8am: Local sources in Takhar say that the Taliban have executed two prisoners who had affiliations with the National Resistance Front (NRF). The incident took place on Friday (September 2nd) in the village of Kata Amba, Warsaj district, Takhar province. Local sources in Takhar told Hasht-e Subh that the Taliban captured these two NRF members in the Warsaj district some time ago. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News in Dari – September 3, 2022
UN Calls On Taliban To Probe Allegations Of Forced Marriage, Rape Against Key Member
Khosti (left)
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
September 3, 2022
The United Nations has called on the Taliban-led government of Afghanistan to investigate allegations of the forced marriage and abuse of a medical student by an ex-Taliban official that has sparked strong condemnation by many Afghans.
“We call on the de facto authorities to transparently investigate all alleged violations of women’s rights, to hold perpetrators to account and to ensure safety of Afghan women and girls,” the UN diplomatic mission in Afghanistan said in a statement on September 2.
Since August 30, videos of a young woman have been circulating on social media in which she introduces herself as Elaha Delawazai, the daughter of a retired Afghan general and a medical student at Kabul University.
She accuses former Taliban Interior Ministry spokesman Saeed Khosty of forcibly marrying, torturing, and raping her. Footage also show photos of Delawazai with bruises on her face and around her eyes. It’s not clear when and where the video was recorded.
In another video, Delawazai is seen arguing with Khosty after he forcibly entered her home. A separate video shows Delawazai, with a shovel in her hands, throwing Khosty out from her home.
After the videos appeared on social media, Khosty confirmed that Delawazai was his ex-wife but rejected other allegations and accused her of blasphemy.
Khosty is a close aide of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the acting interior minister of the Taliban-led government and the leader of the notorious Haqqani network.
The woman’s whereabouts aren’t known. Delawazai said she tried to escape to Pakistan, but was detained at the border.
Since coming to power in August last year, the Taliban has been accused of seriously curtailing women freedoms, denying teenage girls the right to education, and barring most women from work.
Based on reporting by dpa and RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
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.
Four Children Killed In Afghanistan When Unexploded Ordnance Detonates
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
September 3, 2022
Four children were killed and three others injured when unexploded ordnance detonated in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand Province.
Police and a local doctor said on September 3 that the incident occurred after the children brought the ordnance inside their religious school and started to play with it.
Police said the children were aged 7 to 14.
Three died immediately and another later died at the hospital in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital.
Children in war-torn Afghanistan often collect scrap metal to sell to support their families, occasionally leading to tragedy when they come across unexploded ordinance.
Based on reporting by AP
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.
Former Kyrgyz President Otunbaeva Appointed UN Envoy For Afghanistan
Roza Otunbaeva
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
September 3, 2022
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has named former president of Kyrgyzstan Roza Otunbaeva as the UN’s new special representative for Afghanistan.
Otunbaeva, 72, replaces Deborah Lyons, who stepped down in mid-June, the United Nations said in a statement on September 2. She assumes the job as the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan have been drastically curtailed since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021.
Otunbaeva became interim president of Kyrgyzstan in April 2010 after a bloody uprising forced then-President Kurmanbek Bakiev into exile. She relinquished the presidency the following year after new elections were organized.
Otunbaeva also served as foreign minister of Kyrgyzstan and held several high-ranked diplomatic positions as her country’s ambassador to the United States, Canada, and Britain.
Currently, she is a member of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation and the Head of the Roza Otunbaeva Initiative Foundation in Kyrgyzstan, the statement said.
Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters
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.
Thousands attend funeral of popular Herat cleric killed in mosque bombing
Ansari
Ariana: Thousands of people attended the funeral Saturday of a popular Herat Imam, Mawlavi Mujeeb-ur-Rahman Ansari, who was killed in a suicide bombing at a mosque on Friday. Mawlavi Ansari was killed along with 19 others at the Guzargah Mosque, officials said. ISIS (Daesh) claimed responsibility for this deadly attack. Click here to read more (external link).
Related
Young Boys Being Used to Sell Drugs in Samangan Province
8am: Civil activists in Samangan province voice their deep concerns over the selling of drugs by young boys in the province who are being employed to do so by the criminal gangs. Samiullah Samangani, a civil activist for the province, told Hasht-e Subh on Saturday that the selling drugs by criminal gangs have increased in the province after the Taliban’s takeover using different tricks and means. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News in Dari – September 2, 2022
Top Taliban Cleric Among 18 Killed in Afghan Mosque Bombing
Ansari
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
September 2, 2022
ISLAMABAD — A suicide bomber struck a packed mosque in western Afghanistan Friday, killing at least 18 worshippers, including a prominent cleric loyal to the ruling Taliban.
Police officials said the influential slain scholar, Mujibur Rahman Ansari, was leading afternoon prayers at his Guzargah Mosque in the city of Herat, bordering Iran, when the powerful bomb went off.
At least 24 worshippers also were wounded in the attack and the death toll was expected to rise, according to local police and witnesses.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the chief Taliban spokesman, denounced the fatal attack on Ansari and vowed the perpetrators would be brought to justice. “The country’s courageous and influential scholar was martyred in a brutal cowardly attack,” he said on Twitter.
Ansari had been a vocal critic of the country’s former U.S.-backed governments for allowing Western militaries’ deployment in Afghanistan over the past two decades. He was seen as a strong supporter of the then-insurgent Taliban and had called for the beheading of those opposing the return of the Taliban to power a year ago.
The Taliban took over the conflict-torn country in August 2021 when all U.S.-led foreign troops withdrew from the country after almost two decades of war with the insurgents.
There were no immediate claims of responsibly for Friday’s deadly bombing. But the suspicions fell on the self-proclaimed Islamic State’s Afghan branch, known as the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISIS-K).
The terror outfit has claimed credit for plotting a series of attacks in recent months against mosques in Afghanistan, killing, among others, high-profile pro-Taliban clerics.
Sunni-based ISIS-K militants, who consider Shiite Muslims to be infidels, also have routinely carried out bombings against places of worship and gatherings of Afghan Shiite minority in the country, killing scores of people.
The Taliban also follow Sunni Islam, the dominant stream in Afghanistan, but they have engaged in intense deadly clashes with ISIS-K since its emergence in Afghanistan in 2015.
Taliban security forces have raided ISIS-K cells in Kabul and elsewhere in the country in recent weeks, claiming they have significantly degraded the group’s ability to launch major attacks.
‘Better To Die’: Afghan Woman Accuses Taliban Official Of Rape, Forced Marriage
Khosti (left)
By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
September 2, 2022
A young Afghan woman has accused a Taliban official of beating, raping, and forcibly marrying her in a video that has gone viral.
Elaha Delawazai, a medical student at Kabul University, made the allegations against former Taliban Interior Ministry spokesman Saeed Khosty in a video that surfaced on social media on August 30.
“I have no idea what will happen [after this video is made public], but it is better to die once than dying 1,000 times,” said the 25-year-old, crying.
Delawazai said her father worked for the intelligence agency of the toppled Afghan government. Around six months ago, she said, Khosty forcibly married her.
“He was raping me every night,” she said in the video. “Every night he would beat and torture me.”
In the video, Delawazai also appeared to suggest that Khosty had filmed her performing sexual acts and threatened to release the videos.
In a separate video, Delawazai is seen arguing with Khosty after he forcibly entered her home. Another video shows the young woman trying to throw out Khosty from her home.
Khosty denied the allegations on August 31. He said he had divorced Delawazai, accusing her of “insulting religious beliefs and practices and the Holy Koran.”
Khosty was appointed as Interior Ministry spokesman after the Taliban toppled the Western-backed Afghan government and seized power in August 2021. He was replaced earlier this year but remains a key Taliban media figure who appears on state-run and private Afghan television channels.
After the videos emerged, the hashtag #justiceforElaha went viral on social media.
Delawazai’s whereabouts remain unknown. On August 31, the Twitter page of the Kabul branch of the Supreme Court said Delawazai had been arrested on charges of defamation. But a new Twitter page for the Supreme Court created in August later said that the other account was fake.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has claimed that the allegations were part of a “conspiracy” against Khosty.
‘Complete Impunity’
Since seizing power, Taliban officials and fighters have been accused of abusing, sexually assaulting, and forcibly marrying the female relatives of former Afghan government officials.
“It would be no surprise for a Taliban official to feel free to inflict forced marriage, rape, assault, nonconsensual filming, and blackmail,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement on September 1. “The question is how many such cases go unheard.”
Heather Barr, associate director of the women’s rights division at HRW, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi that although “we don’t know how widespread these abuses are against Afghan women, but we know that violence against women and girls is carried out with complete impunity.”
Samira Hamidi, Amnesty International’s South Asia campaigner, said Delawazai’s case “is the shocking reality of what dozens of women and girls are facing.”
Since its takeover, the Taliban has severely curtailed women’s rights, barring teenage girls from school, banning most women from work, and imposing restrictions on their freedom of movement.
The militants have also dismantled the Women’s Affairs Ministry and Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission as well as closing shelters, legal assistance programs, and special courts that were designed to combat violence against women and girls.
Written by Abubakar Siddique based on reporting by RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi