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Taliban fighters hold Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan flags on the first anniversary of the fall of Kabul.
Jihadists, liberators, or administrators of Afghanistan? The Taliban respond.
The Taliban celebrated the anniversary of their return to power in Afghanistan last week.
They assembled at Bagram airbase, the last military outpost of the 20-year American occupation. Flags were hoisted, leftover US military equipment was displayed, and Taliban soldiers wore uniforms shed by fleeing forces loyal to the former government. Speeches were made, and the Quran was recited.
But not much was said about the continued suppression of women, the escalating violence, or the near-universal poverty Afghans find themselves in today.
So, where does the regime stand, and why should the international community trust the Taliban despite this dismal record? We interviewed Suhail Shaheen, the group's international spokesperson and head of its political office in Qatar. (He’s technically also the UN ambassador, but the world body doesn't recognize the Taliban as the legitimate Afghan government.)
Our conversation — edited for clarity and length — was published on the day that ISIS-K claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at the Russian embassy in Kabul that killed at least six people, including a top diplomat, the first such attack on a diplomatic mission since the Taliban swept back to power.
Khan: One year after taking over, what are the Taliban’s greatest achievements and biggest failures so far?
Shaheen: Our achievements in the past one year are restoring peace and security; ending corruption in government departments; presenting a budget based on internal revenues with [the] allocation of a portion of it for development; initiating big agricultural projects [...] that’ll irrigate millions of acres of land; converting deserts into farmlands and gardens of fruit-bearing trees; and launching a consortium of Afghan businessmen to invest in key economic projects.
As far as our failures are concerned, we can say we have not been able to totally eliminate poverty and create job opportunities for qualified Afghans. The reason is we have inherited an empty treasury.
It’s true that Afghanistan’s war-dependent economy was essentially broke when the Taliban took over. In response, the group started pushing for getting access to the over $7 billion of Afghan government funds frozen by the US. That didn’t go anywhere — though the UN did appeal to finance the humanitarian crisis triggered by drought and displacement during the last winter.
Khan: Afghanistan’s funds remain frozen and the country remains cut off from the international finance system because it is run by a government nobody recognizes. What does this mean to the Taliban?
Shaheen: These are more political decisions in nature rather than legal ones. Legally, we have all the requirements needed for recognition of a country like having control over the country, being able to defend borders, and having the support of the people. It is a fact that some tools are used against us as pressure; this also includes the matter of not recognizing the current government. However, the present government in Afghanistan is an objective reality, and should be treated as such.
Khan: Claiming the support of the people is a stretch. In August, women marching for their rights in Kabul were dispersed by automatic gunfire. This followed a rollback of the announced policy of allowing girls to attend schools, which was vetoed by Mullah Haibatullah, the Taliban’s supreme leader. Doesn’t this reveal divides within the Taliban regime?
Shaheen: We all agree that access to education is the basic right of the Afghan people, but how to implement this in the light of the Islamic rules and norms of the Afghan society is a matter of deliberation. Now, the issue of opening secondary schools for girls is pending until a new order from the supreme leader.
Khan: But it’s not just about women, some of whom are allowed to work in essential services and humanitarian relief. The Taliban are also criticized for not being inclusive of Afghanistan’s complex ethnic makeup. In the north, the pro-democracy National Resistance Front continues to put up a fight. The problem is that countries won’t work with the Taliban because the Taliban won’t work with all Afghans.
Shaheen: We have representatives of all Afghan ethnicities in the government. For us, it is an inclusive government. However, their definition of inclusive government is different. This is the crux of the matter. They want some high-profile officials of the past government installed in the current one, while we have a different view.
Khan: The Taliban promised peace, but the security situation is still worrisome. Even top Taliban clerics have been killed in a spate of attacks across the country. The International Crisis Group says that the Taliban now face not just one front, but two, ISIS-K in the east and the NRF in the north.
Shaheen: Security is prevalent all over the country. Our opponent's forces do not have a physical presence in any area of the country. Our opponents are in hiding mode. Similarly, they are not able to launch massive attacks against our security forces.
However, they launch individual attacks here and there on soft targets like mosques or schools. This further marginalizes them in the society and reveals their brutal nature to people. Also, security in Afghanistan is in the interest of the international community, while lack of it harms us all.
Khan: But if the Taliban really were concerned about the safety of the international community, why would they allow terror outfits like the Pakistani Taliban to still operate from Afghanistan, as alleged by Pakistan, the US, and even the UN? And what about the presence of al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri in a Kabul residence linked to the Haqqanis, the clan of the Taliban’s interior minister?
Shaheen: The Pakistani Taliban do not operate in Afghanistan, but Pakistani authorities requested us to host talks between the two sides, which we did because we want peace and stability in the region. Each time they would come to Kabul from across the border, take part in negotiations, and return back to their places. This we did in order to play a positive role for the cause of peace.
[Al-Zawahiri] is a US claim. We have launched a comprehensive investigation to find out the veracity of the claim. However, one thing is clear: our leadership was unaware of his presence.
Khan: From having reneged on their agreement to upkeep citizens’ rights to the al-Zawahiri killing, do the Taliban have a message for a skeptical international community that doubts the regime’s intentions because of growing evidence that the Taliban cannot divorce themselves from their jihadist roots?
Shaheen: My message to the international community is that the current government is a reality. The Afghan people have suffered a lot during the past four decades. The current sanctions add more suffering. These should come to an end. The approach of marginalization and confrontation is a vicious circle, we should come out of it. Instead, we should have engagement which, I think, will hopefully resolve outstanding issues.
The Graphic Truth: How do the Taliban keep the lights on?
Diplomatically isolated and cut off from foreign aid, the Taliban have struggled to find enough cash to keep the government running since the group took over Afghanistan in Aug. 2021. But they've proven surprisingly adept at raising money from the now-banned opium trade, selling coal to neighboring countries, and taxing imports at the border. Still, this is nowhere near enough to cover their annual budget, and an estimated 97% of Afghans could be living below the poverty line by the end of this year. Here's a snapshot of the Taliban's main sources of revenue.
Taliban regime has been “death in slow motion” for Afghan women
Fawzia Koofi was a member of Afghan Parliament from 2005 until last year, when the Taliban swept back to power.
On GZERO World, Koofi describes her experience working as one of the only female voices at the table during the negotiations with the Taliban.
In the room, they promised Koofi that women would play an active role in Afghan society. They even hinted at an inclusive government.
But after one year in power, the militant group has yet to make good on any of their promises.
Girls must now end their education by 6th grade. The last remaining female university students must learn separately from their male counterparts before women are fazed out of higher education all together. The Taliban has also broken up women's rights protests with gunfire.
Still, Koofi, who fled the country shortly after the takeover, says she remains hopeful that Afghanistan will one day have better leadership.
Sonia Niazi, a female anchor on Afghanistan's privately-run TOLO news channel.
Meet the suppressed press of Taliban-run Afghanistan
Afghanistan’s media landscape has been transformed in year one of the Taliban’s return to power.
The country’s once-vibrant media scene was a crucial pillar of civil society during the two decades of US occupation, part of Washington’s nation-building efforts. But after the American withdrawal, and under the regulations and coercion of the Taliban, Afghan journalism is struggling — as is the health of transparency and accountability in the nation.
Still, the state of the Afghan free media may be down, but not out.
The numbers are staggering. According to a new survey, over the past year Afghans have lost 40 percent of their media. Of 547 media outlets, 219 have stopped reporting or been forced to shut down. About 60% of journalists are now unemployed, and entire “news deserts” have been created, with zero media in 11 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.
The reasons for the hemorrhaging are both political and economic.
On the one hand, the Taliban have issued a series of edicts limiting what the media can report on. What’s more, the regime’s dreaded intelligence arm has taken over from the Ministry of Information. Taliban spooks have begun “regulating” media directly by coercing, persecuting, and prosecuting journalists.
On the other hand, the fact that Afghanistan is near universal poverty certainly doesn’t help. The economy is in a freefall and foreign funding has dried up, as has advertising revenue after the Taliban prohibited broadcasting popular music and entertainment programs.
Fear + violence = censorship. Even before the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan was ranked as one of the world’s most dangerous places for journalists. Although no reporter has been killed by the regime since Aug. 2021, hundreds of instances of arbitrary arrest, detention, ill treatment, and threats have been documented. This has beset a culture of censorship as well as self-censorship.
Khpolwak Sapai, director of privately-owned Tolo News in Kabul, was briefly arrested along with some of his colleagues for explaining to audiences why Tolo was no longer airing certain programs. He insists that his organization continues to carry critical reports, but that he and his reporters must be “focused, attentive, and extra careful to avoid giving them [the Taliban] any excuse for prosecution.”
New blanket editorial directives from the Taliban — to not take a stand against Islam or “national values” — seem simple enough, but can easily be twisted by authorities to kill any story. And certain information is simply off-limits.
“It’s difficult to get access to information. Security incidents are not permitted. Protests are not permitted.” Sapai explains. “Although this information may be circulating on people’s phones, we aren’t allowed to report it.”
Triggering the Taliban. Sami Yousafzai, a three-decade veteran of the BBC, Newsweek, and CBS, was recently forced to drop a story because his foreign colleagues were in Afghanistan at the time. Restrictions are getting tighter by the day, and are likely to affect international media as well.
“In the last 20 years, the freedom of Afghan media was a ray of hope compared to the state of media in the neighborhood,” says Yousafzai, referring to Iran and the Central Asian ‘Stans.
Now, he adds, “certain stories … will trigger the Taliban to come after you immediately,” he says.
But there’s a silver(ish) lining. Media isn’t totally banned. Sure, the Taliban are just a fatwa away from issuing a blanket ban, but they haven’t, yet. For Sapai, that shows the regime is not a monolith when it comes to dealing with journalists.
“Some officials want free media to exist, but there are some inconsolable Taliban who don’t see the need,” he says. This includes many senior officials who are not interested in speaking to reporters, who in their view should only be talking to official spokesmen.
It’s also a matter of “prestige.” The Taliban’s ongoing talks with the US to unfreeze Afghan government funds held by American banks compel the regime to not totally roll back all liberties enjoyed by Afghans.
But compared to a year ago, when the Taliban took over, Sapai is clear: “Things were better in the beginning than they are now.”
Women journalists, obviously, have been the hardest hit by Afghanistan’s media crisis. Three out of four women in media have lost their jobs, and over 80% of those still employed are in Kabul. Women have been banned from state-run media, while those in the private sector can only appear on screen if their faces are veiled.
In the remote mountains of eastern Afghanistan, Salma Niazi, a 24-year-old former Tolo news presenter, hasn’t lost hope. When she reported to work at Hela Radio last August, she was turned away at the door because women were no longer allowed to work.
Niazi and her husband, Saeedullah Safi, then decided to co-found The Afghan Times, an online Pashto publication. They are getting help from four other female reporters, but need the freedom to report. Writing anything against the Taliban is too dangerous.
“We chose journalism out of love,” the couple says. “But after the arrival of the Taliban, everything has become so difficult for us that our hatred arises.”
If things continue like this, they fear they will be forced to find another job.
The Graphic Truth: Terror outfits based in Afghanistan
Even though the Taliban “control” Afghanistan, several militant groups still operate in the war-torn country. That's underscored by the recent killing of al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri in downtown Kabul, although not all outfits present in Afghanistan are affiliated with the Taliban. We list some of the major militant organizations working out of the country, with regional and global ambitions.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan meets with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Lviv, Ukraine.
What We're Watching: Erdogan's diplomacy, carnage at Kabul mosque, US-Taiwan trade talks
Erdogan is everywhere
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been very busy this week. On Thursday, he flew to Lviv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and UN Secretary-General António Guterres, the Turkish president’s first visit to Ukraine since Russia’s war began six months ago. Erdogan, who has tried to position himself as an elder statesman and mediator between Kyiv and Moscow, vowed to help rebuild Ukrainian infrastructure just weeks after brokering a deal with Russia to resume Ukrainian grain exports from Black Sea ports amid a global food crisis. The trio also discussed efforts to secure a contested nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. This comes a week after Erdogan held a face-to-face with Vladimir Putin in Sochi, Russia, where they pledged to boost energy cooperation. What’s more, Erdogan’s Ukraine trip came just one day after Ankara announced it was restoring full diplomatic ties with Israel. Indeed, Erdogan is looking to get wins wherever he can as he tries to divert attention from Ankara’s deepening economic woes. In a move that made many economists shudder, Turkey’s central bank on Thursday further slashed interest rates to 13% despite the fact that inflation has topped a whopping 80%. Loosening monetary policy to boost growth has long been Erdogan’s shtick, but as a cost of living crisis continues to hurt Turks, his ruling party is falling in the polls less than a year out from elections.
Worshippers killed in Kabul
At least 21 Afghans were killed, and scores more injured, in a blast on Wednesday night at a mosque in Kabul while worshippers were engaged in evening prayers. Though no group has taken responsibility for the carnage, it is thought to be the work of ISIS-K, an offshoot of the broader Islamic State movement that expanded to Central Asia in 2015 and was responsible for a deadly attack on American troops amid the US withdrawal from Afghanistan last summer. Over the past year, ISIS-K has been intent on antagonizing the Taliban, which it says insufficiently enforces Sharia law (the two groups have also clashed over territory in the past). This attack also comes weeks after the Taliban labeled ISIS-K “a false sect,” banning Afghans from interacting with the group. Some analysts say that Afghanistan has recorded fewer violent incidents over the past year, in part because US forces are no longer targeting Taliban strongholds. But it's unlikely that many Afghans caught in the crossfires of this deadly battle for influence — in addition to a growing humanitarian crisis — feel the same way.
US-Taiwan trade talks
The US and Taiwan will hold formal trade talks in the fall, Washington announced two weeks after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's uber-controversial trip to the self-governing island sparked a furious response from China. Details are vague, but so far the discussions will focus on boosting digital and agriculture trade, anti-corruption standards, and a range of other issues. Taiwan sold almost $66 billion worth of goods in 2021 to the US, which is Taipei’s second-biggest market after China. But the island is far more dependent on trade with the mainland, which along with Hong Kong accounts for more than 40% of Taiwanese exports. The US, for its part, is keen to deepen economic ties with Taiwan as it tries to expand its influence in the Asia Pacific. Additionally, Washington is very hungry for one thing that Taiwan makes a lot of: semiconductors. Although the CHIPS Act recently signed into law by President Joe Biden aims to boost domestic manufacturing of the tech, the US will still need lots of Taiwanese-made semiconductors in the near term. China, for its part, blasted the talks, warning the US not to undermine Beijing’s “core interests.” While the US maintains robust ties with Taiwan, it does not formally recognize its independence from the mainland.
The Graphic Truth: Opium keeps the Taliban going
The Taliban (officially) banned opium cultivation last April, as they did before 9/11 and the subsequent US invasion that ousted them from power in Afghanistan. But in the 20 years that followed the group became the Pablo Escobars of the global poppy trade by taxing opium farmers. Now the Taliban say growing poppies is again verboten, but this year's harvest is mostly in the bag, and enforcing the ban won't be easy. We look at opium cultivation in Afghanistan since 1996, when the Taliban first ruled the country.
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The Graphic Truth: What Afghan women lost
For years, Afghanistan has ranked as one of the world’s worst places to be a woman. But over the past two decades — with the Taliban out of power and a US-backed government calling the shots — things had started to improve. Literacy rates for girls went up, and women were allowed to pursue higher education and more career opportunities — including serving in parliament. In many parts of the country, they also had greater autonomy to travel independently. But that’s all changed since the Taliban returned to power one year ago amid the US’ chaotic withdrawal. Afghan women and girls, many of whom weren’t alive when the Taliban last ruled, are now watching their hard-fought freedoms disappear.