Dostum
Ariana: Former first vice president, Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum said on Thursday that Taliban have accelerated their efforts to seize control of at least one province in the country. According to Dostum, Herat, Takhar, Jawzjan, Kandahar, and Helmand are the provinces of choice that the Taliban is hoping to have control over. Click here to read more (external link).
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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 5, 2021
The Afghan Air Force on August 5 resumed air strikes against Taliban positions in southern Afghanistan as militants made additional gains in the country’s north.
A Defense Ministry statement said air strikes were carried out across the country, including in the southern Helmand Province where government forces are battling for control of the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah.
Taliban commanders quoted by Reuters said on August 5 that the militants’ “priority” was to overrun airports in Kandahar and Herat but that soon other major cities could be targeted, too.
“The operations in Kandahar and Herat are very much important to us and our priority is to capture the two crucial airports or airbases in Kandahar and Herat,” the commander said.
Residents in Lashkar Gah reported heavy bombing near the government radio and television station, which is under Taliban control.
Nine of that city’s 10 districts have fallen into the militants’ hands.
Before launching the counterattack in Lashkar Gah on August 5, the army urged the city’s 200,000 residents to evacuate but it was unclear if routes out of the city were safe.
In northern Afghanistan, the Taliban took control of most of the provincial capital of Sar-e Pol, according to provincial council leader Mohammad Noor Rahmani.
Fierce fighting also has occurred around Herat, near the western border with Iran, and Kandahar in the south.
The Taliban have been conducting an all-out offensive since early May, when U.S.-led international forces stepped up a final withdrawal that is scheduled to be completed by the end of this month.
Afghan security forces have been increasingly using air strikes, raising concerns about civilian casualties across the country.
Three Taliban commanders who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity cited their goals of overtaking Herat, Kandahar, and Lashkar Gah and suggested their offensives were a response to the United States’ delaying withdrawal plans first agreed under then-President Donald Trump.
“Mullah Yaqoob argued that when U.S. didn’t fulfil their commitment why should Taliban be made to follow the accord?” the Kandahar-based commander said in a reference to the Taliban’s top military commander.
He suggested that more big cities could be targeted for siege and said Yaqoob’s arguments had outweighed the Taliban political office’s arguments.
“Mullah Yaqoob has decided to capture Kandahar and Herat and now Helmand and then it could be Kunduz, Khost or any other province.”
Taliban fighters have also carried out revenge killings and indiscriminate violence in areas they capture, and the group warned after several attacks in Kabul that it would also be targeting government officials in “retaliatory operations.”
The United Nations said on August 4 it had received reports of mounting civilian deaths and damage to critical infrastructure in Helmand and Kandahar.
“Hospitals and health workers are becoming overwhelmed by the number of wounded people,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told a press briefing.
“We can tell you that we are deeply concerned about the safety and protection of people in Lashkar Gah, in the south, where tens of thousands of people could be trapped by fighting,” Dujarric said.
The UN also urged donors to fund the Humanitarian Response Plan for Afghanistan, which Dujarric said had received less than half of the needed $1.3 billion to date.
“We, along with our humanitarian partners in Afghanistan, are assessing needs and responding in the south, as access allows,” he said.
The European Union on August 5 urged “an urgent, comprehensive and permanent cease-fire” and condemned Taliban militants’ attacks.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, and its commissioner for aid and crisis management, Janez Lenarcic, accused the Taliban of abandoning its stated commitment to seeking a negotiated peace.
While stepping up its offensive across Afghanistan, the Taliban also targeted institutions and officials in the capital in an attempt to disable the decision-making centers of the government.
On August 3 and 4, Taliban suicide bombers and armed attackers struck at the residence of acting Defense Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi and Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security building, killing at least eight people and wounding dozens.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid warned on August 4 of more attacks targeting top Afghan government officials.
He said that the attack on Mohammadi “is the beginning of the retaliatory operations against the circles and leaders of the Kabul administration who are ordering attacks and the bombing of different parts of the country.”
The Taliban said the Kabul raid was in response to stepped-up air strikes against the insurgents by Afghan and U.S. military forces.
Recently, hundreds of Afghan security troops fled into neighboring Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in the face of the Taliban offensive.
Even as it has stepped up its diplomatic efforts including through direct meetings with the Taliban, Russia has expressed concern about Taliban advances in connection with the U.S. and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan were expected to begin a major military exercise near Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan on August 5, with Moscow announcing it will deploy four Tu-22M3 supersonic strategic bombers during the drills.
More than 2,500 soldiers are set to take part in the joint exercise, in the Tajik region of Khatlon until August 10.
Up to 1,800 of the soldiers will be from Russia, which has its largest foreign base in the ex-Soviet republic of Tajikistan.
Moscow also recently announced an expansion of its Central Asian bases.
With reporting by AP, dpa, Reuters, and AFP
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Taliban militants (file photo)
Frud Bezhan
Mustafa Sarwar
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 5, 2021
Afghanistan’s thriving media scene has been hailed as one of the biggest achievements of the past 20 years, following the Taliban’s ban of independent media during its brutal former regime that was ousted in 2001.
But the resurgent Taliban is rapidly reversing those gains by stamping out the free press in the swaths of territory it has seized from government forces in recent months.
The militant group has forcibly shut down dozens of local radio stations, newspapers, and broadcasters in the scores of districts it has captured since the start of the U.S.-led foreign military withdrawal on May 1.
Other media outlets have closed in fear of Taliban reprisals, with many of their journalists fleeing their homes or going underground. The Taliban has been blamed for killing dozens of reporters and media workers in recent years.
The few outlets allowed to operate have been forced to broadcast Taliban propaganda. They have been banned from airing music or women’s voices. News reports have been replaced by Taliban-approved bulletins, recitations from the Koran, and Islamic sermons.
‘Forced To Work For The Taliban’
Nawbahar Balkh Radio, a commercial station based in Balkh, a district in the northern province of the same name, shut its doors last month when the Taliban seized control of the area.
Many of its 18 employees, including four women, fled or went underground. Only two technicians remained behind.
Within days, the station was broadcasting again. But this time the Taliban was in charge.
“Those who stayed were forced to work and broadcast for the Taliban,” said a former employee of the station who fled to the provincial capital, Mazar-e Sharif.
The ex-employee, who spoke to RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi on condition of anonymity, said the station has become a mouthpiece for the Taliban.
“The Taliban uses the radio station to spread propaganda against the government,” the former employee said. “It also broadcasts religious sermons. Music and entertainment shows are banned.”
In other areas it has captured, the Taliban has permitted radio stations to operate but have imposed restrictions on their content.
Sedaye Kokcha Radio, a private station in the Jurm district of the northern province of Badakhshan, was banned from broadcasting some of its shows. The insurgents also barred female employees from coming to work.
“We are currently broadcasting agricultural, health, and literary programs, but we are censoring music programs,” says Nasir Ahmad Akhgar, the director of the station. “Only men are working at the station now.”
Looted And Destroyed
For the past seven years, Radio Dehrawud broadcast news and current affairs programs as well as cultural and entertainment shows.
But when Taliban militants captured the Dehrawud district in the southern province of Uruzgan last month, the radio station fell silent.
“At first, the Taliban didn’t allow us to enter the radio station,” says Mohammad Omar Waziri, the director of Radio Dehrawud who had since fled the district. “Then the equipment at the station was looted. A few days later, the radio station was destroyed.”
The Taliban claimed the station was ransacked before the militant group captured the district. But Afghan media advocacy group NAI contradicted that claim, saying that the Taliban looted and destroyed the station after it captured the Dehrawud district.
Ehsanullah Wolesmal, the managing director of Shama, a private radio station in Tarin Kowt, the capital of Uruzgan, said media outlets feared a possible Taliban takeover of the city.
“Media outlets in Tarin Kowt will be destroyed with the Taliban’s arrival,” he said. “We urge the Taliban to understand that local and private radio stations are neutral and should not be treated in this way.”
In areas under its control, the Taliban has also banned smart phones and social media to prevent people from gaining access to independent information.
Some Afghans have said they were beaten by the Taliban for posting critical comments on Facebook. Members of civil society groups in Taliban areas have been intimidated and detained.
The Taliban has also killed dozens of journalists and targeted independent media outlets that report critically about them. At least 12 Afghan journalists and media workers have been murdered this year, with many of the killings blamed on the Taliban.
In May, the Taliban accused independent media outlets of “one-sided propaganda” and threatened journalists with “consequences.”
Dozens Of Media Outlets Shuttered
At least 35 media outlets have shut down since the Taliban launched its blistering military offensive on May 1, according to Afghanistan’s Information and Culture Ministry. It was not clear how many of the closures were self-imposed or forced by the Taliban.
Six other private media outlets have been seized and are now being run by the Taliban, the ministry said on August 3.
The NAI said its data showed that 51 media outlets have shut down since April: 44 radio stations, five television stations, one media center, and a news agency.
Most of the closures have occurred in provinces that have been the target of Taliban attacks, including the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand as well as the northern provinces of Badakhshan, Takhar, Baghlan, Samangan, Balkh, Sar-e Pul, Jawzjan, Faryab, and Badghis.
More than 1,000 journalists and media workers, including 150 women, have lost or left their jobs since April, according to the NAI.
Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 that led to the downfall of the Taliban’s five-year reign over the country, the media scene has flourished.
Afghanistan now has an estimated 170 radio stations, more than 100 newspapers, and dozens of TV stations.
Under the Taliban regime there was only state-owned radio, the Taliban’s Voice of Shari’a, which was dominated by calls to prayer and religious teachings.
Taliban Reimposes Repressive Laws
The Taliban’s crushing of press freedom comes as the extremist group has reimposed many of the repressive laws and retrograde policies that defined its extremist 1996-2001 rule.
When it controlled Afghanistan, the Taliban forced women to cover themselves from head to toe, banned them from working outside the home, severely limited girls’ education, and required women to be accompanied by a male relative if they left their homes.
Meanwhile, men were banned from trimming or shaving their beards. They were also forced to pray five times a day. Listening to music and watching television was also outlawed.
Many of those policies have returned in areas now under Taliban control, say residents. That is despite repeated claims by the Taliban that it has changed and that it would not bring back its notorious, restrictive strictures.
Based on reporting by RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi correspondents in Afghanistan. Their names are being withheld for their protection.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 5, 2021
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has issued a new warning on the failures of Afghanistan’s justice system to adequately protect women and said gains by Taliban militants currently waging an all-out push for territory “further risk crucial legal protections.”
In a 32-page report on the implementation of a law to eliminate violence against women, the watchdog cites a government “failure to provide accountability for violence against women and girls.”
The fresh warning follows months of territorial gains in dozens of districts across Afghanistan by hard-line fundamentalist Taliban fighters as U.S.-led international forces speed their pullout to make a deadline at the end of this month.
The Taliban has also besieged major Afghan cities amid reports of revenge attacks against perceived opponents, including a 21-year-old Afghan woman who was shot dead as she left her home for allegedly wearing too little clothing and going out without a male chaperone.
Afghanistan’s Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW) law was originally passed by presidential decree in 2009 amid resistance from conservative opponents and provides protection for women against violence as well as forced marriages, underage marriages, and polygamous relationships.
It was regarded as a significant achievement by the government, women’s rights activists, and the country’s nascent civil society.
But HRW said in a statement on the new report that “limited enforcement of the landmark…EVAW law has left many women and girls with no path to key protections and justice.”
“With the Taliban making sweeping territorial gains, the prospect of a Taliban-dominated government also threatens constitutional and international law protections for Afghan women’s fundamental rights,” the group said.
HRW Asia Associate Director Patricia Gossman urged international donors to “strengthen their commitment to protect women caught between government inaction and expanding Taliban control.”
“The international community must step up its efforts to protect the achievements and rights of women facing precarious conditions,” Gossman told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.
Afghans living in areas recently captured by the Taliban say the militant group has reimposed many of the repressive laws and retrograde policies that defined its 1996-2001 rule.
They include forcing women to cover themselves from head to toe, banning them from working outside the home, severely limiting girls’ education, and requiring women to be accompanied by a male relative when they left their homes.
“The main concern of Afghan women is that their rights are protected,” Hila Mojtaba, a women’s rights activist, told RFE/RL. “We want freedom within the law and our demands must be respected.”
Meanwhile, Roya Dadras, a spokeswoman for the Women’s Affairs Ministry, said the government was committed to protecting women’s rights and gains.
“We acknowledge that there are problems because of the war situation,” she said. “But I can say that the government has protected women’s rights.”
The report is based on more than 60 interviews with women and girls who reported crimes, as well as participants in the justice system and advocacy groups.
HRW said “full implementation of the law remains elusive, with police, prosecutors, and judges often deterring women from filing complaints and pressing them to seek mediation within their family instead.”
It also cites family pressure, financial constraints, stigmatization, and fear of reprisal as factors that discourage the registering of cases.
Ariana: Abdullah Atefi, a poet and historian from Uruzgan province, was killed Wednesday night, allegedly by the Taliban. According to Mohammad Omar Shirzad, governor of Uruzgan, Atefi was dragged out of his house in Chora district before being killed. Click here to read more (external link).
Nafees Takar
VOA News
August 5, 2021
When thousands gathered in a former Taliban stronghold in Pakistan’s South Waziristan region to denounce the militants’ actions in Afghanistan, the mass rally attracted little attention among Pakistani news networks.
Journalists and rights associations say the lack of coverage of last month’s rally is a result of a long-running government campaign to deprive the organizing group of attention, and a sign of the government pressures Pakistani media endure.
The group behind the rally — a broad-based civil rights movement known as Pashtun Tahafuz (protection) Movement (PTM) — is popular among young ethnic Pashtuns in Pakistan’s northwest, where for years people have borne the brunt of the Taliban’s battle with the Pakistani military.
The group’s leaders are highly critical of the Taliban as well as the military’s leadership, saying their communities have suffered from state-sponsored terrorism because of Islamabad’s longtime ties to the Taliban.
Pakistan’s military rejects such allegations and points to thousands of its soldiers who have died fighting the militants over the last decade.
Several senior Pakistani officials have accused PTM of being a foreign-funded political movement with connections to Afghan and Indian intelligence services. And a PTM leader is currently in prison on conspiracy charges. But the group, which calls itself a non-violent movement, denies accusations it receives foreign funding.
Grass-roots opposition to the Taliban
PTM leader Manzoor Pashteen said that Pashtuns would not support the war on their land, apparently referring to the Pashtun regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan which straddle their shared border.
“War can’t resolve the Afghan issue. Only a democratic approach and respect to peoples’ vote can resolve the Afghan issue,” Manzoor Pashteen told last month’s rally near the Afghan border at Makeen, a major town in the South Waziristan.
But outside of social media and a few local journalists who post content on YouTube, no mention of PTM’s pro-peace narrative was made in Pakistan’s bigger news outlets.
The gap in coverage was noticed by some politicians and activists on social media. Farhatullah Babar, a retired senator and former spokesperson for Pakistan’s president, wrote, “Those who say there is no censorship and media in Pakistan is freer than UK’s should watch videos of PTM Jalsa in Makeen South Waziristan today. Then search for a line about it in mainstream media.”
A former head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Afrasiab Khattak, also expressed his frustration, tweeting: “A demonstration of solidarity with Afghan people/peace/republic. No coverage in Pak media.
Despite the major media blackout, the PTM group gets its message out through social media and YouTube, keeping it a potent political force that is now more directly opposing the Taliban’s violence in Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s government has announced no official policy censoring PTM, but Freedom House and other media monitors reported that many outlets stopped reporting on the group in April 2019, when a Pakistani military spokesperson announced that PTM’s grievances would no longer be tolerated and accused the group of receiving funds from Afghan and Indian intelligence agencies.
In its 2021 report, Freedom House criticized Pakistan, saying “the state continued to enforce a media blackout on the PTM and its members during the year.”
Two Pakistani journalists who spoke with VOA said reporters try to cover events and PTM rallies in their region but doing so comes with risks.
Allah Khan, a journalist in Wanna, South Waziristan, streams PTM events, political demonstrations and human interest stories on his Zhagh News (Voice News) YouTube and Facebook accounts.
“We journalists send stories on PTM to mainstream news outlets but they don’t publish it,” he told VOA. “I was arrested and put in jail for 12 days for streaming the PTM protest before this last Ramadan [April 2021].”
Matiullah Jan, an Islamabad-based journalist and Vlogger, told VOA, “You can see here that Taliban and their spokesmen are interviewed here in the media but when you talk of PTM, even the social media platforms are under pressure (for covering it).”
Jan said that in areas like Waziristan, people can stream events but they “face threats and pressures from local authorities and police.”
He added, “It explains the contradiction in state policy—people who want peace here and in Afghanistan, they are not given coverage in media.”
Shahzada Zulfiqar, the head of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, told VOA Deewa that media in Pakistan face many restrictions.
“Media houses surrendered (to pressures). PEMRA, a government media regulatory body, is being used as a tool to put lock to people’s mouths,” he said, adding that the country has a poor ranking on press freedom watch lists.
Pakistan ranks 145 out of 180 countries, where 1 is the freest, on the press freedom index compiled by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
In its 2021 report, RSF says the Pakistani media have become a priority target for the country’s “deep state,” a reference to the military and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Dangerous territory
North and South Waziristan border Afghanistan’s Khost and Paktika provinces, which after the September 2001 terror attacks on the U.S. became an international terrorism hub. After 20 years of war and drone strikes, international fighters still operate in the mountainous region.
Reporting in the area remains an enormous challenge. Journalists who are not residents of Waziristan are officially not allowed to enter Waziristan unless they are embedded with Pakistani security agencies. To reach the main town of Makeen in South Waziristan from Dabara, a town some 70 kilometers away, locals must pass through about a dozen army check posts.
The venue for last month’s rally was once a no-go area for residents themselves. The Taliban and their allies had converted schools and cement-block buildings into bases for their operations.
After a long campaign by Pakistan’s military, the area now is under its control. But the PTM has accused it of gross human rights violations — allegations the army rejects.
VOA’s Pashto-language Deewa service reporters Adnan Khan and Pir Z Shah also contributed to this report.
Tolo News: The Afghan Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) on Thursday said that cases of the COVID-19 variant are declining in Afghanistan, stating that the public still needs to respect all health guidelines to prevent the recirculation of the virus. Officials at the Afghan-Japan hospital said that fatalities from the virus have also significantly dropped. Click here to read more (external link).
The Guardian (UK): It was a journey that had taken weeks, and there were times when the 65-year-old Afghan widow, who walks with the aid of a stick, had to be carried by her son. Their trek, across 15 canyons she says, left Durdana with badly scarred feet. “I have not had a day of peace in over 40 years. I had to come to Turkey, there was no choice.” Click here to read more (external link).
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RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
August 4, 2021
Police in Afghanistan’s northern province of Balkh say the Taliban killed a young woman for wearing tight clothing and not being accompanied by a male relative.
Balkh police chief Zialuhaq Toofan told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi on August 3 that the young woman was shot dead by Taliban extremists in the village of Samar Qandian, which is controlled by the militant group.
Adil Shah Adil, a police spokesman in Balkh, told Radio Azadi on August 4 that the victim was named Nazanin and that she was 21-years-old.
Adil said the woman was attacked after she left her house and was about to board a vehicle to travel to Balkh’s capital Mazar-e Sharif.
The woman was wearing a burqa, a veil that covers the face and body, at the time of the attack, the police said.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid denied the accusations and said that the group is investigating the attack.
During its 1996-2001 rule, the Taliban denied girls the right to go to school, and women were not allowed to work outside the home. Women had to wear a burqa and be escorted by a male relative when going outside.
Afghans living under Taliban control have told Radio Azadi that the extremist group imposes some of its repressive laws, including banning women from working outside the home.
This story is based on reporting by RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi correspondents on the ground in Afghanistan. Their names are being withheld for their protection.