TALIBAN

An Afghan journalist fled for her life when the Taliban invaded, and now she's continuing her work by reporting on refugees in the U.S.

Afghan women speak out against compulsory male chaperones and new mandate to wear all-covering veils.

British rhetoric and action have been exemplary regarding the war. But could there be something else in mind?

The U.N. Security Council has held emergency closed consultations on the Taliban’s latest crackdown on Afghan women as it considers a presidential statement that would express deep concern at its new ban on women leaving home “without necessity” and wearing head-to-toe clothing when they do go out in public

Top U.S. intelligence officials acknowledge they misjudged the durability of the governments in both Afghanistan and Ukraine.

Inspired by the world of Harry Potter, the real-life version of quidditch has taken off in some forty countries. But now some practitioners of the sport want it to break free from its associations with 'the boy who lived' and become a discipline in its own right.

For many of the Afghans evacuated to the United States last August, their journey remains very much a work in progress.

Escaped inmate Casey White and former jail official Vicky White were taken into custody Monday in Indiana, according to an Alabama sheriff.

The 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography goes to Marcus Yam, the sixth L.A. Times journalist to win a Pulitzer for photography categories.

Marcus Yam of the L.A. Times wins Pulitzer for his photographs of the fall of Afghanistan. The paper is also a finalist for coverage of the fatal shooting on the set of 'Rust.'

A new Taliban decree that demands women cover up from head to toe in public, showing at most their eyes, has left many Afghans angry or fearful

A new Taliban decree that demands women cover up from head to toe in public, showing at most their eyes, has left many Afghans angry or fearful.

Arooza was furious and afraid, keeping her eyes open for Taliban on patrol as she and a friend shopped Sunday in Kabul's Macroyan neighborhood. The math teacher was fearful her large shawl, wrapped tight around her head, and sweeping pale brown coat would not satisfy the latest decree by the country's religiously driven Taliban government. Arooza, who asked to be identified by just one name to avoid attracting attention, wasn't wearing the all-encompassing burqa preferred by the Taliban, who on Saturday issued a new dress code for women appearing in public.

Women who appear in public without following the new guidelines on dress will first be issued warnings, the ministry’s announcement stated. The ministry called on the media and mosques to encourage women to comply. AdvertisementWhile not legally required under the previous government, most Afghan women traditionally cover their hair in public. When the Taliban controlled Afghanistan in the 1990s, all women were required to wear head-to-toe coverings. Many women have also been barred from the workplace under Taliban rule due to guidelines forbidding men and women to work in proximity.

The decree calls for women to only show their eyes and recommends they wear the head-to-toe burqa.

The decree, which calls for women to only show their eyes and recommends they wear the head-to-toe burqa, evoked similar restrictions during the Taliban's previous rule between 1996 and 2001.

The decree, calling for women to only show their eyes, evoked similar restrictions on women during the Taliban's previous rule between 1996 and 2001.

Afghanistan’s Taliban leadership has ordered all Afghan women to wear the all-covering burqa in public

Afghanistan’s Taliban leadership has ordered all Afghan women to wear all-covering clothing in public, and threatened to punish their male relatives in cases of noncompliance.

For 9 months, teen girls have been pretty much unable to go to school. Protests have been shut down. Now clerics — including some affiliated with the Taliban – are urging an end to the school ban.

Long a hub for opium production, the country is fueling a new global drug crisis.

Afghanistan’s border with Iran has become a lifeline for desperate refugees after the country plunged into economic crisis following the withdrawal of American and NATO troops last summer

The Taliban members who killed her activist husband offered Zahra Husseini a deal: Marry one of us, and you'll be safe. Husseini, 31, decided to flee. As Afghanistan plunged into economic crisis after the United States withdrew troops and the Taliban seized power, the 960-kilometer (572-mile) long border with Iran became a lifeline for Afghans who piled into smugglers’ pickups in desperate search of money and work.

Under Taliban rule, sales have plummeted and promised tax breaks have been slow in coming.

Friday’s attack on a Sufi mosque that killed 10 and injured at least 30, seemed especially perverse, given the Sufi community’s history as a quiet force for peace.

A Taliban spokesman says a powerful explosion at a Sunni mosque in Kabul has killed at least 10 worshippers and wounded 20

The Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan has claimed responsibility for two bombings in the country’s north that targeted the country’s minority Hazara ethnic group

Since the Taliban's takeover, women have been denied basic rights, including enough food, the right to work and the ability to finish their education.

A spokesman for a Taliban-appointed police chief says two explosions within minutes of each other killed at least nine people and wounded 13 in a key northern city

The US pulled out of Afghanistan in August 2021 as the Taliban resurged to power. It left behind an array of planes, guns, and vehicles.

Many human rights advocates hail the administration’s response to the exodus triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while others feel deeply frustrated that those left behind in Afghanistan have not received equal attention.

Due to Trump-era restrictions and the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. refugee admissions reached back-to-back record lows in fiscal years 2020 and 2021.

A U.S. advisory body says that Afghanistan should join a list of the world's worst violators of religious freedom.

After Trump eviscerated the refugee-resettlement system, the government was unprepared for Afghans displaced by their country’s collapse. A new program lets civilians step up to help.

As the economy craters, children drop out of school to eke out a living on the streets.

After months of relative calm, a bloody and chaotic week has raised fears that the Taliban will be unable to keep the peace.

Afghanistan’s Islamic State affiliate has claimed responsibility for a series of bombings that targeted the country’s minority Shiite Muslims

A Taliban official says a bombing at a mosque and religious school in northern Afghanistan has killed at least 33 people, including students of a religious school.

The other was a promising high school senior, ranked second in his class and studying for his college entrance exams. Some said the Islamic State group, known here as Daesh, had taken a break during the transition of power and wanted to display its strength again. Several parents of wounded Shahid school students had already lost a son or daughter in attacks on schools or college-prep study centers. The bombings at the Shahid school bore a macabre similarity to the last major attack on the Hazara community, just over a year ago. At the Sayed ul Shahda school in May, twin bombs exploded outside the school just as upper-class girls were leaving campus.

The explosions occurred inside a high school and near an education center. It wasn't immediately clear how many children were there at the time.

The explosions occurred inside a high school and near an education center. It wasn't immediately clear how many children were there at the time.

Twin explosions in minority Shiite and Hazara community in Kabul hit as students were leaving classes.

An Afghan police spokesman says explosions targeting educational institutions in Kabul have killed at least six civilians and injured 17 others.

Iran has summoned Afghanistan’s envoy in Tehran over attacks the previous day on Iranian diplomatic missions in the neighboring country

After taking control of Afghanistan last summer, the Taliban made promises for more inclusive and less repressive leadership in Afghanistan. Many of those promises involved maintaining women's rights. But now, education for girls has become more limited, and other restrictions have been placed on women. NPR's Diaa Hadid reports on what the uneven implementation of those policies suggests about Taliban leadership. And Kathy Gannon of The Associated Press reports on how the Taliban backtracking on some of its promises bodes for Afghanistan's future.Additional reporting in this episode also comes from NPR's Fatma Tanis.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

State media says Iran’s Foreign Ministry has urged the Taliban to provide better security at Iranian diplomatic sites in neighboring Afghanistan

A rare video has appeared of al Qaida’s chief praising an Indian Muslim woman who in February defied a ban on hijab wearing, revealing the first proof in years that he is still alive

Afghan families evacuated to the United States when the Taliban regained power are celebrating the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

A Danish aid group has been able to keep its Afghan women employees working, even after the Taliban takeover of the country last August

Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban have announced a ban on poppy production, even as farmers across the country began harvesting the bright red flower that produces the opium used to make heroin

Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban have announced a ban on the poppy harvest, even as farmers in some parts of the country began extracting the opium from the plant that is needed for making heroin.

Witnesses say an explosion in the center of the Afghan capital of Kabul wounded at least 15 people

Senator Tammy Duckworth called for the Biden Administration to free an Afghan drug trafficker in exchange for the release of the American engineer Mark Frerichs, who was kidnapped in Afghanistan.

A Taliban official says an unexploded mortar shell has killed at least five children and wounded two others when it exploded in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province

Outraged by a new Taliban decree banning girls from school, and focused on the increasingly costly crisis in Ukraine, the international community faces a sharp dilemma: should they continue the massive funding that has kept Afghans barely alive since last summer, or should they risk the starvation of a significant portion of the population to punish the militant government?

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has issued strong backing for Afghanistan at a regional conference, while making no mention of human rights abuses by the country's Taliban leaders.

The head of the United Nations says nearly all Afghans don’t have enough to eat and some have resorted to “selling their children and their body parts” to get money for food.

China’s ambitions to have a major hand in Afghanistan under the Taliban while boosting its own stature are on display at multinational meetings hosted by Beijing.

Celebrated U.S. cellist Yo-Yo Ma has joined refugees from the Afghanistan National Institute of Music in the Portuguese capital Lisbon for a performance of Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik

An airport official says Afghan women unaccompanied by a male guardian have been allowed to board aircraft in the capital Kabul since Saturday

Residents of Kyiv, Ukraine, stacked up sandbags to try to protect monuments in the city as they anticipated possible Russian attacks on Sunday. Residents seen in the footage were putting bags around a monument to Princess Olga, the 10th-century ruler of Kievan Rus who was later made a saint.

Taliban hard-liners are turning back the clock in Afghanistan with a flurry of repressive edicts over the past days that hark back to their harsh rule from the late 1990s

Taliban hard-liners are turning back the clock in Afghanistan with a flurry of repressive edicts over the past days that hark back to their harsh rule from the late 1990s.

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers have refused to allow dozens of women at Kabul's international airport to board their flights because they were without a male guardian.

Aid groups, media workers and others in Afghanistan are baffled by the Taliban reneging on their pledge to allow girls to go to school beyond sixth grade.

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have decided against reopening schools to girls above the sixth grade, reneging on a promise and opting to appease their hard-line base, at the expense of further alienating the international community.

Afghanistan’s Taliban-run Education Ministry has announced that schools for all students will open this week — the clearest sign yet that girls will be allowed back in school.

Afghanistan is the unhappiest country in the world — even before the Taliban swept to power last August.

Senior U.S. commanders tell Congress that the complete U.S. military withdrawals from Afghanistan and Somalia last year have made it more difficult for the U.S. to counter terror groups that aspire to attack America and its allies.

The Taliban's acting interior minister says Taliban security police guilty of misconduct in Afghanistan are being penalized after many abuse allegations.

Students have returned to Kabul University, among Afghanistan's oldest and most revered institutions of higher education.

The Biden administration is seeking to assure financial institutions and other businesses that U.S. sanctions on the Taliban aren’t intended to interfere with trade that could help Afghanistan emerge from an economic and humanitarian crisis.

UNICEF's top chief says the Taliban have committed to allowing Afghan girls to go to school next month.

The U.S. and British governments, as well as a family member, say Afghanistan's Taliban rulers have detained several British citizens and an American.

Journalists in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan say they operate in a climate of fear and uncertainty.

Afghanistan has undergone a dramatic transformation in half a year of Taliban rule.

Afghanistan’s former president has called a White House order to unfreeze $3.5 billion in Afghan assets held in the U.S. for families of 9/11 victims an atrocity against the Afghan people.

President Joe Biden has signed an executive order to split $7 billion in Afghan assets frozen in the U.S. to fund humanitarian relief in Afghanistan and create a trust fund to compensate Sept. 11 victims.

President Joe Biden is calling for the release of U.S. Navy veteran Mark Frerichs, who was taken hostage in Afghanistan nearly two years ago.

A pregnant New Zealand journalist says she turned to the Taliban for help and is now stranded in Afghanistan after her home country has prevented her from returning due to a bottleneck of people in its coronavirus quarantine system.

The Taliban and western diplomats have began their first official talks in Europe since they took over control of Afghanistan in August.

A grim situation in Afghanistan is getting worse.

The International Labor Organization says more than a half million people in Afghanistan have lost their jobs since the Taliban takeover in mid-August.

A year-old report by Washington's Afghanistan watchdog has now been declassified and shows that it warned back in early 2021 that the Afghan air force would collapse without critical U.S. aid and training.

The Taliban are promising to try to open all schools for girls across Afghanistan after the Afghan New Year, which starts in late March.

United Nations World Food Program senior official Mary-Ellen McGroarty is warning that Afghanistan is facing a “tsunami" of hunger because of a shortage of funds that's needed to get food to people across the country.

The United States has announced $308 million in additional humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan.

Afghanistan's former president says he had just minutes to decide to flee in the hours before the Taliban took control of the capital in August.

Federal immigration officials have denied hundreds of Afghans seeking temporary entry into the country for humanitarian reasons.

We might not be able to claim that 2021 was *the* wildest year in recent history (2020 will likely get that credit for quite some time), but it might be a close second.

The Taliban have dissolved Afghanistan’s two election commissions as well as state ministries for peace and parliamentarian affairs.

The Treasury Department says it is issuing special licenses to ensure that some international aid can flow to Afghanistan.

Islamic countries are scrambling to find ways to help Afghanistan avert an imminent economic collapse they say would have a “horrendous” global impact.

Pakistan is rallying Muslim countries to help Afghanistan stave off an economic and humanitarian disaster.

When the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August, some Afghans resolved to escape and embarked on forbidding journeys of thousands of kilometers to Europe.

A top Taliban leader says Afghanistan’s new rulers are committed in principle to education and jobs for girls and women and have learned lessons from their previous time in power.

Women who were evacuated to Albania after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan are urging the international community to pay attention to the plight of the Afghan women and girls who were left behind.

The top U.S. commander in the Middle East says the al-Qaida extremist group has grown slightly inside Afghanistan since U.S. forces left in late August.

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.

The National Museum of Afghanistan is open once again and the Taliban, whose members once smashed their way through the facility, now appear to be among its most enthusiastic visitors.