Afghan Peace Talks: What’s At Stake For You?
As Afghan government and Taliban negotiators try to broker a peace deal in Doha, RFE/RL’s Gandhara is asking Afghans: “What’s at stake for you in the Afghan peace talks?” For Ahoo Shahidi, it’s all about the freedom of pursuing her passion as a tattoo artist.
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Afghan National Sought In 2008 Kidnapping Of Journalists To Face Trial In U.S.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
October 29, 2020
U.S. federal authorities have announced that an Afghan man has been brought to the United States to face trial for the 2008 kidnapping of a journalist for The New York Times and two other men in Afghanistan.
The six-count indictment against Haji Najibullah was unsealed in a New York court on October 28.
Federal authorities said the 42-year-old Afghan national had been transferred from Ukraine to face charges including hostage taking, kidnapping, and using a gun to commit violence. He was scheduled for an initial hearing on October 28.
Each count faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
The kidnapping victims were not mentioned in the indictment, but the description of events matched the kidnapping of New York Times journalist David Rohde and an Afghan journalist, Tahir Ludin. Their driver was the third kidnapping victim.
Both journalists escaped from Taliban-controlled parts of Pakistan’s tribal regions after seven months in captivity. They were originally captured at gunpoint in Afghanistan and forced to walk five days across the border into Pakistan.
“Journalists risk their lives bringing us news from conflict zones, and no matter how much time may pass, our resolve to find and hold accountable those who target and harm them and other Americans will never wane,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said in a statement. “The defendant, like many others before and surely others to come, will now face justice in an American courtroom.”
With reporting by The New York Times and AP
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.
Afghan Probe Uncovers Scandal In D.C. Embassy Reconstruction
Roya Rahmani
Radio Free Afghanistan
October 28, 2020
A fact-finding team for the Afghan parliament has alleged that a construction project at the country’s embassy in Washington was rife with corruption.
The parliamentary probe was launched after an exposé in the Afghan media in July reported that the total cost for a 70-meter wall around the Afghan Embassy in northwestern Washington ended up at $1.8 million — multifold times the market rates for such a construction project. However, Roya Rahmani, the Afghan ambassador in Washington, denies any wrongdoing.
Lawmaker Javid Safi, the head of the fact-finding team in Kabul, accused officials at the Afghan Embassy of misappropriation of funds while rebuilding the wall.
“The [Afghan] law has been violated in the reconstruction of the wall,” Safi told Radio Free Afghanistan, while accusing diplomatic officials of not following Afghan procurement laws. “This wall was built at a high cost while the embassy rejected the initial offer, which had a much lower cost.”
Safi, who presented his findings to the parliament this week, accused Rahmani of awarding the contract to the highest bidder. “The contract was awarded by the ambassador to a company over the telephone,” he said. “We talked to other companies and surveyed the market; it should have cost less.”
He says that when inspecting the red-brick wall, which ranges in height from 2 to 3 meters, he found that no special materials had been used. He estimates the project should have cost no more than $300,000, while the construction contract cost nearly $1.6 million. Pajhwok, the Afghan news agency that first broke the story, reported that with additional related contracts for surveys and technical advice the project totaled more than $1.8 million.
Radio Free Afghanistan reached out to the Afghan Embassy in Washington, but no one would comment, including Rahmani, who has repeatedly denied allegations of corruption. While the ambassador and her mission have not commented on the findings of the fact-finding team, Rahmani wrote an op-ed in July in which she rejected Pajhwok’s exposé and pledged to be accountable for the project. “I will account for every dollar,” she wrote.
The Afghan Embassy also issued a detailed statement in July denying the accusations and responding to questions raised by the Pajhwok report.
“The Embassy has requested a complete audit of the project and will provide more information as available,” the statement said. “The entire process was handled in coordination with the Ministry of Finance, in compliance with Afghan laws, and in accordance with American procurement laws.”
The statement explained that the Afghan diplomatic mission had been forced to rebuild the wall after it collapsed due to heavy rainfall and routine wear over a 91-year period.
“It caused extensive damage to embassy grounds and damaged the structure and foundation of a neighboring building,” the statement said. “In addition to the near total collapse of one of four embassy border walls, the integrity of two additional walls [was] compromised and needed to be restored during the course of repairs.”
In Kabul, however, many are not convinced. Ezatullah Adib, a member of Transparency International Afghanistan, an antigraft watchdog, says the Afghan judiciary should investigate the allegations.
“This issue must be seriously investigated, and no one should be excused,” he told Radio Free Afghanistan. “The attorney general must inform the people about this case step by step,” he added. “When this case goes to court, the courts must also do the same.”
Over the past decade, Western allies have consistently urged Afghan officials to make the fight against pervasive corruption a top national priority. For its part, the Afghan government has emphasized that anticorruption measures continue in earnest.
“Each and every dollar donated and assisted to Afghanistan is precious and must be accounted for,” Afghan First Vice President Amrullah Saleh tweeted in July. “Neither Afghan government, nor facilitating partners, NGOs or contractors should be exempt or immune from accountability.”
Transparency International ranked Afghanistan 176th out of 180 countries on its Corruption Perception Index last year. In a report last released week, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a U.S. watchdog, said Washington has lost $19 billion in Afghanistan since 2002.
The oversight organization noted that the U.S. Congress has appropriated nearly $134 billion for Afghan reconstruction projects over the past 19 years. “Of that amount, SIGAR reviewed approximately $63 billion and concluded that a total of approximately $19 billion, or 30 percent of the amount reviewed, was lost to waste, fraud, and abuse,” the report noted.
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.
How Afghanistan political crisis derailed payments to war victims
File photo
INTL NYT: Under the compensation program, which remains heavily funded by international donors, the Afghan government pays roughly $1,300 for every civilian killed in action by Afghan, US or insurgent forces, and $650 per wounded. The payments had become one of the few forms of justice an Afghan family could hope for when caught in the crossfire. Even so, the payments were sparse, with families often not knowing how or where to press their claims. Now the payments are simply jammed up altogether, with no public explanation. Click here to read more (external link).
1TV Afghanistan Dari News – October 28, 2020
First train from Iran arrives in Afghanistan
1TV: An experimental train from Iran arrived in Afghanistan on Wednesday, Afghan officials in the border province of Herat said. The train arrived on Herat-Khaf railway as officials preparing to inaugurate the third phase of the 218 kilometers project next week. The third phase begins from Iran’s Sham Tegh and ends in Herat’s Rawzanak village. Click here to read more (external link).
Rashid Khan Registers Most Economical Spell of IPL 2020
Rashid Khan
Tolo News: Afghanistan’s cricket sensation Rashid Khan who is playing for Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League (IPL) has finished his spell against Delhi Capitals on Tuesday night with figures of 3/7. He bowled 17 dots, The India Express reported. Click here to read more (external link).
Afghanistan: 113 New Cases of COVID-19, 6 Deaths Reported
Tolo News: The Ministry of Public Health on Tuesday reported 113 new positive cases of COVID-19 out of 576 samples tested in the last 24 hours. According to the Public Health Ministry’s data, the cumulative number of total cases is now 41,145, the number of total reported deaths is 1,529, and the total number of recoveries is 34,237. Click here to read more (external link).
UN Documents 30% Drop in Afghan Civilian Casualties
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
October 27, 2020
ISLAMABAD – The United Nations says the conflict in Afghanistan has killed and injured nearly 6,000 civilians during the first nine months of 2020, representing a 30% decline compared to the same period last year.
The report compiled by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) comes as direct peace negotiations between Afghanistan’s warring parties have been underway in Qatar since September 12, though without any progress.
Just hours after the world body released its findings Tuesday, a bomb went off in Kabul, the Afghan capital, killing at least three civilians and injuring 10 others.
UNAMA has documented 2,117 civilian deaths and 3,822 injures from January 1 to September 30, saying the war-ravaged country remains among the deadliest places in the world to be a civilian.
Child casualties during the reported period amounted to 31% of all civilian casualties, and women casualties 13%.
“While the number of civilian casualties documented is the lowest in the first nine months of any year since 2012, the harm done to civilians remains inordinate and shocking,” the report said.
UNAMA noted the outgoing month is outside of the scope of the report, but intensified battlefield attacks, a suicide bombing and an Afghan government airstrike together have killed and injured more than 400 civilians since October 1.
The report lamented that the ongoing Afghan peace process has failed to slow the number of civilian casualties.
“The peace talks will need some time to help deliver peace. But all parties can immediately prioritize discussions and take urgent, and frankly overdue, additional steps to stem the terrible harm to civilians,” said Deborah Lyons, the mission’s chief in Kabul.
The U.N. report blamed the Taliban insurgency and other anti-government forces for causing 58% of the civilian casualties. The Taliban were responsible for 45 percent of the total casualties. It noted, however, that the overall number of civilian casualties attributed to the Taliban dropped by 32%.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid rejected as propaganda the U.N. findings, saying they were founded on baseless reports shared with the world body by Afghan security and intelligence institutions.
UNAMA said pro-Afghan government forces were responsible for 28% of the harm inflicted on civilians in the first nine months and documented its concerns about the 70% increase in civilian casualties caused by Afghan Airforce airstrikes.
There was no immediate response from the Kabul government to the report.
“Our interviews with victims and their families reveal the near complete failure of parties to the conflict to acknowledge harm caused, nor even to make contact with them following an incident,” said Fiona Frazer, UNAMA’s Human Rights chief.
The report finds that in the period under review there were fewer civilian casualties attributed to the ISIL-Khorasan Province, the Afghan branch of Islamic State terror group, due to a decrease in the number of attacks.
The U.N. mission noted that harm caused to civilians by U.S.-led international forces “all but ceased in the reporting period,” attributing it to the landmark peace-building agreement the United States signed with the Taliban in February.
The U.S.-Taliban deal has bound the insurgents not to attack foreign forces committed to stage a “conditions-based” complete withdrawal from Afghanistan by May 2021. In return American forces have significantly scaled back military operations, including airstrikes, against the Taliban.
The pact requires the insurgents to negotiate a permanent cease-fire with rival Afghan groups and a political arrangement to govern the post-war country.
But both U.S. and Taliban officials have lately accused each other of violating the terms of the agreement and lingering disputes have slowed, if not stalled, the peace talks between the Taliban and representatives of the Kabul government being hosted by Doha, the Qatari capital.