Afghanistan
'Rubbing Salt Into Our Wounds': In Pakistan, Opposition Grows To Impending Deal With Tehrik-e Taliban
Lawyer Fazal Khan says he feels furious following Pakistan's ongoing peace negotiations with the hard-line militant group Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
His eldest son, eighth-grader Sahibzada Omar Khan, was killed in the TTP's most horrific attack.
On December 16, 2014, a group of TTP militants stormed the Army Public School in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. They massacred Sahibzada and 131 other students. Fifteen teachers and staff were also killed in the attack, remembered as the worst terrorist atrocity in Pakistan's 74-year history.
“This is like rubbing salt into our wounds,” he told RFE/RL. “This is like laughing at the sacrifices and martyrdom of innocent victims [of terrorist] attacks.”
Khan is not alone in questioning the mostly opaque talks, which senior Pakistani officials say are aimed at ending the TTP’s 14-year insurgency. A deal between Islamabad and the TTP now appears to be in sight after the group declared an indefinite cease-fire this month following months of parleys brokered by the Afghan Taliban.
Imminent Deal
Reports in the Pakistani media indicate that Islamabad has already agreed to release hundreds of detained and convicted TTP members and withdraw court cases against them.
Additionally, a large portion of the tens of thousands of Pakistani troops stationed in the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) -- where the TTP first emerged as an umbrella organization of small Taliban factions in 2007 -- will be withdrawn. Islamabad has also agreed to implement Islamic Shari'a law in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Malakand region. The two sides have yet to agree on retracting democratic reforms and the merger of FATA into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and whether thousands of TTP militants can return with their arms and keep their organization intact.
But opposition to the imminent agreement is growing as victims of TTP violence question its logic. Others see it linked to the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan, which Islamabad helped by hosting the insurgency for nearly two decades. Pakistan's several failed agreements with the TTP motivates some to warn of its potential negative fallout.
Yet senior officials are adamant that the TTP’s ongoing talks with a tribal council handpicked by the government will result in an agreement acceptable to both sides. Pakistani Information Minister Maryam Aurangzeb says the civilian administration and military support the talks.
“Whatever decision the negotiating committee will make will be eventually made with the approval of the government and the parliament,” she told journalists on June 4.
Many politicians, however, do not share her optimism.
"After imposing the Taliban on Afghanistan, the Pakistani security state wants to hand over the former tribal areas to force Pashtuns to live under neocolonial conditions,” former Senator Afrasiab Khattak told RFE/RL, referring to Pakistan’s alleged support for the Afghan Taliban, which allowed it to endure the U.S.-led war on terrorism and return to power last August, a little more than a year after it signed a peace deal with Washington.
Khattak sees Islamabad’s support for the Islamist Taliban as part of its strategy to shape Afghanistan’s politics and control the once-porous Pashtun borderlands straddling the two neighbors. The Pashtuns are the largest ethnic minority in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which has a population of some 40 million people.
Khattak survived a Taliban suicide bombing in 2008. Later that year and the next, he negotiated with the Pakistani Taliban -- sometimes with their suicide bombers present in the room -- as a senior adviser to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government.
But the TTP did not adhere to agreements made in 2008 and 2009, which paved the way for one of the most extensive military operations against the group in Swat Valley, one of the seven districts in Malakand. Rah-e Rast, as the military operation was formally known, displaced more than 3 million civilians.
Overall, more than 70,000 civilians and soldiers were killed and some 6 million displaced in Pakistan’s domestic war on terrorism that climaxed with operation Zarb-e Azb in the North Waziristan tribal district in 2014.
“Pashtuns are worried about a new terrorist onslaught leading to a second so-called war on terror leading to more killings and destruction,” Khattak said.
Other Taliban Factions
Zarb-e Azb drove the TTP into Afghanistan, where the group eventually regrouped by reintegrating splinter factions.
After the Taliban seized power in August, the TTP launched a new offensive, mainly targeting Pakistani troops in the tribal areas. Islamabad attempted to respond to the violence by targeting TTP hideouts inside Afghanistan. A recent UN report said some 4,000 of its members might be sheltering there.
Islamabad also won respite from TTP attacks as Pakistani officials pushed to reconcile the group through talks, which resulted in a monthlong cease-fire in November last year.
"They will only gain strength and will be able to run their militant campaign more effectively," Mohsin Dawar, a young lawmaker who represents North Waziristan in the Pakistani parliament, said of the possible fallout from a peace deal.
Dawar told RFE/RL that an agreement with the TTP is unlikely to end all Taliban violence in Pakistan. A rival faction headed by Hafiz Gul Bahadur in North Waziristan has reportedly stepped up its attacks against Pakistani troops in the area. The Pakistani military claims to have killed several rebels in North Waziristan this month following attacks on security forces during the previous weeks.
"If the TTP foot soldiers won't benefit from the impending deal, they are likely to switch over to Bahadur's group or move on to join Daesh," he said, referring to Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) by its Arabic acronym. "These talks will have far-reaching and very dangerous results because violence will continue."
In 2015, IS-K emerged from within the TTP, whose leaders and foot soldiers had forged close ties with Arab and Central Asian Islamist militants. But most of the group's members have largely been loyal to the Afghan Taliban due to ideological, personal, and organizational ties.
Khan, now living in exile in Europe after surviving an assassination attempt in July 2020, is adamant about campaigning against what he says is the military's shadowy dealing with the militants.
After years leading Army Public School parents in a campaign for justice for their slain children, he joined the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, a civil rights campaign, in 2018.
Over the years he has lodged several high-profile cases against powerful military and civilian officials for failing to provide security for people from terrorist violence.
“If the government goes ahead with this agreement, we will hasten our resistance," he said.
More News
Hundreds Of Thousands Of Afghans In Pakistan Brace For Deportations
More than 800,000 Afghans who fled Afghanistan after the Taliban’s takeover in 2021 live without papers in neighboring Pakistan.
These undocumented Afghan refugees and migrants face a rapidly approaching deportation order issued by Islamabad requiring them to leave the country by March 31.
Another 1.4 million Afghans who are formally registered with the Pakistani government and who hold a Proof of Residence card issued by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) have until June 30 to return to their homeland. Many have lived in Pakistan for decades.
The fate of an additional 40,000 Afghans who are waiting to be resettled to third countries, mostly in the West, is unclear.
Pakistan initially said these at-risk Afghans, a group that includes activists, journalists, and former members of the defunct Western-backed Afghan government and its armed forces, must leave or face deportation by March 31. But a source at the Pakistani Interior Ministry told RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal that the deadline for them to leave the country has been extended to June 30.
Among this group are some 15,000 Afghans who are waiting to be resettled 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.
“We are left in a deep despair,” said Hina, a 25-year-old Afghan woman who lives with her family in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar.
Her family had been cleared for resettlement in the United States and even booked their flights from Islamabad. But now they are in limbo.
“Our dreams of building a safe future [in the United States] have been shattered,” added Hina. “We can’t return to Afghanistan where our lives will be at risk, nor can we build a stable life in Pakistan.”
Growing Fears
Pakistan has already forcibly deported more than 800,000 undocumented Afghans since 2023, when it launched a major crackdown, according to the UN.
The deportees have returned to a country gripped by devastating humanitarian and economic crises, and many have struggled to access shelter, health care, and food and water.
The deportations have coincided with tensions soaring between the unrecognized Taliban government in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Islamabad has accused the Taliban of sheltering Pakistani militants, a claim rejected by the Afghan militant group.
Ahead of the March 31 deadline, Pakistani police conducted night raids and arbitrarily detained and arrested hundreds of Afghan refugees in the capital, Islamabad, and the nearby city of Rawalpindi, according to international rights groups.
Videos shared on social media show Pakistani police using loudspeakers to order undocumented Afghans to leave Islamabad.
"The problem is that our children go to school here and we have jobs here,” Obaidullah, an undocumented Afghan refugee living in Peshawar, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi. “What will we do in Afghanistan?”
Dire Situation
The tens of thousands of Afghans who are awaiting resettlement abroad face a race against time.
Many of them are in a dire financial situation in Pakistan, said Maiwand Alami, who leads an NGO to help Afghan refugees in Islamabad.
“They have sold their homes in Afghanistan, but that money has since run out,” Alami told RFE/RL. “But [their] biggest problem is uncertainty about their immigration cases. Everybody is anxious about it.”
“Afghans in Pakistan are now required to extend their stay every month. It costs 20,000 rupees [about $71] per person which is a lot of money here, especially if you don’t have any income,” Alami said.
The resettlement of Afghans to the West is uncertain amid increasingly anti-migrant sentiment across Europe and the United States.
Trump said the United States “lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees into its communities in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans.”
He ordered the suspension of USRAP “until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States.”
- By RFE/RL
American Woman Freed By Taliban, Second Release Of US Hostage In 8 Days
An American woman has been released by the Taliban rulers in Afghanistan after being detained since February, the second freeing of a US citizen in the past eight days.
In a video posted by US President Donald Trump on March 29, Faye Hall said she had been released by the Taliban after being detained in the war-torn country last month.
"I've never been so proud to be an American citizen," Hall said in the video. "Thank you, Mr President…God bless you."
Trump thanked Hall for the comments and added: "So honored with your words!"
Former U.S. Special Representative to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad first announced the release hours earlier on X, saying it had occurred on March 27. He said she was in the care of the Qatari delegation in Kabul.
"American citizen Faye Hall, just released by the Taliban, is now in the care of our friends, the Qataris in Kabul, and will soon be on her way home," said Khalilzad, who has been part of a US team seeking the release of hostages held by the Taliban.
The development came a week after George Glezmann, 66, was released from detention in Kabul following the first visit by a senior US official to Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power in the wake of the withdrawal of international troops in August 2021.
Hall had been detained in February while with a British couple in their 70s, Barbie and Peter Reynolds.
British media said the Reynolds had been operating school projects in Afghanistan for 18 years and had remained in the country despite the Taliban’s return to power.
Reuters quoted a US official as saying Adam Boehler, Washington's special envoy for hostage affairs, had worked with Qatari officials and others to win Hall’s release.
There was no immediate information on the British couple. Their daughter has pleaded for their release, citing health concerns.
Several Americans are still detained in Afghanistan.
Upon his release, Glezmann also thanked Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and others who helped free him.
He told Fox News he was abducted in the streets of Kabul and thrown "into a dungeon with no windows no nothing."
Two other Americans held in Afghanistan were exchanged in late January for a Taliban man imprisoned for life in California on drug and terrorism charges.
Ryan Corbett and William McKenty were swapped for Khan Mohammed, who was sentenced to two life terms in 2008 and was incarcerated in a US prison.
Aid worker Corbett, 40, and Mahmood Habibi, 37 -- who led the Afghan Aviation Authority under the previous Afghan government -- were detained separately in August 2022.
The world community has not recognized the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan, although some countries -- including Russia, China, and Turkey -- still maintain embassies in Kabul.
Qatar has also maintained direct contact with the Taliban and has helped broker negotiations for the release of US hostages.
Amid poverty and unrest in the country, the Taliban rulers have made moves to open ties with the rest of the world. Western nations are reluctant to engage with the extremist group amid complaints of widespread human rights violations, especially against girls and women.
With reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Azadi, Reuters, AFP, and AP
Millions Of Afghan Girls Barred From School For Fourth Consecutive Year
The new school year started in Afghanistan on March 22, but for the fourth consecutive year, millions of teenage girls were barred from attending classes.
Among them was Khalida, who was in the ninth grade when the Taliban seized power and banned education for girls above 12 years old.
“The ban has had a big impact on my life,” Khalida, now 18, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi. “I used to spend all my time on my studies. Now my time passes aimlessly.”
The school ban has had a catastrophic impact on an estimated 2.2 million girls in Afghanistan, where the Taliban has erased women from public life and severely restricted their fundamental rights.
There has been a surge in forced, early, and child marriages. Child marriages have increased by around 25 percent since the Taliban takeover, according to the UN.
The lack of educational and professional prospects for women has fueled a rise in female suicides, making the country one of the few in the world where more women take their own lives than men.
"The lack of access to education not only threatens our future but also hinders our country from progress and development,” said another teenage Afghan girl, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
“We have the right to study, progress, and have a bright future," she told Radio Azadi.
UNICEF, the UN's children's agency, said the repercussions of the school ban will last for generations.
“The ban negatively impacts the health system, the economy, and the future of the nation,” UNICEF said in a March 22 statement.
“With fewer girls receiving an education, girls face a higher risk of child marriage with negative repercussions on their well-being and health.”
The agency warned that over 4 million girls will be out of school if the ban lasts until 2030.
Calls To Do More
Senior UN officials and Afghan female activists have termed the Taliban’s treatment of Afghan girls and women as “gender apartheid.”
They have called for the international community to put more pressure on the Taliban to reverse its ban on education for girls beyond the sixth grade.
No country has recognized the Taliban’s government, which is under international sanctions. But a growing number of countries, including some in the West, are cooperating with its government on trade, security-related issues, and immigration.
"The Taliban still go around and travel freely,” said Pashtana Durrani, a prominent Afghan education activist who lives in exile.
“They give interviews. They have bank accounts. Their families live abroad yet they have banned Afghan women from getting an education.”
She added: “The international community should be asked whether they truly want the Taliban to open girls’ schools or not?”
Uncertainty Clouds The Future Of Thousands Of Afghans Seeking US Migration
For over three years, Syed Abdul Samad Muzoon, a middle-aged former Afghan security official, has lived with his wife and their teenage daughter in Pakistan to pursue immigration to the United States.
During Washington’s nearly two-decade-long war in Afghanistan, he worked for the Afghan security forces in sensitive roles, he said, helping the US war effort.
Yet, there is still no clarity on whether they will ever be able to make a fresh start in the United States because of new curbs on immigration.
In January, hundreds of Afghans cleared for resettlement in the United States were prevented from traveling to the country after President Donald Trump immediately suspended Washington’s refugee program and foreign aid after assuming office on January 20.
On February 18, Reuters reported that the State Department's program to manage Afghan resettlement in the United States will be shut down in April.
Media reports suggest that the Trump administration could impose a new travel ban to bar the entry of people from Afghanistan and Pakistan, which would close all pathways for Afghans to move to the United States.
The State Department, however, disputes this. “There is no list,” Tammy Bruce, its spokesperson, told journalists on March 17.
Trump has been elected twice on an anti-immigration platform. In a Gallup poll from 2024, a majority of Americans (55 percent) said that they believed there should be less immigration to the United States.
Since the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, Washington has helped some 200,000 Afghans resettle.
But Muzoon and many more Afghans might never have a chance to begin a new life in the United States. Tens of thousands of them have been living in Pakistan, Qatar, Albania, and other countries for years as they wait for a final decision on their refugee and immigration cases. Fearing retribution by the Taliban, many are fearful of returning to Afghanistan.
'Extreme Predicament'
Advocacy groups estimate that up to 200,000 more Afghans may be eligible for US immigration. Meanwhile, after reviewing government documents, CBS reported that more than 40,000 Afghans who have already been cleared to leave the country are now stranded.
“I and other Afghan refugees here are in an extreme predicament,” Muzoon said.
Since late 2023, Pakistan has expelled more than 800,000 Afghans, and in the capital, Islamabad, Afghans face constant harassment and police brutality.
Muzoon and 20,000 more Afghans in Islamabad now fear repatriation to Afghanistan after the Pakistani government announced it would forcefully deport some 1.5 million documented and undocumented Afghans if they fail to leave by the end of this month.
“I am suffering from the uncertainty and the seemingly endless wait for our cases,” he said.
Muzoon said threats to his life and family prompted him to flee Afghanistan soon after the Taliban seized the Afghan capital, Kabul, on August 15, 2021, as it toppled the pro-western Afghan republic.
He is among more than half a million Afghans, mostly educated professionals and officials who were integral to running the Afghan republic, who fled the Taliban’s takeover.
Most feared being persecuted for working with the US-led international forces in Afghanistan. Others were senior officials in the Afghan government or worked in the civil society sector.
Three years on, those still waiting for a decision on their US immigration are stuck.
“We are living in extreme despair,” said Maiwand Alami Afghan. He leads an informal association of Afghan refugees in Islamabad.
'Hanging By A Thread'
He said most families in Islamabad sold their properties and belongings in Afghanistan, but that money is now running out.
“Most of us are hanging by a thread,” he said.
Afghan said he had worked for US-funded development projects, which, he fears, makes it impossible for him to return to Afghanistan because the Taliban have persecuted some Afghans associated with the US presence in the country.
“We will still be refugees in our own country, because we don’t have a house, job, or any prospects to earn a livelihood,” he said.
Washington, however, does not look like it will be welcoming any more migrants. During his election campaign, President Trump promised stricter controls on immigration.
In his speech to Congress on March 4, Trump said his administration “has launched the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history.”
Steps taken by Trump after taking office have effectively blocked or suspended the two primary routes for Afghans to immigrate to the United States.
Under the Special Immigration Visa (SIV), Afghans who worked directly for the US government, such as embassy staff or translators for its forces, qualify for relocation. Afghans granted visas under this program can still relocate to the US without financial assistance from Washington, according to Afghans seeking relocation under the program.
“Those who have assisted us and worked with us, that’s been a policy and a dynamic that we’ve worked on from certainly even the previous administration, working to try to get that happening,” said Bruce, the State Department spokesperson.
The refugee program, which enabled former Afghan government officials, lawmakers, and civil society figures to immigrate to the US, is suspended for the next couple of months.
However, the suspension of the State Department's Afghan resettlement program has rattled Americans involved in or supporting the initiative.
“Right now, there's a lot of uncertainty,” said Shawn VanDiver, head of the Afghan Evacuation Association, a coalition of US veterans and advocacy groups that support Afghan resettlement.
'Nothing But Problems And Worries'
VanDiver is now lobbying the US Congress to remove the “complete stop” Trump’s executive orders have put on Afghan resettlement. He says that Congress had authorized Afghan resettlement through December 2027.
“President Trump needs to listen to the voices,” he said, pointing to the bipartisan support in Congress, veterans and service members, who want the immigration of Afghans to continue.
In a statement on March 18, the Afghan Evacuation Association said the ambiguity surrounding the immigration of Afghans “is unnecessary and cruel”. It called on Washington to provide “clear and unequivocal answers” to its wartime Afghan allies.
In media statements and letters, scores of lawmakers have urged President Trump to “fully restore humanitarian and refugee protections for our Afghan allies.”
Several courts across the United States are hearing cases regarding refugee and foreign aid suspensions. Some have issued injunctions against Trump’s executive orders.
A State Department spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “At this time, no decisions have been made” about its Afghan relocation program.
The spokesman said the department is “considering” the future of its Afghan relocation program, officially called Enduring Welcome and the Office of the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts (CARE).
The spokesperson noted that it “continues to provide life-sustaining support to Afghan allies and partners previously relocated to our overseas case-processing platforms.”
In Islamabad, Muzoon has little understanding of how his future will unfold amid the domestic US wrangling over the fate of Afghans seeking immigration to the country.
He hopes to avoid being deported back to Afghanistan. He wants to move to the United States to send his daughter to school, treat his wife’s depression, and seek some treatment for his heart ailment.
“I have nothing but problems and worries,” he said.
- By RFE/RL
UN Children's Agency Calls On Taliban To Lift Ban On Girls' Education
The UN children’s agency has urged Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government to immediately lift a ban on girls' education beyond primary school, saying that if the ban continues until 2030 more than 4 million girls will have been deprived of their right to education.
Afghanistan's ban on girls' secondary education "continues to harm the future of millions of Afghan girls," UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement on March 22. “The consequences for these girls -- and for Afghanistan -- are catastrophic.”
The appeal by UNICEF comes as a new school year began in Afghanistan, where girls beyond sixth grade have been deprived of their right to education since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
The Taliban justifies the ban, saying the education of girls beyond the sixth grade doesn't comply with their interpretation of Shari’a law.
Russell called for all girls to be allowed to return to school.
“Afghanistan is the only country in the world that bans female secondary and higher education,” Russell said in the statement, adding that if the rights of young girls continue to be denied, “the repercussions will last for generations.”
She pointed out that the ban negatively impacts the health system, the economy, and the future of the nation.
“With fewer girls receiving an education, girls face a higher risk of child marriage with negative repercussions on their well-being and health,” she said.
The consequences of the ban will affect the number of female doctors and midwives, and this in turn will leave women and girls without crucial medical care.
UNICEF projects an estimated 1,600 additional maternal deaths and over 3,500 infant deaths because of the situation.
The Taliban has allowed limited exceptions to the ban 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.
Pakistan hosted a global conference in January at which Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai condemned the state of women’s and girls' rights in Afghanistan as gender apartheid.
Yousafzai urged Muslim leaders not to "legitimize" the Taliban-led government and instead to "raise their voices" and "use [their] power" against the militant group's curbs on women and girls' education.
"Simply put, the Taliban do not see women as human beings. They cloak their crimes in cultural and religious justification," Yousafzai told the gathering in Islamabad.
With reporting by AP
- By RFE/RL
American Glezmann Returns Home After 2-Year Detention In Afghanistan
George Glezmann, an American who was released from detention in Afghanistan on March 20, has arrived in the United States and been reunited with his wife, a State Department spokesperson said.
Spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said on March 21 that Ryan Corbett, another former American prisoner in Afghanistan who had been held in the same cell as Glezmann, was in a welcoming party for Glezmann at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington.
"After a brief ceremony, George and [his wife] Aleksandra flew to another location in the United States to rest and recover," Bruce told reporters at a regular State Department news briefing.
Glezmann, 66, was released from detention in Kabul following the first visit by a senior US official to Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power in the wake of the withdrawal of international troops from the war-torn country in August 2021.
Former US special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad said on X that he and Adam Boehler, a senior adviser at the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, met with Taliban officials in Kabul on March 20.
"We succeeded in obtaining the release of an American citizen, George Glezmann, after two years in detention in Kabul. The Taliban government agreed to free him as a goodwill gesture to [President Donald Trump] and the American people," Khalilzad said.
Details of the negotiations were not revealed. The United States, like most countries, does not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan.
“I feel like born again,” Glezmann said on Fox News after arriving at Joint Base Andrews. “I’m just thankful. I’ve got no word to express my gratitude for my liberty for my freedom.”
Glezmann also thanked President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and others who helped free him, he said on Fox News, recalling how he was abducted in the streets of Kabul and thrown "into a dungeon with no windows no nothing."
Boehler told Fox News he expects to see more Americans released.
“The Taliban understand that there is a new sheriff in town. That president Trump is that new sheriff and that’s why you are seeing something like this," he said.
One of the other US citizens being held in Afghanistan is Mahmood Habibi, who also has been held since 2022.
Glezmann, an airline mechanic from Atlanta, was taken into custody by Taliban authorities while on a tourist visit to Afghanistan in December 2022 and had been deemed wrongfully detained by the US government.
Rubio called Glezmann's release "a positive and constructive step" that was aided by officials in Qatar, which has often hosted negotiations between Washington and the Taliban.
"It is also a reminder that other Americans are still detained in Afghanistan," he added.
The release comes two months after two other Americans held in Afghanistan were exchanged for a Taliban man imprisoned for life in California on drug and terrorism charges.
Ryan Corbett and William McKenty were swapped for Khan Mohammed, who was sentenced to two life terms in 2008 and was incarcerated in a US prison.
Aid worker Corbett, 40, and Habibi, 37 -- who led the Afghan Aviation Authority under the previous Afghan government -- were detained separately in August 2022.
Undocumented Afghans In Iran Face Uncertain Future Amid New Restrictions
Millions of Afghans in Iran face an uncertain future as Tehran prepares to implement sweeping restrictions that will cut off access to health care, education, housing, and other essential services for undocumented immigrants.
The new policy, set to take effect on March 21, has left many Afghans grappling with impossible choices between a hostile host country and an unstable homeland.
For Rasheed, an Afghan immigrant living in Iran, the consequences of these policies have already hit home.
Rasheed recently returned to Afghanistan after doctors in Iran refused to treat his elderly mother for her heart disease.
“I was told to return to Afghanistan because Afghans were not supposed to get any treatment here,” Rasheed recalled of his conversation with an official at a government hospital in Tehran.
“My mother’s condition was rapidly deteriorating, which prompted me to return to my country,” he told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi. Rasheed requested that his real name be withheld to protect his identity.
In Karaj, a city near Tehran, Ehsan Zia, another Afghan immigrant, is devastated that his two teenage daughters can no longer attend school.
“Our hopes have been dashed,” he told Radio Azadi. “Even here, my daughters are being deprived of education.”
Zia moved to Iran three years ago after the Taliban banned teenage girls from attending school following their return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021. Despite having a legal visa to stay in Iran, Zia says he has been unable to enroll his daughters in school due to bureaucratic obstacles and shifting policies.
Who Will Be Affected By The New Policy?
Earlier this month, the Center for Aliens and Foreign Immigrants’ Affairs (CAFIA) at Iran’s Interior Ministry announced six categories of Afghans who will remain eligible for key services under the new rules.
These include Afghans registered as refugees, those with valid visas or work permits, former employees of the Western-backed Afghan government that was toppled by the Taliban, and families with school-going children who apply for visas.
Tehran has already deported more than 2 million Afghans over the past two years as part of a campaign targeting undocumented immigrants.
Nader Yarahmadi, head of CAFIA, defended the government’s move, telling the semiofficial ISNA news agency that “there is no obstacle to returning [to Afghanistan] due to the relative stability and declared policies of the current Afghan government.”
The United Nations' refugee agency, UNHCR, estimates that that some 4 million Afghans live in Iran, including more than 2 million undocumented migrants. Figures cited by Iranian officials and media vary widely, with some claiming that 8 million Afghans reside in Iran.
Risking Tensions With The Taliban
The crackdown on undocumented Afghans has coincided with rising anti-Afghan sentiment in Iran. Impoverished Afghan migrants are often scapegoated for crimes, insecurity, and unemployment. Such views have fueled mob violence against Afghans as well as mass arrests and brutal treatment by Iranian police and border security forces.
“Cutting off basic services to migrants will disrupt the labor market and drive more people into the underground economy,” said Graeme Smith, senior Afghanistan analyst at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.
Afghan migrants make up a significant portion of Iran’s labor force in agriculture and construction -- sectors that could suffer if undocumented workers are expelled en masse.
Smith also warned that Tehran’s policies could worsen tensions between Iran and Afghanistan. The Taliban government has already clashed with neighboring Pakistan over its treatment of Afghan refugees.
“The Taliban may feel provoked to respond, for example, with restrictions on water sharing,” Smith said, referring to a long-standing dispute over water rights.
Experts argue that Tehran’s approach could backfire, both economically and geopolitically. An isolated and heavily sanctioned Iran needs stable relations with Afghanistan’s Taliban government to expand trade ties, maintain border security, and build a more integrated regional economy.
“Not only will this cause suffering for the Afghans affected,” Smith noted, “but it’s a self-defeating policy for Tehran.”
American Glezmann Released By Taliban After Visit To Kabul By Senior US Official
US citizen George Glezmann has been released from detention in Kabul following the first visit by a senior US official to Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in the wake of the withdrawal of international troops from the war-torn country in August 2021.
Former U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad said in a post on X that after he and Adam Boehler, a senior adviser at the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, met with Taliban officials on March 20, the 66-year-old Glezmann was "on his way home to his family."
"We succeeded in obtaining the release of an American citizen, George Glezmann, after two years in detention in Kabul. The Taliban government agreed to free him as a goodwill gesture to [President Donald Trump] and the American people," Khalilzad said.
Details of the negotiations were not revealed. The United States, like most countries, does not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan.
No mention was made of another US citizen being held by the Taliban, George Mahmood Habibi, who also has been held in Afghanistan since 2022.
Glezmann, an airline mechanic from Atlanta, was taken into custody by Taliban authorities while on a tourist visit to Afghanistan in December 2022 and had been deemed wrongfully detained by the US government.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio later confirmed the release, calling it "a positive and constructive step" that was aided by officials in Qatar, which has often hosted negotiations between Washington and the Taliban.
"It is also a reminder that other Americans are still detained in Afghanistan," he added.
The release comes two months after two other Americans held in Afghanistan were exchanged for a Taliban man imprisoned for life in California on drug and terrorism charges.
Ryan Corbett and William McKenty were swapped for Khan Mohammed, who was sentenced to two life terms in 2008 and was incarcerated in a US prison.
Aid worker Corbett, 40, and Habibi, 37 -- who led the Afghan Aviation Authority under the previous Afghan government -- were detained separately in August 2022.
- By RFE/RL
RFE/RL Audiences Voice Support For Its Journalism -- And Fears For Its Future
Amid an attempt by US President Donald Trump’s administration to halt congressionally allocated funding from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), the broadcaster’s audiences in the countries it covers are voicing support and admiration for its journalism.
From Iran to Belarus, Afghanistan to Russia, Pakistan to Ukraine: Readers and listeners praised RFE/RL journalists for their brave, impartial, and honest reporting on the front lines of war and in some of the world’s most repressive political and media landscapes -- and expressed concern that it could vanish.
“I live in a small village. We don’t have satellite or reliable Internet. Your radio [is] giving me hope,” one listener in Iran wrote in a Telegram message to Radio Farda, RFE/RL’s Persian-language service.
Another listener from Iran posted on social media that Radio Farda “is my main source of information because of its unbiased and professional reporting."
“Losing it would be very difficult. I hope that day never comes,” the listener wrote.
Trump on March 14 signed an executive order aiming to reduce seven federal agencies – including the US Agency for Global Media, which oversees RFE/RL and other US taxpayer-funded broadcasters like Voice of America (VOA).
After the executive order was published, Kari Lake, senior adviser to the agency's acting CEO, sent a letter saying the Congress-approved grant that funds RFE/RL had been terminated.
RFE/RL is nonetheless continuing its work and on March 18 filed a federal lawsuit to block USAGM’s attempt to terminate the broadcaster's federal grant that provides funds necessary to operate.
Unlike VOA, which is a federal agency, RFE/RL is a private, nonprofit corporation, with corporate headquarters in Delaware and editorial headquarters in Prague.
Breaking Through 'The Darkness Of Lies'
In Ukraine, where RFE/RL has covered Russia’s full-scale invasion from the front lines since it was ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin in February 2022, reader Oleh Prozorov thanked RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service for its “protection of political freedoms.”
“Sometimes you were like a ray of light that broke through the darkness of lies,” Prozorov wrote on Facebook.
In a message to RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, reader Lesya Bondaruk expressed fear of losing “a bastion of real freedom of speech and thought."
“An attack on Radio Liberty is an attack on humanity’s freedom of speech. This cannot be allowed,” she wrote.
Readers and viewers of RFE/RL’s Russian-language services expressed gratitude for their coverage of the country amid a steady decline in press freedoms during Putin’s 25 years in power that intensified following the Ukraine invasion.
“I am in Russia, engulfed in the zombifying, villainous propaganda of the Kremlin. Current Time is the only Russian-language TV channel that can be trusted, with objective information and many documentary programs,” wrote one viewer of RFE/RL’s 24/7 Russian-language television channel.
“I am endlessly amazed by your reporters who risk working in front-line areas, the professionalism of your anchors, and the high level of journalism,” another Current Time viewer wrote in a message to the network.
'Ray Of Hope' In Afghanistan
Hundreds of messages and calls have poured in from RFE/RL listeners in Afghanistan and Pakistan expressing deep concern about the fate of the broadcaster’s Afghan Service, known locally as Radio Azadi, which broadcasts in the Dari and Pashto languages, and Radio Mashaal, a Pashto-language service in Pakistan.
“Radio Azadi is very important for us. It keeps me informed about the world. I listen to it day and night, both on the radio and my phone,” Radio Azadi listener Haji Khodaiberdi wrote in a WhatsApp message.
“Radio Azadi is a ray of hope for countries that are often forgotten. Its programs connect people from small villages to the world. Living in a remote village with only one radio, I find its voice truly comforting. I hope your programs always remain strong and vibrant,” listener Safa Mehr wrote.
Another listener, Nabiullah Zabuli from Afghanistan’s southern Zabul Province, urged Trump and “everyone who can influence this decision to reconsider” cutting funding for Radio Azadi.
“Please do not betray your millions of loyal listeners. Keep this beacon of information alive,” he wrote.
Heela Darkhast Ahmadzai, a Radio Azadi and Mashaal listener, said in a Pashto-language Facebook post that both channels are “sources of enlightening our minds and thinking.”
“We Pashtun women learned a lot from those two radio stations,” she wrote. “And we came to know about our rights, education, and about the world from those two platforms.”
Another Radio Mashaal listener, Ebadullah Khan from the Shangla district in northwestern Pakistan, said on Facebook that the broadcaster’s journalists “did their job with courage” and that their “journalistic efforts in spreading awareness among the people are great.”
'This Story Must Go On'
In Belarus, where the government of Belarusian autocrat Aleksandr Lukashenko has all but wiped out independent media, RFE/RL’s Belarusian-language service is one of just a handful of news organizations continuing to report critically on authorities.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one reader, Zmitrok Siemieniuk, said that he immediately rushed to find out what was going on and came across Radio Svaboda’s YouTube channel.
“There were millions of views, which helped me grasp what was really going on, and I still use Radio Svaboda’s channels,” he wrote on Instagram. “You provide news free of propaganda and hatred. I can learn about the most important events happening in the world. And, of course, here I can read the news in my native language.”
Another reader, Tatsiana, said that Radio Svaboda “is the only place in the world where I could truly feel like a citizen of a free, European Belarus.”
“In 2020, millions of Belarusians who took part in the peaceful revolution against Lukashenko’s brutal authoritarianism embraced Radio Svaboda’s values, while it live-streamed these historic events in real time,” she wrote in a private message.
“Its mission remains unfinished today -- this story must go on.”
Based on reporting by RFE/RL’s Afghan Service, RFE/RL’s Belarus Service, Current Time, RFE/RL's Radio Farda, RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal, and RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service
Afghans No Longer Celebrate Nowruz Amid Poverty, Taliban Restrictions
Jalal Shirzad grew up watching his home city of Mazar-e Sharif host the largest celebration of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, in Afghanistan every year, with thousands of people coming from all over the country to enjoy several days of festivities.
The celebrations would be kicked off by an ancient flag-hoisting ceremony at a religious shrine famous for its blue tiles, followed by food fairs, music and dance parties, traditional sports games, and family picnics.
But under the Taliban’s rule, Nowruz has become just another day for many Afghans, says Shirzad, a 30-year-old author from Mazar-e Sharif, the capital of the northern Balkh region.
Shirzad and several other Afghans who spoke to RFE/RL said that amid the crippling poverty and many restrictions imposed by the Taliban they have no plans to celebrate Nowruz, which falls on March 20 this year.
“There is no difference between Nowruz and any other ordinary day anymore,” Shirzad said. “People have to go to work as usual on Nowruz. It’s not even a public holiday anymore.”
The hardline Taliban group, which returned to power in Kabul in August 2021, has scrapped Nowruz as a public holiday but said people were free to celebrate it.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told RFE/RL at the time that Nowruz will not be celebrated in Afghanistan officially with state-organized events, but people “will not be prevented” from marking it privately.
During its previous stint in power in the 1990s, the Taliban had banned Nowruz as a pagan holiday.
Nowruz, which marks the beginning of spring and the first day of the Persian New Year, has been celebrated in the region for more than 3,000 years.
‘The Fun Has Gone Since Taliban Came’
Many Afghans, especially women, say despite being “free to celebrate” Nowruz, many bans and restrictions imposed by the Taliban-led government don’t allow them to mark their new year in a meaningful way.
Taliban authorities have outlawed music and banned women from going to public parks and leisure facilities. Women, who must follow a strict dress code, should not even be heard in public, according to a Taliban law unveiled late last year.
Mursal, a resident of the capital, Kabul, who gave only her first name for security reasons, said Nowruz, the once-popular event, has lost its meaning for Afghans under Taliban rule. Mursal said she has no choice but to ignore Nowruz.
“I have not celebrated Nowruz since the Taliban took power. We used to have a picnic, we used to go out with family and friends, now women aren’t allowed to do any of that. All the fun and enthusiasm of Nowruz has disappeared under the Taliban,” Mursal told RFE/RL.
‘Real Nowruz Is Distant Memory In Afghanistan’
Preparations for Nowruz traditionally started several days before the new year, with several families coming together to prepare sumanak, a dish made from germinated wheat.
Households also prepared haft mewa, a salad made from seven different dried fruits served in their own syrup.
Muhammad Tahir, a Kabul resident says that most Afghans struggle to buy most basic foods, let alone ingredients for Nowruz snacks and specialties.
“Real Nowruz is a distant memory now. We used to buy new clothes, we used to go fruit shopping, we used to have fun. That’s all gone,” Muhammad said.
Written by Farangis Najibullah based on interviews conducted by RFE/RL Radio Azadi correspondent Asadullah Ludin.
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) 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.
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