Pakistan's decision to ban a prominent civil rights organization will further alienate the country's large Pashtun ethnic minority, experts say.

The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), a grassroots movement that advocates for the rights of Pakistan's estimated 40 million Pashtuns, was designated a "proscribed organization" on October 6 for allegedly undermining security in the South Asian country of some 240 million people.

Rights groups say the ban is aimed at silencing the PTM, which has accused the government and the powerful military of committing human rights abuses against civilians in northwestern Pakistan, a militant stronghold.

WATCH: Tens of thousands of ethnic Pashtuns attended the beginning of a three-day "jirga" or grand assembly on October 11 near Peshawar in northwest Pakistan.

Embed share

After Police Shootings, Pashtun Rights 'Jirga' Begins In Pakistan

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

---

width px height px

---

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

No media source currently available

0:00 0:01:42 0:00

Analysts say the ban could push the PTM to abandon its nonviolent campaign and further destabilize the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where many Pashtuns live.

"It's going to make Pashtuns much more apprehensive of the state," said Ayesha Siddiqa, senior fellow at King's College London. "There's going to be greater resentment and frustration."

Since its emergence in 2018, the PTM has accused the army of using heavy-handed tactics, including extrajudicial killings, torture, and enforced disappearances, against civilians during counterterrorism operations against militant groups in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The province has been the scene of numerous operations against the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) extremist group that have killed thousands of Pashtun civilians and uprooted millions in the past two decades.

Siddiqa said the ban on the PTM was a "knee-jerk reaction" by Pakistan's military, which has an oversized role in the country's domestic and foreign affairs. Its traditional dominance of politics has been undermined in recent years by civil rights organizations like the PTM and opposition political parties.

"PTM is a political movement, and that is something which the state finds much more difficult to control," Siddiqa added.

In recent years, the authorities have arrested and jailed the leaders and hundreds of members of the PTM, whose rallies often attract tens of thousands of people.

Widespread Condemnation

The government's ban on the PTM has been widely condemned.

Amnesty International on October 8 called on Islamabad to revoke the ban, which it termed "an affront to the rights to freedom of association and peaceful assembly."

Two days earlier, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent rights watchdog, had criticized what it said was "the government's decision to proscribe the PTM, a rights-based movement that has never resorted to violence and always used the framework of the Constitution to advocate its cause."

The PTM has said that over 200 of its members have been arrested in recent days ahead of a jirga, or assembly, planned for October 11-13.

Two days before the assembly, police clashed with PTM supporters in the northwestern town of Jamrud, using tear gas and batons to disperse the crowd. At least four PTM activists were killed in the clashes.

Embed share

Thousands Attend Funerals Of Pashtun Activists Shot By Police

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

---

width px height px

---

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

No media source currently available

0:00 0:01:59 0:00

Despite the ban on the PTM, the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has permitted the group to hold the assembly. On October 11, the provincial authorities said they will urge the central government to revoke the ban.

"The PTM has been raising very legitimate demands," said Farhatullah Babar, a former lawmaker and leader of the secular Pakistan People's Party.

He said the army and government have consistently reneged on promises it made to the PTM, including the removal of military checkpoints in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the clearance of landmines, and the release of civilians forcibly disappeared by the state.

"Stifling its voice will go down very badly with the entire Pashtun people," said Babar. "I think that this will alienate people even more. The incentives for them to remain peaceful will now decrease."

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 threatened Afghan women who served in the police force under the previous Western-backed government, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The threats have forced hundreds of former Afghan policewomen, who were trained by the United States and its allies, to go into hiding, the global rights watchdog said.

HRW said some of the women have received threatening phone calls from Taliban officials who summoned them for questioning or warned them of unspecified consequences for their previous work.

Under the Taliban, some former policewomen in the culturally and religiously conservative country have been apparently killed by their own relatives for bringing “shame” to the families, HRW said.

Many former policewomen have sought refuge in neighboring Iran or Pakistan, or tried to obtain asylum in the West.

Why It's Important: HRW’s report highlights the dangers facing members of Afghanistan’s former armed forces.

After seizing power in 2021, the Taliban announced a blanket amnesty that included all Afghan officials, security forces, and individuals who cooperated with the departed U.S.-led military presence in Afghanistan.

But international rights watchdogs and the United Nations have documented widespread cases of retribution -- including extrajudicial killings and torture.

Before the Taliban takeover, Afghan policewomen suffered widespread sexual abuse and harassment, HRW said.

Afghan policewomen have been “doubly betrayed,” first by the former Afghan government and then by Western nations that ignored the abuse and have not granted them asylum, said Fereshta Abbasi, Afghanistan researcher at HRW.

What's Next: HRW has called on Western nations that helped train and hire former Afghan policewomen, including the United States, to resettle them.

But it is unclear if the United States and European countries are willing or able to grant asylum to the women, some of whom remain inside Afghanistan.

What To Keep An Eye On

Germany has announced that it is planning to deport more Afghans to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told parliament on October 9 that Afghans convicted of serious crimes in Germany would be deported.

In August, Berlin deported 28 Afghan citizens for the first time since the Taliban takeover. The authorities said all were convicted criminals, although they did not disclose their crimes.

Why It's Important: Germany has granted asylum to tens of thousands of at-risk Afghans in recent years.

But Berlin has tightened the country's asylum policies as anti-immigration parties rise in popularity.

Germany’s announcement of more deportations has fueled panic among the country's large Afghan community -- which numbers around 475,000. Many Afghans fear they could be next.

“I am apprehensive about this unfolding situation,” an Afghan asylum seeker in Germany, speaking on condition of anonymity, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.

“We all should not be punished for the mistakes of individuals,” said another asylum seeker.

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.

The FBI's arrest of an Afghan man who allegedly planned a U.S. Election Day attack has underscored the growing threat posed by the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) extremist group to the West.

Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, an Afghan citizen living in the United States, plotted an attack on November 5 in the name of IS-K, the U.S. Justice Department said.

Based in Afghanistan, IS-K has carried out a series of devastating, high-profile attacks in Russia, Iran, and Tajikistan in recent years.

"IS-K poses a dangerous threat to both the region and the West," said Abdul Sayed, a Sweden-based researcher who tracks militancy in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.

"IS-K is not confined to Afghanistan alone,” Sayed added. “It operates with a global agenda and has a network functioning both regionally and internationally."

Resilient Force

IS-K is considered the most active and potent of all the regional affiliates of Islamic State (IS), the extremist group that overran large swaths of Iraq and Syria in 2014. IS was largely defeated by a U.S.-led coalition.

IS-K was founded in Afghanistan in late 2014 and captured small pockets of territory in the country as part of IS’s broader aim of expansion throughout South and Central Asia.

But it soon came under fire from Afghan and international forces as well as the Taliban, a rival militant group.

The threat posed by IS-K has increased since the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan and the collapse of the Western-backed Afghan government in 2021, analysts say.

The Taliban, which then seized power, has waged a brutal war against IS-K, killing or capturing its key commanders and hundreds of its fighters. But IS-K has embarked on a strategy of urban warfare and remains a resilient force.

The group's ranks have been boosted by foreign fighters, particularly those from the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.

That has allowed IS-K -- which seeks to establish a caliphate, or Islamic state, in Khorasan, a historical region that includes parts of modern-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Central Asia -- to continue its attacks in Afghanistan and conduct complex assaults in the region.

In March, IS-K militants stormed the Crocus City Hall outside Moscow, killing around 140 people, underlining the threat it poses in the region.

Exploiting Grievances

Experts say extremist groups like IS-K have tried to exploit the grievances among Muslims since Israel launched its devastating war in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian enclave.

SEE ALSO:

Palestinians Count The Toll Of Israel's Devastating War In Gaza

That came after Hamas, a U.S.- and EU-designated terrorist group, carried out an attack on Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people.

Israel has recently expanded its war by launching a deadly aerial bombardment and ground invasion of Lebanon targeting Hezbollah, the armed group and political party that controls much of southern Lebanon.

Lucas Webber, senior threat intelligence analyst at Tech Against Terrorism, an UN-backed project that monitors extremism online, says IS-K has been vocal in calling for attacks against the West in the wake of the conflict in the Middle East.

"[IS-K] has a robust, multilingual propaganda apparatus," Webber told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi. "They can reach a diverse range of diaspora communities to build support and mobilize supporters to violence."

Webber says IS-K and its recruiters have targeted Europe. Now, he said, "we're starting to see an increase of activity in North America and the United States, specifically."

U.S. authorities said they have arrested an Afghan citizen and charged him with conspiring to conduct a terrorist attack on Election Day in the United States in the name of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group.

The Justice Department said in a statement late on October 8 that Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, a resident of Oklahoma City, confirmed to U.S. investigators after his arrest that he was plotting an attack aimed at large crowds of people at an unspecified location.

Tawhedi and a co-conspirator, who has not been named because he is a minor, "expected to die as martyrs" during the attack, the statement said.

The Afghan national arrived in the United States on a special immigrant visa in 2021 and was waiting for the conclusion of his immigration proceedings, the Justice Department said.

He acquired two AK-47 firearms and ammunition and initiated the sale of his house and other assets while arranging for his family members to be resettled back in Afghanistan.

SEE ALSO:

Iran Tries To 'Storm' U.S. Election With Russian-Style Disinformation Campaign

"As charged, the Justice Department foiled the defendant’s plot to acquire semiautomatic weapons and commit a violent attack," Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said.

The arrests come as U.S. authorities are facing heightened concerns over the possibility of terrorist acts on U.S. soil in the run-up and during the presidential election on November 5.

The FBI searched Tawhedi's phone and obtained communications between him and an individual who he understood to be affiliated with IS and allegedly facilitated "recruitment, training, and indoctrination" for the terrorist group, according to the criminal complaint, which also said Tawhedi appeared in a video recorded in July reading to two children about "the rewards a martyr receives in the afterlife."

He also allegedly accessed and stored IS propaganda on his iCloud and Google account, was a member of pro-IS Telegram groups, and donated to a charity that gathers funds for IS.

“This defendant, motivated by [IS], allegedly conspired to commit a violent attack, on Election Day, here on our homeland," said FBI Director Christopher Wray.

The complaint, which does not say how Tawhedi came to the authorities' attention, says an FBI informant posing as a buyer of personal property listed by the suspect on Facebook got in touch with him ostensibly to buy a laptop for his firearms business.

Tawhedi and his co-conspirator tested firearms together with the FBI informant before "buying" two AK-47 assault rifles and 500 bullets from him on October 7.

Once Tawhedi took possession of the guns and ammunition at a location in the Western District of Oklahoma, the two were arrested.

If found guilty, Tawhedi, who was charged with conspiring and attempting to provide material support to IS and receiving a firearm to be used to commit an act of terrorism, faces up to 20 years in prison.

The program under which Tawhedi obtained a U.S. visa was meant to allow Afghans who helped U.S. forces in Afghanistan to relocate to the United States.

U.S. and international forces withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021, leading to an almost immediate takeover of the country by the Taliban.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said a decision to remove the Taliban from a list of terrorist organizations had been "taken at the highest level," the TASS state news agency reported. The decision needs to be followed up with various legal procedures in order to make it a reality, President Vladimir Putin's special representative on Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, was quoted as saying on October 4. Putin said in July that Moscow considered Afghanistan's Taliban movement an ally in the fight against terrorism. Russia has been slowly building ties with the Taliban since the extremist group seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021.

Russia has urged the West to lift sanctions on Taliban-led Afghanistan and called for the inclusion of its government in discussions about the country's future in direct opposition to the U.S. position of keeping sanctions against the regime in place. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during a session of the "Moscow Format" consultations on October 4 that it's necessary to engage with the Taliban administration despite its lack of formal recognition by Moscow. Despite the Taliban being unrecognized internationally, the Taliban administration's Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi participated in the forum, highlighting Russia's ongoing engagement with the Taliban. The U.S. envoy to Afghanistan, Karen Decker, said a day earlier that Washington remained opposed to easing sanctions or recognizing the Taliban, stressing that progress on human rights, particularly women's rights, was necessary before any steps toward legitimacy or economic engagement could occur.

The Taliban's repressive policies and widespread rights abuses have made its unrecognized government in Afghanistan a global pariah.

To boost its international image, the hard-line Islamist group has tried to woo foreign tourists to the country, where violence has significantly dropped since the Taliban seized power in 2021.

SEE ALSO:

Taliban Arrests Suspects In Deaths Of 3 Foreign Tourists

But even as the Taliban looks to cash in on propaganda and financial benefits of foreign visitors, the groups' widespread restrictions on the movement of Afghans, especially women, have stifled the growth of the local tourism industry.

"The Taliban promote tourism because it has a major propaganda advantage for its government," said Sami Yousafzai, a veteran Afghan journalist and commentator who tracks the Taliban.

"The Taliban want to cash in on the interest in tourism to project a positive image of the country it rules," he added.

The number of tourists visiting Afghanistan has steadily increased in recent years. In 2021, there were 691. In 2022, that number increased to 2,300. Last year, there were 7,000, according to Taliban officials.

Foreign visitors have been drawn to the country's ancient history and scenic landscape. Chinese tourists make up the largest group of visitors. Major airlines stopped flying to Afghanistan after 2021, but several have resumed flights.

Taliban officials have also been keen to stress that foreign tourism also provides a financial boost to Afghans, many of whom are struggling to survive mass unemployment and rising poverty.

But the burgeoning tourism industry in Afghanistan faces formidable challenges.

Visas are expensive and difficult to obtain. Many countries cut ties with Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover. No country in the world recognizes the Taliban regime. Many Afghan embassies, especially in the West, have shut or suspended their operations.

The Taliban is also selective in who it chooses to grant a visa. Foreign journalists and rights activists are barred from entering and working in the country.

Even with a visa, foreign tourists must obtain written permission from the Taliban to visit tourist spots and take photos or videos of their interactions with Afghans and Taliban fighters.

Safety is also still a concern. The Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) extremist group, a rival of the Taliban, killed six foreign and local tourists in the central city of Bamiyan in May.

IS-K militants have previously targeted foreigners and embassies in Afghanistan.

'Dark And Bleak'

The Taliban has been keen to exploit the rosy picture of the country presented in videos and photos taken by foreign tourists, including YouTubers.

"The Taliban know these YouTubers are not interested in stirring controversies," said Yousafzai. "So, they plan to send these YouTubers to places where they can do their ‘positive' reporting."

Many YouTube videos produced by foreign tourists show the Taliban in a positive light, portraying them as welcoming hosts. The videos also highlight the relative safety in the country and suggest that Afghans are happy under Taliban rule.

The Taliban, which is increasingly active on social media, often promotes the videos on various platforms.

The militant group has also made exceptions for female tourists to visit historical sites and national parks that are off-limits to Afghan women.

The Taliban has imposed severe restrictions on the appearances, behavior, and movement of women in what rights group have described as gender apartheid.

"This is dangerous and distorts the truth," said Nazifa Haqpal, a British-based Afghan researcher.

"The truth under the Taliban's cruel rule is dark, bleak, and ugly," she said. "Unlike journalists, YouTubers are not bound by impartiality or professional ethics, which makes it easy for the Taliban to manipulate them."

Some Afghan women said that foreign tourists are playing into the Taliban's hands and whitewashing their suffering.

"Conditions for us are worsening with each passing day," Arezo, a young woman in the central province of Bamiyan, told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi.

Even as the Taliban tries to woo foreigners, the group's restrictions have prevented the growth of local tourism.

Last year, the Taliban banned women from visiting Band-e Amir, a national park in Bamiyan. Consisting of crystal-blue lakes and soaring cliffs, it is one of the most popular tourist sites in the country.

The Taliban is "denying the most fundamental rights of Afghan women," Arezo said.

"Unfortunately, Afghan women are banned from tourism and leisure by the Taliban," Zala, a housewife in the capital, Kabul, told Radio Azadi.

"We are banned from enjoying the natural beauty and historic places of our ancient homeland," she added.

In recent years, the militants have barred Afghan women from using gyms and visiting public bathhouses and city parks.

Afghanistan's Taliban-led government has announced the arrest of several alleged members of a regional branch of Islamic State who are suspected of killing three foreign tourists in Bamiyan in May and involvement in a mid-September attack on compliance officials in Kabul.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on X on September 30 that the unspecified number of suspected Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) members includes one Tajik national.

He alleged that the Tajik national had come from neighboring Pakistan to carry out attacks in Afghanistan and said other IS-K fighters are in hiding in the Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces of Pakistan with support from certain intelligence agencies. He did not provide evidence.

Islamabad has rejected past accusations that it provides shelter to militants.

Mujahid added that Taliban operations had forced IS-K militants out of Afghanistan, their former base.

SEE ALSO:

Picking Up The Pieces: Efforts To Preserve Afghanistan's Cultural Heritage Continue Under New Management

The September 12 attack on employees of the High Directorate of Supervision and Prosecution of Decrees and Edicts -- which took over duties from the former UN-backed government's attorney-general's office -- resulted in six deaths and 13 injuries, according to the Taliban.

The Afghan Prosecutors Association said at least 16 prosecutors were killed.

The May 17 attack on a group of tourists at a market in the central Bamiyan Province killed three foreigners and an Afghan, and injured seven others, according to Taliban officials at the time.

An anonymous Taliban source, however, put the number of dead at eight in comments to RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. Radio Azadi could not confirm that account.

Spain later confirmed that some of its nationals had been "murdered" in the attack, and simultaneous reports cited injured citizens from Australia, Norway, and Lithuania.

Four suspects were said to have been detained at the scene.

Bamiyan has remained a tourist destination despite a previous Taliban leadership's destruction in 2001 of two massive sixth-century Buddha statues to prosecute the hard-line fundamentalist group's extreme ban on idolatry.

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.

Embed share

Austria's Migrants Fear Far-Right Victory In Tight Parliamentary Election Race

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

---

width px height px

---

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

No media source currently available

0:00 0:03:09 0:00

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.

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."