ISLAMABAD — The chief diplomat in Afghanistan’s ruling Islamist Taliban has rejected as baseless Russia’s allegations that thousands of Islamic State militants have gathered in northern Afghanistan and threaten the stability of the Central Asian region.

“How come thousands of such people are concentrated in one place and still no one can see them or is aware of them?” Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi asked Wednesday in a televised speech at a ceremony in Kabul marking the 34th anniversary of the Soviet troop withdrawal from the country.

“Everyone is welcome here, see the solution with their own eyes and discuss with us if they have any concerns to share. But leveling baseless allegations to malign and add to the sufferings of this nation reeling from decades of war must come to an end,” Muttaqi said.

The Taliban response comes a day after a top Russian army general said that “extremist groups” had gained a “foothold” in Afghanistan, becoming “the biggest threat” to stability in the region.

Russia’s chief of the Joint Staff of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, Colonel General Anatoly Sidorov, described al-Qaida and the Afghan branch of Islamic State, known as Islamic State Khorasan, or IS-K, as “the most dangerous” of the groups in question.

“The number of members of the Islamic State’s Afghan branch, Wilayat Khorasan (IS-K), has significantly increased to about 6,500, with up to 4,000 militants concentrated along Tajikistan’s southern border in the [Afghan] provinces of Badakhshan, Kunduz, and Takhar,” Russian official media quoted Sidorov as saying.

The Russian allegations came on the same day Taliban special forces raided an IS-K hideout in the Afghan capital, killing three militants and capturing one.

A suicide bombing outside Moscow’s diplomatic mission in Kabul last September killed at least two embassy staffers and four Afghan visa-seekers. IS-K claimed responsibility.

The terror group has also targeted Pakistan’s embassy in the Afghan capital and a Chinese-run hotel in recent weeks.

The Taliban have lately enhanced the security of embassies and repeatedly dismissed the threat posed by IS-K, saying their forces have significantly degraded the group’s presence in the country.

The United States also questions Taliban claims of degrading IS-K’s presence in Afghanistan and describes the terror group as a “dangerous” Islamic State regional affiliate.

ISLAMABAD — Economic hardship and media restrictions stemming from the 2021 return to power of Afghanistan’s Taliban have reportedly forced approximately 34% of radio stations to shutter operations in the country, rendering hundreds of men and women jobless.

The Afghan Independent Journalists Union (AIJU), a Kabul-based local media monitor, released the figures Monday to mark World Radio Day.

AIJU President Hujatullah Mujadidi told VOA that 345 radio channels were operating in the country before the Taliban takeover in August 2021, employing nearly 5,000 people, 25% of them women.

But 117 stations have since ceased broadcasting due to economic problems, Mujadidi said, adding that 1,900 people, more than half of them women, subsequently lost their jobs.

The remaining 228 stations employ more than 1,800 workers, including a few dozen women.

International sanctions on Taliban leaders and the suspension of financial assistance have deepened economic troubles in the largely aid-dependent country, multiplying challenges facing the Afghan media industry.

Critics say increasing censorship and alleged abuses of journalists by Taliban authorities have severely undermined the Afghan free press.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan reported last November that more than 200 journalists had suffered “arbitrary arrest, ill-treatment, threats, and intimidation” since the Taliban retook the country.

Hundreds of Afghan journalists have since fled to neighboring Pakistan and other countries, fearing reprisals for their critical reporting while the Taliban were waging a deadly insurgency against the United States-backed former Afghan government in Kabul.

Global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders says within the first three months of the Taliban takeover in 2021, 43% of Afghan media outlets were shuttered, and 84% of female journalists lost their jobs.

Taliban authorities reject the accusations of abuse and blame the closures on lack of funding. Critics question that assertion.

The Taliban recently blocked access to VOA’s Pashto and Dari sites and the websites for Azadi Radio, run by VOA’s sister network, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Taliban officials have not yet commented on the allegations they blocked the VOA sites.

On Sunday, chief Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said at a televised event in Kabul that foreign media outlets that “only publish negative news” and “don’t reflect [Taliban] achievements” would not be allowed to operate. He did not elaborate.

The Islamist rulers are also under fire for their sweeping restrictions on Afghan women, who are barred from receiving an education and from most workplaces in the country.

No foreign government has yet granted legitimacy to the Taliban regime over human rights concerns, especially the treatment of Afghan women.