By Niamatullah Ibrahimi, Arif Saba and Safiullah Taye
On August 15 2021, Afghanistan’s democratic republic collapsed.
As the last US and NATO troops departed the country, the Taliban swept back into power and the Afghan people braced for an uncertain future.
Despite promises of moderation and inclusion, four years later, the Taliban has established a repressive, exclusionary regime – one that has dismantled institutions of law, justice and civil rights with ruthless efficiency.
As the Taliban regime has tightened its grip, international attention has waned. Crises in Ukraine, Gaza and elsewhere have dominated the global agenda, pushing Afghanistan out of the spotlight.
With the Taliban seeking to end its isolation and gain legitimacy, can the international community find the will now to exert real pressure?
The Taliban’s emirate of repression
After coming back into power, the Taliban discarded the country’s 2004 constitution, allowing the regime to operate without a transparent rule of law. Instead, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, the reclusive Taliban leader, rules by decree from his base in Kandahar.
The Taliban’s repression of women and girls has been so severe, human rights groups now call it “gender apartheid” and argue it should be a new international crime.
Edicts have erased women from public life, banning them from education beyond primary school (with the exception of religious education), employment and public spaces. Women also cannot move freely in public without a mahram, or male guardian.
The Taliban also dismantled the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, replacing it with the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. As a central instrument of repression, the ministry reinforces institutionalised gender discrimination through regular raids and arrests, surveillance and monitoring of public spaces.
Taliban rule has also led to the exclusion and persecution of minority ethnic and religious groups such as Hazaras, Shias, Sikhs and Christians.
In the province of Panjshir, the focal point of resistance to the Taliban, human rights groups have documented the Taliban’s severe crackdowns on the local population, including mass arrests and detentions, torture and extrajudicial killings.
More broadly, the Taliban has decimated the civic space in the country. Journalists and activists have been silenced through fear, violence and arbitrary arrests. This has led to widespread self-censorship and an information blackout that allows abuses to continue with impunity.
Despite the immense risks, activists, journalists and ordinary citizens continue to resist the Taliban. Women have staged peaceful protests in the face of harsh crackdowns, while others run secret schools for girls and document abuses in the hope of future accountability.
Humanitarian aid dwindling
Although most countries do not recognise the Taliban as the formal and legitimate government of the country, some regional states have called for an easing of its international isolation.
Last month, Russia became the first country to recognise the Taliban. China is also deepening its economic and diplomatic ties with the group. India’s foreign minister recently met with his Taliban counterpart, after which the Taliban called New Delhi a “significant regional partner”.
International aid continues to flow into Afghanistan, but a report from a US watchdog this week documented how the Taliban uses force and other means to divert it.
The United States had still accounted for more than 40% of all humanitarian support to Afghanistan after the Taliban’s return. But US President Donald Trump’s decision to decimate the US Agency for International Development means this funding has all but disappeared.
This has crippled essential services and threatens to plunge the country into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Health facilities have closed and malnutrition is rising. The mass deportation of hundreds of thousands of Afghans from Iran and Pakistan has only further added to the humanitarian catastrophe.
For years, the United Nations has tried to facilitate talks between the Taliban and international community in Qatar with the aim of improving conditions in the country. However, it has faced repeated setbacks.
The Taliban only decided to attend the talks in mid-2024 after the UN conceded to excluding women and civil society groups and restricting the agenda. The meeting resulted in no breakthroughs or concessions.
Another round of talks is anticipated, but the central dilemma remains: how to engage the Taliban without legitimising its repressive rule.
Courts making some progress
The Taliban’s systematic human rights abuses have global repercussions. Experts warn of a rising trend of similarly styled repression, dubbed “Talibanisation”, taking root in other countries.
In Yemen, for example, Houthi leaders have imposed restrictions eerily similar to Taliban edicts, banning women from walking in public without a male guardian and restricting their work.
While individual states have failed to agree on a coordinated response to the Taliban, international institutions have taken steps in the right direction.
In July, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Akhundzada and the Taliban chief justice, accusing them of crimes against humanity for gender-based persecution.
Separately, four countries – Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada – have begun the process of bringing a case against the Taliban to the International Court of Justice for gender discrimination. This would be a first for the court.
To complement these efforts, the UN member states must establish an independent international investigative mechanism to systematically document and investigate crimes committed by the Taliban. Such a mechanism would help preserve evidence and lay the groundwork for future prosecutions.
Without concerted international pressure, the suffering of the Afghan people will only worsen and the Taliban’s brand of repression will continue impact women’s rights far beyond Afghanistan’s borders.
Niamatullah Ibrahimi is a Senior Research Fellow at the Initiative for Peacebuilding at the The University of Melbourne; Arif Saba is a Visiting Scholar in International Relations at Deakin University; Safiullah Taye is a Researcher and sessional academic at Australian Catholic University.
Deborah Coffey says
Yeah…sounds exactly like our new American Taliban. The international community will not save us, either. Only “We the People” can do that.
Dennis C Rathsam says
Thank Biden for this…. Its all on him! All the generals told him not to leave, Afganistan, it would be a mistake, then leaving millions of dollars of equipment, guns, ammo, tanks & planes there was the act of an imbacil. BIDEN has the blood of our service men & woman on his hands….. these heros died in vain.
Ray W, says
Hello Dennis C. Rathsam.
Let’s look at your claims in the comment above:
1. “All” of the generals told former President Biden not to leave Afghanistan.
It is true that General Mark Milley and General Kenneth McKenzie testified during a September 28, 2021, Senate hearing that they had recommended to then-President Biden that a residual force of 2,500 to 3,500 soldiers should remain in Afghanistan.
General McKenzie stated that he also had told President Trump in the fall of 2020 that 4,500 soldiers was the minimum troop level appropriate to leave in the country, some six months after President Trump had signed a pact with the Taliban in February 2020 that mandated that all American soldiers leave the country by April 2025. In exchange, President Trump pressured the Afghan government to empty its prisons of Taliban fighters. Some 5,000 Taliban fighters were released, including the Taliban’s current leader.
On January 14, 2021, President Trump announced that the American troop level had been drawn down to 2,500, a figure that he claimed was the lowest in 19 years. He didn’t listen to a general’s advice, either.
General Lloyd Austin said he was present when advice from the two generals was given to the president, a statement that offers confirmation of the story later told to the Senate by the two generals. There is no record of General Austin saying that he, too, advised President Biden that 2,500 American troops should be left in Afghanistan.
Since Dennis C. Rathsam claims that “all” the generals told President Biden to leave American forces in Afghanistan, and since there are more than two generals in the military, Dennis C. Rathsam is being less than accurate in his claim. Had he said two of the many generals argued that 2,500 soldiers should have been left behind in Afghanistan at the time of the turnover of that nation’s defense to the Afghan Army, he would have been more accurate in his all-or-nothing claim. But what would those 2,500 soldiers have had to do had the Afghan Army collapsed in less than two months after the fight was turned over to them? Would American soldiers have been stranded in a distant land, fighting the newly heavily armed Taliban alone?
Truth – 1. Dennis C. Rathsam – 0.
Next, Dennis C. Rathsam claims it was imbecilic for former President Biden to leave millions of dollars’ worth of equipment, guns, ammunition, tanks, and planes, etc. behind in Afghanistan after American soldiers left the country.
This one is easy. American forces spent 19 years trying to build an Afghan Army that could have, on its own, the strength and will to defend the country from the Taliban. Had former President Biden denuded the Afghan Army of all of its weapons, guns, ammunition, tanks, and planes, etc., in the months prior to American forces leaving the country, just what weaponry would the Afghan Army had left to fight the Taliban? It would have been an act of an imbecile to denude the Afghan Army of its weaponry, not the other way around, as Dennis C. Rathsam would have it!
Truth – 2. Dennis C. Rathsam – 0.
Dennis C. Rathsam is correct when he argues that there is blood on former President Biden’s hands. He was negligent for not adding the fact that there is blood on President Trump’s hands, too. Trump is the one who signed the pact with the Taliban in February 2020, from which pact some 5,000 Taliban fighters were released from Afghan jails, including the Taliban’s current leader. Trump is the one who didn’t listen to one of his generals, who recommended to him that 4,500 American soldiers should be left in Afghanistan. Trump is the one who set the April 2021 date for all American forces to leave the country. Trump is the one who neglected to start the process of removing all of the Afghan Army’s weapons from the country in February 2020. Trump had nearly 11 months to save the millions of dollars that catches Dennis C. Rathsam’s imagination, but that would have meant denuding the Afghan military of all of its weapons, yet Trump did nothing.
Truth – 2.5. Dennis C. Rathsam – 0.5.
Thank you, Dennis C. Rathsam, for providing to me once again the opportunity to correct your several inaccurate comments.
Lynne says
Maybe Trumpy can add Afghanistan to his list of to-dos – although it sound like what they already have is what he is doing to us!
Mike P says
Dennis, I agree 100% but if I say more, my “moderated” comments, email, and name are flagged and won’t get posted. Moderated equals censored here…sad
Jim says
First, for Dennis… I know you won’t believe this but the reason Biden pulled all the troops out is because Trump negotiated that “deal” with the Taliban (and without the government of Afghanistan being involved at all). That was Trump’s solution. I don’t excuse Biden for the poor job his administration did in coordinating that withdrawal but he was honoring the Trump deal. Again, don’t read anything that diverts you from your preferred facts…..
Regarding Afghanistan and the Taliban, the US and it’s allies spent 20 years and billions of dollars trying to stand up a functional democracy in that country. The people of that country were not willing to do what it takes to have a functional government, much less a democracy. As a result, the Taliban just continued their resistance until we got tired of the whole thing and left. And, almost immediately, the government collapsed and the Taliban took over. I really hate the conditions that the Afghanis are living under. But I am also of the opinion that if you want a different way to live, you’ve got to stand up for yourself and demand it. Until the people of that country decide they’ve had enough and rise up and over through the Taliban, what they have now will be their way of life. I’m sorry that it’s that way but it’s up to them to make a change.
Pogo says
@Jim
Very well stated. One correction:
Trillions, not billions
http://www.google.com/search?q=us+trillion+afghanistan
Sherry says
Thank you Ray W. and Jim!
Thank goodness “Facts Matter” on Flaglerlive! For those who are upset that their “laundered lies” aren’t published, please stick to commentary based on factual information and you’ll be fine with your postings here.