Over 500 deceased Afghan migrants transferred from Iran to Afghanistan in 6 months

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Khaama: Abdullah Riyaz, the head of the Migration Affairs Department in Nimruz province, told Tolonews that most of the migrants whose bodies have been transferred to Afghanistan through Nimruz over the past six months have tragically lost their lives in road accidents and while illegally crossing the Iran border. According to him, Afghan migrants have lost their lives in various events, including traffic accidents, while attempting perilous journeys along smuggling routes. Click here to read more (external link).

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Afghan athlete wins gold at World Bodybuilding Championships

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Ariana: Afghanistan’s Ali Reza Asahi won gold at the World Bodybuilding Championships in the senior category in Seoul this week. Afghanistan Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation (AFBBF) officials said Thursday on social media that Asahi competed in the 90 kg category. Asahi’s gold is the first ever for Afghanistan at these championships that were hosted by South Korea. Click here to read more (external link).

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Pakistan to Taliban-Ruled Afghanistan: Choose Bilateral Ties or Support for Militants

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Kakar

Ayaz Gul
VOA News
November 8, 2023

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar demanded Wednesday that the Taliban government extradite fugitive militants who are sheltering in Afghanistan and plotting terrorist attacks against his country.

Kakar told a nationally televised news conference that his country had experienced “a 60% increase in terror incidents and a 500% rise in suicide bombings” since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul two years ago, killing nearly 2,300 Pakistanis.

He said his government’s crackdown on deporting all undocumented foreigners, primarily 1.7 million Afghans, to their countries of origin stemmed from the sharp increase in nationwide terrorist incidents, and he claimed foreigners without legal status are linked to those “fueling terrorism and instability in Pakistan.”

The prime minister noted that 15 Afghan nationals were among the suicide bombers, while 64 Afghans were killed fighting Pakistani security forces this year. He asserted the bloodshed was being carried out by “Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, terrorists” from their bases in Afghanistan. The Pakistani leader referred to an ideological offshoot and close ally of the Afghan Taliban, commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban.

Kakar said that despite repeated assurances, de facto Afghan authorities failed to halt TTP-led cross-border attacks effectively. “Instead, clear evidence of enabling terrorism [by Afghan Taliban members] also emerged in some instances.” He did not elaborate.

He said Pakistan has persistently shared details and a list of wanted militant leaders with Afghan authorities through high-level multiple official engagements and even asked them “bluntly to choose between Pakistan and the TTP.” But Kabul did not deliver on its counterterrorism pledges, he added.

Chief Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid rejected Kakar’s allegations, saying his government is not responsible for maintaining peace in Pakistan, nor is it behind the insecurity in the neighboring country.

“They should address their domestic problems instead of blaming Afghanistan for their failure,” Mujahid said in a statement he shared via X, formerly known as Twitter. “The Islamic Emirate does not allow anyone to use the territory of Afghanistan against Pakistan,” he said, using the Taliban administration’s official title.

Mujahid stated that Kabul “seeks good relations” with Islamabad in line with its policy of “non-interference” in the affairs of other countries and the Pakistani side should not doubt its “sincere intentions.”

Taliban leaders have decried the crackdown on Afghan migrants in Pakistan as “inhumane.” While urging the neighboring country to reverse the plan, Kabul government officials have warned of unspecified consequences.

Kakar said Wednesday that more than 250,000 Afghans had voluntarily returned home since his government began implementing the “repatriation plan” a month ago. He argued that the plan is aligned with Pakistani immigration laws but reassured Afghans awaiting relocation or resettlement in the United States and several other Western nations they would not be evicted.

The U.S.-led Western troops chaotically withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021 when the then-insurgent Taliban reclaimed power from an American-backed government. The troop withdrawal also evacuated tens of thousands of vulnerable Afghans, including former government officials, human rights defenders, journalists, and women activists.

Late last month, U.S. officials shared with Pakistan a list of 25,000 Afghans who fled the Taliban takeover, fearing retribution and abuses for their association with Western militaries during their presence in the country for almost two decades.

Pakistani officials later said the U.S. had withdrawn the list after Islamabad found it “flawed and incomplete” and promised to resubmit it after addressing the concerns.

On Tuesday, the U.S. State Department spokesperson renewed its call for Pakistan and other countries to respect “the principle of non-refoulement” and uphold their respective obligations in treating refugees and asylum-seekers.

“We strongly encourage Afghanistan’s neighbors, including Pakistan, to allow entry for Afghans seeking international protection and to coordinate with the appropriate international humanitarian organizations,” said Vedant Patel, the principal deputy spokesperson.

The United Nations and other global refugee agencies also have urged Islamabad to suspend the deportation plans, citing an already dire humanitarian crisis in impoverished Afghanistan, where two-thirds of the population needs some kind of assistance after years of conflict and repeated natural disasters.

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Gaza War: Why Is the Taliban Group Silent?

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8am: This group has not condemned or praised the parties involved. Specifically, the Taliban did not call Hamas a liberation movement like the Turkish authorities, nor did they call Israel a usurper and infanticidal regime like the Islamic Republic of Iran. Notably, the stance of the forces opposing the Taliban is firmer than this group in supporting the Palestinians. For example, the Supreme Council of National Resistance for the Salvation of Afghanistan supported Hamas’s attack on Israel by publishing a statement. Even Muhammad Mohaqiq, a member of the leadership of this council, had a telephone conversation with Ziyad al-Nakhalah, the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, which actually should have been done by the Islamist and jihadist Taliban. Similarly, the position of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF) was clearer and more coherent than the numerous and vague statements of the Taliban. Click here to read more (external link).

UN: Children Make Up 60% of Afghans Returning From Pakistan

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Ayaz Gul
VOA News
November 7, 2023

ISLAMABAD — The United Nations and partner aid agencies in Afghanistan said Tuesday they urgently need funds to provide “post-arrival” assistance to hundreds of Afghan families returning from neighboring Pakistan daily to avoid arrest and deportation.

“More than 60% of arrivals are children,” the U.N. humanitarian coordination agency said in a statement. “Their condition is desperate, with many having traveled for days, unclear of where to return to and stranded at the border.”

The U.N. agency issued the statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, a day after its country chief, Daniel Endres, visited the Torkham border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan to meet with new arrivals and assess the situation.

The Pakistani government, in early October, ordered the deportation of all foreigners without legal documents, including 1.7 million Afghans, warning those who remained in the country beyond November 1 would be arrested and expelled to their countries of origin.

More than 200,000 individuals have since returned to Afghanistan, with the numbers rising by the day, according to the country’s Taliban government. Afghans are also using Pakistan’s southwestern Chaman border crossing to return home.

The Taliban have set up temporary camps on their side of the border to provide immediate shelter, food, health care, and other services to returning families.

The International Rescue Committee said Tuesday that “the needs in Torkham are immense,” and with hundreds of families arriving each day, they will only grow. It is expected that people will continue to arrive for the next six months, said Naseeb Mashal, IRC Afghanistan senior area coordinator.

“Our health team has treated many people, including children, for severe injuries sustained on the long and arduous journey through the mountains to Afghanistan,” Mashal said. He added that many of the new arrivals are women and girls.

“As winter approaches, the IRC is profoundly fearful for the survival of people who are sleeping in tents or under open skies, as the temperatures are continuing to drop and heavy rains are expected to start in mid-December,” he cautioned.

Mashal said that the humanitarian response requires urgent funding from the international community to help meet the needs of thousands of new arrivals at the crossing areas and in Afghan provinces where families will eventually settle.

“After decades of conflict, instability, and economic crisis, Afghanistan will struggle to absorb families — many of whom have not lived here for decades. With an existing population of over six million internally displaced individuals, the Afghans returning from Pakistan face a bleak future,” Mashal warned.

The Taliban have denounced the Pakistani deportation plan, and U.N.-led global refugee agencies have repeatedly urged Islamabad to suspend the deportations, citing an already dire humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has dismissed calls for halting the crackdown on foreigners residing illegally in the country.

“The policy is very clear. Individuals who are illegals, who do not possess legal documents, (and) who have overstayed their visas will be repatriated. So, there is, at this point, no reconsideration of the policy,” said Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zohra Baloch.

“We have discussed this plan with the Afghan authorities. We have shared with them the details of the plan, the thinking behind this plan, why we are doing it, and how we are going to do it,” she told reporters at a weekly news conference last Thursday.

Baloch reiterated that around 1.4 million Afghans registered as refugees in Pakistan and 880,000 more with legal status are not the subject of the crackdown.

Sarfaraz Bugti, Pakistan’s caretaker interior minister, has cited a surge in terrorist attacks in the country for ordering undocumented foreigners to leave, claiming that 14 out of 24 suicide attacks this year were carried out by Afghan nationals. Militant violence has killed hundreds of Pakistanis, mostly security forces, in 2023.

Pakistani officials maintain that Taliban-allied fugitive militants are increasingly plotting cross-border attacks from their sanctuaries on Afghan soil, charges Taliban officials reject.

More than four decades of hostilities in Afghanistan, starting with the Soviet invasion in the late 1970s, and natural disasters prompted millions of citizens to flee the impoverished country to neighboring Pakistan and Iran. Iranian authorities have also reportedly sent back more than 120,000 Afghans over the past two months.

U.N. officials estimate that more than 600,000 Afghans took refuge in Pakistan after the Taliban’s August 2021 takeover in Kabul. The hardline group returned to power as the United States and NATO troops withdrew from Afghanistan after nearly two decades of presence in the country.

Many of the new refugees in Pakistan say they are reluctant to go back because they fear retribution and abuse by the Taliban for their association with the U.S.-led foreign troops.

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Taliban aims to appoint diplomat to Afghanistan Embassy in Tajikistan

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Khaama: The [Taliban] Ministry has recently issued a letter, and Afghanistan International has reported that it designates Faizullah as the First Secretary of the embassy. Tajikistan has strong ties with groups opposing the Taliban, and the previous Afghan government’s ambassador to Tajikistan consistently voiced opposition to the Taliban’s policies. However, it is still unclear whether, in the event of cooperation by the Afghan embassy, the Tajikistan government will accept Taliban diplomats or not, similar to countries like Turkey and Uzbekistan. Click here to read more (external link).

Looters continue to pillage Afghanistan’s rich archaeological heritage

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Science.org: Looting of archaeological sites in Afghanistan is continuing, despite vows by the Taliban government to protect the nation’s cultural treasures, a recent analysis finds. Using artificial intelligence (AI) to help comb through a trove of satellite images, researchers at the University of Chicago’s (UC’s) Center for Cultural Heritage Preservation found that looters are still actively pillaging at least 3 dozen sites that had been targeted before the Taliban came to power in August 2021. Researchers say the finding suggests the Taliban government, like its predecessor, is having difficulty cracking down on local leaders who profit from selling artifacts. Click here to read more (external link).

Taliban Report Seven Dead and Twenty Injured in Kabul Explosion

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8am: Khalid Zadran, the spokesperson for the Taliban security forces, announced tonight that an explosion in the Dasht-e-Barchi area of Kabul city has resulted in seven casualties and left twenty others injured. The incident, which took place on Tuesday, November 7th, involved a passenger bus, as stated by Zadran in a message posted on X. Contrary to the official statement, eyewitnesses informed Hasht-e Subh that they witnessed at least 20 bodies being transported to hospitals by ambulances. Click here to read more (external link).

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