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Afghan authorities are closing education centers and institutes supported by non-governmental groups in the south until further notice, officials said Monday. The centers are mostly for girls, who are banned from going to school beyond sixth grade.

The Education Ministry ordered the Taliban heartland provinces of Helmand and Kandahar to close education centers and institutes while a committee reviews their activities. It did not provide an explanation for the closures and a ministry spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Mutawakil Ahmad, a spokesman for the Kandahar education department, confirmed that education centers activities are suspended until further notice. "The decision was made after peoples complaints," said Ahmad, without providing further details.

TALIBAN SUPREME LEADER HIBATULLAH AKHUNDZADA SHARES RARE AUDIO MESSAGE

Despite initial promises of a more moderate rule than during their previous stint in power in the 1990s, the Taliban have imposed harsh measures since taking over the country in 2021 as U.S. and NATO forces were pulling out of Afghanistan after two decades of war.

The female education ban extends to universities. Women are barred from public spaces, including parks, and most forms of employment. Last year, Afghan women were barred from working at national and local NGOs, allegedly because they weren't wearing the hijab, or Islamic headscarf, correctly and a gender segregation requirement wasn't being followed. This order also includes the United Nations.

The Taliban is closing education centers and nongovernment supported institutes in southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo)

At least two NGO officials in Helmand confirmed they knew about the Education Ministry's order. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to the media.

TALIBAN BANS FAMILIES, WOMEN FROM RESTAURANTS WITH GARDENS, GREEN SPACES IN AFGHANISTAN'S HERAT PROVINCE

One said the NGO was active in nine districts, offering around 650 classes with 20 to 30 students in each class. Girls and boys attend the classes, he said, but mostly girls as they can't attend schools.

Most projects are from UNICEF, the U.N. children's organization, with local NGOs working as sub-contractors or project implementers. Female and male teachers work in separate classes.

Ministry workers supervise all their activities, the official added.

Noone from UNICEF in Afghanistan was immediately available for comment.

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An education official in Kandahar said many NGOs are active in the education sector and provide education for girls. But he said there is a need to review their activities as there is no accountability over their expenses and there are concerns over corruption and suspicions about centers and institutes being ghost schools. The official, a district director of education, spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

It was not clear how many centers and institutes were shuttered or how many students are affected in the two provinces because of the order.

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Taliban closes education centers, institutes supported by non-government groups in southern Afghanistan - Fox News

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Last months arbitrary arrest and disappearance of Afghanistans torchbearer for education dims any hope that millions of young Afghan girls have to resume their studies.

Matiullah Wesa, 30, tirelessly traveled from village to village, at times with mobile libraries, distributing books to children, many of whom had never touched one before.

The fearless education activist would address crowds of destitute and helpless villagers, including children, in the south and in rural eastern villages ravaged by constant wars and exhausted by poverty. Many of his listeners would stand barefoot on dusty terrain, dressed in tattered garments under the scorching sun. His message was straightforward: Both boys and girls belong in schools. Wesa helped impoverished communities rebuild schools, build libraries, and provide books and other educational materials.

For the past 14 years, he deliberately stayed out of politics and only worked with Afghanistans most vulnerable communities, most of whom remained out of sight of Afghanistans pro-U.S. governments, which received billions of dollars in aid from international partners, mainly the United States, to rebuild infrastructure, with education being a key component.

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The majority of Wesas efforts were channeled through PenPath, a nonprofit he founded in 2009 at the age of just 17. PenPath has the primary goal of advocating for education in Afghanistan, combating endemic corruption in the education sector, and establishing libraries, among other commendable endeavors.

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In a traditional and patriarchal society like Afghanistan, where gender inequality has persisted for generations, Wesa took it upon himself to raise awareness about the importance of educating girls. He mostly spoke to men in far-flung villages about the importance of allowing their daughters to attend school.

Dressed in traditional Afghan apparel, adorned with an intricately embroidered Kandahari cap and handmade Kandahari shirts, the lone education activist seamlessly blended in with the communities of rural Afghanistan.

Throughout southern Afghanistan, and Kandahar in particular, teenage girls and women are well renowned for the colorful male caps that they make, which are embellished with colorful beads, gold lace, and small circular mirrors. Women in this region also sew mens silk-twill shirts, a process that can take months. But the women of southern Afghanistan take great pride in their regionally unique craft. Wesa regularly, and passionately, showcased the talents of local women by donning these shirts and caps.

In his own right, he was a villager and native of Kandahar. His appearance was different from the stereotyped, primarily Western, education activist who wore shirts and pants, were clean-shaven, and spoke using complex words, erecting a barrier that made it challenging for the peasants to understand and connect with the message.

Wesa was better understood by the people of rural Afghanistan because he was one of them. He explained, in terms that resonated with his audience, how educated women enable their communities to thrive. He asserted, for example, that even if a girl is impoverished, she will be able to save lives if she completes high school and becomes a nurse.

His concrete reasoning struck home with many in a community where a woman dies during childbirth every two hours. An Afghan man, regardless of his social standing, must spend a fortune to find a wife.

However, despite his selfless efforts, danger eventually caught up with him.

Wesas Arrest

On March 27, Matiullah Wesa was arbitrarily detained by the Talibans General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) while returning from evening prayer at a mosque. The GDI also raided his house the next day after his arrest and confiscated his mobile phone and laptop.

On March 29, the Taliban spokesperson confirmed his detainment, citing illegal activities as the grounds for his capture. His family has been denied access to Wesa, and there is no means of contesting the legitimacy of the allegation against him.

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Since his arrest, the Taliban have only offered vague statements, claiming that his activities raised suspicion and that he is under investigation. Prior to his arrest, Wesa was getting ready to speak at a meeting about girls education, the predicament of Afghan women and girls, and the best ways for the outside world to assist. His seat was left vacant after his detention.

What does the general public think about Wesas arrest? Many Afghans believe that the Taliban are using restrictions on women and girls in general, as well as the arbitrary arrests of prominent activists like Wesa, as bargaining chips to pressure the rest of the world into meeting their demands, including gaining international recognition. Many believe the Talibans exploitation of Wesas image and his subsequent arrest are meant for their political gain, especially considering that he was not even involved in politics.

Others claim that Pakistan has long supported and trained the Taliban as its proxies in an effort to cripple Afghanistans educational system and the basis for any prospects for recovery hence the ban on education for millions of female students.

After his arrest, Taliban supporters went so far as to circulate pictures from Wesas phone online, falsely accusing him of engaging in immoral behavior. These photos, which at least some Taliban followers posted on social media, show him sitting with young Afghans, including women in Islamic hijabs; some of them are even wearing face masks. They appeared to be in a group discussion; a sane viewer would see nothing in those photos that suggests anything immoral.

In a photograph that circulated on Twitter and was allegedly taken from his phone, Wesa is pictured with a group of young men and women eating pomegranates, a fruit native to Kandahar.

If Taliban sympathizers and supporters hoped to use these images to smear his reputation, the move was both pointless and ridiculous.

The people of Kandahar are most proud of producing pomegranates and giving the country its founding father, Ahmad Shah Abdali. When pomegranates are in season, Kandahar residents customarily serve them to their most distinguished guests; many believe that the sweet and sour taste of their pomegranates cannot be found anywhere else in the world.

Many Afghans thus retweeted the photo, saying, Pomegranates are not a forbidden fruit in Islam, mocking the Taliban for failing to find any evidence that Wesa had engaged in any unethical behavior.

Wesa was a man of God. On February 28 of this year, he tweeted that he had completed Umrah, a pilgrimage to Mecca that is a shorter version of the annual Hajj gathering that Muslims are expected to perform at least once in their lives. I am so grateful to Almighty Allah! I am very lucky to be able to complete Umra. I prayed for all my friends, family, Afghans, and my beloved country, he wrote.

A devout Muslim, he worked relentlessly to promote girls education, which often meant engaging with foreign delegates, including women, and visiting European capitals. On his Twitter account, Wesa shared photos from work trips he took. In those photos, Wesas embroidered cap often makes an appearance atop his dark hair.

He always spoke calmly, yet his mission to foster a culture of literacy in Afghanistan challenged the Talibans ideology.

A Dark Future

Since taking control of Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban have gradually extended the ban on girls education. The sudden departure of the former president of Afghanistan signaled a grim conclusion to the peoples long fight for fundamental human rights, which included the rights of women to pursue education, employment, and engage in communal activities.

As soon as the Taliban ascended to power, they announced the closure of girls schools and universities, and soon barred women from working with both local and global organizations.

Though sporadic protests were witnessed in Kabul, Jalalabad, Khost, and other cities, the Talibans stance remained adamant. They insisted that the ban was temporary and conditional, subject to meeting a certain criterion appropriate for the safe resumption of girls education.

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However, the requirements for a return to normal life for girls and women remain shrouded in obscurity, and the Taliban have never fully explained what those conditions entail. The prospects of reopening schools and universities to female students continue to be remote as the second anniversary of the imposition of the ban draws near.

The Taliban have made Afghanistan the only country in the world that forbids girls and women from attending school. It threatens to undo the huge educational gains made over the last two decades, despite all the challenges. According to a United Nations estimate for 2023, the ban will deprive 2.5 million girls over the age of 12 of an education.

Against this backdrop, Wesas arrest infuriated many regular Afghans, especially those on social media, who strongly condemned the international community for not doing more than expressing sympathy.

A trusted friend of Wesa, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, revealed that his unwavering commitment to challenging the Talibans ideology on womens education and rights may have led to his arrest: In Afghanistan, he was doing what the people of Afghanistan expected the free world to do.

Wesa tirelessly championed what trapped Afghans yearned for: a world where education is a right for every girl. With time not on their side, he took on the task single-handedly, knowing that the change they needed could not wait any longer.

He aimed to show the world two things. The first was that the denial of Afghan girls right to education is a human rights abuse, and that the world needs to act urgently to change the grim reality for the millions languishing under Taliban rule.

Second, as an Afghan man advocating for girls education, he shattered the wrongful perception that Afghans are against education for women, a stance that the Taliban claim is rooted in the countrys tradition. Wesa aimed to show the free world the reality from the perspective of ordinary Afghans and gain the courage to act.

The Taliban authorities stance on womens education is rooted in their interpretation of Islam. Many of them believe and have not shied away from publicly stating that womens sole duty is to care for the home and please their husbands. This doesnt require women to have an education, they say.

Others referred to schools as prostitution dens, claiming that women picked up Western ideas of immorality in schools. This is unprecedented in the Muslim world. Afghanistan under the Taliban is the only country in the world where girls and women are barred from public life simply for being female, making the Taliban the worlds most visible gender apartheid regime.

Wesa was fearless in opposing the Talibans misogyny. He made his stance clear on Twitter, and said he would fight until the end to ensure that every girl in Afghanistan can attend school.

Millions of Afghan women and girls who are prohibited from participating in public life are reminded of the Talibans tightening hold on their freedoms by Wesas detention. Many view his arrest as evidence that it may be naive to expect the free world to do action beyond issuing press releases and condemnations to ensure Afghan girls have access to school, and women can go back to work.

One of Wesas final tweets strikes a note of hope: Every day, morning, evening we receive messages from desperate people eagerly asking when girls schools will open?! I always give them some sort of hope that yes schools will open and for them to be patient. This is our right and till when [sic] we should wait.

Just days later, Wesas brother spoke to the BBC from an undisclosed location, expressing serious concern for Wesas well- being. He stated that the family has no idea what happened to Wesa following his arrest.

Wesa has vanished, he said. The already faint hope for Afghan girls education has all but vanished as well.

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A Beacon of Education Has Vanished in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan - The Diplomat

WASHINGTON (AP) The watchdog for U.S. assistance to Afghanistan warned lawmakers Wednesday that American aid to the country could be diverted to the Taliban as heaccused the Biden administration of stonewallinghis efforts to investigate.

Watch the hearing in the player above.

"Unfortunately, as I sit here today I cannot assure this committee or the American taxpayer, we are not currently funding the Taliban," John Sopko, the Special Inspector for Afghanistan Reconstruction, testified to the House Oversight Committee. "Nor can I assure you that the Taliban are not diverting the money we are sending for the intended recipients, which are the poor Afghan people."

The stunning disclosure by Sopko comes as House Republicans areusing the power of their new majority to hold the Biden administration accountableover its handling of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal in August 2021.

It also comes a week after theWhite House publicly released a 12-page summaryof the results of the so-called "hotwash" of U.S. policies around the ending of the nation's longest war, taking little responsibility for its own actions and asserting that President Joe Biden was "severely constrained" by former President Donald Trump's decisions.

Republicans, who have called Biden's handling of Afghanistan a "catastrophe," and a "stunning failure of leadership," criticized the review and after-action reports conducted by the State Department and the Pentagon as partisan. The White House privately transmitted the reports to Congress last week but they remain highly classified and will not be released publicly.

Sopko initially started the job in 2012 to oversee U.S. spending in Afghanistan when there was a large American presence in the country. But since the withdrawal, the work of the IG has shifted to monitoring the more than $8 billion dedicated to Afghanistan. The lack of U.S. military presence in the country has made keeping track of the large sums of money flowing into the country nearly impossible, Sopko said.

READ MORE: UN food agency says $800 million urgently needed for Afghanistan

He testified Wednesday to Congress that work is more complicated by the fact that the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development have not been cooperating with his probe since withdrawal and asked for lawmakers' help in getting access to the necessary documents and testimony.

"We cannot abide a situation in which agencies are allowed to pick and choose what information an IG gets, or who an IG can interview, or what an IG may report on," Sopko said in his opening testimony. "If permitted to continue, it will end SIGAR's work in Afghanistan but also Congress's access to independent and credible oversight of any administration."

Sopko, who previously served in oversight roles in the House and Senate, testified that he had never seen this level of "obfuscation and delay" from any of the other previous administrations.

Republicans were quick to join in Sopko's criticism of the administration. Even one Democrat on the committee, Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md., said that he regretted the agencies' refusal to cooperate.

"I'm going to go on the record and urge all three of those agencies today to cooperate more so that we might not be in a position of hearing what we've heard today or in a position of frustration like I am right now," Mfume told Sopko during the hearing.

The White House on Wednesday called the hearing, led by Oversight Chairman James Comer, another example of House Republicans' "political stunts."

"You can expect they will continue to falsely claim that the Biden Administration has 'obstructed' oversight despite the fact that we have provided thousands of pages of documents, analyses, spreadsheets, and written responses to questions, as well as hundreds of briefings to bipartisan Members and staff and public congressional testimony by senior officials, all while consistently providing updates and information to numerous inspectors general," Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House counsel's office, said in a statement.

A spokesperson for USAID said Wednesday that the agency "has consistently provided SIGAR responses to hundreds of questions, as well as thousands of pages of responsive documents, analyses, and spreadsheets describing dozens of programs that were part of the U.S. government's reconstruction effort in Afghanistan."

A request for comment from the State Department was not immediately returned.

Since the withdrawal, SIGAR has released several reports, nearly all of them critical of both Biden and Trump's handling of how to remove U.S. troops from Afghanistan in its final months.

Over the past two years, Sopko said his staff has requested numerous documents and interviews with officials who were involved in the withdrawal but had been stonewalled. He said those requests involved information about the evacuation and resettlement of Afghan nationals as well as ongoing humanitarian aid and questions about whether that assistance might be transferred to the Taliban.

"It sounds like you're a Republican member of Congress because Republican members of Congress send letters over to the administration and we don't get answers either," Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., told Sopko during his testimony.

Despite the so-called stonewalling, Sopko said that he and his agents have been able to compile interviews with around 800 current and former U.S. employees who were involved both in the war in Afghanistan and the withdrawal.

"I think we had more sources in Afghanistan than all the other IGs combined and the GAO. So we're still trying to get that information, but the best information, like actual contract data, and actually the names of people is best and it should by law come from State and AID," Sopko said.

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WATCH: During House hearing, watchdog warns U.S. money could be flowing to Taliban - PBS NewsHour

April 19 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will convene envoys on Afghanistan from various countries next month to try to find a unified approach to dealing with the Taliban authorities, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

The closed-door meeting in Doha on May 1-2 will aim to "reinvigorate the international engagement around common objectives for a durable way forward on ... Afghanistan," U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.

Earlier this month the Taliban began enforcing a ban on Afghan women working for the United Nations. In December, the Islamist militant group that resumed control of Afghanistan in 2021 stopped most female humanitarian aid employees from working.

The Taliban says it respects women's rights in accordance with its strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Since toppling the Western-backed government after U.S.-led forces withdrew following 20 years of war, the Taliban has also tightened controls over women's access to public life, including barring women from university and closing most girls' high schools.

Dujarric also sought to explain comments made by U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed about the planned Doha meeting.

"Out of that, we hope that we will find those baby steps to put us back on the pathway to recognition ... of the Taliban, a principled recognition - in other words, there are conditions," Mohammed told an event at Princeton University on Monday.

"That discussion has to happen ... There are some that believe this can never happen. There are others that say, well, it has to happen," said Mohammed. "The Taliban clearly want recognition and that's the leverage we have."

Dujarric said on Wednesday that the issue of recognition was "clearly in the hands of the member states" and that Mohammed was reaffirming the need for an internationally coordinated approach.

"She was not in any way implying that anyone else but member states have the authority for recognition," Dujarric said.

In December, the 193-member U.N. General Assembly approved postponing - for the second time - a decision on whether to recognize the Afghan Taliban administration by allowing them to send a United Nations ambassador to New York.

Reporting by Michelle Nichols

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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UN chief to convene Afghanistan meeting in Doha in May - Reuters

At a hearing Wednesday, Republican House lawmakers focused on the final months of the War in Afghanistan that lead to a tumultuous and deadly evacuation in the summer of 2021, while Democrats aimed to blame former President Donald Trumps negotiations with the Taliban for the collapse of the countrys U.S.-backed government after 20 years of fighting.

Today, the Taliban flag flies over Kabul, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., said. This is Joe Bidens legacy.

Comer conceded no single hearing can tell two decades worth of decisions that could have been made differently across four presidencies, but laid the blame at Bidens feet for an chaotic evacuation that saw 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members killed by an ISIS suicide bomber.

Democrats took a more expansive view, criticizing the successive administrations who oversaw the United States longest war, but also zeroing in on Trumps withdrawal negotiations and arguing they handcuffed the Afghan government and Biden into a no-win situation.

Joe Biden was president during seven of the 238 months of the war, said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the ranking member on the Oversight Committee. Understanding what led to the collapse of Afghan government and security forces is vitally important, but it requires looking comprehensively at the dynamics of the massive decades-long military and nation building failure, not just the last few months of the war.

Raskin called Trumps decision to exclude the Afghan government from his negotiations with Taliban disastrous and his winding down of U.S. troop presence to just 2,500 military personnel by the end of his term a calculated move to force Bidens hand.

At the Wednesday hearing, inspectors general from the Defense Department, the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction testified and took questions for over two hours.

Robert Storch, the Defense Departments inspector general, called the war a strategic failure. Diana Shaw, the State Departments acting inspector general, testified the department simply was not fully prepared for the evacuation. SIGARs inspector general John Sopko that the effort to stabilize Afghanistan after two decades of war was the result of many decisions made over the course of four presidential administrations, from ignoring rapid corruption and the lack of a consistent U.S. strategy to the inability to develop self-sustaining Afghan military forces and institutions.

The seeds of August 2021s drama were sewn many years before, Sopko continued, noting the 2020 negotiations with the Taliban dubbed the Doha Agreement and the subsequent decision to go through with the withdrawal in 2021, merely exacerbated long-existing problems.

Sopko said both the negotiated withdrawal and Bidens decision to follow through dramatically degraded the morale of the Afghan security forces, who relied heavily on U.S. support to keep the Taliban at bay.

In their ownafter-action reportreleased earlier this month, the Biden administration blamed former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and the Afghan military for the collapse of the western-backed government during and after the U.S. evacuation.

No agency predicted a Taliban takeover in nine days, Kirby said when the report was sent to Congress. No agency predicted the rapid fleeing of President Ghani, who had indicated to us his intent to remain in Afghanistan up until he departed on the 15th of August. And no agency predicted that the more than 300,000 trained and equipped Afghan national security and defense forces would fail to fight for the country. Especially after 20 years of American support.

ButSIGAR reported in Februarythat the Afghan military felt abandoned and noted a decrease in U.S. airstrikes left them without a key advantage in their fight against the Taliban, who began capturing provincial capitals in early August 2021 in anticipation of the U.S. withdrawal.

Raskin asked Sopko Wednesday if the Doha Agreement emboldened the Taliban to increase their attacks on the Afghan military.

Yes, it did. It did. And if you talk to the Afghan generals and the people who are on the ground, which we did, theyll tell you that is exactly what happened, Sopko said.

Sopko also said then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatened to cut funding to the Afghan government if they didnt agree to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners, a move Kabul initially opposed.

Another central focus of the hearing was the flow of international aid into the country that is ending up in the pockets of the Taliban instead of being distributed to the Afghan people.

The United States has appropriated $2 billion for Afghanistan assistance since the withdrawal, and a further $3.5 billion may be available through this newly created Switzerland-based Afghan fund, Sopko said. Unfortunately, as I sit here today, I cannot assure this committee or the American taxpayer we are not currently funding the Taliban.

Nor can I assure you that the Taliban are not diverting the money we are sending from the intended recipients, which are the poor Afghan people, Sopko added.

Sopko also said the State Department and USAID are not cooperating with SIGAR as they seek to assess the flow of U.S. and international aid into the country, though he made clear to differentiate between the inspectors general and the agencies they watchdog over.

I havent seen a starving Taliban fighter on TV. They all seem to be fat, dumb and happy, Sopko said. I see a lot of starving Afghan children on TV. So, Im wondering, where is all this funding going?

As the hearing unfolded, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre contradicted Sopko and said the administration was supplying thousands of pages of documents and consistent updates to inspectors general.

Nicole Angarella, the acting deputy inspector general for USAID, which currently does not have an inspector general, laid out three actions she believes the agency should take to prevent fraud and corruption: stricter oversight, clearly defined performance objectives, and strengthening existing policies to combat graft and funds ending up in the hands of groups like the Taliban.

Regardless of role and party affiliation, all those who participated in the hearing were in agreement on one thing: the war that began when most of the last 13 U.S. service members to die in Afghanistanwere toddlers or infantsended in disaster.

The Afghan war cost the lives of more than 2,400 American service members, 3846 private contractors, more than 1100 allied service members, more than 66,000 National Afghan military and police and 47,245 Afghan civilians, without even getting into the Taliban side, Raskin said.

The Democrats summary of casualties may be an undercount. A2021 analysisby Brown University found the U.S. spent $2.3 trillion on a war directly resulting in 243,000 deaths across Afghanistan and Pakistan, including over 70,000 civilians.

But the researchers wrote, deaths caused by disease, loss of access to food, water, infrastructure, and/or other indirect consequences of the war did not count towards the nearly quarter million dead.

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GOP, Dems trade blame, seek answers over Afghanistan withdrawal - Spectrum News NY1