Afghan Civil Society, Taliban on Collision Course in Peace Talks

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Fawzia Koofi (left), Taliban Representative Sher Abbas Stanikzai (center), and Sima Samar (right)

Fawzia Koofi (left), Taliban Representative Sher Abbas Stanikzai (center), and Sima Samar (right)

Michael Hughes: Many members of Afghan civil society have said they refuse to let the Taliban reverse progressive advances including in the area of women’s rights while the insurgents, who feel they have handed a great foreign invader a military defeat, have their own conditions including making the country’s constitution more Islamic.

The warring parties in Afghanistan, of course, have yet to have a single meeting. The Taliban have been talking to foreign puppet masters while the Afghan government threw a Loya Jirga party which underscored that Kabul still needs to get its own divided house in order.

However, although recent intra-Afghan talks have been canceled, there has been interaction between Taliban and ordinary Afghans operating in a non-official capacity. Politician Fawzia Koofi is one of the only women to attend the first round of negotiations in Moscow in February and she came away with mixed feelings.

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US-Taliban Resume Talks Amid Optimism

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Khalilzad

Khalilzad

Ayaz Gul
VOA News
May 1, 2019

ISLAMABAD — The United States and the Taliban have begun a new round of negotiations in Doha, Qatar, in a bid to advance peace efforts in Afghanistan and to urge the insurgent group to participate in an inclusive intra-Afghan dialogue.

U.S. special reconciliation envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, led the U.S. team Wednesday in talks with insurgent leaders based in the Qatari capital, officials said.

A Taliban official told VOA the discussions would focus on fleshing out “some remaining details” of a preliminary agreement the two sides had reached in their last meeting in early March. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, anticipated further progress in the talks, but would not speculate how long this meeting might last.

The insurgent group has underscored the need for finalizing an agreement on the withdrawal of U.S.-led foreign troops before it discusses other issues.

Prior to Wednesday’s formal negotiations, Khalilzad met with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the deputy Taliban leader for political affairs and head of the group’s informal office in Doha.

“It is absolutely vital that the two key agenda points of the previous meeting (full withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan and preventing Afghanistan from harming others) be finalized,” a Taliban statement quoted Baradar as telling the U.S. chief negotiator. “This will open the way for resolving other aspects of the issue and we cannot enter into other topics before this,” he stressed.

If finalized, the U.S.-Taliban agreement would bind the insurgent group to prevent transnational terrorist networks from using Afghan soil to harm other countries, and Washington in return would agree to a timetable for withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan.

Khalilzad, however, has repeatedly stated a comprehensive Taliban cease-fire and the rebel group’s participation in intra-Afghan peace discussions would be key to concluding the deal.

The Afghan government has been excluded from the dialogue because the insurgent group has maintained from the outset it will not participate in any formal internal Afghan peace discussions until Washington agrees and announces a foreign troop withdrawal timeline.

Wednesday’s talks came as a four-day “Consultative Peace Loya Jirga” is underway in Kabul to debate the framework for negotiations with the Taliban. The assembly, which began Monday, was convened by President Ashraf Ghani, but most of the candidates contesting upcoming presidential elections have boycotted the meeting. They called it electioneering by Ghani, who is also seeking election in the September 28 polls.

Afghan presidential envoy, Umer Daudzai, Wednesday dismissed the criticism, saying the peace process is the focus of what he described as “the biggest” and “the most inclusive” Loya Jirga of the history of Afghanistan.

Daudzai explained U.S.-led peace efforts had generated a debate inside the country and those widespread debates needed to be provided with a national “direction and platform” to help the peace process.

“There was no other mechanism than Loya Jirga to bring all those debates together to turn it into one grand debate that will transform into a list of recommendations to the Afghan state and to international community, and perhaps to the Taliban,” the presidential envoy noted.

Daudzai asserted that representatives from Taliban-control districts have also come to attend the ongoing traditional assembly in the Afghan capital, thanking the insurgents “if they have not intentionally hindered” the delegates from traveling Kabul.

The Taliban has already rejected the assembly as a ploy to help Ghani extend his rule and damage the group’s ongoing peace talks with America.

Prior to his arrival in Qatar, ambassador Khalilzad held talks with leaders in Pakistan and sought their help to convince the Taliban to participate in intra-Afghan talks.

The Afghan-born American diplomat tweeted on Tuesday that “Pakistan supports efforts to accelerate intra-afghan dialogue and negotiations, and is committed to helping reduce violence in Afghanistan.”

“I’m also encouraged by the role Pakistan wants to play in building regional consensus in support of the Afghan peace process. The time to implement has come,” said Khalilzad.

Islamabad is accused of covertly supporting and sheltering insurgent leaders, takes credit for arranging the ongoing U.S.-Taliban dialogue. Pakistan’s own security and stability requires a peaceful Afghanistan, say Pakistani officials while underscoring their role in the Afghan peace process.

“We strongly hope that our sincere efforts for ending decades of insecurity and establishing peace in Afghanistan will succeed,” Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said Wednesday while talking to a visiting delegation of Afghan experts.

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Pakistan says Cross-Afghan Border “Terrorist” Raid Kills 3 Troops

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afg_and_pakistanAyaz Gul
VOA News
May 1, 2019

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan says a “terrorist” raid Wednesday from across the Afghanistan border killed at least three soldiers and injured seven others.

The military’s media wing said security forces were building a border fence in the remote North Waziristan district when “a group of 60-70 terrorists” from the Afghan side assaulted them.

Pakistani troops “effectively repulsed” the attack in Alwara area, killing and injuring scores of assailants, it added.

Militants have previously attacked construction teams, but the military vowed Wednesday that “Pakistan’s fencing effort shall continue, despite all such impediments.”

Pakistan began the unilateral construction work about two years ago to secure the 2,600-kilometer largely porous border with Afghanistan. Officials anticipate the fencing and other installations will be in place by the end of this year , saying it will help address mutual concerns of terrorist infiltration.

“While Pakistan security forces are solidifying border security through fencing and construction of forts to deny liberty of action to the terrorists, Afghan security forces and authorities need to have more effective control in border regions to support Pakistan’s efforts, as well as deny use of Afghan soil against Pakistan,” the army statement stressed.

There was no immediate reaction from Afghan authorities.

US Stops Collecting Data Showing Afghan Government Losing Ground

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us_afghanistanJeff Seldin
VOA News
May 1, 2019

WASHINGTON — The U.S.-led NATO mission in Afghanistan is no longer collecting data showing the Afghan government steadily losing ground to the Taliban, telling a U.S. government watchdog the information was “of limited decision-making value.”

The so-called district-level stability assessments, which measure the number of the country’s districts under government or insurgent control or influence, have been one of the most widely cited indicators of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.

But the U.S.-commanded Resolute Support mission told the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) in March the assessments were no longer being produced.

“District stability data has not been collected since the October 22, 2018 data submitted last quarter,” Resolute Support wrote in response to SIGAR’s request for the information ahead of its latest report, released Wednesday.

“There are no products at command or other forums that communicate district stability or control information,” the letter added.

According to SIGAR, U.S. defense officials also said the assessments were “not indicative of effectiveness of the South Asia strategy or of progress toward security and stability.”

The SIGAR quarterly report also quoted defense officials as saying it was “more important to instead focus on the principal goal of the strategy of concluding the war in Afghanistan on terms favorable to Afghanistan and the United States.”

When asked for about the decision to end the assessments, a spokesman for Resolute Support referred VOA to the letter sent to the special inspector general.

In a statement accompanying the report’s release, SIGAR decried the loss of the data.

“Despite its limitations, the control data was the only unclassified metric provided by [Resolute Support] that consistently tracked changes to the security situation on the ground,” SIGAR said.

SIGAR also noted that previous commanders of the Resolute Support mission “had previously cited its importance in public statements.”

The U.S.-led mission’s decision to eliminate the stability assessments comes after successive reports showed the Afghan government’s control of the country falling to record lows.

Low levels of control, influence

In its November 2018 report, SIGAR said the Afghan government controlled or influenced only 56 percent of the country’s districts, at the time the lowest level recorded since the watchdog began tracking district control in November 2015.

In SIGAR’s subsequent report, issued this past January, that number had slipped to less than 54 percent, as the Afghan government lost seven districts to the Taliban.

According to some, the figures suggest U.S. President Donald Trump’s strategy for Afghanistan, meant to increase pressure on the Taliban and force them to negotiate an end to decades of fighting, is not having the level of success claimed by administration officials.

Other data collected for the latest SIGAR report also show reason for concern.

According to Resolute Support, the average number of attacks initiated by the Taliban jumped 19 percent for the three-month period ending in January. And according to U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, the number of casualties suffered by Afghan forces were 31 percent higher than compared to the same period last year.

“Ultimately, I don’t think we’ve met all of our strategic goals there,” U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko told reporters last week, ahead of the report’s release.

“We were going to get the terrorists out and create a government that could keep the terrorists out,” he said. “Obviously, we haven’t kicked the terrorists out if they’re still blowing things up and we’re negotiating with them. That strategic goal has now changed.”

Sopko also raised concerns that measuring U.S. progress in Afghanistan has become increasingly difficult, as U.S. and Afghan officials are collecting less data and are preventing other information from going public.

“What we are finding now is almost every indicia, metrics, however you want to phrase it, for success or failure is now classified or non-existent,” he said, adding that hiding or eliminating would appear pointless.

“The Afghan people obviously know which districts are controlled by the Taliban. The Taliban obviously know which districts they control. Our military knows it. Everybody in Afghanistan knows it,” he said. “The only people who don’t know what is going on are the people who are paying for all of this, and that’s the American taxpayer.”

After ‘caliphate’ collapse, jihadists head to Afghanistan to plot attacks

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ISIS in Afghanistan

ISIS members in Afghanistan – photo by PBS

AFP: Islamic State fighters who waged a bloody campaign in Syria and Iraq are heading to Afghanistan to continue their jihad and help plot “spectacular” attacks against America, a US official has told AFP. The warning comes as IS seeks to assert a regional influence after the loss of its self-proclaimed Middle East “caliphate”, and as South Asia reels from a series of devastating attacks. Click here to read more (external link).

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Ghani Criticized For New Appointment In Wolesi Jirga

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zazai_watandost

Watandost

Tolo News: The appointment of Abdul Qadir Zazai Watandost, a former MP and a parliamentary candidate from Kabul, as head of the secretariat of the Wolesi Jirga, the Lower House of Parliament, by President Ashraf Ghani has been criticized by a number of lawyers as they said it is in contravention of the country’s Constitution.  Watandost’s appointment was announced in a decree by President Ghani’s office on Monday. Ghani’s move was criticized as the final results of parliamentary elections for Kabul have not been announced but Watandost has been appointed to a key post in the Afghan parliament. Click here to read more (external link).

Pakistan Moving to Bring Madrassas Under State Control

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pakistanAyaz Gul
VOA News
April 29, 2019

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan announced Monday a major reform plan for the “mainstreaming” of more than 30,000 Islamic seminaries, known as madrassas, amid long-running allegations some of these religious schools promote violent extremism and maintain ties to transnational terrorist networks.

Islamabad is under international pressure to act against Islamist groups that continue to operate religious seminaries and other facilities in the country despite being designated as global terrorists by the United Nations.Some of these groups are blamed for plotting cross-border attacks against India and Afghanistan.

Military spokesman Major-General Asif Ghafoor told a news conference at military headquarters in Rawalpindi the reforms to “mainstream” madrassas are being implemented in three phases.He said more than 2.5 million children are studying in madrassas across Pakistan.

“Islamic education will continue to be taught at these madrasas, but there will be no hate speech,” Ghafoor said.

Ghafoor noted a government screening of religious schools across the country has found “less than 100 of the more than 30,000 are encouraging violent extremism and terrorism.”The rest, he added, are not indulging in such activities and students in these madrassas receive only Islamic education, having no access to contemporary subjects.

The general said Prime Minister Imran Khan has set up a special committee to work with organizations running madrassas to incorporate modern subjects in their syllabus.

Until recently, Ghafoor revealed, the madrassas in Pakistan were under “the purview of the ministry of industries”.He did not further explain, but said the religious schools have now been brought under the purview of the education ministry.

Introducing reforms in madrassas has been a highly sensitive issue in Pakistan and Islamist groups running them strongly oppose any such attempts, dismissing them as an anti-Islam Western plot.Supporters acknowledge that madrassas are the only education available to millions of poverty-stricken families in Pakistan and shutting them down is not a practical option.

Ghafoor stressed that religious scholars and clerics are fully behind the government’s reform plans and want their students to be taught modern subjects.

This will help children graduating from these institutions to avail the same carrier opportunities that those coming from private and other schools are able to avail,” he said.

The spokesman said years of sustained security operations have reduced the threat of militancy and improved security in Pakistan, allowing the government to focus on reforming the madrassas.

Ghafoor explained that a legislative bill is being drafted and will be placed before the parliament within two months, enabling the government to allocate funds and appoint new teachers to teach contemporary subjects to be introduced in the madrassa syllabus.

“The state of Pakistan is determined to do it because we are about to be relatively done with the job of fighting terrorism.Now we have to eliminate this violent extremism from Pakistan and that is possible when all our children have the same education and opportunities,” emphasized the army spokesman.

Prime Minister Khan has repeatedly vowed in recent months that militant groups will no longer be allowed to operate out of Pakistan. Authorities have recently also seized control of hundreds of seminaries and charitable medical health units run by proscribed organizations, including those accused of orchestrating attacks in India.