dpa: A former judge has been shot dead by unknown gunmen in Afghanistan’s central province of Ghor, local media reported on May 7. Two men riding a motorbike targeted Mohammad Nazir Manawi in the provincial capital, Firozkoh, as he was returning home from the local mosque, local broadcaster Salam Watandar reported. The men managed to escape. Click here to read more (external link).
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Ayaz Gul
VOA News
May 6, 2023
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN — Pakistan on Saturday hosted top diplomats from neighboring China and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan for a trilateral dialogue that seeks to promote regional security, trade, transit, and counterterrorism collaboration.
Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, who faces United Nations travel restrictions, was granted a waiver to attend the meeting in Islamabad. Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and his Pakistani counterpart, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, led their respective delegations at the fifth round of the trilateral framework.
The participants held “productive discussions on political engagement, counterterrorism, trade, and connectivity,” said the Pakistani Foreign Ministry in a brief post-meeting statement without elaborating.
Official sources said Pakistani and Chinese delegates had shared with Taliban representatives the security concerns stemming from a growing threat of terrorism in Afghanistan and the challenges it poses to neighboring countries. The delegates exchanged views about how to support the de facto Afghan authorities in the economic reconstruction of the conflict-ravaged impoverished South Asian nation.
Terror concerns
Qin said before the trilateral meeting that China and Pakistan were ready to support “actively” the Afghan reconstruction efforts, but he pressed the Taliban to deliver on their regional and international commitments.
“We hope that Taliban would embrace inclusive government and moderate policies and maintain friendly relations with its neighbors,” the top Chinese diplomat told reporters after bilateral talks with Zardari. Qin spoke through his official interpreter.
“It is important that [the] Taliban take the security concerns of its neighbors seriously and take stronger measures to counter various terrorist forces within Afghanistan,” he noted.
Qin said that China was ready to step up counterterrorism and security cooperation with Afghanistan and Pakistan to jointly fight terrorist threats such as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. Beijing has long alleged ETIM militants use Afghan soil to wage cross-border attacks against China.
An Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State terrorist group, known as IS-Khorasan, lately has also increased attacks in Afghanistan, targeting civilians, Taliban members and even Chinese nationals.
Speaking alongside his Chinese counterpart, Zardari also underscored Islamabad’s worries stemming from a spike in terrorist attacks in his country since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan nearly two years ago.
“For us in Pakistan, our core issue, our red line is the issue of terrorism, which poses a serious threat to our regional stability, regional peace and is a real stumbling block in the way of the progress of the Afghan people,” Zardari said.
Pakistan says fugitive leaders and members of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, use Afghan sanctuaries to plot cross-border terrorism. Officials in Islamabad maintain that terrorist activities have increased since the Taliban reclaimed power in Kabul in August 2021, killing hundreds of Pakistanis, mostly security forces.
TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, is an offshoot and close ally of the Afghan Taliban and played an instrumental role in their 20 years long insurgency against U.S.-led NATO forces that brought them to power nearly two years ago when the international forces left Afghanistan.
The Taliban deny they are allowing anyone to use Afghan soil to threaten Pakistan or other countries. Critics question those claims, citing the presence of fugitive TTP chief in last year’s failed peace talks with Pakistani officials that were brokered and hosted by the Taliban in Kabul.
Taliban leaders pledged they would respect the rights of all Afghans, including women. Instead, the hardline de facto authorities have gradually imposed their strict interpretation of Islamic law or Sharia. They have stopped most women from working and banned teenage girls’ from receiving an education beyond the sixth grade.
The restrictions have outraged the international community and deterred it from recognizing the Taliban as the legitimate ruler of Afghanistan.
Afghanistan-CPEC
Qin said Saturday that his government also was determined to link landlocked Afghanistan to a multibillion-dollar infrastructure development project in Pakistan with Chinese investment under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, is building new road networks, power plants, and ports to link the two countries and help Islamabad improve its economic productivity.
“We will help extend the CPEC toward Afghanistan, promote our exchanges on cooperation in trade, investment, and interactions, and enhance people-to-people and cultural exchanges between our three countries,” Qin said.
China initiated the trilateral dialogue with Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2017 to help ease tensions between its two uneasy neighbors, which share a 2,600-kilometer border. The Taliban were at the time waging a deadly insurgency against the then-U.S.-backed Afghan government, though Beijing and Islamabad maintained contacts with insurgent leaders.
The U.S. and other Western governments had moved their diplomatic missions out of Kabul to Qatar when the Taliban seized power. But China, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Russia are among around 20 neighboring and regional countries that have kept their embassies open or returned to Afghanistan.
While Western nations have suspended their economic cooperation with Kabul since withdrawing their troops, Beijing, Moscow, and Islamabad have increased engagement with the new Afghan authorities.
China recently secured a 25-year contract to extract oil from the Afghan Amu Darya Basin and are actively negotiating other investments with the Taliban. Russian exports to Afghanistan reportedly have increased to more than $10 million monthly.
The trade balance between the Taliban government and Pakistan has tilted in favor of Kabul for the first time in the history of bilateral ties. Taliban Commerce Minister Haji Nooruddin Azizi, accompanying Muttaqi on his Islamabad visit, met Saturday with his Pakistani counterpart, Syed Naveed Qamar.
An official statement said the two sides agreed to enhance trade volumes and streamline procedures to ensure “efficient border management” to improve bilateral trade and economic cooperation.
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Muttaqi
By RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal
May 6, 2023
Pakistan is hosting talks on May 6 with China and Taliban-led Afghanistan. The Taliban administration’s interim foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, who has long been subjected to a UN travel ban, asset freeze, and arms embargo, was granted an exemption to travel to Pakistan by a UN Security Council committee on May 1. The talks in Islamabad with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari are expected to focus on regional security and economic issues.
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The Hill: The Biden administration has extended a temporary fix to allow Afghan refugees to continue to live and work in the United States. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a release on Friday that Afghan nationals who arrived in the U.S. under humanitarian grounds through Operation Allies Welcome (OAW), which allowed vulnerable Afghans to resettle in the U.S. as the Taliban took over Afghanistan, to request re-parole starting next month. Click here to read more (external link).
Ariana: Heavy rains killed four people and injured 25 others in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province on Friday night, authorities said on Saturday. The tragedy happened in Kama district. Three hundred houses were damaged as a result of the heavy rains in the district. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News: Badakhshan is at the top of the list, with records of 251 suicide attempts. The psychologists believe that many suicide attempts in Afghanistan are due to economic hardships and family violence. Click here to read more (external link).
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8am: Sources told Hasht-e Subh that some farmers went to the province’s agriculture department on Wednesday, May 3, and protested. These farmers asked the Taliban’s agriculture department to collaborate with them in controlling the prices of their crops in the markets and to manage the price fluctuations throughout the day, which often drop from 100 to 20 Afghanis. However, the Taliban not only did not pay attention to their protests and requests but also transferred these farmers by military vehicles to the security observatory in Farah. Sources say that during the four-hour detention by the Taliban, these farmers were also beaten. Click here to read more (external link).
Michael Hughes
AOPNEWS
May 5, 2023
Foreign ministers from several states during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) ministerial firmly expressed concerns over the Taliban’s inability to stem the terrorist tide in Afghanistan, although barbs, some quite vicious, exchanged between India’s top diplomat and his Pakistani counterpart seized the headlines, potentially diluting the impact of the message meant for the radical group.
The key story of the gathering held in India’s Goa at first appeared to be the fact that a group of leading regional actors in a unified manner called out the Taliban for essentially allowing Afghanistan to become a welcome mat for terror groups.
Not to mention, the meeting comes as IS-K steps up attacks inside Afghanistan, while states in the region grow increasingly alarmed by the terrorist threat expanding under the Taliban’s watch. The Taliban, meanwhile, instead of focusing on security, have spent most of their time expanding draconian restrictions on women.
Pakistan, ironically, has been the most impacted by the Taliban government’s embrace of extremist groups since the radicals retook Kabul. In fact, Islamabad has grown frustrated with the Afghan Taliban for providing sanctuary to TTP militants in particular, who have repeatedly launched cross-border attacks.
On Thursday, 13 people – including six Pakistani troops – were reportedly killed in clashes with militants near Afghanistan’s border in North Waziristan. TTP claimed responsibility for the attacks, accusing Pakistani forces of trying to raid the area.
“It is alarming that terrorist groups within Afghanistan are cooperating amongst themselves more than we are as the international community,” Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto said during a prepared speech at the forum on Friday. “As the country that will be the first but not the last to suffer the consequences, Pakistan calls on the Interim Afghan Authorities to uphold their commitments on not allowing the use of Afghan soil for terrorism.”
In addition, he curiously warned against “weaponizing terrorism for diplomatic point scoring,” and then invoked the 2007 assassination of his mother, ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who is often referred to as the “mother of the Taliban” given her key role as architect and sponsor of the movement’s rise in the 1990s. Pakistan’s top diplomat then hinted at tensions between Islamabad, Kabul and New Delhi over addressing the terrorist threat.
“We must stop conflating non-state actors with state actors. Condemn all forms of terrorism including state-sponsored terrorism,” Bhutto added.
Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar was quite irritated by the comments about cooperation against terrorism, especially given that five Indian troops were killed during a clash in Kashmir earlier in the day. Jaishankar targeted Bhutto with vitriol at a post-meeting presser.
“As a foreign minister of an SCO member state, Mr. Bhutto Zardari was treated accordingly. As a promoter, justifier and spokesperson of a terrorism industry which is the mainstay of Pakistan, his positions were called out and countered including at the SCO meeting itself,” Jaishankar said as quoted by The Hindu.
The foreign minister also reaffirmed New Delhi’s conviction that Article 370 of India’s constitution, which grants special status to Jammu and Kashmir, “is history,” according to the report, which described the minister as “visibly upset.”
In an exclusive interview published on Friday, Bhutto told The Hindu that he did not request a bilateral meeting with Jaishankar during the SCO summit and said the “only thing” holding up talks was India’s decision to reorganize Jammu and Kashmir.
India alleges that Islamabad has fueled terrorist groups in the disputed territory of Kashmir – accusations Pakistan has long-rejected, claiming they are supporting groups seeking self-determination.
Pakistan’s military has for years used Afghan territory to groom terrorist assets for the war in Kashmir and in the name of “strategic depth,” the notorious doctrine that was part of the rationale for forming the Afghan Taliban and backing their seizure of Kabul (twice).
Other regional state leaders were focused on boosting efforts for the SCO to better deal with the Taliban and the security situation on the ground in Afghanistan.
During his remarks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, reiterating concerns about terrorist activities on Afghan soil, said Moscow is “keeping an eye” on how the Taliban addresses the security crisis.
After the meeting, Lavrov accused the United States of continuing to foment unrest in Afghanistan and even claimed there is clear proof that Washington is aiding terrorists. Moreover, Russia, he added, firmly opposes US attempts to reintroduce its military infrastructure across Central Asia.
“The US is again trying to interfere in Afghanistan’s affairs,” Lavrov told reporters as quoted by Sputnik. “There is convincing evidence that the US is supporting terrorist groups, including the Turkistan Islamic Party and al-Qaeda terrorist group, which all remain on the territory of Afghanistan.”
Lavrov said the ministers were in agreement on revitalizing the SCO-Afghanistan contact group in light of the need to eradicate terrorism and counter drug trafficking.
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
May 5, 2023
ISLAMABAD — A weeklong special U.N. mission on human rights in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan has found an unprecedented level of “systemic gender-based” discrimination that severely threatens the impoverished country’s future.
The United Nations released preliminary findings of the two-member mission Friday, saying the study concluded Thursday and took place amid a long-standing humanitarian crisis and profound turmoil caused by the latest Taliban edict banning Afghan women from working for the U.N. and local NGOs.
The Taliban have banned girls from receiving an education beyond the sixth grade and women from most government jobs and public places since seizing power in Afghanistan nearly two years ago.
“During our mission, we have documented how women and girls’ lives in Afghanistan are being devastated by the crackdown on their human rights,” the U.N. quoted its investigating team. “They have imposed extreme modesty rules and detained women and girls for alleged ‘moral crimes.'”
The mission comprised Richard Bennett, the U.N. special rapporteur on Afghan human rights, and Dorothy Estrada-Tanck, the chair of its working group on discrimination against women and girls. They met with Taliban representatives, civil society, women groups, entrepreneurs, religious leaders, teachers, journalists and victims of human rights violations, among others, in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and northern Balkh province.
‘Unparalleled’ situation
“This extreme situation of institutionalized gender-based discrimination in Afghanistan is unparalleled anywhere in the world,” the statement warned.
While talking to the U.N. experts, numerous women shared “their feelings of fear and extreme anxiety, describing their situation as a life under house arrest.”
Taliban authorities were quoted as telling the mission that women were working in the health, education, and business sectors and that efforts were underway to ensure that “women could work according to Sharia, separated from men.”
The de facto authorities reiterated that they were working on the reopening of schools but did not provide a clear timeline. However, they indicated that the international community should not interfere in Afghanistan’s internal affairs, the U.N. experts said.
“We are deeply concerned about the apparent perpetration in Afghanistan of gender persecution – a systematic and grave human rights violation and a crime against humanity,” they added.
The findings were released on the same day that the U.N. office in Kabul concluded a nearly monthlong review of Afghan operations in the aftermath of the Taliban ban on its female staff.
The review renewed the global organization’s condemnation of the ban and demanded its urgent removal, saying it is unlawful and “seriously undermines” the U.N. work in Afghanistan.
The U.N. office reiterated its commitment to stay and deliver on behalf of the people of Afghanistan, saying it “cannot disengage despite the challenges.”
The Taliban reclaimed control of the country in August 2021 when the United States and NATO troops withdrew after almost 20 years of involvement in the war with the former insurgent group. The hard-line Afghan authorities have imposed their own interpretation of Sharia, effectively barring most women from public life.
‘Internal matters’
The international community has refused to recognize the Taliban government, in part because of its bans on women’s access to work and education and its refusal to govern the country through a politically inclusive system.
However, the reclusive Taliban chief, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has ruled out any compromise on what he says is his “Sharia-based governance” and vowed not to allow foreign interference in “internal matters” of Afghanistan.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hosted a two-day international dialogue in Qatar earlier this week on how to engage with the Taliban and develop “a common international approach” to multiple challenges facing Afghanistan.
The conference brought together the envoys of about two dozen countries, including the United States, China and Russia, and major international donors and representatives of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. But the U.N. did not invite the Taliban.
Guterres told a post-meeting news conference in Doha, Qatar, that the participants had agreed on the “need for a strategy of engagement that allows for the stabilization of Afghanistan but also allows for addressing important concerns.”