Afghanistan

One year after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, fighting has decreased considerably. Yet serious security problems remain, not least the foreign militants still in the country. External actors should press the new authorities to fulfil their commitments and avoid any steps that could reignite large-scale violence.

[…] Rahimullah Haqqani, who had recently spoken publicly in favor of girls being allowed to attend school, had survived at least two previous assassination attempts — including one in Pakistan in October 2020.

For 20 years, the United States and its Western allies played the major role in shaping Afghanistan’s future. But with the Taliban takeover nearly one year ago, regional powers, like Uzbekistan, are increasingly driving international engagement while Washington and the West hold out for Taliban concessions.

A new report from the UN Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released on Wednesday, confirms the erosion of basic human rights across the country since the Taliban takeover in August last year, pointing out they bear responsibility for extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests and detentions, and violations of fundamental freedoms.

[… ] it [the brief] draws on roundtable consultations with senior Afghan and EU policy practitioners to identify five key insights from the EU’s engagement in Afghanistan over the past twenty years.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet this week accused Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban of stripping women and girls of their fundamental rights and freedoms and rendering them invisible in public life. Her report was submitted Wednesday to the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Afghanistan’s Taliban have alleged the United States is blocking their way to securing international recognition for the Islamist group’s new government in Kabul.

The head of a U.S. government watchdog says he is concerned that money sent by the United Nations to Afghanistan for humanitarian and economic aid will end up in the hands of the Taliban government.

While many Afghans have desperately sought ways to flee the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan, a handful of former Afghan government officials returned to Kabul this week to be welcomed by the Taliban.

[…] Just a few hours’ drive north of Kabul, the province has long been an anti-Taliban stronghold and remains the only significant pocket of resistance to the group since the fall of Kabul last August.