Rashid Khan the hero as Sunrisers make final

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Rashid Khan

Rashid Khan

1TV: Afghan player Rashid Khan put up an impressive all-round display as he helped his side Sunrisers Hyderabad beat Kolkata Knight Riders by 14 runs and enter the final on Friday…“Afghans take absolute pride in our hero, Rashid Khan. I am also thankful to our Indian friends for giving our players a platform to show their skills. Rashid reminds us whats best about Afg. He remains an asset to the cricketing world. No we are not giving him away,” Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said in a tweet that tagged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Click here to read more (external link).

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Man Blinded by Father, Brothers for Falling in Love

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Mohammad Habibzada
Barakwal Myakhel
VOA News
May 26, 2018

A man has been blinded by his own father and siblings for allegedly wanting to marry a girl he fell in love with in southwestern Pakistan.

Abdul Baqi, 22, thought his family would help him get married. Instead, his father and four brothers accused him of violating Islamic values and removed his eyes to punish him.

The incident occurred May 13. His brothers and father locked his mother and sisters in a room and took Baqi to the corner of the house, where they tied his hands and legs and started beating him with batons.

“One of my brothers removed my eyeball using a tea spoon. Then my father took the knife and cut it as it was hanging on my face,” Baqi told VOA.

“One of them [brothers] stepped on my head to make sure I that I do not move and others removed my second eye,” Baqi added.

Baqi is a resident of the Loralai area of Balochistan province.

He did not expect that his own family would attack him and blind him. In retrospect, he said he was ready for any consequences.

“If they would have even killed me, I would have still kept my promise of love and would have not begged for my life,” Baqi told VOA.

Ties to Taliban

Baqi said his brothers have ties to the Taliban and are very conservative. His brothers had warned him that speaking to a girl over the phone was an un-Islamic act and that he was an infidel.

One of his brothers, who is 18, had just returned from jihad from Afghanistan on the day of the attack.

“It was his first time that he went to Afghanistan. He was shouting, ‘Thank Allah, Allah is great, Jihad is only for Allah, long live mujahedeen,’ ” Baqi said.

The brother “went on to say that we are making a mistake by going to Afghanistan for jihad. ‘Actual Jihad is here in our house. The first jihad is here against this infidel.’ He was talking about me as I was bleeding from my wounds,” Baqi added.

Arrests

Baqi said a friend transported him to a hospital after the attack, and once in the hospital, he informed police about what had happened.

Police arrested his father along with two of his brothers. The other two brothers escaped and are at large.

The suspects told police that Baqi was suicidal and wanted to kill himself — that’s why they tied his hands and legs. Baqi rejected those claims. He said his family would attack him again.

After finding out about what had happened with Baqi, the girl’s family agreed to their daughter’s marriage with him.

“The family of my love found out about the incident and sympathized with me and told me that they would marry their daughter to me without any dowry,” Baqi said.

Taliban’s military commission chief for Nangarhar districts killed in NDS raid

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nangarharKhaama Press: A senior Taliban leader in charge of the military commission of the group for the 14 districts of eastern Nangarhar province was killed during an operation of the Afghan Intelligence, National Directorate of Security (NDS). The governor’s office in Nangarhar in a statement said the senior Taliban leader Gul Mohammmad was killed late on Thursday night in the vicinity of Surkh Rod district. Click here to read more (external link).

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Afghanistan And Iraq At Risk Of Being Caught Up In Web Of US Sanctions Aimed At Iran

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iran_usa

Forbes: Afghanistan’s economy is small and it is only the 145th largest exporter in the world. However, Iran plays a central role as the largest source of Afghan imports and the third largest destination for its exports, according to the World Bank. The importance of trade via Iran has been rising and was set to be further enhanced by the development of Chabahar port on Iran’s Arabian Sea coast. Click here to read more (external link).

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US wasted billions in failed Afghanistan stabilization program: Report

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sigarPress TV
May 24, 2018

A US government watchdog has found that the United States wasted billions of dollars, purportedly trying to stabilize fragile parts of Afghanistan over the past 17 years.

The assessment has been made by Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko who presented a report in Washington on Thursday.

“Despite some heroic efforts to stabilize insecure and contested areas in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2017, the program mostly failed,” Sopko said.

Sopko went on to say that Washington had set unrealistic expectations for itself and overestimated its ability to build government institutions.

“This happened for a number of reasons, including the establishment of a set of unrealistic expectations about what could be achieved in just a few years’ time.”

The report also found that the US military pressured aid groups to build infrastructure in areas that were still being contested by the Taliban, leading to the failure of many projects.

“Opportunities for corruption and elite capture abounded, making many of those projects far more harmful than helpful,” the report stated.

The SIGAR analysis noted that successes in stabilizing Afghan districts rarely lasted longer than the physical presence of coalition troops.

“Under immense pressure to quickly stabilize insecure districts, US government agencies spent far too much money, far too quickly, in a country woefully unprepared to absorb it,” SIGAR noted.

Thursday’s report finds that bad strategies and policies in Afghanistan have led to billions wasted, more than 2,200 US troops killed and a dysfunctional country left behind.

The damning report found that much of the $4.7 billion spent on programs to stabilize areas cleared of insurgents has been largely wasted.

The US government has also appropriated about $126 billion purportedly set aside for rebuilding the country, most of it to train and equip security forces.

The huge flows of money into the impoverished country had the opposite effect of what was intended, the report said. Instead of bolstering the local government, the gusher of cash flooded the country with money that could not be spent fast enough.

“The large sums of stabilization dollars the United States devoted to Afghanistan in search of quick gains often exacerbated conflicts, enabled corruption, and bolstered support for insurgents,” the document stated.

“By fueling corruption and the population’s disillusionment with its government, the coalition undermined the very government it sought to legitimize and drove support for the insurgency.”

The US and its allies invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror. The offensive removed the Taliban regime from power, but after 17 years insecurity still persists in the country despite the presence of thousands of foreign troops.

After becoming president in 2008, Barack Obama vowed to end the US war in Afghanistan but failed to keep his promise.

President Donald Trump, who had spoken against the Afghanistan war during his election campaign, has also unveiled a strategy which foresees US troops staying in the country for a long haul.

Pakistani Senate Looks Into Concerns of Hazara Minority

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pakistaniflagMadeeha Anwar
VOA News
May 24, 2018

More than 3,000 members of the Hazara minority have been killed in targeted killings and terror attacks in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province since 2001, leaders of the community told the country’s Senate Thursday.

The Senate’s Committee for Human Rights held a special session to hear the grievances of the Hazara community, which has experienced a surge in attacks in recent years.

“We have put our case in front of the committee with a hope that the government will take action against the unlawful killings of Hazaras,” Jalila Haider, a Hazara lawyer and human rights activist, told VOA. “Most of the Hazara community members were killed and targeted in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan. We have continued to face the brutality for over two decades now because we belong to a certain ethnic and minority group.”

Senator Muhammad Ali Khan Saif, a member of the human rights committee, told VOA that the Shiite community “has remained vulnerable for decades in Balochistan.”

“It is our responsibility to listen to their grievances. Based on their statements, we will compile our recommendations and send it to relevant authorities for further action,” he said.

The human rights committee will meet again in June to assess the situation.

Hazaras are largely based in and around Quetta, Balochistan’s capital. In the 19th century, the ancestors of Quetta’s Hazaras sought refuge in the area to escape persecution and poverty in central Afghanistan.

‘Constant fear’

Members of the Hazara community said they hoped the meeting with Pakistani lawmakers would help ease their plight.

“We are forced to live in a state of constant fear. We have restrictions on our movement due to security concerns. We hope the government will listen to our concerns,” Abdul Khaliq Hazara, an ethnic Hazara politician, told VOA.

“During the month of April this year, there were at least four separate incidents of killings against us in Balochistan. These people come out of nowhere and kill us for no reason. And there’s nothing the government or the security forces have done to stop this atrocity,” he added.

Government stance

The provincial government rejects allegations that it is not protecting the community. The government said it has taken adequate measures to prevent attacks.

“The government is committed to taking action against terrorism indiscriminately. Hazaras are our brothers, and it is our priority to ensure those who are involved in killings against the group will be arrested,” Mir Sarfaraz Bugti, Balochistan’s home minister, told VOA.

In early May, a large number of Hazaras went on a hunger strike in Quetta that lasted more than five days to pressure the government to take measures against racial profiling and targeted killings.

The protest was called off after Pakistan’s army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, met with community leaders to assure them that their concerns would be addressed.

“Those targeting the Hazara community will suffer twice as much, and the state and Pakistan army will provide security to the community,” Bajwa assured them.

Pakistan’s military later issued a statement saying security forces in Balochistan had killed a senior pro-Islamic State militant commander who was wanted for the killing of more than 100 Hazaras and policemen in the province.

Fleeing the country

Because of insecurity and continued attacks against the minority group, thousands of Hazaras have left Pakistan in recent years.

“Due to the continuous targeted killings against the community, around 90,000 families have relocated to Indonesia, Turkey and other countries,” Haider said. “In the name of security, we’re being forced to live in concentration camp-like conditions under the vigilance of security forces. This is not a life we want. We want to enjoy freedom.”

 

Pakistan Paves Way to Mainstreaming Restive Tribal Areas

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pakistanAyesha Tanzeem
VOA News
May 24, 2018

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s national assembly passed a historic constitutional amendment Thursday, paving the way to bringing the restive Federally Administered Tribal Areas, known as FATA, into the political mainstream, just a week before the end of its tenure. The bill will be taken up Friday in the Senate.

Until now, the area bordering Afghanistan was treated as a separate administrative unit with limited interference from the Pakistani government. It was loosely governed by local tribal law and British-era regulations. It also lagged behind the rest of the country in terms of infrastructure and basic facilities like schools and hospitals.

The region was home to various militant groups that had entrenched themselves over decades, starting with the Afghan war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

After U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan, many runaway members of al-Qaida, the Taliban and other militant groups were believed to have taken refuge in these tribal regions, using friendships and links they had developed during the “Soviet jihad” and subsequent Taliban rule.

“The tribal area was used as a special area to create Afghan resistance against the Soviet Union. … Then the militant groups recognized the loopholes in the law and based themselves here,” said political analyst Hassan Askari Rizvi.

Ever since the Taliban insurgency against the American and NATO presence in Afghanistan gained ground in the early 2000s, the United States and Afghanistan have repeatedly alleged that militants carrying out attacks in Afghanistan have havens in Pakistan, especially FATA.

Over the last 10 years, Pakistan’s military has carried out multiple operations in the area and claims it has eliminated the havens.

“Our assessment is that the regular safe havens are no more there. Still, these people come and go to Afghanistan,” Rizvi said. He said this was easy to do since the regular Taliban fighters, unlike the top leadership, were not easily identifiable. They could cross the border and live in the tribal area with a relative or in a refugee camp.

The militancy, and the military operations to clear it, created grievances among the local population, giving rise to a youth-driven movement for the rights of FATA called the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement.

A leader of the movement, Mohsin Dawar, said the merger on its own would not solve their grievances. The movement is calling for the formation of a truth and reconciliation commission to listen to the grievances of the local population and find a solution.

During his address to the assembly, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said the most urgent need of the area was to bring it to par with the rest of the country in terms of development. He called on the House to commit to provide FATA with almost $9 million a year for the next 10 years for development.

Efforts to change the status of the area had been ongoing for almost four years; however, the bill was delayed because of opposition from two of the government’s allies in the parliament. They wanted FATA to become an independent province with its own provincial government, chief minister and governor.

The current bill calls for the area to be merged into the neighboring Khyberpakhtunkhwa (KPK) province.

The transition period will last several years.


Ending polio in Afghanistan: Big plan, small details

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Child getting polio drops (file photo)

Child getting polio drops (file photo)

Global Polio Eradication Initiative: Every child needs to be vaccinated to protect them from poliovirus. To achieve this, detailed plans are prepared for vaccination teams. The aim is to find each child under 5 years of age – in Afghanistan, that is around 10 million altogether – and to reach them with vaccines. Click here to read more (external link).