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  • Gunmen Assassinate 2 Female Afghan Judges in Kabul January 17, 2021
  • 1TV Afghanistan Dari News – January 17, 2021 January 17, 2021
  • For Undocumented Afghan Migrants in Turkey, Life is Hard but Better January 17, 2021
  • Ghani threatens to fire Balkh security chiefs over boy’s kidnapping January 17, 2021
  • Pashtun Rights Activist Detained, Expelled From Pakistani Province January 17, 2021
  • Afghanistan: 81 New Case of COVID-19, 4 Deaths Reported January 17, 2021
  • Khalilzad Looks to Shape Post-Trump End Game in Afghanistan January 16, 2021
  • Taliban Kills 12 In Attack On Security Forces In Western Afghanistan January 16, 2021
  • Afghan media accuse govt of not investigating assassinations of journalists January 16, 2021
  • 1TV Afghanistan Dari News – January 16, 2021 January 16, 2021

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Gunmen Assassinate 2 Female Afghan Judges in Kabul

17th January, 2021 · admin · Leave a comment

Ayaz Gul
VOA News
January 17, 2021

ISLAMABAD – Officials in Afghanistan said Sunday two female judges working for the Supreme Court were shot dead in the capital, Kabul, the latest victims of targeted killings in recent months.

A court spokesman said the slain judges were on their way to work in the morning when unknown assailants ambushed and fired on their official vehicle.

The city police confirmed a third female judge and the women’s driver were also wounded in the attack, saying an investigation is underway.

No one immediately took responsibility for the deadly ambush. A spokesman for the Taliban insurgency denied its involvement.

Afghan officials say currently there are more than 250 women judges in the country and nearly 400 female prosecutors.

Sunday’s violence is the latest in a string of mostly unclaimed assassinations targeting officials, politicians, prosecutors, doctors, journalists and civil society activists mostly in and around Kabul.

President Ashraf Ghani condemned the assassination of female judges, but he again blamed the Taliban for being behind the targeted killing spree. While reiterating his call for the insurgents to declare a ceasefire, the Afghan leader stressed that “violence and terrorism” are not the way to resolve issues.

Acting U.S. ambassador in Kabul Ross Wilson also condemned the assassinations of female supreme court judges and called for a prompt investigation.  He also stopped short of blaming the Taliban.

“The Taliban should understand that such actions for which it bears responsibility outrage the world and must cease if peace is to come to Afghanistan,” Wilson wrote on Twitter.

The U.S. Embassy Sunday reminded Americans not to travel to Afghanistan due to increased terrorist attacks, kidnappings, criminal violence and civil unrest throughout the country.

“Hotels, residential compounds, international organizations, embassies, and other locations frequented by foreign nationals, including U.S. citizens, are known to be under enduring threat. U.S. citizens already in Afghanistan should consider departing,” said an embassy statement.

For its part, the Taliban accuses the Kabul government of plotting the targeted killings to defame the group and subvert intra-Afghan peace talks, brokered by the United States.

Some of the attacks have been claimed by Islamic State militants operating in the country.

Heather Barr, the interim co-director of the women’s rights division at Human Rights Watch, said the assassinations Sunday indicate the heightened risks facing female Afghan judges.

“It’s a depressing example of how limited the progress on women’s rights has been in Afghanistan that there are only about 250 female judges — so this murder of two of them represents the death of almost one percent,” Barr told VOA.

“Unfortunately this is part of a long-standing pattern of women in high profile roles being targeted, threatened and murdered—and the Afghan government doing little to protect them when they are alive and little to investigate when they’re dead,” she lamented.

The intra-Afghan peace negotiations, which began last September in Qatar, have so far not made any significant progress.

The dialogue is a crucial outcome of the February 2020 agreement the U.S. signed with the Taliban to promote a negotiated settlement to nearly two decades of Afghan war and bring home the remaining American troops.

Washington announced last Friday it had cut U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan to 2,500 as part of the deal, which requires all American and NATO-led troops to leave the country by May 2021.

In return, the Taliban has given counterterrorism security guarantees and pledged to negotiate a permanent ceasefire as well as a political power-sharing understanding with the Afghan government through the ongoing talks.

Posted in Afghan Women, Civilian Injuries and Deaths, Peace Talks, Security, Taliban, US-Afghanistan Relations | Tags: Ashraf Ghani Government Security Failure, Assassination |

1TV Afghanistan Dari News – January 17, 2021

17th January, 2021 · admin · Leave a comment

Posted in News in Dari (Persian/Farsi) |

For Undocumented Afghan Migrants in Turkey, Life is Hard but Better

17th January, 2021 · admin · Leave a comment

Turkey has often been described as the gateway between Asia and Europe and because of its location, millions of refugees have arrived in the country as a way station in their effort to migrate to Europe. VOA’s Hilmi Hacaloglu and Umut Colak filed this report on how Afghan refugees are struggling to survive in Istanbul. Bezhan Hamdard narrated their report.

Posted in Economic News, Refugees and Migrants, Turkey-Afghanistan Relations |

Ghani threatens to fire Balkh security chiefs over boy’s kidnapping

17th January, 2021 · admin · Leave a comment

Ghani

Ariana: President Ashraf Ghani has threatened to fire security chiefs in Balkh province if they fail to locate and rescue the abducted nine-year-old boy, Abdul Rauf. Abdul Rauf was kidnapped three months ago, by armed men in military uniforms, from PD4 of Mazar-e-Sharif, the capital of Balkh. Click here to read more (external link).

Posted in Afghan Children, Security | Tags: Ashraf Ghani, Balkh, Kidnapping |

Pashtun Rights Activist Detained, Expelled From Pakistani Province

17th January, 2021 · admin · Leave a comment

By Radio Mashaal
January 17, 2021

Pakistani security forces have detained and forcibly expelled a prominent ethnic Pashtun rights activist, Sanna Ejaz, from the restive province of Balochistan.

Ejaz is a leader of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), a civil rights movement that has come under a growing government crackdown.

Video footage uploaded on social media showed security forces ushering Ejaz into a vehicle on January 17.

Moments before she was detained in the district of Zhob, Ejaz told RFE/RL that paramilitary forces notified her that she was barred from entering Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.

“They are saying my presence could cause unrest,” she told RFE/RL.

Ejaz, a resident of the neighboring province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said she had travelled to Balochistan to launch a library for women.

The library was established by Waak, a movement cofounded by Ejaz and dedicated to promoting women’s rights and education.

Police said the provincial government in November 2020 issued a notice banning PTM leaders, including Ejaz, from traveling to Balochistan for 90 days.

Balochistan is the scene of a separatist insurgency and a brutal state crackdown that has killed thousands of people since 2004.

Activists claim Pakistan’s powerful military has committed widespread abuses in Balochistan, including enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings of political activists and suspected separatists, arbitrary arrests, and torture. The province is home to a sizeable Pashtun community.

Ejaz was among several PTM leaders charged with making anti-state speeches during an unsanctioned rally in the port city of Karachi, in Sindh Province, on December 6, 2020.

Among them was Ali Wazir, a lawmaker and PTM leader, who was arrested on sedition charges over accusations he made anti-state comments during the rally.

Wazir remains in police custody. He is expected to be presented before an anti-terrorism court.

The PTM has campaigned since 2018 for the civil rights of Pakistan’s estimated 35 million ethnic Pashtuns, many of whom live near the border of Afghanistan where the military has conducted campaigns it says defeated the Pakistani Taliban.

The movement has attracted tens of thousands of people to public rallies in recent years to denounce the powerful Pakistani Army’s heavy-handed tactics that have killed thousands of Pashtun civilians and forced millions more to abandon their homes since 2003.

International rights groups say authorities have banned peaceful rallies organized by the PTM and some of its leading members have been arbitrarily detained and prevented from traveling within the country. Some members have also faced charges of sedition and cybercrimes.

Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036
Posted in Ethnic Issues, Human Rights | Tags: Pashtuns in Pakistan |

Afghanistan: 81 New Case of COVID-19, 4 Deaths Reported

17th January, 2021 · admin · Leave a comment

Tolo News: The Ministry of Public Health on Friday reported 81 new positive cases of COVID-19 out of 1,584 samples tested in the last 24 hours. The Health Ministry stated that the cumulative total of known COVID-19 cases is 54,062, the total number of reported deaths is 2,343, and the total number of recoveries is 45,868. Click here to read more (external link).

Posted in Health News | Tags: Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Afghanistan |

Khalilzad Looks to Shape Post-Trump End Game in Afghanistan

16th January, 2021 · admin · Leave a comment

Zalmay Khalilzad

Michael Hughes: President-elect Joe Biden may have no choice but to allow Zalmay Khalilzad to stay on as U.S. envoy to Afghanistan for reasons of continuity amid the ongoing negotiations between Kabul and the Taliban. Khalilzad, a native Afghan turned American cowboy, is not taking any chances, however, as he aggressively pushes President Ashraf Ghani to form an interim government. And based on the historical record, it would not be surprising to see Khalilzad himself seek a place in any new configuration of power. Click here to read more.

Posted in Opinion/Editorial, Peace Talks, Political News, Security, Taliban, US-Afghanistan Relations | Tags: Zalmay Khalilzad |

Taliban Kills 12 In Attack On Security Forces In Western Afghanistan

16th January, 2021 · admin · Leave a comment

Taliban militants (file photo)

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
January 16, 2021

A group of Taliban militants has killed 12 members of the local security forces in the country’s western Herat Province, in what provincial police on January 16 described as an insider attack.

Herat police spokesman Abdul Ahad Walizada said the attack was carried out by at least two Taliban “infiltrators” late on January 15.

He said the attackers fled with the slain militiamen’s weapons and ammunition, adding that Afghan government forces had regained control of the area.

Meanwhile, two police officers were killed and one wounded in the capital Kabul on January 16 when a magnetic bomb attached to their vehicle went off, Kabul police said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

The Taliban has continued its violent insurgency against the central government despite the hope of lasting peace through the Qatar process. The Islamic State militant group has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks in the capital in recent months.

Representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban are currently in the Qatari capital of Doha to discuss the agenda items of the talks.

The violence came hours after the United States announced it has reduced troops levels in Afghanistan to 2,500, which is the lowest number in nearly two decades.

Under a U.S.-Taliban deal reached last February, all foreign forces are scheduled to leave Afghanistan by May 2021 in exchange for security guarantees from the militant group, including severing ties with Al-Qaeda.

Based on reporting by dpa, AP, and TOLOnews

Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036

More Security News 

  • Blasts in Kabul, Baghlan Kill Three Police Force Members
Posted in Security, Taliban | Tags: Afghan Army, Afghan Police, Insider Attack |

Afghan media accuse govt of not investigating assassinations of journalists

16th January, 2021 · admin · Leave a comment

Ariana: Media support bodies in Afghanistan have accused government of not properly investigating the targeted killings of journalists adding that because of this and the high level of threats they face, some have already left the country.  “Unfortunately violence against journalists has not reduced, because government has not followed up on the cases of journalists killed,” said Mujib Khalwatgar, the head of Nai Supporting Open Media in Afghanistan. Click here to read more (external link).

Related

  • Concerns raised over govt official’s ‘involvement’ in Ghor journalist’s death
Posted in Civilian Injuries and Deaths, Crime and Punishment, Media, Security | Tags: Afghan Journalists, Ashraf Ghani Government Security Failure, Assassination |

1TV Afghanistan Dari News – January 16, 2021

16th January, 2021 · admin · Leave a comment

Posted in News in Dari (Persian/Farsi) |
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