IRNA reported that Iran has increased Tehran University’s budget for scholarships to Afghan students fivefold.

An official from Tehran University said this would enable Iran to support more Afghan students, especially women, in 2023.

Currently, 470 Afghan students, nearly a quarter of them women, are studying at Tehran University.

More than half of these students have scholarships, the official added.

Following the Taliban’s closure of universities for Afghan female students, Iran announced that it was ready to provide special facilities for female Afghan students.

Women and girls were largely excluded from public life in Afghanistan.

Iran is also a Muslim country whose Islamic legislation is repeatedly criticised. Women in particular face systematic disadvantages in the Islamic Republic.

Iran has also come under international criticism for its brutal crackdown on nationwide protests, with women leading the unrest.

The Islamic Republic has a modern education and higher education system, and the majority of enrolled students in Iran are women.

The surviving family members of Mr Ahmadi who was killed by a US drone strike in August after US military intelligence mistakenly took him for an ISIS-K terrorist, had said they want the Americans responsible for the tragic mistake to be taken to court, while also asking for financial compensation and resettlement in the United States or another safe country for the rest of their lives.

Zemari Ahmadi, 43, was killed along with seven children and two adult family members. Before his death, Ahmadi was an innocent aid worker that worked for a US company.
provided protein nutrition to starving Aghan kids.

The ill-fated strike which took place days before the US military withdrew from Afghanistan came amid a frenzied evacuation effort following the Taliban’s sudden return to power and only days after a devastating attack close to Kabul’s airport by IS-K, a local branch of the Islamic State (IS) group. US Army General McKenzie described the strike as a “tragic mistake” and added that the Taliban had not been involved in the intelligence that led to the strike.

The US has now offered to pay relatives of the victims while yhe Pentagon said it was also working to help surviving members of the family relocate to the US.

The compensation offer was made in a meeting between Colin Kahl, the under-secretary of defence for policy, and Steven Kwon, the founder and president of an aid group active in Afghanistan called Nutrition and Education International, the Pentagon said in a statement.

Mr Kahl noted Mr Ahmadi and others who were killed “were innocent victims who bore no blame and we’re not affiliated with ISIS-K or threats to US forces”, said a statement attributed to Defence Department spokesman John Kirby.

He reiterated Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin’s commitment to the families, including “condolence payments”. Austin also apologised for the attack, but Mr Ahmadi’s 22-year-old nephew Farshad Haidari said that was not enough.

“They must come here and apologise to us face-to-face,” he told the AFP news agency in Kabul.

In a statement published late Tuesday, October 13, acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told Western diplomats at talks in Doha that “weakening the Afghan government is not in the interest of anyone because its negative effects will directly affect the world in (the) security sector and economic migration from the country.”

The Taliban overthrew Afghanistan’s former US-backed government in August after a two-decade-long conflict. But efforts to stabilise the country, still facing attacks from the rival extremist groups the Islamic State-Khorasan, have been undermined by international sanctions: banks are running out of cash and civil servants are going unpaid.

According to the statement from his spokesman, Muttaqi told the Doha meeting: “We urge world countries to end existing sanctions and let banks operate normally so that charity groups, organisations and the government can pay salaries to their staff with their own reserves and international financial assistance.”

European countries are concerned that if the Afghan economy collapses, large numbers of migrants will set off for the continent, piling pressure on neighbouring states such as Pakistan and Iran and eventually on EU borders.

Washington and the EU have said they are ready to back humanitarian initiatives in Afghanistan, but are wary of providing direct support to the Taliban without guarantees it will respect human rights, in particular women’s rights.

The three men were shot for trying to enter a home in the Obe district of Herat province, according to Herat deputy governor Mawlawi Shir Ahmad Muhajir.

After they were shot, Taliban forces attached the bodies to a digger and hung them for all to see as a deterrent for their crimes.

The graphic images were shared on social media after locals took photographs of the horrific scenes.

Despite the Taliban insisting they have changed from the punishments in the past, there is concern they have returned to the ways seen during their first reign in charge from 1996 to 2001.

The images are released as human rights group Amnesty International claim the Taliban unlawfully killed 13 people.

According to Amnesty International, the 13 killings took place in the village of Kahor in Daykundi and included a 17-year-old girl.

In the past 20 years, 270 women have been judges in Afghanistan and have made convictions against the Taliban, killers and murderers. But with the change in government in Afghanistan, their lives are now in danger as they are in secret locations for fear of being killed.

In a new interview with the BBC, six former female judges (whose names have been changed for their safety) spoke from secret locations across Afghanistan. Masooma who has convicted hundreds of men for violence against women, including rape, murder and torture says death threats began just days after the Taliban took control of her city and thousands of convicted criminals were released from prison.

The threats came from text messages, voice notes and calls from unknown phone numbers.

Masooma said “It was midnight when we heard the Taliban had freed all the prisoners from jail, Immediately we fled. We left our home and everything behind. Travelling by car out of the city, I wore a burka, so no one would recognise me. Fortunately, we made it past all the Taliban checkpoints.”

Shortly after she and her family left, her neighbours texted her to say several members of the Taliban had arrived at her old house. Months ago, Masooma was ruling over a case investigating a Taliban member for brutally murdering his wife. Upon finding him guilty, Masooma sentenced the man to 20 years in prison.

says Masooma.”I can still see the image of that young woman in my mind. It was a brutal crime. After the case was over, the criminal approached me and said: ‘When I get out of prison, I will do to you what I did to my wife. At the time I didn’t take him seriously. But since the Taliban took power, he has called me many times and said he has taken all of my information from the court offices. He told me: ‘I will find you and have my revenge.'”

Four other female judges in hiding named specific men whom they sentenced for murdering their wives. All judges say they have changed their phone number at least once due to receiving death threats.

In response to the accusations, Taliban spokesman Bilal Karimi told the BBC: “Female judges should live like any other family without fear. No one should threaten them. Our special military units are obliged to investigate such complaints and act if there is a violation.”

He also repeated the Taliban’s promise of a “general amnesty” for all former government workers across Afghanistan.

“Our general amnesty is sincere. But if some wish to file a case to leave the country, our request is that they do not do this and they stay in their country.”

During the mass release of prisoners, many criminals not associated with the Taliban were also released. Reacting to this Taliban spokesman, Karimi said:

“In the case of drug traffickers, mafia members, our intention is to destroy them. Our action against them will be serious.”

Since taking over power last month in Afghanistan, the Taliban have carried out harsh punishments on opponents. On Saturday, 25th September, the group’s fighters shot dead four alleged kidnappers and their bodies were hung in the streets of Herat province.

And now barbers in the capital Kabul have said they have been warned against trimming beards.

In a notice posted on salons in southern Helmand province, Taliban officers warned that hairdressers must follow Sharia law for haircuts and beards.

“No one has a right to complain,” the notice, which was seen by the BBC, read.

“The fighters keep coming and ordering us to stop trimming beards,” one barber in Kabul said. “One of them told me they can send undercover inspectors to catch us.”

Another hairdresser, who runs one of the city’s biggest salons, said he received a call from someone claiming to be a government official. They instructed him to “stop following American styles” and not to shave or trim anyone’s beard.

During the Taliban’s first stint in power from 1996 to 2001, the group banned flamboyant hairstyles and insisted that men grow beards.

The new instructions suggest a return to the strict reign of the group’s past tenure in power, despite promises to the West to be more considerate and milder in its government this time around.

Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for the Islamist militant group told Russian state-owned news agency Sputnik: ‘In a new chapter if America wants to have a relation with us, which could be in the interest of both countries and both peoples, and if they want to participate in the reconstruction of Afghanistan, they are welcome.’

But he went on: ‘Of course, we won’t have any relation with Israel. We want to have relations with other countries, Israel is not among these countries.’

This comes a month after Shaheen caused confusion when he gave an interview to Israel’s Kan public broadcaster. Just hours after it aired, the Taliban spokesman tweeted that he had been ‘duped’ into giving it.

He said “I do many interviews with journalists every day after the falling of provincial centres of Afghanistan and the capital Kabul to the Islamic Emirate. Some journalists may be masquerading but I haven’t done an interview with anyone introducing himself he is from an Israeli media”

On Tuesday, the Taliban’s announced a new government after they seized power in mid-August after the Taliban seized power in mid-August.

US Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad played a key role in pressing the Taliban to allow the departures, Reuters reported.

The departures were expected on Thursday, September 9, and an exact breakdown of how many US citizens and people from other nations will be on the flight has not been shared.

The official could not say whether these Americans and third-country nationals were among people who have been stranded for days in Mazar-i-Sharif 260 miles north of Kabul on charter flights that were barred from taking off.

Planes chartered to carry people out of Afghanistan have been stuck at Mazar-i-Sharif International Airport, with some organizers saying the State Department was not doing enough to facilitate their departure.

The criticism came after an email leak suggested that the agency prevented several private flights from leaving Afghanistan with U.S. citizens and Afghan allies on board.

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had denied reports that the Taliban had blocked Americans attempting to fly out of a northern Afghan city. But he said that the militants had not allowed charter flights to depart because some people lacked valid travel documents. Reports had said that 1000 people, including US citizens had been stuck at Mazar-i-Sharif airport for days awaiting clearance for their charter flights to leave.

Mr Blinken had said that Washington had identified a “relatively” small number of Americans seeking to depart from Mazar-i-Sharif. He added: “It’s my understanding is that the Taliban has not denied exit to anyone holding a valid document, but they have said those without valid documents, at this point, can’t leave.”

The US secretary of state also said: “Because all of these people are grouped together, that’s meant that flights have not been allowed to go.”

An Afghan official at the airport in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif said that the would-be passengers were Afghans, many of whom did not have passports or visas, and thus were unable to leave the country. He said they had left the airport while the situation was sorted out.

A top Republican on the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee said that the aeroplanes’ passengers include Americans. He said the passengers were sitting on the planes, but the Taliban were not letting them take off, effectively “holding them hostage.”

Mr McCaul told Fox News there were six planes carrying American citizens and Afghan interpreters waiting at the airport.

He said “The State Department has cleared these flights and the Taliban will not let them leave the airport.  We know the reason why is because the Taliban want something in exchange”

Marina LeGree, founder and CEO of the NGO Ascend Athletics which works with Afghan girls and women, told the BBC that the number of planes could be higher than six, saying she has heard there could be as many as 1,000 people waiting to get out.

Her organisation has a group of 34 people who have been waiting to leave for six days, among them 19 Americans and two green cardholders. They are part of a larger organised evacuation under the auspices of the US government.

Ms LeGree revealed that the Taliban came into the place where people were being held and arrested people a couple of times. said she believed a dispute or negotiation between the Taliban and the Afghan airline Kam Air was holding up the flights.

She said “We’re just patiently waiting like everyone else and we’ve got people with families, there’s a three-year-old in our mix who has been hauled around for a week now. It’s just a worrying situation overall”

However, the Taliban has denied the claims, labelling them as propaganda. Spokesman of the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid told BBC “This is not true. Our Mujahideen have nothing to do with ordinary Afghans. This is propaganda and we reject it.”

The final days of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan were marked by a harrowing airlift at Kabul’s airport to evacuate tens of thousands of people, Americans and their allies who feared what the future would hold, given the Taliban’s history of repression, particularly of women. However when the last troops pulled out on August 30, many were left behind.

According to the Taliban “there will be no issue about women’s rights” despite widespread international concerns.

Speaking to Fox News on Friday, September 3, Suhail Shaheen said he opposes Western views that “women should have education without [a] hijab. That is a change of culture,… Our culture… they can receive education with hijab. They can work with hijab.”

When asked about future relations with the U.S., Shaheen said, “We should be focusing on how can we work together in a positive and constructive way which is in the best of interest of both sides. There will be no issue about women’s rights. No problem about their education, their work,” he added. “But we should not be after changing each other’s culture as we are not intending to change your culture, you should not be changing our culture.”

Shaheen also described the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan as the closure of one chapter in the country’s history.

“We have closed one chapter. For us it was occupation. We ended that, we were staging resistance,” he told Fox News. “But now it is closed. It is the past. We have to focus on the future that is better for them and for us.”

Shaheen’s comments came after reports emerged that a new interim government will be announced soon in Kabul.

A source close to the militant group told Reuters that the interim government would consist only of Taliban members, contain 25 ministries and a consultative council of a dozen Muslim scholars.