Peace talks to start next week, says Abdullah

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Dr. Abdullah

Ariana: Intra-Afghan negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban will start next week, said Abdullah Abdullah, Chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation, on Thursday. The first round of talks are expected to take place in Doha, Qatar and will likely focus on a ceasefire.  Talks were due to start early this month but stalled after President Ashraf Ghani failed to release the remaining 320 Taliban prisoners as per a decree he signed to this effect. Click here to read more (external link).

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U.S. Offers Reward For Information On Americans Kidnapped In Afghanistan

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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 27, 2020

The U.S. State Department has offered up to $5 million in rewards for information that helps locate and free two Americans kidnapped in Afghanistan.

Paul Overby, 77, disappeared in 2014 in Khost near the border with Pakistan while researching a book on the Afghan people and it appeared he planned to cross the border into Pakistan to continue his research.

He was trying to arrange an interview with the head of the Haqqani network, an arm of the Taliban, when he disappeared, his wife said in 2017.

The second man, Paul Frerichs, 58, was kidnapped in February 2020. At the time he was living in Kabul. He had relocated to the city in 2010 and spent a decade in the country working on construction projects.

The State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service offered the reward through its Rewards for Justice office, a statement said on August 26. The FBI are advertising the reward offer of up to $5 million for information leading to the return of Overby and Frerichs.

The State Department said in its announcement that all information submitted will be kept strictly confidential.

The Rewards for Justice Program has been used since 1984. The program has paid more than $150 million to more than 100 people who provided information that helped bring terrorists to justice or prevented acts of terrorism worldwide.

Based on reporting by AFP

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

SIGAR: 50% Police in South Use Drugs, 50-70% ‘Ghost Soldiers’

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Tolo News: The US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), citing reports by Afghan agencies, said that nearly half of all police forces in the southern regions of Afghanistan are using drugs. “Afghanistan’s General Directorate for Internal Security, partnering with National Directorate of Security, found that approximately 50% of police in Kandahar, Zabul, Helmand & Uruzgan provinces used drugs,” said SIGAR. Also, “50% to 70% of police positions were “ghost soldiers,” said SIGAR, meaning personnel listed on the books do not exist. Click here to read more (external link).

Flash Floods Kill At Least 100 In Afghanistan

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RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan
August 26, 2020

Flash floods caused by torrential rains in Afghanistan have killed at least 100 people and injured more than 300 others in Parwan Province just north of Kabul, Afghan officials said August 26.

Ghulam Bahauddin Jailani, Afghanistan’s state minister for natural-disaster management, told RFE/RL that the floods have also destroyed more than 1,000 houses in Parwan Province.

Wahida Shahkar, a spokeswoman for the government of Parwan Province north of Kabul, said the death toll was likely to rise as rescue teams continue to locate victims people buried beneath destroyed houses.

Abdul Qasim Sangin, the head of the provincial hospital in the Parwan’s capital of Charikar, told RFE/RL that 68 bodies and 90 injured people had been transported to the facility by early August 26.

Sangin said most of the victims were women and children. He said some hospitalized survivors were in critical condition.

Shahkar said the flash floods occurred overnight in the central part of Parwan Province after heavy rains.

She said the floods destroyed many homes in Charikar, which is located about 60 kilometers north of Kabul, near Bagram Air Field.

Shahkar called on Afghanistan’s central government to deliver aid and provide immediate support for rescue workers who were digging frantically through mud and debris in an attempt to reach trapped survivors.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has ordered aid deliveries for Parwan and other provinces. Ghani also expressed his condolences to the families of victims.

Ahmad Tameem Azimi, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s Disaster Management Ministry, said the flooding had blocked highways linking Kabul to eastern and northern provinces.

“Along with rescuing people, we are working to open the highways back to the traffic,” Azimi said.

Azimi said more than 1,000 people in Parwan Province had been displaced.

Houses and roads were also destroyed in the provinces of Kapisa, Panjshir, and Paktia.

Azimi said ground and air support has been sent to those provinces.

Reports say hundreds of hectares of agricultural land have been destroyed, with crops wiped out in the eastern province of Nuristan.

Azimi said two people were killed and five injured by floods that destroyed several houses in Maidan-Wardak Province to the west of Kabul.

In Nangarhar Province, the provincial governor’s office said two members of a family died and four others were injured when a wall of their house collapsed in flooding.

Summer often brings torential rainfall to central and eastern Afghanistan, with floods killing hundreds of people every year.

With reporting by AP, AFP, and dpa

Copyright (c) 2020. 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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In Afghanistan, international aid helps save lives from COVID-19

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World Bank: One of the greatest obstacles that Afghanistan faces as it fights COVID-19 is the overwhelming demand placed on its fragile public health system.  Since the coronavirus escalated in Afghanistan last April, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) has gone some way to mitigating this health crisis and signed into action the $100.4-million World Bank-supported Afghanistan COVID-19 Emergency Response and Health Systems Preparedness (grant) Project. Click here to read more (external link).

Pakistan Upbeat About Prospects of Afghan Peace Talks

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Baradar (left) and Qureshi (right)

Ayaz Gul
VOA News
August 26, 2020

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan said Tuesday it was “hopeful” about prospects of U.S.-backed peace talks between Afghanistan’s warring parties to end the country’s long conflict.

The optimism stemmed from a meeting Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi held Tuesday with a visiting Afghan Taliban delegation led by the insurgent group’s political affairs chief, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.

A post-meeting Pakistani statement said the discussions focused on the stalled Afghan peace process and the way forward.

The proposed talks are a product of a Feb. 29 landmark peace deal the United States signed with the Taliban to help end decades of Afghan violence and allow all U.S. troops to withdraw from the country by mid-2021.

“The foreign minister emphasized the implementation of the U.S.-Taliban peace agreement in its entirety, paving the way for the earliest possible commencement of intra-Afghan negotiations,” the statement said.

Qureshi noted that Taliban leaders had reiterated determination to stick to the agreement to find a political resolution to the Afghan war.

“I expect our talks today (with Taliban delegates) will, God willing, help in finding a way forward,” the foreign minister said without further elaboration.

Prisoner swap

The opening of the intra-Afghan dialogue, however, is linked to the completion of a prisoner swap between the Taliban and the Afghan government, which was kept out of the agreement.

The deal called for the Taliban to free 1,000 Afghan security forces they held captive. In exchange, the Afghan government was supposed to release up to 5,000 insurgent prisoners.

While the Taliban has already released in phases all the detainees since the swap began in April, Kabul has freed all but about 320 Taliban prisoners.

Afghan officials have cited security concerns and pressure from foreign governments for not setting the remaining prisoners free. The detainees, they maintain, are involved in deadly attacks against Afghans and citizens from other countries.

The government has also cited stepped-up insurgent attacks across Afghanistan as another reason for its reluctance to release the prisoners.

The Taliban said it will discuss a cease-fire when intra-Afghan talks begin, and denies allegations against insurgent prisoners, ruling out peace talks until all prisoners are freed.

Pakistan’s ISI

Washington has also been pressing all Afghan sides to remove remaining hurdles to the peace talks and begin dialogue as soon as possible.

Tuesday’s talks in Islamabad were also attended by the head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed.

The spy agency, critics say, is known for its close ties with Afghan armed groups, including the Taliban, since the time of the former Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The agency is believed to have used its influence with the Taliban to bring them to the table for talks and ultimately sign the February deal with the U.S.

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Illegal mining costs Afghanistan millions annually: UN

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AA: In its latest National Human Development Report on mineral extraction in Afghanistan, the UN Development Program said the war-ravaged country could have collected over $100 million from minerals in royalties and export duties alone on a yearly basis. It said control of mineral extraction by insurgent groups such as the Taliban and Daesh/ISIS as well as local militias, warlords, and occasionally security forces is further spreading corruption and violence. Click here to read more (external link).