Two Afghan Athletes Arrive In Tokyo To Compete In Paralympics

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Zakia Khudadadi

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 28, 2021

Afghanistan’s two Paralympic athletes have arrived in the athletes’ village in Tokyo and will compete next week in their events, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) said on August 28.

The two-person team of Zakia Khudadadi, a tae kwon do athlete, and Hossain Rasouli, a track athlete, flew from Kabul to Paris before continuing to Tokyo, the IPC said.

The pair were warmly welcomed to the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic village, the IPC said in a statement.

They had been due to arrive in Tokyo on August 17 but were unable to leave Afghanistan after the Taliban swept to power.

The possibility that she would not make it out of Kabul prompted Khudadadi to make a video appealing for help to leave so she could take part in the Paralympics.

“I request from you all, that I am an Afghan woman and as a representative of Afghan women ask for you to help me,” Khudadadi said in her video, which Reuters said it had received from the Afghanistan Paralympic Committee.

Khudadadi will be Afghanistan’s first female athlete to compete at the Paralympics since the Athens Paralympics in 2004. She will compete in the women’s tae kwon do 44-49-kilogram weight category. Rasouli will compete in the men’s 400 meters.

IPC President Andrew Parsons said in the IPC statement that the IPC was told 12 days ago that the Afghan Paralympic team could not travel to Tokyo.

The announcement “broke the hearts of all involved in the Paralympic movement and left both athletes devastated,” he said.

But thanks to a “major global operation” he said they were evacuated from Afghanistan and have now arrived safely in Tokyo for the 2020 Paralympics, which began on August 24 and last through September 5.

Chelsey Gotell, the IPC Athletes’ Council chairperson, said that both athletes have said that after years of training they wanted to compete in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.

“The fact that so many authorities have combined to make this possible is truly wonderful,” she said, according to the IPC statement.

“On behalf of their fellow 4,403 Paralympic athletes competing at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, I welcome Zakia and Hossain to the Paralympic Village,” she said. “This is their home for the next nine days, and as a community we are 100 percent behind them.”

With reporting by AP, AFP, and Reuters

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.

Why the only winner of America’s war in Afghanistan is opium

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New York Post: Between 2002 and 2019, American taxpayers spent at least $9 billion to eliminate or transform the poppy fields that produced almost all of the world’s heroin — but instead ended up tripling that production, quadrupling the acreage covered by the deadly flowers, and intensifying the insurgency that plagued the country.  As a result, opium “emerged as the unrivaled winner of the longest war in American history,”… Click here to read more (external link).

Afghanistan Human Rights Violations Surge Since Taliban Takeover

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Taliban Militant Leadership

Lisa Schlein
VOA News
August 28, 2021

GENEVA – U.N. and private aid agencies say human rights violations have been surging in Afghanistan since Taliban militants seized control of the country.

Aid agencies say Afghanistan is at a very dangerous point. They say an increasingly brutal conflict is worsening the already serious human rights violations in the country.

CEO of the Asia Pacific Refugee Network Najeeba Wazedafost says many people feared the resurgence of the Taliban, as the U.S. and NATO withdrew troops from Afghanistan. But she says few people thought the Taliban would gain control over the country so quickly.

She says it is horrifying to see the rapid escalation of human suffering and displacement under Taliban rule.

“It has been quite heartbreaking, especially in the past week, receiving a vast amount of calls to our ASPRN crisis helpline, where people have been reporting executions and beatings, and clampdown on media and radio stations. They have been reporting to us about Taliban door-to-door searches, targeted killings and looting in the capital. And again, we have been hearing about schools, and hospitals, and thousands of homes being attacked,” she said.

Wazedafost says she is most concerned about the voices of fear she is hearing from women. She says they talk about their fear of being killed simply because they are female. She says she also fears border closures triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic will prevent women and girls fleeing violence and persecution from finding safety.

Wazedafost  is appealing to western countries that are leaving Afghanistan to not abandon the women and girls left behind and leave them without hope and the support they need to survive their changed circumstances.

The United Nations says decades of conflict, compounded by a second drought in four years and the devastating socioeconomic impact of COVID-19, have wiped out Afghanistan’s ability to survive without international support.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says nearly half of Afghanistan’s population, about 18 million people, need humanitarian assistance. The head of OCHA’s coordination division, Wafaa Saeed Abdelatef, says at least a third of the population does not have enough to eat and is suffering from acute hunger.

“We also estimate that half the children under five are acutely malnourished. And when a child is malnourished, this means also no access to enough food, to health, to water, to hygiene, to sanitation. And, also, malnutrition has a severe and irreversible impact on children. So, this is something that we cannot let continue,” she said.

This year’s United Nations humanitarian appeal for $1.3 billion has received just $500 million, leaving a funding gap of $800 million.

Kabul’s Young Professionals Fret About Their Future Under The Taliban

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Farangis Najibullah
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 28, 2021

Ahmad Dawood has barely left his house on a quiet backstreet in Kabul’s Khairkhana neighborhood since Taliban militants marched triumphantly into the Afghan capital on August 15, the same day that President Ashraf Ghani fled abroad.

Just two days later, a gun-wielding militant ordered the 24-year-old tailor to close his dress shop on Lycee-Maryam street, a normally bustling retail area.

“He said men aren’t allowed to make dresses for women,” Dawood says.

It effectively spells the end of his popular business, as most of its clients are women.

Dawood must now look for another job. His aging parents and younger siblings depend on his job, which he first took up as an apprentice at the age of 15 to support his impoverished family.

“We’re now cutting down on food. We have just enough money to see us through a month or so,” Dawood tells RFE/RL. “My brother, a policeman, lost his job, too, and my two sisters are at home because their universities are closed. So many changes in just a matter of days.”

Bazaars and bakeries remain open in the sprawling city of more than 4.4 million, although food prices have jumped and there are considerably fewer customers than before.

Many local media outlets continue their work, and some office workers — mostly men — are returning to their workplaces. Some public transport has resumed, albeit with a severely reduced number of vehicles.

But despite those signs of normality, life in Kabul “has come to a halt” to residents like Dawood and his siblings, who are waiting to see what direction the hard-line group intends to take their battle-scarred country.

“Our school is still closed, and we don’t have any official instruction yet about when to reopen it or what kind of changes the education sector will see,” says 25-year-old teacher Bashir Forogh.

Forogh’s school, in central Kabul, closed abruptly the day the UN-backed government collapsed and the Taliban reentered the city, nearly two decades after they were ousted by U.S.-led international forces in a response to the 9/11 attacks, planned and coordinated by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden from Afghan territory.

Students Eager To Return To School

Forogh recalls classes being halted midday as Taliban fighters took over this month, parents rushing to school in panic to collect their children and everyone dialing frantically to check on family members. But the phone lines “were dead,” he says, and the school building was deserted within an hour.

“Nobody has told us what happens to the school curriculum, students’ uniforms, or the future of mixed girls and boys classes once we reopen,” Forogh says.

He says he often gets phone calls from the parents of female students who “are eager to go back to school, even with a new, stricter dress code.”

The Taliban has said it doesn’t oppose girls’ education and women returning to work as long as they wear Islamic clothing, although eyewitness accounts from around the country appear to belie the pledge.

A senior Taliban official even gave an interview to a female television presenter in Kabul as the ultraconservative Islamist group seeks to rebrand itself as a more moderate force than it was two decades ago.

Taliban officials insist they will respect women’s rights within the norms of Islam, but they don’t elaborate.

Multiple female journalists and office workers say they were sent home by Taliban militants.

“Nothing is clear. The Taliban doesn’t say anything clearly, and it worries young people,” says Razma Saad, a university student from Kabul’s Macroyan 3 neighborhood.

Less than two months ago, Saad was more optimistic about the prospect of living under Taliban rule, saying the group “might have changed.”

Speaking to RFE/RL in mid-July, Saad said she hoped she could continue her studies and that “the situation won’t be as bad as many people fear.”

Saad now says she is worried by the Taliban’s “vague language” and worries that it is not providing “open and honest” assurances to the public.

She says many of her close friends have left Afghanistan in recent weeks.

Saad is staying in Kabul. She still hopes the Taliban softens some of its hard-line views and respects people’s wishes if it hopes to govern them effectively.

Brain Drain

Many Afghans are skeptical the Taliban has changed its oppressive policies from when it ruled most of Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, imposing a strict form of Islamic law.

A young generation of Afghans grew up under the UN-backed government accustomed to relative freedoms, such as attending secular schools, listening to music, wearing modern clothes, and sporting trendy hairstyles.

Fearful of their future, tens of thousands of Afghans have flocked to the capital’s international airport since August 15, desperately seeking to get out of the country.

Facing the prospect of a brain drain, the Taliban is urging Afghans to stay in the country and serve their own nation.

But Afghanistan’s most acute crisis of human capital might be artificially created by the Taliban itself, if it confines working women — millions of teachers, medics, police officers, and other specialists — to their homes.

“The Taliban cannot develop the country if half of the population — the women — disappear from public life,” says Mahjabin Ramz, a Kabul university graduate.

With a degree in journalism, Ramz got a job offer from a local media outlet just days before the fall of Kabul.

This week, Ramz got a phone call from the same publication saying it has indefinitely suspended hiring.

Money Isn’t Everything

It looks more like business as usual for Shapoor, who runs two successful pharmacies in Kabul and lives a comfortable life with his young family in a newly built house in an affluent quarter of the Khairkhana neighborhood.

Both his shops remain open.

Although there are fewer customers these days, Shapoor is confident that business will take off again soon.

But, Shapoor says, money isn’t everything.

He doesn’t want his family to lose what he describes as the “small details” of their freedom: eating out with his wife, buying her flowers for Valentine’s Day, or his wife’s opportunity to go to a beauty salon.

Shapoor also worries about his younger brother, who served as a policeman until last month.

The Taliban has ostensibly offered an “amnesty” for all former soldiers, police officers, and government workers.

But multiple reports suggest that Taliban militants have been searching door-to-door for those who worked for police forces or government agencies.

“We’re living in constant fear and worry,” Shapoor says.

On the opposite end of Khairkhana, Dawood is reluctantly adapting to Kabul’s new realities.

Once a self-described fan of Bollywood-style haircuts, tight black jeans, and crisp white shirts, Dawood now wears traditional Afghan clothes. He has shaved his head and is growing a beard.

“I had to work hard since childhood. There were many nights that I went hungry to bed. But I’ve never felt so hopeless before,” Dawood says. “What an utterly misfortunate nation we are.”

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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Tajik Group Offers To Fight Alongside Anti-Taliban Militias In Afghanistan

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Hundreds of Tajiks from the southern town of Kulob say they’re prepared to join anti-Taliban militias in Afghanistan. The Afghan fighters are based in the Panjshir Valley, a predominantly ethnic Tajik region that has repelled Taliban incursions in the past. Some Tajik officials say it would be illegal for volunteers to cross the border to join the fight — but others say the call to arms nevertheless sends a message to the Taliban.

Taliban kill squad hunting down Afghans — using US biometric data

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Taliban Militants in Kabul

New York Post: The Taliban has mobilized a special unit, called Al Isha, to hunt down Afghans who helped US and allied forces — and it’s using US equipment and data to do it. Nawazuddin Haqqani, one of the brigade commanders over the Al Isha unit, bragged in an interview with Zenger News that his unit is using US-made hand-held scanners to tap into a massive US-built biometric database and positively identify any person who helped the NATO allies or worked with Indian intelligence. Afghans who try to deny or minimize their role will find themselves contradicted by the detailed computer records that the US left behind in its frenzied withdrawal. Click here to read more (external link).

Pentagon: US Airstrike Targets Islamic State in Afghanistan in Retaliation for Deadly Kabul Airport Attack

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US MQ-9 Reaper drone (file photo)

AP: U.S. Central Command said the U.S. conducted a drone strike against an Islamic State member in Nangahar believed to be involved in planning attacks against the U.S. in Kabul. The strike killed one individual, and spokesman Navy Capt. William Urban said they knew of no civilian casualties. Click here to read more (external link).

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Taliban ‘planning to establish inclusive caretaker government’ in Afghanistan

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Taliban Militant Leadership

Press TV
August 27, 2021

The Taliban say they are planning to establish an inclusive caretaker government in Afghanistan that would include leaders from all ethnicities and tribal backgrounds, following their takeover of the country earlier this month.

Taliban sources told Al Jazeera about the group’s plan on Friday, adding that nearly a dozen names were being considered to be part of the new government, without mentioning the duration of the caretaker government’s term.

The unnamed sources further said a supreme leadership council had been convened to decide the form of the future government and nominate ministers, particularly for the judiciary, internal security, defense, foreign affairs, finance, and information portfolios as well as a special assignment for Kabul’s affairs.

They added that the group wanted to bring new faces to the government, including the sons of Tajik and Uzbek tribal leaders.

The Taliban have reportedly already appointed senior veterans to the positions of Afghanistan’s finance minister, interior minister, and defense minister, but the appointments have not been formally announced. A Taliban official in Kabul confirmed the key ministerial appointments this week.

The Taliban have also included Afghanistan’s former President Hamid Karzai and former peace negotiator Abdullah Abdullah in a 12-member council that would govern Afghanistan during the transition period, according to a source.

The latest development comes as Afghanistan is reeling from two terrorist explosions outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Thursday, which claimed over 100 lives, including those of 12 US service members. The attacks came amidst chaos and commotion at the airport, which has been taken over by the US troops to evacuate American civilians and diplomats following the Taliban takeover. The blasts were claimed by an offshoot of the Daesh terrorist group in Afghanistan.

Another Taliban source told Al Jazeera that the group remained committed to the 2020 deal reached with the United States in the Qatari capital, Doha, adding that it would not allow Afghan soil to be used to launch terror attacks.

The source also said special courts would be set up at local levels to fight corruption in Afghanistan, adding that the Taliban caretaker government was planning a single tariff to be applicable to imported goods.

Pakistani Haqqani assailant arrested after Kabul blasts

A Pakistani assailant belonging to the Haqqani network has reportedly been arrested after the deadly terrorist attacks outside the Kabul airport on Thursday. Top sources in Afghanistan told CNN-News18 that the Taliban were aware of the connection between the Haqqani network and Pakistan in the Kabul blast.

They said a third blast had been planned at the Turkmenistan Embassy. However, the sources said, two people had been detained before that attack could take place, and that they were in custody of the Taliban.

According to the sources, both of them are Pakistanis.

An unnamed Taliban official told Reuters news agency on Friday that at least 28 members of the group had died in the bombings, vowing to beef up security at the Kabul airport to prevent future terrorist attacks.

Kremlin condemns deadly Kabul attacks

Meanwhile, Russia has strongly condemned the twin bombings on crowds of Afghans trying to flee Afghanistan.

“Of course, it is very sad news about the large number of deaths,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a briefing on Friday, adding that unfortunately, the pessimistic forecasts that entrenched terrorist groups, especially Daesh, would not fail to take advantage of the chaos in Afghanistan were being confirmed.

Peskov further said that the incident would further escalate the tensions in Afghanistan, which continues to be “a cause of our grave concern.”

On Wednesday, four Russian military planes evacuated Russian and other nationals from Kabul on the orders of President Vladimir Putin, as Moscow held military exercises involving its tank forces in neighboring Tajikistan.