Afghan women barred from Taliban takeover anniversary celebrations in Kabul

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Afghan women were barred from attending celebrations marking the fourth anniversary of the Taliban’s return to power on Friday.

Some 10,000 men gathered across the capital, Kabul, to watch Defense Ministry helicopters scatter flowers to the crowds below.

Three of the six “flower shower” locations were already off-limits to women because they have been prohibited from entering parks and recreational areas since November 2022.

The Taliban seized Afghanistan on Aug. 15, 2021, as the U.S. and NATO withdrew their forces at the end of a two-decade war.

Since then, they have imposed their interpretation of Islamic law on daily life, including sweeping restrictions on women and girls, based on edicts from their leader Hibatullah Akhundzada.

Friday’s anniversary program, which also comprised speeches from key Cabinet members, was only for men. An outdoor sports performance, initially expected to feature Afghan athletes, did not take place.

Rights groups, foreign governments, and the U.N. have condemned the Taliban for their treatment of women and girls, who remain barred from education beyond sixth grade, many jobs, and most public spaces.

Members of the United Afghan Women’s Movement for Freedom staged an indoor protest on Friday in northeast Takhar province against Taliban rule.

“This day marked the beginning of a black domination that excluded women from work, education, and social life,” the movement said in a statement shared with The Associated Press. “We, the protesting women, remember this day not as a memory, but as an open wound of history, a wound that has not yet healed. The fall of Afghanistan was not the fall of our will. We stand, even in the darkness.”

There was also an indoor protest in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

Afghan women held up signs that said “Forgiving the Taliban is an act of enmity against humanity” and “August 15th is a dark day.”

The women were fully veiled, except for their eyes, in the photographs.

Earlier in the day, the Taliban leader warned God would severely punish Afghans who were ungrateful for Islamic rule in the country, according to a statement.

Akhundzada, who is seldom seen in public, said in a statement that Afghans had endured hardships and made sacrifices for almost 50 years so that Islamic law, or Sharia, could be established. Sharia had saved people from “corruption, oppression, usurpation, drugs, theft, robbery, and plunder.”

“These are great divine blessings that our people should not forget and, during the commemoration of Victory Day (Aug. 15), express great gratitude to Allah Almighty so that the blessings will increase,” said Akhundzada in comments shared on the social platform X.

“If, against God’s will, we fail to express gratitude for blessings and are ungrateful for them, we will be subjected to the severe punishment of Allah Almighty," he said.

Cabinet members gave speeches listing the administration’s achievements and highlighting diplomatic progress. Those who spoke included Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani.

On Wednesday, at a Cabinet meeting in Kandahar, Akhundzada said the stability of the Taliban government lay in the acquisition of religious knowledge.

He urged the promotion of religious awareness, the discouragement of immoral conduct, the protection of citizens from harmful ideologies, and the instruction of Afghans in matters of faith and creed, according to a statement shared by government spokesman, Hamdullah Fitrat.

Akhundzada ordered the Kabul Municipality to build more mosques, and there was a general focus on identifying means to “further consolidate and fortify” the Islamic government, said Fitrat.

This year’s anniversary celebrations are more muted than last year’s, when the Taliban staged a military parade at a U.S. airbase, drawing anger from President Donald Trump about the abandoned American hardware on display.

The country is also gripped by a humanitarian crisis made worse by climate change, millions of Afghans expelled from Iran and Pakistan, and a sharp drop in donor funding.

Soldiers affiliated to the Defence Ministry stand in guard during a meeting of delegates from across Afghanistan marking the start of celebrations of the fourth anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal and the start of Taliban rule, at Loya Jirga Hall in Kabul, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)

A military helicopter drops flowers over the city during celebrations marking the fourth anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal and the start of Taliban rule in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)

A military helicopter drops flowers over the city during celebrations marking the fourth anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal and the start of Taliban rule in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)

Taliban delegates from across the country gather during a meeting that opens celebrations marking the fourth anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal and the start of Taliban rule, at the Loya Jirga Hall in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)

People wave to a military helicopter after it dropped flowers over the city during celebrations marking the fourth anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal and the start of Taliban rule in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)

A man sells Taliban flags at a stand ahead of celebrations marking the fourth anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the start of Taliban rule, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)

A man poses for the camera next to his bicycle while selling Taliban flags ahead of celebrations marking the fourth anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the beginning of Taliban rule in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)

Federal immigration agents deployed to Minneapolis have used aggressive crowd-control tactics that have become a dominant concern in the aftermath of the deadly shooting of a woman in her car last week.

They have pointed rifles at demonstrators and deployed chemical irritants early in confrontations. They have broken vehicle windows and pulled occupants from cars. They have scuffled with protesters and shoved them to the ground.

The government says the actions are necessary to protect officers from violent attacks. The encounters in turn have riled up protesters even more, especially as videos of the incidents are shared widely on social media.

What is unfolding in Minneapolis reflects a broader shift in how the federal government is asserting its authority during protests, relying on immigration agents and investigators to perform crowd-management roles traditionally handled by local police who often have more training in public order tactics and de-escalating large crowds.

Experts warn the approach runs counter to de-escalation standards and risks turning volatile demonstrations into deadly encounters.

The confrontations come amid a major immigration enforcement surge ordered by the Trump administration in early December, which sent more than 2,000 officers from across the Department of Homeland Security into the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Many of the officers involved are typically tasked with arrests, deportations and criminal investigations, not managing volatile public demonstrations.

Tensions escalated after the fatal shooting of Renee Good, a 37-year-old woman killed by an immigration agent last week, an incident federal officials have defended as self-defense after they say Good weaponized her vehicle.

The killing has intensified protests and scrutiny of the federal response.

On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota asked a federal judge to intervene, filing a lawsuit on behalf of six residents seeking an emergency injunction to limit how federal agents operate during protests, including restrictions on the use of chemical agents, the pointing of firearms at non-threatening individuals and interference with lawful video recording.

“There’s so much about what’s happening now that is not a traditional approach to immigration apprehensions,” said former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Sarah Saldaña.

Saldaña, who left the post at the beginning of 2017 as President Donald Trump's first term began, said she can't speak to how the agency currently trains its officers. When she was director, she said officers received training on how to interact with people who might be observing an apprehension or filming officers, but agents rarely had to deal with crowds or protests.

“This is different. You would hope that the agency would be responsive given the evolution of what’s happening — brought on, mind you, by the aggressive approach that has been taken coming from the top,” she said.

Ian Adams, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of South Carolina, said the majority of crowd-management or protest training in policing happens at the local level — usually at larger police departments that have public order units.

“It’s highly unlikely that your typical ICE agent has a great deal of experience with public order tactics or control,” Adams said.

DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a written statement that ICE officer candidates receive extensive training over eight weeks in courses that include conflict management and de-escalation. She said many of the candidates are military veterans and about 85% have previous law enforcement experience.

“All ICE candidates are subject to months of rigorous training and selection at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, where they are trained in everything from de-escalation tactics to firearms to driving training. Homeland Security Investigations candidates receive more than 100 days of specialized training," she said.

Ed Maguire, a criminology professor at Arizona State University, has written extensively about crowd-management and protest- related law enforcement training. He said while he hasn't seen the current training curriculum for ICE officers, he has reviewed recent training materials for federal officers and called it “horrifying.”

Maguire said what he's seeing in Minneapolis feels like a perfect storm for bad consequences.

“You can't even say this doesn't meet best practices. That's too high a bar. These don't seem to meet generally accepted practices,” he said.

“We’re seeing routinely substandard law enforcement practices that would just never be accepted at the local level,” he added. “Then there seems to be just an absence of standard accountability practices.”

Adams noted that police department practices have "evolved to understand that the sort of 1950s and 1960s instinct to meet every protest with force, has blowback effects that actually make the disorder worse.”

He said police departments now try to open communication with organizers, set boundaries and sometimes even show deference within reason. There's an understanding that inside of a crowd, using unnecessary force can have a domino effect that might cause escalation from protesters and from officers.

Despite training for officers responding to civil unrest dramatically shifting over the last four decades, there is no nationwide standard of best practices. For example, some departments bar officers from spraying pepper spray directly into the face of people exercising Constitutional speech. Others bar the use of tear gas or other chemical agents in residential neighborhoods.

Regardless of the specifics, experts recommend that departments have written policies they review regularly.

“Organizations and agencies aren’t always familiar with what their own policies are,” said Humberto Cardounel, senior director of training and technical assistance at the National Policing Institute.

“They go through it once in basic training then expect (officers) to know how to comport themselves two years later, five years later," he said. "We encourage them to understand and know their training, but also to simulate their training.”

Adams said part of the reason local officers are the best option for performing public order tasks is they have a compact with the community.

“I think at the heart of this is the challenge of calling what ICE is doing even policing,” he said.

"Police agencies have a relationship with their community that extends before and after any incidents. Officers know we will be here no matter what happens, and the community knows regardless of what happens today, these officers will be here tomorrow.”

Saldaña noted that both sides have increased their aggression.

“You cannot put yourself in front of an armed officer, you cannot put your hands on them certainly. That is impeding law enforcement actions,” she said.

“At this point, I’m getting concerned on both sides — the aggression from law enforcement and the increasingly aggressive behavior from protesters.”

Law enforcement officers at the scene of a reported shooting Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

Federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

People cover tear gas deployed by federal immigration officers outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

A man is pushed to the ground as federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A woman covers her face from tear gas as federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)