The Guardian (UK): Drought, economic collapse and soaring food prices have pushed millions into hunger. Cash aid from the Disasters Emergency Committee is helping families feed their children and send them back to school. Click here to view photos (external link).
NRF Forces Attack a Taliban Outpost in Takhar Province
8am: The attack was carried out at 12:00 Sunday night (September 18th) on the Taliban outpost in the Chaman Khusda neighborhood of Takhar’s Farkhar district. Local sources in Farkhar say that this attack lasted for half an hour and inflicted casualties on the Taliban, but the exact number of Taliban casualties is still unknown. Click here to read more (external link).
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1TV Afghanistan Dari News – September 19, 2022
Taliban Free Last American Hostage in Afghanistan in Prisoner Swap
Bashir Noorzai
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
September 19, 2022
ISLAMABAD — The Taliban Monday freed Mark Frerichs, the only American hostage remaining in Afghanistan, in exchange for a Taliban drug lord, Bashir Noorzai, who was serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison.
Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told reporters in Kabul the prisoner swap between his government and a U.S. delegation took place at the Afghan capital’s airport.
Frerichs, the nearly 60-year-old American engineer and Navy veteran, was abducted in Kabul in early 2020 when the U.S. and NATO troops were battling the then-Taliban insurgency in support of the Western-backed Afghan government.
In a statement, President Joe Biden said that Frerichs was on his way home from Afghanistan after 31 months in captivity there. Biden said he had spoken and shared the “good news” with Frerichs’ family.
“His release is the culmination of years of tireless work by dedicated public servants across our government and other partner governments, and I want to thank them for all that effort.,” Biden said.
“Bringing the negotiations that led to Mark’s freedom to a successful resolution required difficult decisions, which I did not take lightly.,” the U.S. president stated.
Biden said that his administration continues to prioritize the safe return of all Americans who are held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad, and the U.S. will not stop until they are reunited with their families.
Noorzai, known as Haji Bashir, was arrested in New York in 2005 and subsequently charged with trafficking millions of dollars’ worth of heroin into the United States. The top Taliban associate reportedly helped fund and arm the insurgents with proceeds from heroin trafficking.
Muttaqi described the prisoner swap as an “unprecedented in the history of Afghanistan” and said it was the outcome of a long negotiation process between the Taliban and the U.S. He said until now prisoner swaps between the two former adversaries would take place outside Afghanistan.
“This morning at 10 a.m. the American citizen was handed over to an American team at the Kabul airport and Haji Bashir was handed over to the Islamic Emirate,” Muttaqi said, using the official name for the Taliban government.
Noorzai’s lawyer had denied his client was a drug lord and argued the charges against him should be dismissed because U.S. officials duped him into believing he would not be arrested.
International forces completely withdrew from the country in August of last year after almost two decades of war with the Taliban, paving the way for the resurgent Islamist group to seize power.
Muttaqi said he also had a “positive” meeting with the U.S. officials at the Kabul airport on different issues before the guests left Afghanistan. He did not elaborate.
Muttaqi said Monday’s development had opened a “new chapter” in relations between Afghanistan and the United States, it would also help resolve bilateral problems between the two countries through negotiations.
Critics said it was too early to say whether the prisoner exchange would lead to any change in U.S. policy in terms of dealings with the Taliban, noting that the Islamist group had for long denied they were behind the abduction of Frerichs.
“Miraculously finding him for an exchange doesn’t exactly amount to diplomacy, nor trust building with the world,” said Torek Farhadi, a former Afghan official and political commentator.
The U.S. and the world at large have not yet recognized the Taliban government over human rights and terrorism-related concerns.
Noorzai, an influential tribal leader, owned opium fields in the southern province of Kandahar and he was a close ally of Mullah Mohammad Omar, the founder leader of the Taliban.
“In 2001, after the United States began military operations in Afghanistan, Noorzai at Omar’s request, provided the Taliban” with hundreds of his fighters to battle the then-anti-Taliban alliance of Afghan groups, according to the U.S. charge sheet against him.
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Taliban Launches a Door-to-Door Search Operation in Southern Kandahar Province
8am: Local sources say that the Taliban have launched house-to-house search operations in the southern Kandahar province. Local sources say that door-to-door searches have started in the southern provinces because security incidents and guerilla attacks have recently occurred in these provinces. After Helmand and Kandahar, house-to-house searches are scheduled to begin in Uruzgan and Zabul provinces. Click here to read more (external link).
4 injured as blast shocks Zhari district in S. Afghanistan
Xinhua: Four people including two children were injured after a blast shocked the Zhari district in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province on Monday, provincial administration spokesman Hajji Zahid said. Click here read more (external link).
UN Decries ‘Shameful’ Yearlong Closure of Girls’ Schools in Afghanistan
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
September 18, 2022
ISLAMABAD — The United Nations Sunday renewed its call for Afghanistan’s Taliban to urgently reopen schools to teenage girls, denouncing the anniversary of their exclusion from education as “tragic, shameful, and entirely avoidable.”
Since taking control of the conflict-torn country in August of last year, the Islamist group has instructed girls in grades 7 to 12 to remain home, which has mainly affected girls aged between 12 and 18.
“The ongoing exclusion of girls from high school has no credible justification and has no parallel anywhere in the world,” Markus Potzel, the acting chief of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said in a statement.
“It is profoundly damaging to a generation of girls and to the future of Afghanistan itself,” he said.
The Taliban reopened high schools to boys last year on September 18 but have ignored international calls for allowing female students to return to classroom. In recent days girls have also taken to the streets in some Afghan cities to protest the ban on their education.
“A year of lost knowledge and opportunity that they will never get back. Girls belong in school. The Taliban must let them back in,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote on Twitter.
The hardline Taliban rulers have also ordered women to cover their faces in public and told female staff in many public sector departments to stay home, saying the rules are in line with Afghan culture and Islamic law.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told VOA his government is determined to resolve the problem of girls’ education within the framework of Sharia, or Islamic law.
“Whether it’s a problem with the world or not, our own people also demand the same from us. We are trying to find a positive way out,” he said.
Mujahid insisted that reopening schools to girls is an internal Afghan matter and other countries should not link the issue to establishing ties with the Taliban government.
“This is also an internal problem of Afghanistan, it is the issue of our people, it is the issue of my children and my daughter. There is no room for outside intervention,” Mujahid told VOA.
The U.N. mission has estimated that the closure of female schools has barred more than 1 million girls across Afghanistan from receiving an education over the past year. It pressed the Taliban to reverse the slew of rules curbing basic rights of Afghan women and girls, saying the restrictions increase the risk of marginalization, violence exploitation and abuse against them.
“If the ban on girls attending high school remains, the U.N. is increasingly concerned that such measures, taken together with other restrictions being placed upon Afghans’ basic freedoms, will contribute to a deepening of the crises facing Afghanistan, including greater insecurity, poverty and isolation,” the statement said.
Other countries have not yet recognized the Taliban government because of its curbs on women’s and girls’ access to work and education, and for suppressing other civil liberties.
The return of the Taliban to power has deepened an already bad humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and pushed its war-hit economy to the brink of collapse.
The economic crisis, international economic sanctions and suspension of foreign financial assistance have made it difficult for the Islamist group to govern the poverty-stricken South Asian nation of about 40 million people.
More than half of the Afghan population suffers from acute hunger, according to U.N. assessments.
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Taliban Fighters Kill 4 Women, Injure 4 Others in House Search Operations in Helmand
8am: The Taliban rebels have killed four women and injured four others following house-to-house search operations in Qala Bast area of Helmand province, local sources said. According to sources, when the Taliban intended to raid the houses of the residents in this area near the city of Lashkar Gah, they were stopped by locals. Click here to read more (external link).
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1TV Afghanistan Dari News – September 18, 2022
$150M Must Be Delivered to Afghan Market to Stabilize Currency: Mehrabi
Tolo News: A member of the Afghanistan Trust Fund, Shah Mohammad Mehrabi, said that $150 Million should be delivered to the markets monthly in Afghanistan to stabilize the Afghan currency. “Use of this fund should be done for the sole purpose of price stability to defend the value of Afghani. This process can be independently monitored and audited with an option to terminate in the event of misuse. Through this process, purchasing Afghani will increase,” he said. Click here to read more (external link).
Other Economic News