2021 Year in Review: Why an isolated and bankrupt Afghanistan could slide back into conflict

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Updated 28 December 2021
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2021 Year in Review: Why an isolated and bankrupt Afghanistan could slide back into conflict

  • The Taliban faces the gargantuan task of reviving the economy while addressing a worsening food crisis 
  • The US, World Bank and International Monetary Fund have severed Kabul’s access to $9.5bn in funds 

WATERLOO, Canada: As the last US troops departed Kabul on Aug. 31, drawing 20 years of war in Afghanistan to a dispiriting end, Taliban commanders were quick to declare victory. Little did they know, amid their jubilation, that a new and much more complex battle was about to begin.

It is often said it is easier to acquire power than it is to hold on to it. After conquering the capital, Kabul, during a lightning-fast summer offensive, the victorious Taliban now faces the gargantuan task of reviving the economy while addressing a worsening food crisis, fighting a Daesh insurgency and healing a rift within its own ranks.

Addressing these simultaneous challenges will be no easy feat. The US, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have severed Kabul’s access to more than $9.5 billion in loans, funding and assets, hobbling the new regime.

At the same time, and despite its best efforts to the contrary, the Taliban has also failed miserably in its attempt to gain international recognition as the official government of Afghanistan, leaving the country precariously isolated.

“The real risk for the Taliban is to remain unrecognized by the international community, just like the last time they were in power, from 1996 to 2001,” Torek Farhadi, who was an adviser to Afghanistan’s former president, Hamid Karzai, told Arab News. “This would not be good for the Taliban and it would not be good for the millions of Afghans.”

 

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Indeed, without international recognition and access to capital, the Taliban cannot fulfill its promises of development.

“It would put a stop to the region’s hopes for economic collaboration,” Farhadi said. “Both Central Asia and Pakistan’s plans for economic integration will remain in jeopardy, as the necessary financing from international institutions to upgrade and invest in Afghan infrastructure will remain on hold.”




Taliban fighters stand guard at a police station gate in Ghasabha area in Qala-e-Now, Badghis province on October 14, 2021. (AFP/File Photo)

Against this backdrop, Muslim nations pledged on Sunday to set up a fund to help Afghanistan avert an imminent economic collapse they say would have a “horrendous” global impact.

At a special meeting in Pakistan of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), delegates also resolved to work with the United Nations to try to unlock hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen Afghan assets.

The promised fund will provide humanitarian aid through the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), which would provide a cover for countries to donate without dealing directly with the country’s Taliban rulers. 

For ordinary Afghans, the return of the Taliban has been a double-edged sword. On the one hand it eliminated the corrupt warlords who had long treated whole tracts of the country as their own private fiefdoms. It has also made the country more secure overall.

On the other hand it has turned back the clock 20 years on personal freedoms and civil liberties.

As a result, tens of thousands of Afghans are now trying to leave the country, following in the footsteps of more than 123,000 civilians who were evacuated from Kabul airport by US forces and their coalition partners in August.

In mid-November, the Norwegian Refugee Council reported that about 300,000 Afghans have fled to neighboring Iran since August and up to 5,000 continue to illegally cross the border every day.




Defiant Afghan women held a rare protest on Sept. 2 saying they were willing to accept the burqa if their daughters could still go to school under Taliban rule. (AFP/File Photo)

One of the primary reasons for this mass exodus, and the Taliban’s ongoing isolation, is the group’s ultraconservative views on women, ethnic minorities and freedom of expression.

“The Taliban have defeated their rivals militarily, but on the political, social, economic and academic fronts, they have failed Afghanistan tremendously,” Ahmad Samin, a former World Bank adviser based in the US, told Arab News.

“They have not earned the support of Afghans and the international community. They have established the government of the Taliban, by the Taliban, for the Taliban. They want recognition with minimum commitments but I do not think the international community will compromise in this regard.”




Taliban fighters patrol on vehicles along a street in Kabul on September 2, 2021. (AFP)

As a result of its isolation, Afghanistan finds itself on the brink of humanitarian catastrophe. With foreign exchange reserves depleted, granaries empty, hospitals running out of drugs, and international aid reduced to barely a trickle, ordinary Afghans face a winter of hunger and misery.

What is more, without foreign capital to pay for electricity from neighboring countries, Kabul and other major cities are likely to face rolling blackouts.

INNUMBERS

* 3,750 civilian casualties since May 2021.

* 9.5 million people with food insecurity.

In a report from the city of Bamiyan in central Afghanistan last month, headlined Afghans facing “hell on earth” as winter looms, John Simpson of BBC News wrote: “Before the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in August, there was confidence that the government of President Ashraf Ghani would be able to cope with the threat of a bad winter, given the help of the international community. That help evaporated when Mr. Ghani’s government collapsed.

“Western countries have cut off their aid to the country, since they don’t want to be seen to help a regime which bars girls from education and is in favor of reintroducing the full range of Sharia punishments.”

Speaking to Arab News, Taliban spokesman Ahmadullah Wasiq conceded that Afghanistan faces dire economic and health challenges, but blamed the crisis on the loss of aid and the freezing of the country’s assets.

On Nov. 17, the Taliban’s foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, wrote an open letter to the US Congress warning that there would be a mass exodus of refugees from Afghanistan unless Washington releases the country’s assets and lifts sanctions.




Head of the Taliban delegation Abdul Salam Hanafi (R), accompanied by Taliban officials (2R to L) Amir Khan Muttaqi, Shahabuddin Delawar and Abdul Latif Mansour, walks down a hotel lobby during the talks in Qatar's capital Doha in August 2021. (AFP/File Photo)

“Currently the fundamental challenge of our people is financial security and the roots of this concern lead back to the freezing of assets of our people by the American government,” he wrote.

But with no sign that the Taliban is ready to change its ideological course, UN officials said Afghanistan is hurtling toward disaster.

“The Afghan people now feel abandoned, forgotten and, indeed, punished by circumstances that are not their fault,” Deborah Lyons, the UN secretary-general’s special representative for Afghanistan, told delegates in New York last month.

“To abandon the Afghan people now would be a historic mistake — a mistake that has been made before, with tragic consequences.”

David Beasly, executive director of the World Food Program, said about 23 million Afghans are on the brink of starvation, a challenge the aid community is ill-equipped to address.




Thousands of Afghans trying to escape the misery at home have flocked to their country's southern border with Pakistan, but their attempts to get across have been stopped by the Taliban. (AFP)

“WFP does not have the money we need to feed them. We have to choose who eats and who doesn’t,” he said in a video message posted on Twitter last month. “How many children must starve until the world wakes up? None of these children should die.”

Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said the situation in Afghanistan is becoming critical and warned that the country could slide back into civil war unless the Taliban and the international community reach an agreement.

“The situation unfolding today in Afghanistan is unprecedented both in military-political and socioeconomic terms,” Patrushev said last month.

“If the new authorities in Kabul fail to normalize the situation, and the international community fails to provide effective support to the Afghan people, the scenario could become catastrophic, involving a new civil war, the general impoverishment of the population, and famine.”




Afghan children warm themselves with a blanket inside a mud house at a refugee camp on the outskirts of Laghman. (AFP/File Photo)

Kamran Bokhari, the director of the US think tank Analytical Development, agrees that the Taliban faces a serious dilemma which, in the absence of a compromise, could plunge the country into a new conflict.

“The Taliban need the world to provide financial assistance, hence the feverish effort to convince the world that the Taliban are pragmatic, despite being a radical Islamist entity,” Bokhari told Arab News. “But the Taliban cannot be both at the same time. The Taliban have to change but can’t without causing internal ruptures. Therefore, we are looking at more conflict.”

Farhadi agrees that the Taliban faces the prospect of internal strife and challenges to its power unless it can urgently resolve this dilemma and remove the barriers to its economic salvation.

“These are the risks for Afghanistan; they are real,” he said. “The Taliban refuses to recognize the link between extreme poverty and political instability in Afghanistan. The risks caused by extreme poverty are real. The Taliban risks new violence in the face of instability and risks losing control.”


UN warns British couple held by Taliban could die in custody as health deteriorates

Updated 20 July 2025
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UN warns British couple held by Taliban could die in custody as health deteriorates

  • Peter Reynolds, 80, and his wife Barbie, 76, were arrested on Feb. 1
  • No reason for their detention has been given

LONDON: A panel of UN experts has warned that two elderly British citizens held by the Taliban without charge in Afghanistan are in such poor health they could die in custody, The Sunday Times reported.

Peter Reynolds, 80, and his wife Barbie, 76, were arrested on Feb. 1 after disembarking from a domestic flight in Bamian province, where they had lived since 2009. No reason for their detention has been given.

“We see no reason why this elderly couple should be detained at all, and have requested an immediate review of the grounds of their detention,” said Alice Edwards, UN special rapporteur on torture.

“It is inhumane to keep them locked up in such degrading conditions and more worrying when their health is so fragile,” she added.

The couple, who previously ran training programs and had remained in Afghanistan after the Taliban took power in 2021, have spent months in appalling conditions, first in the notorious Pul-e-Charki prison and later in an underground cell at the intelligence services headquarters. 

They now sleep on mats, without beds or furniture, and have limited access to phones.

Peter, who suffered a mini-stroke in 2023, is believed to have had another stroke or silent heart attack in custody. Barbie is suffering dizzy spells and numbness linked to anemia. 

A UK Foreign Office official who visited last week saw Peter’s face red and peeling, possibly due to a recurrence of skin cancer.

“Their physical and mental health is deteriorating rapidly,” Edwards said. “Without access to adequate medical care they are at risk of irreparable harm or even death,” she added.

“We have been told we are guests of the government but this is no way to treat a guest,” Barbie told the visiting UK official.

Peter said in a phone message to The Sunday Times that he was being kept in chains alongside serious offenders, calling it “the nearest thing to Hell I can imagine.” 

He added: “I’ve been joined up with rapists and murderers by handcuffs and ankle-cuffs, including a man who killed his wife and three children, shouting away.”

Their daughter, Sarah Entwistle, said: “Mum described dad’s rapidly deteriorating health. It’s incredibly worrying.” She added: “They need urgent medical attention. Dad desperately needs to be seen by a hospital. Surely the Taliban don’t want his death on their hands. It’s a ticking time bomb.”

The UN statement said: “Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds were reportedly detained without formal charges, have had no access to effective legal assistance and only have very limited contact with their family by telephone.”

Their children, who had planned a party in the US for Barbie’s 80th birthday, have sent private letters and launched multiple appeals for their release. “Enough is enough,” said Entwistle. “It’s been five months now.”

The Taliban have offered no formal explanation, though theories include suspicion over religious books, Barbie’s teaching work or potential leverage to pressure the UK to reopen its Kabul embassy.

Interrogations of 30 staff and friends reportedly found no wrongdoing, and Peter said he and Barbie were asked to thumbprint a nine-page CID report stating no crime had been identified.

Edwards also expressed concern that a recent data leak involving Afghan nationals who worked with the British military could complicate the couple’s situation. “The Taliban may try to use them as a bargaining chip,” she said.

Despite visits from a UK envoy and some medical aid, efforts to secure the Reynolds’ release are complicated by the lack of a British diplomatic presence in Afghanistan. 

Qatar, which maintains relations with the Taliban, is reportedly attempting to mediate.


Western aid cuts cede ground to China in Southeast Asia: study

Updated 20 July 2025
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Western aid cuts cede ground to China in Southeast Asia: study

  • Total official development finance to Southeast Asia grew ‘modestly’ to $29 billion in 2023
  • Higher-income countries already capture most of the region’s official development finance

SYDNEY: China is set to expand its influence over Southeast Asia’s development as the Trump administration and other Western donors slash aid, a study by an Australian think tank said Sunday.

The region is in an “uncertain moment,” facing cuts in official development finance from the West as well as “especially punitive” US trade tariffs, the Sydney-based Lowy Institute said.

“Declining Western aid risks ceding a greater role to China, though other Asian donors will also gain in importance,” it said.

Total official development finance to Southeast Asia – including grants, low-rate loans and other loans – grew “modestly” to $29 billion in 2023, the annual report said.

But US President Donald Trump has since halted about $60 billion in development assistance – most of the United States’ overseas aid program.

Seven European countries – including France and Germany – and the European Union have announced $17.2 billion in aid cuts to be implemented between 2025 and 2029, it said.

And the United Kingdom has said it is reducing annual aid by $7.6 billion, redirecting government money toward defense.

Based on recent announcements, overall official development finance to Southeast Asia will fall by more than $2 billion by 2026, the study projected.

“These cuts will hit Southeast Asia hard,” it said.

“Poorer countries and social sector priorities such as health, education, and civil society support that rely on bilateral aid funding are likely to lose out the most.”

Higher-income countries already capture most of the region’s official development finance, said the institute’s Southeast Asia Aid Map report.

Poorer countries such as East Timor, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar are being left behind, creating a deepening divide that could undermine long-term stability, equity and resilience, it warned.

Despite substantial economic development across most of Southeast Asia, around 86 million people still live on less than $3.65 a day, it said.

“The center of gravity in Southeast Asia’s development finance landscape looks set to drift East, notably to Beijing but also Tokyo and Seoul,” the study said.

As trade ties with the United States have weakened, Southeast Asian countries’ development options could shrink, it said, leaving them with less leverage to negotiate favorable terms with Beijing.

“China’s relative importance as a development actor in the region will rise as Western development support recedes,” it said.

Beijing’s development finance to the region rose by $1.6 billion to $4.9 billion in 2023 – mostly through big infrastructure projects such as rail links in Indonesia and Malaysia, the report said.

At the same time, China’s infrastructure commitments to Southeast Asia surged fourfold to almost $10 billion, largely due to the revival of the Kyaukphyu Deep Sea Port project in Myanmar.

By contrast, Western alternative infrastructure projects had failed to materialize in recent years, the study said.

“Similarly, Western promises to support the region’s clean energy transition have yet to translate into more projects on the ground – of global concern given coal-dependent Southeast Asia is a major source of rapidly growing carbon emissions.”


Modi to visit London this week as India-UK trade pact nears signing

Updated 20 July 2025
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Modi to visit London this week as India-UK trade pact nears signing

  • Deal-in-principle was announced by Modi and Starmer in May
  • India is also in talks with EU to conclude FTA by the end of 2025

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit the UK this week, the Indian government said on Sunday, as the countries prepare to formally sign a long-pending bilateral free trade agreement.

Modi’s two-day trip on the invitation of his British counterpart, Keir Starmer, will start on Wednesday.

“During the visit, the two sides will also review the progress of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) with a specific focus on trade and economy, technology and innovation, defence and security, climate, health, education and people-to-people ties,” the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said on Sunday.

Launched in January 2022, the FTA negotiations between India and the UK were set to conclude the same year, but despite more than a dozen formal rounds, talks have stalled over issues like tariffs, rules of origin and mobility for services professionals.

A deal-in-principle was announced by Modi and Starmer in May, and India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal was in London last month, with his office saying the visit aimed at charting out a “clear, time-bound road map for its finalization and implementation.”

At the same time, India is in ongoing talks with the US, which is seeking broader access to several key sectors, including agriculture, automobiles, steel, and aluminum — a concession New Delhi resists. Without a deal, Indian exports could face a 26–27 percent “reciprocal” tariff imposed by President Donald Trump’s administration starting Aug. 1.

The FTA with the UK could offer India more predictability in economic matters, according to Prof. Harsh V. Pant, vice president of the Observer Research Foundation.

“This is going to be an important marker in the India-UK relationship, and India signaling to the world, particularly in the age of Trump — where there is so much unpredictability and volatility — that any kind of predictability that comes in with other partners is a benefit for every side,” he told Arab News.

“In this case, the UK and India would be hoping that this gives them greater predictability in their economic partnership, thereby reducing some of the challenges that continue to emanate from Washington.”

The pact would also signal to other partners that India is willing to engage on economic matters.

India is also in talks with the EU to conclude a comprehensive FTA by the end of 2025.

“This is a very important signal to other interlocutors, including the EU and US, that India will be willing to engage creatively on concluding these FTAs,” Pant said.

“This FTA is also crucial for a post-Brexit UK that is trying to retain its economic relevance around the world.”


Marcos flies to US to secure deal ahead of tariff policy

Updated 20 July 2025
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Marcos flies to US to secure deal ahead of tariff policy

  • He is the first ASEAN head of state to visit Washington since Trump took office in January
  • Trump raised tariffs on Philippine exports to 20% this month from 17% threatened in April

MANILA: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. left for Washington, D.C. on Sunday for meetings with Donald Trump and his administration ahead of the implementation of US tariffs on Southeast Asian countries.

Trump raised reciprocal tariffs on Philippine exports to 20 percent this month, up from the 17 percent initially threatened in April.

Some other Southeast Asian nations, including Indonesia and Vietnam, were hit with over 30 percent rates, forcing them to step up negotiations. According to Trump’s announcements, both countries agreed to zero tariffs on American exports, while accepting rates of 19 percent and 20 percent on their own goods, respectively.

Marcos, whose visit will be the first by an ASEAN head of state since Trump took office in January, vowed to push for “greater economic engagement” and focus on security and defense.

“I intend to convey to President Trump and his cabinet officials that the Philippines is ready to negotiate a bilateral trade deal that will ensure strong, mutually beneficial, and future-oriented collaborations that only the United States and the Philippines will be able to take advantage of,” he told reporters ahead of his departure from the Villamor Air Base in Pasay City.

“During this visit, we will reaffirm our commitment to fostering our long-standing alliances as an instrument of peace and a catalyst of development in the Asia-Pacific region and around the world.”

Besides Trump, the Philippine president will also have a meeting with US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday.

Philippine businesses were hoping that the fact that Marcos was the only ASEAN leader to negotiate the tariffs in person could offer some concessions for Washington’s key security partner in Asia, which, under a decades-long alliance, allows the US to build and operate facilities on Philippine military bases.

“For Manila, this development, along with President Marcos being the first ASEAN leader invited for a state visit under the current Trump administration, enhanced the country’s diplomatic profile and affirms its strategic relevance in the Indo-Pacific region,” Nunnatus Cortez, president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry-Makati, told Arab News.

“The Philippine delegation would probably push for a bilateral agreement with the US, particularly on food security and semiconductors … We could only negotiate for a lower tariff than 20 percent. Difficult to get a zero percent tariff, as the latest news showed revenues from tariffs added close to $90 billion to the US in the first six months.”


Pope Leo XIV urges immediate end to ‘barbarity’ of Gaza war

Updated 20 July 2025
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Pope Leo XIV urges immediate end to ‘barbarity’ of Gaza war

  • Pontiff: ‘I once again ask for an immediate end to the barbarity of the war and for a peaceful resolution to the conflict’

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy: Pope Leo XIV slammed the “barbarity” of the war in Gaza on Sunday and urged against the “indiscriminate use of force,” just days after a deadly strike by Israel’s military on a Catholic church.

“I once again ask for an immediate end to the barbarity of the war and for a peaceful resolution to the conflict,” Leo said at the end of the Angelus prayer at Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer residence near Rome.

The pope, who spoke by telephone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the morning after Thursday’s strike, spoke of his “deep sorrow” for the attack on the Holy Family Church.

The church was sheltering around 600 displaced people, the majority of them children and including dozens of people with special needs.

Israel expressed “deep sorrow” over the damage and civilian casualties, adding that the military was investigating the strike.

“This act, unfortunately, adds to the ongoing military attacks against the civilian population and places of worship in Gaza,” Leo said on Sunday.

“I appeal to the international community to observe humanitarian law and respect the obligation to protect civilians, as well as the prohibition of collective punishment, the indiscriminate use of force, and the forced displacement of populations,” he added.

The Israeli military on Sunday issued an evacuation order for Palestinians in the central Gaza Strip, warning of imminent action against Hamas militants.

Most of Gaza’s population of more than two million people have been displaced at least once during the war, which is now in its 22nd month.

The pope also expressed his “sympathy” for the plight of “beloved Middle Eastern Christians” and their “sense of being able to do little in the face of this dramatic situation.”