Achakzai
New York Post: Disturbing footage has emerged of an Afghan police chief being executed by the Taliban — after he surrendered to the militants, according to reports. Former BBC journalist Nasrin Nawa posted the gruesome video which appears to show Haji Mullah Achakzai, head of the police in Badghis province near Herat. Click here to read more (external link).
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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 20, 2021
The German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) says Taliban fighters have shot and killed a close relative of one of its journalists, heightening international concerns over the safety of media workers and their families under the hard-line Islamist group’s rule.
The militants killed the relative and seriously wounded another on August 20 while conducting a house-to-house search for the journalist, according to the German broadcaster.
DW said other relatives managed to escape and were now on the run.
DW Director-General Peter Limbourg called on the German government to take action, saying the killing of a relative of its editor, who himself now works in Germany, “testifies to the acute danger in which all our employees and their families in Afghanistan find themselves.”
“It is evident that the Taliban are already carrying out organized searches for journalists, both in Kabul and in the provinces. We are running out of time!”
Reporters Without Borders expressed alarm at the news of the killing, saying it “confirms our worst fears.”
“The brutal action of the Taliban show that the lives of independent media workers in Afghanistan are in acute danger,” said Katja Gloger of the Paris-based group’s German section.
After seizing the Afghan capital, Kabul, on August 15, the Taliban’s leaders have tried to reassure Afghans and the international community, vowing a general “amnesty” for its opponents and saying it will be “positively different” from their brutal 1996-2001 rule.
With reporting by AP
Sohail Shaheen
Ariana: …”They should come forward and help us in the health sector and also infrastructure, and education sector and other various sectors. They can a come to explore our resources, natural resources. This is our general invitation to all countries…” Click here to read more (external link).
Amnesty International: Taliban fighters massacred nine ethnic Hazara men after taking control of Afghanistan’s Ghazni province last month, Amnesty International said today. On-the-ground researchers spoke to eyewitnesses who gave harrowing accounts of the killings, which took place between 4-6 July in the village of Mundarakht, Malistan district. Six of the men were shot and three were tortured to death, including one man who was strangled with his own scarf and had his arm muscles sliced off. Click here to read more (external link).
Taliban Militants in Kabul
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 19, 2021
The Taliban is stepping up a search for individuals who worked with the U.S. and NATO forces and those persons and their families could be now risking torture and executions, according to a confidential UN document seen by the media.
The report — provided by the UN’s threat-assessment consultants — says the group has “priority lists” of individuals it wants to apprehend.
The paper says most at risk are those who had central roles in the Afghan military, police, and intelligence units.
The Taliban has been conducting “targeted door-to-door visits” of individuals it wants to detain and their family members, the report says, adding that militants are screening individuals on the way to Kabul airport and have set up checkpoints in major cities.
The document, dated August 18, was written by the Norwegian Center for Global Analyses, an organization that provides intelligence to UN agencies.
“They are targeting the families of those who refuse to give themselves up, and prosecuting and punishing their families ‘according to Shari’a law,'” Christian Nellemann, the group’s executive director, told AFP.
“We expect both individuals previously working with NATO/U.S. forces and their allies, alongside with their family members to be exposed to torture and executions.
“This will further jeopardize Western intelligence services, their networks, methods, and ability to counter both the Taliban, [the Islamic State group], and other terrorist threats ahead,” Nellemann said.
The Taliban has launched a public-relations offensive since sweeping back into power on August 15, promising rights for women and an inclusive government.
The militants have also pledged a full amnesty for all those who worked with the Western-backed elected Afghan government.
Based on reporting by AFP and BBC
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Massoud
Ahmad Massoud via The Washington Post: I write from the Panjshir Valley today, ready to follow in my father’s footsteps, with mujahideen fighters who are prepared to once again take on the Taliban. We have stores of ammunition and arms that we have patiently collected since my father’s time, because we knew this day might come. Click here to read more (external link).
Joe Biden
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 19, 2021
U.S. President Joe Biden says he doesn’t believe the Taliban has changed and the militant group is now going through an “existential crisis” about whether it wants legitimacy on the global stage after seizing power in Afghanistan.
When asked in an ABC interview that aired on August 19 if he thought the Taliban had changed, Biden responded, “No.”
“I think they’re going through sort of an existential crisis about do they want to be recognized by the international community as being a legitimate government? I’m not sure they do,” Biden said.
Western powers face the decision whether to deal with the Taliban they had fought for nearly 20 years after the militants seized control of Kabul on August 15, following a blitz offensive that saw a string of cities across the country fall to the fundamentalist group in quick succession, triggering fear that it will reimpose its brutal rule.
Taliban leaders have said they want peace and an inclusive government — within the values of Islam. They also have vowed not to take revenge against opponents and to respect women’s rights within the framework of Islamic law.
The president said that the threat from Al-Qaeda and their affiliate organizations is “greater in other parts of the world than it is in Afghanistan, adding that the world cannot ignore the “looming problems” posed by Al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria or East Africa, where he said the threat to the United States is “significantly greater.”
Biden also pushed back against concerns about the treatment of women and girls in the country adding that military force is not the answer to the issue.
“The idea that we’re able to deal with the rights of women around the world by military force is not rational,” he said. “There are a lot of places where women are being subjugated. The way to deal with that is putting economic, diplomatic, and international pressure on them to change their behavior.”
Under the hard-line version of Shari’a law that the Taliban imposed when they ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, women and girls were mostly denied education and employment.
Full face coverings became mandatory in public, and women could not leave home without a male companion.
On August 18, Biden said that U.S. forces could remain in Kabul beyond the August 31 deadline if necessary to evacuate all American citizens.
With reporting by AFP, AP, and the BBC
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Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada
VOA News
August 19, 2021
Taliban fighters captured major areas in quick succession on their way to seizing Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, Sunday, 20 years after U.S.-led forces knocked the group from power. Here are some of its key leaders.
Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada
He is the Taliban’s supreme leader, a position he took following the death of his predecessor, Akhtar Mansour, in a 2016 U.S. drone strike. He previously served as a senior judge in the court system during the Taliban’s earlier rule of Afghanistan. After the 2001 U.S. invasion, he fled across the border into Pakistan. His public profile has been limited, mainly consisting of the release of messages during Islamic holidays.
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar
Baradar is the Taliban’s deputy chief for political affairs and one of the group’s co-founders. He also fled to Pakistan in 2001 and in 2010 he was arrested in the city of Karachi in a joint raid by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Pakistani counterterrorism forces.
As the administration of former U.S. president Donald Trump pursued peace talks with the Taliban in 2018, it persuaded Pakistan to release Baradar. He went on to oversee the group’s negotiation team during talks in Doha, Qatar, and met with then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in September 2020.
Baradar flew to the city of Kandahar on Tuesday, returning to Afghanistan for the first time in 20 years.
Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob
The son of Taliban founder Mullah Omar, who died in 2013, he oversees the group’s military operations and serves as a deputy leader. Akhundzada appointed him to the post in May 2020. He previously served as the head of the Taliban’s military commission for about half of Afghanistan’s provinces. A United Nations report in June said Yaqoob and another top leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, “oppose peace talks and favor a military solution.”
Sirajuddin Haqqani
He leads the Haqqani network, a militant group designated by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization in 2012 and one behind some of the deadliest attacks against U.S.-led coalition forces during the war. Haqqani is the son of Haqqani network founder Jalaluddin Haqqani and serves as a deputy leader of the Taliban.
The U.S. Justice Department has offered a $10 million reward for information leading to Haqqani’s capture.
Mawlavi Abdul Hakim
Hakim is a hardline cleric and close confidant of Akhundzada. He led the Taliban’s negotiating team at the Doha peace talks and also headed the group’s own judicial system it enforced in areas it controlled in Afghanistan.
(Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, AFP and Reuters.)
Sirajuddin Haqqani
Jamie Dettmer
VOA News
August 19, 2021
The Taliban has placed security for the Afghan capital, Kabul, in the hands of senior members of the Haqqani Network, which has close ties with foreign jihadist groups including a long-standing association with al-Qaida.
Western intelligence officials say the assignment is alarming and undercuts Taliban promises to tread a more moderate path than the movement did when it ruled the country from 1996 to 2001.
It also raises the prospect of al-Qaida being welcomed back to Afghanistan, they fear, which would break promises made by Taliban leaders during diplomatic talks in Qatar with U.S. officials last year, not to allow the country to again become a safe haven for foreign jihadists.
On Thursday, Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of Afghanistan’s National Reconciliation Council, a body of notables and elders involved in the Qatar talks, met with Khalil al-Rahman Haqqani and his entourage in Kabul. Abdullah later indicated publicly that Khalil al-Rahman Haqqani would be overseeing security in the Afghan capital and had provided assurances that he would “work hard to provide the right security for the citizens of Kabul.”
The U.S. Department of the Treasury designated Khalil al-Rahman Haqqani a global terrorist in February 2011, offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. He’s also included on the United Nations terrorist list.
The meeting between Abdullah and Khalil al-Rahman Haqqani came hours before the Taliban declared the formation of an Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
“The fact we have Khalil al-Rahman Haqqani in charge of Kabul security is dismaying,” a British intelligence official told VOA on the condition of anonymity. “The Haqqani and al-Qaida have a long history together, you could argue they are intertwined, and it is highly unlikely they will cut ties.”
Retired senior British diplomat Ivor Roberts told VOA that assigning members of the Haqqani network to oversee the security of Kabul is akin to the “fox being put in charge of a chicken coop.”
Roberts, who’s president of the Counter Extremism Project, a non-profit network that researches extremist groups, said he was surprised at the move. “I thought from the PR point of view, the Taliban was being a bit smarter than that,” he said.
“Instead, they’re putting forward the worst elements of their loose coalition, which sends a terrible signal to women, girls and civil society. And I think it increases the possibility of Afghanistan becoming a breeding ground for international terrorism again.”
He added, “I don’t think they’re ever cut ties with al-Qaida. They’re deeply embedded with al-Qaida and always have been.”
In an accord U.S. President Donald Trump struck with the Taliban in February 2020, the group’s leaders agreed to “not allow any of its members, other individuals or groups, including al-Qaida, to use the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies.”
Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida’s founder, directed from his base in Afghanistan the September 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington, which prompted the U.S.-led invasion of the central Asian country 20 years ago.
On Monday, explaining the reasons for his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan, President Joe Biden noted in a televised address, “We went to Afghanistan almost 20 years ago with clear goals: get those who attacked us on September 11, 2001, and make sure al-Qaida could not use Afghanistan as a base from which to attack us again.”
He added, “We did that. We severely degraded al-Qaida in Afghanistan. We never gave up the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and we got him. That was a decade ago.”
Biden said the terror threat has “metastasized well beyond Afghanistan” and the U.S. has the ability to “conduct effective counterterrorism missions against terrorist groups in multiple countries where we don’t have a permanent military presence. If necessary, we will do the same in Afghanistan.”
The Haqqani Network is considered an offshoot of the Taliban and has more autonomy than other factions within the militant movement, but over the years since its establishment in the 1980s, initially as an anti-Soviet insurgent force with American and Pakistani backing, the network has become more integrated within the Taliban, say counterterrorism experts.
The network’s leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is also one of the Taliban’s deputy leaders and is the nephew of Khalil al-Rahman Haqqani, the man now charged with overseeing security in the Afghan capital.
The Haqqani family comes from southeastern Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan. The network has been accused — or claimed responsibility — for some of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan, including the 2008 assault on the five-star Serena Hotel in Kabul, the 2012 attack involving a dozen Haqqani fighters wearing suicide vests on a U.S. base in Khost, and the 2017 truck bombing near the German Embassy in Kabul that left 96 people dead. The network is also thought by Western intelligence officials to have been behind the 2008 abduction of American David Rohde, a New York Times reporter who managed to escape eight months into his captivity.
During the uprising against occupying Russian forces in the 1980s, the Haqqani group was the first of the anti-Soviet insurgent groups to welcome foreign Muslim fighters. They included Osama bin Laden, who trained in a Haqqani-run camp. When bin Laden formed al-Qaida in the 1990s, the two groups formed an association and, according to Don Rassler and Vahid Brown, authors of the 2013 book Fountainhead of Jihad, evolved together.
The Haqqani Network and al-Qaida ran joint training camps in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region after the U.S. invasion, and according to author Peter Bergen in the book The Battle for Tora Bora, the Haqqani Network helped bin Laden to escape Afghanistan when American forces were closing in on him in 2001.
The network considered forming a joint unit with al-Qaida this year, according to a U.S. Treasury Department report in January, which highlighted the continuing links between the two groups despite the Taliban assurances to U.S. diplomats in Qatar.
In a five-page memorandum to the Pentagon’s inspector general, the U.S. Treasury said al-Qaida “capitalizes on its relationship with the Taliban through its network of mentors and, who are embedded with the Taliban, providing advice, guidance, and financial support.” It said senior figures of the Haqqani Network “have discussed forming a new joint unit of armed fighters in cooperation with and funded by al-Qaida.”
Taliban officials deny there are any continuing ties with al-Qaida, although they concede there might be residual sympathies.
Ken McCallum, director of Britain’s MI5 intelligence agency, warned last month that while al-Qaida’s infrastructure in Afghanistan had been dismantled, the group might seek to “re-establish some training facilities there.”
Four months after Trump inked his accord last year with the Taliban, a U.N. report to the Security Council said the Taliban had consulted with al-Qaida during negotiations and had “offered guarantees that it would honor their historical ties.”
“Relations between the Taliban, especially the Haqqani Network and al-Qaida remain close, based on friendship, a history of shared struggle, ideological sympathy and intermarriage,” the report said.
Asked about a possible al-Qaida resurgence in Afghanistan, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that it is in the “self-interest” of the Taliban not to harbor a terrorist group that wants to harm the West.
“They know what happened the last time they harbored a terrorist group that attacked the United States. It’s not in their self-interest to allow a repeat of that,” Blinken said on NBC’s Meet the Press.
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CBS News: Afghan taekwondo athlete Zakia Khudadadi was supposed to be on her way to the Tokyo Paralympics and become her country’s first ever female participant in the Games. Instead, as the Taliban have taken control of Afghanistan, the 23-year-old tells CBS News she and her family are living a “nightmare.” Click here to read more (external link).
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