Tolo News: All schools were reopened in Afghanistan five months after they were shutdown following the spread of COVID-19 in the country. Based on the government’s reopening strategy, the private schools will be allowed to resume their regular schooling from the first grade to grade 12, while in state-run schools only students in the 10th, 11th and 12th grades will be allowed to resume studies. Click here to read more (external link).
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Ayaz Gul
VOA News
August 21, 2020
ISLAMABAD – Pakistan has issued an order for full compliance with U.N. Security Council sanctions against Afghanistan’s Taliban and groups associated with the Islamist insurgency.
The directives are contained in a “statutory notification” (SRO) that was published by the foreign ministry on its website earlier in the week but didn’t draw public attention until Friday.
The notification explained “the federal government is pleased to order that the (UNSC) Resolution 2255 (2015) be fully implemented including in particular that individuals and entities listed … shall stand subjected to the asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo in accordance with the aforesaid resolutions.”
Pakistani officials, however, have downplayed the significance of the document, saying the Security Council’s mandatory sanctions against the Afghan Taliban have been in place for a long time.
“The SRO issued by Pakistan on 18 August 2020 only consolidates and documents the previously announced SROs as a procedural measure and does not reflect any change in the Sanctions List or sanction measures,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zahid Chaudhri said in statement he shared with local journalists.
FATF pressure
The Pakistani notification comes ahead of a crucial meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global agency fighting money laundering and terror financing. Pakistan’s progress in fighting the crimes will be reviewed at the meeting due later this year.
Pakistani officials insist they have fully complied with a 27-point, mutually agreed upon program with FATF through a series of administrative and recent legislative measures.
Pakistan, they hope, would be removed from the global agency’s increased monitoring list, referred to as “gray list” in the coming meeting. The list contains nations with a much higher risk of money laundering and terrorism financing that have formally committed to working with the FATF to address their deficiencies.
US-Taliban deal
The U.N. sanctions list covers, among others, the Qatar-based Taliban political affairs chief, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who negotiated and signed a landmark peace deal with the United States in February to close the 19-year Afghan war.
Pakistan takes credit for arranging and facilitating the U.S.-Taliban deal as part of international efforts aimed at political settlement to decades of hostilities in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has long been accused of sheltering and covertly supporting Taliban leaders.
Islamabad denies the charges and blames a traditionally porous border between the two countries as well as several million Afghan refugees residing in Pakistan for providing cover for insurgents.
Taliban officials also reject allegations their fighters use Pakistani soil for military activities, citing large insurgent-controlled territory in Afghanistan.
The U.S.-Taliban deal seeks withdrawal of all American and NATO forces from Afghanistan by July 2021 in return for counterterrorism assurances and pledges by the insurgents to negotiate a peace deal with rival Afghan factions.
Washington has also repeatedly acknowledged Islamabad’s crucial role in furthering the Afghan peace process, leading to significant improvement in Pakistan’s traditionally strained ties with the U.S.
The deal has brought Afghan warring sides closer to opening direct talks to negotiate a permanent cease-fire and power-sharing arrangement to govern post-war Afghanistan.
RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal
August 21, 2020
Pakistan has reopened the Chaman border crossing between its Balochistan Province and the Afghan province of Nangarhar.
The border crossing was closed in March following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in Pakistan.
Officials said on August 21 they decided to reopen the crossing after talks between Balochistan regional authorities and residents on the Pakistani side of the border.
Local residents have been demanding the reopening of the crossing, which is frequently used by traders and laborers.
Six people were killed on July 31 when a protest rally to demand the reopening of the border post turned violent, resulting in clashes between protesters and security forces.
The 2,430-kilometer-long Afghan-Pakistan border was created in 1893 between then-British India and the Emirate of Afghanistan.
Ariana: The Ministry of Public Health Friday reported that 33 new Coronavirus cases were positive out of 207 samples tested in the last 24 hours. It brings the total affected people to 37,894 in Afghanistan. So far, 1,385 COVID-19 patients have died and 27,990 others recovered from the virus since the first case was detected in February. Click here to read more (external link).
Bloomberg: Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. has held talks with Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani on potential mining sector opportunities in the nation, which has struggled to accelerate development of an estimated $1 trillion worth of minerals deposits. Click here to read more (external link).
Ashraf Ghani
The Christian Science Monitor: Afghanistan’s government has a delicate balancing act. As it jockeys for position ahead of talks with the Taliban, it must maintain support from both progressive and conservative segments of the Afghan people. In the late 1990s, when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, the hard-line Islamists imposed a range of restrictions on Afghan society. Recently, Taliban members have noted to Western officials and analysts that both the media law and NGO law, as well as some of the family law changes, are “something we would have done.” Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News: Afghanistan’s Cricket Board (ACB) on Thursday appointed four new members to its nine-member board who were approved by President Ashraf Ghani, according to a statement by the ACB. The new members include the Women’s Affairs Minister Hasina Safi, Kandahar MP Rohullah Khanzada, senior vice-presidential advisor Haroon Mir and Mohammad Nabi, the former cricket captain and member of Afghanistan’s National Cricket Team. Click here to read more (external link).
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Donald Trump
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 20, 2020
U.S. President Donald Trump vowed on August 20 to retaliate if countries were found to have offered bounties for attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
U.S. media reported at the end of June that U.S. intelligence officials concluded months ago that Russian military intelligence offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill American soldiers. The New York Times went on to claim that Trump was briefed on the matter, but did nothing in response.
Earlier this month, CNN reported that U.S. intelligence had also indicated that Iran paid the Taliban bounties to target U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Iran denied the report as “entirely false.”
Speaking to reporters at the White House on August 20, Trump said that if the reports were determined to be a fact, then “we would hit them so hard, your head would spin.”
Trump had previously said he was not told about the reported Russian effort to get the Taliban to kill U.S. soldiers because many U.S. intelligence officials doubted it was true.
Democrats in the U.S. Congress who were briefed on the matter have said U.S. sanctions on Russia should be beefed up if the allegations, which Russia and the Taliban deny, are confirmed.
Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP
RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan
August 20, 2020
Afghan officials say Taliban militants have killed at least 18 people and wounded eight others in two fresh attacks in Takhar and Nangarhar provinces.
The insurgents attacked pro-government militia forces in Takhar’s Khwaja Bahauddin district overnight, killing at least 13 members of the force, local police said on August 20.
Security sources said one army soldier was also killed and two others wounded when they went to support the militia forces that came under Taliban attack.
The officials said the clash in Takhar lasted several hours. Many districts in the northeastern province are contested between the militants and government forces.
The Afghan spy agency supports pro-government local militia groups – known as Public Uprising Forces — in remote areas across the country to fight against the Taliban insurgency.
Meanwhile, officials in eastern Nangarhar Province say at least four security officers were killed and two others wounded in an overnight Taliban assault in areas bordering Pakistan.
Attaullah Khogyani, a spokesman for provincial governor said on August 20 that 10 Taliban fighters were also killed in fighting between security forces and the militants.
The latest violence comes as Afghan President Ashraf Ghani urged the Taliban to accept a permanent cease-fire and began peace talks with the government.
But the prospect of intra-Afghan peace talks sought by the United States was thrown into more uncertainty as the government said it would not release the last 320 Taliban prisoners it holds until the militants freed more captured Afghan soldiers.
Kabul has already freed 4,600 Taliban inmates out of the 5,000 pledged in a landmark U.S.-Taliban deal signed in February.
The Taliban says it has freed all 1,000 government prisoners it had pledged in the agreement with the United States.
The prisoner swap was a precondition for launching peace talks.
With reporting by dpa and Tolonews.com
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