Earthquake Death Toll Rises To 800 In Eastern Afghanistan, Says Taliban

Abdul Aleem Khamosh was convicted by a primary Taliban court in July on charges of insulting the Prophet of Islam and other sacred figures. The trial was held without a defence lawyer, according to relatives and rights groups.

Family members said Taliban officials have now informed Khamosh’s lawyer that he will be allowed to attend the appeal hearing. They added that while prison visits were previously denied, relatives are now occasionally permitted to see him.

Khamosh, a teacher in Janikhil district of Paktika, was arrested earlier this year after reportedly telling students that modern sciences were more important than religious studies. His family denied the blasphemy allegations and called for his immediate release.

Taliban officials from the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice detained him following the classroom remarks and transferred him to prison.

The group’s court announced the defendants were each sentenced to between one and two and a half years in prison and 39 lashes. The punishments, it said, were issued by a primary court in Badakhshan and approved by the Taliban’s Supreme Court before being carried out on Sunday.

According to the statement, the floggings took place in the presence of local Taliban officials.

The Taliban consider corporal punishment part of enforcing Islamic Sharia law. In the past week alone, nearly 20 men and women across Afghanistan have been flogged on various charges.

Abdul Mateen Qani, spokesperson for the Taliban’s Interior Ministry, said 610 people died in Kunar and 12 in Nangarhar. He reported 1,300 injuries in Kunar and 255 in Nangarhar.

The US Geological Survey said the quake hit southeastern Afghanistan early Monday, followed by two aftershocks. The first registered 4.5 magnitude and the second 5.2, both centred in Nangarhar province.

Earthquakes are common in Afghanistan, where poor infrastructure and weak emergency response systems often lead to high casualty figures.

Sarah Adams, who served with the US intelligence agency, said the campaign called “Taliban Housewives” was a response to the Taliban’s new ruling on women’s images in national identity documents. She argued that if Afghan women are denied photos in official records, Taliban wives should not have theirs in passports or marriage certificates.

Earlier this week, reports suggested Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada had issued an oral decree banning photos of women in identity and official documents.

Adams published images of wives of Taliban diplomats posted in Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan and Quetta, Pakistan. She criticised governments for allowing the Taliban to run official missions abroad while Afghan women remain confined at home.

“These women are not innocent bystanders,” she wrote, stressing they travel freely with their husbands while Afghan women are stripped of basic rights. Adams said she would continue releasing photos until the Taliban reversed its restrictions.

On Thursday, the Taliban’s Dar al-Ifta, its religious authority, ruled that including women’s photos in identity cards would be optional. It said photos were mandatory only for Afghan women living abroad, while for those inside Afghanistan the practice was “contrary to Sharia.”

The Taliban-run National Statistics and Information Authority had earlier insisted photos were essential for verifying identity, preventing fraud and meeting international standards. Its proposal to make photos compulsory was reportedly rejected by the Taliban’s leadership.

A civil society representative and the UN human rights commissioner are also scheduled to brief the Council.

The Council said Afghanistan’s human rights situation remains dire, particularly for women and girls. It cited UNAMA’s most recent report, which documented cases of arbitrary arrests of women and highlighted systematic abuses by the Taliban.

Independent UN experts on 14 August urged the international community to reject the Taliban’s authoritarian rule and resist efforts to normalise its regime. Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur for human rights situation in Afghanistan, said the Taliban have used the justice system to suppress women, girls and LGBTQ+ people.

The Council noted that the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, the group’s chief justice, on charges of crimes against humanity for gender-based persecution. UN Women has also warned that Afghan women are on the verge of being completely erased from public life.

The humanitarian crisis remains severe. The Council said 22.9 million Afghans, more than half the population, are expected to need aid this year, while 12.6 million faced crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity between March and April. It added that deportations from Iran and Pakistan have worsened conditions, with the International Organization for Migration reporting more than 1.5 million returns so far in 2025.

The Council also noted the Taliban’s efforts to end isolation, citing Russia’s recognition of the group and a recent trilateral meeting in Kabul with the foreign ministers of China and Pakistan. It stressed that UNAMA and participants in the Doha process are working on a roadmap for political engagement with the Taliban, though members warned that the group’s refusal to meet international commitments, especially on women’s rights, remains a central obstacle.

The Council reiterated concern about terrorism threats from Afghanistan. While all members voiced support for a peaceful, inclusive Afghanistan free of terrorism, the United States, Britain and France maintained that the Taliban must comply with international norms before gaining legitimacy or development assistance.