We Are Engaging With Taliban To Advance US Interests, Says US State Department

According to sources, Rahm Dil Hanafi was from Panjshir and was previously one of Ahmad Shah Massoud's commandos.

According to informed sources, the Taliban’s intelligence agency was trying to arrest Rahm Dil Hanafi, and when they failed to find him, they took his wife with them. Rahm Dil Hanafi has nine children.

Sources say that Rahmdel Hanafi had gone to Iran after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021, but had returned to Afghanistan with the guarantee of Nooruddin Azizi, the Taliban's minister of commerce, and Qudratullah Amini, the former governor of Panjshir.

Sources said that the fate of Hanafi's wife is still unknown, and it is not clear where she was transferred.

The Taliban has not yet commented on the matter, but the group has so far arbitrarily detained a large number of former Afghan military personnel and officials or their family members.

The two groups harshly criticised ISIS, saying that instead of fighting Israel, it is fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Khalil-ur-Rehman Haqqani, a prominent leader of the Haqqani Network, was killed last week at the Ministry of Refugees in Kabul in a suicide attack. The assassination of Haqqani was claimed by ISIS-K.

In a message in Pashto on Tuesday, al-Qaeda al-Jihad called Khalil-ur-Rehman Haqqani a "great mujahid". In its statement, the group expressed its condolences to the Taliban leader over the killing of Haqqani.

In a separate statement, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), another branch of al-Qaeda, called Khalil ur-Rahman Haqqani "one of the strong mountains of jihad" and said, "He came from a noble jihadi family that was a stronghold and comrade of Sheikh Jalaluddin Haqqani on the path of jihad. Today, his life ended well and he was martyred after decades of jihad and perseverance against the occupiers."

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is an offshoot of Al-Qaeda which operates specifically in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

The al-Qaeda statement said that ISIS had been heavily attacked, saying it had "undertaken a task that the Americans were unable to perform after their withdrawal".

"The religious duty against ISIS is to kill and destroy them, because they are a great evil and a great calamity," it added.

The statement expressed sympathy with the Haqqani family.

The Haqqani Network has long had close ties with al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in 2022 at the guest house of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban's interior minister, in Kabul.

According to the United Nations Security Council report, the Taliban have continued their alliance and cooperation with al-Qaeda. According to the report, al-Qaeda has rehabilitated eight of its bases in Afghanistan and is in the process of rebuilding.

The office said that poverty and unemployment have seriously affected almost half of the Afghan population, especially women.

OCHA said in a statement on Tuesday, December 17, that in 2025, 21 million people will face water and health shortages, 14.8 million people will face acute food insecurity, 14.3 million people will face limited access to health services, and 7.8 million women and children will need food assistance.

"Unemployment, family debt and poverty remain widespread, affecting almost half of the population, and are even more pronounced for women, especially female-headed households," OCHA said in a statement.

The UN office also said that in addition to the economic crisis, the Afghan people are exposed to increasing legal restrictions imposed by the Taliban. According to OCHA, these restrictions increase protection risks for all people, especially women, girls and other vulnerable groups.

The UN agency has warned that political developments in Afghanistan's neighbouring countries increase the risk of a crisis of repatriation of Afghan refugees.

If the law is approved by President Vladimir Putin, Russia will be the first member of the Security Council to remove the Taliban from the list of terrorist groups.

The new move by the Russian parliament is good news for the Taliban, which is eagerly waiting for recognition from the international community.

Currently, no country in the world has recognised the Taliban government, which entered Kabul in August 2021. However, Russia has gradually established ties with the group, who Vladimir Putin called Moscow's ally in the fight against terrorism in July.

The Russian House of Representatives, or Duma, approved the draft law on Tuesday, December 17. The draft law was presented by some members of the Russian State Duma after Russian National Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu visited Kabul and said that Taliban's name could be "temporarily" removed from Russia's list of terrorist groups.

Under the new law, the Kremlin can temporarily suspend the ban on terrorist groups. It could also pave the way for Russia's normalisation of relations with Syria's new rulers.

Russian Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov on Monday called for the removal of Syria's Tahrir al-Sham group from Russia's list of banned terrorist groups. The Islamist group, led by rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, ended more than half a century of rule by the Assad family in Syria by launching a massive offensive against Syrian government forces this month.

Previous Russian laws did not provide for the temporary suspension of the activities of banned organisations.

The Interfax news agency previously wrote about a draft law approved by the Russian parliament today, according to which "the activities of certain prohibited organisations in accordance with Russian law may be suspended for a limited period of time at the request of the Prosecutor General or his deputy and by a court order”.

If the law is signed into law by Vladimir Putin, Russia will be the first member of the Security Council to remove the Taliban from its list of terrorist groups.

China has also accepted the Taliban ambassador but has not yet officially recognized the Taliban government.

Other members of the Security Council have conditioned official relations with the Taliban on respect for women's rights. However, the Taliban have ignored the demands of Western countries by issuing discriminatory decrees against women.

Dickson called on the Taliban to fulfill their international obligations in the field of human rights.

The chargé d'affaires of the British Embassy in Afghanistan met with Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, the Taliban's deputy foreign minister, during a visit to Kabul. A statement from the embassy said that Dickson spoke with Stanekzai about the next round of the Doha summit, which will be held by the United Nations.

The chargé d'affaires of the British embassy has expressed his country's support for the UN's independent assessment of Afghanistan, calling it the best way to integrate Afghanistan under the control of the Taliban into the international system.

Dickson said that if the Taliban adheres to human rights requirements, there are many areas for interaction and cooperation with the group. "There are many potential areas for cooperation, but the UK should see positive movement by the Taliban in maintaining its international human rights obligations," the chargé d'affaires of the British embassy added.

One of the major human rights violations of the Taliban is the imposition of severe restrictions that the group imposes on Afghan women. In a statement issued after his meeting with Stanekzai, the British embassy chargé d'affaires said that the UK is deeply concerned about the closure of medical institutes to educate Afghan women and girls.

Referring to the World Health Organisation (WHO) report, Dickson said that the new restriction has been imposed while Afghanistan ranks ninth in the world in women mortality due to pregnancy and childbirth.

"This will threaten the lives and health of countless women and girls who are deprived of vital medical care, as well as their children," she added.

In addition to a number of Taliban ministers, Dickson also held talks with Afghan women, officials of non-governmental organisations, the private sector, and foreign political representatives, according to a statement from the British embassy.

The Chargé d'Affaires of the British Embassy stressed on the importance of NGOs to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan.

According to the statement, Afghanistan is one of the largest recipients of UK aid, with the country providing more than 14 billion AFN (£161 million) in aid to Afghanistan.