Taliban says Afghans in Qatar can return home with 'full confidence'

KABUL: Afghanistan’s Taliban government said on Saturday that Afghans currently in Qatar after fleeing the country over fears of reprisals linked to their past work with US forces could return home safely.

The statement came after the administration of US President Donald Trump set a March 31 deadline for the closure of a camp at a former US base in Qatar, where more than 1,100 Afghans had been staying. The camp has been used to process Afghans seeking relocation to the United States after the 2021 withdrawal of US forces and the collapse of the Western-backed Afghan government.

In a statement posted on X, foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said “According to media reports, a number of Afghan nationals who had been awaiting US visas in the State of Qatar have been asked to choose between the repatriation to Afghanistan or resettlement in a third country.”

He added that Afghanistan remained the common homeland of all Afghans and invited those affected to return. Balkhi said “Afghanistan constitutes the shared homeland of all Afghans and it invites all those concerned… (to) return to their homeland, whose doors remain open to them, with full confidence and peace of mind.”

US options for Afghans in Qatar

AfghanEvac, an organisation that works to assist former Afghan allies, said this week that the United States had given Afghans stranded in Qatar a choice between relocation to the Democratic Republic of Congo or returning to Afghanistan under Taliban rule.

Shawn VanDiver, a US veteran who leads AfghanEvac, criticised the proposal in a statement, saying:

You do not relocate vetted wartime allies, more than 400 of them children, from American custody into a country in the middle of its own collapse.

More than 190,000 Afghans have been resettled in the United States under a programme launched during former president Joe Biden’s administration.

Trump has dismantled the wider US refugee resettlement programme and halted processing for Afghans after an Afghan man — who had worked with US intelligence and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder — shot two National Guard troops in Washington last year, killing one of them.

Security assurances and UN report

A US State Department spokesperson said transferring Afghans from the Qatar camp to another country would provide a safer outcome for those still there while also addressing US security concerns. The spokesperson said moving them to a third country is a positive resolution that provides safety for these remaining people to start a new life outside of Afghanistan while upholding the safety and security of the American people.

In his statement, Balkhi also said that there exist no security threats in Afghanistan.

However, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a report that between November 6 and January 25 there were “29 arbitrary arrests and detentions and six instances of torture and ill-treatment of former government officials and former members of the security forces, including those who have returned to Afghanistan.”

The developments reflect the uncertainty facing Afghans in Qatar who had been waiting for US visas after leaving Afghanistan out of concern they could face persecution because of their previous links to US forces.