Kabul Says Iran Accepts Responsibility For Deaths Of Three Migrants In Shooting Incident

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Yazd officials say police fired on the vehicle after it crashed through a checkpoint.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
June 6, 2020

Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry says that authorities in Iran’s Yazd Province have accepted that their police forces shot a vehicle carrying Afghan migrants earlier this week, killing three people.

The ministry said on June 6 that four others were wounded as the vehicle caught fire after it was shot.

A video showing an Afghan boy escaping from a blazing vehicle with burns on parts of his body has been widely circulating on social media in recent days, causing outrage among Afghans. The boy can be heard saying, “Give a bit of water. I am burning.”

The ministry said the video was genuine.

Abdul Ghafoor Lewal, Afghanistan’s envoy in Tehran, visited the four Afghan nationals getting treatment in a Yazd hospital. Photos published by Afghan media show that at least one of the injured is handcuffed to the hospital bed.

Ahmad Tarahomi, deputy governor of Yazd, told Iranian state media that police fired on the vehicle, suspected of carrying drugs and undocumented migrants, after it crashed through a checkpoint.

The Afghan Foreign Ministry said that Yazd officials have told the Afghan government that they would hold the perpetrators of the incident accountable.

The ministry added that the Afghan government would take further steps after conducting a probe.

Last month, Afghan officials said Iranian border guards killed 45 Afghan migrant workers by forcing them at gunpoint into a river on the border. Iran denied the allegation.

According to the United Nations, there are currently close to 1 million registered Afghan refugees living in Iran, while the country hosts another 2 million undocumented Afghans.

Based on reporting by dpa, Reuters, and TOLOnew.com

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.

Pakistan Appoints New Special Envoy For Afghanistan

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RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal
June 6, 2020

Pakistan has appointed a new envoy to Afghanistan in a fresh bid to ease tense bilateral relations.

Pakistani media said the new envoy, Muhammad Sadiq, a career diplomat, met with Foreign Minister Mehmood Quraishi in Islamabad on June 6.

Afterwards, Quraishi expressed hope that Sadiq would be able to improve bilateral ties.

Saddiq is from the Swabi district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. He earlier worked as Pakistan’s ambassador in Afghanistan and as a spokesman for the Pakistani Foreign Ministry. Saddiq also served on the National Security Council.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have had strained ties for years. Kabul has long accused Islamabad of providing safe haven to Taliban militants who launch attacks against international and Afghan forces.

Pakistan has denied those allegations and blames Afghanistan for giving anti-Pakistani militants refuge to plot attacks in Pakistan, which Kabul denies.

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.

Govt Orders New Health Practices to Curb COVID-19

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Tolo News: The new health guidelines require citizens to wear a face mask in public places, maintain a  two-meter social distance, avoid gatherings of more than 10 people, disinfect all workplaces,   and for elderly people to not leave their homes. According to the new plan, all schools, universities, higher education institutes, restaurants, parks, sports complexes and wedding halls will remain closed for three months. Buses will not be allowed to commute between the cities. Click here to read more (external link).

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Roadside Bomb Kills 11 Afghan Forces as US Envoy Renews Peace Diplomacy

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Ayaz Gul
VOA News
June 6, 2020

ISLAMABAD – Officials in Afghanistan said Saturday a roadside bomb explosion in the northeastern border province of Badakhshan has killed at least eleven police personnel.

The bombing comes as America’s peace envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, has begun another visit to the region to push political reconciliation between Afghanistan’s warring sides.

A provincial police spokesman told VOA the overnight attack targeted a security convoy that was rushing to Khash district to help other forces battling Taliban insurgents there.

Sanaullah Ruhani said a local police commander was also among the slain personnel. He went on to claim that government forces inflicted heavy casualties on the Taliban during Friday night clashes in Khash, killing a key insurgent commander.

The Taliban did not immediately offer any comments on the bombing or clashes in an Afghan province where insurgents are in control of several districts. Badakhshan borders Tajikistan, Pakistan and China.

On Friday, an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan killed at least 15 members of the highway police force.

The Taliban has halted attacks on U.S.-led international forces in the country in line with a landmark agreement it signed with Washington in February. But deadly insurgent raids against Afghan security forces have intensified in recent weeks.

The U.S. military this week also conducted airstrikes to disrupt Taliban attacks against Afghan security forces, saying they action was in line with the agreement.

Khalilzad Trip

The U.S. State Department announced Friday that Khalilzad has departed Washington for travel to Qatar, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he will review the implementation of all commitments in the agreement, specifically reduced violence and prisoner releases.

“The primary focus of Ambassador Khalilzad’s trip is to obtain agreement between the Afghan parties on the practical next steps necessary for a smooth start to intra-Afghan negotiations,” it said.

Khalilzad led the U.S. team that negotiated and sealed the February 29 pact with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, which hosts insurgent political office.

The proposed intra-Afghan dialogue stipulated in the agreement, however, is tied to a prisoner swap between the government and the Taliban that would set free 5,000 insurgent inmates and 1,000 Afghan personnel.

So far, the Taliban says it has released close to 460 detainees while the government says it has freed around 2,700 insurgents.

“The road ahead will have challenges and difficulties. But we’re optimistic that finally we are moving forward to the start of the intra-Afghan negotiations,” Khalilzad told reporters in Washington earlier this week.

“And not only we are trying to make sure that the remaining issues dealing with the prisoners release, which is up to 5000 prisoners to be released by the government and all the prisoners must be released before intra-Afghan negotiations can begin.”

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Taliban Ambush Kills 15 Afghan Forces, US Attacks Insurgents

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Ayaz Gul
VOA News
June 5, 2020

ISLAMABAD – Afghan officials said Friday fresh fighting in the southern province of Zabul has killed at least 15 members of the security force and 12 Taliban insurgents.

Separately, the United States military reported it has also conducted airstrikes in the south and elsewhere in Afghanistan to disrupt “coordinated” Taliban attacks against Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF).

Gul Islam Sayal, a provincial government spokesman, told VOA that insurgents ambushed a “police reinforcement” convoy early Friday on the main highway linking Zabul with the Kandahar province.

Sayal said the government responded by sending additional police forces and aerial strikes to counter the Taliban raid. He did not discuss details of battlefield casualties.

But a security official requesting anonymity told VOA the clashes killed 15 Afghan highway police personnel and 12 insurgents. He said the Taliban also took away several military vehicles.

Separately, a spokesman for the U.S. forces in Afghanistan (USFOR-A) said an airstrike Friday targeted insurgents assaulting Afghan forces in Kandahar.

Col. Sonny Leggett gave no further details, noting this was the second airstrike the U.S. military had carried out in support of Afghan forces since Thursday.

“Overnight, USFOR-A conducted an airstrike against 25 armed Taliban fighters executing a coordinated attack on an ANDSF checkpoint in (western) Farah province. This afternoon, USFOR-A conducted a strike on Taliban fighters attacking an ANDSF checkpoint in Kandahar province,” he tweeted.

Leggett said the airstrikes were carried out in accordance with the agreement between the United States and the Taliban. The pact, signed on February 29, binds both sides not to attack each other’s forces. But the agreement allows the U.S. military to act in support of Afghan forces, if they are attacked.

“We reiterate: All sides must reduce violence to allow the peace process to take hold. These were the 1st U.S. airstrikes against Taliban since the start of the Eid cease-fire,” he stressed.

The Taliban and Afghan security forces declared a temporary cease-fire during three-day annual Eid festivities, which ended on May 26.

Battlefield hostilities have since resumed, with Taliban fighters launching major attacks and killing dozens of Afghan forces.

The renewed violence comes amid a slow-moving prisoner swap between the insurgents and the Afghan government stipulated in the U.S.-Taliban agreement.

Kabul is required to free 5,000 insurgent inmates in exchange for 1,000 government detainees held by the Taliban.

So far, the government has freed fewer than 2,400 prisoners while the Taliban has released 420 Afghan personnel.

The swap, once completed, would lead to opening of negotiations between Afghan parties to the war to agree on a permanent cease-fire and power-sharing arrangement after the withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan.

The U.S.-Taliban pact requires all U.S. and coalition forces to leave Afghanistan by mid-2021, ending the nearly two-decade-long Afghan war, America’s longest.

The U.S. military drawdown started just days after the agreement was signed in Qatar to bring the number of troops down to about 8,600 by the middle of July before the full withdrawal next year.

More Security News

‘I know they aren’t healthy’: the energy drink craze sweeping Afghanistan

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The Guardian (UK): Energy drinks have taken over Afghanistan, and the high-caffeine sweet beverages are enjoyed by all ages – including toddlers and pregnant mothers – without much attention being paid to potential health risks. In a busy Kabul neighbourhood, Salim Wahidi, 22, has dozens of different brands stacked up next to his small roadside stand. The supplies run out fast.  Click here to read more (external link).

COVID-19 Infects 70 Afghan Journalists, RSF Finds

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Ayaz Gul
VOA News
June 5, 2020

ISLAMABAD – A global media advocate said Friday the coronavirus pandemic has infected at least 70 journalists in Afghanistan, fueling troubles of a community already under attack from years of violence and terrorism.

Reporters Without Borders, known by its French acronym RSF, made the revelation on a day when Afghan officials confirmed the number of COVID-19 infections across the war-torn country have reached close to 19,000, with more than 300 deaths. The outbreak reached Afghanistan in March.

“According to the information gathered by RSF, at least 70 Afghan journalists have been infected by Covid-19 since the end of March. … This means that Afghanistan’s journalists have been hit harder by the coronavirus pandemic than any other media community in the world,” the watchdog said.

The France-based organization lamented in its statement that last week was deadly for Afghan media personnel, with two killed by an Islamic State-claimed bombing and two killed by COVID-19.

“Meanwhile, nearly 50 journalists in the Kabul region who are infected with the virus say they are not being treated properly, either for lack of money or lack of medical supplies,” it added.

Journalists in Kabul have complained they are not being provided with adequate protection kits by their media groups, nor has there been any assistance from the government.

“The media have few resources and cannot even pay our salaries. And the unions and associations say they are broke, that their funding comes from membership dues that journalists are no longer paying,” the RSF said quoting infected journalists and saying they spoke on condition of anonymity.

“I’ve been going to the hospital for five days for a test, but the hospital says it has no tests. I cannot get hospitalized and I cannot afford to buy medicine,” one journalist told the media advocate.

The organization demanded Afghan authorities take steps to protect media workers from both violence and the pandemic.

There was no immediate reaction from Afghan officials to the RSF report.

COVID-19 infections rose by 684% in May, and many more are going untested and undetected because of extremely low testing capacity, warned the International Rescue Committee (IRC) earlier this week. “Afghanistan has one of the highest test positivity rates (40%) of all the countries where the IRC works, suggesting a high level of undetected population infection,” it said.

IS terror

A driver with privately-run Ariana News channel in the Afghan capital and a reporter working for the state-owned RTA TV in eastern Nangarhar province died this week from the coronavirus.

On May 30, a journalist and a media technician were killed, and four others were injured when a minibus carrying employees of privately-owned Khurshid TV hit a roadside bomb. Islamic State later claimed responsibly for plotting the attack.

Since 2015, RSF noted, Islamic State has claimed credit for bombings and attacks that have killed a total of 15 journalists and media workers in Afghanistan, listed as one of the dangerous countries for media workers.

“Afghanistan’s journalists are exposed to a range of evils, and practicing their profession is becoming more and more dangerous. Such a dramatic increase in the number falling victim to bombings or afflicted by disease is unacceptable,” said Reza Moini, the head of RSF’s Iran-Afghanistan desk.

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