The Afghanistan disaster movie continues to roll, one year after US withdrawal

One year after the Taliban took over the country, Afghans are paying a high cost for the militants’ return to power in Afghanistan. (AFP/File Photo)
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Updated 14 August 2022
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The Afghanistan disaster movie continues to roll, one year after US withdrawal

  • Aid-dependent economy remains in free fall since the Taliban takeover of the war-ravaged country
  • Prices of food and other essentials have soared as drought compounds financial collapse

KABUL: When the Taliban captured Kabul on Aug. 15, 2021, amid the withdrawal of US-led forces from Afghanistan, the group’s stunning return to power marked the end of two decades of warfare, which had killed tens of thousands of Afghans on their own soil. 

One year on, with the country pauperized and isolated on the world stage under its new leadership, life for ordinary Afghans has changed — largely for the worse.

During their first stint in power, from 1996 until late-2001, the Taliban declared an Islamic emirate, imposing a strict interpretation of Islamic law, enforced with brutal public punishments and executions. 

Women and girls were removed from public life, prevented from working or receiving an education, and even barred from leaving the house without the all-enveloping niqab and a male relative to chaperone them.

In Oct. 2001, US-led forces invaded Afghanistan and removed the Taliban from power, accusing the group of sheltering Osama bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda leader deemed responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the US that killed almost 3,000 people.




Edi Maa holding her baby receiving treatment for malnutrition at a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) nutrition centre in Herat. (AFP)

What followed were 20 blood-soaked years of fighting between the NATO-backed Afghan national forces and Taliban guerrilla fighters intent on retaking power.

While under the Western-backed administration, Afghanistan made progress with the emergence of independent media and a growing number of girls going to school and university. 

However, in many regions beyond the big cities, Afghans knew only war, depriving them of the many development projects implemented elsewhere by foreign donors.

Now that US-led forces have withdrawn and the Taliban has traded guerrilla warfare for the day-to-day running of the country, security has greatly improved.




During their first stint in power, from 1996 until late-2001, the Taliban declared an Islamic emirate, imposing a strict interpretation of Islamic law, enforced with brutal public punishments and executions. (AFP)

“We only saw war in the past several years. Every day, we lived in fear. Now it’s calm and we feel safe,” Mohammad Khalil, a 69-year-old farmer in northwest Balkh province, told Arab News. “We can finally breathe.”

But the uneasy peace has come at a cost.

Afghanistan’s aid-dependent economy has been in free fall since the Taliban returned to power. Billions of dollars in foreign assistance have been suspended and some $9.5 billion in Afghan central bank assets parked overseas have been frozen.

Denied international recognition, with aid suspended and the financial system in paralysis, the UN says that Afghanistan faces humanitarian catastrophe. About 20 percent of the country’s 38 million population are already on the brink of famine.

Afghanistan: One year since the Taliban takeover

Aug. 15, 2021 - Taliban campaign culminates with the fall of Kabul.

Aug. 30 - The last US troops depart Kabul airport after evacuating more than 120,000 people over 17 days.

September - A new interim government is unveiled. The Taliban bring back the feared religious police.

October - More than 120 people are killed in two Daesh-claimed mosque blasts in Kandahar and Kunduz.

Jan. 2022 - Deprived of aid, Afghanistan is plunged into a deep economic and humanitarian crisis.

March - The Taliban block secondary school girls from returning to class. Government employees must grow beards.

May - Women and girls are ordered to wear the hijab and cover their faces when in public. Women are banned from making long-distance journeys alone.

June - More than 1,000 people killed and thousands left homeless in a massive earthquake.

August - The US announces the killing of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri in a drone strike on his Kabul hideout.

The price of essential commodities has soared as the value of the Afghan currency has plummeted. A continuing drought has further aggravated the situation in rural areas.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies estimates about 70 percent of Afghan families are unable to meet their basic food needs.

“Most of the time we eat bread and drink tea or just water. We can’t get meat, fruit or even vegetables for the children. Only a few people have goats or cows to feed the children with milk,” Khalil said.

In the capital, Kabul, food is widely available, but few can afford a vaied and nutritious diet.

“There are plenty of food items in the market, but we don’t have the money to buy them,” Mohammad Barat, a 52-year-old daily wage earner, told Arab News.

The looming catastrophe is not only one of shocking levels of poverty, but also lost hope and opportunities.

Tens of thousands of Afghans fled the country over several chaotic days last August, when US forces and their coalition partners hastily airlifted Afghans from Kabul airport. Many others, including professionals, have since followed in their footsteps.

“Doctors are leaving, engineers are leaving, professors and experts are also leaving the country,” Abdul Hamid, a student at Kabul University, told Arab News. “There’s no hope for a better future.”

Those who worked for the deposed Western-backed administration have been removed from public life, particularly women, who are now forced to wear face coverings, banned from making long-distance journeys alone, and prevented from working in most sectors beyond health and education.




Women face a growing number of restrictions in their daily lives; right, Taliban fighters in Kandahar celebrate the US withdrawal. (AFP)

Education, too, has been strictly limited for women, even though allowing girls into schools and colleges has been one of the international community’s core demands since the Taliban retook control of the country.

In mid-March, after months of uncertainty, the Taliban said that they would allow girls to return to school. However, when they arrived at schools around the country to resume studies, those above the age of 13 were ordered to return home.

In a last-minute decision, the Taliban had announced that high schools would remain closed for girls until a plan was ready to receive them in accordance with Islamic law.

Almost half a year later, teenage girls fear they will not return to the classroom anytime soon.

“There’s no reason for banning girls from school,” Amal, an 11th grade student at Rabia Balkhi High School in Kabul, told Arab News. “They just don’t want us to get an education.”




Now that US-led forces have withdrawn and the Taliban has traded guerrilla warfare for the day-to-day running of the country, security has greatly improved. (AFP)

Despite repeated hints by the predominantly Pashtun, Islamic fundamentalist group that experience and the passage of time have softened its rough edges, the streets of Kabul increasingly resemble the Taliban-governed pre-2002 era.

Since the restoration of the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which enforces the group’s austere interpretation of Islam, traditional clothing, turbans and burqas have replaced suits and jeans, which only a year ago had been considered normal attire in the Afghan capital.

Key symbols of the nation’s identity are also changing, with the white and black banner of the Taliban now appearing on government buildings and in public spaces, gradually replacing Afghanistan’s tricolor, despite earlier pledges it would not be changed.  

For some, the replacement of the old national flag is more than symbolic, and is indicative of the Taliban’s hijacking of the country. 

“It doesn’t represent any government or regime. The Taliban could keep both,” Shah Rahim, a 43-year-old resident of Kabul, told Arab News. 

“The flag is a representation of our nation, our values and our history.”

 

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Saudi minister visits Delhi as tensions rise between India, Pakistan

Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar shake hands in New Delhi
Updated 4 sec ago
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Saudi minister visits Delhi as tensions rise between India, Pakistan

  • Adel Al-Jubeir holds ‘good’ talks with Indian counterpart
  • India launched missile strikes on Pakistan on Wednesday following deadly attack on tourists in Kashmir last month

NEW DELHI: Saudi Arabia’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir made a surprise visit to India on Thursday to meet External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, amid escalating tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad.

Al-Jubeir’s trip comes a day after India launched Operation Sindoor, hitting nine locations in Pakistan’s densely populated Punjab province and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, from where Delhi said terrorist attacks against India had been planned and directed.

Jaishankar said on X that he had a “good meeting” with Al-Jubeir on Thursday morning, during which he “shared India’s perspectives on firmly countering terrorism.”

India said Wednesday’s missile strikes were in response to an attack on tourists near the resort town of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir on April 22, in which 26 people — 25 Indians and one Nepali citizen — were killed.

At least 31 people were killed in the retaliatory strikes, Pakistani officials said. With the two militaries engaged in escalating exchanges, world leaders have urged both sides to exercise restraint and called for a de-escalation of hostilities.

Kashmir has been the subject of dispute since the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.

Both countries claim the Himalayan region in full and rule in part, and have fought two of their three wars over it.

Indian-administered Kashmir has for decades witnessed outbreaks of separatist insurgency to resist control from the government in Delhi, which accuses Pakistan of arming and training militants since 1989. Islamabad denies the allegations, saying it offers only moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people in their struggle for self-determination.


German spy agency pauses ‘extremist’ classification for AfD party

Updated 3 min 12 sec ago
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German spy agency pauses ‘extremist’ classification for AfD party

The agency would not publicly refer to the AfD as a “confirmed right-wing extremist movement“
The extremist classification allows the Cologne-based spy agency to step up monitoring of the AfD

BERLIN: Germany’s domestic spy agency BfV has paused its classification of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) as an extremist organization in what the AfD on Thursday called a partial victory for its challenge against the decision.
The agency would not publicly refer to the AfD as a “confirmed right-wing extremist movement” until an administrative court in the western city of Cologne has ruled on an AfD bid for an injunction, a court statement said.
The BfV’s move last week to classify the far-right AfD as extremist produced sharp reactions along the fault lines of German politics, with some lawmakers calling for the AfD to be banned and the AfD casting it as an attack on democracy.
It also sparked strong criticism from US President Donald Trump’s administration, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling on the German authorities to reverse their decision.
The extremist classification allows the Cologne-based spy agency to step up monitoring of the AfD, for example by recruiting informants and intercepting party communications.
“The measures associated with the classification will also be suspended,” a court spokesperson said without elaborating.
The agency’s 1,100-page experts’ report, which will not be released to the public, found the AfD to be a racist and anti-Muslim organization.
Founded in 2013, the AfD has surged to become Germany’s second biggest party but other parties have shunned it as toxic.
The AfD says its designation is a politically motivated attempt to discredit and criminalize it.
Its leadership welcomed the decision by the BfV, which the court said was not acknowledging any legal obligation.
“This is a first important step toward our actual exoneration and thus countering the accusation of right-wing extremism,” party leaders Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel said in a joint statement.
The BfV did not immediately comment.
The agency’s decision to pause the AfD’s classification does not mean the BfV has revised its assessment of the party.
The AfD has previously lost a legal challenge when its now-defunct youth organization was classified as right-wing extremist.
On Wednesday, the Republican chairman of the US Senate intelligence committee called for American spy agencies to “pause” intelligence sharing with the BfV, whose mission includes counter-terrorism.
Senator Tom Cotton called for the pause until Germany’s government “treats the AfD as a legitimate opposition party,” according to a letter to Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s director of National Intelligence.

Diners Club International® Announces $750,000 Donation for World Central Kitchen

Updated 46 min 16 sec ago
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Diners Club International® Announces $750,000 Donation for World Central Kitchen

  • “Diners Club is proud to collaborate with World Central Kitchen as part of our 75th Anniversary celebration,” said Leite
  • WCK halted on Wednesday its work in the Gaza Strip, saying it had run out of supplies as it had been prevented by Israel from bringing in aid

RIVERWOODS, USA: Diners Club International announced on Thursday a donation of $750,000 to World Central Kitchen to aid communities impacted by natural disasters and humanitarian crises worldwide.
For every purchase made with a Diners Club card globally on May 7, 2025, the company provided one meal, up to a total of $750,000.
Diners Club’s $750K donation to World Central Kitchen will provide approximately 150,000 meals to impacted communities worldwide.
This contribution is part of its 75th-anniversary celebrations that began in February. Through this collaboration, Club members will have a direct role in providing comforting meals to survivors of natural disasters and humanitarian causes.
“Diners Club is proud to collaborate with World Central Kitchen as part of our 75th Anniversary celebration,” said Ricardo Leite, president of Diners Club International.
As part of Diners Club’s Together for Change program, this global initiative empowers Diners Club Issuers and Club members to support causes that matter most in their communities. For over 20 years, Diners Club has supported various causes, with a focus on sustainability, health care, education and disaster relief.
Meanwhile, US-based World Central Kitchen charity halted on Wednesday its work in the Gaza Strip, saying it had run out of supplies as it had been prevented by Israel from bringing in aid.
“After serving more than 130 million total meals and 26 million loaves of bread over the past 18 months, World Central Kitchen no longer has the supplies to cook meals or bake bread in Gaza,” it said in a post on X.
The charity said it would continue to support Palestinian families by distributing critically needed potable water where possible, but vital food distribution cannot resume until Israel allows aid back into the enclave.


Bill Gates to give away fortune by 2045, $200bn for world’s poorest

Updated 42 min 15 sec ago
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Bill Gates to give away fortune by 2045, $200bn for world’s poorest

  • Microsoft co-founder said It’s unclear whether world’s richest countries will continue to stand up for the poorest people amid widespread aid and development funding cuts
  • Gates Foundation has given away $100 billion in its first 25 years, saving millions of lives

LONDON: Bill Gates pledged on Thursday to give away almost his entire personal wealth in the next two decades and said the world’s poorest would receive some $200 billion via his foundation at a time when governments worldwide are slashing international aid.
The 69-year-old billionaire Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist said he was speeding up plans to divest his fortune and close the Gates Foundation on Dec. 31, 2045.
“People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that ‘he died rich’ will not be one of them,” Gates wrote in a post on his website.
“There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people.”
In an implicit rebuke to President Donald Trump’s slashing of aid from the world’s biggest donor the United States, Gates’ statement said he wanted to help stop newborn babies, children and mothers dying of preventable causes, end diseases like polio, malaria and measles, and reduce poverty.
“It’s unclear whether the world’s richest countries will continue to stand up for its poorest people,” he added, noting cuts from major donors also including the UK and France.
Gates said that despite the foundation’s deep pockets, progress would not be possible without government support.
He praised the response to aid cuts in Africa, where some governments have reallocated budgets, but said that as an example polio would not be eradicated without US funding.
Gates made the announcement on the foundation’s 25th anniversary. He set up the organization with his then-wife Melinda French Gates in 2000, and they were later joined by investor Warren Buffett.
“I have come a long way since I was just a kid starting a software company with my friend from middle school,” he said.
Since inception, the foundation has given away $100 billion, helping to save millions of lives and backing initiatives like the vaccine group Gavi and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
It will close after it spends around 99 percent of his personal fortune, Gates said. The founders originally expected the foundation to wrap up in the decades after their deaths.
Gates, who is valued at around $108 billion today, expects the foundation to spend around $200 billion by 2045, with the final figure dependent on markets and inflation.
The foundation is already a huge player in global health, with an annual budget that will reach $9 billion by 2026.
It has faced criticism for its outsize power and influence in the field without the requisite accountability, including at the World Health Organization.
Gates himself was also subject to conspiracy theories, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gates has also spoken to US President Donald Trump several times in recent months on the importance of continued investment in global health.
“I hope other wealthy people consider how much they can accelerate progress for the world’s poorest if they increased the pace and scale of their giving, because it is such a profoundly impactful way to give back to society,” Gates wrote.


Ambani’s Reliance pulls trademark application for codename of Pakistan strikes

Updated 08 May 2025
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Ambani’s Reliance pulls trademark application for codename of Pakistan strikes

  • Ambani’s film studio withdraws application to trademark codename ‘Operation Sindhor’ against Pakistan after public and political uproar
  • Reliance says phrase “Operation Sindoor” was “now a part of the national consciousness as an evocative symbol of Indian bravery“

NEW DELHI: Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani’s film studio has withdrawn an application to trademark the codename for India’s military strikes against Pakistan after a public and political uproar on social media against the move.
In a statement, billionaire Ambani’s conglomerate Reliance said the trademark application was filed inadvertently by a junior person at Jio Studios without authorization, adding that the phrase “Operation Sindoor” was “now a part of the national consciousness as an evocative symbol of Indian bravery.”
India said it hit “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir earlier this week after militants killed 26 men, mostly Hindu, in Indian Kashmir. Sindoor, which refers to the red vermilion powder worn by married Hindu women, was an apparent reference to the widows left by the attack.
Reliance’s statement came hours after some social media users posted screenshots of the Indian government website showing some individuals and Reliance had filed applications for trademark registration.
“This isn’t branding, it’s blatant mockery ... It’s disturbing to see something so serious being reduced to a joke,” posted an X user who identified herself as Archana Pawar.
Aniruddh Sharma, a spokesperson for India’s main opposition Congress party, questioned why Ambani was trying to register the trademark for his business gains.
In its application, Reliance said it was for “provision of entertainment; production, presentation and distribution of audio, video.”
Bollywood films on India’s previous military operations have been huge hits. In 2019, “Uri,” based on India’s previous “surgical strikes” on alleged Islamist militant launchpads in Pakistani territory, was released in 16 countries including India.
Islamabad said at the time there had been no Indian incursion into its territory and there was no retaliation by Pakistani forces.
Reliance last year merged its Indian media assets with Walt Disney to create a $8.5 billion entertainment empire, which runs several channels and a streaming platform.