KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – The Taliban Ministry of Justice has announced that the special court of this group in the northern zone has declared 14.5 jeribs (approximately 0.029 square kilometers) of land in the city of Shiberghan, the center of Jawzjan province in northern Afghanistan, as “state-owned (emirati)” land.
The ministry said today (Saturday, June 6) in a statement that this amount of land consists of two plots located in the area of “Jaghdalak Kokrak Jarkudi” in the center of Jawzjan province.
The Taliban Ministry of Justice added that “the mentioned special court, after a thorough review of the documents and records of the occupants and the commission, real estate offices, and obtaining information from relevant departments, decided that the entire mentioned land is state-owned (emirati) and should be handed over to the Commission for Prevention of Land Grabbing and Recovery of Seized Lands.”
According to the statement of the ministry, the “Commission for Prevention of Land Grabbing and Recovery of Seized Lands” had previously referred this land case to the “Special Court for Dealing with Seized State Land Cases of the Northern Zone.”
The Commission for the Prevention and Recovery of Usurped Land was established by the Taliban around one year ago as part of a broader nationwide campaign to reclaim what it describes as illegally occupied or state-owned land.
According to Taliban officials, the commission was created to identify, investigate, and recover public and government land that had allegedly been seized over previous years, and to coordinate its transfer for official use. The group has stated that millions of acres of land have since been identified and several million acres recovered, with large portions reportedly handed over to relevant ministries for development and agricultural use.
Last month, the Taliban announced a series of land classifications as state-owned (Emarati). According to a statement published by the Ministry of Justice, the group’s special court declared more than 12,500 jeribs (25 square kilometers) of land in the Ismail Khil and Mandozai districts of Khost province as state-owned.
Similarly, it said that 1,507.49 jeribs of land (approximately 3.01 square kilometers) in Omid Sabz Township had been reviewed, with the court concluding that the entire area—covering five cadastral sections—was registered and surveyed in the name of the state and had not been transferred to any individual or legal entity.
In addition, the group has initiated a process of reviewing townships in various cities and provinces and has declared several large townships as “state-owned.” However, township owners say that Taliban courts do not pay attention to their documents during the case review process and that these documents are not examined carefully or impartially.
In many residential townships that the Taliban have classified as state-owned, including in Kabul, Herat, Balkh, Ghazni, Nangarhar, Bamiyan, and other provinces, the current landowners are ordinary citizens who purchased their land during the 20 years of the former republic government.
These ongoing land declarations and disputes have raised concerns among local residents and property owners, who argue that unclear legal procedures and lack of independent judicial oversight are contributing to growing uncertainty over land ownership rights across different provinces.
