India flies tons of essentials to quake-rocked Afghanistan
India sent family tents, blankets and other relief supplies for a team to distribute in eastern Afghan villages where a deadly earthquake collapsed thousands of timber and stone homes to rubble. Pictures of the relief effort were accompanied by a tweet from India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar: “India, a true first responder.” The supplies total 27 tons delivered over two flights to Afghanistan's capital Kabul, where the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Afghan Red Crescent Society will coordinate its distribution, a ministry statement said Friday.
news.yahoo.comAir Force: Crew not at fault for Afghan deaths in evacuation
The Air Force has concluded that air crew members acted appropriately and were not at fault for some tragic deaths during the chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan last year, when desperate Afghans clung to a military plane as it was taking off and fell to their deaths or were caught in the wheels.
Pakistan sends 50-member team to Kabul to discuss cease-fire
Pakistan's government on Wednesday sent a 50-member delegation of tribal elders to Kabul to negotiate an extension of a truce with the Pakistani Taliban that expired this week, two security officials said. Talks between the two sides that led to cease-fires in the past have been mediated by the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Pakistani Taliban — known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP — are a separate group but allied with the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in their country last August, as the U.S. and NATO troops were in the final stages of their pullout from Afghanistan.
news.yahoo.comAP PHOTOS: In Kabul, cemeteries a part of Afghan daily life
One of the graves had broken open in Kabul’s Nader Shah Hill Cemetery, exposing a near-complete skeleton at the bottom of the pit in the hard earth. The only reason the kids came over, interrupting their soccer game, was to see what an Associated Press photographer was taking pictures of. There are cemeteries all over Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, many of them filled with the dead from the country’s decades of war.
news.yahoo.comTaliban moves to hand control of Afghan airports to UAE company
Placeholder while article actions loadKABUL — The Taliban is handing over control of the country’s airports to a company based in the United Arab Emirates, according to a statement from the prime minister’s office Tuesday. Advertisement“The international airlines which have been away from this country in the last few months will come back to us,” he told journalists. Afghanistan’s main international airport in Kabul was ransacked in August as the city’s security forces melted away and Taliban fighters took control of the capital. But without fully functioning radar, the insurance costs associated with using the Kabul airport make commercial operations largely unviable. Afghanistan is battling a spiraling economic crisis, and some Taliban officials have called for international investment to ease unemployment and inflation.
washingtonpost.comTaliban announcement a clear sign girls returning to school
Schools for all students will open this week, Afghanistan's Taliban-run Education Ministry announced Monday in the clearest sign yet that girls will be allowed back in school. Girls have been denied education beyond Grade 6 since the Taliban swept back into power last August. The international community has been relentless in urging Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to allow girls to return to school.
news.yahoo.comUN refugee chief in Kabul to say Afghans are not forgotten
The head of the U.N. refugee agency is in Kabul to tell Afghans they have not been forgotten — even as the international community scrambles to deal with the devastation of the war in Ukraine and a humanitarian crisis unseen in Europe since World War II
washingtonpost.comTaliban official wanted by U.S. makes rare public appearance
The Taliban acting interior minister — designated a terrorist by the U.S. — said in a rare public appearance Saturday that security police guilty of misconduct in Afghanistan were being penalized after a string of abuse allegations. For the first time, photos showing Sirajuddin Haqqani's face were published by official Taliban government channels. Haqqani was photographed attending the Saturday graduation ceremony of the first class to complete police training since the Taliban assumed control of Afghanistan.
news.yahoo.comTaliban official says dozens of criminals arrested in sweeps
Taliban forces have arrested dozens of criminals, kidnappers and smugglers in operations across Kabul, a Taliban government spokesman said on Sunday. The clearance operations began in the capital and neighboring provinces two days ago, and will continue, Zabiullah Mujahid said in a press conference. Mujahid also welcomed a recent U.S. decision to ease restrictions on Afghan banks.
news.yahoo.comAfghan students return to Kabul U, but with restrictions
Kabul University, among Afghanistan’s oldest and most revered institutions of higher education, reopened Saturday for the first time since the Taliban takeover six months ago. Dozens of female students, all wearing the hijab, the veil worn by Muslim women, lined up outside the university gate. Taliban stood guard at the campus's three entrances.
news.yahoo.comSix months on, what has happened to women’s rights in Afghanistan? | AFP
The Taliban stunned the world by marching into Kabul on August 15, 2021, after a lightning offensive that capped a 20-year insurgency against the Western-backed government and the US and allied forces that propped it up. The end of fighting brought relief for many women – but harsh restrictions imposed by the new government are also causing despair. A network of dozens of women – once students, teachers or NGO workers, as well as housewives – have worked in secret to organise protests against the Taliban over the past six months, but are facing increasingly aggressive suppression.
news.yahoo.comSix months of Taliban: Afghans safer, poorer, less hopeful
Afghanistan has undergone a dramatic transformation in half a year of Taliban rule. Tens of thousands of Afghans have fled or have been evacuated, including large numbers of the educated elites. Tuesday marks six months since the Afghan capital of Kabul was ceded to the Taliban with the sudden and secret departure of the country’s U.S.-backed president.
news.yahoo.comUN says over 100 ex-Afghan and international forces killed
The United Nations secretary-general says the world body has received “credible allegations” that more than 100 former members of the Afghan government, its security forces and those who worked with international troops have been killed since the Taliban takeover of the country on Aug. 15.
Whistleblower: As Afghanistan fell, UK abandoned supporters
A whistleblower has alleged that Britain’s Foreign Office abandoned many of the nation’s allies in Afghanistan and left them to the mercy of the Taliban during the fall of the capital, Kabul, because of a dysfunctional and arbitrary evacuation effort.
Watchdog finds no misconduct in mistaken Afghan airstrike
An independent Pentagon review has concluded that the U.S. drone strike that killed innocent Kabul civilians and children in the final days of the Afghanistan war was not caused by misconduct or negligence, and it doesn’t recommend any disciplinary action.
Russia says it's in sync with US, China, Pakistan on Taliban
Russia's foreign minister says the United States, China, Russia and Pakistan are working together to ensure that Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers keep their promises, especially to form a genuinely representative government and prevent the spread of extremist groups.