Karzai Meets High-Ranking UN Delegation, Insists on National Dialogue in Afghanistan

The Taliban’s Ministry of Interior announced that the representatives of the Ministries of Interior and Defense and General Directorate of Intelligence of the group held talks with Chief Executive of the TAPI project in the presence of the Ambassador of Turkmenistan in Kabul.

The Taliban interior ministry stressed that the group will provide security to the TAPI project with all means.

The project passes through the provinces of Kandahar, Farah, Helmand, and Herat, which in the past had been unstable and mostly under control of the Taliban fighters.

Security had been the major concern of involved stakeholders in the project.

Taliban being in power in Afghanistan emphasises that the group will provide security for the TAPI project. However, other security challenges, including from groups like ISIS, continue to pose a threat to the project in Afghanistan.

The Taliban recently increased the implementation of "Sharia laws" in public. Earlier in late 2022, the group held a ceremony with the participation of Taliban's senior officials in which they executed a person in public in Farah province.

These Taliban rulings have faced a wide range of international condemnation.

The Taliban have a history of imposing restrictions on the lives of the Afghan people based on what they consider to be the implementation of Islamic Sharia law.

At the same time, most of the Islamic countries consider the behaviour of the Taliban, especially the severe restrictions that the group has imposed on women, to be against Islamic Sharia.

The sources confirmed that the groom and three of his relatives have been detained by the Taliban.

Recently, the Taliban have imposed restrictions on weddings and engagement parties. They have banned people from holding lavish parties too.

A local source said that after disrupting the ceremony, the Taliban fined the family of the groom and bride 300,000 Afghanis.

The Taliban has not reacted to the report so far.

The group has imposed many restrictions on people's lives since taking power in Afghanistan in August 2021.

Women have been denied the right to education, work, political and social activities and even entering public parks.

According to this ministry, another 11 people have died in incidents related to gas leaks in Khost, Takhar, Faryab and Jawzjan provinces.

Mullah Janan Sayeq, the director of prevention of disasters at the state ministry of disaster management, told Afghanistan International that the casualties due to snowfall and severe cold have been mainly in Badghis, Faryab, Nimroz and Ghazni provinces.

According to the Taliban official, in Badghis province alone, two adults and six children have died due to the cold weather.

As a result of the cold and storm, more than six thousand cattle have been lost in Nimroz and Badghis provinces, and hundreds of cattle have been lost in other provinces.

The Taliban said that it has sent 15 types of food and non-food items to vulnerable provinces including Ghor, Helmand, Faryab, Nuristan, Zabul, Badghis, Nimroz, Uruzgan, Kunar, Badakhshan, and Logar.

The unprecedented wave of cold weather has started since last week, when the temperature reached minus 35 degrees in Afghanistan.

Recently, the Pakistani Taliban appeared in a military exercise with American-made weapons that had been left by American forces in Afghanistan.

The weapons, included US made M16 and M4 guns, which the Taliban accessed after taking control of Afghanistan in August 2021.

The Taliban has been accused of harbouring and having close ties with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

Since taking power in Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban has hosted talks between the Pakistani government and the TTP for the past one year, but these talks have not yielded results and the Pakistani Taliban announced the start of attacks across Pakistan after the ceasefire ended in late 2022.

The government of Pakistan claims that TTP has a sanctuary in Afghanistan. Islamabad has warned the Taliban to destroy the hideouts of TTP in Afghanistan, or Pakistan will wage operations against the group inside Afghanistan.