Afghan refugees gather next to a truck loaded with their family’s belonging as they wait for registration to leave for their homeland, outside a repatriation centre in Landi Kotal, a town of Pakistan’s Khyber district bordering with Afghanistan. File
| Photo Credit: AP

In this photo released by the Taliban Spokesman Office, Zabihullah Mujahid, the chief spokesman for the Taliban government who leads the Taliban delegation, center right, speaks with Russian Presidential Envoy to Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov, during a meeting in Doha, Qatar, Sunday, June 30, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Three years into its rule of Afghanistan, the Taliban government has achieved some diplomatic wins even as it has consolidated power and enforced its strict version of Islamic law.

The Taliban rulers continue to operate without official recognition from any country — its restrictions on women a major sticking point.

But concern over Afghanistan’s worsening humanitarian crisis, the threat of terrorism, and hard-nosed pragmatism have led to some international engagement.

The most notable example was the Taliban government’s participation, for the first time, in United Nations-hosted talks in June in Qatar to discuss economic issues and counter-narcotics efforts.

Chief Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, who led the delegation, said the gathering was further proof that: “Afghanistan has come out of isolation”.

“We are in favour of positive meetings with the condition that Afghanistan’s situation is taken into account,” he said in a recent interview ahead of this week’s three-year anniversary of the Taliban taking back power.

The talks went ahead after Kabul obtained the agreement of the UN — which has described restrictions on women in Afghanistan as “gender apartheid” — that civil society and women’s rights groups would not attend.

Obaidullah Baheer, grandson of former warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and an Afghan academic, said engagement at the talks was a “smart approach”.

“The international community can’t solve the women’s rights issue. What they can do is try to create an environment” to gradually stabilise the economy in Afghanistan, Baheer said.

“Economic stability naturally brings with it some sort of opening for politics as well.”

Security the ‘priority’

The Taliban authorities, who are still pushing to fill Afghanistan’s seat at the UN, are also forging regional ties.

“Currently we have very good relations with neighbouring, regional and Muslim countries,” Mujahid said, adding that about 40 countries had embassies or consulates in Afghanistan.

While Western embassies in Kabul have been closed for three years, Pakistan, China, Russia, Iran and Central Asian republics have established de facto diplomatic relations with Kabul.

Russia is also preparing to remove the Taliban from its list of terrorist organisations, while Beijing has appointed its first ambassador to Kabul since the takeover.

Fears over the growing security threat from the Islamic State group’s branch in the region, known as Islamic State Khorasan Province, have also spurred engagement.

Last week, the UN warned that IS-K posed the greatest external terrorist threat to Europe and was growing in strength.

Mujahid insisted the IS threat was being overblown.

“We have brought the phenomenon of ISKP to nearly zero,” he said.

After ousting the foreign-backed government and ending their 20-year insurgency, the Taliban rulers have made security one of their highest priorities.

‘Dialogue’

The Taliban authorities still allocate a large part of the national budget to security despite Afghanistan no longer being at war and its economy in dire straits.

And while Afghans may welcome restored security after more than 40 years of successive conflicts, many also struggle to feed themselves and strain under tightening restrictions.

A civil society activist, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal, described the rules on daily life as becoming “stricter and stricter”.

Government affairs are mostly run through religious edicts from the reclusive supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, based in the Taliban southern stronghold of Kandahar.

Politically, there is no visible opposition: parties are banned and there are no elections.

“There is no one to challenge the Emir,” the civil society activist said.

The UN has described a “climate of fear” in the country, where popular protests are virtually non-existent.

The Taliban government rejects these accusations.

“We don’t accept that we are totalitarian,” Mujahid said.

The authorities have “mechanisms… to convey the voice of the people to the government”, spokesman Mujahid said, referring to provincial counsels comprising clerics and tribal elders.

“They might not be the same as in the previous government or what are common in democratic governments, but we have developed these mechanisms in an Islamic way and we are committed to the country’s interests,” Mujahid said.

Baheer, based in Kabul, said he still believed dialogue could bring about change.

“What we can do is constantly speak to the nation and these people (the Taliban authorities), creating a larger national pressure and ultimately… hoping that they realise that they are up against the people and they have to compromise,” said the academic.

An aerial view of the outskirts of Herat, Afghanistan, Monday, June 5, 2023. Two 6.3 magnitude earthquakes killed dozens of people in western Afghanistan’s Herat province on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023, the country’s national disaster authority said.
| Photo Credit: AP

Death toll from strong earthquakes that shook western Afghanistan rises to 2,000, says Taliban spokesman.

A powerful magnitude-6.3 earthquake followed by strong aftershocks killed dozens of people in western Afghanistan on Saturday, the country’s national disaster authority said.

The United Nations gave a preliminary figure of 320 dead, but later said the figure was still being verified. Local authorities gave an estimate of 100 people killed and 500 injured, according to the same update from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The update also said 465 houses had been reported destroyed and a further 135 were damaged.

“Partners and local authorities anticipate the number of casualties to increase as search and rescue efforts continue amid reports that some people may be trapped under collapsed buildings,” the U.N. said.

Disaster authority spokesperson Mohammad Abdullah Jan said four villages in the Zenda Jan district in Herat province bore the brunt of the quake and aftershocks.

The United States Geological Survey said the quake’s epicenter was about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of Herat city. It was followed by three very strong aftershocks, measuring magnitude 6.3, 5.9 and 5.5, as well as lesser shocks.

At least five strong tremors struck the city around noon, Herat city resident Abdul Shakor Samadi said.

“All people are out of their homes,” Samadi said. “Houses, offices and shops are all empty and there are fears of more earthquakes. My family and I were inside our home, I felt the quake.” His family began shouting and ran outside, afraid to return indoors.

The World Health Organization in Afghanistan said it dispatched 12 ambulance cars to Zenda Jan to evacuate casualties to hospitals.

“As deaths & casualties from the earthquake continue to be reported, teams are in hospitals assisting treatment of wounded & assessing additional needs,” the U.N. agency said on X, formerly known as Twitter. “WHO-supported ambulances are transporting those affected, most of them women and children.”

Telephone connections went down in Herat, making it hard to get details from affected areas. Videos on social media showed hundreds of people in the streets outside their homes and offices in Herat city.

Herat province borders Iran. The quake also was felt in the nearby Afghan provinces of Farah and Badghis, according to local media reports.

Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban-appointed deputy prime minister for economic affairs, expressed his condolences to the dead and injured in Herat and Badghis.

The Taliban urged local organizations to reach earthquake-hit areas as soon as possible to help take the injured to hospital, provide shelter for the homeless, and deliver food to survivors. They said security agencies should use all their resources and facilities to rescue people trapped under debris.

“We ask our wealthy compatriots to give any possible cooperation and help to our afflicted brothers,” the Taliban said on X.

In June 2022, a powerful earthquake struck a rugged, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan, flattening stone and mud-brick homes. The quake was Afghanistan’s deadliest in two decades, killing at least 1,000 people and injuring about 1,500.