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Thousands of Afghans flee their homes as fighting erupts
Thousands of Afghans have fled their homes in Helmand province as fierce fighting between government forces and the Taliban erupted after the US military began withdrawing its remaining troops.
AFP reports Afghan forces pushed back a string of insurgent attacks on checkpoints across the southern province, where the US military on Sunday handed over a base to government forces as part of its formal pullout that began on 1 May.
About 1,000 families have fled their homes to escape the fighting that erupted on the outskirts of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, and some other parts of the province, Sayed Mohammad Ramin, the region’s director for refugees told AFP.
He said the families had taken refuge in Lashkar Gah and had come from areas where fighting was intense in the past two days.
“We will survey their needs tomorrow, but many who still have not found shelter in the city need urgent assistance,” Ramin told AFP.
The defence ministry said government forces had killed more than 100 Taliban fighters in Helmand in the past 24 hours when the insurgents attacked some checkpoints on the outskirts of Lashkar Gah.
Another 22 al-Qaida fighters from Pakistan were also killed in the fighting, the ministry said.
Officials said the Taliban fighters initially captured some checkpoints but they were retaken by government forces who pushed back the insurgents, AFP reported.
“The enemy has now lost all the areas it had captured and suffered heavy casualties,” Attaullah Afghan, head of the Helmand provincial council, told AFP.
The Taliban said dozens of Afghan troops were killed in the fighting. Both sides are known to exaggerate casualties inflicted on the other.
UK-based medical care provider Emergency said it is receiving large numbers of “war wounded patients” at its surgical centre in Lashkar Gah due to widespread fighting in the area since 1 May.
It said the hospital received 106 patients, of which 65 had to be admitted.
“These are very difficult days in Lashkar Gah … We have also put beds in the physiotherapy room to accommodate all the injured patients,” Viktor Urosevic, medical coordinator at the hospital, said in a statement issued by Emergency.
Emergency’s Afghanistan coordinator, Marco Puntin, said fighting in Helmand was not an isolated event.
“We have witnessed an escalation of conflict across Afghanistan,” he said.
Fighting was also reported in several other provinces since the US military formally began pulling out its remaining 2,500 troops, AFP reported.
The Pentagon has downplayed the fighting.
“We’ve seen nothing thus far that has affected the drawdown, or had any significant impact on the mission at hand in Afghanistan,” US Department of Defence spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday.
Nearly 20 years after US and allied Natotroops invaded Afghanistan and ousted the Taliban government as they pursued al-Qaida after the September 11, 2001 attacks, President Joe Biden ordered in April the final withdrawal.
On Tuesday, US officials said the military has completed two to six percent of the withdrawal.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has called a United Nations report on Afghan opiates “tailor-made political propaganda” saying such publications do not help combat drug trafficking in Afghanistan.
The ministry said that the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report, published in late October, recorded an increase in the cultivation, production and distribution of Afghan opiates for the first time since the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) imposed a ban in 2022.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said the report, which the IEA has already rejected as politically motivated, appears unbalanced and relies on indirect evidence, including satellite images that are open to different expert interpretations.
According to UN estimates cited in the report, the area under poppy cultivation increased from 10,200 hectares in 2025 to 43,300 hectares in 2026, while opium production rose from 300 tonnes to 1,470 tonnes.
The ministry acknowledged that Afghanistan’s drug problem still exists and said authorities in Kabul are aware of the issue. It added that Afghan security forces conduct almost daily operations in various parts of the country to destroy drug laboratories and seize narcotics.
According to the statement, more than 7.4 tonnes of various narcotics and over 4.7 tonnes of precursor chemicals were seized in Afghanistan over the past week, while two drug laboratories were dismantled.
Cooperation between the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Investment and the Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce has paved the way for exporting potatoes from Bamyan province to the Uzbek market.
In this regard, Sayed Karim Hashemi, President of the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Investment, and Doran Vahabov, President of the Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce, have agreed on the export of 100,000 tons of Bamyan potatoes to Uzbekistan. Work is underway to finalize the export agreement.
Meanwhile, the first shipment of potatoes, consisting of eight trucks, has departed for the Uzbek city of Termez through the Hairatan Port.
The chambers of commerce of both countries, in cooperation with local authorities in Bamyan, have facilitated connections between traders and farmers and coordinated the purchasing, marketing, and transportation of the produce. This initiative is expected to expand market opportunities for Bamyan farmers and strengthen trade between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.
Afghanistan’s Prime Minister, Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, met with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk in Kabul on Thursday evening, emphasizing the need to strengthen bilateral relations and expand economic cooperation between the two countries.
According to a statement from the Presidential Palace, several senior officials from both countries attended the meeting, including Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and representatives of Russia’s political and economic sectors.
Akhund described Afghanistan’s security and stability as favourable conditions for foreign investment and thanked Moscow for recognizing the Islamic Emirate and supporting Afghanistan in international forums.
Meanwhile, Overchuk praised the security situation and developments in Afghanistan, expressing Russia’s interest in investing in various sectors of the country.
He said around 70 representatives of Russia’s private sector were accompanying the delegation and were expected to hold discussions with relevant ministries and institutions of the Islamic Emirate on trade and investment agreements, as well as ways to address existing obstacles.
The Russian deputy prime minister reaffirmed his country’s support for Afghanistan in various fields.
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