Tolo News: The winner of the 14th season of the country’s top reality show, Afghan Star, was, this time, an Afghan girl, Zahra Elham, who narrowly got more public votes than another finalist Wasim Anwari. Elham, 18, is from Afghanistan’s Ghazni province. Elham’s success in the Afghan Star was met with many encouraging posts by social media users who said that Zahra Elham succeeded to “break the taboo” and “make the history”. Click here to read more (external link).
1TV Afghanistan Dari News – March 22, 2019
Abu Dhabi crown prince proposed killing Taliban leaders: Report
Mohammed bin Zayed
Press TV
March 22, 2019
Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, proposed to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to set up a covert program to assassinate Taliban leaders, a report says.
He made the offer on January 12 during a meeting with Pompeo in the UAE capital amid disagreements between the two over peace talks between the Taliban and the US, London-based Middle East Eye reported Thursday.
Bin Zayed warned Pompeo that US pullout of troops from Afghanistan risked a regression to 2001, prior to the US invasion, the online portal cited an unknown source with detailed knowledge of the meeting as saying.
Washington hopes a negotiated deal with the Taliban could allow it to start withdrawing some of its 14,000 troops still in the war-wracked country before the end of the year.
Bin Zayed said the pullout risked allowing Afghanistan to fall back into the hands of the “backward, bearded bad guys” and proposed hiring mercenaries to kill Taliban leaders to weaken the group’s negotiating position.
The prince suggested that organizing and funding a “Blackwater-style” operation to “wage an assassination campaign against the first-line leadership of the Taliban” can give the US the upper hand in the talks, the source said.
Blackwater, founded in 1997, received hundreds of millions of dollars in US government contracts during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The company found notoriety for its wanton killing of civilians in broad daylight, including 14 unarmed people in a famous Baghdad square in 2007.
Blackwater was founded by Erik Prince which was hired by the CIA in 2004 to run covert operations in different parts of the world.
Bin Zayed later hired Prince to build a mercenary army in the UAE to confront potential worker or pro-democracy uprisings inside the Persian Gulf country.
In 2011, the New York Times reported that an 800-member battalion of foreign troops was brought into the UAE.
In 2015, when Saudi Arabia launched aggression against Yemen, the UAE government decided to send hundreds of its mercenaries to fight for Saudi Arabia in the impoverished Arab country.
They also had a mission to run an assassination program against leaders of the Yemeni Congregation for Reform, frequently called al-Islah, and advance its policies in Yemen.
In October last year, Abraham Golan, a Hungarian-Israeli security contractor, revealed details about the assassination program to Buzzfeed.
The UAE had reportedly hired former special forces to carry out the missions. “I was running it. We did it. It was sanctioned by the UAE within the coalition,” Golan said.
Al-Islah said in August last year that nine of its leaders had been murdered since 2015. They are among at least 27 clerics killed, often in drive-by shootings, in the southern city of Aden and surrounding areas by unidentified gunmen in the same period.
The UAE government has publicly supported US peace talks with the Taliban. It hosted a two-day “reconciliation conference” in December, with Saudi and Pakistani officials also in attendance.
Subsequent rounds of negotiations were moved to Qatar’s capital, Doha, at the insistence of the Taliban, which have maintained a political office there since 2013.
The source said the move by the Taliban had irked the UAE crown prince.
The source said that US President Donald Trump’s December announcement to withdraw all 2,000 troops from Syria also infuriated the UAE crown prince.
“You are leaving Syria to be under Iranian and Turkish influence and that will bring everyone back. They will act against your acts and our interests,” he reportedly told the US secretary of state.
The crown prince said if the US changed its mind, the United Arab Emirates would be prepared to fund the cost of keeping US troops in Syria from its own budget, the report added.
On Monday, the Wall Street Journal, citing American officials, said Washington planned to keep about 1,000 troops in Syria.
US Joint Chiefs Chairman General Joseph Dunford rejected the report as “factually incorrect,” stressing that there was no change to the planned 400 troops which the White House wanted to keep in Syria.
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Clashes With Taliban Kill Two US Soldiers in Afghanistan
VOA News
March 22, 2019
ISLAMABAD — A joint counter-Taliban operation in northern Afghanistan Friday killed two American service members and an Afghan partner, officials said.
The insurgent group said the raid took place in a Taliban-held area around the capital city of the volatile Kunduz province.
Officials with the NATO-led Operation Resolute Support confirmed the two U.S. fatalities, bringing to four the number of U.S. military personnel killed in Afghanistan this year.
The Taliban “fiercely” resisted the joint raid and ensuing clashes were still continuing in the area, said insurgent spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.
He claimed in a brief statement that three U.S. and nine Afghan commando forces were killed, though Taliban claims are often inflated. Mujahid did not discuss Taliban casualties and said more details will be released soon.
Local officials said the operation killed many insurgents and a member of Afghan special forces was also among the dead, according to the New York Times.
About 14,000 U.S. soldiers deployed to the country are tasked to train and advise Afghan forces battling the Taliban. Separately, the U.S. military is also conducting operations against terrorist groups, including al-Qaida and Islamic State. Last year, 12 American service members were killed in military action in Afghanistan.
U.S. President Donald Trump plans to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan but he has linked the drawdown to progress in ongoing talks Washington is holding with the Taliban to end the war.
U.S. and Taliban negotiators announced at the end of their latest round of meetings in Qatar earlier this month that they had reached a preliminary draft agreement on the withdrawal of foreign forces in return for insurgent guarantees they will not to allow Afghan soil to be use again for international terrorism.
Chief U.S. negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad is scheduled to host his Russian, Chinese and European Union counterparts in Washington Friday to discuss “progress to date in peace talks” with the Taliban.
A State Department announcement said the discussions would also focus on the role Russia, China and the EU can play in bringing an end to the war, the longest overseas U.S. military intervention.
Afghans celebrate Nowroz in California
1TV Afghanistan Dari News – March 21, 2019
Afghanistan is world’s third least happy country: UN report
1TV: Afghanistan is ranked third least happy country in the world, according to an annual survey released on Wednesday. The 2019 World Happiness Report, released by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, showed that Afghanistan were nine spots down from last year. Afghanistan is only above Central African Republic and South Sudan in the latest index. Finland remained on first place in the list. Click here to read more (external link).
Norouz Attack In Kabul Kills At Least Six, IS Claims Responsibility
By RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan
March 21, 2019
Multiple explosions on March 21 killed at least six people and wounded 23 near a Shi’ite shrine in Kabul, Afghan officials said. The Islamic State (IS) militant group claimed responsibility for the attack.
Two children were among the wounded in the blasts, Kabul’s Emergency Services director Muhammad Asim said.
There were conflicting reports about the cause of the blasts near the Karti Sakhi Shi’ite shrine and cemetery in a western Kabul neighborhood that is heavily populated by Shi’a Muslims.
Interior Ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said an initial investigation indicated that three explosive devices had been remotely detonated, setting off the successive blasts as people gathered there to mark the holiday of Norouz, the pre-Islamic Persian New Year.
But Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry said on Twitter that three rockets had been fired at civilian homes and Norouz gatherings — adding that security forces arrested the attackers and secured the area.
IS claimed responsibility, saying on the Telegram messaging service that “soldiers of the caliphate” detonated three explosive devices among a Shi’ite crowd near a shrine. IS claimed 50 people were killed and wounded in the attack.
The extremist group considers Shi’a Muslims to be heretics.
All routes to the Shi’ite shrine were cordoned off by security forces, a local live TV broadcast showed.
Traditionally, people hoist green flags at the shrine and honor the dead at the cemetery by placing food beside graves.
Based on reporting by Reuters, AP, and dpa
Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
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Noor Warns He Will Not Stay Calm Over Balkh Tensions
Atta Mohammad Noor
Tolo News: One week after the de-escalation of tensions over the appoinment of the new police chief in Balkh, the former governor of Balkh and the CEO of Jamiat-e-Islami party, Atta Mohammad Noor, called for implementation of agreement which has been made between him and acting ministers of Defense and Interior Affairs. In a video message sent to media, Noor warns that he will use any option if the agreement is not implemented. Click here to read more (external link).