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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Tolo News in Dari – April 12, 2026
Four Hazara Community Members Killed by Unknown Gunmen in Pakistan
8am: Pakistani media outlets have reported that four members of the Shia Hazara community were killed by unknown gunmen in the country. The Khorasan Diary reported that the incident occurred on Sunday, April 12, in the Hazarganji area of Quetta, Balochistan province. According to the report, the attackers fled the scene after opening fire. Click here to read more (external link).
Neglected and Crumbling: Ghazni’s Historic Monuments on the Verge of Collapse
8am: Several residents of Ghazni province have expressed concern over the Taliban’s neglect of the province’s historical sites. They say this neglect has allowed recent rains to damage several of the province’s historical monuments, placing some of them at serious risk of collapse. They add that the rainfall has caused the most damage to the Old City of Ghazni, Bala Hissar Fortress, the Arbaba Shrine, and a number of other shrines. According to them, these sites were already in poor condition before the rains, and the recent rainfall has accelerated their deterioration. Click here to read more (external link).
Afghanistan Stalemate Once Favouring Taliban Begins To Shift, Says NRF Leader
Massoud
Afghanistan International: Speaking at an online memorial on Saturday, April 11, for members of Afghanistan’s Freedom Front, Massoud said: “The only way to make proper use of opportunities is coordination.” He rejected claims that the Taliban have no alternative, saying such narratives are part of a strategy to suggest that without them, there would be chaos and war. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News in Dari – April 11, 2026
Sources: Taliban Arrest Shia Cleric in Herat Province
8am: Sources told Hasht-e-Subh Daily on Saturday, April 11, that the cleric was named “Sheikh Azimi” and had previously been arrested twice by the Taliban. According to sources, the exact reason for his arrest is still unclear, but in the past, he was once arrested for holding a Muharram ceremony and another time for organizing Eid prayers. Click here to read more (external link).