Afghanistan’s Growing Humanitarian Crisis

Since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, the humanitarian emergency there has become even more dire. This briefing note outlines the most pressing issues and steps to help relieve the suffering.

Dramatic scenes at the Kabul airport of Afghans desperate to leave the country, and horrific bombings there, captured the world’s attention in the weeks after the Taliban took power. The focus is now shifting to a much larger, multi-faceted humanitarian crisis throughout the country. Violence, displacement, drought and the COVID-19 pandemic hit the Afghan population with accelerating force in recent years, and the humanitarian disaster gathered pace in May as the final withdrawal of U.S. and allied forces began. Afghans teemed across borders seeking refuge after the government collapsed on 15 August.

With the Taliban Back in Kabul, Regional Powers Watch and Wait

On 15 August, the Taliban capped their drive for power in Afghanistan by taking Kabul, the country’s capital, for the first time since they ruled most of the country from 1996 to 2001. With the previous government’s collapse, the group is now the de facto power throughout the country and is in the process of forming a new government and revamped state system. Questions are swirling about how they will govern, such as whether they will attempt to exercise a monopoly on power or give some roles to other political forces and whether they will try to reimpose the harsh social restrictions, including on women, that they enforced in the late 1990s. As yet, there are no firm answers.

Covid-19 as Bioweapon?

The modern era is increasingly defined by a pandemic of conspiracy and misinformation. It is unsurprising that this misinformation coincides with a literal pandemic, when so little is still known about an evolving killer virus with mutating variants, and when humanity doesn’t know the full story of Covid-19’s origin. In this highly volatile environment, various narratives have emerged surrounding the pandemic, with terms like “lab leak,” “gain-of-function,” and even “bioweapon” entering the lexicon as related to Covid-19.

The Balkan Project Washington Wants to Derail

As work nears completion in the first phase of an ambitious project in Montenegro to develop a highway that will connect the Adriatic port of Bar with Serbia, Western officials and mainstream media are ramping up attacks on the endeavor. Western commentators are united in condemnation, ranging from fear-mongering over China’s role to disparaging the plan’s viability. Consistently, they dismiss it as “the highway to nowhere,” implying foolishness on the part of Montenegro and presenting it as a cautionary tale on the dangers of doing business with China. The theme fits neatly within the framework of Washington’s campaign to economically isolate and cripple China, its main competitor in the global economy.

Afghan Crisis Must End America’s Empire of War, Corruption and Poverty

Americans have been shocked by videos of thousands of Afghans risking their lives to flee the Taliban’s return to power in their country – and then by an Islamic State suicide bombing and ensuing massacre by U.S. forces that together killed at least 170 people, including 13 U.S. troops.

Even as UN agencies warn of an impending humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, the U.S. Treasury has frozen nearly all of the Afghan Central Bank’s $9.4 billion in foreign currency reserves, depriving the new government of funds that it will desperately need in the coming months to feed its people and provide basic services.

Afghanistan: Medics respond to the overwhelming health needs

In the wake of intense fighting and the rapid transfer of power to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (also known as the Taliban), people are facing widespread instability, mass displacement, and the disruption of basic services, including health care. Despite the challenges, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams continue to provide essential medical care across all five of our projects in Afghanistan—in Herat, Helmand, Kandahar, Khost, and Kunduz provinces. Here, two medical staff members working in Lashkar Gah (Helmand province) and Khost city describe the recent changes they have witnessed, and how they have affected patients and health care providers alike.

Turkey most reliable country for Kabul airport mission: Hekmatyar

Afghanistan does not have the necessary means to ensure the security of Kabul Hamid Karzai International Airport and requires the support of a foreign country in this regard, Afghanistan’s former Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar said Tuesday, underlining that Turkey is the best and most reliable candidate for the mission, considering the deep relations between the two countries.

In an exclusive interview in Kabul, the veteran Afghan leader said that he and his party, the Hezb-e-Islami party, discussed the security and management of the Kabul airport with the Taliban.

Former warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar says Americans ‘do not care’ about Afghans

The calamitous scenes at Kabul’s airport, where thousands of people are scrambling to escape the Taliban before an August 31 deadline, prove the US is not concerned with the fate of ordinary Afghans, Islamist leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar told The National.

With days before the US ends its 20-year presence in Afghanistan and with tens of thousands of Afghans soon to be left stranded, Mr Hekmatyer said the facts speak for themselves.

Taliban and Afghan rebels claim heavy casualties in Panjshir fighting

Taliban forces and fighters loyal to local leader Ahmad Massoud fought in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley on Thursday, with each side saying it had inflicted heavy casualties in the last province resisting Taliban rule.

After the fall of Kabul on August 15, several thousand fighters from local militias and the remnants of army and special forces units have massed in Panjshir.

Panjshir commander Ahmad Massoud readies for war while negotiating with Taliban

The leader of Afghanistan’s only region not to have fallen to the Taliban has said he would be willing to join a Taliban government, but only if the group proved itself to be inclusive and respect the rights of all Afghans.

Ahmad Massoud, 32, leads forces in the Panjshir Valley and said that war was on the cards if the group attempted an attack on his region.

In his first interview since the fall of Kabul last week, he told The National he had seen little evidence the group had changed over the past two decades.