Source: The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies
In 20 years of American-backed governments Afghanistan has changed immensely – singers, activists, and journalists showed the country that beyond the bloodshed, a world of culture, music, and beauty existed. Many of them were raised outside the country and returned to the homeland left by their parents in the previous wars. They helped rebuilding the nation, and now they are “back in exile,” joined by many other Afghans who managed to escape after the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul in mid-August.
Afghans exiles have been developing various discourses, including recording the memories of their flight, expressing nostalgia of a yearned-for past, and calling for social-political mobilization for the motherland.
Turkmenistan says the Taliban-led government in neighboring Afghanistan has vowed to ensure the completion and security of a pipeline project to bring Turkmen natural gas to Pakistan and India via Afghan territory.
The 1,800-kilometer Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline is projected to run from the Galkynysh gas field in Turkmenistan to the Indian city of Fazilka, passing through Herat and Kandahar in Afghanistan and Quetta and Multan in Pakistan.
Two months after the Taliban re-took Afghanistan, thousands of Afghans continue to flee the country on evacuation flights organized by the government of Qatar. Young and old, they consider themselves the lucky ones, and carry just a few precious possessions with them as they take a chance at new lives abroad, away from the extremist group.
Nabi Roshan, one of the country’s most popular comedians, is among those fleeing. Before the Taliban takeover, he hosted a nightly TV show where no jokes were off limits, including ones about the group.
Now, after he received death threats, he and his family are on the run.
U.S. officials have confirmed that a newly formed armed group resisting Taliban rule in Afghanistan has registered with the Justice Department to carry out political lobbying in the United States.
The confirmation came in response to claims by the anti-Taliban National Resistance Front (NRF) that its international office has “received authorization to officially open” in America.
Among the many problems that people in Afghanistan are dealing with: acute power shortages. And there’s a possibility that things will get worse as winter approaches.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban-appointed supervisor of a small district hospital outside the Afghan capital has big plans for the place — to the dismay of the doctors who work there.
Mohammed Javid Ahmadi, 22, was asked by his superiors, fresh off the fields of battle from a war that has spanned most of his life, what kind of jobs he could do. On offer were positions in an array of ministries and institutions now under the Taliban’s power following their August takeover and the collapse of the former government.
When Afghanistan’s first midwife-led birth centre opened in the impoverished district of Dasht-e-Barchi in western Kabul this year it was a symbol of hope and defiance.
It began receiving expectant mothers in June, just over a year after a devastating attack by gunmen on the maternity wing at the local hospital left 24 people dead, including 16 mothers, a midwife and two young children.
Two months after the Taliban seized power, violence, death and fear still stalk Afghanistan. US troops might have departed but the new Islamist rulers in Kabul are now threatened by an insurgency launched by Islamic State-Khorasan Province, an Isis-inspired jihadi movement that has deep ideological differences with the Taliban.
The former United States special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad said the Biden administration should engage with the Taliban to help ease the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the country now.
In an interview with Turkish media aired on October 1, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan revealed that his government is in talks with the Pakistan Taliban (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP). Following a period of relative dormancy, the TTP has been significantly more active this year. Khan admitted that Islamabad is offering the group a number of rewards – from political amnesty to prisoner releases – in return for laying down arms.
