Taliban Detains Four Women In Herat
Sources in Herat say the Taliban detained at least four women at shopping centres on the city’s 64-Metre Road on Friday afternoon over their clothing and hijab.
Sources in Herat say the Taliban detained at least four women at shopping centres on the city’s 64-Metre Road on Friday afternoon over their clothing and hijab.
Eyewitnesses said several men tried to prevent the arrests, but Taliban officers took the women away.
The Taliban has resumed detaining women in Herat over the past three days.
Witnesses said dozens of women, including some wearing clothing approved by the Taliban, fled the area in fear.
Herat’s 64-Metre Road is one of the city’s largest shopping areas. It is busier on Fridays than on other days and is known by some residents as the “Juma Bazar”.
The latest wave of arrests began three days earlier. On Wednesday, the Taliban detained at least five women in different parts of Herat, including 64-Metre Road, the Pul-e Rangina area and several shopping centres.
On Thursday, Taliban morality police also detained an unknown number of women in several areas of the city.
With at least four women detained on Friday, the arrests continued for a third consecutive day.
The Taliban’s propagation of virtue and prevention of vice department in Herat says women in the province should not wear manteaux and must follow the dress code approved by the group.
A wider wave of arrests began on 6 June, when Taliban officers detained dozens of women in different parts of the city for allegedly wearing manteaux, failing to cover their faces or not observing the group’s prescribed dress code.
The arrests prompted protests by residents of Herat’s Jebrael township on 9 June. Taliban forces opened fire to disperse the demonstrators, killing at least two teenagers and wounding more than 20 people. Several protesters were also detained.
Three days later, a group of residents gathered outside the Taliban governor’s office in Herat and chanted “Woman, Life, Freedom” and “Education, Work, Freedom”.
The Taliban dispersed the gathering and detained several participants.
Despite domestic and international criticism, the arrests did not stop, and further cases involving women in different parts of Herat were reported in the following weeks.
Pakistan’s army spokesman Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry says Afghan citizens carried out most of the country’s 28 suicide attacks this year, again accusing the Taliban of supporting armed groups.
Chaudhry told a news conference in Rawalpindi on Friday, 31 July, that evidence had linked Afghan nationals to most of this year’s suicide attacks and bombings.
He said Afghan citizens were also involved in recent attacks in Tank district and Karachi, adding that the attacker in Tank, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, was an Afghan national.
The military spokesman said Afghan citizens and people with links to Taliban security forces were among those killed or detained during Pakistani security operations. He did not provide specific figures.
Chaudhry said Pakistan’s criticism was not directed at the Afghan people, but that the Taliban was responsible for the incidents.
He claimed that terrorism is the Taliban’s business and that the group used terrorism to preserve its economy and diplomatic relations.
The Pakistani military spokesperson also accused the Taliban of assisting armed groups and said there was no difference between the groups Islamabad labels “Fitna al-Hindustan” and “Khawarij”.
Pakistan uses the term “Khawarij” for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and “Fitna al-Hindustan” for Baloch separatist groups.
Chaudhry attributed the rise in attacks in Pakistan to the activities of Taliban-linked armed groups and to the expansion of Pakistani security operations.
He said Pakistani security forces had carried out 40,348 intelligence-based operations this year and killed 2,084 members of armed groups. According to him, 3,145 security incidents occurred in Pakistan during the same period.
The military spokesperson added that Islamabad had no intention of negotiating with the groups and said their members must submit to the law or face action by Pakistani security forces.
The Taliban and Pakistan have been at odds for months over the activities of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, with the tensions leading to major clashes.
Islamabad accuses the Taliban of sheltering TTP members and leaders in Afghanistan and allowing them to use Afghan territory to plan and carry out attacks in Pakistan.
In response, Pakistan has repeatedly carried out air strikes in Afghanistan, while the two sides have clashed along the Durand Line.
The Taliban has consistently rejected the allegations and described instability and TTP activity as Pakistan’s internal problem.
Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada has reshuffled 21 officials across the group’s judicial, financial, economic, security and religious institutions, according to Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid.
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.
The recent suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty by India following the Pahagram incident in April 2025 marks a dangerous turning point in South Asian water governance.
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.
The World Health Organisation has warned that severe restrictions on female staff, unprecedented funding shortages and overlapping crises are seriously disrupting healthcare for Afghan women and children.
According to the organisation’s 2025 annual report, published on Thursday, 30 July, Taliban restrictions on the travel, education and work of female employees severely disrupted community-level health services, disease surveillance and outbreak response.
The report also said a serious shortage of female doctors and health workers, particularly in remote areas, had sharply weakened the quality of healthcare and women’s and children’s access to life-saving services.
Closure of health facilities
A steep decline in funding was another major challenge facing Afghanistan’s health sector in 2025. The humanitarian needs plan received only 45.3 per cent of the required funding.
The shortfall led to the closure of 27 primary healthcare facilities, limiting access to medical services for about 294,000 people.
Overlapping crises strain a fragile health system
Alongside restrictions and funding shortages, earthquakes, drought, floods, disease outbreaks and the return of more than 2.7 million migrants from Iran and Pakistan placed enormous pressure on Afghanistan’s fragile health system.
Providing services and monitoring health conditions in remote and difficult-to-reach areas, particularly during winter, also faced serious obstacles.
Administrative delays and disruption to specialised programmes
The WHO report said lengthy project approval procedures and delays in supplying health and nutrition materials, caused by high transport costs and demurrage charges, slowed the delivery of services.
The ban on methadone also disrupted methadone maintenance treatment services in several provinces.
In specialised programmes, a ban on house-to-house polio vaccination campaigns, low routine immunisation coverage and limited community participation because of administrative difficulties in distributing vaccination cards increased the risk of polio and other diseases.
Funding cuts also placed severe pressure on inpatient units treating children suffering from severe acute malnutrition with medical complications.
WHO said that although it continued providing essential services across all 34 provinces in 2025, maintaining those services would require the removal of restrictions on female health workers and reliable, sustainable funding.
Sources told Afghanistan International that the Taliban are preparing a large-scale operation in Badakhshan following increased opposition attacks, deploying more forces and senior commanders to the province.
The rise in attacks and fresh opposition activity has prompted the Taliban to reinforce its military positions and prepare for a major operation in Badakhshan. Sources said the developments had alarmed Taliban officials and that the operation was expected to begin soon.
According to informed sources, the Taliban has transferred additional forces to Zebak district in recent days and deployed them across several areas.
New checkpoints have also been established in parts of the province, including Yaftal, while security measures have been tightened across Badakhshan. Sources described the security situation as “fragile”.
Earlier, the newly formed Sepah-e Mihan Front launched a surprise attack in Yaftal-e Payin district, briefly taking control of the area and disarming Taliban forces. Following the incident, the Afghanistan Freedom Front attacked Taliban positions in Zebak district.
Sources said the Taliban had also increased night patrols and guard duties across much of Badakhshan amid fears of guerrilla attacks.
Amanuddin Mansoor, the Taliban’s governor of Helmand, and Fasihuddin Fitrat, the group’s army chief of staff, are currently in Badakhshan, according to the sources.
Mansoor attended the funeral of Zabihullah Amiri, the Taliban’s information and culture chief in Badakhshan, on Wednesday.
Amiri, who was also Mansoor’s nephew, was killed on Tuesday when motorcycle-riding gunmen attacked him on the Baharak-Faizabad road.
Sources said the failure to identify those responsible had angered Taliban commanders and officials in Badakhshan and deepened security concerns among the group’s leadership.
They also said Juma Fateh, a disgruntled Taliban commander, had not withdrawn his forces from their positions. His brother was described as one of the figures most strongly advocating confrontation with the Taliban.
Sources identified a shift in the balance of power on the battlefield as one of the Taliban’s main concerns. They said Afghanistan Freedom Front forces were positioned in Badakhshan’s mountainous areas with heavy weapons and equipment, making any Taliban operation more difficult.
The developments come as attacks by armed Taliban opponents, particularly the Afghanistan Freedom Front, have increased in Badakhshan in recent weeks. The front recently claimed to have seized several key Taliban positions in the mountains of Zebak district and shot down two Taliban drones.
The killing of several Taliban officials in Badakhshan and Sar-e Pul, combined with increased opposition activity, has further intensified the group’s security concerns.