Taliban Leader Cancels Ulema Council Meeting, Frequently Changes Residences

The newspaper said the Ministry of Education issued letters to NGOs this year ordering them not to engage in educational activities. The decision coincided with the start of the new academic year, preventing a number of Afghan children from attending classes.

Until last year, children were permitted to enrol with census cards, but officials have since revoked the cards’ validity, forcing many out of school. In July, Iran’s Office of Aliens and Foreign Immigrants Affairs declared the documents invalid, despite earlier assurances that Afghans with valid cards could remain in the country.

Several NGOs told Shargh they had received formal and informal directives not only banning them from teaching undocumented Afghan children, but also prohibiting Afghan teachers and volunteers from participating.

Rights advocates said many schools now reject Afghan children even with alternative documents, citing “lack of capacity” or closed registration systems. Activists warned the policy has excluded thousands of children from education, with one researcher estimating that in some areas 50 to 60 percent of school capacity remains unused.

Residents told Afghanistan International that fixed internet services were cut at around 10 p.m. Tuesday. A source at a Herat-based internet company said the Taliban issued the order without explanation and warned providers of penalties if they failed to comply.

One resident said the state-run Salam network’s Wi-Fi remained active. The Taliban have not commented on the blackout.

On Monday night, internet services were also suspended in Herat for 12 hours before being restored in the morning. The reason for the night-time cuts remains unclear.

The shutdown follows Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada’s directive to cut fibre-optic internet, first enforced in Balkh province and later extended to more than a dozen provinces. Unlike other areas, Herat residents still have access to slow DSL connections, though fibre services were cut on 27 September.

The disruptions have sparked widespread criticism, with residents warning that daily life and business have been severely affected.

In an interview with Al Arabiya, Mujahid urged the US to engage with Afghans through diplomatic and reational channels, adding that Afghans will not accept foreign forces on any part of Afghanistan.

Trump last week warned that “bad things will happen” if the Taliban do not hand the base back to the United States. Bagram, located 11 kilometres southeast of Charikar in Parwan province, was the largest American military base in Afghanistan until the US withdrawal in 2021, when it was seized by the Taliban.

The comments are the latest in a series of Taliban responses to Trump’s remarks. Taliban Deputy intelligence chief Tajmir Jawad threatened to resume suicide attacks if necessary to defend the group’s rule, while the Taliban’s army chief said Afghans had “fought well” against efforts to undermine the country’s independence.

The quake struck at 3:21 p.m. local time, according to the US Geological Survey, which reported its epicentre near Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, at a depth of 10 kilometres.

The Taliban governor’s office in Nangarhar said the injuries occurred in Dara-e-Noor district, where several houses were also damaged.

Officials said the injured were taken to a regional hospital, where their conditions were reported as stable.

Officials from television stations and YouTube channels were summoned by the ministry and ordered to comply with the restriction, participants in the meeting told reporters.

Some media representatives argued that the ban should not apply to private outlets in Herat while Taliban-run state television in Kabul continues to air such content. YouTubers present at the meeting said their broadcasts primarily target audiences outside Afghanistan.

Despite the objections, Taliban officials insisted the ban on live broadcasting would be enforced. One Herat media source said local outlets would only accept the order if it were implemented uniformly across the country.

The Taliban have previously imposed similar restrictions in Kabul and other provinces. Herat is home to Afghanistan’s second-largest concentration of visual media outlets after the capital Kabul.