Despite the Taliban’s previous claims of less water in the Kamal Khan and Kajaki dams, the Taliban-controlled Bakhtar News Agency reported an increase in the water levels of the Kajaki dam.
Mohammad Ershad Ahmadi, a Taliban official in the electricity department of Kandahar, said that due to the increase in the water level and capacity of turbines in the Kajaki dam, the department supplies 24 hours electricity to Kandahar city now.
Recently, amid tensions between the Taliban and the Islamic Republic over the water rights issue from the Helmand River, Taliban officials had claimed that the Kamal Khan Dam does not have enough water to cross a distance of over 600 kilometers to reach Iran.
Amir Khan Muttaqi, Taliban’s foreign minister, on May 22, said that the group is committed to providing Iran’s water right according to the 1973 agreement, but the drought in the region must be considered too.
In response, Iranian officials had asked the Taliban to let an Iranian expert team assess the water levels inside Afghanistan.
Some of the Taliban officials, including Sher Abbas Stanikzai, the Taliban’s deputy foreign minister, had responded that dams are considered sensitive sites in Afghanistan and the Taliban will not allow Iranian experts to visit these sites.
A day after Afghanistan International’s report about the Taliban’s recent order to ban the operation of organisations active in the education sector, the UN Children’s Agency expressed concerns about the decision.
Samantha Mort, UNICEF’s Afghanistan spokesperson, said that the agency will seek clarification from the Taliban.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that UNICEF was following up with the Taliban over whether international organisations would be excluded from education projects, which could affect hundreds of thousands of students.
UNICEF has warned that if international non-governmental organisations are not allowed to operate in the education sector, it may impact thousands of Afghan students.
In May, UNICEF announced that the organisation holds 21,000 education classes across Afghanistan. UNICEF had also announced that it will hold short-term educational courses for girls in Bamiyan province of Afghanistan.
UNICEF’s Afghanistan spokesperson has stated that if the international organisations are not allowed to operate, more than 300,000 girls may “lose out on quality learning”.
The Taliban has not commented on the matter yet. However, an audio file from Wahidullah Hashemi, the group’s director of international relations of the Ministry of Education, has been reviewed by Afghanistan International in which he said that foreign organisations have one month to stop their projects in the education sector in Afghanistan. According to him, currently, the verbal order has been conveyed to these organisations.
In a new report, Amnesty International has stated that the Taliban have committed war crimes of collective punishment against civilians in Afghanistan’s Panjshir province.
The report, ‘Your Sons Are In The Mountains’: The Collective Punishment of Civilians In Panjshir by the Taliban, documents serious international human rights and humanitarian law violations, including extrajudicial executions, torture, hostage-taking, unlawful detention, and the torching of civilian homes.
The report stated that the Taliban have retaliated against captured National Resistance Front (NRF) fighters, and targeted the civilian population in Panjshir to force compliance and submission after they seized power and noticed an opposition rising in the region.
The global rights watchdog called on the Taliban authorities to investigate the cases documented, and hold fair trials before ordinary civilian courts where warranted.
It also renewed its call for the United Nations Human Rights Council to create an independent international accountability mechanism with a focus on preserving evidence for future justice processes, including prosecutions as well as public reporting and monitoring.
“In Panjshir, the Taliban’s cruel tactic of targeting civilians due to suspicion of their affiliation with the NRF is causing widespread misery and fear with a clear goal of intimidation and punishment,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.
The report talks about how the Taliban has conducted village-wide arbitrary arrests of all adult men and older boys, detained them without charge, and subjected them to beatings and other abuse.
The report also documents several cases of mass extrajudicial executions of NRF fighters by the Taliban.
In at least three cases, the Taliban also tortured to death civilians they had arrested in the Bazarak and Rokha districts of Panjshir province.
The Taliban-controlled Afghanistan embassy in Islamabad announced that nearly 250 Afghan refugees have been arrested in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, and its surroundings. The embassy said that refugees who had legal documents had also been arrested.
The Afghan embassy added that “arresting Afghan refugees by the Pakistani police has been ongoing”.
A video clip documented by an Afghan refugee, shows Pakistani police around a residential building. According to the video clip, the police had come to the area to "arrest Afghans without visas".
Also, several refugees complained that their families were not informed about the fate of their relatives who were detained by the Pakistani police. One of the refugees allegedly claimed that an Afghan refugee was released after bribing the police.
On Wednesday, Taliban’s representative in Islamabad asked Pakistani government to stop arresting Afghan refugees.
Apparently, these Afghan refugees have been arrested by Pakistan anti-terrorism forces for not having legal documents.
Afghanistan embassy in Pakistan said that their representatives met with police officials so that the situation of these refugees can be determined as soon as possible, and they can be released from Pakistani detention centers.
Earlier, the police of Pakistan responded to Afghanistan International and confirmed the arrest of 175 Afghans who had been transferred to a prison in Rawalpindi.
After the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, hundreds of Afghans, including officials and former government employees entered Pakistan to escape the Taliban’s persecution.
They have repeatedly expressed their concern over their unclear legal and residence status and the possibility of being arrested by the Pakistani police.
Moezuddin Ahmadi, the director of information and culture of Taliban in Badakhshan, confirmed to Afghanistan International that Safiullah Samim, the former police chief of the group in Baghlan, has been killed in an explosion at the Nabawi mosque in Faizabad city.
The explosion targeted the funeral ceremony of the deputy governor of the Taliban in Badakhshan on Thursday morning.
Meanwhile, sources told Afghanistan International that because of Thursday's explosion, several others have also been killed and wounded.
The Taliban, however, did not provide details about the exact number of casualties.
After the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, Safiullah Samim was appointed as the police chief of the group for Baghlan, but he was recently removed from this position and didn’t have any official position in the Taliban government.
Several other senior Taliban officials were present at the funeral ceremony of Nisar Ahmad Ahmadi in Badakhshan.
Nisar Ahmad Ahmadi, Taliban’s deputy governor in Badakhshan, was killed in a car bomb explosion on Tuesday.
Western diplomats and United Nations have started another round of efforts to engage with Afghanistan. In line with these efforts, Thomas West, the US special envoy for Afghanistan, is in London to discuss Afghanistan with British officials.
In New York, Feridun Sinirlioğlu, the UN Special Coordinator for Afghanistan, has started his work and met with several Afghan women leaders. However, compared to the scale of complexity of the situation in Afghanistan, can these efforts pay off, and more importantly, what Afghans want to do for the future of their country?
In London, Thomas West met and spoke with Tariq Ahmad, British Minister of State for Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and the United Nations, and Andrew McCourbrey, Director of Afghanistan, and Pakistan Affairs of the UK Foreign Office. In these meetings, he discussed the shared interests of the two countries in Afghanistan. After London, West will visit the United Arab Emirates during the four-day regional trip to promote Afghanistan talks.
In New York, Feridun Sinirlioğlu met with Asila Wardak and Habiba Sarabi, Afghan women's rights activists, and discussed the scope of his mission. His main mission is to provide a comprehensive report on the situation in Afghanistan and proposed solutions to the existing stalemate within the next five months.
The United Nations and the parties involved in Afghanistan's affairs are trying to hold another meeting to address the political deadlock in Afghanistan, with a focus to bring together the domestic stakeholders of Afghanistan such as the Taliban, Afghan political leaders, women's rights activists, and civil society around a common agenda.
However, these efforts show that there is not much appetite and enthusiasm to resolve the Afghanistan issue, and at least until now, neither the United States nor the United Nations has shown any urgency to create a political consensus among Afghans.
It is evident that the United States has lost its interest in Afghanistan and has no long-term plan for the country. The US’ interests have shifted, and Washington has other priorities than Afghanistan. The US policymakers’ attention has been shifted to the war in Europe to push back Russia's ambitions and prepare for a confrontation with China over global resources.
Although American diplomats, soldiers, and citizens who have served in Afghanistan for more than two decades and people like Thomas West have deep emotional ties with this country, are still trying to keep the Afghanistan issue alive in the US policy circles, terrorism and the threat to America's national security is not so urgent, to drag the time and capital of Washington to Afghanistan at least in the current situation.
That’s why the US has practically entrusted the Afghanistan case to the United Nations so that the organisation, as a neutral actor, manages the situation in Afghanistan with the help of the countries in the region. While the role and influence of the United States in Afghanistan under the control of the Taliban have been gradually declining, the importance of regional powers in the affairs of Afghanistan has been strengthening.
However, in the meantime, another vital piece of the puzzle of Afghanistan is missing. Afghans themselves have not been able to present a plan for the future of their country that would mobilise regional and global actors around it. The democratic and nationalist forces of Afghanistan, scattered inside and outside the country, are highly fragmented. The Taliban, as one of the other main Afghan sides, has not taken any steps to engage with these Afghan professionals.
The parties of the Supreme National Resistance Council for Salvation of Afghanistan, the political groups led by Rahmatullah Nabil and Hanif Atmar, and political leaders who have remained inside Afghanistan under the Taliban including Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, have taken small initiatives, but none of them have been able to form a popular national umbrella, so that the international community utilises that to resolve the Afghanistan issue.
Apparently, both the Afghan politicians and the international community expect one another to come up with a plan, and it is the duty of Feridun Sinirlioğlu to present a plan to the Secretary General of the United Nations to provide a platform for intra-Afghan reconciliation.
The need and dependence of the different political sides of Afghanistan on each other require that all parties show a clear will to interact with one another to address the current situation in Afghanistan. In the meantime, as an undeniable fact, if the Taliban wants to transition from a militant group to a party that forms an internationally recognised government in Afghanistan, they need the support of the international community and Afghan professional forces.
Although there are currently 21 active foreign embassies in Kabul and 16 embassies based in Doha, which regularly engages with the Taliban, no country has recognised the group as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. Coupled with the above, even if the Taliban government receives international recognition, Afghanistan will remain challenging, because the Taliban will continue to suffer from the lack of domestic legitimacy and will not have the capacity to provide services to Afghan citizens and eradicate poverty from across Afghanistan.
Therefore, to end the current deadlock and provide political stability in Afghanistan, Afghans need to come up with a roadmap that can gain domestic and international support.