The Taliban’s prison administration said a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross met a senior official in Kabul, where the authorities requested assistance for prisoners, particularly women.
In a statement issued Monday, the administration said an ICRC representative in Afghanistan, met Mohammad Bilal Fateh, deputy head of the Taliban’s prison authority. The official asked the ICRC to help provide adequate nutrition, medical equipment and health facilities, recruit specialist doctors, supply educational materials for female prisoners and ensure essential hygiene items.
According to the Taliban statement, the ICRC delegation said it would cooperate in these areas.
In 2025, the Taliban administration said between 10,000 and 11,000 inmates were being held in prisons nationwide, including about 1,000 women and nearly 900 detainees under 18.
Since returning to power, the Taliban have also detained women for protesting against the group’s policies and for not wearing the form of hijab mandated by the authorities.
Tajmir Jawad, described as a deputy intelligence chief and a key architect of Taliban suicide attacks, on Sunday praised the group’s cultural and media activists during a ceremony.
He said that they played a decisive role in shaping public opinion, legitimising the Taliban’s war and highlighting its attacks.
Speaking at a gathering at the Taliban Prime Minister office in Kabul, Jawad, a senior figure associated with the Haqqani network, said the Taliban leadership places strong emphasis on what he called the group’s “cultural and written struggle”. He said activists in this field had made a valuable contribution to justifying the Taliban’s war and exposing the actions of its enemies.
Jawad urged writers and intellectuals affiliated with the Taliban to use modern language and new technologies to advance what he described as the group’s cultural campaign and to promote its policies and activities.
Media organisations were among the targets of Taliban suicide attacks during the previous Afghan government. In January 2016, a Taliban suicide bomber drove a car packed with explosives into a minibus carrying employees of Tolo TV and the Moby Group, killing seven people and wounding 25 others.
At the time, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was carried out in retaliation for what he described as false accusations by Tolo TV during the battle for Kunduz.
Jawad is regarded as a secretive figure within the Taliban. At the ceremony, photographs of other speakers were released, but his image was not published.
The 2016 attack was not the last time Tolo and other private media outlets lost colleagues in suicide bombings. In 2018, journalist Samim Faramarz and cameraman Ramiz Ahmadi of Tolo News were killed in a suicide attack in Kabul’s Dasht-e-Barchi area.
Several Taliban cabinet ministers and senior officials also attended the meeting at the Prime Minister office. Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban’s foreign minister, stressed the importance of cultural and written campaigns for the group.
However, Muttaqi cautioned members of the Taliban’s propaganda network, saying that “people pay more attention to your actions”.
Sources told Afghanistan International that key Taliban officials in Kabul have recruited dozens of people to promote the group and criticise opponents on social media. The Taliban’s defence and interior ministers, as well as its intelligence chief, are said to operate multiple online groups.
Afghanistan International’s Pashto service, citing multiple sources, has identified three cyber groups, Badri Virtual Devotees, Emarati Ababil and Omari Defenders, which it says are linked to Sirajuddin Haqqani, Mohammad Yaqub Mujahid and Abdul Haq Wasiq, respectively.
Members of these groups use Facebook and X, two of the most popular platforms among Afghan users, to post content defending Taliban officials, rejecting criticism and promoting material against the group’s opponents.
The ceremony honouring Taliban cultural circles took place amid widespread restrictions on independent media activity in Afghanistan, where many media workers are unable to operate freely.
The Taliban has also barred the printing, publication and sale of books that contradict its views and policies, repeatedly banning various works.
Media outlets in Afghanistan now operate under Taliban control and are often compelled to align their content with the group’s policies and interests.
The Taliban’s Ministry of Information and Culture said Monday it has revoked the operating licences of nearly all media support organisations in Afghanistan, renewing permits for only three groups.
In a statement dated January 26, the ministry claimed that organisations whose licences were withdrawn had created “more problems” instead of addressing the challenges faced by journalists and media outlets, and had harmed the credibility of Afghanistan’s media institutions internationally.
The ministry did not name the three organisations whose licences were extended. It also did not identify the groups whose licences were revoked, but said some of them had been inactive.
Officials said the move to limit licences to three organisations was intended to “prevent abuse carried out in the name of journalists and media outlets.”
At least seven people have been killed in separate incidents in western city of Herat over the past week, according to information obtained by Afghanistan International.
The victims include a mobile money changer, two young men on the Herat–Karukh road, a teenage street vendor, a man in District 11 and a middle-aged man in a targeted shooting in the city centre. The most recent killing occurred Sunday near Majidi Road, sources said.
Taliban authorities rarely comment on such incidents and do not routinely provide details to the media. In one of the cases, however, local Taliban police issued a statement.
In the first incident, the body of a young man identified as Naqibullah was found in Herat. Sources said he had been abducted near the Khorasan currency exchange market and that his body was later discovered in the Jebrael area of the city. He was carrying cash when he left the exchange shop, and his relatives had searched for him for about a week. Naqibullah, originally from Ghor province, worked as a mobile money changer. His body was found Wednesday, January 21.
In a separate case, a young man named Qadir, a resident of the Shaalbafan area of Herat, was killed after going on a recreational trip with friends to Karukh district. He went missing while returning, and his body was discovered three days later, on Monday, January 19. Sources said two people have been arrested on suspicion of involvement.
Another victim, Faiz Ahmad Afzali from Injil district, was shot dead while returning from the Pashdan Dam on the Herat–Karukh road. Sources described the incident as an armed robbery. Afzali, the second child in his family, is survived by a three-year-old son and a six-month-old daughter. His brother had previously died in a traffic accident. Some of his friends were reportedly detained by the Taliban, though there has been no official comment.
In a fourth incident, a young man who had been taken by unidentified armed motorcyclists to the village of Imam Shash Noor in Injil district was killed while attempting to escape, local sources said. The attack occurred Friday night. The gunmen reportedly fired at him as he tried to flee and then left the scene. The village is about 10 kilometres from Herat city centre, and the shooting took place near a Taliban security post, sources said.
In another case, the body of a teenage street vendor was found hanging Saturday along a road known locally as Lelami Road, in a busy central area near Herat’s Grand Mosque. An informed source said Taliban authorities had not determined whether the death was a suicide or involved other people. The teenager’s identity has not been released.
In District 11, a man was killed Saturday in an incident the Taliban described as involving an armed robber. Herat police said the man encountered residents while committing a theft and, after resisting, faced what the statement called a “serious and timely reaction from the public.” His body was transferred to a provincial hospital.
The seventh incident involved a middle-aged man identified as Ismail, who was shot dead in what sources described as a targeted attack in central Herat on Sunday evening. The shooting took place on Ferqa Road, near the start of Majidi Road. Sources said he had links to Taliban intelligence institutions. Video obtained by Afghanistan International showed Taliban officers at the scene. The motive remains unclear.
Herat has seen a series of deadly incidents in recent weeks. Armed robberies and killings aimed at seizing valuables such as mobile phones, cars and motorcycles have been cited as key factors. Residents and observers also point to poverty and worsening economic conditions as contributing to the rise in violence.
Austria has deported an Afghan man to Kabul after he completed a prison sentence, the Interior Ministry said, marking the third such removal of an Afghan national in recent months.
The 33-year-old was expelled early Sunday via Istanbul, the ministry said. Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said deportations would continue and that criminal nationals from Syria and Afghanistan would be expelled gradually.
According to the ministry, the man arrived in Austria in July 2015 and was convicted six times by Austrian courts, including for serious violent offences. A total of nine criminal offences were recorded against him. Authorities described him as a dangerous criminal who spent about five of his 10 years in Austria in prison.
The Interior Ministry said he was among individuals identified by a Taliban delegation in Vienna, which issued him a travel document for return to Afghanistan.
A Taliban delegation travelled to Vienna in September 2025 for talks on the deportation of Afghan nationals. Austrian authorities have not announced how many Afghans are expected to be deported.
One Afghan was deported on October 21, 2025, and another on November 9, 2025, according to official statements.
Austria deported more than 14,000 people convicted of crimes or found to have irregular residency status in 2025, official figures show, in what authorities describe as an unprecedented level of removals.
The Pakistan Ulema Council has said the Taliban’s newly endorsed penal code is not based on Islamic teachings and contradicts the Quran and Sunnah, describing it as offensive to human dignity and not representative of Islamic law.
In a statement issued Sunday, January 25, the council said it does not consider the Taliban administration’s penal code to be consistent with Islamic principles, adding that parts of it resemble what it described as Hindu teachings. The statement did not elaborate on that comparison.
The council also criticised what it described as the division of society into “slaves” and “free people” in the name of Islamic law, calling it deeply concerning.
According to the statement, the Taliban, which presents itself as a legitimate Islamic government, must clarify its position to the international community and avoid reimposing laws and customs from the pre-Islamic era under the name of Islam.
Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada recently endorsed the penal code, which consists of 10 chapters and 119 articles. Following his approval, the code has been distributed to provinces for implementation within Taliban judicial institutions.
According to Taliban officials, the code forms the legal basis for judicial rulings in courts under their administration. A spokesperson for the Taliban Supreme Court, Abdul Rahim Rashid, previously confirmed the contents of the code and said Afghan citizens who commit discretionary crimes could face different punishments based on social classification, though he said this does not apply in cases involving retribution punishments.
Provisions cited in the code include language stating that Muslims who witness a “sin” being committed may take action against those involved. Taliban authorities say the code is based on their interpretation of Islamic law.
The penal code marks the first time the Taliban’s interpretation of such judicial rules has been formally approved and signed by their leader as an official legal document.