Taliban Lambaste Biden for Calling Afghanistan ‘God-Forsaken’

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Joe Biden

Ayaz Gul
VOA News
November 5, 2022

ISLAMABAD — The Islamist Taliban government has harshly criticized U.S. President Joe Biden for calling Afghanistan a “God-forsaken place” and vowed to rebuild the war-ravaged country without any foreign support.

“Those making such remarks are doing so out of their frustration and envy for Afghanistan,” Chief Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told a news conference Saturday in Kabul. He went on to tout the return of peace and stability to the South Asian nation since the Taliban takeover, saying Afghans “are going about with their daily lives normally.”

During a speech Friday in California, Biden praised war veterans for serving in Afghanistan, and repeatedly referred to the country as a “God-forsaken” area. He recounted his several trips to the Afghan war zone as a senator and vice president of the United States.

“A lot of you have been to Afghanistan. I’ve been to every part of it. It’s a God-forsaken place — it’s a God-forsaken place,” Biden said.

The U.S. president pulled out all American troops along with NATO allies in August 2021, after two decades of war with the then-Taliban insurgency. The withdrawal encouraged the Islamist group to immediately regain control of Afghanistan.

The Costs of War Project at Brown University estimates the longest military intervention in the U.S. history cost Washington about $2 trillion and took the lives of more than 2,400 American soldiers since 2001.

The United States and other Western partners immediately suspended financial assistance to Kabul after the Taliban seized power in mid-August last year from the then-internationally backed Afghan government.

The Biden administration subsequently imposed banking sector sanctions and froze billions of dollars in Afghan central bank’s foreign reserves. The economic restrictions pushed the economy to the brink of collapse and worsened humanitarian conditions in Afghanistan.

Mujahid said Saturday the Taliban did not require support from other nations to rebuild the country, arguing that Afghans are “capable” of doing it on their own. “However, our objective is, and so is our need, to seek better and trustworthy diplomatic relations with the international community, including America,” he said.

“We would welcome legitimate contacts and interactions with any country to further mutual ties,” Mujahid said. He noted that his government representatives in recent engagements with U.S. officials have time and again stressed the need for building “constructive” ties to enable both sides to address mutual concerns.

No country has formally recognized the Taliban government because the Islamist group has reintroduced some of the harsh policies from their 1996-2001 rule in the improvised country. The Taliban have placed curbs on women, effectively restricting their access to work and education. Teenage Afghan girls are barred from receiving a secondary-school education.

The U.S. and the international community at large have been pressing Taliban leaders to uphold their pledges and respect the rights of all Afghans and govern the country inclusively — if they want legitimacy for their rule.

The Taliban defend their policies, saying they are in line with Afghan culture and Islamic tenets. They also have dismissed calls for ensuring political inclusivity in the government, saying all Afghan groups are adequately represented in it.

Armed Attacks Targeting Taliban Base in Kapisa Kill Eight Taliban Soldiers

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8am: On Saturday, November 5, local sources, speaking to Hasht-e Subh said that the attack was carried out at around 1:30 on Friday, November 5 on Abdul Latif Murad’s residence who was the ex governor of Kapisa. Taliban have sieged his house and use it as military base that was under the attack. The sources have not said anything about the casualties and the perpetrators of this attack, but the Afghanistan Liberation Front has claimed responsibility for this attack. Click here to read more (external link).

Herat student top-scorer in Afghanistan’s nation-wide university entrance exam

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Ariana: Suleiman, a high school graduate in Herat province, has scored the highest marks in this year’s nation-wide university entrance exam, Kankor, in Afghanistan, officials announced on Saturday. Suleiman, who graduated from Sultan Ghiasuddin Ghori High School, earned a score of 355.42, and is expected to study at Herat University’s medical faculty. Click here to read more (external link).

Related

After Fleeing Taliban, Afghan Journalists Find Visa, Money Woes

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VOA News
November 4, 2022

WASHINGTON — Afghan journalists who fled across the border to Pakistan to escape Taliban rule say they still face an uncertain future.

Living in Pakistan often on temporary or family visas, many are unable to find work and are concerned about their legal status when their permits expire.

“We don’t know what is going to happen to us,” said 24-year-old Waslat Khan.

A presenter for the Kabul-based Jawanan TV until the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, Khan told VOA her three-month visa expired in June and she has “yet to receive an extension.”

Living with her husband in a suburb of Islamabad, Khan said she fears jail or deportation after Pakistan announced new measures against those who overstay.

Earlier this year, Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior announced a visa amnesty in place until Dec. 31, 2022. During that time, authorities will not issue charges for those who have overstayed a visa by up to a year.

After that, authorities will take action. Under Pakistan’s 1946 Foreigners Act, overstaying a visa can result in up to three years in prison.

The announcement has caused concern among the dozens of Afghan journalists who have fled to Pakistan.

Neither the spokespersons for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry nor the Interior Ministry responded to VOA’s email requesting comment and further details on the visa amnesty.

Qaiser Khan Afridi, a spokesperson for the U.N. Refugee Agency, or UNHCR, told VOA that his organization has called on host countries not to turn away Afghans whose lives would be at risk.

“We have issued advisories, and we requested all the countries not to, you know, send back some of those whose lives might be at stake,” Afridi said. “Developed countries should also support the refugee-hosting countries such as Pakistan and Iran, because [those countries] have supported refugees for the last many years.”

Khan believes her life would be in danger if forced to return to Afghanistan.

“My house was searched many times, and I was forced to escape and come here to Pakistan,” she said.

The journalist told VOA she received anonymous threats before Kabul fell saying if she didn’t leave her job, she would be killed. When the Taliban took power, her home was searched at least three times, “but fortunately I was not there,” she said.

Her husband was later detained and beaten.

Shortly after, Khan applied for a medical visa that allowed her entry to Pakistan.

Since the Taliban has been in control, the environment for Afghan journalists has declined, with media rights groups citing censorship, violence and economic hardship. Female reporters are most affected.

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders has found that since August 2021, 40% of Afghan media outlets have closed, and 84% of women have lost their jobs.

The Taliban did not respond to VOA’s request for comment.

Escaping Afghanistan did not address all of Khan’s concerns.

“I thought that I could find a job here [in Islamabad], and someone would support us. But I was wrong,” she said.

Now, Khan said, she feels “hopeless” and “depressed” and says she doesn’t know what to do.

‘Most are jobless’

Najibullah Habibi, the former owner of Tajala TV in central Maidan Wardak province, told VOA that around 250 to 300 Afghan journalists are now in Pakistan, including himself.

Habibi moved to Islamabad with his wife and four children in March.

“Afghan journalists who moved to Pakistan have multiple problems,” Habibi said.

A few found work online, but “most of them are jobless,” he said. “Some of them even sold their laptops and cameras to get money to buy food and pay the rent.”

A few international organizations have helped journalists, said Habibi, “but only those who have been threatened and provide documentation of that are helped financially.”

“It is not easy to provide such documentation,” he added.

Uncertain future

For Shukria Seddiqi, a journalist from the western province of Herat, financial issues are her biggest concern.

Seddiqi worked for Radio Faryad before moving to Islamabad with her husband and their three children two months after the Taliban takeover.

“We spent all the money that we brought with us here from Afghanistan,” she told VOA. “Now, we are asking our families and relatives in Afghanistan to send us money so we can live here in Pakistan. It is difficult. I worked for 14 years in Afghanistan, but now I have to stay home.”

Pauline Ades-Mevel, editor-in-chief of RSF, told VOA that many of the Afghan journalists who fled to Pakistan don’t know how long they will stay.

RSF is one of several media rights groups that helped evacuate “a number of journalists to European countries,” and which provides financial support to at-risk Afghans, Ades-Mevel said.

Since the Taliban takeover, RSF has helped relocate more than 200 at-risk journalists and assisted in the cases of around 150 others.

Ades-Mevel said RSF is in contact with Afghan journalists in Pakistan and other countries and is working with host countries.

“There are hundreds of journalists, and RSF alone cannot cover them all, but we are doing everything we can to support them,” she said.

Habibi said he and many other Afghan journalists want to be relocated to third countries.

“We want to go to a place where our children would have a future,” he said.

This story originated in VOA’s Afghan Service.

UN Concerned Over Arrests At Kabul News Conference To Announce Women’s Movement For Equality

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By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
November 4, 2022

The United Nations human rights office has voiced concern over the detention of five people after the Taliban disrupted a press conference in Kabul intended to launch a new women’s movement.

One woman, Zarifa Yaqobi, and four male colleagues were arrested at the event and remained in detention on November 4, UN rights office spokesman Jeremy Laurence told reporters in Geneva.

A women’s rights activists who did not want to be named due to security concerns told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi that Yaqobi was arrested after announcing the founding of the Afghan Women’s Movement for Equality.

“The whole place was militarized. We thought they were going to bring us all to one place,” the activist said. “First they took the boys, then they locked the women in the room.”

The women were temporarily detained and subjected to phone and body searches before being released, the activist and the UN rights office said.

The activist said that later on November 3 the Taliban took Yaqobi’s sister, Arifa Yaqobi, and her husband-in-law’s brother under the pretext they should be with Yaqobi at night.

Laurence said the UN had received “deeply worrying reports that yesterday (November 3) afternoon in Kabul, a number of de facto security officials disrupted a press conference by a women’s civil society organization.”

He said the UN rights office is “concerned about the welfare of these five individuals and [has] sought information from the de facto authorities regarding their detention.”

A Taliban spokesman did not immediately provide a comment, Reuters reported.

The four men detained along with Yaqobi were her brothers, a women’s rights activist told AFP. The activist, who identified herself only by the name Mandegar because of security concerns, said when the news conference started the Taliban told the organizers they could not hold it and asked the journalists who were present to leave.

She said the Taliban sent in female police officers who “checked our phones and deleted all images of the event.” The officers also “insulted and threatened us before they allowed us to leave one by one.”

Women’s freedoms in Afghanistan have been undermined since the Taliban seized power in August 2021 as international forces backing a pro-Western government pulled out. The Taliban has issued a slew of restrictions controlling women’s lives, blocking girls from returning to secondary schools and barring women from many government jobs.

Fawzia Kofi, a member of Afghanistan’s Moj Talaq Party, told Radio Azadi that Yaqobi was also a member of the party and her actions show that the Taliban is afraid of women.

“I expect the men of Afghanistan to stand by their sisters in this situation and not allow (the Taliban) to misrepresent religion and human rights,” Kofi said.

Shukria Barakzai, the former ambassador of Afghanistan to Norway and a women’s rights activist, said such actions by the Taliban will have bad consequences for the militants.

“Limiting the freedoms of Afghans, whether it is in speech or in the demands of the people, is the work of the Taliban. There is no doubt that today the Taliban consider women as their main enemies,” she said.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

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.

Taliban to Lay Mines on Roads, Putting Civilians’ Lives in Danger in Panjshir

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8am: The purpose of laying mines on the roads by the Taliban is to prevent and limit the movement of the forces of the National Resistance Front (NRF). However, sources say that this move is more detrimental to villagers rather than its effect on NRF soldiers. According to Hasht-e Subh, at least 9 children have died in one month of this year due to the explosion of unexploded landmines and ammunition. Click here to read more (external link).

UN to construct 1000 ‘earthquake-resilient’ houses in Afghanistan’s province

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Hindustan Times: In a tweet, the UN refugee agency in Afghanistan wrote, “UNHCR Afghanistan is moving swiftly to provide 1000 earthquake-resilient houses to more than 8000 people in Barmal District before snows isolate the remote region.” The houses will be handed over to the victims of the earthquake, the UNHCR said in a thread of tweets on Thursday. Click here to read more (external link).

The world needs chromite and lithium. Afghanistan has them. What happens next?

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LA Times: Jawed Noorani, an Afghan mining expert, estimated that the Taliban was collecting more than $1 billion a year in taxes on minerals. Mansfield said the regime has also doubled coal exports to Pakistan this year compared with the year before, taking advantage of a spike in prices because of the war in Ukraine. “Mining is a big area of focus for the Taliban,” said Noorani. “It’s the only source of revenue they have at this point, and they’re selling more, without always knowing what they’re selling.” Click here to read more (external link).