four essential objectives in Afghanistan. First, to make sure that the Afghan institutions are really inclusive and that all ethnic groups are represented and all sectors of society are represented. We consider that a basic condition for the consolidation of peace. Second point, we believe, it’s absolutely essential to respect human rights, but essentially rights of women and girls. Rosemary DiCarlo managed to guarantee the possibility of our staff women to work in the field, but not in our headquarters, and we are very frustrated with that.”
He added that engagement with the Islamic Emirate in some areas has had positive effects. Referring to cooperation with the Islamic Emirate to support the private sector, he said this has made it possible for women to work in several fields in Afghanistan.
However, he criticized that these efforts are still not sufficient, and described restrictions on girls’ education and women’s access to UN offices as worrying.
The UN Secretary-General said: “This is a dilemma that we face every day. Should we go on engaging in some specific areas? Some of them with some positive impact, namely in relation to the private sector, it has been possible to have women working in several areas of Afghanistan. But at the same time, we are deeply frustrated by the fact that we remain without our staff, our female staff, not being able to go to our headquarters. They are able to work in the field, but not in our headquarters, what is unacceptable. And the fact that we still do not have access of girls to, I would say, standard secondary education and above.”
Meanwhile, some political analysts say the presence of UN representatives in Afghanistan is beneficial in improving the country’s links with the international community.
Abdul Sadiq Hamidzoy, a political analyst, said: “The presence of UN representatives in Afghanistan affects the political and economic environment and can help develop Afghanistan’s relations with countries in the region and the world.”
Enayatullah Homam, another political analyst, said: “The United Nations can act as a megaphone and a channel for agreements between the two sides. Both sides can negotiate there, but the UN alone cannot make decisions, and decisions made are not enforceable.”
Last Friday, Rosemary DiCarlo, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, visited Kabul on a three-day trip and held meetings with officials of the Islamic Emirate to review ongoing challenges and explore ways for constructive engagement.
UN Chief Highlights Women’s Rights, Security and Inclusion in Afghanistan
Australia’s Foreign Ministry announced the Afghanistan embassy in Canberra will be suspended after June 30, 2026, following an agreement on an orderly and dignified transition process.
The ministry and Afghanistan embassy issued a joint statement Friday saying the transition will occur without compromising either party’s principled positions on Afghanistan’s current situation.
The Afghanistan embassy in Australia has been among the last diplomatic missions worldwide still operating under credentials from the pre-August 2021 government. Most countries have closed Afghanistan embassies or allowed them to operate in diplomatic limbo, neither recognizing Taliban authority nor fully severing ties, creating challenges for Afghanistan’s citizens abroad who need consular services like passport renewals and document authentication.
Australia’s Foreign Ministry emphasized the country has no intention of accepting any diplomat, honorary consul, or representative appointed by the Taliban regime in Kabul.
Australia to Suspend Afghanistan Embassy Operations
The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee has approved a bill aimed at cutting off Taliban access to US financial assistance to Afghanistan, according to a committee statement.
Committee Chairman Jim Risch said the legislation was passed on Thursday and is designed to ensure that not a single dollar of US taxpayer money reaches terrorist organizations operating in Afghanistan.
Risch said US forces fought the Taliban for years, noting that more than 2,000 Americans were killed and over 20,000 wounded during the war. He added that any US funds reaching the Taliban would insult veterans and their families.
The bill, titled “No Tax Dollars for Terrorists,” was previously approved by the US House of Representatives and now moves one step closer to becoming law.
Risch said the measure must still pass a full Senate vote before being sent to President Donald Trump for signature. The legislation was introduced last year by Republican Congressman Tim Burchett, who has argued that US aid mechanisms lack sufficient safeguards against Taliban misuse.
Under the bill, the US State Department would be required to develop and enforce strict policies governing any foreign assistance that could benefit the Taliban, including oversight of trust funds and Afghanistan’s central bank.
The move follows earlier reports by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), which found that the Taliban had benefited from US-funded assistance. Since the Taliban returned to power, the United States has provided about $3.8 billion in aid to Afghanistan, much of it intended for humanitarian purposes.
US Senate Committee Approves Bill to Block Access to American Aid in Afghanistan
Taliban officials deny holding a U.S.-Afghan citizen, who witnesses and U.S. officials say was detained by Afghanistan’s intelligence services in 2022.
On a summer morning in 2022, Afghan men blindfolded a U.S.-Afghan citizen on a street of Kabul, the country’s capital, and drove him away in his own S.U.V. to an unknown location.
The men said they were from the Taliban’s intelligence services, according to three witnesses whose statements were obtained by The New York Times. The officers stormed the apartment that the U.S.-Afghan citizen, Mahmood Shah Habibi, had just left. They seized his laptop, some books and paperwork, and departed.
It was the last time Mr. Habibi was seen in public. His arrest and unknown whereabouts remain at the center of tensions between the Trump administration, which has made the release of U.S. citizens held abroad a priority, and a Taliban government seeking to forge diplomatic and economic ties with the United States.
Afghan officials deny holding Mr. Habibi, or even knowing where he is. They have not responded to questions from the Times about his arrest.
But the details of his detention — recollected in the witness statements shared with the U.S. State Department, the National Security Council and the Afghan authorities — support the claim made by American officials that the Taliban arrested him, at least.
At least five cars carrying Afghan intelligence officers blocked the street leading to the apartment building where Mr. Habibi lived, and which he had just left, according to the statements. The men stopped Mr. Habibi as he was about to drive to his office and later searched the apartment.
Mr. Habibi disappeared about a week after the C.I.A. — in a 2022 strike in Kabul — killed Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s leader and a key plotter of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. Whether he is alive or not remains unclear.
Mr. Habibi worked as a contractor for Asia Consultancy Group, a Kabul-based telecommunications company, according to the F.B.I. He and his driver were detained with 29 other employees of the firm, all of whom, except one, have since been freed.
U.S. officials would not discuss whether Mr. Habibi had a role in the strike, nor on the nature of his or his colleagues’ work. But his father, Ahmadullah, and brother, Ahmad, have denied that he was involved.
“The Taliban saying they never heard of my brother is contradicted by witness statements, technical data and other information that shows without a doubt that they both arrested him and held him with 30 other colleagues at G.D.I. headquarters,” said Ahmad Habibi, referring to the initials for Afghanistan’s intelligence agency.
The Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said in a text message on Wednesday, “The Islamic Emirate doesn’t have Mahmood Shah Habibi,” using the Taliban’s formal name for the Afghan government.
In an interview with the Times this month, Mr. Mujahid said that Afghanistan was ready to release two U.S. prisoners — identified by U.S. officials as Dennis Walter Coyle, a U.S. citizen from Colorado held since last January, and Polynesis Jackson, a former U.S. Army soldier whose reasons for being in the country remain murky.
In exchange, Mr. Mujahid said the Taliban wanted the release of the last Afghan held at Guantánamo Bay, Muhammad Rahim, who is accused by the C.I.A. of having been a courier and translator to Osama Bin Laden within Al Qaeda. Mr. Rahim, 60, has never been charged.
Discussing Mr. Habibi’s fate or whereabouts is off the table as long as Mr. Rahim is not freed, said an Afghan official with direct knowledge of the negotiations who insisted on anonymity to discuss ongoing release efforts.
According to a direct witness of the arrest, the Taliban blindfolded Mr. Habibi in the back of his own white S.U.V. before driving him away. “I asked one of the guys who they were, and he said they are G.D.I. Mujahideen,” one witness said in a statement, referring to the term for fighters used by the Taliban.
Another group of intelligence officers from G.D.I. later stormed Mr. Habibi’s apartment, took Mr. Habibi’s laptop, some books and paperwork, according to the witnesses’ statement.
One of the men who stormed the apartment and introduced himself as the G.D.I. unit’s leader told an eyewitness that Mr. Habibi was a U.S. spy and that G.D.I. had been tracking him for months.
Blindfolded, Mr. Habibi and a co-worker were driven to a facility where they were interrogated about the C.I.A. strike on Mr. al-Zawahri, according to the co-worker’s statement.
At least five U.S. prisoners have been freed from Afghanistan over the past year, but negotiations for the release of remaining detainees have stalled in recent months. The Trump administration says Mr. Rahim’s release is off the table and has accused the Taliban of hostage diplomacy.
Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Afghan foreign minister, denied the accusations in an interview with The Times. He instead called on the Trump administration to reopen the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and develop trade with Afghanistan — including through the country’s vast reserves of copper, aluminum and rare earth minerals.
A participant in the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss release efforts, said the Trump administration would not consider any further public engagement with the Taliban until all remaining U.S. citizens, including Mr. Habibi, are freed.
Elian Peltier is an international correspondent for The Times, covering Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Adam Goldman is a London-based reporter for The Times who writes about global security.
Missing in Kabul: The U.S. Citizen Witnesses Say Was Held by the Taliban
The report added that both sides agreed to establish structured and ongoing defense cooperation.
Mohammad Qasim Farid, Deputy Minister for Strategy and Policy at the Ministry of Defense of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, held official talks in Russia with his Russian counterpart, discussing regional security, bilateral cooperation, and ways to prevent security threats.
According to the Deputy Spokesman of the Ministry of Defense, both sides highlighted the importance of maintaining ties, expanding formal interactions, and ensuring long-term cooperation.
Sediqullah Nusrat stated: “During this meeting, both parties held comprehensive discussions on key topics, including regional security, mutual cooperation, and ways to prevent security challenges. Both sides also emphasized the importance of strengthening relations, enhancing formal engagement, and continuing durable cooperation.”
Russian media, quoting their country’s Ministry of Defense, reported that Vasily Osmakov, Deputy Minister of Defense of Russia, met with officials from the Ministry of Defense of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan to assess the current situation and explore future cooperation in mutual areas of interest.
The report added that both sides agreed to establish structured and ongoing defense cooperation.
Russian Ministry of Defense stated: “The two parties discussed the current situation and the prospects for expanding military cooperation in areas of mutual interest. Following the meeting, both sides agreed on further joint measures to establish systematic collaboration.”
Yousuf Amin Zazai, a military analyst, noted: “Our policy is one of neutrality, and we seek to build relations with other countries based on this principle. However, many countries do not observe this approach, which compels us to consider military cooperation and the strengthening of our defense forces.”
Russia is the only country to have officially recognized the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan after four years.
Just days earlier, the Russian President had emphasized Afghanistan’s regional importance, stating that cooperation between Moscow and Kabul has significantly grown in recent years.
Russia and Islamic Emirate Deepen Defense Cooperation Talks
The Islamic Emirate stated that SIGAR was created during the U.S. presence to monitor American spending and had nothing to do with Afghans.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has announced that it will formally end operations on January 31, 2026.
With the conclusion of SIGAR’s mission, one of the most critical U.S. oversight bodies monitoring aid and expenditures in Afghanistan will be officially shut down.
Over 17 years of activity, SIGAR released dozens of investigative and audit reports, many of which exposed corruption, mismanagement, financial waste, and the failures of major reconstruction projects.
In its final years, SIGAR focused on the consequences of foreign troop withdrawal, the collapse of the former Afghan government, and the fate of U.S. military equipment and assets left behind.
Mirshakar Yaqubi, an Afghan economic analyst, said: “Although SIGAR wasn’t a donor agency, its work significantly influenced the decisions of donors. It played an important role in transparency, oversight, documenting corruption, and evaluating project efficiency.”
According to SIGAR’s reports, the United States spent over $145 billion on Afghan reconstruction a large portion of which, due to weak oversight, systemic corruption, and poor decision-making, failed to yield lasting results.
While the mission’s end marks the closure of an era of oversight, major questions regarding accountability, transparency, and the fate of billions of dollars in expenditures remain unanswered.
Another economist, Sayed Masoud, commented: “Since U.S. aid for Afghanistan’s reconstruction has stopped, SIGAR’s role came to an end. There is no longer a significant amount of money left that would require independent review, and specific reports have already been published.”
The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan stated that SIGAR was created during the U.S. presence to monitor American spending and had nothing to do with Afghans.
Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesperson for the Islamic Emirate, emphasized: “If this agency stops its activities, it will have no impact on Afghanistan. It wasn’t for Afghanistan, nor did it bring any benefit. In recent years, its reports were exaggerated and based on distant hearsay without proper investigation.”
SIGAR was established by the U.S. Congress in 2008 to independently oversee how U.S. funds were spent on reconstruction, security, governance, and development in Afghanistan.
In its final statement, SIGAR expressed appreciation to all organizations, media outlets, researchers, and individuals who supported or used its reports and findings throughout its mission.
SIGAR to End Mission in Afghanistan After 17 Years of Oversight
The UN predicts 14.4 million people in Afghanistan will require health services in 2026, highlighting the country’s ongoing humanitarian crisis.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has forecast that 14.4 million people in Afghanistan will need health services in 2026.
According to a report released on Thursday, January 29, OCHA said that only 7.2 million of these individuals are expected to be covered by existing programs.
OCHA noted that 54 percent of those needing services are children, 24 percent are women, and 10 percent are persons with disabilities. The office emphasized that addressing these health needs will require more than $190 million in funding.
OCHA also stressed that Afghanistan remains the world’s largest humanitarian crisis this year, with approximately 22 million people dependent on humanitarian aid.
Years of conflict, economic instability, and natural disasters and incompetent government in the country have left Afghanistan’s health system fragile, making it difficult to reach remote and vulnerable populations.
International organizations and NGOs have been scaling up programs to provide vaccinations, maternal care, and emergency medical services, but significant funding gaps remain.
Over 14 Million People in Afghanistan to Need Health Services in 2026: UN Report
Sana Atef, Mahtab Safi and Mahsa Elham for Zan Times
Parwana* no longer recognises her own children. Once known for her beauty in her village in Kandahar province, the 36-year-old sits on the floor of her mother’s home, rocking silently. After nine pregnancies and six miscarriages, many under pressure from her husband and in-laws, Parwana has slipped into a permanent state of confusion.
“She is lost,” says her mother, Sharifa. “They broke her with fear, pregnancies and violence.”
Since the Taliban’s informal birth-control ban began spreading across Afghanistan in 2023, the country’s reproductive health system has gone into freefall. Contraceptives have disappeared, clinics have closed and complications are going untreated.
The ban was never formally announced, but by early 2023, doctors and midwives in multiple provinces reported the same pattern: supplies arriving late, then in smaller quantities and then not at all.
In interviews with the Guardian and Zan Times, women from seven provinces have explained the same traumas: pregnancies they cannot prevent, miscarriages they cannot treat and violence they cannot escape.
Shakiba*, 42, a mother of 12 from the city of Kandahar, says she cannot rise without feeling faint. Her hair falls out in handfuls; her bones hurt constantly.
Now she is pregnant again. Her local clinic no longer offers contraceptives and her husband forbids her from seeking them elsewhere.
In rural Jawzjan, a province in northern Afghanistan, a doctor who has run a clinic for three decades says the disappearance was rapid. “After the Taliban came, the contraceptives started reducing. Within months, they were gone,” she says.
“Before, at least 30 out of 70 women who came to the clinic needed birth control. Now we tell them: we have nothing.”
In the northern province of Badghis, a doctor at a private clinic says Taliban fighters arrived and ordered staff to destroy all of the contraceptives. “‘If we see you give this to women again, we will close your clinic,’ they said. We stopped immediately.”
Two years ago, after an earthquake left Zarghona*, 29, and her family living in a tent, she went three days without access to a toilet and developed a life-threatening intestinal blockage. Surgeons operated and warned her husband plainly that another pregnancy could kill her.
A year after her surgery, with no contraception available and a husband insisting he “needed a daughter”, Zarghona became pregnant again. She spent nine months in fear, tried to end the pregnancy with herbs and saffron, and managed just one antenatal visit.
When her labour began, doctors in the city of Herat told her that both a caesarean and natural delivery carried a high chance of death. She survived, but weeks later is still bleeding and lives with constant pain.
Doctors say Zarghona must never be pregnant again, yet there are no injections or contraceptives in her area. “I’m still terrified. I have no way to protect myself,” she says.
For women in rural provinces, the closure of clinics means hours of walking or giving birth at home, often alone. In villages isolated by mountains and mud roads, midwives say women can bleed for days before they reach a clinic.
The reproductive crisis has become inseparable from Afghanistan’s economic crisis. A doctor in the northern province of Jawzjan estimates that 80% of the pregnant and breastfeeding women she sees are malnourished.
“They have anaemia, vitamin deficiencies, low blood pressure. Their bodies are too weak to carry pregnancies safely,” she says.
Domestic violence also emerges again and again in women’s testimonies, as a cause of miscarriage and a method of control in households where women cannot escape, cannot seek shelter and cannot access contraception.
In Kandahar, Reyhana* recounts how her sister Sakina*, a young widow, was forced by her in-laws to marry her brother-in-law. When she objected, they beat her repeatedly. “Each time they hit her, she bled. She lost her baby.”
Hamida*, a midwife who works in an overcrowded maternity ward in Kandahar, says violence is one of the leading causes of the miscarriages she sees. “Every 24 hours, we see more than 100 deliveries. About six miscarriages happen each day; many are from beatings, many are from women carrying heavy loads.”
Humaira*, 38, says she took abortion pills when she discovered she was pregnant with a girl. “My husband wanted a son. If I gave birth to another daughter, he would beat me or divorce me. So I bought medicine secretly.”
Her story is echoed by other women in Kandahar and Jawzjan who described miscarriages that were either forced, self-induced or the result of abuse after ultrasounds showed the foetus was female.
In the central province of Ghor, a 15-year-old girl says she miscarried after carrying two full jerrycans of water up a steep hill. “I was ashamed to tell anyone,” she says. “By the time my mother saw me, it was too late.”
In a remote part of Herat province, Shamsia*, 38, says she worked in construction and brickmaking throughout her pregnancies. “My mother-in-law forced me to breastfeed her baby too. I became weaker every day.” When the doctor told her she needed a blood transfusion, she says her family refused, calling it “haram” (meaning that it was forbidden or sinful).
Before the informal ban on contraceptives, rural clinics held regular sessions on spacing out births. Now those programmes have all been stopped. “There is no purpose in giving awareness when there is no medicine. The Taliban have not given written orders, but the fear is real. If we speak openly, they may shut us down,” says one doctor.
* Names have been changed to protect identities
Taliban birth control ban: women ‘broken’ by lethal pregnancies and untreated miscarriages
According to the report, this issue is highlighted in the draft presidential decree of Uzbekistan and aligns with the implementation of the 2030 strategy.
Uzbek media outlets reported that Uzbekistan is seriously considering potential military-technical cooperation with Afghanistan as part of efforts to strengthen military-political dialogue in the region.
According to the report, this issue is highlighted in the draft presidential decree of Uzbekistan and aligns with the implementation of the 2030 strategy.
The report states that Uzbekistan emphasizes building trust among Central Asian countries through regular dialogue with neighboring states and sees Afghanistan as a key area for future defense cooperation.
A section of the Uzbek media report says: “Emphasis has been placed on the need to strengthen trust among Central Asian countries through structured dialogue with neighboring countries. In this context, special attention has been given to the prospects of defense cooperation with Afghanistan.”
Military analyst Asadullah Nadim noted: “Security and military-defense matters are somewhat separate concepts. Security issues and related cooperation mostly involve tracking, uncovering, and preventing terrorist networks.”
The report also states that concrete proposals for cooperation with Afghanistan are to be drafted by June 2026 and, after being approved by the Presidential Security Council, will be sent to Kabul via the Foreign Ministry in September of that year.
If Afghanistan responds positively, the implementation of joint military-technical programs between the two countries is planned for the final months of 2026.
But what is the significance of this cooperation for both countries?
Military expert Zalmay Afghanyar said: “Uzbekistan is one of the countries that has maintained its economic and political cooperation over the past four years, and its military cooperation can contribute to strengthening security for Central Asian countries.”
This comes after the President of Uzbekistan previously wrote in an article that Afghanistan is not on the sidelines and, in his view, is a natural and inseparable part of the region. He added that regional stability will not be achievable without addressing issues related to Afghanistan.
Uzbekistan Eyes Military Cooperation with Afghanistan
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
