PDB Afternoon Bulletin | August 21st, 2026: The Taliban Is Losing Control of Afghanistan & Hackers Target U.S. Infrastructure

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Mike Baker** (0:42)
It's Friday, the 21st of August. Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage. And congratulations for making it to the end of another work week. All right, let's get briefed. First up, the Taliban marks five years back in power, but a growing armed resistance, renewed fighting with Pakistan and the persistent threat from ISIS are raising new questions about just how secure the Taliban's grip on Afghanistan really is. Later in the show, federal agencies are warning of an active cyber threat, targeting the industrial computers that control America's water systems, power infrastructure and factories. But first, today's afternoon spotlight.
This month marks five years since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan. On August 15th, 2021, Taliban fighters swept into Kabul as the Afghan government collapsed and America's 20-year war came to an end. Five years later, the Taliban remains, well, firmly entrenched. It controls the capital, the government and essentially all of Afghanistan's territory, not to mention all the military hardware left behind in the wake of the US military's chaotic withdrawal.
Here at the PDB, we thought we d take the time to check in on a country that spent 20 years in the US headlines but now often barely warrants an occasional mention.
Soon after returning to power, the Taliban barred girls from secondary school and women from universities. Today, Afghanistan remains the only country in the world where girls and women are formally prohibited from secondary and higher education. The UN estimates that 2.4 million Afghan girls have now been excluded from school. Maybe just spend a moment thinking about how awful that is. Women have also been pushed out of large parts of the workforce and face severe restrictions on their movement and participation in public life. Journalists, activists, former government officials, and others perceived as critics of the regime have faced arbitrary detention, intimidation, and abuse.
And beneath all of that is a grinding humanitarian crisis. The UN estimates that nearly 22 million Afghans, roughly 45% of the population, require humanitarian assistance this year. More than 3.7 million children under 5 are acutely malnourished. And more than 5 million Afghans have returned or been deported from neighboring Iran and Pakistan since 2023, putting even more pressure on housing, jobs, and basic services.
And then there's Pakistan. The Taliban once enjoyed close ties with Islamabad, but not anymore. Pakistan accuses the Taliban government of allowing the Pakistani Taliban, the TTP, to operate from Afghan territory. Kabul denies it. Those tensions have now erupted into open conflict. Earlier this year, Pakistan launched airstrikes against targets in Afghanistan, including around Kabul and Kandahar. Taliban forces retaliated against Pakistani positions. Fighting has continued sporadically with another round of Pakistani airstrikes just in June. And now, the Taliban is facing another problem at home, a growing collection of armed groups trying to challenge its rule. Our friends at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy's Long War Journal have been tracking this issue closely.
Now the best-known opposition group is the National Resistance Front led by Ahmad Massoud. He's the son of the famed deceased anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud. There's also the Afghanistan Freedom Front led by former Afghan army chief Yassin Zia. And last month, another group called the Homeland Soldiers Front briefly seized a district center in the northeastern province of Badakhshan. According to the Long War Journal, it was the first district center that the Taliban had lost since retaking the country in 2021
The Taliban quickly regained control, but symbolically, the brief takeover mattered. And now another group has entered the fight. On the 1st of August, the Afghan United Front announced that it had begun military operations against the Taliban. The group was led by Lieutenant General Osamih Sadat, former commander in the Afghan National Army, who fought the Taliban in Helmand province before the collapse of the former government. His forces say they've already carried out a series of attacks across Afghanistan, including operations in Kandahar and Helmand. Now we should be careful here. Most of those battlefield claims come from the resistance groups themselves having been independently verified. But Sadat's entry is interesting for another reason. He's a Pashtun. That's important because much of the organized anti-Taliban resistance since 2021 has been concentrated in northern Afghanistan and associated with the ethnic Tajik strongholds like Benjir.