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14-06-2025 - Khaled Ahmad Zekriya operates a splendid, if faded, embassy in Italy but, at odds with those running his country, can he remain in post?

When Kabul fell on August 15, 2021, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Italy and the UN agencies stationed in Rome was travelling through Madrid airport.
As a vocal critic of the Taliban, Khaled Ahmad Zekriya knew he needed to get back to the embassy in the Italian capital as a maPer of urgency, as Western forces withdrew from his home country. “There was an Afghan woman at the airport and she literally collapsed,” he remembers. “That’s when I first realised what had happened. I made it back to Rome at around 10 o’clock at night and we immediately removed the flag from the front gate.”
The career diplomat had been posted to Italy for less than a year when the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan under President Ashraf Ghani was overthrown – to be replaced by an “interim” all-male administration of hardline clerics, seasoned fighters and wanted terrorists. Many, including Zekriya, had seen it coming following the signing of the United States-Taliban deal in Doha, Qatar, 18 months earlier, which significantly weakened the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces’ resistance to the Taliban insurgency amid false promises of a more “inclusive” approach.

For Afghanistan’s diplomats stationed around the world – the last remaining outposts of the now- deposed government, established a]er the US-led invasion in 2001 – it posed a serious challenge. Should they swear allegiance to the new Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, or face being completely cut off from their homeland – or worse?]
As someone who has made nurturing democracy in the country his life’s work, Zekriya was never going to surrender. “I’m not going to work with a government that espouses extreme Islamic views,” he says. “It’s not a legitimate government.”
Today, almost four years on from the capture of the capital where he was born and raised, the father of one remains an ambassador adrift. While the palatial Afghan embassy in Via Nomentana, dating back to 1914, does carry out limited consular services, its consular paperwork is not officially recognised by the Taliban, leaving Zekriya, 56, his Afghan wife Lina, 47, and the mission’s dwindling staff in limbo. How the funding works is, for now, off the record.

“I knew that the Republic would collapse eventually,” he nods, recalling the last election, when both the incumbent Ashraf Ghani and his opponent Abdullah Abdullah claimed to have won, quite preposterously holding concurrent inauguration ceremonies.
“We had two presidents who thought they had both been elected. Imagine! These were elections where voters lost fingers.” Lost fingers? “They were chopped off by the Taliban if they didn’t vote in the right way,” he explains. “The Doha agreement that was meant to lead to the formation of an inclusive government through intra-Afghan dialogue; that never happened.”

As soon as the deal was signed, 8,000 contractors who had been taking care of transportation, logistics and maintenance left Afghanistan. “We knew that a]er their departure, the military would collapse. It wasn’t that the military was not brave. We fought. We lost close to 72,000 men and women alongside the Americans, the Italians and others. But when you look back on it, the Taliban were regrouping right under the very noses of the US and then hoodwinking them into believing that they were more moderate than their predecessors,” Zekriya continues.
“I’ve said it from the beginning, that there is no such thing as moderate Taliban. So I knew it was coming and I knew I had to improvise.”

As chaotic scenes played out on the world stage, with the Americans orchestrating the largest non- combatant evacuation operation in US military history, and our own foreign secretary Dominic Raab holidaying in Crete, plucky Zekriya was preparing to defend himself from an internal coup attempt. “The reason I took the flag from downstairs to upstairs was to protect this symbol, which personifies everything; the territorial integrity of Afghanistan, the sovereignty of Afghanistan, the independence of Afghanistan, its historical flag.
“But the most important thing for me was to protect this embassy, this enclave, because I knew sooner or later, there would be dissent, there would be diplomatic mutiny. I knew I had to keep it open, not only to provide consular services but also to be able to represent Afghanistan, in both bilateral and multilateral forums.
“We’re providing cultural diplomacy, human rights diplomacy, ecclesiasGcal diplomacy and we have certain projects that we’re working on with various organisations to assist girls in Afghanistan. We’re working very hard because we believe the only way we can prevail in Afghanistan is through negotiation; through peace.”

A voice for moderate Muslims at home and abroad
Having served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and taught diplomacy to Afghan civil servants, the music-loving University of California San Diego graduate knew he had to remain a voice for moderate Muslims both at home and abroad. But one diplomat at the embassy, which serves about 23,000 Afghans in Italy, had other ideas and attempted to overthrow Zekriya.
“He entered the embassy and physically assaulted me but I was able to protect myself,” says the ambassador, recalling the incident, which happened a few months a]er Kabul fell in 2021. The Taliban sympathiser was kicked out, along with others pledging allegiance to their new jihadist masters. Others simply fled.
“I had to block certain bank accounts to make sure they wouldn’t have access and then I also had to look to the future. How are we going to be able to maintain this embassy with the little money we had? How were we going to pay people’s wages?”
Last year, the Taliban announced that the consular paperwork of 14 of Afghanistan’s missions abroad – including in Italy – was null and void. “We used to issue 20 to 30 visas a month – but now we can’t issue any,” Zekriya explains. “Documentation for Afghans, power of attorney, inheritance papers and so on, that is no longer accepted either. But we can certify paperwork and that is where we are still able to maintain the embassy. We’ve had to use our ingenuity to keep the place open.”
In common with the rest of the world, Giorgia Meloni’s government does not formally recognise the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. And unlike the UK, which closed its Afghan embassy when the Taliban sacked all staff, Italy has been supportive of this embassy’s quest in conGnuing to provide consular services to Afghans.
“We have a lot of history with the Italians,” Zekriya says, as he proudly gives me the grand tour of the building, which boasts gilt-edged furniture, elaborate works of art and even classic cars in the garden, which have been there since the 1970s. The suited and booted ambassador is quite a character: modern in his outlook, animated in conversation and boasting an admirable sense of humour considering the adversity he is facing.
Italy was one of the first nations to recognise Afghanistan’s sovereignty in 1919. In 1921, the countries signed an agreement for the exchange of permanent diplomatic missions, and the embassy in Rome was bought by the modernising King Amānullāh Khan in 1928.
After he was deposed the following year, he and his family – including Queen Soraya Tarzi – settled in exile in Rome, having been invited by Queen Elena of Italy. Many of their children and other descendants, including Princess India of Afghanistan, were raised in Italy; some still call the country home. When King Mohammad Zahir Shah was deposed in 1973, he was also exiled to Italy, living in Rome until his return to Afghanistan 29 years later. He was flown to Kabul on 18 April 2002, on an Italian military plane.

The only church in Afghanistan, the chapel in Kabul, was at the Italian embassy and was maintained by an Italian unGl it had to be closed in 2021. As the Taliban regained control over Afghanistan, Italy withdrew its military conGngent and moved its embassy to Qatar.
Although Zekriya suggests that there are a “very small number of pragmatic Taliban”, he cautions, “as far as moderation is concerned – no, because this runs contrary to their Islamist or jihadist ethos. It’s very difficult to change a terrorist organisation and their percepGon of the world. They do not believe in international conventions.
They do not believe in universal values. They do not believe in a what I would call a principled, value-driven world order. Bureaucratic hierarchy doesn’t exist.”
Zekriya is surprisingly calm and measured as he speaks – but you can tell his heart is aching for his homeland and his people. “The Taliban have taken all the jobs. And right now corruption has become institutionalised in Afghanistan, along with the institutionalisation of certain terror tactics. Everyone’s involved. Al-Qaeda is there, Isis is there, you know, the martyr brigade – you name it.”

‘There are about 26, 27 terrorist groups in Afghanistan’
Some people naively believed that the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011 – a decade after 9/11, one of many terror aPacks he masterminded – would signal the end of the pan-Islamist militant organisation.
Yet al-Qaeda remains active in Afghanistan, even following the death of its subsequent leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in Kabul in 2022. Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), also known as Isis-K, has experienced a resurgence since 2021 and is viewed by international observers as posing “the greatest threat” within Afghanistan and beyond. US Central Command’s general Michael Erik Kurilla suggested in 2023 that ISKP was capable of conducting “an external operation against US or Western interests abroad in under six months”, a warning he repeated in March 2024 testimony.
The Haqqani network, led by deputy Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani, is a semi-autonomous component of the Taliban and a long-Gme ally of al-Qaeda. It has been blamed for some of the deadliest aPacks against US troops, and al-Zawahiri was reportedly killed in a Haqqani-linked safe house.

Since September 2021, Sirajuddin has been the acting Interior Minister in the Taliban government, the highest ranking of several Haqqani-network-aligned individuals to hold cabinet posts. UN sancGons monitors reported in June 2023 that the Haqqanis were “increasingly involved in the producGon and trafficking of methamphetamine and synthetic drugs”. Another group, Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, draws support from both the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
“Don’t forget intermarriages have occurred,” Zekriya says. “That has brought the Taliban and al- Qaeda together. They are all regrouping. Al-Qaeda are mainly located in the southern and eastern part of Afghanistan. Isis-K is divided into two divisions in the north and the south. The Taliban is now using the TTP against Pakistan, the authorities claim. Then we also have smaller groups like Tehrik-e Taliban Tajikistan [TTT] and Boko Haram. There are about 26, 27 terrorist groups in Afghanistan.” What threat do they pose to the Western world order? “So-called Islamisation should be the least of our concerns,” Zekriya warns. “I think it’s more than that. An attack is imminent, either on Europe or the US: a 9/11-scale attack, probably larger.”

Why larger? “They have the capability of having an aPack simultaneously in two or three parts of the world. 9/11 was very different – it was one group. But this time, with the synergy and unification that has occurred amongst these groups, I think an attack by one of these terrorist organisations is imminent. They also have a lot of supporters abroad, let’s not forget.”

Can we really be under greater threat now, a]er 20 years of Western forces in Afghanistan, than we were in 2001? “Of course, because the Taliban are occupying a political space in Afghanistan as the holder of authority. They have pseudo legitimacy and have given greater aspirations for other groups. Normalised engagement has emboldened the Taliban,” Zekriya explains, clearly somewhat exasperated by Western complacency.
“Last year, the third UN gathering in Doha was indicative of the fact that Afghanistan was actually calling the shots. They said [Afghan] women cannot be there and shifted the attention from the issue of terrorism to the issue of counter-narcotics, and other technical issues like national disasters.
“They have become very sophisticated. Though they’ve not gained diplomatic recognition, in terms of optics and being able to bring delegations to Afghanistan – it’s very impressive. As of now, they have control of 39 of Afghanistan’s missions abroad.”
Zekriya understandably finds it hard to comprehend why some European and world nations continue to accommodate Taliban-run embassies when the regime is responsible for what he describes as “gender apartheid” in Afghanistan, where almost a third of the population face crisis-level food insecurity.
“The current humanitarian crisis is unprecedented. It’s persistent, it is complex, it is severe. State services are non-existent. There’s no healthcare. They’ve brought in the clergy to assume those positions. There’s a brain drain. At least 87 per cent of academics and civil servants have le] Afghanistan.”

And when it comes to the treatment of the female population, Zekriya claims, “You’ve never seen anything like it. The Taliban, they really are intimidated by women. Everything’s banned, secondary schools, colleges, beauty salons. They closed all the beauty salons. You know, 60,000 people lost their jobs. Women cannot go to parks. Women cannot even raise their voices in public. They cannot seek medical assistance. They have to have a male relative with them.”

A recent decree banned windows looking into spaces used by women, which one spokesman suggested could lead to “obscene acts”. “Congregation is prohibited,” the ambassador explains, gesticulating a sense of disbelief that it has come to this. “Early forced marriages are on the rise. Domestic violence has gone up. Child mortality is another thing, because their mothers aren’t being educated.”
Education, even for boys, has been “Talibanised”, he says. “They want to have control over education, higher education, for the purpose of indoctrination.” Thousands of madrasas have been created across the country, he continues, to teach “their misinterpretation of Islam”.
“The Taliban do not actually represent any ethnic group in Afghanistan,” he adds. “They only represent an ideology born out of madrasa extremist preaching. It is a perversion of the Qur’an, of course. And just hatred of Judeo-ChrisGanity.”
He points out that recently, one Taliban minister likened non-believers to “four-legged animals”. And yet no one marches through the streets of London in protest.
The ambassador replies, “Right now, the news is dominated by Gaza and Israel, also the Ukraine- Russia issue. We’re trying very hard to bring Afghanistan back to the forefront of international politics. We need to bring the Afghan diaspora under one umbrella, maybe a national coalition or council of some sort in exile, because at the end of the day, I support negotiation with the Taliban, not war. Because we have built something in the last 21 years we don’t want to destroy, at least the infrastructure. The institutions are still there, maybe not fully functional, but it’s there.
“We don’t want to go back to the 1990s, when Kabul was destroyed and all of our cosmopolitan, metropolitan cities were destroyed. Any negotiated settlement has to be inclusive. It has to be Afghan-owned, Afghan-driven. It should not be imposed. And the Taliban could be a factor, but not the only factor.
“If it’s not a government that is based on a constitution, if it’s not a representative, elected government, then it doesn’t mean anything.”

Do Afghans want democracy?
According to Zekriya, more than half of Afghanistan’s 41 million population want to leave the country.
“Why do I support democracy? Afghanistan has had a legacy of constutional monarchy and democracy. If you would look at Afghanistan in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, we were far more advanced than the countries in the region, but the former Soviets’ invasion of Afghanistan really destroyed everything.”
Do Afghans want democracy, though, or are they beholden to the Taliban? That the majority of people wish to leave their homeland, Zekriya replies, is “indicative of the fact that they do not agree with the current regime”.
“Most Afghans, let’s say the intelligentsia, the technocrats, the educated elite and even the general populace – they’ve seen different forms of government. We’ve had empires and a confederation. We’ve had centralised government and unitary governments. We’ve had Islamic emirates. But the people always go back to the democratic era of Afghanistan. That’s why I believe any form of negotiated political settlement with the Taliban, it has to be principled out of that, and a new constitution should come out of it.”

Could Afghanistan witness its own version of the Arab Spring? I point out that the Iranian resistance movement is gaining pace – with young people mobilised by social media to take on the mullahs.
“In Afghanistan, the illiteracy rate is way higher than Iran. And also, Iran in the last 50 years has been very successful. In Afghanistan, everyone’s tired, but I will continue. The people of Afghanistan are trapped – it’s like a concentration camp. It’s hell to live under the current regime but I truly believe Afghanistan can have a proud and prosperous future, because we are a very proud and resilient nation. I look forward to the day when I can go home.”
As Zekriya bids me farewell from the steps of the embassy, the scent of star jasmine filling the Roman air, I’m left with the distinct impression that if democracy is ever restored to Afghanistan, I could well have just met the country’s next prime minister. //www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/12/ambassador-adrift-in-italy/

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