AFF Calls For International Political Process To Transition Away From Taliban Rule

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Afghanistan International: The Afghanistan Freedom Front (AFF) has issued a statement calling for an international political process to end Taliban rule and pave the way for establishing a “democratic system based on the people’s vote” in Afghanistan. The statement, released on Wednesday, 10 December, to mark International Human Rights Day, notes that Afghanistan is not unfamiliar with universal human-rights values and was among the first states to sign the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Click here to read more (external link).

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Ex-Pakistan spy chief Faiz Hameed sentenced to 14 years in prison

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Taliban leader Mullah Baradar with Pakistan’s ISI Chief Faiz Hameed

Amu: Pakistan’s military said former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Faiz Hameed has been sentenced to 14 years in prison after a special military court found him guilty on multiple charges, including political interference, breaching the Official Secrets Act and abuse of authority. According to Dawn, Hameed’s trial began in August 2024 and continued for about 15 months. The military said all legal rights were observed during the proceedings and that he was represented by lawyers of his choosing. Under military law, he has 40 days to file an appeal. Click here to read more (external link).

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Peaky Blinders Lookalikes Arrested By Afghan Taliban

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Members of the self-styled Thomas Shelby Group have been arrested in Herat Province for allegedly violating the Taliban’s restrictions on acceptable clothing.

By Zhakfar Ahmadi
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
December 11, 2025

The Afghan Taliban’s dreaded morality police have arrested four young men for dressing like characters from the British TV series Peaky Blinders.

The men were detained in the western Afghan city of Herat this week.

The Taliban accused them of “promoting alien culture” after photos went viral of them wearing clothing like that worn by the Shelby family in the popular historical crime drama.

Asghar Husaini, Jalil Yaqoobi, Ashore Akbari, and Daud Rasa are members of the self-style Thomas Shelby Group, and are known to locals as the Jabrael Shelbys after the Herat neighborhood where they live.

Over the past month, the men — all believed to be in their 20s — were seen on the streets of Herat sporting flat caps, suits, gloves, and long trenchcoats. The attire resembled the period costumery of Peaky Blinders, which depicts the era following World War I.

The arrests are part of a broader Taliban campaign to eradicate what it deems modernity and Western influences in Afghanistan. The Taliban’s Law On the Propagation Of Virtue And Prevention Of Vice, officially enacted in 2024, specifically prohibits Afghan men from wearing Western clothing in public.

“They wanted to protest and show that they are opposed to this system of coercion and domination,” Sahraa Karimi, an Afghan filmmaker, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi about what motivated the men to wear those particular clothes.

“Such attire is completely normal all over the world, and these men live in this world and have access to social media, watch films and TV series,” she said.

Taliban’s Quest To Erase Modernity

Since returning to power, the Taliban has imposed draconian restrictions on how Afghan men and women can appear and interact in public.

Women are required to wear the niqab, a head-to-toe Islamic veil. A male chaperone must accompany them. Men are encouraged to grow beards and wear traditional Afghan clothes. Most Taliban officials wear turbans and loose-fitting clothes.

Saiful Islam Khyber, spokesman for the Taliban’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, said the behavior of the Thomas Shelby Group contradicts “Islamic values and Afghan culture.”

He also posted a video of one of the men issuing an apology for their conduct.

Before their arrests, Husaini, the leader of the self-styled group, said they were motivated by “a special interest in the classic clothing style” of Peaky Blinders.

He told Herat Mic, a local YouTube channel, that they planned to showcase the clothing of various Afghan communities in the future.

Rasa, another member of the group, said they faced some online criticism.

“There was a lot of commotion in cyberspace,” he said, adding that even some relatives accused them of promoting Western culture.

“But this is not [just] Western culture. In the 1950s and ’60s, we had a similar style here in Afghanistan,” he said.

In Afghanistan, Western attire became a symbol of modernity and liberalism after reformist Afghan King Amanullah Khan adopted suits for men and skirts for women as formal dress in the 1920s.

In subsequent decades, many educated Afghans adopted Western clothing while government offices and gatherings required formal Western clothing.

But Afghan Islamist groups have opposed Western clothes and mannerisms. The Taliban has formally banned such attire and actively targets Afghans for wearing such dresses.

It has also conducted an extensive crackdown on dress code violations, fining and jailing offenders.

Directed by the British screenwriter and film director Steven Knight, Peaky Blinders depicts the exploits of the Shelbys, a fictional criminal family in Birmingham after World War I.

It has attracted a global fan base since its 2013 debut. Since then, it has aired six seasons and attracted hundreds of millions of viewers globally.

Abubakar Siddique wrote this based on reporting by RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan.

Copyright (c) 2025. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

Afghanistan unveils trophy for U19 Asia Cup

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Amu: Team captains from participating nations unveiled the trophy for the ACC Men’s Under-19 Asia Cup 2025 on Thursday in Dubai, a day before the tournament gets underway in the United Arab Emirates. Captains from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal attended the event in Dubai. The tournament, hosted this year by Afghanistan, will begin on Friday. Click here to read more (external link).

Other Afghan Sports News

Halted Immigration From “Hellholes Like Afghanistan”, Says Trump

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Afghanistan International: US President Donald Trump has compared countries such as Afghanistan, Haiti and Somalia to “hellholes,” reiterating that he has halted immigration from what he described as “third-world countries.” He said he would prefer the United States to accept immigrants from countries like Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Trump made the remarks during a speech at a rally in Pennsylvania. A week earlier, the United States announced it had suspended all immigration applications, including applications for green cards and US citizenship, from Afghan migrants and nationals of 18 other countries. Click here to read more (external link).

Trump Admin Sending Taliban $45M Sparks Republican Backlash

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Newsweek: Republicans are calling out the Trump administration after $45 million was reportedly sent to the Taliban in Afghanistan by the Department of State on Monday. Among those reacting to the reports was Tennessee Representative Tim Burchett, who has introduced a bill aimed at stopping tax dollars from being given to the group that regained control of Afghanistan in 2021. Click here to read more (external link).

The Iranian Border Is Increasingly Deadly For Afghans

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By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
December 10, 2025

For decades, millions of Afghans fleeing war, persecution, and poverty have sought refuge in neighboring Iran.

But crossing the 921-kilometer-long border has become increasingly dangerous for many Afghans as the Iranian authorities violently crack down on illegal migrants.

At least 10 Afghans were shot dead by Iranian border guards on December 1, according to Taliban officials, after they entered Iran illegally from western Afghanistan’s Farah Province.

It’s the latest in a growing number of deadly incidents where Afghan refugees and migrants have been shot and killed after crossing into Iran.

‘Dead Bodies’

The bodies of the slain Afghans were handed over to their families on December 2. Taliban officials said the 10 Afghans were killed while trying to cross the border during the night. Two members of the group are still missing, they said.

The deaths triggered angry protests in Herat, the largest city in western Afghanistan. Protestors, some of whom knew the victims, said they were young men who were seeking jobs in Iran to provide for their impoverished families back home.

Noor Ahmad Islamjar, the Taliban’s governor for Herat, told local media that “protecting human life at border areas is a fundamental principle of good neighborly relations.”

Islamjar said the killings on the Iranian border “have sparked public outrage and are a serious concern” for the Taliban government and urged Tehran to “conduct a transparent and comprehensive investigation.”

Iranian officials have not commented on the incident.

Sayed Suleiman Agha Bahir, the Taliban’s deputy governor in the neighboring southwestern province of Nimroz, said that the bodies of over 100 Afghans killed while crossing Iran have been handed over to them in recent months.

“On some days we receive up to five dead bodies,” he told local media last week.

History Of Violence

The shootings on December 1 were not an isolated incident.

In November, seven Afghans were shot dead by border guards near the Iranian city of Saravan, according to the human rights group Haalvsh.

It also reported the killing of at least six Afghans, including children, in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan Province, which borders Afghanistan, in September.

In October 2024, the United Nations’ mission in Afghanistan called for an investigation into reports that dozens of Afghan migrants had been shot and killed on the Afghanistan-Iran border.

The shootings highlight the risks Afghans are willing to take to escape poverty and the dire economic situation in their country.

The Taliban’s seizure of power in 2021 worsened one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises. Without international development assistance, the Afghan economy has further shrunk as joblessness and poverty rise. Meanwhile, the hard-line Islamist group has committed gross human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings and torture, leading to an exodus to neighboring countries.

The rugged and desolate Iranian border — used by drug traffickers and human smugglers — has long been dangerous. But the rising number of Afghans killed illegally crossing the border have coincided with Iran’s renewed push to deport millions of Afghan refugees and migrants.

In the first eight months of the year, Tehran deported 1.1 million Afghans, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. That’s in addition to the around 1 million Afghans who were evicted from the country last year.

Iran has set a deadline until the end of the year for all undocumented Afghans to leave the country. UNHCR estimates that some 4 million Afghans, most of them undocumented, live in Iran.

Maher Mohmand, an Afghan human rights activist, said people are “leaving Afghanistan because of hunger and because of poverty.”

He said that international humanitarian conventions require Tehran to care for all Afghans arriving on its territory. “Instead of killing them, [Iran should] provide them with [economic] opportunities,” Mohmand added.

Copyright (c) 2025. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

Jamiat-e-Islami, led by Rabbani, quits ‘resistance council’ after opposition groups announce unified stance

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Amu: Jamiat-e-Islami, led by Salahuddin Rabbani, said on Wednesday it had withdrawn from the National Resistance Council for the Salvation of Afghanistan, a day after three major political movements announced what they described as a unified political voice. In a statement, Jamiat-e-Islami criticised Tuesday’s online gathering — attended by dozens of prominent political figures — as another example of “seasonal, tactical and fragile coalitions,” saying such alliances had repeatedly failed in the past. The National Resistance Council was one of the three main groups behind Tuesday’s declaration of “alignment and shared voice.” Formed in 2022, the council includes senior political figures such as Yunus Qanuni, Atta Mohammad Noor and Mohammad Ismail Khan. Click here to read more (external link).

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