8am: The authorities of COVID-19 Hospital in Nimruz province have reported they have started the hospital’s operations after a four-month of delay. Earlier, the authorities and medical staff of the province complained about the lack of medical equipment and the non-payment of salaries for several months. However, the problem has not been fully addressed yet. Click here to read more (external link).
Akmal Dawi
VOA News
March 16, 2022
The last time U.S.-Pakistan relations turned cold was in the early 1990s, after Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan and the U.S. no longer needed Pakistan’s support and regional intelligence. Following last year’s U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, after two decades of costly war that forced the countries to work closely, Washington and Islamabad again appear to be distancing from each other on major issues.
“Afghanistan has long been the lens through which Washington views its relations with Islamabad,” Michael Kugelman, an expert at the Wilson Center, told VOA.
For Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation of some 225 million people, having close relations with a global power is vital in order for it to maintain balance with its arch-enemy India, at least militarily, and ease domestic economic problems.
From the start of the war in Afghanistan to its 2021 conclusion, the U.S. committed more than $32.5 billion in civilian and military aid to Pakistan, according to the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan.
With U.S. military assistance suspended in 2018 and civilian aid reduced to about $300 million for 2022, Pakistani authorities have turned to other countries for help.
Late last month, as Russian troops started invading Ukraine, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan visited the Kremlin seeking closer ties and economic assistance. Khan said Pakistan will continue to import wheat and gas from Russia despite widespread international sanctions.
Of the 193 U.N. member states, 141 voted in early March to condemn Russian aggression in Ukraine, but Pakistan was conspicuously missing from the list.
Khan has defied international calls for Pakistan to condemn the Russian invasion, saying, “What do you think of us? Are we your slaves … that whatever you say, we will do?”
Chinese weapons
Pakistan spent more than $750 million on weapons imports from China last year, according to a database compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Last week, Pakistan’s air force displayed its first batch of Chinese-built J-10C fighter jets. Although Islamabad hasn’t said how many aircraft were acquired in the deal, Pakistani officials had spoken of up to 25 jets in prior news reports.
The Pakistani army has long been a stable client for China’s weapons market, but it also used to purchase from the U.S.
In 2010, during the height of U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan, Pakistan imported more than $1 billion worth of weapons from the U.S., including several F-16 fighter jets.
In 2021, there were no U.S. weapons sales to Pakistan.
Pakistan and China, long-established regional allies, have recently expanded trade, investment and economic relations.
During the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games in February, which the U.S. diplomatically boycotted, Prime Minister Khan was in the Chinese capital to sign agreements on cooperation in several areas including space, digitization, technical assistance and culture.
“The trend lines for Pakistan’s relations with China are more positive than they are for its relationship with the U.S.,” Kugelman said, adding that the prospects for U.S.-Pakistan relations appear “tenuous at best.”
Terrorism concerns
Pakistani authorities have accused the U.S. government of having an opportunistic and sometimes even abusive relationship with Pakistan.
“Whenever the U.S. needed us, they established relations and Pakistan became a frontline state, and then abandoned it and slapped sanctions on us,” Khan was quoted as telling Pakistani media outlets on February 11.
In the U.S., however, the Pakistani government is seen as dishonest, particularly in tackling Islamic militancy and terrorism in the region.
Pakistan has “really been nothing short of duplicitous for years,” U.S. Congressman Scott Perry told VOA, adding that the country was a hotbed of many terrorist groups.
Last week, Perry introduced a bill that calls for a designation of Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism.
It is too early to say whether the bill will be passed, but when asked why he introduced it now, seven months after the U.S. exited Afghanistan, Perry talked about Pakistan’s ties to Russia.
“While we’re trying to get the world united against Russia, [Pakistan] won’t take a vote at the U.N. and they’re actually lobbying Russia to build a pipeline between Russia and Pakistan,” Perry said.
Despite inflammatory statements in both Pakistan and the U.S., neither country appears to be seeking a permanent split, said Kugelman of the Wilson Center.
“It would be wrong to suggest that Pakistan’s deepening alliance with China and growing partnerships with other U.S. rivals signals the end of U.S.-Pakistan relations. There’s still an appetite in Islamabad for some degree of partnership.”
8am: Wrestling athletes from 11 provinces entered the ring for two days in Kunduz Province. The winners of the tournaments and those athletes with outstanding performance will be introduced to participate in overseas tournaments on behalf of Afghanistan. Click here to read more (external link).
By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
March 16, 2022
Gender segregation was a hallmark of the Taliban’s brutal regime in Afghanistan in the 1990s, when unrelated men and women were barred from mixing in public places.
Since regaining power in August, the militant group has gradually resurrected its discriminatory policies, enforcing strict segregation in universities, government offices, and on public transportation.
Rights groups have accused the Taliban of imposing gender apartheid in Afghanistan, with fears that girls and women will be excluded from public life.
The Taliban has dramatically rolled back women’s rights in recent months, including closing most girls’ secondary schools and banning women from most forms of employment. Women who have demonstrated for greater rights have been arrested and, in some cases, disappeared.
The Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice earlier this month sent a letter to the Health Ministry ordering it to segregate male and female employees.
“The offices for men and women should be separate,” said the letter, a copy of which was obtained by RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.
The ministry, which is the enforcer of the Taliban’s radical interpretation of Islamic law, also warned that health care should be denied to female patients who do not observe the Islamic hijab.
Several employees of the Health Ministry, who talked to Radio Azadi on condition of anonymity, confirmed the authenticity of the letter.
The Taliban did not respond to messages from Radio Azadi seeking comment.
The Taliban initially ordered women not to return to work. But it later called female health workers back to clinics and hospitals, although many were too scared to resume their work.
Rights groups say gender segregation has created barriers to women and girls accessing health care. At many facilities, patients are only treated by a health professional of the same sex.
Hindering Education
In September, the Taliban imposed gender segregation at private universities and colleges in Afghanistan.
According to a decree issued by the Taliban’s Education Ministry, classes must be segregated by gender — or at least divided by a curtain. The order said that female students must be taught only by other women. But it added, though, that “elderly men” of good character could fill in if there were no female teachers.
A lack of female teachers and facilities has complicated women’s access to higher education. In some cases, female students have been told that some courses will no longer be available to them.
Before the Taliban’s return to power, Afghan women studied alongside men and attended classes with male teachers. Government schools, however, were segregated by gender.
In recent months, the militants have also expanded gender segregation to public transportation.
Sanga Lemar, a university lecturer in Kabul, told Radio Azadi that the restrictions have made her daily commute unbearable.
“Women are banned from sitting in the front seats [of buses], which forces us to wait an hour or more to find an appropriate car or bus,” she said.
Lemar accused Taliban fighters of violating their own gender segregation rules. She recalled how a male Taliban fighter went through her purse when she was stopped at a security checkpoint.
“It is strange that they want to keep unrelated men and women separate yet allow a stranger to go through a woman’s purse,” she said.
Despite promising to show more moderation than during its rule from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban has imposed severe restrictions on the behavior, movement, and appearances of women and girls.
Reuters: The grant of so-called Temporary Protected Status (TPS) will be available to 72,500 Afghans who entered on what is known as “humanitarian parole,” another temporary status, as part of the U.S. evacuation of at-risk Afghans last summer, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on Wednesday. Click here to read more (external link).
BBC: Every few seconds a sick child is brought in to the emergency room of the main hospital in Lashkar Gah in a race against time to save the youngest casualties of Afghanistan’s hunger crisis. Amidst the heart-rending sound of dozens of hungry babies crying, and desperate pleas for help from their mothers, nurses scramble to prioritise children who need urgent care. There are many such babies. Click here to read more (external link).
Related
dpa: Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers are closing the country’s diplomatic missions in the United States seven months after they took power in Kabul, according to diplomatic sources. Afghanistan’s embassy in Washington and its consulates in New York and Los Angeles are to cease operations as of March 16, an Afghan diplomat who wished to remain anonymous told dpa in Washington. Click here to read more (external link).
Ariana: Violence against journalists has increased slightly in Afghanistan in the past year, and almost 6,000 media workers have lost their jobs in this time, according to a report released on Wednesday. Click here to read more (external link).
Related
McKenzie (file photo)
Jeff Seldin
VOA News
March 15, 2022
WASHINGTON — More than six months after the U.S. pulled its last troops from Afghanistan, the threat from the Islamic State’s Afghan affiliate is growing, though new intelligence assessments suggest that earlier warnings the group might be able to strike at America and its allies as early as next month appear to have been overblown.
Various intelligence estimates from the U.S. and other countries warn that the group, known as IS-Khorasan and ISIS-K, nearly doubled in size to more than 4,000 fighters during the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan last year. The commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and South Asia said Tuesday that without sustained pressure from the U.S. and U.S.-backed Afghan forces, the IS affiliate is solidifying its foothold.
“We are concerned about the developmental trajectory of ISIS-K,” U.S. Central Command’s General Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie told U.S. lawmakers.
“We continue to watch carefully as ISIS grows,” he said. “ISIS has been able to execute some high-profile attacks even in Kabul over the last several months. … It is my expectation that ISIS attacks will ramp up as we go into the summer.”
But while IS-Khorasan remains dangerous, the group has not advanced its capabilities as quickly as some U.S. officials initially feared.
The Pentagon’s third-highest ranking official warned lawmakers in October that it appeared the group would be able to regenerate the capabilities needed to launch terror attacks on the West in as little as six months.
Since then, however, it appears IS-Khorasan under the leadership of Shahab al-Muhajir, also known as Sanaullah Ghafari, has focused more on its fortunes in Afghanistan.
Intelligence shared by United Nations member states indicates the group prioritized retaking territory and now controls some limited areas in eastern Afghanistan. Western intelligence officials and humanitarian groups have seen signs IS-Khorasan is laying the groundwork for expanding its networks among Afghanistan’s neighbors.
Perhaps as a result, the threat of an attack by IS-Khorasan in the West has somewhat diminished, at least for the moment.
The best U.S. intelligence estimates now indicate the soonest IS-Khorasan could launch terror attacks in the West is 12 to 18 months, McKenzie told lawmakers, cautioning the timeline could change depending on developments on the ground, where clashes with the ruling Taliban persist.
“[IS-Khorasan] still aspire to attack the United States and our partners abroad,” McKenzie said. “The Taliban are attempting to maintain pressure. … They’re finding it difficult to do.”
The U.S. is having its own problems tracking IS-Khorasan, as well as rival terror group, al-Qaida, limited largely to flying reconnaissance flights from neighboring Pakistan now that it no longer has troops on the ground in Afghanistan.
“It is much harder to do it now than it was before,” McKenzie told lawmakers, though he added, “It is not impossible.”
“We will be able to do this only so long as CENTCOM has the requisite resources to find, fix and finish threats to the homeland before those threats develop the capability to conduct external operations,” he said. “CENTCOM has the tools it needs to perform this mission, but the margins are thin, and the risk will increase should resources diminish.”
The CENTCOM commander also told lawmakers that the U.S. has not carried out any counterterrorism strikes in Afghanistan since the U.S. withdrawal from the country was completed.
Syria and Iraq
In contrast to Afghanistan, U.S. efforts to contain IS in Syria and Iraq are faring better, McKenzie said.
“In the Euphrates River Valley in Iraq and Syria, ISIS is unable to think beyond surviving that night or the next night,” he told lawmakers, crediting sustained pressure from Iraqi forces and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.
But in Syria, concerns persist about the large, displaced persons camps, including al-Hol, which hold thousands of people, including the families of IS fighters.
The camps, McKenzie said, present IS with “fertile soil for indoctrination and spreading terror.”