UN Envoy Urges Taliban To End Ban On Girls’ Education

According to the sources, unidentified gunmen opened fire on Fitrat’s home in the village of Istrap from a nearby mountain overlooking the property.

They said the attackers used light and heavy weapons, including PK machine guns.

The sources added that guards at the house returned fire, leading to a brief clash between the two sides. The attackers reportedly fled after the exchange of gunfire.

No casualties or damage have been reported, and no group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

After the Sepah-e Mihan Front briefly seized Yaftal district, the Afghanistan Freedom Front also attacked Taliban positions in Zebak district.

Sporadic clashes between the Taliban and opposition forces have continued over the past week.

Following the attacks, the Taliban’s army chief travelled to Badakhshan and took charge of military operations against opposition groups.

In recent days, the Taliban’s director of information and culture in Badakhshan was killed in an attack by armed assailants.

Sources say the situation in the province remains tense and that the Taliban has deployed additional forces to the area.

In a statement issued on Thursday, the front claimed that the attack had caused heavy casualties and damage to the Taliban but said the exact number of dead and wounded was not yet known.

The front also said the Taliban had intensified the deployment of forces and equipment to areas under its influence in recent days.

Taliban officials have not commented on the attack.

Badakhshan province has seen an increase in attacks by Taliban opponents in recent days. Afghanistan Freedom Front forces and the Taliban have clashed for several days in the province’s Zebak district.

Speaking at a news conference on 30 July, Andrabi cited persistent security threats and stressed the need for stronger border monitoring, measures against smuggling, and valid passports and visas for cross-border travel.

He said security and stability in Afghanistan were vital for the entire region and that Islamabad expected Kabul to fulfil its security commitments.

Pakistan says the Taliban administration is sheltering Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and that the group uses Afghan territory to carry out attacks inside Pakistan.

The Taliban has denied the allegation.

Mujahid announced the appointments on Thursday, 30 July.

The changes affect senior positions in the Supreme Court, the Finance Ministry, the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the Central Darul Ifta and several provincial institutions.

Mohammad Gul Sayad, formerly head of the Kandahar zone military court, was appointed deputy chief justice for military affairs of the Supreme Court.

Sardar Mohammad Abul Faizan, the former deputy chief justice for military affairs, was named director-general of the Central Darul Ifta, the Taliban body responsible for issuing religious rulings.

Khair Jan Khairkhah, the former head of the Central Darul Ifta, was appointed deputy minister for military affairs at the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

Nematullah Hassan, previously technical and professional deputy at the General Directorate for Municipal Affairs, was named deputy finance minister for revenue and customs.

Several senior appointments were also made at the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum.

Mohammad Ishaq Sahibzada, the former deputy minister of public works was appointed deputy minister for finance and administration.

Abdul Matin Saeed, previously deputy finance minister for revenue and customs, was named deputy minister for geological surveys.

Mahmoud Shah Zahid, the former deputy at the General Directorate of State-Owned Companies, was appointed technical deputy minister.

Hesamuddin Sabiri, a former deputy minister at the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, was transferred to the General Directorate for Municipal Affairs as a deputy director for technical and professional affairs.

Mohammad Sadiq Enqelabi, the former deputy governor of Kandahar, was appointed head of security at the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum.

Akhundzada also appointed Azizur Rahman Sharif, the former head of public works in Kandahar, as head of the Oil and Gas Operations Company.

Abdullah Mutasim, previously commercial director of the state-owned oil and gas company, was named the company’s deputy director for financial affairs.

Saifuddin Taib, the former deputy for coordinating government affairs at the Administrative Office of prime minister, was appointed deputy governor of Kandahar.

Further changes were made within the Central Darul Ifta and the Supreme Court.

Saeed Ahmed Shahidkhel, the former military affairs deputy minister at the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, was appointed deputy head of the Central Darul Ifta.

Sheikh Abdul Zahir, previously a deputy director at the Central Darul Ifta, was named a member of the directorate.

Abdul Rashid Saeed, the former director-general of the Supreme Court secretariat, was appointed administrative affairs head of the Central Darul Ifta.

Rahmatullah, formerly an administrative official at the Central Darul Ifta, was named head of the Supreme Court secretariat.

As part of the judicial reshuffle, the former intelligence-section judge at the Kabul zone military court was appointed head of the Kandahar zone military court.

The former judge of Shahrak district in Ghor was named judge of the intelligence section at the Kabul zone military court.

The Taliban also appointed the former head of the department responsible for monitoring decrees and orders in Kandahar as chancellor of Paktika University.

A former member of the Kandahar Ulema Council was named head of that monitoring department, while Abdul Ghaffar Maiwandi was appointed its deputy.

This 1960 treaty, brokered by the World Bank, has long served as a cornerstone of stability between India and Pakistan, surviving multiple wars and decades of political hostility. However, the current abeyance phase has fundamentally transformed water from a shared resource into a strategic weapon, creating unprecedented threats to regional security that demand urgent attention.

The Breakdown of Institutional Mechanisms

The suspension has systematically dismantled the treaty's operational architecture. The Permanent Indus Commission, which previously provided a formal channel for communication and data exchange, has seen its functioning severely weakened. This breakdown has eliminated critical tools for flood forecasting, irrigation planning, and agricultural scheduling. Pakistan, as a downstream nation, now operates with limited visibility into upstream conditions, creating dangerous uncertainty across its water-dependent systems.

The dispute resolution mechanism, once a layered system allowing technical disagreements to proceed to Neutral Experts and legal disputes to escalate to Courts of Arbitration, has effectively stalled. This legal vacuum means disagreements accumulate without resolution, inevitably pushing technical issues into political domains where they become more complex and less amenable to structured settlement. The absence of active engagement through established channels significantly raises the risk of escalation between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.

Hydrological Infrastructure as Strategic Leverage

Perhaps the most alarming development is the transformation of hydropower infrastructure into instruments of strategic pressure. Post-suspension, India has accelerated construction across multiple projects in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, including Pakal Dul (1000 MW), Ratle (850 MW), Kiru (624 MW), Kwar (540 MW), and the massive Sawalkot project (approximately 1856 MW). These projects collectively represent a dramatic expansion of upstream control over the Chenab and Jhelum river systems.

These installations do not function as neutral development initiatives. The coordinated management of dams, tunnels, and reservoirs enables synchronized flow modulation across multiple installations simultaneously. This capability allows India to regulate discharge timing and seasonal flow patterns, transforming water infrastructure into what experts describe as a "strategic pressure architecture." The timing of water releases has become more influential than total volume, with controlled flows during critical agricultural periods capable of disrupting downstream planting and harvesting cycles without requiring permanent river diversion.

The Weaponization of Water

The suspension has introduced a new dimension of coercive pressure through hydrological management. Operational decisions in river management now carry explicit strategic meaning, with each adjustment in flow or storage communicating intent within the broader bilateral relationship. This shift has reduced the separation between technical water management and political decision-making, making water governance an instrument of geopolitical competition.

The control over flow timing has emerged as the decisive factor shaping agricultural cycles, hydropower generation, and flood-risk exposure in Pakistan. This temporal authority turns river governance into a tool of influence, where scheduling decisions can reshape downstream stability and redefine water as an instrument of strategic power rather than a shared resource. The system now operates within a "hybrid coercion environment" where hydrological management carries strategic intent alongside technical function.

Environmental Vulnerability and Climate Stress

The security implications are compounded by environmental pressures that the treaty was never designed to address. Glacier retreat and shifting monsoon patterns have altered the timing and volume of river flows, while the suspension reduces capacity for joint adaptation to these shared challenges. This fragmentation weakens overall resilience and increases the likelihood of mismanagement during extreme events, such as floods or droughts, which could trigger humanitarian crises and further destabilize the region.

Legal and Diplomatic Dimensions

Pakistan has responded by elevating the issue to the United Nations Security Council, emphasizing the humanitarian and security risks emerging from disruption in treaty implementation. The absence of hydrological coordination undermines flood preparedness, irrigation planning, and agricultural scheduling, creating systemic risks that extend beyond technical inconvenience to affect national stability.

The legal framework of the treaty still exists, but its effectiveness now depends on sustained political commitment to cooperative interpretation and procedural discipline. The unilateral suspension without mutual consent challenges the fundamental international legal principle of pacta sunt servanda, which requires states to implement treaties in good faith. This creates dangerous precedents for international water law and regional stability.

Conclusion

The Indus Waters Treaty no longer operates as a neutral technical framework separated from political contestation. The post-2025 abeyance phase has transformed water governance into a charged strategic environment where infrastructure expansion and security calculations intersect directly. The treaty once functioned as a buffer against escalation; its weakening now exposes the basin to heightened risk and uncertainty.

Without adaptive reform and renewed commitment to transparency, the treaty risks evolving from a mechanism of cooperation into a recurring source of strategic contestation across South Asia. The future of regional stability depends on whether both states can prioritize restraint and institutional continuity over strategic leverage, or whether water governance becomes the next flashpoint in an already volatile bilateral relationship.