China & Pakistan Agree To Extend Economic Corridor To Afghanistan

NRF in a statement said on Monday, "The skirmish started when the Taliban forces conducted house-to-house search operations in Jangalak village and harassed people."

The National Resistance Front claimed that during the gun fight that "lasted until midnight, eight Taliban members had been killed and 15 others had been wounded”.

NRF claimed that "the son of Mullah Sayed Mohammad, the deputy intelligence officer of the Taliban in Khost district was killed in this battle and Arif, the intelligence officer of this group in Khost, was wounded”.

However, the Taliban has not reacted to the reports of the skirmish in Baghlan.

Meanwhile, local sources from Khost district of Baghlan province confirmed to Afghanistan International that after commander Ruhollah Nazari refused to surrender to the Taliban, the Taliban drilled a hole into the roof of his house and threw a barrel bomb inside his house.

In a video clip received by Afghanistan International, one can see that a house in Khost district is on fire and a column of smoke can be seen rising from the top of the house.

The National Resistance Front also confirmed that the Taliban used heavy weapons and barrel bombs in the battle.

According to the NRF statement, seven residential houses of the people have been gutted in this attack.

A source close to Commander Ruhollah's family confirmed that the commander has been killed in the battle with the Taliban and Commander Ruhollah's mother was also injured in this explosion.

A local source from Khost district said that two civilians also died in the skirmish.

Ruhollah Nazari was one of the former commanders of the Afghan national army and had served in different provinces such as Kunduz and Ghazni.

According to Fars News Agency, Ebad stressed that the Taliban needs technical assistance and support of G5 member states including Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Iraq and the United Nations for the healthcare system of Afghanistan.

The Taliban’s Public Health Minister said that the group tries to provide health services to Afghans and said that the challenges Afghanistan faces is broad.

The lack of healthcare facilities and services is one of the main challenges of the Afghan people, especially women and children.

Currently, Afghanistan has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world. In addition to that, the Taliban has imposed severe restrictions on women which has banned Afghan women from receiving health services and access to female health workers.

The Taliban’s ministry of promotion of virtue and prevention of vice has ordered women not to show up for work without a male guardian.

Based on the orders attributed to the Taliban leader from Kandahar, women are prohibited from working in domestic and international organisations.

However, according to Fars New Agency, the Taliban's health minister has denied any ban on work of female health workers in Afghanistan.

The meeting was attended by the heads of UN agencies and the deputy coordinator of the organisation in Tehran.

He emphasised on the need to support the Iranian government since the country has been hosting a significant number of Afghan refugees.

Iran has announced that about six million Afghans live in the country and has repeatedly requested financial assistance from the United Nations to support Afghan refugees.

Earlier, on the sidelines of the Doha meeting, Qomi also met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and discussed the situation of Afghan refugees living in Iran.

Despite Iran’s repeated requests for international aid for Afghan refugees, the government of Iran has denied basic rights for Afghans across the country.

The Iranian newspaper, Shargh Daily, reported on Sunday that Iran has stopped issuing of bank credit cards to Afghan refugees and Afghans in general can’t even buy bread from the bakeries since they don’t accept cash.

The daily also added that Afghan refugees face the same restriction to use some other public services in Iran.

UNAMA has urged the Taliban to immediately end death penalty in Afghanistan.

Fiona Frazer, chief human rights officer of UNAMA in Afghanistan said that corporal punishment is a violation of the Convention against Torture and must cease.

According to Frazer, the UN is strongly opposed to the death penalty and encourages the “Taliban to establish an immediate moratorium on executions”.

According to the new UNAMA report published on Monday between August 15, 2021, to November 12, 2022, the UN agencies have documented at least 18 cases of corporal punishment carried out by the provincial, district, and appeal courts.

The report indicated that Ghor province had the highest number of judicially documented corporal punishments in this period.

According to the UNAMA report, in 18 documented cases, 33 men and 22 women, including two children (both girls), have been punished for adultery, sex, and running away from home.

The report stated that since the Taliban returned to power on August 15, 2021, the group has considered corporal punishment and the death penalty as indispensable for their reign in Afghanistan.

On September 23, 2021, Mullah Nuruddin Torabi, the head of the Taliban Prisons Administration, told the Associated Press that "cutting off of hands is very necessary for security” as it has a deterrent effect.

The report added that after the Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid's tweet on November 13 about the Taliban leader's meeting with the judges, "a significant increase in the number corporal punishments has been observed”.

According to this report, between November 13, 2022, and April 30, 2023, 43 cases of judicial corporal punishment have been documented by UNAMA, which involved 58 women, 274 men, and two male children.

UNAMA said that the crimes of these people have been stated as adultery, running away from home, theft, homosexuality, alcohol consumption, fraud, and drug trafficking.

The UNAMA report also stated that a man was sentenced to death for killing a person in 2017 and he was executed in public view and in the presence of senior Taliban leaders on December 7, 2022.

UNAMA also recorded another case of execution which was carried out on the order of non-judicial agents of the Taliban. According to the UNAMA report, on February 14, a man and a woman were stoned to death in Nasi district of Badakhshan Province on charges of adultery, based on the order of the district governor.

This report added that in March 2022, the Taliban planned to execute four people on the charge of killing a vaccination group of eight people, however, the order was not implemented.

Earlier in Balkh province, the Taliban officials had displayed barrels containing explosives, which had been used during the Taliban insurgency, for public viewing.

The Taliban used hand-made barrel bombs and suicide bombers as part of their bloody tactics against the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the foreign forces present in the country after 2001.

Human rights organisations have repeatedly criticised these attacks as the cause of massive civilian casualties in the past twenty years.

According to the Taliban-controlled Bakhtar News Agency, the minister of information and culture of this group called the use of various tools in this group's attacks in the past twenty years "values of Jihad" that should be placed in museums and displayed for the public in Afghanistan.