Warning Shots Fired At Kabul Protest; U.S. Working With Taliban On Flights

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Anti Taliban Protesters

By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
September 7, 2021

Taliban militants have fired shots into the air to disperse a rally in Kabul after the militant group swept to power last month, as the United States sought to reassure it was working so that flights chartered by NGOs that are waiting to evacuate Americans and at-risk Afghans can leave the war-torn country safely.

The hard-line Islamist group took control of most of Afghanistan three weeks ago following the collapse of the Western-backed government, but as of September 7 had yet to announce a new government.

Nonetheless, Afghan women, wary of a repeat of the group’s previous brutal rule between 1996 and 2001, have been holding for the past week small, isolated demonstrations in cities including Kabul, Herat, and Mazar-e Sharif.

In Kabul on September 7, hundreds of protesters, including many women, took to the streets to denounce the Taliban and demand women’s rights be preserved.

They shouted slogans such as “Long live the resistance,” and “Death to Pakistan,” as many believe the neighboring country supports the Taliban, which Islamabad denies.

Witnesses said Taliban members fired shots into the air to disperse the crowd, while video clips showed scores of people running as volleys of gunfire are heard in the background.

“Groups of women from Khairkhanah, Parwan-e Seh [in Kabul], and some other places gathered along with men,” Freshta Mowahid, who was among the protesters, told RFE/RL via Skype.

“Many Taliban members wanted to disrupt it at first. Another group started protesting in front of the Pakistani Embassy, and the Taliban shot to disperse them.”

Journalists were prevented from filming at the rally, and Afghanistan’s TOLOnews reported that one of its cameramen was detained by the Taliban for nearly three hours.

There were no immediate reports of injuries.

In the central province of Ghor, about 10 women protested against Pakistan’s alleged involvement in the Afghan conflict and for an end to the fighting in Panjshir Valley, where rebel forces have been the last pocket of resistance to the militants.

The demonstrations follow a weekend visit by Pakistan’s intelligence chief Faiz Hameed and unconfirmed reports that Pakistan had helped the Taliban by using drones to bomb Panjshir, a rugged valley located about 100 kilometers northeast of Kabul where an armed resistance group had been holding out.

A Pakistani military spokesman rejected the allegations, saying his country “has nothing to do with what is happening inside Afghanistan, be it Panjshir or anywhere else.”

In the weeks before the last U.S. troops completed their withdrawal from Kabul on August 31, U.S.-led foreign forces evacuated more than 123,000 foreigners and at-risk Afghans but several American and tens of thousands who fear Taliban retribution were left behind.

More than a dozen U.S. citizens and hundreds of others, including children, have reportedly been prevented for days from flying out of the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif on planes chartered by several U.S. nongovernmental organizations.

Marina LeGree, the founder and executive director of the U.S.-based NGO Ascend, said on September 7 that some 600 to 1,300 people, including teenage girls from her group, have been waiting near the city’s airport for as long as a week to board planes on the ground.

“It’s been seven days and nothing’s moving,” LeGree, whose group trains Afghan girls in leadership through physical activities like mountain climbing, told AFP, accusing the Taliban of “simply not letting anything move.”

Six chartered planes were waiting at the airport to evacuate those waiting, who are meanwhile being housed in various places in the city, LeGree said.

During a visit to Qatar, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States was in contact with about 100 Americans who remained behind and continues to work to make sure such charter flights can leave safely.

Blinken told reporters that members of the Taliban has told the United States “they will let people with travel documents freely depart.”

“We will hold them to that,” he added.

Speaking alongside the top U.S. diplomat, Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani expressed hope that Kabul airport would be operational in the next few days, but no deal had yet been reached on how to run it.

The Taliban is also grappling with looming financial and humanitarian crises.

The United Nations emergency aid office (OCHA) appealed for almost $200 million in extra funding for life-saving aid in Afghanistan, where a total of $606 million is needed until the end of the year to provide critical food and livelihood assistance to nearly 11 million people and essential health services to 3.4 million.

The office said the funds would also go toward treatment for acute malnutrition for more than 1 million children and women, water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions, and protection of children and survivors of gender-based violence.

“Basic services in Afghanistan are collapsing and food and other life-saving aid is about to run out,” said OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke.

Meanwhile, UNICEF said the UN children’s agency and its partners had registered around 300 unaccompanied and separated children evacuated from Afghanistan since August 14, and that this number is expected to rise “through ongoing identification efforts.”

“It is vital that they are quickly identified and kept safe during family tracing and reunification processes,” UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said in a statement, stressing that “all parties must prioritize the best interests of the child and protect children from abuse, neglect and violence.”

With reporting by AFP, AP, Reuters, and the BBC

Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

Afghan Taliban, Pakistan Discuss Anti-Terror Cooperation

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Zabihullah Mujahid

Ayaz Gul
VOA News
September 6, 2021

ISLAMABAD – Afghanistan’s Taliban said Monday they had discussed bilateral security cooperation with Pakistan, including measures needed at border crossings between the two countries to stem the movement of terrorists into Pakistan.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters in Kabul that a delegation from Islamabad visited the country over the weekend for the discussions. The Pakistani team was led by General Faiz Hameed, the head of the country’s spy agency, known as the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI.

Mujahid said the visitors conveyed their concerns over multiple jail breaks during the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and the release of hundreds of prisoners involved in militant attacks in Pakistan. He said the Taliban had assured the delegation that no one will be allowed to use Afghan soil against Pakistan.

“It was also discussed that there shall be a check or scrutiny system at the (border) gates to detect individuals who want to harm Pakistan, as per their information, and we don’t know about them because we are dealing with this new situation where doors of prisons had already been opened,” he said.

Mujahid said his side had stressed the need for not using this issue to close border gates to Afghan travelers, including patients, refugee families and daily wage workers who move across the border in search of work.

Official sources in Islamabad told VOA the ISI chief went to Kabul to discuss with Taliban representatives matters related to border management and “overall security issue(s) to ensure that spoilers and terrorist organizations do not take advantage of the situation.” The sources spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to publicly interact with media.

The Taliban retook control of Afghanistan last month, nearly 20 years after U.S.-led international forces removed the Islamist movement from power for harboring al-Qaida planners of the terror strikes on the United States on September 11, 2001.

Pakistan has long complained that leaders of an alliance of militant organizations known as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, use sanctuaries in volatile Afghan areas to organize cross-border terrorist attacks.

Islamabad has had strained diplomatic ties with the former Afghan government that collapsed in the face of stunning Taliban victories, enabling the Islamist movement to seize control of Kabul on August 15.

The tensions stemmed from allegations that Islamabad was covertly supporting Taliban military activities and sheltering insurgent leaders on Pakistani soil. For their part, Pakistani authorities accused Kabul of supporting the TTP in plotting terrorist attacks against Pakistan.

When the Taliban marched into the Afghan capital last month, inmates from a prison facility at the Bagram Airfield, 50 kilometers north of Kabul, managed to flee with the help of supporters taking advantage of the chaos. The prisoners included TTP operatives, a development that alarmed Pakistan.

The U.S. controlled the Bagram Airfield until July. The American military vacated the facility as part of its withdrawal from the country that was concluded on August 31.

Pakistan’s long-running ties with the Taliban might have generated hopes the Islamist group would help rein in TTP cross-border violent activities from their Afghan hideouts, say analysts. But they say those expectations could be misplaced, citing the ideological closeness between the Afghan and the Pakistani Taliban.

“For Pakistan, getting the Taliban to curb the TTP amounts to an ambitious task. The TTP has long been allied with the Taliban, and it has partnered operationally with the Taliban. The Taliban isn’t known for denying space to its militant allies, and I don’t see the TTP being an exception to the rule,” said Michael Kugelman, deputy Asia director at Washington’s Wilson Center.

Analysts note an increase in deadly TTP-orchestrated attacks in Pakistan. The latest one occurred Sunday, when a suicide bomber in the city of Quetta killed four Pakistani troops and wounded at least 18 others.

“It was widely assumed that as the Afghan Taliban are close to Pakistan for several reasons, the TTP threat to Pakistan will automatically decline/end with its takeover of Afghanistan. However, the August TTP attacks list shows its opposite. TTP has claimed the highest number of attacks in August than in a single month of the last four to five years,” observed Abdul Sayed, a regional security expert.

Sayed, who is based in Sweden, noted that around 800 TTP members secured their freedom from Afghan jails with the arrival of the Taliban in Kabul.

Pakistani officials, however, remain upbeat that landlocked Afghanistan requires a free flow of trade and transit trade facilities through Pakistan to overcome its humanitarian and critical economic challenges.

That leverage, the officials say, and counterterrorism commitments the Taliban have given to the United States and neighboring countries would be used to press the new Afghan rulers to deliver on their pledges.

Just before the Taliban took over Kabul, their chief, Hibatullah Akhundzada, had set up a three-member high-powered commission to persuade TTP members to stop violence against Pakistan and return to their homes across the border to live peacefully, VOA had learned from highly placed official sources in Islamabad.

Analysts say the Taliban are under international scrutiny and must live up to their counterterrorism commitments if they want their country to remain part of the regional community or the world at large and earn global recognition for their rule.

On Monday, Taliban spokesman Mujahid said that they would like to join a multibillion-dollar bilateral project China has initiated in Pakistan.

“The CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) project is important for entire Asia, including Afghanistan. If the CPEC route goes through Afghanistan, we would cooperate,” he said.

China has spent more than $25 billion in Pakistan over the past six years under the bilateral collaboration, building road networks, power plants and a deep-water port on the Arabian Sea and developing agriculture as well as social sectors.

Both Islamabad and Beijing say they are set to bring roads and other CPEC-related infrastructure into Afghanistan to help in the reconstruction of the war-shattered nation.

Beijing has in recent years developed close contacts with the Taliban and expects the Islamist movement to fight the banned East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which is blamed for conducting terrorist attacks in China.

Resistance against Taliban continues in Panjshir

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Taliban Imposes New Dress Code, Segregation Of Women At Afghan Universities

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By Frud Bezhan
RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
September 6, 2021

KABUL — The Taliban has imposed a new dress code and gender segregation for women at private universities and colleges in Afghanistan, in line with a decree issued to educational institutions and obtained by RFE/RL.

All female students, teachers, and staff must wear an Islamic abaya robe and niqab that covers the hair, body, and most of the face, according to the extensive document issued by the Taliban-run Education Ministry on September 5. The garments must be black, the text added, and women must also wear gloves to ensure their hands are covered.

Classes must also be segregated by gender — or at least divided by a curtain — according to the order, which added 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.

Since seizing power after the collapse of the internationally recognized government in Kabul last month, the Taliban has said “women and girls will have all their rights within Islam.”

The militants have attempted to project a more moderate image and reassure Afghans and the world that it has changed. During its brutal regime from 1996-2001, the Taliban oppressed women and severely restricted girls’ education.

But the Taliban’s new rules — which came into effect on September 6 as private universities reopened — highlight how women’s lives are set to dramatically change under the rule of the hard-line Islamist group after the gains of the past 20 years.

‘Clear Sign Of Repression’

“The new changes like gender segregation in schools and universities are clearly creating more fear and a culture of discrimination against women and girls,” said Samira Hamidi, an exiled women’s rights activist who fled Afghanistan due to threats by the Taliban.

“Women wearing black veils do not represent Afghan culture,” she added. “It is a clear sign of repression in the life of women and girls.”

Before the Taliban’s return to power, Afghan women studied alongside men and attended classes with male teachers. There was also no dress code that forced women to cover themselves.

But women are now confronted with a new, harsher reality.

Photos widely shared by Afghans on social media showed men and women at Ibn Sina University, a private institution in Kabul, separated in classes by a curtain. Many of the women pictured wore black robes and hijabs, although their faces were visible — an apparent violation of the new dress code.

According to the decree issued by the Taliban, women should wear an abaya, the figure-shrouding outer garment, and niqab, a cloth that covers the face except for the eyes.

Maryam, a woman from the southeastern city of Khost, told Radio Azadi that many women were ready to wear a hijab, which covers the head. But she said the all-encompassing niqab or burqa would not be “acceptable to Afghan women.”

‘Good Behavior’

The Taliban also imposed the wearing of burqas in the 1990s.

The Taliban’s decree also said men and women should use separate entrances and exits at universities and colleges.

“Universities are required to recruit female teachers for female students based on their facilities,” the document said.

If it is not possible to employ female teachers, then institutions “should try to hire elderly men teachers who have a record of good behavior.”

While women must study separately, they are also required to finish their classes five minutes earlier than men to stop them from meeting outside.

The documents also stipulates that women must remain in waiting rooms until their male classmates have left the building.

Despite the new restrictions, the Taliban permitting education for women is a positive, said 18-year-old Salgy Baran, who received the highest score in Afghanistan on her university entrance exams this year.

“The Taliban must deliver on what they promise,” she told Radio Azadi, referring to the militant group’s pledge to protect women’s rights, including the right to education. “Our university professors must be encouraged and appreciated, and we must be optimistic about the future.”

Violating Women’s Rights

But others are not convinced that the Taliban has changed and will permit women to exercise their right to education and work.

After the U.S.-led invasion, university admission rates soared in Afghanistan, particularly among women. Millions of girls of all ages also flocked back to school, though the gains in female education were mainly restricted to the cities.

Women also played a role in public life as ministers, members of parliament, and provincial officials. They also had the right to vote and work outside their homes.

When it previously controlled Afghanistan from 1996-2001, the Taliban forced women to cover themselves from head to toe, banned them from working outside the home, limited education only to pre-adolescent girls, and required women to be accompanied by a male relative if they left their homes.

The Taliban has, thus far, reimposed many of the same repressive laws and retrograde policies that defined its extremist former rule.

In Kabul, the Taliban has advised women to largely remain indoors. The militants have dismissed female journalists working for state-run television. The Taliban has also ordered many former female government workers not to return to work even as their male colleagues went back. Many girls’ schools have also remained shut in the capital.

Scores of women have staged protests in Kabul, the western city of Herat, and the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif in recent days, demanding equal rights.

Protest organizers said Taliban militants violently dispersed a crowd of women who had taken to the streets of Mazar-e Sharif on September 6 to call for their rights to be preserved and their inclusion in the new government.

Dozens of women held placards with slogans such as “Violation of women’s rights = Violation of human’s rights” and “We want political participation at all levels,” according to photos shared on social media.

Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

Pakistan Wants to Cash in on Its Taliban ‘Victory.’ But China Is Wrecking Its Plans

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Taliban leader Mullah Baradar with Pakistan’s ISI Chief Faiz Hameed

Haaretz: After an interlude of two decades, Pakistan has conquered Afghanistan, again. For Pakistan’s real rulers, the military, the time has come to cash in on that coin. Click here to read more (external link).

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Taliban Claim Victory Over Resistance, but Massoud Vows to Fight

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Ayesha Tanzeem
VOA News
September 6, 2021

ISLAMABAD – The Taliban said road links to Panjshir valley are now open, and food and other supplies can now be transported. Soon after declaring they had taken over the valley and ended remnants of resistance against their rule, the group said electricity, cellphone and internet services would be restored soon.

“Thank God that we do not have civilian casualties in our fight to capture and conquer Panjshir,” Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a press conference in Kabul on Monday.

The Taliban have taken over the provincial capital and the governor’s compound in the valley and shared videos of their fighters in the capital.

Meanwhile, in an audio message on his Facebook page, resistance leader Ahmad Massoud said his forces are still present in Panjshir and will continue to fight the Taliban.

Earlier in the day, pro-resistance Twitter accounts claimed their fighters retreated to the mountains to regroup but that they will continue to fight.

“Last night, we had to make a hard decision in the face of furious enemy attacks and depleted amunations (sic),” said their Twitter message posted Monday afternoon. “Make a last stand in Bazarak and risk the total elimination of our leadership, or retreat to higher ground in order to continue the resistance. We choose the latter.”

Another message, posted at the same time, said their leaders were safe and in good spirits.

“We are on a terrain that we know and best suits the next chapter of our resistance. We know what we are doing! This was expected!” the tweet said.

Massoud is the son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Northern Alliance leader who successfully resisted Taliban rule in the 1990s and was nicknamed the “Lion of Panjshir.”

Mujahid said those in the resistance who wanted to return to a normal life in Afghanistan were welcome, but efforts to undermine the new Taliban regime would be considered sedition and dealt with accordingly.

He said work for the formulation of a new Taliban government was complete, but the announcement was delayed since some technical issues remained.

The new ministers, the Taliban spokesman said, might be considered acting ministers to give the government the flexibility to enact changes if needed. He also assured journalists that Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada was alive and would appear in public soon.

Akhundzada’s public absence has given rise to rumors of his death. Taliban founder Mullah Omar had been dead for two years before news of his demise leaked in 2015.

Mujahid also asked women and men to refrain from protesting while the country was going through a transition.

“Why are you protesting at a time when the new government has not taken over yet? We have seen the protests by women. We are trying, and we hope to resolve their issues as soon as possible,” he said.

On Saturday, Taliban fighters in Kabul forcefully broke up a protest by a group of women demanding equal participation in the government. Protesters said the Taliban beat some of them with the butt of their guns, leaving them bloodied, as seen on their social media videos and testimonies.

Mujahid said gatherings of people could become a security issue.

“As you saw, the Kabul airport had a lot of chaos, and then there were horrible attacks there in which foreigners also died,” he said.

A suicide bomb blast at the airport last month, as thousands of Afghans were clamoring to enter the premises in hopes of getting on one of the U.S. or European evacuation flights, left at least 169 Afghans and 13 Americans dead.

The attack was claimed by Islamic State Khorasan Province, the regional chapter of IS. It was considered the first big challenge for the Taliban, who had promised that no terrorist group would be able to use Afghan soil against any other country under their watch.

In Monday’s press conference, Mujahid also promised swift restoration of the Kabul airport with the help of Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

“I want to assure you that the airport will be ready for flights soon,” Mujahid said, pointing out that some local flights from Kabul to other Afghan cities had already resumed but work was needed to repair the radar system that he claimed was damaged, along with some other equipment, by U.S. forces before they left.

Hinting at Taliban foreign policy going forward, especially at the Taliban’s interest in the Chinese One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative, Mujahid said given its economic might, China could play a very important role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

“The CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) project is important for entire Asia, including Afghanistan. If the CPEC route goes through Afghanistan, we would cooperate,” Mujahid said.

CPEC is an arm of the OBOR project, which links northwest China’s Xinjiang province through Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. China has hinted it wants to extend the project to central Asia.

Mujahid also responded to questions on the visit to Kabul over the weekend of Pakistan’s intelligence chief, General Faiz Hameed, the first senior foreign official to visit the Afghan capital since the Taliban takeover.

He said the visit was focused on Pakistan’s concerns over multiple jail breaks during the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and the release of prisoners involved in militant attacks in Pakistan.

According to Mujahid, Kabul’s security would now be handed over to the Taliban in uniform. Discussing the fate of the former Afghan security forces and military, the Taliban spokesman said they will be merged with Taliban fighters into security forces for the new government.

Taliban Says Last Holdout Region In Afghanistan Taken; Resistance Denies Defeat

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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
September 6, 2021

The Taliban says it has taken complete control of the Panjshir Valley, the last province in Afghanistan where the group faced resistance.

It was not immediately possible to get independent confirmation of events in Panjshir, where the Taliban has cut off phone, Internet, and electricity lines.

The Taliban seized control of most of Afghanistan three weeks ago, taking power in Kabul on August 15 following the collapse of the Western-backed government.

There has since been heavy fighting in Panjshir Valley north of the capital, with the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan resisting Taliban rule.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid issued a statement on September 6 saying Panjshir was now under the control of the Taliban fighters.

“With this victory, our country is completely taken out of the quagmire of war,” Mujahid said.

Resistance Front spokesman Ali Maisam denied the allegation as “not true.”

“The Taliban haven’t captured Panjshir, I am rejecting Taliban claims,” he told the BBC.

Pictures on social media showed Taliban members standing in front of the Panjshir provincial governor’s compound in Bazarak.

Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP

Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

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Latest: Pakistani drones attacking Panjshir, ISI assisting from Kabul

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