Afghan women defiant over order to cover

KABUL: Women in Afghanistan expressed defiance on Sunday after the Taliban issued a directive ordering them to fully cover themselves in public, including their faces, or stay indoors, saying the change would effectively leave them "imprisoned."

Afghanistan's supreme leader and Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada approved the order last Saturday, a move that threatens to push freedoms back toward the harsh rule imposed by the Islamists when they previously held power between 1996 and 2001.