Unknown Individuals Attack Taliban Critic in Istanbul

Hassan Haqyar, an official from Mawlawi Abdul Kabir’s office, told Afghanistan International, that Mullah Hasan Akhund stepped down from his position due to old age and illness.

Over the past few months, Mullah Hasan Akhund has not been attending the Taliban’s official meetings and Mawlawi Abdul Kabir, his political affairs deputy, had been meeting with people and foreign officials.

Though Taliban didn’t provide details about Mullah Hasan’s illness, sources had earlier said that he is suffering from a heart disease.

Mawlawi Abdul Kabir, who is from Paktika province, belongs to the Zadran tribe like Sirajuddin Haqqani. He had been the governor of Nangarhar province during the previous reign of the Taliban in the 90s. It is said that he was the head of the Peshawar Council after the collapse of Taliban regime in 2001.

Later, he became a member of the Taliban’s negotiation team in Qatar and after the collapse of Ashraf Ghani’s government, he had been appointed as the assistant of Taliban’s deputy prime minister in economic affairs and later, as the deputy prime minister of political affairs.

The drone strike targeted the house that belonged to Mufti Farooq, who is a resident of Pakistan’s Waziristan, but recently had taken over as the Imam of the village mosque.

A doctor at the Khost Civil Hospital confirmed that the bodies of the two children had been transferred to this hospital.

The Taliban have not commented on the attack so far.

Local residents in Khost province said that a drone had been flying in the sky of Ismailkhel and Mandozai district since Monday night and dropped a bomb on a house in this district at four in the morning on Tuesday.

No further details about the origin of the drone is known so far.

The report is based on interviews with the victims, doctors, and other sources, and highlights the situation of 90 Afghan women who have been arrested and imprisoned in Jawzjan, Faryab, and Samangan provinces after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021.

The Daily said that these women have been jailed on charges of morality, theft, fraud, and running away from home.

The female victims and doctors have revealed shocking details about the Taliban’s prisons.

Health workers in the gynaecological department of Faryab, Samangan, and Jawzjan hospitals have said, "In the past year, the Taliban have brought in 48 women to these hospitals for treatment at night times, who were subjected to physical torture and sexual assault. They were bleeding profusely."

The Daily added that the Taliban did not allow the doctors in charge to register these female victims at the hospitals.

Apparently, the local Taliban authorities in these provinces force women prisoners to submit to their sexual demands under pressure and torture.

The Taliban officials have not filed a criminal case against these women and kept them in prison. Also, they did not allow the families of the prisoners to visit them.

Sexual assaults by Taliban members have led to unwanted pregnancies of imprisoned women too. A doctor told the Daily, "At least 13 female prisoners who had been raped in prison by the Taliban were transferred to the obstetrics and gynaecology department of this hospital at night for abortion."

According to him, most of these women had abortions in the first three months of pregnancy and had been taken back to prison.

The newspaper quoted the victims as saying that some of these women had been released from the Taliban prison after paying bribes.

Ahmadi Bighash, who is a member of the national security and foreign policy commission of the Iranian parliament, questioned the Iranian president’s diplomatic skills and said, “Raisi, where is the art of powerful and effective diplomacy?”

The Iranian lawmaker has reacted to the recent order of Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s president, who instructed the country’s foreign ministry to seriously pursue Iran’s claim of water rights from Afghanistan’s Helmand River.

The Iranian lawmaker emphasised that the Taliban should provide water of the Helmand River to match the level of consumption of what he called “ten million Afghan refugees in Iran”.

Iran has announced that the issue of water rights from Helmand River is a top priority of its foreign policy.

Hassan Kazemi Qomi, Charge d'Affaires of the Iranian embassy in Kabul, said in an interview on Sunday with an Iranian TV that the Taliban must implement the water treaty between Afghanistan and Iran.

In a video clip on Monday, the Afghan ambassador called his dismissal as a “rumour” and said that the embassy of Afghanistan in New Delhi had no connection to the Taliban.

Mamundzay urged the Indian government to consider the will of the people of Afghanistan and in accordance with diplomatic principles decide about Qadir Shah, who no longer has any duties in the Afghan embassy in Delhi.

The Afghan ambassador said that since August 2021, the embassy of Afghanistan in Delhi has had no political relationship with Kabul. However, he said that the embassy continues to provide services to Afghan citizens.

Earlier, there were reports about the handover of the Afghan embassy in Delhi to the Taliban representatives.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan International has received three copies of letters showing that Taliban’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi has appointed a new chief of mission for the Afghan embassy in Delhi.

In one of the letters signed by Muttaqi, Qadir Shah has been appointed to take charge of the embassy in New Delhi.

In a separate letter, the director of human resources at the Taliban’s foreign ministry has declared removal of Mamundzay as the ambassador of Afghanistan in New Delhi based on an order of the Taliban Prime Minister, Mullah Hassan Akhund.

In another letter, Qadir Shah, the former diplomat at the Afghan embassy in New Delhi has informed the Taliban foreign ministry that he has taken charge of the embassy since Mamundzay, the ambassador, has been out of office and outside India.