Afghanistan Under Taliban Is Issuing Passports to Citizens

Afghanistan was set on Tuesday to begin issuing passports to its citizens, a service which had all but stopped in the months before the Taliban took over the country in August. The halt in the issuing of passports in Afghanistan prevented some that wanted to leave the country due to fear of the Taliban from doing so. Some 5,000 to 6,000 passports reportedly will be issued each day, and they will look identical to the passports issued before the Taliban seized power. Women have been hired to handle passport requests by women, Reuters reported, with the acting head of the passport office, Alam Gul Haqqani, telling reporters in Kabul that “no male employee has the right to perform a biometric (check) or other passport work on a woman.”