Tolo News: The Ministry of Public Health on Wednesday said that at least 75,000 cases of measles have been recorded in the country in 2022. The ministry said that more than 300 children have died from the disease illness over the past year. Doctors said that lack of vaccination among children is one of the main causes of the rise in measles cases and deaths in the country. Click here to read more (external link).
What I saw in an Afghanistan abandoned pool changed my life
Fox News: If I could prevent one teenage girl from choosing to jump from a rooftop rather than suffer rape and abuse at the hands of the Taliban, my time in Afghanistan, however long that might be, would be worthwhile. If I could prevent one family from being forced to watch their father shoved off the highest platform to his death in the empty swimming pool below, I would fight for every member of that family. If I could prevent one child from dropping to their knees inside that pool to be murdered by a monstrous coward, I would give my life for that child. Before, retaliation had consumed me. Now, my heart broke with compassion for the Afghan people. I had to help. I had to fight for them. The Killing Pool changed me. Click here to read more (external link).
NRF Leader Swears He Would Avenge the Death of Top Anti-Taliban Commander
8am: The leader of the National Resistance Front (NRF) said in a statement issued on Monday that they will avenge the death of two commanders and their men who lost their lives in battles against the Taliban in Andarab, Baghlan. Khair Mohammad Khairkhah and Ghazi Muradi, two top NRF commanders, were killed along with their men after running out of ammunition during a feirce 30-hour gun battle against Taliban forces in Andarab region. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News in Dari – December 27, 2022
Taliban (IEA) Bans Two Female Training Centers in Kabul & Herat
Khaama: Roya Mahboob, the Founder of the Afghan Girls Robotic Team tweeted on Monday that the Taliban authorities forcibly shut the education centers in Herat and Kabul. More than a thousand female students were taking pieces training in business, Robotics, coding, and Information Communications Technology. Following the latest decree by the Ministry of Higher Education of the interim regime banning women’s university education, the dreams of thousands of school and university girls were buried. Click here to read more (external link).
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U.S.-Trained Afghan Soldiers Angry Over Their Plight Are Ready To Join Russia’s War Against Ukraine
By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
December 27, 2022
Michael Scollon
Lost status and a desperate existence in Iran are driving thousands of former Afghan troops — many of them elite commandos trained by the United States — to consider fighting as mercenaries in Ukraine and other battlefields.
Many ex-Afghan security personnel accuse the United States of abandoning them after the Taliban regained power last year. They also say poverty and security concerns are factoring into their decisions to take a private Russian mercenary group up on its recruitment offers.
According to WhatsApp messages viewed by RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi, some former Afghan commandos are already making the move to join the Vagner Group, also known as Wagner, a private paramilitary organization that plays a prominent role in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.
Others currently living in Iran, where thousands of former Afghan soldiers sought refuge following the Taliban’s seizure of their native Afghanistan in August 2021, say they are living a meager existence, resorting to manual labor or even rifling through garbage to sell to make ends meet.
It marks a major turnaround for the former members of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and its elite commando force, which were trained by the United States and Western allies and formed the backbone of the former Afghan government’s efforts to defend the country and combat the Taliban and the Islamic State extremist group.
Afghan soldiers in Iran who have said they plan to take Vagner up on its recruitment offers say they were betrayed by the United States and the U.S.-backed Afghan government that they fought for. Many blame them for their current predicament.
The Taliban rapidly seized control of the country as the United States pulled out its forces from Afghanistan. Without U.S. assistance, Afghan forces quickly capitulated, and many Afghan leaders fled abroad as Taliban fighters descended on Kabul.
“After the fall of the country’s traitorous presidential regime, [the United States] sold us out and surrendered the country to terrorists (the Taliban),” one former member of the Afghan special forces, who did not provide his name, said in an audio recording posted on a WhatsApp channel subscribed to by former members of the Afghan military.
“We had no place to live in Afghanistan anymore, because the Taliban terrorists chased us,” he said in the audio, which was posted on December 3. “Several of our peers were captured and beheaded, and we were forced to leave Afghanistan.”
No Life On The Run
RFE/RL was unable to independently verify the soldier’s claims, but the extrajudicial killings of former Afghan military and government workers is well-documented, with 100 such slayings recorded in the first months of Taliban rule alone.
Also widespread and well-documented is the belief among former Afghan soldiers, translators, and government workers that they were abandoned by their U.S. allies and that the former Afghan government botched the war effort and stole funds that had been allocated to the army.
Those claims have been backed by a recent report by Business Insider documenting that former Afghan officials smuggled nearly $1 billion in gold and cash out of the country as their government neared collapse.
In November, the U.S. Special Inspector-General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) cited corruption as among the factors that hastened the fall of the Afghan government and paved the way for the Taliban to reestablish control of Afghanistan.
Tens of thousands of Afghan troops who fought alongside Western allied forces over nearly two decades in Afghanistan are believed to have been left behind when the United States withdrew the last of its forces on August 30, 2021.
While an estimated 80,000 at-risk Afghans were airlifted out, those who were not had to fend for themselves, leading to concerns that tens of thousands of U.S.-trained troops would have no alternative but to flee the country, or join the Taliban or a regional adversary.
Many of them went into hiding in Afghanistan at risk of being hunted down by the Taliban, or fled abroad. By some accounts, up to 30,000 former Afghan soldiers made their way to Iran.
Fighting For Dollars
The former soldier who discussed his situation on WhatsApp said he fled to Iran for his safety and had lived there for several months. After receiving word that the Vagner group was recruiting Afghans to fight in Ukraine, he said he signed up.
“Afghanistan, NATO, and the United States brought us in as young men and abandoned us,” he said. “Russia started a program. They were recruiting certain units and taking them to the war in Ukraine. So, a number of our fellow soldiers signed up, and we are going to Russia soon.”
Another former soldier, in an audio message posted on the same WhatsApp channel on December 3, said he and a group of colleagues had recently arrived in Iran with the intention of joining Vagner to fight for Russia in Ukraine after hearing about the mercenary group’s recruitment offers.
He claimed that Iran was aware of the recruitment effort and was even aiding the process of transferring Afghan soldiers to Russia.
“We were in Afghanistan, and there were many rumors being spread that former military personnel had gone to Russia through Iran,” the soldier said, speaking anonymously. “We registered here in Iran. They transferred a few people before us.”
The soldier said that former Afghan soldiers were being offered permanent citizenship in Russia in exchange for fighting in Ukraine.
The former special forces officer said that his decision to sign on with Vagner was influenced by safety concerns in Afghanistan, where he said he and his fellow soldiers had lived in hiding and poverty for 14 months, and the chance for a better life for his family.
“We came alone, but a number of those who were transferred earlier are now with their families [in Russia],” he said. “We decided to go because of our situation and that of our children.
“We couldn’t leave the house. Most of our friends were arrested and killed, and most of them, like me, fled to Iran or Tajikistan,” he said.
The former Afghan officer estimated that, based on his conversations, some 2,500 Afghan soldiers had left Afghanistan with the intention of going to Russia, where he said he was offered $2,500 for six months of training and $3,000 once he goes to Ukraine to fight.
Those figures correspond roughly with other reports and testimonials about Vagner’s recruitment drive, which also say that Afghan special forces troops and their families were being offered safe haven and $1,500 a month to move to Russia and subsequently fight in Ukraine.
General Farid Ahmadi, a former commander of the special operations corps of the deposed Republic of Afghanistan, told Radio Azadi that he believes security and financial concerns are driving many former Afghan soldiers to consider fighting with Vagner.
“Serious security and economic problems and extreme poverty and desperation have forced them to do this for a bite of bread, to survive, and to escape the pursuit and torture of the Taliban,” Ahmadi said in a live interview via Skype this month.
Radio Azadi has documented the lives of some former Afghan soldiers living in Iran, where they say they are reeling from their lost status and dire financial situations.
Sayed Ahmad Nouri, 38, said he used to serve as a special forces commander in western Afghanistan but now has to collect garbage in Mashhad to provide for his large family.
Nouri laments that he used to direct hundreds of troops and “tanks would move under my command, and I had complete authority,” while serving with the ANA. Now, he said, his family of 12 lives in a one-room apartment and “are sleeping on top of one another.”
Abdul Ahad Safi, a former ranking official who headed a government department fighting organized crime in Afghanistan’s Herat Province, now does manual labor at a Mashhad workshop to support his family of five.
He told Radio Azadi that he can “barely keep himself alive” because “my income does not cover our expenses.”
Bad Consequences
Aside from Russia’s war against Ukraine, a small number of former Afghan soldiers have been recruited to fight in other conflicts, including for Iran in Yemen, and in Syria and even in Nagorno-Karabakh, according to Ahmadi.
There has been no evidence that Afghan forces have actually reached the battlefield in Ukraine, and the country’s security service did not reply to queries sent by RFE/RL regarding the possibility that Afghans were fighting for Vagner in Ukraine.
In response to questions by RFE/RL, a U.S. State Department spokesman said in written comments that the department was aware of unconfirmed reports that the Vagner group is recruiting former Afghan soldiers living outside of Afghanistan.
“We understand some Afghans may be vulnerable to [Vagner’s] monetary inducements, but would caution anyone from joining in the illegal invasion of Ukraine,” the spokesman said, adding that the Vagner group “is used by the Russian government to support its dangerous and destabilizing foreign policy, while attempting to maintain deniability.”
Regarding claims by Afghan soldiers that they were abandoned by the United States in Afghanistan, the spokesman acknowledged the difficulties Afghans face in leaving the country, but said, “We continue to monitor the economic situation of Afghanistan and provide assistance, where possible, to the people of Afghanistan as part of our enduring commitment.”
Copyright (c) 2022. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
Taliban’s Police Chief for Badakhshan Killed in Car Bomb Attack
8am: A car bombing targeted the Taliban’s police commander in Badakhshan, Abdul Haq Omar, on Monday morning, December 26, local sources confirmed. The Taliban’s police chief for Badakhshan among 3 people was reportedly killed and 4 others were injured. Witnesses reported that civilians were also killed in this bomb attack. Regarding the attack in Badakhshan, anti-Taliban NRF spokesperson, Sibghatullah Ahmadi, said that the Taliban’s infighting were the cause for this attack. Click here to read more (external link).
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Tolo News in Dari – December 26, 2022
Clashes Between Taliban and NRF Forces in Baghlan’s Andarab Leave Dozens Dead and Wounded
8am: Local sources confirmed on Monday that the clashes between the Taliban and National Resistance Front (NRF) forces started last night following a Taliban campaign launched in the villages of Taghanak, Khej and Bagh Dara in Andrab, Baghlan province. There are reports indicating that Khair Mohammad Andrabi, a prominent NRF commander, was killed last night along with his subordinates following a gun battle with the Taliban. Click here to read more (external link).
More Repressive Measures In Pipeline As Taliban Reverts To ‘Old Practices’ In Afghanistan
Frud Behzan
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
December 26, 2022
After forcibly seizing power in Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban made a public effort to assuage concerns by the international community that it would return to its brutal rule of the 1990s.
But the militant Islamist group has gradually reverted to its repressive policies of the past as the prospect of international recognition and assistance has diminished, experts said.
In recent weeks, the Taliban has reintroduced corporal punishments, including public floggings. The militants have also intensified their assault on women’s rights, including recently banning women from attending university.
Observers said there are likely more draconian edicts in the pipeline as the Taliban reestablishes a theocratic state governed by the militant group’s extreme and tribal interpretation of Islamic Shari’a law.
“It is very likely that the Taliban will increasingly impose more repressive measures,” said Weeda Mehran, co-director of the Center for Advanced International Studies (CAIS) at the University of Exeter. “This trend has been established.”
‘Draconian Policies’
In the past 16 months, the Taliban has imposed dozens of restrictions on women’s appearances, freedom of movement, and their right to work and receive an education.
Only girls below the sixth grade are allowed to attend school. High schools for girls have been closed, despite repeated promises to reopen them. In a major blow, the Taliban banned women from attending university on December 20.
The Taliban’s university ban has fueled speculation that the group will impose a blanket ban on education for girls and women like during its first stint in power from 1996-2001. The Taliban’s higher education minister has called female education “un-Islamic and against Afghan values.”
The militants have also reintroduced corporal punishments in recent weeks, including the public flogging of men and women for crimes such as theft, eloping from home, and committing adultery.
On December 7, a man was publicly executed in western Afghanistan, the first such event to be carried out since the Taliban takeover. The execution was attended by top Taliban leaders.
The public punishments came soon after Taliban Supreme Leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada ordered the group’s courts to employ strict interpretations of Shari’a law, which prescribes punishments such as stoning, execution, amputation, and public lashings. The Taliban handed down similar punishments during its previous rule.
Mehran of the University of Exeter said the Taliban has been gradually returning to its “old practices” as its hopes of recognition by the international community have dimmed.
“The only reason the Taliban did not originally implement its draconian policies at the same level and extent as its first regime in the 1990s was because the group was vying for international recognition, aid, and trade,” said Mehran.
In the Taliban’s first press conference after seizing power in Kabul, spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid pledged to uphold the free press and women’s rights — though within the framework of Islam. But the militants have failed to live up to their promises and instead reimposed many of the repressive policies of the past.
Omar Sadr, an author and research scholar at the University of Pittsburgh, said the Taliban has strategically used the Islamic concept of “taqiya,” or deliberate deception, to mislead the international community.
“The group’s stance was ambiguous as it never promised basic human rights based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, gender equality, and democratic governance,” said Sadr. “Many interpreted the ambiguous stance as moderation. But there was no evidence to support the assumption that the Taliban aimed to moderate.”
Analysts said the Taliban is likely to impose more restrictions in the year ahead, including further eroding women’s rights, expanding its crackdown on dissent, empowering its notorious morality police to forcefully impose Taliban edicts, and increasing its use of corporal punishments.
‘Pure’ Islamic System
The Taliban’s supreme leader has repeatedly pledged to establish what he has called a “pure” Islamic system in Afghanistan, without offering any details.
Afghanistan was an Islamic republic under the political system that was ushered in after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban from power in 2001. The 2004 constitution prescribed that “no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam,” although it contained more liberal and democratic elements.
Observers said the Taliban has retained its goal of recreating a theocracy based on its radical interpretation of Islam.
“The key features of its medievalist vision of political order are a lack of differentiation between the public and private, extensive policing of individual behavior, and degrading of women to second-class subjects,” said Sadr.
In October Mujahid announced that the group was working on creating a new constitution.
In the late 1990s, the Taliban drafted a 14-page constitution — the first and only attempt by the group to codify its views on power and governance. But the document was never officially ratified, and it was unclear how much of it was ever implemented before the militants were ousted from power.
Haroun Rahimi, an Afghan academic who researches Islamic law, said the Taliban is moving toward a “greater use of codification.”
“The recent trend has certainly been a shift away from a more laissez faire approach to a more regimented enforcement of what the Taliban consider to be Islamic principles,” said Rahimi.
During the summer, Taliban Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani published a book that some observers have labeled the Taliban’s manifesto. The book, which was reportedly endorsed by the Taliban leadership, hints at the group’s political vision for Afghanistan.
“The book makes an argument for the extensive enforcement of Islamic rules through state force on par with the first rendition of the Islamic Emirate,” said Rahimi, referring to the official name of the Taliban government. “How this unfolds in practice remains to be seen.”
Copyright (c) 2022. 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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