‘Buried’ Dreams: Afghan Runner Challenges Taliban Claim That Uniforms Violate Islamic Norms

·

By Farangis Najibullah
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
September 16, 2021

A championship runner in Kabul says the uniforms she and other Afghan sportswomen wore in domestic and international competitions fully covered their bodies and didn’t violate the Islamic hijab norms as the Taliban claims.

The 24-year-old professional athlete, whose name is being withheld for her protection, was responding to a senior Taliban official saying this week that Afghan women won’t be allowed to play “the kind of sports where they get exposed” now that the hard-line Islamist group controls most of the country.

“During both trainings and competitions, we wore head scarves, long-sleeved tops, and long sweatpants, and over the pants we wore a skirt,” said the runner.

She insists she and her teammates always made sure their bodies weren’t exposed during either trainings or competitions.

“I’ve never removed my head scarf in any competition, anywhere in the world, and the foreign event organizers never objected. They respected it as our choice,” she told RFE/RL.

The Taliban government that was announced earlier this month hasn’t publicly stated its policy on the future of women’s sports.

On September 14, Bashir Ahmad Rustamzai, the country’s new director general for sports, said senior Taliban leaders were still deciding on the matter.

But a deputy head of the Taliban’s cultural commission, Ahmadullah Wasiq, recently said Afghan women might not be allowed to play sports because their bodies would show during competitions.

“In cricket and other sports, women will not get an Islamic dress code. It is obvious that they will get exposed and will not follow the dress code, and Islam does not allow that,” Wasiq said.

The comment bespeaks the Taliban’s ultraconservative interpretation of Islamic standards of modesty as imposed on women in public or in the presence of men outside the immediate family.

The Kabuli runner, who took up athletics after her father took her to a sports center at the age of 10, says she has “buried” her dreams and has no hope of being allowed to return to sports ever again.

“What I see ahead is darkness,” she told RFE/RL on September 15, one month after the UN-backed government’s leadership fled as foreign troops withdrew and Taliban fighters marched into the capital. “I’m scared for my safety and the safety of my family. I don’t want to put them in danger by trying to continue my career.”

But Wasiq’s comment also adds to concerns over the Taliban’s general stance on women’s rights and freedoms in Afghanistan, most of which were sharply curbed during the group’s harsh reign in 1996-2001.

“The Taliban are preventing working women from returning to their regular office jobs, so I don’t think they would allow women taking part in competitions in stadiums in front of crowds,” the runner said.

Despite a lack of modern sports facilities at her club, and disapproving glances from conservative neighbors, the runner said she was happy doing what she and her family liked.

But she hasn’t left her home since the Taliban swept back into power on August 15, two weeks before the last of the U.S.-led evacuation flights took off from Kabul’s international airport.

She also worked as a coach, an occupation she had been planning on for her future once she retired from competition.

In her career, she won multiple gold, silver, and bronze medals in domestic competitions. She has also represented Afghanistan in competitions in Iran, Kazakhstan, and other countries.

She and her teammates returned to Kabul from a trip abroad just days before the Western-backed government collapsed and the Taliban entered Kabul.

Asked if she had received any specific threats from the Taliban, the young woman said she feels there is a climate of fear in general for all career women in Afghanistan under the Taliban.

“My photos with my name are hanging there in the Sports and Olympic Committee, where new Taliban officials are sitting right now,” the woman said. “I fear they’ll come after me.”

Dozens of professional Afghan athletes have left the country since the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul. This week, a group of girls who played for Afghanistan’s junior national soccer team crossed the border into Pakistan along with their coaches and family members.

The young athletes had reportedly sent a letter to Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, asking him for permission to enter the country. The players claimed that they were under “grave threat” from the Taliban.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s Cricket Board organized a domestic competition among men’s teams in early September before a packed crowd at Kabul’s cricket stadium — marking the first-ever sports event under Taliban rule.

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.

Afghanistan envoys marooned abroad after Taliban’s sudden return

·

Al Jazeera: The Taliban’s abrupt return to power has left hundreds of Afghan diplomats overseas in limbo: running out of money to keep missions operating, fearful for families back home and desperate to secure refuge abroad. “I am literally begging. Diplomats are willing to become refugees,”… Click here to read more (external link).

EU Criticized Over Lack Of Support For Afghan Refugees

·

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
September 16, 2021

Human rights and refugee groups are urging to the European Union to step up its protection for Afghans trying to flee their country following the Taliban’s takeover last month.

“The EU should be sharing, rather than shirking, the responsibility to offer them protection,” Amnesty International, Caritas Europa, and 22 other organizations said in a joint statement on September 16.

The groups called on the 27 EU member states to “expand safe pathways for people in need of protection, including through an ambitious and additional resettlement programme for Afghan refugees.”

There was no immediate reaction from the EU, whose asylum agency EASO reported on September 16 that applications by Afghans increased for the fifth consecutive month to 7,300 in July — before the Western-backed government in Kabul fell.

Nearly 1,200 were unaccompanied minors from Afghanistan, according to EASO.

More than half of applications by Afghans were rejected in June.

Tens of thousands of Afghans fled the country after the Taliban toppled the Western-backed government in Kabul a month ago.

Thousands more people want to leave the war-torn and drought-stricken country.

In Europe, some governments have raised alarms over a possible repeat of events in 2015, when well over 1 million people poured into the continent from Syria as well as other conflict zones and hardship countries.

“We regret the misleading and alarmist rhetoric expressed by some European leaders in the past weeks,” the groups said in their statement.

They said such talk “may raise barriers to refugees’ integration and inclusion in European societies” and could stoke “fears about a non-existent crisis at Europe’s borders.”

“Iran and Pakistan currently host nearly 90% of displaced Afghans – over two million registered refugees in total – and should not have to bear this responsibility alone,” according to the statement.

With reporting by AP

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.

What’s Next for the US in Afghanistan?

·

Blinken

Patsy Widakuswara
VOA News
September 15, 2021

WHITE HOUSE — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered to Congress this week an unwavering defense of the Biden administration’s exit from Afghanistan, in which he outlined the administration’s priorities for the country going forward.

Here are those priorities and the challenges in meeting them.

Assisting Americans and at-risk Afghans

Blinken said the administration was continuing “relentless efforts” to help the fewer than 100 remaining Americans as well as potentially thousands of at-risk Afghans to leave the country if they choose.

Citing the “ongoing terrorist threat to operations of this nature,” the State Department declined to provide an official count of Afghans attempting to flee.

A VOA source with knowledge of the evacuation process says that as of Sunday, at least 1,300 at-risk Afghans and U.S.-affiliated individuals are seeking to leave through the Kabul airport or overland transport. Approximately 8,200 are trying to depart from the Mazar-e-Sharif airport, where charter planes have waited for weeks to be cleared for departure.

“The United States has pulled every lever available to us to facilitate the departure of these charter flights from Mazar,” a State Department spokesman said.

But those assisting evacuations are losing patience and accuse the administration of offering “empty promises.”

“As the days go by and the situation becomes more dire for our 704 passengers, it’s hard to have any faith in political promises,” independent humanitarian Hazami Barmada told VOA. In recent weeks, she has been assisting the evacuation of a group that includes nine American citizens, nine lawful permanent residents of the U.S., and 170 Special Immigrant Visa holders and their families. As of Wednesday, the group is still stranded in Mazar-e-Sharif.

Engaging diplomatically with Taliban

The U.S. and other Western nations have moved diplomatic operations from Kabul to Doha, Qatar. Blinken said the U.S. was prepared to engage with the Taliban from the Qatari capital in coordination with allies and partners “on the basis of whether or not it advances our interests.”

With military intervention no longer a point of leverage for the foreseeable future, the challenge is “how to be diplomatic with a terrorist group,” said Brian O’Toole, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Paired with the right leverage, diplomacy may be effective, O’Toole said. This includes the previous Afghan government’s $9.5 billion in assets currently frozen in American banks, U.S. dominance over the global financial market, and threats of United Nations and Western sanctions or trade restrictions. Incentives could include offers of international aid, budgetary assistance and recognition of the Taliban government.

Blinken said the U.S. has organized key countries to leverage their combined influence over the Taliban. Last week, he led a ministerial meeting of 22 countries plus NATO, the EU, and the United Nations to align these efforts.

The effectiveness of the soft power approach also depends on whether the Taliban will continue to behave as an extremist group or move toward governing Afghanistan as part of the international community in some form.

At this point, the signals are mixed, said Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Despite their pledges to build an inclusive government, members of the all-male interim cabinet are Taliban old guard who may care more about maintaining the internal cohesion of the group than about placating the West. On the positive side, the Taliban have been largely cooperative in the U.S.-led evacuation of 124,000 people out of Afghanistan.

So far, the Taliban are calculating that it’s in their best interest to help Washington, O’Hanlon said. “They really don’t want to be in a military fight with the United States, even if they won the previous fight.”

Over-the-horizon capability

A key priority of the administration is ensuring that Afghanistan does not become a breeding ground for terrorists plotting attacks on the homeland. U.S. intelligence, however, can no longer closely monitor terror groups such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State-Khorasan province.

“There’s just no question, as you pull out, without troops on the ground, without the infrastructure we had, without the Afghan government in the position that it was, our intelligence collection is diminished,” Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told attendees at a national security summit Monday.

Now the administration is relying on its “over-the-horizon” capacity — its ability to detect and destroy terrorist threats through aerial surveillance and drones launched from outside of country. The same approach has been employed in places around the world where the U.S. does not have military forces on the ground, Blinken said.

But in those countries, the U.S. has at least some intelligence and logistical support, either from a military base or a partner country nearby.

“In Somalia, we’re nearby in Kenya. In Syria, we’re nearby in Iraq or Turkey. In Yemen, we have access to the water right around Yemen and, if necessary, facilities on the Arabian Peninsula as well,” O’Hanlon said. “But here in Afghanistan, the landlocked Hindu Kush, we don’t really have any easy, close by waterway. And we don’t have any countries that are particularly interested in helping us monitor the Taliban.”

There are no American bases in any of the six countries that border Afghanistan. The closest base is more than 1,600 kilometers away, in the United Arab Emirates, and it was used to launch drone strikes against IS-Khorasan during the chaotic last days of evacuations before the August 31 withdrawal.

The best option for Washington is to engage with Pakistan, said James Jeffrey, former special envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS and current chair of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center.

“We have been at odds with Pakistan because of their support of the Taliban,” Jeffrey said. “But now that de facto the Taliban is no longer an enemy, I see no reason why we can’t, as part of our overall approach, force the Pakistanis to allow us to strike ISIS and al-Qaida from their territory.”

How much support Washington can wrangle out of Islamabad remains to be seen. “There is no way we are going to allow any bases, any sort of action from Pakistani territory into Afghanistan,” Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said in June.

Earlier this month, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director Willam Burns flew to Pakistan and India to discuss with counterparts the security concerns following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

Support humanitarian aid to Afghan people

On Monday, the administration announced it would send nearly $64 million in new humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, for a total of $330 million in assistance to the Afghan people this fiscal year. Blinken said the aid would flow through independent organizations such as nongovernmental organizations and U.N. agencies and not through the Taliban government.

“That may work for $64 million in aid, because you can air-drop things and the Taliban has no air presence,” said O’Toole. But it will be challenging to distribute larger aid packages without the blessing of those in power.

“You’re talking about having real supply convoys and land routes,” O’Toole added. “It may be hard to avoid the Taliban.”

Moving on from Afghanistan

While Afghanistan has been the first major foreign policy crisis for the administration, the focus will continue to be on Biden’s domestic priorities, said Aaron David Miller, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Within that context, Afghanistan is an issue that they would like to put in the rearview mirror,” Miller said.

Polls show Americans are more focused on issues such as the pandemic and the recent Biden vaccine mandate, the push to renew the nation’s infrastructure, and the upcoming fight on the debt ceiling.

“There are just so many issues out there that I wouldn’t be surprised if Afghanistan receded to some degree,” said Karlyn Bowman, a distinguished senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who focuses on American public opinion.

“But clearly as we move ahead toward the 2022 elections, Republicans will remind Americans what happened in Afghanistan,” Bowman added.

Biden’s approval rating has dropped to a new low of 43% with Americans disapproving of his handling of foreign policy (56%) and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan (61%), according to a September 2 NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll.

Still, a majority of Americans said they support the decision to withdraw in recent polls from the Pew Research Center and ABC News/Washington Post.

VOA’s Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.

Related

U.S. Senators Move to Designate Taliban as Foreign Terrorist Entity

·

US Senator Rubio

Michael Hughes
AOPNEWS
September 15, 2021

A group of American senators, led by intelligence panel vice chair Marco Rubio, introduced legislation on Wednesday directing the U.S. Secretary of State to designate the Taliban movement as a state sponsor of terrorism as well as an illegitimate regime.

The move comes as the U.S. and international community are hesitant to recognize the new Taliban government, which seized power last month, a pseudo-state actor that still has close ties to groups like al-Qaeda and Pakistani outfits active in Kashmir.

The Taliban have been pressed to implement an inclusive government and protect human rights, but reports have surfaced of violations including suppression of women. The U.S. and its allies have dangled promises of UN sanctions removal and donor funding, but the Taliban have apparently not changed their ways. 

The United States currently only has certain individuals within the group designated, but the State Department has never formally added the Taliban, as an entity, to the department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list.

“There is no doubt that a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan poses a direct threat to our national security interests and that of our allies and partners both in the Middle East and in Central Asia,” Rubio said in a statement accompanying the 14-page legislation.

Rubio said that following the Biden Administration’s disastrous military withdrawal, Afghanistan is already becoming a “safe haven for terrorists who hate America.”

“Unfortunately, there is no reason to think President Biden will treat the Taliban like the terrorists they are,” Rubio added. “Congress must take action to deal with this new reality and keep Americans safe.”

Earlier this week, Rubio confronted Secretary of State Antony Blinken during congressional hearings over the Taliban’s ties with al-Qaeda. The top American diplomat confirmed that the Taliban’s links to the terrorist group – responsible for September 11 – have not been severed.

In the same statement Senator Tommy Tuberville said that Americans are disgusted with the way the Biden administration handled the exit from Afghanistan, which he claimed “emboldened” the Taliban.

“The weakness of this administration has been showcased, so now it is imperative that Congress takes action to ensure that the U.S does not legitimize the Taliban and treats them as what they are – a  radical terrorist organization,” Tuberville said.

The senator added that America has been secure against terror attacks for 20 years due to the presence of U.S. troops, “but now the Taliban are equipped with taxpayer-funded weapons and equipment that they will only use to further their malicious agenda.”

The proposal, entitled the “Preventing the Recognition of Terrorist States Act of 2021,” calls for viewing the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan as a “coup d’etat and therefore illegitimate.” If passed, the bill will require the United States to continue recognizing the “democratically elected government of the Islamic Republic.”

The document notes that the United States recognizes individuals already designated as terrorists by the United States, such as Sirajuddin Haqqani, will play a key role in the Taliban regime.

In addition to terrorist designations, the senators want to significantly restrict any funding or foreign assistance to Afghanistan unless U.S. development agencies can ensure the money does not flow through terrorist hands in the regime.

“No Federal department or agency may take any action or extend any assistance that states or implies recognition of the Taliban’s claim of sovereignty over Afghanistan,” text of the legislation says.

The financial sanctions would also include typical bans and restrictions on extending commercial licenses, loans, and Export-Import Bank assistance.

The bill would also impose sanctions against any foreign individuals who knowingly provide material support to the Taliban.

And, according to the proposal, the State Department will prepare a report that determines if the Taliban should be designated “as a significant foreign narcotics trafficker under the Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act.”

No later than 120 days of enactment, according to the bill document, the administration must submit to Congress a report describing Pakistani government actions to provide safe haven to terrorist organizations.

With respect to other foreign powers, the bill – if passed – would require the State Department to submit regular reports on the Taliban’s relations with Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and China along with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. 

The senators want to understand the likelihood that these countries will seek to invest in Afghanistan’s natural resources and the impact such investments might have on the national security of the United States.

The legislation also proposes assessing whether the importation of rare earth metals extracted in Afghanistan and goods produced from such metals violates forced labor bans.

Biden has come under fire for delaying the Trump administration’s withdrawal plan by four months and leaving Americans and Afghan supporters stranded at the Kabul airport which left them as sitting ducks for an ISIS attack.

However, former President Donald Trump has shown no reason for thinking he would handle the situation any better after proclaiming that civil war general Robert E. Lee could have defeated the Taliban while insinuating that he would flatten Afghanistan.


One Month In Power: Taliban Failing To Transform From Insurgency To Functional Government

·

Taliban fighters (file photo)

By Ron Synovitz
Abubakar Siddique
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
September 15, 2021

It has been just a month since Taliban militants seized control of Kabul and declared Afghanistan as an “Islamic emirate” that will uphold the militant movement’s interpretation of “Islamic rules and Shari’a law.”

But already, the new Taliban regime is struggling to deal with a series of political, social, and economic crises that are testing its ability to transform from a guerrilla insurgency into a functional government.

By many accounts, the Taliban is failing the test.

Masato Toriya, a specialist on the region from Tokyo University, says the Taliban-led government’s complete lack of management experience is exacerbating an already dire economy situation — causing living conditions across Afghanistan to deteriorate further.

Compounded by internal rifts that are emerging between rival factions of the Taliban leadership, Toriya says the threat of a civil war reigniting in Afghanistan is now serious. “One cannot deny the prospect of Afghanistan’s new slide into civil war,” Toriya said.

Indeed, independent analysts say the possibility appears greater than ever that the unity of the Taliban insurgency could splinter into regional Taliban fiefdoms now that the task is to actually govern — with the Haqqani network in the east and a Kandahar-based faction of Taliban co-founders in the western half of the country.

“Conquering a country is always the easy part. Ruling it, in Afghanistan’s case, is the difficult bit,” historian William Dalrymple, an expert on Pashtun tribal rivalries, told RFE/RL. “That’s when the tensions and the fault lines become apparent.”

While the dynamics of those internal Taliban rivalries continue to play out, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that Afghanistan now faces a “humanitarian catastrophe” and a complete collapse of basic services.

Some $9 billion in foreign reserves of Afghanistan’s central bank, Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB), has been frozen — most of it held in the United States.

Foreign donors have suspended aid to Afghanistan, saying disbursements are contingent on the behavior of the Taliban-led government, which has not been recognized by any country.

That has left ordinary Afghans reeling from rocketing inflation, rising poverty, cash shortages, a plummeting currency, and rising unemployment.

Ajmal Ahmady, the former DAB governor who fled Kabul after the Taliban takeover, told RFE/RL that he expects all of those dire economic indicators to “worsen.”

Meanwhile, despite Taliban claims that the movement is more moderate than it was when it ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, it quickly reintroduced restrictions on women’s rights.

That includes tightened rules on women’s education and outright bans on the right of women to work.

By forcing women in Kabul and many other parts of the country to leave their jobs and stay at home, economic experts say the new Taliban regime is only further damaging the already struggling economy.

The Taliban’s promises of restraint in its dealings with its adversaries also look like empty words.

In several cities that have fallen under Taliban control in recent months, Human Rights Watch has documented grave human rights violations.

Taliban gunmen also have responded violently against those who have dared to protest against their rule — with reports of demonstrators and their leaders being shot dead on the streets or at their homes.

In fact, Human Rights Watch says there has been a pattern of summary executions of former security personnel, former members of the government and their relatives, and civilians in revenge killings.

Meanwhile, instead of focusing on reviving the government institutions that collapsed as U.S.-led foreign military forces were completing their withdrawal from Afghanistan in August, the new Taliban regime has found it difficult to provide even the most basic services.

The Taliban leadership has outlawed peaceful demonstrations by those who oppose their rule. That ban also prohibits journalists from covering protest marches.

Some journalists detained for doing so have been severely beaten in the custody of Taliban authorities.

Amid tightened restrictions on media, many journalists have either stopped working or have simply fled the country. Media rights groups say independent journalism is now at risk of disappearing from Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

Afghanistan also is facing a mass exodus of people. Tens of thousands of Afghans who fear Taliban reprisals for their work in government or with foreign organizations during the past 20 years have already fled Kabul.

Many more have been left behind, and some have been selling off their possessions on roadsides across the country.

For some, it is about survival and getting enough money to feed their families. But others are using the money to try to flee from Afghanistan into neighboring Iran and Pakistan.

“Many people are selling off whatever valuables they have,” one Kabul shopkeeper told RFE/RL. “People are desperate. There are no jobs and no money. People don’t have any other choice.”

Perhaps the most significant development during the past month are the reports of rifts within the Taliban leadership that have emerged since it announced its version of a “caretaker government” last week.

The dispute surfaced after Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban co-founder who headed the group’s Doha political office, disappeared from public view for several days after he’d been named as deputy prime minister in the Taliban cabinet.

Some Taliban sources say Baradar was involved in a brawl at the Presidential Palace in Kabul with Khalil ur-Rahman Haqqani — a prominent figure in the militant Haqqani network who was named the Taliban’s minister for refugees.

Those reports have highlighted the divisions between the Kandahar-based faction in the Taliban leadership council, the Quetta Shura, and the Haqqani network that controls areas further to the east.

By announcing a cabinet made up exclusively of the movement’s hard-line old guard, the Taliban risked demonstrating that critics were right not to believe Taliban promises of “an all-inclusive government” that would represent Afghanistan’s diverse ethnic and religious communities.

Thirty of the 33 cabinet members are Pashtuns. There are two ethnic Tajik ministers and only one ethnic Uzbek. There are no women, Shi’a, Hazara, Baluch, Turkmen, or members of Afghanistan’s non-Muslim minorities.

“The Taliban’s new government tells us that they only consider themselves entitled to run an Islamic government,” Kabul researcher Ali Adili told RFE/RL. “This is an ethnically homogeneous, ‘mullahcratic’ government.”

One key indicator about the future for women in Afghanistan is that the Taliban has abolished the Department of Women’s Affairs that had been part of the deposed Kabul government.

Kabul residents tell RFE/RL that many Afghan women are now pessimistic about their economic and social situations, as well as their safety and their futures.

Written and reported by Ron Synovitz in Prague with reporting by RFE/RL’s Gandhara website editor Abubakar Siddique and Radio Azadi correspondents in Afghanistan whose names are being withheld for security reasons

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.