Tolo News: The ministry of communications and information has blocked more than 23 million websites that were posting immoral content in Afghanistan, the acting minister said on Thursday. “We have blocked 23.4 million websites. They are changing their pages every time. So, when you block one website another one will be active,” acting Minister Najibullah Haqqani said. Click here to read more (external link).
Taliban Make Millions From Passports Issued to Fleeing Afghans
Akmal Dawi
VOA News
August 24, 2022
Since taking power last year, the Taliban have issued more than 700,000 passports to Afghan nationals inside the country, earning about $50 million in revenue, according to officials.
“We are issuing up to 4,000 passports daily and we aim to increase the number to 10,000,” Shirshah Quraishi, deputy director of Afghanistan’s passport department, told reporters Tuesday in Kabul.
Fearing the Taliban’s repressive rule, with many enduring hunger and poverty since their return to power, hundreds of thousands of Afghans have fled the country over the past year.
The U.S. government, which evacuated more than 120,000 Afghans last year, plans to resettle thousands of additional Afghans to the U.S. through the Special Immigration Visa and Priority-2 programs.
About half a million Afghans are estimated to have left their country in the months immediately after the Taliban’s takeover, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
While the Taliban have banned women from work, except in the health and education sectors, and have closed secondary schools for girls, passports have been issued both for male and female applicants, a Taliban official said.
The Taliban leadership also made more than $1 million in visa fees paid by more than 4,100 foreign nationals who have visited Afghanistan over the past year.
Passport and visa income is a small portion in the Taliban’s budget of about $2 billion for 2022 that reportedly is incurring a $500 million deficit.
Foreign donors have stopped all nonhumanitarian aid to Afghanistan following the Taliban’s takeover of the country, contributing to massive unemployment, heightened poverty and a widespread humanitarian crisis. Afghanistan received $4.2 billion in developmental assistance in 2020.
Corruption
While some observers say that the Taliban have tackled corruption, particularly in revenue-generating sectors such as customs, getting a new passport remains mired in bribery and administrative corruption.
“I paid $800 in bribes and illicit commissions to get a passport,” said Farzana, an Afghan woman who has applied for a U.S. visa in Pakistan and preferred not to use her surname in this article.
Two other Afghans who recently got their passports in Kabul gave similar accounts of outright graft in the process.
Even Taliban officials acknowledge the corruption.
“We have arrested more than 350 corrupt individuals, including tens of [passport department] employees,” said Quraishi, who urged the media to help report corruption in the passport department.
Passports of nonexistent government
To meet the high demand from Afghans who want to leave the country, Taliban authorities have finalized plans to print 2 million new passport booklets.
Lacking the print technology inside the country, the Taliban have sought assistance from the U.N. to produce the new passports in Lithuania, officials said.
A spokesperson for the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan was not available to answer questions about helping the Taliban print new Afghan passports abroad.
“The new passports will carry the logo of the republic,” said Quraishi, referring to the former Afghan government.
More than a year since the collapse of the former Afghan government, no country has officially recognized the Taliban’s Islamic emirate, which has annulled the Afghan constitution and changed the national flag, emblem and other official logos.
“Taliban cannot introduce new passports until their regime is recognized internationally,” Ali Ahmad Jalili, a former Afghan interior minister and ambassador, told VOA.
Afghanistan’s passport is ranked the least powerful travel document in the world by the 2022 Henley Passport Index, facilitating entry to no country without a visa.
Senior Clerics Caught In The Crossfire Of The Taliban’s Intensifying War With IS-K
By Abubakar Siddique
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 24, 2022
As the Taliban intensifies its war against Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), religious clerics associated with the rival militant groups are being caught in the crossfire.
IS-K militants have been blamed for the assassination of several pro-Taliban clerics in Afghanistan in recent weeks. The Taliban has also been accused of killing religious figures with alleged links to IS-K.
Many IS-K fighters are members of Afghanistan’s small Salafist community, an ultraradical sect under Sunni Islam. Most Taliban fighters are followers of the Hanafi school of Islam, a rival Sunni denomination. The Salafists, also known as Wahhabis, see other branches of the faith as heretical.
Since seizing power in August 2021, the Taliban has waged a brutal crackdown on Salafists, who are believed to number several hundred thousand and are mainly concentrated in the eastern provinces of Nangarhar, Kunar, and Nuristan.
Salafists accuse the Taliban of detaining and killing members of the community, and raiding and closing their mosques and religious seminaries. The Taliban’s clampdown has coincided with its intensifying war with IS-K militants.
Observers say the rising number of killings of rival Hanafi and Salafist clerics has recently become the main feature of the Taliban’s escalating war with IS-K militants.
“In the coming months, we might see more assassinations of religious figures, claimed by IS-K or unclaimed,” said Riccardo Valle, the co-founder of The Khorasan Diary, an online platform that tracks militant groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan. “The group wants to terrorize its enemies and fuel sectarian clashes.”
Spate Of Killings
On August 17, an explosion ripped through a mosque in Kabul that killed prominent Hanafi cleric Mullah Amir Mohammad Kabuli. At least 20 worshippers were also killed and dozens more wounded in the attack. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, although observers say it bore the hallmarks of similar attacks carried out in the past by IS-K.
The attack followed the August 11 killing of Rahimullah Haqqani, a prominent Hanafi cleric and Taliban ideologue. IS-K claimed responsibility for the bomb attack on Haqqani’s religious seminary in Kabul that also killed the cleric’s brother, son, and several close associates. Haqqani was known for having heated religious discussions with Salafi religious scholars.
In an August 21 statement, IS-K threatened to carry out more attacks on clerics who “slander” the militant group.
Last month, a top Salafist cleric who had pledged allegiance to the Taliban was mysteriously killed in his home in Kabul. Sardar Wali Saqib was stabbed to death just days after attending a gathering of pro-Taliban clerics. The Taliban blamed IS-K for the killing, although others blamed anti-Salafist figures within the Taliban’s ranks.
In November, a little-known IS-K ideologue Abu Mustafa Darveshzadeh was killed. He had written a highly critical book about the Taliban’s approach to implementing Islamic Shari’a law.
In September, one of Afghanistan’s most prominent Salafist clerics, Abu Obaidullah Mutawakil, was kidnapped in Kabul. His mutilated and burned corpse was found days later. He had been previously jailed for alleged links to IS-K. But his supporters deny that he had any affiliation with the group. The Taliban denied it had killed Mutawakil and pledged to investigate his death.
‘Resistance To The Taliban’
Clerics have not been the only members of the Salafist community to be targeted. Rights groups have said that civilians with no links to IS-K have been allegedly arrested, tortured, or killed by the Taliban.
In a July report, Human Rights Watch said that residents of Kunar and Nangarhar had discovered some 100 corpses in rivers and canals. Many of them were Salafists and alleged IS-K members who had been arrested by the Taliban.
Qari Eisa Mohammadi, an exiled Afghan cleric, says the Taliban’s alleged killing of Salafist clerics and other members of the community are pushing many into the hands of IS-K.
“The Salafists are thinking that if they fail to unite to put up resistance against the Taliban, the group will keep on killing its religious scholars one after another,” he said.
Andrew Mines, a research fellow at George Washington University, says the Taliban’s violence makes it “much easier for IS-K to mobilize fence-sitters and potential supporters to action.”
Observers say the Taliban sees IS-K as a direct threat to its rule and legitimacy, leading it to deal ruthlessly with IS-K and Salafists more generally.
“The Taliban [wants] to silence any opposing voices and discourage others from following in the same footsteps,” said Mines.
Since it first emerged in neighboring Pakistan in the early 1990s, the Taliban has allied itself with Al-Qaeda, a Salafist terrorist network, and absorbed smaller Salafist groups.
But the Taliban has opposed IS-K since its emergence in 2015, when turf wars erupted between the two groups. U.S. drone strikes and Afghan special forces also targeted IS-K strongholds in eastern Afghanistan.
Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, there has been a surge in IS-K attacks against the Taliban.
Experts say the extremist Islamic State-Khorasan has been bolstered by the diminished U.S. counterterrorism presence in Afghanistan and the Taliban’s inadvertent release of hundreds of IS-K inmates from prisons during its sweep of the country last summer.
Observers predict a bloody and protracted war between the Taliban and IS-K.
“This war is not easy to contain,” says Sami Yousafzai, a veteran Afghan journalist and commentator who has tracked the Taliban since its emergence in the 1990s. “Both sides have their sectarian vision, which they want to impose on the other.”
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.
Afghanistan refugees protest in UAE over stalled resettlement
ME Monitor: Hundreds of Afghan refugees and migrants held a protest in the UAE where they have been living in limbo since they were evacuated from Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover in August 2021. On Monday and Tuesday demonstrators carried banners and called for reprieve inside an Abu Dhabi facility, according to Reuters, citing two Afghans who reside there, where thousands are said to be awaiting resettlement to the US and other countries. “Nearly one year, we have been here in detention and the camp is like a modern prison. No one is allowed to go out, they don’t know when [we] will be settled permanently to any country,” one of them told Reuters. Click here to read more (external link).
3 Taliban Fighters Killed in NRF Attack in Kapisa
8am: A source in the NRF, who does not want to be named, told Hasht-e Subh that the attack was carried out on Tuesday night (August 23rd) on a Taliban outpost in Panahkhel village of the first district of Kapisa province. In this attack, 3 Taliban fighters were killed and 3 others were wounded. Click here to read more (external link).
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Tolo News in Dari – August 24, 2022
Flood death toll rises to at least 182 people in past month
Ariana: The Ministry of State Disaster Management said Wednesday at least 182 people have died and more than 250 have been injured in flash floods in different parts of the country in the past month. According to the ministry, floods have destroyed hundreds of houses, damaged thousands of acres of agricultural land and killed thousands of livestock. In addition, thousands of families have been affected and are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. Click here to read more (external link).
Related
Taliban Member Killed by His Wife in Afghanistan’s Western Badghis Province
8am: The Taliban in Badghis confirmed this incident, announcing the arrest of the victim’s wife. The Taliban have said that the lady of this Taliban member wanted to commit suicide after learning of her husband’s decision to marry for the second time. But the bullet hit her husband by mistake. Click here to read more (external link).
COVID-19 Cases Spike in Past Month: Hospital Officials
Tolo News: Officials of the Afghan Japan Hospital say that 6,000 people were infected with the COVID-19 across the country in the past month. “The number of patients is increasing day by day and in the last day we did 28 tests and 18 of them were positive. In the last month we had 60 patients but today we have more then 70 patients,” said Zalmai Reshten, head of the Afghan Japan hospital in Kabul. Click here to read more (external link).
US Streamlining Visa Process for At-Risk Afghans
Aline Barros
VOA News
August 23, 2022
Abdul is the father of four children aged 3 to 10. His wife, Jamila, is learning English.
“I’m teaching my wife. I need her mind to stay busy,” he said.
Abdul and Jamila are not their real names. They head an Afghan family hiding from the Taliban in Kabul, Afghanistan.
“My wife has depression and anxiety attacks. She’s always thinking about me, about my safety. … My daughters ask me every day, ‘Can we go play outside?'” Abdul told VOA via WhatsApp and Signal messages.
Abdul was a border officer who served in the Afghan Army. One of his jobs was to guide a robot to study explosives and disarm them. While Abdul has managed to keep his family safe, others have not been so lucky. His former captain was taken from his home last October during a Taliban raid.
The 30-year-old and his family are among the thousands of former Afghan military personnel who stayed behind after the conclusion of nearly 20 years of war. The U.S. completed its withdrawal in August 2021 and helped evacuate more than 130,000 Afghans in the chaotic final weeks. But one year after the massive evacuation, many of those who could not leave still hope for a life in the United States.
Among them are Abdul, Jamila and their children.
Safe passage
The Biden administration has sought to expedite processing for at-risk Afghans who leave the country, but the exact route Afghans take to reach the United States is not being publicized for security reasons.
The State Department did not comment on U.S.-chartered flights. On background, a spokesperson said the U.S. encourages Afghanistan’s neighbors to keep their borders open to allow entry for Afghans.
“We continue to work to facilitate safe passage for U.S. citizens, LPRs [legal permanent residents], SIV [Special Immigration Visa] holders, Afghan allies, and their eligible family members who want to leave Afghanistan,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA. “For security and operational concerns, we will not share details of these efforts. However, the issue of safe passage is an issue we continue to engage on.”
The spokesperson also said the U.S. government is increasing its resources to process eligible Afghans outside of the U.S. through the Special Immigrant Visa program available to military interpreters and others who worked for the U.S. government. SIV recipients can become eligible for permanent U.S. residency while the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) gives a clear path to U.S. citizenship.
“Which maximizes efficiencies by handling immigration processing requirements and domestic resettlement placements while overseas,” a State Department spokesperson said, adding, “All potential travelers to the United States continue to undergo extensive biographic and biometric security vetting conducted by our law enforcement, counterterrorism and intelligence agencies.”
The United States boosted resettlement assistance by $1.2 billion last year, allowing an expansion of processing facilities, including Camp As Sayliyah (CAS) in Doha, Qatar.
A State Department spokesperson told VOA that innovations to refugee processing at Camp As Sayliyah have “dramatically” shortened the timeline from arrival to departure, and most who are approved depart within 30 to 60 days of arrival.
“We are working to incorporate efficiencies at CAS to expedite processing for Afghans in other third countries. While we continue to improve our system for relocating and resettling Afghan allies in the United States, what won’t change is our commitment to keeping Americans safe,” the spokesperson said.
In March, U.S. government officials told the Washington Post on background that about 7,000 Afghans were on U.S. bases awaiting resettlement. Speaking with VOA, the State Department did not divulge how many are currently awaiting resettlement.
Afghans evacuated to the United States warn of even more extreme hardships and dangers for their brethren stuck in Afghanistan, where more than half the population endures critical levels of hunger, according to aid agencies.
“We are working on trying to find evacuation opportunities. But so far, they’ve all failed,” Ryan Mauro, founding director of the Afghan Liberty Project, told VOA.
Mauro said some people fleeing Afghanistan are making it to Iran and Pakistan, but they find themselves living in “horrible” conditions.
“[They] very often get beaten and tortured and then deported back to Afghanistan. So those aren’t routes that we necessarily recommend for people, but some people are willing to try it,” he said.
Mauro and those working at the Afghan Liberty Project built a network of contacts where Afghans hiding from the Taliban could live in safe houses. But because funds “dried up,” the network of safe houses is shutting down.
“It looks like we’re going to have to close down the safe house network in the next month or two,” Mauro said, adding that even with secret hiding places, any semblance of freedom has been taken away from Afghans.
“They don’t get sunlight if they’re inside all day. They’re jailed with their own depressive thoughts. And that is torture — to be locked in a place of desperation where the only thing you have is your own negative thoughts; that is torture,” Mauro said.
Other ongoing efforts
Back in the United States, the Biden administration announced on July 18 a streamlining of the SIV process for Afghans, in which applicants would only need to file one form — cutting down on paperwork and processing it through a single government agency.
As of July 20, new applicants — some in the SIV pipeline — no longer needed to send a separate petition to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for special immigrant status, keeping the entire process within the State Department.
“We do anticipate that, at a minimum, this change in process will shave about a month off of the adjudication time, but even more importantly, I think, ease a great administrative burden on the visa applicant. So, the process from the U.S. government side can be eased by a month or potentially more. … It’ll be a lot easier for the applicants as well,” a senior government official said.
As of July, U.S. officials counted 74,274 applicants in the SIV pipeline, not including spouses and children. As many as 50,000 applications could be approved.
Standard SIV applications usually move through a lengthy 14-step application process, which requires specific criteria to be met and takes an average of three years to complete. Applicants must have a visa to enter the United States.
In the call, Biden administration officials said although all new Afghan SIV applicants — and most of the applicants already in the pipeline — are no longer required to submit a separate 19-page form to USCIS, the “bottom line” is the United States will still need all necessary and required information to process someone’s SIV application.
“But it will be one form instead of two, and I think that the new, revised form that will be submitted to the State Department, while it still contains all of the critical information, I believe is a shorter form to fill out,” said one senior official.
Various U.S. agencies were involved in determining what kind of information an applicant needs to submit in the new form.
In the meantime, Abdul, Jamila, and their children are still waiting for the safest opportunity to leave Afghanistan, a country where they thrived before the U.S. withdrawal.
“This is jail [now]. … We were so happy. I was doing my duty at the border. We used to have picnics and go to weddings. We were happy,” Abdul told VOA.
Nike Ching, State Department Bureau Chief, contributed to this report.