The Taliban’s Unsustainable War on Drugs

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The Diplomat: The humongous trade is run by regional and multinational cartels with complex and elaborate illicit networks across the region. Politicians, security force personnel, and even the Taliban have been part of this symbiotic nexus, profiteering enormous amounts of money. Amid the anti-poppy measures of the Taliban, a record amount of Afghan drugs moved by Pakistani and Iranian cartels, almost 2,500 kilograms of methamphetamine, were recovered in India in May 2023. Drugs sourced from Afghanistan continue to reach the African continent, Sri Lanka, Australia, and European countries. It will be simply unimaginable that all the stakeholders will bring shutters down on this trade without a fight.  The Taliban, once a willing participant in the entire drug trade, lack the wherewithal to dismantle such a mammoth network. Click here to read more (external link).

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UN: Islamic State-Led Violence Kills 1,000 Civilians in Taliban-Run Afghanistan

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Ayaz Gul
VOA News
June 27, 2023

ISLAMABAD — The United Nations said Tuesday that bombings and other militant violence in Afghanistan had killed more than 1,000 civilians since the Taliban regained control of the country nearly two years ago.

The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan recorded 3,774 civilian casualties, including 1,095 deaths, between August 15, 2021, and May of this year. The report said 92 women and 287 children are among the dead.

Most of the deaths, 701, were caused by “indiscriminate” improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, attacks in populated areas, including places of worship, schools, and markets.

UNAMA said that a regional Islamic State affiliate, Islamic State Khorasan, or IS-K, was responsible for most IED attacks, including suicide bombings. It noted a significant increase in the number of attacks by the terrorist group since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul.

“Of particular concern is the apparent increase in the lethality of suicide attacks since August 15, 2021, with fewer incidents causing a higher number of civilian casualties in that period,” the report said.

More than 1,700 Afghan civilian deaths and injuries were attributed to attacks claimed by IS-K.

The chief of UNAMA’s human rights service condemned the attacks on civilians as “reprehensible” and called for ending them immediately.

“It is critical that the de facto authorities uphold their obligation to protect the right to life by carrying out independent, impartial, prompt, thorough, effective, credible, and transparent investigations into IED attacks affecting civilians,” Fiona Frazer said.

UNAMA said Monday that Taliban authorities continue to prevent journalists from covering mass casualty IED attacks, saying it recorded many instances of “arbitrary arrest and detention, ill-treatment, and excessive use of force” deployed against media workers covering such incidents.

The mission said that Taliban authorities do release information on incidents of violence but “casualty figures are often inaccurate and unrealistic.”
The Taliban maintain their counterterrorism operations have significantly degraded the IS-K presence in Afghanistan, killing its key commanders in recent months.

The Taliban waged a deadly insurgency and reclaimed power as the United States and its NATO allies withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021, ending their two-decade-long occupation.

UNAMA documented more than 3,000 civilian deaths in 2020 and 1,659 fatalities in the first half of 2021 alone, blaming the then-insurgent Taliban and other anti-government armed groups for causing most of those casualties.

Eid al-Adha in the Shadow of the Taliban: Citizens Unable to Afford Sacrifices and New Clothes

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Taliban fighters (file photo)

8am: The citizens of the country have been severely affected by increased poverty under the control of the Taliban. About two years ago, Herati traditional clothes enjoyed a thriving market, and citizens, particularly young people, would purchase them for special occasions such as Eid. However, traditional cloth sellers, this year are witnessing a decline in the market, as citizens, including the youth, are not buying clothes for Eid. Click here to read more (external link).

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Iran Proposes Formation of Joint Team with Afghanistan to Address Water Rights Issues

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Khaama: The Iranian interior minister has suggested creating a joint commission between Iran and Afghanistan to resolve the dispute over water rights between the two countries by carefully observing water levels in the Helmand River in southern Afghanistan. Ahmad Vahidi, Iran’s interior minister, said that the purpose of this joint team would be to ascertain Iran’s rights and to verify the Taliban’s claims of water shortage. Click here to read more (external link).

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Taliban Flaunts Terrorism Commitments by Appointing al-Qaida-Affiliated Governors

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Muttaqi

Roshan Noorzai
VOA News
June 26, 2023

WASHINGTON — For more than 15 years, Qari Baryal has been on a special list of Washington’s “most-wanted” Taliban and al-Qaida leaders in Afghanistan, accused of carrying out bombing and suicide attacks across the country.

Baryal and the militants he oversaw were “involved in the supervision of IED [improvised explosive device] production, suicide personnel allocation, and overall attack planning and execution” in Kabul and surrounding provinces, according to U.S. military reports.

In November 2021, two months after U.S. and NATO forces withdrew from Afghanistan, the Taliban appointed Baryal as the governor of Kabul province. In March 2022, he became the provincial governor for Kapisa province, northeast of Kabul.

Baryal is among those listed in a recent United Nations report as one of the Taliban’s leaders “affiliated” with al-Qaida. Besides Baryal, Nuristan Governor Hafiz Muhammad Agha Hakeem and Tajmir Jawad, the Taliban’s deputy director of intelligence, are also listed in the report.

“With the patronage of the Taliban, Al-Qaida members have received appointments and advisory roles in the Taliban security and administrative structures,” the U.N. Security Council’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team said in the report earlier in June. It called relations between the Taliban and al-Qaida “strong and symbiotic.”

According to the report, an estimated 400 al-Qaida fighters were in Afghanistan, and there are signs that the terrorist group “is rebuilding operational capability.”

The Taliban rejected the report, calling it “biased and far from reality.”

A statement posted on Twitter by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the group “insists on its commitments and assures that there is no threat from the territory of Afghanistan to the region, neighbors and countries of the world and it does not allow anyone to use its territory against others.”

Taliban Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi also rejected the presence of any terrorist groups in Afghanistan.

“There are no terrorist groups in Afghanistan. They cannot operate in the country, and we don’t let them operate in Afghanistan,” he said at an event in May organized by the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad.

U.S. officials have long expressed skepticism over Taliban claims that they have distanced themselves from al-Qaida. When a U.S. drone killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri last July, he was found living in a home in a central neighborhood of the capital, Kabul.

The U.S. said his presence there demonstrated the Taliban had broken the 2020 Doha Agreement signed by the U.S. and the Taiban. By hosting and sheltering the al-Qaida leader, the Taliban violated commitments to not allow terrorists in Afghan territory threaten the security of other countries.

The Taliban “will send a clear message that those who pose a threat to the security of the United States and its allies have no place in Afghanistan,” the agreement stated.

Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told VOA that by appointing “double-hatted” al-Qaida and Taliban leaders, including Baryal, who killed American troops, the Taliban “are openly flouting” the so-called peace agreement.

These appointments show that the Taliban “are not concerned about the perception of the international community,” Roggio said.

He said the Taliban “always lied” about their ties with al-Qaida and other terrorist groups, and that the group’s statements cannot be “trusted.”

Roggio said Afghanistan could again become a training hub for the terrorist group.

“This is everything that al-Qaida can hope for. They have safe haven. They have support from the Taliban, who are in full control of the country,” he said.

But some experts do not think the country is becoming a magnet for foreign fighters.

Sami Yousafzai, a journalist who covered Afghanistan for years, told VOA he believes al-Qaida members now in Afghanistan are mainly Arabs, with just a few Afghan Taliban members who joined “out of necessity.”

“They had contacts with al-Qaida since they were living there, and they were protecting al-Qaida as they paid them,” he said.

Other regional experts say the region’s long military conflict between the Taliban and U.S.-led forces created loose alliances among regional militia groups.

Rahmatullah Andar, the former spokesman for Afghanistan’s National Security Council, told VOA that the Taliban groups in the districts have been hosting al-Qaida members for more than 20 years.

“Therefore, it is difficult to separate them. Not only with al-Qaida but also with the Pakistani Taliban,” he said.

Andar added that some Afghans were working with al-Qaida, but there were also some who were group members.

“They have the same worldview, the same goals and the same approach,” he said.

Back in Afghanistan’s Kapisa province, Baryal now posts Facebook videos showing his outreach to the local community as the Taliban government’s official representative.

This story originated in VOA’s Afghan Service.

Girls’ Underage Marriage: An Age-Old Phenomenon with New Dimensions in Afghanistan

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8am: With the collapse of the republican government in Afghanistan, the Taliban have once again revived the concept of sexual jihad, known as Jihad-ul-Nikah. Over the past two decades, in areas under Taliban control, this group engaged in Jihad al-Nikah, although it was less prevalent and confined to specific regions. However, with their return to power, this practice has spread throughout the entire country. Consequently, most families have married off their daughters, fearing that they may fall into the clutches of the Taliban. Click here to read more (external link).

Tensions Beyond Kokcha River: Relocation of TTP or Land Dispute?

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8am: Residents in the Dasht-e-Qala and Khwaja Bahauddin districts of Takhar province have expressed complaints regarding the relocation of numerous families associated with Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to their districts. He [Professor Shaharani] views the relocation of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) members as a deliberate strategy to promote the dominance of the Pashtun ethnic group and grant them extensive privileges in the long run. He emphasizes that this process, aided by the British, has been ongoing in various forms since the time of Abdul Rahman Khan, and the Taliban is now seeking to alter the demographic composition of northern Afghanistan. Mr. Shaharani highlights that the current circumstances make it challenging for the people to resist the Taliban, and there is a possibility of regional countries supporting the fight against the Taliban’s agenda. Nevertheless, regardless of the outcome, the local inhabitants of these regions bear the brunt of the consequences. Click here to read more (external link).

Taliban ‘values its ties’ with Pakistan and hope to expand relations

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Zabihullah Mujahid

Ariana: The Islamic Emirate’s [Taliban] spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid says the IEA values its ties with Pakistan and hopes that relations and cooperation between the two countries will expand. In response to recent statements by Pakistan’s foreign minister, Mujahid emphasized Islamabad’s support for peace and stability in Afghanistan and said that both countries have many commercial, cultural and religious commonalities that need to be strengthened and relations between the two countries should be expanded. However, experts believe that Pakistan is playing a two-face policy towards Afghanistan. “Pakistan’s policies in Afghanistan always have two sides, one is its very soft talk, the other is behind its destruction,” said Rahmatullah Hassan, a political analyst. “Pakistan is a country that always wants Afghanistan to have no government, no system, no economy, and no foreign policy,” he stressed.  Click here to read more (external link).