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Women cover their faces when walking down a street in Kabul, Afghanistan, yesterday

World 'must not forget' Afghan women and girls, says UN

The United Nations has implored the world to not forget the plight of Afghanistan's women and children despite other international crises, one year after the Taliban's return to power.

World • 15 Aug 22

A US soldier is handed a baby at Kabul Airport as people try to flee Afghanistan

Afghanistan: Major challenges a year after troops left

A year after US and Western forces withdrew from Afghanistan, Fiona Mitchell looks at the challenges facing the country.

World • 14 Aug 22

Taliban security forces on patrol in Kabul (File image)

Taliban fighters fire in air to disperse Kabul protest

Taliban fighters beat women protesters and fired into the air as they violently dispersed a rare rally in the Afghan capital, days ahead of the first anniversary of the hardline Islamists' return to power.

World • 13 Aug 22

US reflects on Afghan war a year after withdrawal

What did the US accomplish from its two-decades-long occupation of Afghanistan?

Analysis and Comment • 13 Aug 22

Rahimullah Haqqani had recently spoken publicly in favour of girls being allowed to attend school

Taliban cleric killed by bomb hidden in artificial leg

A prominent Taliban cleric, Sheikh Rahimullah Haqqani, was killed today in an attack in a seminary in Kabul, Afghanistan when the attacker detonated explosives hidden in a plastic artificial leg.

World • 11 Aug 22

Barialai Khoshhal has been documenting the lives of other Afghan refugees in Ireland

Afghan photographer showcases work in Dublin exhibition

An Afghan photographer who escaped the Taliban takeover last August is showcasing his work in a new exhibition in Dublin marking the first anniversary of the crisis.

Dublin • 11 Aug 22

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri pictured during a pre-recorded broadcast on Al-Jazeera in 2006

How it happened: The killing of al-Qaeda's Zawahiri

Despite a $25 million US bounty on his head, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri apparently felt comfortable enough with the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan to move into a home in Kabul where he would regularly appear out in the open, on his balcony.

World • 02 Aug 22

Ayman al-Zawahiri helped co-ordinate the 11 September 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people (2012 file pic)

US kills al-Qaeda leader in Afghanistan drone strike

The US has killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a strike in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden said, the biggest blow to the militant group since its founder Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011.

World • 02 Aug 22

The Taliban have routinely denied accusations of rights abuses since overthrowing the previous Western-backed government, but a UNAMA report released today listed multiple accounts (file pic)

UN records hundreds of rights violations by Taliban

The Taliban have carried out hundreds of human rights violations in Afghanistan since seizing power last year, the United Nations has said, including extrajudicial killings and torture.

World • 20 Jul 22

Fawzia Koofi described how painful it was 'to advocate for our basic rights, the right to be visible, the right to not be erased'

Afghan women being 'erased from public life'

An exiled former member of the Afghan parliament has told an urgent debate at the UN Human Rights Council that women there are in danger of being "erased from public life".

World • 01 Jul 22

A man sells stickers picturing Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada at market in Kabul (File image)

'Stop interfering in Afghanistan', says Taliban leader

The Taliban's reclusive supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada has called for the world to stop telling them how to run Afghanistan, insisting sharia law was the only model for a successful Islamic state.

World • 01 Jul 22

An Afghan man stands besides a door of a house damaged by an earthquake in Bermal district, Paktika province

Afghanistan earthquake aftershock kills five

Afghanistan does not have enough medical supplies to treat the injured from an earthquake that killed 1,000 people this week, a senior official said, as an aftershock today killed five more people.

World • 24 Jun 22

Hameed Ur Rehman Aryoubi applied to bring his elderly parents and his late brother's children to Ireland under the Afghan Admissions Programme

Afghan man in Ireland fearful for family back home

An Afghan man who has been living in Ireland since 2016 has expressed his fear and worry for his family back home after an earthquake in the struggling nation killed 1,000 people.

Ireland • 23 Jun 22

A child walks amid the rubble of damaged houses following an earthquake in Bernal district, Paktika province

Taliban say earthquake rescue effort almost complete

Aid has begun to arrive in a remote part of Afghanistan where an earthquake killed 1,000 people, with Taliban officials saying the rescue operation was almost complete.

Asia • 23 Jun 22

Search and rescue operations continue after an earthquake shook the border province of Paktika, Afghanistan

Afghan quake kills 1,000, more trapped in rubble

The death toll from an earthquake in Afghanistan has hit 1,000, disaster management officials said, with more than 600 injured and the toll expected to grow as information trickles in from remote mountain villages.

World • 22 Jun 22

The World Food Programme said the scale of the needs in Afghanistan are 'at levels we have not seen before'

Food shortage for nine out of ten people in Afghanistan

Nine out of ten people in Afghanistan do not have enough food to eat, the World Food Programme (WFP) has said.

World • 15 Jun 22

Nisar Nabil, presenter for TOLOnews, wearing a black mask speaks during a live broadcast

Afghan male TV presenters wear masks in protest

Seconds before he presents a news bulletin, Afghan television anchor Nisar Nabil puts on a black mask as a symbolic protest against the Taliban authorities for ordering women presenters to cover their faces on air.

World • 26 May 22

The decree orders authorities to fire women government employees if they fail to follow the dress code

Female TV presenters cover faces on air in Afghanistan

Female presenters on Afghanistan's leading news channels went on air today with their faces covered, a day after defying a Taliban order to conceal their appearance on television.

Afghanistan • 22 May 22

Members of Afghanistan's Powerful Women Movement take part in a protest in Kabul on 10 May, 2022.

TV presenters defy Taliban and show their faces on air

Female presenters on Afghanistan's leading TV channels have gone on air without covering their faces, defying a Taliban order that they conceal their appearance.

World • 21 May 22

The Taliban wants women presenters to wear medical face masks similar to those used during pandemic

Taliban orders female TV presenters to cover their face

Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have asked television broadcasters to ensure that female presenters on local stations cover their faces when on air, an official said today.

World • 19 May 22

The Taliban have closed several bodies that protected the freedoms of Afghans (File pic)

Taliban shuts down Afghan human rights body

Taliban authorities have said they have dissolved Afghanistan's independent human rights commission as it was "not considered necessary".

World • 17 May 22

Women protested in Kabul this week against the Taliban's order for women to cover fully in public

Taliban stop men and women dining together

Taliban authorities have banned men and women from dining out together and visiting parks at the same time in the western Afghan city of Herat, an official said today.

World • 12 May 22

The burqa decree is one of the harshest controls imposed on women's lives since the Taliban seized power

Taliban orders all Afghan women to wear burqa

Afghanistan's supreme leader and Taliban chief has today ordered the country's women to wear the all-covering burqa in public.

World • 07 May 22

An Afghan woman sits beside heavy traffic in Herat, Afghanistan

Taliban orders ban on new driving licences for women

Taliban officials in Afghanistan's most progressive city have told driving instructors to stop issuing licences to women, professionals from the sector told AFP.

World • 03 May 22

Women wait to receive a food donation from the Afterlife foundation during Ramadan in Kandahar

Taliban supreme leader urges world to recognise govt

Afghanistan's supreme leader has called again for the international community to recognise the Taliban government, saying the world had become a "small village" and proper diplomatic relations would help solve the country's problems.

World • 29 Apr 22