Tajikistan summons US ambassador over Biden’s offensive remarks

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Joe Biden

Press TV
September 15, 2021

Tajikistan has summoned the US ambassador over the offensive remarks President Joe Biden made about Tajik people during his recent visit to Pennsylvania.

The Central Asian country took offense to a jibe Biden used to deflect criticism from his handling of the chaotic US withdrawal from neighboring Afghanistan.

In a statement, Tajikistan’s Foreign Ministry said Ambassador John Mark Pommersheim was summoned and “a verbal note of protest was conveyed” to him “in connection with the statements by the President.”

“The verbal note stated that such statements do not correspond to the spirit of friendly relations and partnership,” the statement added.

During his visit to Pennsylvania at the 20th anniversary of Sep.11, Biden, who was trying to defend the ill-prepared withdrawal from Afghanistan, said people in Tajikistan would also be “hanging in the well of the wheel” if the US pulled up a C-130 Hercules aircraft from the country.

He was referring to a tragic incident that occurred at the Kabul international airport in the early days of the evacuation operation when Afghans seeking to flee the country tried to climb aboard a cargo jet as it rolled down the runway.

The desperate scene was caught on footage that showed two people falling to their death from the aircraft’s landing gear to the city below, well after takeoff.

“Seventy percent of the American people think it was time to get out of Afghanistan … But the flip of it is, they didn’t like the way we got out,” Biden said.

“But it’s hard to explain to anybody how else could you get out. For example, if we were in Tajikistan, and we pulled up with a C-130 and said, ‘We’re going to let, you know, anybody who was involved with being sympathetic to us to get on the plane,’ you’d have people hanging in the wheel well. Come on,” Biden said.
The United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 as part of the so-called war on terror. While the invasion ended the Taliban’s rule in the country back then, it has now come to an end with the return of the group to power.

The unfolding situation in Afghanistan raised concerns over security threats against Tajikistan.

Russia, an ally to Tajikistan, said previously that Washington’s chaotic, hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan had aggravated stability in the Central Asia region.

Last week, the Russian Defense Ministry said it had sent armored vehicles and military equipment to its military base in Tajikistan amid “growing instability” near the southern border.

Passenger Flights Between Iran And Afghanistan Resume

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Radio Farda
September 15, 2021

Iran has resumed regular commercial flights to neighboring Afghanistan following a monthlong hiatus.

An Iranian Mahan Air aircraft landed in Kabul on September 15 with 19 passengers onboard after departing from the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad, the state-run al-Alam TV channel reported.

“At present, this airliner is returning to Mashhad with passengers,” the semiofficial Fars news agency later reported.

Regular passenger services between the two countries had stopped after the Taliban toppled the Western-backed government in Kabul a month ago, with the Iranian civil aviation agency citing security reasons for the interruption.

Previously, Mahan Air — the second-largest Iranian airline — had operated two flights per week between Mashhad and the Afghan capital.

Iran shares a 945-kilometer border with Afghanistan.

According to the United Nations and affiliated agencies, Iran hosts some 800,000 registered Afghan refugees and more than 2 million undocumented Afghans.

With reporting by 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.

Afghans In Kandahar Protest Against Evictions By Taliban

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Hundreds of people marched in Kandahar on September 14 to protest against what they say are plans by the Taliban to evict them from their homes. Many of those said to be facing eviction are widows or wives of Afghan soldiers killed or wounded in action over the past 20 years in fighting against the Taliban. One person said people were told they had to give their homes to Taliban fighters.

Top Afghan Girls Soccer Players Flee Taliban Threat To Pakistan

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Khalida Popal

By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
September 15, 2021

A group of top Afghan girls soccer players, their coaches, and family members have fled across the border into neighboring Pakistan as questions linger over the status of female athletes under the newly installed Taliban-led government.

“I am so happy to announce that today, more than 79 youth female football team players and their family members managed to get out of Afghanistan safely,” Khalida Popalzai, former captain of the Afghan women’s national team and founder and director of the Denmark-based Girl Power nongovernmental organization, wrote on Facebook.

According to Sardar Naveed Haider, an ambassador of the London-based NGO Football for Peace, the players included members of the under-14, under-16, and under-18 national teams who crossed the border dressed in burqas covering their whole bodies.

Dozens of members of the Afghan women’s national soccer team and family members were evacuated to Australia in August as tens of thousands of Afghans, fearing reprisal attacks and repression, fled the country after the Taliban toppled the Western-backed government in Kabul.

Pakistani Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry tweeted that the female soccer players crossed the border at the Torkham crossing with valid Afghan passports and Pakistani visas.

Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported that they had been issued emergency humanitarian visas.

The group traveled to the southern city of Lahore after crossing the border, AFP reported, adding that the players are expected to stay in Pakistan for a month before moving on to another country.

About 30 other female players were still hoping to cross into Pakistan, according to the news agency.

When the Taliban imposed its brutal rule on Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, girls were not allowed to attend school and women were banned from work, education, and sports.

The hard-line Islamist group has suggested it is now more moderate, including in its attitude toward women and girls.

But many Afghans remain deeply fearful, especially after the militants formed an all-male government led by hard-line Taliban veterans, banned protests, and cracked down on demonstrators and journalists.

Afghanistan’s new rulers have indicated that women and girls will face restrictions in playing sport, with a senior Taliban official saying last week it was “not necessary” for women to play sports.

But on September 15, Bashir Ahmad Rustamzai, a sports official in the Taliban-led administration, said top-level leaders of the group were still deciding.

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.

Clash With Militants Kills 7 Soldiers in Pakistan

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TTP Flag

Ayaz Gul
VOA News
September 15, 2021

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan military officials on Wednesday said at least seven soldiers were killed in a gunfight with militants in a remote district bordering Afghanistan.

An army statement said security forces, acting on intelligence, raided a suspected terrorist hideout in South Waziristan and suffered the casualties in the ensuing “intense exchange of fire.”

At least five “terrorists” were also killed and a “cordon and search operation” was underway to clear the area of any remaining militants, the statement added.

The outlawed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) confirmed the overnight raid of one of its bases in the border district.

The militant group, commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban, claimed the firefight had killed nine Pakistani soldiers and injured several others while all TTP fighters managed to escape the area. It was not immediately possible to independently verify the group’s claims, which are often exaggerated.

The Pakistani Taliban is designated as a global terrorist organization by the United States.

Pakistan says the TTP uses sanctuaries in Afghanistan to orchestrate cross-border terrorist attacks.

The country’s military in recent years has conducted major offensives, backed by air power, in a bid to secure districts along the Afghan border, which have historically served as strongholds for local and foreign militant groups.

The security operations have forced TTP fighters to flee into Afghanistan and organize deadly attacks against Pakistan from that side of the border.

Last week, the TTP claimed responsibility for a suicide attack in Pakistan that killed at least three people and left 20 wounded. That latest attack came a month after the Afghan Taliban, to whom the TTP has vowed allegiance, seized power in Afghanistan by toppling the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.

Top Pakistani security officials say Islamabad is in contact with the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan, pressing the Islamist group to prevent TTP members from using Afghan soil to attack Pakistan.

US Spots ‘Potential Movement’ of al-Qaida to Afghanistan

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Al Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahri

Jeff Seldin
VOA News
September 14, 2021

WASHINGTON – There are growing indications that supporters of both the al-Qaida and Islamic State terror groups have their sights set on Afghanistan, emboldened by the Taliban takeover of the country late last month.

Initial reports over the past week or so have highlighted an uptick in chatter among terrorists, expressing a desire to go to Afghanistan, but a top U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday that some already have begun the journey.

“We are already beginning to see some of the indications of some potential movement of al-Qaida to Afghanistan,” Central Intelligence Agency Deputy Director David Cohen said during a panel discussion at an intelligence summit outside of Washington.

“But it’s early days,” he said, warning that al-Qaida could reconstitute in as little as a year. “We will obviously keep a very close eye on that.”

U.S. intelligence officials declined to share specifics on the identities of the al-Qaida members making their way back to Afghanistan, or about where they were coming from, though a recent video posted online showed Amin al-Haq, who served with al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden during the battle of Tora Bora, returning to his native Nangarhar province.

There also have been lingering doubts from other intelligence agencies that some key al-Qaida leaders currently in Iran, like Saif al-Adel, the group’s second-in-command, will head back to Afghanistan given they have stronger connections elsewhere.

Still, the CIA warning follows concerns from international counterterrorism officials and analysts about Afghanistan reemerging as a terrorist safe haven.

“There’s no doubt that the chatter is about this,” Edmund Fitton-Brown, coordinator of the United Nations team that monitors the Islamic State group, al-Qaida and the Taliban, told an online forum Friday.

“There is definitely a very strong sort of sense of enthusiasm out there for Afghanistan,” he added.

Analysts, like Charles Lister at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, also have raised concerns, noting growing interest in Afghanistan from supporters of al-Qaida’s main rival, the Islamic State (IS).

When asked about the threat, U.S. officials who spoke to VOA last week on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence, admitted there was reason for concern. And even before the U.S. completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan, U.S. intelligence agencies were warning of a “trickle” of incoming foreign fighters.

Complicating matters for the U.S. and its allies is the newfound lack of visibility into developments on the ground due to the withdrawal.

“Our current capability in Afghanistan is not what it was six months ago or a year ago,” said the CIA’s Cohen, though he cautioned it was not an unsurmountable obstacle.

“We with the agency and with our partners have experience in collecting intelligence in in areas that are non-permissive and doing so without a physical presence on the ground,” he said. “We will be using many of those same techniques in Afghanistan as we work from over-the-horizon principally, although I think we will also look for ways to work from within the horizon to the extent that is possible.”

So far, the intelligence suggests both al-Qaida and IS-Khorasan are well on their way to reestablishing their capabilities.

“The current assessment, probably conservatively, is one to two years for al-Qaida to build some capability to at least threaten the homeland,” said Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Scott Berrier.

Other Western counterterrorism officials and aid workers in the region have warned that while al-Qaida is likely to keep a low profile for the foreseeable future, IS-Khorasan has for months been building up its infrastructure in Afghanistan and in neighboring countries.

In Afghanistan, the resistance begins

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Massoud

Bernard-Henry Levi via The Globe and Mail: I maintain that the nobility, beauty and greatness of humanity belong, in this case, not to the conquerors but to the conquered. Not to the barbarians, but to Ahmad Massoud, whom I did not hesitate to praise last year in the presence of his commanders, saying that a young lion had emerged in Panjshir. Lions can lose battles, but they remain lions – and this one will win! Click here to read more (external link).

Taliban Denies Deputy Prime Minister Baradar Shot Dead Over Internal Dispute

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Baradar

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
September 14, 2021

The Taliban is denying reports that the former head of their political office in Doha has been killed in a shoot-out with another senior Taliban figure during an argument over how to divide power in a Taliban-led caretaker government.

The denials come amid persistent rumors of internal divisions within the Taliban as it tries to transform from a guerrilla insurgency to a group that can govern Afghanistan. The Taliban also denies it is facing internal divisions.

Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen says Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the recently named deputy prime minister of the Taliban-led government, has “issued a voice message” rejecting “all those claims that he was injured or killed in a clash.”

“He says it is lies and totally baseless,” Shaheen said in a statement.

The Taliban also has released photos of a handwritten note claiming Baradar had recently left Kabul for Kandahar. But information being released by the Taliban has only served to fuel speculation about his fate.

Baradar has not been seen in public for several days. He was not part of a Taliban delegation that met in Kabul on September 12 with visiting Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani.

The Taliban has released video that it claims was taken of Baradar at a recent meeting in Afghanistan’s southern city of Kandahar. But the footage only shows the back of a man’s head. RFE/RL could not immediately verify the identity of the man shown.

The Taliban also has released photographs of Baradar that it claims were taken recently. But the dates those photographs were taken could not be independently confirmed.

Taliban supreme leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada also has not been seen in public since the Taliban seized Kabul on August 15. A written statement was issued last week in Mullah Haibatullah’s name to announce the Taliban’s caretaker government.

Speculation over the fate of both senior Taliban figures has been bolstered by the circumstances surrounding the death of the movement’s founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar, in 2013.

That’s because the Taliban’s leadership council, the so-called Quetta Shura, continued to issue statements in Mullah Omar’s name for two years after his death.

The Taliban only confirmed Mullah Omar’s death after the internationally backed Afghan government in Kabul announced in 2015 that he had died.

That set off bitter disputes among the insurgency’s leadership — with recriminations between Baradar’s allies in the Quetta Shura and a Taliban faction further to the east that is dominated by the so-called Haqqani network.

It took a restructuring of the Taliban’s military chain of command after Mullah Omar’s death to keep the insurgency united.

But now, as the Taliban has been transforming its military command into a governing structure, alliances and tribal configurations that kept the rival factions together in recent years are being tested.

Afghan security experts are questioning whether the Taliban will be able to stay united to govern, or soon splinter into regional fiefdoms.

Just two weeks ago, Baradar had been seen as the likely head of the Taliban caretaker government.

He has been one of the movement’s most recognized faces in recent years because of his role heading the Taliban political office in Doha.

Baradar was one of three deputy Taliban leaders until last week, when the Taliban-led caretaker government was announced.

He was the only deputy leader of the insurgency who was not named to head a major ministry.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, the insurgency’s deputy leader who heads the Haqqani network and commanded all Taliban military operations in the eastern half of Afghanistan, was named as caretaker interior minister.

Mullah Yaqoob Omar, the son of Mullah Omar who headed the insurgency’s military operations in the western half of the country, was named caretaker defense minister.

The Afghanistan Analysts Network concluded from those appointments that Baradar lost out in internal Taliban disputes over the formation of the caretaker government.

Experts from the Afghanistan Analysts Network say Mullah Haibatullah’s absence from all public and private events, nearly a month after the Taliban seized Kabul, suggests that he may no longer be alive.

They note that even the reclusive Mullah Omar had made some public appearances when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan during the late 1990s — although not on video. Mullah Omar also had met with foreign officials and had given radio statements and interviews before he died.

For now, the Afghanistan Analysts Network concludes, Mullah Haibatullah “appears to function as a symbolic figurehead who can unify without actually appearing or speaking.”

But Masato Toriya, a specialist on the region from Tokyo University, says the threat of a civil war reigniting in Afghanistan now looks quite real.

Toriya says internal rifts within the Taliban are being exacerbated by the Taliban-led government’s complete lack of management experience and deteriorating living conditions across Afghanistan.

“One cannot deny the prospect of Afghanistan’s new slide into civil war,” Toriya concludes.

With reporting by Reuters, The Guardian, BBC, and TASS

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.

Related

  • BBC: It has been said that the row stemmed from divisions over who in the Taliban should take credit for their victory in Afghanistan. Mr Baradar reportedly believes that the emphasis should be placed on diplomacy carried out by people like him, while members of the Haqqani group – which is run by one of the most senior Taliban figures – and their backers say it was achieved through fighting.

Ismail Khan: Taliban rule will not last, Panjshir resistance is expanding

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