Bus Crash On Kabul–Kandahar Highway Kills at Least 25, Injures 27
A passenger bus overturned on the Kabul–Kandahar highway late Tuesday, killing at least 25 people and injuring 27 others, Taliban officials said.
A passenger bus overturned on the Kabul–Kandahar highway late Tuesday, killing at least 25 people and injuring 27 others, Taliban officials said.
Abdul Mateen Qani, spokesman for the Taliban’s Interior Ministry, said the crash occurred in the Arghandi area of Kabul when the bus veered off the road and plunged into a ravine. He said the bus, a 580-model coach, had been travelling from Kandahar to Kabul.
Taliban authorities said the incident is under investigation.
The accident comes just over a week after another deadly crash in Herat, where a bus carrying Afghan migrants deported from Iran overturned, killing 79 people.
Germany has resumed reviewing Afghan refugee cases and deployed staff to Pakistan to process applications, the daily Die Welt reported Monday.
The move comes amid mounting legal pressure in Germany and Pakistan’s intensified deportations of Afghan migrants.
According to the report, Berlin plans to relocate approved Afghans discreetly on regular commercial flights with stopovers in Dubai or Istanbul. It remains unclear how many applicants have been cleared for departure.
An estimated 2,000 Afghans have been stranded in Pakistan for months awaiting relocation to Germany after Islamabad’s new government suspended the transfer process. Pakistan has since warned it will expel Afghan refugees and migrants, prompting human rights groups in Germany and dozens of Afghan applicants to challenge the suspension in court.
In recent days, more than 450 Afghans with German admission commitments were detained in Pakistan. German officials said 245 were released from deportation camps following intervention from Berlin, while 210 others had already been deported.
Government sources told Die Welt that Germany has now reversed its position and will resume transfers, with the first Afghan families expected to arrive in the coming days.
The shift follows earlier remarks by Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, who said Berlin was not obligated to immediately relocate the 2,000 Afghans waiting in Pakistan. He argued that all applicants promised admission must first undergo security checks before transfer.
The Taliban have approved a five-year National Development Strategy that outlines priorities in governance, security and economic growth, spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said Monday.
Mujahid said the strategy brings together all Taliban-run agencies’ resources and programmes under a single framework. It is divided into three broad areas — governance and international relations, security and public order, and economic and social development.
The plan identifies 10 key sectors: economy and agriculture; natural resources and energy; housing and social affairs; transport and communications; religious and modern education; culture; health; social protection; and environmental conservation.
According to Mujahid, 15 programmes have been designated as top priorities. He said the strategy is intended to improve coordination among government agencies, reduce unemployment and promote balanced development.
He described the plan as “comprehensive, unified and long-term,” adding that all ministries and departments are required to align their activities with it. The Taliban believe implementation will allow citizens to “witness improvements and balanced growth” across sectors, Mujahid said.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid dismissed questions on girls’ education and the cancelled trip of the group’s foreign minister to India, describing both as “minor” issues.
Speaking at a press conference in Kabul on Monday, Mujahid declined to elaborate on whether the new development strategy included provisions for girls’ education beyond primary school and at universities. He said the document addressed education only in general terms.
The briefing came a day after the UN Security Council’s sanctions committee confirmed to Afghanistan International that India had withdrawn its request for a travel exemption for Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, whose visit to New Delhi had been scheduled for 27–29 August.
When pressed on the issue, Mujahid again called the matter “minor.”
During the same briefing, the microphone of a female journalist was cut off as she attempted to ask a question. Under the Taliban’s interpretation of its “Promotion of Virtue” law, women’s voices are considered “awrah,” or intimate, and are restricted in public.
Since returning to power in 2021, the Taliban have barred girls from secondary school and university education, drawing widespread criticism from Afghans, rights groups and the international community.
The Taliban’s Ministry of Public Health says a new polio vaccination campaign will launch on Saturday, 30 August, in parts of eastern Afghanistan.
According to the ministry, the drive will cover the districts of Surkhrod, Behsud, Khogyani and Bati Kot in Nangarhar province, as well as the cities of Jalalabad, Mehtarlam and Asadabad.
Children will receive both oral and injectable vaccines to boost immunity and help prevent the spread of the virus, officials said.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only two countries where polio remains endemic. The World Health Organization says reported cases have declined in recent years but the virus continues to circulate in some areas of Afghanistan.
Pakistani security sources allege that Indian intelligence agencies are preparing a “false-flag” operation in Kashmir designed to implicate Pakistan and blame the Haqqani Network.
The sources told Afghanistan International on Monday, 25 August, that the alleged plan involves using Taliban fighters and tribal Pashtuns to frame the Haqqanis. They claimed the operation is being facilitated with the help of the intelligence services of a “third country,” though they did not identify which one.
India has long accused the Haqqani Network of having ties to Pakistan. The group, largely made up of Pashtuns, has historically been linked to Islamabad through family and political connections dating back to the 1980s. Founder Jalaluddin Haqqani organised his activities from Pakistan under the umbrella of Mohammad Yunus Khalis’s Hizb-e-Islami during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
According to the Pakistani sources, some Indian media outlets have already begun publishing narratives in support of what they described as pre-planned operations.
Diplomatic observers warned that such actions could sharply raise tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
Pakistan has frequently accused New Delhi of staging false-flag attacks to deflect from internal issues and shape international opinion against Islamabad. One security source said that while false-flag operations are not new, the scale of the current preparations suggested “something much more serious.”
