Family debt in Afghanistan surges by 67%: Survey
Khaama: Research from an institute shows that unemployment and family debt have gone up in many areas of the country in the last two years under the Taliban government. According to the findings of this center, the unemployment rate among men has increased to 31 per cent and among women to 8 percent in Afghanistan. Still, 15 per cent of the interviewees have stated that they have been forced to sell their household belongings due to poverty and unemployment. Click here to read more (external link).
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Afghan Sikhs and Hindus call on IEA to return their usurped houses
Ariana: One of the few remaining Sikhs in Afghanistan, Manjit Singh Lamba, has called on the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) to help return their houses and other properties that were taken from them over the years. Lamba, who is head of the Afghan Council of Hindus and Sikhs, said the majority of his community fled the country after a spate of deadly bombings against them, and after the political developments two years ago. Click here to read more (external link).
Bomb Hits Minibus in Kabul, Killing 2 Afghan Civilians
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
January 6, 2024
ISLAMABAD — A bomb blast ripped through a minibus in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, Saturday evening, killing at least two civilians and wounding 14 others.
The attack occurred in the city’s western Dasht-e-Barchi Shiite Muslim neighborhood.
Khalid Zadran, a spokesperson for the Taliban-led Kabul police, confirmed the casualties, saying the injured were rushed to hospitals and the bombing was under investigation.
No group immediately took credit for the deadly attack, but suspicions fell on a regional Islamic State affiliate known as Islamic State-Khorasan, or IS-K.
Dasht-e-Barchi has experienced persistent deadly militant bombings, targeting Shiite mosques, schools and hospitals. IS-K has claimed credit for almost all recent attacks.
The group has carried out high-profile attacks in Afghanistan since the Taliban regained control of the country more than two years ago. The violence has killed hundreds of people, including Shiite Afghans and Taliban members.
Taliban Defense Minister Mohammad Yaqoob told a televised news conference last week that there had been a 90% decrease in IS-K attacks in the past year, attributing it to his government’s counterterrorism operations.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban government spokesperson, reiterated Saturday that the crackdown on IS-K had degraded its ability to harm Afghanistan and other countries.
He spoke to local media a day after Reuters news agency reported that “communications intercepts collected by the United States” confirmed that IS-K conducted Wednesday’s twin suicide bombings in neighboring Iran that killed nearly 100 people.
The Sunni-based Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bloodshed in the southeastern Iranian city of Kerman but did not specify that its Afghanistan-based affiliate carried it out.
The United States has consistently described IS-K as a dangerous entity.
However, John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesperson, said Thursday it was “difficult to make a quantitative or qualitative assessment” of IS-K’s strength based on a single event like this week’s attack in Iran.
“ISIS-K does remain a viable terrorist threat. Certainly, they are largely based out of Afghanistan. That’s where they headquarter themselves,” Kirby told a news conference in Washington, using a different acronym for IS-K. “And they continue to pose a viable terrorist threat to the people of Afghanistan and obviously to the region.”
Related
Turkish police detain 24 Afghan refugees
Khaama: Turkish media reported on Saturday, January 4th, that 24 individuals from Afghanistan who intended to enter Turkey were detained by Turkish police in Ağrı. According to reports, these individuals were detained by the Turkish police at the exact moment they were trying to enter Turkey using a motor vehicle from the Iran-Turkey border. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News in Dari – January 6, 2024
U.S. Ambivalent Over IS-K Iran Attack
McKenzie (file photo)
Michael Hughes: Elements within the U.S. political and military establishment long shared with the Islamic State a common foe: Iran. More specifically, Qassem Soleimani, the ex-Quds Force chief assassinated by the U.S. on January 3, 2020 whose memorial service IS-K attacked earlier this week. One need not be a conspiracy theorist to submit that power players in Washington had mixed feelings over the deadly terrorist attack in Iran’s Kerman that left almost 100 dead. Just listen to the person who coordinated the drone strike that killed Soleimani: ex-CENTCOM commander Kenneth McKenzie.
In a tone-deaf op-ed published the day after the bomb blasts, the retired U.S. general argued that the Trump administration had to take out the Quds Force leader as a means of “deterrence.” He claimed Iranian leaders operate under Lenin’s dictum: “You probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw.” And the Iranians, according to McKenzie, “understand steel.” He also bemoaned the fact that Iranian proxies were supposedly deterring the U.S. in recent years when, according to him, it should be the other way around. And in order to pivot, harsh means are necessary.
Tragic Suicide of Female Protester in Kunduz Province following Taliban Imprisonment
8am: Bibi Gul, a participant in a street protest, was detained by the Taliban in Kunduz in late September 2021. During her harrowing two-day captivity, she endured torture, as disclosed by the source. Upon her release, Bibi Gul faced escalating pressure and restrictions from her family, which included being prohibited from communicating with her friends, according to the source. The 21-year-old aspiring university student found herself on the brink of taking her entrance exams when the Taliban assumed control of Afghanistan, thwarting her educational aspirations. A member of the Unity and Solidarity Women’s Movement in Kunduz lamented that Bibi Gul’s case is not isolated, emphasizing that the Taliban has systematically imprisoned and tortured numerous girls, leaving them to grapple with severe psychological issues. Click here to read more (external link).
Taliban’s Hijab Arrests Further Alienate Afghan Women, Activists Say
Zheela Noori
Samiullah Jalalzai
VOA News
January 5, 2024
The Taliban have arrested women for the first time in Kabul for wearing “bad hijab,” which women’s rights activists in Afghanistan say is an effort by the group to restrict women further and shut them out of public life.
“This is an excuse for putting further restrictions on women,” said Sanam Kabiri, a member of the rights group Unity and Solidarity of Afghan Women, adding that “they aim to stop women from going out even when they need to go.”
Abdul Ghafar Farooq, the Taliban’s spokesperson for their Ministry of Vice and Virtue, told The Associated Press on Thursday that the women were arrested three days ago over their “bad hijab.”
However, he did not provide details on the number of women arrested and how they violated the Taliban’s dress code.
Kabiri told VOA that the women in Afghanistan are wearing hijab, but that they could have been arrested simply for “wearing jeans, tight clothes, or color scarf.”
In May 2022, the Taliban issued a decree calling for women to wear the head-to-toe burqa and to only show their eyes.
“Despite depriving women of their rights, they are now arresting women over hijab,” said Kabiri, adding that the Taliban “aim to omit women from public life and make their lives hell.”
Since seizing power in 2021, the Taliban have imposed repressive measures against women in Afghanistan.
Under the Taliban, women are now barred from attending secondary schools and universities, working with government and nongovernment organizations, traveling more than 45 miles, leaving the country without a close male relative, or going to parks and gyms.
Richard Bennett, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, in a post on X, said the arrests “regrettably [signify] further restrictions on women’s freedom of expression and undermine other rights.”
Bennett called on the Taliban to release the women “immediately and without conditions.”
The Taliban’s government has continued its crackdown on women and women’s rights activists in Afghanistan.
“In general, we are witnessing the Taliban’s continued violence [against women] in the past two and a half years,” said Deeba Farahmand, an Afghan women’s rights activist.
She added that the Taliban have arrested, imprisoned and tortured women’s rights activists.
In November, Human Rights Watch reported that detainees are kept in “abusive conditions, and sometimes tortured.”
“It is not clear where they [the Taliban] took them [girls] and what is going to happen to these young girls,” said Taranom Seyedi, the head of the Women’s Political Participation Network, a group coordinating activities of women activists in Afghanistan.
The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, in a post on X on Wednesday, expressed concern over the “arbitrary detention” of the Afghan girls’ education activists.
“UNAMA urges [an] end to arbitrary arrests. Rights to family, lawyers, care, fair trial must be upheld.”
The Taliban’s spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, however, rejected the U.N. statement, saying that “no arbitrary arrests have been made and their actions are lawful and based on the Sharia law.”
On Wednesday, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the United States “remained concerned about the Taliban’s repressive edicts against women and girls and its unwillingness to foster inclusive governance.”
The international community has called on the Taliban to respect its commitment to uphold women’s rights and form an inclusive government.
Seyedi said that by arresting women over how they wear a hijab, the Taliban are trying to make the lives of women in Afghanistan “more difficult.”
She called on the international community to raise its voice against the detention of women and officially acknowledge the Taliban’s actions in Afghanistan as “gender apartheid.”
Roshan Noorzai of VOA’s Afghan Service contributed to this story, which originated in VOA’s Afghan Service.
Iran Moves To Seal Borders With Afghanistan And Pakistan After Deadly Blasts
By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
January 5, 2024
Iran said it is shutting its vast borders with neighboring Afghanistan and Pakistan to increase security after the twin bombing that killed at least 89 people in the southeastern city of Kerman on January 3.
The Iran Students News Agency (ISNA) quoted Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi as saying his government was prioritizing border crossings along borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan, both of which range for almost 1,000 kilometers.
The bombings in Kerman targeted people attending ceremonies to mark the fourth anniversary of the assassination of the late military commander General Qasem Soleimani, who was assassinated in Iraq in 2020 by a U.S. drone.
The Islamic State (IS) extremist group has claimed responsibility for the blasts saying that two of its members detonated explosive belts in the crowd that had gathered for Soleimani’s memorial. IS has in the past claimed responsibility for some terrorist attacks in Iran.
On January 5, Vahidi told state TV that the country’s intelligence agencies “have found very good clues regarding elements involved in the terrorist explosions in Kerman.”
He said that a number “of those who had a role in this incident have been arrested,” but did not elaborate.
Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government and Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs have yet to react to the announcement of the border closures. Both condemned the attack on January 3.
In the past, Tehran has accused both countries of allowing illegal immigrants, and sometimes terrorists, to slip across the border and harming Iran’s national security.
“Iran is indirectly accusing Afghanistan by insinuating that terrorists come from that country,” Aziz Ma’araj, a former Afghan diplomat who had served in Tehran, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.
Ahmad Khan Andar, an Afghan security expert, warned against blocking landlocked Afghanistan’s borders.
“The two countries should jointly fight terrorists along their shared border,” he told Radio Azadi.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban has been fighting against the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), a local branch of IS, since it first emerged in 2015.
Since seizing power in August 2021, the Taliban has tried to launch an intense crackdown on the IS-K, but many analysts say the mountainous border regions remain porous and it is far from eliminating the hard-line Salafist group that considers Shi’ites apostates.
Iran and Afghanistan’s northern central Asia neighbors and Russia consider the IS and IS-K to be a significant threat to security.