Dozens of girls poisoned at 2 schools in Afghanistan, officials say
Local officials said almost 80 elementary schoolers, along with a handful of teachers and a parent, were affected in the latest mass-poisoning of Afghan children.
Ahmad Mukhtar is a producer for CBS News based in Toronto, Canada. He covers politics, conflict and terrorism, with a focus on news from Canada and his home nation of Afghanistan, which he left following the Taliban's return to power in 2021. He reports for all CBS News platforms.
Ahmad has a bachelor's degree in political science and public administration from the American University of Afghanistan and a master's degree in disaster and emergency management from York University in Toronto. He started his career in journalism with CBS News in Kabul in 2009.
He became CBS News' Kabul bureau chief in 2013, helping to lead coverage of America's longest ever war before leaving the country in 2021.
Local officials said almost 80 elementary schoolers, along with a handful of teachers and a parent, were affected in the latest mass-poisoning of Afghan children.
The Taliban says 175 people have been sentenced to death since it took back control of the country, as public, corporal punishment makes a violent return.
Many Afghan women worry the Doha meeting could lead to something they vehemently oppose, official recognition of the Taliban as Afghanistan's government.
The latest step in the Taliban's systematic obliteration of women's rights will also be a major blow to the humanitarian aid work millions of Afghans rely on.
A suicide bomber was spotted and killed as he approached a checkpoint near the foreign ministry in Kabul, but his bomb still went off in the heart of the capital.
Between 2,400 and 2,700 Afghans hoping to resettle in the West have been stuck in the "Emirates Humanitarian City" for more than 15 months, the report says.
Two senior, Muslim women from the global body visited Afghanistan to push the hardline group to restore women's rights. Not everyone they met was willing to engage.
Senior team members say "politics" shouldn't interfere with sports, but Afghan women who've lost virtually all of their rights say it's not politics, it's "life."
Officials and witnesses said there was a large explosion outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs just as employees were leaving for the day.
One young woman told CBS News she felt "dead inside" when Afghanistan's hardline rulers brought back the status quo from before their 20-year war with America.
Tuesday's order completed all the restrictions the Taliban imposed on Afghan women in the 1990s.
First it was a suicide bomber outside the Russian embassy, then an attempt on the Pakistani ambassador's life, and now a hotel used by Chinese nationals has been attacked.
"If he makes money, we eat. If he doesn't, we don't," one mother told CBS News, referring to the family's new breadwinner, her 11-year-old son.
Public beatings, unexplained arrests of female activists and a litany of new restrictions are all part of the Taliban's bid "to forcefully silence women."
The Taliban has banned all drug production and insists the report is "not true," but with people starving, the U.N. says "Afghan farmers are trapped in the illicit opiate economy."