Afghan Islamic Press

About Afghan Islamic Press

Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) — افغان اسلامي اژانس — is one of Afghanistan's oldest news agencies, founded in Peshawar in 1982 during the Soviet occupation and now operating from Kabul. An independent English and Pashto wire service, it has reported on Afghanistan for more than four decades — through war, exile and return — and was still filing wire items in September 2026 from its office in Shahr-e Now, Kabul.

About Afghan Islamic Press

Afghan Islamic Press is an independent news agency in the classic wire-service mould: concise, datelined reporting on Afghan politics, security and current affairs, published in English and Pashto through its website, afghanislamicpress.com. Its English wire carried items dated 19–23 September 2026 at verification — recent, steady output from a small agency newsroom.

The agency defines itself by two editorial commitments it states publicly: a claim to verify stories through three independent sources before publication, and a refusal to accept funding from governments or non-governmental organizations. In the Afghan media economy — where outlets have historically depended on foreign donors, state patronage or political sponsors — that funding stance is both a business model and an editorial statement, and the agency presents it as the basis of its independence.

AIP was founded by Muhammad Yaqub Sharafat, and it remains an independent operation rather than a state, party or corporate wire. Its longevity gives it a particular authority: few Afghan news organizations of any kind have operated continuously since the 1980s, and AIP's archive spans the entire modern arc of the country's conflicts.

The agency's office is in Shahr-e Now, the commercial district of Kabul — an in-country newsroom reporting from the capital, not an exile operation. Its contact channels are public: News@afghanislamicpress.com and +93780907777. (WorldNM's directory leaves the public business email field empty site-wide for technical reasons; the address is given here for reference.)

The agency's public contact channels — an email address and a Kabul phone number — reflect the wire-service business: AIP sells its reporting to those who need it and answers to its readers, not to a patron. In a media market where funding so often shapes coverage, the agency's answer has been to remove the funder from the equation entirely.

History

Afghan Islamic Press was founded in 1982 in Peshawar, Pakistan, in the early years of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Peshawar in the 1980s was the rear base of the Afghan resistance — home to mujahideen parties, refugee camps, aid agencies and a dense ecosystem of exile media — and AIP was born into that world as a wire service covering a war that the world's press struggled to report from the ground.

From those origins, the agency built its reputation the hard way: reporting on Afghanistan across four decades of upheaval. It covered the Soviet withdrawal and the civil wars of the 1990s, the Taliban's first period in power, the post-2001 republic — when Kabul became one of the most crowded media markets in the region — and the return of the Taliban in 2021. Few institutions of any kind in Afghanistan can claim continuous operation across all of those eras; AIP is one of them.

At some point in its history the agency established its Kabul office in Shahr-e Now, bringing the Peshawar-founded wire back to the Afghan capital it had spent decades covering from across the border. The move completed a circle: an agency founded in exile, reporting on a country at war, now filing from that country's capital.

Founder Muhammad Yaqub Sharafat's original proposition — an independent Afghan wire, funded by neither governments nor NGOs, verifying through multiple sources — has remained the agency's stated identity across all of those transitions. In September 2026, more than forty years after its founding, the wire was still filing: items dated 19–23 September appeared on its English service, confirming uninterrupted operation into the agency's fifth decade.

Coverage, beats and services

AIP's coverage is wire journalism in its purest form: short, factual items on Afghan politics, security incidents, official statements and current affairs, filed for republication and reference. The September 2026 items on its English service illustrate the mix — the day-to-day record of a country, rendered as agency copy.

The agency's stated three-source verification standard shapes the product. In an information environment where rumour travels faster than reporting — and where the stakes of getting a security story wrong are high — AIP presents multiple-sourcing as its differentiator, a discipline inherited from its decades as a wire serving editors who needed copy they could trust.

Its independence claim is structural, not just rhetorical. By refusing government and NGO funding, the agency removes the two most common sources of leverage over Afghan media — state patronage and donor agendas — and asks to be judged on the copy alone. Whether that model can sustain a wire service indefinitely is an open question; that the agency has sustained it for over forty years is a matter of record.

The service is the wire itself: English and Pashto copy, published openly on the agency's website, available to other media, researchers and readers without subscription. A Dari edition is not confirmed — the verifiable language services are English and Pashto — and this profile does not claim one.

That longevity gives the wire a second function beyond the daily news: its archive is a continuous, datelined record of Afghanistan across more than four decades — the Soviet war, the civil wars, the republic years and the current era — reported as it happened. Few Afghan news organizations of any kind can offer that depth of institutional memory.

Languages and platforms

Afghan Islamic Press publishes in English and Pashto. The English wire, at afghanislamicpress.com/en/, is the agency's international-facing service and the one most visible to outside monitors of Afghan news; the Pashto wire serves the domestic audience in one of the country's official languages.

The website is the agency's platform. There is no print edition and no broadcast arm — AIP is a wire service, and its influence travels through its copy, picked up by outlets and readers who need Kabul-reported news in English or Pashto.

Location and operating status

Afghan Islamic Press is based in Shahr-e Now, Kabul, Afghanistan — an in-country newsroom in the Afghan capital. Founded in Peshawar during the Soviet occupation, it is today a Kabul operation reporting from inside the country.

As of late September 2026 the agency was actively filing, with wire items dated 19–23 September on its English service. Forty-four years after its founding, AIP remains one of the longest-running independent news agencies covering Afghanistan — and one of the few still operating from Kabul.

Official website and subscriptions

The official website is https://afghanislamicpress.com/en/ (English edition), with Pashto content on the same domain. The wire is published openly; the agency does not operate a reader subscription model. News tips and inquiries can be directed to News@afghanislamicpress.com or +93780907777.

WorldNM is an independent directory and does not own, operate or represent Afghan Islamic Press. For content, syndication or other inquiries, please use the agency's own channels.

Sources and last verified

This profile was verified on 13 October 2026 against afghanislamicpress.com (checked live: wire items dated 19–23 September 2026 on the English edition; English and Pashto services). Founding details (1982, Peshawar, founder Muhammad Yaqub Sharafat), the Shahr-e Now Kabul office, the three-source verification claim, the refusal of government/NGO funding and the listed contact details are corroborated by the Afghanistan media inventory compiled the same day. A Dari edition is unconfirmed and is not claimed. As with all directory entries, facts reflect what was publicly verifiable on the verification date.