Fierce Fighting Rages Between Taliban and Local Forces Led by Mawlawi Mehdi in Balkhab

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Mawlawi Mehdi Mujahid

8am: Sources say that fierce clashes between the Taliban and local forces led by Mawlawi Mehdi Mujahid, the only Taliban commander from the Hazara community who recently left Taliban ranks, are taking place in various parts of Balkhab district, Sar-e-Pul province. A source close to Mehdi Mujahid told Hasht-e Subh that the clashes began this morning (Thursday, June 23rd) and are still raging between Taliban forces and public uprising forces led by Mawlawi Mehdi. The two sides are engaged in a battle in the Dozdan Dara, Qom Kotal and Ab-e Kalan areas. Click here to read more (external link).

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Afghanistan’s Smallest Province Continues to Resist the Taliban: What Happens in Panjshir?

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8am: The Taliban invasion of Panjshir province has created many hardships for civilians. People narrate painful stories about their lives, ranging from being harassed, kidnapped, killed and having their properties seized by Taliban forces to disruption of security, economic, education and health conditions. The Taliban have carried out operations to arrest, torture and kill civilians on a daily basis. NRF forces have intensified their operations throughout Panjshir for about two months now. The Taliban have launched several large-scale operations during this period to repel the forces of this front, but despite suffering heavy casualties, they have not succeeded in defeating the NRF. Click here to read more (external link).

Taliban Urge International Aid as Afghanistan Deals With Aftermath of Deadly Quake

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VOA News
June 23, 2022

ISLAMABAD — Afghanistan’s Taliban appealed for international aid Thursday as the war-ravaged country struggles to deal with the aftermath of a powerful earthquake that killed at least 1,000 people, injured many more and destroyed nearly 2,000 households.

The 6.1 magnitude quake struck eastern and southeastern Afghan provinces, bordering Pakistan, during the early hours of Wednesday. Officials said the calamity had buried entire families, including women and children, under the rubble across districts in the worst-hit provinces, Paktika and Khost.

On Thursday, authorities and aid workers struggled to reach the disaster zone, citing lack of communications and proper road networks in some of the poorest and most remote areas in Afghanistan. The most affected areas lack infrastructure to withstand calamities like this week’s earthquake, the worst in two decades.

Heavy rains and mudslides also hampered rescue efforts, forcing displaced families to spend the night without any shelter. Provincial health director Hematullah Esmat told local media that at least 3,000 families needed urgent humanitarian aid in Paktika alone.

Abdul Qahar Balkhi, a Taliban foreign ministry spokesman in Kabul, said that victims were urgently in need food, drinking water, medicine, mobile medical teams, warm clothing and shelter.

“But even more crucial for [the] U.S. to end callous attitude towards lives of Afghans by lifting sanctions and unfreezing Afghan assets so people can rebuild their lives destroyed by two-decade occupation and this latest natural disaster,” Balkhi told VOA.

“People and relief agencies that want to help rebuild lives of families – majority of whom have lost [their] sole breadwinners in earthquake – are unable to send much needed money. This depraved cruelty needs to end urgently,” Balkhi argued.

He said the government quickly deployed a few helicopters to help in rescue efforts, but they needed more of them because emergency rescue teams and relief aid have to be delivered by air.

Balkhi reiterated the majority of Afghan aircraft were “damaged beyond repair or taken to third countries by the United States” before the Taliban seized power last August.

The United Nations World Food Program said Thursday that post-disaster assessments were still ongoing but it had rapidly deployed food and logistics equipment to provide emergency relief to an initial 3,000 households in the earthquake-affected areas.

“The Afghan people are already facing an unprecedented crisis following decades of conflict, severe drought and an economic downturn,” said Gordon Craig, the WFP deputy country director.

“The earthquake will only add to the already massive humanitarian needs they endure daily, including for the nearly 19 million people across the country who face acute hunger and require assistance,” Craig added.

Taliban officials said trucks and aircraft carrying humanitarian aid, including, food, medicine, shelter, and other necessities arrived from Pakistan, Iran and Qatar on Thursday. The relief was being transported onward to the calamity-hit areas, they said.

The Islamist group took over Afghanistan days after U.S. and NATO partners withdrew their final troops on August 30, ending almost two decades of foreign military intervention in the South Asian nation.

Washington and other Western countries swiftly halted financial assistance to largely aid-dependent Afghanistan, seized its foreign assets worth more than $9 billion, mostly held by the U.S, and isolated the Afghan banking system.

The actions and long-running terrorism-related sanctions on senior Taliban leaders pushed the war-hit Afghan economy to the brink of collapse, deteriorating an already bad Afghan humanitarian crisis blamed on years of war and persistent drought.

The international community has not yet recognized the Islamist Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan, citing concerns over terrorism and human rights.

The U.S. government Wednesday expressed “deep sorrow” for the Afghan quake victims.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement that President Joe Biden was “monitoring developments and has directed USAID and other federal government partners to assess U.S. response options to help those most affected.”

Sullivan underscored that the U.S. was the single largest donor of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan and its humanitarian partners were already delivering medical care as well as shelter puppies on the ground.

“We are committed to continuing our support for the needs of the Afghan people as we stand with them during and in the aftermath of this terrible tragedy.”

The U.S. Geological Survey said Wednesday the earthquake struck about 44km from the southeastern Afghan city, Khost, at a depth of 51km.

Tremors were felt across more than 500km of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, according to the European Mediterranean Seismological Center.

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Taliban Removes Non-Pashtun Staff From Government Offices in Northern Afghanistan, Sources Say

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8am: A well-known local source in Faryab province told Hasht-e Subh on the condition of anonymity that the Taliban were removing non-Pashtuns who head government institutions and replacing them with Pashtun affiliates. Referring to the arrest of Mawlawi Aref, an Uzbek commander in charge of the Aqina railway port, the source said that the Taliban had appointed one of its commanders from Kandahar to replace him. Click here to read more (external link).

US Eases Immigration Requirements for Afghans

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Akmal Dawi
VOA News
June 22, 2022

The U.S. government has eased some of the stringent requirements Afghans have to navigate as they apply to resettle in the United States.

Until now, Afghans who held civilian positions under the Taliban regime or paid it for public services such as getting a passport, have been ineligible for a U.S. visa on the basis that they have ties to a terrorist group. The Biden administration says that is no longer the case.

“[T]he Secretary of Homeland Security and Secretary of State exercised their authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act to allow the U.S. government on a case-by-case basis to grant an exemption for otherwise qualified applicants for visas and certain other immigration benefits who would otherwise not qualify due to the statute’s broad inadmissibility grounds,” a State Department spokesman told VOA.

“This action will allow the U.S. government to meet the protection needs of qualifying Afghans who do not pose a national security or public safety risk and provide them with the ability to access a durable immigration status in the United States,” the spokesperson said, adding that Afghans who worked as civil servants during the first Taliban reign in Afghanistan from September 1996 to December 2001, and after August 15, 2021, are eligible under the policy.

Since 2006, the U.S. government, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, has applied this exemption authority more than 30 times to protect U.S. allies against inadvertent terrorism-related blockings.

“Doctors, teachers, engineers, and other Afghans, including those who bravely and loyally supported U.S. forces on the ground in Afghanistan at great risk to their safety, should not be denied humanitarian protection and other immigration benefits due to their inescapable proximity to war or their work as civil servants,” the State Department spokesperson said.

Some requirements unclear

Afghans who apply for admission to the U.S. through Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs), a program enacted by Congress in 2009, must submit, among other documents, a recommendation letter from a supervisor of a U.S. project in Afghanistan.

For years, applicants were asked to have a U.S. citizen verify and sign the letter of recommendation or have a U.S. citizen as a co-signer if the supervisor was a foreign national, according to International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), a U.S.-based nongovernment organization.

It remains unclear whether that requirement has been dropped. According to IRAP policy expert Adam Bates, although the State Department asks applicants for the signed letters, Congress never mandated that requirement.

“The statute governing the SIV program never contained this requirement in the first place; Congress never intended for Afghan allies to have their applications delayed or rejected for lack of a letter from a U.S. citizen,” Bates told VOA.

The State Department, however, said applicants should still try to obtain such a letter and did not confirm that the requirement has been dropped entirely.

Applicants “should try to obtain this letter from a U.S. citizen supervisor who knows them personally, but if that is not possible, they should try to provide a letter of recommendation signed by a non-U.S. citizen supervisor and co-signed by the U.S. citizen responsible for the contract,” the State Department spokesperson told VOA, quoting SIV application requirements guidelines.

IRAP says the requirement creates unwarranted obstacles and problems for applicants who, for various reasons, cannot find a U.S. citizen to sign or co-sign a recommendation letter, an increasingly onerous task since the August 2021 withdrawal of U.S. forces and personnel, particularly for Afghans who’ve been forced from their jobs or compelled to change contact information.

More visas needed

Since 2014, Congress has approved 34,500 principal visas for the Afghan SIV program, excluding visas issued for dependents, of which about 16,000 visas are left.

Evacuate Our Allies, a coalition of human rights and refugee organizations including IRAP, has called on Congress to approve 25,000 additional SIV visas for Afghans.

“It would be unconscionable for SIV-qualified Afghans who risked their lives on behalf of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan to check all the bureaucratic boxes and invest the years of their lives required to make it through the SIV process only for Congress to not authorize enough visas to ensure they have pathway to safety,” Bates said.

Currently, there are at least 50,000 principal applications awaiting screening and approval.

“[W]e are processing more initial applications than ever,” the State Department spokesperson said.

The U.S. embassy in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, remains closed since August last year, but the State Department says it has increased staff in third-country embassies and consulates to enhance and expedite SIV applications.

Earthquake Kills More Than 1,000 in Afghanistan

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Ayaz Gul
VOA News
June 22, 2022

ISLAMABAD — A powerful earthquake in Afghanistan’s southeast has killed more than 1,000 people and injured hundreds of others, Taliban authorities said.

Rescue workers said the casualties from the quake, which struck during the early hours of Wednesday, were likely to increase further.

Deputy Taliban Minister for Disaster Management Mawlawi Sharafuddin Muslim told a news conference in the capital, Kabul that most of the devastation occurred in southeastern Paktika and Khost provinces, which border Pakistan.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the magnitude 6.1 quake struck about 44 kilometers from the provincial capital of Khost.

Local journalists and witnesses reported the death toll could be as high as 2,500.

Provincial chief Mohammad Amin told VOA that at least 1,000 people were killed, and 1,500 others injured in two districts of Paktika alone.

Videos shared on social media showed flattened homes and rubble. The earthquake also rattled Kabul.

Taliban authorities said people were still under the rubble and rescue efforts, backed by helicopters, were underway. They also urged all aid organizations working in Afghanistan to help in the rescue operations.

Ramiz Alakbarov, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Afghanistan, tweeted that his mission was “assessing the needs and responding in the aftermath of the earthquake”

The International Committee of the Red Cross tweeted that it was sending additional medical supplies to three hospitals in the areas affected by the earthquake to enable medical teams to answer to the needs of the patients.

The U.S. Embassy to Kabul, which currently operates out of Doha, said “We are deeply saddened by reports of an earthquake in eastern Afghanistan. We offer our heartfelt condolences to all who have been affected by this devastating event.”

Tremors were reportedly felt across more than 500 kilometers of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, according to the European Mediterranean Seismological Center.

Residents in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, and the northwestern city, Peshawar, also said they experienced tremors but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

Islamabad extended condolences to Afghanistan over the devastation caused by the earthquake.

“Our authorities and institutions are working to extend required assistance to Afghanistan in coordination with their relevant institutions,” said a Pakistani foreign ministry statement.

Young Man With Hands Bound Found Dead in River in Panjshir’s Shotul District

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8am: Sources have said that a young man’s body with his hands tied has been discovered in Panjshir province. Locals found the body on Wednesday (June 21st) in the river near the Kuraba region in Shotul district. Previously, three bodies were found in the river in Khenj and Shotul districts of Panjshir province. Local sources blame Taliban forces for the atrocity crimes. Click here to read more (external link).

Over 250,000 Afghan asylum seekers arrived in Pakistan since January 2021: UNHCR

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Ariana: More than 250,000 Afghans seeking asylum have arrived in Pakistan since January 2021, according to the UN refugee agency. Qaiser Khan Afridi, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Pakistan, has said that Pakistan is facing new inflows of asylum seekers from Afghanistan after the Islamic Emirate’s [Taliban] takeover of Kabul. “We are currently discussing with the government of Pakistan the way forward on registration and documentation of asylum-seekers, predominantly from Afghanistan,” he said. Click here to read more (external link).