Tolo News: At least 30 people have died and more than 20 were injured in flooding in the Shinwari and Sia Gard districts of Parwan province, local officials said. The head of the provincial department of Information and Culture, Shams Rahman Sadeqqi, said that hundreds of houses have been destroyed. Around 100 people are missing, according to officials. The flooding happened in Shinwari and Siagard districts of the province. Click here to read more (external link).
‘I was a policewoman. Now I beg in the street’: life for Afghan women one year after the Taliban took power
The Guardian (UK): Students, mothers, widows, workers and artists explain how their world has altered under ‘gender apartheid’ Now women’s lives across the country have been fundamentally changed, their rights curtailed and freedoms restricted. Campaigners have called the Taliban’s orders to deny women education, remove them from their jobs and force them back under the veil a “gender apartheid”. Click here to read more (external link).
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The Guardian (UK): It is an open secret that several senior figures in the leadership educated their own daughters while living outside Afghanistan – mostly in Pakistan or Qatar – during their 20-year fight against US forces and their Afghan allies. Some have continued doing so secretly, even after moving back to Kabul, including the family whose international schooling plans were shared with the Observer. Click here to read more (external link).
2 Taliban, 3 Assailants Killed in Gunfighting in Kandahar
8am: According to local sources, the conflict between the Taliban and the attackers continued for half an hour, which ended after the death of 2 Taliban fighters and 3 attackers. Local Taliban officials in Kandahar consider this attack to be of ISKP affiliates. Click here to read more (external link).
Biden: US strike killing Al-Zawahiri in Kabul vindicates withdrawal
USA Today: Biden said the drone strike that killed an al-Qaida leader is vindication of his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan. Experts say it highlights the vacuum created by the U.S. exit. Click here to read more (external link).
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8am: Taliban fighters are torturing residents of the Jaghuri district of Ghazni province for not giving them weapons. According to the sources, the Taliban forcefully and violently enter people’s houses in this district at night under the pretext of finding weapons. Click here to read more (external link).
Taliban Announce Public Holiday in Afghanistan to Mark Retaking of Power
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
August 14, 2022
ISLAMABAD — Afghanistan’s Taliban have declared Monday a “national holiday” to mark one year since they retook power from the then international-backed government amid the precipitous withdrawal of the United States and NATO troops.
The Taliban takeover was swift, hardly facing any resistance from U.S.-trained security forces of the ousted Afghan government and enabling the insurgents to enter the capital, Kabul, on August 15 after overrunning the rest of the country.
“August 15 is a national holiday in the country to mark the first anniversary of the victory of the Afghan jihad [holy war] against the American and its allies’ occupation,” said a brief Taliban announcement Sunday.
U.S.-led foreign troops withdrew from the country after almost 20 years of war with the Taliban.
The Islamist group had agreed not to allow Afghanistan to be used by transnational terrorists, including al-Qaida, to target America and its allies. The group also pledged they would respect rights of all Afghans, including women, and not bring back the harsh polices of their previous government in Kabul from 1996-2001.
But since retaking power, the hardline group’s men-only government has significantly rolled back women’s right to work and education and placed restrictions on civil liberties, saying they are in line with Afghan culture and Sharia or Islamic law.
The killing of fugitive al-Qaida leader Aymen al-Zawahiri in a U.S. drone attack last month against his safe house in the heart of the Afghan capital has raised questions about the Taliban’s counterterrorism guarantees.
The Taliban condemned the strike, saying they were not aware of al-Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul and promised to conduct a “serious” and “comprehensive” investigation into the matter.
The human rights and terrorism-related concerns have so far kept the international community from recognizing the Taliban government and lifting economic sanctions on the group.
The curbs, aid groups say, have deepened an already bad humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan stemming from years of war and persistent drought.
Taliban defend policies
Taliban Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said on the eve of the anniversary of their return to power that their “nascent government” has quickly brought security to the country and it “has begun treading the path of peace, stability and prosperity.”
Balkhi told VOA in a detailed interview that relevant ministries are making all possible efforts and have effectively addressed urgent domestic economic challenges like stabilizing the local currency, creating jobs through increased trade and transit activities.
“It is now for foreign countries, specifically the United States, to do their part in alleviating the pain of Afghans by lifting all unilateral economic sanctions to let the banking and economic sector function optimally,” he added.
Balkhi renewed the demand for Washington to unblock Afghan central bank’s foreign cash reserves, largely held in the U.S., to enable Kabul to stabilize the national economy and encourage foreign investments in the country.
U.S. President Joe Biden issued an executive order in February aimed at unfreezing half of the $7 billion for humanitarian aid to benefit the Afghan people. The rest would be held for ongoing terrorism-related lawsuits in U.S. courts against the Taliban.
Balkhi urged Muslim countries and the world at large to recognize the Taliban government “if they truly seek an Afghanistan that can realize its full potential as a partner in peace, stability and prosperity.”
He dismissed international criticism of restrictions the Taliban have placed on women and claimed no crackdown was underway against media or civil liberties in Afghanistan.
“Just as we do not interfere in the internal affairs of others, we also demand other states not interfere in the internal affairs of Afghanistan and to show respect for a people that are trying to heal organically after decades of foreign imposed prescriptions.”
Deteriorating human rights
The United Nations and global human rights groups in their repeated assessments concluded that the Taliban takeover has seen daily and continuous deterioration in every aspect of the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan.
On Saturday, Taliban security forces in Kabul fired shots into the air and beat women protesters demanding the right to education, work and political participation. The violence received strong condemnation from domestic and international rights activists.
The Taliban have barred most teenage girls from resuming secondary school and women employed in the public sector have been told to stay at home, except for those who work for the ministries of education, health and a few others. They have ordered women to use face coverings in public and banned them from traveling alone beyond 72 kilometers.
The hardline group after taking power in Afghanistan announced, “amnesty for all,” including foreign government and security officials. But critics remain skeptical whether the Taliban have upheld the pledge, citing targeted killings of former officials and other violence against civilians.
Balkhi argued the amnesty was being enforced across the country and noted, however, that “some cases of homicide” had been registered with the ministry of interior. He said “some culprits” had been brought to justice and others were still under investigation.
“These isolated cases have not deterred hundreds of thousands of former administration employees not only staying put but also being integrated into the workforce. Furthermore, hundreds of notorious figures that had earlier left the country have returned to resume their normal lives through the efforts of (a special) reconciliation and return committee,” he said.
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Michael Hughes: Afghanistan’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) plummeted by 40 percent overnight in the wake of the Taliban seizure of Kabul on August 15, 2021 because the international community cut off the foreign aid that had propped up the country’s economy for years. Such an earth-shattering loss of revenue no nation could survive, let alone one on the brink of utter collapse after decades of war. Click here to read more.
Afghan Economic Crisis Worsens as Taliban Mark Anniversary
VOA News
August 13, 2022
Mirwais Rahmani
Roshan Noorzai
WASHINGTON — A year into the Taliban’s de facto government in Afghanistan, the war-torn country has experienced an economic crisis that has worsened the already dire humanitarian situation there.
The economy collapsed after the Taliban seized power in August 2021 and the international community placed sanctions on the Islamist group and suspended non-humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.
“The sanctions and frozen assets, as well as drought, are contributing significantly, bringing hardships in the form of higher prices,” said Shah Mehrabi, a member of the Supreme Council of the Central Bank of Afghanistan and a professor of economics at Montgomery College in Maryland.
He added that the situation was compounded by increasing global energy and food prices that “are exacerbating the poverty for many ordinary Afghans.”
According to the United Nations, half of the Afghan population, about 19 million people, experience acute food insecurity. Ninety percent of the population faces insufficient food consumption.
The World Bank reported in July that the prices of consumer products such as diesel, flour, rice and sugar in Afghanistan increased 50% from the previous year.
Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis has economic causes, Mehrabi said. “It all boils down to how the economy has been affected since the new regime came into power.”
Hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs in Afghanistan after the Taliban took control. Many businesses were closed, and most of the social services were suspended.
Just two months after the fall of Kabul, the International Monetary Fund predicted the Afghan economy will contract up to 30% by the end of 2021, as nonhumanitarian aid was suspended and foreign assets were frozen.
“The resulting drop in living standards threatens to push millions into poverty and could lead to a humanitarian crisis,” IMF said in October 2021.
Humanitarian assistance
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, addressing a virtual pledging conference in March 2022, said that “without immediate action, we face a starvation and malnutrition crisis in Afghanistan.”
International donors pledged more than $2.4 billion in humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, in addition to $1.2 billion that was pledged in September 2021.
The U.S. Treasury Department issued two licenses in September 2021 to authorize humanitarian activities and the delivery of food and medicine to Afghanistan.
In February, U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order authorizing the use of $3.5 billion in Afghan central bank reserves for humanitarian purposes via a trust fund, while the remaining half was subject to ongoing litigation by U.S. victims of the September 11 attacks.
“We are urgently working to address concerns about the use of the licensed $3.5 billion in Afghan central bank reserves to ensure, to see to it, that they benefit the people of Afghanistan and not the Taliban,” Ned Price, U.S. State Department spokesperson, said in a news conference on July 19.
Banking crisis
About $9 billion in the Afghan Central Bank assets — $7 billion in the U.S. and $2 billion in Europe — were frozen as part of the sanctions on the Taliban.
The group has urged the U.S. to “unconditionally” release the frozen assets of Afghanistan held in the U.S.
Mehrabi said that not having access to the reserves hurt Afghan businesses, as it resulted in a liquidity crisis in the banking sector there.
“The commercial banks do not have adequate, again, USD and Afghanis to be able to disburse for import or other purposes that ordinary Afghans or businesses would like to go ahead and engage in,” Mehrabi said.
Ahmad Wali Haqmal, the Taliban’s spokesperson for the Ministry of Finance, told VOA the sanctions on the banking system are the country’s key economic issue.
“Our main problem is the sanctions on our banking system. Most businessmen and ordinary people suffer because they cannot send money in and out [of Afghanistan]. This is a major problem that has to be solved,” he said.
A former employee of the Afghan Ministry of Finance told VOA the Taliban do not have the technical staff to run the economy.
“Most of the educated and skilled Afghans working in the ministry left the country, and the Taliban brought their own people with no skills and even education,” said the former employee of the Afghan Ministry of Finance, who requested anonymity for his safety.
He noted the Taliban are thinking “it is the 1990s when they could run the government on their own.”
William Byrd, senior Afghanistan expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace, told VOA the situation is “completely” different from the 1990s when the Taliban were in power.
“The challenge for the Taliban in a way is much greater than it was in the 1990s, because the economy has developed in many ways. Social service is much developed since the ’90s, and there is a lot more room for decline and for things to go wrong,” Byrd emphasized.
International engagement
The donors are “facing a dilemma,” according to Roxanna Shapour of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, adding that they want to assist Afghanistan, but “they are not sure how to engage with the Taliban.”
Shapour noted that the international community does not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government. This “has made the economic and development assistance to the country difficult, and to an extent, impossible,” she said.
She pointed out that many countries provide humanitarian assistance, but it “would not help in changing the economic conditions. … I do not think that the economy is going to get better in the future,” she said.
The World Bank’s latest report stated that “Afghanistan will face a smaller economy, significantly higher rates of poverty and more limited economic opportunities for the 600,000 Afghans reaching working age every year.”
“Afghanistan’s economic outlook is stark,” the World Bank report stated.
This story originated in VOA’s Afghan Service.