Taliban threaten former Afghan police worker after MoD leak reveals identity

August 17, 2026

A man has received threats from the Taliban after his work for the Afghan police was revealed by a Ministry of Defence leak and the UK refused his application for resettlement.

Hamid* worked for the Afghan national police special unit and received certificates for his work signed by senior British figures praising his “dedication, unparalleled service and leadership”. His details were also included in an accidental 2022 leak by an MoD official that identified 18,700 Afghans who had worked with or for the British government.

Hamid said he had received a number of threats from the Taliban, including a video he shared with the Guardian in which a man cradling a rifle and sitting below a Taliban flag threatens to pursue him and cites knowledge of his previous movements.

The MoD, however, has rejected his application for resettlement under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy (Arap) scheme. His most recent rejection, received on 31 July, stated that Hamid had not provided evidence of “working alongside, in partnership with or closely supporting a UK government department”. It gave him 28 days to appeal.

Hamid said: “This is extremely painful because I have already submitted every document available to me proving my service. Furthermore, many of my former colleagues who served in exactly the same department and performed the same duties have already been relocated to the UK through the Arap scheme.

“Despite this evidence, my case continues to be refused. I believe my case raises serious questions about how some former Afghan partners of the UK continue to be treated despite years of loyal service.”

Hamid’s plea for help comes five years after the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan on 15 August 2021 after the withdrawal of US and Nato forces. The UK government launched the Arap scheme on 1 April 2021 and closed it to new applications on 1 July last year. Pre-existing applications continue to be processed.

Under Arap, high risk of death or serious injury are only taken into account if the rest of the criteria are deemed to have been met, which they have not in Hamid’s case. “Must I wait until I am captured, tortured or killed by the Taliban before my service and the danger I face are finally recognised?” he said.

“Following the Ministry of Defence data breach, my personal information was exposed, placing me at even greater risk. Since then, my life has changed completely. I cannot safely leave my home to work. I live in constant fear of being recognised or targeted.”

After the leak, the then defence secretary, John Healey, said the dataset included people who had made speculative applications under Arap and had not worked with British forces. He said being included in the leak “doesn’t give them a right to claim access to Britain”.

“It doesn’t give them a right to claim asylum. It doesn’t make them eligible for the special [Arap] scheme that Britain put in place for those who’d worked alongside or served with our forces,” he said.

Hamid said that because he was in hiding he had no reliable income and relied on his wife, who supports the family by doing small jobs from home. “This is our family’s only source of income, and even then we struggle simply to survive,” he said.

“The emotional impact has been devastating. My wife and I have become deeply exhausted, depressed and hopeless after years of fear, uncertainty, repeated refusals and financial hardship.

“I am not asking for special treatment. I am only asking for a fair review based on the evidence I have already provided.”

An MoD spokesperson said: “Each application is considered on a case-by-case basis, assessed against the evidence provided, such as how they supported the UK mission in Afghanistan, and in line with the publicly available eligibility criteria.

“Since the Taliban takeover, the UK has resettled almost 39,000 Afghan men, women and children through Afghan resettlement schemes.”

  • Name has been changed

Taliban threaten former Afghan police worker after MoD leak reveals identity
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The Taliban are vile. Democracies must still engage with them

August 17, 2026
The Economist

Five years ago President Joe Biden pulled American troops out of Afghanistan. He was not forced to. America could have defended Afghanistan’s flawed but democratically elected government indefinitely, but chose not to. Voters were weary of America’s longest war, against the Taliban, a militia that controlled much of the countryside. Donald Trump set a timetable for pulling out; Mr Biden did so completely.

America’s looming departure prompted every Afghan with a gun to revise their expectations about who was likely to win their country’s civil war. Warlords switched sides; government soldiers abandoned their posts and melted away. The government fell almost immediately. The Taliban seized power almost unopposed. Desperate civilians fleeing their new rulers clung to the wheels of a departing American plane and plunged to their deaths.

The Taliban (whose name means “religious students”) had first seized power in 1996, and imposed a brutal blend of Islamism and premodern tribal custom, banning girls’ education and stoning gay people to death. America and its allies overthrew them after they hosted al-Qaeda, the terrorist group that attacked America with hijacked planes in September 2001. But Taliban fighters then waged a guerrilla war against the democratic system that America had introduced, murdering judges, police and anyone deemed a collaborator. When Mr Biden gave up, a two-decade effort at nation-building ended in humiliation. Other powers drew conclusions about America’s willingness to stand by its friends. Six months later, Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.

Five years on, America has largely forgotten Afghanistan. This is a mistake. The country is more likely to cause geopolitical trouble again if it is ignored. Its people will suffer even more. And it is more likely to fall into China’s or Russia’s orbit.

As our correspondent reports this week, after a 1,000km road trip inside the country, the Taliban are firmly in charge and the place is largely calm, bar intermittent sparring with its neighbour, Pakistan. But it is a grim stability.

Music is banned. Armed men rule the streets. The vice-and-virtue police dish out beatings to sinners, such as men with inadequate beards. Women are barred from workplaces, universities and travel without a male guardian. Girls are banned from secondary school and, since child marriage is now legal, many have been forced straight from the classroom into wedlock. How much poorer, sicker and sadder all this has made Afghans is hard to say; data-gathering is not a Taliban priority.

Most Afghans yearn for more freedom. Even many Talibs, after years in exile, no longer believe that the sky will fall if girls can spell. But hardliners have ruthlessly asserted control. The Taliban’s emir, Haibatullah Akhundzada, has recruited a loyal praetorian guard and grabbed lucrative mining contracts. More moderate Talibs are generally too weak or scared to challenge him. Some of the few who did had to flee.

America and Europe have tried to isolate the Taliban regime, refusing to recognise it, freezing Afghan central-bank reserves held abroad and slapping sanctions on officials. But this has achieved almost nothing. Taliban hardliners do not mind if Western diplomats and investors stay away, and will not adjust their ideology just to lay hands on the old government’s assets. So Western countries must try something new.

This means recognising some hard truths. First, the Taliban are not going anywhere. Second, if the West does not engage with them, other powers will. Russia has formally recognised them. China, India, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates work with them on issues such as mining and trade. The Taliban threaten to destabilise relations between India and Pakistan, since the latter fears that closer ties between Delhi and Kabul could leave it sandwiched between enemies.

Hints of a more hard-nosed Western approach are starting to be visible. Europeans still say the Afghan regime is beyond the pale, yet in June they invited Taliban officials to Brussels to discuss migrant flows and repatriating failed asylum-seekers. America quietly shares intelligence with them in the fight against even more extreme Islamist groups.

Other forms of engagement would also make sense. It is too soon to unfreeze the $4.2bn of Afghan central-bank reserves in Switzerland, which would surely be used to prop up the execrable emir. But donors should stop cutting humanitarian aid, which has fallen by around 70% since 2022. Nearly half the population needs it, by one estimate. It is also useful to have UN agencies on the ground, with eyes and ears to warn of looming famine, unrest or the theft of aid.

A second step should be sanctions reform. Many senior Talibs who were put under sanctions decades ago as terrorists are now ministers. That is having the unintended effect of locking the country out of the global financial system and starving it of private investment. Western firms fear to do any kind of business in Afghanistan, in case they fall foul of terrorist-financing rules. Changing this could boost growth, which might eventually ease the mass joblessness that threatens the country’s long-term stability.

Cables to Kabul

A more controversial step would be diplomatic recognition. This does not imply approval. Decent governments recognise many regimes they despise. Rather, it means accepting the reality that the Taliban are likely to rule Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. Withholding diplomatic ties is not much of a bargaining chip—the Taliban do not think their legitimacy depends on the say-so of infidels. However, functioning embassies can watch out for terrorist threats, and create useful channels of communication, which in time could encourage the regime’s more moderate elements.

Make no mistake. Reform of this vile government must come largely from within, and could be the work of decades. But judicious engagement is likely to do more good than harm. So it is time for America and other democracies to hold their collective noses and talk to the Taliban.

The Taliban are vile. Democracies must still engage with them
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While Taliban leaders mark 5 years in power in Afghanistan, a UN official warns of a rights crisis

August 16, 2026
By ABDUL QAHAR AFGHAN and SUZAN FRASER
August 15, 2026
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban rulers and other officials gathered at Afghanistan’s traditional Loya Jirga assembly hall on Saturday to celebrate the fifth anniversary of their return to power, touting what they described as restored stability and an end to decades of conflict.

A top United Nations official, however, warned of a grave human rights crisis in Afghanistan, where girls over age 12 are barred from attending school.

The Taliban seized power on Aug. 15, 2021, as the U.S. and other NATO troops withdrew following a costly two-decade war. The U.S. withdrawal led to chaos at Kabul airport as crowds of people tried to flee the country in desperation.

Soon after taking power, the Taliban administration imposed a ban on girls’ education beyond the sixth grade and later banned higher education for women, despite having pledged before the takeover that women would be allowed access to education, employment and public participation.

Women have also been banned from public spaces such as gyms and parks, from taking part in sports and traveling to distant locations without a male guardian.

Taliban hails ‘liberation’ from American forces

At the Loya Jirga, high-ranking officials were joined by some foreign representatives and thousands of ordinary citizens for speeches marking what they said was Afghanistan’s liberation from American forces.

“We pray to Almighty God to forever protect our homeland from occupation, aggression, wars, and insecurity, and to enable our people to enjoy peace, tranquility, and prosperity under the auspices of the Sharia-based government,” the Taliban government’s deputy spokesman, Hamdullah Fitrat, said during the ceremony.

Abdul Salam Hanafi, the deputy prime minister in charge of administrative affairs, said the Taliban rule ended an era of external interventions and internal strife in Afghanistan “over the past half-century,” restoring security.

“At least 300 Afghan youth were martyred or killed every day,” Hanafi said. “Three hundred sisters would become widows, several children would become orphans and 300 mothers would be grieving. Praise be to God, with the rule of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, this tragedy was removed from the Afghan nation.”

There were no women present at the ceremony.

Top Taliban official calls for more international engagement

Five years on, the Taliban government remains isolated internationally, with Russia being the only country to have recognized it formally.

Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said countries that have engaged with the administration have gained from doing so and called on others that have not established contacts to reconsider their approach.

“They should move towards a policy of engagement and mutual interaction,” he said.

Celebrations held under tight security

In Kabul, Afghans took to the squares carrying Taliban flags and chanting slogans in support of the government. Convoys of vehicles wound their way through the city, causing traffic jams.

Security was tight, with a heavy Taliban security force presence and several checkpoints on a main road leading to the Loya Jirga.

Celebrations were also held in provinces across Afghanistan, where Taliban flags and posters emblazoned with slogans in praise of the Taliban’s return to power were displayed along major roads and marketplaces.

UN warns of worsening human rights crisis

In a video message, Richard Bennett, the U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Afghanistan, said the country was undergoing a deep human rights crisis.

“While the era of war has ended, it’s questionable whether there’s real peace, and the human rights situation has steadily deteriorated, most dramatically for women and girls,” Bennett said. “My mandate has concluded that this system amounts to the crime against humanity of gender persecution.”

“The crisis extends well beyond gender discrimination, even beyond gender apartheid,” he continued, noting that the U.N. continues to document arbitrary arrests, torture, extrajudicial killings and persecution of minorities in Afghanistan.

Bennett warned the international community against “normalizing” the Taliban’s policies, saying it would legitimize the discrimination and tell “victims their suffering is negotiable.”

In an interview with The Associated Press earlier this week, Molvi Hayatullah Mahajar Farahi, deputy minister in the Taliban government for broadcasting at the Ministry of Information and Culture, said despite “challenges and difficulties” the administration has in the past five years delivered security and infrastructure and created jobs.

2.4 million girls excluded from secondary education

Farahi, when asked, did not address the issue of the education of girls and women but said “the level of investment made in universities surpasses anything seen in the past.”

The U.N. agency on education and culture, UNESCO, estimates that some 2.4 million girls have been excluded from secondary education. The U.N. World Food Program said child malnutrition has reached critical levels in a third of Afghanistan’s provinces and is expected to worsen due to funding shortfalls.

U.N. Women said this week that women and girls are facing the harshest restrictions in the world and that the bans are damaging Afghanistan’s future, with the lack of teachers, doctors, nurses and midwives threatening the country’s social and economic foundations.

Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey.

 

While Taliban leaders mark 5 years in power in Afghanistan, a UN official warns of a rights crisis
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Afghanistan marks 5 years under the Taliban with safer streets but pleas for jobs and education

August 16, 2026

By  ABDUL QAHAR AFGHAN and SUZAN FRASER

Associated Press

August 14, 2026

 

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — As Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers mark five years since sweeping back to power, some Kabul residents say they feel safer after decades of conflict and upheaval but stress the leaders should now focus on creating jobs and expanding access to schools in the country where girls above the age of 12 are banned from education.

The Taliban regained control of Afghanistan on Aug. 15, 2021, after it launched an offensive as the U.S. and other NATO troops withdrew from the country after two decades of war. The withdrawal led to chaotic scenes at and around Kabul’s airport with thousands wanting to leave.

“Thank God, the past five years have passed in safety,” said Mohammad Qasim, 30, reflecting on the anniversary that comes against a backdrop of economic hardship in a conflict-stricken country. “Our wish and hope from the government is to create job opportunities for the youth.”

“We, along with the entire nation, call upon the government to create employment opportunities for the youth and to encourage them to pursue education,” he added.

Taliban curbs women’s rights despite pledge

Before the takeover, the Taliban stated that, upon assuming power, it would allow women access to education, employment and public participation, albeit in accordance with its interpretation of Islamic principles.

Soon after it seized power, the Taliban imposed an indefinite ban on girls’ education beyond the sixth grade and, a few months later, also banned higher education for women until “further notice.”

Women also were banned from entering gyms, parks and public baths, from taking part in sports and traveling to distant locations without a “mahram,” or male guardian.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid has repeatedly said the administration is working to establish conditions under which girls and women can attend classrooms or university campuses in line with Islamic Sharia laws. The restrictions, nevertheless, remain in force.

While the United Nations has acknowledged that the country has become more stable since the takeover, it has warned that lasting stability cannot be possible unless the Taliban rulers — who remain isolated internationally — lift restrictions on women and girls, protect basic rights and address terrorism concerns.

“A reduction in conflict has brought tangible benefits for many Afghans and created opportunities to focus on recovery, development and regional economic cooperation,” the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, or UNAMA, said in a statement ahead of the anniversary. It added, however, that the restrictions on women and girls impede Afghanistan’s recovery and its reintegration with the international community.

UN says Afghanistan in world’s most severe women’s rights crisis

In a statement this week, the U.N.’s agency on women’s rights said Afghan women and girls are living under the world’s most severe restrictions, which not only violate their rights but also threaten the country’s social and economic future.

“Half a decade after the Taliban takeover in August 2021, Afghanistan has systematically dismantled the rights of half its population, making it a global outlier with no parallel in the modern world,” U.N. Women said.

“In the past year alone, this exclusion of women and girls from education, employment, public life, justice systems and healthcare has only intensified, entrenching what remains the world’s most severe women’s rights crisis,” it said.

Fazila Soroush, a 39-year-old Kabul-based entrepreneur and an advocate for women’s rights, said the government had “demonstrated its worth to the people through its actions in every area.”

“We consider it essential that the officials of the Islamic Emirate who had announced the closure of schools and universities until further notice, now make a clear and practical decision regarding this matter,” she said.

In the streets of Kabul, preparations for the anniversary celebrations were underway. Vendors sold the Taliban’s white with black scripted flags while painters were busy writing slogans in praise of Islamic laws on walls, including: “The Islamic system has been achieved at the cost of the martyrs’ blood” and “Our commitment stands firm: Consolidation and implementation of Islamic Sharia.”

Taliban says it brought security and stability

Molvi Hayatullah Mahajar Farahi, deputy minister in the Taliban government for broadcasting at the Ministry of Information and Culture, said in the five years the administration has delivered security, stabilized the currency, improved infrastructure and formed industrial parks that have created jobs.

“Naturally, challenges and difficulties exist, yet we can highlight several accomplishments,” Farahi told The Associated Press.

Farahi, when asked, did not address the issue of the education of girls and women but said “the level of investment made in universities surpasses anything seen in the past.

“The Emirate continues its efforts to further organize and improve services for our citizens in the fields of education and other sectors,” he stated.

The deputy minister rejected a U.N. report that documented terrorist networks in Afghanistan, saying “these are merely enemy propaganda, spread to portray the country as unstable.”

Asked to comment about its international isolation, Farahi insisted the Taliban government was engaged with some 40 countries. The Taliban government currently is only formally recognized by Russia.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has fulfilled all the requirements necessary for official recognition. It is now up to the international community and others to step forward and take the appropriate action,” he said.

UN points to broader educational crisis

The bans have left an estimated 2.4 million girls excluded from secondary education, UNESCO, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, said this week — a 200,000 increase from last year. The restrictions have reversed two decades of progress that Afghanistan had made in education, the agency said.

Pointing at a broader educational crisis, the agency said 53% of primary school-aged children are out of school. Schools lack basic infrastructure such as water, sanitation or heating, while natural disasters have also led to hundreds of school closures.

Meanwhile, the U.N. World Food Program said child malnutrition has reached critical levels in a third of Afghanistan’s provinces and is expected to worsen as funding shortfalls force cuts in food distributions and other support.

Speaking Friday from Kabul, the special representative for the U.N. women’s agency Sarah Ferguson urged donors not to abandon Afghan women and girls, saying the agency is getting only a quarter of what it needs. She said more than half the 74 women’s organizations surveyed in April in Afghanistan said they were close to suspending or halting work because of aid cuts.

In Kabul, Dost Mohammad Khan expressed support for the Taliban administration, saying the past five years have brought stability. He said, however, that the country needs trained professionals such as doctors and engineers, urging the authorities to keep “all sectors operational.”

“We also call upon the Islamic Emirate to permit women to attend school under the sharia dress code and we urge the public to heed the directives of the Emirate also,” said the 38-year-old.

___

Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey.

 

Afghanistan marks 5 years under the Taliban with safer streets but pleas for jobs and education
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Islamic Emirate Leader Criticizes Int’l Community Over Non-Recognition

August 16, 2026
TOLOnews
TV Network
16 August 2026

At the event, the leader of the Islamic Emirate called on the people to preserve the existing unity and mutual acceptance.

The fifth anniversary of the Islamic Emirate was marked at an event in Kandahar attended by the leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

At the event, the leader of the Islamic Emirate called on the people to preserve the existing unity and mutual acceptance.

In another part of his remarks, Sheikh Hibatullah Akhundzada emphasized ensuring justice and implementing Islamic Sharia rulings.

Sheikh Hibatullah Akhundzada, leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, said: “I issue and implement Sharia rulings upon you. I am not permitted to act against Sharia, and I pledge to act according to it. The Sharia that I implement upon you, I also implement upon myself, and I consider myself bound by it.”

In another part of his speech, the leader of the Islamic Emirate said that, unlike in the past, the government now exercises firm authority across the country.

Sheikh Hibatullah Akhundzada, saying that Afghanistan favors good relations with the world based on Islamic Sharia, also criticized the international community for not recognizing the current government.

Sheikh Hibatullah Akhundzada said: “The previous government, which did not even have control over a single district, was recognized by the world. Today, the government of the Islamic Emirate controls all of Afghanistan, yet it is not recognized.”

On the 24th of solar Asad 1400 (August 15, 2021), the fall of Kabul brought an end to the republic system in the country and marked the beginning of a new chapter in Afghanistan’s contemporary history.

Since 2021, the anniversary has been commemorated in various parts of the country.

Islamic Emirate Leader Criticizes Int’l Community Over Non-Recognition
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Afghan Fund Earns Over $661M in Profits, Assets Reach $4.19 Billion

August 16, 2026
Bibi Amina Hakimi
TOLOnews’ Reporter
16 August 2026

He stressed that any use of the fund’s assets would only be possible under specific legal conditions and after the necessary safeguards are in place.

The Afghan Fund has earned more than $661 million in profits since its establishment, and its total assets had reached $4.19 billion as of Asad 9 of the current solar year (July 31).

Shah Mohammad Mehrabi, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Afghan Fund, says the fund was established to safeguard Afghanistan’s foreign exchange reserves and, under specific conditions, support exchange-rate and price stability.

He added that the fund was not created to finance government expenditures, provide humanitarian assistance, or make direct payments to organizations. Rather, its primary purpose is to preserve the foreign exchange reserves and increase their value through prudent management.

Mehrabi said: “As of Asad 9 this year, the fund’s assets had reached $4.19 billion, and it has earned more than $661 million in profits since its establishment. This growth, without drawing down the principal, shows that the fund’s main objective is to preserve and increase the value of Afghanistan’s foreign exchange reserves, not to spend them.”

Mehrabi added that given Afghanistan’s dependence on imports and the importance of the afghani’s exchange rate against the US dollar, preserving foreign exchange reserves can help stabilize the national currency and prevent sharp price fluctuations.

He stressed that any use of the fund’s assets would only be possible under specific legal conditions and after the necessary safeguards are in place.

Mehrabi said: “This fund was not created for day-to-day expenditures. Its role is to preserve foreign exchange reserves, manage financial risks, and keep these assets available for a time when Afghanistan can once again make normal use of its central bank reserves.”

Abdul Basir Taraki, an economic analyst, said: “If this money has been frozen for five years and remains unavailable to the Islamic Emirate, there is no doubt that if this continues, the economic situation of the people will worsen day by day.”

Meanwhile, the Islamic Emirate is calling on the United States to fully release Afghanistan’s assets.

Abdul Latif Nazari, Professional Deputy Minister of Economy, said: “More than $8 billion in assets belonging to the people of Afghanistan have been frozen by the United States. We want these assets to be released as soon as possible and made available to the Afghan people. The continuation of this situation is contrary to international law and the principles of international relations.”

Azizurrahman Rahmani, an economic analyst, said: “The more of these assets that are returned to our country and can be used by the government in the economy, the greater the positive impact they can have on Afghanistan’s overall economy, including its GDP.”

The Afghan Fund was established in Switzerland on September 14, 2022, with an initial $3.5 billion in reserves from Afghanistan’s central bank.

Afghan Fund Earns Over $661M in Profits, Assets Reach $4.19 Billion
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724 Aid Trucks Enter Afghanistan Through Torkham Border Crossing, Pakistan Says

August 16, 2026
Khaama Press

Pakistan said 724 trucks carrying humanitarian assistance have crossed into Afghanistan through the Torkham border crossing, delivering aid to families in need amid the country’s continuing humanitarian crisis.

Pakistan Today reported that Muhammad Yahya, the UN humanitarian coordinator and resident representative in Pakistan, said the trucks transported relief supplies through Torkham. He thanked the Pakistani government and others involved in keeping the humanitarian route open.

Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar also welcomed the movement of aid, saying Islamabad supports humanitarian efforts to deliver assistance to vulnerable families in Afghanistan.

The aid shipments come as trade and movement across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border have faced repeated disruptions in recent months because of security tensions and disagreements between the two countries. Humanitarian agencies have continued seeking ways to maintain access for essential supplies despite the restrictions.

Last month, 21 of 26 trucks carrying World Food Programme assistance also entered Afghanistan through Torkham, according to the report.

The continued flow of humanitarian supplies is significant as Afghanistan faces widespread poverty, food insecurity and growing humanitarian needs. UN agencies and aid organizations have warned that funding shortages and access constraints could further affect vulnerable communities.

The border situation is also linked to wider tensions between Kabul and Islamabad. Pakistan has repeatedly accused the Taliban authorities of allowing Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants to operate from Afghanistan territory, allegations the Taliban authorities reject. Kabul has maintained that insecurity in Pakistan is an internal matter.

Despite these political and security tensions, the movement of humanitarian convoys through Torkham provides an important channel for delivering food and other essential assistance to vulnerable Afghans.

724 Aid Trucks Enter Afghanistan Through Torkham Border Crossing, Pakistan Says
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Natural Disasters Affect 92,000 People in Afghanistan, OCHA Says

August 16, 2026
Khaama Press

Natural disasters have affected more than 92,000 people across all 34 provinces of Afghanistan since the beginning of 2026, killing at least 97 people and injuring 331 others, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

OCHA said in a report on Sunday, August 16, that nearly 10,000 homes were damaged, while more than 2,100 homes were completely destroyed. Overall, nearly 13,000 families have been affected by natural disasters since the start of the year.

Floods and flash floods have been the main drivers of humanitarian needs linked to natural disasters, affecting nearly 88,000 people. The scale of the flooding has added pressure to communities already facing widespread poverty, displacement and limited access to essential services.

OCHA said that between July 20 and August 3 alone, nearly 5,000 people in 10 provinces were affected by natural disasters. The provinces included Nuristan, Kabul, Ghazni, Kapisa and Parwan.

Eastern Afghanistan has recorded the highest number of people affected, with more than 51,000 people impacted by natural disasters. Southern and western parts of the country have also suffered significant damage, according to OCHA.

The destruction has extended beyond homes. Damage to agricultural land, roads and other essential infrastructure has disrupted livelihoods and increased the vulnerability of affected families. For households that depend heavily on farming, the loss of homes and productive land can create longer-term food and income insecurity.

OCHA warned that the destruction caused by natural disasters is increasing the reliance of vulnerable families on humanitarian assistance. The impact is particularly serious in communities that have limited resources to rebuild homes, restore farmland or replace damaged household assets.

The latest figures come as Afghanistan continues to face a severe humanitarian situation, with millions of people already dependent on humanitarian assistance. Recurrent floods, droughts, earthquakes and other natural hazards are compounding existing economic and social pressures and making recovery more difficult for vulnerable communities.

Humanitarian agencies have repeatedly stressed the need for adequate funding and early preparedness to reduce the impact of natural disasters, particularly as extreme weather events continue to pose a major risk to communities across Afghanistan.

Natural Disasters Affect 92,000 People in Afghanistan, OCHA Says
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Entrenched, Embattled and Defiant, the Taliban Celebrate 5 Years in Power

August 16, 2026

Elian Peltier is The Times’s Afghanistan bureau chief.

The New York Times

The Taliban have Afghanistan in a chokehold that spares no one. But threats are starting to crack their veneer of stability and control.

The black and white flags of the Taliban were flying high along the streets of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, as the group celebrated five years in power on Saturday.

Shiny Mercedes-Benzes drove casually in front of graffiti praising the Taliban fighters’ “sacrifice,” the word painted in crimson, with depictions of drops of blood. Young Afghans chanted independence songs below posters hailing how “the carpet of democracy” had been removed for Islamic rule.

But the triumphant tone is only half the story. The Taliban may be boisterous in Kabul and have a tight grip on power, yet elsewhere they find themselves targeted and face crises both at home and abroad.

They face a conflict just short of open war with neighboring Pakistan. They’re dealing with new waves of attacks from armed groups that want to topple them. Add to that mass unemployment, international isolation and growing domestic discontent, and the Taliban face their most serious threats since their return to power in 2021.

It is too early to tell whether all those challenges will escalate and threaten their survival as a governing force. And as the scenes of celebration on Saturday showed, the Taliban are popular among many.

Still, the threats they face have cracked the veneer of security and stability that the Taliban have heralded as their primary achievement — and their main selling point to the world.

As workers were preparing Kabul for celebrations on Thursday, a resistance group claimed responsibility for the killing of the Taliban mayor of a provincial capital in northern Afghanistan. Two weeks earlier, another Taliban official had been assassinated in the same province.

The Taliban are holding Afghan society in a chokehold that spares no one. Girls and women face restrictions to a degree unseen anywhere else in the world. Religious minorities are witnessing the forced closure of their places of worship. Anyone who voices criticism is repressed. United Nations staff members face arrests; journalists and rights workers suffer forced disappearances.

The Taliban are collecting taxes and building roads, dams and canals. European countries have welcomed them in Brussels to facilitate the deportation of Afghan migrants and asylum seekers. They have expanded trade ties with Central Asian states and want the Trump administration to come back to Afghanistan.

Sporadic sounds of gunfire reverberated across the remote mountains of northeastern Afghanistan on a recent evening. Weary Taliban fighters peppered drivers with questions at checkpoints dotting the main road snaking through the province of Badakhshan.

On the same road, two attackers had killed a senior provincial Talib official a week earlier. A small group of anti-Taliban fighters had briefly seized control of a police headquarters in a nearby district.

Now fighting between the Taliban and another group opposing their rule was continuing in another district of Badakhshan. The province, bordering China, Pakistan and Tajikistan, is emerging as a hot spot.

On a trip to the province this month, we talked to residents ready to support anti-Taliban groups because they said they were fed up with the Taliban’s iron grip, the lack of job opportunities and the government’s confiscation of natural resources.

We drove through dozens of checkpoints and witnessed the heavy presence of intelligence officers in the isolated village where anti-Taliban fighters had stormed police headquarters.

The clashes and the attacks have so far been scattered. The leader of one of the anti-Taliban groups described them as “opportunity targets” aimed at challenging the Taliban’s sense of control. But the leader, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the group’s strategy, said the number of attacks would only increase in coming months.

An underequipped Afghan Army waits nervously at the border with Pakistan. Once a sponsor of the Taliban, Pakistan has launched dozens of airstrikes on Afghanistan, killing 500 civilians since October, according to the United Nations, and has threatened to use even more force if the Taliban don’t rein in militants who are staging attacks on Pakistani territory.

The mistrust goes both ways: The Taliban have accused Pakistan of supporting the armed groups that have attacked Taliban outposts in Badakhshan.

Whether, or to what extent, Pakistan is actively supporting anti-Taliban groups is not clear, but suspicions are running high.

“The Pakistanis are happy to be portrayed now as a potential patron for the armed opposition to the Taliban, because that increases their leverage over the group,” said Fabrizio Foschini, a researcher at the Afghanistan Analysts Network.

The picture on the domestic front is also grim. Extreme hunger has been spreading fast from one province to another after aid cuts last year plunged millions into deeper food insecurity. The Taliban’s ban on secondary and university education for women and girls is stifling development, experts say.

The Taliban have deprived 2.4 million Afghan girls of an education, according to UNESCO — the equivalent of all school-age girls in New York, Mexico City and Moscow combined — forced to stay home indefinitely.

Some scattered signs of discontent have popped up. At a rare protest in June, demonstrators chanted “Work, education, freedom,” similar to what their Iranian neighbors chanted in 2022. And the leader of a large religious minority warned the Taliban in May: Don’t squeeze Afghan society too much, or it will explode.

The Taliban know the world wants a stable Afghanistan — one that isn’t a source of refugees, drugs or terrorism.

They assert that the country no longer poses a security threat to the region or the West. They say that they have cracked down on the Islamic State, and that they want peaceful relations, based on trade and diplomacy, including with the U.S.

Since the Taliban no longer carry out suicide attacks, bomb schools or target the security forces they now represent, their main argument may hold.

They don’t want their various crises to spiral either.

All the ingredients for things to get out of control in Afghanistan again are here, analysts say: A vast population of unemployed young Afghans are fertile ground for radicalization, especially as economic opportunities are nearly nonexistent. And with animosity growing between Pakistan and Afghanistan, it is unclear who might come to the Taliban’s aid: Afghanistan is, once again, a pariah state, with barely any allies.

The past five years have brought some predictability and an end to almost two decades of fighting, which many Afghans have welcomed, despite the immense hardship and repression. But the country remains shattered, and the fragile peace is already at risk.

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

Entrenched, Embattled and Defiant, the Taliban Celebrate 5 Years in Power
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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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