Afghanistan’s first delegation at United Nations climate talks since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 has arrived in Baku, Azerbaijan

Afghanistan’s first delegation at United Nations climate talks since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 has arrived in Baku, Azerbaijan

Is it a coincidence that the same day Tom Hayden writes about The 'Long War' quagmire, Obama pops up in Afghanistan on an "unannounced trip?"

Probably--but the implications of Hayden's op-ed piece are dire: in the absence of an ongoing "Cold War" to stoke the fires of unbridled defense expenses, the neocons will need to promote 80 years of undeclared war against "insurgent groups from Europe to South Asia."

Of course, along with defense contractors keeping in business--big business--there is the untold correlating hardship of casualties of Americans in the field.

So is Obama in Afghanistan today to reassure troops on their mission, to discuss options for the long haul with his generals? Or is he developing a way to sell the taxpayers on why they need to pay for 100,000 ground forces in a country who's biggest export is based on the opium poppy seed?

Frederica interviews Kh. Tamera Pelikan, whose husband is the only Orthodox chaplain in Afghanistan.

.Progress on the TAPI pipeline has been repeatedly delayed because of security issues in conflict-ravaged Afghanistan

A 2020 report had recommended investigations into 19 soldiers for the killing of 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners.

Mawlawi Matiul Haq Khalis, director-general of Afghanistan's National Environmental Protection Agency meets with the media on the sidelines of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Baku on November 11, 2024. — AFP

BAKU: The first Afghan official to attend UN...

In the early 2000’s the US helped fund Afghanistan's first private university. It was part of an effort to help rebuild Afghanistan's education system. Over time, the American University of Afghanistan has become a symbol of hope for many young Afghan men and women who dream about higher education. But that very hope has also made those students, and their campus in Kabul, targets for extremists.

Also: First Lieutenant, Erica MacSwan, prepares for her deployment to Afghanistan; Lt. MacSwan recalls her family’s personal experience with the 9/11 attacks; and we step inside a fashion boutique in the heart of Kabul.

(Two years after the attack on the American University in Kabul, school officials have stepped up security. That means the campus has the look and feel of a military compound. Credit: Farzanah Wahidy/PRI)

Philadelphia – The incidence of spinal injuries suffered by U.S. soldiers in modern warfare may exceed previous conflicts, according to a new study from the William Beaumont Army Medical Center.

At the beginning of the last century, the news about the death of Afghan Emir Abdur-Rahman made headlines all over the world. It was reported that his death could lead to most unpleasant consequences for both Russia and England, and, consequently, for the whole world politics. Kabul - Russia - Kabul Everything flows, but nothing changes. The topic of the Afghanistan crisis has become important again, especially for Russia. England is no longer the same, and the successor - the United States - is a far cry from the current rulers of Afghanistan. After Shir Ali Khan's accession to the throne in 1864, Abdur-Rahman participated in the troops of his father, Afzul Khan, and uncle Azim Khan in the fight against his other uncle, the powerful Emir Shir Ali. He conquered Kabul in 1866, where his father established himself.

While the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides mental health care of comparable or superior quality to care provided in private and non-VA public sectors, accessibility and quality of services vary across the VA health system, leaving a substantial unmet need for mental health services among veterans of the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

When the Taliban captured Kabul last year, a group of scientists and engineers with ties to the National Academies were desperately seeking a way out of Afghanistan. During a recent webinar, Vaughan Turekian recounted the effort to get these scientists and their families to safety.

The CEO of Taleam, Ahmadzai, firmly believes that Afghanistan desperately craves everlasting peace, rather than the relentless continuation of war.

Ahmadzai says, let there be stable peace forever in Afghanistan amid tensions and global poverty rates high after recent visit to the war-torn country.

Afghanistan's economy changed — almost overnight — after the Taliban retook control of the country | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

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It's a Sunday in late August, eight days before the last American soldier will leave Afghanistan…

Photo by Nk Ni  The Taliban has not stopped their aggressive efforts of restricting and regulating women’s lives. Late August of 2024, the Taliban released a 114 page, 35-article that proved to be the “first formal declaration of the vice and virtue laws in Afghanistan since the takeover.” Edicts in the article include: a mandatory call […]

The post Afghanistan Under the Taliban is “A Graveyard for Women’s Dreams” appeared first on Feminist Majority Foundation.

The aftermath: Navigating a Taliban-led Afghanistan Expert comment NCapeling 20 August 2021

In the coming weeks, governments and international organizations must work through an approach to the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. It will not be simple.

A failure to acknowledge that the legitimate, elected representatives of Afghanistan are no longer in control of territory or institutions, and to refuse to deal with those that are, will only make for further misery for a population which has already endured decades of violence and poverty.

But to recognize the Taliban risks condemning tens of thousands of Afghan women, children, and men to brutal repression and, for some, potential death, as well as mocking the human rights and rule of law which the US and its allies sought to promote in Afghanistan, and globally, as cornerstones of values-based foreign policies.

The dilemma western governments find themselves in is one they have studiously sought to avoid despite mounting evidence that, without a negotiated deal, a Taliban takeover was only a matter of time. As late as 6 August, the UN Security Council refused to countenance appeals by the UN mission and Afghan civil society activists to press the Taliban and the government to negotiate a ceasefire.

The US reiterated its refrain that it ‘will not accept a military takeover of Afghanistan’ and the UK stressed the Taliban’s only route to power was through meaningful engagement in a peace process. Meanwhile, not until 11 August did Germany and the Netherlands stop deporting Afghan migrants despite the pleas of Afghan authorities and refugee organizations that the country was on the brink of crisis.

Delaying the inevitable

Belief that a military takeover was still some months away may have led diplomats to view dealing with the Taliban as a distant task. The unilateral nature of the US deal with the Taliban and the resistance of the Ghani government to any suggestion of power-sharing arrangements compounded a lack of international coordination and planning on what the conditions for engagement might be.

It cannot be delayed further. The scale of the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is daunting, with more than half a million displaced by fighting in 2021 alone, almost 17 million facing crisis levels of food insecurity, and nearly half of all children under five malnourished as a consequence of drought and the COVID-19 pandemic.

With one of the highest global refugee populations and an estimated up 20-30,000 Afghans fleeing the country weekly – even before the government collapsed – Afghanistan evokes still raw memories of the 2015 Syria migrant crisis for Europe. Pakistan and Turkey, home to some of the largest Afghan refugee communities, have already closed their borders to more.

The ongoing chaos at Kabul airport highlights the challenges ahead. But there is a small window – before the UN Security Council is scheduled to review the mandate of the UN mission in Afghanistan by 17 September – for the US and its allies to craft an approach to dealing with the Taliban.

Formal recognition of a Taliban-led government is simply not an option, even for those maintaining a diplomatic presence in Kabul such as China, Iran, Pakistan, and Russia. Technically the Afghan republic has not yet dissolved with vice-president Amrullah Saleh, reportedly in hiding in the Panjshir valley, claiming he is the country’s ‘caretaker’ president.

Conditions for international acceptance

Afghanistan’s ‘enduring partners’ must now focus on building a consensus around five conditions for international acceptance of a Taliban-administered Afghanistan and prevent the Taliban again reaping the benefits of international divisions. The G7 began to articulate some of these conditions but they need to be set out and negotiated with Afghanistan’s neighbours before being formally articulated by the UN Security Council.

1. Adherence to Afghanistan’s human rights obligations. This must specify the rights of women and girls to education and work, the protection of ethnic and religious minorities, and safe passage for all Afghans and internationals leaving the country.
2. Amnesty for all individuals who worked for the Afghan government or international embassies, forces, or aid organizations since 2001.
3. No harbouring of terrorist groups. This has been the central condition for the US deal with the Taliban, and the overriding concern for both China and Russia.
4. Non-lethal public order. The provision of public order to enable supply routes to open, evacuations to continue, and aid to be delivered, is essential and one that Russia has made as a condition for its future relations.
5. Negotiation of inclusive political arrangements with Afghanistan’s political and ethnic factions.

The UN mission in Afghanistan, including its human rights component, and the Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team should be mandated with reporting monthly on the progress toward these five conditions. Their assessments should form the basis for any reconsideration of the Taliban’s status as a terrorist organization. And a negotiated political settlement must be a precondition to the release of the government’s foreign reserves, estimated to be $9.5 billion.

Before this, the humanitarian and development aid on which Afghanistan is almost completely reliant must be recalibrated to flow through international agencies. Models such as Hamas-run Gaza, Assad’s Syria, or Aristide’s Haiti, show that while far from effective, it is possible to provide urgent assistance outside government channels.

This is one of the reasons why the Taliban has sought to retain a strong UN presence across Afghanistan and why the UN must be given a more significant political mandate and resources. The World Bank-administered Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund should remain the principal channel for international funds.

It is difficult in the short-term to see the US leading this collective effort, given its defensive and domestic-focused position. It could be a moment for the UK and EU to demonstrate their multilateral commitments and forge a coordinated conditions-based approach to a Taliban-administered Afghanistan at the UN.

Going beyond handwringing or gesture politics will be difficult and messy and, ultimately, Afghanistan’s future must be decided by Afghans. Until that day, however, this will save lives.

Trevor Lewis was a corporal in the Canadian Armed Forces who tried to bury the memories from his deployment in Afghanistan. They all came back in 2021 after the fall of Kabul. This story is how he made peace with his time in that country.

A former Afghan fighter discovers Jesus Christ in the Qur’an.

Despite recurrent challenges, Afghanistan’s business environment is improving. Now the authorities are working to persuade investors the rewards are worth the risk through a series of economic and legal reforms. 

Ajmal Ahmady, Afghanistan's minister of industries and commerce, outlines government efforts to make the country more conducive to business.

Transitional justice efforts have failed in Afghanistan. The ICC has become one of the few serious accountability options still available to this war-torn country.

On April 5, the Afghan people will vote in the country's third-ever presidential elections, but corruption and security pose significant obstacles.

Afghanistan's Taliban to attend their first UN climate conference

Women in Afghanistan have continued to advocate for their rights and have called on the international community to not only stand in solidarity but to take decisive action to prevent the erosion of their rights and presence in public space. On Monday, the New York missions of Qatar, Indonesia, Ireland and Switzerland, with the Women’s […]

Tremors were felt in various cities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as well as Islamabad on Wednesday after a quake jolted Afghanistan’s Badakhshan region.

According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the earthquake had a magnitude of 5.1, while the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) reported it as having a 5.3 magnitude.

The USGS said the quake’s centre was located 37 kilometres west-southwest of Afghanistan’s Ishkashim town and had a 220.7km depth.

The earthquake struck at 10:13am (Pakistan time), both the USGS and PMD confirmed.

No casualties have been reported so far.

DawnNewsTV reported that the tremors were felt in Peshawar and its adjoining areas, as well as Islamabad.

Speaking to DawnNewsTV, two correspondents based in the cities said the quake caused people to evacuate buildings.

More to follow

This cable contains information which we hope will be useful to you in engaging host governments, media, and the public after the President's address.

This remarkable achievement came during a thrilling match against Bangladesh in Sharjah

In every statement made by anybody of any consequence, the main concern is about the fate of Afghan women under Taliban rule

A tale of betrayal and tragedy brought about by the mess of wars, accidental guerillas and political miscalculation

There has so far been no official claim of responsibility from the group.