Taliban Largest Illegal Arms Dealer In The World, Says Trump

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Donald Trump

Afghanistan International: Former US President Donald Trump has labeled the Taliban as the largest illegal arms dealer in the world. On Monday, Trump criticised the current US President Joe Biden’s policies toward the Taliban during a public conversation on X Spaces. The Republican presidential candidate for the upcoming US election called the transfer of Afghanistan’s funds to the Taliban the greatest folly in US history. Click here to read more (external link).

Other US-Taliban Relations News

Afghanistan reports 3 civilians died in border clash with Pakistan

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Ayaz Gul
VOA News
August 13, 2024

Islamabad — Afghanistan’s Taliban officials said Tuesday that at least three civilians were killed on their side of the border in an overnight clash with Pakistan, saying the victims are a woman and two children.

Abdul Mateen Qani, the spokesperson for the Taliban-led interior ministry in Kabul, accused Pakistani forces of initiating Monday’s conflict near the busy Torkham border crossing.

He claimed in a statement that the Pakistani side targeted Afghan civilian homes and, in retaliation, Taliban forces destroyed two Pakistani border outposts. The claims could not be verified by independent sources.

A security official in Pakistan reported that the incident had injured three soldiers. He spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.

The Pakistani military’s media wing did not respond to inquiries regarding the border skirmish and the reported casualties resulting from it.

Multiple Pakistani security officials said that the Afghan side attempted to construct a border post in violation of bilateral agreements, prompting them to open fire when Taliban forces ignored warnings to stop the work.

The clashes closed the historic Torkham border gate to all traffic between the two countries, and it remained closed Tuesday.

The crossing is a major facility for landlocked Afghanistan to conduct bilateral and transit trade with Pakistan and other countries.

Border controversy

Clashes along the nearly 2,600-kilometer border separating the two countries are not uncommon.

Afghanistan disputes parts of the 1893 demarcation that was established during British colonial rule of the Indian subcontinent.

Pakistan rejects Afghan objections, saying it inherited the international border after gaining independence from Britain in 1947.

Cross-border terror

Monday’s deadly clash came amid escalating mutual tensions stemming from Islamabad’s allegations that Kabul is not preventing fugitive militants from using sanctuaries on Afghan soil to plan cross-border terrorist attacks against Pakistani civilians and security forces.

The latest such attack was reported Tuesday in the volatile Pakistani border district of South Waziristan. Security sources said that the predawn raid resulted in the death of at least four soldiers and injuries to 27 others, while four assailants were also killed.

Military officials did not immediately respond to VOA inquiries seeking a response to the deadly militant attack in time for publication.

The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, a globally designated terrorist organization, took responsibility for the attack and confirmed the death of at least one of their militants in the ensuing clashes with security forces.

Pakistan complains that Taliban government forces in Afghanistan are facilitating TTP militants to carry out cross-border attacks.

In its recent reports, the United Nations has also backed Islamabad’s assertions, saying TTP members are being trained and equipped at al-Qaida-run training camps in Afghan border areas.

Kabul denies it is allowing anyone to use Afghan soil to threaten neighboring countries, dismissing U.N. reports about terror group presence in the country as propaganda against their Islamic government, established in August 2021 and not recognized by the world.

Related

WHO reports 11 new polio cases in Afghanistan in past 8 months

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Ariana: The World Health Organization has reported 11 new cases of polio have been recorded in Afghanistan over the past eight months.  According to WHO, 14 cases were recorded in neighboring Pakistan in the same period of time.  WHO reported that in the past week, two new cases were confirmed in Helmand and Kandahar provinces in Afghanistan. Click here to read more (external link).

Other Health News

Afghan Taliban Created World’s Most Serious Women’s Rights Crisis, HRW Says

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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 12, 2024

The Taliban has created “the world’s most serious women’s rights crisis” since returning to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, Human Rights Watch (HRW) says.

Under the Taliban rule, Afghanistan has become the only country where girls are banned from going to school beyond the sixth grade, HRW said in a press release on August 11.

The Taliban has also “undermined women’s right to freedom of movement, banned them from many forms of employment, dismantled protections for women and girls experiencing gender-based violence, created barriers to them accessing health care, and barred them from playing sports, and even visiting parks.”

The pressures on Afghan women come as their country is also experiencing a major humanitarian crisis, with aid severely underfunded and thousands of Afghan refugees forced back into Afghanistan from Pakistan.

Women and girls are among the most seriously affected by this humanitarian crisis, HRW said.

The situation has been described by the United Nations special rapporteur on Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, as “an institutionalized system of discrimination, segregation, disrespect for human dignity, and exclusion of women and girls,” HRW said.

“Under the Taliban’s abusive rule, Afghan women and girls are living their worst nightmares,” HRW’s Fereshta Abbasi said.

Abbasi urged all governments to “support efforts to hold the Taliban leadership and all those responsible for serious crimes in Afghanistan to account.”

Abbasi said countries engaging with the Taliban-led government in Kabul should consistently remind it that its “abuses against women and girls and all Afghans violate Afghanistan’s obligations under international law.”

More than half of Afghanistan’s population — 23 million people — face food insecurity, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Restrictions that the Taliban authorities have imposed on women and girls have impeded access to health care, jeopardizing their right to health, HRW noted.

The Taliban’s bans on girls’ education inevitably leads to future shortages of female health workers, HRW said.

The rights group called on donor countries to find ways to mitigate the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan without reinforcing the Taliban’s repressive policies against women and girls.

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.

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US commits to freeing Americans held by Taliban in Afghanistan

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Ayaz Gul
VOA News
August 11, 2024

Islamabad — The United States has promised to make every effort to secure the release of three Americans whom it says are being held “unjustly” by Taliban authorities in Afghanistan.

Ryan Corbett, Mahmood Habibi, and George Glezmann were taken captive in separate incidents in Kabul in 2022, roughly a year after the Taliban stormed back to power in the Afghan capital.

“My thoughts and prayers are with Ryan Corbett, Mahmood Habibi, and their families today,” Thomas West, the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan, said on X, formerly Twitter, marking the two-year anniversary of the capture of the two men.

“We will and we must continue every effort to bring them and George Glezmann home to their families,” he wrote Sunday.

Roger Carstens, the U.S. special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, in separate remarks posted on X, said that the three “have been held for far too long and their families have endured unimaginable pain.”

Corbett is a humanitarian worker who had lived with his family in Afghanistan for years. He was evacuated during the August 2021 Taliban takeover following the withdrawal of U.S.-led Western troops.

Corbett returned to Afghanistan in 2022 and was detained by the Taliban but has not been charged with any crimes, according to his family.

Glezmann was visiting Kabul as a tourist lawfully traveling in Afghanistan when he was seized by the Taliban’s intelligence services on December 5, 2022, “without just cause or formal charge,” according to the Foley Foundation, working to secure freedom for Americans held unjustly captive abroad.

Separately on Saturday, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI, released a statement seeking information into the disappearance of Habibi, saying he was taken from his vehicle near his home in the Afghan capital, along with his driver, on August 10, 2022.

The FBI stated that the Afghan-American businessman worked as a contractor for Asia Consultancy Group, a Kabul-based telecommunications company. “It is believed that Mr. Habibi was taken by Taliban military or security forces and has not been heard from since his disappearance,” the agency noted.

Habibi was detained by the Taliban reportedly on suspicion that his company was involved in a July 31 U.S. drone strike in Kabul that killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, the fugitive al-Qaida network chief. The FBI said that de facto Afghan authorities had also briefly detained 29 other employees of the Asia Consultancy Group.

The Taliban have officially not responded to the latest U.S. calls for releasing the three Americans.

While de facto Afghan authorities have publicly disclosed that Corbett and Glezmann are among “several foreign nationals” imprisoned in Afghanistan for allegedly violating local immigration and other laws, they refuse to acknowledge holding Habibi.

On Sunday, an Afghan television station quoted Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s chief spokesperson, claiming that they have imprisoned only two American citizens and are not holding Habibi.

He reiterated that Kabul would release the prisoners in exchange for Afghans in U.S. custody, the Ariana News network reported on its website.

“We don’t have anyone named Habibi in our prisons. But the investigation is ongoing to find out what happened in this regard,” Mujahid stated.

The Taliban announced last month for the first time that they had discussed a possible prisoner exchange in direct talks with U.S. officials on the sidelines of an international conference in Doha, Qatar, hosted by the United Nations.

“During our meetings, we talked about the two American citizens who are in prison in Afghanistan,” Mujahid told reporters after the meeting.

“But they must accept Afghanistan’s conditions. We also have prisoners in America, prisoners in Guantanamo. We should free our prisoners in exchange for them,” he said without elaborating.

Last week, the U.S. State Department spokesperson told reporters in Washington that U.S. officials have raised the detainees’ fate in every meeting with the Taliban.

Matthew Miller stated that Corbett and Glezmann “are wrongfully detained,” according to the U.S. legal determination. “That’s not a determination we have yet made with respect to Mahmood Habibi, which is not to say we’re not working to try and secure his release,” he explained.

“Oftentimes, we can’t make a wrongful detention determination because we don’t have access to certain types of information or because the situation is unclear. There can be other factors as well,” Miller explained.

Blast In Kabul’s Hazara Area Kills At Least 1, Injures 11

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By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
August 11, 2024

An explosion in the Afghan capital, Kabul, killed one person and injured 11 others, Taliban police spokesman Khalid Zadran told RFE/RL on August 11, an attack apparently targeting the country’s minority Hazara community.

Zadran said the explosion was caused by a bomb planted in a minibus in Kabul’s Dasht-e Barchi area, where many Shi’ite Hazara reside.

No group immediately claimed responsibility, but the Sunni-led Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) branch has carried out numerous attacks since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, often targeting Taliban officials, foreign nationals, the Hazara community, and others it considers incompatible with its extreme interpretation of Islam.

A female resident told RFE/RL that the Taliban authorities have failed to protect residents of the Dasht-e Barchi area.

“Explosions in Dasht-e Barchi occur regularly without anyone taking responsibility for maintaining security,” she said.

“The Taliban say they have ensured security, but that’s only words. They don’t care who’s killed or what attacks occur. If they’re genuinely ensuring security, why do explosions keep happening?”

Shi’ite Muslims, the country’s largest religious minority, have complained that the Sunni Taliban has not done enough to protect them from terror attacks and have accused the Taliban itself of abuses, including “killing, torture, and forced displacement.” Most Shi’a in Afghanistan are members of the historically persecuted Hazara ethnic minority.

A report this year by the U.S. State Department cited several examples of terror attacks against the Hazara community and stated that religious freedoms have continued to deteriorate under harsh Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

“Consistent with trends observed in past years, many suicide bombings and other attacks on civilians targeted Shi’a Muslims, particularly ethnic Hazara,” by the IS-K terrorist group, it said.

The report identified IS-K as the “most serious threat” in the Central and South Asia region and said the group was “projecting terror beyond Afghanistan.”

The U.S. report also cited UN officials in Afghanistan as saying the Taliban “had marginalized the minority Shi’a Muslim population in an effort to force them to leave the country.”

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.

Related

Taliban Leaders ‘Materialistic’ & Pursuing Multiple Marriages, Says Former EU Diplomat

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Afghanistan International: Michael Semple, a former Deputy Special Envoy of the European Union for Afghanistan, has claimed that Taliban leaders are “materialistic” and have sought second and third marriages since coming to power. He further alleged, “Since coming to power, Taliban leaders have taken second and third wives, seized land, acquired multiple luxurious homes, engaged in salary-related corruption, and extorted money.” Click here to read more (external link).