The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said Thursday that Taliban authorities detained or arrested at least 52 women and one girl in Kabul and Herat between July and September, warning that the actual number of cases could be significantly higher.
UNAMA said it had verified the cases and expressed grave concern over recent arrests, detentions and threats targeting women and girls in several parts of Afghanistan. The mission said underreporting, driven by security concerns and social stigma, may mean that many additional cases have not been documented.
According to UNAMA, the detentions were linked to alleged violations of Taliban-imposed dress requirements. Women were detained for reasons including not wearing a chador, having their hair visible, wearing colorful scarves or makeup, or appearing in public without a mahram, or male guardian. UNAMA said those detained were released after several hours.
The UN mission also raised concerns over reports of verbal abuse, beatings and threats against women, including female shopkeepers. It said such measures restrict women’s rights to freedom of movement, freedom of expression and personal autonomy, while detention and the threat of detention can expose women and girls to severe social stigma and further marginalization.
The latest UNAMA findings follow a broader pattern of enforcement against women in Afghanistan. In June, the UN mission said at least 30 women were arrested in Herat over alleged dress-code violations. Dozens of other women reportedly received verbal warnings. The arrests were followed by protests in Herat’s Jibreil area, where UNAMA said at least one boy was killed by gunfire and several other people were injured.
UNAMA urged Taliban authorities to end what it described as discriminatory enforcement practices against women and girls, respect the human rights and dignity of all Afghans, and uphold Afghanistan’s obligations under international human rights law.
The Taliban have not immediately responded to UNAMA’s latest statement. The group has previously maintained that women’s rights are protected under its interpretation of Islamic law, while continuing to impose extensive restrictions on women’s education, employment, movement and participation in public life.
52 Women and One Girl Detained in Kabul and Herat, UNAMA Says
Afghanistan’s capital is facing a deepening water crisis, with groundwater levels falling sharply and nearly half of the city’s boreholes already dry, raising fears that Kabul could become the first modern capital to run out of water by 2030, according to a recent Prosper Global report cited by CNN.
Groundwater levels in Kabul have fallen by about 25 to 30 metres over the past decade, while water is being extracted far faster than natural sources can replenish it. The city faces an estimated annual groundwater shortfall of more than 44 million cubic metres, while groundwater supplies about 80 percent of residents’ water needs. Only about one-fifth of Kabul’s population has access to piped water.
For many residents, the projected “day zero” is already becoming a reality. Families without running water are spending hours collecting water from public pumps or paying increasingly high prices to private tanker companies. Some poorer households are estimated to spend as much as 30 percent of their income on water, far above the roughly 3 percent level considered affordable by the United Nations.
The crisis is being driven by rapid population growth, uncontrolled groundwater extraction, prolonged drought and declining snowfall. Kabul’s population has grown from less than one million in 2001 to about six million today, while Afghanistan has endured six consecutive years of drought. Snowfall also reached a 25-year low at the end of last year, according to UN data cited by CNN.
Water quality is another major concern. Prosper Global estimates that large parts of Kabul’s groundwater are contaminated by sewage, arsenic and salinity, leaving many families dependent on costly tanker water or unsafe sources. Experts have described the situation as approaching “water bankruptcy,” warning that the depleted groundwater cannot easily be restored.
Authorities and development partners have proposed projects including the Shah Tout Dam and a pipeline to bring water from the Panjshir River to Kabul. However, the projects face delays, funding constraints and political obstacles, while experts warn that major infrastructure would take years to complete.
The worsening shortage is therefore not only an environmental problem but also a growing humanitarian and economic threat. UN reporting has previously warned that acute groundwater depletion and limited access to water are already severely affecting Kabul residents, particularly women and children.
Kabul Faces Water Crisis as Groundwater Could Run Dry by 2030
The meeting will discuss expanding cooperation among the three organizations in areas of mutual interest and security.
The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has announced that a joint meeting with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) on Afghanistan will be held in Moscow on October 15 and 16.
The meeting will discuss expanding cooperation among the three organizations in areas of mutual interest, including security issues related to Central Asia and Afghanistan.
A statement from the CSTO reads: “On October 15 and 16, a joint meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Commonwealth of Independent States, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will be held in Moscow to discuss security issues in Central Asia and Afghanistan.”
Although Afghanistan is not a formal member of any of these three organizations, the Islamic Emirate has previously called for Afghanistan’s full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
The spokesperson for the Islamic Emirate had also emphasized that an Afghan representative should be present at meetings where issues concerning Afghanistan are discussed.
Yousuf Amin Zazai, Political Analyst, said: “Regional countries and organizations can play a role, to some extent, in resolving Afghanistan’s problems, and it is good for them to engage in these matters. Unfortunately, however, they mostly focus on issues that are not priorities and pay greater attention to peripheral matters.”
The joint meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and the Commonwealth of Independent States on Afghanistan is scheduled to take place in Moscow as Russia’s foreign minister emphasized cooperation with Afghanistan in combating terrorism during the eighth Moscow Format meeting earlier this week.
CSTO, SCO and CIS to Hold Joint Meeting on Afghanistan in Moscow
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities have arrested or detained dozens of women in recent months for alleged violations of dress codes and restrictions on appearing in public without a male guardian, the United Nations mission in the country said Thursday.
At least 52 women and one girl were arrested or detained in Kabul and the western city of Herat between July and September, the mission, known as UNAMA, said. Alleged violations included wearing colorful scarves or makeup, leaving hair visible or not wearing a chador, an all-enveloping cloak-like garment.
UNAMA said it was “gravely concerned” about the arrests, detentions and threats of arrest.
“The number of cases may be significantly higher due to underreporting linked to protection concerns and stigma,” it said, adding it was “also alarmed by incidents involving verbal abuse, beatings and threats against women, including female shopkeepers.”
The Taliban government did not immediately respond to the statement.
In June, Afghan authorities opened fire on a rare protest in Herat over arrests and detentions of women for alleged dress code violations. At least one person was killed and several were wounded at the time, according to witnesses and the U.N. mission.
Since seizing power in 2021 as U.S.-led forces withdrew from Afghanistan, the Taliban government has imposed rules based on a strict interpretation of Islamic, or Shariah, law. Dissent is not tolerated, and protests against government decisions are illegal.
Women must wear full hijab in public, including a headscarf, a long robe covering the body and a face covering. The Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice enforces the rules.
Afghan women facing arrest for wearing makeup and alleged dress code violations, UN says
He Confessed to an Afghanistan War Murder. The U.S. Military Promptly Closed the Case.
In the spring of 2023, on a partly sunny day where the temperature flirted with 70 degrees, an Army veteran of the Afghanistan War walked into the unique Prairie-style police headquarters in Banning, California. In a private room in the detective bureau, the former specialist, who served with the storied 82nd Airborne Division, sat down with a special agent from the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division — better known as CID — to make a confession.
The veteran had served with roughly 20 mortarmen and scouts from a platoon in the 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment assigned to Combat Outpost Ware in Afghanistan’s Arghandab River Valley in 2010. A lush land of grape groves and pomegranate orchards, towering sunflowers and marijuana plants, the Arghandab was crisscrossed by canals and was a flashpoint in Kandahar Province, the spiritual homeland of Afghanistan’s once and future rulers, the Taliban.
The soldiers from the 82nd Airborne played a cat-and-mouse game with the Taliban. America’s official policy was counterinsurgency, or COIN: a re-tread of a failed strategy of the Vietnam War that promised a kinder, gentler brand of warfare aimed at winning Afghan hearts and minds. But in the Arghandab Valley, the COIN of the realm was kinetic.
The Taliban seeded the orchards with improvised explosive devices set off by a foot on a pressure plate, a boot on a tripwire, or Taliban hands gripping a remote control. The Americans countered with overwhelming firepower: attack helicopters, armored gun trucks, and infantrymen toting M4 carbines. It was a “rough time for the unit,” another veteran of the platoon remembered. They saw a great deal of “contact,” engaging the Taliban more times than another unit member could recall.
But the former mortarman in Banning had come to talk about one particular incident that, more than a decade later, he could not forget.
The CID agent gave the veteran a “cleansing waiver of rights” to read and sign. It advised the veteran that he had the right to remain silent, that any statement he made could be used against him at trial, and that he was providing testimony “freely and voluntarily.” The veteran waived his rights and signed the document on March 28, 2023 at 1:31 p.m. He acknowledged, according to exclusive criminal investigation documents obtained by The Intercept, that he killed an unarmed man and wounded a woman. More than that, he said that he “needed to be held accountable for his actions.” He told CID that he had “committed a war crime.”
Twenty-five years ago, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, an angry America went to war in Afghanistan. The conflict would become, by some counts, the longest in U.S. history, stretching across four presidential administrations. It ended where it started, with the Taliban in control of the country after a crushing 2021 defeat for the U.S. and the Afghan allies it propped up for two decades.
The U.S. lost around 2,400 troops in Afghanistan at a staggering cost of around $2.3 trillion. Afghans suffered far worse. In October 2001, President George W. Bush announced that “the oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America.” But from almost the opening American salvo, they began dying at U.S. hands.
During just the first five months of the conflict, there were no fewer than 136 media reports of U.S. attacks that killed between 1,200 and 3,155 civilians. Year after year, U.S. and coalition airstrikes killed Afghans – sometimes scores of civilians, sometimes hundreds. The deaths continued to the war’s final moments when an August 2021 drone strike targeting a suspected terrorist in the country’s capital, Kabul, instead killed 10 civilians, seven of them children. More than 70,000 Afghan and Pakistani civilians are estimated to have died as a direct result of the war, according to Brown University’s Costs of War project.
While the carnage of the American air war garnered the biggest headlines, Afghans were also gunned down, again and again, by U.S. ground troops. Following a 2007 ambush, Marines killed 19 civilians and wounded 50. An initial investigation found the Marines used excessive force when they killed civilians after a suicide bombing. Later, the Americans were recast as victims. In 2010, a “kill team” from the Army’s 5th Stryker Brigade slew at least three civilians over four months and mutilated the dead for war trophies. Eleven of the 12 soldiers charged were convicted of crimes, but most were released from prison by the mid-2010s. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales massacred 16 Afghan civilians in 2012. A Special Forces A-Team was accused of killing close to 20 civilians in 2012 and 2013. The remains of 10 victims were later found buried outside their base. A U.S. investigation exonerated the Americans of any wrongdoing. Only one man was punished: Zikria Kandahari, the unit’s Afghan interpreter.
Pete Hegseth, now the self-styled Secretary of War, served with the Army National Guard in Afghanistan during that era. In Trump’s first term, when he was a Fox News personality, Hegseth lobbied on behalf of three men who were convicted or facing charges related to war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump intervened in all three cases, granting two pardons and reversing a demotion.
During his confirmation hearing last year, Hegseth complained that “restrictive” rules of engagement had made it “difficult to actually do your job on the battlefield,” repeatedly recalling his own service. “I was the senior counter-insurgency instructor in Afghanistan. My job was to understand how the Taliban and Al Qaeda operated,” he explained. “They knew our rules of engagement, and when they were more restrictive, they took advantage of them.” He continued: “We don’t need burdensome rules of engagement that make it impossible for us to win these wars.”
But what the veteran in Banning described to CID agents was anything but burdensome.
In April or May — he couldn’t recall which — of 2010, that veteran said he was carrying an M4 carbine as his unit moved about 3 kilometers into the Arghandab and occupied an abandoned building at the edge of a village. When the Americans were attacked, they returned fire, killing a couple Taliban members.
The unit readied themselves, expecting the Taliban to regroup and mount another assault. The Americans intercepted a radio transmission. A translator told them that a single male militant on a motorcycle, transporting rocket-propelled grenades, was headed toward them, according to the documents. The unit’s chain of command authorized the use of force.
When a motorcycle rider came into view, a sniper took aim and fired off one round. He missed.
The respite for the motorcycle man was short-lived, however. About 500 feet away, close to 20 Americans raised their rifles.
An M4 carbine — a magazine-fed, gas-operated, air-cooled, shoulder-fired weapon — shoots lightweight bullets at extremely high speeds. In the spring of 2010, M855 5.56-mm bullets were de rigueur for U.S. forces. Fast with low mass, the rounds produce a tremendous amount of kinetic energy. When they slam into a human body, that energy is transmitted to the soft tissue of the victim creating a “wound channel” that causes massive blood loss.
The Banning mortarman fired off one round. Others from the unit opened up, too.
The motorcycle man never reached his destination. If someone was waiting for him to arrive on that spring day in 2010, they still are.
The Banning veteran and others walked up to the Afghan man and “witnessed a military aged male deceased with multiple gunshot wounds to the face and other areas of his body,” wrote the CID special agent, transcribing the mortarman’s testimony. “No RPG’s were present.”
Nobody knew how many rounds hit him, but the damage to the Afghan man’s body was so extensive that he was “unidentifiable,” according to another witness. The mutilation was so devastating that the Americans were unable to even collect his “biometrics”: fingerprints, iris scans, facial images.
The dead man, said the veteran, wasn’t alone. There was a wounded woman, too. He told the CID agent that the “woman was crawling on the ground.” There may also have been a baby or child present as well — CID’s redactions make it impossible to know for certain.
After the veteran made his confession, in late March 2023, Army criminal investigators started consulting U.S. sources. Despite detailed unit records for more than 100 notable incidents in April and May 2010, an Army historian could locate none for the killing of the motorcycle man.
When CID began interviewing unit members, the company commander — by then a lieutenant colonel — said the incident did not sound familiar to him. The unit’s first sergeant told CID that while he saw most “troops in contact” reports, he didn’t recollect the incident. He acknowledged that the details “sounded plausible.”
Others recalled the incident in detail but excused it. One soldier who never saw the motorcycle man before he was killed said, for example, that it “sounded like” the man handed off the RPG to someone before he was shot. Another former specialist — who by 2023 was a warrant officer — told CID that unit members “fired on the military age male on the motorcycle.” He also recalled that “a woman was on the motorcycle,” too. He told the Army investigators that it was “unfortunate that no RPGs were present” but believed “the incident was handled properly” since “they were authorized to fire from their command team.”
Having never even attempted to identify the Afghan man, the woman on the scene, or the possible child; having never sought out any evidence beyond the testimony of members of the unit; and despite a signed, sworn confession by one of the shooters, Army CID concluded — within six weeks — that there was not “probable cause to believe that any soldier committed the offense of murder.”
CID refused to make the special agent in charge of the case available for an interview. “Unfortunately, we are unable to support your request to interview DACID personnel involved,” Special Agent Mark Lunardi told The Intercept, before leaving his job. More than a year ago, after multiple follow-up requests for information, Thomas Hamilton of CID’s press office wrote: “I will get back to you as soon as I can.” He has, despite repeated follow-ups, failed to respond.
A 2020 study of post-9/11 civilian casualty incidents found most have gone uninvestigated. When they did come under official scrutiny, the “military too often relies solely on its internal records and sources —which can be flawed and incomplete — to assess civilian harm,” the Center for Civilians in Conflict and Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute reported.
“There were probably hundreds of incidents that were just like it that we’ll never know about.”
These findings were bolstered by the groundbreaking work of the podcast “In the Dark.” Their 2024 investigation — a corollary to a reexamination of the 2005 killings of civilians in Haditha, Iraq — found U.S. troops had committed 781 possible war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq that the U.S. military actually investigated. In at least 65 percent of cases analyzed by “In The Dark,” investigators didn’t believe that a crime had taken place — even in cases where perpetrators had, like the Banning veteran, confessed. The 2010 killing of the Afghan motorcycle man is, however, not one of the cases in their database.
In the 151 cases in which investigators found probable cause that a crime had occurred, that the rules of engagement had been violated, or that a use of force hadn’t been justified, true accountability was rare. While 572 alleged perpetrators were involved in these cases, only 130 were convicted; the records show they rarely received significant prison terms. Much more often, their cases were dealt with by commanders with broad discretion to punish their troops with extra duty, demotions, or reprimands, in lieu of formal prosecutions. Fewer than 1 in 5 perpetrators, investigators found, appeared to have been sentenced to any type of confinement. The median sentence was just eight months.
Todd Huntley, an active-duty Judge Advocate for more than 23 years who deployed to Afghanistan twice with a Joint Special Operations Task Force, believes killings like the one described by the Banning veteran were a common occurrence. “There were probably hundreds of incidents that were just like it that we’ll never know about,” he told The Intercept. A current government official, who was involved in the wars in the Greater Middle East, said the total could reach into the thousands.
Since taking the helm of the Pentagon last year, Hegseth has launched overlapping efforts to weaken transparency, scuttle accountability, hobble military justice, and undercut protections for civilians in conflict zones — from replacing the Pentagon press corps with pro-administration sycophants, and firing the top legal authorities of the Army and the Air Force, to pursuing changes that would encourage lawyers to approve more aggressive tactics and take a more lenient approach to those who violate the laws of war.
The Intercept has previously reported on Hegseth’s gutting of civilian harm mitigation and response efforts. In late April, Hegseth repeatedly dismissed congressional concerns about civilian harm and respect for the laws of war in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. “The Department of War fights to win,” Hegseth replied when asked if he stood by his statement that the U.S. would afford enemies “no quarter” — a war crime. A recent report by the Pentagon’s top watchdog says cuts to civilian harm mitigation and response efforts have been so severe under Hegseth that the United States cannot adequately protect civilians in conflict zones. This was driven home at the outset of the Iran war when the U.S. attacked the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school, killing more than 150 people, most of them children.
The CID records of the motorcycle man investigation are redacted in ways that make it impossible to ascertain key facts about additional civilian harm. “An [REDACTED] woman was on the motorcycle with the military aged male and [REDACTED] from the engagement,” according to the summary of a statement by one unit member. The Banning veteran also “stated he [REDACTED] an unarmed [REDACTED] woman during his deployment.”
The redactions also prevented The Intercept from identifying the veteran and fellow unit members to gather additional information. “If it wasn’t for the soldier involved coming forward, this incident would never have come to light,” Huntley, now the director of the National Security Law Program at Georgetown University Law Center, told The Intercept. “The 13-year delay in reporting made any investigation difficult as others involved couldn’t remember details and the redactions in the report make it impossible to learn anything else about the incident.”
Only one member of the unit contacted by The Intercept agreed to speak about the incident. The veteran acknowledged, on background, that the incident occurred, but would not say if he was one of those interviewed by CID.
Still, the case of the motorcycle man offers a stark counter-narrative to Hegseth’s assertions about the war on terror — and the basis for his efforts to undermine protections for civilians today.
The rules of engagement in Afghanistan in 2010 were so lax that a man was killed for no reason and with no repercussions.
It was so unremarkable that no record of the engagement could be located. It was so commonplace that senior unit members couldn’t recall it.
It was so typical that only one man even thought to report it — and he waited 13 years.
It was so characteristic of U.S. military policy that no inquiry was conducted into the rules of engagement in force at the time.
And the incident was so in keeping with U.S. military tradition that, despite a murder confession and little question that an unarmed man was gunned down, Army CID and the 82nd Airborne’s chief of military justice quickly concluded there was no probable cause for charges, and the investigation was closed.
Rabab Fatima, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), has called for continued support from Khalilur Rahman, president of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly, for the mission’s work in Afghanistan.
Fatima said on Tuesday that she met with Rahman and appreciated his commitment to supporting “the world’s most vulnerable countries” and addressing their priorities during the 81st session of the General Assembly.
During the meeting, Fatima also sought Rahman’s continued support for UNAMA’s mandate. She said she was counting on his backing for the mission, including in his new role as president of the General Assembly.
Rahman, a Bangladeshi diplomat and former foreign minister, assumed the presidency of the 81st General Assembly session in September. He was elected to the position in June, succeeding Germany’s Annalena Baerbock.
The appeal comes as UNAMA enters a period of strategic review. The UN Security Council unanimously extended the mission’s mandate in June until June 17, 2027, while requesting the Secretary-General to conduct a strategic review and submit a report by March 31, 2027.
UNAMA has continued to play a central role in political engagement, humanitarian coordination and human rights monitoring in Afghanistan. The mission has also remained a key channel between the United Nations and Afghanistan’s de facto authorities amid continuing concerns over human rights and restrictions on women and girls.
Fatima, a Bangladeshi diplomat with more than three decades of experience in national and international public service, became UNAMA’s new head in July 2026. She is the third woman to lead the UN mission since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.
UN Afghanistan Envoy Seeks Continued Support for UNAMA from General Assembly President
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described the failure of Afghanistan and Pakistan to agree on a joint statement at the eighth Moscow Format consultations as an “unpleasant” but predictable development, as tensions between the two neighbors overshadowed regional talks on Afghanistan.
Speaking at a news conference in Moscow on Tuesday, Lavrov said the disagreement should not be treated as a tragedy, arguing that the differences between Kabul and Islamabad had been foreseeable. The dispute prevented participants from adopting a final joint statement after the talks on October 5.
Lavrov attributed the strained relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan in part to the presence and activities of Islamic State and affiliated groups, which he said carry out attacks in both countries. He argued that the broader lesson was the need to end what Moscow describes as interference by countries outside the region.
The Russian foreign minister also linked the emergence of Islamic State to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and said additional militant groups emerged following NATO’s intervention in Libya. These comments reflected Moscow’s longstanding criticism of Western military interventions and were presented by Lavrov as part of his explanation of the region’s security problems.
The failure to issue a joint statement was earlier explained by Russia’s special presidential envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov. He said Afghan and Pakistani representatives disagreed over the wording of the draft, with the Taliban objecting to what it considered excessive references to Afghanistan in the context of terrorism. Kabulov said similar language had appeared in the previous year’s statement but that relations between Kabul and Islamabad had since changed.
The disagreement reflected a broader deterioration in Afghanistan-Pakistan relations. Pakistan has accused the Taliban authorities of allowing militants, particularly the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), to operate from Afghanistan territory and stage attacks inside Pakistan. The Taliban rejects the allegation and has accused Pakistan of military aggression and interference in Afghanistan. Reuters reported that Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said at the Moscow talks that the two countries’ problems could be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy.
The absence of a joint statement underscored the widening gap between Kabul and Islamabad and highlighted the difficulty regional powers face in building consensus on Afghanistan’s security and political future. Russia has offered to help mediate between the two sides if both parties request assistance.
Lavrov Calls Kabul-Islamabad Rift ‘Unpleasant’ as Moscow Talks End Without Joint Statement
Meanwhile, according to him, civilians, including women and children, have also been harmed in attacks carried out against Afghanistan.
The Director General of the Administrative Office says Afghans have made their position clear toward countries and groups that, according to him, do not want Afghanistan to progress.
Sheikh Noor-ul-Haq Anwar says the people have demonstrated in unity that they will no longer fall victim to conspiracies and that they have identified their friends and adversaries.
He stresses: “The people of Afghanistan strongly expressed their resentment and condemned these actions. They demonstrated in unity that we will no longer fall victim to conspiracies. We have correctly identified our friends and adversaries. The Islamic Emirate has repeatedly stressed that our interests are important to us so that we can rebuild war-torn Afghanistan.”
Mr. Anwar adds that the Islamic Emirate harbors no ill intentions toward any country and does not want to take any action that could cause insecurity for others.
He adds that military centers were targeted in attacks carried out by the Islamic Emirate.
Meanwhile, according to him, civilians, including women and children, have also been harmed in attacks carried out against Afghanistan.
He also stresses resolving differences and tensions through dialogue.
Sheikh Noor-ul-Haq Anwar added: “The Islamic Emirate remains committed to its principles and fulfills its commitments. No action has been taken to cause anyone unjustified harm, and it seeks to resolve any tensions that have arisen through peaceful means.”
Abdul Jamil Shirani, a political analyst, says regarding tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan: “Pakistan is bombing innocent people in Afghanistan and is using bombs that Israel and the United States used in the war with Iran. Their objective is to take advantage of the situation on that side and draw the attention of the world and their own people toward themselves.”
These remarks come as relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have faced heightened tensions following recent clashes and attacks.
Afghanistan–Pakistan Tensions Rise Amid Recent Clashes and Attacks
Noori said that Pakistan is violating Islamic and international principles of good neighborliness.
Noorullah Noori, the Minister of Borders, Tribes and Tribal Affairs, reacting to Pakistan’s attacks on Afghanistan, said that Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies should learn from their past experiences in Afghanistan and should not test the patience and tolerance of Afghans.
Noori said that Pakistan is violating Islamic and international principles of good neighborliness, adding that Afghans have the full capability to defend their territory.
Speaking at a gathering in Ghazni, he said: “Do not take advantage of the patience and tolerance of Afghans. Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies should learn lessons from the experiences of past revolutions.”
The Minister of Borders, Tribes and Tribal Affairs also said that there is no place in the country for armed and political groups opposed to the Islamic Emirate, adding that these groups have lost the trust of the people over the past twenty years.
Noori called on opponents of the Islamic Emirate not to facilitate foreign conspiracies in Afghanistan, saying that if they wish to live peacefully, they can return to the country without facing any obstruction.
Noorullah Noori said: “Under what name and title do you govern? What is the name of your government? There is no place inside Afghanistan for these groups to create problems for the Islamic Emirate. However, if they wish to live peacefully in the country, there is a place for them.”
Meanwhile, a number of participants at the gathering criticized the policies of some neighboring countries, particularly Pakistan, toward Afghanistan and called on them to respect Afghanistan’s national sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.
Sayed Hassan Fazelzada, a resident of Jaghori district in Ghazni and a participant in the gathering, said: “Afghanistan today is not the Afghanistan of past decades; do not make a mistake. Enter a new phase of building good relations based on respect for Afghanistan’s national sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. Refrain from interfering in Afghanistan’s internal affairs and stop hostile actions.”
Sayed Jawad Balkhabi, another resident of Jaghori district in Ghazni and a participant in the gathering, said: “Pakistan should learn a lesson from the Soviet Union, the United States and NATO and should no longer violate Afghanistan’s territory. It should apologize to the Islamic Emirate.”
The gathering was organized by the Ministry of Borders, Tribes and Tribal Affairs with the aim of strengthening unity among ethnic groups and promoting the implementation of Islamic Sharia.
Around 2,000 Shia religious scholars and members of the public from Ghazni, Kabul, Maidan Wardak, Uruzgan, Sar-e-Pul and several other provinces attended the gathering.
Participants also emphasized the need to eliminate divisions among ethnic groups and expressed support for the Islamic Emirate.
Noorullah Noori: Pakistan Should Not Test Afghans’ Patience
However, the attack took on a different dimension on the ground in Afghanistan and turned into a prolonged war.
Twenty-five years ago, on 7th October, 2001, then-U.S. President George W. Bush ordered the launch of an attack on Afghanistan under the pretext of fighting terrorism.
At the time, Bush said the operation was being carried out in response to the September 11 attacks, with the aim of combating the al-Qaeda network and eliminating terrorist threats.
“On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against al-Qaeda terrorist training camps and the military infrastructure of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. These carefully targeted actions are designed to prevent Afghanistan from being used as a terrorist base of operations and to strike at the military capability of the Taliban regime.”, Said Bush on the day.
However, the attack took on a different dimension on the ground in Afghanistan and turned into a prolonged war.
As a result of the attack, the then-Taliban movement’s government in Afghanistan was overthrown, thousands of Afghan civilians were killed and wounded, and many families were displaced from their homes.
In addition, millions of Afghans faced the security, economic and social consequences of the war.
The Islamic Emirate, which is once again in power in Afghanistan 25 years after that day, has described October 7 as one of the bitter days in the country’s history and said it resulted in thousands of Afghans being killed and wounded.
After 20 years of war, the last U.S. troops and their allies left Afghanistan on August 30, 2021. With the end of the U.S. military presence, a new chapter began in Afghanistan’s political history.
The 20-year U.S. presence in Afghanistan began with the overthrow of the then-government of the Afghan Taliban movement and ended with the Islamic Emirate’s return to power.
25 Years Since the Start of the U.S. War in 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
