Taliban Exacerbate Afghanistan’s Economic Headwinds

·

Taliban militants (file photo)

Michael Hughes: It was easy to blame the 2021 collapse of the Afghan economy on the abrupt withdrawal of foreign aid after the fall of Kabul, which overnight effectively cut the country’s GDP nearly in half. In fact, even the most advanced economies would take years to heal from the type of blow Afghanistan took after the Taliban takeover. But Taliban 2.0 have so far only made Afghanistan’s financial situation worse with bad decisions and defective policies driven by a combination of ideological absurdities, corruption, and incompetence. Click here to read more.

NRF, AFF Wage Separate Attacks Against Taliban In Kabul

·

Afghanistan International: The Afghanistan Freedom Front has claimed responsibility for an explosion in the Khair Khana area of Kabul, stating that the attack resulted in the deaths of two Taliban members and injuries to three others. Simultaneously, the National Resistance Front reported the killing of two Taliban members in Kabul’s police district 5. Click here to read more (external link).

As Many As 20 Die In Afghanistan After Overloaded Boat Sinks Crossing River

·

By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
June 1,2024

A boat carrying 25 people sank while crossing a river in eastern Afghanistan on June 1, officials of the country’s Taliban-led government said.

Quraishi Badlon, director of the Information and Culture Department in Nangarhar Province, said the boat sank on a river in the Mohmand Dara district, killing 20 people, including women and children.

Moulvi Mohammad Ajmal Shagwal, the district governor of the Taliban-led government in Mohmand Dara, told RFE/RL that nine bodies had been removed from the river with help from local residents.

He said that there were 25 people on board the boat, which sank at 7:30 a.m. local time. Ten people survived, all of them with injuries, he said.

Badlon also said the boat was carrying 25 people, but he said only five survived.

Shagwal said there were women and children on the boat, but he did not give details. According to the province’s Public Health Department, the bodies recovered thus far include those of a man, a woman, two boys, and a girl.

Sherzad Ahmad Khel, one of the survivors, said that the boat sank because too many people were on board.

The government’s Bakhtar news agency published a video message in which an official said many people got into the boat, and when it reached the middle of the river, its motor overheated and burst into flames. The boat then flooded and sank, leaving its passengers to fend for themselves.

District resident Abdul Majeed told RFE/RL that people had used the same boat to cross the river almost every day to get to work and shop in the district market. He stressed that a bridge should be built.

“It is very important to build a bridge here. We asked the previous government, but it was not built. We are still demanding that the government build a bridge for us. If the bridge is not built, similar incidents will happen.”

People of Mohmand Dara and other districts of Nangarhar use small boats to cross the river due to the lack of bridges.
A few years ago, a number of people died in a similar boat sinking incident in district.

With reporting by AP

Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

Taliban and the Plundering of Mines: Companies and Countries Lack the Right to Contract Without a Legitimate Government

·

8am: In the nearly three years since the Taliban’s rise to power, they have significantly expanded the unregulated and illegal extraction of the country’s mineral resources. The group has announced that during this period, they have signed contracts for the extraction of over 150 small mines with domestic companies and 30 large mines with Chinese, Iranian, Turkish, and Qatari companies. Meanwhile, the former Minister of Mines and Petroleum argues that Afghanistan lacks a legitimate government under international law, and no company or country has the right to enter into contracts with a geography devoid of a legitimate state. He asserts that any future government of Afghanistan has the right to take the contracting parties to international courts and seek compensation. Click here to read more (external link).

Taliban accuse Pakistan of sowing ‘distrust’ between Afghanistan, China

·

Zabihullah Mujahid

Ayaz Gul
VOA News
May 31, 2024

ISLAMABAD — The Taliban government Friday dismissed the findings of a Pakistan probe that attributed a recent fatal attack against Chinese workers in the country to militants operating from Afghanistan.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s chief spokesman, told an Afghan television station that his country had nothing to do with the March 26 attack on Chinese nationals in northwestern Pakistan, insisting it was an internal issue for the neighboring country to address.

“The report published by Pakistan is an attempt to damage the trust between Afghanistan and China. We have repeatedly denied this report as illogical,” Mujahid told TOLO TV in his audio remarks.

The response came a day after a Pakistani delegation visited Kabul on Thursday and shared with Taliban counterparts the results of Islamabad’s investigation into the killings of five Chinese nationals, along with their local driver, in a suicide car bombing. The victims were working on a China-funded hydropower project in northwestern Pakistan.

The Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson told a weekly news conference in Islamabad on Friday that its delegation also had requested assistance from Afghan authorities to apprehend the perpetrators of the terrorist attack on Chinese workers based on the “concrete evidence” Pakistan had shared with them.

“The Afghan side has committed to prevent the use of their soil for any terrorist activity, and they have agreed to examine the findings of the investigation and to work with Pakistan to take the investigation to its logical conclusion,” Mumtaz Baloch said.

Pakistani military and civilian officials maintain that the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, a globally designated terrorist group also known as the Pakistani Taliban, orchestrated the attack on Chinese personnel from Afghan sanctuaries.

The militant group has for years waged deadly attacks in Pakistan, targeting security forces and civilians.

Officials in Islamabad maintain that fugitive TTP leaders and combatants relocated to sanctuaries in Afghanistan after the Taliban retook control of the country nearly three years ago, and they have since intensified cross-border attacks with “greater operational freedom.”

The Taliban have consistently denied that foreign extremist groups have a presence in Afghanistan and are using their territory to threaten outside countries. Critics, however, have questioned those claims.

This month, a U.S. government quarterly report to Congress noted that the ruling Taliban continued to allow senior al-Qaida leaders, the TTP, and other insurgent groups to operate in Afghanistan.

Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov said Friday that the situation in Afghanistan “remains the main source of instability” in the region.

“Numerous radical groups have gained a foothold there, stepping up attempts to promote their ideas in the neighboring countries,” the Russian state-run Tass news agency quoted him as telling a regional defense ministers meeting in Kazakhstan.

“The risk of gangs and terrorism spilling outside the country is growing,” Belousov said. He stressed the need for “constant monitoring and prompt measures” to ensure regional stability.

A United Nations report published earlier this year said the Taliban continued to be “sympathetic” to the TTP and supplied it with weapons and equipment, and some Taliban members reportedly joined the TTP in conducting cross-border raids against Pakistan.

The Taliban government has not been formally recognized by the international community.

China has steadily improved relations with Afghanistan, though, since the fundamentalist Taliban regained power in Kabul in August 2021. Beijing was the first to appoint a new ambassador to Kabul and the first to officially accept a Taliban ambassador.

Taliban’s New Pick For Health Minister Triggers Criticism

·

RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi:  The only technocrat in the Taliban’s cabinet has been dismissed and replaced by a hard-line cleric. Taliban chief Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada on May 28 removed Health Minister Qalandar Ebad, a trained doctor, and named Noor Jalal, a former deputy interior minister, as his successor. The Taliban’s theocratic regime is dominated by senior Taliban veterans and loyalists, most of them clerics from the Pashtun ethnic group. Click here to read more (external link).

Abdul Qayum Karzai Passes Away at Age 77 in US

·

Tolo News: Abdul Qayum Karzai, brother of former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, passed away yesterday (Thursday) at the age of 77 in the state of Maryland, USA. He was born in 1957 in the village of Karz in Kandahar. Abdul Qayum’s father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, was an influential tribal elder and served in the National Assembly of Afghanistan during the reign of King Zahir Shah. Click here to read more (external link).