Zabihullah Mujahid
Tolo News: Zabiullah Mujahid, spokesman for the Islamic Emirate, said these people have been appointed to these positions based on an order by Mullah Hebatullah Akhundzada, the leader of the Taliban. Based on a list which Mujahid posted on Twitter, Mawlawi Shahabuddin Delavar has been selected as the acting minister of mines and petroleum, and Mullah Mohammad Abbas Akhund has been named the acting minister of disaster management. Click here to read more (external link).
November 23, 2021
By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
A former high-ranking member of Afghan special forces and commando units has issued a plea urging U.S. officials to move remaining members of the force to the United States to avoid a “humanitarian catastrophe.”
The former high-ranking member, who ask not to be identified by name, sent a statement to RFE/RL on November 23.
The United States and its allies evacuated tens of thousands of at-risk Afghans after the Taliban toppled the Western-backed government in Kabul in August following the withdrawal of U.S. and other coalition troops.
As of late October, there were some 53,000 Afghans staying at eight military bases in the United States and receiving medical care and other assistance before resettlement around the country.
But thousands more people want to leave the war-torn country, with those who worked closely with Western militaries seen to be in particular danger from potential Taliban retaliation.
In their statement to RFE/RL, the special forces and commandos said the troops, part of “an elite military force and the best fighting force in Afghanistan,” worked with U.S. and NATO special forces and international partners for common goals and “to eliminate international terrorism for the past 20 years.”
“We fought side by side against the Taliban and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan, and we lost hundreds of our elite comrades in the fight against the Taliban.”
The statement added that after the “escape of political leaders” and the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, the organization disintegrated, with many members left destitute and in danger.
It said the Taliban is seeking out members of the force and is likely to execute those who are caught.
The statement urged U.S. officials to help move those remaining in Afghanistan “to the United States with their families and fulfill your historic responsibility to your Afghan colleagues.”
It warned that a “humanitarian catastrophe” could occur if the forces in Afghanistan are not transferred to the United States, where many of their family members have already been transported.
On November 19, the German Foreign Ministry said that its special representative for Afghanistan, Jasper Wieck, and Ambassador-designate Markus Potzel met with high-ranking officials from the Taliban government in Kabul.
German officials said the Taliban committed to a previously announced general amnesty for anyone affiliated with the toppled internationally backed government and former security forces. They also repeated a pledge for free passage for all Afghans who want to leave the country.
“We have taken note of the pledges. Further engagement depends on their implementation,” the Foreign Ministry said.
VOA News
November 23, 2021
A senior Red Cross official has voiced anger at the continuation of sanctions and freezes in international aid to Afghanistan, preventing basic services from being delivered to the population.
Dominik Stillhart, the director of operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in a statement Monday that he is “livid” after a six-day day visit to field hospitals, where he said he witnessed first-hand suffering of Afghans.
“When you’re standing in the pediatric ward in Kandahar’s largest hospital, looking into the empty eyes of hungry children and the anguished faces of desperate parents, the situation is absolutely infuriating,” Stillhartsaid.
Earlier this month, the United Nations warned that more than half of Afghanistan’s estimated 40 million population is likely to go hungry this winter unless more funds are forthcoming from donors. The World Food Program said that fuel costs are up, food prices are soaring, fertilizer is more expensive, and all of this feeds into the unfolding Afghan crisis.
Stillhart said the situation is angering, given that civilians’ suffering is “man-made” and the result of the international community’s choice to impose sanctions on the Taliban regime, which assumed power in Afghanistan in August.
The return to power of the Islamist Taliban after the withdrawal of U.S.-led foreign troops has plunged the country into an economic crisis and increased Afghan humanitarian needs to unprecedented levels, which stem from years of war and a prolonged widespread drought.
The international community has refused to grant diplomatic recognition to the Taliban government mainly over human rights concerns, especially those of women and girls, under the Islamist movement’s rule. The Taliban have banned women from most employment opportunities and restricted education for most women and girls.
The absence of legitimacy led to suspension of several billions of dollars in annual foreign assistance to Kabul and blocked the Taliban’s access to about $10 billion in Afghan assets, mostly held in the U.S. Federal Reserve. The sanctions have made it extremely difficult for the Taliban to pay salaries or import essential goods.
Stillhart said that recent resolutions from the U.N. and general economic sanctions are causing donors to rethink, and pause, their contributions to humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan, which can deny live-saving assistance to civilians.
In order to prevent the collapse of Afghanistan’s public health system, the ICRC on Monday began supporting 18 regional and provincial medical facilities, including running costs and medical supplies. The ICRC is planning to support the facilities for six months.
The agency also began paying employees’ salaries on Monday, Reuters reported.
In his statement, Stillhart said cases of malnutrition, pneumonia and dehydration at the Mirwais Regional Hospital in Kandahar have doubled from mid-August to September.
Stillhart said the future of medical care and education in Afghanistan are dependent upon international support.
“States must engage with Afghanistan. This is the only way to prevent a total collapse of essential services like health care and education. Political considerations should not interfere with humanitarian action,” Stillhart said.
Analysts say Washington and other Western governments have few good options in Afghanistan: They can either try to work with the Taliban, and in effect collude with human rights violations, or watch the worsening crisis from afar and see 20 years of development work reversed.
Stillhart pushed donors to find “creative solutions” to save the lives of millions of Afghans.
He warned that the economic sanctions “meant to punish those in power in Kabul are instead freezing millions of people across Afghanistan out of the basics they need to survive,” according to an Agence France-Presse report.
He told AFP that “sanctions on banking services are sending the economy into free-fall and holding up bilateral aid.”
In October, the heads of government and foreign ministers from the world’s 20 leading economies — the G-20 — agreed at a video summit to examine how to inject more aid into Afghanistan, while preventing funds being controlled by the Taliban and used for political purposes rather than humanitarian.
The European Union announced during the summit a $1.15 billion aid package for Afghanistan “to avert a major humanitarian and socio-economic collapse.”
However, earlier this month, Jan Egeland, secretary general of the humanitarian organization Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), said, “The international response to the suffering, immense suffering in Afghanistan and for Afghans and neighboring countries is really pitiful.
“There must be an immediate scale up of aid both inside Afghanistan and in neighboring countries like Iran, before the deadly winter cold,” he said.
(Ayaz Gul and Jamie Dettmer contributed to this report. Some material for this report came from Reuters and Agence France-Presse.)
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VOA News
November 23, 2021
A flight carrying more than 100 Afghans arrived Monday in northern Greece.
According to Greek officials, the group of 119 people included Mohibullah Samim, Afghanistan’s former minister of border and tribal affairs, as well as a lawyer who prosecuted Taliban fighters, women’s rights activists and a female judge.
The evacuees are expected to remain in Greece until arrangements are made for them to travel on to other countries, including the United States and Canada.
Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August, Greece has flown in about 700 Afghans.
Some information for this report came from the Associated Press.
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HRW: Taliban intelligence officials have made death threats against journalists who have criticized Taliban officials and have required journalists to submit all reports for approval before publication. New guidelines from the Vice and Virtue Ministry dictate the dress of female journalists on television and prohibit soap operas and entertainment programs featuring female actors. Click here to read more (external link).
Imran Khan
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
November 22, 2021
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has approved a nearly $30 million assistance package aimed at helping Afghanistan deal with a deteriorating humanitarian crisis.
Khan signed off on the deal in Islamabad on November 22 while chairing a meeting of the Afghanistan Inter-Ministerial Coordination Cell (AICC), which was recently formed to address the turbulent situation following the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul in August.
The aid package will include wheat and emergency medical supplies to help drought-stricken and economically suffering Afghanistan deal with what the United Nations has said could become a “humanitarian catastrophe.”
In addition, Pakistan will reduce tariffs and sales taxes on Afghan exports to Pakistan and will extend a program that provides free coronavirus vaccinations to Afghans entering Pakistan by land, according to a statement by Khan’s office.
While addressing the meeting attended by high-ranking officials, Khan said that the “world owed its support to ensure that [Afghans] can live in a peaceful and stable environment after years of constant conflict.”
A delegation of senior Afghan health representatives is expected to visit Pakistan this week to work out ways for Pakistan to aid Afghanistan’s health sector, which is under strain from the loss of funding, the coronavirus pandemic, and a shortage of health-care workers in the wake of the Taliban takeover.
Jeff Seldin
VOA News
November 22, 2021
WASHINGTON — The United States is taking aim at the Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan, sanctioning some of the group’s top officials as well as a financier charged with bolstering the terror group’s numbers with foreign fighters.
The State Department on Monday designated senior Islamic State Khorasan leaders Sanaullah Ghafari, Sultan Aziz Azam, and Maulawi Rajab as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs).
The designation clears the way for Washington to block them and their associates from accessing money and assets that come into contact with the U.S. financial system.
Sanaullah Ghafari, also known as Sanaullah or Shahab al-Muhajir, has led IS-Khorasan since about May 2020, when Afghan government forces captured his predecessors.
Intelligence shared with United Nations counterterrorism officials earlier this year indicated that Ghafari had been operating out of the Kabul area, where the group had established a strong network of sleeper cells.
Additionally, the U.S. Treasury Department on Monday sanctioned Ismatullah Khalozai, describing him as a top financier and facilitator for the IS Afghan affiliate, also known as ISIS-K.
Khalozai “has carried out missions for senior ISIS leadership,” according to a Treasury Department statement, which added he is also responsible for “facilitating the movement of foreign fighters who seek to escalate tensions in Afghanistan and the region.”
Treasury officials said Khalozai most recently operated a money transfer scheme out of Turkey and that he previously ran an operation out of the United Arab Emirates, raising money for IS-Khorasan through the resale of luxury goods.
Despite having been pushed out from its territorial strongholds following pressure from both the U.S. and the Taliban through the first half of 2020, IS-Khorasan has mounted a comeback, growing significantly since the U.S. pulled the last of its forces from Afghanistan this past August.
The top U.N. diplomat in Afghanistan warned last week that IS-Khorasan “seems to be present in nearly all provinces and increasingly active.”
Top U.S. defense and intelligence officials have likewise warned the terror group could regenerate the capacity to attack U.S. and Western interests around the world in as little as six months.
U.S. officials estimate IS-Khorasan now has at least 2,000 “hardcore” fighters, mostly organized in cells across the country.
Those numbers have already been bolstered as a result of the Taliban decision to empty out key prisons as their forces advanced across Afghanistan in August.
International counterterrorism officials and independent experts have also raised concerns that IS-Khorasan could get an additional boost from foreign fighters.
Chatter intercepted following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan indicated IS supporters from outside the region were expressing a desire to travel to Afghanistan to join the fight there.
Buzkashi (file photo)
8am: Buzkashi competitions between famous horse-mounted players at the level of Kunduz were held in the stadium of Sar-Dawra, Kunduz, the sports director of Kunduz, Mohammad Qayyum Rahimi told Hasht-e Subh today (Monday, November 22). Click here to read more (external link).
AP: International funding once paid for much of the government budget — and without it, the Taliban have largely been unable to pay salaries or provide public services. Click here to read more (external link).
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NPR: The camps at military bases around the U.S. are supposed to be temporary, the last stop for just-arrived Afghan refugees before they move on to permanent homes. But for many, the weeks are stretching into months, with no clear end in sight. Click here to read more (external link).
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