8am: According to these sources, Taliban intelligence carried out the killing of a Local Uprising commander named Hayatullah using gunfire on Tuesday, September 12th. Hayatullah held the position of commander among the residents of Moghol-Qeshlaq village in Badam Darah, located in the city of Taliqan. Click here to read more (external link).
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Khaama: On the first day of the fifty-fourth session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Afghanistan was the main topic of discussion. Farzana Abbasi, a human rights researcher focusing on Afghanistan, said during this session that some of the actions by the Taliban administration in Afghanistan against women are considered examples of crimes against humanity. Ms Abbasi emphasized in her statement that women have been systematically removed from public spaces over the past two years, losing their fundamental freedoms. She further pointed out that human rights observers have found evidence of female rights activists arbitrarily detained and tortured by the Taliban regime. Click here to read more (external link).
Related
Khaama: Ali Bilal, an Afghan fitness athlete, won the championship medal in the Flex Pro competition. He secured the gold medal in the men’s physique category at this competition held in Milan, Italy, as the official Flex Pro competition website reported. Ali Bilal is set to participate in the Mr. Olympia competition, the most significant event in the world of bodybuilding and fitness, which will take place from November 2 to 5 in Orlando, Florida, USA. In the previous year’s Mr. Olympia competition, he was ninth among 15 athletes. Click here to read more (external link).
Other Sports News
Jeff Seldin
VOA News
September 11, 2023
WASHINGTON — More than two decades after al-Qaida operatives slammed passenger jets into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, America’s war on terror has left the terror group practically impotent, unable to strike the U.S. homeland, according to the latest U.S. intelligence assessment.
“Al-Qaida is at its historical nadir in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and its revival is unlikely,” National Counterterrorism Center Director Christy Abizaid said in a statement marking the 22nd anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people.
“It has lost target access, leadership talent, group cohesion, rank-and-file commitment, and an accommodating local environment,” Abizaid added, calling the degradation of al-Qaida’s core an “example of what the United States and its allies and partners have achieved in the years since those terrible attacks.”
The assessment also aligns with previous statements by other top-ranking U.S. officials.
In March, the Department of Homeland Security’s counterterrorism coordinator said another September 11th-style attack on the U.S. would be “almost inconceivable.”
And this past June, a senior administration official told VOA that even the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 has failed to rejuvenate the terror group.
Al-Qaida “simply has not reconstituted a presence in Afghanistan,” the official told VOA, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the latest U.S. intelligence.
Only not everyone is as optimistic as the U.S. about the downfall of al-Qaida in Afghanistan.
A June report by the United Nations, based on member state intelligence, warned that Afghanistan has again become a haven for al-Qaida, which has expanded its footprint from just several dozen members to as many as 60 senior officials, in addition to some 400 fighters.
The U.N. report further warned that al-Qaida has established training camps in at least five provinces and safe houses in another four.
U.S. officials who spoke to VOA at the time described the U.N. assessment as “out of whack” and insisted that the military and intelligence agencies have the right capabilities in place to see any potential al-Qaida revival.
Since then, other senior U.S. officials have similarly rejected the idea that al-Qaida, even under the Taliban, has been able to reestablish a foothold.
“Remember what I said about Afghanistan? I said al-Qaida would not be there. I said it wouldn’t be there. I said we’d get help from the Taliban,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in response to a question on Afghanistan in July.
“What’s happening now? What’s going on?” Biden said at the time. “Read your press. I was right.”
Some analysts, though, are skeptical of sounding the death knell for al-Qaida in Afghanistan, even if the terror group may not be currently capable of launching the type of spectacular attacks that first gained it notoriety.
“Even if the threat from al-Qaida now is not as obvious, or not as salient as it once was a decade and a half ago, it hasn’t gone away completely,” said Bruce Hoffman, a senior fellow for counterterrorism and homeland security at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“Al-Qaida sees its struggle as divinely ordained, as commanded by their deity and therefore, it’s not for mere mortal men to lay down their arms and stop fighting,” Hoffman told VOA. “They now have the opportunity in Afghanistan with the Taliban in power to regroup and rebuild.”
Retired U.S. General David Petraeus, who served as the commander of U.S. forces in South Asia and then as director of the CIA, likewise told VOA that al-Qaida should not be underestimated.
“They don’t have a kind of international reach yet, similar to what al-Qaida eventually developed, of course, when they carried out the 9/11 attacks,” Petraeus said.
“That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t keep a very close eye on them,” he said, adding, “I’m very confident that we are tracking to the extent that we can.”
Yet even top U.S. military officials concede the ability to track al-Qaida in Afghanistan, along with its rival, the Islamic State Khorasan Province, is not what it once was.
“Our intelligence is degraded,” the commander of U.S. Central Command, General Michael “Erik” Kurilla, told lawmakers in March on the impact of the U.S. withdrawal on counterterrorism efforts.
“I believe we can see the broad contours of an attack [plot],” he said. “Sometimes, we lack the granularity to see the full picture.”
In her statement marking the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, the National Counterterrorism Center’s Abizaid cautioned that despite the progress against al-Qaida and other groups, “The threat of terrorism is not gone.”
“Every week, threat-related intelligence lands on my desk,” Abizaid said. “In the face of a persistent terrorism challenge, the United States Government must sustain a nimble, action-oriented counterterrorism posture, even as other priorities take center stage.”
VOA’s Afghan Service contributed to this report.
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Ayaz Gul
VOA News
September 11, 2023
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan on Monday defended its decision to close the main border crossing with landlocked Afghanistan, saying Taliban authorities were trying to build “unlawful structures” on its territory and “resorted to indiscriminate firing” when challenged.
Traffic through the busy historic Torkham transit point for trade and travelers was suspended last Wednesday after border security forces exchanged fire, killing a Taliban guard and a civilian on the Afghan side.
“Pakistan cannot accept the construction of any structures by [the Afghan government] inside its territory since these violate its sovereignty,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said Monday.
She responded to a Taliban Foreign Ministry statement accusing Pakistani forces of opening fire on Afghan forces while they were doing “repair work on an old security post constructed several years ago.”
Sunday’s Taliban statement warned that the border closure could “adversely affect” relations between the two countries.
“On 6th September, instead of a peaceful resolution, Afghan troops resorted to indiscriminate firing, targeting Pakistan military posts, damaging the infrastructure at the Torkham Border Terminal, and putting the lives of both Pakistani and Afghan civilians at risk when they were stopped from erecting such unlawful structures,” said Baloch in a statement.
“Such unprovoked and indiscriminate firing on Pakistani border posts cannot be justified under any circumstances,” she said.
The Torkham standoff has stranded hundreds of trucks transporting commercial goods, mostly Afghan fruits and vegetables, and thousands of travelers on both sides.
The nearly 2,600-kilometer has long been a source of bilateral tensions because Afghanistan disputes the century-old British colonial-era demarcation. Islamabad rejects Kabul’s objections, saying Pakistan inherited the international border after gaining independence from Britain in 1947.
Rising cross-border terror
Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Baloch suggested Monday that the Torkham gate closure also resulted from the rising cross-border attacks against her country by anti-Pakistan militants sheltering in Afghanistan.
She referred to leaders and fighters of the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, operating out of Afghan soil.
TTP is listed as a global terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations. It is a known offshoot and close ally of the Afghan Taliban.
“These elements are enjoying sanctuaries inside Afghanistan, as confirmed by the U.N. Security Council’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team in its latest report,” she said.
“We expect the Afghan interim authorities to be mindful of Pakistan’s concerns, respect the territorial integrity of Pakistan, and ensure that the Afghan territory is not used as a launching pad for terrorist attacks against Pakistan,” said Baloch.
The U.N. report in question found that TTP has been “gaining momentum in its operations against Pakistan and aspires to regain control of territory within the country.” It noted that at least 4,000 TTP operatives are active on Afghan soil and warned the group could become a regional threat if it continues to have safe operating base in Afghanistan.
The Afghan Taliban deny they allow the use of Afghan soil to threaten Pakistan or other countries, calling TTP-led violence an internal matter for the neighboring country.
Pakistani officials and residents said Afghan Taliban fighters also joined TTP in launching last week’s massive assault against two security outposts close to the Afghan border in the northern Chitral district.
Islamabad claims it has also shared evidence and bodies of several Afghan assailants killed in retaliatory counterterrorism actions by the Pakistani security forces.
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By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
September 11, 2023
A hunger strike by a group of Afghan rights activists to protest the anti-female policies of the ruling Taliban has entered its second week as they seek international recognition of the militants’ policies as “gender apartheid.”
The protest that began on September 1 in the German city of Cologne comes after the Taliban rulers who seized power in the country two years ago banned women from education and from working in most economic sectors. The hard-line Islamist group has also banned women from visiting parks and imposed strict restrictions on their movement and how they can appear in public.
Zarmina Paryani, whose sister Tamana Zaryab Paryani was taken to the hospital on the night of September 9 after her health rapidly deteriorated because of the hunger strike, struck a defiant tone, saying that “until Tamana’s demands are heard, she will not end her strike.”
“She told doctors she could not leave her comrades alone and returned straight to the protest camp from the hospital,” Zarmina Paryani told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.
The two sisters and several other Afghan women activists said they launched the strike after hundreds of protests inside Afghanistan and internationally failed to produce any results.
The protest has attracted solidarity and support from rights activists in Europe and Pakistan, they say.
“There is gender apartheid in Afghanistan,” said Ziauddin Yousafzai, the father of Pakistani Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai, who visited the protesters in Cologne on September 11.
“Under the Taliban, there is no notion of a public life for women,” he told RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal.
In the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, Roqia Saee, an Afghan women’s rights activist, is leading a hunger strike in solidarity with the activists in Cologne.
“We will continue the strike until the United Nations, countries of the region and the world, and those who support human rights pay attention to our demand,” she told Radio Azadi.
Since July, UN experts and senior officials have said the Taliban’s systematic restrictions on women and girls could amount to “gender apartheid.”
The Taliban, however, has so far resisted all international and domestic pressure calling for a change in policies toward women.
8am: The presence of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban has become a contentious issue for Republicans and Democrats in the United States. In the latest development, CNN, citing two American officials, has reported that the revival of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan seems unlikely. According to the report, these American officials presented an optimistic view of terrorist groups weakening to demonstrate that despite the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, insurgent groups are on the decline. The American officials stated that the Al-Qaeda threat has decreased in recent decades, but Washington maintains the capability to track terrorist threats in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the United Nations, pointing to the extensive infiltration of Al-Qaeda members within the Taliban structure, emphasizes that this network uses Afghanistan as an “ideological and logistical center.” Nevertheless, security analysts perceive the weakening of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan as “strategically engineered to justify U.S. policies.” Click here to read more (external link).
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
September 10, 2023
Ahmad Hanayish
Abubakar Siddique
Shabana had a bright future ahead of her. She was studying to become a doctor and preparing to get married.
But the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 turned her life upside down. The militant group’s ban on women attending university forced her to abandon her studies. Then her fiance, who is based abroad, broke off their engagement.
Shabana, who was in her 20s, last month committed suicide in her hometown of Charikar, the provincial capital of the northern province of Parwan.
She is among the growing number of women and girls who have taken their own lives in Afghanistan, one of the few countries in the world where experts estimate that more women are committing suicide than men.
The surge in the number of female suicides in the country has been linked by experts to the Taliban’s severe restrictions on women. The hard-line Islamist group has banned women from education and most forms of employment, effectively denied them any public role in society, and imposed strict limitations on their mobility and appearance.
Although there are no official figures, Afghan mental-health professionals and foreign organizations have noted a disturbing surge in female suicides in the past two years.
“Today, women and girls make up most of the patients suffering from mental conditions in Afghanistan,” said Mujeeb Khpalwak, a psychiatrist based in Kabul.
“If we look at the women who were previously working or studying, 90 percent suffer from mental health issues now,” Khpalwak added. “They face tremendous economic uncertainty after losing their work and are very anxious about their future.”
Many Afghan women say they have been turned into virtual prisoners in their homes since the Taliban takeover. The vast majority of women are unemployed. And most say they are gripped by hopelessness.
Violence against women, meanwhile, has increased under the Taliban. The militants have scrapped legal assistance programs and special courts that were designed to combat violence against women and girls.
Forced and early marriages of teenage girls have also spiked across Afghanistan, with parents marrying off their adolescent daughters to avoid forced marriages to Taliban fighters.
Maryam Saeedi, an Afghan women’s rights activist, says some women see suicide as the only way to escape their plight. “They commit suicide to end their problems, which is dangerous,” she told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.
Maryam, a resident of Kabul, says her 16-year-old sister has suffered from extreme depression since the Taliban banned girls above the sixth grade from going to school. “My sister’s mental health has suffered tremendously,” she told Radio Azadi. “It is tough for girls to cope after all their freedoms have been taken away.”
The Taliban has said that 360 people committed suicide in the country last year, without offering any details. Unofficial figures suggest that the number of female suicides has surged since 2021, when the Western-backed Afghan government collapsed.
The World Health Organization revealed in 2018 that around 2 million Afghans — out of a population of around 40 million — suffered from mental distress.
“These numbers are likely much higher today,” Action Against Hunger, a U.S.-based nongovernmental organization, said in a statement on September 5. It added that Afghanistan was grappling with an “unprecedented but unseen mental-health crisis.”
Khpalwak, the psychiatrist, says that the country lacks the resources to address what he called a mental-health epidemic.
“The number of mental-health patients is rapidly rising, but the treatment available to them is not enough,” he said. “Women psychiatrists cannot work because of the restrictions on their work. There is an urgent need to address the growing mental-health crisis.”
Faiza Ibrahimi of RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi contributed reporting to this story