The Afghanistan Journalists' Support Organization (AJSO) has expressed concern at the 10-year prison sentences reportedly given to two reporters by a Taliban military court after their arrest in Kabul two months ago. The AJSO, a support nonprofit established by media professionals and German academics, said the court sentenced Mohammad Arif Hijran and Ahmed Kamran to prison immediately after their detention on July 16. It said they were convicted of reporting on and taking photographs of ceremonies to mark Ashura, an Islamic day of commemoration. The AJSO condemned the sentences and called on the international community to put pressure on Afghanistan's Taliban-led government to release the men. Government officials have not commented on the claims. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Radio Azadi, click here.

Every day, hundreds of Afghans, some holding their children, are deported from neighboring Iran.

Many of them crossed into Iran illegally to escape the brutal rule of the Taliban and the devastating humanitarian and economic crises gripping Afghanistan.

In the Afghan border town of Islam Qala, where the deportees are registered with the United Nations, many say they were mistreated by the Iranian authorities.

"They grab Afghan migrants and take them to camps," Yaqub Mohammad told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi, adding that they received little food and water. "They treated us like criminals."

Gul Lalai, another recent deportee, told Radio Azadi that he was "humiliated and beaten up" at a police station in Iran before being expelled from the country.

Iran's deportation of Afghans has intensified in recent months, according to Taliban officials who say as many as 3,000 Afghans are deported from Iran daily. Over half a million Afghans have been forcibly evicted from Iran so far this year, Taliban officials said.

Anti-Afghan Sentiment

The rate of deportation has increased as anti-Afghan sentiment soars in Iran, which witnessed a major influx of Afghan refugees and migrants following the Taliban's forcible seizure of power in 2021.

Earlier this month, Iranian police chief Ahmad Reza Radan said the country planned to expel some 2 million Afghans by March 2025.

The announcement came soon after Iranian lawmakers drafted a bill that would reduce the total number of migrants, mostly Afghans, living in the Islamic republic by 10 percent every year.

The United Nations' refugee agency, UNHCR, estimates that some 4 million Afghans reside in Iran, most of them undocumented migrants. Iranian media say there are up to 8 million Afghans in the country.

Iran's military on September 23 said it had built a wall along more than 10 kilometers of its 900-kilometer eastern border with Afghanistan, the main entry point for refugees and migrants.

Reports have recently emerged of Afghans being banned from buying subsidized bread in the southern Kerman Province, home to a large Afghan community.

Rising Harassment, Abuse

Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni said earlier this month that the issue of illegal migrants was a "sensitive" topic and warned that the government's policies should not fan anti-migrant sentiment.

His comments came amid a rise in attacks against Afghans in Iran.

In August, a video of an Afghan teenager being violently pinned to the ground by Iranian police sparked outrage.

Afghans in Iran have long faced discrimination and harassment. But they say the pressure on them is now growing.

"We have lots of problems here," Omid Poya, an exiled Afghan journalist living in Iran, told Radio Azadi. "Afghans here are facing discrimination and persecution."

Hudaya Sahibzada, an Afghan human rights activist, called on Iran to stop the deportation of Afghans, particularly those at risk of retribution from the Taliban.

"The forcible deportation of Afghan refugees from Iran has intensified," she told Radio Azadi. "Among those deported have been journalists, former soldiers, and activists. Some of them have been killed."

VIENNA -- Riding the crest of dissatisfaction that's made it Austria's front-running party for nearly two years, the far-right opposition Freedom Party wants voters to believe their increasingly crowded ship is doomed.

"If a ship gets a hole, the hole needs to be plugged or the ship will sink," its caustic chairman, Herbert Kickl, told a rally this month in Graz, Austria's second-largest city, to kick off official campaigning for national elections on September 29.

His nativist, Euroskeptic party owes its resurgence to post-pandemic anger, inflation, and fears around the war in Ukraine, in addition to anti-immigrant sentiments.

"If I let the water in and just spread it around the cabins, and maybe pump out a few liters, the ship will go under, and I don't want Austria to go under. That's why we will plug the hole and will not accept any more asylum claims," Kickl said.

Accusations Of Racism

The 55-year-old Kickl is anathema to political rivals and among the most disliked politicians in the country. His party has been widely criticized both at home and abroad for what its detractors say are its xenophobia, racism, and anti-Semitism. Critics say the party's nationalist and anti-Muslim policies promote division and undermine social cohesion, and its Euroskepticism threatens Austria's role in the European Union.

And yet, as the face of the party's Fortress Austria, Fortress Of Freedom platform, he has his Freedom Party poised to become the first far-right party to win an Austrian election since World War II.

WATCH: Austria's election comes amid growing concerns in the migrant community over the Freedom Party's agenda.

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Forming any government will doubtless prove tricky, and Chancellor Karl Nehammer's ruling conservative People's Party could still emerge as the kingmaker.

But if the Freedom Party has its way, it is expected to try to use the country's outsized influence emanating from Austria's place at the crossroads of Europe to steer the continent toward tighter borders and more inward-looking policies.

Gabriela Greilinger, a researcher of the far right at the University of Georgia, says a Freedom Party-led government would also stiffen a "blocking minority" in the EU, with Austria joining neighboring Hungary and Slovakia in pushing back hard on rights issues, support for Ukraine, and sanctions against Russia.

Plan To Send Back Migrants

On migration, Freedom Party plans include sending back some foreigners, which the party calls "remigration," as well as slashing allowances for unauthorized migration and asylum seekers and ending the reunification of family members abroad with migrants already in the country.

Bahro Kacapor, a Bosniak cafe owner who arrived as a refugee from Serbia in 1991, worries about the focus on expelling migrants instead of giving them "a chance to prove themselves." He's had his business for 20 years now and still employs Turkish, Syrian, and Balkan immigrants to help them get on their feet.

"I was in the right place at the right time with the right people," Kacapor tells RFE/RL. "Policies of that time gave me, a migrant and a refugee, a chance to start working and building myself up."

The Freedom Party has consistently led national polls since November 2022, cresting a year ago at around 30 percent. Polls last week showed it at 27 percent, compared to the People's Party at 25 percent and the Social Democrats (SPO) at 21 percent.

Nehammer's People's Party has been in government since 1987, including as the senior partner in coalitions with the Freedom Party in 2000-02 and 2017-19. Their first linkup incurred EU diplomatic and other sanctions against Vienna for "legitimiz[ing] the extreme right in Europe."

After joining forces again in 2017, the People's Party and Freedom Party governed for 18 months before video from a sting operation caught Vice Chancellor and then-Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache hinting at corruption and influence peddling in what was known as the Ibiza Affair. The People's Party has governed in coalition with the Greens since 2020.

Marcus How, head of analysis at risk advisory VE Insight, says that while the main appeal of the Freedom Party to certain voters is its hard-line stance on immigration and especially the asylum process, "They're also more generally the party of protest for voters who are disillusioned with the status quo, with the political establishment, which they see as having betrayed Austrian values, [and] as having disenfranchised them economically."

They are, How says, "offering a little bit of everything."

Migrant Fears

"We want to get people out of the country who are here illegally," said Freedom Party lawmaker Harald Stefan. "[People] who behave criminally here and who do not contribute anything here. That is our 'remigration' policy."

SEE ALSO:

The West Cautiously Extends Migrant Worker Options For Central Asia

The Austrian Chancellor's Office said last year that "immigrants are more likely to be both perpetrators as well as victims of crime," adding the situation on crime "has not changed much over the longer term."

Parties such as the Greens and Social Democrats argue immigration boosts the economy by filling labor shortages and that the country benefits from the innovation cultural diversity brings.

Meanwhile, more recent immigrants than Kacapur fear getting sucked into a spiral of anti-migrant sentiment the Freedom Party has helped create and whose consequences are difficult to foresee.

"I'll be very scared, terrified even, if [the Freedom Party] get the votes," Mohammad, an Iranian immigrant, says at the Brunnen international street market in Vienna where he works. He's been in Austria for seven years, he tells RFE/RL, and he and other migrants "work full days and pay taxes and don't want a government coming to power that will make life difficult."

Written by Andy Heil based on reporting in Vienna by RFE/RL Balkan Service correspondent Andi Moic and multimedia editor Austin Malloy

The Afghan Embassy in London closed its doors as scheduled on September 27 after staff members were fired by the country’s de facto Taliban rulers looking to break ties with diplomats who had remained loyal to the ousted government.

The staff announced on September 8 that the move was "made based on the requirements of the host country's authorities," following similar action by other countries that had allowed the diplomatic outposts to operate despite lacking ties to the Taliban, which seized power from the Western-backed government in August 2021.

There was no official announcement on September 27 on the London closure, but a reporter for AFP saw a notice on the gate to the consular section reading: "The embassy of the Republic of Afghanistan is closed."

The reporter said no one answered the door but that the Afghan flag was still visible at the site.

British authorities said the closing of the embassy did not represent official recognition of the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan, which no country recognizes due to concerns over a woeful human rights record and other failures to live up to promises it made before taking power.

But London acknowledged there was "no alternative to engaging pragmatically with the current administration of Afghanistan."

Activities of Britain's mission to Afghanistan are carried out in the Qatari capital, Doha.

SEE ALSO:

Closure Of Afghan Embassies In Europe Paves Way For More Taliban Engagement

Experts have said the embassy closure in London -- along with others in the West -- are likely to pave the way for more engagement with the Taliban, which controls all of Afghanistan's territory and has increased its hold on power.

Afghan embassies in many nations continued to operate with diplomatic staff loyal to the previous government despite the Taliban takeover at home, angering the de facto rulers.

The Taliban announced in July that it was cutting ties with 14 such missions in Western countries and that it would not accept any consular documents they processed, a critical source of funding to keep them running.

The affected sites included those in Canada, Australia, France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany.

The Taliban "has repeatedly urged the Afghan political and consular in European countries to engage with Kabul to at least address consular service-related issues of Afghans and provide better services for Afghan citizens," the statement released by the group’s Foreign Ministry said on July 30.

Russia, Pakistan, and China host Afghan embassies working with approval of the Taliban-led government.

With reporting by AFP

Welcome to The Azadi Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter that unpacks the key issues in Afghanistan. To subscribe, click here.

I'm Abubakar Siddique, a senior correspondent at RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. Here's what I've been tracking and what I'm keeping an eye on in the days ahead.

The Key Issue

The Taliban has imposed new restrictions on Afghan broadcasters, banning live broadcasts of political shows and on-air criticism of its policies.

Afghan broadcasters must now prerecord their shows, obtain prior approval of their guest lists, and remove criticism of the Taliban’s laws.

Media outlets and individual media workers will face consequences for failing to adhere to the new rules.

Afghan and international media watchdogs have condemned the new restrictions.

The New York based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on September 24 called on the Taliban to immediately reverse its “draconian media restrictions and stop dragging Afghanistan back to the Stone Age.”

“[It is yet] another attempt to further weaken and suppress free media in the country,” the Afghanistan Journalist Center (AFJC) said in a September 23 statement.

Why It's Important: The new rules are the latest setback to Afghanistan’s once vibrant media scene.

Since the Taliban seized power, it has waged a brutal crackdown on dissent, including beating, detaining, and jailing dozens of journalists.

The hard-line Islamist group has forcibly shut down independent media outlets and prohibited virtually any critical reporting about its unrecognized government.

“These new restrictions signal the end of fundamental media freedoms in Afghanistan,” where the Taliban is attempting to transform the press into a “propaganda tool,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi.

AFJC said the Taliban wants media organizations to “remove weak points, sensitive topics, and criticisms” of its government and leaders.

According to the organization, the Taliban has issued at least 21 directives to the media in recent years that have “significantly” limited press freedom in the country.

What's Next: Despite local and international criticism, the Taliban is unlikely to halt its war against the free press.

The extremist group is likely to keep targeting journalists and others who are critical of its brutal rule.

What To Keep An Eye On

Some Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives have proposed new legislation that would halt all aid to Afghanistan until the Taliban frees three American citizens.

Fox News on September 25 published a draft of The No Funding Without Freedom Act, which if passed would require the State Department to regularly update Congress about U.S. citizens detained in Afghanistan regularly.

The United States has provided over $2.5 billion to Afghanistan in humanitarian assistance through the United Nations and other NGOs since American military forces withdrew from the country in 2021.

The Taliban has held three American citizens since 2022. They are aid worker Ryan Corbett, tourist George Glezmann, and Mahmood Shah Habibi, who led the Afghan Aviation Authority under the previous Afghan government.

Why It's Important: The suspension of American aid to Afghanistan would be a significant blow to more than 23 million Afghans currently in need of humanitarian assistance.

While the Taliban benefits from U.S. aid dollars pouring into the country, the most vulnerable Afghans will be hit the hardest as they reel from the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

That's all from me for now.

Don't forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you have. You can always reach us at azadi.english@rferl.org

Until next time,

Abubakar Siddique

If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your inbox every Friday.

Poland's Border Guard Service said its officers detained a Belarusian woman who was attempting to smuggle three illegal migrants from Iran and one from Afghanistan into Lithuania in her car.

The border guards stopped the car with Warsaw license plates after it entered the country from Lithuania.

The foreigners had no documents allowing them to legally enter Poland, the Border Guard Service said. Some were seated in the car, while the others were discovered in the vehicle's trunk. Polish authorities handed the four migrants to Lithuania and impounded the car as evidence in the case.

The Belarusian woman, whose identity was not disclosed, was released and ordered to return to Belarus. She was also banned from entering Europe's visa-free Schengen travel zone for 10 years.

The European Union has accused Belarusian authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka of waging a “hybrid war” by allowing migrants to fly in, then funneling them to the bloc’s borders in retaliation for the EU's sanctions imposed over the brutal crackdown on Belarus’s pro-democracy movement following the disputed presidential election in August 2022.

Tens of thousands of the migrants have come from the Middle East and South Asia to the EU's eastern flank, sparking a major border crisis.

Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland have since introduced states of emergency along the border and erected high fencing along the frontier with Belarus to stem the flow.

Central Asian countries are taking steps to broaden relations with their southern neighbor, the Taliban-led Afghanistan, despite the hard-line group’s increasingly restrictive policies, particularly toward women.

Kyrgyzstan removed the Taliban from its list of terrorist organizations earlier this month, Turkmenistan resumed work with Afghanistan on a major gas-pipeline project, and Uzbekistan signed $2.5 billion worth of cooperation agreements with Kabul during the Uzbek prime minister’s high-profile visit to Afghanistan in August.

Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Jeenbek Kulubaev said on September 6 that the measure aims to "secure regional stability and further develop ongoing dialogue."

On September 11, Turkmen and Taliban officials held a ceremony to mark the resumption of the much-delayed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas-pipeline project, which is designed to transport up to 33 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Turkmenistan to South Asia each year.

The ceremony in the Turkmen border town of Serhetabat was attended by former President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, the head of the powerful People’s Council of Turkmenistan, while the Taliban delegation was led by its prime minister, Mohammad Hassan Akhund, who is on a UN sanctions list.

Turkmen President Serdar Berdymukhammedov joined the ceremony via a video link.

The estimated $10 billion TAPI project was first designed in the 1990s but was repeatedly delayed due to war and instability in Afghanistan.

Turkmenistan hopes the proposed 1,800-kilometer pipeline will become a key source of revenue for cash-strapped Ashgabat.

And Afghanistan would earn about $500 million in transit fees annually, a major boost to its budget.

The future of TAPI, however, remains in doubt due to Western sanctions on the Taliban administration and the absence of official recognition of the government in Kabul that could hamper funding and investment in the project.

No country in the world has formally recognized the Taliban government.

High-Profile Visit

In August, Uzbek Prime Minister Abdulla Oripov went to Kabul, marking the highest-level visit by a foreign government official since the Taliban took power in Kabul three years ago.

During the visit, Uzbek and Taliban officials reportedly signed investment and trade deals worth about $2.5 billion in the energy, agriculture, and manufacturing sectors.

Afghanistan and Kazakhstan announced in August 2023 that they were planning to increase bilateral trade to $3 billion.

Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s largest economy, was the first country to delist the Taliban as a terror organization in December 2023.

But while Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan were quick to make visits to Kabul after the Taliban returned to power, Tajikistan was the only Central Asian country to take a harsh stance on the new rulers in Afghanistan.

'Accepting Reality'

Dushanbe’s position has been largely linked to its ethnic, linguistic, and historic connection to the mainly ethnic Tajik opponents to the Taliban, which is predominantly ethnic Pashto.

But Tajikistan now appears to be softening it policies toward the Taliban in a move that Tajik experts describe as “accepting reality.”

Tajikistan exports electricity to Kabul and has established several markets in border towns where local merchants from the two sides sell goods. The governments also reportedly discussed cooperation in the fight against militants who target Tajikistan from inside Afghan territory.

Both Dushanbe and Kabul have a shared interest in defeating the Islamic State-Khurasan terrorist group, which has recruited many militants from Tajikistan.

Afghan media reported that the head of Tajikistan’s state Committee for National Security, Saimuddin Yatimov, had a meeting with Taliban intelligence chief Abdul Haq Wasiq in late August. Tajik authorities have neither confirmed nor denied those reports.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Dushanbe-based expert told RFE/RL’s Tajik Service that “given Tajikistan’s vast shared border with Afghanistan, the threats of terrorist attacks, and economic incentives, Tajik authorities have no choice but to opt for geopolitical cooperation” with the Taliban.

Some experts claim that China and Kazakhstan have played a role in convincing Dushanbe to change its attitude toward the Taliban administration.

Addressing high-ranked officials from members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization in Almaty in June, Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev called the Taliban “a long-term factor” and highlighted what he described as “the importance of developing trade and economic cooperation with modern Afghanistan.”

Welcome to The Azadi Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter that unpacks the key issues in Afghanistan. To subscribe, click here.

I'm Abubakar Siddique, a senior correspondent at RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. Here's what I've been tracking and what I'm keeping an eye on in the days ahead.

The Key Issue

A new report by the United Nations has documented a significant uptick in violence in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

In its quarterly report, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) noted a 53 percent rise in violence between May 14 and July 31 compared to the same period last year.

UNAMA recorded 2,127 security-related incidents. Many of the attacks were carried out by anti-Taliban resistance groups, including the National Resistance Front and the Afghanistan Freedom Front, as well as the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) extremist group.

There was also an increase in armed clashes, detonations of improvised explosive devices, and land disputes.

Why It's Important: Rising violence in Afghanistan contradicts the Taliban's claims that it has restored order in the country three years after it seized power.

But the increasing violence is unlikely to lead to the immediate downfall of the Taliban government or trigger a civil war.

The two main anti-Taliban resistance groups carried out a total of 73 attacks during the reporting period. Most were "hit-and-run" attacks and targeted assassinations of Taliban members.

UNAMA said that "the armed opposition continued to pose no significant challenge to the Taliban's hold on territorial control."

IS-K has continued its attacks against the Taliban, religious minorities, and foreigners, despite a brutal Taliban crackdown.

"The simmering levels of violence are concerning," said Graeme Smith, a senior Afghanistan analyst at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. "Still, the latest figures make it clear that the country remains a postwar environment."

A database of violent attacks and fatalities by ACLED, a data-collection, analysis, and crisis-mapping project, shows that violence peaked during the summer of 2022 after the Taliban’s return to power a year earlier. Attacks reached their lowest levels in January of this year but have peaked since then.

"Some of these trends are seasonal," Smith said of the historical pattern of violence in Afghanistan, which rises in the warmer months and declines in winter.

What's Next: Anti-Taliban resistance groups are likely to continue their low-level conflict against the Taliban.

A mostly Pashtun group dominated by clerics, the Taliban has monopolized power and sidelined many of the country’s ethnic and religious groups as well as political factions.

IS-K is likely to remain the biggest threat to the Taliban, which has eroded but not eliminated its rival's capabilities.

What To Keep An Eye On

A diplomatic spat has erupted after a Taliban diplomat refused to stand up when the Pakistani national anthem was played during an event in the country's northwest.

Islamabad complained to Kabul and summoned Afghanistan's most senior diplomat in Pakistan in protest over the incident on September 17.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry accused the Taliban diplomat of "disrespect" and said the incident was "reprehensible."

The Taliban has not officially commented on the incident. But pro-Taliban figures on social media rejected Islamabad's criticism. They said the diplomat did not stand up during the anthem because the Taliban has banned music and considers it forbidden.

Why It's Important: This diplomatic spat marks a new low in bilateral relations marked by regular accusations and threats, border clashes and closures, and Pakistan's expulsion of Afghan refugees.

Islamabad has pressured the Taliban to rein in or expel members of the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan extremist group. Islamabad has accused the Taliban of sheltering the militants, which have increased their attacks in Pakistan.

That's all from me for now.

Don't forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you have. You can always reach us at azadi.english@rferl.org

Until next time,

Abubakar Siddique

If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your inbox every Friday.

Afghanistan's decadeslong fight to eradicate the crippling polio virus has suffered a new blow after the Taliban suspended a national vaccination campaign.

The hard-line Islamist group informed UN agencies of its decision just before the start of the immunization drive in September, the world body said on September 16. The Taliban has denied halting the vaccinations.

Afghans have expressed fear that any suspension would represent a major setback to eradicating polio, a childhood virus that leads to deformed limbs, paralysis, and even death.

Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan are the only countries in the world where polio remains endemic.

"This is very worrying for our children," Mari Amiri, a mother of four who lives in the northern Takhar Province, told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. "They are the future of our country."

Noorullah, a resident of the capital, Kabul, criticized the Taliban's decision to "limit access to such a vital means for preventing a dangerous disease."

"Instead of addressing our problems, they are creating new ones," Zuhal, a woman who lives in Kabul, told Radio Azadi.

Rising Number Of Cases

The Taliban's suspension of vaccinations comes as the number of polio cases rise in Afghanistan.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says it has detected 18 new poliovirus cases so far this year, a significant increase compared to 2023, when six cases were recorded.

The Taliban's Health Ministry on September 17 denied that the group had suspended or delayed the polio vaccination drive.

In a statement, ministry spokesman Sharafat Zaman said the Taliban was trying to implement the vaccination campaign "through the best possible means available."

But a polio worker in the eastern province of Nangarhar, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said the polio-immunization campaign in the region was suspended because local Taliban officials were "demanding tax from aid organizations." The worker's claim could not be verified by RFE/RL.

The Taliban has previously been accused of attempting to divert or manipulate aid distribution as well as imposing taxes on humanitarian groups and their activities.

During a nationwide campaign in June, a house-to-house vaccination strategy was used for the first time in five years in a bid to reach more children.

But in the southern province of Kandahar, a stronghold of the Taliban, less-effective site-to-site or mosque-to-mosque vaccination campaigns were used, WHO said.

Hamid Jafari, director of polio eradication at WHO, told the Associated Press that the organization was holding discussions with the Taliban over "shifting from house-to-house polio vaccination campaigns to site-to-site vaccination in parts of Afghanistan."

'Impede Or Influence'

In recent decades, Afghanistan's battle to eradicate polio has been thwarted by militant attacks and anti-vaccination propaganda.

Some radical Islamic clerics and militants have claimed that the polio vaccine is a Western conspiracy to harm or sterilize children.

Anti-vaccination propaganda has been fueled by a distrust of Western governments who fund vaccine programs, including after the CIA reportedly staged a fake hepatitis-vaccination campaign in 2011 to confirm the location of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden -- living in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad -- where he was killed by U.S. SEALs.

Insurgents in Afghanistan and Pakistan have even kidnapped, beaten, and assassinated dozens of vaccinators or their armed police escorts in recent years in a bid to stop local anti-polio campaigns.

Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban's late founder, in 2007 issued a decree in support of polio vaccinations.

But Ashley Jackson, the co-founder of the Center on Armed Groups, says the vaccinations have long been a source of contention within the Taliban.

"The Taliban cannot go against a decree from its founder," she said. "But they can try to impede or influence how vaccinations are carried out."

Jackson added that there is a "feeling, especially with house-to-house vaccinations, that vaccinators ask invasive questions and might have ulterior motives."

She said the Taliban's recent suspension is a setback, but "both sides will find some compromise that allows them to resume," as has happened in the past.

The polio vaccination campaign is seen as a boon for the cash-strapped Taliban government.

Vaccine campaigns employ thousands of health workers in Afghanistan, which is grappling with mass unemployment and rising poverty.

"Many within the [Taliban] government see this external funding as an essential form of support for the struggling health sector," Jackson said.

Ahmad Hanayesh of RFE/RL's Radio Azadi contributed to this report

Afghanistan's Taliban-run Health Ministry on September 17 rejected reports saying the hard-line group has suspended or delayed a major polio vaccination drive.

Ministry spokesman Sharafat Zaman called such reports false and said there was no official directive to postpone or stop the anti-polio plans.

Instead, he said, Taliban health officials are trying to implement the vaccination campaign in a legitimate and technical way that benefits society.

A day earlier, AP quoted a top official from the World Health Organization (WHO) as saying it was aware of discussions to move away from house-to-house vaccinations and instead administer immunizations site-to-site in places like mosques.

Local and international observers have repeatedly warned of humanitarian challenges since the Taliban took control of the country as the U.S.-led international coalition withdrew in mid-2021, heightened by a lack of recognition of the group's government in Kabul.

The WHO has confirmed 18 polio cases in Afghanistan this year, up from six cases in 2023, and had announced a sweeping anti-polio drive for September.

A nationwide house-to-house anti-polio campaign in June was the first in at least five years, and WHO authorities said the scheme allowed its vaccinators to reach most of the children it was targeting.

Kamal Shah, a former communications officer at UNICEF, the UN agency responsible for humanitarian and other aid to children worldwide, has urged officials to better integrate the Taliban into polio vaccination efforts.

Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan are the only countries in the world where polio is still endemic.

The WHO has warned that high cross-border traffic between those two countries heightens the risk of polio spreading.

The Taliban has suspended polio vaccination campaigns in Afghanistan, the UN said on September 16. Afghanistan is one of two countries in which the spread of the potentially fatal, paralyzing disease has never been stopped. The other is Pakistan. News of the suspension was relayed to UN agencies right before the September immunization campaign was due to start. No reason was given for the suspension, and no one from the Taliban-controlled government was immediately available for comment. A top official from the World Health Organization (WHO) said it was aware of discussions to move away from house-to-house vaccinations and instead have immunizations in places like mosques. The WHO has confirmed 18 polio cases in Afghanistan this year, up from six cases in 2023.

Veteran Afghan warlord and former politician Abdul Rashid Dostum has urged groups that oppose the fundamentalist Taliban to unite to form a government-in-exile for Afghanistan to challenge that extremist group's unrecognized leadership.

Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek and longtime kingmaker who along with his private army has been accused of past rights abuses, was speaking to a virtual gathering of a Turkish-based Afghan resistance group on September 15.

Dostum said last year that his fighters were prepared to take on the Taliban once the international community concluded that it cannot deal with the hard-line extremist group.

The chameleonic Dostum formerly served under the UN-backed former Afghan government as a deputy defense minister.

He also held other party and military posts in Afghanistan before the U.S.-led international forces withdrew in mid-2021.

Dostum, whose historical power bases were in northern and western Afghanistan, ran unsuccessfully for the Afghan presidency in 2004.

He was also widely thought to be a major figure in factional fighting that plagued the country for decades and sometimes pitted ostensibly allied armed forces against each another.

In 2019, when he was first vice president, Dostum was said to have narrowly escaped when his convoy was attacked by Taliban forces in a northern province.

A day later, the Taliban, which was waging a fierce insurgency against the central government in Kabul, said Dostum remained on its hit list.

The Taliban raided homes and summarily executed many perceived enemies as the group swept into de facto power after capturing most of the country in 2020-21.

The subsequent Taliban-led government has waged a campaign of discrimination and abuse against women and been accused of persecuting minority groups in Afghanistan, among other alleged wrongdoing.

Welcome to The Azadi Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter that unpacks the key issues in Afghanistan. To subscribe, click here.

I'm Abubakar Siddique, a senior correspondent at RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. Here's what I've been tracking and what I'm keeping an eye on in the days ahead.

The Key Issue

Afghanistan has briefly returned to the headlines as the United States heads toward a crucial November presidential election.

Republicans and Democrats blamed each other for failing to conclude an orderly withdrawal to end the conflict in Afghanistan, the longest war in American history.

In the September 10 presidential debate, Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris defended President Joe Biden's decision to withdraw from Afghanistan. She blamed her opponent, former President and Republican candidate Donald Trump, for concluding the 2020 Doha agreement with the Taliban, which "bypassed the Afghan government."

In response, Trump defended the Doha deal as "a very good agreement." He blamed the Biden administration for losing soldiers during the withdrawal, leaving behind weapons, and not enforcing the terms of the agreement.

On September 8, a new investigative report by House Republicans blamed Biden's administration for the chaotic final withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Representative Michael McCaul (Republican-Texas), who led the probe as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the Biden administration "had the information and opportunity" to plan for the inevitable collapse of the Afghan government. Still, it chose, "optics over security," he said.

However, the State Department accused the committee of issuing partisan statements, cherry-picking facts, and obfuscating "the truth behind conjecture."

Why It's Important: America's war in Afghanistan -- particularly its disastrous end -- is unlikely to vanish from public memory and from political debates on how the U.S.-led war on terrorism was conducted and how it ended.

Another ongoing probe will likely shed even more light on the war, which lasted for over two decades, between 2001 and 2021.

The Afghanistan War Commission, a bipartisan legislative body comprised of former U.S. government officials with experience of the war, is probing the conflict. Its report is slated to be released in 2026.

Like the 9/11 Commission report, on which it is modeled, it is likely to attract a great deal of public interest and scrutiny.

What's Next: Renewed attention on Afghanistan will likely increase amid the partisan rancor ahead of the November 5 presidential election.

However, it is unlikely to prompt a significant change in Washington's policy toward the country in the short term.

What To Keep An Eye On

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers and Turkmen leader Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov inaugurated the construction of the Afghan section of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline.

On September 11, the Taliban held a groundbreaking ceremony for the long-delayed pipeline.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban's top spokesman, said Ashgabat will invest in building the pipeline, money that will be returned, the group says, when his government begins collecting transit fees estimated to be more than $500 million per annum.

Mujahid said that the pipeline inside Afghanistan will be built in three phases. The first phase, according to the spokesman, will connect the Turkmen border to the western Afghan city of Herat and will be built within two years from now. It will then begin supplying gas to the energy-starved country. The second phase will extend the pipeline to the southern province of Helmand. In the third phase, TAPI will go through the southern province of Kandahar and on to Pakistan.

The 1,800-kilometer pipeline will carry 33 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually through southern Afghanistan to Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan Province. From there, it will go through Pakistan's eastern Punjab Province to Fazilka in India's northwestern Punjab state.

Why It's Important: TAPI has long been touted as a significant regional energy project.

But insecurity in Afghanistan and the lack of international investment has prevented it from taking shape.

Given the Taliban's lack of transparency about significant infrastructure projects, it is still possible that TAPI will remain just a pipe dream.

That's all from me for now.

Don't forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you have. You can always reach us at azadi.english@rferl.org

Until next time,

Abubakar Siddique

If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your inbox every Friday.

A regional branch of the Islamic State (IS) extremist group has claimed responsibility for a deadly attack in central Afghanistan targeting Shi'ite pilgrims.

The Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) group on September 12 published images showing the massacred pilgrims, believed to belong to the Hazara minority persecuted by the Sunni IS-K.

Hadi Rahimi Zada, a former council member in Daykundi Province, where the killings took place, told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi that 14 people were killed by unidentified gunmen in the attack.

Some other local sources told Radio Azadi that the killings were carried out by armed men on motorcycles.

A resident of Daykundi Province who spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concerns said that the group targeted had gathered to welcome pilgrims returning from Karbala in Iraq, a Shi'ite holy site.

"Their relatives had returned to Firouzkoh from Karbala. These people were going to welcome them. Four people attacked them and 14 people were killed," the source said. "They were all young men, and five others were injured."

Abdul Matin Qani, a spokesman for the Taliban's Interior Ministry confirmed the attack in Daykundi Province, saying on September 12 that further details would be announced.

The IS-K has carried out numerous attacks since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, often targeting Taliban officials, foreign nationals, and the Shi'ite Hazara community.

The IS-K was founded in Afghanistan in 2014 as a regional branch of the Islamic State extremist group that aims to expand throughout South and Central Asia. Khorasan refers to a historical region that comprised parts of modern-day Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia.

After the Taliban's de facto government cut ties with a number of diplomatic missions operated abroad by diplomats loyal to the ousted Afghan republic, the British and Norwegian authorities have opted to shut down Afghan embassies on their soil.

Both Oslo and London say their decisions in no way represent official recognition of the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan, which no country recognizes due to concerns over a woeful human rights record and other failures to live up to promises it made before seizing power in August 2021.

But experts say the embassy closures are likely to pave the way for more engagement with the Taliban, which controls all of Afghanistan's territory and has increased its hold on power.

Diplomats who served the former Afghan government were left in limbo when the Taliban took control, but remained open for business in some Western states and continued to assist Afghan citizens.

The window on their operations began to close when the Taliban announced in July that it was cutting ties with 14 such missions in Western countries and that it would not accept any consular documents they processed, a critical source of funding to keep them running.

Many of the consular services, such as verification of identity documents or police clearance, offered by the embassies do require a degree of cooperation from the country's government because diplomatic missions might not be able to access all government data.

This month, the British Foreign Office announced that it was shutting down the Afghan Embassy in London, explaining to RFE/RL on September 9 that the decision was made after the "dismissal of its staff by the Taliban."

Norway quickly followed suit, announcing that the Afghan Embassy in Oslo would be shut down on September 12.

SEE ALSO:

Afghan Embassy In London To Close After Diplomats Dismissed, Britain Says

Both the British and Norwegian governments have indicated that the move does not amount to a formal recognition of the Taliban's hard-line government. And the embassy buildings, which are Afghanistan's properties, will be eventually handed over to a "recognized" government of Afghanistan.

But Hameed Hakimi, an Afghanistan expert, says the decisions to shut the embassies can be taken as "reality setting in" that the Taliban is "unlikely to be replaced in the immediate future."

And for the Taliban, he says, it creates an opportunity to argue that its rule is being acknowledged, even without formal recognition.

"The Taliban can use this to their advantage in their pursuit of claiming legitimacy with the Afghans and internationally," said Hakimi, an associate fellow at London's Chatham House think tank.

More than a dozen countries, mostly Afghanistan's neighbors, already operate embassies in Kabul, and some have accredited Taliban diplomats. The Taliban government also partially controls diplomatic missions in some countries, and has established working relations with Afghan diplomatic missions in the Czech Republic, Spain, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, and the Afghan Consulate in Munich.

The missions operating in Western countries staffed by diplomats appointed by the previous government are the outlier.

Hakimi said that if all those missions are shut down, it "truly signifies the closure of the chapter of the Afghan Islamic Republic."

The Afghan Islamic Republic, as it was formally known, emerged soon after a U.S.-led military alliance toppled the Taliban government in November 2001 following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

Nearly two decades later, the internationally recognized Afghan republic collapsed as the Taliban seized power in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The Taliban, meanwhile, recreated its brutal emirate from the 1990s by imposing harsh bans and discriminatory laws that resulted in widespread human rights violations. Afghan women and girls are deprived of education and employment in most sectors and lack fundamental freedoms.

These Taliban policies have so far kept its government from being officially recognized. This absence of recognition has complicated engagement with the Taliban government on important issues, such as humanitarian aid, and made it difficult for the estimated 2 million Afghans living in Western countries to access consular services.

Graeme Smith, a senior Afghanistan analyst at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, says Western governments might be acting on the UN special coordinator's recommendation to facilitate the processing of documentation for Afghans abroad.

In his report endorsed by the UN Security Council in December 2023, Feridun Sinirlioglu, the UN special coordinator for Afghanistan, called for better cooperation between the Taliban regime and the outside world to ensure that Afghans can obtain the paperwork they need to continue with their daily lives.

"Afghans have been suffering in limbo without clarity about where to go when they need identity papers or travel documents," Smith said, describing how Afghans who still do not have travel documents from another country suffer from the lack of consular services.

"The steps we are witnessing now may represent practical efforts by some governments" to remedy the situation, Smith said.

The challenge remains, he said, to ensure that efforts "aimed at pressuring the regime do not sabotage the lives and livelihoods of Afghans."

Many Western capitals are also grappling with the complex issue of what to do with Afghan asylum seekers whose applications were rejected.

Last month, Germany deported 28 Afghan men convicted of crimes in the country to Kabul, with Qatar playing an intermediary role in securing the Taliban's cooperation in accepting the returning Afghans.

Smith said that some countries "are discovering the usefulness" of having a consular presence "connected to the authorities in Kabul" if they need to arrange the return of Afghan migrants.

"But it's unclear if that motivated the recent closures," he said.

Both Britain and Norway have not said anything about whether they will allow the Taliban government to offer consular services in London and Oslo.

The fates of the Afghan Embassy in Berlin and consulate in Bonn are not clear, although the consulate in Munich is likely to remain open because it cooperates with the Taliban government on consular services.

In London, Afghanistan expert Hakimi said the closure could create an "opportunity for the Taliban to lobby with the Western countries" and allow its representatives to at least run counselor services.

These Afghan diplomatic missions can remain closed indefinitely, similar to what happened in the United States, where the Afghan Embassy and two consulates have been closed since March 2002. The Afghan Embassy in Canada offers remote consular services to Afghans living in the United States.

In Norway, Afghans have mixed feelings about their embassy's closure.

Sima Nouri, an Afghan woman living in Oslo, is worried over how her compatriots will now access consular services.

"There is a possibility that the process of forced deportation of Afghan refugees will begin," she told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. "This process, however, must be stopped."

Mina Rafiq, another Afghan woman in Norway, prefers shutting the embassy down to cooperating with the Taliban.

"This might work to the advantage of Afghan asylum seekers," she said, "because the Norwegian government will now have to give them necessary documents."

Taliban authorities confirmed on September 12 that civilians had been shot dead that day in an attack in central Afghanistan but provided no further details. "Unknown gunmen have opened fire and have killed the civilians," Abdul Matin Qani, a spokesman for the Taliban's Interior Ministry told the AFP news agency, adding that further details on the attack in Daykundi Province would be announced later. Local sources told RFE/RL that unidentified armed men on motorbikes shot dead at least 12 Hazara civilians at the border of Afghanistan’s Ghor and Daykundi provinces. The sources spoke with RFE/RL on condition of anonymity for security reasons. A source in the province who spoke with AFP said 14 people were killed and at least four wounded. The source said a group had gathered to welcome pilgrims returning from Karbala in Iraq, a Shi’ite holy site. The Islamic State extremist group claimed responsibility for the attack.

A small group of Afghan women took to the streets of Kabul on September 11 in a rare protest to demand their rights and call on the international community to denounce Taliban rule. More than 10 women participated in the demonstration, advocating for the restoration of basic freedoms that have been severely curtailed under the Taliban-led government since the group seized power three years ago. The protest was organized by the Afghan Women's History Transformation Movement. Ruqiya Sa'i, head of the movement, said the women ended the protest after 30 minutes because of the possibility of a violent attack by the Taliban. The severe restrictions on women ban education beyond the sixth grade and bar them from working in many offices. To read the full story by RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi, click here.

In the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States, Secretary of State Colin Powell gave assurances that America would deal with the tragedy by bringing those responsible to justice while protecting the world's democracies.

"They will never be allowed to kill the spirit of democracy," Powell said. "They cannot destroy our society. They cannot destroy our belief in the democratic way."

President George W. Bush, who won office in 2000 as a candidate who would be cautious about committing U.S. troops to foreign wars, quickly made fighting global terrorism a top policy, and set about establishing an international "coalition of the willing" to carry out the mission.

The U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan had the primary goal of punishing the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, which had been given refuge in Afghanistan and carried out the deadly 9/11 attacks. And once on Afghan soil, Washington quickly ousted the Taliban regime accused of sheltering Al-Qaeda from power.

Costly Campaign

But the U.S. experience in Afghanistan ultimately ended in failure, and with the hard-line Taliban group back in power. The nearly 20-year war ended with immense costs in terms of lives lost and money spent. And it made the U.S. public and politicians on both sides of the aisle in Washington reluctant to get involved in "forever wars" that could not be won.

"More than $2 trillion spent in Afghanistan," U.S. President Joe Biden said on August 31, 2021, in announcing the official end of the United States' longest-ever war. "20,744 American servicemen and women injured, and the loss of 2,461 American personnel."

In explaining to the U.S. public that he was "not going to extend this forever war," Biden did not mention the estimated 70,000 deaths among Afghan security forces, more than 46,000 Afghan civilian deaths, and the deaths of more than 4,000 allied troops and U.S. contractors.

The withdrawal under Biden has become a lightning rod for debate ahead of the U.S. presidential election on November 5. Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump has blasted Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running against Trump, for the "humiliation in Afghanistan," with much of the criticism centered on the chaotic last days of the withdrawal, when 13 U.S. soldiers and 170 Afghan civilians died in a bombing by the Islamic State-Khorasan extremist group.

Harris's campaign, meanwhile, has highlighted Trump's role as president in signing the 2020 deal with the Taliban that paved the way for the withdrawal and provided a "virtually impossible" deadline.

But experts who spoke to RFE/RL stressed that multiple U.S. administrations, beginning with Democratic President Barack Obama's from 2009 to 2017 -- had come to the realization that what had begun as a fight against terrorism had become an overly costly and potentially "forever" endeavor.

"It was an extremely expensive war in a place that was probably least important to the United States," said Vali Nasr, a professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University. "It was a war that the United States started to destroy Al-Qaeda, which it did very quickly, then to dislodge the Taliban from Afghanistan, which it did, and then it became something much bigger, like how to establish a democracy and a functioning government in Afghanistan and sustain it."

The question asked by Obama, who initiated an exit strategy by reducing the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and later Trump, was whether there was a compelling reason to stay.

The United States "was becoming committed to a forever war, or a forever presence at the tune of billions of dollars a year and tens of thousands of troops, in a condition that the threat from Afghanistan had declined and the strategic value of the country was declining," Nasr said.

And the economy and civil society established under the protection of the U.S. military, he says, was not something Afghanistan could sustain on its own.

"What the United States created is like a tree that never grew roots," Nasr said. "So, at some point you're going to say, 'I'm going to stop watering it, and I'm going to take my hand off from trying to forcibly keep it upright.'"

No Good Outcome

Rajan Menon, an emeritus professor of international relations at the City College of New York and director of the Grand Strategy Program at Defense Priorities, said that "no matter how long [the United States] had stayed, I don't see what a good ending could have been."

The minimal good outcome, Menon says, would have been "a stable country with a government that may not have been democratic, but which could be counted upon not to serve as a platform for terror and which would have a positive relationship with the United States."

But in attempting to realize that goal, what you are essentially "trying to do is engage in nation-building," Menon said. Even a "very, very powerful military machine" like the United States has difficulties pulling that off, he said, and there "are no pretty exits."

To avoid the chaotic type of withdrawal that took place in Afghanistan, Menon said, "you have to build institutions, political and military and civic in nature." Without that, "once you leave and remove the military protection, the institutions will start crumbling, and that is exactly what happened."

U.S. wars and democracy-building efforts were not isolated to Afghanistan during its nearly 20-year campaign there. There were others -- most notably the costly war in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 -- that former Secretary of State Powell argued was necessitated by an alleged Iraqi program to build weapons of mass destruction that was later determined to be nonexistent.

Prior to his death in 2021 just six weeks after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Powell said that his arguments before the UN Security Council "was a great intelligence failure."

Baghdad and the United States, which sent troops back to Iraq in 2014 to help fight the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, are still trying to repair relations. According to the Soufan Center think tank on September 9, the two sides reportedly have reached an agreement to transition from the United States leading the effort against IS to a bilateral partnership.

'Forever' Ending?

So is the U.S. era of "forever wars" over?

Many of the unique circumstances that accompanied the Afghan invasion -- a direct attack on U.S. soil, counterterrorism becoming a focal point of U.S. policy, and the idea that nation-building is an effective solution -- are unlikely to repeat themselves, Nasr says.

And the mood in the United States amid a hotly contested election campaign could indicate that it will at least think twice.

With both Trump and Harris there is "a little bit of a backlash against the so-called forever wars...and I think the American public probably will be much less supportive" of involvement in them in the future," Menon said.

But Madiha Afzal, a fellow in the foreign policy program at Brookings, said in written comments that while "some of the lessons from the Afghanistan war" had started being discussed, particularly in the last couple of years of the conflict, "the disaster of the withdrawal...really focused the conversation in America on Afghanistan to be just about the withdrawal."

The larger discussion about the war, Afzal said, "has been entirely obscured," with much of the conversation becoming intensely partisan.

"I fear that the larger lessons of the 20-year war have been lost along the way," Afzal concluded.

The Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) extremist group has regained a foothold in northwestern Pakistan, imposing its brutal rule on hundreds of thousands of people.

Those who live under the TTP say the hard-line Islamist group has severely curbed freedoms and rights, including those of women. Assassinations, kidnappings, extortion, and harassment dominate daily life in some areas, they say.

The TTP was ousted from its bases by a major Pakistani military offensive in 2014. But in recent years it has reestablished its control in pockets of Pakistan’s northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where it is currently active in 10 of the 34 districts.

The TTP often rules during the night. After dark, government forces frequently retreat to their posts and bases, and many civilians refuse to venture outside for fear of the militants, locals say.

The return of the TTP to the region has triggered an exodus that has seen thousands of professionals, businesspeople, and wealthy landowners flee the region.

“No one is safe, and no place is immune from their presence,” said Humayun Mehsud, who recently fled the district of South Waziristan. “They have returned in strength.”

Mehsud said he escaped his village after the TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, kidnapped and killed his brother, a government worker.

Mehsud, who now lives in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, said the TTP has established its own government in South Waziristan, which is home to around 900,000 people. The militants, he said, control the local economy and have established makeshift courts to settle disputes among locals.

'Atmosphere Of Fear'

The TTP has imposed its extremist version of Islam in areas they control, locals say.

Listening to or playing music is banned. Barbers are barred from shaving or trimming men’s beards. Some girls’ schools have been shut or destroyed and restrictions have been placed on women leaving their homes in some areas.

"They want to limit our lives here the same way the Afghan Taliban did in their country,” said Saleem, a resident of the district of Lakki Marwat.

The TTP and Afghan Taliban have close ideological and organizational ties. Pakistan has accused the Afghan Taliban, which seized power in 2021, of sheltering the Pakistani militants.

Saleem, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, said the TTP has replaced the local authorities in Lakki Marwat, which is home to around 1 million people.

The police, he said, have abandoned their posts after coming under constant TTP attacks and locals are fleeing by their thousands.

Mohsin Tabeer Khan, a political activist and former university lecturer, is among those who have stayed in Lakki Marwat. Critical of the TTP, he has received threats from the militant group.

"The atmosphere of fear is pervasive," said Khan. "Everyone locks themselves up after sunset."

Khan said the TTP has targeted local government workers and security personnel in the district.

“If they catch you carrying a government ID card, you have to worry about your life,” he said.

Abubakar Kurmiwal said the TTP has recently made inroads in the district of Kurram.

He said the TTP on August 14 kidnapped his cousin, who was accused of being a government spy. Four days later, his body was found on the side of the road, he said.

“Women cannot leave their houses because of these militants,” he said. ‘The militants often force locals to feed them.”

Last month, the only school in his village was closed after all its teachers fled, he said.

'State Authority Collapses'

Mohsin Dawar, a former lawmaker, has witnessed the TTP’s growing influence in his native district of North Waziristan.

First, it started with TTP fighters forcing locals to feed them, said Dawar. Soon after, the militants extorted businessmen and wealthy landowners. Now, they are destroying schools for girls in the district, he said.

“As the [Pakistani] Taliban gains strength, the state authority collapses,” said Dawar, who heads the secular National Democratic Movement (NDM) party.

“They first want to kill people whose deaths will generate news,” he said. "Everyone is at risk, but those who have some prominence in society are in their crosshairs,” added Dawar, who has survived several assassination attempts.

The TTP’s attacks have surged in Pakistan in recent years. The militant group has often targeted the army and police and largely refrained from hitting civilian targets.

Abdul Sayed, a Sweden-based researcher who tracks the TTP, said the group is “primarily targeting” the security forces in an attempt to drive them out of the region.

Pakistan earlier this year said the military would launch a new offensive to root out militants in the region. The planned military operation has been fiercely opposed by locals in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the scene of numerous offensives that killed thousands and uprooted millions of civilians in the past.

Protests have similarly been staged against the TTP and its return to the region.

Abdul Wahid, a local leader of the secular Awami National Party, said locals no longer fear the militants or the Pakistani military after enduring years of strife.

“There is a lot of political awareness here now,” said Wahid, who is from the district of Khyber. “We will protest and resist peacefully.”

The Afghan Embassy in London is being shut down after its diplomats were dismissed by the country's Taliban rulers, Britain's Foreign Office said on September 9.

A Foreign Office statement e-mailed to RFE/RL said the embassy "is being closed following the dismissal of its staff by the Taliban." Britain does not recognize the Taliban-led government.

But the Afghan ambassador said the decision was made "based on the requirements of the host country's authorities." Zalmai Rassoul said on X that the embassy would shut its doors on September 27 "at the official request of the host country."

Neither the U.K. government nor the ambassador said what would happen to the embassy's staff, but a source at the Afghan Embassy who spoke with RFE/RL said the British government had given embassy staff 90 days to leave the country or apply for political asylum.

The source said the British Foreign Office also said that the embassy building would not be handed over to the Taliban and that the British government would not allow any Afghan political representation or consulate to operate until a recognized government was established in Afghanistan.

The Taliban-led government had asked the embassy staff to interact with the Foreign Office, but the embassy staff refused, and as a result, the embassy's services were declared invalid by the Taliban.

The news has worried Afghans living in Britain, who fear problems without the diplomatic services.

"After this, we Afghans will face many challenges because Afghans need to renew their passports, identity cards, and other documents," Sayed Shah Kharoti and Malik, two Afghans living in London, told RFE/RL.

Diplomats who served under Afghanistan's former Western-backed government were left in limbo when the Taliban seized Kabul and returned to power in August 2021. Many embassies in Europe and beyond have continued to operate.

In another indication that this could be changing, the Afghan Embassy in Oslo announced on September 9 that it will cease its activities as of September 12 and hand over the embassy building, which is the property of Afghanistan, to the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.

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Taliban Cuts Ties With 14 Afghan Diplomatic Missions Abroad

The Taliban administration announced in July that it no longer recognized diplomatic missions set up by the former Western-backed government and that documents issued by embassies in Britain and 13 other mostly European countries were invalid.

Many Taliban leaders are under sanctions, and no country officially recognizes them as Afghanistan's legitimate rulers, though some countries retain active diplomatic missions in Afghanistan, including Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar, and China.

SEE ALSO:

Which Countries Have Relations With The Taliban's Unrecognized Government?

Afghanistan has sent Taliban-approved diplomats to some of those countries, including Pakistan and China.

Britain and other Western countries are grappling with how to provide humanitarian aid Afghans without recognizing the Taliban-led government, which has dramatically curtailed education, employment, and personal freedom for women and girls.

With reporting by AP

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk launched a four-week session of the UN's Human Rights Council with a call for global leadership to avert a "dystopian future," invoking urgent warnings about the treatment of women in Taliban-led Afghanistan and Ukrainians under near-constant Russian attack.

Midway through his four-year mandate as the UN's leading voice on human rights, Turk said the world was "at a fork in the road."

The world faces a choice between continuing into "a treacherous 'new normal'" that fosters "sleepwalk[ing] into a dystopian future" or "wak[ing] up and turn[ing] things around for the better, for humanity and the planet," he said.

Turk cited "endless, vicious military escalation and increasingly horrifying, technologically 'advanced' methods of warfare, control, and repression."

He also cited indifference to inequalities between and within countries, a disinformation "free-for-all," the twisting of national sovereignty "to shroud -- or excuse -- horrific violations," and the discrediting of multilateral institutions or trying to "rewrite the international rules."

Turk said human rights aren't in crisis, "but political leadership needed to make them a reality is."

"At their most extreme, for example in Afghanistan, despicable laws and policies are effectively erasing women from public life," Turk said in reference to the Taliban-led government that has led that country since a U.S.-led international coalition withdrew in mid-2021.

The Taliban seized power promising more moderate policies than when the hard-line fundamentalist group ruled the country some two decades earlier, but its leaders have since doubled down on the recreation of a totalitarian clerical regime, especially with regard to women, who have effectively been denied any public role in society.

Afghan women have been banned from working in many sectors and are barred from recreation and leisure activities such as visiting public parks and public baths, and also face severe restrictions on where and how they can appear in public.

Turk's concerns on Afghanistan were echoed in a warning ahead of the session by a Human Rights Watch (HRW) statement saying the UN Human Rights Council "should urgently create an independent body to pursue accountability for all those responsible for serious abuses -- past and present -- in Afghanistan."

HRW said the human rights and humanitarian reality there had "gravely spiraled downward" since August 2021.

Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, said in his report ahead of the 57th session of the Human Rights Council that women and girls had been victim to ever-greater restrictions under the Taliban.

In his wide-ranging speech, Turk also talked about horrific conditions for millions of Ukrainians and a region of Russia recently occupied by Ukraine as Russia's full-scale invasion grinds through its third year.

"In Ukraine, civilians are trapped in cycles of terror, through ongoing attacks by the Russian Federation striking civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and supermarkets, and repeated waves of targeting of energy infrastructure leading to country-wide blackouts," Turk said. "I fear for Ukrainians this coming winter."

He also cited the "horrific" attacks in Israel by the U.S.- and EU-designated terrorist organization Hamas that killed more than 1,200 people and injured many more, and the subsequent deaths of more than 40,000 Palestinians at the hands of Israeli forces.

Fighting erupted again on September 9 between Taliban forces and Pakistani security forces in the Kurram-Khost border areas, with eyewitnesses saying the violence included heavy weaponry and one elder saying a Pakistani soldier had been killed, although that could not be confirmed.

The outbreak follows reports of intense clashes in the same border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan that caused multiple casualties over the weekend.

Locals on the Afghan side of the border told Radio Mashaal that the latest fighting started around 1 p.m. local time on September 9.

Residents were said to be fleeing the villages of Palotsa and Setwan in the Zazai Maidan district of Afghanistan's Khost Province.

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The Azadi Briefing: Reclusive Afghan Taliban Chief Appears To Make Rare Trip

A local elder told Radio Mashaal that a Pakistani soldier had been killed but Radio Mashaal could not independently confirm that report.

Intermittent outbreaks of violence have heightened concerns about security in the region, with recent fighting sparked by an attempt to erect a security outpost on the Afghan side that Pakistani troops tried to stop.

Islamabad insists mutual agreements preclude the construction of new security posts by either side.

The Taliban-led government in Afghanistan has disputed Pakistani accusations that it is allowing gunmen linked to the outlawed Tehrik-e Taliban to shelter in the area and launch cross-border attacks in Pakistan.

The Taliban has moved reinforcement troops, artillery, and tanks to the area.

Radio Mashaal's Khost correspondent said the Taliban was preventing locals and journalists from sharing information with media or outsiders.

The State Department accused House Republicans of cherry-picking the facts and withholding information in a lengthy report on the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Afghanistan in August 2021.

The State Department's response to the report issued by the House Foreign Affairs Committee on September 9 also highlighted the deeply partisan nature of the report in the midst of the U.S. presidential campaign.

The Republicans on the committee and other Republicans in the House of Representatives, where the party holds the majority, "issued partisan statements, cherry-picked facts, withheld testimonies from the American people, and obfuscated the truth behind conjecture," the State Department said.

The report specifically points to the Biden-Harris administration and their "failure to plan for all contingencies."

The House Republicans blamed the disastrous end of the United States' longest war on the Biden administration and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats' current presidential nominee. The role of former President Donald Trump, who had signed the withdrawal deal with the Taliban, was minimized.

Representative Michael McCaul (Republican-Texas), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the review revealed that the Biden administration "had the information and opportunity to take necessary steps to plan for the inevitable collapse of the Afghan government."

But instead of taking steps toward a safe evacuatation "the administration picked optics over security," McCaul said in a statement.

The review lays out the final months of military and civilian failures, following Trump's February 2020 withdrawal deal, that allowed the fundamentalist Taliban to sweep through and conquer all of the country even before the last U.S. officials flew out on August 30, 2021.

The chaotic exit left behind many U.S. citizens, Afghan battlefield allies, women activists, and others at risk from the Taliban.

The State Department said Biden "acted in the best interests of the American people when he decided to bring our troops home and end America's longest war."

The department's response also drew similarities to a 2022 report prepared by Republican lawmakers, which it said "did a deep disservice to the American people by further politicizing U.S. policy towards Afghanistan instead of focusing on bipartisan solutions."