The German government deported 30 Afghan asylum seekers to Kabul on a charter flight from Leipzig airport on Tuesday, 25 August. German media reported that some of those deported had no criminal record.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Moscow, where they discussed developments in Afghanistan, Iran and Ukraine and agreed to maintain close coordination in major international forums.
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid says the group leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has dismissed Mohammad Ismail Ghaznawi as governor of Badakhshan.
Jabbar Ali Zakeri, head of Iran’s railways, says freight transit between Iran and Afghanistan has risen from less than 15,000 tons a year to about 130,000 tons a month.
Ronald Neumann, a former US ambassador to Afghanistan, says reopening the US embassy in Kabul could be possible in the future, but the Taliban must make concrete policy changes before relations can be normalised.
Mahmoud Fatemi Aqda, Iran’s deputy minister of industry, mining and trade and head of the Geological Survey, says studies have begun to identify Afghanistan’s mineral potential and create a database of its mineral resources.
The World Health Organization has reported four new polio cases in Afghanistan, bringing the country’s total number of confirmed cases this year to 19.
Three eyewitnesses in Herat told Afghanistan International that Taliban morality police detained several women and girls in three separate incidents, including a 13-year-old girl who was fully covered and wearing a headscarf and mask.
The Taliban handed the body of NRF commander Hasib Panjshiri to his relatives in Kabul after a three-day delay. Sources say the Taliban imposed two conditions: no slogans and no photographs or videos at the funeral.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Afghanistan International on Saturday that Juma Khan Fateh, the group’s former Nusay district governor, will be put on trial.
The Taliban Justice Ministry on Saturday announced the approval of a new police law that imposes further restrictions on public gatherings and expands police powers over detainees and suspects.
Nawidullah Fitrat, a teacher in Kabul, accused the Taliban in a Facebook video on Friday of using religion to pursue ethnic objectives, saying the group’s true nature had become clear to the public.
The Taliban on Saturday published a new law governing the “Shurta”, the term it uses for police, banning “all demonstrations throughout Afghanistan”.
Abdullah Khenjani, head of the National Resistance Front’s political office, says senior commander Hasib Panjshiri, recently killed in a Taliban ambush in northern Salang, had not left Afghanistan in the past five years.
Taliban intelligence-linked media pages on Friday released a new audio recording they attributed to dissident Taliban commander Juma Khan Fateh, claiming he discussed receiving weapons and financial support with a member of the Afghanistan Freedom Front.
Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai says Taliban recognition and legitimacy depend on meeting specific conditions, including allowing girls to return to school and women to work.
Tajikistan’s State Committee for National Security says two Afghan nationals carrying 17 kilograms of cannabis were killed in an armed clash with Tajik border guards after crossing into the country.
The US Embassy in Tajikistan says travel by US government employees to border areas in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region has been temporarily banned after clashes in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan and the death of a woman in Tajikistan.
Afghan political figures, including Abdul Rashid Dostum, Salahuddin Rabbani, Atta Mohammad Noor, Mohammad Mohaqiq, Karim Khalili, and Sarwar Danish have reacted to the killing of senior NRF commander Hasib Panjshiri.
Mohammad Farid Hamidi, Afghanistan’s former attorney general, says the desecration and mistreatment of the bodies of those killed and of prisoners of war by Taliban forces is a crime against humanity.
The United Front of Afghanistan said it targeted and killed a Taliban intelligence officer in Kandahar’s fifth police district, alleging that he was involved in the detention, torture and killing of numerous former security personnel.