Amu: In the statement, Taliban described the violence as stemming from a “family and honor dispute.” They said the incident was linked to an earlier case in which a member of one family — currently in Taliban custody — had allegedly helped a married woman flee her home. Relatives of the woman, including her father and brothers, are accused of carrying out the shooting, targeting members of the other family inside the mosque, the statement said. Click here to read more (external link).
Afghanistan’s capital is in the grip of a water crisis
AP: Nestled in a high-altitude valley of the Hindu Kush mountains, Kabul is rapidly running out of water. Its population relies mostly on groundwater extracted from wells. But the groundwater has been receding at an alarming rate, and some wells have to be dug as deep as 150 meters (nearly 500 feet) to reach it. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News in Dari – April 14, 2026
Protests in Herat after deadly attack curtailed by Taliban, sources say
Amu: Hundreds of people gathered in the western city of Herat on Tuesday to protest a deadly attack on civilians, but Taliban restricted the scale of the demonstrations, according to local sources. The rally followed a shooting on Friday, April 10, in Injil district, where gunmen opened fire on civilians near a shrine, killing at least 13 people and wounding nine others, according to local accounts. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan has reported 11 dead and 11 wounded. Click here to read more (external link).
Negligence and Disorder in Taliban-Controlled Offices Leave Citizens Frustrated
8am: Several citizens of Afghanistan have complained about negligence and disorder in offices under Taliban control. They say that improper, arbitrary, and unprofessional conduct are among the serious problems in these offices. According to them, in many cases, visitors who are not proficient in Pashto are not treated properly by Taliban staff. These citizens further add that their affairs are left pending for days and even weeks without any clear reason, and due to errors made by employees, they are forced to visit the offices multiple times to correct their documents, incurring additional costs. Meanwhile, girls have also expressed concern about the slow pace of work and inappropriate behavior in these offices, saying that when they visit, they face even greater challenges and restrictions. Click here to read more (external link).
Rashid Khan named to global cricket players’ advisory board
Rashid Khan
Amu: Rashid Khan, Afghanistan’s cricket star, has been appointed to the players’ advisory board of the World Cricketers’ Association, the organization said in a statement. The appointment is part of a broader effort by the association to strengthen the role of players in shaping decisions across the global game. Rashid joins a group of newly added members that includes Chamari Athapaththu of Sri Lanka, Wayne Madsen of Italy, and New Zealand players Daryl Mitchell and Maddy Green. Click here to read more (external link).
The Afghanistan Freedom Front Claims It Has Killed Four Taliban Fighters in Baghlan
8am: AFF said on Monday, April 13, that it had released a video showing the attack and claimed that the Taliban district building in Tala wa Barfak district of Baghlan province was targeted overnight. According to the Front, the attack lasted 12 minutes, and two other Taliban fighters were wounded. The Afghanistan Freedom Front also claimed yesterday that it had killed two Taliban fighters in Kabul. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News in Dari – April 13, 2026
Fear of Forced Return: Former Military Personnel of Afghanistan Living Under Threat and Uncertainty
8am: Several former military personnel who fled to neighboring countries, particularly Pakistan and Iran, due to security threats from the Taliban, say they fear being deported back to Afghanistan under the group’s rule. They report facing serious economic, security, and social hardships, with their children also being denied access to education. According to them, the Taliban kill, arrest, and torture former military members upon their return. Meanwhile, the head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission under the previous government warns that despite the Taliban’s declaration of a general amnesty, hundreds of cases of abuse, unlawful detention, and killing of former military personnel have been documented since the group’s return to power. She stresses that deporting former military personnel to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan violates the principles of refugee rights and international law, as it exposes them to danger,s including killing, torture, and detention. Click here to read more (external link).
This American Was Abducted In Kabul In 2022. His Family Is Desperately Waiting For News.
Habibi
By Malali Bashir and Freshta Negah
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
April 12, 2026
Mahmood Shah Habibi’s parents don’t get much sleep, and his daughter hasn’t seen her father since she was 11 months old.
That was in 2022, when Habibi was abducted in Kabul and detained by the ruling Taliban’s intelligence agency, US officials say.
“We have had no news of his fate for four years,” his mother, Ruqayya Habibi, 70, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi in a telephone interview. “We don’t know if he is alive or not. We only know that he is with these people (the Taliban), but they deny it.”
“Believe me, his father and I have been awake every night from worry until morning,” she said.
Like her missing son, his wife, and their daughter, Ruqqaya Habibi is a US citizen. Her search for her son — or for any scrap of information about his whereabouts or condition — included a five-month trip from her home in the United States to Afghanistan in 2025.
Three of those months were spent in the southern city of Kandahar, where Habibi’s older brother Ahmad Shah Habibi had been told he was being held in a guesthouse belonging to Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada.
“I went to Kandahar with Habibi’s wife and daughter and my eldest son, who had come from London,” she said. But she did not see Habibi and was unable to meet with Taliban officials.
Habibi, 37, led the Afghan Aviation Authority under the US-backed government before US forces completed their withdrawal in 2021 and the Taliban returned to power 20 years after their ouster following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Habibi and his driver were abducted from their vehicle in Kabul on August 10, 2022, and detained by the Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence, according to the US State Department.
At the time, Habibi was working as a consultant for a Kabul-based telecommunications firm. His mother told RFE/RL he was detained four days after returning to Afghanistan following a three-month trip outside the country.
The Taliban has arrested dozens of foreign nationals since its return to power, and human rights groups have accused the group of arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and torture in custody.
US citizen Dennis Coyle was released in late March after being held for over a year. His mother had pleaded for a pardon on the occasion of the Eid al-Fitr holiday.
Coyle’s release came two weeks after the United States designated Afghanistan a “state sponsor of wrongful detention,” accusing the unrecognized Taliban government of holding Americans as bargaining chips.
US President Donald Trump introduced the designation in September and Afghanistan was the second country to be listed, following Iran. “The Taliban continues to use terrorist tactics, kidnapping individuals for ransom or to seek policy concessions,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement on March 9.
The following day, the Taliban denied it was holding US citizens for ransom and called the comments “regrettable.”
In addition to Coyle, the Taliban has released at least five other US citizens in the past four years. Two of them, Ryan Corbett and William McKenty, were released in January 2025 in exchange for Khan Mohammad, a Taliban member who was sentenced to two life terms in prison by a US court on a drug and narco-terrorism conviction.
Habibi’s family has previously said the Taliban accused him of cooperating with US intelligence in determining the whereabouts of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda leader who was killed in a US strike on Kabul on July 31, 2022, less than two weeks before Habibi was seized.
RFE/RL has been unable to verify that the Taliban made such an accusation, and the Taliban denies holding Habibi. A Taliban official, speaking on condition of anonymity, repeated the claim to RFE/RL this week, saying the group has no information about his fate. Taliban officials did not respond to RFE/RL’s requests for further comment.
“We just want our brother to be released,” Ahmad Shah Habibi told RFE/RL after Afghanistan was designated a “state sponsor of wrongful detention” in March. “We have some hope in the US government because it has tried from the start to free American detainees. We hope these efforts will lead to my brother’s release.”
Ruqayya Habibi said her granddaughter, now 4 years old, asks about her father constantly.
If Taliban officials suspect he committed a crime, she said, they should put him on trial. “He should be tried; if he is found guilty, he can be jailed. But now he is in prison without being proven guilty.”
Copyright (c) 2026. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
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