Taliban Inspects Girls’ Schools, Expels Hundreds Of Pubescent Students

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By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
October 6, 2022

Razia was expelled from her school in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar last month. The Taliban told the 14-year-old that she was “told old” to study.

“I’m not alone,” she told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi. “Many girls my age have been forced out of school.”

In recent weeks, the Taliban has carried out inspections of girls’ schools in the province and expelled hundreds of pubescent female students. They have joined the estimated 3 million girls in Afghanistan who are being deprived of an education.

Since seizing power last year, the militant group has barred girls who are 13 or older or above the sixth grade from attending school.

The expulsions in Kandahar are part of the Taliban’s enforcement of its deeply controversial ban, which has fueled protests inside the country and attracted international condemnation.

According to the Taliban’s extremist view of Islamic Shari’a law, girls who have reached puberty must be segregated from male students and teachers. The militants have claimed that, due to a shortage of female teachers, they cannot permit pubescent girls to attend school. Before the Taliban takeover, many girls’ schools were already segregated.

The Taliban has not given exceptions to girls who started school late, had to repeat school, or have learning disabilities.

Fawzia, a 15-year-old who was in the fifth grade, was expelled from her school in Kandahar’s Daman district last month. She said the Taliban kicked out more than 100 girls from her school alone after carrying out an inspection.

“We want the [Taliban] to open our schools so we can build a prosperous future,” said Fawzia. “I want to be a doctor so I can serve my country.”

“I felt terrible when we were ordered to leave our classes and told not to come back,” said Gulalai, another 15-year-old girl in the fifth grade from Daman district. “We are now in a very tough situation.”

Mawlawi Fakhruddin Naqshbandi, the provincial head of the Taliban’s Education Ministry in Kandahar, confirmed the expulsions. He said girls who were 13 or older or had reached puberty were being expelled.

Rare Display Of Defiance

Afghan women and girls have taken to the streets to protest the Taliban’s ban and demand their basic rights since the militant group seized power in August 2021.

Last month, schoolgirls, women, and even Afghan elders openly demonstrated their support for girls’ education in social media posts and street protests across the country, in a rare display of defiance under the Taliban.

The protests came after recently opened girls’ schools in the southeastern province of Paktia were suddenly closed again, and a top Taliban official stated that Afghans do not back education for girls.

More recently, a deadly suicide bombing on September 30 that killed dozens of girls and women in Kabul triggered some of the largest and most sustained protests against Taliban rule.

Defying the Taliban’s ban on unsanctioned rallies, women held rallies in the cities of Kabul, Herat, Mazar-e Sharif, and Ghazni and the provinces of Bamiyan and Kapisa. The demonstrators rallied against the Taliban government’s restrictions on women and its inability to protect ethnic and religious minorities.

Activists say the Taliban’s ban has been unpopular in Kandahar, part of the conservative Pashtun heartland where the Taliban first emerged in the 1990s.

“All Afghans support education,” Ahmad Shah Spar, a local activist, told Radio Azadi. “This has been proved by the protests and the campaigning of thousands of women and men.”

Since returning to power, the Taliban has imposed a raft of restrictions on women and girls, including on their appearance, access to work and education, and freedom of movement. The rules are reminiscent of the Taliban’s first stint in power from 1996 to 2001, when the group deprived women of their most basic rights.

The Taliban initially promised to respect women’s rights within the framework of Islam.

But in an October 5 report, global human rights watchdog Amnesty International said the Taliban’s systematic attacks on the rights of women and girls were aimed at “completely erasing” them from public life.

“The ban on secondary education for girls, in particular, threatens to do generational damage to girls and women of the country,” the report said.

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 to Displace 400 Families in Khwaja Bahauddin District, Takhar

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8am: The Taliban group has given a two-day deadline to the local residents of Khwaja Bahauddin district in Takhar province whose number reaches nearly 400 families to leave the district as quickly as possible, sources said. According to sources, the police chief and the deputy governor of the Taliban for Takhar province have ordered and warned the residents to evacuate the district in two days. Previously, the Taliban regime has displaced hundreds of families so far from this province. Click here to read more (external link).

No Chance US Would Engage Militarily in Afghanistan: Decker

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Decker

Tolo News: The Chargé d’Affaires of the US Mission to Afghanistan, Karen Decker, said there is no chance that Washington would re-engage militarily in Afghanistan. The Chargé d’Affaires of the US Mission to Afghanistan said that Washington will use all diplomatic and political efforts to hold the “Taliban to its commitment to respect human life, to respect human dignity and to respect human rights.” Click here to read more (external link).

Key Commander of the Taliban Killed in Kandahar

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8am: Local sources in Kandahar province confirm that unidentified armed men have attacked a prominent commander of the Taliban whose name is Abdul Sattar in this province. The attack was reportedly carried out Wednesday night in the first security district of Kandahar city, Kabul Shah area, killing this key commander of the Taliban. A reliable source however said the raid was carried out in front of the 1st security district of Kandahar. Afghanistan Freedom Front (AFF) meanwhile has claimed its forces have killed this key commander of the Taliban. Click here to read more (external link).

IS Ramps Up Attacks in Afghanistan, Taliban Claim Key Arrest

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Akmal Dawi
VOA News
October 5, 2022

Amid an intensified terror campaign by the Islamic State Khorasan (ISK) group in Afghanistan which has killed dozens of civilians this week, Taliban authorities claim they have captured the group’s liaison for Europe.

On Tuesday, the Taliban’s intelligence agency released a video confession of an alleged ISK member who says he helped foreign nationals join the terrorist group in Afghanistan.

“I had invited 10 to 15 people and one of them has come to Afghanistan,” says the Afghan man in the video.

The man also claims he collected funds for ISK from three European countries. “I collected $15,000 from Ukraine, 5,000 euros from Germany, and about 1,500 euros from Spain.”

The release of the Taliban video comes at a time when ISK has perpetrated several deadly attacks in the Afghan capital over the past few weeks.

At least 50 people, mostly schoolgirls, were killed and more than 100 wounded in an explosion at an educational center in Kabul on Friday.

The victims were Shiite Muslims. ISK has declared a religious war against Shiites.

On Wednesday, a bomb blast at a mosque near the interior ministry in Kabul killed at least four worshippers and wounded 25 others, Taliban authorities confirmed.

Rejecting foreign counterterror cooperation, the Taliban claim they are capable of routing ISK in the country on their own.

Experts say ISK has proven to be a potent threat in Afghanistan as it is seriously challenging the new Taliban regime.

Speaking at an event at the New American Security, David Petraeus, former director of the U.S. CIA, said ISK is trying to plunge Afghanistan into sectarian wars as seen in Iraq in 2006-08.

Counterterror violation?

“It is very difficult to ascertain the authenticity of the confession clips being put out by the Taliban intelligence regarding ISK funding and arrests,” Obaidullah Baheer, an Afghan analyst, told VOA.

The brutal animosity between the Taliban and ISK is widely reported, but the Taliban also are accused of allowing or ignoring other foreign terrorist groups as they establish an active presence in Afghanistan.

In July, a U.S. drone strike killed the leader of al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in downtown Kabul and U.S. officials accused the Taliban of violating their counterterror commitments made under a U.S.-Taliban agreement signed in February 2020 in Doha.

The Taliban have not yet confirmed al-Zawahiri’s death in Kabul but have accused the U.S. of violating Afghanistan’s aerial sovereignty.

“Nowhere in the [Taliban-U.S.] agreement does it demand that the Taliban expel al-Qaida from Afghanistan, nor does it demand that the Taliban break ties with al-Qaida,” said Lisa Curtis, an expert at the Center for a New American Security who previously took part in U.S. negotiations with Taliban representatives in Doha.

“It says that the Taliban will not allow al-Qaida to threaten the United States and its allies from the Afghan soil,” Curtis said at an event last week.

U.S. officials say that, in addition to al-Qaida, the Taliban have allowed members of several other foreign terrorist groups in Afghanistan, such as Lashkar-e-Toiba, Ansarullah and Tehrek-e-Taliban Pakistan.

The Taliban deny such allegations and maintain they will not allow foreign actors to use Afghan territory against any other country.

“There is some fear that the Taliban lack the will to control al-Qaida and lacks the capacity to halt IS terrorism, although it is also possible that the Taliban’s internal divisions would impede any effort versus al-Qaida, even if some top leadership wished to crack down,” Martha Crenshaw, an expert of international security at Stanford University, told VOA.

Talk or not talk to Taliban?

While the U.S. has used so-called over-the-horizon military and intelligence capabilities to neutralize terrorist threats from Afghanistan, some analysts say the U.S. and other international actors should engage the Taliban politically for counterterror objectives.

“The international community and the Taliban are both in a prisoner’s dilemma, which is a direct result of lack of communication,” said Baheer, noting that the U.S.’ dual policy of simultaneously deploying drones and swapping prisoners with the Taliban has created confusion in the region.

“Communication will create grounds for trust and a sense of what either side expects from the other,” he said.

Others question the reliability of Taliban both as a counterterror partner and as a legitimate Afghan government.

“We can’t simply engage them,” said Curtis, of the Center for a New American Security, while accusing the Taliban of systematic human rights violations, including denying education and work rights for Afghan women.

“Some will argue that we need to engage [the Taliban] in order to encourage stability in the country. I think that this logic is flawed because the Afghans themselves are going to resist infringement on their rights and freedoms, and they’re going to join resistance,” she said.

Despite imposing sanctions on them, the U.S. government has maintained limited contact with the Taliban over the past year. U.S. officials have said removal of sanctions and recognition of the Taliban regime is not on their agenda in the near future.

Taliban-Russia Deal A Drop In The Bucket That Could Fuel Future Trade

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By Michael Scollon
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
October 5, 2022

The Taliban, struggling to navigate Afghanistan through an economic and humanitarian crisis as its rule over the country remains unrecognized by the world, has found willing partners in two countries whose trade is severely restricted by international sanctions — Russia and Iran.

Moscow joined Tehran on the short list of capitals willing to deal with the Taliban under a preliminary agreement signed last week.

Afghanistan will get 1 million tons of gasoline, 1 million tons of diesel fuel, 500,000 tons of liquefied petroleum gas, and 2 million tons of wheat a year, Taliban Commerce and Industry Minister Nooruddin Azizi announced last week.

With the deal, “Russia joins that small number of countries which are willing to do business with Taliban, in terms of export and import,” said Narendra Taneja, a prominent economist who chairs the Indian-based Independent Energy Institute.

What Russia will get in return from its cash-strapped partner is much less clear, but it appears that agricultural goods and the prospect of future access to Afghanistan’s natural-resource wealth could be on the table.

The Taliban, which like Russia is essentially cut off from the global banking system, has said that it will pay for the commodities in Russian rubles. But Taneja suggests that is unlikely, considering Afghanistan’s difficulties in obtaining the Russian currency through trade. “It seems to be more like a very informal kind of deal, a barter kind of deal, where Russia will supply oil and gas and [Afghanistan] will supply whatever they can in return,” Taneja told RFE/RL from New Delhi.

Russia, like the rest of the international community, does not recognize the Taliban government and officially considers the hard-line Islamist group to be a terrorist organization. But Moscow on multiple occasions hosted Taliban officials amid peace talk efforts prior to the group’s forcible takeover of Kabul in August 2021.

Since then, Moscow has maintained an embassy in Kabul and a special representative to Afghanistan. President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia would take steps toward removing the Taliban from its terrorism list and instructed the country’s media to stop identifying the group as such, as required by Russian law.

Just ahead of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June, which was attended by a Taliban delegation including Azizi, Putin allocated grain exports to the drought-ravaged country “if necessary.”

The new deal comes after weeks of discussions in Moscow that transpired after a visit last month by Azizi. Moscow’s special representative for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, confirmed to the Russian state news agency TASS that a “preliminary” agreement had been worked out and Azizi has said that a longer-term deal will be forthcoming if both sides are happy with the arrangement.

Azizi said that Afghanistan would be receiving the commodities at a discount, and the fuel supplies will reportedly be delivered by road via Central Asia.

The Taliban commerce and industry minister also said that Afghanistan had received gas and oil from Turkmenistan and Iran. In late August 2021, Tehran lifted barriers to the export of fuel to Afghanistan that had been introduced earlier this month out of safety concerns amid unrest in the country.

Iran reportedly exported about 400,000 tons of fuel to Afghanistan from May 2020 to May 2021, and prior to the Taliban takeover Turkmenistan was the leading supplier of gasoline to Afghanistan.

“A country…shouldn’t be dependent on just one country, we should have alternative ways,” Azizi told Reuters last week.

The deal with Russia is seen as one of the Taliban’s largest trade deals and has raised questions about what the militant group can offer.

To date, the export of and custom duties from coal have been a key source of revenue for the Taliban. Much of the coal has been trucked to neighboring Pakistan.

Aside from coal and agricultural goods such as fruits, nuts, and medicinal herbs, Afghanistan’s untapped resources appear to be a potential trade chip.

The poverty-stricken country is believed to hold a wealth of mineral resources, including copper, iron ore, gold, lithium, and cobalt, as well as a host of rare-earth elements. U.S. government agencies have placed the value at more than $900 billion, while the former Afghan government placed the number at $3 trillion.

Afghanistan’s potential has attracted keen interest from China, India, Russia, and other countries, and has led the Taliban to pursue the resumption of China’s Aynak Copper Mine project while also cautiously negotiating over the mining of lithium and cobalt, two key components to the batteries that are fueling the world’s green-energy drive.

Afghanistan also has untapped reserves of oil and natural gas, according to Taneja, but has not been able to exploit the resources commercially. “I think the significance of the deal between the Taliban and Russia is that this is the beginning of something, and this something may grow into bigger things, such as mining of rare minerals in Afghanistan, or maybe mining of natural gas,” Taneja said.

While he says that Afghanistan might want to use the opportunity to promote the development of a pipeline, it is too early to say whether that could become a reality.

The completion of the TAPI pipeline, a major project that was intended to transport natural gas from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India via Afghanistan, has been stalled for years, although the Turkmen leg was completed in 2019.

In November 2021, Turkmen officials engaged in discussions with the Taliban aimed at completing the Afghan section of the pipeline, which began in 2018 and was intended to provide Afghanistan with 5 billion cubic meters of gas annually, more than enough to cover its annual use of 200 million cubic meters.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February led many Western countries to impose sanctions on Russia, including on its petroleum and gas exports.

The deal with Afghanistan, however, would effectively evade such punitive measures.

“Since the sanctions against Russia’s oil and gas, Russia is looking for new markets, looking for new countries where they can sell their oil,” Taneja said. “So, Afghanistan may not be a big buyer — it is a very small buyer of oil and gas — but nevertheless, it is another country which seems to be interested in Russian oil and gas. And as you know, the Taliban government is not recognized by any country, practically. So therefore, they escape the sanctions.”

Continued fuel deliveries by Russia could encounter other obstacles, however, with Taneja listing the need to find companies willing to insure cargos, the establishment of reliable payment and delivery mechanisms, and the risk of attracting sanctions in the future.

Moscow’s dealings with the Taliban have led to criticism, and the new agreement to export oil and gas is no exception, as evidenced by the number of social-media posts noting the Taliban’s official status as a terrorist organization in Russia.

But with Afghanistan suffering from a massive humanitarian crisis brought on by drought, floods, and war — leading to its recent designation by the United Nations as a “hunger hot spot” — Russia’s delivery of wheat is being viewed as a positive development.

“Keeping aside politics, what’s happening over Ukraine and between Russia and the West — I think it’s important for us as humans, to make sure that not a single person in Afghanistan starves,” Taneja said. “The people are not Taliban, the rulers are Taliban. And the people are starving. So, they should be helped by every country.”

With reporting by RFE/RL’s Russian Service, Radio Azadi, and Radio Farda

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.

The Taliban Crushed Afghanistan’s Crypto Market, Study Says

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Bloomberg: “The Taliban’s crackdown has had a massive chilling effect on the country’s crypto markets,” according to the report, which added that “crypto dealers are left with three options: flee the country, cease operations, or risk arrest.” Afghans turned to virtual coins as a lifeline to receive foreign remittances and donations, as well as to shield savings from the Taliban, who were shunned internationally after taking charge in the wake of a chaotic US withdrawal. Click here to read more (external link).