Taliban fighters (file photo)
1TV: Most of the roads, bridges and culverts have been built with funding from the Afghan government, Asian Development Bank and provincial communities. Most of the destroyed bridges and culverts have not been rebuilt yet. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News: The Ministry of Public Health on Sunday reported 205 new positive cases of COVID-19 out of 691 samples tested in the last 24 hours. The data by the ministry shows that the cumulative number of total cases is now 43,240, the number of total reported deaths is 1,617, and the total number of recoveries is 35,092. Click here to read more (external link).
Macgregor
Michael Hughes: U.S. establishment politicians in both political parties, senior military leaders and the mainstream media are pulling out all the stops to ensure the United States remains on a near permanent war footing in places like Afghanistan and Syria. However, these designs took a serious blow recently when President Donald Trump replaced top Pentagon officials with many of his personal favorites. Top amongst these being a cowboy-guru former military commander by the name of Douglas Macgregor, who is pushing a peace-loving agenda that encompasses a quick exit from Afghanistan and defusing tensions with Tehran. Click here to read more.
Joe Biden
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
November 14, 2020
Frud Bezhan
Afghan officials have been angered and alienated by what they view as U.S. President Donald Trump’s push for a hasty military pullout from Afghanistan without a comprehensive peace settlement.
Many in Kabul put their hopes on his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, winning the November 3 presidential election and providing more flexibility for the Afghan government in its contentious negotiations with the Taliban in Doha.
Kabul wants a slower withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and the possibility of renegotiating the terms of the U.S.-Taliban peace deal that excluded the Afghan government and which is seen as skewed in favor of the militants.
But analysts say President-elect Biden will likely stay the course set by Trump to end America’s 19-year war in Afghanistan, although they say he is likely to take a harder line against the Taliban.
“Biden largely agrees with the current U.S. policy — he supports the peace process and a U.S. withdrawal,” says Michael Kugelman, South Asia senior associate at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.
“It’s largely the pacing of the withdrawal that Biden takes issue with,” adds Kugelman. “He favors a withdrawal, but a gradual and ‘responsible’ one.”
One-Sided Deal
For years, U.S. policy was to facilitate an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned peace process between the Kabul government and the Taliban. But with the Taliban refusing to negotiate with government officials — who they view as illegitimate — the peace process was deadlocked.
Controversially, U.S. policy changed in 2018 when the Trump administration opened direct negotiations with the Taliban in Qatar without the presence of the Afghan government. Eighteen months later, the sides signed a bilateral deal aimed at ending the war.
The deal gave the Taliban what it has craved for years: international legitimacy and recognition. Conversely, the agreement undermined the internationally recognized government in Kabul, which was not a party to the accord.
Under the agreement, all foreign forces are to leave Afghanistan by May in return for counterterrorism guarantees from the Taliban, which has pledged to negotiate a permanent cease-fire and a power-sharing agreement with the Afghan government.
Critics say Washington made too many concessions to the Taliban without getting much in return.
The agreement fell short of a core U.S. demand for the Taliban to publicly cut its ties with the Al-Qaeda terrorist network. It also did not tie the military pullout to the success of intra-Afghan peace talks or lay out how the United States would monitor and verify if the Taliban is sticking to its commitments.
The text of the deal also made no mention of a Taliban commitment to reduce violence, although it is believed the militant group agreed to stop attacks on major highways and urban centers.
The agreement also committed the Afghan government to free some 5,000 Taliban fighters. Kabul initially balked at the mass release but grudgingly accepted, staggering the freeing of the inmates in a way that delayed the peace talks by months.
Observers at the time said Kabul was deliberately stalling the process in hopes that Washington’s policy on Afghanistan would shift if Biden won the election.
Violating The Deal
Trump sent alarm bells ringing in October when he tweeted that he wanted to pull all American troops out of Afghanistan by Christmas, although his national-security adviser, Robert O’Brien, later said the number of U.S. troops would shrink from around 4,500 to 2,500 early next year.
In response, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said the military alliance would not leave Afghanistan until security conditions allow, highlighting divisions in the alliance over Trump’s rushed exit from the war-torn country.
The prospect of a premature U.S. withdrawal came despite the Taliban failing to fulfill its pledges under its deal with Washington.
The Taliban appears to have been upholding its commitment not to attack departing U.S. forces. But the militants have failed to fulfill a pledge to renounce the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, a longtime ally.
Meanwhile, the Taliban has intensified attacks on Afghan government forces and sought to seize more territory, despite U.S. officials saying the Taliban had agreed to reduce violence.
‘Bear No Responsibility’
Since Biden’s election victory, Afghan officials have demanded a review of the peace process.
“We hope that the process so far will be reviewed and reevaluated under the new government in the United States,” Afghan Second Vice President Sarwar Danish said on November 9.
He added: “As the government of Afghanistan, we didn’t sign this agreement. We were not a party to it. From a legal standpoint, we do not bear any responsibility about the details of this agreement.”
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said on November 8 that he expected ties between Kabul and Washington to deepen in areas of counterterrorism and building peace.
“There has been no articulation on the part of the government as to how it wants the process to be reviewed,” says Ali Adili, a researcher at the Afghanistan Analysts Network, an independent think tank in Kabul.
“But it might want the new U.S. administration to support its call for a cease-fire, the talks to proceed on the government’s terms, and to come down hard on the Taliban in the face of its intensification of violence,” he adds.
The Taliban has said it expects Biden to abide by the agreement.
“We signed the agreement with the American government, not a person,” Mohammad Naeem, a spokesman for the Taliban, told AFP on November 8. “We hope that the process that has started will not be weakened but rather strengthened.”
‘Pay Closer Attention’
Analysts say Biden is likely to stick to the U.S.-Taliban deal, given his support for withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan.
“The current Trump strategy has two military components — advising and supporting Afghan forces and counterterrorism — and a diplomatic one which is peace talks,” says Jonathan Schroden, a security expert with the U.S.-based nonprofit research and analysis organization CAN.
“I don’t think that overall formula will change under Biden, but the trend of decreasing resources for the two military components is likely to continue,” he says.
Even if Biden wanted to renegotiate the deal, experts say the Taliban would refuse because the current deal is generous to the militants.
Biden is expected, however, to delay the military withdrawal considering his administration will conduct a policy review and peace talks that were planned in March only started in September due to delays and disputes between the Taliban and Afghan government.
Observers say Biden will also be stricter in enforcing the deal than Trump.
“Specifically, Biden will be paying more attention to the Taliban’s commitment to end cooperation with Al-Qaeda,” says Kugelman.
“I could envision the Biden administration threatening to hold up the withdrawal of the remaining U.S. troops next spring if there’s no indication, or insufficient evidence, that the Taliban has ended cooperation with Al-Qaeda.”
The United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and ousted the Taliban after they refused to hand over Al-Qaeda leaders who were behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people.
The U.S.-Taliban agreement states that the Taliban “will not allow any of its members, other individuals or groups, including [Al-Qaeda], to use the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies.”
But the deal does not include an explicit Taliban commitment to break off ties with Al-Qaeda.
If Biden’s concerns are not addressed, analysts say he is likely to push for a small, residual U.S. counterterrorism force in Afghanistan beyond the scheduled military withdrawal.
“This is what he’s long envisioned as the ideal U.S. troop posture in Afghanistan, and it would address his counterterrorism focus,” he adds. “But it could risk triggering a major disagreement with the Taliban, which wants all U.S. troops out.”
‘Counterterrorism Lens’
Analysts say Biden has long seen the war in Afghanistan through a counterterrorism lens.
When he was vice president, Biden vehemently opposed President Barack Obama’s troop surge in 2009.
The surge was part of Obama’s ambitious counterinsurgency strategy in which tens of thousands of additional troops were deployed to defeat the Taliban and billions of dollars were spent on winning the heart and minds of Afghans by building up infrastructure and establishing a well-functioning government.
But the expensive strategy failed and forced the Obama administration to consider peace talks as an alternative to end the war.
“I was totally against the whole notion of nation building in Afghanistan,” Biden said during the election campaign in February. “The only thing we should be doing is dealing with terrorism in that region.”
In comments that provoked widespread anger among Afghans, Biden added that there was “no possibility of uniting that country, no possibility at all of making it a whole country.”
“Biden consistently took a very narrow view of U.S. interests in Afghanistan — focused on defeating Al-Qaeda,” says Schroden. “I’d expect that narrow focus, [which is] now on Al-Qaeda and Islamic State, to continue.”
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Amrullah Saleh
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
November 14, 2020
Afghan forces have captured the “mastermind” of a deadly terrorist attack on Kabul University that came amid a rise in violence across the country, a senior official said on November 14.
At least 22 people were killed and another 27 wounded when three gunmen rampaged through the university on November 2, spraying classrooms with bullets for several hours.
“The mastermind behind the Kabul University attack has been arrested,” Vice President Amrullah Saleh said on his Facebook page.
The attack, which ended after the three attackers were killed in an hours-long battle with security forces, was planned by a militant called Adil, Saleh said.
Adil was recruited by the Haqqani network, Saleh said, giving only one name of the arrested suspect.
Haqqani network, a key Taliban faction, is believed to have been behind some of the deadliest attacks on Afghan and international forces, as well as Afghan civilians. It has been branded as a terrorist group by Washington.
“The attack was carried out to pressure, defame, and make the government look weak in front of the people,” Saleh added.
Adil, a resident of the Panjshir Valley, had been a student of the Islamic Shari’a law, he said, adding that his family lives on the outskirts of Kabul.
“Adil had been missing for three years amid rumors that he had gone to receive training in war and fighting,” Saleh said.
During his questioning, Adil said that he had received weapons from the Haqqani network to carry out the attack, Saleh added.
The extremist group Islamic State (IS) had claimed responsibility for the attack on Kabul University, which was the second on an educational institution in the Afghan capital. An attack late last month on an education center in Kabul killed 24 people, mostly students.
Last year, a bomb outside the gates of Kabul University killed eight people.
Violence has continued in Afghanistan even as the Taliban and a government-appointed negotiating team hold talks in Qatar to end more than four decades of war in the country.
A U.S. deal with the Taliban in February set the stage for the talks in Doha. The deal also allows for the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan.
With reporting by AFP and TOLOnews
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
November 14, 2020
ISLAMABAD – Pakistan has accused rival India of running dozens of training camps in Afghanistan for multiple globally outlawed militant groups to plot terrorism on Pakistani soil to destabilize the country.
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and army spokesman Major-General Babar Iftikhar, at a joint news conference Saturday, presented what they said was “irrefutable evidence” linking India directly to almost all recent terrorist attacks across Pakistan.
Babar displayed for the first time what he said were documents, banking transactions worth millions of dollars, audio clips and details of contacts between Indian intelligence operatives and diplomats with fugitive Pakistani militants operating out of Afghanistan.
“Uncontrivable evidence reveals that Indian embassies and consulates operating along Pakistan’s borders have become hub of terror sponsorship against Pakistan,” the general said.
“We have verifiable evidence of terrorists funding by India. Indian ambassadors in Afghanistan have been regularly supervising various terrorist activities,” Babar added.
Neither Indian officials nor the Afghan government have immediately commented on the Pakistani allegations, though both New Delhi and Kabul have in the past rejected similar allegations levelled by Islamabad.
“The evidence provided by Pakistan provides concrete proof of Indian financial and material sponsorship of multiple terrorist organizations, including U.N.-designated terrorist organizations Jamaat ul Ahrar, Bloch Liberation Army and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan,” Qureshi said.
The groups Qureshi named are believed to have taken shelter in Afghanistan after fleeing years of sustained Pakistani counterterrorism operations. U.S. drone strikes against suspected militant hideouts in the neighboring country have also killed top fugitive leaders of these groups.
The foreign minister said his government would share the “dossier” with the United Nations and five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, including the United States, China, Russia, Britain and France to pressure India to halt its terrorist actives inside Pakistan.
“We are now presenting irrefutable evidence to the world to demonstrate the Indian state’s direct sponsorship of terrorism in Pakistan that has resulted in the deaths of innocent Pakistanis. The international community can no longer turn a blind eye to this rogue behavior,” Qureshi said.
Michael Kugelman, deputy director Asia program at Washington’s Wilson Center, observed that Pakistan’s allegations about Indian-sponsored terror are not new at all.
“They’ve been made for years. What is new is providing more detail on the allegations and placing these details squarely in the public [and global] eye,” tweeted Kugelman.
Kashmir clashes
Pakistan’s allegations came a day after military skirmishes with India along the de facto frontier in disputed Kashmir killed at least 13 people on both sides. One injured nearly 30, with both sides accusing each other of initiating the fighting in violation of a mutual cease-fire.
“It’s a serious escalation … We have given them a very befitting reply. There have been massive losses on Indian side in men and material,” Babar told reporters Saturday.
Pakistan confirmed the clashes had killed one of its soldiers and four civilians while 17 other people, including five soldiers, also were wounded.
For their part, Indian military officials accused Pakistani troops of committing “unprovoked” cease-fire violations and reported the death of four soldiers and four civilians on their side of the Kashmir ceasefire boundary, known as the Line of Control. The de facto border splits Indian- and Pakistani-administered parts of the Himalayan region, which both India and Pakistan claim in its entirety
The nuclear-armed rival countries have fought several wars and low-intensity conflicts over Kashmir since gaining independence from Britain in 1947. Pakistan and India mutually declared a cease-fire on the LoC in 2003 in a bid to ease regional tensions.
However, the truce has been almost torn apart in the face of frequent military clashes in recent years, fueling tensions and plunging bilateral relations to historic lows.
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Tolo News: The Ministry of Public Health on Wednesday reported 66 new positive cases of COVID-19 out of 174 samples tested in the last 24 hours. The data by the ministry shows that the cumulative number of total cases is now 43,035, the number of total reported deaths is 1,605, and the total number of recoveries is 35,063. Click here to read more (external link).
By Frud Bezhan
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
November 13, 2020
A surge of targeted killings and assassinations has swept Afghanistan, where violence has soared despite peace efforts aimed at ending the war.
Many of those being targeted are civilians — journalists, rights activists, cultural figures, moderate religious leaders, and women in public roles.
The latest victim was RFE/RL journalist Mohammad Ilyas Dayee, who was killed on November 12 when a magnetic bomb placed on his car detonated.
Three others, including Dayee’s brother, a former journalist for German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle, were wounded in the explosion in the southern city of Lashkar Gah.
Rights groups say the killings are intended to silence and intimidate independent voices and civil society in Afghanistan, which has made inroads on women’s rights and free speech since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 toppled the fundamentalist Taliban regime.
Most of the targeted killings have gone unclaimed. The Taliban has denied involvement in many cases. But Afghan officials and observers have blamed the militants.
‘Chilling Effect’
Dayee was the second journalist to be killed in less than a week.
Yama Siawash, a former presenter on Afghanistan’s TOLO TV, was killed in a similar attack in the capital, Kabul, on November 7. A magnetic bomb attached to his car exploded, killing the journalist and two others.
Taliban and Islamic State (IS) militants have threatened and deliberately targeted major TV and radio stations and their staff members, carrying out attacks that have killed dozens of journalists and media employees in recent years.
The attacks have made Afghanistan one of the deadliest countries in the world for journalists and forced media companies to adopt new security measures.
“It’s a chilling message for all members of the media in Afghanistan,” said Patricia Gossman, a senior researcher on Afghanistan at Human Rights Watch (HRW). “This is part of a pattern of increased threats and attacks on journalists.”
Dayee reported on southern Afghanistan, a volatile region that is a stronghold of the Taliban.
“Reporters and other civilians in Taliban-held areas have long expressed fear of retaliation if they complain about the way the Taliban carry out military operations or enforce restrictions,” added Gossman.
Dayee’s death takes to at least four the number of journalists and media workers killed in Afghanistan this year.
Journalist Mir Wahed Shah and technician Shafiq Amiri — employees of the private Khurshid TV — were killed in Kabul on May 30 when a bomb blast targeted a minibus carrying employees of the local television station.
The Afghan Journalists Safety Committee reported five journalists were killed in 2019. The media freedom group Reporters Without Borders said 15 Afghan journalists were killed in 2018, the deadliest year ever for the Afghan media.
‘Environment Of Fear’
The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) said last month that 533 people had been killed and 412 wounded in targeted assassinations in the first six months of the year.
“[There is] news about targeted attacks on activists, government officials, religious scholars, and other civilians every day,” said Shaharzad Akbar, the head of the AIHRC.
“This has created an environment of anxiety and fear at a time when we most need to engage, mobilize, raise our voices, and shape our peace process.”
In a report published in October, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said it was concerned by the increasing number of attacks “deliberately targeting civilians, including education, health and humanitarian workers, members of the judiciary, tribal elders, religious leaders, and civilian government employees.”
UNAMA said at least 2,117 civilians were killed and 3,822 injured from January 1 to September 30 this year. It said that targeted killings accounted for 16 percent of all the civilian casualties.
Among the victims were the well-known religious scholars Maulvi Mohammad Ayaz Niazi and Maulvi Azizullah Mufleh, who were killed in two separate attacks in Kabul in June.
Human rights activist Fatima Khalil was killed along with her driver in a bomb blast in Kabul in June.
The surge in targeted killings comes despite ongoing peace talks between Afghan government representatives and the Taliban aimed at ending the 19-year war.
Afghan and Taliban negotiators have been deadlocked at the negotiating table since the historic talks started in September, unable even to agree on a framework and agenda for negotiations over a permanent cease-fire and a power-sharing formula.
The Taliban has pursued a fight and talk strategy, hoping to gain leverage in talks with gains on the battlefield. But its relentless attacks that are killing scores of Afghans every week have sapped the fragile trust between the sides — and even endangered the continuation of the negotiations.
A. Abdullah
Tolo News: Abdullah Abdullah, head of the High Council for National Reconciliation, on Friday said the peace negotiations in Qatar have no progress, adding that “what is the sense for the presence of the negotiating team—of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan—then the conflicts are intensifying.” Click here to read more (external link).
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