Biden to Drip-Feed Afghanistan Its $3.5 Billion in Frozen Reserves
FP: Omar Joya, an economist formerly with the World Bank and Afghanistan’s central bank, described the Afghan Fund as a “windfall” for the Taliban, saying it effectively pays their bills while relieving them of responsibility for managing an economy suffering from the political shock of the republic’s fall as well as natural disasters that have disrupted agricultural production and supply chains. Click here to read more (external link).
The Taliban’s Attack on a Resistance Base Across Bamyan Borders Repelled by Tahir Zahir’s Men
8am: Reliable local sources in Bamyan report that the Taliban’s attack on a base being led Mohammad Tahir Zahir and his loyal fighters in the border area of Yakawlang district of Bamyan and Balkhab, Sar-e-pol was repelled. The attack was carried out on Tuesday, September 20. Mullah Abdullah Sarhadi, the Taliban’s governor was leading this attack and he had deployed more than 100 fighters on the ground for this operation. One of the fighters under the command of Zahir, the former governor of Bamyan, told Hasht-e Subh on the condition of anonymity that the Taliban governor in Bamyan and his men retreated after suffering 4 injuries. Click here to read more (external link).
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Taliban Replaces Acting Education Minister in Reshuffle
Tolo News: The [Taliban] Islamic Emirate’s [Taliban] supreme leader [Haibatullah Akhundzada] issued an order on Tuesday announcing a reshuffle of several national and provincial positions, including replacing the acting education minister. Tuesday’s order also announced that acting Deputy Interior Minister Mullah Mohammad Mohsin would be appointed to run the northern province of Panjshir, replacing a provincial governor who would be reassigned as governor of eastern Logar province. Click here to read more (external link).
Blast Kills Three People in PD3 of Kabul
Tolo News: A blast took place around noon on Wednesday in PD3 of Kabul city, killing three people and wounding 13 others, according to the Kabul security department spokesman. Khalid Zadran said in a statement that the blast took place at a restaurant, and a team has arrived in the area to find out the cause of the blast. Click here to read more (external link).
Interview: Afghanistan Surf Champion Afridun Amu
Afridun Amu, Afghanistan’s first surfer
Stabmag: From refugee to constitutional lawyer to university lecturer to Afghan surfing icon. Afridun Amu has managed to cram three or four lifetimes of experience into thirty-five years. He was born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1987 but soon fled the country with his family to Germany in 1992 as a political refugee. He grew up and eventually studied law, social science, and design thinking at Free University Berlin, Humboldt University Berlin and University of New South Wales Sydney (where his love of surfing blossomed). He then worked as a lawyer specializing in constitutional law before pivoting his career to work for several NGOs. If you’re catching on, the man is a wunderkind of epic proportions. Click here to read more (external link).
Taliban Group Removes Persian from the Sign Boards at Education Directorate of Herat Province
8am: Sources on Tuesday, September 20, speaking to Hasht-e Subh said that in a new move, the Taliban group removed the Persian signs of the departments of management, publications, information technology, procurement management, and several other departments and replaced them with Pashto and English signs. This is while 90% of the visitors to government offices in Herat are Persian speaking and they do not understand Pashto. In addition, the Taliban group has removed the word “Danishga = University” from the main signboard of the new building of Balkh University. These ethnicist moves of the Taliban have provoked reactions of the people across the country, calling on the Taliban to focus on fundamental issues instead of these marginal issues. Click here to read more (external link).
1TV Afghanistan Dari News – September 20, 2022
Evil Circles: The Release of Taliban’s Drug Lord Makes the Path to Liberate Afghanistan More Difficult
Bashir Noorzai
8am: Taliban officials have called the release of Haji Bashir Ahmad Noorzai, known as Haji Bashar, as a sign of American goodwill and a “new chapter in the relations” between the Taliban and the United States. Haji Bashar is known in the media and political circles as the godfather of Afghanistan’s drug mafia. It is said that Afghanistan’s drug lord has earned huge sums of money through managing drug production, processing and trafficking networks and financed an important part of the Taliban’s expenses. At the same time, Haji Bashar is accused of having ties with the intelligence agencies, and there are reports of his cooperation and close contact with the Americans between 2002 and his arrest in 2005. But what role can Haji Bashar, who has been away from the drug market and politics for more than 17 years, play in the Taliban circle? Click here to read more (external link).
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Riveting ‘RETROGRADE’ Makes Warfare In Afghanistan Personal
popMATTERS: Matthew Heineman’s remarkable Retrograde—a National Geographic film showing at some festivals now and hitting theaters and streaming later this year—is one of the most unsettlingly intimate examples of this kind of filmmaking. Ostensibly, it’s a document of the last nine months of the Western-backed Afghanistan government in 2021. The film’s scope ranges from furious combat in the country’s dry opium-producing southwest to the chaotic end in Kabul when tens of thousands of Afghans scrambled to escape from the victorious Taliban. But while Heineman has produced an epic story, he tells it primarily through a small group of people caught up in the storm toss of history. Click here to read more (external link).