 We have a superb panel moderated by somebody, I couldn't imagine a better moderator to moderate this panel. Somebody who's been a great time, a deal of time in Afghanistan reporting on everything from civilian casualties to ghost schools. Azmat Khan is one of Pulitzer. She's a professor at Columbia. She has been, she's a fellow at New America. She's also been a professor at Arizona State. And I'm gonna hand it over to Azmat now to introduce the panel and the discussion. Thank you. Thank you, Peter. It's wonderful to be here. And it's especially wonderful to be here with two of the scholars from the Afghanistan Observatory at New America. The Observatory Fellowship is a hub for at-risk Afghans in exile with a demonstrated commitment to peace building, good governance, and the defense of human rights. I'm really excited to introduce these two scholars who are going to be walking us through today where we are a year on from the Taliban takeover. The first scholar is Samaya Tora. She's the founder and executive director of the Dosti Network, which aims to reduce inequities among Afghans by serving as a vehicle to provide financial and immigration support to marginalized Afghans. It's close to home for her. She started this project out of her own efforts to help those within her family without a path to migration and expanded it to those other vulnerable groups. Tora is Afghanistan's first road scholar, and she holds a master of public policy from the University of Oxford, where she's also pursuing a second master's in international human rights law. If you have a chance, Samaya recently published just this over the weekend in the Intercept, a podcast called telling Afghanistan stories in their own words, the accounts of those who have had to leave the country and what they've been through. And it's incredibly powerful. Our second scholar we're joined by today is Kayum Sarush. Kayum Sarush has worked with many of the most prestigious research organizations in Afghanistan before he immigrated to Ireland after the collapse. He worked for the Center of Civilians and Conflict, which is an organization with the forefront of preventing civilian casualties, human rights watch, and the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, as well as the Afghanistan Analyst Network. And those of you who study the country have probably relied on many of their reports. And I would encourage any of those of you who are interested in what's happening right now in Afghanistan to read their reports. They're really just unlike anything else. So Sarush's project with the Afghanistan Observatory explores the political economy of the Afghan conflict. And both of these two panelists bring a wealth of expertise. They're individuals who have been studying different aspects of what has long been in the making that we're seeing unfold in Afghanistan today. And so I think a good place for us to start would actually be with you Kayum, because I'd like to talk a little bit about the current governance model in Afghanistan. The Taliban came to power with claims that they would have a different model of governance, that they would be able to govern effectively, that they had grassroots support. Can you lay out sort of what the reality is in comparison with those claims and what the contemporary system of governance you're seeing today is? Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here. As far as your question is concerned, I'm gonna refer to one of the most important books that the Taliban leadership put out. It's called Emirat and Systems, which there they are describing the political system or the Islamic Emirates that they wish to have. The book is actually written by an important Taliban high officials called Abdullah Hakim Haqqani, who is also the head of the Taliban High Court. And there he described that we have, overall there is two type of government. One is called the government whose main obligation is to collect tax. And then there is the government that's the main obligation or the main motto for them is to guide people. And from there he insists that the government that you are going to belt or the Islamic government or the Islamic Emirate that they are gonna belt is the government for guiding people who's main way to is guiding people, which they call the Daulat al-Hadai. So, and from there he says that there are three elements for that government. And one is the Islamic army. And the second is implementation of the Islamic sharia or the Islamic law or laws of the gods. And then the last is the independent judiciary systems. From then, from there, they're actually, we can see that they are building a government which is the main motto is not to provide public services for the Afghan people. And therefore it's no surprise that then the last two, last year the whole burden of providing service has been for the international community. And in practice, what we really see is that the Taliban regime is actually what scholars would call is a religiously justified totalitarianism, which it's main motto has been to control Afghan people through all means and they are interfering in all aspect of social and individual lives. And we also see a kind of dictatorship because there is only one man rule who does not have a face even. And what he says at the top will be the law. And for the sake of this type of government, for understanding that there is a whole chapter in that book where they are saying that the whole chapter in rejection of all human made laws, which means they will only obey the laws that are based on Sharia and other laws will not be obeyed by the Taliban government. So, and that's why we see lots of violation of human rights, lots of extra judiciary killings, torturing, kidnapping of and as if the Afghan national defense forces that other uprising forces that were fighting against the Taliban during the ex-government. And also what we see in their cabinet is actually all male predominantly Pashtun ethnicities, which many of them are actually in the list of United Nations sanctions, essential list. So, yeah. So it seems like many of the actions that the Taliban government had so criticized about the previous government, these extra judicial killings, torture, kidnapping, a lot of this is occurring under their own rule. What kind of effect will that have or is that having on civil society on their ability to govern? Do you see this, for example, descending into a civil war? Of course, that's, you know, we already see some, already uprising or resistance to the Taliban regime. Just yesterday there was, you know, the widespread report of killing those on custody of resistance against them in Panshik. And the same thing happened with all other resistance or any kind of oppositions to the Taliban regime, which include the civilian activist or a woman activist who has been tortured during their past days. So we might not see any kind of, you know, big fighting or big resistance against them at any time soon, but the country is sliding slowly to that ship if they did not change the law and their approach and their policies against their opponents. Right. And this is obviously being exacerbated by the humanitarian crisis that's currently happening. Samaya, can you talk a little bit about what NGOs and others trying to do this kind of development are facing and also whether they're really able and the best pose to provide this kind of aid? Hi Azmat, can you hear me? I can hear you, but I can't see you. So I just turned off my video because I think my internet connection is not great. As long as everyone can hear me, I think I'll keep my camera off. If you don't mind just repeating the question. Of course. Is it cut off? Right, so the governance, what the current situation in Afghanistan is exacerbated by the current humanitarian crisis. Some have called it the world's largest. How would you describe the issues that are facing NGOs and the sort of system of revenue within the government to administer its own aid? What are you seeing as the challenges there? Yes, so going back to what Kalyum highlighted, I think because of the fact, and this is the area that my organization I've been working on since September, because of the fact that the Taliban government is not capable of providing services, but also that's not the priority of the government and the ideology is not based necessarily on, they don't envision a government based on providing services to civilians. Even when you listen to some of the video conversations where Taliban leaders, specifically Hakkani, one of the interviews with Yalla Hakim on BBC with one of the members of the Hakkani network, he mentioned that when he was asked about the humanitarian crisis, the short response is usually that they believe that God would resolve that problem eventually. As a Muslim, I think, yes, as person of faith, I believe that, but as a government, I don't think that the response people expect from people who are waiting to be served in some way. And this incapability has been showcased in several instances when the earthquake happened in Paktika and Paktia regions. There were people who needed humanitarian assistance and it was very, very difficult to get for a lot of these NGOs to access and provide services because of the fact that the government was not capable, the de facto government was not capable of creating systems that could deliver services quickly. Similarly, there have been instances of floods, drought, and there's ongoing food insecurity in the country. There are people who are, there's almost about a five billion humanitarian aid request of aid in the history of UN. And you can see that the level of crisis is at a level that the UN has not seen before. And that comes back to what you mentioned is the incapability of the government, the de facto government to provide services, but also to govern. Right. And so Maya, are you seeing this more exacerbated in particular regions of the country, particular places where there is less of this infrastructure or the Taliban is less able to, certainly it's had an incredible failure to provide services overall, but are there particular pockets in places where people are particularly vulnerable, where you're seeing that humanitarian catastrophe and more severe? Yes. So mostly, so the areas that have been mostly affected are rural areas that have seen natural disasters or the flooding. But now at the moment, even in urban cities like Kabul, women outside, usually women and girls are begging on the street for a piece of bread. And this was something that was being reported by several journalists have been featured. So the food insecurity is not necessarily just affecting rural parts of the country, but it is very much prevalent today in urban areas as well and in cities like Kabul, which used to be, which has a lot of infrastructure and which was sort of the hub of the progress that was brought by the US government. Yeah, it's really jarring to see the images of people lining up for food in many of these places, people who have said to camera that they've never had to do this before, that this is a new experience for them. And it's hard not to underestimate just the effects of what this kind of food insecurity, what this kind of economic decline will have over the long-term. But I want to shift gears to something that I think has recently garnered more attention because of the drone strike on Al-Zawahri in Kabul and Shahraina neighborhood, an area where many did not expect him, Al-Qaeda's leader to be, where many did not expect that the United States would be carrying out or continue to carry out drone strikes in the area. And I want to turn to Yuka Yom to give a little bit of context to this in terms of the relationship between the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and what we're hearing or what we're learning about how familiar they were with this and what they might even allow. Yeah, that's a great question. And quite surprisingly, just yesterday, Al-Qaeda published report and same in their magazines with the huge pictures of Mullah Omar on the cover saying that they will not attack United States from Afghanistan anymore, which is quite surprising considering that they still say that we will attack from somewhere else but not from Afghanistan considering that their leader has been killed in Kabul and Shahraina under the Taliban watch. And quite surprising as well that they have not admitted yet that the Imanat Zawari has been killed in Kabul because probably they are waiting for the Taliban to confirm it first. And then because the Taliban said that they're going to investigate the incidents which is taking for weeks. And then after that, they want to issue their officials reaction to that. But as long as the relation is concerned, we know that at least part of Taliban especially Haqqani networks had a very strong relations with Al-Qaeda in the past. And they have built not only through Islamist groups but also in total link and through families' marriage and strong relations between their families when they were back in Pakistan and also in Afghanistan. And especially Haqqani networks and the house that Imanat Zawari also called it actually belonged to an aide of Sirajuddin Haqqani who is the acting interior minister for the Taliban. So it is not simple for them to break up the relationship they have been developing with Al-Qaeda for years now. And we know that both groups have been benefiting from such a relationship. And also considering that the Taliban was blaming the United States for breaking their Doha agreements, it's quite clear in the Doha agreement that the Taliban will not harbor any terrorist groups recognized by the United States. So for me, it's quite tough time for the Taliban to decide whether to acknowledge the killing of Imanat Zawari and then clean up some internal disputes over who were protected and invited the Imanat Zawari to Al-Qaeda in Kabul. But they're gonna have a strong relationship for a time. Maybe that midnight come in public as I mentioned because Al-Qaeda announcing that they will not attack the United States from Afghanistan. But it's a complex long-term relationship that they have and it will be as strong as it was in the past. So what is the likelihood? So if each side is being accused of having broken this agreement, the Doha agreement, what are the potential repercussions? What kind of fallout could we see from this? Well, that would be really interesting to see but from what we see and what happened in Afghanistan actually the Taliban took over of the Afghanistan. What other analysts has been all saying is based on the Doha agreements that provided the way for the Taliban to come and take over the Kabul because that actually break the resistance within the Republic. And then after even everyone could see that the United States has decided to leave the Afghans and the Taliban just could outweigh the deadlines that United States was providing. And the Doha agreement was the only legal, let's say, documents that could provide such relations a bit with the Taliban and the United States. If such agreement is not observed anymore, then of course the United States has all the options on the table, including drone attacks that's now happening across Afghanistan. We don't know if that's the whole target as Al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups or that also include Taliban leadership, which just after the drone attacks in Shara now where the leaders of the Haqqani networks, especially Sarajan Haqqali disappeared for days and did not come to public, probably the faring that they're avoiding drone attacks. And the same thing will be the Taliban so that they promise to not attack the Taliban. United States interests from Afghanistan's or do not harbor terrorists in Afghanistan. So if such document is not observed, then both parties will have the whole options on the table to decide what kind of relationship or how they wanna deal with each other. And that could mean also full-scale warfare that we had in the past 20 years. Right. And I think it's hard not to talk about this relationship between the United States and Afghanistan and not also talk about what America has really wanted from the Afghan government with respect to human rights issues, with respect to the education of women and girls. And so I wanna shift the focus there and talk to you, Somayel, a little bit about what we're seeing, not just the promises that the Taliban did not keep about allowing all girls back into schools, basically rejecting them on the day of when they were expecting to be able to attend. Can you tell us a little bit about how women and girls have been affected and specifically their rationale for why they have doubled down on some of these rejections of girls from getting into school? Yes. So a document that I would encourage everyone to read would be the special rapporteur of Afghanistan's report, his first report that was presented to the Human Rights Council yesterday at the 51st session. So that outlines the human rights violations that are currently occurring in Afghanistan and also actually points out that women specifically are at the forefront of being marginalized and are being erased within the society, Afghan society. And the most important issue being girls' education, so we know that it's been almost a year girls are banned from going to secondary schools in almost, in 24 provinces out of 34. So most girls cannot attend secondary schools. Although there were efforts in some provinces such as Paktia where girls try to reopen schools, this after a week, the schools were actually shut by the Talbites recently. And some of these girls were detained, some of them were actually shot on. So the situation specifically for young girls and women is very, very, very critical in Afghanistan. About 84% of women have lost their jobs but in addition to women, I think it's important to mention ethnic minorities and that dimension, some of the ethnic minorities such as Hazaras, Turkmens, Uzbeks have been forcefully displaced. We have seen almost 13 attacks claimed by ISIS, some of which have been claimed by ISIS-K towards the Hazara community during Ashura, which is a very important religious time for Shia Muslims in Afghanistan. And these are issues that we're seeing currently in the country. And going back to education, I would say that it goes back to something Khayyum has raised about the political tension within the different groups of Taliban that are the Hakanis and Kandaharis and the disagreement on reopening of school is also because of the different viewpoints that are held by different Taliban members at different levels. So there are few conservative leaders that have been pushing for, have pushed for not reopening schools. And that includes the prime minister and the deputy prime minister those of whom that have very conservative viewpoints on reopening of schools. While there are some factions within the Taliban that agree that schools should be reopened, but it's been almost a year and it has not. So yeah. Is, do they stand to lose? Does the Taliban stand to lose in its fight against the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan? Is that part of the reason why they're doubling down so hard on education is that there is this sort of war over culture happening right now. And there's the possibility that they may further lose ground, lose recruits to this opposing side. How much of that does play a role in some of their thinking? Because I think it's important to get into why they are so adamant about this because they would stand to gain so much by allowing girls into secondary schools. There have been cuts on funding. Like it seems entirely in their interest. Kayum or Samaya, can you get into what their logic might be and why they might be rejecting this so forcefully? Yeah, so for a year, I think there has been a huge debate on this and people have tried to rationalize how the, if this is like, there's a political motive or is it because of sanctions that they're doing after a year and working on this with several organizations, I can say that it has to do with their attitude and the fact that they do see women as really like second-class citizens. And for them, it is that perspective. Some of the leaders do hold that. And so they are in a way... Yeah, it is the outright marginalization of women that's ongoing in the country. So I wouldn't want to rationalize it in a political sense. But I think one thing important is that because of ISIS-K, the Taliban are focusing a lot of their spending on security. But that's another reason why they might not be able to fund or get female teachers or get enough funding for education. And that could also make girls' education and making schools, because the gender segregation is very important for reopenings of schools, that might make it an obstacle because if they don't have enough funding to hire female teachers, how are they going to reopen schools? But I think that goes along with the mentality of some of the Taliban members who are very conservative and actually don't want girls to go back to school. So there is an element of not being able to provide that service because of the insecurities that they face by ISIS-K, but at the same time, there is an attitude towards thinking that education for girls is not important. Okay. So I think that we are hitting close to the end of time. So if there are any questions or there's anything else that anyone would like to add from among the speakers, if you had to leave the viewers here with one sort of guide to what they should know about what's happening in Afghanistan right now, briefly, what would you tell them? Can I go first? I think what we can say that the Taliban is building probably a worse model of Islamic regime that we have in Iran, a total totalitarian dictatorship regime, which is also censoring lots of media outlets. And that's why you don't have, you have lots of problem getting information about these incidents such as important as killing of Imar al-Zawahir in Kabul happens. And lots of other incidents that now happening in Kabul goes or across Afghanistan goes under reported. So we added the international community and the United States and other international actors involved in Afghanistan should be careful of and watch out because the Taliban will not be content in Afghanistan. Thank you so much, Kayum. Thank you, Samaya. Both of you have been incredible. I really appreciate the time you took and please look out for their work through the Afghanistan Observatory Fellowship. Samaya, I'm sorry, we're gonna have to cut it short there just because we're running low on time, but thank you both so much. I appreciate it.