Concerns grow over increased global ties with Taliban in Afghanistan

August 16, 2026

The Taliban in Afghanistan have launched a diplomatic effort to end their isolation as major regional and international powers show a readiness to engage more closely with the repressive regime despite its systematic human rights abuses.

Five years after the Taliban took power, an increasing number of countries are renewing ties or scaling up diplomatic contacts with the hardline Islamists, who seized power in Kabul in 2021 after 20 years of brutal insurgent warfare.

Campaigners fear that the individual contacts by different countries risk undermining “coherent, consistent” demands for an improvement in human rights in return for any diplomatic concessions.

The United Nations described a recent “cascade of [Taliban] edicts and laws” that have banned women from universities and most employment, denied teenage girls education and imposed strict dress codes. Minorities have been persecuted, while activists and journalists face repression. Afghanistan has become a “graveyard for human rights,” the UN said in March.

India, Qatar, China, Iran and several central Asian states all recently welcomed Taliban officials or opened new channels of communication. Russia, which recognised the Taliban government in Kabul just over a year ago, signed a military cooperation agreement last month. In June, the European Union held talks with Taliban officials in Brussels about returning failed asylum-seekers to Afghanistan. Individual European countries have also deepened their own contacts with Kabul.

“There is no doubt there has been an evolution. The Islamic emirate is now in a confident position. They have realised they are indispensable for regional countries right now and even with Europe and the US they have identified how to engage,” said Shivam Shekhawat, at the Observer Research Foundation in Delhi.4:33

“The Taliban see any kind of contact as a diplomatic win and they have been able to capitalise on that as a sign granting legitimacy to the regime.”

A strict policy of isolation imposed after the Taliban seized power in 2021 towards informal or “de facto” recognition is now fragmenting. Some western commentators have suggested more countries recognise the regime. Others want intensified “back channel” engagement.

“We are not against any engagement … There is a need for engagement even if just for aid agencies to mitigate the ongoing humanitarian crisis but we are worried about the end goal of these contacts and the discussions that are taking place,” said Fereshta Abbasi, Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“There should be a consistent and coherent message from the international community to the Taliban that they will not have any friends if they do not show real progress in terms of the women’s rights and human rights situation … and that is not happening.”

The new contacts stem from a combination of regional security concerns, pressure in the west to reduce illegal immigration and a general recognition that the Taliban are unlikely to be forced from power in the foreseeable future.

The meeting prompted outrage.

“You cannot condemn Taliban abuses in one breath and then announce talks on immigration in the next … The Taliban are telling their constituency back home that they are now accepted by the international community,” said Abbasi.

This year officials from Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have all visited Kabul or other Afghan cities, seeking trade routes and pipeline deals that would allow their landlocked countries access to seaports or third countries beyond.

India too has moved to reinforce relationships that were frosty after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 2021, in part to exploit new tensions between the movement and the Islamist movement’s historic sponsors, Pakistan.

New Delhi secured a sanctions waiver last year so that Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban foreign minister and a veteran official who has spent decades at the heart of the movement, could travel there.

In June, India’s UN envoy suggested a rethink was necessary on sanctions, such as travel bans, asset freezes and arms embargoes, that target dozens of Taliban members.

“The political reality of Afghanistan has changed in the last five years, and the current UN sanctions regime must take that into account,” said Harish Parvathaneni.

Afghan authorities’ diplomatic strategy has involved hosting envoys in Kabul, including those from China, Japan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Last year, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, made the first visit by an Iranian foreign minister to Kabul for almost a decade.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan “seeks relations with all countries”, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said, though “the countries of the region and our neighbouring states have particular importance, because our economic ties and interests are closely linked”.

Anna Borshchevskaya, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute focusing on Russia’s policy towards the Middle East, said Moscow had multiple reasons for recognising the Taliban regime and seeking closer relations.

“One likely objective is simply having allies … Afghanistan is also very significant for Russia geographically and Russia just wants influence in that part of the world. There was an opening and they were able to take it,” Borshchevskaya said.

“It’s a very cold, cynical calculation. It’s part of a very simple zero-sum view that for Russia to win the US has to lose. From the Kremlin perspective, this is a global battle and whether you are looking at Europe or Afghanistan or wherever, it’s one geopolitical chessboard.”

Britain has said it pursues a policy of “limited and pragmatic” engagement with Taliban officials, largely through the UK Mission to Afghanistan based at the British embassy in Qatar. Discreet meetings with the Taliban have also repeatedly been held by other western countries in Qatar. In Germany and at least four other western European capitals, key consulates are now controlled by the Taliban, not representatives of the former Afghan government.

Taliban officials have also sought cross-border infrastructure projects to boost the country’s fragile economy and diplomacy. Natural resources are another lure for overseas powers. Kabul has expanded the mining sector, attracting firms from neighbouring China and elsewhere.

China, which is worried about Islamic militancy on and around its south-western borders, has welcomed Taliban officials in recent years, and hosted talks when Afghanistan and Pakistan went to war earlier this year.

The Taliban are split, with deep disagreements on the ban on women’s education among other issues, but remain dominated by the most conservative factions. Recent laws have further reinforced repression, designating many religious minorities, including Shia Muslims, as heretics and imposing strict punishments to silence dissent.

Other new laws recognise only “excessive” beating as domestic violence against women and facilitate the marriage of girls without their consent.

Analysts do not believe the Taliban are likely to moderate their position in the near future and point to the continuing authority of Hibatullah Akhundzada, the reclusive and authoritarian cleric leader.

Ramin Mansoori, a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Endowment who studies Afghan politics, said the Taliban’s priority was its domestic agenda.

“They are not going to make any significant concessions. Most of them don’t have an international perspective,” Mansoori said.

Concerns grow over increased global ties with Taliban in Afghanistan
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The Taliban Kicked the U.S. Out of Afghanistan. Now They Want It Back.

August 14, 2026

By Elian Peltier

Elian Peltier, the Times’s Afghanistan bureau chief, interviewed the country’s foreign minister in Kabul.

The New York Times

Aug. 14, 2026

In an interview, Afghanistan’s foreign minister called on the U.S. to reopen its embassy and invest in the country — a near-impossible sell for now, analysts and former diplomats say.

Five years after driving the United States out of Afghanistan, the Taliban are inviting it to come back — with diplomats and cash, but no military.

“We consider the chapter of war to have come to an end, and from now on, we want relations based on mutual respect and a new chapter of positive engagement,” Afghanistan’s foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, said in an interview with The New York Times in Kabul.

Mr. Muttaqi said the United States could “reopen its embassy, maintain a diplomatic presence and invest” in Afghanistan’s vast mineral wealth, dams and roads — projects that three U.S. administrations and their allies spent billions trying to develop, and that the Taliban insurgency spent two decades trying to dismantle.

The public overture, the first by such a high-ranking Taliban official in years, is the Afghan government’s latest push in a long effort to extract the country from isolation, with mixed results.

Over the past year, the Taliban administration has signed a defense partnership with Russia and secured dozens of trade agreements with Central Asian neighbors like Uzbekistan. Some of its officials regularly travel to Gulf countries and have met with Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa. It is also cooperating with European countries eager to deport Afghan migrants.

The government would see renewed engagement with the Trump administration, with its appetite for commercial diplomacy and little consideration for human rights, as the crowning achievement of its diplomatic efforts, according to five former U.S. and Afghan officials familiar with Kabul’s approach.

The Taliban argue that they have brought order and security across Afghanistan, cleaned its administration of corruption and created favorable conditions for foreign investment.

But efforts to engage with the United States have stalled.

“There is no appetite in D.C.,” said Hassan Abbas, a U.S.-based scholar and the author of a recent book on the Taliban in power. “No one wants to touch this topic. Everyone wants to forget about Afghanistan.”

In fact, the Trump administration has further distanced itself from the Taliban over the past year.

It has moved closer to one of Afghanistan’s neighbors, Pakistan, which launched dozens of airstrikes on Afghanistan earlier this year. It is embroiled in a conflict with another neighbor, Iran, one of the Taliban’s few steady partners. It has ​also designated the Taliban as a state sponsor of wrongful detention, paused issuing visas for Afghans and barred them from traveling to the United States.

The Taliban have also rebuffed President Trump on the few things he has publicly asked for, including regaining control of Bagram Air Base, which U.S. forces occupied for 20 years; the return of U.S. weapons abandoned in Afghanistan; and the release of a U.S. prisoner whom the Taliban deny holding.

“No Afghan wants or can tolerate the military presence of another country on Afghan soil, as history has demonstrated,” Mr. Muttaqi said at the foreign ministry this week, sitting in a plush armchair with the white flag of the Taliban behind him.

In a written response to questions, the U.S. State Department rejected the prospect of normalization. The response, attributed to “a department spokesperson,” said the Taliban had failed to make Afghanistan more stable and uphold counterterrorism commitments, instead allowing terrorist groups to use Afghanistan as a launchpad for attacks.

It said the United States engages with the Taliban “only when it is in the interest of the American people.”

A veteran member of the Taliban and a central figure in past negotiations between the United States and the group before it swept back to power, Mr. Muttaqi said his administration wanted to reopen diplomatic missions in the United States.

Mr. Muttaqi, 55, also confirmed that Afghanistan was negotiating migration agreements with European countries.

“We have made progress in this area, and we hope to make significant further progress in the future,” Mr. Muttaqi said, without elaborating.

In recent months, the Afghan government held several bilateral meetings on migration with countries like Germany and France. A delegation of five Afghan diplomats also met more than 20 diplomats from 15 E.U. countries in Brussels in June to discuss repatriating rejected asylum seekers and convicted criminals, according to three participants and an official briefed on the discussions.

One of the participants, an Afghan diplomat, said that in Europe, the taboo of talking to the Taliban had been broken and that Afghanistan would now engage in bilateral discussions with all interested countries to finalize agreements.

Still, no European country recognizes the Taliban administration as Afghanistan’s legitimate authority, and the government remains a pariah excluded from international bodies like the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund.

The Taliban’s ultraconservative leader, Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada, faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity over the persecution of Afghan women and girls. And the United States has frozen billions of dollars from the Afghan Central Bank.

And yet, a growing chorus of analysts and former diplomats in the United States is calling for renewed U.S.-Afghan dialogue beyond counterterrorism cooperation against the Islamic State and prisoner negotiations.

Mr. Trump has the opportunity to do what President Joseph R. Biden Jr. could not, said Robin Raphel, a former U.S. diplomat with extensive experience in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Moving past the current paralysis, Ms. Raphel said, could create new access to minerals, strengthen relations with Afghanistan’s Central Asian neighbors, and counter China and Russia, which do trade and have diplomats in the country.

“But that requires hands-on engagement through a U.S. presence in Kabul, which remains a hard sell in Washington,” Ms. Raphel said.

In an initial exchange with The Times earlier this year, Mr. Muttaqi highlighted Afghanistan’s mines as a potential starting point for a “new chapter for the two countries.”

“I view President Trump’s deal-making ability, pragmatic approach and decisiveness as factors that can facilitate constructive engagement with his administration,” Mr. Muttaqi said.

Michael Kugelman, a senior fellow for South Asia at the D.C.-based Atlantic Council, said minerals were the right pitch to make to the Trump administration. Afghanistan holds vast untapped reserves of lithium, copper and iron ore, as well as rare earth elements that are on the U.S. Geological Survey’s list of critical minerals.

“Values-based considerations like brutality and the Taliban’s horrific treatment of women and girls would not necessarily keep this administration from engaging with the Taliban, particularly if that could help advance U.S. economic interests,” Mr. Kugelman said.

Discussions around Afghanistan’s mineral wealth are not new.

The United States spent nearly $1 billion between 2004 and 2021 to develop Afghanistan’s extractive industry but failed to accomplish any “tangible progress,” according to a 2023 report from SIGAR, the defunct U.S. government oversight agency for Afghanistan. The Taliban administration now holds mining investment deals with companies from China, Iran and Qatar, among others.

Beyond the United States, Mr. Muttaqi called on any country to invest in Afghanistan, where the Taliban administration is in desperate need of foreign capital.

Half of its estimated 45 million people require humanitarian assistance dwindled by U.S. aid cuts last year, according to the United Nations. About four million Afghans have returned from neighboring Pakistan and Iran since early 2025, in one of the largest episodes of reverse migration in decades.

Pakistan, which used to be Afghanistan’s primary trade partner, has closed its border over security concerns, sending the Taliban scrambling for alternative avenues of trade with Central Asian states, Iran and India.

During the interview, Mr. Muttaqi brushed aside a question about whether his government’s crackdown on women and girls was a barrier to international recognition. Earlier this year, he declared the government’s move to keep them out of secondary education was “temporary” — an argument the Taliban also used during their first rule, between 1996 and 2001, when Mr. Muttaqi served as education minister, and immediately after their return to power in 2021.

Mr. Abbas, the academic, said he expected the Taliban to remain isolated as long as they refused to move on their most extreme policies — which are largely dictated out of the city of Kandahar, the group’s spiritual heartland and home to Sheikh Akhundzada.

“Without compromising, without changing anything that they stand for, it is a no-starter,” Mr. Abbas said. “Something has to happen, and the Taliban are not offering that.”

Yaqoob Akbary and Safiullah Padshah contributed reporting.

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

The Taliban Kicked the U.S. Out of Afghanistan. Now They Want It Back.
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Islamic Emirate FM: There Is No Need for Dialogue With the Opposition

August 14, 2026
TOLOnews
TV Network
14 August2026

He described the Islamic Emirate government as “inclusive” and said there is no need for dialogue with its opponents.

Amir Khan Muttaqi, Foreign Minister of the Islamic Emirate, has told the BBC that the people of Afghanistan are satisfied with the current government and that the Islamic Emirate enjoys support across the country.

He described the Islamic Emirate government as “inclusive” and said there is no need for dialogue with its opponents.

Amir Khan Muttaqi, Foreign Minister of the Islamic Emirate, said: “Over the past five years, there have been no problems across the country’s 34 provinces, 400 districts and thousands of villages. If a problem arises in just one village, that is all. This demonstrates the people’s satisfaction.”

Regarding foreign relations, Muttaqi said Afghanistan currently has more than 40 active embassies and consulates and described Kabul’s relations with countries around the world as good.

He added that the decision not to recognize the Islamic Emirate depends on the policies of other countries.

Amir Khan Muttaqi said: “Do United Nations rules say that a government is recognized if it is inclusive and is not recognized if it is not? Don’t we see governments in the world today that came to power through coups? Aren’t there hereditary governments? Aren’t there governments centered around individuals? If such principles exist in UN rules, then someone should show us that this is a principle and that it must be followed.”

Regarding girls’ education, he said that education beyond the sixth grade has been postponed “until further notice,” while girls continue to receive education in religious schools.

Muttaqi said: “Regarding women, it is not the case that everything has been completely shut down in every sector. We see that more than three million female students are studying in religious schools and regular schools. In religious schools, they can continue their studies to the end, and they also have modern subjects.”

These remarks come as the United Nations said in a statement yesterday that improvements in the security situation have created opportunities for development and economic cooperation. However, restrictions imposed on women and girls, as well as concerns about terrorism, remain among Afghanistan’s challenges.

Islamic Emirate FM: There Is No Need for Dialogue With the Opposition
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Abbas fought the Taliban alongside US and Australian troops. Now exiled in Iran, he feels abandoned

August 14, 2026

As a child, the first iteration of Taliban rule forced his family to flee – with nothing but the clothes on their backs and what food they could carry – for the relative safety of far-distant hills.

War became his profession. Joining republican Afghanistan’s fledgling army, Abbas fought alongside American, Australian and British troops, believing in the foreigners’ ultimately false promise that they could bring peace and prosperity to his homeland.

Conflict is his constant attendant now, over Afghanistan’s border in neighbouring Iran, as the US, the country he fought with, rains bombs on the land of his exile. Back home, the resurgent Taliban – unreformed, unrepentant and firmly in charge – seek him still.

The war – for all its varied complexions, it feels the same war – goes on.

In the five years since Kabul dramatically fell back into the hands of the Taliban, those who served Afghanistan’s republican government have found themselves the targets of violent retribution. Those who took up arms against the Taliban are particular targets.

Abandoned US military databases – containing Afghans’ personal and biometric data such as fingerprints, photographs, and home addresses – are being used to hunt former soldiers who served the “infidel” west.

Social media groups share information of the latest atrocities, videos of former soldiers being whipped in the street, shot in summary executions, or dragged away in night raids to be tortured in Taliban prisons.

Abbas joined the military – initially at least – for the money. For a poor boy from the provinces, the army represented a regular income and a full belly, a reliable way to support his family. That there was a war on was barely a consideration: there was always a war on.

After basic training he passed a selection course to serve in the special forces.

“At first I joined for money but when I entered the commandos everything changed,” Abbas tells the Guardian. “There were foreign forces teaching us … they gave speeches about global terrorism.

“It was not about money any more. I became very committed, I just wanted to serve my country and fight Taliban and destroy the terrorist groups.”

He spent 12 years in the Afghan national army, most of those wearing the distinctive red badge of the special forces, “and we fought many hard battles”.

Abbas served alongside Australian troops in southern Afghanistan, night-time missions by helicopter in late 2011, in the restive and mountainous Khas Uruzgan district.

“There were many forces we served with: Germans in Kunduz, French in Kapisa, and especially we were with Americans. The Australian forces were in Uruzgan, and we went there. We took part in combat alongside them, especially in Khas Uruzgan, we … executed two missions with them by air.”

Abbas said he and his comrades “were always on the frontline”.

“We spent many days and nights with foreign forces. I performed combat duties in [approximately] 20 provinces of Afghanistan.”

Unidentified soldier on a rock.

He was wounded in a firefight in Laghman district, shot twice at close range. His bulletproof vest deflected the bullet that struck the left side of his chest, “but another hit my left arm, breaking the bone”. He was taken by US helicopter to Bagram hospital: “I still have a metal plate in my left arm.”

Abbas remembers the camaraderie of his days serving alongside western troops with fondness: “We risked our lives to help each other on and off the battlefield and to rescue one another. They always called us brothers.”

But he remembers too, the commitments that were made to him.

Soldiers standing beside tank
Abbas served alongside Australian troops in southern Afghanistan, night-time missions by helicopter in late 2011, in the Khas Uruzgan district. Photograph: supplied

“They promised they wouldn’t abandon us. But in the end, when they withdrew, they simply left us. And they did it in such a way that we were left with our hands tied, the entire army was disarmed.

“Those who were high-ranking officials left, while the rest of us, sergeants like me, were left behind. No one even asked about us.”

When Kabul fell, Abbas was forced to burn most of his documents and destroy photographs: incriminating evidence in the eyes of the Taliban.

A bare handful remain secretly in his possession: pictures on patrol with western forces, certificates of appreciation from foreign militaries commending his “outstanding commitment, dedication and support” to their operations.

Life since the fall, with a wife and young son, has been precarious, often dangerous. His has been a shifting, uncertain existence in the shadows.

As the Taliban swept northwards across Afghanistan, expanding and consolidating its control from the major cities to smaller, more distant villages, there were fewer and fewer places to hide.

With his family, Abbas fled over Afghanistan’s arid, inhospitable border into Iran.

There, with no legal rights, he is vulnerable to exploitation and extortion: landlords demand thousands of dollars for tiny apartments that have been condemned as unfit for habitation; he has been forced to take dangerous, illegal work for far less than a living wage.

X-ray of a metal plate in Abbas’s arm
Abbas was wounded in a firefight in Laghman district, shot twice at close range. ‘I still have a metal plate in my left arm.’ Photograph: Supplied

When US bombs started raining down on Tehran, Abbas and his family fled once again for the mountainous countryside.

“Our life in Iran is very difficult, refugees face a lot of problems. Especially for us former military personnel … we are still being threatened by Taliban groups even here. We also fear that we might be deported to Afghanistan.”

Abbas said his family’s future depends on being able to find a safe country, far from the reach of the Taliban, and the American war which has blighted his Iranian exile.

“I am waiting to see what will happen, but I am hopeful … I will build a better life for my family, a better future for my son.”

Many in Afghanistan feel as Abbas does – betrayed by the foreign forces in whom they placed their trust.

On the day of his second inauguration as US president, Donald Trump halted all Afghan refugee resettlement by executive order. The shutdown left more than 1,000 Afghan former interpreters and soldiers stranded in a US-run camp in Qatar, and hundreds of thousands more vetted applicants stuck in neighbouring countries like Pakistan.

In Germany, a new government sought to renege on a commitment to resettling hundreds of Afghan refugees it had identified as being at risk. The country’s highest court ruled it could not arbitrarily cancel hundreds of resettlement places it had already promised.

And in Britain, a House of Commons committee report this month reported that a massive data breach from within the UK government’s Afghan relocations and assistance policy exposed thousands of Afghans to potentially life-threatening danger. Afghans still trapped inside the country are being told by the UK government to “self-move” to safe third countries, a policy that “risks excluding people the UK has promised to help,” the committee chair, Tan Dhesi, said.

A spokesperson for Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said five years on from the fall of Kabul: “We stand firm in our pursuit to do all we can to protect the people of Afghanistan from the oppressive acts of the Taliban, particularly women and girls.

“We also remain committed to assisting those who helped Australia’s mission in Afghanistan.”

Until 2023 the Australian government ran a dedicated “locally engaged employee” (LEE) program for Afghans who worked for and with Australia “and are at risk of harm as a result of their work”.

The program certified 2,059 Afghans – but only 1,208 of those have reached Australia, according to the latest government figures (along with 4,493 immediate family members).

But hundreds of Afghans still living in hiding inside the country, or stranded in perilous situations elsewhere, say they were unable to apply before the LEE program closed, or had their applications rejected despite providing evidence of support for Australia, including fighting alongside Australian troops. A government review of the program found it was riven by “delays, double handling and confusion”, and it imposed an unreasonable administrative burden on those fleeing the Taliban seeking safety.

Abbas has family in Australia, and, having fought alongside Australian troops on their missions in Afghanistan, he applied for LEE protection from Australia.

He was rejected, the government ruling he had not been “in a direct employment relationship with defence”.

Zaki Haidari wearing glasses and a green T-shirt
‘Many people who supported Australia’s mission remain at risk and continue to wait for protection’, says former Afghan refugee and Amnesty International advocate Zaki Haidari 

“While the applicant might have worked alongside the coalition forces, including members of the Australian Defence Force in partnership on operations in Afghanistan, it does not appear that the applicant was ‘employed with’ the ADF,” the government decision states.

Wong’s spokesperson said the current government had approved more LEE applications than any before it. “Since the Albanese government took office, Dfat has certified close to 650 applications from Afghan Locally Engaged Employees, more than the total approved under all previous foreign ministers combined since the program began in 2013.”

Australia, too, has provided broader support – more than $310m in humanitarian assistance, through established partners and UN agencies – “to ensure our aid supports those most in need – not the Taliban”.

Zaki Haidari, a former Afghan refugee who is now an Australian citizen, remains in close contact with dozens of former soldiers, interpreters and others who supported western nations in their failed two-decade mission in Afghanistan.

“Almost every conversation I have with people inside Afghanistan is filled with fear, uncertainty and hopelessness. Families tell me they struggle to afford food, many have lost their livelihoods, and parents worry constantly about the future of their children,” Haidari, Amnesty International’s Australian refugee rights advocate, says.

Haidari said women live under constant surveillance, fearing arrest for speaking out or failing to comply with the Taliban’s ever-tightening restrictions. Members of the Hazara ethnic and religious minority – for decades Taliban targets – are forcibly evicted from homes, and face discrimination and violence.

Haidari said Australia’s LEE program “undoubtedly saved lives”, but there were still thousands endangered by their support and assistance for Australia.

Hopes that a Taliban desperate for international legitimacy would temper their more repressive instincts have proven illusory: with global attention shifted to other conflicts, the Taliban has further entrenched their brutality across Afghanistan.

Australia’s obligation to the people of Afghanistan “did not end with the military withdrawal”, Haidari says.

“Many people who supported Australia’s mission remain at risk and continue to wait for protection.

“Many fear for their lives every day.”

*Name/s have been changed

Abbas fought the Taliban alongside US and Australian troops. Now exiled in Iran, he feels abandoned
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Malala Yousafzai Calls for Unconditional Release of Six Women’s Rights Activists in Kabul

August 14, 2026
Khaama Press

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai has called for the immediate and unconditional release of six women’s rights activists detained in Kabul, saying that defending women and children should not be treated as a crime.

Yousafzai made the call on Thursday, August 13, 2026, in a post on X, saying the six workers had been detained after Taliban authorities raided the office of the Women and Children Legal Research Foundation in Kabul several weeks ago.

She said the activists’ work was not a threat but “a vital lifeline” for women and girls in Afghanistan, and called for their immediate, safe and unconditional release.

Yousafzai said she was joining Amnesty International, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan and others in calling for the release of the six workers.

The detention of the employees has also drawn concern from international rights groups. Human Rights Watch has previously called for the release of six male employees of the organization, saying they had been forcibly disappeared after being taken from the group’s Kabul office.

The organization has worked on humanitarian assistance and programs supporting the rights of women and children, according to the material provided.

The latest call comes amid continued restrictions on women and girls in Afghanistan, including limits on education, employment and participation in public life.

The circumstances surrounding the detention of the six workers, including the allegations against them and their current legal status, remain unclear based on the information available.

No further details about the detainees, including whether they have been formally charged or given access to legal representation, were provided in Yousafzai’s statement.

Malala Yousafzai Calls for Unconditional Release of Six Women’s Rights Activists in Kabul
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Afghan Farmers Are Collateral Damage in the Taliban’s War on Drugs

August 14, 2026

BADAKHSHAN, Afghanistan — For the past decade, Asadullah’s poppy fields offered his family something rare in Afghanistan: a reliable income.

That stability came to an abrupt end in May, when Taliban officials walked through his fields here in northeastern Afghanistan, cutting down his opium-producing flowers. It was part of a far-reaching crackdown that has ended the country’s status as the world’s top producer of the narcotic while upending the lives of the hardscrabble farmers who depend on it.

“We cultivated opium because of poverty and necessity,” said Asadullah, who is known only by his given name as is common in rural Afghanistan. “Half a kilo of opium is worth 100 seers (700 kilograms) of wheat. Now, the Taliban came and destroyed it by force.”

Afghanistan was once the world’s largest opium producer and a key cog in the global drug trade. In 2009, an estimated 90 percent of the world’s heroin was sourced from Afghan poppies.

But the situation changed dramatically when Taliban authorities announced a sweeping ban on poppy cultivation in 2022, a year after the group returned to power in Kabul as U.S. forces ended their 20-year occupation. The Taliban said the ban is for religious reasons, part of its strict Islamic worldview that forbids narcotics. But analysts point out that it’s also meant to help gain international legitimacy, unlock foreign aid and win sanctions relief.

A Holdout Province

The Taliban’s anti-drug campaign has been strikingly successful: opium production has collapsed by more than 95 percent. But Badakhshan, a remote and mountainous province that has typically been difficult to control from Kabul, has proven more challenging.

Taliban officials said they have razed 4,000 hectaresof poppy fields across Badakhshan since May. Many farmers in the area not only continue to defy the nationwide ban but have also tried to produce more.

“A very large amount has been cultivated [in Badakhshan]. Compared to previous years, cultivation has increased fivefold,” said Abdullah Habib, a Taliban official tasked with destroying poppy fields in the province.

The surge is likely being driven by economics as much as defiance. After the Taliban announced the 2022 ban, the average price for one kilogram of opium rose from$100 to more than $700 in some areas.

“We aim to reduce [poppy cultivation] to zero,” Habib said, adding that around 1,500 people have been deployed to oversee their destruction. Indeed, here in Badakhshan, it has become common to see Taliban officials moving through fields of colorful flowers, slashing them down with sickles and heavy sticks.

As Asadullah’s predicament illustrates, thousands of families depend on this crop for everything–daily expenses, healthcare and children’s education. Switching from poppies to any other crop means a sharp fall in income.

Qurban Ali is another small farmer who has spent the past decade cultivating poppies. This year, he cobbled together $2,000 to spend on the plants, expecting a hefty return on his investment—until his crop was destroyed. Now, he fears he will be reduced to a daily wage laborer, a prospect that means scraping by with $5 or $10 a day doing menial jobs like construction work or street vending.

Bashir Ahmed, another farmer, said that the real problem is that the Taliban hasn’t focused on assistance for poppy cultivators to transition to other livelihoods.

“If alternative cultivation and work opportunities are provided for our people, we will definitely stop cultivating poppies,” he said. “Poor farmers have not benefited from this; the biggest profits go to traffickers.”

Prohibition and Profit

Poppy cultivation has a long and tortuous history in Afghanistan. It has been alternately banned and utilized by the Taliban, not to mention other Afghan militias, to fund their war efforts.

The Taliban initially outlawed poppy production in July 2000, during their first stint in power. The measure was effective, but cultivation bounced back after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan and the installation of a new government backed by Washington.

Between 2002 and 2021, the United States spent roughly $9 billion on a counternarcotics campaign to fight the Taliban, which was using the proceeds from the illicit trade to finance their years-long insurgency against the U.S.

“We cultivated opium because of poverty and necessity… Now, the Taliban came and destroyed it by force.”

Despite those efforts, poppy farming persisted. According to a report by the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime, the Taliban made an estimated $61 million to $113 million in 2019 alone by taxing the opium trade.

Then, they banned it once again after returning to power.

The Cost of the Crackdown

The cash crop’s sudden disappearance has wreaked havoc on farmers. A year after the ban, in 2023, agricultural income fell more than 92 percent, from an estimated $1.36 billion to $110 million, according to a U.N. survey.

“Afghanistan’s people need urgent humanitarian assistance to meet their most immediate needs, to absorb the shock of lost income and to save lives,” Ghada Waly, the executive director of the U.N. drugs and crime office, said at the time. “Afghanistan is in dire need of strong investment in sustainable livelihoods, to provide Afghan farmers with opportunities away from opium.”

Still, social activists have championed the Taliban’s strict implementation of the ban, saying it was long overdue. They point to the major health crisis the illicit drug trade had created inside the country. According to a U.N. report from 2010, at the height of opium production, some 1 million Afghans, or 8 percent of the population, suffered from drug addiction, mostly opium and heroin. That figure was twice the global average at the time.

The problem hasn’t entirely gone away. A February 2026 UN report found that opium is still perceived as the second-most used drug in the country after cannabis, suggesting overall drug use remains high.

“In recent years, many young people have turned to using drugs, and the main reason was the increase in poppy cultivation,” said Ahmed Javid, an activist in Badakhshan.

Alongside the fight against illicit narcotics, he emphasized that farmers should be given alternative economic opportunities.

“The government must stop cultivation; however, it should provide alternative cultivation opportunities for farmers, irrigate agricultural lands, and implement more development projects so that job opportunities are created for people,” Javid said.

Taliban officials claim they are creating new sources of income for the farmers.

“We are trying to provide job opportunities in the mining sector for farmers and people so that they do not cultivate narcotics anymore,” said Habib, the official charged with destroying poppy fields.

In February, the Afghan Ministry of Mines and Petroleum said that 100,000 people were employed by the mining sector in Badakhshan, working on various projects worth 223 million afghanis ($3.4 million). While those figures are difficult to verify, the World Bank has noted that employment in Afghanistan’s mining sector has grown at an annual rate of 15 percent.

But Asadullah said he had not heard of any job opportunities in the mining sector. His fields are now empty, and he cannot plant other crops without incurring a significant loss.

“The fields where we used to cultivate opium were completely destroyed,” he said. “We were promised that alternative cultivation would be provided for us, but nothing has been done. Regarding job opportunities in the mines, we have no information at all.”

“Where should poor people like us go?” he continued. “This was our only work, and they took it away from us.”

Abdullah Badakhsh is an Afghan journalist based in Badakhshan, northeastern Afghanistan. He covers security, development, social issues and the lives of communities in remote areas. He writes under a pen name due to restrictions on the press in Afghanistan.

This article has been produced in collaboration with Egab.

Afghan Farmers Are Collateral Damage in the Taliban’s War on Drugs
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UNAMA Calls for Global Engagement and Lifting Restrictions on Women

August 14, 2026
Tolo News

13 August 2026

The Islamic Emirate has also repeatedly called for greater engagement between the international community and Afghanistan.

On the fifth anniversary of the Islamic Emirate’s return to power, UNAMA has emphasized the need for continued principled and practical international engagement with Afghanistan, saying the country’s future depends on inclusive progress and sustained global cooperation.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a statement that Afghanistan has experienced a period of improved security, while calling on the Islamic Emirate to take steps toward ensuring lasting stability for the Afghan people.

Georgette Gagnon, Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Officer-in-Charge of UNAMA, said: “Lasting peace and prosperity depend on more than the absence of conflict. Afghanistan’s future depends on building a society where the rights and potential of all Afghans are realized and institutions are accountable and responsible.”

Wahid Faqiri, an international relations analyst, said: “There is no doubt that the world wants to engage with Afghanistan. Pragmatic engagement means not leaving Afghanistan alone and helping it emerge from isolation, but to a large extent, this depends on Afghans themselves.”

UNAMA said restrictions imposed on women and girls, as well as continuing concerns over terrorism, remain among the major challenges to Afghanistan’s stability and development.

The mission added that since 2021, the United Nations has continued engaging with the Islamic Emirate authorities and supporting the Afghan people through humanitarian assistance, the provision of basic services, and political and human rights efforts.

UNAMA once again called on the Islamic Emirate to lift restrictions imposed on women.

Mumtaz Yousafzai, a women’s rights activist, said: “All security-related challenges have been resolved. Our only demand is that girls’ education should resume.”

Gul Mohammad Din Mohammadi, a political analyst, said: “The Islamic Emirate should work to resolve the existing problems, accept the legitimate demands of the people, and take action in the areas of education, health, and reducing unemployment.”

The Islamic Emirate has also repeatedly called for greater engagement between the international community and Afghanistan.

UNAMA Calls for Global Engagement and Lifting Restrictions on Women
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Malnutrition Crisis Deepens as Funding Cuts Close Nearly 600 Health Facilities in Afghanistan, Save the Children Says

August 14, 2026
Khaama Press

Acute malnutrition among children in Afghanistan is worsening as humanitarian funding falls sharply, forcing the closure or suspension of hundreds of health facilities and leaving millions with reduced access to essential healthcare.

Save the Children said on Thursday, August 13, 2026, that nearly one in 10 children under five in Afghanistan is suffering from wasting, with acute malnutrition worsening in two-thirds of provinces compared with the same period last year.

The number of children under five affected by acute malnutrition has risen by 14% over four years to 3.7 million in 2026, according to figures cited by the aid agency and UN data. Infectious diseases, poor nutrition and wider humanitarian pressures are contributing to the deterioration.

At the same time, humanitarian funding has fallen from $3.27 billion in 2022 to about $1 billion in 2025. Only $438 million had been secured for 2026, leaving a 74% funding gap, Save the Children said.

The funding crisis has contributed to the closure or suspension of nearly 600 health facilities, affecting about four million people, around half of them children.

The impact is particularly severe in remote areas, where health facilities can be the only affordable source of treatment. Save the Children said one clinic in northern Afghanistan serves about 10,000 people and receives more than 100 patients a day, with some families walking for hours to reach it.

The crisis is also unfolding as Afghanistan faces a growing number of returnees from Pakistan and Iran, displacement, drought and other humanitarian pressures, further increasing demand for already limited health and nutrition services. UN analysis estimates nearly 3.7 million children aged 6–59 months will experience acute malnutrition during 2026.

Save the Children warned that continued funding shortages could reverse progress in child health and nutrition and leave vulnerable families without timely access to lifesaving services.

Malnutrition Crisis Deepens as Funding Cuts Close Nearly 600 Health Facilities in Afghanistan, Save the Children Says
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UNAMA: Afghanistan’s Security Gains Not Enough to Ensure Lasting Stability

August 14, 2026
Khaama Press

The security situation in Afghanistan has improved and armed conflict has declined since the Taliban returned to power five years ago, but the progress alone is not enough to ensure lasting stability, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said Thursday.

In a statement marking five years since the Taliban takeover, UNAMA said the reduction in violence has brought “tangible benefits” to many Afghans and created opportunities to focus on economic development, regional cooperation and other priorities.

The UN mission also identified the Taliban’s ban on opium poppy cultivation as a positive development. However, it said major political, human rights and security challenges remain unresolved.

UNAMA highlighted restrictions on women and girls, concerns over terrorism, limits on civic space and freedom of expression, and restrictions affecting female humanitarian and UN workers as among the challenges facing Afghanistan.

“Five years have shown that Afghans, after decades of war, place great value on peace and stability,” Georgette Gagnon, the UN deputy special representative for Afghanistan and acting head of UNAMA, said in the statement.

“But sustainable peace and prosperity require more than the absence of conflict,” Gagnon said, adding that Afghanistan’s future depends on building a society where the rights and potential of all Afghans can be realized and institutions are accountable.

The Taliban seized power in August 2021 after the previous Afghanistan government collapsed and the United States and NATO completed their military withdrawal following two decades of war. Since then, large-scale fighting has declined significantly in many parts of Afghanistan.

UNAMA said the reduction in violence has created opportunities for economic improvement and stronger regional cooperation. At the same time, it warned that restrictions on women and girls are having immediate and long-term social and economic consequences.

Under Taliban policies, women and girls have been barred from much of secondary and higher education and face extensive restrictions on employment and participation in public life. UNAMA said these restrictions also remain a major obstacle to broader international engagement and investment in Afghanistan.

Gagnon called on the Taliban to lift restrictions on women and girls and allow them to participate fully in education, employment and public life. She also urged the authorities to protect fundamental rights and freedoms and address international concerns over security and terrorism.

UNAMA said terrorism remains an unresolved challenge and that international concerns over terrorist threats continue to complicate Afghanistan’s relations with neighboring countries and the wider international community. The mission did not name a specific group or refer to a particular attack in the statement.

UNAMA: Afghanistan’s Security Gains Not Enough to Ensure Lasting Stability
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HRW Calls for Release of 8 UN and Aid Workers Detained in Afghanistan

August 14, 2026
Khaama Press

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday called for the release of eight employees of the United Nations and a nongovernmental organization who it says have been detained or forcibly disappeared in Afghanistan.

The rights group said six male employees of the Women and Children Research and Legal Protection Network, a nongovernmental organization involved in humanitarian assistance and supporting the rights of women and children, were forcibly disappeared from the organization’s office in Kabul last month.

HRW also called for the release of two Afghan employees of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), who the group said were detained by the Taliban authorities in the western city of Herat on Sunday.

The United Nations has confirmed the detention of the two UNAMA employees.

Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, told reporters on Wednesday that UNAMA had not received information about the allegations against the two employees and had not been granted access to them.

“We have not received information about the allegations against them, nor have we been granted access to them,” Haq said, according to the UN.

Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesperson for the Taliban authorities, told Reuters that he was seeking details about the recent detentions but had not yet received definitive information.

HRW called on the Taliban authorities to release the detained employees and provide information about the whereabouts and status of the six NGO workers it said had been forcibly disappeared.

Freshta Abbasi, Afghanistan researcher at HRW, said the detention of UNAMA employees threatens the United Nations’ ability to provide what the rights group described as vital assistance in Afghanistan.

The detentions come as humanitarian organizations continue operating in Afghanistan amid restrictions affecting civil society groups, aid workers and international organizations.

The cases involving the six NGO employees and the two UNAMA staff members have not been publicly explained in detail by the Taliban authorities in the material provided for this report. It is also unclear whether the eight cases are connected.

The United Nations has said that it expects its personnel in Afghanistan to be able to carry out their work safely and in accordance with applicable privileges and immunities.

HRW Calls for Release of 8 UN and Aid Workers Detained in Afghanistan
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