“It seems like they are beating animals, not humans.” “When they see us, they beat the breath out of us,” one man told us in Kabul. We take you to Nimroz, where the closure of three drug rehab centers has pushed recovering addicts to fend for themselves as those in Kabul face Taliban beatings. Watch the video here.Įven drug users are not immune from the economic downturn and the Taliban’s heavy-handedness. “I had to return to my village and do the job that my father and grandfather used to do,” said Gul Ahmad Almas, who gave up his career in journalism to collect brush to sell as fuel in Ghor. “Now we want to take our problems to the United Nations.”Īcross Afghanistan, the economic collapse is prompting many to switch professions in order to survive. “Many of the families were threatened with death by the Taliban and left Ishkashim as their fate hangs in the balance,” one of the asylum seekers told us.
In a video report, we take you to the remote Ishkashim region of Badakhshan where the Taliban has forcefully prevented many from seeking asylum in neighboring Tajikistan. “Women who were members of the army are being threatened by the Taliban,” said Zahra, a former decorated military officer, adding that the Taliban visited her father “and told him that it was a shame for him to have let his daughter serve in the army.” “He surrendered to the Taliban, but his fate is still unknown,” Helmand resident Gula Jan said of his nephew, a former Afghan Army soldier. Mounting evidence from across Afghanistan suggests the Taliban’s hard-line government is reneging on its general amnesty for members of the former Afghan security forces, who are frequently killed or forcefully disappeared. Choosing this tactic over resolution, the Taliban failed to show up at peace talks brokered by Dushanbe and Islamabad with resistance leader Ahmad Masud. The Taliban is apparently in no mood to compromise with adversaries, which leaves it with only one option - violence. “Afghanistan now has the potential to become a magnet and safe haven for jihadi groups of all stripes,” Daniel Markey, a senior adviser on South Asia at the U.S. In an exclusive report, Reid Standish takes us to a secret Chinese base in Tajikistan’s Pamir Mountains that aims to guard Beijing’s land border with Afghanistan. While the violence allegedly fomented by IS-K continues to target the Taliban, Afghan civilians pay the price for escalating fighting between the two Sunni jihadist organizations.Īfghanistan’s neighbors are also reacting to what they sense is a gathering terrorist threat. The Taliban seems in denial about the true extent of the IS-K threat, and its leaders have refused to work with the United States to contain the threat posed by the group. “They disturb the peace and threaten our future stability.” “Daesh poses a serious threat to the future of our country,” said Ahmad, a resident of Faryab, referring to IS-K by its Arabic name. “Death, destruction, and displacement will likely afflict tens of thousands of Afghans in the coming months and years if IS-K is not kept in check,” Andrew Mines, a research fellow tracking extremist groups at George Washington University, told me.Īfghan civilians are bracing for the worst. Two months after the Taliban takeover, the outline of a new phase of the war in Afghanistan is emerging with the ultraradical Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) challenging the Taliban’s embryonic rule by attacking its members and fomenting chaos through large-scale attacks targeting civilians. If you’re new to the newsletter or haven’t subscribed yet, you can do so here This briefing brings you the best of our reporting from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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