UN supports 24 addiction treatment centers in Afghanistan

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Ariana: The United Nations Drug Control Programme and the Centre for International Crime Prevention, (UNODC) say it will support the rehabilitation program of drug addicts in Afghanistan, by covering 24 addicts’ treatment centers, state-run Bakhtar agency reported. The UNODC will provide food, heating equipment, health materials, and medicine for these centers. Currently, 3.5 million, which is about 10% of the total population of Afghanistan, are drug addicts, according to UNODC. The UNODC will support these centers for at least six months. Click here to read more (external link).

Other Health News

Women-Run Radio Station Banned in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan

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Khaama: Taliban have shut down Radio Sadai-e- Banowan in northeastern Badakhshan province over an alleged violation of the ruling regime’s broadcasting policy, according to the officials of the local radio station. According to the Taliban’s Director of Information and Culture in Badakhshan province, Moezuddin Ahmadi, the women-run radio station was forced to cease its operation due to broadcasting music, during the holy month of Ramadan, according to local sources. Najla Shirzad, director of the radio station, however, denied broadcasting music and violating the Taliban’s policy. Ms. Shirzad relates the group’s decision of shutting down the radio in response to the programs about girls’ education that her radio had aired recently. Click here to read more (external link).

AFF Claims Killing Two Fighters in Attack on Taliban Security Command in Kabul

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8am: The Afghanistan Freedom Front (AFF) claims that in an attack on the Taliban security command in Kabul, two fighters were killed and another was injured. AFF announced through a video posted on its Twitter page that the attack took place at 6:10 pm on Friday night, 30 March, at the entrance to the Taliban security command in Kabul. Click here to read more (external link).

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Taliban Under Fire for Alleged Afghan Civil Society Crackdown

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Protest against Taliban (file photo)

Ayaz Gul
VOA News
March 30, 2023

ISLAMABAD — Human rights defenders have alleged that Taliban authorities in Afghanistan are increasingly targeting civil society activists and media workers critical of their curbs on women’s access to education and most areas of public life.

Afghan civil society sources, who did not want to be named due to safety concerns, said this week’s arrest of Matiullah Wesa, a well-known education activist and founder of the PenPath community-based education support network, is part of a larger crackdown in the country.

The de facto Taliban authorities have detained “many lesser-known non-governmental organization workers on trumped up charges” in recent months, the civil society sources and former detainees told VOA. The Taliban spy agency, the General Directorate of Intelligence, or GDI, is leading the clampdown, the sources said.

Since returning to power in Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban have closed secondary schools for girls beyond grade six and recently suspended female students from attending universities and other higher education institutions.

Rasul Abdi Parsi, a former Herat University professor, was detained several weeks ago, reportedly over his Facebook posts critical of the hardline rulers.

“With the Taliban’s tight restrictions on local media, many other arrests of activists likely go unreported, especially in Afghanistan’s more remote provinces,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement Thursday, expressing concerns over the crackdown.

The watchdog group lamented that Taliban authorities rarely provide information about reasons for those arrests or when those arrested will be put on trial, if ever.

“Those in custody lack access to lawyers and, in most cases, family members are not even allowed to visit them,” the statement said.

Wesa’s relatives said he was picked up on Monday evening outside a mosque after prayers in the capital, Kabul, because he was campaigning against the ban on girls’ education.

Taliban chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, confirming Wesa’s arrest for the first time on Wednesday, told VOA that the GDI had “some suspicious information” about him that was “a cause of concern” for the government.

Mujahid did not elaborate and defended the official action.

“The government must detain and investigate suspicious people to ensure public order,” he said.

On Wednesday, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights office said that a “concerning number of civil society activists” have been detained since early 2023 without clear information about their whereabouts.

The statement identified some Afghan detainees, including Nargis Sadat, Zakaria Osuli, Sultan Ali Ziaee, Khairullah Parhar and Mortaza Behboudi.

Jeremy Laurence, the UNHCR spokesperson, was quoted as describing the ongoing “arbitrary arrests” and detentions as alarming.

“We call for the immediate release of all those arbitrarily detained. … Arrest or detention as punishment for the legitimate exercise of fundamental rights, such as the rights to freedom of opinion and expression, is arbitrary under international human rights law,” said Laurence in a statement.

“The Taliban seem to believe that crushing all criticism is the path to political legitimacy. … These arbitrary arrests and detentions are only imperiling Afghanistan’s future,” said Human Rights Watch.

The international community has refused to formally recognize the Taliban government, citing the treatment of Afghan women, among other human rights concerns.

The radical leaders have rejected calls for removing the bans and instead defend their governance, saying it aligns with their interpretation of Islamic law and Afghan culture.

In an apparent attempt to convey to the world that the Taliban are not ready to reverse their rules for women, they re-issued this week a recent speech of their reclusive chief Hibatullah Akhundzada with English subtitles.

“What do you have to do with what I do, my government, my country, or my principles? Why do you interfere?” the Taliban chief asked. “I will not move even one step with you or interact with you, nor will I engage in a transaction with you at the cost of this Sharia [Islamic law].”

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Pakistani Taliban Kill 4 Police Officers, Injure 6

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Ayaz Gul
VOA News
March 30, 2023

ISLAMABAD — Authorities in northwestern Pakistan said Thursday that a predawn militant assault on a police outpost and subsequent roadside bomb blast had killed four police officers and wounded six others.

The deadly violence occurred in Lakki Marwat district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan.

A provincial police statement said that militants raided a security outpost in the area, injuring six security forces. It added that a nearby police station had quickly dispatched reinforcements to respond to the attack when their vehicle was blown up on the way by an “improvised explosive device.” The ensuing blast killed four officers.

The Pakistani Taliban took responsibility for what it claimed was a coordinated gun and bomb assault. The outlawed group, known as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, has intensified attacks, killing hundreds of people in recent months, mostly security forces.

The insurgent violence has resurged since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, as all U.S. and NATO troops withdrew from the country after two decades of involvement in the Afghan war.

Pakistan has maintained fugitive TTP leaders operate out of their Afghan bases. Officials say the militants have enjoyed “greater operational freedom” since the Taliban took control of the war-torn country.

The Pakistani Taliban, an offshoot and a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, is also designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and Britain.

Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif claimed last week that some of the weaponry the withdrawing U.S.-led coalition troops left behind in Afghanistan had surfaced in his country, further arming TTP and other insurgents.

“They have sophisticated weapons. There is no doubt about it. They have night vision devices,” Asif told a small group of reporters last Friday without elaborating.

Pakistani security forces have lately reported coming under increased nighttime raids by TTP insurgents and suffering heavy casualties eventually.

A recent counterterrorism department assessment of new TTP propaganda videos has found insurgents carrying U.S.-made weapons, such as M4 carbines with Trijicon ACOG scopes, M16A4 assault rifles with Pulsar Apex XD50 thermal scopes, and M82 semi-automatic anti-material sniper rifles with a range of up to 1.8 kilometers.

“These weapons were not secured and ended up in Afghanistan’s weapons black market,” according to a copy of the assessment seen by VOA. The weapons “allow TTP militants to target Pakistani security forces at night over long distances,” it noted.

More than $7.1 billion in U.S.-funded military equipment was in the inventory of the former Afghan government when it collapsed in the face of then-insurgent Taliban nationwide attacks amid the foreign troop exit 19 months ago, the U.S. Department of Defense estimated in a report released in August.

“The U.S. military removed or destroyed nearly all major equipment used by U.S. troops in Afghanistan throughout the drawdown period in 2021,” the report said.

Islamabad has been demanding the new rulers in Kabul evict or rein in TTP activities. Instead, the de facto Afghan authorities brokered and hosted peace talks between Pakistani government officials and the TTP, but the process collapsed in November.

The recent spike in violence prompted Asif to travel to Kabul last month at the head of a high-profile security delegation where they shared information about the TTP’s activities on Afghan soil, sources privy to the meeting told VOA.

Taliban hosts in the discussions agreed to disarm the insurgents and relocate them to northern Afghanistan from areas bordering Pakistan only if Islamabad bears the financial cost, sources said. Officials in both countries said no such discussions took place.

“They [the Taliban] have given us some suggestions to counter whatever TTP is doing in Pakistan,” Asif said while speaking on Friday. He did not share further details, saying the two sides are in close contact to deal with the terrorism threat.

The International Crisis Group noted in a new report released this week that the TTP’s central command is based in Afghanistan and linked the rise in violence in Pakistan to the Taliban takeover of Kabul.

“With their ideological allies ensconced in power in Afghanistan, and U.S. and NATO forces gone, the Pakistani Taliban have been more capable of conducting operations across the porous mountain frontier between the two countries,” the ICG said.

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Human Rights Violations Increased Exponentially in Afghanistan: Amnesty Intl

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Taliban militants dancing (file photo)

Khaama: Amnesty International expressed concerns in its annual report about restrictions on women’s rights, media freedom and freedom of expression in Afghanistan. “Restrictions on women’s rights, freedom of the media and freedom of expression increased exponentially,” the report said. “Institutions designed to support human rights were severely limited or shut down completely. Peaceful protesters faced arbitrary arrests, torture and enforced disappearance,” the report highlighted. The current harsh and suppressive policy will further promote poverty, unemployment, and extremism, which will lead to harbouring terrorists and threatening global peace and security, according to the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Click here to read more (external link).

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Taliban hoping to increase the number of soldiers to as many as 200,000 by end of this solar year

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Qari Fasihuddin

Ariana: The Islamic Emirate’s [Taliban] ministry of defense says it plans to increase the number of the country’s national army soldiers from 150,000 to between 170,000 and 200,000 in the current solar year. Qari Fasihuddin Fetrat, the army chief of staff, said in an interview that the IEA has all the military equipment from the previous government and that the army is ready to fight any potential threat. Fetrat has also stated that reports about the formation of opposition groups outside the country, to stand against the IEA government, are a “dream”.  Click here to read more (external link).

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New Season of NRF Operations; Ahmadi Claims Attack on Taliban Educational Center in Kabul

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Sibghatullah Ahmadi

8am: Sibghatullah Ahmadi, the spokesperson for the National Resistance Front (NRF), has announced the beginning of a new season of operations against Taliban. On Thursday, Ahmadi posted a video of an attack on a Taliban educational center in the Pol-e Charkhi area of Kabul on his Twitter page, claiming it was part of the new season of operations against the Taliban’s tyranny and brutality. Click here to read more (external link).