Taliban, Uzbekistan Launch Gas Project In Jowzjan’s Totimaidan Field
The Taliban and Uzbekistan on Sunday launched a survey and extraction project at the Totimaidan gas field in northern Jowzjan province, officials said.
The Taliban and Uzbekistan on Sunday launched a survey and extraction project at the Totimaidan gas field in northern Jowzjan province, officials said.
The Taliban have awarded the contract for the survey and extraction of the field to Uzbekistan.
The inauguration ceremony was attended by Ismatulla Irgashev, the Uzbek president’s special representative for Afghanistan, and Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s deputy prime minister for economic affairs, along with other officials.
Baradar said the project would help reduce Afghanistan’s reliance on imported electricity.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif warned Saturday that Pakistan would sever ties with the Afghan Taliban if the group continued to support the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), following the killing of several Pakistani soldiers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Speaking at the funeral of the fallen troops, Sharif said Pakistan was committed to eradicating terrorism. He stressed that the Taliban cannot host militants who destabilise their neighbour and at the same time expect normal relations with Pakistan.
Sharif, accompanied by Army Chief Asim Munir, travelled to Bannu, where he chaired an emergency counterterrorism meeting and attended the funeral of the soldiers.
The Pakistani military said 12 soldiers and 35 militants were killed in two operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa between 10 and 13 September.
Sharif vowed that Pakistan would deliver a “crushing response” to terrorism, alleging that those behind recent attacks operated from Afghan soil with Indian backing. He said Kabul had been told explicitly it must choose between Islamabad and “the Khawarij”, a term officials use for militant extremists.
He also renewed calls for the expulsion of Afghan migrants, claiming some had taken part in recent attacks. He said that those who support the Khawarij or aid India in carrying out proxy terrorist actions are effectively acting as their agents and will be dealt with according to law.
Sharif added that the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa stood with the government and armed forces against India-backed proxies, pledging that his administration would take all necessary legal and administrative steps to respond decisively to terrorism.
During the trip, he also visited wounded soldiers in Bannu’s military hospital.
Pakistan has repeatedly accused the Afghan Taliban and India of supporting militant groups, particularly the TTP, allegations both Kabul and New Delhi deny.
A senior Taliban official said Saturday that there are no obstacles in relations between the Taliban and the United States that cannot be resolved, framing recent visits by American delegations to Kabul as the start of a new phase in talks.
Zakir Jalali, third political director at the Taliban’s Foreign Ministry and a close aide to Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, wrote on X that the presence of former US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in the American delegation had eased the process. Jalali said Khalilzad and Taliban negotiators had previously endured two years of “difficult and challenging” talks, adding that meaningful progress was likely if both sides were willing to resolve issues.
His remarks came after Adam Boehler, former US envoy for hostage affairs under Donald Trump, arrived in Kabul on an unannounced visit. Boehler met with Muttaqi and Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s deputy prime minister for economic affairs. Khalilzad accompanied Boehler on the trip, as he did on an earlier visit.
In a statement, the Taliban Foreign Ministry said the talks covered prisoners in both countries, ways to expand bilateral relations, citizen issues, investment and other opportunities in Afghanistan.
The latest quarterly report by UN Secretary-General António Guterres states that attacks carried out by the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) in Afghanistan have decreased in both number and scale.
According to the report, Taliban forces have continued operations against ISKP in Kunar and Nangarhar provinces.
A UN official provided Afghanistan International journalist Maryam Rahmati with a copy of the Secretary-General’s report, which details the situation in Afghanistan over the past three months.
The report noted that on 26 May, a Taliban attack on a Salafi cleric in Shuhada district, Badakhshan, killed the cleric and his guard. On 14 June, unidentified assailants shot dead a Shia imam in Nusai district, Badakhshan, decapitated him and left an ISKP flag at the scene. It further stated that on 15 June, ISKP fighters targeted Taliban forces in Dara-e-Noor district of Nangarhar, and on 8 July, armed clashes between the two groups broke out in Alingar district, Laghman province.
57 Threats and Attacks Against UN Staff
The Secretary-General reported that over the past three months, 57 security incidents and threats against UN staff were recorded.
According to the report, dozens of female UN employees received death threats from unidentified individuals in May alone. The UN said these threats forced it to adopt temporary security measures. The Taliban has denied responsibility for the threats, and the perpetrators have not yet been identified.
Five Anti-Taliban Fronts Claim Attacks
Guterres stated that five armed groups claimed responsibility for 47 anti-Taliban attacks in the past quarter. These included the Afghanistan Freedom Front, the National Resistance Front, the Afghanistan Liberation Movement, the People’s Sovereignty Front and the National Mobilisation Front.
Of these, the UN was able to independently verify 19 incidents.
Over 2,600 Security Incidents in Three Months
Guterres reported that between 1 May and 31 July 2025, a total of 2,658 security incidents were recorded in Afghanistan.
According to the report, insecurity in Afghanistan has risen by 9 percent compared with last year.
The Secretary-General’s quarterly report was prepared under UN General Assembly Resolution 79/317 (2025) and UN Security Council Resolution 2777 (2025), which mandate him to submit regular updates on the situation in Afghanistan and on the implementation of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).
Aziza Akrami, an entrepreneur and human rights advocate, has been named Afghanistan’s Youth Representative to the United Nations, becoming the fifth young Afghan to hold the role, organisers said.
The position, awarded annually through a competitive process run by a civil society group, resumed this year after a three-year pause following the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in August 2021.
Akrami was chosen from three finalists, Fatema Forotan, Wazhma Rahmani and Akrami, in a speech competition held on 11 September in The Hague. Previous youth representatives include Ramiz Bakhtiar, Aisha Khurram, Shukla Zadran and Ahmad Fawad Shahanyar.
Akrami is a co-founder of Empowered Circle, an organisation that has delivered health and education services to more than 8,000 women and children in underserved areas of Afghanistan since 2021.
Organisers said her work as both an entrepreneur and a human rights defender helped secure her selection for the role.
A senior Taliban official visited India last week in what Indian media described as a rare sign of growing engagement between New Delhi and the group.
The Taliban’s deputy health minister travelled to attend a health services and pharmaceutical exhibition, according to Indian outlets. The Times of India reported that the trip took place ahead of a possible visit later this year by Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, which could further strengthen ties between India and the Taliban.
The paper said India is working to facilitate Muttaqi’s visit and has been consulting with the UN Security Council about lifting his travel ban. Unlike Muttaqi, the deputy health minister is not subject to UN sanctions and therefore did not require approval to travel.
Suhail Shaheen, head of the Taliban’s political office in Qatar, told the Times of India that high-level visits at the foreign minister level were necessary to pave the way for broader cooperation, including trade.
The outreach comes as tensions rise between the Taliban and Pakistan. Islamabad has accused both the Taliban and India of backing Baloch separatists and the Pakistani Taliban to destabilise the country.
Meanwhile, on Friday, sources told Afghanistan International that the Taliban had expelled an Indian diplomat accused of meeting opposition groups abroad. A Taliban spokesperson denied the claim, saying the diplomat’s assignment had simply ended and that no expulsion had taken place.
