Memorial Ceremony for Ahmad Shah Massoud Held at UK Parliament

Taliban forces in Panjshir province come from a variety of different backgrounds and include local Tajik Taliban units from Panjshir and neighbouring Badakhshan province as well as many Pashtun Taliban fighters from southern and eastern Afghanistan.

As per the report, local Tajik Taliban forces appear to be increasingly unwilling to fight the NRF, which would likely force the Taliban to draw increasing numbers of Pashtun Taliban forces from southern Afghanistan.

According to the report, the Taliban government had been appointing several successive commanders who have struggled to defeat the NRF in Panjshir and Baghlan provinces. Senior Taliban military leaders have launched repeated operations against the NRF but have achieved only intermittent short-term success and failed to decisively quash NRF activity. Taliban Minister of Defense Mohammad Yaqoob; his Chief of Army Staff Qari Fasihuddin; and his Deputy Defense Minister and senior Taliban military leader Mullah Fazel Mazloom have all previously led operations against the NRF.

Citing examples, it added that a local Tajik Taliban commander defected from the Taliban and joined the NRF in May while Tajik Taliban units from Badakhshan reportedly refused to continue fighting the NRF in the Panjshir in July. “These events likely fed into pre-existing mistrust between Pashtun and Tajik Taliban units. Taliban fighters have previously committed war crimes, including torture and extrajudicial killings, against the local, predominantly Tajik, population in the Panjshir Valley. An influx of Pashtun Taliban fighters will likely exacerbate the pre-existing inter-ethnic tensions and worsen cooperation between Pashtun and Tajik Taliban fighters,” the report stated.

“If local Tajik Taliban fighters lose their willingness to fight the NRF, or defect outright to the NRF, then NRF capabilities will continue to grow at the expense of the Taliban’s ability to govern and control northeastern Afghanistan. In this scenario, the Taliban leadership may increasingly deploy southern Pashtun Taliban fighters to the Panjshir and Andarab, likely further exacerbating pre-existing ethnic tensions and possibly driving increased support for the NRF,” the report said.

Factional infighting within the Taliban is also likely affecting its campaign against the NRF and continued failure could empower Taliban commanders from the Haqqani Network, which maintains ties with terrorist organisations like al-Qaeda as was evident when the leader of the Haqqani Network, Sirajuddin Haqqani, hosted former Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri at a house in Kabul until Zawahiri’s death in a US drone strike.

Highlighting the rift between the two factions of the Taliban, the report said that the Taliban security chief for Panjshir declared his allegiance to Sirajuddin Haqqani in an online video and criticised Taliban forces under Yaqoob’s command. Soon after, the Yaqoob-aligned Taliban governor for Panjshir removed this security chief from command. Taliban forces later arrested troops affiliated with the former security chief, indicating continuing tensions between the rival commanders, the report added.

“If Taliban commanders affiliated with Yaqoob continue to fail to quash the NRF rebellion, the Taliban leadership could decide to shift responsibility to other factions within the Taliban, increasing their influence at the expense of Yaqoob,” the report emphasised.

NRF activity is expanding beyond the Andarab-Panjshir Valleys despite Taliban pressure. The defection of Tajik Taliban commanders will also likely increase mistrust between Tajik and Pashtun Taliban forces, further hindering the Taliban’s ability to carry out operations against the NRF, the report concluded.

Taliban officials also said that the cases of the arrested individuals have been sent to the Taliban judiciary.

The Taliban added that apart from the arrests, they have also seized 209 arms/weapons in the province.

This report comes at a time when the Taliban has been accused of arbitrary detentions, beatings, and killing of civilians in the past year.

When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, it released thousands of prisoners, including members of the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), from Afghan prisons.

Despite Taliban’s claim to have established security around the country, the group has not been able to prevent IS-K attacks.

Recently, human rights organisations have stressed that the Taliban have failed in protecting the Hazaras and ethnic and religious minorities who have been under constant attacks from the IS-K.

According to the Taliban ministry, Iran has also stopped sending pilgrimage caravans to Iraq due to the security situation in that country.

In recent years, thousands of Shia citizens of Afghanistan who are mainly from the Hazara ethnic group have travelled to Iraq in pilgrimage caravans.

The Taliban Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stressed that the security situation in Iraq is not favourable for Afghan pilgrims, and in the absence of security guarantees for the pilgrims, sending Afghan nationals to Iraq will be risky.

The Iraqi capital city of Baghdad has recently witnessed a political deadlock and the city even witnessed armed conflict between supporters of the Sadr movement and groups affiliated with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Meanwhile, the Union of Travel agencies and pilgrimage companies in Kabul have told the media outlets that based on the Taliban travel ban for Shia pilgrims, they are not allowed to transport Shia citizens of Afghanistan to Karbala city in Iraq.

Muttaqi asked the international community to put pressure on the US, so that Afghanistan's airspace is not violated.

He stressed that no terrorist group has been able to use Afghanistan's soil against other countries since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan.

The Taliban’s foreign minister claimed that while around 50 countries had failed to defeat the Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) in Afghanistan over the past 20 years, the Taliban has defeated IS-K and now, it doesn’t have any territorial presence in Afghanistan.

He added that the Taliban has not only cut ties with these terrorist groups, but has also fought against these terrorist groups.

Muttaqi also stressed that the world should see the performance of the Taliban government.

The talk about violation of Afghanistan airspace by the US comes as reports state an increased presence of drones in the skies of country.

In early August, a US drone strike killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in the heart of Kabul.

Following Zawahiri's death, concerns about the presence of terrorist groups in Afghanistan and Taliban’s continued ties with these groups have increased.

However, the foreign minister of the Taliban said that so far, the US has not provided any document regarding the death of al-Zawahiri in Kabul, but emphasised that the group’s investigation of the incident continues.

The Taliban had previously said that they could not find the body of the al-Qaeda leader in Kabul.

Muttaqi also added that in contrast to the Doha agreement wherein the US had committed to participate in the construction of Afghanistan, Washington has put sanctions against the Taliban.

The Taliban's foreign minister said that US has failed to put pressure on the Taliban over the past 20 years and instead urged Washington to establish political and economic relations with the Taliban.

On the question about Taliban government’s recognition, he said that while the group has not officially been recognised as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, Taliban officials have participated in official visits outside of Afghanistan.

He added that the Taliban officials were officially invited to the Islamic Organisation conference in Islamabad and to the meetings in Antalya, Moscow and Beijing.

Although Muttaqi did not name a specific country, he said that the Taliban has supporters in the world, and according to him, if "harm" is caused to the Taliban, the countries which support this group, will raise their voices.

He added that the Taliban had conducted productive diplomacy with many countries and had no issues with regional players.

However, he added that he has no expectations from countries that have been at war with this group for the past twenty years.

Stressing that millions of Afghans have been deprived of literacy, McPhillips added, "We have an opportunity to increase the literacy rate of Afghans. To educate Afghans, everyone's efforts is needed.”

In a conference held in Kabul and attended by Taliban officials, the UNESCO representative emphasised that a literate population reduces poverty in society.

UNESCO commemorated the International Literacy Day in Kabul even as schools for secondary education for Afghan girls remain closed across Afghanistan.

During the UNESCO conference, Sadruddin Sadr, the director of Monitoring and Evaluation of the Ministry of Education of the Taliban, claimed that the group values education. However, he did not comment on the closure of girls’ schools for secondary education.

Sadr claimed that many schools have been destroyed in Afghanistan and asked the international community to support Afghanistan's educational system.