Aid Cuts Deepen Suffering in Afghanistan, Says NRC Chief

The research, titled “Denied the Right to Learn”, was released to coincide with International Literacy Day on 8 September.

Anar Academy said the study was based on responses from more than 2,600 Afghan girls and young women. The responses were collected in the second half of March 2026, with most participants living inside Afghanistan.

About 96% of respondents were from 30 provinces of Afghanistan, while a number of participants living abroad also took part in the study.

The findings show that after the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, many girls did not give up on education and instead sought alternative ways to continue learning.

About 42% of respondents said they had continued their education through private courses, language classes or skills training. Around 34% reported using online and digital learning, while nearly 27% said they had relied on self-study or studying at home.

By contrast, more than 17% said their education had either stopped for a period or faced serious disruption.

The study indicates that some Afghan girls have continued learning through alternative methods, but their education is often informal, inconsistent and disconnected from recognised academic pathways.

The report said online and private courses can help girls continue learning, but in many cases they do not lead to recognised qualifications, university admission or a consistent path towards further education.

Access to digital devices was also high among respondents. More than 95% said they had access to a smartphone or laptop. About 51% described the quality of their internet connection as good and nearly 40% as excellent. Anar Academy stressed, however, that these figures do not represent the situation of all girls in Afghanistan.

The study also found that interest in education remains high among girls. Many respondents said they wanted to complete school, attend university, find employment and achieve financial independence in the future.

Another section of the report examined the social and psychological effects of being deprived of education, saying prolonged absence from schools and universities can disrupt daily routines, reduce contact with classmates and increase concerns about the future. Anar Academy stressed, however, that the study was not designed to diagnose depression or anxiety and that its findings cannot be used to determine the prevalence of mental health conditions.

Benazir Poya, head of Anar Academy, said at the launch of the study that alternative forms of education should not replace formal schooling. She said informal education can preserve hope, but cannot restore girls’ right to education.

The research was presented on Tuesday, coinciding with International Literacy Day, during an online event hosted by the International Society for Human Rights in cooperation with Anar Academy. Education and human rights experts also discussed restrictions on Afghan girls’ education and their consequences.

Anar Academy was founded about two years ago in Cologne, Germany, with the aim of providing digital education to girls deprived of schooling in Afghanistan. According to the organisation, more than 2,000 students have so far participated in its educational programmes, while about 46 have successfully completed their courses and graduated.

The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council on Tuesday issued a letter instructing Afghan medical and dental students in Pakistan to leave the country and return to Afghanistan.

A spokesman for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said foreign students staying in the country without valid visas must leave Pakistan. However, he stressed that visa extension applications from Afghan students, including those studying medicine, were still being reviewed under existing policies and regulations.

The directive asks medical higher education institutions to complete administrative procedures for Afghan students, including issuing the necessary certificates and facilitating their return.

In practice, the decision also affects students who began their studies in Pakistan and are still completing medical or dental degrees.

A spokesman for the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council told Afghanistan International that the matter was sensitive and linked to national interests.

The council said all decisions in this regard would be made in accordance with applicable policies.

However, the spokesman did not specify which policy requires Afghan students already enrolled in medical and dental programmes to leave Pakistan.

He also did not explain the situation of students whose visa extension applications are still being processed.

Following the directive, some universities and medical institutions in Punjab have begun implementing the order.

The University of Health Sciences Lahore has issued an urgent letter instructing affiliated medical and dental institutions in Punjab to implement the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council’s directives.

King Edward Medical University has asked 22 Afghan students to complete administrative procedures for their departure.

Five of the students are women, and they range from first-year to final-year students. Seven are in their final year of medical studies.

Fatima Jinnah Medical University has also asked 21 Afghan female students to complete procedures related to their departure.

Some Afghan students say being forced to return could wipe out years of study and the money their families have spent on their education.

Female students have also said that, given the restrictions imposed on girls’ and women’s education in Afghanistan, returning would mean losing the opportunity to continue their university studies.

The students have urged Pakistani authorities to allow those already admitted to universities in Pakistan to complete their studies before returning home.

The Taliban embassy in Islamabad described the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council’s decision as the forced expulsion of students and called on Pakistani education authorities and international medical, educational and humanitarian organisations to defend their right to continue their studies.

According to a spokesman for the Taliban embassy, around 1,000 Afghan students are studying at educational institutions across Punjab, including about 400 medical students.

The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council has not yet announced the exact number of Afghan medical and dental students across Pakistan.

The decision to expel Afghan students has also drawn criticism from some Pakistani political and civil figures.

Mansoor Ahmad Khan, Pakistan’s former ambassador to Afghanistan, said it would be better on humanitarian grounds to allow the students to complete their studies and return to Afghanistan after graduation.

Asif Durrani, Pakistan’s former special representative for Afghanistan, also described the decision to expel Afghan medical students as shocking.

He said Russia and Tajikistan maintain close military cooperation and that Russia’s military base in the country remains on alert to respond to external threats. Russia’s 201st Military Base is stationed in Tajikistan.

Speaking in Moscow on Tuesday, 8 September, at a ceremony marking the 35th anniversary of Tajikistan’s independence, Belousov said that Russia is actively expanding collective security formats within the CSTO, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Commonwealth of Independent States, with particular attention to strengthening Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan.

Belousov also described Tajikistan as a strategic partner of Russia.

His remarks follow high-level coordination between the two countries.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Tajik President Emomali Rahmon on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit that Moscow was aware of Dushanbe’s concerns about developments in Afghanistan and that the two countries remained in close contact on security issues.

Tajikistan has in recent months warned of security threats along its roughly 1,300-kilometre border with Afghanistan.

Dushanbe’s concerns increased after several security incidents in border areas, including armed and drone attacks late last year in which several Chinese citizens and workers were killed or wounded. Tajik officials have linked the attackers to armed groups based in Afghanistan.

Since the Taliban returned to power, Moscow and Dushanbe have further strengthened their security cooperation, while Russia has repeatedly warned of the risk of instability and terrorist threats spreading from Afghanistan into Central Asia.

The Collective Security Treaty Organisation has also put forward a comprehensive programme to strengthen the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border and plans to provide military and technical equipment to improve Tajikistan’s border security capabilities.

The programme begins with oil and gas exploration in western Afghanistan, examines the use of gas for industry and power generation in Herat and, if successful, could lead to a roughly 700-kilometre pipeline from Herat towards the Pakistani border.

The Taliban’s Ministry of Mines & Petroleum has valued the Kushk–Tirpul contract at $200 million. Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban administration’s deputy prime minister for economic affairs; Mines & Petroleum Minister Hedayatullah Badri; central bank governor Noor Ahmad Agha; Taliban Spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid; and former US special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad attended the signing ceremony.

However, the programme presented by Delta is considerably larger than the initial contract. The company has described an integrated programme with potential investment capacity of up to around $50 billion over 25 years.

That figure does not represent guaranteed or pre-financed investment. The larger phases of the project depend on exploration results, confirmation of commercially recoverable reserves, technical and economic studies, the existence of a market, financing and subsequent investment decisions.

The central question is whether Afghanistan under Taliban rule can take such a programme beyond contracts and studies to commercial production and the construction of multibillion-dollar infrastructure.

Kushk–Tirpul: Geological Potential, Not Proven Reserves

The core of the Taliban-Delta agreement is oil and gas exploration in Kushk–Tirpul in western Afghanistan.

According to information released by Delta, the project area covers about 23,317 square kilometres. Planned activities include geological and geophysical studies, seismic surveys, exploratory drilling and reservoir assessment.

Kushk and Tirpul are not entirely unexplored areas in terms of oil and gas. In a 2009 assessment, the US Geological Survey estimated the Tirpul study area at about 8,700 square kilometres. That figure refers to the area examined in the USGS study and should not be confused with the much larger area covered by the new Kushk–Tirpul contract.

The same assessment estimated mean undiscovered resources in Tirpul at around 21.55 million barrels of oil, 44.76 billion cubic feet of natural gas and about 0.91 million barrels of natural gas liquids.

But these figures refer to undiscovered resources, not proven or commercial reserves. Exploratory drilling will be required to determine how much oil and gas actually exists and what proportion can be extracted technically and economically.

Previous studies recorded indications of oil, including leakage from an abandoned well in Tirpul, but no significant commercial production has yet been reported from the basin. Earlier efforts to collect seismic data in Kushk also faced security, technical and operational difficulties.

Delta’s first real test, therefore, will be proving the existence of reserves large enough to justify further major investment.

From Exploration to Pipeline: Three Parts of Delta’s Programme

Delta’s announced programme has three main components.

The first is exploration and, if successful, the development and production of oil and gas from Kushk–Tirpul. This phase would form the basis for the rest of the programme.

The second is a study of how gas could be used in Herat. Delta is expected to examine the possibility of supplying gas to Herat city, its industrial park, power generation facilities and other industrial users. If usable resources are discovered, Herat’s domestic market could become the first consumer.

The third component is a proposed roughly 700-kilometre pipeline from near Guzara in Herat to the vicinity of Spin Boldak in Kandahar.

Delta has named the proposal the “CentGas – Corridor of Prosperity”. The name appears in information released by the company about the new agreements, but the pipeline remains at the study stage, and construction has not been approved.

The potential cost of this section has been put at around $10 billion. Its implementation would depend on sufficient resources being discovered, feasibility studies, financing, permits and a final investment decision.

Such a pipeline would also require a sufficiently large market for gas consumption or exports. That brings Pakistan and wider South Asian markets into the project’s economic calculations.

The $200 million contract, the proposed $10 billion pipeline and the potential $50 billion programme are therefore three different levels of a long-term plan and should not be presented as a single financial commitment.

Delta and Khalilzad: Two Names Reappear Together After Three Decades

One political aspect of the new agreement is its similarity to efforts nearly three decades ago to establish a gas corridor through Afghanistan.

In 1997, a consortium called CentGas was formed to build a pipeline carrying Turkmen gas through Afghanistan to Pakistan. US company Unocal, with a 46.5 per cent stake, led the consortium, while Saudi firm Delta Oil, with a 15 per cent share, was one of its main partners.

From the outset, CentGas was not merely an economic project. The route for transporting Turkmen gas through Afghanistan to Pakistan formed part of wider competition over Central Asian energy corridors. It could have reduced the region’s dependence on Russian transit networks while keeping Iran out of a potential gas route to South Asia.

At the time, Unocal was also competing with the Argentine company Bridas to advance the project.

However, Afghanistan’s political and security conditions prevented the project from being implemented, and Unocal withdrew from the consortium in 1998. The idea of transporting Turkmen gas through Afghanistan later continued in the form of the TAPI pipeline project.

Zalmay Khalilzad provides another link between that period and today’s agreement. In the 1990s, while working with Cambridge Energy Research Associates, he worked on political-risk issues concerning Afghan projects for Unocal.

Nearly three decades later, Khalilzad attended a contract-signing ceremony in Kabul that once again brought the names Delta and CentGas into discussions about Afghanistan’s energy sector.

His involvement was not limited to the signing ceremony. Before the contract was signed, Khalilzad and Delta’s chief executive also attended meetings with Taliban officials on gas exploration, extraction and pipeline development.

This history does not mean that the dynamics of the 1990s are being repeated, but the new project also has political and regional dimensions worth considering, particularly if the proposed route is eventually linked to Pakistan, TAPI or wider South Asian markets.

However, no credible public document has so far identified Khalilzad as a shareholder, director or employee of Delta.

The US State Department told Afghanistan International: “Zalmay Khalilzad is not an employee of the United States government. Therefore, he does not represent the US government and conducts all of his activities in a personal capacity.”

Jennifer Murtazashvili, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, said Khalilzad’s repeated presence could raise questions about whether he has a private or advisory role, but should not be interpreted as evidence of US government support for the project.

A distinction must also be made between a private Saudi company and the Saudi government. Delta’s contract does not mean that the Saudi government or its sovereign funds have committed $50 billion to the project.

If the project reaches multibillion-dollar phases, a central question will be which banks, technical partners and financing sources Delta can bring on board.

How Is the New ‘CentGas’ Connected to TAPI?

The return of the CentGas name is particularly significant given Delta’s previous proposals concerning the TAPI project.

According to remarks by Abdul Ghani Baradar during a meeting with Turkmen officials, Delta had proposed participating in TAPI before the new agreement was signed. Its proposals included long-term purchases of Turkmen gas, investment to increase capacity at the Galkynysh gas field and construction of a pipeline from Guzara in Herat to Spin Boldak.

The same proposal also referred to the possibility of extending the line, under a separate agreement with Pakistan, towards the Indian border and the port of Gwadar.

These proposals suggest that the Guzara–Spin Boldak route forms part of Delta’s broader vision for the regional energy market. However, the new project cannot yet be considered an official part of TAPI.

Under TAPI, the main source of gas is Turkmenistan and Afghanistan serves as a transit route. Under Delta’s new programme, the first objective is to discover potential Afghan gas resources and use some of them in the domestic market.

There is also no announced agreement formally linking the new pipeline to TAPI or committing Pakistan to buying or transporting the gas.

For now, the connection between the two projects is a strategic possibility rather than a confirmed element of the agreement.

How Was the Contract Awarded to Delta?

The process through which the project was awarded has also raised questions.

In 2023, the Taliban’s Mines & Petroleum Ministry issued a request for expressions of interest for Kushk and Tirpul, saying the contract would be awarded through an open, transparent and competitive process. Applicants were required to demonstrate their legal, financial and technical capacity, and a timetable was set for later bidding stages.

However, in the ministry’s publicly available archive, the full chain of documents from subsequent stages, including the list of qualified companies, assessment results and documents explaining Delta’s selection, is not easily accessible.

This does not prove that legal procedures were not followed. However, for a project with potential value in the billions of dollars, it is important to clarify when Delta entered the process, which companies it competed against and on what basis it was selected.

China’s investment experience in Afghanistan also shows that signing a contract does not guarantee implementation.

Chinese companies with far greater financial and technical resources entered projects such as Mes Aynak copper and Amu Darya oil, but both faced delays and disputes. In 2025, the Taliban cancelled a 25-year Amu Darya oil contract with a Chinese company, accusing it of failing to meet its commitments.

Pakistan and Iran: Two Regional Variables

The proposed route’s arrival near Spin Boldak would make Pakistan an important factor in the project’s future.

If the pipeline is used only to transport gas within Afghanistan, it could remain a domestic project. But to become a regional corridor, cooperation with Pakistan and access to a market beyond the border would be essential.

This comes at a time when Taliban-Pakistan relations are strained over the TTP and wider security disputes.

Murtazashvili believes the presence of Saudi investment could create some space for mediation, but fundamental security disputes will not be resolved by an economic project alone.

Iran may also follow the project closely. Herat has extensive trade, fuel, electricity and transit links with Iran, and any project capable of supplying part of western Afghanistan’s energy demand from another source could, over time, affect Tehran’s economic influence in the region.

If Saudi investment in Afghanistan’s energy sector expands and the Herat–Kandahar–Pakistan route develops into a genuine energy corridor, some form of geopolitical competition between Iran and Gulf actors in Afghanistan could emerge, particularly over economic influence, transit routes and access to energy markets.

However, the Taliban currently maintains active official relations with Tehran, and Iran remains one of Afghanistan’s major economic partners.

Delta is also a private Saudi company, and there is still no indication of direct Saudi government involvement in the project.

It is therefore premature to speak of definite Iran-Saudi competition over the project at this stage, although the potential for such rivalry could grow if the programme expands.

The Challenge of Legitimacy and Contract Durability

Even if substantial reserves are discovered, the project’s risks will not be limited to geology.

International recognition of the Taliban government remains very limited, and several Taliban leaders remain under sanctions. This does not make foreign investment impossible, but it creates legal and political risks for banks, insurers and international companies.

For a 25-year contract, another important question is how a future Afghan government might treat long-term agreements signed by the Taliban.

Annie Pforzheimer, a former deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Kabul, told Afghanistan International that the Delta agreement indicates that a Saudi company ultimately wants a role in Afghanistan’s energy market, but actual exploration or production may still be years away.

Pforzheimer said: “I very strongly question whether a ruling group that lacks legitimacy should be allowed to sell the natural resources of the Afghan nation.”

She said she expected any future Afghan government to review this contract and similar agreements to determine whether they had genuinely benefited the Afghan people.

The possibility of a future review could itself become a commercial risk for a 25-year investment.

From a $200 Million Contract to a $50 Billion Dream

For now, the Delta agreement represents the beginning of a long process rather than the arrival of $50 billion in investment in Afghanistan.

Exploratory drilling must first be completed and commercially viable reserves confirmed. If successful, using gas in Herat could be the next practical step.

Building a pipeline and transforming it into a regional corridor would be more difficult, requiring capital, technical partners, markets and cooperation from regional countries.

The political significance of the agreement is no less important than its economic dimension.

The return of the Delta and CentGas names after nearly three decades, Khalilzad’s presence and efforts to connect potential energy resources in western Afghanistan to South Asian markets all tie the project to broader regional dynamics.

For the Taliban, the agreement is also an opportunity to demonstrate that, despite very limited international recognition, it can attract foreign investors.

But signing a contract is the easiest stage of such a project.

Its fate will be determined not by the $50 billion figure, but by the results of initial surveys and drilling, Delta’s ability to attract financing and technical partners, the existence of a market for the gas, and the durability of the project’s political and regional framework.

If those stages succeed, Afghanistan could shift from being primarily a transit country in historical projects such as CentGas and TAPI to becoming a producer, consumer and transit route for energy.

If they do not, the new CentGas project could, like several major projects before it, remain little more than a plan and an agreement.

According to figures compiled by rights organisations, Iran has executed nearly 190 Afghan citizens over roughly the past three years, including 80 in 2024, 84 in 2025 and 23 so far this year.

Most were sentenced to death in drug-related cases, while others faced charges including murder, espionage and participation in anti-government protests in Iran.

Human rights organisations have also raised concerns about the transparency of judicial proceedings in some cases involving Afghan citizens and whether defendants had adequate access to legal representation.

On Sunday, the Iran-based Hengaw Human Rights Organisation reported that Iranian authorities had executed 29-year-old Afghan citizen Valijan Nourzay, who had a disability, at Rafsanjan Central Prison in Kerman province while he was sitting in a wheelchair. He had been sentenced to death over his alleged involvement in a murder case.

Nourzay was shot by police during his arrest three years ago, leaving him unable to walk. According to Hengaw, he was from Afghanistan’s Farah province and was executed on the morning of Wednesday, 2 September 2026, at Rafsanjan Central Prison in Kerman province.

Hengaw had also reported several days earlier that Iran executed two other Afghan citizens, Ansar Nami, 52, and Nazif Rasoulkhandeh, 46, at Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad on charges of premeditated murder.

The report also gave 2 September as the date of their executions. Hengaw said the executions were carried out secretly and that their families were denied a final visit.

Human rights organisations say the actual number of executions may be higher because some are not officially announced. Reports indicate that a significant number have taken place at Adelabad Central Prison in Shiraz, Taybad Prison, Yazd Prison and Dastgerd Prison in Isfahan.

Iran Human Rights has also reported several executions of Afghan nationals this year that were not announced by Iranian officials or state media.

On 21 June, two Afghan citizens, Mirwais Khalilzad and Ibrahim Ahmadshahi, were executed in Shiraz in drug-related cases. Iranian authorities and media have so far released no information about their executions.

Afser Shah-Ahmadi, Safaei and Sadruddin Ahmadzad were also sentenced to death in July for alleged involvement in setting fire to a police facility.

On 20 August, Iran Human Rights reported that Qaem Hosseini, a 21-year-old Afghan citizen, had been executed at Isfahan Central Prison. His case was linked to anti-government protests in January, and he was among the defendants in the “Meydan-e Alikhani” case.

Iran Human Rights said Hosseini was the second Afghan citizen executed in connection with the case. Gul Mohammad Mohammadi had previously been executed over the same case.

Concerns Over Transparency of Executions

The United Nations and international human rights organisations have raised concerns not only over the executions of Afghan citizens but also over the fairness of the judicial proceedings against them.

Iran Human Rights says that in some cases defendants had limited access to defence lawyers, while some were also denied a final visit with their families.

According to the organisation’s 2025 report, a large proportion of executions in Iran were carried out in cases where defendants faced serious problems in exercising their rights to a fair trial, legal defence and access to a lawyer.

Iran Human Rights says at least 111 Afghan citizens have been executed in Iran for drug-related offences alone since 2021. Sixteen Afghan nationals were executed in 2022, rising to 25 in 2023 and 80 in 2024.

At least 84 executions of Afghan citizens were recorded in 2025.

The figures show that at least 164 Afghan nationals were executed in Iranian prisons in 2024 and 2025 alone. With another 23 recorded executions in the first eight months of 2026, the total rises to at least 187.

Human rights organisations stress, however, that the figures are not final because no comprehensive official data on the executions of Afghan citizens has been published.

The Taliban has so far not announced any specific response or action over the executions of these Afghan citizens.