ISIS trainees
8am: The Islamic State in Khorasan Province (IS-KP) suicide bomber, who blew himself up outside Hamid Karzai International Airport, was released from Bagram Air Base by the Taliban a few days before the suicide attack, according to multiple reports. The ISKP suicide attack on Kabul airport killed 13 US soldiers and more than 100 Afghan civilians. Click here to read more (external link).
Ariana: The World Health Organization (WHO) said Wednesday that since August there has been a drop in COVID-19 testing and vaccinations and that around 1.6 million doses of vaccine could expire if not used quickly. To address this, WHO and partners are boosting testing and supporting the rollout of a vaccination campaign in 16 provinces, the organization said. Click here to read more (external link).
Other Health News
Ashraf Ghani
Ariana: John Sopko, the U.S. special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR), said on Wednesday his office would look into allegations that former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani took millions of dollars with him when he left the country. Ghani fled the country on August 15 and reportedly took with him bags stuffed with cash. Ghani has denied the allegations. Click here to read more (external link).
Kabulov
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
October 7, 2021
Russia’s special envoy to Afghanistan said that Taliban representatives have been invited to Moscow for talks later this month on the country’s future.
Zamir Kabulov was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that the talks were planned for October 20 but did not provide further details.
Asked by Russian journalists whether Taliban representatives would be invited to the negotiations involving China, India, Pakistan, and Iran, Kabulov said: “Yes.”
The meeting will follow a G20 summit scheduled for next week that is aimed at helping Afghanistan avoid a humanitarian catastrophe in the aftermath of the Taliban takeover.
Moscow hosted a conference on Afghanistan in March, which was attended by the United States and China as well as Pakistan.
The attendees released a joint statement calling on the then-warring Afghan sides to reach a peace deal. It also called on the Taliban not to launch any offensives in the spring and summer.
Since then, Taliban fighters have swept to power, taking control of the capital Kabul after the government collapsed and amid a chaotic withdrawal by U.S. forces and their allies.
Moscow has moved to engage with the Taliban but stopped short of recognition of the group, which is considered a banned terrorist organization within Russia.
Among other things, Moscow is worried about instability or violence spilling into neighboring Central Asian countries. In response, Russia staged military exercises in Tajikistan and reinforced equipment at a military base there.
Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax
Al Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahri
By Abubakar Siddique
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
October 7, 2021
On October 7, 2001, the United States began bombing Taliban-ruled Afghanistan in a retaliatory military campaign against Al-Qaeda for orchestrating the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Twenty years later and nearly two months after Washington ended its war in Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda is down but not out.
With its Taliban allies firmly back in power, the global terrorist network could swiftly reclaim its sanctuary in Afghanistan. However, Al-Qaeda is thought to be contemplating a new approach to advance its global jihadist goals.
“Al-Qaeda’s literature shows that it had planned the 9/11 attacks to drag the U.S. into a long war with the jihadists in Afghanistan so that it can be defeated there,” said Abdul Sayed, a researcher following Islamic radical groups in South Asia.
In light of this strategy, he said, it is easy to understand why the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and other jihadists have declared the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan a victory against the global superpower.
Sayed said Washington was unable to achieve its primary goal despite a drawn-out military campaign that cost trillions of dollars and led to sustained conflict. “The U.S. fought for two decades against Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, but the group is not eliminated and still enjoys safe havens in the country,” he told RFE/RL’s Gandhara.
Senior U.S. security officials are now warning that Al-Qaeda is capable of swiftly rebuilding its base in Afghanistan and orchestrating attacks on U.S. soil within the next one to three years.
“We are, of course, concerned that there will be an opportunity for a safe haven to be re-created there, which is something we’ve seen in the past,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told a Congressional panel late last month.
The Taliban, however, has reiterated it will not let Afghanistan become a threat to regional or global security once again. “We are committed to the fact that, from Afghanistan, there will not be any danger to any country,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid recently said.
But experts remain skeptical about the strength of the Taliban’s word. Michael Semple, a former European Union and United Nations adviser in Afghanistan, said that even after pledging to prevent Afghanistan from being used as a base for Al-Qaeda as part of its agreement with the United States signed in Doha in February 2020, the Taliban has only acted to keep its foreign militant allies out of view instead of reining them in.
Semple, who worked in Afghanistan during the Taliban’s first stint in power in the 1990s, said he is not surprised that the Taliban is acting against what its leaders publicly pledged. Instead of the inclusive and moderate government it had promised, the Taliban formed a government exclusively made up of its senior leaders and has reimposed strict policies from its former hard-line regime. Semple said the Taliban is unlikely to honor its counterterrorism commitments in the Doha agreement, which specifically promised that the Taliban would not allow Al-Qaeda to operate out of Afghanistan.
“The department for selling the Taliban is different from the department for running Afghanistan. They don’t pay any attention to each other,” Semple told RFE/RL’s Gandhara. “One department is doing the pretty picture to go on the box while another department is putting things to go inside the box, and the two departments don’t really relate to each other.”
Semple, now a professor at Queen’s University Belfast, sees the ascendence of the hard-line Haqqani network, a Taliban military wing, within the new government as evidence that Al-Qaeda will have no problem reclaiming its sanctuary in Afghanistan.
“If you are a member of Al-Qaeda trying to make arrangements to keep your leaders and key operatives safe and out of view and avoiding trouble from the local authorities, what more could you dream of than to have your well-wishers take over the Interior Ministry?” Semple said, alluding to the appointment of Sirajuddin Haqqani, head of the Haqqani network, as the interior minister.
Washington has designated Haqqani a global terrorist, and he still carries a $10 million bounty for information leading to his capture. The Taliban has not issued a photo of him since he assumed office late last month. Multiple sources in Kabul told RFE/RL’s Gandhara that he frequently changes location and keeps his movements secret out of fear that Washington will target him through remotely piloted drones.
Semple, however, said that Al-Qaeda is savvy enough to avoid drawing attention to its emerging Afghan base or its Taliban hosts possibly by orchestrating attacks from Afghanistan.
“The alternative model is that they inspire and then advise or help sympathetic Muslim militant organizations who are fighting against Western-leaning governments in other parts of the Muslim world,” he noted. “That is not something that will take two years to deliver; it is something that they are already busy doing.”
Neighboring Tajikistan, where the government is staunchly opposed to the Taliban takeover, has complained about the Taliban equipping a militant group that includes its dissident citizens. Dushanbe has banned the Jamaat Ansarullah group, which has an avowed goal of overthrowing Tajikistan’s secular government.
The emergence of such groups has further eroded confidence in the Taliban’s counterterrorism promises. The militants have already opposed the long-haul U.S. drone flights that officials in Washington say are part of their “over the horizon” strategy aimed at keeping terrorist groups in check.
“We don’t have an agreement with a neighboring country,” General Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, recently told lawmakers to explain the challenges of employing aircraft to monitor possible terrorist regroupings in Afghanistan. “We’re not based in any neighboring country.”
Semple said counterterrorism concerns are central to regional giants Russia’s and China’s dealings with the Taliban. He said both have been quite forward leaning in their engagement with the Taliban-led government, but their calculations might change if the Taliban fails to address their concerns over terrorist threats emanating from Afghanistan.
“You could imagine a situation in which Russia and China are onboard with a broader international effort to support a more responsible administration in Afghanistan,” he said.
Margaret Besheer
VOA News
October 6, 2021
UNITED NATIONS — The head of the World Food Program in Afghanistan said Wednesday that the humanitarian crisis in that country is growing at “an incredible pace,” and it is now a “race against time” before winter sets in.
“Winter is on our doorstep,” Mary-Ellen McGroarty, WFP’s country director in Afghanistan, told reporters virtually from Kabul. “We have a harsh winter in Afghanistan. With fuel prices going up, people are going to struggle to feed themselves and keep themselves warm.”
Before the Taliban swept into Kabul on August 15 and took over the government, the country was already in a crisis due to a combination of years of drought, conflict, corruption and then the coronavirus. More than 18 million people needed humanitarian assistance, including 14 million who were food insecure. Two million children are at risk of severe malnourishment.
The U.N. says the number of people in severe need is expected to increase as food and fuel prices skyrocket and jobs dry up.
McGroarty said the crisis has escalated at an “incredible pace” since August.
“I was out in Kabul today, and the situation it is just desperate,” the aid official said. “I had women crying at me for food, because, again, the work has dried up. There is no work. There is no opportunity to find food.”
She said many women told her they have only a bit of dry bread and water to eat.
The country is also experiencing a severe economic and financial crisis. Overwhelmingly dependent on foreign assistance to support its economy, the arrival of the Taliban has seen that funding dry up.
“We need to find solutions to get the economy restarted,” McGroarty said.
She warned that without a solution, it is “a matter of probably weeks” before the Afghan economy collapses.
U.N. agencies reached five million Afghans with assistance in September, and WFP reached 3.8 million with food assistance.
The U.N. has appealed for nearly $606 million for the rest of this year and has only received a little over one-third of that amount.
Taliban militants (file photo)
Gulamaiz Sharifi
Abubakar Siddique
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
October 6, 2021
Jamilah and her six children live out in the open, exposed to the elements, with little food or water.
The 45-year-old was forced by armed Taliban militants to leave her mud-brick home in a remote village in central Afghanistan in late September.
Her family was among some 700 from the Shi’ite Hazara minority that were forcibly evicted by the Taliban from the Pato district in the central province of Daikundi.
“One day they came in six [Ford] Ranger trucks and ordered us out of our homes,” Jamilah, a widow, told Radio Azadi. “Now, we are forced to sleep in the open. We are hungry and thirsty. What will we do when it’s winter?”
The evictions have raised fears that the historically persecuted community will once again become the target of Taliban atrocities. The militant Islamist group is predominately Sunni and is mostly made up of members of the Pashtun ethnic group.
During its oppressive rule from 1996-2001, the Taliban terrorized Hazaras, wrestling control of Hazara regions in Afghanistan through a campaign of targeted killings.
Since seizing control of Kabul on August 15, the militants have attempted to assuage Hazaras’ fears of discrimination and persecution. The Taliban has visited Shi’ite mosques in the Afghan capital and deployed its fighters to protect ceremonies marking the Shi’ite month of Muharram.
In the past, the ceremonies have been targeted by the rival Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) extremist group, which considers Shi’a as apostates who should be killed.
But the evictions of Hazaras in Daikundi have now led some Hazaras to dread that their biggest fear — becoming the main target for Taliban persecution — is being realized.
Hazaras fear further forced evictions. There are decades-old land disputes between Hazaras and Pashtun communities in central Afghanistan that have led to armed clashes in the past.
‘Dire Situation’
Many of the families evicted by the Taliban in the Pato district have become homeless. Some have moved in with relatives but many live out in the windswept plains in the area.
“They forced people to leave in such haste they couldn’t even reap their harvest,” a Pato resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of Taliban reprisals, told RFE/RL.
“We were not allowed to take any belongings — not even a blanket,” he said. “We are now in a dire situation.”
The evictions came after the Taliban issued an eviction notice to Pato residents.
“Based on the order of the governor and the court, [you must] leave your lands,” said the notice, a copy of which was obtained by Radio Azadi.
“If you don’t leave within five days, we will return and will not give you any of your belongings and then you will have no right to complain,” added the Pashto-language notice signed by Pato Governor Mullah Musafir.
Siddiqullah Abed, the Taliban’s police chief in Daikundi, claimed a Taliban court had ruled that some land in Pato had to be returned to what he described as its original owners.
That claim is disputed by Hazaras, who say they are the rightful owners of their land. They accuse the Taliban of siding with their ethnic brethren.
“The judiciary had ruled in a case about the ownership dispute,” Abed told Radio Azadi. “We were just implementing the court’s order.”
Abed claimed the number of evicted families by the Taliban in Pato was lower than the 700 widely reported. He added that the Taliban had postponed further evictions until the spring.
Avoiding A ‘Bloody War’
Hazara leaders and activists worry the evictions will snowball into a violent campaign against their community.
Mohammad Mohaqiq, a senior Hazara leader and former presidential adviser, wants the issue to be resolved fairly according to the law.
“We don’t want this issue to turn into a bloody war,” he told Radio Azadi. “We want this issue to be resolved peacefully, and international legal and rights organizations must play their part in ending these [forced evictions].”
Ali Adili, an independent Afghan researcher, said the evictions have further marginalized Hazaras.
He said Hazaras have been evicted by the Taliban from their land in other areas, including the southern province of Uruzgan, which borders Daikundi.
“It has given rise to the worst fears for many Hazaras,” Adili told RFE/RL. “Given that Hazaras were massacred by the Taliban in the late 1990s, many Hazaras see the forced evictions as a continuation of the Taliban’s persecution of them.”
The Taliban has denied that it has targeted any Afghans because of their ethnicity or faith.
In 2015, the Taliban issued a statement detailing an alleged operation against a renegade Taliban commander, Mansoor Dadullah, who the group accused of robbing, kidnapping, and killing Hazaras to foment an ethnic war between them and Pashtuns.
But Arif Sahar, a researcher at Britain’s Sheffield Hallam University, said the Taliban is waging “complex and systematic ways of torturing and terrorizing the Hazaras.”
Ethnic tensions between Hazaras and Pashtuns, the largest community in Afghanistan, date back centuries.
Although there is no census, Shi’a are believed to make up around 15 percent of Afghanistan’s 30 million people, which is largely Sunni. Hazara account for the overwhelming majority of Shi’a in the country.
During the 19th century, Afghan monarchs attempted to forcibly convert Hazaras, seize their land, and bring Hazara regions in the country’s central highlands under the control of the central government — campaigns that killed thousands and forced even more to flee their homes, including many to British India. Hazaras who resettled in Kabul and other cities suffered discrimination and were often employed only in low-paying jobs.
“It depends on the Taliban whether they want to be a peaceful movement or they want to act violently against other groups,” Sahar said.
In an ominous sign, Amnesty International has documented the killing of 13 Hazaras — including a 17-year-old girl, two civilians, and 11 members of the defunct Afghan security forces — by the Taliban in Daikundi since the group seized Kabul.
By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
October 6, 2021
Sikhs in Kabul say more than a dozen armed men attacked and briefly occupied a Sikh temple in the Kart-e Parwan district of the Afghan capital on October 5, tying up the guards and destroying security cameras.
There were no major injuries reported.
The leader of the temple, Gurnam, told RFE/RL that it was unclear who the perpetrators were, but the incident has heightened concerns about the minority Sikh community’s safety.
“At around 3:30 p.m. on [October 5], 15 to 20 militants entered the shrine and tied up the guards. They also broke security cameras,” Gurnam said. “They were in the gurdwara (temple) for about half an hour. Security officials did not tell us if they were thieves or the Taliban.”
Video that appeared on social media showed armed men inside the Sikh temple, with some commentators claiming that “Taliban” attacked the shrine and beat some worshipers.
But that accusation could not be confirmed.
Bilal Karimi, from the Taliban-led authorities’ media team, told RFE/RL that the attack was being investigated, but he did not elaborate.
Many religious minorities have suffered discrimination at the hands of Sunni Taliban militants, including during their reign in Kabul and other wide swaths of Afghanistan from 1996-2001.
The community of Afghan Hindus and Sikhs was once estimated to be more than 80,000 strong, but many left after the collapse of the communist regime in 1992.
Many have lost their businesses and properties during the various cycles of war during the past three decades.
More Afghan Hindus and Sikhs left for India after a deadly attack by gunmen on a Sikh shrine in Kabul in March 2020.
By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
October 6, 2021
Hundreds of people have gathered outside the passport office in Kabul to apply for travel documents after the service opened for the first time since the Taliban seized power in mid-August.
The day before, the Taliban’s Interior Ministry announced that all staff — including female employees — had been asked to return to their offices as the new government tries to kick-start the country’s flailing infrastructure.
Taliban security guards reportedly beat some people to prevent crowds and chaos.
Taliban officials say the distribution of passports will begin on October 9.
Many Afghans who worked for U.S. and allied forces following the 2001 invasion fear the Taliban will take revenge if they find them, so they are desperate to flee.
The head of the passport office, Alam Gul Haqqani, said staff were being paid and separate offices had been established for women and men in accordance with the Taliban’s view of Islamic law.
Haqqani said the office was able to issue about 6,000 passports a day.
Meanwhile, a sixth passenger flight carrying more than 300 passengers left Kabul airport for Doha on October 6, a senior Qatari government official said.
It was the largest such Qatari flight since U.S.-led international forces completed their military evacuation at the end of August.
Qatari officials said the evacuees included Afghan journalists, Afghanistan’s cricket team, as well as citizens from Germany, Japan, Belgium, Ireland, Britain, Finland, France, Italy, Sweden, and Canada, according to a statement by the Qatari official.
With reporting by AFP and dpa