Mubariz
Ariana: Baz Mohammad Mubariz, Mixed Martial Art (MMA) fighter, lost to his Russian opponent Nikita Gomzyakov on Friday in Moscow. Gomzyakov defeated the Afghan well-known Mubariz via a three-round decision. This was his second defeat in the Absolute Championship Akhmat (ACA) fighting which was held in Moscow, the capital of Russia. Click here to read more (external link).
Mark Milley
Tolo News: Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, held unannounced talks with the Taliban peace negotiators in Doha, capital of Qatar, to urge a reduction in violence across Afghanistan, AP reported. Gen. Milley met for about two hours with the Taliban negotiators on Tuesday and flew Wednesday to Kabul to discuss the peace process with President Ghani, the report said. Click here to read more (external link).
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
December 17, 2020
Rohullah Anwari
Sharifullah Sharafat
Abubakar Siddique
ASADABAD, Afghanistan — Every day brings a new challenge of survival for Saima, an Afghan widow in her 30s.
She struggles to keep her four children warm and fed in the bitter cold that has descended in eastern Afghanistan, where winter snows now blanket the mountains for weeks.
Her dilapidated mud house in an impoverished neighborhood of Asababad, the capital of Kunar Province, provides little protection against the subzero temperatures. As her teenage son looks for some firewood in the nearby forest, her three other children huddle on a floormat inside the darkened room as their teeth rattle from the cold.
“When my husband was alive, we had everything, but we don’t have anything now,” she told Radio Free Afghanistan. “My son sells some of the woods he collects, and that is our only means of buying some food.”
Like many Afghans, Saima goes by one name only. She says her world came crumbling down when her husband, a Taliban fighter, was killed in a clash with international troops in a rural district a decade ago.
“The only food we have right now is a few kilograms of maize flour,” she said as she stared into the mud and clay hearth where they light a fire whenever they have something to cook.
Paighamullah, her 11-year-old son, says their misery reminds him of his father’s absence every day.
“I can’t remember him because I was too young when he was killed,” he told Radio Free Afghanistan. “But I miss him every day. It saddens me to realize I don’t have a father whenever I see happy children with their fathers.”
His father, whose name the family doesn’t want to reveal, is among the tens of thousands of combatants killed in the past 19 years. Taliban fighters, Afghan government soldiers, and civilians make up the vast majority of the country’s casualties since the demise of the Taliban regime following a U.S.-led military attack in late 2001. More than 4,000 international troops have also been killed in the war.
For the families on either side of the battlefield, life after losing their loved ones has more similarities than differences. About a kilometer from Saima’s house in Asadabad lives Reza Gul, a grandmother who mourns her son’s loss.
Gul says the grief is unending. Her 25-year-old son, Abdul Jalal, was killed while fighting for the Afghan National Army in the volatile southern province of Helmand. She recalls the day when Jalal’s body was brought in from the frontline five years ago.
“He was snatched back from us too early,” she told Radio Free Afghanistan. “At that point, he had been married only for 11 months.”
Salima, Jalal’s 4-year-old daughter, was born months after her father’s killing.
“I just want Allah to bring peace to Afghanistan through a reconciliation among Afghans,” Gul said of her hopes – a sentiment that Saima shares.
“We just want peace — peace for everyone in the world,” Saima said.
Across Afghanistan, the division within society is also reflected at the cemeteries. In many villages, the Taliban’s white banner and the red, green, and black national flag indicate for which side the fallen had fought.
In the remote province of Uruzgan, Faizullah, 18, mourns the loss of three brothers. While two of them served in the Afghan police, one had joined the Taliban. All three were killed in clashes two years ago.
Faizullah now looks after his parents, the widows of his two married brothers, and their eight children. “We repeatedly pleaded with them and urged them to abandon the competing sides,” he said while pointing to his brothers’ mud grave at the Graveyard of Martyrs near Uruzgan’s provincial capital, Tarin Kot.
“When they were alive, I was very happy and confident that they would look after us and provide for our families,” he told Radio Free Afghanistan. “I have nothing now, just unending heartache.”
Like Saima and Gul, Faizullah hopes the peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban will soon result in establishing peace.
But the peace talks are fraught with challenges. A recent breakthrough only saw the Taliban and the Afghan government negotiators agree on the ground rules and procedures after three months of haggling. Both sides are now taking a break for consultations.
The two sides, however, are far from declaring a cease-fire. While the Afghan government has been calling for an armistice for months, the Taliban is resisting the cessation of hostilities.
Across Afghanistan, both sides are engaged in increasingly bloody fighting. On December 16, 13 Afghan police officers were killed in an attack at a checkpoint in the northern province of Baghlan.
Abubakar Siddique wrote this story based on reporting by Rohullah Anwari and Sharifullah Sharafat.
Related
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
December 17, 2020
Farangis Najibullah
Mumin Ahmadi
Tajikistan has deployed additional troops along its southern border with Afghanistan after Afghan authorities claimed a group of militants from Tajikistan played a major role in the Taliban’s capture of an Afghan district last month.
Afghan officials said the majority of the militants who overran the Maymay district in the northeastern Badakhshan Province in November were foreign fighters, including militants from Tajikistan.
They said the fighters belong to Jamaat Ansarullah, a militant group founded in Afghanistan by Tajik national Amriddin Tabarov in 2010.
In early December, a 10-minute video appeared on social media purportedly showing Tajik insurgents fighting against Afghan government forces in Maymay, which borders Tajikistan.
While RFE/RL cannot verify the authenticity of the footage, some of the fighters can be heard speaking a distinct Persian dialect spoken in Tajikistan.
Footage depicts them killing men in Afghan Army uniforms and civilian clothes and setting fire to a building. At the end, the militants show off weapons and vehicles they purportedly seized from the Afghan troops.
Afghan authorities confirmed the killings and the destruction in Maymay. Media quoted local residents who said militants, “particularly the Tajiks,” killed and beheaded Afghan soldiers.
List Of Names
Afghan lawmaker Latif Pedram, a native of the area, published a list of names that he described as militants from Tajikistan who took part in the Maymay attack.
In Tajikistan, the security service has since identified at least 15 Tajik nationals whose faces or names appeared on videos and statements shared by Afghan officials in connection with the fall of Maymay.
It has raised alarms in Dushanbe, the sources said, because they are ordinary individuals with no apparent connections to any political, religious, or opposition groups. The sources — familiar with the situation — spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The presence of Tajik militants in Afghanistan and the volatile tribal areas of Pakistan has been known for many years. But the difference in previous cases is that the majority of them were taken to Afghanistan as children by their parents during the civil war of the 1990s or in the immediate postwar years. Many were born there to Tajik families.
In the latest cases, however, the Tajik militants are people who left the country between 2010 and 2017 — men mainly aged between 20 and 40 years, with some having brought their wives and children with them to Afghanistan.
A ‘Real Threat’
Tajik authorities haven’t commented publicly about the border reinforcements. They insist that it is business as usual when it comes to any threats posed by Afghan-based militants.
“It is a real threat. Today they’re fighting for the Taliban, but we can’t predict what they’re going to do in the future,” sources in Dushanbe told RFE/RL’s Tajik Service.
The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said an elite unit had been deployed near the areas where Tajik fighters are thought to be concentrated on the Afghan side of the frontier.
Badakhshan Deputy Governor Akhtar Muhammad Khairzada told the Pajhwok news agency that the militants are mainly based in the province’s Warduj and Jurm districts. He added that there were also Uzbek, Chechen, and Chinese Uyghur militants based in the area.
Afghan officials estimate the number of Tajik militants in the country at around 200, but the exact figure is impossible to confirm. In 2019, the number of Jamaat Ansarullah members was estimated at around 30.
Aziz Barez, a former first secretary with the Afghan Embassy in Dushanbe, says only the Taliban “who hosts the foreign militants” can provide a more accurate number of how many Tajiks and other foreigners are fighting alongside them.
Citing intelligence gathered both by Afghan and Tajik officials, the sources in Dushanbe believe Jamaat Ansarullah militants operate separately from Tajik nationals who have joined an affiliate of the extremist Islamic State (IS) group in Afghanistan in recent years.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that Jamaat Ansarullah — along with the Taliban — had even been engaged in some fighting against IS followers in Afghanistan, the sources said.
But some think it is possible that the militant groups might join forces in the future.
Tabarov, the Jamaat Ansarullah founder, was killed by Afghan forces in July 2015 and his two sons were extradited to Tajikistan. In 2019, the sons were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for seeking to overthrow the government, among other charges.
In 2015-16, Tajikistan arrested dozens of suspected followers of the banned group. The extent of current support for Jamaat Ansarullah in Tajikistan is unknown.
If the claims by Badakhshan officials are reliable, the number of Tajik militants in the Afghan province has been on the rise recently.
Barez, the former diplomat who is from Badakhshan, says the potential security threats by the militants shouldn’t be underestimated.
“The militants have access to financial sources to fund themselves — such as by controlling lucrative drug-trafficking routes,” he told RFE/RL on December 16. “Also, the area is rich in natural resources like rubies, lapis lazuli, and gold.”
Families Under Fire
An anti-extremism campaign is in full swing in Tajikistan once again, with parents, siblings, and other close relatives of the militants appearing in video messages released by state-run channels. Parents are shown pleading with their children to come home and turn themselves in.
“People are telling me your son is shown on a video killing people. I wish I was dead rather than hearing this,” Zumratbi Rajabmatova tells her son, Daler Elmurodov.
“Please, come back home. Or if you don’t want to return then please live quietly and stop killing!” the tearful mother says in the video released by the government.
One father begs his son “not to fire a single shot toward Tajikistan.”
“We’re taking the blame for your crimes. If you attack and kill Tajik border guards, don’t you think that their loved ones would take your revenge on us?” another parent says in the video.
The families say their militant sons have left them to pay the price for their actions — they must endure shame and guilt in their communities and face interrogations and pressure from authorities.
“I’ve faced questioning [about my son] for the past six years. I’m fed up with being the mother of that son and have had enough of these interrogations,” one parent told RFE/RL’s Tajik Service on condition of anonymity.
The Tajik government has long been criticized for its clampdown on freedom of religion and tight controls on how people practice their faith in the predominantly Muslim country of some 9.5 million.
Women are banned from wearing the hijab, an Islamic head scarf, in public places. Young men are not allowed to grow long beards or wear certain clothes that are deemed to be in a Salafi style.
Mosques operate under strict state control, while imams are vetted and appointed by the government. Their sermons are also monitored.
Independent media has been stifled, and opposition parties face constant government pressure. People have also been deprived of an outlet to express their opinions or discontent.
Critics say this general lack of freedom in Tajikistan coupled with widespread poverty, skyrocketing unemployment, and corruption have pushed many young people to join Islamic extremist groups.
Thousands of Tajiks — many with their families — also went to Syria and Iraq to join IS forces.
1TV: Afghanistan on Thursday temporarily blocked popular online game Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) after receiving complaints that it had negative impact on people who play it. Afghanistan Telecom Regulatory Authority (ATRA) said that the decision to block the game was taken following complaints from several entities including the parliament. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News: The Ministry of Public Health on Thursday reported 232 new positive cases of COVID-19 out of 1,647 samples tested in the last 24 hours. The data by the ministry shows that the cumulative number of total cases is now 50,202, the number of total reported deaths is 2,032, and the total number of recoveries is 38,686. Click here to read more (external link).
Related
Taliban’s Baradar (left) and Qureshi (right). File photo.
By Radio Mashaal
December 16, 2020
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the continuation of the war in neighboring Afghanistan was not in the Taliban’s “interest anymore,” after holding talks with a Taliban delegation in Islamabad.
The Taliban delegation, led by the militant group’s top political leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, arrived in the Pakistani capital on December 16 for a three-day visit.
The visit comes amid growing calls for a reduction in violence in Afghanistan, where the Taliban has intensified attacks on the Afghan government despite entering peace talks aimed at ending the 19-year conflict.
The “Taliban are convinced that the continuation of war” in Afghanistan is “not in their interest anymore, not in the interest of Afghanistan,” Qureshi told reporters.
“That is why I clearly felt a tendency toward peace,” he said after talks with the Taliban delegation.
Qureshi said Pakistan calls for a reduction of violence in Afghanistan that leads to a permanent cease-fire.
He said peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban that started in the Gulf state of Qatar in September represent a “historic opportunity” that should not be “wasted.”
Pakistan, the Taliban’s main sponsor, has long been accused of sheltering and aiding the militants, a claim rejected by Islamabad.
Pakistan is credited with bringing the militant group to the negotiation table with the United States in 2018.
Those talks eventually led to the U.S.-Taliban deal that was signed in February, providing for the withdrawal of all foreign forces in exchange for the Taliban’s security guarantees and its commitment to peace talks with the Afghan government.
Despite the peace talks, violence in Afghanistan has continued unabated. There are regular clashes in various parts of the country and bomb and rocket attacks in the capital, Kabul.
With reporting by AFP, AP, and Reuters
Related
By Radio Free Afghanistan
December 16, 2020
Afghan officials say at least 13 police officers have been killed in an attack on a security checkpoint in the northern province of Baghlan.
Three more police officers were wounded in a separate attack on a checkpoint in the same province.
Both attacks occurred in areas of the provincial capital, Pul-e Khumri, on December 16.
No group claimed responsibility for the attacks, although local officials blamed the Taliban.
Since September, the Afghan government and Taliban militants have been holding peace talks in Qatar aimed at ending decades of war.
Despite the peace talks, violence in Afghanistan has continued unabated. There are regular clashes in various parts of the country and bomb and rocket attacks in the capital, Kabul.
At least five Afghan security personnel were killed in a Taliban attack on a checkpoint in the southern province of Uruzgan on December 16, said Ahmad Shah Sahil, spokesman for the provincial governor.
He added that at least 11 Taliban fighters were killed in the fighting.
The attacks came a day after a bomb blast and a shooting attack in Kabul killed at least three people, including Kabul’s deputy provincial governor, Mahbobullah Mohibi.
Humanitarian Crisis
The United Nations has warned that 5 million more Afghans will be in need of help next year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and an increase in conflicts.
The need is increasing and “funding is urgently needed,” Acting Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Ramesh Rajasingham told a news conference on December 15.
Rajasingham, who came back from a trip to Afghanistan, said the situation would be aggravated by the harsh winters Afghanistan usually experiences.
He added that the growing need for humanitarian assistance is the result of “the COVID-19 crisis, increased conflict, and displacements” of the population.
“We are going from a situation where we have (asked) for support to target around 11 million people in 2020 to what we estimate will be almost 16 million people next year,” Rajasingham said.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said on December 15 that he hoped peace negotiations between the government and the Taliban would be moved to Afghanistan from Qatar, adding that it is insulting for the Afghan people that the talks are currently being held in luxury hotels in the Gulf state’s capital, Doha.
The peace talks, which opened in September, follow a landmark U.S.-Taliban agreement reached in February in Qatar and will resume on January 5.
Under a U.S.-Taliban deal signed in Doha in February, all foreign forces are scheduled to leave Afghanistan by May 2021 in exchange for security guarantees from the militant group and a commitment to talk with the Afghan government in Kabul. NATO has roughly 11,000 troops in Afghanistan from several countries.
In November, the Trump administration announced that 2,000 American troops will exit Afghanistan by mid-January, leaving just 2,500 behind.
However, despite the peace talks, violence has continued unabated in the war-wracked country.
On December 15, a bomb blast and a shooting attack in Kabul killed at least three people, including Kabul’s deputy provincial governor, Mahbobullah Mohibi.
In October, the UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), said 2,117 civilians were killed and 3,822 wounded in the first nine months of this year.
With reporting by AFP, AP, and Reuters