Taliban Officials Report Conflicting Casualty Numbers in Western Kabul Blast

The son of the famous anti-Soviet resistance commander, Ahmad Shah Massoud, had pledged last year that he’d seek talks with the Taliban, however, he said that the Taliban remains uninterested in reforming its backward ways.

“There’s no other option but to resist until [Taliban members] understand and realize they need to also submit—as [do] all of us—to a legitimate process which brings a legitimate government which is accountable to the people of Afghanistan, and also to the world,” he told Kamal Alam, a nonresident senior fellow at the Council’s South Asia Center and a special adviser and representative of the Massoud Foundation (of which Massoud is the president).

Stating that the Taliban are not interested in talking, he added that he tried to make the Taliban understand that "legitimacy in Afghanistan cannot be achieved through the gun”.

Massoud also said that the NRF tried working with regional actors to hammer out some sort of peace with the Taliban, but those efforts too failed. “Unfortunately,” he noted, Taliban leaders “have not changed. They are even more radical than before.”

Massoud urged world leaders to avoid considering the group a “Taliban 2.0” that somehow changed for the better after returning to power. “They failed in fighting international terrorism because they share the same ideology” as terrorist groups, he said. “They failed in creating inclusivity because they don’t believe in it,” he adds.

Massoud, whose father was assassinated by al-Qaeda just days before the September 11 attacks, pointed to the Taliban’s apparent sheltering of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was killed by a US airstrike last week. The fact that Zawahiri was living in central Kabul is “a clear indication that [Taliban leaders] have completely aligned with such terrorism entities and organisations,” Massoud said.

The leader of the resistance front said that NRF’s struggle is a lonely one because “no country is supporting us”.

In the video clips, circulating on social media, depicting the women's protesters, it can be seen that the demonstration did not last long and the Taliban stopped them by firing aerial shots.

In 2021 soon after the fall of Kabul, groups of women activists came to the streets and held demonstrations for women’s rights. However, then too, the Taliban had suppressed the demonstrators in Kabul and other provinces. They detained some of the women activists and imprisoned them for a while.

However, a group of women activists, have once again made it to the streets as the one year anniversary of the collapse of Kabul to the Taliban nears.

The ICRC has been taking immediate steps to save lives and keep health care facilities running in Afghanistan and has also been paying the salaries of nearly 10,500 health professionals (around one third of whom are women); the fuel to run heating, power generators and ambulances; and for patients' food and medicines, since the past 10 months.

However, Cipolla added that it’s not just the health care system that needs immediate support. Cipolla said that with more than half the population in need of humanitarian assistance and nearly 20 million people estimated to be acutely food insecure, the future is bleak for mothers and fathers of 100,000-plus babies born this year.

Cipolla stated that it is the moral and humanitarian obligation of organisations to ensure that the newborns of Afghanistan and their families are provided with the assistance they need. “States and development agencies must return to Afghanistan and continue their support for Afghans, who are already facing an unbearable situation,” Cipolla said.

Describing the healthcare system from nearly a year ago, Cipolla said that the medical system was about to shut down as the country's dedicated medical staff hadn't been paid in months, and the needed drugs and equipment for quality care weren't available.

Citing figures, Cipolla, said that mothers and pregnant women could not always be adequately treated as the country was already facing one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, with 638 women dying per 100,000 live births.

Stating that despite their best efforts, humanitarian organisations don't have the capacity to meet the growing needs of the Afghan population, Cipolla, recommended that without urgent international support and investment, millions of children, women and men face immediate life-threatening issues.

The survey noted that women journalists, three quarters of whom are now unemployed, no longer exist in 11 provinces and all this has happened amid a deep economic crisis and crackdown on press freedom.

RSF’s survey states that Afghanistan had 547 media outlets prior to August 15, 2021 and one year later, 219 have ceased their activities. Of the 11,857 journalists tallied prior to August 15, 2021, there are only 4,759 now. “Women journalists have been impacted most – 76.19% of them have lost their jobs,” the report said.

“Journalism has been decimated during the past year in Afghanistan,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. “Media and journalists are being subjected to iniquitous regulations that restrict media freedom and open the way to repression and persecution. The authorities must undertake to end the violence and harassment inflicted on media workers, and must allow them to do their job unmolested,” Deloire added.

The report revealed that women have suffered most in the carnage inflicted on Afghan journalism in the past year and have disappeared completely from the media landscape in 11 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces – Badghis, Helmand, Daikundi, Ghazni, Wardak, Nimroz, Nuristan, Paktika, Paktia, Samangan and Zabol. Of the 2,756 women journalists and media workers employed in Afghanistan prior to 15 August 2021, only 656 are still working. Of these, 84.6% are working in the Kabul region.

One year after the fall of Kabul, 76.19% of women journalists are no longer working in the country. Accusations of “immorality or conduct contrary to society’s values” are widely used as pretexts for harassing women journalists and sending them home, the report said.

Bibi Khatera Nejat, a journalist who has fled to Pakistan, described the conditions that drove her into exile. “I worked for Radio Hamseda in Takhar province for seven years,” she told RSF. “Of course, during this period, like all women journalists in the provinces, especially those who work for radio and TV, I was subjected to harassment. Several times I was even threatened, but at least we were able to resist. One of the first things, the Taliban did was destroy media equipment and shut down media premises. With my family, we fled our home and sought refuge in Kabul. But after the fall of Kabul on 15 August, there was no longer any hope and I finally left the country,” Nejat recounted.

The report added that of the 9,101 men practicing journalism before the fall of Kabul, 4,962 are no longer working. The Kabul region in the centre of the country, which had the biggest number of media outlets – 133 – has also been hit hard by the regime change and has lost nearly half of them, the report stated.

The report highlighted how in some provinces, the requirement to replace music or news programmes with religious content has led some media to stop broadcasting. “But new economic constraints, such as the termination of international or national funding and the fall in advertising revenue as a result of the economic crisis, have also led some media to cease operating,” the report stated.

The report also detailed the curbs on press freedom under Taliban orders like the “11 Journalism Rules” announced by the Government Media and Information Centre (GMIC) on 19 September 2021 and Taliban supreme leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada’s new decree on 22 July warning that “defaming and criticising government officials without proof” and “spreading false news and rumours” are forbidden under Islam and that those who “slander” government employees are unwittingly collaborating with the enemy and will be “punished.”

It also noted the abuses and arbitrary arrests resulting from these regulations. “Since 15 August 2021, at least 80 journalists have been detained for periods of varying lengths by the security forces, especially by the Istikhbarat (intelligence services), which have been involved in most of the arbitrary arrests of journalists – some of them violent – since the start of 2022,” it noted.

In 2012, Afghanistan was ranked 150th out of 179 countries in RSF’s Press Freedom Index. By 2021, it had risen to 122nd out of 180 countries thanks to a dynamic media landscape and the adoption of legislation protecting journalists. And in 2022, after losing nearly 40% of its media and more than half of its journalists, it has fallen to 156th.

Sharafuddin Muslim, Taliban’s Minister for Natural Disaster Management, said on Friday, "A woman and two children died in Wardak province, and a couple along with their two children are missing in Paktia province."

According to Muslim, the couple and their children were traveling in a vehicle on the Paktia highway when it was flooded.

The Taliban official said that groups have been dispatched to flood-affected provinces to assess the situation.

Khost, Paktia, Logar, Kapisa, Parwan, Maidan Wardak and Ghazni have witnessed massive floods since Friday night.

Hundreds of acres of agricultural land and houses have reportedly been destroyed or damaged.

As a result of the floods, Maidan Shahr– Bamyan, and Paktia-Logar highways have been closed to traffic.

The Taliban have said that the Ghazni-Kabul highway has now been opened to traffic and work is underway to reopen other highways.