Tag: afghanistan

World Health Organization Begs Taliban to Accept Female Aid Workers for Earthquake Victims

The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) pleaded Monday with the Taliban junta in Afghanistan to lift its Islamist restrictions against female workers, so that women would be allowed to travel without male guardians and provide humanitarian relief for victims of the devastating September 1 earthquake.

“A very big issue now is the increasing paucity of female staff in these places,” noted the deputy W.H.O. representative to Afghanistan, Dr. Mukta Sharma.

Sharma told Reuters that 90% of the medical staff in the area affected by the earthquake are male, and few of the female staffers were fully qualified doctors. She felt more female doctors would help women in the quake area who were afraid to deal with male physicians. 

Sharma also said the Taliban’s religious edicts against women traveling without male escorts were making it difficult for women to leave the quake area to receive hospital care.

India Today reported on Friday that “Taliban-imposed gender restrictions” are “compounding the tragedy for Afghan women” in other ways as well. 

For example, under the Taliban’s version of Islamic law, women can only make physical contact with their husbands or close male relatives — which means a large number of women are still buried under rubble in villages collapsed by the earthquake, because male rescue workers cannot touch them, and females are not allowed to travel to the disaster area to help.

According to India Today, badly injured female survivors have been left trapped in the debris of collapsed buildings while dead bodies were recovered around them. 

The New York Times (NYT) quoted women who said they were “pushed aside” and “forgotten” while men and boys received treatment for their injuries.

“It felt like women were invisible. The men and children were treated first, but the women were sitting apart, waiting for care,” a male rescue volunteer said.

There are not many qualified female rescue workers to go around, as the Taliban banned women from receiving education in medicine and other advanced fields in 2023. Foreign visitors have observed that hospitals in Afghanistan are almost entirely devoid of female staffers. The NYT said its reporters saw no women among the medical teams treating earthquake survivors.

Maternity care is particularly difficult to come by thanks to the Taliban’s restrictions, and the U.N. estimates there were at least 11,600 pregnant women in the earthquake zone.

The Taliban also banned women from working for foreign humanitarian groups and non-governmental organizations. Even female employees of the United Nations have been harassed and intimidated out of their workplaces.

“The restrictions are huge, the mahram issue continues, and no formal exemption has been provided by the de facto authorities,” Sharma told Reuters. Mahram is the name of the law that requires women to have male escorts when they travel.

“That’s why we felt we had to advocate with (authorities) to say, this is the time you really need to have more female health workers present, let us bring them in, and let us search from other places where they’re available,” she said.

The death toll from the September 1 earthquakes is now over 2,200, plus 3,600 injured. Countless homes were destroyed, leaving survivors to huddle in tents and other temporary structures. Many of the refugees are refusing to return home, now that they have seen how poorly the Taliban junta deals with earthquakes and landslides.

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Suffering in Afghanistan the Fault of Taliban, Not U.S. Aid Cuts

A devastating earthquake underscores how the Taliban has subjected the people of Afghanistan to suffering, while the muted international response shows that even globalists, Muslim-majority nations, and authoritarian regimes are steering clear of the Taliban and its support for transnational terrorism.

Prior to the earthquake, the only government extending significant economic support to the Taliban was the Biden administration. In 2021, it left behind over $7 billions of dollars’ worth of weapons, and over its four-year term (2021–2025) provided an estimated $2.5–3 billion in direct aid. However, the real total is much higher. Testimony before the House Oversight Committee revealed that between 2021 and 2023 alone, the Biden administration gave Afghanistan $8 billion.

The 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck Konar province near the Pakistan border late on August 31, 2025, killing more than 2,200 people and injuring thousands. The shallow quake collapsed fragile mud-and-brick homes, wiping out entire villages and leaving over half a million people without shelter.

This tragedy comes amid one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Four years of Taliban rule have left Afghanistan isolated, foreign aid has dried up, and nearly half the population, about 23 million, depend on assistance. While the Taliban has appealed for help, its alignment with authoritarian powers, support for terrorism, and gross human rights violations have discouraged broader aid and recognition.

The Taliban maintain close ties with al-Qaeda and provide safe haven for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which continues to operate from Afghan territory and carry out cross-border attacks. A UN report noted, “The Taliban do not conceive of TTP as a terrorist group: the bonds are close, and the debt owed to TTP is significant.” Other designated terror groups have pledged allegiance to the Taliban, including al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, Jemaah Islamiyah, Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin, and Ansar al-Sharia in Libya.

Since the fall of Kabul in 2021, only Russia has formally recognized the Taliban as Afghanistan’s government. Moscow lifted its “terrorist” designation in April 2025 and formally recognized the regime that July. China has not granted formal recognition but accepted Taliban credentials in 2024, and Iran has also moved closer, handing over the Afghan embassy in 2023 and sending its foreign minister to Kabul in 2025. Yet both Iran and Pakistan have worsened the crisis by deporting 1.9 million Afghan refugees, many forced to live in tents near the borders.

Under Taliban rule, human rights and quality of life, especially for women, have collapsed. Nearly 23 million Afghans require aid: 21 million lack safe water, 14.8 million face acute food insecurity, 14.3 million have limited healthcare access, and 7.8 million women and children need nutrition support. The World Food Program warns 3.1 million Afghans are on the brink of starvation, with 2.9 million already at emergency levels.

Healthcare is collapsing. By April 2025, 439 facilities had closed due to U.S. funding cuts, leaving three million people without care. More than 200 others have shut from severe shortfalls, affecting two million more. In 2023, reports warned that over 90 percent of facilities were at risk, leading to an estimated 4.8 million unattended pregnancies and 51,000 maternal deaths between 2021 and 2025. Infant mortality was 43 per 1,000 in 2021, and maternal mortality 620 per 100,000 in 2020. Between mid-2024 and mid-2025, 3.5 million children and 1.2 million pregnant or breastfeeding women are projected to suffer acute malnutrition.

The economy has collapsed. Nearly half of Afghans live below the poverty line. Before the Taliban takeover, foreign aid made up 40 percent of GDP, funded more than half the government’s $6 billion budget, and covered up to 80 percent of public expenditures. Since then, this support has vanished, leaving more than 14 million food insecure and nearly five million women and children acutely malnourished.

Repression is systematic. In the first half of 2024, UN monitors recorded nearly 100 arbitrary detentions and at least 20 cases of torture, targeting former officials, deportees, and LGBT Afghans. Corporal punishments are common, with at least 147 men, 28 women, and four boys flogged in 2024, and more than 180 people publicly punished for adultery or homosexuality in early 2025.

Freedom of expression has disappeared. Between 2021 and 2024, UNAMA documented 336 cases of arbitrary arrest, torture, and intimidation of journalists. The Taliban banned live political broadcasts, censored images, and detained reporters, often without legal or family access. Civil society critics also face harassment, including the detention of analyst Jawed Kohistani.

Women and girls have been erased from public life. They are banned from secondary school from age 13, excluded from universities, and denied healthcare without a male guardian. Nearly 80 percent of young women between 18 and 29 are neither in education, employment, nor training. Only one in four women is working or seeking work, compared to nearly 90 percent of men, creating one of the world’s largest workforce gender gaps. The Taliban suspended women’s medical education in 2024, and UNDP estimates these restrictions cost the economy up to $1 billion annually.

Violence compounds repression. ISKP has carried out deadly attacks on Hazara communities, mosques, buses, and Taliban offices. Pakistani cross-border fire and airstrikes have added civilian casualties. Meanwhile, the Taliban’s Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice law enforces strict dress and behavior codes, backed by raids and checkpoints, mirroring their 1996–2001 rule. UN experts describe this as “institutionalized persecution” that may amount to crimes against humanity.

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U.S. generals ran cover for Taliban, despite violent attacks during bungled withdrawal

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and CENTCOM Commander Frank McKenzie repeatedly ran cover for the Taliban’s behavior in 2021, denying that the Taliban had carried out attacks against U.S. and NATO bases during the withdrawal and defending the Taliban’s behavior during the evacuation.

In the weeks after the fall of Kabul, U.S. military brass such as Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin would repeatedly testify that the Taliban had broken every provision of the Doha Agreement but one — its vow not to attack U.S. and NATO forces.

In fact, the Taliban had also violated that provision, because the Taliban attacked U.S. and NATO bases in Afghanistan multiple times, both before and after President Joe Biden’s “Go-to-Zero” order, including attacks on Bagram Air Base when U.S. troops were still there. The Taliban’s official spokespeople would often take credit for the attacks too.

The GOP-led House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) final report from last year had a section about how “Taliban Attacks on U.S. Bases Continue[d]” during the U.S. military withdrawal in the spring and summer of 2021, but nowhere in that section nor anywhere else in the report did it include the key fact that Milley and McKenzie repeatedly and falsely claimed that these attacks hadn’t happened.

Multiple key Biden Administration officials also repeatedly praised the “businesslike” character of the Taliban during the non-combatant evacuation operation (NEO) at Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA), despite clear evidence that the Taliban was beating up some Americans and blocking some U.S. citizens from escaping Afghanistan, and in spite of overwhelming evidence that the Taliban was beating up and even executing some Afghans who wanted to flee Taliban rule. McKenzie played an especially key role in establishing this narrative, although Milley played his part too.

HFAC’s September report also made no mention of McKenzie’s insistence that the Taliban had been “very businesslike” and “very pragmatic” and made no mention of Milley’s claims that the Taliban was not interfering with the U.S. evacuation, nor did the report make any reference to other Biden Administration officials repeating this false “businesslike” mantra about the Taliban.

Biden issued a pardon to Milley on his last full day in office in January 2025. McKenzie and other military leaders were not pardoned. McKenzie is currently listed as the Executive Director for the Global and National Security Institute at the University of Southern Florida. 

McKenzie did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent to him through his email at the school. Nor did he respond to prior Just the News reporting about him.

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Milley crafted Biden Admin’s fiction that Afghanistan fell in just ‘eleven days’

Among the litany of mistakes and falsehoods pushed by U.S. military commanders and President Biden in 2021 was the fiction that Afghanistan fell in only “eleven days” in mid-August 2021. In reality, the Taliban takeover unfolded over multiple months following then-President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal “Go-to-Zero” order on April 14, 2021. The architect responsible for that house of cards was then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley. 

Many in the Biden Administration — President Biden himself, then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and others — joined Milley in pushing the “eleven days” claim, although General Austin “Scottie” Miller, the final commander of NATO’s Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan, was among those who later admitted that Afghanistan had not collapsed in just eleven days, but rather over months.

Just the News previously laid out how Milley also wrongly dismissed the comparison between the fall of Saigon and the impending fall of Kabul, massively inflated the size of the Afghan military and police by falsely claiming that they numbered 325,000 to 350,000 strong, and demonstrated he was not tracking the reality on the ground when he underestimated the speed and scope of Taliban district control in the summer of 2021.

Milley then ran cover for the Biden Administration once the situation went sideways by misleading about how quickly the collapse of Afghanistan had occurred. Biden pardoned him on his last full day in office in January 2025.

Milley did not respond to requests for comment sent to him through Princeton University, where he was named a visiting professor last year, and through JPMorgan Chase, where he has been a senior adviser since 2024, nor to Just the News‘ previous reporting.

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NO LESSONS LEARNED FROM AFGHANISTAN FOUR YEARS LATER

Four years ago this month, the US ended its longest war in a most embarrassing fashion. The Taliban efficiently retook the entire country in a matter of months, culminating in the surrender of Kabul. The world watched as Afghans chose to fall to their deaths from departing aircraft than to become captives of the Taliban. Newly released terrorists killed even more Americans at the airport gate and the US amateurishly responded by bombing an innocent contractor’s water truck. Amidst all of this, CNN reporter Clarissa Ward famously proclaimed:

“If this isn’t failure, what does failure look like exactly.”

In August 2021, SIGAR (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction) released a report called “What We Need to Learn: Lessons from Twenty Years of Afghanistan Reconstruction.” While focused on the reconstruction debacle, the beginning of the report makes a troubling point that can be generalized to other parts of America’s failure.

“What We Need to Learn: Lessons from Twenty Years of Afghanistan Reconstruction is the 11th lessons learned report issued by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. The report examines the past two decades of the U.S. reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. It details how the U.S. government struggled to develop a coherent strategy, understand how long the reconstruction mission would take, ensure its projects were sustainable, staff the mission with trained professionals, account for the challenges posed by insecurity, tailor efforts to the Afghan context, and understand the impact of programs. There have been bright spots—such as lower child mortality rates, increases in per capita GDP, and increased literacy rates. But after spending 20 years and $145 billion trying to rebuild Afghanistan, the U.S. government has many lessons it needs to learn. Implementing these critical lessons will save lives and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse in Afghanistan, and in future reconstruction missions elsewhere around the world.”1

The truly shocking part of the SIGAR report and the seemingly for show bipartisan government testimonies after the war was that the knowledge of why the US failed in 2021 had been there for over a decade. For just shy of two decades, the US military and political leadership had at best a flat learning curve and no real desire to win. Analyses of failure written before 2010 were extremely similar to the ‘smart’ generals and politicians’ admissions after the last US troops had left the country. So, what has the US military and government done about it?

The failure in Afghanistan spanned 20 years and almost an equal number of red and blue presidents. No one side can take the blame. Both parties failed America.

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Iran Deporting Millions Of Afghan Migrants After Capturing Alleged Israeli Spies

It would seem that mass deportations in the name of national security is not an issue limited to western countries.  Over the past few weeks Iran has drawn the attention of the UN and a number of humanitarian NGOs after initiated a nationwide program to remove all Afghan migrants without proper legal documentation from their borders, relocating them back to Afghanistan. 

Nearly 1 million migrants have been deported in the past month alone according to estimates by Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni.  That’s around half of the 2 million Afghans currently residing in the country.  Iran’s government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani stated at the beginning of the relocation effort:

“We’ve always striven to be good hosts, but national security is a priority.” 

The deportations are a response to detrimental intelligence leaks and acts of sabotage within Iran during recent conflict with Israel.  Iranian authorities report the capture of a number of Afghan refugees involved in the transportation and piloting of drones, the gathering of sensitive intelligence and the planting of bombs.  They assert that migrants are easier for the Israelis to bribe.

In a well-publicized case, Iranian authorities in the city of Rey arrested an Afghan university student accusing him of links to the Mossad and alleging he was caught in possession of sensitive material on bomb-making, drone mechanics and surveillance operations. 

State television aired reports of arrested Afghan citizens “confessing” to being Israeli agents.  In one such report, broadcast on June 26, showed the questioning of several suspects, mostly Afghans, being accused of plotting to bomb a power station in southeast Tehran.

It is possible that the mass deportations represent nothing more than an effort to divert blame for Iranian intelligence failures onto a convenient scapegoat.  However, migrant groups have historically been easy targets for manipulation and conversion by foreign enemies and Iran’s caution is a logical response.  Open borders have long been used by intelligence agencies as a means to plant “sleeper agents” within nations they plan to go to war with.

For example, several Iranians have been recently apprehended trying to sneak across the US border, some of them with national security ties.  

The Taliban government has urged Iran to stop the exodus, calling for a gradual process instead.  Taliban officials say the dignity of the migrants must be respected, though, it is likely that the Afghan economy could be crippled by a surge of a million or more refugees in such a short span of time and the Taliban have limited means of humanitarian support.

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Entire Board of CA English School for Afghan Migrants Resigns After $180 Million Fraud Report

The entire school board for a Sacramento school that teaches English to adult migrants resigned after a state audit revealed mismanagement, fraud, and illegal use of education funding.

The entire board of directors for Highlands Community Charter and Technical Schools (HCCTS) resigned on Monday after a 171-page audit alleging massive fraud was released by the California State Auditor’s office.

The report found that the school took some $180 million in state education funding that it either never qualified for, or qualified for but misspent.

The school opened in 2014 to help adult migrants, especially Afghans, return to school to earn equivalent high school diplomas to allow better employment opportunities in the U.S., the Sacrament Bee reported

During Monday’s board meeting, the trustees first voted to remove board member Sonja Cameron for hiring her unqualified daughter to serve as Highlands’ Director of Attendance and Admissions, a position that pays a $145,860 annual salary, according to KXTV-TV.

However, on the tail of that vote, the remaining six board members immediately tendered their own resignations, with three of the six vowing to stay on until replacements can be arranged.

The auditor’s report alleged that the school board engaged in nepotism in hiring Cameron’s daughter, inflated the number of students to get more funding, purposefully avoided providing financial transparency reports to the state, spent money on repair bills for cars owned by board members, paid for luxury items such as food and travel, approved consulting contracts to friends and family members, modified test results, and committed a slew of other violations.

Some of the fraud concerned admissions to the school. The state charter only allows the school to admit migrants aged 22 and up and who don’t already have high school diplomas. However, the audit found that it was admitting students younger than the target age and also students who already had high school diplomas.

State officials allege these violations occurred to grow the school’s attendance numbers to boost the school’s state funding which was based on average daily attendance and the total number of students enrolled, the Sacrament Bee reported.

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Afghan man, 45, ‘marries girl aged SIX before Taliban intervene… and say he must wait until she is NINE’

A six-year-old girl has allegedly been forced to marry a 45-year-old man in Afghanistan after she was given away for money.

The haunting photo of an older man and a little girl standing together horrified even the Taliban, who intervened with the union.

The youngster had allegedly been exchanged by her father for money to a man who already has two wives, it was reported by Amu.tv.

The marriage was allegedly set to take place on Friday in Helmand province but the Taliban stepped in and arrested both men involved.

No charges were brought against them but they have forced the creep to wait until the girl is nine before he can take her home, local media said.

UN Women reported last year that there has been a 25 per cent rise in child marriages in Afghanistan after the Taliban banned girls’ education in 2021. They also said there has been a 45 per cent increase in child bearing across the country.

In the same year as the Taliban came to power, after the US’ heavily criticised exit, a nine-year-old girl who was sold by her father to a 55-year-old man as a child bride was rescued by a charity.

Parwana Malik was sold for the equivalent of £1,600 in land, sheep and cash to a stranger named Qorban so her father Abdul Malik could pay for food. 

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Afghan National Brought to US As a ‘Refugee’ by Biden Admin Pleads Guilty to Plotting Election Day Terror Attack in Oklahoma on Behalf of ISIS

A citizen of Afghanistan has pleaded guilty to federal charges that he was planning an election day terror attack in Oklahoma City.

Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, pleaded guilty on Friday to conspiring and attempting to provide material support and resources to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), a designated foreign terrorist organization, and receiving, attempting to receive, and conspiring to receive firearms and ammunition in furtherance of a federal crime of terrorism.

Tawhedi was brought to the United States as a “refugee” in 2021 during the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

According to a press release from the Department of Justice, court documents state that “Tawhedi admitted that between June 2024 and October 2024 he conspired with at least one other individual to purchase two AK-47 rifles, 500 rounds of ammunition, and 10 magazines, with the intent to carry out a mass-casualty attack on or around Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024, on behalf of ISIS. According to a criminal complaint affidavit filed in the case, Tawhedi communicated with an ISIS facilitator about his plan to purchase firearms for use in the terror plot, including asking the individual whether 500 rounds of ammunition would be sufficient.”

“Tawhedi and his co-conspirator, Abdullah Haji Zada, were arrested on Oct. 7, 2024, after purchasing the firearms and ammunition from an undercover FBI employee,” the press release continued. “Zada, 18, pleaded guilty in April 2025 to the firearms offense in connection with his role in the terror plot and is awaiting sentencing. Zada, who was 17 at the time of his arrest, entered his guilty plea as an adult and will be sentenced as an adult.”

Tawhedi faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for the material support charge and up to 15 years in prison for the firearms charge. Zada faces up to 15 years in federal prison.

Following any prison sentences, both conspirators “will be permanently removed from the United States and barred from reentry under stipulated judicial orders of removal to Afghanistan.”

“By pledging allegiance to ISIS and plotting an attack against innocent Americans on Election Day, this defendant endangered lives and gravely betrayed the nation that gave him refuge,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “Today’s guilty plea guarantees he will be held accountable, stripped of his immigration status, and permanently removed from the United States, and shows the Justice Department has zero tolerance for those who exploit our freedoms to spread violence.”

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Warpig Lindsey Graham: A Russian Victory in Ukraine Will Be Worse than the Withdrawal of US Troops From Afghanistan

Warpig Lindsey Graham traveled to Ukraine this past weekend to pump up the hopes of the Ukrainian leader in the country’s ongoing war with Russia.

During his visit to Europe, Graham told reporters that a Russian victory in Ukraine would be worse than the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

Lindsey is getting desperate.

The globalist warmongers fear Trump’s work to bring peace to the region. The warmongers are shooting for World War III.

Senator Lindsey Graham: “The American withdrawal from Afghanistan was a terrible decision. It triggered the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It made America look weak in the eyes of the world. I told President Trump this privately, and now I’m telling him publicly: If this war ends as if we abandoned Ukraine, it will be even worse than leaving Afghanistan, and it will be a serious blow to global stability.”

Lindsey is a lunatic.

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