British Government Accused of Failing to Tackle Extreme Right Terror Threat

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british_flagHenry Ridgwell
VOA News
June 22, 2017

The British government is being urged to do more to tackle violence by right-wing extremists, following the attack outside London’s Finsbury Park mosque in the early hours of Monday morning.

One person died and at least 11 were injured when 47-year-old Darren Osborne from Wales drove his van into a crowd of worshippers, reportedly shouting, “I want to kill all Muslims.” He was pulled from the vehicle and held by members of the public until police arrived.

Just two days earlier, activist Fiyaz Mughal had addressed worshippers at the same mosque warning them of the dangers of attacks. He told VOA that authorities are failing to recognize the danger.

“I think the government has been slow in seeing the threat that is also emanating from some of those sources, which repeatedly daily pump out anti-Muslim rhetoric, which in a way creates the environment for the potential for violence,” he said.

Mughal founded the organization Tell Mama, which collates and reports attacks on Muslims. The website lists recent incidents: physical violence, windows smashed, bacon left on cars, a bag of vomit thrown at a Muslim driver. It says anti-Muslim hate crimes have increased fivefold since the Islamist terror attack in Manchester last month.

“It has social impacts, it certainly has mental health and emotional impacts, and it creates this ‘them and us’ thinking, which is particularly problematic and in some cases dangerous because extremists play on that,” said Mughal.

The London mosque attack came almost exactly one year after a terrorist with extreme right views killed British MP Jo Cox. The number of right-wing extremists flagged to the government’s anti-terror ‘Prevent’ program has soared by 30 percent, according to British media reports. Terror expert Paul Jackson of the University of Northampton said Islamist and extreme right terrorism must be addressed in different ways.

“Especially the way the Prevent agenda in the UK is very focused on tackling Islamist extremism and is using that as a way to tackle the far-right and the extreme right and the issues that it poses — I think it still needs to be looked at.”

Critics blame conservative media and politicians for stoking tensions against Muslim communities. Jackson said the link is difficult to pin down.

“My sense is that there’s got to be some sort of relationship between wider mainstream perspectives that seem to be normalizing very extreme attitudes towards Muslim people.”

The opposition Labour party has called for an overhaul of the Prevent program — while the government insists it is committed to tackling all forms of terror.

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34 killed, dozens injured in Afghanistan car bomb

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helmand_aq_mapPress TV
June 22, 2017

At least 34 people have been killed and dozens wounded after a powerful blast hit a bank in Lashkar Gah, the capital of the southern Afghan province of Helmand.

The Thursday blast targeted the New Kabul Bank branch, where members of Afghan security forces had gathered to collect their pay.

Omar Zwak, spokesman for the provincial governor, said the fatalities include members of the police and army, civilians and staff of the bank.

No group has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

In a similar incident last month, at least three people lost their lives and more than 30 others sustained injuries in the eastern city of Gardez, the capital of Paktia Province.

Afghanistan has been gripped by insecurity since the United States and its allies invaded the country in 2001. Many parts of the country remain plagued by militancy despite the presence of foreign troops.

During the past 16 years, the Taliban militants have been conducting attacks across the country, killing, wounding, and displacing civilians.

The Takfiri Daesh terrorist group, which is mainly active in Syria and Iraq, has also more recently managed to gain a foothold in Afghanistan. Daesh militants are now launching attacks of their own on Afghan soil.

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India and Afghanistan Open Air Freight Corridor to Bypass Pakistan

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Pakistan, Afghanistan and India

Pakistan, Afghanistan and India

Anjana Pasricha
VOA News
June 21, 2017

NEW DELHI — Although Afghan businesses have long wanted to exploit the potential of India’s huge market, trade between the two countries has been hampered due to their tense relations with Pakistan.

But a plane loaded in Kabul with 60 tons of medicinal plants landed in New Delhi this week, raising hopes of giving a major boost to commerce between landlocked Afghanistan and India.

The flight flagged off the establishment of a new air cargo corridor between the two countries. Along with another, more long-term initiative to develop the Iranian port of Chabahar, India hopes to ease access to conflict-ridden Afghanistan and eventually to Central Asian countries.

Pakistan is a barrier

Pakistan allows Afghanistan to send a limited amount of perishable goods over its territory to India, through which the shortest and most cost effective land routes lie. However, India is not allowed to send any imports through Pakistani territory.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani decided to establish the air corridor last September after Pakistan rejected fresh calls by the Afghan leader to allow his country to engage in direct trade with India over its territory.

Although India is the second largest destination for exports from Afghanistan, this lack of easy access has been a dampener.

Air corridor trade

In New Delhi, officials hope the new corridor will boost annual trade between the two countries from $700 million to $1 billion in three years and give a lift to exports of Afghanistan’s agricultural and carpet industries.

A second flight is scheduled to land in New Delhi next week, bringing 40 tons of dried fruit from Kandahar.

At a ceremony marking the inaugural flight in Kabul on Monday, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said he wants to make Afghanistan an exporter country.

“As long as we are not an exporter country, then poverty and instability will not be eliminated,” he said.

Indian foreign ministry officials say the connectivity will allow Afghan businessmen to leverage India’s economic growth and trade networks for its benefit and give farmers quick access to sell perishable products.

Does the air corridor trade have a viable future?

A prominent trader in New Delhi, Shyam Sunder Bansal, said he stopped trading with Afghan businesses several years ago due to the challenges such as transit routes, banking and currency facilities.

India is hoping to eventually extend air cargo flights to other cities.

But Bansal is skeptical whether it will be commercially viable to sustain imports via air. “They cannot continue it forever because that will be unconventional, uneconomical,” he said.

However, a South Asia expert with the Indian Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, Sukh Deo Muni, said since the distance involved is not too long, the air freight corridor could be viable.

He said New Delhi is committed to the project as it will open up access for India to not just Afghanistan but also Central Asian markets. According to Muni, “broader significance is to give two messages. We are committed to Afghanistan and we want to tell Pakistan, you cannot obstruct our access to Afghanistan and Central Asia. This is the long term view.”

Afghanistan mainly sends fresh and dried fruits, vegetables and oilseeds to India. It also takes a host of products from India — a flight from New Delhi has carried pharmaceuticals, water purifiers and medical equipment to Kabul as part of the initiative.

Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay said the frequency of the air service would depend on demand. “It is, at the end of the day, a commercial venture which is supported very heavily, very strongly and very purposefully by both the governments.”

Land corridor through Iran

India has also initiated another key project to develop the Iranian port of Chabahar and open a direct transport corridor to Central Asia and Afghanistan bypassing Pakistan. This would also give Kabul an alternate route to the Indian Ocean, which currently uses the Pakistani port of Karachi for sea trade.

There was optimism last year that the project would take off, but it is barely making headway amid fresh worries that the U.S. administration under President Donald Trump may reimpose sanctions on Iran.

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Afghan Forces Recapture Tora Bora Hideout From IS

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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
June 21, 2017

Afghan security forces have recaptured Tora Bora, a former fortress of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, from Islamic State (IS) militants, officials confirmed.

IS had taken the tunnel and cave complex in Nangarhar Province from the Taliban five days ago. The two militant groups are enemies.

The legendary complex of tunnels and caves once served as a hideout for Bin Laden, who escaped from the mountains into Pakistan after U.S. bombings and subsequent operations in 2001 failed to kill or capture him.

The “Tora Bora area of Pachiragam district is completely Daesh free,” the Nangarhar governor’s office said on June 20, using an Arabic acronym for IS. The recapture was confirmed by officials in Kabul, who said at least 22 militants were killed in the clearing operation.

Afghan security forces are now advancing toward the villages of Alif Khel and Meerkhany to push IS further back, the governor’s office said.

U.S. and Afghan forces have been battling IS in Nangarhar Province since its emergence there in January 2015.

In April, the U.S. dropped a massive bomb on an IS complex in Nangarhar, which the Afghan Defense Ministry said killed more than 90 militants.

Based on reporting by AP, dpa, and RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

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Afghan Refugee Makes Tough Transition to US

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June Soh
VOA News
June 21, 2017

Anyone who approaches the Taste of Persia food truck during lunch hour in downtown Washington D.C. will likely be greeted by Afghan refugee Mohammad Mashooq Dowlati. Dowlati is the face of Taste of Persia because, as a former interpreter for the U.S. army in Afghanistan, he speaks good English.

The fields of the Afghan war are a long, long way from the streets of D.C. – and Dowlati has found the way to be fraught with difficulties and challenges he never imagined. Even the decision to go was wrenching.

“I’m going to be away from the entire family maybe for many years or maybe forever, and that decision was really, really important,” he says “It was so hard, emotionally hard.”

But staying would have been hard too. Both his and his family’s lives were in danger.

“A lot of interpreters got killed. They were kidnapped and then killed. In the worst situation, they were beheaded,” Dowlati relates.

The family he left behind is still in danger because of his work with international forces. Dowlati says they have no protection.

“Honestly, they just have to rely on God, and they have to be careful … they cannot move to the remote areas … because if they go there, they will be kidnapped by bad guys, insurgents and get killed. They stay most of the time in the city centers.”

Unmet expectations

Dowlati, his wife and two children at the time (he now has three) came to the U.S. four years ago on special immigrant visas (SIVs). Some 15,000 Afghans are currently in some stage of applying for these visas that were created by Congress in 2008 for Afghan military translators and later expanded to cover other Afghans who served the U.S. government.

The SIV program was halted in March when the number of available visas ran out and has just recently been re-started after Congress authorized an additional 2500 SIVs.

Dowlati is grateful for the visas, but says he did not realize how difficult life in the U.S. was going to be. Away from her family, his wife faced challenges adjusting to the west and suffered from depression. And he had a rude awakening: job hunting.

“I was very anxious to start my education right at the beginning of my presence in America,” he says, “but then I found out that it’s probably too early for that. I have to find a job to make enough money to afford the family.”

Dowlati and other Afghan interpreters he has met in the U.S. were proud of the work they did to serve their country. “We were the connecter between the international forces and the local Afghanistan government forces and people,” he says. “So we had a very sensitive, important job.”

When they came to the U.S., they had expectations that with their English skills and their service to the U.S. government, they should get slightly better treatment than other refugees in the form of work.

“I am not saying we should become a manager of a very important organization, but at least, we should have a simple or basic office job. Unfortunately, the United States or relevant organization have not helped us in this regard at all.”

Dowlati says he speaks on behalf of thousands of Afghan interpreters, many of whom he knows. “They were, we were expecting to be treated a little better.”

Getting to okay

Minus any assistance, Dowlati had no idea what to do to find or apply for a job. With another Afghan refugee, he walked from business to business to talk to owners face to face. He did that for six months.

Dowlati finally found work in a chicken restaurant, cleaning and prepping food. It was hard on him. “I was not… how to explain… I was not accustomed to that kind of job.”

Used to office work, Dowlati had hoped to find a job in an office using his English and computer skills. “But because you’re new here, nobody knows you. It’s really hard to find that kind of work,” he says.

Worse, the restaurant job did not pay enough to support the family. Dowlati would need a second job. Luckily, he bumped into the Iranian owner of Taste of Persia. That was three years ago.

“I was speaking in the same language with him,” Dowlati says. “We’re still working together.” And they are making plans for the future: to become partners and share the truck or perhaps open another one.

Dowlati still hopes to continue his education and find an office job but along with, not apart from, his work with the food truck. In the meantime, his wife is feeling better about life in the U.S.

“To be honest, we were thinking differently before we came here,” Dowlati says. “We had different perspection (sic), different understanding: If we go there, everything is going to go the way we want.”

It didn’t turn out that way. “But overall it is OK,” he concedes. “We are satisfied with it.”

 

Murder of teenage Muslim girl in US sparks outrage

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Nabra Hassanen

Nabra Hassanen

Press TV
June 20, 2017

The brutal murder of a teenage Muslim girl in the US state of Virginia has sparked outrage among Muslim communities across the country.

Nabra Hassanen, 17, was kidnapped from near a mosque in northern Virginia and repeatedly hit with a baseball bat by a man named Darwin Martinez Torres, 22, on Sunday. Nabra died from blunt force trauma to the upper body.

The girl was walking with friends when she was attacked and beaten to death. Her body was later found in Sterling area, outside Washington with signs of beating. Torres has been charged with the killing.

Police say the killing is being investigated as a road rage incident. But Nabra’s father has rejected the police theory and said his daughter was attacked because she was Muslim.

“There is nothing at this point to indicate that this tragic case was a hate crime. No evidence has been recovered that showed this was a hate crime. Nothing indicates it was motivated by race or religion,” claimed Julie Parker, a spokeswoman for Fairfax County police.

She added that if evidence surfaces that does point to a hate crime, “at that point detectives would obviously take the investigation in that direction.”

‘My daughter was killed because she was Muslim’

In a phone interview with The Guardian on Monday afternoon, Nabra’s father, Mohmoud Hassanen, rejected the police claim. “I don’t believe this story.  I tell the detective the same thing.”

“He killed my daughter because she is Muslim. That’s what I believe. That’s what I told him,” the 60-year-old father said.

According to a statement by the Fairfax County Police Department, the girl was with her friends when they engaged in a dispute with a motorist, who left his car and assaulted them.

Nabra’s friends, who had scattered around during the brawl, could not find her at the scene afterwards, the statement added.

‘Why did you do this to my daughter?’

Struggling to keep his emotions in check, the father recounted the version of events they were given. “My daughter fell down. When she fell down, the guy hit her with a baseball stick. He went and drove his car and came back, and picked her up and threw her in a lake a mile from the mosque,” he said.

“He followed the girls, and all of them had head cloths, meaning they are Muslim, and he had a baseball stick,” said Egyptian-born Hassanen who moved to the US in 1987.

“I told the detective: ‘I want to ask him one question. Why did he do that? Because he doesn’t like Muslims, or what?’ He tells me he has no answer for that. This answer is going to be in the court.”

“When I go to court I’m going to look him in the eye: why did you do this to my daughter? Then I’m going to forgive him and leave him to God’s face. The lord is going to judge him. He took my daughter’s life,” he said.

Social media have been flooded with shock and resentment, with Muslims calling on authorities to investigate the murder as a hate crime.

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Opium use booms in Afghanistan, creating a ‘silent tsunami’ of addicted women

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drug_addictionWashington Post: One recent morning, three figures in white lab coats descended cautiously into a pitch-black netherworld beneath a crumbling bridge in the Afghan capital. They picked their way through garbage and sprawled limbs, passing hundreds of huddled men whose gaunt, wary faces were briefly illuminated by the flare of matches and drug pipes. The doctors were headed to a lone tent pitched nearby on the dry riverbed, where they knew that a female addict named Marzia had been sleeping on her own. Click here to read more (external link).

The woman teaching Imams in Afghanistan that girls have a right to go to school

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Jamila Afghani

Jamila Afghani

iNews: Afghanistan is one of the world’s most challenging societies to fight for women’s rights, but that hasn’t stopped Jamila Afghani teaching imams what they have been doing wrong The story of Jamila Afghani and the impact of her work can be distilled down to one episode, played out on a street corner on the outskirts of Kabul. It was there that she found an elderly man on the steps of a mosque, crying inconsolably. Click here to read more (external link).

Eight Security Guards Killed Near U.S. Base In Afghanistan

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parwan

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
June 20, 2017

An Afghan official says eight Afghan security guards have been killed by gunmen who opened fire on them in the northern province of Parwan.

Two others were wounded, Bagram district Governor Abdul Shokoor Qudosi said.

The guards from Bagram air base were killed when their vehicle was attacked by unknown gunmen late on June 19, he said.

The incident took place on the main road near Shah Kah village, approximately 1 kilometer from the air base, Qudosi added.

The group of 10 security guards was on its way to work at the time of the attack, according to the governor.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the shooting.

Bagram air base is the largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan and is a regular target for attacks.

In November, a suicide bomb blast inside the base left two U.S. service members and two contractors dead and 16 others wounded.

Based on reporting by AP and dpa

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

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