Afghanistan

A massive 6.1 magnitude earthquake struck Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing at least 1,000 people and injuring at least more than 1,500 more.

For the first time in two decades, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom is recommending that Afghanistan be designated as a major violator of religious freedom due to what it calls a significant deterioration of freedom in that country.

The Biden administration ignored key intelligence reports and abandoned “hundreds, possibly thousands” of American citizens during its much-criticized withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, according to a new report from a Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Afghanistan has supplanted North Korea as the world's most dangerous country for Christians, according to an annual watchdog report that says conditions have gone from bad to worse following the Taliban's 2021 takeover.

Christian relatives of a convert who fled to India from Afghanistan shortly before the Taliban seized power described days of terror before they were able to leave the country.

Yesterday, I spoke at length with World Magazine Senior Editor Mindy Belz, who explained what is happening in Afghanistan. As part of the interview, she described what the Taliban takeover means for the Christian church in Afghanistan. Here is an excerpt from our interview.

So far, the reports from Afghanistan since the U.S. withdrawal are as bad as many feared: women increasingly barred from participation in civil society; families hunted down for their involvement with the U.S. military; brothers and sisters in Christ tortured and killed for their courageous faith. Any hope that was placed in Taliban moderation was misplaced; all skepticism was well-founded.

The U.S. State Department has increased its estimate of how many Americans still need to be evacuated from Afghanistan.

According to the Associated Press, the U.S. will provide humanitarian aid to Afghanistan but will not officially recognize the Taliban as the country's leaders.

Threatened with death even before the Taliban took power in mid-August, a young Christian woman who fled to India said she could be forced to return to Afghanistan when her visa expires in a few days.