Afghanistan
Taliban Captures Mazar-e Sharif; Afghan President Vows Not To Give Up 'Achievements'
Taliban fighters have taken control of Mazar-e Sharif, a major northern Afghan city that was one of the last in the country still under government control.
The capture of the city, some 100 kilometers from the border with Uzbekistan, came on August 14 just hours after President Ashraf Ghani vowed not to give up the “achievements” of the last 20 years, and after Taliban forces seized yet more provincial capitals.
The offensive, which has spanned several weeks, has stunned U.S. officials who had hoped Afghan forces would hold their own. It has forced U.S. President Joe Biden's administration to speed up plans to evacuate civilians ahead of the deadline of August 31 for withdrawing all U.S. military forces.
Biden, who has come under increasing criticism in Washington, defended the rapid U.S. pullout in a statement released by the White House.
"Over our country's 20 years at war in Afghanistan, America has sent its finest young men and women, invested nearly $1 trillion, trained over 300,000 Afghan soldiers and police, equipped them with state-of-the-art military equipment, and maintained their air force as part of the longest war in U.S. history," he said.
"One more year, or five more years, of U.S. military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country. And an endless American presence in the middle of another country's civil conflict was not acceptable to me," he said.
Biden also authorized an additional 1,000 U.S. troops for deployment to Afghanistan, raising the number being deployed to roughly 5,000. Biden said the additional troops were needed to "make sure we can have an orderly and safe drawdown" of U.S. and allied personnel.
Biden didn't provide details about the additional 1,000 troops except that the decision to deploy them had been "based on the recommendations of our diplomatic, military, and intelligence teams."
Earlier on August 14, in a brief televised address, Ghani said he was consulting with local leaders and international partners on the situation in the country. He did not announce his resignation, something that some observers had speculated was possible.
"As your president, my focus is on preventing further instability, violence and displacement of my people," Ghani said. He also said the "remobilization of armed forces is a top priority."
Given the rapid advance by the Taliban, and the paltry resistance being put up by government forces, it's unclear how long it will be before the capital, Kabul, is also captured.
A Radio Azadi reporter in Mazar-e Sharif said that Taliban fighters entered the city's police headquarters and briefly skirmished with security forces in a central square. Taliban fighters then moved to the city's central jail and released hundreds of prisoners.
Abdul Rashid Dostum, a notorious former warlord who commands thousands of fighters in the region, was seen fleeing north, with a convoy of vehicles and weaponry, toward the Uzbek border city of Termez.
Video obtained by RFE/RL's Uzbek Service showed a large number of vehicles reportedly linked to Dostum's militia trying to cross the Khayraton bridge over the Amu Darya river later August 14. The river runs along the border between the two countries.
Abas Ebrahimzada, a lawmaker from the Balkh province where Mazar-e Sharif is located, told the Associated Press that the national army surrendered first in Mazar-e Sharif. That prompted pro-government militias and other forces to lose morale and give up in the face of the Taliban onslaught, he said.
Afzal Hadid, head of the Balkh provincial council, said that security forces were escaping toward the border.
"The Taliban have taken control of Mazar-e Sharif," he told Reuters. "All security forces have left Mazar city."
Ebrahimzada also said that Dostum as well as another warlord, Ata Mohammad Noor, had fled the province and their whereabouts were unknown.
Ghani flew to Mazar-e Sharif -- a city of around 500,000 people -- earlier this week to rally the city's defenses, meeting with several militia commanders, including Dostum and Noor, who command thousands of fighters.
Earlier on August 14, Taliban fighters overran Sharana, capital of southeastern Paktika Province, and later captured Asadabad, the capital of eastern Kunar Province as well.
The new seizures bring the number of provinces now controlled by the Taliban to 24, out of a total of 34.
The Taliban meanwhile released a video announcing the takeover of the main radio station in the southern city of Kandahar, renaming it the Voice of Sharia, or Islamic law.
In the video, an unnamed insurgent said all employees were present and would broadcast news, political analysis, and recitations of the Koran, the Islamic holy book. It appears the station will no longer play music.
The Biden administration has rushed to try and bolster Afghan government forces, while also providing defense for American civilians at the embassy and elsewhere.
The first U.S. Marines from a contingent of 3,000 began arriving in Kabul on August 13 to help in the evacuation, and to secure the city’s airport. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said that most of the 3,000 additional troops will be in place by August 15 and "will be able to move thousands per day" out.
Kirby acknowledged on August 13 that it appeared Taliban fighters were trying to isolate the city, but said the capital was not "in an imminent threat environment."
The Taliban's rapid offensive has picked up pace as U.S.-led international troops aim to complete their withdrawal by August 31. The deadline was set after Biden announced in April that he was ending U.S. involvement in the war after nearly 20 years.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on August 13 expressed concern about the situation and urged the Taliban to halt their offensive and “negotiate in good faith.”
"The message from the international community to those on the warpath must be clear: seizing power through military force is a losing proposition. That can only lead to prolonged civil war or to the complete isolation of Afghanistan," Guterres said.
Guterres also said he was "deeply disturbed" by accounts of poor treatment of women in areas seized by the Taliban.
"It is particularly horrifying and heartbreaking to see reports of the hard-won rights of Afghan girls and women being ripped away," Guterres said.
With reporting by RFE/RL's Uzbek Service, AFP, AP, BBC, and Reuters
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Barred From Studying By Taliban, Afghan Woman Uses Tech Skills To Keep Power Running
Under the Taliban, Afghan women can't study at universities or work in most jobs.
But 22-year-old Zahra Ali has created a small business that brings in an income and provides a much-needed resource to her neighbors.
At her home workshop in Kabul, she builds rechargeable battery packs that help compensate for the country's unreliable power grid.
"I produce a lot. I can't keep up with all the orders. It's because Afghanistan faces frequent power shortages," she explains next to a work bench full of batteries, soldering irons, and electrometers.
Customers who buy the battery packs charge them when the electricity is flowing and then use them when power from the grid is intermittent or is cut off.
Before the Taliban returned to power in 2021, she studied at the Herat Institute of Technology.
Since then girls and women have been barred from secondary and higher education, and there are few places where they can work.
The Taliban has allowed limited exceptions in the health and education sectors, but these jobs come with severe restrictions and the number of women in the workforce continues to fall, according to the United Nations.
Women must also be accompanied by a male relative when traveling longer distance from their homes and can face harassment and checks even when close to home.
"It's not easy to work in the current situation. It takes a lot of effort and courage," says Ali. "I have faced many obstacles, but eventually I decided to build this workshop to generate an income, so I won't have to rely on my family and friends."
She says there were few women working in science and technology even before the Taliban resumed power, but she remains undeterred.
"Producing power banks is not a job only for men. I mean that women can do it too, but we need to work hard and be committed."
Barred From Studying, Afghan Woman Uses Tech Skills To Keep Power Running
Under the Taliban, Afghan women can't study at universities or work in most jobs. But 22-year-old Zahra Ali has created a small business that brings in an income and provides a much-needed resource to her neighbors. At her home workshop, she builds rechargeable battery packs that help compensate for the country's unreliable power grid.
EU Politicians Make Push For Radio Free Europe Funding After Trump Cuts
European Union politicians said they are continuing their push into possible support for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty after the US government moved to cut the Prague-based broadcaster's funding amid concerns its closure would be a blow to pro-democracy media.
Czech European Affairs Minister Martin Dvorak told reporters in Brussels on March 18 that several nations have supported the initiative so far but the bloc must act quickly as "it would be a big mistake to let this institution die."
"We must initiate some interest and meet with commissioners and some states. At this point, that initiative has been supported by seven other nations, and after we make the initiative public at the General Affairs Council, more countries will join us," Dvorak said, adding the issue needs to be resolved in a matter of "several weeks."
At the initiative of the Czech Republic, a meeting of foreign ministers from the bloc's 27 members on March 17 addressed the issue with the future of RFE/RL unclear due to the cutting of its Congress-approved funding by the administration of President Donald Trump over the weekend.
EU Countries Voice Their Support Of RFE/RL
While Dvorak said he did not want to reveal the names of the countries that have voiced their support for the move, diplomatic sources told RFE/RL that Germany, Austria, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Slovenia, Poland, the Czech Republic, and the three Baltic nations are among those who support the initiative.
"The financial challenges faced by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty put independent journalism at serious risk in regions where the free press is silenced, from Russia and Belarus to Iran and Afghanistan," Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot said in a post on X.
" If RFE/RL disappears, disinformation and propaganda will fill the void. That would a direct win for those who seek to undermine democracy.... Europe cannot let that happen. Protecting a free press means protecting democracy. Access to fact-based reporting is not just a principle, it is a necessity for security and fundamental freedoms," he added.
Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said after the March 17 foreign ministers meeting that he sensed "a certain interest" from other EU members in his country's initiative, and that "it is our responsibility to seriously deal with this issue."
Radio Free Europe's Cold War History
Lipavsky's Polish counterpart, Radek Sikorski, also voiced support for RFE/RL, recalling how his father listened to the station as well as the Voice of America broadcaster during the Cold War.
"It's how we learned the basic facts about our own countries because communist propaganda was so tightly controlled," he told reporters. "And these institutions continue to do similar work for autocracies today."
Trump signed an executive order late on March 14 that aims to reduce seven federal agencies -- including the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and other federal broadcasters.
The order, which also targets agencies that deal with homelessness, labor disputes, and community development, gave the heads of each governmental entity named seven days to submit a report confirming full compliance.
Hours after the executive order was published, a letter from USAGM said the Congress-approved grant that funds RFE/RL, headquartered in the Czech capital, Prague, had been terminated.
RFE/RL President and Chief Executive Officer Stephen Capus said canceling the grant agreement would be "a massive gift to America's enemies," a point that was echoed by many media rights watchdogs, democracy advocates, and politicians.
Added US Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: "The Trump administration's latest effort to dismantle entities established and funded by Congress that provide accurate, unbiased information to hundreds of millions of people in countries where press freedom is under attack undermines the US commitment to democracy."
'Critical Lifeline'
“If President Trump gets his way, those who depend on US-supported independent media as alternatives to Chinese and Kremlin run media outlets and those living under authoritarian regimes will lose a critical lifeline."
The USAGM is an independent US government agency that oversees the broadcasting of news and information in almost 50 languages to some 361 million people each week.
The total budget request for the USAGM for fiscal year 2025 was $950 million to fund all of its operations and capital investments.
This includes media outlets such as RFE/RL, Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (Radio Marti), Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN), and the Open Technology Fund.
"Sweden has cosigned a Czech initiative to look for ways in which the EU and its member states can support Radio Free Europe and its role as a voice of freedom, where it is needed the most," Swedish EU Affairs Minister Jessica Rosencrantz said.
Trump, who has taken several moves to slash government spending since taking office for a second term in January, clashed with the USAGM over editorial independence and the direction of programming during his first term.
He has reiterated those concerns again since retaking office. Supporters of the broadcasters say they are an important arm of US diplomacy.
RFE/RL operates in 23 countries and 27 languages across Central and Eastern Europe, the Near East, and Central Asia.
What's Behind The New Wave Of Violence In Pakistan's Balochistan?
Balochistan, a vast mineral-rich province in southwestern Pakistan, has been the scene of a simmering separatist insurgency for nearly a quarter-century.
But a remarkable rise in violent attacks in the strategic region bordering Afghanistan and Iran and home to the marginalized Baluch minority has highlighted the region's fragility.
On March 16, the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a separatist militant group pursuing Balochistan's secession from Pakistan, claimed an attack on security forces in the remote district of Noshki.
Pakistani officials said the attack, a suicide truck bomb, killed three soldiers and two civilians. But the BLA claimed the attack killed 90 soldiers.
Train Hijacking
Just last week, the group declared a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, and others hijacked a passenger train in Balochistan's historic Bolan Pass.
The unprecedented attack, even by the standards of Pakistan's violent recent past, went on for more than 36 hours.
The BLA claimed it killed hundreds of members of the security forces traveling on the train.
The Pakistani Army, however, said it killed dozens of militants in a successful rescue operation that freed most of the hostages.
RFE/RL could not independently verify the conflicting claims of the two sides in the sparsely populated region inaccessible to journalists.
But the rising violence marked a significant escalation at a critical time for Pakistan as the Muslim nation of 250 million people reels from political turmoil, economic downturn, and an escalating insurgency by the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Islamic State-Khorasan in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.
"The major drivers of the worsening conflict are changes within the BLA and the worsening political and economic crises," said Zafar Baloch, a Balochistan researcher based in Britain.
"The current outcome was predictable because the BLA has transformed," he said.
He said that during the past seven years, the BLA turned from a nationalist insurgent group into "a highly sophisticated, disciplined militant group, which now possesses sophisticated arms."
Pakistani officials have frequently blamed the easy availability of sophisticated US arms left behind in Afghanistan. Groups such as the BLA and TTP now use sophisticated night-vision goggles, sniper rifles, and other military gear possibly acquired from Afghanistan.
Since the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan, violence by both the Baluch separatist rebels and Islamist TTP has been on the rise.
Pakistan has blamed Afghanistan's Taliban government and its regional archrival India for the rising violence. Kabul and New Delhi have rejected Islamabad's claims.
During the past year, Baluch separatists carried out 175 attacks, up from 110 the year before. These attacks killed and injured nearly 700 people, most of whom were members of the security forces.
Imtiaz Baloch, an analyst covering Balochistan for Khorasan Diary, a website tracking militant groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, said the BLA's increasing organizational sophistication is behind the rising violence.
He said the Majeed Brigade, the BLA's suicide squad, which works under its central command led by its leader Bashir Zeb, is now capable of planning and conducting sophisticated attacks.
"Their intelligence-gathering capacity has increased, which results in meticulous planning for attacks such as taking an entire train hostage," he said.
"Now they appear capable of successfully laying traps for the security forces," he said.
Increasingly Sophisticated Attacks
In addition to the Majeed Brigade, the BLA claims to have separate guerrilla, special forces, and intelligence units that have launched increasingly sophisticated attacks against Pakistani troops and Chinese workers involved in numerous infrastructure, energy, and mineral extraction projects in Balochistan.
Baloch, the analyst in Islamabad, argues the Pakistani government's failure to win over Balochistan's alienated residents through a genuine political process and dispensing justice has harmed its legitimacy in the impoverished region where literacy and development levels are low.
"The state is unable to connect to and address the problems of ordinary citizens," he said.
Experts maintain that Balochistan's political crises have been extenuated by Islamabad's strategy of supporting figures loyal to the military over ethno-nationalist parties that hold genuine popularity among the Baluch populace.
However, these Baluch political parties, whose leaders have led most elected provincial governments since the 1970s, lost controversial parliamentary elections in February 2024.
The Baluch parties accused Islamabad of widespread rigging in the province.
Sarafaz Bugti, a Baluch politician supported by the military, promised to defeat militant groups by promoting good governance and bringing development to Balochistan.
But a year later, violence in Balochistan is mounting, which has added to public skepticism of Islamabad's promises.
"The Baluch have given up on parliamentary politics, which has increased the lure of groups such as the BLA for the youth," said Baloch, the researcher in Britain.
Every Two Hours A Woman Dies During Childbirth In Afghanistan
Every two hours. That's how often a woman dies during childbirth in Afghanistan.
The staggering maternal mortality rate is one of the highest in the world. And under the repressive rule of the Taliban, the situation is only getting worse.
Among the victims was a young woman who died during childbirth in her village in the northwestern province of Badghis in December.
"Both my sister and her unborn child died," said Fereshta, the woman's sister. "There are no midwives or any health centers in our area."
Fereshta did not name her sister, who she said was in her 20s and had three young children.
In Afghanistan, at least 638 mothers died for every 100,000 births, according to the UN figures for 2024. The real number could be even higher as some cases go unreported, especially in remote areas.
The UN said many of the deaths were due to preventable pregnancy complications exacerbated by severe shortages in qualified birth attendants and an under resourced health-care system.
Rising Maternal Deaths
The maternal mortality rate in Afghanistan was 1,346 for every 100,000 births in 2000, during the Taliban's first stint in power. The ratio dropped to 629 in 2020 due to generous international support and development aid.
But since the Taliban regained power in 2021, the number of deaths during childbirth has increased again.
The public health-care system in Afghanistan, which was largely funded by foreign aid for nearly two decades, has been in freefall since the Taliban seized power and international donors immediately cut financial funding.
While some foreign aid organizations continue to operate in Afghanistan, many of them have been forced to curb their work as international funding diminishes.
In a major blow, the United States, the largest foreign donor, paused its humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan in January.
The UN estimates that the absence of the US aid in Afghanistan could result in 1,200 additional maternal deaths between 2025 and 2028.
Exacerbating the situation, the Taliban has banned women from attending university and severely restricted their job opportunities, including in the health sector.
In December, the hard-line Islamist group banned women from attending medical institutes that offered classes in midwifery, nursing, dental hygiene, and laboratory science.
Tom Fletcher, the UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said the ban is set to prevent more than 36,000 midwives and 2,800 female nurses from joining the country's health sector in the foreseeable future.
Taliban 'Does Not Care About Women's Health'
A midwife at Kabul, who spoke to RFE/RL on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said the Taliban "does not care about women's health, as if this issue does not exist."
The woman, who has worked in state hospitals for more than two decades, said women's lack of access to information about maternal health is also an ongoing issue.
The high maternity rate in Afghanistan, she said, "is not only about a lack of access to a clinic or a midwife during childbirth."
"Expectant mothers should be under constant monitoring of clinics from the early stages of pregnancy," she added. "But in many cases in Afghanistan, even in big cities, pregnant women come to hospital only when they have some major health issue or only to give birth."
Afghan Survivors Speak Out: What The Taliban Does To Imprisoned Women
Today, Afghan women face more than 100 restrictions -- controlling everything from their appearance and movement to their right to work and study. Those accused of violating the Taliban’s so-called "morality laws" are often detained and arrested. What happens to those who suddenly find themselves behind bars in Taliban prisons? These stories often go untold, as most victims of the regime are threatened or forced into silence.
Pakistan Sets April 1 Deadline For 'Afghan Card' Holders, 'Illegal Foreigners' To Leave
Pakistan ordered Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) holders and “all illegal foreigners" to leave the country, either voluntarily or through deportation starting on April 1, raising fears among the Afghan community of repression should they return to their homeland.
“The Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Program has been implemented since November 1, 2023. In continuation to government’s decision to repatriate all illegal foreigners, national leadership has now decided to also repatriate ACC holders,” the Pakistani Interior Ministry said in a statement on March 7.
“All illegal foreigners and ACC holders are advised to leave the country voluntarily before March 31, 2025; thereafter, deportation will commence on April 1,” it added.
The ministry said that “sufficient time” has been given for the “dignified” departure of those affected and it pledged that “no one will be maltreated during the repatriation process.”
The Pakistani government has often blamed militant violence and criminal activity on Afghan citizens, allegations rejected by the extremist Taliban-led government in Kabul.
Islamabad accuses the Taliban of providing a safe haven for extremists linked to Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TPP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, inside Afghanistan, charges the government in Kabul also rejects.
In late January, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government approved a plan to repatriate ACC holders but did not specify a date.
An Afghan woman in Pakistan told RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal on condition of anonymity that she had fled to Pakistan because the Taliban had violated basic human rights in Afghanistan.
"We call on the government of Pakistan to retract what it has said regarding us at this difficult time," she said.
Qaiser Khan Afridi, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Islamabad, told Radio Mashaal on March 7 that he is continuing to discuss the fate of Afghans with officials of the Pakistani government.
Pakistan's government in late 2023 launched the effort to repatriate foreign citizens -- the majority of whom are Afghans -- first focusing on foreigners with no legal documentation but now including those with the ACC, a document that had allowed Afghan asylum-seekers to temporarily remain in Pakistan.
When the repatriation program was announced, Abbas Khan, Pakistan's commissioner of Afghan refugees, told RFE/RL that refugees were given ACC documentation in 2016 in an agreement among the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan and the UNHCR.
"They agreed that those citizens would be gradually returned to Afghanistan. But that did not happen," Khan said.
Pakistan has been a popular refuge for Afghans for decades, beginning during the 1979-89 Soviet occupation. Others fled fighting during the ensuing Afghan civil war and the Taliban's first stint in power from 1996 to 2001.
Millions of Afghans returned to their homeland following the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban from power.
But after the Taliban seized power again in 2021 amid the withdrawal of international forces, an estimated 700,000 more Afghans left for Pakistan to escape a devastating economic and humanitarian crisis and possible retribution by the Taliban.
According to UN data, more than 800,000 Afghans hold ACC status in Pakistan. Another 1.3 million are formally registered with the Pakistan government and hold a separate Proof of Residence (PoR) card. The statement did not mention the effect on those with PoR status.
The UN has estimated that at the peak, some 3.8 million Afghan refugees were in Pakistan, although Islamabad put the number at above 4.4 million.
Some 15,000 Afghans in Pakistan are awaiting to be approved for resettlement in the United States, although their status remains unclear after President Donald Trump's administration announced that the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) would be suspended for at least three months starting on January 27.
With reporting by Reuters
Pakistan's Arrest Of Islamic State Operative Signals Renewed U.S. Cooperation
Pakistan's arrest of a suspected Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) operative and his extradition to the United States signals renewed counterterrorism cooperation between the two countries, experts said.
The United States accuses Mohammad Sharifullah, a suspected senior member of IS-K, the Afghanistan branch of Islamic State, of helping plan the 2021 suicide bombing outside Kabul airport that killed 13 American soldiers and 170 Afghans.
Sharifullah appeared in a US federal court on March 5. He did not enter a plea, and he will next appear in court on March 10. He will stay in custody until then, the judge said.
Sharifullah has been charged with providing "material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization resulting in death" and faces life in prison.
Pakistan said Sharifullah, also known as Jafar, was arrested recently in the country's southwestern province of Balochistan, near the border with Afghanistan. It came after Pakistani intelligence reportedly received a tip from the CIA.
Islamabad's strategic importance has waned since the US and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
But Sharifullah's capture and extradition is "a very notable development," said Lucas Webber, senior threat intelligence analyst at Tech Against Terrorism, an UN-backed project that monitors extremism online.
Webber said it could point to "signs of more coordination to come between the two countries."
US President Donald Trump thanked Islamabad "for helping arrest this monster" during his State of the Union address on March 4.
Meanwhile, Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif thanked Trump for recognizing his country's role in counterterrorism efforts and pledged to "continue to partner closely with the United States in securing regional peace and stability."
Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud, news director at the Khorasan Diary, a website tracking militant groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, said Pakistan's handover of Sharifullah is a significant boost to relations between Washington and Islamabad.
"It gave Trump something to showcase during an important occasion," he said.
Islamic State In Afghanistan
Based in Afghanistan, IS-K has carried out deadly attacks against the Taliban, which seized power in 2021.
The extremist group has also staged a series of devastating, high-profile assaults in Russia, Iran, and Tajikistan in recent years.
Webber said Sharifullah's capture is a "major event in the US fight against IS-K."
Pakistani officials said Sharifullah is an Afghan citizen, a claim rejected by the Taliban government.
US officials said Sharifullah admitted to being a member of IS-K and to his role in the August 2021 bombing, one of the deadliest attacks of the entire 19-year US-led war in Afghanistan.
Sharifullah also confessed to training the suspected IS-K militants involved in the March 2024 attack on a concert hall outside Moscow that killed around 140 people, according to the Justice Department.
The department said he also played a role in a deadly attack on the Canadian Embassy in Kabul in 2016, which killed 10 guards.
"IS-K is highly multifaceted, expanding its operational cells and networks," said Webber. "It's a very dynamic, robust, internationally reaching organization and poses a serious threat."
American Porn Star Whitney Wright Sparks Fury With Trip To Afghanistan
Afghanistan's Islamist Taliban rulers have banned education and most jobs for Afghan women, who are also barred from parks, gyms, and bathhouses.
They are not supposed to leave their houses without a male guardian and live under draconian Taliban morality laws.
With such constraints, Afghan women are furious after photos and videos emerged of an American porn actor visiting their country.
While the Taliban has not acknowledged the visit, adult film star Whitney Wright posted photos of her visit to an Afghan tourist landmark on her Instagram account.
"It is fundamentally hypocritical," said Wazhma Tokhi, an Afghan women's rights and education activist.
"Afghan women are imprisoned in their own homeland, while foreign visitors -- no matter their background -- are treated with hospitality," she added.
In recent years, Wright has visited the predominantly Muslim nations of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.
RFE/RL's Radio Azadi couldn't reach the Taliban or Wright for comment.
The U.S. State Department currently advises Americans to "not travel to Afghanistan for any reason" because "multiple terrorist groups are active in Afghanistan and US citizens are targets of kidnapping and hostage-taking."
Wright would require a visa as a US citizen, although the Taliban's unrecognized government does not control the Afghan Embassy or consulates in the United States.
The Taliban has been keen on wooing foreign tourists to boost its international image and showcase the significant drop in violence in the country since it returned to power in August 2021.
Some Afghan women have said the Taliban is using female tourists to cultivate a positive image and highlight how safe the country is even for foreign women.
"This freedom is only for foreigners, not for Afghan women who are deprived of their most basic rights," Nasima Bidargar, an Afghan women's rights activist, told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi.
'Gender Apartheid' In Afghanistan
After returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban immediately banned teenage girls from school. It closed the doors of universities and other seats of higher learning to women in December 2022. The extremist group has also banned women from working for international NGOs and other sectors.
Even public parks exclusively reserved for women and restaurants and cafes owned or frequented by women have been shut down by the Taliban regime.
In August 2024, the Taliban enacted a new morality law specifically targeting women by requiring them to be accompanied by a male chaperone in public while covering their faces. It also banned women from singing or even raising their voices in public.
Senior United Nations officials and Afghan female activists have termed the Taliban's treatment of Afghan women as a "gender apartheid."
In January, the International Criminal Court requested arrest warrants for the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, and the Taliban's Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani for bearing "criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds."
Dressed in a black veil, Wright posted a video on Facebook of her walking in the snow near Band-e Amir. The famed crystal-blue lakes and soaring cliffs are one of the most popular national parks in Afghanistan's central province of Bamiyan. In August 2023, the Taliban banned Afghan women from the park.
"As an Afghan woman, this situation is harrowing for me," a female resident of Bamiyan told Radio Azadi.
Doctors Swamped With Malnourished Children At Afghan Hospital
Doctors at a hospital in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar have told RFE/RL they've admitted 5,500 malnourished children in the last six months alone. That number is just a small fraction of the nearly 3 million children in Afghanistan who are suffering from malnutrition, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Taliban Declares End To Doha Agreement With The United States
Afghanistan’s hard-line Islamist Taliban rulers say they no longer consider the Doha agreement -- a peace deal with the United States that paved the way for the withdrawal of Western forces from the country -- to be valid.
Speaking on February 28, the fifth anniversary of the agreement, chief Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the accord was limited to a particular time frame, which has now expired.
“The Islamic Emirate has its own governance system, and now we are no longer moving forward based on that agreement,” he told the state TV.
Mujahid said that the Taliban had fulfilled its key obligation under the agreement by preventing Afghanistan from becoming a launchpad for terrorist attacks against Washington and its allies.
He called on Washington to “take positive steps to engage with Afghanistan” and help in removing the Taliban leaders from international sanctions lists.
The Doha agreement paved the way for the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in return for the Taliban’s counterterrorism guarantees.
However, crucial parts of the agreement requiring talks among Afghans to form a new transitional government were never fully implemented.
Some U.S. officials have blamed the Doha agreement for prompting the collapse of the pro-Western Afghan republic ahead of the final U.S. military withdrawal on August 31, 2021.
The agreement was negotiated and concluded by the first administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
In a September presidential election campaign debate, he defended the deal as "a very good agreement" and blamed his successor, President Joe Biden, for the death of soldiers during the withdrawal, as well as for leaving behind weapons and failing to enforce the terms of the agreement.
Today, Afghans have mixed views about the agreement.
“The Doha agreement was a positive development because it ended the four-decades-long war in Afghanistan,” Anwar, a resident of the central Ghazni Province, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.
One Kabul resident said negotiations among Afghans would have produced a better outcome for their country.
While the Taliban seized power in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal, no country has yet formally recognized its government.
Inside Afghanistan, the Taliban has established a government led by its clerical leadership.
It has implemented harsh bans on the education, employment, mobility and public role of Afghan women, which has turned it into an international pariah.
Deadly Blast Rocks Pro-Taliban Seminary In Pakistan
A powerful explosion at a seminary in northwestern Pakistan has killed at least seven people, including a top cleric.
The Jamia Haqqania seminary in Akkora Khattak, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, is renowned for training key Taliban figures.
Local officials said that those killed in the blast on February 28 include Hamid ul-Haq Haqqani, a Pakistani politician and deputy head of the seminary.
Provincial police chief Zulfiqar Hameed told reporters that initial evidence suggests the explosion was caused by a suicide bomber specifically targeting Haqqani.
The Taliban, which returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021, said in a statement that it "strongly condemns" the attack on the religious school
No group has claimed responsibility for the incident.
Bilal Faizi, a spokesperson for the local emergency services, told RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal that least 20 people were injured in the explosion.
- By Ray Furlong
AfD Surges As Afghan Attack Suspects Put Migrants At Heart Of German Elections
As Germany heads into pivotal federal elections on February 23, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is making unprecedented gains.
But the party has also faced strong opposition from people who accuse it of exploiting a series of brutal attacks by migrants for political ends.
The most recent case was in the Bavarian town of Aschaffenburg, in which police arrested an Afghan man after a knife attack on a kindergarten group that left a 2-year-old boy and an adult male dead.
“He was supposed to have been deported,” said Hermann Priegnitz, an AfD candidate who was spending the morning hanging election posters on lampposts, told RFE/RL.
He was voicing a common lament, also made by Germany’s Social Democrat Interior Minister Nancy Faeser. But the AfD has more radical policies on migration than any other party.
It calls for “remigration,” meaning mass deportations of Syrians and Afghans.
Critics accuse the AfD of racism or even fascism. Germany’s domestic intelligence service is surveilling it for suspected right-wing extremism.
Priegnitz says the party is being targeted, showing me a video of people tearing down their posters. Today, he was using a ladder to place them out of reach.
He strongly defends remigration, rejecting the idea that it puts people in danger.
“There has always been conflict in Afghanistan, where various tribes fight each other. We can’t make peace for them here in Germany. These tribes, these people, the inhabitants of Afghanistan should do this in their own country.”
Later that day, we visited Sara Seerat. She used to work at the Women’s Ministry in Kabul, and was awarded the Franco-German Human Rights Prize in 2020 for her work helping Afghan girls and women gain access to education and employment.
'I Did Not Feel Safe'
After the Taliban regained power in 2021, she was invited to Germany on humanitarian grounds, along with her two brothers and her parents. The family now shares a small two-bedroom flat on the edge of Berlin.
Seerat said that the attack in Aschaffenburg left her and many Afghans shocked and concerned.
“I personally did not feel safe. Because when I went outside or to class, I thought everyone was looking at me and thinking: ‘She is an Afghan with similar thoughts, and she could be dangerous for our country’.”
She is indeed not alone in this. A few days before we talked to the AfD, a video went viral in Germany of a 12-year-old Afghan girl breaking down in tears after apologizing for the attack at a public meeting. She was comforted by an adult who told her that, of course, she had nothing to apologize for.
Seerat said she was worried about the way events like these were affecting German society, but did not fear that mass deportations would become reality. She noted that no other party has promoted the idea, and that the AfD is highly unlikely to become part of a new governing coalition after the election.
There has for years been a taboo in Germany on working with the AfD. But its hard line on migration, coupled with several attacks over the last 12 months, has arguably had an influence on German politics.
'People Are Asking For A Stricter Regime'
Other parties have also promised to be “tough” on migration and, last year, Germany put 28 Afghans on a deportation flight to Kabul.
Interior Minister Faeser said it was the only European country doing so.
Recently, the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU), likely election winners, voted with the AfD in parliament to promote tighter border controls.
This led to nationwide mass protests, with some 250,000 people gathering in Munich to condemn the CDU/CSU breaking the “firewall” around the AfD.
CDU/CSU lawmaker Juergen Hardt told us he had no difficultly explaining his party’s stance in his constituency. He represents the western town of Solingen, where three people were killed and eight injured in a mass stabbing in August. The attack was claimed by the extremist Islamic State group, and the police arrested a Syrian suspect.
“Two of the victims in Solingen were from a sports club there. There was an annual reception at that sports club, and it was hard to be there because two people were missing,” he said.
“People in Germany are asking for a stricter regime on asylum seekers.”
The day after our meeting with Sara Seerat, a car plowed into a crowd in Munich. The police said they had arrested the driver, an Afghan man, and were investigating an attack with an Islamist motive.
A 37-year-old Algerian-German woman and her 2-year-old daughter were killed. The family made a plea that the attack not be misused for political purposes.
But it has, once again, pushed the issue of migration front and center of Germany’s election.
- By RFE/RL
Trump Praises Musk For Work Cutting Government Waste
U.S. President Donald Trump defended his decision to give billionaire businessman Elon Musk a major role in his administration as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) amid backlash over the freezing of funding for USAID, which affected foreign assistance programs around the world.
Trump curtailed the U.S. Agency for International Development work when he ordered a 90-day spending freeze on January 24. The decision affected numerous businesses and nonprofit groups in Ukraine, which are now struggling to cope. It also affected aid programs for people in Afghanistan.
Trump and Musk touched on the move during their first joint TV interview, which aired on February 18 on Fox News, a conservative U.S. news outlet. Trump said he took the step to freeze USAID's funding because his predecessor, President Joe Biden, overspent, including on foreign aid that he said did not serve U.S. interests, and widened the deficit.
Since 2022, USAID has provided Ukraine with billions of dollars in humanitarian aid, development assistance, and direct budget support. Musk and Trump were not asked about the suspension of aid to the programs in Ukraine during the interview or Trump's diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
The interview focused more on Trump's relationship with Musk, the world’s richest man, and why he chose him to head DOGE.
“I know a lot of businessmen and they are not necessarily good people,” Trump said. Musk is a great person who “wants to see the country do well,” Trump told Fox News interviewer Sean Hannity, who is a friend of the president.
DOGE has been rooting out government waste, fraud, and abuse, Trump said, and has already saved American taxpayers millions of dollars.
Since Trump returned to office on January 20, DOGE has gone from department to department, laying off or firing thousands of government employees in a major shakeup of the federal government designed to cut costs and shrink its size. A list of programs that have been identified, some costing hundreds of millions of dollars, scrolled on the screen during the joint interview.
Musk said he took the role to reduce the bureaucracy and prevent the United States from going bankrupt.
“The goal is to try to get a trillion dollars out of the deficit,” Musk said, claiming that Trump “was handed a two-trillion deficit when he came to office.”
Musk said the average American taxpayer should be “mad as hell” over the way their tax dollars have been spent.
He said some of the people on his DOGE team, which has come under withering criticism from Democrats for taking what they say is illegal actions as it slashes programs, are federal employees. Others are software engineers who could be earning million-dollar salaries but have instead opted to work for him.
The president said Musk has only been implementing his executive orders, and vowed that traditional programs such as Social Security and the government-funded health insurance programs Medicare and Medicaid “won’t be touched” by the cuts.
However, the arrival of DOGE employees this week at the Social Security Administration prompted the abrupt resignation of its chief over an apparent clash with Musk's cost-cutting team. Other senior federal officials have resigned when confronted with DOGE’s scorched-earth approach to federal spending.
Trump also said that Musk has not asked him for any favors for his companies -- namely SpaceX, which holds multiple contracts with the U.S. government, and Tesla, which has benefited from U.S. subsidies to promote electric vehicles.
Musk said he would recuse himself if he’s ever confronted with a situation involving his businesses, and Trump said, “If there’s ever a conflict, he won’t be involved.”
Musk told Hannity he has paid a price for his support for Trump but intends to continue.
“I’m a technologist and I try to make technologies that help people and improve the world,” said Musk, who wore a sport coat over a T-shirt with the words Tech Support across the front.
Trump said he has always respected Musk, but his admiration for him grew when he opened the use of Starlink communications satellites to people in North Carolina whose communities had been devastated by a hurricane last year.
His admiration only grew when SpaceX was able to return a rocket to Earth and be grasped out of the air “like a beautiful little baby,” and he decided he wanted him on his team.
Will Russians Be Able To Buy Coca-Cola Again Thanks To The Taliban?
The Coca-Cola Company left Russia at the start of Russia’s 2022invasion of Ukraine, but now Russian Ambassador to Afghanistan Dmitry Zhirnov announced a range of trade agreements with the Taliban, and that includes Coca-Cola.
- By RFE/RL's Radio Azadi and
- Ray Furlong
Afghan Detained In Munich Attack Sparks Fears Among Rest Of Community
MUNICH, Germany -- Police in Munich arrested an Afghan asylum seeker after he rammed a car into a crowd in the German city, injuring 28 people and leaving many Afghans in the country on edge amid calls during an election campaign for tougher immigration laws.
Despite a heavy police presence in the city a day before many high-profile leaders such as U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attend the Munich Security Conference, the man, identified by German media as 24-year-old Farhad N., drove his vehicle into a demonstration held by trade unionists.
"The suspect will be brought before an investigating judge tomorrow [February 14]. We are still at the crime scene with our forensic team and specialists," Munich police said.
Police said they fired one shot at the vehicle, a Mini Cooper, and arrested the man at the scene where victims, clothes and even a stroller were strewn around the street.
Munich police said authorities have "indications of an extremist motive" and that prosecutors are investigating. Several news outlets, including Der Spiegel, cited sources as saying the man is thought to have posted Islamist content online before the attack.
"Afghans living in Germany are deeply saddened and worried about their future due to this and similar incidents," Rahmatullah Ziarmaal, an Afghan journalist who lives in the city of Limburg, told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi.
"Many Afghans feel particularly distressed by such events, fearing that anti-immigration parties will exploit them for political gain, making life even more difficult for refugees."
Joachim Herrmann, the interior minister for the state of Bavaria, said the suspect's application for asylum had been rejected, but he hadn't been deported because of security concerns in Afghanistan.
The incident is likely to enflame already heated rhetoric as Germans prepare to vote in parliamentary elections on February 23.
Germany has the largest Afghan community in Europe with an estimated 377,000 Afghan citizens residing in the country at the end of 2022, according to the country's statistics agency.
"We have to continue with deportations...even to Afghanistan, a very difficult country," Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told reporters in Munich.
Several violent incidents involving immigrants have bolstered far-right candidates, who narrowly trail center-right conservatives.
Both have been critical of Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz, accusing him of being soft on immigration, which they blame for an increase in violent crime rates.
Yousuf Rahimi, an Afghan resident of Munich who is awaiting approval of his asylum application, told RFE/RL that many Afghans come to the country because of the open immigration policies but fail to assimilate and end up getting involved in crime and drugs.
"People like this create difficulties for Afghans like me who genuinely seek asylum, want to contribute positively to German society, and hope to build a future here," he said.
With reporting by dpa and Reuters
Two Killed In Botched Suicide Bombing Attack On Taliban Ministry
A suicide bombing attack on the Taliban-led Ministry for Urban Development office in the Afghan capital, Kabul, has killed two people and injured three more.
Taliban authorities said the attacker was one of the people killed in the February 13 attack.
“The suicide bomber was identified and eliminated at the entrance of the ministry,” said Mohammad Kamal Afghan, a spokesman for the Taliban's Urban Development Ministry.
He told journalists that the attack happened just before noon local time.
No group has immediately accepted responsibility for the attack.
But the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), an ultraradical rival of the Taliban, claimed credit for a separate attack earlier this week.
On February 11, at least eight people were killed in a suicide bank outside a bank in the northern city of Kunduz. IS-K said it targeted the Taliban government employees while they collected their salaries.
Earlier on December 11, an IS-K suicide bomber killed Khalil ur-Rahman Haqqani, the Taliban’s refugee minister. Five more people were killed in the attack inside the Refugee Ministry compound in Kabul.
Haqqani, in his 60s, was the most senior Taliban figure killed by IS-K since the Taliban seized power in August 2021.
IS-K has repeatedly targeted Afghanistan's Shi’ite minority and followers of the moderate Sufi orders.
In recent years, the group has embarked on terror attacks internationally. Last year, it claimed credit for attacks in Iran and Russia. Individuals linked to the group have also been detained in the United States and Europe.
On February 10, a meeting of the UN Security Council declared the group a significant threat to global security.
“We remain concerned about IS-K's capabilities to plot and conduct attacks as well as sustain recruitment campaigns, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” said Dorothy Shea, the interim U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
The Taliban promised security after returning to power three years ago but has not been able to stamp out attacks by the IS-K. It launched a brutal crackdown against the IS-K and claimed to have killed or detained hundreds of its members.
Afghanistan’s tiny Salafist minority, however, has complained of being on the receiving end of the Taliban clampdown on IS-K as its members were unjustly persecuted.
In 2015, the IS-K emerged as the local branch of the Islamic State, which ruled vast swathes of territories in Syria and Iraq.
With reporting by RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi, VOA, Reuters, and AFP
- By Mustafa Sarwar and
- Frud Bezhan
Taliban Divisions Laid Bare As Afghanistan Power Struggle Intensifies
The Taliban has for years presented a united front to the outside world and kept a tight lid on dissent within its ranks.
But unprecedented displays of discord have laid bare the rifts in the secretive militant group and exposed an intensifying power struggle.
The internal divisions could spill over into violence, experts warn, and trigger a new civil war that would further destabilize the volatile region.
“Despite a culture of secrecy and unity, recently there have been public shows of disunity,” said Michael Semple, a former EU and UN adviser to Afghanistan. “These suggest that the movement is under real strain.”
‘Chaotic And Uncertain’
In December, the Taliban’s Refugees Minister Khalil Haqqani was killed in a suicide bombing. He is the most senior official to be killed since the hard-line Islamist group seized power in 2021.
Privately, most of Haqqani’s supporters accused his rivals in the Taliban of ordering his assassination, according to experts.
In January, a senior Taliban official left the country soon after appearing to criticize the Taliban’s spiritual leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, who has the ultimate say under the group’s clerical-led system.
“Follow him, but not to the extent that, God forbid, you grant him the rank of prophethood or divinity,” said Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, the Taliban’s deputy foreign minister, according to an audio recording released last month. “If you deviate even a step from God's path, then you are no longer my leader, I do not recognize you.”
Stanikzai also criticized Akhundzada’s ban on girls’ education, which has provoked international condemnation.
He confirmed that he was in the United Arab Emirates, but said it was due to health reasons. Reports suggest Stanikzai fled Afghanistan after Akhundzada issued a warrant for his arrest and ordered a travel ban.
Meanwhile, a growing number of Taliban members have openly complained about delays to the payment of their salaries.
The Taliban has denied that there are any rifts in the group. Chief Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told the private Tolo News that the group “will never engage in disagreements, become a source of division, or take actions that could lead to misfortune or bring instability back to the country."
But several sources in the Taliban, who spoke to RFE/RL on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, described the current atmosphere as “chaotic” and “uncertain.”
The sources also said that officials were banned from leaving the country unless they received authorization from Akhundzada.
“These developments suggest a real challenge to the movement’s unity, between those Taliban who feel marginalized and those who feel empowered,” said Semple, a professor at Queen's University Belfast.
“We are now in new territory. The political and military opposition to the Taliban is weaker than in the 1990s,” added Semple, referring to the Taliban first stint in power. “But the expectations of the Afghan population are much higher and the levels of popular frustration with Taliban performance are unprecedented. Unhappy Taliban know this.”
Internal Competition
The internal rifts in the Taliban have increasingly come to the fore since the group regained power in 2021.
Akhundzada, who rarely leaves his stronghold in the southern city of Kandahar, has monopolized power, marginalized more moderate figures, and enforced hard-line policies that have made Afghanistan an international pariah.
Among Akhundzada’s rivals is Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s interior minister and leader of the Haqqani network, a powerful faction that wields significant influence in eastern Afghanistan.
Others include Mullah Mohammad Yaqub, the defense minister and son of the group’s founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar, as well as Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who headed the group’s political office in Qatar and is the deputy prime minister in the Taliban cabinet.
“Recent events, particularly tensions between different factions within the Taliban, are a significant challenge to their unity, but they are not the only or necessarily the biggest threat,” said Hatef Mukhtar, director of the Afghanistan Center for Strategic Studies.
There are splits in the Taliban along ideological lines. Some Taliban leaders want international recognition and economic investment, while others prioritize enforcing strict Islamic rule, even at the cost of isolation, said Mukhtar.
The growing influence of the Kandahar-based leadership at the expense of former battlefield commanders and the political office is also a source of tension, Mukhtar said.
Meanwhile, the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) extremist group continues to pose a threat to the Taliban, testing the group’s ability to maintain security.
Underscoring that threat, IS-K claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing outside a bank in northern Afghanistan on February 11 that killed five people, the Taliban said. But two Taliban sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said at least 14 were killed in the attack, including members of the group.
The Taliban’s cash-strapped and unrecognized government has also come under increasing financial pressure.
U.S. President Donald Trump has frozen all foreign aid, including to Afghanistan. That is likely to aggravate the devastating humanitarian crisis in the country. Meanwhile, the value of the national currency, the afghani, has plummeted in recent weeks, triggering price hikes.
Experts say that while the Taliban has shown resilience in managing internal disputes, escalating tensions could threaten the group’s cohesion.
The most likely scenario is “low-level infighting, assassinations, and internal purges rather than an open military confrontation,” said Mukhtar.
“But if the Taliban fails to address its internal divisions, Afghanistan could eventually see another cycle of intra-Islamist conflict,” he added.
- By RFE/RL
Trump Signs Order Imposing Sanctions On International Criminal Court
U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order slapping sanctions on officials with the International Criminal Court for opening investigations targeting the United States and Israel.
Trump's order said the court in The Hague “has engaged in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.”
The executive order, signed by Trump on February 6, said those actions “set a dangerous precedent, directly endangering current and former United States personnel,” including members of the U.S. military.
The order refers to an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his actions toward Palestinians in Gaza and recent actions by the court that endanger members of the U.S. military.
The order was signed after Netanyahu visited Trump at the White House on February 4. It notes that neither the United States nor Israel are members of the court.
Trump’s order imposes sanctions, including barring ICC officials, employees, and family members from entering the United States and freezes any assets they hold in U.S. jurisdiction. The sanctions also apply to anyone deemed to have helped the court's investigations.
The ICC issued arrest warrants on November 21 for Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif -- who Israel says is dead.
The warrants are for "crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024."
Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, launched an attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, that killed some 1,200 people, mostly Israeli citizens, and took hundreds of others hostage. A subsequent Israeli offensive aimed at neutralizing Hamas has killed tens of thousands of people, mostly in the Gaza Strip.
Trump in 2020 during his first administration imposed financial sanctions and a visa ban on the ICC's then-prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, and other senior officials and staff. The move came after Bensouda launched an investigation into allegations of war crimes against U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
President Joe Biden lifted the sanctions soon after taking office in 2021.
ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan,Khan later effectively dropped the United States from the Afghan investigation.
With reporting by AFP
- By RFE/RL
U.S. Lawmakers Vow To Defend USAID After Agency's Employees Locked Out
Democratic members of Congress have challenged the Trump administration's apparent attempt to fold the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) into the State Department, a move that calls into question funding for aid programs around the world, including billions of dollars in development aid to Ukraine.
The lawmakers gathered outside the main office of the USAID in downtown Washington on February 3 to criticize what they called an “illegal maneuver” by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who has been tasked by President Donald Trump with downsizing the government.
The Democratic lawmakers held the gathering as a protest after reports that agency employees had been told not to report to work on February 3 and subsequently were locked out of their government e-mail and other accounts as a gutting of the agency appeared to be under way.
“We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk said on X on February 3.
The lawmakers who spoke outside the agency’s main office in Washington defended the work of the USAID and said the actions interfered with congressional power.
“We don’t have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk. And that’s going to become real clear,” said Representative Jamie Raskin (Democrat-Maryland).
He added that he didn’t know what Musk’s motivations were, “but they’ve got nothing to do with what has been lawfully adopted by the people of the United States of America through the Congress of the United States. We’re going to defend USAID all the way.”
Senator Chris Murphy (Democrat-Connecticut) said the move created a constitutional crisis and vowed to fight it.
“The people get to decide how their taxpayer money is spent. Elon Musk does not get to decide,” he said, also speaking alongside Raskin at the USAID building.
Murphy called the move an attempt to “turn this government over to a handful of unelected billionaires and corporate interests, and we are not going to let them do that.”
USAID is an independent government agency established by Congress in 1961 and has a workforce of approximately 10,000 people around the world. It is the U.S. government’s main international aid arm and receives tens of billions of dollars from Congress annually to fund programs in some of the world's poorest countries.
These include anti-poverty programs, health programs, disaster relief, and programs to promote democracy and defend human rights.
A recent report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) said USAID in fiscal year 2023 managed more than $40 billion in combined appropriations to support projects in around 130 countries. The top three recipients of aid were Ukraine, Ethiopia, and Jordan. Afghanistan is also one of the top 10 recipients of USAID funding.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that he is the acting director of USAID but said he has delegated that authority so he would not be running its day-to-day operations. He informed Congress of the reorganization of the agency in a letter, saying some parts of USAID might be absorbed by the State Department and the remainder may be abolished.
The move is “not about ending the programs that USAID does,” but about taking policy direction from the State Department, Rubio said.
Speaking in El Salvador during a visit to South America, Rubio said he has been frustrated with USAID for years by what he said was the agency’s refusal to respond to State Department policy directives. The agency “has to be aligned with American foreign policy,” he said.
Rubio stressed that the money that USAID receives are taxpayer dollars, but the agency has become a “global charity separate from the national interest.”
In an interview with Fox News later on February 3, he said: “I think we’re going to be the most generous nation on Earth in a way that makes sense, that’s in our national interest.” The State Department posted a transcript of the interview at its website.
Members of Congress took aim at Musk, the world's richest man, when news broke early on February 3 that employees had been sent e-mails on February 2 telling them not to report to work the next day.
Senator Patty Murray (Democrat-Washington) accused Musk of taking the actions against USAID while SpaceX stands to make millions of dollars in profit from government contracts with the Pentagon.
Murray told a news conference at the Capitol that the freeze of already approved funds for USAID is putting “trust at the lowest level” seen in a lifetime and asked what funds would be seized next.
But the White House was adamant that the agency must be reformed, publishing a statement highlighting the "waste and abuse" it said existed at USAID, including $1.5 million to "advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia's workplaces and business communities."
It also singled out funding for the production of a “transgender opera" in Colombia, a “transgender comic book” in Peru, and for “sex changes and LGBT activism” in Guatemala.
“The list literally goes on and on -- and it has all been happening for decades,” the statement said. “Under President Trump, the waste, fraud, and abuse ENDS NOW.”
With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP
- By RFE/RL
Trump's USAID Reform Causes Alarm As Musk Weighs In On Foreign Aid
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration appears to be shuttering Washington's main international aid arm amid a blitz of executive actions targeting government spending, a move international humanitarian organizations have warned could have catastrophic consequences.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on February 3 that he is now the acting director of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and that he would end what he described as its "insubordination" to Trump's agenda.
"There are a lot of functions of USAID that are going to continue, that are going to be part of American foreign policy, but it has to be aligned with American foreign policy," Rubio told reporters during a visit to El Salvador.
CBS News, citing three U.S. officials it did not identify, reported that the agency will be merged into the State Department, with significant cuts in the workforce, but will remain a humanitarian aid entity. Reuters cited an unnamed senior White House official as saying Trump is considering merging USAID with the State Department.
Leading the charge against USAID is Elon Musk, Trump's point man on slashing government spending, who claims the administration can cut $1 trillion from the U.S. deficit and is positioning his drive as a battle against corruption.
USAID employees earlier received a notice that the agency's headquarters in Washington would be closed to personnel on February 3 "at the direction of Agency leadership," CNN and the Associated Press cited multiple sources as saying.
The website of USAID, which the UN says provides more than 40 percent of all humanitarian aid globally, was down on February 3, and Trump claimed the agency has "been run by a bunch of radical lunatics."
"We're getting them out, and then we'll make a decision" on USAID's future, he told reporters on February 2.
Trump's comments followed reports by CNN and Reuters that two senior USAID security officials had been placed on administrative leave after they tried to prevent representatives of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Trump-established organization led by Musk, from accessing agency computer systems.
Musk himself called USAID, which administers tens of billions of dollars in U.S. foreign assistance approved by Congress, a "criminal organization" and that it is "time for it to die."
A group of senior Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 2 sent a letter to Rubio expressing "deep concern" over the Trump administration's moves targeting an organization they said was set up "to ensure that we can deploy development expertise and U.S. foreign assistance quickly, particularly in times of crisis, to meet our national security goals."
"Trump and Musk are illegally attempting to shut down USAID," U.S. Senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, wrote on X on February 3. "The consequences of this are deadly and they are global. It is going to make all of us less safe."
The State Department under Rubio on January 24 ordered a freeze on new funding for almost all U.S. foreign assistance programs as part of Trump's drive to align the programs with his foreign policy goals.
Since assuming his post last month, Rubio has said of U.S. foreign aid under Trump: "Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?"
Trump's executive order called for a 90-day pause in U.S. foreign development assistance to assess efficiencies and "consistency with United States foreign policy." It grants Rubio the power to waive the three-month pause for "specific programs."
Humanitarian groups and nongovernmental organizations across the globe voiced concern over the fate of USAID after Trump's executive order.
A pause in funding for Afghanistan "would be catastrophic for an operation for more than 22 million Afghans that need aid," Jan Egeland, the secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi.
Since Russia launched its all-out war on Ukraine in February 2022, USAID has provided Ukraine with billions of dollars in humanitarian aid, development assistance, and direct budget support.
Trump has criticized the amount of aid -- including billions of dollars in weapons -- that the Biden administration has provided to Ukraine.
Svitlana Musiak, a researcher at the Kyiv-based Independent Anti-Corruption Commission (NAKO), an NGO, told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service that a suspension of USAID funding to Ukraine could negatively impact civil-society programs and signal "reduced U.S. support for democratic reforms and economic stability in the country."
At the same time, some representatives of Ukrainian civil society support an audit, including Olena Trehub, executive director of the Independent Anti-Corruption Commission and a member of the Anti-Corruption Council at the Defense Ministry.
On February 2, Trehub wrote on Facebook that she had "always emphasized the need to reform USAID, as, by monitoring the effectiveness of projects, she saw how enormous budgets pass through this government agency and how often the results leave much to be desired."
At the same time, she noted that USAID had supported critically important reforms, civil society, humanitarian, and infrastructure projects that had a significant impact on Ukraine's development.
Speaking to CBS News on February 2, Republican Congressman Brian Mast of Florida said he is working with Rubio "to make sure that there's the appropriate command and control" of agencies like USAID.
Mast, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives, said he would support "removing USAID as a separate department" and having it fall under "other parts" of the State Department.
The senior Senate Democrats said in their February 2 letter to Rubio that "any effort to merge or fold USAID into the Department of State should be, and by law must be, previewed, discussed, and approved by Congress."
"Congress has also made clear that any attempt to reorganize or redesign USAID requires advance consultation with, and notification to, Congress," they wrote.
With reporting by Reuters and AP
Tensions Rise As U.S., Taliban Exchange Threats
Tensions between Washington and Taliban leaders in Afghanistan are rising a week into President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio threatened on January 25 to place a bounty on Taliban leaders if the United States determines the group has imprisoned American citizens.
“Just hearing the Taliban is holding more American hostages than has been reported. If this is true, we will have to immediately place a VERY BIG bounty on their top leaders, maybe even bigger than the one we had on [Al-Qaeda leader Osama] Bin Laden,” Rubio wrote on X.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s acting interior minister, is currently the only senior member of the group on the FBI’s most wanted list. However, dozens of Taliban officials are sanctioned by the United Nations.
Rubio’s comment came days after the Taliban released two Americans in exchange for a member of the Taliban serving a life sentence in the United States on drug and terrorism charges.
The Taliban’s first formal response to Rubio came on January 27, with Suhail Shahin, the group’s ambassador to Qatar, claiming that it was the Taliban’s policy to resolve issues peacefully through dialogue.
However, he warned in a statement to RFE/RL's Radio Azadi, “in the face of pressure and aggression, the jihad [struggle] of the Afghan nation in recent decades is a lesson that everyone should learn from.”
The Taliban fought U.S. and NATO troops for nearly 20 years until its return to power in 2021 following a chaotic and bloody withdrawal of foreign forces.
A U.S. Department of Defense report in 2022 said around $7 billion dollars worth of military equipment was left behind in Afghanistan during the withdrawal, which were subsequently seized by the Taliban.
Ahead of his inauguration on January 21, Trump warned that if the Taliban did not return U.S. military equipment, he would cut future financial assistance to Afghanistan.
The Taliban has not publicly responded to Trump, but a source told Radio Azadi that the group “will not give even a single bullet back to the United States.”
Since the withdrawal of foreign forces, the United States has channeled around $3 billion through the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations to help humanitarian programs in Afghanistan.
- By RFE/RL
U.S. May Put Bounty On Taliban Leaders Over Hostages, Rubio Says
The United States may place a bounty on the top leaders of the Taliban, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on January 25 after finding out that the group may be holding more American hostages in Afghanistan.
"Just hearing the Taliban is holding more American hostages than has been reported," Rubio said on X.
"If this is true, we will have to immediately place a very big bounty on their top leaders, maybe even bigger than the one we had on bin Laden," he added, referring to the Al-Qaeda leader and mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Bin Laden was killed in 2011 by the U.S. military in a nighttime raid in Pakistan.
U.S. officials and media confirmed earlier this week the release of two Americans held in Afghanistan in exchange for a Taliban man imprisoned for life in California on drug and terrorism charges.
The two Americans who were set free were not identified by the Afghan Foreign Ministry, but according to U.S. media reports and family members, they were Ryan Corbett and William McKenty.
No mention was made of two other U.S. citizens -- George Glezmann and Mahmood Habibi-- who have been held by the Taliban since 2022. It was unclear whether these were the hostages that Rubio referred to.
The member of the Taliban who was released was Khan Mohammed, who had been sentenced to two life terms in 2008. The Afghan Foreign Ministry said his release came “as a result of long and fruitful negotiations” between Afghanistan and the United States.
A member of the new administration of President Donald Trump told reporters in Washington that the deal was brokered by President Joe Biden’s team before he left office on January 20.
Details of the negotiations were not revealed. The United States, like most countries, does not recognize the Taliban -- which seized power in Kabul in mid-2021 -- as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan.
White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said in a statement on January 21 that the Trump administration "will continue to demand the release of all Americans held by the Taliban, especially in light of the billions of dollars in U.S. aid they’ve received in recent years."
Rubio's bounty comment came two days after the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said that he has requested warrants for the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, and the head of Afghanistan's Supreme Court, Abdul Hakim Haqqani.
Karim Khan announced that he is seeking arrest warrants for the alleged persecution of Afghan women and girls, an accusation the Taliban-run Foreign Ministry called "baseless."
In a statement, Khan said based on evidence collected thus far in an investigation reopened in October 2022 there were grounds to believe Akhundzada and Haqqani "bear criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds."
Mir Abdul Wahid Sadat, head of the Afghan Lawyers Association, told RFE/RL, that the ICC decisions and actions "have strong consequences" and said Khan's announcement was "a big threat to the Taliban."
With reporting by Reuters
- By RFE/RL
U.S. Issues Broad Freeze On Foreign Aid Pending Reviews
The U.S. State Department on January 24 ordered a freeze on new funding for almost all U.S. foreign assistance programs as part of President Donald Trump's push to align the programs with his foreign policy goals.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a message to U.S. embassies worldwide spelling out the implementation of an executive order Trump signed on January 20 saying that "no further United States foreign assistance shall be disbursed in a manner that is not fully aligned with the foreign policy of the President of the United States."
Trump's order said current U.S. foreign aid is "not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values." It said aid programs "serve to destabilize world peace" by promoting ideas that conflict with stable relations within the countries they serve and relations between those countries and others.
The executive order calls for a 90-day pause in U.S. foreign development assistance to assess efficiencies and "consistency with United States foreign policy." The sweeping order affects new disbursements of funds to foreign countries, NGOs, international organizations, and contractors pending reviews of the programs.
Trump and other Republicans had vowed to crackdown on U.S. foreign aid programs, and Rubio's memo justified the freeze by saying it was impossible for the new administration to assess whether existing foreign aid commitments "are not duplicated, are effective, and are consistent with President Trump's foreign policy."
The new chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Representative Brian Mast (Republican-Florida), promised this week that Republicans would question "every dollar and every diplomat" in the State Department's budget to ensure it met their standards for strictly necessary.
Mast said in a press release after Rubio was confirmed as secretary of state that he intends to work with Rubio to “root out” waste at the State Department.
The ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee reacted to the move by saying it "undermines American leadership and credibility" around the world.
"United States foreign assistance programs promote stability in other countries to help stop crises from expanding directly to our doorstep," Representative Gregory Meeks (Democrat-New York) said in a letter to Rubio. "Foreign assistance is not a handout; it is a strategic investment in our future that is vital for U.S. global leadership and a more resilient world."
The letter said U.S. foreign aid directly serves U.S. interests and demonstrates the country's credibility to allies, partners, and vulnerable people who rely on American assistance for survival.
By pausing current programs and preventing new ones the United States would "cede this space" to its adversaries, said the letter, which was also signed by Representative Lois Frankel (Democrat-Florida), the ranking member on the House National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Subcommittee.
"For years, Republicans in Congress have decried what they see as a lack of U.S. credibility vis-a-vis countries like China, Russia, and Iran. Now our credibility is on the line, and it appears we will cut and run from American commitments to our partners around the world," Meeks and Frankel said.
Rubio's order exempts emergency food programs, such as those helping to feed millions in Sudan. Trump's executive order does not mention military aid, but Rubio’s message specifies that military assistance to Israel and Egypt are exempt.
There was no indication of a similar waiver for U.S. military assistance to Ukraine; however, the Biden administration accelerated the disbursement of already approved aid for Ukraine before leaving office over concerns Trump would discontinue it. There is still about $3.85 billion in congressionally authorized funding for future arms shipments to Ukraine and it is up to Trump whether or not to spend it.
The United States is the world's biggest donor, providing tens of billions of dollars annually.
With reporting by AFP and AP
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