2001 in Afghanistan

Incumbents

• De facto head of state: Mohammed Omar
• President: Burhanuddin Rabbani, Hamid Karzai
• Chief Justice: Faisal Ahmad Shinwari

  January

• January 1 – The Afghan Northern Alliance captured the Ghalmin district in Ghor province, Afghanistan. Several Taliban attempts to recapture the area failed. Retreating Taliban left five dead militants behind. Another 13 Taliban were reportedly wounded.
• Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan authorities in Afghanistan raised postal rates beyond affordable levels for the majority of ordinary citizens. Mulla Abdul Baqi Mukhles, head of the central postal department, said the rise was linked to the steep fall of the afghani and the decisions of the 1999 International Postal Union congress in Beijing.
• January 2 – In Ghor province, Afghanistan, Taliban fighter planes bombed the Ghalmin district in support of a two-pronged infantry attack in which two opposition soldiers were wounded and six militiamen killed.
• January 3 – Taliban forces pounded opposition positions with heavy artillery initiating a counter-attack to retake the Ghalmin district in Ghor province, Afghanistan.
• Fighting between the Taliban and opposition forces was reported in northeastern Afghanistan near the border with Tajikistan.
• A meeting held in head District of Bamyan province, Afghanistan was attended by a large number of the people including Ustad Akbari. Leaders denounced the conspiracies and plots of anti-Islamic states, including the United States and France.
• The United Nations announced that the number of its foreign workers returning to Afghanistan had reached 24, and would increase, but not go beyond 34. Less than two weeks earlier, the U.N. had pulled all of its workers from the nation to coincide with sanction activities.
• The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan announced it was allowing all humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, to continue their operations, except for the offices of United Nations Special Mission to Afghanistan.
• January 4 – A Chinese delegation of the Chinese OFEM company arrived in Kabul, Afghanistan to assist the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan with the revival of hydel power projects. The delegation met with Taliban Minister for Water and Power Maulvi Ahmed Jan, visited Sarobi Dam and pledged to install new turbine in the power house. The delegates also made commitment about the installation of mobile telephone system in Afghanistan.
• The Taliban admit that resistance forces have captured the strategically important town of Bamiyan after heavy fighting.
• January 5 – In Patras, Greece, while attempting to board a ship bound for Italy, more than 20 Iraqi Kurds clashed with 15 Afghans. Eight were injured and taken to a hospital for treatment. The rest were arrested by the authorities.
• Taliban leader Mohammad Omar decrees that religious conversion from Islam to any other faith will be punishable by death. Omar suggests that outside forces are attempting to undermine the Islamic regime by covertly preaching Christianity and Judaism in the country.
• Early January – The UNHCR expresses serious concern for some 10,000 Afghan refugees camping on the country's northern border with Tajikistan.
• Mid-January – The International Red Cross announces that it will end its relief mission in Kabul, saying that the Afghan capital is no longer adversely affected by the country's civil war. The 20,000 families that have been receiving aid from the ICRC since 1994 will be given their last shipment of cooking oil, rice, soap, and wheat in March.
• Mid-January – Supporters of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance reportedly retake the town of Yakawlang after heavy fighting. The UN reports that Taliban forces had killed around 100 civilians when they reentered the town in December 2000 after briefly losing control of it. The UN also says that large numbers of refugees have fled the town despite the severe winter weather.
• January 22 – The Taliban regime reveals Afghanistan's revamped air traffic control system, marking the first major improvement in the country's infrastructure for years. The upgrade is likely to increase the amount of air traffic flying over Afghanistan in future.
• Late January – 110 internal refugees sheltering in the west of the country die in one night as temperatures drop to −25 °C.
• Late January – The UN World Food Program warns that the level of malnutrition among children in the north of the country is alarming.

  February

• February 14 – The headquarters of the UN Special Mission to Afghanistan are closed by the Taliban authorities in retaliation for the U.S. government's closure of the Taliban offices in New York.
• Mid-February – The UK-based human rights group Amnesty International condemns the apparently summary execution of six men by the rebel Northern Alliance.
• The New York-based Human Rights Watch produces video evidence of the murder of around 170 men by Taliban forces in December 2000. The footage shows the execution of local men rounded up by Taliban forces reentering the town of Yakawlang, which had been briefly held by rebel forces late in 2000. It also depicts a mass grave at a nearby village.
• Late February – In response to allegations of atrocities the Taliban authorities accuse rebel forces of killing 120 civilians during their three-day occupation of Bamiyan earlier in the month.
• Taliban leader Mohammad Omar decrees that all statues in the country should be destroyed as they represent an insult to Islam and are being worshipped as false gods. The order leads to the destruction of priceless historic artifacts across the country including the world's tallest statue of an upright Buddha in Bamiyan.

  March

• March 2 – The Taliban begins the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, causing worldwide condemnation.
• Despite UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's reassurances in early March that the plight of the hundreds of thousands of internal refugees has not been forgotten by the international community, the UN withholds its aid to refugees stranded on the border with neighbouring Tajikistan later in the month. The suspension comes amid fears that the aid was being subverted by armed groups. Just a day before the announcement Annan urged both sides in the country's civil war to reject further violence.
• An article published in March 2001 by Jane's suggests that the United States was giving the Northern Alliance information and logistics support as part of concerted action with India, Iran, and Russia against Afghanistan's Taliban regime, with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan being used as bases.

  April

• Early April – former communist general Abdul Rashid Dostum returns from self-exile in Turkey to boost resistance to the Taliban regime. He was forced to flee the country after his stronghold in the north was attacked by Taliban forces in 1998. He meets with his former bitter enemy, the senior commander of anti-Taliban forces, Ahmad Shah Massoud, to discuss plans for a new northern front. Morale among opposition forces is reported to have been boosted by Dostum's return. The meeting is reported to have taken place in the Panjshir valley in the province of Badakhshan, the only part of Afghanistan under full opposition control.
• April 16 – The chair of the Taliban Interim Council, Mohammad Rabbani, dies. He was fighting liver cancer in a hospital in neighbouring Pakistan. His body is repatriated to Kandahar by a UN plane, permitted to operate on humanitarian grounds despite the air embargo.
• April 17 – The second of five rounds of polio immunizations to be held this year begins after the Taliban and the Afghan Northern Alliance agreed to a week-long ceasefire. The ceasefire enables tens of thousands of staff and volunteers to operate freely to carry out a house-to-house effort to immunize all children under five years of age.
• April 18 – The European Union announces that it has signed a contract with the World Food Programme to contribute humanitarian aid worth U.S. $900,000 to Afghanistan.
• April 19 – In an effort to find out how western aid is being used, three U.S. officials complete a rare visit to Afghanistan.
• April 24 – The UN declares the Afghan people the most displaced in the world. It estimates that there are 700,000 internal refugees in Afghanistan as well as at least 100,000 abroad. Aid workers also voice concern at the health situation in refugee camps and warn of impending epidemics.

  May

• Early May – The anti-Taliban alliance claims to have taken control of key settlements in the eastern Kunar province, northeast of Kabul. The Taliban regime denies the claims and counters that its forces have repelled a brief occupation of the central town of Yakawlang, near Bamiyan.
• May 17 – The U.S. announces that it will extend a $43 million aid package direct to projects and facilities in Afghanistan, bypassing the Taliban regime. The offer comes amid spiraling fears of impending famine.
• May 20 – The Taliban regime closes the UN offices in Herat, Jalalabad, Kandahar, and Mazar-e-Sharif in protest over UN sanctions.
• Late May – Afghan Hindus are ordered to wear yellow identity labels to differentiate themselves from their Muslim neighbours. Although the Taliban regime claims that the plan is to protect Hindus from persecution by religious police, Hindu groups complain that the labels amount to "patent discrimination."
• The Taliban authorities ban female aid workers from driving. Although the edict is unlikely to affect larger aid groups it is feared it may hinder the work of small-scale operations.

  June

• June 1 – Taliban forces begin a fresh attack on opposition positions in the centre and the northeastern Takhar province, around Taloqan.
• June 6 – An Uzbekistani Sukhoi Su-24 bomber is shot down during a raid against Taliban armour near Heiratan, killing the crew.
• Early June – Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar warns that his regime would consider any UN monitoring of the country's borders as a hostile act.
• Mid-June – The anti-Taliban alliance accuses the Islamic regime of systematically destroying the central town of Yakawlang which has repeatedly changed hands between the two warring sides. They say that most of the town's 60,000 residents have now fled.
• June 21 – The UN announces that it will establish large-scale refugee camps in the north of the country to help protect 10,000 displaced Afghans.
• June 22 – The U.S. Department of State issues a "worldwide caution" for U.S. citizens around the world of possible Osama bin Laden-related terrorist attacks. The warning is due to expire or be updated September 22.