HRW States People With Disabilities Face Rights Setback In Afghanistan

Mahmoud Saikal, Afghanistan’s former permanent representative to the UN, who is a supporter of the NRF, without directly referring to the Massoud and Mohib meeting, said, "In dealing with the present and future of the country, it is necessary to review the developments of the past 21 years."

According to Saikal, one should learn from the big mistakes and the factors that turned unprecedented opportunities into challenges and resulted in the collapse of the political system.

Afghanistan International first reported on Friday, that Hamdullah Mohib had discussed the future of Afghanistan with Ahmad Massoud.

Later, Mohib confirmed the news on his Twitter and explained that he had a conversation with Massoud about the revival of democracy and the republic political system. Mohib also stressed on uploading the national values and flag of Afghanistan.

However, Mohiuddin Mahdi, a former member of parliament in Afghanistan, responded to Mohib, saying that a referendum is the only mechanism that would define the national values and determine the national flag in Afghanistan.

Mahdi emphasised that until the referendum is held, "there will be no national value and no national flag".

Mohib's stance has been welcomed too. Among others, a Twitter user Aminullah Ansari replied to Mohib and stated that Afghanistan will not be built by war and without national consensus.

They said that the group has published an old audio tape attributed to Ayubi in which he has been heard denying his separation from the Taliban.

Sources close to Ayubi said that he had left Kabul for Faryab province in the north. These sources confirmed to Afghanistan International that the prominent Uzbek commander cut ties with the group due to his dissatisfaction with Taliban’s polices about the participation of Uzbeks in the government.

Ayubi is one of the senior commanders of Uzbek origin of the Taliban who entered the presidential palace after Ashraf Ghani fled Afghanistan on August 15, 2021.

The Taliban have always denied internal differences within their group.

However, not long ago, Makhdoom Alem, another senior Uzbek Taliban in northern Afghanistan, was detained by the Taliban. At that time, the dismissal of Alem caused widespread protests in Faryab.

The Taliban defense minister’s meeting with the new recruits took place on Thursday at the group’s Joint Training Command.

Yaqoob emphasised that the group’s government doesn't believe in ethnic discrimination, including the Tajik, Pashtun, and Hazara.

Yaqoob’s stance comes at a time when many Taliban critics and citizens of Afghanistan accuse the group of "ethnic cleansing".

The group has focused on new recruits in their military from Panjshir as the National Resistance Front (NRF) forces have been fighting against the Taliban in various northern provinces.

Sources close to Mohib and Massoud confirmed to Afghanistan International that the discussion had taken place and it was the first conversation between the two sides after the fall of the Afghan government in August 15, 2021.

In February 2022, Mohib had told the BBC that he was not in contact with the resistance forces, including the NRF led by Ahmad Massoud. Mohib had emphasised that he was talking to his friends to learn "lessons" from the issues that happened in the past.

However, recently the former NSA, warned that the Taliban will be overthrown if they continue to suppress the Afghan citizens.

In an interview with Arab News, he had stressed that the question about the future of Afghanistan was ambiguous after the fall of the Taliban as he didn’t know if the country will head into a civil war.

Along with former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Mohib fled Afghanistan on August 15, 2021.

As Ashraf Ghani escaped from Kabul, Ahmad Massoud went to Panjshir province and formed the National Resistance Front against the Taliban.

The National Resistance Front (NRF) is one of the main political-military groups that has fought the Taliban for more than a year in a number of northern provinces, especially in Panjshir and Baghan.

Ahmad Taqi emphasised that these regulations apply to all violators of order and discipline. However, he did not cite the offenses the students had committed and why a large group of students had been expelled.

He also did not reveal how many students have been expelled in the past year since the Taliban has taken control of Afghanistan.

However, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Higher Education of the Taliban rejected "discriminatory" factors in the expulsion of the Hazara girls’ students.

In the past, reliable sources informed Afghanistan International that the Taliban have expelled dozens of female students, mostly Hazaras, from the Kabul University and its dormitory. It is not clear how many girls have been dismissed from the University.

These students had been dismissed last week for what the Taliban has called disorder and revelation of the poisoning incident of the dormitory of Kabul University.

Among the expelled students are several Hazara girls who had participated in a demonstration against Hazara killings and the suicide attack at the Kaj educational center in Western Kabul.

After the demonstrations in a couple of universities across Afghanistan, several girls had been poisoned in the dormitory of Kabul University. Sources had said that the Taliban members served poisoned food to the dormitory students to prevent the protest of Kabul University female students.

Taliban officials had denied that the girls had food poisoning and had said that they were sick.