Afghanistan

It has been nearly a month since the Taliban effectively banned girls from secondary education by ordering schools to re-open only for boys. Millions of teenage girls across the country are now denied the opportunity to continue their education. 

Afghanistan is at a make or break moment, the UN secretary general has warned, as he declared that failing to save the country’s economy from collapse would mean “the world will pay a heavy price”. 

Several civilians are thought to have died in the blast, the biggest attack in the city since local Islamic State extremists targeted the mass evacuation at the airport more than a month ago.

Thousands of Afghans who’ve fled the Taliban takeover are starting new lives, many of them here in the UK. 

A senior Taliban official in Afghanistan has warned that extreme punishments like executions will resume in the country, claiming it’s “necessary for security”.

Dozens of female footballers and their families have managed to escape from Afghanistan across the border to Pakistan, including one group who’d been in hiding after their homes were burned down and some relatives were captured by the Taliban. But there are entire communities left behind who are now living in fear, like the Hazara…

We spoke to Hosna Jalil, the former deputy interior minister in Afghanistan.

Talibs have now raised their flag over the presidential palace, heralding the dawn of a new era. And what that new reality means for Afghan women is now becoming clear. 

After 9/11 the Americans invaded Afghanistan and easily overthrew the Taliban, who had harboured Al Qaeda, that carried out the attacks. But after that nothing was easy. 

Two men who last saw each other in Afghanistan 10 years ago when they served alongside each other with the British military have been reunited, after Afghan translator Nazir Ahmad Muslim and his family managed to escape the Taliban.

We spoke to Mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud’s brother, Ahmad Wali Massoud.

Thirteen Britons have managed to fly out of Afghanistan onboard the first international flight to leave Kabul since western forces pulled out.

International leaders have condemned the make-up of Afghanistan’s interim government, as the Taliban appointed a number of hardliners to the all-male cabinet, including one minister on the FBI’s most wanted list.  

The future for all Afghans is uncertain, but for the disabled population it is even more precarious.

The Taliban have named an interim government with a prime minister who is on a UN terror watchlist and an interior minister with a $10 million bounty on his head.