Mohammad Sarwar Danish
Tolo News: Afghanistan’s Second Vice President Mohammad Sarwar Danish on Tuesday said that the Taliban’s opposition to the current Constitution of Afghanistan is meant to cause the collapse of the system. Addressing a ceremony on the 17th anniversary of the ratification of Afghanistan’s Constitution, Danish states that the Taliban’s confrontation with the Afghan Constitution is intended to bring the system’s downfall. Click here to read more (external link).
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Ariana: The Afghan National Cricket Team left Kabul for the UAE on Tuesday where they will play a three-match One Day International (ODI) series against Ireland, the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) said in a statement. The national team, therefore, will not travel to Oman, where they were scheduled to hold the series due to UAE Visa restrictions earlier, the statement said. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News: The Afghan government allowed 10 Chinese nationals– arrested on December 10 for operating a “terror cell” in Kabul–to leave the country, said the Hindustan Times, quoting sources familiar with the issue. The 10 members of the cell were flown out of the country in a plane arranged by the Chinese government after approval from President Ashraf Ghani, the report said. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News: The Ministry of Public Health on Monday reported 94 new positive cases of COVID-19 out of 1,820 samples tested in the last 24 hours. The Health Ministry stated that the cumulative total of known COVID-19 cases is 53,105, the total number of reported deaths is 2,244, and the total number of recoveries is 42,666. Click here to read more (external link).
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
January 4, 2021
ISLAMABAD – The United States has directly accused the Taliban of being behind a recent wave of high-profile assassinations in Afghanistan, urging the insurgent group to stop the violence “for peace to succeed.”
Monday’s charges came hours after the Taliban accused U.S. forces of launching airstrikes against insurgent-held areas in violation of their 2020 bilateral agreement aimed at ending the long-running Afghan war.
The controversy erupts as insurgent leaders and representatives of the U.S.-backed Afghan government are due to reconvene in Qatar Tuesday for a next round of peace negotiations.
A spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan rejected as “false” allegations they violated the agreement with the Taliban.
Col. Sonny Leggett stressed in a statement Monday the U.S. military has been “clear and consistent” in its resolve to defend Afghan security forces against Taliban attacks.
“We renew our call for all sides to reduce violence,” Leggett said on Twitter. “The Taliban’s campaign of unclaimed attacks & targeted killings of government officials, civil society leaders & journalists must also cease for peace to succeed.”
This is the first time Washington has blamed the Taliban for weeks of largely unclaimed attacks in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and elsewhere in the conflict-torn South Asian nation.
The violence has over the past two months claimed the lives of at least five journalists, a provincial deputy governor, civilian society activists and a renowned election observer.
Islamic State militants have claimed responsibility for some of the attacks, though the Afghan government has accused the Taliban of being behind all of them.
For their part, insurgents have denied involvement and instead alleged the violence is the work of so-called “spoilers” within Afghan security institutions to subvert the U.S.-initiated peace process.
Earlier Monday, the Taliban issued a statement accusing U.S. troops of repeatedly carrying out airstrikes on insurgent-held areas in Kandahar, Nangarhar and Helmand provinces “over the past few days” in support of Afghan security forces.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid insisted the airstrikes have hit targets in “non-military zones” in violations of their February 29, 2020, agreement with the U.S.
Mujahid demanded the U.S. military immediately halt the air raids and warned the Taliban “will be forced to respond seriously, and all responsibility shall fall squarely on American shoulders.”
The U.S.-Taliban agreement has stopped insurgent attacks against U.S. and NATO-led allied troops in Afghanistan. It has also initiated direct peace talks between the Taliban and Afghan government in September.
The so-called intra-Afghan negotiations will resume Tuesday in the Qatari capital of Doha, where the Taliban maintains its political office.
President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Afghanistan reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, on Monday described as “unacceptable” the current level of violence, including targeted killings.
“Those perpetuating the violence seek to undermine the peace process and the country’s future. They do not reflect the will of the Afghan people, who yearn for peace,” Khalilzad said on Twitter.
The U.S. envoy, who negotiated and signed the February deal with the Taliban, made the remarks on his latest trip to the region, including Doha, to push forward the Afghan peace process.
“I return to Doha and the region with expectations that the parties will make tangible progress in the next round of Afghanistan Peace Negotiations,” he said.
Khalilzad reiterated his call for both Afghan rivals to quickly reach an agreement on a political settlement and an “immediate significant” reduction in violence or a cease-fire.
The U.S. has started a “conditions-based” phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan under the deal with the Taliban, which requires all U.S. and NATO-led allied forces to be out of the country by May 2021.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged last week that since the signing of the deal, U.S. soldiers have suffered no deaths in Afghanistan. He said Trump’s peace initiative also has made “incredible progress” toward ending years of Afghan hostilities.
“No U.S. servicemen have been killed in Afghanistan in almost a year, and Afghans are finally discussing peace and reconciliation among themselves. Such incredible progress,” Pompeo said in a series of tweets.
The United States had fewer than 13,000 troops in Afghanistan at the start of 2020. But that number has been significantly reduced since the deal with the Taliban, and there will be around 2,500 U.S. forces left in the country by the middle of this month.
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Radio Free Afghanistan
January 4, 2021
KABUL — Afghan government representatives are set to depart for Doha on January 4 ahead of a new round of peace negotiations with the Taliban following a 20-day hiatus.
The sides are scheduled to resume their power-sharing talks in the Qatari capital on January 5, amid rising violence and chaos across Afghanistan that have threatened efforts to put an end to nearly two decades of war.
The direct intra-Afghan talks began in September some seven months after the Taliban reached an agreement with the United States.
Last month, the Afghan government and the Taliban agreed on rules and procedures for negotiations, advancing the talks beyond basic procedural questions to more substantive issues, including reaching an elusive cease-fire.
Najia Anwari, a spokeswoman for the Peace Affairs Ministry, said the negotiations were “a complicated process” but that “the Afghan government and the negotiating team, with regard to the interest of the people of Afghanistan, are determined to take the process forward.”
A spokesman for the Taliban’s political office in Qatar told RFE/RL that they are fully prepared to participate in the new round of talks.
The international community has urged both sides to reduce hostilities and move quickly toward a negotiated settlement amid ongoing violence and clashes across much of Afghanistan.
Afghan government officials and the U.S. military have also accused the Taliban of a string of bomb attacks and targeted killings of government employees, journalists, clerics, politicians, and human rights activists.
The militant group has rejected some of the accusations while making gains against government forces in fighting in several parts of Afghanistan.
In a statement issued on January 4, the Taliban alleged that recent U.S. air strikes against insurgents in Kandahar, Nangarhar, and Helmand provinces violated the U.S.-Taliban deal signed in Doha last February.
Colonel Sonny Leggett, spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, rejected the accusation as “false” and said the United States would continue to defend Afghan forces against Taliban attacks.
“US Forces have been clear & consistent: We will defend Afghan forces against TB attacks. We renew our call for all sides to reduce violence.” Leggett tweeted.
“The Taliban’s campaign of unclaimed attacks and targeted killings of government officials, civil society leaders & journalists must…cease for peace to succeed,” the spokesman wrote in a separate tweet.
The Western-backed government in Kabul has held power in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, though the Taliban control large swaths of the country.
Under the U.S.-Taliban deal, all foreign forces are scheduled to leave Afghanistan by May 2021 in exchange for security guarantees from the militant group. NATO has roughly 11,000 troops in Afghanistan from several countries.
In November, the administration of outgoing President Donald Trump announced that 2,000 American troops will exit Afghanistan by mid-January, leaving just 2,500 behind.
The pace of any further U.S. withdrawal is expected to be determined after President-elect Joe Biden takes office on January 20.
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Tolo News: The Ministry of Public Health on Sunday said that the mutated type of COVID-19 has reached India and Pakistan and might move to Afghanistan. The ministry called on the people to limit their travels over the next four weeks to contain a possible movement of the mutated version of the virus to Afghanistan. The new type of COVID-19 was first found in Britain last year in December. Click here to read more (external link).
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Photo: Akmal Dawi/IRIN
1TV: As many as 5,000 Afghans have died due to diseases caused by air pollution in the past one year, the country’s health ministry said on Sunday. Over the year, more than 20 million people visited health centers with respiratory diseases. Click here to read more (external link).
Ariana: On Sunday morning Pompeo put the lack of casualties among US troops down to the Taliban adhering to the Doha deal signed in February. The deputy spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said on Sunday that the reason why the US has not suffered casualties among its forces in the past 10 months is because the foreign forces are no longer fighting in Afghanistan. Click here to read more (external link).
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