Afghan Women Rights Group Accuses US Special Envoy for Women of Betraying Them

Vohidzoda added that according to the country’s statistics, drug smuggling from Afghanistan has increased during the Taliban reign in the country.

On Wednesday, in a press conference in Dushanbe, he said that he does not believe in the Taliban's promises of fighting against drugs in Afghanistan.

The Tajik official explained that the Taliban had promised to crack down on those who produce and smuggle drugs, "but in reality, we don't see that happening”.

Vohidzoda added that in 2021 and after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, 4083 kilograms of narcotics had been discovered in Tajikistan, and in 2022 almost five tonnes of narcotics were seized in the country.

He stressed that most of the seized drugs were in the areas inside Tajikistan which bordered Afghanistan.

In 2022, the Taliban announced a ban on the production and sale of drugs in Afghanistan.

However, earlier the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime announced that Afghanistan produced 80 percent of the world's opium in 2022. The report stated that Afghanistan has become one of the major producers of methamphetamine or crystal in the region.

These Afghan businessmen met with the Taliban’s foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and demanded direct flights between Afghanistan and Qatar.

After the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, many diplomats of the former Afghan government refused to hand over embassies of Afghanistan to the Taliban. However, even the embassies taken over by the Taliban have not been able to provide consular services to Afghan citizens.

Taliban’s Foreign Minister was on a visit to Doha to meet US officials. Muttaqi said that the Taliban's negotiation with the US delegation in Qatar was highly positive.

The Taliban's foreign ministry announced that Muttaqi also met with diplomats from the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Netherlands, South Korea, and Spain during his visit to Doha and asked them to reopen their embassies in Afghanistan.

Nooruddin Azizi, who is on a visit to Kazakhstan, told TASS news agency on Thursday, that the construction of this railway route is in the interest of every stakeholder.

Azizi also suggested that Pakistan, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan establish a coordination office in Kabul.

In January, the Taliban, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan signed a memorandum of understanding on the railway route known as the Trans-Afghan project in Islamabad.

However, no country has recognised the Taliban so far, and the timeline for the implementation of this project is not known.

The plan to build the Trans-Afghan railway between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan was presented in 2018 with the aim of creating an economic pathway that would connect Central Asia to the Indian Ocean.

It has been estimated that the construction of the 573 kilometers-long railway route will cost more than four and a half billion dollars. This railway line starts from Termez city and after passing through the cities of Mazar-e-Sharif and Kabul, it will reach Peshawar in Pakistan.

On Thursday, Jamaran news reported that these offices "were sealed after an order by the Taliban forces”.

The Khomeini Relief Committee is a quasi-governmental organisation which is founded on the order of the late supreme leader of the Islamic Republic. The committee also opened its offices in Afghanistan over the years.

The activity of this Iranian agency had been stopped after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in late 1990s, but after the fall of the group, the second round of work of the Khomeini Relief Committee resumed in the cities of Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat, and Zaranj in 2002.

According to Jamaran news, the activity of the relief committee's office in Kabul was stopped almost a month ago, and its offices in Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat cities have been shut down on July 31 on the Taliban’s order.

It has been said that the Taliban forces have also approached the representative of the Relief Committee in Nimroz city of Zaranj, but its activities are still ongoing.

Iranian officials and the Taliban have not reacted to the news so far.

However, informed sources told Jamaran news that the Taliban sealed the Khomeini Relief Committee offices in the three provinces "without any prior notice”.

The Taliban attacked the relatives of the children and shot them in the Zazai Aryob district of the province.

Local sources told Afghanistan International the incident took place on Wednesday and the Taliban arrested and tortured a nine-year-old boy for playing PUBG in Zazai Aryob district.

Local sources said that following the arrest of the child, the Taliban summoned his relatives too. According to the sources, after verbal tensions, the Taliban shot the child's relatives.

In this shooting, an uncle of this child had been killed and two of his other uncles had been wounded. Three other people injured in this incident are residents of the district.

Earlier, Taliban had banned the mobile game, PUBG, in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the Taliban police command in Paktia has confirmed that one person was killed, and five others were injured in this province. The Taliban police officials stated that these people had been killed and injured because of differences between two families in the district.

Sources said that after the incident, the local residents protested and carried the body of the dead man and displayed it in front of the Taliban governor's office in Paktia province.