Pakistan launched strikes on Afghan soil late Friday (October 17, 2025), killing at least 10 people and breaking a ceasefire that had brought two days of calm to the border, officials told AFP.

The 48-hour truce had paused nearly a week of bloody border clashes that killed dozens of troops and civilians on both sides.

“Pakistan has broken the ceasefire and bombed three locations in Paktika” province, a senior Taliban official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Afghanistan will retaliate.”

Ten civilians were killed and 12 others wounded in the Pakistani strikes, a provincial hospital official told AFP on condition of anonymity, adding that two children were among the dead.

The cross-border violence had escalated dramatically from Saturday, days after explosions rocked the Afghan capital Kabul, just as the Taliban’s foreign minister began an unprecedented visit to India.

The Taliban then launched an offensive along parts of its southern border with Pakistan, prompting Islamabad to vow a strong response of its own.

When the truce began at 1300 GMT on Wednesday, Islamabad said that it was to last 48 hours, but Kabul said the ceasefire would remain in effect until Pakistan violated it.

Pakistan‘s Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif accused Kabul of acting as “a proxy of India” and “plotting” against Pakistan.

“From now on, demarches will no longer be framed as appeals for peace, and delegations will not be sent to Kabul,” Asif wrote in a post on X, before news of the fresh strikes emerged.

“Wherever the source of terrorism is, it will have to pay a heavy price.”

Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said its forces had been ordered not to attack unless Pakistani forces fired first.

“’If they do, then you have every right to defend your country’”, he said in an interview with the Afghan television channel Ariana, relaying the message sent to the troops.

‘Concrete and verifiable’

Security issues are at the heart of the tensions, with Pakistan accusing Afghanistan of harbouring militant groups led by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — the Pakistani Taliban — on its soil, a claim Kabul denies.

“Pakistan has repeatedly shared its concerns” related to the presence of militant groups operating from Afghan soil, Pakistani foreign office spokesman Shafqat Ali Khan said in a weekly press briefing Friday.

“Pakistan expects concrete and verifiable actions against these terrorist elements by the Taliban regime.”

Just before the truce ended, seven Pakistani paramilitary troops were killed in a suicide bombing and gun attack at a military camp in the North Waziristan district that borders Afghanistan, an administration official told AFP.

A faction of the TTP claimed responsibility for the attack.

Earlier on Friday, Afghans in the frontier town of Spin Boldak — where the fighting had been particularly intense — described scenes of normalcy.

“Everything is fine, everything is open,” Nani, 35, told AFP.

“I’m not afraid, but everyone sees things differently. Some say they’re going to send their children elsewhere as the situation isn’t good, but I don’t think anything will happen,” said Nani, who did not give a surname.

‘Mixed feelings’

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said 37 people were killed and 425 wounded on the Afghan side of the border, calling on both sides to bring a lasting end to hostilities.

An AFP correspondent in Spin Boldak said they saw hundreds of people attending funerals on Thursday, including for children whose bodies were wrapped in white shrouds.

“People have mixed feelings,” Nematullah, 42, told AFP. “They fear that the fighting will resume, but they still leave their homes and go about their business.”

Calm had also returned to Kabul, where new explosions rang out shortly before the ceasefire announcement on Wednesday.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the blasts, but Pakistani security sources said they had undertaken “precision strikes” against an armed group in the Afghan capital.

Sources in Afghanistan suggested that Pakistan was behind at least one of the blasts and that they were air strikes, but the government has not formally accused Islamabad.

Published – October 17, 2025 10:34 pm IST

Islamabad:

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai urged Muslim leaders on Sunday not to “legitimise” the Afghan Taliban government and to “show true leadership” by opposing their curbs on women and girls’ education.

“Do not legitimise them,” she said at a summit on girls’ education in Muslim nations being held in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad.

“As Muslim leaders, now is the time to raise your voices, use your power. You can show true leadership. You can show true Islam,” said 27-year-old Yousafzai.

The two-day conference has brought together ministers and education officials from dozens of Muslim-majority countries, backed by the Muslim World League. 

Since sweeping back to power in 2021, the Taliban government has imposed an austere version of Islamic law that the United Nations has labelled “gender apartheid”.

Their curbs have shut women and girls out of secondary school and university education, as well as many government jobs, and seen them sequestered out of many aspects of public life.

Delegates from Afghanistan’s Taliban government did not attend the event despite being invited, Pakistan Education Minister Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui told AFP on Saturday.

“Simply put, the Taliban do not see women as human beings,” Yousafzai told the conference.

“They cloak their crimes in cultural and religious justification.”

Yousafzai was shot in the face by the Pakistani Taliban when she was a 15-year-old schoolgirl in 2012, amid her campaigning for female education rights.

Her activism earned her the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, and she has since become a global advocate for women and girls’ education rights.

“The Taliban are explicit about their mission: they want to eliminate women and girls from every aspect of public life and erase them from society,” she told the conference.

While there is outcry in much of the international community over the Taliban government curbs, nations are divided over how to engage with Kabul’s rulers on the issue.

Some countries argue they should be frozen out of the diplomatic community until they backtrack, while others prefer engagement to coax them into a U-turn.

No country has officially recognised the Taliban authorities, but several regional governments have engaged on the topics of trade and security. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri meets Afghanistan Acting Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi, in Dubai on January 8, 2025
| Photo Credit: ANI

The present day Afghanistan “does not pose a threat to any nation”, said the Taliban administration in Kabul on Thursday (January 9, 2024). In a statement issued a day after the Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri met with the ‘Foreign Minister’ of the so called ‘Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA)’, the Taliban expressed gratitude for Indian humanitarian assistance  to the Afghan people and informed  that the Iranian port of Chabahar was discussed between the two sides during the talks held on Wednesday (January 8, 2024).

“Expressing gratitude for India’s humanitarian assistance, Foreign Minister Muttaqi underlined a desire of strengthening political & economic relations with India as a key regional and economic player, in line with IEA’s balanced and economy-centric foreign policy,” said the ‘Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ of the Taliban administration. India has not recognized the Taliban rulers in Kabul where the outfit took charge in August 2021. The Taliban also informed that the discussion between Mr Muttaqi and Mr Misri was attended by its Deputy Ministers of Commerce and Transport. Mr Muttaqi expressed hope for liberalising the visa regime between Afghanistan and India. 

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri met on 8 January with Taliban’s official in charge of foreign affairs, Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi in the United Arab Emirates in an unprecedented outreach to the organization, which took over Kabul in a military blietzkrieg after overthrowing the government of President Ashraf Ghani.  

“In response to the request from the Afghan side, India will provide further material support in the first instance to the health sector and for the rehabilitation of refugees. The two sides also discussed strengthening of sports (cricket) cooperation,” said the Ministry of External Affairs after the meeting in Dubai on Wednesday.

ALSO READ: The rebounding of Pakistan’s Afghan strategy

“It was also agreed to promote the use of Chabahar port for supporting trade and commercial activities, including for the purpose of humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan,” said the Ministry of External Affairs. Significantly, the meeting between Mr Misri and Mawlawi Muttaqi came days after India “unequivocally condemned” the bombing of Afghan territories on December 24-25 by Pakistan.

In yet another draconian move to curtail women’s freedom in Afghanistan, the Taliban said it will close all national and foreign non-governmental groups in the country employing women. 

In a letter published on X on Sunday night, Afghanistan’s Economy Ministry warned that failure to comply with the latest order would lead to NGOs losing their license to operate in the country.

“The Ministry of Economy, as the authority for registering non-Emirati institutions, is responsible for coordinating, leading, and supervising all activities of domestic and foreign NGOs,” the post in Persian read.

“Therefore, once again, a follow-up circular has been issued to stop the work of female employees in non-Emirati and foreign institutions. In case of non-cooperation, all activities of the offending institution will be suspended and the activity license they received from this ministry will be cancelled,” it added.

وزارت اقتصاد منحیث مرجع ثبت و راجستر موسسات غیر امارتی، مسولیت انسجام، رهبری و نظارت تمامی فعالیت های انجو های داخلی و خارجی را به عهده دارد.
بناً یکبار دیگر طی متحدالمال تعقیبی در مورد توقف کار طبقه اناث در موسسات غیر امارتی داخلی و خارجی هدایت داده شده است. در صورت عدم همکاری… pic.twitter.com/kqiW7Re3an

— Ministry of Economy-Afghanistan (@economy_af) December 29, 2024

This comes two years after the Taliban told NGOs to suspend the employment of Afghan women, allegedly because they didn’t wear the Islamic headscarf correctly, according to a report by the Associated Press.

Since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan three years ago, Afghan women have been excluded from almost every sphere of public life, including schools, universities, most workplaces – and even parks and bathhouses. The Taliban have already barred women from many jobs and most public spaces. They have also excluded them from education beyond sixth grade.

Earlier, the Taliban prohibited the construction of windows in residential buildings overlooking areas used by Afghan women. Announcing the move, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid explained in a statement on X, “Seeing women working in kitchens, in courtyards or collecting water from wells can lead to obscene acts.”

Moscow formally labelled the Taliban a terrorist organisation in 2003.

Kabul:

The Taliban government’s new law to “promote virtue and prevent vice” has codified their austere rules for Afghan society, dictating strict controls according to their vision of Islam.

In recent days there has been evidence of Taliban morality police enforcing the legislation, as well as Afghans self-policing to avoid conflicts with officials.

However, other elements are yet to be enforced and Taliban authorities have already been clamping down on behaviour they deem un-Islamic since surging back to power three years ago.

Here is what we know about the new law and its effect on society:

The new order

The text contains 35 articles. The most criticised dictates that a woman’s voice should not be raised outside the home and that they should not sing or read poetry aloud.

Unrelated men and women are forbidden from looking at each other, and women are commanded to cover themselves entirely in front of non-Muslim women.

Men are ordered to grow beards longer than a fist, wear loose-fitting clothes and not reveal their bodies between the navel and the knee. Sodomy is banned “even with one’s own wife”.

The media has been banned from mocking or humiliating Islam, transport companies told to alter schedules to fit prayer times and Muslims told they should not befriend or help non-Muslims.

Some traditional games have also been banned, as well as taking or viewing photos of living things on computers or smartphones.

Disobedience of parents has also been outlawed.

Changes in society

Over the past two weeks since the law was announced on August 21, AFP has collected testimonies of increasing scrutiny by Taliban officials.

Enforcement is tasked to morality police from the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.

In the capital Kabul, patrol teams have given warnings to women travelling without a male “mahram” chaperone, and with part of their hair or hands showing.

A 23-year-old Kabul man said he was stopped three times. 

“They asked me why I didn’t have a beard. I was scared and promised them I would grow one,” he told AFP.

In northern Mazar-e-Sharif, a taxi driver said he was “warned many times not to transport women without a mahram” or women not fully covered, and in central Parwan, women were chastised for not covering their faces.

In a Kabul bank, all the staff have swapped their western wear for traditional dress in a bid to comply with the new law.

However, this week, women’s voices could still be heard on TV and radio stations.

Previous strictures

Since ousting US-led troops in 2021, the Taliban government has intermittently announced social curbs with an emphasis on separating men and women.

Many of those previous orders overlap with the new law and were already in effect.

Girls have long been banned from secondary school and women from universities. Women travelling were previously ordered to be chaperoned by a family member and to cover themselves from head to toe in public.

Prayer at set times has been deemed obligatory while music in public and gambling have been outlawed.

Segregation of men and women is already required in most public places. Adultery, homosexuality and drug addiction have also been previously banned.

However, the new document is the most comprehensive manifesto of the Taliban’s vision for society since their return and outlines graduated punishments morality police can dole out.

They range from verbal warnings to threats, fines and detentions of varying lengths.

Grey areas

The law announced by the largely opaque Taliban government leaves many questions unanswered.

It says women should only leave home for an “urgent need”, but does not outline what situations they deem urgent.

With friendship and assistance to non-Muslims banned, it is unclear whether Afghans are banned from working with international organisations — a major lifeline for the economically bedraggled country.

It may also imply the Taliban government themselves are forbidden from dealing with western nations, further cementing their pariah status. And it’s unclear how media on phones and TV will be policed.

But perhaps the largest question is how uniformly and rigorously the new law will be enforced.

A United Nations report in July said there were “ambiguities and inconsistencies” around morality measures and their enforcement before this new law.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

An Afghan woman clad in a burqa walks past a graffiti painted wall, in Herat, west of Kabul, Afghanistan on Thursday, May 13, 2010. (AP Photo/Reza Shirmohammadi)
| Photo Credit: REZA SHIRMOHAMMADI

The Taliban government’s Morality Ministry said it would not cooperate with the United Nations mission in Afghanistan, calling it “an opposing side”.

The announcement comes after the UN mission (UNAMA) warned that a new morality law — requiring women to cover up completely and not raise their voices — would damage prospects for engagement with the international community.

The Taliban Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (PVPV) said that “due to its continued propaganda, the PVPV will not provide any support or cooperation with UNAMA, which will be considered as an opposing side”.

“We want international organisations, countries, and those individuals who criticised the mentioned law to respect the religious values of Muslims and refrain from such criticisms and statements that insult Islamic values and sanctities,” the ministry said in a statement posted to social media Thursday.

Last week, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, was banned from entering the country after joining other UN experts in a statement urging the international community to “not normalise the de facto authorities or their appalling human rights violations”.

Chief Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told local media Tolo News that Mr. Bennett “was appointed to Afghanistan to spread propaganda and he is not someone whose words we can trust.”

The Taliban authorities, which are yet to be formally recognised by any nation, are still pushing to fill Afghanistan’s seat at the UN, which is held by a former official of the ousted foreign-backed government.

Punishments

The Taliban government’s 35-article morality law was published in the official gazette on July 31.

It imposes wide-ranging rules on men’s clothing and attending prayers as well as bans on keeping photos of living beings, homosexuality, animal fighting, playing music in public and non-Muslim holidays.

The law sets out graduated punishments, from verbal warnings to threats, fines and detentions of varying lengths.

Roza Otunbayeva, head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, has called the law a “distressing vision for Afghanistan’s future, where moral inspectors have discretionary powers to threaten and detain anyone based on broad and sometimes vague lists of infractions”.

The United Nations and the European Union have warned that the law could damage prospects for engagement with the international community.

UNAMA is mandated by the UN Security Council to engage with the Taliban authorities, including the PVPV, with which it has directly raised concerns over moral oversight policy and practices of enforcement.

In a report last month, UNAMA said the ministry had a growing role in enforcing religious law in Afghanistan and accused it of creating a “climate of fear”.

The virtue and vice ministry implements an austere vision of Islam, which has increasingly dominated Afghanistan since the 2021 Taliban takeover.

Morality police squads are empowered to scold, arrest and punish citizens violating edicts. The laws have marginalised women, effectively banned music and outlawed other activities deemed un-Islamic.

The Taliban government has consistently dismissed international criticism of its policies, including restrictions on women that the UN has labelled “gender apartheid”.

The law is “firmly rooted in Islamic teachings” that should be respected and understood, chief government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement on Monday.

“To reject these laws without such understanding is, in our view, an expression of arrogance,” he said, adding that for a Muslim to criticise the law “may even lead to the decline of their faith”.

Doha, Qatar:

Taliban authorities were told women must be included in public life, UN Under-Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo said on Monday as she defended a decision to sideline civil society groups at official talks in Doha.

Rights organisations have strongly criticised the controversial UN move to exclude the groups, including women’s rights activists, from the two-day meeting on Afghanistan as the price for the Taliban government’s participation.

“Authorities will not sit across the table with Afghan civil society in this format, but they have heard very clearly the need to include women and civil society in all aspects of public life”, DiCarlo told a Doha news conference.

The UN-hosted meeting began on Sunday and is the third such gathering to be held in Qatar in a little over a year, but the first to include the Taliban authorities who seized power in Afghanistan for a second time in 2021.

The talks were due to discuss increasing engagement with Afghanistan and a more coordinated response to the country, including economic issues and counter-narcotics efforts.

The international community has wrestled with its approach to the Taliban since they returned to power, with no country officially recognising its government.

 ‘Gender apartheid’ 

The group has imposed a strict interpretation of Islam, with women subjected to laws characterised by the UN as “gender apartheid”.

The Taliban refused an invitation to Doha talks in February, insisting on being the only Afghan representatives, to the exclusion of civil society groups. But their condition was accepted in the build-up to this latest round.

The United States said it agreed to participate in Monday’s talks after receiving assurances that the talks would meaningfully discuss human rights.

US point man on Afghanistan Thomas West and Rina Amiri, the US special envoy on the rights of Afghan women and girls, in Doha “made clear that the Afghan economy cannot grow while half the population’s rights are not respected”, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said.

DiCarlo, who chaired the UN talks in the Qatari capital, said she “hopes” that “there’ll be new consideration” of Taliban government policy on women in public life including girls’ education.

The UN and international delegations will have the chance to meet with civil society representatives, including women’s rights groups, following the close of the main meetings.

But Amnesty International chief Agnes Callamard said in a statement ahead of the talks that “caving into the Taliban’s conditions to secure their participation in the talks would risk legitimising their gender-based institutionalised system of oppression”.

The Taliban authorities have repeatedly said the rights of all citizens are guaranteed under Islamic law.

The head of the Taliban delegation, spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, told the more than 20 assembled special envoys and UN officials at the opening session that diplomats should “find ways of interaction and understanding rather than confrontation”, despite “natural” differences in policy.

 ‘Engaging constructively’ 

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is keen on engaging constructively with Western nations as well,” Mujahid said.

“Like any sovereign state, we uphold certain religious and cultural values and public aspirations that must be acknowledged,” he added.

Mujahid also pressed to end sanctions, saying Afghans are “being ganged up on”.

The Taliban government spokesman questioned whether ongoing sanctions were “fair practice” after “wars and insecurity for almost half a century as a result of foreign invasions and interference”.

Russia, which has maintained an embassy in Kabul, hinted it could drop its own sanctions, saying the group were the de facto authorities.

“We’ve been saying consistently that you have to recognise this fact and deal with them as such because, whether you like it or not, this movement is running the country now. You cannot simply ignore that,” said Russia’s envoy to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya.

DiCarlo said the issue of sanctions was “raised” but not discussed in depth.

“It’s a member-state issue whether they’re going to continue certain sanctions or not. The sanctions are on people, not on the country at large,” she said

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Leader of the Afghanistan Taliban Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada.
| Photo Credit: AP

The Taliban’s reclusive supreme leader on June 17 warned Afghans against earning money or gaining worldly honour at a time when the country is in the grip of humanitarian crises and isolated on the global stage.

Hibatullah Akhundzada gave his warning in a sermon to mark the festival of Eid al-Adha at a mosque in southern Kandahar province, weeks before a Taliban delegation goes to Doha, Qatar for U.N.-hosted talks on Afghanistan.

This is the first round of talks the Taliban will attend since they seized power in August 2021. They weren’t invited to the conference of foreign special envoys to Afghanistan in the first round, and they snubbed the second round because they wanted to be treated as the country’s official representatives.

No government recognizes the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan, whose aid-dependent economy was plunged into turmoil following their takeover.

U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said the invitation to the Doha meeting at the end of June does not imply recognition of the Taliban.

Akhundzada reminded Afghans of their duties as Muslims and made repeated calls for unity in his 23-minute sermon.

Messages by him and another influential Taliban figure, Sirajuddin Haqqani, to mark a religious festival in April showed tensions between hardliners and more moderate elements who want to scrap harsher policies and attract more outside support.

On June 17th’s message, Akhundzada said he wanted brotherhood among Muslims and that he was unhappy about differences between citizens and Taliban officials. Public dissent over Taliban edicts is rare, and protests are swiftly and sometimes violently quashed.

He said he would willingly accept any decision to remove him as supreme leader, as long as there was unity and agreement on his ouster. But he was unhappy about differences and disagreement between people.

“We were created to worship Allah and not to earn money or gain worldly honor,” Akhundzada said. “Our Islamic system is God’s system and we should stand by it. We have promised God that we will bring justice and Islamic law (to Afghanistan) but we cannot do this if we are not united. The benefit of your disunity reaches the enemy; the enemy takes advantage of it.”

The Taliban have used their interpretation of Islamic law to bar girls from education beyond the age of 11, ban women from public spaces, exclude them from many jobs, and enforce dress codes and male guardianship requirements.

Akhundzada told Taliban officials to listen to the advice of religious scholars and entrust them with authority. He said officials shouldn’t be arrogant, boast, or deny the truth about Islamic law.

Pakistani journalist and author Ahmed Rashid, who has written several books about Afghanistan and the Taliban, said Akhundzada’s appeals for unity were a sign of desperation because he refused to spell out the real issues facing Afghans such as unemployment, economic development, and building a consensus for social reform.

“I would not be convinced that this was a meaningful speech if I were the Taliban,” said Rashid.

Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute, said Akhundzada’s focus on unity may also be preemptive and meant to nip in the bud any possibility that rifts could flare up again.

He also questioned if the audience being targeted went beyond Afghans to focus on the global Muslim community.

“Operationally speaking, the Taliban don’t have transnational goals. But the supreme leader looks to command respect beyond Afghanistan’s borders,” said Mr. Kugelman.

Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan:

Alongside antique Korans and ancient Afghan coins, rocket launchers and homemade bombs are displayed in a Mazar-i-Sharif museum as a testament to the Taliban’s victory over foreign soldiers.

“It doesn’t have any old history, but it all played an important role in the victory,” says museum director Abdul Qayum Ansari. “This has exceptional meaning for the people.”

Inside the one-room Balkh province museum in northern Mazar-i-Sharif city’s famous Blue Mosque, twin display cases are devoted to mementos from the Taliban’s two-decade insurgency ending in 2021.

Ansari insists it’s “forbidden to photograph or film” the displays, and says the AFP team visiting are the first journalists authorised to come “in more than two years”.

Surrounded by fragments of pottery and porcelain, a yellow barrel of explosives stands out alongside a red Honda motorbike encased in a glass box, propping up a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

The bike “was for transportation of the Mujahideen (fighters) during the war and combat”, while the weapon “was used against the war machines like tanks”, explains the bearded curator.

A handful of Afghan men browse the relics. Afghan women are barred from visiting, having been banned by authorities from entering the Blue Mosque complex after the Taliban returned to power.

‘Our people must see it’

According to Ansari, the small portion of the museum given over to war objects “has the most visitors”.

Taliban authorities “wanted this museum to be exceptional”, he says. “Many more rooms” could be filled with other wartime curios of interest to the public, he insists.

Antiquities from previous eras are sparse, however. While Mazar-i-Sharif is a historic crossroads with Central Asia, much of its heritage was plundered in Afghanistan’s cascading conflicts.

Since surging back to power in August 2021, the Taliban government has commemorated the withdrawal of US forces and the rout of the foreign-backed government with military parades and poetry readings.

At the same time, they have been hungry for foreign diplomatic ties, and official recognition by other states.

It is unclear why authorities have been reluctant to show off the small exhibition, but Ansari said he thinks it deserves to be seen widely.

“From my personal point of view, pictures should be taken of it,” says Ansari. “All the world must see it, our people must see it.”

“I have personally requested that we must have a special museum for the conquest and the victory,” he says.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)