The Week: It’s been a chaotic nine months since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan — the economy is in a free fall; methamphetamine production has exploded; the United Nations estimates that half of the country’s population is suffering from acute hunger; the rights of women are being eroded; and there’s been an increase in violent attacks by the Islamic State. Here’s everything you need to know… Click here to read more (external link).
8am: In a newsletter, the National and Islamic Movement of Afghanistan has claimed of targeting the district building of Waiez district in Ghazni province by a rocket on Thursday evening, May 12. During the past week, this is the second anti-Taliban group that is being formed in Ghazni province. Earlier, the Patriotic Front had reported that its forces had killed seven Taliban rebels in an armed attack in Ab Band district of the province. Click here to read more (external link).
eurasianet: China is treading cautiously in Afghanistan, a panel of experts told the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, an independent U.S. government agency that reports to Congress, on May 12. Beijing is overwhelmingly concerned with security and is not rushing to invest. Members of the panel – which examined how the Taliban’s return to power last August has impacted Eurasian security – agreed that China and the U.S. share many common interests in the region and urged Washington to engage both with the Taliban and with Beijing. For China, relations with the Taliban are “not a luxury but a necessity,” said Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili of the University of Pittsburgh. China’s sole interest is security. Click here to read more (external link).
Raeisi
Tolo News: “Afghan people must have an inclusive government to cover all political groups and ethnicities and as well as a government that can provide a lasting security across the country,” said Ebrahim Raisi. Several Afghan experts said the establishment of an inclusive government could be a pathway to end challenges that currently exist in Afghanistan, Saying the conditions set by the international community are the demands of the Afghan people. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News: Khalid Zadran, spokesman for the Kabul Police Command, confirmed that a blast has taken place at the Ayuob Saber Mosque in PD5 of Kabul. According to Mr. Zadran, the blast took place during Friday prayers at the mosque. Based on initial reports, three people were injured. Security officials have not commented on the nature of the blast, and no casualties have been reported. No group has claimed responsibility for the blast. Click here to read more (external link).
8am: Local sources in Baghlan province have confirmed that the Taliban rebels continue harassing the innocent residents and they try to use any possible oppression against the localities in Andarab district of the province. Sources told Hasht-e Subh that the Taliban rebels have taken away two teachers named Bashir, Muslim, and Sibghatullah Andarabi, a student, with them to an unknown location. Click here to read more (external link).
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
May 12, 2022
ISLAMABAD — A court in Afghanistan has sentenced a journalist to one year in prison on charges that free press advocates say included criticism of the Taliban government in his social media posts and “espionage.” A Taliban spokesman said he was sentenced for “criminal misconduct.”
Khalid Qaderi, a poet and reporter with Radio Nowruz in the western Afghan city of Herat, has been in custody since his arrest in mid-March. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) alleged in a statement issued Thursday that he was tried and sentenced last week by a Taliban military court, something the Taliban denied.
The IFJ said the young Afghan journalist was accused of posting content critical of the Taliban, including his radio broadcasts, on Facebook. It quoted Qaderi telling the court, “I realized my errors, and I deleted the posts from my Facebook page.”
The IFJ denounced what it said was “the arbitrary sentencing” and urged the Islamist Taliban to cease their persecution of journalists for their independent reportage. This would be the first reported case of a journalist being tried by a military court since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan last August.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on Thursday confirmed the sentencing of the journalist but insisted Qaderi’s arrest had nothing to do with his “journalistic work,” nor was he tried by a military court.
Mujahid claimed while speaking to VOA’s Afghan Service that a “civil” court in Herat had imposed the sentence on Qaderi for “criminal misconduct.” The spokesman did not elaborate.
“Under Taliban rule,” the IFJ said, “Afghan journalists have continued to face draconian restrictions, threats to freedom and arbitrary arrests.” The group called for the Taliban to immediately release the journalist from prison.
The Taliban insist they support media activities in Afghanistan within the law, but an estimated 1,000 journalists have fled the country since the Islamist group returned to power almost nine months ago, citing threats, harsh restrictions on media and economic upheavals.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) said in a report issued Thursday that the Taliban continue to persecute religious minorities and punish Afghans in accordance with the group’s extreme interpretation of Islamic law or Sharia.
“The Taliban takeover and U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 led to a mass exodus, heightened by a violent crackdown on civil society, targeted killings, beatings and detentions, severe restrictions on women’s rights, diminished local media presence, and an increase in violent, targeted attacks claimed by Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K),” the U.S. government entity said.
The USCIRF monitors the conditions of refugees who have fled severe violations of religious freedom and the U.S. government’s policy responses.
Women’s rights
Last week, the Taliban government decreed that women must fully cover their faces and bodies when in public, ideally with the traditional all-covering burqa, in one of the harshest restrictions the Islamist group has imposed on Afghan women since seizing power.
The edict advised women to leave their homes only in cases of necessity and warned that violations could lead to the punishment of their male relatives. The move drew widespread international condemnation and demands for its reversal.
The Taliban defended the female dress code, saying it is in line with Islamic and Afghan traditions. The group also has not yet allowed secondary schoolgirls to resume classes, ignoring domestic and international demands to lift the ban.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said Thursday that its chief, Deborah Lyons, in a series of meetings with Taliban leaders this week, called on them to respect and ensure women’s fundamental rights.
“The international community’s ability to engage with the Taliban as credible actors requires them to make good on commitments for all girls to return to school, as well as to ensure women can work, access basic services and have free movement without impediments,” UNAMA wrote on Twitter.
Foreign Policy: The Taliban—after 20 years of roadside bombings, ambushes, and reprisal killings—are now bracing themselves for an insurgency by people who know the terrain and have support from the locals. The irony is rich. But without unity, arms, or a safe haven, it’s an uphill fight against the Islamists in Kabul. Click here to read more (external link).
Daud Khattak
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
May 12, 2022
Pakistan has handed over two top commanders of the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to the Afghan Taliban, which has been mediating peace talks between the sides, as part of efforts to revive negotiations with the militant group, sources told RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal.
Muslim Khan and Mehmood Khan were recently transferred from a military detention facility to the custody of the Afghan Taliban in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt, said sources with knowledge of the matter.
The move came as a delegation of senior Pakistani military officials arrived in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on May 9 for talks with the TTP leadership, said sources with knowledge of the negotiations.
As a confidence-building measure, the TTP agreed a temporary cease-fire from May 10 to 15, according to a decree issued by the TTP leadership and seen by RFE/RL. The militant group had announced a unilateral truce from April 29 to May 9 to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan and the start of the Eid al-Fitr holiday.
The talks between the Pakistani delegation and the TTP are being mediated by the Afghan Taliban, which has close ideological and organizational ties with the TTP. The Afghan militant group is also a longtime ally of Islamabad, its main foreign sponsor.
The negotiations came as the TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, has intensified its attacks in Pakistan since a monthlong cease-fire expired and peace talks collapsed in December.
Since then, Islamabad has sent secret delegations to Afghanistan to hold talks with the TTP on reviving the expired truce and resuming talks over a negotiated end to the TTP’s 14-year insurgency in Pakistan, where thousands of people have been killed in militant attacks and clashes between the TTP and the military.
The TTP has demanded the release of 102 commanders and fighters in Pakistani prisons. Pakistan had released most of the TTP prisoners but had been reluctant to free Muslim Khan and Mehmood Khan.
The TTP has also demanded the implementation of Islamic Shar’ia law in Pakistan’s tribal belt, a demand that observers said the government would likely reject.
The two commanders will be released from the custody of the Afghan Taliban once the TTP agrees a permanent cease-fire with Islamabad, said a source with knowledge of the negotiations.
Muslim Khan was a top Pakistani TTP leader from the Swat Valley in northwestern Pakistan. In 2016, a Pakistani military court sentenced him to death. A former spokesman for the militants, he was convicted of killing 31 people, including civilians and security personnel.
In the same year, Mehmood Khan, also a TTP leader from Swat, was convicted of kidnapping two Chinese engineers for ransom and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The pair are likely to be officially pardoned by Pakistani President Arif Alvi before they are handed over to the TTP, sources said.
The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media wing, did not respond to an e-mail from Radio Mashaal seeking comment. Pakistan’s Foreign Office could also not be reached.
In January, Pakistan sent a secret delegation to Afghanistan to hold talks with the TTP leadership. The delegation held several days of talks with TTP chief Noor Wali Mehsud and members of the extremist group’s leadership council in Afghanistan’s southeastern province of Paktika, said sources with knowledge of the discussions.
Made up of mostly Pashtun tribal elders, the Pakistani delegation also visited Kabul, where they met senior members of the Haqqani network, a key Afghan Taliban faction. The network is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.
The Taliban’s interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of the Haqqani network, has been the key facilitator for the talks between Islamabad and the TTP.
Intensifying Attacks
Efforts to revive the peace talks came as the TTP has intensified its attacks against Pakistani security forces.
Riven internally, debilitated by the death of successive leaders, and forced from its strongholds, the TTP was seen for years as a largely spent force. But the group has reemerged over the past two years, unifying squabbling factions and unleashing a wave of deadly attacks.
Pakistan recorded at least 294 militant attacks in 2021, a 56 percent increase compared to the previous year, according to the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS). Most of the attacks were attributed to the TTP.
Pakistan has not witnessed a respite in TTP attacks since the new year.
On April 14, the TTP claimed that it had killed seven Pakistani soldiers in an attack in the country’s restive North Waziristan tribal region. On March 30, at least three Pakistani soldiers and as many attackers were killed in a firefight in northwestern Pakistan, in an attack claimed by the TTP.
A massive Pakistani Army offensive in 2014 drove out many TTP militants from Pakistan and across the border to Afghanistan, where their leadership resides.
Islamabad has accused the Afghan Taliban of failing to expel the TTP or prevent it from using Afghan territory for carrying out attacks in Pakistan.
On April 16, Pakistan carried out unprecedented air strikes in eastern Afghanistan, killing dozens of people. Pakistan said it was targeting the TTP. The air strikes provoked unusually harsh exchanges, with the Taliban issuing threats against Islamabad, its longtime ally.
Observers said the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August has further galvanized and strengthened the TTP.
The withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan in August has also significantly reduced U.S. air strikes in the region, allowing the TTP to operate more freely, experts said.
TTP fighters have also obtained sophisticated weaponry, including U.S.-made firearms, which their Afghan allies seized from Afghanistan’s former armed forces.