As we all know that the education is the base of human. In the 21st century is totally unbelievable to image a person without education. In Afghanistan the new Taliban government banned the education on girls. Almost three week has passed since the Taliban reneged on its promise to reopen schools for girls from the sixth grade. The international community has sharply condemned the Taliban for the U-turn, and teenage girls have taken to the streets of the Afghan capital in protest, demanding a right to education. After the Taliban swept back to power last August, the group banned most girls aged 12 and above from attending school.

The Women Rights campaigners while expressing their views say that the ban on girl’s education will not only taking the Afghanistan into more economic crisis. Afghanistan is already going through serious humanitarian crisis and the world is helping them in different ways at multiple points. People of Afghanistan are facing huge food shortage and also the shortage of educated persons. According to UNICEF More than 1 million Children’s under the age of five are acutely malnourished. U.N. refugee agency said that more than 24 Million Afghans are in need of vital humanitarian aid they are living their lives below poverty line. The Taliban have banned women from most forms of paid employment, with the main exceptions being teaching girls and providing health care to women. Girls and their families have little incentive to make the major sacrifices often required for them to pursue and complete education when the career they dreamed of is off limits.

The Taliban’s reversal on schools, seen as a bid to appease hard-liners within its ranks, will likely disrupt its efforts to win recognition from international donors. Given the humanitarian crisis, the U.N. agreed to pay the salaries of school teachers though that did not seem to be enough to convince the Taliban to keep to its word. Afghanistan Ministry of Education published a notice and expressed their views on ban of girl’s education, the schools for girls would be closed until a plan was drawn up in accordance with Islamic law and Afghan culture. Girls and boys will be educated according to the Islamic way nor the international way. This is alarming situation for the Afghans banning the education system will directly impact their economy. This is clearly showing the Taliban’s misogyny and demagoguery. It’s obvious that over the years that economic hardship, insecurity and conflicts decrease in areas that have higher levels of girls’ education. Of course, the Taliban will continue to negotiate, but they will face backlash. They have lost even more credibility and not taking the economic disaster seriously.

Earlier this year, in January 2022, ISIS initiated the biggest attack in Syria since the fall of it caliph three years ago. During the past few months, Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) is the news headline of international media. After years of waging a low-level insurgency in Iraq and Syria, the current aggressive strikes indicate that militants have been re-energized. A years-long US-backed campaign destroyed the group’s territorial control in Iraq and Syria, but its fighters continued to kill scores of Iraqis and Syrians in recent months through sleeper cells. After Baghdadi’s death in 2019, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi was elevated to the position of Islamic State’s (IS) “caliph”. The US military launched an airstrike on a residential building in a town in northern Syria in response to which the Islamic State’s leader perished. According to US sources, as a result of the raid, a senior deputy of the terror group has also been killed. Beyond the psychological impact, it is unclear whether the removal of the figurehead will make any effect, because a new leader has been selected already by the armed group. The US’s strike neither affected group’s network nor its activities, which is explicit from the ISIS attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Since the Afghan Taliban Government in Afghanistan, various attacks have been reported including to which ISIS has claimed the responsibility. Over the past seven years, even before the current Taliban’s Government, the Islamic State (IS) has been targeting scores of schools, mosques, hospitals, and other sites of Shia community. It has a potential to create a conflict between Taliban Government and the people of Shia sect in Afghanistan. The striking increase in attacks in Afghanistan highlights the growing security challenge facing Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers as they have pledged to not let Afghanistan’s soil against any other country. To contrary, ISIS and militant groups while operating in Afghanistan expanding their activities to neighboring country like Pakistan, as the spate of attacks in country was claimed by the armed groups.

ISIS is widely spreading violence and extreme groups across the region. It has evolved into a global terrorist organization which will have implications around the globe. The group is a key security challenge not only for Iraq or Afghanistan but for the whole region’s security, stability and peace. The persistent presence of ISIS in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries including Africa proves that assassinating leaders is not a viable long-term approach for combating armed groups. ISIS’s leaders were killed in two US attacks in 2019 and 2021, but nothing was done to address the underlying conditions that allowed the organization once again to develop its influence and support. ISIS is still active and inflicting havoc around the globe. It is the time for political and military leaders at national and international level to play their due role. It is necessary to acknowledge that the only way to completely eliminate the group is pursuing long-term international peace and development policies rather than launching strategic military operations.

By Zara Qurban

Since the withdrawal of the U.S. troops and its European allies after decades of war in April 2021, Afghanistan is entangled in the wickedest kind of security. Afghanistan’s commandeering by the Taliban after the U.S. military withdrawal has presented the regional States with many new emerging challenges. An abrupt withdrawal of the U.S. military from Afghanistan has created a huge power vacuum and neighboring States are extending helping hands to avert the possible fall of Afghanistan.
Countries such as Pakistan, Russia, India, Iran and Turkey have their own grounds to intervene but now the global are on China including re-evaluating its persistent ‘non-interference’ policy. China was against the invasion of the U.S. military and also opposed the abrupt withdrawal stating that it will leave Afghanistan in mayhem. China’s Foreign Ministry said “the recent abrupt U.S. announcement of complete withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan has led to a succession of explosive attacks throughout the country, worsening the security situation and threatening peace and stability as well as people’s life and safety.”
Many spectators are considering the exchange of dialogues between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and the Taliban leaders an attempt by China to exert more influence in the region. But, China does not look at Afghanistan from the lens of prospects, the Chinese influence and involvement, especially after the U.S. military withdrawal, is all about the management of threats. Another observation entails that Chinese political and economic interest in Afghanistan revolve around the wariness of Afghanistan becoming a safe haven for militant groups targeting China like the last time Taliban were in power.
Though Mullah Baradar and Wang Yi in Tianjin have been in contact for decades, the Taliban’s ideological agenda does not fit well with China. Andrew Small, Associate Senior Policy Fellow, states, “China certainly has substantial commercial and economic interests in the wider region, but they are minimal in Afghanistan itself. Its major investments there, the Aynak copper mine and the Amu Darya energy projects, have been in stasis for many years. There have been numerous discussions about Afghanistan’s involvement in the Belt and Road Initiative, including connections to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, but Beijing’s view has been that, in Afghanistan, stability has to precede serious new economic commitments.” Other than copper, Afghanistan has untouched mines of minerals such as cobalt, iron, mercury and lithium which are estimated to the value of about $1 trillion.
In order to maintain better political and economic relations with Afghanistan, China offered to rebuild the infrastructure “by funneling funds directly to the group through Pakistan.” As a result to continuous exchange of dialogues and China’s commitment of support in Afghanistan, the spokesman for the Taliban Political Office in Qatar established that they recognize China “as a friend of Afghanistan”, he also stated that Taliban and Afghanistan will no longer provide refuge or safe haven to Muslim Uyghurs. On one occasion the Chinese foreign minister said that Taliban are expected “to play an important role in the progress of peaceful reconciliation and reconstruction in Afghanistan.”
China’s policy towards Afghanistan is primarily based on the security implications resulting from the U.S. and Taliban peace agreement, which China believes in not going in the right direction. The disturbances, instability and radicalization will eventually seep through the borders into China. As per the researchers based in Afghanistan, “through military assistance, China helped Kabul build its military mountain brigade in the Wakhan Corridor near Afghanistan’s northern Badakhshan province with the primary goal of preventing infiltration by the Islamic State into China.” It is believed that Beijing will keep close bilateral ties with Afghanistan in order to tightly manage any spill over into China by engaging all its diplomatic energies because it fears that the success of Taliban might encourage militant groups to carry out terror activities. If the security situation becomes better in Afghanistan, China is likely to go forward with more investment plans and programs but it will be very cautious.