Tag: taliban

Taliban morality enforcers arrest men for having the wrong hairstyle or skipping mosque, UN says

The Taliban morality police in Afghanistan have detained men and their barbers over hairstyles and others for missing prayers at mosques during the holy month of Ramadan, a U.N. report said Thursday, six months after laws regulating people’s conduct came into effect.

The Vice and Virtue Ministry published laws last August covering many aspects everyday life in Afghanistan, including public transport, music, shaving and celebrations. Most notably, the ministry issued a ban on women’s voices and bare faces in public.

That same month, a top U.N. official warned the laws provided a “distressing vision” for the country’s future by adding to existing employment, education, and dress code restrictions on women and girls. Taliban officials have rejected U.N. concerns about the morality laws.

Thursday’s report, from the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, said in the first 6 months of the laws’ implementation, over half of detentions made under it concerned “either men not having the compliant beard length or hairstyle, or barbers providing non-compliant beard trimming or haircuts.”

The report said that the morality police regularly detained people arbitrarily “without due process and legal protections.”

During the holy fasting month of Ramadan, men’s attendance at mandated congregational prayers was closely monitored, leading at times to arbitrary detention of those who didn’t show up, the report added.

The U.N. mission said that both sexes were negatively affected, particularly people with small businesses such as private education centers, barbers and hairdressers, tailors, wedding caterers and restaurants, leading to a reduction or total loss of income and employment opportunities.

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Taliban denies reports of Bagram Airbase handover to the US

Bagram Airbase, once the center of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, has been a focal point of strategic, political, and military significance. Located in Parwan province, it served as the primary logistics and operations hub for U.S. and NATO forces throughout the two-decade-long military engagement in Afghanistan. However, the departure of U.S. forces in 2021 and the subsequent takeover of the base by the Taliban has raised a series of critical questions regarding the future of this strategically important location and the larger implications for U.S. foreign policy and Afghanistan’s stability.

According to a report by journalist Zark Shabab on Medium, the Taliban has allegedly handed over control of Bagram Air Base to the United States. U.S. military aircraft, including a C-17, reportedly landed at the base, delivering military equipment and senior intelligence officials. The arrival of high-ranking CIA figures, such as the Deputy Chief, suggests significant U.S. intelligence interests in the region. This move has raised questions about possible secret diplomacy or strategic shifts in U.S.-Taliban relations.

Bagram’s Strategic Importance and Taliban’s Initial Refusal

Bagram Air Base was the largest U.S. military hub during the 20-year conflict in Afghanistan, and its control shifted when the Taliban seized it following the chaotic U.S. withdrawal in August 2021. The Taliban had initially refused to return the base, considering it a symbol of their sovereignty. However, recent reports suggest a possible handover to the U.S., raising speculations about the motives behind this shift, including potential counterterrorism cooperation or political maneuvering by the Taliban.

In a recent statement, Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesperson for the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, rejected reports of a U.S. military C-17 aircraft landing at Bagram Airbase. Mujahid called these reports “propaganda” aimed at misleading the public. He emphasized that the Taliban would not permit any foreign military presence in Afghanistan, stressing that there was no current need for such presence.

Mujahid’s comments came in response to widespread report and rumors circulating on social media and some media outlets suggesting that U.S. forces were returning to Bagram. He categorically denied these claims, reinforcing the Taliban’s stance on sovereignty and non-interference. “Such an event is impossible,” he said.

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, especially the handover of Bagram Airbase, remains a major issue in foreign policy discussions. Critics argue that the U.S. misjudged the Taliban’s strength, allowing them to gain critical military resources and raising questions about the need for continued U.S. presence in the region.

The Taliban’s control of Bagram and their denial of U.S. reentry highlight the shifting dynamics in Afghanistan. This development has wider implications for regional security and international relations, challenging global responses to the situation.

The reported handover of Bagram to the U.S. is likely to have significant geopolitical implications, especially for regional powers like Iran, China, Russia, and Pakistan. The presence of CIA officials at Bagram suggests a rebuilding of U.S. intelligence networks, which may indicate a new chapter in U.S.-Taliban relations. Analysts suggest this move could signal an evolving cooperation between the two parties, driven by pragmatism, regional security concerns, and intelligence coordination.

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In policy shift, State Department ends some bounties on Taliban’s Haqqani network leaders

The State Department is defending its decision to end its bounties against Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani and other Haqqani Network commanders amidst indications that the United States may be adjusting its stance toward the terrorist group ruling Afghanistan.

The State Department’s Reward for Justice website had previously said that the U.S. “is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information” on Sirajuddin, a top leader in the Taliban government and a close ally of al-Qaeda. The bounty on Sirajuddin, now the head of the Taliban’s interior ministry, was first announced in 2009, and it was still in force until sometime in March.

But the bounty was dropped shortly after the Taliban agreed to free George Glezmann — an American citizen held hostage since 2022. No mention of any linkage to U.S. military or foreign policy was made.

Taliban’s “blitzkreig” follows U.S. retreat

The Taliban conducted a lightning-fast takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 and swept into the Afghan capital of Kabul on August 15. The chaotic and deadly non-combatant evacuation operation by the U.S. was conducted through Hamid Karzai International Airport while the U.S. military relied upon a hostile Taliban — including the Haqqani Network — to provide security outside the airport. According to one tally conducted by the Associated Press, the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, and al-Qaeda fighters are responsible for the deaths of most of the more than 2,400 U.S. troops and the more than 1,100 NATO and other U.S. allied troops who were killed during the war.

“It is the policy of the United States to consistently review and refine Rewards for Justice reward offers,” a spokesperson for the State Department told Just the News. “While there is no current reward offer for information on these individuals, the three persons named remain designated as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs), and the Haqqani Network remains designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a SDGT.”

Late last month, the State Department also removed its $5 million bounty on Sirajuddin’s younger brother, Abdul Aziz Haqqani, and removed its $5 million bounty on Sirajuddin’s brother-in-law, Yahya Haqqani. The U.S. government is still offering a $5 million bounty for Sirajuddin’s uncle Khalil Haqqani.

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BOOM: Biden’s USAID Paid Terrorists, and Here’s HOW They Did It

Readers were shocked when we reported that USAID had paid Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists. Now we’ve found out how they moved the money.

In the story “USAID Pays the Terrorists Who Kill Us,” I wrote:

The U.S. State Department and USAID pay millions of dollars per week to the Taliban, the bin Laden family leading the group, and the Haqqani terror network. Remember those guys? Didn’t we wage a 20-year-long war to get rid of them …???

…We left Afghanistan, left behind billions of dollars in equipment, the strategically important Bagram Air Base, and all the biometric data of our Afghani supporters who put their lives on the line to help our efforts to get the Taliban and the terrorists they were hiding from us. So, of course, when Joe Biden, Tony Blinken, and Jake Sullivan had us bug out in disgrace, they left the Taliban a ready-made kill list of our allies.

Former CIA targeter and DoD employee Sarah Adams has reported that the bin Laden, Mullah Omar, and Taliban families have intermarried. Paying the Taliban is paying Al-Qaeda. That wasn’t the plan when U.S. troops went into Afghanistan 20 years ago to get Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda terror cell, which brought down the World Trade Center Towers. 

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Biden Admin Quietly Spent $15 Mil To Distribute ‘Contraceptives and Condoms’ in Afghanistan—and Said Doing So Would Take ‘Some Coordination’ With Taliban

The Biden administration quietly awarded $15 million in taxpayer funds to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan to help distribute “oral contraceptives and condoms,” a non-public congressional funding notice reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon shows. In doing so, the administration acknowledged that “some coordination” with the Taliban would be “necessary for programmatic purposes.”

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) earmarked the cash infusion, which has not been previously reported, last July. It transmitted the funds to Afghanistan in August, according to the funding notice and congressional sources familiar with the matter.

The $15 million USAID and its partner groups spent to “procure contraceptives,” including “oral contraceptives and condoms” in the Middle Eastern nation was part of a $100 million package meant to support “basic rights and freedoms” and empower “women and girls” living under Taliban rule. The terrorist organization, the USAID funding notice states, does not allow “young women and girls” to go to school or work in most professional fields.

It was the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan three years prior that led to those restrictions. The Taliban took over Kabul even before the final U.S. military planes left the city, and they quickly banned girls from school beyond sixth grade, making Afghanistan the only country in the world with such restrictions.

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Marco Rubio Exposes Biden Regime’s Cover-Up: Taliban Holds More American Hostages Than Reported — Calls for Massive Bounties on Their Leadership

Newly confirmed U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised alarms about the actual number of American hostages held by the Taliban—figures far greater than previously reported.

This disclosure, coming just days after the Secretary’s appointment, points to a disturbing possibility: Biden’s administration knew about the higher hostage counts but chose to hide this critical information from the public.

Marco Rubio, voicing his concerns on X, highlighted the dire situation: “Just hearing the Taliban is holding more American hostages than has been reported. If this is true, we need to immediately place a VERY BIG bounty on their top leaders, maybe even bigger than the one we had on Bin Laden.”

Rubio’s did not specify the exact number of Americans still captive.

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Taliban Defies Trump: Will Keep $7 Billion in Military Gear Left in Afghanistan by Joe Biden During Bungled Withdrawal

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported – Joe Biden supplied the Taliban terrorist organization and their Islamist accomplices with billions of dollars worth of US weapons, armed vehicles, helicopters, ammunition, and piles of cash after Biden bungled his withdrawal from the country.

Rather than destroying the equipment before leaving the country, Joe Biden surrendered billions of dollars worth of US military equipment to the Taliban.

In fact, Joe Biden left 300 times more guns than those passed to the Mexican cartels in Obama’s Fast and Furious program.

The Taliban later released video of the weapons Joe Biden left behind and a room full of stacks of $100 bills Joe left for good measure.

The Taliban posted videos of pallets of weapons and stacks of $100 bills they had seized.

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Two of Five State Bureaus Under Biden-Harris Regime Fail to Confirm Adherence to Vetting Requirements — Raising Concerns Over $293 Million Potentially Profiting Taliban

A recent audit report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has exposed the Biden-Harris administration’s alarming failure to comply with counterterrorism vetting requirements for significant funds allocated to Afghanistan.

The audit, covering the period from March 2022 to November 2022, found that two out of five State Department bureaus failed to retain necessary documentation to demonstrate compliance with partner vetting requirements.

This lapse raises serious concerns that extremist groups, including the Taliban, may have profited from $293 million in U.S. taxpayer funds.

The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) and the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) were unable to provide sufficient documentation for their programs in Afghanistan.

This failure means that SIGAR could not confirm whether these bureaus complied with State’s partner vetting policies, risking that funds could be misused or fall into the hands of terrorist-affiliated organizations.

This oversight comes at a time when the Taliban is reportedly establishing close ties with newly registered Afghan NGOs, raising fears that these entities could be funneling American aid directly into the hands of extremists.

Since the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021, there have been alarming reports of their efforts to secure U.S. funds intended for humanitarian assistance. SIGAR highlighted that over 1,000 new national NGOs have registered under the Taliban’s Ministry of Economy, many of which are suspected to be fraud and have links to terrorist activities.

The lack of rigorous vetting processes by the Biden administration’s State Department is not only a breach of protocol but also a potential betrayal of American taxpayers who expect their contributions to genuinely assist the Afghan people rather than bolster extremist factions.

The report indicates that while three other State Department bureaus— Political-Military Affairs, Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement (PM/WRA); Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM); and South and Central Asian Affairs, Office of Press and Public Diplomacy (SCA/PPD)— managed to comply with vetting requirements, DRL and INL’s failures are particularly egregious given the substantial amounts of money involved.

Together, these two bureaus accounted for nearly $294 million in disbursements without adequate oversight or documentation, which might inadvertently benefit terrorist organizations.

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Afghan heroin shortage could lead to more overdose deaths – UN

The Taliban’s crackdown on poppy cultivation in Afghanistan  could trigger a spike in overdose deaths if the global heroin lack is filled by more potent synthetic compounds, the UN has warned.

A report released on Wednesday by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) assessed the impact of a ban on opium cultivation, production, processing and trade which the Taliban reintroduced in April 2022. It came too late to affect the harvest that year, but the crackdown caused output to shrink 95% in 2023, it said.

The loss of this supply from Afghanistan, previously the world’s dominant producer of opium and heroin, was partially compensated by Myanmar, where there was a 36% increase in output. Nevertheless, global opium production fell by 74% last year, according to UN research.

Prices of opiates in Afghanistan skyrocketed last year, but the availability of old stockpiles meant that no real shortage was reported in destination markets until early 2024, the report said.

Preliminary field observations indicate that this year the supply may slightly increase, but Afghanistan is unlikely to “reach the very high production observed in the years before 2023.” If the crunch continues, the purity of heroin on the global market may decline, and the demand for substitute opiates will surge, UNODC has predicted.

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Biden Has Delivered Millions in Taxpayer Money to … the TALIBAN!

A federal watchdog report reveals that after America had been at war with the Taliban for two decades, the Joe Biden administration now has delivered at least $11 million in U.S. taxpayer funds to the terrorists. Probably much more.

A Center Square report posted at Just the News explains much of the cash has been delivered through various aide groups that get federal tax dollars.

And, the report warns, “experts” suggest the actual total Biden has delivered to the Taliban could be much higher.

The Taliban, previously in control in Afghanistan, took control again within days of Biden’s abrupt decision to yank American troops out, a scheme that cost American lives and left behind tens of billions of dollars in American war machinery for the Taliban to use or sell.

Further, Biden left behind hundreds of Americans and thousands of Afghanis who had worked with the American presence there for years – all in danger of death at the hands of the Taliban.

The report cited the conclusion of SIGAR, a federal watchdog, which found, “The U.S. government has continued to be the largest international donor supporting the Afghan people since the former Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.”

The report continued, “Since then, the U.S. government has provided more than $2.8 billion in humanitarian and development assistance to help the people of Afghanistan.”

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