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Shivam Shekhawat, Ed., “Four Years of the Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan: A Stocktaking,” ORF Special Report No. 272, Observer Research Foundation, August 2025.
On 3 July 2025, Russia became the first country to grant de jure recognition to the Taliban-led Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan. It was a milestone for the Taliban, as they mark four years in power in August 2025. When Kabul fell in August 2021 and the Taliban usurped power from the erstwhile Republic government, countries in the region and beyond shuttered their embassies and evacuated their citizens in anticipation of what a Taliban 2.0 rule could mean not just for the region, but for their own interests.
Over the past four years, many countries, however, have had to establish some sort of de facto relationship with the group to mitigate the security risks posed by Afghanistan. A part of this threat stems from the presence of the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), Al-Qaeda, and other groups, and their capability to destabilise the security situation in the region and flare the spectre of terrorism. Even as these countries are relying on the Taliban to counter these threats, the emirate’s ability to do that is suspect, with reports about their tacit approval of the activities of Al-Qaeda. Thus, while Russia has granted official recognition to the group, countries like China, and the Central Asian Republics along with Pakistan, Iran, and others have handed over the control of their embassies to the Taliban.
In July, Germany also allowed the entry of consular staff appointed by the Taliban regime in order to facilitate the deportations of Afghan nationals from the country. While the leadership has refused to view it as a step towards recognition, it does signify the multidimensional factors that influence each country’s decision to engage with the group. The Taliban, for their part, have not yielded to international pressure and continue their repressive policymaking that is particularly consequential for women and ethnic minorities in the country. Indeed, as the gains of the previous two decades are being reversed in the past four years, the world as we know it has also been undergoing dynamic transformations, some of them seemingly irreversible. There are unceasing conflicts in different parts of the world, among them, the war in Ukraine that broke out in February 2022; tensions in the Middle East are continuing as well.
In this context, Afghanistan and the risks it poses may already be getting less attention than it deserves—to the detriment of, most of all, the Afghan people. In the beginning of 2025, as Donald Trump returned to power in the United States, he overturned Washington’s assistance to Afghanistan, deciding on 8 April that aid to the country does not align with the US’s national security interests. Many emergency food services were also stopped, with representatives from the US government blaming it on the Taliban’s interference and their lack of accountability. In June 2025, UN Secretary-General António Guterres reported that the reduction in foreign aid and assistance will further exacerbate the problems faced by the Afghan people amidst widespread poverty and unemployment, limited access to basic services, and natural disasters, all while being under a regime that was transitioning from an insurgency to a government.[1]
Under the 2025 Humanitarian Response Plan, the targeted population who will receive assistance has been reduced to 12.5 million people in 145 districts out of the total 401 districts.[2] The sudden cessation of aid has also created other issues, with perishable items being destroyed and with reports about the Taliban’s attempts to forcibly confiscate materials from implementing humanitarian organisations. The high number of returnees from both Pakistan and Iran have further created pressure on an already strained system. So far, 1.5 million Afghans have been forced to return from Iran in 2025 while Pakistan began expelling Afghan refugees in the country in October 2023.[3] As per the International Organisation of Migration, Afghanistan is not equipped to absorb the high volume of returnees numbering nearly 900,000 from both the countries in 2025.[4]
This report builds upon two previous reports curated by the Observer Research Foundation to track developments in Afghanistan. The previous reports, published in 2021 and 2024, respectively, focused on how the return of the Taliban reshaped the prevalent world order and how the responses of the regional countries and the United States towards the Islamic emirate have evolved over the years.[5] This edition will focus on the internal developments within Afghanistan, with an emphasis on the security situation, the dynamics within the Taliban movement, questions of international law, and how the group engages with the world.
In the first chapter, Hassan Abbas explores the dynamics of the Taliban movement, as their Supreme Leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada increasingly centralises power and its implications for the future of the movement and for the group’s transition to a functional state. Omar Sadr follows with a piece that discusses the attempt by the Taliban to establish a “madrasa state”, creating parallel structures of power in the country with the simultaneous presence of government ministries and religious networks.
In the third article, Nematullah Bizhan analyses the state of the country’s economy since the fall of Kabul and the freeze on the country’s foreign reserves and how that has evolved in the past three and a half years. Orzala Nemat’s chapter on women under the emirate explores the foundations of Taliban’s continuously repressive policies against women, and finds that this stance is influenced by both ideological motivations and the desire for control and legitimacy.
In the fifth piece, Clara Broekaert and Colin P. Clarke map the terror threat landscape in the country, particularly focusing on the activities of the ISKP and Al-Qaeda and its affiliate networks. In the last two chapters, both Haroun Rahimi and William Maley delve into questions of international law and recognition and the ways in which the Taliban have been engaging with the world, bringing to conclusion how the developments mentioned in the preceding chapters are shaping the future of the Taliban and the emirate in Afghanistan. Haroun Rahimi explores the obstacles to international recognition for the emirate—their lack of legitimacy, human rights violations, links to terror groups, and failure to establish an inclusive government. William Maley highlights how engagement with the group is made complicated by the absence of any particular foreign policy processes within the Taliban-led regime.
These articles were curated over the course of the last few months, during which plenty of developments have occurred both domestically in Afghanistan, and in the region and beyond. The uncertainty brought by the return of Donald Trump to the White House and its impact on the state of Afghanistan’s humanitarian and overall economic situation, will further complicate efforts at ensuring that the needs of the Afghan people are secured effectively. The granting of recognition by Russia also raises important questions with regards to how other countries in the region, particularly China and Pakistan, will follow suit. For India, the developments of the past few months necessitate engagement with the Taliban.
It is our aim that the articles in this volume on Afghanistan’s internal dynamics will shed much needed light on how the country is faring and what the international community can expect from the Taliban as we enter another year of their refurbished emirate.
Read the report here.
[1] United Nations Secretary-General, “The Situation in Afghanistan and Its Implications for International Peace and Security: Report of the Secretary-General,” 2025, https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4083725?ln=en&v=pdf
[2] UN OCHA, “Afghanistan: Humanitarian Update, March 2025,” June 11, 2025, https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/afghanistan/afghanistan-humanitarian-update-march-2025
[3] SIGAR, “Quarterly Report to the United States Congress,” Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, 2025, https://www.sigar.mil/Reports/Article-Display/Article/4260116/july-30-2025-quarterly-report-to-congress/
[4] “Record 256,000 Afghan Migrants Return from Iran as IOM Warns of Dire Funding Shortfall,” International Organization for Migration, June 30, 2025, https://www.iom.int/news/record-256000-afghan-migrants-return-iran-iom-warns-dire-funding-shortfall
[5] Aditya Gowdara Shivamurthy, Ed., “Afghanistan and the New Global (Dis)Order: Great Game and Uncertain Neighbours,” Observer Research Foundation, 2021, https://www.orfonline.org/research/afghanistan-and-the-new-global-dis-order-great-game-and-uncertain-neighbours; Shivam Shekhawat, Ed., “Afghanistan Under the Taliban: Enduring Challenges, Evolving Responses,” Observer Research Foundation, 2025, https://www.orfonline.org/research/afghanistan-under-the-taliban-enduring-challenges-evolving-responses
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
Shivam Shekhawat is a Junior Fellow with ORF’s Strategic Studies Programme. Her research focuses primarily on India’s neighbourhood- particularly tracking the security, political and economic ...
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