Global News Podcast - Afghanistan Special: Your Questions Answered

Episode Date: August 30, 2021

BBC correspondents answer your questions about the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan. We ask how did the Taliban overthrow the Afghan government so quickly? What now for human rights, the economy and international relations?Photo:People on board an evacuation flight out of Kabul airport, August 21, 2021 Credit:MoD/PA Wire

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Thank you. Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Jackie Leonard and in this edition of the Global News Podcast, recorded on Monday 30th August, we'll be doing something a bit different.

We asked for your questions on Afghanistan and you responded in unprecedented numbers. So we've gathered together some of the best people from the BBC to answer them. Our Pakistan and Afghanistan correspondent, Sarkandar Kamani, is in Kabul for us. So too is Lise Doucette, who covered the ousting of the Taliban in 2001, but further back was actually there in the late 1980s for the Soviet troop withdrawal. Our security correspondent is Frank Gardner, whose knowledge of the politics, militant groups

and factions at play has been honed over decades at the BBC. And chief presenter and international correspondent Yalda Hakim, who was born in Afghanistan, began her journalistic career there 15 years ago, and says she feels she's come full circle by going back to report from the country in recent months. It was Yal full circle by going back to report from the country in recent months. It was Yalda, by the way, who got the first extraordinary interview with the Taliban after they took Kabul, when one of their commanders called her directly when she was on air. The other key feature of this podcast is you. You have asked about the history, the politics, the culture, human rights and the economy, and we will do our best to offer some answers.

Now, as we know, this has all been changing very fast indeed. And this podcast isn't so much about the events of today as how we got here and what might happen next. But for a little context, as we record this podcast, thousands of Afghans have been fleeing, or at least trying to. The airport at Kabul has seen chaos and desperation. On Thursday, a suicide bombing there killed 170 people. The US has since carried out drone strikes, it says, to head off further such bombings, and says its anti-missile system has thwarted attempted rocket attacks. There's an exodus taking place over land too. The UN has

warned that up to half a million Afghans could flee the country by the end of the year and has called on neighbouring countries to keep their borders open. Most Afghans are staying put, of course, but millions of them are facing hunger. Here's Jane Howard from the United Nations World Food Programme. Two out of three of the last years have seen really severe droughts. It's a very poor country anyhow. They were then hit by Covid, which affected just people's ability to go out to work to get money to buy food. And on top of that, then people abroad who would have sent remittances home couldn't do it because of the overall slowdown on the world economy. The scale is quite staggering. Already one in three people

are struggling to find enough food. That's 14 million people. So there is much to talk about. A great many of you who emailed in asked for a timeline of how we got here. Helen was one of them. Hello, Global News Podcast. This is Helen Tyson from Nova Scotia, Canada. I am almost 70 and I can remember when Afghanistan was known as a hiking destination, which seems unbelievable now. It would be good to give people a quick history back to the events that led to the deposition of the king in 1973 up until now. So let's hear now from Paul Adams, our world affairs correspondent.

Helen's right. Afghanistan used to be on the old hippie trail. But that was, as she says, a long time ago, because for more than 40 years now, Afghanistan has been pretty much constantly at war. First, it was the Soviets who sent troops in in 1979 to help prop up an unpopular communist government. The Russians got bogged down for years, fighting various guerrilla groups known collectively as the Mujahideen. It was the Cold War, so the Mujahideen were actively supported by the United States, Pakistan and others. After ten long years, the exhausted Russians pulled out,

leaving the government and Mujahideen to fight it out amongst themselves. Into this toxic mix arrived the Taliban, austere young fighters educated in religious schools across the border in Pakistan. They took over most of the country, arriving in Kabul in 1996. At first, Afghans were glad to see the back of the lawless Mujahideen, but the Taliban's medieval punishments, massacres of minorities and treatment of women caused dreadful suffering and international outrage. Fatefully, the Taliban also hosted Osama bin Laden's terrorist group, al-Qaeda.

After the attacks on America in September 2001, the US led an invasion that drove out al-Qaeda, toppled the Taliban and eventually led to democratic elections. But the Taliban never really went away. And after 20 years of fighting and supporting the government in Kabul, America decided it too had had enough. So that's the timeline from Paul Adams. Let's rewind just for a minute and get back to the basics of what's been going on. One theme that came up time and time again. Hello, my name is Dara, coming to you from Idaho.

My question is, can you please discuss the difference between Al-Qaeda, Taliban and ISIS? Dalit Boutboil in Israel asked the same thing, Mukesh in California, Joseph Chotard, they all asked about the Mujahideen too. Could you please clarify the relationship between the Mujahideen and the Taliban, as well as US involvement? So, Frank, to you first. Sure. Let's start with the Taliban. This was a movement that began in the 90s in Pakistan and southern Afghanistan

to purify Afghanistan, as they saw it, of all the corruption and warlordism and bribery and so on. It was essentially a religious militant movement. And they ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. And they ruled it very harshly. It was very tough on women, which is why everyone is so afraid of the Taliban today. While they were in charge, they provided shelter for al-Qaeda to set up bases in that country. And from those bases, they planned and plotted the 9-11 attacks.

When they happened, the U.S. president at the time, George W. Bush, demanded that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda chief and his top people. The Taliban refused, so the CIA backed an invasion which swept the Taliban out. Twenty years later, they're back, but they have promised that they won't allow al-Qaeda to have bases in their country. This is still a big question. Do we trust them? Do we believe them? Now, ISIS are a separate group who are rivals to al-Qaeda. And they are very violent. They've carried out 24 attacks in Kabul in last year alone. And there is right now a risk that they will try and do more attacks. They don't like the Taliban and they don't like al-Qaeda. They've played down this whole Taliban takeover saying, well, it's not really a victory. The Americans just walked away, didn't they? They

handed it to them on a plate. That's the propaganda they're pushing out. Finally, the Mujahideen, which just is an Arabic word meaning holy warriors. The Mujahideen refers to the original Afghan resistance to the Soviet invasion in 1979. And throughout the 1980s, these are the people who fought the Soviets to the Russian army to a standstill. And their descendants live on today in the Panjshir Valley, northeast of Kabul. It's the only part of Afghanistan not under Taliban control. Turning to you again, Yalda. I'm just going to jump in and just pick up on some of the things that Frank was saying. I think one thing that we can now see that really unites the United States and the Taliban is this war against ISIS or ISIS-K.

So they have always sort of been aligned. And when Frank points out some of the most horrific, deadly attacks that ISIS has carried out, for example, they are vehemently anti the Shia community in Afghanistan, as they are in other parts of the world. So we had over 90 schoolgirls who were killed most recently from the Hazia community in Afghanistan, as they are in other parts of the world. So we had over 90 schoolgirls who were killed most recently from the Hazara community. So they're the sorts of attacks that ISIS has claimed. In terms of the Mujahideen and its relationship with the Taliban, we can take that back, I think, to the 80s. Because when you see some of the elder Taliban, the more wise, or if you'd allow me to say the more moderate Taliban. They go all the way back to the Mujahideen who were fighting against the Soviets who were backed

by the United States with arms and weapons and Pakistan played a huge role in that. Their children were then sent, a lot of them refugee children, on the border with Pakistan to madrasas or religious schools, where we then understand that they were radicalized. And then they obviously post the civil war in Afghanistan in the 90s. They then came to power in 1996. And I have to actually point out that at the time, there was so much upheaval and so much violence in Afghanistan because of the civil war, that the Taliban were, for the most part, welcomed because they were offering some sort of stability. But as we've seen, they also rule with fear. And that is really what we're seeing today. You, Yalda, have been following

this story in an extraordinary way. You were actually on air when you took a call from a Taliban commander. Mr. Shaheen, can you hear me? Yes. Can you speak, sir? Can you just introduce yourself? Yes, I'm Mohammad Fahad Shaheen, member of the Indonesian team of the Islamic Community of Afghanistan. We've seen them make use of news conferences, and they've been trying to reassure people about women's rights within Islam. That brings us to Max Browning, who is a student in Scotland, who says, well, why would the Taliban be any different, more tolerant, lenient today compared to 1996? They want international recognition. They realise that they didn't rule very successfully in those five years.

The economy was in a dreadful state. For some time, they relied on opium production, which they then cut down on. They want investment. They want it to be a successful Islamic emirate. And China has reached out to them and said that, you know, this that they are people they can do business with. I think almost certainly we're going to see a lot of investment from China. Russia has also kept its embassy open and has got links with them. So they realized that the way they behaved in those five years from 1996 to 2001 effectively made them international pariahs.

Only three states, only three countries recognised them, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the UAE. So this time they want to be a part of the global community. And I think one thing we need to point out is that the Taliban are not a homogenous entity. When I went to Doha and met with Sohail Shaheen and some of the Taliban leadership, to be honest with you, and I will be frank, I was slightly charmed.

I mean, we had a tough conversation, but I thought, if this is what's being offered for the future of Afghanistan and if it means security and stability, perhaps the government can work with them. Perhaps Afghan civil society journalists can find a way to negotiate with these people. I then went to Afghanistan and met with the Taliban commander and I asked him about things like public executions and stoning and amputation of limbs if someone commits the crime of theft. And he said, well, of course, we would do all of those things. Of course, we want the Sharia law that we had imposed on the nation in the 1990s to return.

That is what we want. And that's what we want to see. So I think in the coming weeks and months, we have to watch this quite carefully, because I think they will even have a power struggle. And quite a senior Afghan leader in the country has said to me, they don't really know how to govern. This whole thing has caught them by surprise in terms of the fall of Kabul, right? So they didn't expect to just walk in to the capital. And all sorts of deals have been struck with different groups. How are they going to actually bring all that together? You mentioned that the Taliban themselves were somewhat surprised by the speed with which they

were able to take the country. And they weren't the only ones surprised. This is Angel from Toronto, Ontario. My question to you is, why did the government troops flee from Taliban attacks without any resistance? Where did the money and resources the West has invested in this country go? Hi, my name is Jose Miguel Menende. I'm Ecuadorian,

but I live in Belgium. I would like you guys to talk about first how it was possible for the Taliban to take control of most of the country so quickly. Also, Jack Fitzpatrick in Swindon in the UK asked why did the Afghan National Army fold so quickly? Sanjoy Sunar asked if the training of the Afghan forces was just simply inadequate. I think there are a number of factors. I think we need to point out that 66,000 Afghan soldiers have died in this war in the last 20 years. That is a huge figure. So there are a lot of Afghans, generals who've said to me, it's grotesque then for American leaders and NATO leaders to come out and say the Afghans didn't fight. In this last phase over the last few months, I think that the conversations

I've had with people on the ground has been that we, for example, didn't want a bloodbath in Kandahar, so we asked the soldiers to retreat. We didn't want to flatten Kabul, so we walked away. Now, whether that is acceptable to the Afghans and the international community, I don't know. But a huge amount of money went into trying to train the Afghan army. Billions went in. But because of the weak government and because of the corruption, you know, some of these soldiers have told me that they even had to pay for their own boots. They didn't have meals. They weren't paid for months on end.

Right. Yeah. I think it's also worth mentioning that there are two units that did fight incredibly hard. And that's the Afghan special forces units 333 and 444. Some of them have been up at the airport, refusing to hand over their weapons to the Taliban. They fought long and hard. But yes, you're right. I mean, a lot of money went into training. They have the so-called Sandhurst in the Sand Academy outside Kabul, where Britain and other countries were trying to train up this national army. But as Yalda says, I mean, there

was no national cohesion. You know, if you're an Afghan living in a village in, say, Kandahar province, Kabul might as well be on the moon. It's very unlikely to have been somewhere you visited. And so there isn't a national cohesion to that army. And by the end, the Taliban were taking so they were having so many small victories, and there was so little incentive for the Afghan National Army soldiers to fight, that they just thought this is not worth dying for. Now, Yalda, you mentioned the Afghan soldiers who are having to pay for their own boots. And it has been pointed out that war is very expensive. And a lot of our listeners are very curious about where the Taliban have been getting their funding.

Anna Kawai in the US, how do they finance their resources and organisation? Who supports them financially and why? Stephen Corbett asks the same thing. Nick Hernley wants to know who has funded their military effort and why aren't we talking about it more? And Sri Khalsa asking how much are they actually getting from the drug trade and other sources? Yeah, so they really have run a very efficient and effective means of funding themselves. I, when I met with Taliban leadership in Doha, they said to me, they call us the shadow government, but we are the government. Because in certain places that they were it is a sort of state run economy and they do it from everything ranging from from the from the drug trade to extortion to taxes from locals to to donations to financing from from countries like Pakistan, for example.

And so there's a sort of array of funding that comes to the Taliban. And, you know, you asked the question about whether outside of the urban areas like Kabul, whether there is support for the Taliban. And frankly, there is. In many of these rural areas, they were completely sort of let down by the government and how corrupt and weak it was. So many people were happily giving taxes, for example, or donations to the Taliban, as were NGOs through third parties. In order to survive in Afghanistan, they were having to pay for electricity, for example, to the local mayor who had support of the Taliban. And that's where they were funneling a lot of their money. You've both mentioned Pakistan and its influence

in Afghanistan. This is what Rishad had to say. My question was, given that NATO no longer has to rely on Pakistan for its military supply corridor into Afghanistan. And given as well that Pakistan has a new infrastructure patron in the guise of China, what steps can the international community possibly take, if any, to curb Pakistan's strategy of supporting Islamist militancy under the cover of a nuclear umbrella? And Ricky in Denmark, Kareem in Montreal, and Suzanne McCulloch in Madrid, Spain, all asked much the same. I think any serious commentator who understands the region knows that it's not even an open secret anymore. Pakistan's support for the Taliban over the decades, whether it's been, you know, through harboring them, funding them,

allowing for them and their families when they've been injured to come and use Pakistani hospitals for treatment. The interior minister just a few months ago conceded that. He said, yeah, sure, Taliban fighters come over here, they get treated in the hospitals, and then they go back over these porous borders which they have no control over. I think also sort of pinning that on the civilian government is a little bit unfair. They do host 3 million Afghans, for example. It's more the focus on the military and security establishment of Pakistan. And that's long been known that they've used the Taliban as part of their proxy

wars against India, for example, and sort of maintaining control over Afghanistan. But they've also got an understanding that an unstable Afghanistan also destabilises them. I mean, just a few days ago, we saw the Taliban flag hoisted over the red mosque in the center of Islamabad. It came down very quickly, but it just gives you a sense of how emboldened the Taliban have become in Pakistan and Pakistan itself a victim of terrorism. So whether the military establishment can sort of have a huge amount of influence and control over the Taliban. That's not sort of something that is up for debate or question. We know that's the case. It's whether the Taliban themselves allow Pakistan

to have a huge amount of influence over them. They found other channels and other ways of being legitimate. For example, just last month they were in China and the Russians have said they're willing to work with the Taliban as well. So they've become savvy enough to realize they can't put all their eggs in the one basket. And that's what they've told me as well. Frank, let's just drill down into this a bit. So for Pakistan, their primary security concern is India.

That trumps everything. And Pakistan has a very powerful intelligence service called the ISI, Inter-Services Intelligence. They have far more sway over the country's policy than any other country's intelligence service that I can think of. They're almost a sort of force within the country. And they have certainly nurtured the Taliban. But you've got to be careful what you wish for, because one of the offshoots of the Afghan Taliban is an outfit called the TTP, the Tahrir-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan. And they have carried out a number of attacks inside Pakistan itself. And Pakistan has suffered a lot of casualties. So on the one hand, yes, they have nurtured the Taliban because they don't want to find themselves surrounded by an Indian dominated Afghanistan to their west with India, of course, to their east. But one of the consequences of this is that there is an Islamist extremist movement that is active inside Pakistan's own borders.

So where they are now is absolutely, as Yalda says, they will want to kind of calm the situation down. I think Pakistan is going to be absolutely crucial in the direction that the new Taliban takes. Their regional neighbours, Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, collectively are going to have more influence on the Taliban than the G7 will. That's my view. Let's just hear from Kian McCulloch, who's a university student in Australia. As the Taliban takes over Afghanistan and becomes the ruling government within the country, how will ruling powers around the world react to it? I've already seen China and Russia try to normalise ties within the Taliban. Will other countries follow their lead or will they more side with the United States and NATO powers and Australia, who are obviously refusing to recognise Taliban as the legitimate government.

I think how the world reacts to the new Taliban government depends on who wants what. So if you just drill down into that, China wants the minerals. There are things like lithium and rare earth underneath the ground. There are huge mineral riches in Afghanistan that have been very undertapped. They also want to make quite sure that there's no kind of Islamic militancy seeping out across the border with Afghanistan into their own Xinjiang province, where they are dealing, shall we say, euphemistically with the Uyghur community. For Russia, likewise, they want to make sure that Afghanistan doesn't become a kind of epicenter of global and al-Qaeda to once again recruit, send people through the training camps and plot attacks on the West. In the five years

that the Taliban hosted al-Qaeda camps in the late 90s, it's estimated that around 20,000 recruits from over 60 countries passed through those camps. It became a kind of university of terror and nobody wants to see a repeat of that. A lot of our listeners who emailed in have been concerned, very concerned about human rights. So Elizabeth Eckhart, Natalie Orgel-Lewis, Maria Carmona, Carmen Rawiela, just to name a few, all wanted to know about women's rights, how the Taliban have said that women and girls can be educated and work as long as it's according to Sharia law. What does that actually mean? Have attitudes amongst the Taliban actually changed in terms of girls and women's rights?

And let's bring you in here, Lise. The Taliban have changed. At least the Taliban leadership have changed. I have spent a lot of time discussing with them in detail in the Gulf state of Qatar, where their political office is based. The big question, though, is have the Taliban changed as much as Afghanistan has changed? For example, what we know so far from the new authorities who are overseeing education, the rules they have issued so far is that young Afghan women can go to university, but they will be separated from the men. They will not be in the same classes. And they have also said, of course, many times that the women will have to have their heads covered.

Heads covering is not an issue. Afghan women cover their heads. This is a conservative Muslim society. But when I think of the times that I have been on the American University of Afghanistan, which is one of the success stories of the last 20 years, but also at Kabul University, which has existed for more than a half a century. It has gone, it has been open and shut through all the decades of war. Men and women, except during Taliban time, of course, in the late 1990s, have always gone together. And this morning, someone who is the head of gender at one of the government ministries

or was the head of gender. So this is a disaster. They are telling us that, you know, young men and women sitting together is a Western idea and that we cannot have it. They hate it. And looking at the human rights of other minority groups, Suhas was concerned about how people with disability fare in Afghanistan and if that's likely to change. Isabella Stevens in Canberra, Australia is asking about what this is going to mean for the Hazara people. Ben Samea was asking about Jewish people. Are there any Jewish people left in Afghanistan? And Felipe from Brazil was concerned about monuments, archaeological sites which might be considered haram by the Taliban.

What about those issues? Oh, that's a lot of issues. But of course, it is all of those are sketching a picture of Afghanistan, of all its many important historical, cultural, social, human parts. To take the minorities, the Hazara are terrified. During the last time of Taliban rule, in fact, through history, and they were singled out. Now, we've seen images of Taliban leaders since they came to Kabul,

sitting down with Hazara, sitting down with actually Sikhs, Hindus, sitting down with minorities, trying sitting down with Sikhs, Hindus, sitting down with minorities, trying to send a message to them that they will be safe in the new Afghanistan. A lot of our listeners, Lise, are also concerned about what it all means for LGBT people. Gabriel Aguimar in Brazil, for instance. I'd like to know if the LGBTQ representation evolved in the past 20 years in the Afghanistan society. Can people be open again nowadays in Afghanistan? That was also echoed by Nicholas in New Hampshire, Mihaly Molnar in Hungary,

Jeannie Hanbury in Norfolk, Ed Cannon in Australia. A lot of people are worried about that. I think they should be worried about that. They were worried about that even before the Taliban came to power. This is a deeply conservative, traditional Muslim society. And while there in the last 20 years, there were very open minded people, a lot were not, even when it came to women's rights, minority rights, things talking about today. The bottom line for them is it is rights in Islam. They don't talk about human rights. They talk about rights within Islam. And they're not alone in that. There are many other Muslim, majority Muslim countries who use the same expression. They think that human rights is a Western concept and they believe they must live lives governed by Islamic laws. We don't have the full

list of laws yet, but they will be coming under this Taliban leadership. Beyond the army, we know that President Ashraf Ghani left the country in quite a rush as well. Todd Ely in the USA said, are there any sanctions planned for President Ghani and other ministers who fled before the country fell with the wealth they expropriated with them should it be frozen and eventually seized? But there was another viewpoint as well. Hi, my name is David Saunders. I work for the United Nations and like many in Afghanistan. It'd be great if you could talk to the former President Ashraf Ghani, who left after the crisis and fled to either Tajikistan or Uzbekistan. He's a very sound character, and I'd really love to know what forced his hand to make that move

and how he plans to continue to support his country, which I know he has done much of his life. This extraordinary story is still being pieced together. We heard from Ashraf Ghani himself days after he fled and when he turned up in the Emirati city of Abu Dhabi and said that he had to flee, he said, to avoid bloodshed. He said that they were searching room to room for him. And he said that he had no choice. He left everything behind and had to flee. He said that the reports of him fleeing with sacks of money, millions and millions of dollars, so much that he couldn't fit them all into his helicopter, were simply not true. But since then, there have been so many accounts.

There are Afghans calling for him to be indicted for stealing so much money. There are many Afghans who are calling him a national traitor. You can see on social media the videos of Ashraf Ghani standing up and defiantly saying that he will never abandon his country. But there is a great sense of betrayal. I gather we've got Sikandar now. Sikandar, our Pakistan and Afghanistan correspondent, who has been able to join us from Kabul. And Sikandar, what are your thoughts? Well, look, I mean, it's pretty clear to kind of every observer, I think, of affairs in Afghanistan, that Pakistan has long been a backer of the Taliban.

They've seen it as one of those, asking the question, mentioned as a tool of strategic depth, somewhere a force that can be used to counter what they see as Indian influence in the region. The Ashraf Ghani government, particularly figures like Amrullah Saleh, the vice president, always seen as being closer to Pakistan's great regional rival, India. And Pakistan saw the Taliban as a counterweight to that and a tool that was pro-Pakistani.

Key Taliban leaders have always been in Pakistan. I mean, that's why you have these shuras known as the Quetta Shura, the Peshawar Shura. They've been able to use Pakistan as a safe haven. I mean, Pakistan officially why you have these shuras known as the Quetta Shura, the Peshawar Shura. They've been able to use Pakistan as a safe haven. I mean, Pakistan officially always denies this, but most neutral and credible analysts don't give those denials too much thought. Where it gets a bit more muddy is about what kind of nitty-gritty logistical support the Pakistanis have or have not provided to the Taliban. So certainly in recent years, we've seen lots of allegations from the Afghan government side saying that Pakistani fighters are streaming in, even at times claiming that Pakistani army officers have been found fighting in Afghanistan. Certainly, I've never seen any evidence of Pakistani army officers being actively engaged in that. There's been numerous fake photographs that have been shared online.

It's quite possible that it seems likely that there are madrasa students from Pakistan, some of whom will be from Afghan refugee families who have joined the Taliban movement. I've met Taliban figures here who have spent childhoods in Pakistan but have been Afghan. The jury's still out on how crucial Pakistan has been to the military effort of the Taliban. The Afghan government side certainly says it is, but I've yet to see convincing evidence. Of course, it's a difficult thing to dig into. If anything, there are certainly some within Pakistan who are having a bit of buyer's remorse because they're worried that groups like the Pakistani Taliban, this is an extremist group that's separate from the Afghan Taliban,

and is focused on attacking the Pakistani state and the Pakistani army and is based in eastern Afghanistan, they're worried groups like that will be emboldened and violence could increase in Pakistan. They're also worried about a growing refugee crisis. Pakistan's been home to millions of Afghans for a number of years now. And a question for both of you then. What about Afghanistan's or specifically the Taliban's efforts to build relations with other neighbours? I get the impression that they want to say to the international community,

we'll do what we want inside the country, more or less, according to our rules and our beliefs, but internationally we will be more responsible. And Liz? As Sukhundar says, the overriding objective of the new Taliban leaders is to establish an Islamic emirate. Everything is secondary to that. All of the neighbours of leaders is to establish an Islamic emirate. Everything is secondary to that. All of the neighbours of Afghanistan have in recent months

repeatedly said they do not want a military solution and they warned of a pariah state if the Taliban control power on their own. But all of them have had their own contacts with parts of the Taliban for many years. All of them going forward have their own contacts with parts of the Taliban for many years. All of them going forward have their own interest, most of all in greater security and stability. For countries like Russia and China, maybe even Pakistan, although Pakistan does talk about human rights and the rights of minorities,

they want to ensure that there is a secure and stable state. Yes, they would like a more inclusive government, but there's no denying this is going to be an absolutely Taliban rule. And on the other side are all the jihadi and extremist groups who have been hailing the defeat of the American empire and will be looking very closely to see this new experiment in Islamic governance. what will be the rules and regulations, Sharia law, I dare not use the word caliphate, but the new example of an Islamic emirate, they will believe that they can look the other way because other countries, other neighbours will not be so bothered about those kinds of rights. So they're going to be picking and choosing.

And that's it from this Afghan edition of the Global News Podcast. Our thanks to Lise Doucette, Frank Gardner, Yalda Hakim, Sarkandha Kamani and Paul Adams. Our thanks to you as well for your questions and apologies if we didn't have time for yours. There will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast with all the latest world news stories later on. Our email address for anyone who wants to get in touch is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. The studio managers for this podcast were Matt Cadman and Robin Simpkins. The producer was Nikki Verrico. Our editor is Karen Martin. I'm Jackie Leonard and until next time goodbye if you're hearing this you're probably already listening to bbc's award-winning news podcasts but did you know that you can listen to them without ads get current affairs podcasts like

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