Taliban’s Ministry of Refugees announced that 531 Afghan refugees returned to the country from Pakistan. The ministry on Tuesday in a tweet wrote that these individuals entered Afghanistan through Spin Boldak border of Kandahar province on June 11 and 12.
Taliban ministry added that these people have been introduced to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to receive assistance.
After the takeover of power by the Taliban in Afghanistan, thousands of Afghans migrated to Iran and Pakistan due to the fear of reprisal from the group as well as poverty and unemployment.
Over the past few months, the Taliban reported voluntary and forced return of migrants from these countries.
On the other hand, Pakistani police arrested hundreds of Afghan refugees due to not having legal residence documents in the past two weeks.
Voice of Khorasan, an ISIS magazine, warned the Taliban that the Islamic State’s fighters are present across, what the magazine termed as, “Khorasan” and the Taliban will face “tough days” ahead.
The new volume of the magazine published on June 11 and in Pashto, called the Taliban “militants”.
In recent weeks, ISIS-K’s attacks on the Taliban have increased.
Last week, in two separate suicide attacks in Badakhshan province, two senior Taliban members have been killed. On Tuesday, June 6, the Taliban confirmed that in an attack, Nisar Ahmad Ahmadi, the deputy governor of the group for Badakhshan had been killed with his driver, and six others were injured.
On Thursday, June 8, during the funeral ceremony of Ahmadi, another explosion took place at the Nabawi mosque of Faizabad city of Badakhshan. In this attack, 11 people, including Safiullah Samim, former police commander of Taliban in Baghlan, had been killed and 30 others got injured. However, sources said that the number of casualties in the attack was higher.
During the past month, the Taliban reported attacks on ISIS-K’s positions in different areas of Afghanistan. Nonetheless, some of the group’s officials claimed that Daesh has been “defeated” and does not have the capability of massive attacks in Afghanistan.
The three-day Oslo Freedom Forum began with the participation of representatives and civil activists of different countries, including prominent Afghan figures and a delegation of Taliban, in Norway.
Following protests to the previous meeting in Oslo in 2022, Norway did not invite senior Taliban leaders to the current meeting.
Participants will discuss, freedom, democracy, digital security, artificial intelligence, Bitcoin, and other acute world issues.
Francis Fukuyama, an American political scientist, and Masih Alinejad, an Iranian human rights activist, are also among the participants of this meeting.
Some of the Afghan intellectuals and politicians such as Jafar Mahdawi, leader of Hizb-e-Millat Afghanistan, are also participating in this meeting.
A source told Afghanistan International that Abdul Qahar Balkhi, Taliban’s foreign ministry spokesperson; Rohullah Omar, head of communication of the group’s defence ministry; Shamsuddin Akhundzada, advisor of the Taliban’s interior ministry; and Shams Rahman, translator of the interior ministry, participated in the Oslo meeting representing the Taliban.
Sources said that the Taliban members will meet with Norway’s foreign ministry officials separately.
Earlier, Mina Rafiq, Afghan women rights activist, protested against the presence of Taliban officials in the Oslo meeting, in front of Norway’s foreign ministry.
Norway previously hosted Amir Khan Muttaqi, foreign minister of the Taliban, and Anas Haqqani a senior member of the group, which faced many reactions from the civil activists and protests in Oslo.
Earlier, the Pakistani media reported the possibility of Hina Rabbani, the minister of state for foreign affairs in Pakistan, and Asif Ali Durrani, the country's special representative for Afghanistan, attending the Oslo meeting.
The Oslo Freedom Forum will continue until June 15.
Credible sources in the Taliban government have confirmed that the group has reached an agreement with Pakistan to relocate members of Tahreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to northern Afghanistan.
According to the sources, the Taliban will provide land to TTP members in northern Afghanistan and Pakistan will provide them with financial support for resettlement and agricultural tools.
Due to their membership to the TTP and being in opposition of the government of Pakistan, these Pakistani citizens have been living in Afghanistan as refugees and have been settled in camps in border areas in southern and eastern Afghanistan.
A source from the Taliban told Afghanistan International that the new agreement about TTP members has been negotiated between the Taliban and Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI).
Afghanistan International’s source said that Taliban leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada too has supported the new agreement and asked TTP members to stay in peace, with security, and reconciliation in Afghanistan and to refrain from using Afghan soil for attacks.
The source from the Taliban government added that initially, TTP opposed the Taliban’s plan and said that if the members of the group wanted to live peacefully, they could stay in Pakistan and benefit from the privileges given by Islamabad.
Meanwhile, a source of TTP told Afghanistan International that they have been aware of the new deal from media reports, however, he stressed that they have not taken any practical steps based on the new agreement.
However, he stressed, "If Sheikh Hibatullah gives an order, we will not reject it."
According to the TTP source, the leader of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan recently said in a meeting, "We and you are obliged to obey the Emirate [Afghan Taliban]. If we are not ordered to wage Jihad, we won't do it."
According to the TTP source, in this meeting, the leaders of TTP emphasised, "Our movement was formed to defend the emirate; we have pledged allegiance to the emirate; so obedience [to the Taliban's Islamic Emirate] is obligatory."
However, the source added, “The Emirate never told us not to fight in Pakistan. They just said, don't take our Mujahideen with you. One thing is necessary for us, which is Jihad, and the rest must understand. The opinions and thoughts of Sheikh Hibatullah never opposes Jihad.”
On the other hand, Zabihullah Mujahid, the Kandahar-based spokesperson of the Taliban, told local media outlets in Afghanistan that the Taliban has decided to transfer Pakistani refugees, who were displaced to Khost and Kunar provinces due to the war, to areas far from the Durand line.
Following the news of the transfer of these Pakistani citizens to northern Afghanistan, the National Resistance Front (NRF) and some other groups in Afghanistan strongly opposed this plan and considered it to be the basis for the "partition" of Afghanistan.
While the Taliban sources have confirmed their plan to relocate these Pakistani Taliban members potentially to northern Afghanistan, it may fuel more opposition as many believe that it is part of the agenda to transform the ethnic composition of the population of northern Afghanistan.
A group of women in Takhar protested against the Taliban's intensifying pressure to impose the mandatory hijab rule as desired by the group. On Monday, these women gathered at an unknown closed location and chanted slogans against the Taliban’s strict policies.
According to the photos received by Afghanistan International from this gathering, protestors carried slogans against “forced marriage” and “mandatory hijab”, imposed by the group.
One of the protestors told Afghanistan International that the Taliban tortured and beat up women publicly in several cases due to not having a “burqa” according to the group’s order.
In this closed space with the flag of the previous government in the background, the female protesters asked the international community not to recognise the Taliban’s government.
According to them, recognising the Taliban will mean “burying alive” women in Afghanistan.
Taliban officials haven’t reacted to this protest yet.
The Taliban have imposed a ban on women’s education and work and ordered that women don’t have the right to visit restaurants, parks, cinemas, gyms, and public baths across Afghanistan. The Taliban has also ordered Afghan women not to leave the house with a male guardian.
Reacting to reports of Taliban setting his house on fire, Zahir Aghbar, ambassador of previous government to Tajikistan, said Afghanistan burns in the fire of ignorance and oppression, indirectly referring to the group’s role in the incident.
Aghbar in a tweet wrote, “Taliban should know that buildings may fall, but the spirit of resistance against oppression and terrorism is resolute and unshakable.”
Posting a photo of his house and some of the local elders in Panjshir on Twitter, he said that the house has been a heritage structure from his father’s ear and 25 years ago, with the cooperation of local residents of Panjshir, he had reconstructed the house.
Taliban have been using this house as a military base and set it on fire for unknown reasons. Months earlier, the Taliban set fire to the house of Fazal Ahmad Manawi, former Minister of Justice of Afghanistan, in Panjshir.
Zahir Aghbar and Fazal Ahmad Manawi are supporters of the National Resistance Front led by Ahmad Massoud.