Tag Archives: taliban

Mo Waqas

When barbarism knocks on your door: why the Taliban must be confronted, not tolerated

By Mo Waqas | Thu 16th October 2025 - 8:55 am

I can’t watch what’s happening on the Pakistan–Afghanistan border without feeling both anger and heartbreak. Anger at the Taliban a barbaric force that has dragged an entire nation back to the Middle Ages and heartbreak for the innocent people who will pay the price of yet another war they didn’t start.

It’s 2025, yet in Afghanistan, women are being treated worse than cattle. The Taliban’s idea of governance is to lock women indoors and call it “virtue.” They’ve banned girls from secondary school and university, stopped women from working, and ordered that no woman can travel without a male guardian. In July this year, dozens of young women were arrested in Kabul for wearing colourful clothes. Their so-called “vice police” humiliate and beat them for what they wear. The United Nations calls this gender apartheid and it’s hard to argue with that.

Nearly eight out of ten young Afghan women are excluded from education, jobs, or training. Hospitals are turning away female patients who come alone. Pregnant women die because they’re not allowed to travel without a man.

And now this tyranny is spilling over into Pakistan. In October 2025, heavy fighting broke out along the frontier in Kurram and Chaman. Pakistan says 23 of its soldiers were killed when Taliban-linked fighters attacked border posts. The Taliban claim they’ve killed 58 Pakistanis in return. Whatever the truth, one thing is certain civilians are dying on both sides.

Markets have shut. Villages are emptying. Families are fleeing through the night. Those who can’t escape huddle in their homes, praying the next shell doesn’t land on them.

But I understand why Pakistan has lost its patience. For years, militants based in Afghanistan particularly the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have terrorised Pakistani towns and cities. I’ll never forget the images from Peshawar in 2014, when 132 schoolchildren were murdered by the TTP. Or the mosque bombing in 2023 that killed 84 police officers during prayer. Just a few months ago, in June 2025, a suicide bomber in Mir Ali killed 16 soldiers and injured dozens more. Pakistan’s critics often forget: this is a country that’s buried tens of thousands of its own citizens because of terrorism.

But I’ll be honest Pakistan helped create this monster too. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, its generals thought they could use the Taliban as “strategic depth” against India. They armed them, trained them, and looked the other way as extremists spread. Western governments, including our own, played along during the Cold War. We all did this. And now, the same monster we fed has turned on its maker.

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Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Also tagged and | 1 Comment
Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 19th January 2025 - 9:41 am

United States

Trump’s run of good luck continues. It seems likely that all but one of his cabinet nominations will be confirmed by the Senate. Congressman Matt Gaetz was the longest of long shots for Attorney General. The Ethics Committee investigation into his drug-fuelled sex antics ruled him out.

Fox News presenter Pete Hesgeth was also expected to fail in his bid to become America’s next Secretary of Defense. A seedy past and lack of experience worked against him. But Hesgeth put up a good show against tough questioning from the Democratic members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. There is nothing the Republican senators like more than a conservative who successfully fights his corner. He is expected to be confirmed on Tuesday.

The same with Pam Bondi who replaced Matt Gaetz as Trump’s choice for Attorney General. Ms Bondi sort of mollified senators when she denied that there was a “enemies list” compiled of people Trump wants prosecuted. But she then qualified this by refusing to rule out taking action against Jack Smith, the Special Prosecutor appointed to investigate the president-elect.

Smith, for his part, is clearly angry that he will not be able to drag Donald Trump into court. This week he released a partially redacted set of documents which clearly stated that if Trump had not been elected president he would be seeing his tailor for an orange onesie. The documents claimed that Trump was guilty of election interference, disrupting an official proceeding of Congress, stealing and hiding classified documents and, almost certainly, trying to overthrow the US government.

Jack Smith is, according to FBI nominee, Kash Patel, at the top of his “enemies list”. Patel has yet to be questioned by a Senate Committee, but he has publicly said that there is an enemy list. Patel, however, will be reporting to Pam Bondi.

Trump meanwhile has insisted that there is a “patriot’s list.” That is an unidentified number of people who were prosecuted for invading the Capitol Building on January 6, 2020. He has promised that he will pardon them. He does not need the assistance of Patel or Bondi to do so. He just needs a pen and paper.

Russia

They call it hybrid warfare. Russia is becoming a master practitioner across Europe and beyond. It involves, misinformation campaigns, cyberattacks espionage and sabotage of military facilities and critical infrastructure, damaging undersea pipelines and electricity cables and interfering in democratic elections.

This week Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that the Russians were even plotting to blow up airliners, “not just against Poland, but against airlines across the globe,” he insisted.

Meanwhile the German government this week ordered police and the air force to shoot down the growing number of drones flying over German and American military bases and critical infrastructure. The Interior Minister said they were suspected of sabotage and espionage.

But the most disturbing incidents have involved undersea cables and pipelines in the Baltic. They carry gas supplies, electricity, 95 percent of the internet traffic and $10 trillion worth of annual financial transactions.

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Mary Reid

Women must not speak in public

By Mary Reid | Thu 29th August 2024 - 9:48 am

I really thought that the Afghanistan Taliban couldn’t do more harm than they have already done. But earlier this week I was shocked to the core to read their latest rulings. They have now banned women from speaking in public places. Yes, you read that correctly – women are not allowed to speak when out and about. It’s not about public speaking, which they were already banned from doing, but rather the simple act of using their voices.

It was already horrendous for our sisters in that country. They are forced to wear a burqa when out of the home – an uncomfortable thick garment that effectively renders them invisible. Most feel intimidated into having a male guardian with them when out. They are banned from secondary education and from employment. I can’t imagine what life must be like for them, especially as many of them had already been to University and taken up professional roles.

Now, according to the new laws their voices, literally, must not be heard in public.

Whenever an adult woman leaves her home out of necessity, she is obliged to conceal her voice, face, and body.

According to The Guardian:

Women’s voices are also deemed to be potential instruments of vice and so will not be allowed to be heard in public under the new restrictions. Women must also not be heard singing or reading aloud, even from inside their houses.

How on earth can women be expected to do any task outside the home – shopping, attending a medical appointment, visiting a friend – if they can’t speak? Presumably they will have to have a male guardian with them to speak for them.

The consequences of breaking these rules can be horrific, since the Taliban has now introduced flogging and stoning as punishments.

The rationale for these rules, under the twisted Taliban logic, is that women’s bodies and voices tempt men into vice. This is, of course, the ultimate form of victim blaming.

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Steve Trevethan

Do deficiently informed citizens live in a deficient democracy?

By Steve Trevethan | Tue 8th November 2022 - 11:39 am

Are voting and other democratic functions corrupted and/or negated when significant news is denied, distorted, diverted and/or dissipated?

Some information is, wrongly and rightly, kept secret for strategic reasons. However, when we are confronted with the results of past policies and actions there are no strategic reasons for secrecy. The obscuration of history to protect the reputations of politicians, officials, civil and military comes behind the need for the citizenry to be well informed so that their inputs to the democratic processes may be better in the present and the future.

As is currently the case with the “West’s” leaving of Afghanistan, such information is available if energetically sought and/or stumbled across, but it is sufficiently backgrounded or submerged so that it does not reach the general or national consciousness. It is restricted to a minority who can be disregarded by those who seek to engineer undemocratic secrecy. When the national consciousness is insufficiently unaware, then there is minimal effect on our “democratic” government.

Currently, we have lots of news about the Taliban take over, the horrors they bring and will bring and the huge harm and deprivation that has and will be done to female Afghans. We are not being told about the Afghan government which preceded the first Taliban takeover.

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Lord Roger Roberts

The dire situation in Afghanistan – governmental and individual action is needed

By Lord Roger Roberts | Tue 23rd November 2021 - 2:40 pm

Embed from Getty Images

Earlier this Autumn, I had the privilege of talking with three women who had been trying to bring awareness to the dire situation developing in Afghanistan. Sitting outside the Palace of Westminster day after day, these dedicated women were not only inviting people to discuss the NATO withdrawal, but were also participating in a hunger strike to demonstrate their disdain towards the new Taliban regime. Since our initial meeting, I have met with these women multiple times, and I have begun to understand more deeply the feelings held by those in Afghanistan.

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Tom Arms

World Review: 9/11, Trudeau, Putin and Patel

By Tom Arms | Sat 11th September 2021 - 7:43 am

It is the 20th anniversary of 9/11.

Two decades since 2,996 lives were lost in suicide attacks on the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and in a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. In New York the occasion will be marked by families of the dead reading statements about their loved ones. The event will be closed to the public. Elsewhere in the world, the anniversary will be marked with foreboding. The attack was carried out by Al Qaeeda and was planned and coordinated from its base in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Within weeks a US-led NATO force toppled the Taliban government. There has not been a Jihadist attack on US soil since. President Biden has now withdrawn US forces from Afghanistan and the Taliban is back in power.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Nation Building

By Tom Arms | Sun 5th September 2021 - 7:53 am

To nation build or not to nation build? That is the question vexing Western capitals in the wake of humiliating defeat and failure in Afghanistan.

Is it nobler to continue to attempt to export/impose Western political and cultural values to the rest of the world or does Afghanistan spell the end of a policy which has dominated foreign affairs since the end of World War Two?

When NATO forces invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 they had clear goal: Remove the ruling Taliban from power so that the country ceased to be a base for international terrorism.

But then the policy changed to nation building for two reasons.

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Tom Arms

World Review: Qatar as power broker, EU rapid deployment and abortion in Texas

By Tom Arms | Sat 4th September 2021 - 4:11 pm

In one of history’s ultimate ironies, the West may end up working with the political organisation it overthrew and fought for 20 years. The reason? To prevent another more extreme Islamic organisation from using the central Asian country as a base for terrorism. ISIS-K has made it clear that it wants to use terror to undermine the West and export Islamic fundamentalism. It has also said that the Taliban leadership is as much a target for their suicide bombers as Americans.

At a Pentagon press conference this week, General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of the Staff, described the Taliban, as “ruthless” but added that in war “you do what you must.” When asked if the US would cooperate with the Taliban, he said: “that is a possibility.”

Meanwhile British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab flew to Qatar which has been acting as intermediary between the West and the Taliban.

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Tom Arms

World Review: Cuba, climate change, the Taliban and foreign aid

By Tom Arms | Sun 18th July 2021 - 8:36 am

Cuba may be reaching the end of its search for Utopian Socialism – shop shelves are empty and people are hungry. Ten years from now 2021 will be known as the year that the world was dragged kicking and screaming to the reality of climate change. The Taliban continues its march to victory with the capture of a key border crossing in the southeast corner on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Boris Johnson’s win on foreign aid this week was the world’s loss.

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Paul Reynolds

Britain faces a new global alliance

By Paul Reynolds | Tue 28th August 2018 - 8:53 am

Next month there are planned peace talks with the Taliban … in Moscow, with the support of China.

This is a small symptom of the biggest tectonic shift in political alliances for more than 70 years. UK Liberal Democrats will be ahead of the curve if they appreciate the significance of this shift and have an opinion on the UK’s response.

As China reaches the point when its economy becomes the world’s largest, the Chinese leader Xi Jinping is pressing ahead with his ‘Belt and Road’ initiative. This is the new Silk Road from China to Europe across the land mass. Unlike the old Silk Road, this time it comes with vast Chinese investments in the countries involved, as China seeks global influence and new places to put its cash resources. There is a maritime equivalent; the ‘String of Pearls’, as China takes over ports at strategic points from Pakistan and Sri Lanka to Djibouti and Greece

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Helen Duffett

Daily View 2×2: 22 January 2010

By Helen Duffett | Fri 22nd January 2010 - 11:14 am

It’s January 22nd. It’s one year to the day since President Obama ordered Guantánamo Bay detention camp to be closed – within one year.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts – each with a question – that caught my eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

  • How good is the Taliban internal communications department?

    • Rob Blackie asks this because the Taliban have issued their members with a code of conduct:

    As anyone in internal communications will tell you – it’s getting people to read and internalise this sort of guidance that’s difficult.

  • How long does it take to deliver leaflets to the whole parliamentary consituency?

    • asks Philip Ling, Lib Dem PPC for Bromsgrove. Read on to find out his answer, and to take a couple of bundles off his hands.

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Chris Davies

Opinion: Pull out our troops

By Chris Davies | Thu 12th November 2009 - 4:25 pm

It’s time that Liberal Democrats called for British troops to be pulled off the front line in Afghanistan. The justifications for their continuing presence vary with the day of the week and the desperation of the advocate.  I am not convinced by any of them.  I don’t know how we would recognise ‘success’ if it were to be claimed, and I don’t believe that our involvement is making the streets of Britain any safer.

Alone amongst the three party leaders Nick Clegg has voiced concerns not simply about shortages of helicopters (in the Great War the call was always for more …

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Mark Pack

Daily View 2×2: 25 October 2009

By Mark Pack | Sun 25th October 2009 - 7:00 am

Morning all. Clocks changed? Good. Now it’s time to catch up on the news including, as it’s a Sunday, another in my occasional series of “Forget Obama; forget West Wing – now THIS is what we should be copying from US politics”.

It’s the political ad that is just bursting to be copied for our next party political broadcast. Send you lobbying email to Cowley Street now. (Probably best do that now rather than after watching the ad. In case you don’t agree with me. But you’d be mad not to. This is quality political advertising at its very best.)

2 Big Stories

Pakistani army takes Taliban chief’s hometown

Pakistani soldiers captured the hometown of the country’s Taliban chief Saturday, a strategic and symbolic initial prize as the army pushes deeper into a militant stronghold along the Afghan border. An army spokesman said the Taliban were in disarray, with many deserting the ranks.

The 8-day-old air and ground offensive in the South Waziristan tribal region is a key test of nuclear-armed Pakistan’s campaign against Islamist militancy. It has already spurred a civilian exodus and deadly retaliatory attacks.

Washington has encouraged the operation in the northwest because many militants there are believed to shelter al-Qaida leaders and are also suspected to be involved in attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. military has also kept up its own missile strikes in the lawless tribal belt, including a suspected one that killed 22 Saturday. (Associated Press)

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