HRW Calls For Investigation Into ‘Shocking’ Allegation Of Iranian Border Guards Drowning Afghan Migrants

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RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan
May 4, 2020

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for a “thorough investigation” into “shocking” allegations that Iranian border guards beat and then forced a group of Afghan migrants into a river.

Afghan officials said up to 70 migrants last week illegally crossed into Iran, where they were beaten, tortured, and then forced into a river by Iranian border guards.

Authorities in the western province of Herat, located along the border with Iran, said they had retrieved 12 bodies from the Harirud River that crosses both countries.

Dozens of Afghan migrants are still missing and Afghan authorities have launched an operation to locate and retrieve the bodies.

“The allegations are indeed shocking,” Patricia Gossman, an associate director for the Asia division at HRW, told RFE/RL on May 4. “It really requires a very thorough investigation into what exactly happened.”

Gossman said that if proven, the actions of the Iranian border guards would amount to “a very serious human rights violation.”

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Musavi said the “incident” took place on Afghan soil.

“Border guards of the Islamic Republic of Iran denied the occurrence of any events related to this on the soil of our country,” he said in a statement on May 3, adding that Tehran would launch an investigation into the incident.

Abdul Ghani Noori, governor of Herat’s Gulran district, where the migrants crossed, accused Iranian security forces of throwing the group of Afghan migrants into the Harirud River.

Afghan officials said it was not the first time that Afghans had been tortured and killed by Iranian security forces guarding the 920-kilometer-long border.

“I haven’t heard of a case like this in recent memory, although we have previously documented abuses by Iranian border officials against Afghans for some time,” Gossman said, adding that there had been past incidents of Iranian border guards beating and firing on Afghan migrants.

Decades of conflict, extreme poverty, and high rates of unemployment force thousands of Afghans to illegally cross the border into Iran every year.

There are currently up to 1 million registered Afghan refugees in Iran, while the country hosts another 2 million undocumented Afghans, according to the United Nations.

With reporting by Reuters and 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.

Taliban Claim Attack on Afghan Army Base

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Ayesha Tanzeem
VOA News
May 4, 2020

ISLAMABAD – Taliban have claimed an attack on an Afghan military and intelligence base in Helmand province Sunday night that killed at least seven and wounded more than a dozen, according to a security source. The attack was confirmed by multiple Afghan officials, including the spokesman for Helmand governor Omar Zawak, albeit with a lower number of casualties. The Afghan ministry of defense said only one person was wounded.

The source who did not wish to be named also said the base in Grishk district was partially damaged in the attack.

District police chief Ismail Khpalwak said a suicide attacker exploded a Mazda mini truck in front of  the gate. The base along the Kandahar-Herat highway is approximately 120 km north of the provincial capital Lashkargah which houses forces responsible for keeping the highway secure.

The Taliban statement claiming the attack said it was done in retaliation for repeated violations of the deal made between the United States and Taliban in February in Doha, as well as attacks on civilians living in areas under Taliban control.

While this is the first time in weeks that Taliban have directly claimed an attack, several reports suggest Taliban violence increased in March and April of this year.

A Reuters story claims Taliban mounted 4500 attacks since the signing of the deal on February 29.

“[A]ttacks by the hardline Islamist group [were] up by more than 70 percent between March 1 and April 15 compared with the same period a year ago,” Reuters said.

The latest United Nations report on civilian casualties said anti-government forces killed 55 percent of all the civilians who died in the first quarter of 2020 in Afghanistan. The report blamed Taliban for 39 percent of those killings.

The attack in Helmand, though the deadliest, was one of several in various parts of Afghanistan in the last 24 hours.

In Paktika province, a grenade attack on a mosque in Khairkot district along the border with Pakistan left 20 worshippers wounded.  Shah Mohammad Aryan, a spokesman for the Paktika police headquarters told VOA that all the wounded have been shifted to a hospital and are out of danger.

In a third attack north of the capital Kabul Monday morning, four employees of the state owned power company were wounded in a bomb explosion on their way back to the capital after repairing a pylon destroyed by gunmen Sunday night.

A statement by the Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS) said two out of the four were in critical condition.

This was the second attack on an electricity pylon north of Kabul in the last two weeks. In the first attack, the pylon destroyed was used for transferring electricity imported from Central Asia. Its destruction caused two days of power outages in Kabul and a few other provinces.

Kabul police have arrested a group of criminals that it says is led by the brother of a Taliban group commander in connection with these attacks on the electricity infrastructure.

In yet another attack in Kandahar city Monday morning, a policewoman was killed..  Jamal Barakzai, a spokesman for Kandahar police, told VOA she was killed in the center of the city. In the past two months, five policewomen have been killed in various attacks in Kandahar. Around 100 policewomen are on duty in Kandahar province.

No group has so far taken responsibility for targeting female police officers. Kandahar is an extremely conservative province and few women are seen on the streets.

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235 New COVID-19 Cases Confirmed in Afghanistan

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Tolo News: The Ministry of Public Health spokesman Wahidullah Mayar said on Sunday that in the past 24 hours, 235 positive cases have been recorded across the country, and the country total is 2,704. The number of reported recoveries in the country is 345, while 85 have died. Click here to read more (external link).

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Iran border guards had no part in harming Afghan citizens: Foreign Ministry

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Press TV
May 3, 2020

Tehran says a recent incident befalling a number of Afghan citizens at a border region close to the Iranian soil took place on the Afghan side of the border and Iran’s border guards had no part in it.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi made the comments on Sunday after some reports claimed that Iranian border guards had tortured and thrown Afghans into a river in a western province to prevent their illegal entry into Iran.

“The incident affecting a number of Afghanistan’s citizens has taken place on that country’s soil and the Islamic Republic of Iran’s border guards have denied any involvement in this regard,” Mousavi said while expressing sympathy with the families of the victims.

“Taking into account the significance of the issue and in order to obtain accurate information about how the incident took place on the Afghan soil, we have been probing the issue in cooperation with that country’s officials,” the Iranian spokesperson added.

Afghanistan’s foreign ministry in a statement on Saturday said an inquiry has been launched and a senior official in the presidential palace in Kabul said initial assessments suggested that at least 70 Afghans who were trying to enter Iran from bordering Herat Province were beaten and pushed into the Harirud river.

The Harirud river basin is shared by Afghanistan, Iran and Turkmenistan.

Iran spends eight billion dollars on Afghan migrants every year in various sectors and has repeatedly complained that the countries which caused the displacement of Afghans must accept responsibility and help cover the costs.

The representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Iran, Ivo Freijsen, last month hailed as an “important achievement” the country’s hosting of Afghan refugees for more than four decades, vowing to help the Islamic Republic protect Afghans amid the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic.

“As UNHCR, we want to first and foremost underscore and highlight that it has been commendable that Iran has been hosting refugees primarily from Afghanistan for more than 40 years now, which is an important feature and an important achievement, a commendable achievement,” Freijsen said.

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US, Taliban engage in Twitter row

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Press TV
May 2, 2020

The United States and Afghan militant group Taliban have engaged in a war on Twitter over the peace process.

Sonny Leggett, the spokesman for the US forces in Afghanistan, warned his Taliban counterpart on the social media website on Saturday.

“Attacks generate attacks, while restraint produces restraint. If the violence cannot be reduced – then yes, there will be responses,” Leggett tweeted, addressing Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.

The Taliban and Washington reached an agreement in February after elongated talks behind close door.

“Do not harm the current environment with pointless & provocative statements,” Muhajid tweeted to Leggett. “We are committed to our end, honor your own obligations.”

The Taliban militants have reportedly launched over 4,500 attacks since they reached an accord with the US.

“But we spoke of ALL sides reducing violence by as much as 80% to pave the way for peace talks,” Leggett said.

Washington is required under the deal to pull out American forces and foreign troops from Afghanistan by July next year, provided that the militants start talks with Kabul and adhere to other security guarantees.

Clashes between Taliban members and Afghan forces have intensified even as the country keeps battling the covid-19 pandemic.

As of May 1, Afghanistan reported 2,335 cases of the novel coronavirus.

Taliban increases attacks on Afghan forces since signing US peace deal: Report

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Taliban fighters (file photo)

Press TV
May 2, 2020

The Taliban militant group has conducted more than 4,500 attacks in Afghanistan, marking a sharp rise in violence only in the 45 days since it signed a deal with the United States that paves the way for American troops to wind down their presence in the war-ravaged country, a report says.

In a report on Friday, Reuters said that it had seen two sets of data, one from a Western military source and the other from an independent body, revealing that the attacks by Taliban militants had increased by over 70 percent from March 1 to mid-April compared with the same period last year.

Furthermore, official data from the Afghan government shows that more than 900 Afghan local and national forces have been killed during the aforementioned period, up from around 520 during the same period in 2019.

According to the report, the militant group’s casualties fell to 610 in the period, down from almost 1,660 last year, as American and Afghan forces have decreased the number of attacks and airstrikes against the militants following the Washington-Taliban peace accord.

The report cited unnamed senior Western, Afghan and independent officials tracking the situation on the ground as saying that the escalation in attacks reveals Taliban’s willful disregard of a pledge to decrease violence committed as part of the deal inked in late February.

The Taliban-instigated violence in Afghanistan has coincided with the rapid spread of the COVID-19 disease in the war-ravaged country.

Official figures by Afghanistan’s Health Ministry shows that as of Friday, 2,335 individuals have tested positive for the contagious disease, and 68 others lost their lives in the South Asian country. However, international observers believe the figures could be much higher, given the lack of testing.

Citing its unnamed sources, the Reuters report said that the four provinces that have reported the highest number of cases are exactly the ones hit hardest by the violence inflicted by Taliban during the recent weeks.

Taliban militants “are not hitting large government centers or cities, they are focusing on villages in Herat, Kabul, Kandahar and Balkh provinces that have reported the highest number of coronavirus cases,” the report quoted an unnamed senior Western security official as saying.

Taliban has been slowly eroding government control of rural areas and laying siege on cities during the pandemic, a move that eventually could derail the peace accord, the report cited Western security officials, diplomats and international observers.

“They are slowly encircling all of Afghanistan’s major cities. So it’s either a matter of time before they get a deal satisfactory to them or they put those major cities under siege,” said Jonathan Schroden, an expert with the Center for Naval Analyses who has provided assessments on the security situation in Afghanistan to the US military and Congress.

However, two Taliban spokesmen said the group was not responsible for most of the attacks in recent weeks. They accused Washington of jeopardizing the peace accord by backing Afghan security forces and not releasing 5,000 members of the group as part of a prisoner swap stipulated under the peace deal.

The Taliban have demanded the release of the detainees before they engage in a peace process with Kabul. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has rejected that demand, ordering a phased release of 1,500 militant prisoners instead.

Last month, some 300 militants were released. And the Taliban have turned 20 government prisoners over to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Kandahar.

The militant group claims that its attacks during the aforementioned period fell 54.7 percent compared with last year to 537. Furthermore, it claims that the attacks were not “as intense” compared with last year, saying that the number of Afghan security forces killed fell 54.2 percent to 935, while that of the wounded fell 55.9 percent to 742.

Separately, Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry said army soldiers were in “active defense mode” and using the air force to stop the militant group’s advances.

Washington is compelled under the deal to pull out American forces and foreign troops from Afghanistan by July next year, provided that the militants start talks with Kabul and adhere to other security guarantees.

About 14,000 US troops and approximately 17,000 troops from NATO allies and partner countries remain stationed in Afghanistan years after the invasion of the country that toppled a Taliban regime in 2001.

179 New Coronavirus Cases Reported in Afghanistan, Total 2,469

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Wahidullah Mayar

Tolo News: The Ministry of Public Health spokesman Wahidullah Mayar said on Saturday that in the past 24 hours, 179 positive cases have been recorded across the country, and the country total is 2,469. The number of reported recoveries in the country is 331, while 72 have died. Click here to read more (external link).

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