Ghani at Int’l Summit Blasts Pakistan for ‘Supporting’ Taliban

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Ashraf Ghani

Tolo News: President Ashraf Ghani at an international summit in Uzbekistan on Friday criticized Pakistan for what he called support to the Taliban, calling on the neighboring country to use its influence and leverage for peace and cessation of hostilities in Afghanistan. “Intelligence estimates indicate the influx of over 10,000 jihadi fighters from Pakistan and other places in the last month, as well as, support from their affiliates and the transnational terrorist organizations,” President Ghani said at the summit named “Central and South Asia: Regional Connectivity, Challenges and Opportunities.” Click here to read more (external link).

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‘Everything Is A Challenge:’ UN Official Appeals For $850 Million For Afghanistan

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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
July 16, 2021

The UN humanitarian chief in Afghanistan has appealed for $850 million to help the war-torn country cope with the impact of the Taliban offensive and a litany of other crises.

Ramiz Alakbarov said on July 15 that some 18 million Afghans are in need and the UN plans to provide help for at least 15.7 million of them.

Afghanistan has a population of some 38 million people.

He said the UN’s current appeal for Afghanistan was only 37 percent funded at $450 million and that the United States was the largest donor. He said the $850 million being sought was desperately needed.

Speaking to reporters at the UN in New York after a virtual briefing from Kabul, Alakbarov said that, beyond the need for money to recover from the Taliban offensive, Afghanistan needs funding to fight malnutrition, a severe drought, and the return of 627,000 Afghans this year, most of them deported from neighboring Iran.

Alakbarov said that in the current situation “everything is a challenge” and “COVID-19 hasn’t made it easier,” with deaths from the coronavirus doubling in the last 2 1/2 months.

Alakbarov said the second drought in three years and the Taliban’s offensive have led 270,000 people to flee their homes toward urban areas and regional centers, where they need food, water, shelter, and sanitation.

The UN is also seeing intensive movements of people in areas where the Iranian and Pakistan borders are largely closed as Afghans try to leave the country using paths away from official crossings, he said.

Alakbarov expressed hope that Afghanistan’s neighbors will view the situation in terms of human rights and their responsibility to protect people from suffering and allow Afghan refugees into their countries.

With reporting by AP and Tolo News

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.

Kyrgyzstan Appeals For Help For Ethnic Kyrgyz Who Fled Afghanistan

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By RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service
July 16,2021

BISHKEK — The Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry has appealed to authorities in neighboring Tajikistan to facilitate the passage to their common border of hundreds of ethnic Kyrgyz who fled Afghanistan amid a major Taliban surge that is raising security concerns in neighboring former Soviet republics.

The ministry also said on July 15 that it had turned to the United Nations for assistance in bringing to Kyrgyzstan ethnic Kyrgyz who entered Tajikistan from Afghanistan — many with livestock — on July 13-14.

According to the ministry, 91 Kyrgyz men, 77 women, and 177 children from the village of Andemin in Afghanistan’s Vakhon district in the Badakhshan region are currently in Tajikistan and require assistance to reach Kyrgyzstan.

While fleeing Afghanistan, the ministry said, two Kyrgyz children had died of unknown causes.

Semi-nomadic Kyrgyz have lived on the Afghan side of the Pamir Mountains since the 16th century. The number of ethnic Kyrgyz living in Afghanistan is believed to be just over 1,000.

In recent days, hundreds of Afghans, including soldiers and local police, have reportedly fled into neighboring Central Asia countries.

U.S. President Joe Biden has pledged that the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan will be completed by early September. With that deadline nearing, the Taliban have unleashed an offensive and now control about one-third of the country’s 421 districts and district centers in Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, U.S. forces vacated their largest base in Afghanistan at Bagram, north of Kabul.

The rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces, and Taliban battlefield successes, are stoking concerns that the Western-backed government in Kabul may collapse.

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.

Award-Winning Indian Photojournalist Killed in Afghanistan

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Danish Siddiqui

Ayaz Gul
VOA News
July 16, 2021

ISLAMABAD – Officials in Afghanistan said Friday an international award-winning journalist from India had been killed during pre-dawn fighting in embattled southern Kandahar province.

Danish Seddiqi, a Reuters photojournalist and Pulitzer Prize winner, was covering clashes between Afghan government forces and the Taliban in Spin Boldak district, which fell to the insurgents earlier in the week.

“Deeply disturbed by the sad news of the killing of a friend, Danish Seddiqi in Kandahar last night,” tweeted Farid Mamundzay, Kabul’s ambassador to New Delhi.

“The Indian Journalist & winner of Pulitzer Prize was embedded with Afghan security forces. I met him 2 weeks ago before his departure to Kabul. Condolences to his family & Reuters,” added Mamundzay.

Seddiqi last tweeted from Kandahar on July 13, when Afghan forces launched a counteroffensive to try to retake Spin Boldak.

The slain photojournalist was based in the Indian city of Mumbai and won the Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for feature photography on the Rohingya refugee crisis.

“We are urgently seeking more information, working with authorities in the region,” Reuters President Michael Friedenberg and Editor-in-Chief Alessandra Galloni said in a statement.

“Danish was an outstanding journalist, a devoted husband and father, and a much-loved colleague. Our thoughts are with his family at this terrible time.”

Seddiqi told Reuters he had been wounded in the arm by shrapnel earlier on Friday while reporting on the clash. He was treated and had been recovering when Taliban fighters retreated from the fighting in Spin Boldak.

Among other major events he covered were the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests in 2019 and 2020, and the Nepal earthquake in 2015. At home, Seddiqi extensively reported on India’s COVID-19 pandemic.

Global and local media watchdogs list Afghanistan as one of the dangerous countries for journalists.

Spin Boldak is a major border crossing between landlocked Afghanistan and Pakistan, facilitating travel and trade activities.

The insurgents have recently captured Afghanistan’s seven trade routes with neighboring countries, including Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, China, Iran and Pakistan.

The Taliban have stepped up battlefield attacks since the United States and NATO-allied militaries formally began withdrawing from Afghanistan on May 1, overrunning scores of districts and dramatically expanding insurgent influence to wide swaths of the country.

Some information for this report came from Reuters.

Pentagon Chief Says U.S. Mission in Afghanistan ‘Not Over’

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Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, meet Army Gen. Scott Miller at Joint Base Andrews, Md., upon his return home from Afghanistan after relinquishing command of U.S. and NATO Resolute Support Mission, July 14, 2021. Miller relinquished command July 12, 2021 as the U.S. reduces the military presence in Afghanistan. (DOD Photo by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Carlos M. Vazquez II)

Michael Hughes: U.S. Defense Department Secretary Lloyd Austin believes the United States mission is not over in Afghanistan – a declaration that comes with nearly all American troops gone, the Taliban on a rampage, and the U.N. sounding alarms over human rights abuses.

The insurgents over the past few days, with near impunity, have been terrorizing Afghan soldiers and civilians – and well above the average everyday-type terrorizing. The Taliban were caught on video executing 22 Afghan commandos who tried to surrender and have reportedly begun instituting brutal repressive laws in conquered territories, just to name a few recent examples.

Click here to read more.

George W. Bush refuses to learn the lesson of Afghanistan

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Bush

The Week: The war itself created the moral hazard Bush now decries. If we could not change the facts on the ground in Afghanistan with the world’s most powerful military there for 20 years and without any plans to do so in the next 20 years, the war cannot go on forever. Click here to read more (external link).

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Taliban Proposes Three-Month Cease-Fire In Exchange For Prisoner Release

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Taliban fighters (file photo)

Radio Azadi
July 15, 2021

The Taliban has proposed a three-month cease-fire in exchange for the release of 7,000 of its fighters, an Afghan government negotiator said, as the militant group captured a key border crossing with Pakistan in a sweeping offensive ahead of the August 31 deadline for the pullout of U.S. forces from the war-torn country.

“It is a big demand,” Ahmad Nader Naderi, a key member of the government team involved in peace talks with the Taliban, told a news conference in Kabul on July 15.

Naderi said the militants also demanded the removal of their leaders’ names from a United Nations blacklist.

There was no immediate official reaction from the Afghan government to the proposal.

The Afghan government last year released more than 5,000 Taliban prisoners to help kick-start peace talks in Doha, but negotiations have so far failed to reach any political settlement.

Naderi also accused the Taliban of destroying half a billion dollars’ worth of administrative buildings in 116 districts of 29 provinces.

“[They have destroyed] 260 buildings that are the property of the people of this country. They have been destroyed, blown up, or burnt down. If you look at how much money is spent, it is worth at least $500 million,” Naderi said.

The Taliban immediately denied the allegations.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry confirmed Taliban fighters had captured a key border crossing with Pakistan. There had been conflicting reports about the status of the border from Chaman to Spin Boldak in Afghanistan, with the Afghan government claiming it had retaken it from the Taliban and the insurgents insisting they remained in control.

“They have taken control of Spin Boldak border crossing,” Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri confirmed on July 15, a day after the Taliban said it had seized the town.

Meanwhile, Pakistani security forces used tear gas to disperse hundreds of people who tried to force their way across the border from Chaman to Spin Boldak. An Afghan Taliban source told AFP that hundreds of people had also gathered on the Afghan side, hoping to travel in the other direction.

The border was closed July 14 by Pakistan officials after the Taliban seized Spin Boldak crossing and raised its flag above the town.

As fighting rages across much of Afghanistan, the UN’s refugee agency has warned the spiraling conflict could trigger a humanitarian catastrophe.

“Afghanistan’s on the brink of another humanitarian crisis,” Babar Baloch, a spokesman of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on July 13.

A failure to stem the “violence will lead to further displacement within the country, as well as to neighboring countries and beyond,” he said.

This story is based on reporting by Radio Azadi correspondents on the ground in Afghanistan. Their names are being withheld for their protection.

With reporting by AFP, and Reuters

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.

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Pakistan invites Karzai to attend ‘special’ Afghan conference

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Karzai

Ariana: Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry said Pakistan is continuing its efforts to achieve stability and security in Afghanistan. In a tweet, he said Prime Minister Imran Khan had a telephonic conversation with former Afghan President Hamid Karzai and invited him to attend a “special” conference on Afghanistan situation the country would organise soon. Click here to read more (external link).