8am: Local sources in Nimruz province have reported that the Taliban rebels arrested two young athletes last night for wearing athletic clothes. Sources have further added that the Taliban rebels have severely beaten one of them and have warned him not to wear the infidels’ clothes. Click here to read more (external link).
Carolyn Presutti
VOA News
May 12, 2022
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON — They started falling from the above and it took a second for Najeebullah to realize what they were. U.S. dollar bills. Coming from above his head in the baggage claim area of the Seattle, Washington, airport. Then he realized his friends were showering him with cash, a traditional Afghan celebration.
The reunion for Najeebullah was a long time coming. It started long before the United States pulled out of Afghanistan, leaving those with Special Immigrant Visas scrambling to flee.
The GPS man
In 2003, Najeebullah, then 24, started working as an interpreter for U.S. Special Forces during some of the most dangerous fighting in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar, Kunar, Kabul, Laghman, and Nuristan provinces. Better known to his friends as Najeeb, he was nicknamed “The GPS man” because he intuitively knew the terrain and how to avoid the enemy.
Najeeb’s last name has been withheld from this article to protect his family members still living in Afghanistan.
The White House had launched the invasion of Afghanistan as a response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, using airstrikes and troops to try to eliminate al-Qaida’s base of operations in Afghanistan.
The U.S. Congress approved the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program in 2009 for former interpreters who were in danger of retaliation for helping U.S. forces. The process was expected to take less than a year. But securing one of the highly prized visas can take several.
In Najeeb’s 2010 recommendation papers from commanders, a former officer described his “fearlessness” and wrote, “I have trusted him with my life in combat.”
Another complimented his “intimate knowledge of the Northern Konar and Nuristan provinces.”
A third wrote about his “personal courage under fire” and said it was his “distinct honor” to work with Najeeb. His former officer, Colonel Stuart Farris, told VOA, “If there was one we would do anything for, he’s the guy.”
Another former officer, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Jason Coombs, credited Najeeb with saving his life.
“He stopped me from going into a compound because there was an [enemy] inside,” Coombs wrote.
Despite 10 glowing recommendation letters shared with VOA for Najeebullah’s Special Immigrant Visa, urging SIV approval “at the earliest possible opportunity,” he never applied, assuming the United States and Afghan forces would defeat the Taliban.
Kidnappings and murders
In 2011, the Taliban kidnapped Najeeb’s 11-year old son, Khalid, and demanded $150,000 ransom from his father, whom they considered a traitor. Najeeb left his interpreter job. The son was returned in a rescue 15 days later. Najeeb thought he should prepare to leave Afghanistan to save the rest of his family, but for years he held out hope that the situation would improve.
That changed by 2017. Najeeb says decided to apply for his Special Immigrant Visa when he realized Afghanistan could not be rebuilt to give him the life he wanted for his family. But the most emotional toll was yet to come. In April 2021, his 25-year-old son, Shaid, was on leave from the Afghan army and was traveling to join his family on vacation. The Taliban killed him.
“That was a very hard time for me,” Najeeb said, lowering his head, “to receive his dead body.”
Najeeb then lived in fear for his own life as the Taliban tormented him with cellphone death threats, calling him an “infidel” for working with the Americans. VOA first reported his story in July 2021. Najeeb asked to use a fake name in the report for protection.
He choose “Haji,” a common name for those who have made the religious Hajj pilgrimage. VOA also disguised his voice and face. Najeeb had been traveling from city to city to escape the Taliban and their death threats.
“They tell me, they know my place, they know where I am staying, they are coming after me,” he said at the time.
Disappointment
In late August, the United States instituted “Operation Allies Refuge” to evacuate Afghans under threat by the Taliban who had taken over the country. Najeeb’s former officers networked to help his immediate family escape through the Pineapple Express, a volunteer group of veterans working apart from the U.S. government.
It was a harrowing experience. Najeeb joined the crowd at Abbey Gate leading to the Kabul Airport, waving his SIV application and watching for code words. Suddenly his toddler was knocked to the ground unconscious by the surging crowd. He reached down to protect her and the stampeding mob dislocated his shoulder. The family returned to their house.
The next night, on August 26, another group of Americans was in place to rescue them. Najeeb and his family were minutes away, walking to the Abbey Gate, when they heard an explosion and gunfire. Thirteen U.S. service members and numerous Afghans were killed in the suicide bomb attack. Najeeb would call it “one of the worst nights of his life.”
Breakthrough
He and his family returned, dejected, to their permanent home in Jalalabad. Col. Farris recognized the low morale and texted him this message, “Do not give up hope, keep your faith in God. There will be more opportunities to get out.” Farris was right.
In January, Farris worked with the non-profit No One Left Behind and former officer Jason Coombs to get Najeeb and family to the Kabul airport and then onto a flight to Pakistan, where he would await approval of his SIV. They told him to get to Kabul, a difficult task for a wanted man. Najeeb says the journey involved circumventing or hiding inside the car to avoid detection at 12 Taliban checkpoints before safely reaching his flight.
Coombs says the family with five children was delayed in Pakistan by a Biden administration policy requiring COVID vaccinations of children.
“His medical costs and accommodations were $2,000,” says Coombs. “We had to wire the money and prove it was not fraud. It was an ordeal.” Next there were issues with flights out of Pakistan and No One Left Behind had to pay for the airline tickets. But finally in March, the visa was issued, the plane lifted off from Islamabad, and Najeeb felt enormous relief.
‘They will be free forever’
Najeeb’s Special Immigrant Visa extends to his family. He is designated as a cq1, meaning his visa allows him to apply for permanent U.S. residency, also known as a green card. After five years with the green card, he can apply for citizenship.
For now, the family of seven is living with a Seattle relative who also has five children. Wherever Najeeb walks in the house, the baby toddler he saved at the Abbey gate is glued to his side. She sleeps in his lap as he talks about his children’s future.
“My daughters for the last two years didn’t go to the school,” Najeeb explains, “because the Taliban … stopped the girls from going to the school, so they are very excited.”
Back in Afghanistan, he did not have any hope for their future or education. But living in the United States he says, “They can do anything they want, go anywhere they want, and be free forever.”
ISIS Militants
By Abubakar Siddique
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
May 11, 2022
The ultraradical Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) group is trying to undermine the Taliban’s hard-line rule by launching attacks on neighboring countries from Afghanistan, analysts say.
In the latest attack, IS-K claimed that it had fire rockets on unspecified targets inside Tajikistan from the northern Afghan province of Takhar on May 7. The attack came weeks after a similar attack on the Uzbek border city of Termez from the neighboring Afghan province of Balkh on April 18.
Both Dushanbe and Tashkent have denied that such attacks took place. Taliban officials have denied that Uzbekistan was attacked from Afghan territory and say they are probing the alleged attack on Tajikistan.
Experts say that by attacking Afghanistan’s neighbors, IS-K is trying to sow more distrust in the already-strained relations between the Taliban and regional capitals.
Analysts who follow IS-K say the group is trying to exploit strains in the volatile region with the goal of provoking countries to attack Afghanistan. They argue that the group — which aims to establish a global Islamic empire — also wants to undermine Taliban assurances to the international community that militants will not target any country from Afghanistan.
“[IS-K] wants to showcase Taliban failures, strain relationships, and possibly provoke retaliatory state-led military operations into Afghanistan,” Andrew Mines, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, told RFE/RL.
Unlike the Taliban, IS-K members are not limited to one country or a specific ethnic group. When the group emerged in 2015, most of its members came from the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), but a sizeable contingent of Central Asian militants — Uzbeks and Tajiks in particular — also joined the group campaigning for a transnational jihad.
Mines says IS-K is now trying to signal to the international community that the Taliban is unable to fulfill its counterterrorism commitments.
“[Attacks like these] fly directly in the face of Taliban commitments to not let jihadists use the country for staging external attacks,” he says.
In its February 2020 agreement with the United States, the Taliban promised not to allow jihadist groups such as Al-Qaeda to launch attacks on other countries from Afghanistan.
The Taliban lost their first hard-line regime in late 2001 after refusing to surrender Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and other jihadists to Washington, which accused them of carrying out the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States.
Mines says IS-K is increasingly attracting antistate jihadist groups — mainly ethnic Uzbeks, Tajiks, Uyghurs, and other Sunni groups — for recruitment. He argues that the Taliban’s counterterrorism commitments are beginning to strain its relations with such groups despite the Taliban hosting them in the past.
“It is likely that IS-K will keep trying to target Afghanistan’s northern neighbors and other bordering countries,” he says, “as [it] continues to try to garner support from these jihadists and as its spring attack campaign continues to develop.”
Reccardo Valle, an Italian researcher tracking IS-K, agrees. He says the group’s recent propaganda effort targets the Taliban’s relations with Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, and Central Asian countries.
He cites the example of a devastating IS-K attack on a Shi’ite mosque in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz in October that killed more than 50 people. The attack was carried out by Mohammad al-Uyghuri, an IS-K fighter.
Valle says IS-K “portrayed the attack as revenge” for the Taliban’s tacit support for Beijing’s repression of Uyghur Muslims. “This attack also had the intended side effect of worsening relations between China and Afghanistan.”
Similarly, one of the suicide bombers responsible for another attack on a Shi’ite mosque in the southern city of Kandahar that killed more than 60 worshipers in October was named Abu Ali Balochi. Valle says his inclusion aimed to highlight the plight of Iran’s Sunni Baluch minority.
“IS-K sees the [Shi’a] as a proxy of Iran in the region,” he says, “and Taliban and Iran are described as allies.”
Two clerics were killed in a stabbing attack last month at a revered Shi’ite shrine in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad. Iranian authorities identified the attacker as a 21-year-old man of Uzbek descent who was influenced by “takfiri” beliefs. Takfiris are extremist Salafis, and most IS-K members subscribe to this ideology.
Mines says IS-K’s attack on Afghanistan’s Shi’ite Hazara minority is aimed at forcing Iran to “reassess its ability to protect Shi’ite communities in Afghanistan through proxies and shoulder the costs of refugees fleeing IS-K violence,” while also forcing Tehran to fund the rehabilitation of IS-K’s Shi’ite victims.
“IS-K’s attacks not only exacerbate these dynamics but are a fundamental part of its branding as the most anti-Shi’a extremist group in the region,” he says.
He adds that IS-K is also a staunch enemy of Pakistan and the group follows a sectarian strategy in that country. He says devastating attacks such as the one in March that killed more than 60 at the Shi’ite mosque in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar are aimed at irritating Islamabad.
“IS-K seeks to provoke Pakistan into retaliating both within local communities and across the border in violation of state boundaries,” Mines says.
After a spate of recent TTP attacks, Islamabad retaliated last month by bombing Pakistani refugees in southeastern Afghanistan. The air strikes strained relations with its longtime ally, the Taliban.
Valle sees IS-K remaining a major threat in Afghanistan and western Pakistan with grand regional ambitions. “IS-K aims to destabilize Afghanistan further both internally and in the regional context,” he says.
Mines also predicts difficult days ahead for the Taliban if it fails to contain the IS-K threat.
“[The Taliban] commitments will matter little to Afghanistan’s neighbors, who may seek a more aggressive approach if IS-K continues to stoke border tensions.”
The American Prospect: Violence has definitely decreased, but has not disappeared. At least in two mountainous districts, Andarab and Khost wa Fereng, anti-Taliban militias primarily consisting of former army soldiers are still active, biding their time and hoping to increase pressure on the Taliban once the winter snows melt away. It is still not fully known exactly how many Afghans have joined the so-called National Resistance Front (NRF) led by Ahmad Massoud, son of famous Mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, to combat the Taliban. Other crucial figures appear to be former warlords and military officials tied to the fallen government. Click here to read more (external link).
Sirajuddin Haqqani
Ariana: Acting Minister of Interior Sarajuddin Haqqani met with EU special envoy for Afghanistan on Wednesday in Kabul and urged the foreign community not to support any armed opposition group in the country. Haqqani also said that the door to dialogue is open to all political opponents and that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) is committed under the Doha agreement not to use Afghan territory against any country. Click here to read more (external link).
Related
8am: For the past two weeks, the Taliban have been harassing the residents of Behsud of Maidan Wardak province on charges of vague and baseless pretexts. Local sources claim that the Taliban have recently arrested, tortured and extorted a large sum of money from the residents of Hesa-i-Awal and Markazi Bihsud districts. According to the residents, in most cases, the Taliban detains residents of the two districts of Maidan Wardak on charges of collaborating with Abdul Ghani Alipour, a former local commander. The detainees are being tortured and beaten “to death.” Click here to read more (external link).
Related
8am: Local sources in Baghlan province have reported that the Taliban are detaining, torturing, and shooting innocent civilians in Andarab district of Baghlan province. Sources told Hasht- e Subh that the Taliban shot dead two young students last night in one of the villages of Andarab. According to sources, the victims were students of a madrassa and had no ties to any armed group. Click here to read more (external link).
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By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
May 10, 2022
KABUL — Around a dozen women’s rights activists have protested a Taliban order making it mandatory for women to wear the all-covering burqa, including face veils, when they are in public.
The women marched through the streets of the capital, Kabul, on May 10 holding signs calling for justice despite intimidation attempts by Taliban operatives, who threatened them with violence.
“We were faced with harsh behavior by the Taliban. It was terrifying…They even told us if we move one step forward, they will fire 30 rounds at us,” one women said in a video made by the group, called Afghanistan’s Powerful Women’s Movement.
The decree, announced on May 7, calls for women to only show their eyes and recommends they wear the head-to-toe burqa. Head scarves are common for most Afghan women, but in urban areas such as Kabul, many do not cover their faces.
Failure to comply will result in a woman’s father or closest male relative being reprimanded, imprisoned, or fired from employment.
It immediately sparked criticism from many Afghans and the international community amid an outcry over the erosion of human rights in the country, especially for women and girls.
“Under the latest draconian decree, Afghan women are ordered to follow full veil and avoid unnecessary movement. This violates fundamental human rights of women to chose what to wear & move freely,” Amnesty International’s South Asia department said in a tweet a day after the measures were announced.
“Despite continued assurance of Taliban de-facto authorities that they respect women & girls rights, millions of women & girls are exposed to systematic gender based discrimination,” it added.
Girls have been banned from school beyond the sixth grade in most of the country since the Taliban’s return last August. In March, the Taliban ordered girls’ high schools closed on the morning they were scheduled to open.
Related
8am: It has been for four days that the clashes have been escalated in different parts of Panjshir province between the Taliban and Resistance Front forces, sources have reported. Last night, the Resistance Front forces killed and injured nearly 100 Taliban fighters in an ambush while the Taliban were trying to enter Dara Abdullah khail district. Click here to read more (external link).
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