A fire has been reported at the Ministry of Finance building in Kabul city on Monday. According to local sources, at around 10 in the morning, several fire tenders arrived at the scene. The firefighters are still trying to extinguish the fire.
Taliban officials have not yet commented on this matter and there are no details about the casualties or damage caused by this incident.
Taliban commanders in Kandahar province forcibly took control of ten private transportation companies, according to documents reviewed by Afghanistan International. These private companies have been active in the transportation business across various provinces of Afghanistan.
The owners of these companies in a complaint letter to the Taliban Prime Minister Mullah Hasan Akhund have stated that their companies had been taken over by Taliban commanders and hundreds of people will lose their jobs.
Mullah Hamidullah Akhundzada, the Acting Minister of Transportation and Aviation of the Taliban, has asked the governor of Kandahar to return the companies to their rightful owners.
However, the owner of a company who spoke to Afghanistan International, accused the Taliban’s Acting Minister of Transportation and Aviation of double standards and claimed that the minister has not been cooperating with the owners. He claimed that the Taliban's transportation minister might probably benefit financially from this takeover.
In a video clip obtained by Afghanistan International, it can be seen that the Taliban members are taking over the companies and forging the official documents.
These private companies had been operating in Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar-i-Sharif, Nangarhar and Khost cities.
Several Afghan political leaders are expected to participate in a meeting in Vienna, Austria, in September, to discuss issues related to Afghanistan. Ahmad Massoud, Rahmatullah Nabil, Rangin Dadfar Sepanta, and Fawzia Kofi, among others, will participate in the meeting.
This meeting will be held from September 15-17 to find alternative paths of dialogue with the Taliban.
These political actors stressed that they witnessed reluctance of the Taliban regarding peace talks. However, they insisted that there is a need for dialogue between the political elites and the people of Afghanistan.
They said that Afghan citizens deserve a government and a viable constitution.
According to these political figures, the Taliban must understand that Afghanistan will be truly stable when a legitimate government, which is accepted by Afghan citizens and the international community, is established.
According to them, the unwillingness and inability of the Taliban to provide services, protect the basic rights of citizens, especially women and girls, the deterioration of the security situation, economic and humanitarian crisis require a new approach to address the crisis in Afghanistan.
They said that the Taliban violated human rights, especially the rights of women and girls, and deprived them of education, social activities, and freedom.
According to them, violence, murder, torture of former members of the security forces, repression of the media, and forced migration of minorities is the dark reality of Afghanistan under the Taliban.
The National Resistance Front (NRF) announced support for the recent decision of UN Security Council to end the travel ban exemption for 13 Taliban officials. NRF in a statement said that sanctioning the leaders of the Taliban is in the interest of regional and global security.
The NRF has urged the UN Security Council to put more pressure on the Taliban.
The temporary exemption period of 13 high-ranking members of the Taliban ended on Friday.
According to reports, the members of the UN Security Council are currently in disagreement regarding the extension exemption on the travel ban of the 13 Taliban officials.
The United States had suggested that seven Taliban officials be allowed to travel only to Qatar, but Russia and China, had requested to extend the travel exemption of 13 Taliban officials for another 90 days.
Taliban on Thursday announced that 182 people had died and 250 people got injured due to the recent floods over the past month. According to Taliban officials, more than 3,100 houses have been completely destroyed and thousands of livestock have perished.
Floods in recent weeks caused massive destructions across Afghanistan. Thousands of houses have been destroyed and economic and humanitarian crisis have escalated.
Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban’s spokesperson in a press conference, said, “The Taliban can’t manage the disaster caused by the floods alone. We call on the world, international organisations and Islamic countries to help us.”
Afghanistan has been witnessing natural disasters including, drought and earthquakes over the past few months. Along with this, due to Taliban’s takeover, Afghanistan’s financial and banking system is also facing a collapse.
A former military leader had claimed that al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan have increased 10-fold in comparison to 2001. General Farid Ahmadi, commander of Special Forces of National Army of previous government said that al-Qaeda has a stronger presence in Afghanistan.
According to Ahmadi, in some provinces, the former police and army camps, which had been built with American funds, are currently used as the joint educational center of al-Qaeda.
Earlier, Bill Roggio, the editor of Long War Journal had said that in Afghanistan and globally, al-Qaeda has a stronger position as compared to the era before 9/11. He had added that the terror organisation had only one major base in Afghanistan before 2001, but now it has bases all over the Middle East and Africa.
American officials had previously spoken about the possibility of the revival of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. In recent weeks, several American officials said that killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda in the heart of Kabul, has confirmed doubts about the strong ties between the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
On Thursday, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed the presence of unmanned aircraft in the skies of Afghanistan in a press conference and said that this aircraft belongs to the US Air Force.
The spokesperson of the Taliban said that the group considers the US drones in Afghanistan air space as a continuity of "American aggression on Afghanistan" and stressed that the leaders of the group have raised this issue with American representatives.
It seems that the US military is now more focused on over-the-horizon counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan with a focus on the al-Qaeda group.