Ariana: The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Friday announced the ODI team of 2024, with three Afghans namely Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Azmatullah Omarzai and Allah Mohammad Ghazanfar making the cut to the list. Other players in the list are from Sri Lanka (4), Pakistan (3) and West Indies (1). Click here to read more (external link).
Ali Reza Asahi, two-time world bodybuilding champion, dies at 49
Amu: Afghanistan’s Ali Reza Asahi, a two-time world bodybuilding champion, on Thursday died due to an illness. He was 49. The National Bodybuilding Federation confirmed Asahi’s death in a statement, adding that his funeral is scheduled for Friday in the Omid Sabz township in Kabul. A celebrated figure in the sport, Asahi won back-to-back gold medals in 2023 and 2024 in the global bodybuilding championships, competing in the Masters category. Click here to read more (external link).
ICC Prosecutor Seeks Arrest Warrants Against Taliban Leaders
Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada
Afghanistan International: The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor on Thursday said that he was seeking arrest warrants against senior Taliban leaders in Afghanistan over the persecution of women, a crime against humanity. Karim Khan said that there were reasonable grounds to suspect that Taliban’s Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and the group’s Supreme Court’s chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani “bear criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds”. Click here to read more (external link).
Related
Tolo News in Dari – January 23, 2025
Taliban flog 12 Afghans, including women, for adultery, eloping
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
January 23, 2025
Islamabad — Taliban justice officials in Afghanistan said Thursday that 12 people, including two women, had been publicly flogged this week after being tried and charged with adultery, sodomy, eloping, and having “illicit relations.”
The regime’s Supreme Court announced the punishments, saying they were carried out in the southeastern Khost and northern Parwan provinces, with members of the judiciary, administrative staff, and ordinary citizens present as onlookers.
Each of the twelve defendants received the maximum of 39 lashes and prison terms ranging from eight months to three years. The top court acknowledged that the sentences were imposed by provincial courts and implemented only after its approval.
At least 35 Afghans have been publicly flogged in this month alone, according to the Supreme Court data.
Hundreds of men and women have been flogged in packed sports stadiums across Afghanistan, while six people have been publicly executed under what the Taliban described as the Islamic concept of retributive justice, known as qisas.
The United Nations and global human rights organizations have persistently decried the floggings and other forms of corporal punishment as contrary to Afghanistan’s international human rights obligations, demanding the Taliban cease the practice.
Taliban leaders, who regained power in 2021, defend their criminal justice system and governance at large, saying they are based on their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia.
Authorities have banned Afghan girls from pursuing secondary and university-level education and prohibited women from seeking employment in most public and private workplaces. Women must also publicly cover their faces and travel with a male guardian.
No country has officially recognized the Taliban as legitimate rulers of Afghanistan, mainly over their harsh treatment of women and other human rights concerns. China and the United Arab Emirates have acknowledged a Taliban ambassador without recognizing the Afghan government.
Islamic State claims killing of Chinese national in Afghanistan
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
January 23, 2025
ISLAMABAD — Taliban authorities in northeastern Afghanistan said Wednesday that a gun attack resulted in the death of a Chinese national, while his local interpreter escaped unharmed.
An Afghanistan-based Islamic State affiliate, IS-Khorasan, claimed responsibility for the deadly overnight shooting in Takhar province, which sits on the country’s border with Tajikistan. The terrorist outfit said on its Amaq media outlet that its “soldiers” used a machine gun to target the Chinese man.
Taliban officials said the slain foreigner was working for a mining company in the country.
Mohammad Akbar, the provincial police chief, said the Chinese citizen was being driven with his interpreter to the Dasht-e-Qala district late Tuesday when their vehicle was ambushed.
Akbar said that foreign travelers must notify local police before embarking on a road trip, but he said the deceased Chinese citizen failed to do so. The police officer added that an investigation into the attack was underway.
“I believe our embassy in Afghanistan will track the information over what’s happened and do its utmost to protect the lawful rights and interests of Chinese citizens and their safety,” said Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, during a press conference in Beijing when asked about the shooting incident.
Tuesday’s fatal assault on a Chinese national in Afghanistan marked the first such incident since December 2022, when IS-Khorasan militants stormed a Kabul hotel popular with Chinese investors. That attack resulted in the deaths of three Afghans and injuries to 18 people, including five Chinese nationals.
The Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in August 2021, when the United States and its Western allies withdrew their troops from the country after a nearly two-decade-long presence.
While de facto Afghan rulers assert they have restored peace and order to the conflict-torn country since seizing power, IS-Khorasan has conducted repeated high-profile attacks targeting Taliban leaders, key religious figures and members of the Afghan minority Shiite community.
No country has officially recognized the fundamentalist Taliban as legitimate rulers in Kabul, mainly over their sweeping curbs on Afghan women’s rights and freedoms and other human rights concerns.
China was the first country to appoint an ambassador to Afghanistan and recognized a Taliban ambassador in Beijing since the group took control. It also has enhanced bilateral trade and investment ties with the de facto Kabul government to help stabilize the Afghan economy and deal with a dire humanitarian crisis.
Chinese investors have signed significant agreements with Kabul in the Afghan mining and oil sectors since the Taliban takeover.
Analysts suggest that China’s security concerns are motivating its growing diplomatic and economic engagement with the Taliban to prevent the country from descending into chaos again, which could lead to militants using Afghan territory as a base for launching terrorist attacks against Chinese interests.
Tolo News in Dari – January 22, 2025
Trump order suspending refugee resettlement affects US Afghan allies, says advocacy group
Donald Trump
VOA News
January 22, 2025
Washington — President Trump’s executive order suspending the U.S. refugee program would affect the resettlement of thousands of Afghans who helped the U.S. during the war in Afghanistan, an advocacy group said.
AfghanEvac, a California-based coalition of organizations helping U.S. Afghan allies to resettle in the U.S., said Monday that the pause in all refugee resettlements would affect Afghan allies who are awaiting relocation to the U.S.
“Thousands of Afghan allies who have completed almost all required steps in the refugee process would be immediately impacted by a refugee resettlement pause, and thousands more who are currently undergoing processing would remain in limbo,” AfghanEvac said, in a statement on its X account.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday that called the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program detrimental to U.S. interests and suspending it beginning on January 27.
“This order suspends the USRAP until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligned with the interest of the United States,” stated the executive order.
It called on the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, in consultation with the secretary of state, to report to the president within 90 days if the program “would be in the interests of the United States.”
The order added that every 90 days, a report would be submitted to the president until he “determine[s] that resumption of the USRAP is in the interests of the United States.”
According to Shawn VanDiver, president of AghanEvac, more than 180,000 Afghans were relocated in the U.S. from August 2021, after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, to December 2024.
Thousands of Afghans are still waiting to be relocated to the United States.
AfghanEvac said that the order would not only have an impact on at-risk Afghans living in hiding but also on the family members of the active-duty U.S. troops.
Earlier, Reuters reported that the flights of 1,660 Afghans cleared by the U.S. government to resettle in the U.S. were canceled.
But the president of AfghanEvac, Shawn VanDiver, said in a post on X that no flights were canceled.
“To be clear: flights have not yet been canceled for anyone,” VanDiver said.
Omar Samad, a former Afghan diplomat living in the U.S., told VOA that the ban is part of a larger package and it will impact Afghans who are waiting to be relocated to the U.S.
“It is going to be reviewed by the U.S. agencies, and it is possible that they that the U.S. make an exception for Afghans,” Samad added.
VanDiver said that the coalition of organizations helping Afghans are working to “secure exemptions for Afghan allies.”
Other Afghan Refugee News
Citizens Of Tajikistan, Pakistan Perpetrators Of Most Attacks In Afghanistan, Says Taliban
Amu: The Taliban’s Security and Clearance Commission on Wednesday, January 22, in its annual report, named the citizens of Tajikistan and Pakistan as the main perpetrators of attacks in Afghanistan. In the report, the Taliban claimed that the attacks were “mainly designed outside Afghanistan”. Click here to read more (external link).
Chinese citizen killed by unidentified gunman in Takhar, Afghanistan
Khaama: Sources reported that unidentified gunmen killed a Chinese citizen on Tuesday evening, January 21, in Khwaja Bahauddin district of Takhar province, Afghanistan. The interpreter and driver accompanying the victim fled the scene and sought refuge at a Taliban checkpoint. Local Taliban officials confirmed the death of the Chinese citizen, identified as “Li,” according to the spokesperson for the Taliban police command in Takhar. Click here to read more (external link).