Afghan women in fear as Taliban go door to door in search of those who worked for ‘enemies’
Many of the women of Afghanistan are frightened right now. And those who worked for the foreigners who’ve pulled out of the country, are even more so.
They are some of the top Taliban targets and too many of them are telling us how the Taliban are going from door to door, trying to find those who once worked for the “enemies”.
Officially, there’s an amnesty. Unofficially, there are scores being settled and intimidation is rife.
There are many more people out in the market than we’ve seen in the previous few days
“Why did I work for the US?” one 24-year-old woman asks us.
“That [when we are in] such a situation they are not responding us (sic)… not hearing us? It’s a waste of my work experience, all those years. It’s a waste of effort, it’s a waste of struggle, it’s a waste of everything right now. I even carry some kind of hate in my heart for them.”
She and her sister have travelled with their uncle to where we are staying. They were too scared to talk to us openly.
They saw us filming in a market in the capital and the younger sister (who we will call “Tabasum” for her safety), tells us she watched us for two hours before summoning up the courage to pull Sky producer Chris Cunningham to one side.
“Please, I want you to interview me,” she told him. “I can’t talk here because our lives are in danger.”
Speaking to women at the market
It has taken tremendous bravery to speak up at all. We are just a few metres away from an armed Taliban checkpoint. The fighters who are patrolling through the market, with weapons slung over their shoulders, tell us how we are seeing a different, better side of Kabul.
“A few weeks ago you would not have been able to come here because of the security,” the Talib tells us. There appears to be no irony in his voice.
There are many more people out in the market than we’ve seen in the previous few days. And there is a marked increase in the number of women in public.
Initially, the Taliban instructed women to stay indoors “for security reasons”. But while we are here there are many thronging the stalls.
Talibs at the market checkpoint
We notice they are all wearing long flowing dresses or coats and headscarves or hijabs – a number are in the all-enveloping burka. Many appear to have a male companion (mahram) shepherding the groups of females around.
We ask the Taliban commander manning the checkpoint what he does to enforce any dress code. He replies that so long as the women adhere to Sharia law, there’s no issue.
Another Talib interrupts. “It’s an Islamic society,” he says. “And there is no need to tell them to wear hijab, we haven’t had to ask them…everyone is obeying that now.”
When you’re the ones holding the guns, perhaps you don’t need to persuade too hard.
Initially, the Taliban instructed women to stay indoors ‘for security reasons’
In the room where we are secretly meeting the young women, they spread out their paperwork which shows extensive links with USAID and other foreign aid groups like CARE, which has a base in Britain.
There are 25 members of their extended family with eight of them children. Almost all of the adults used to work for foreign aid groups or they are female teachers, now in danger.
The young women’s mother is a principal at a girls’ high school.
Street children at the Taliban checkpoint
“Look at this death threat she received from the Taliban,” Murro shows us. She flicks through her phone to find the scrawled letter from the Taliban which was investigated and verified by the previous administration.
The letter says: “Our main aim and work is to kill all students, teachers and the principal.”
They talk about their mother opening the door to their home a few days after Kabul fell to the Islamist group to find a gaggle of armed Taliban outside.
“They just demanded food and came in,” Tabasum says. “I was standing in my bedroom just shaking. I could not believe it.”
Tabasum (not her real name) speaking to Sky’s Alex Crawford
The Taliban fighters began to regularly march into the house demanding food, or tea and asking questions about who they worked for.
“Did you work for the old government,” one Talib asked them. “There are rumours you worked for the foreigners…”
“We decided we needed to move then,” Tabasum says. They’ve been on the run ever since.
They show us photographs with the former US first lady Laura Bush taken in Washington DC. There are others standing proudly with British soldiers.
“We love our country. We were proud to work for Afghanistan and build a new future,” says 24-year-old Murro. “I empowered 900 women during my career with USAID. Now what am I? I am not empowered. I am told I cannot work and I’m told how to dress.
“I worry about the future, not just my future but my family’s future and the country’s future. Have you ever felt you are living in a country that is not your country anymore? That’s how I feel right now.”
Tabasum (not her real name) has spoken out about her experiences
They tell us of how the friends and partners they worked with for years have now turned their backs on them. How none of their emails and applications for asylum are being answered or even responded to.
WhatsApps go unread, calls are not picked up.
Tabasum was one day away from finishing her business degree. She was due to complete her thesis at one of Kabul’s top universities on Monday.
The airport suicide bombing which killed nearly two hundred including 13 US service personnel happened on the Sunday before.
“In one day, my life changed. All the lecturers left the country. The university is now empty. All four years of my studying is wasted.”
She had a job but her superiors rang her up and told her it wasn’t safe for her to come in as a woman and that she should stay at home. Almost half the staff were women, now all sitting at home.
“They don’t want me because I’m a girl,” Tabasum says. “I don’t have the right to come out of my home now without a male. Why? Because this is an inequality. I don’t have the same rights as a boy. I am nothing for them.”
“I have become invisible. I used to have a job. I am educated. I don’t need any man. But now I am just nothing.”
The Taliban has made reassurances that it respects women’s rights
She’s wearing a full-length coat and black hijab. “Before I never wore a hijab,” she says. “I wore T-shirt and jeans. Now I can’t go anywhere without covering my head and wearing these clothes.”
Despite all the reassurances from the Taliban that they respect women’s rights, the women of Afghanistan do not believe them.
And the Taliban are dealing with a tougher, better educated, more liberal Afghan woman now – many of them in their 20s or 30s.
The Taliban checkpoint at night
They have aspirations and educated minds which has put fire in their stomachs and sent courage soaring through their veins. We’ve seen them take to the streets to fight for their rights – and not back down even when staring down the barrel of a gun.
The Taliban fighters may be manning the checkpoints and prowling the area with guns but the Afghan women are not prepared to return to the times their mothers endured.
We set out to meet a female activist and mother of three who we interviewed before the Taliban took control. We will call her “Fatima”.
She also worked for a series of foreign NGO’s focused on running female empowerment courses and skill projects for women.
Colourful clothes are on sale at markets
She too received written death threats from the Taliban as well as threatening texts and frightening phone calls.
She told us weeks before the Taliban marched into the capital that she was in fear of her life and was terrified her three young children were going to be harmed as the Taliban had warned of killing her whole family.
She’d taken refuge in a women’s shelter then. Since then even that’s not safe. The Taliban have moved in and she’s moving constantly now with her family from friends’ home to friends’ home.
She was cleared to be evacuated by the British military and received a confirmation email but hours later got another warning her not to travel to the airport or the Baron Hotel because of a precise security threat which turned out to be the suicide bomber who blew himself up the following day.
Taliban checkpoint
Since then she’s been getting increasingly desperate as evacuation flights have been halted.
Those left behind who did so much service for Afghanistan and worked with such faith with the foreign partners, they never expected to leave so hurriedly, are feeling forgotten and in many ways betrayed.
“I prefer to die at sea at the hands of human traffickers trying to escape here than be killed by the Taliban,” Fatima tells us. “But I’m a prisoner here right now.”
The OSINT team at Sky News uses satellite images, video and publicly available data to verify and investigate breaking stories.
Whether helping inform out coverage of conflicts in the middle east, or showing the scale of damage caused by hurricanes and floods, satellite images have been an important resource throughout the year.
As 2024 comes to an end, we have compiled some of the most striking and informative examples seen this year.
January: Earthquake hits Japan’s Noto Peninsula
Pic: Maxar
On 1 January, a magnitude 4.9 earthquake affected the Noto Peninsula in Japan.
It killed more than 500 people, and cased substantial damage to buildings in the area.
February: First commercial mission to the moon lands
Pic: NASA
On 22 February, the first commercial mission to the moon landed.
Odysseus, a Nova-C lander owned by Intuitive Machines, was photographed by NASA on 24 February after its arrival to the moon’s southern polar region.
This was the first time that a private company has successfully sent a spacecraft to the moon.
March: Container ship hits Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore
Pic: Maxar
On 26 March, the container ship Dali hit Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing it to collapse. This killed six maintenance workers.
The cost of replacing the bridge has been estimated to be close to $2bn.
April: Eclipse seen over Mexico and the Pacific Ocean
Pic: NASA
On 8 April, a total solar eclipse passed across North America. Caused by an alignment in the positions of the sun and moon, the phenomenon was visible in Mexico, the United States and Canada.
Its shadow was photographed by NASA as it passed over the Pacific Ocean and the eastern coast of Mexico.
May – Israeli strike targets Rafah camp
On 26 May, an Israeli airstrike targeted an area housing displaced people near the city of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip.
At least 45 people were killed in this strike, with many more injured. Images from the scene caused widespread international backlash. Israel said it was targeting senior Hamas commanders.
Investigations by Sky News and other outlets subsequently found that the munition used was an American-made GBU-39 bomb.
June: Volcanic eruption in Iceland
Pic: Planet Labs PBC
In mid-June, a volcano on Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula erupted.
Coinciding with increased earthquake activity, the eruption resulted in a large lava flow visible from space.
July: The Olympic Games held in Paris
Pic: Maxar
In the summer, France hosted the Olympic Games in Paris. During the games several events were held close to the city’s famous landmarks.
This image, captured by Maxar, shows a temporary volleyball stadium in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.
August: Wildfires approach the edge of Athens
Pic: Sentinel 2
In August, thousands of people were evacuated from the countryside surrounding Athens due to wildfires.
By the time the fires subsided, approximately 100,000 acres were burned.
September: Hurricane Helene makes landfall in the United States
Pic: NASA
On September 26, Hurricane Helene made landfall on the Florida Coast.
The storm left a trail of destruction across the southern United States, resulting in power cuts that in some cases lasted for days.
Satellite images taken at night by NASA show the storm passing over Florida and Georgia.
October: Flooding in Spain
Pic: Maxar
At the end of October, the Spanish city of Valencia and its surrounding areas experienced severe flash flooding.
This killed more than 200 people, and covered large areas with water, mud and debris.
Satellite imagery captured by Maxar on 31 October shows the scale of the flooding, with the south of the city being worst affected.
November: Mount Fuji without snow in November for the first time in 130 years
Source: Planet Labs PBC
Japan’s Mount Fuji made headlines this year, after its famous snow cap failed to materialise until 6 November.
Satellite imagery captured by Planet Labs shows the mountain without snow on 4 November for the first time in 130 years.
The appearance of snow on Mount Fuji occurred a month later than in 2023, when it was recorded on 5 October.
December: Russian military equipment gathered at airbase following fall of Assad
Pic: Maxar
In December, the Syrian civil war came to a sudden end as rebel groups captured all previously government-held territory within the space of a few weeks.
While the former dictator Bashar al Assad fled to Russia, Russian troops and equipment that helped prop up his regime were left in the country.
Following the fall of Assad’s regime, it appears Russia is in the process of withdrawing from Syria.
On 19 December, a satellite image captured by Maxar showed large amounts of Russian military equipment assembled for transport from its Syrian airbase.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
World
South Korean court issues arrest warrant for impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol who declared martial law
A South Korean court has issued a warrant for the arrest of impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol after his short-lived attempt to impose martial law, the country’s anti-corruption agency has said.
The Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials, which is leading a joint investigation with police and military authorities into the power grab that lasted only a few hours, confirmed it requested the warrant from the Seoul Western District Court on Monday.
The agency said it is investigating whether his declaration of martial law amounted to rebellion.
Mr Yoon’s powers have been suspended since the opposition-controlled National Assembly voted to impeach him on 14 December.
South Korea’s Constitutional Court will determine whether to dismiss Mr Yoon as president or reinstate him.
He has ignored repeated requests by investigative authorities to appear for questioning and allow them to search his office.
Mr Yoon has the presidential privilege of immunity from criminal prosecution, but it does not extend to allegations of rebellion or treason.
The anti-corruption agency said it has no immediate plans on how to proceed with the court-issued warrants.
Many observers earlier doubted that authorities would forcefully detain him because of the potential for clashes with the presidential security service.
They say the security service likely will not permit searches of Mr Yoon’s office, citing a law that prohibits searches on sites with state secrets without approval from those in charge of those areas.
Protesters hold up signs that read “Step down President Yoon Suk Yeol” after the declaration of martial law
Mr Yoon’s imposition of martial law lasted only six hours but triggered huge political turmoil, halting high-level diplomacy and rattling financial markets.
The president sent hundreds of soldiers and police officers to the National Assembly to block a vote on his decree, but enough members managed to enter the assembly chamber to overturn it unanimously.
Mr Yoon has argued his decree was a legitimate act of governance, calling it a warning to the main liberal opposition Democratic Party which he has described as “despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces”.
He claims the party used its legislative majority to impeach top officials and undermine the government’s budget.
Read more from Sky News:
2024: A year in satellite images
Former US president Jimmy Carter dies
Russia’s ‘hybrid attacks’ against NATO ‘look like war’
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South Korean president lifts martial law order
The country’s political crisis deepened on Friday when the Democratic Party and other small opposition parties voted to impeach acting President Han Duck-soo.
The opposition brought impeachment proceedings against him over his refusal to immediately fill three places on South Korea’s Constitutional Court – where the former president is on trial.
Three justices had been approved by parliament – where the opposition Democratic Party has a majority – but Mr Han said he would not formally appoint them without bipartisan agreement.
South Korea’s constitution says that six justices on the nine-member Constitutional Court must agree to remove an impeached president, meaning the current justices must vote unanimously to remove Mr Yoon.
The deputy prime minister and finance minister, Choi Sang-mok, has become South Korea’s new interim leader.
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