The Biden administration has not ruled out diplomatic recognition of the Taliban. Doing so risks legitimizing the group’s rule without holding it accountable.
Ahmad Massoud (c) at a meeting of Afghan opposition leaders in Vienna, April 2023.
BJ Warnick/Newscom/Alamy Stock Photo
Two years on from taking control of Afghanistan the Taliban continues to rule through fear and threatens the stability of the whole region.
A Taliban fighter stands guard as women wait to receive food rations distributed by a humanitarian aid group, in Kabul, Afghanistan, in May 2023.
(AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)
The Taliban’s two years ruling Afghanistan have taught us ordinary human rights initiatives are insufficient to address gender apartheid. We need resolute collective international action.
US marines with a female engagement team in southern Helmand province, Afghanistan, in May 2012.
Cpl. Meghan Gonzales/DVIDS
ISIS-K’s recent killings of Taliban brass are part of the extremist group’s long-term strategy. Will Taliban leaders contain the resurgence of violence?
Education for girls was also limited during the Taliban’s previous period of control in Afghanistan, from 1996 to 2001.
Taliban and their supporters gather near the building of the former US embassy as they celebrate the first anniversary of taking over the government in Kabul,
EPA
The Taliban promised not to allow Afghanistan to be used by groups seeking to attack the US, yet terrorist groups have only become more emboldened under its rule.
A Taliban fighter stands guard as a woman enters the government passport office, in Kabul, Afghanistan, in April 2022.
(AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Research into 70 new Taliban policies to control women and girls shows the extremist, misogynistic group might be using different tactics, but it still poses grave dangers to Afghan society.
Afghan women chant during a protest in Kabul, Afghanistan, in October 2021.
(AP Photo/Ahmad Halabisaz)
Afghan women activists, leaders and former politicians who are now in exile are telling of the continued struggle for women’s rights in Afghanistan and women’s diverse strategies of resistance.
Taliban fighters ride through the streets of Kabul on a captured police humvee hours after president Ashraf Ghani fled the Afhgan capital on 15 August 2021.
Andrew Quilty
Chair in Global Islamic Politics, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation; Scholar -In-Residence Asia Society Australia, Deakin University