MUST-READS

• Afghans return to Taliban rule as Pakistan moves to expel 1.7 million

  As the clock ticked down to the Nov. 1 deadline Pakistan set for undocumented migrants to leave the country, Muhammad Rahim boarded a bus from Karachi to the Afghan border.

  "We'd live here our whole life if they didn't send us back," said the 35-year-old Afghan national, who was born in Pakistan, married a Pakistani woman and raised his Pakistan-born children in the port city - but has no Pakistani identity documents.

• Saudis, Taliban Follow Different Paths on Women’s Work, Education

  Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia are known for their Shariah-based legal systems and authoritarian ways of governance. But the two Islamist governments are on divergent paths regarding women's work and education. In the Saudi kingdom, where until a few years ago women were deprived of many social rights and freedoms, the women's employment rate has surged to 37%, according to U.S. and Saudi officials. In the high-tech industry, Saudi women's participation has gone up so much that recently U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Michael Ratney humorously suggested that U.S. tech hub Silicon Valley could take inspiration from Saudi Arabia's efforts to foster female entrepreneurship.

• US officials to meet Taliban to discuss security and human rights

  US officials are set to meet with representatives of the Taliban and "technocratic professionals" from Afghan ministries during a visit to Doha this week, the State Department said on Wednesday, and the discussions will include security, narcotics, and women's rights. The Biden administration’s special representative for Afghanistan, Thomas West, and special envoy for Afghan Women, Girls, and Human Rights, Rina Amiri, will travel on Wednesday for visits to Astana, Kazakhstan, and Doha, Qatar.

• Gulf Engagement in Flux as Taliban Supreme Leader Consolidates Power

  A recent meeting between Qatar and the Taliban’s supreme leader shows that engagement with the Taliban’s leadership in Kandahar is a necessary but not always sufficient condition for progress.

• Qatar prime minister, Taliban chief hold secret Afghan talks

  The Qatari prime minister held secret talks with the supreme leader of the Taliban this month on resolving tension with the international community, a source briefed on the meeting said, signaling a new willingness by Afghanistan's rulers to discuss ways to end their isolation. The May 12 meeting in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar between Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani and Haibatullah Akhunzada is the first the reclusive Taliban chief is known to have held with a foreign leader.

• The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan After the Taliban’s Afghanistan Takeover

  Founded in 2007 as an umbrella movement in Pakistan’s tribal territory uniting the area’s militant Islamist outfits, the TTP later suffered from a government crackdown and an internal fragmentation that critically threatened its survival. As a survival mechanism, the group relocated to Afghanistan, embedding itself into the Taliban’s insurgency, but with the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan, the TTP has obtained new more sophisticated weapons and relocated fighters from Afghanistan to Pakistan and is now turning its focus back to its war against the Pakistani state.

• A Reassessment of American Policy Toward Taliban Afghanistan

  The U.S. and other countries have consistently underestimated the role of theocratic thinking in hardening the Taliban’s domestic policies and shaping their international behavior. The Taliban’s leaders are largely constrained by their interpretation of Islamic doctrine from yielding on issues that they believe involve ordained principles. While many among the Taliban’s leadership ranks have had exposure to outside influences and have become sophisticated in messaging their policies, the movement’s inner circle is more parochial and deeply hostile to Western thought. It is notably defiant in its views regarding women’s rights, judicial practices, media freedoms, and political inclusiveness.

• Taliban forging religious emirate in Afghanistan with draconian Islamic law

  A year and a half later, the Taliban has gutted the country’s justice system in its campaign to forge a religious emirate, by scrapping the constitution and replacing the legal code with rules based on a draconian interpretation of Islamic law. The Taliban has filled prisons to overflowing, deprived men and women of basic civil rights, and eroded social safety nets meant to protect the most vulnerable Afghans. It is also seeking to transform the media, using it to promote its vision for the country and restricting content deemed un-Islamic, including music and the presence of women.

• Afghanistan: Erdogan calls Taliban ban on women’s education ‘un-Islamic’

  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has denounced the Taliban’s order to ban university and primary education for Afghanistan's women as “unIslamic”, promising to follow the issue until it is resolved in a televised speech on Wednesday. “It is inhumane and un-Islamic,” Erdogan said while addressing an international conference on ombudsmanship in Ankara.

• Saudi Arabia and Qatar are cooperating with the Taliban. But their approaches to Afghanistan are different.

  All GCC states have come to terms with the reality of Taliban rule in Afghanistan since August 2021 and must pragmatically deal with the situation on the ground. Saudi Arabia and Qatar see Afghanistan primarily as a security and humanitarian concern, however, their approaches toward the country differ. Under Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), they have changed to a more humanitarian-based approach, using their sway in major Islamic institutions to funnel aid to the Afghan people.

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