Ariana: Afghanistan has won the first two of its matches in the ACBS 36th Asian Men’s Snooker Championship 2021. Afghan snooker player Raees Khan Sindzai won his first match against his rival from Bahrain with a score of 4-0. Click here to read more (external link).
By RFE/RL’s Tajik Service
September 13, 2021
DUSHANBE — Tajik authorities say they have accepted around 100 Afghan nationals from a group of more than 200 people, including many women and children, who crossed the border overnight to flee Afghanistan because of the Taliban’s takeover of the country.
Multiple sources in the local government in Tajikistan’s southeastern district of Hamdoni told RFE/RL on September 13 that the Afghan nationals crossed the Panj River that divides the two nations.
According to the sources, some 100 Afghans were transferred to a Dushanbe suburb, while the rest were sent back to Afghanistan.
The information has not been officially confirmed.
Central Asian states bordering Afghanistan have been concerned about security threats emanating from the war-torn country and the potential for tens of thousands of refugees to pour over the border.
Last week, the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) held military exercises in another Central Asian nation — Kyrgyzstan — to prepare for any possible trouble. CSTO members include Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan.
In August, Tajikistan held military maneuvers with Russia and Uzbekistan, while Uzbekistan held separate drills with Russia along the Uzbek-Afghan border.
The CSTO has scheduled three more sets of military maneuvers close to the Tajik-Afghan border in October, with a fourth scheduled for November.
The Taliban has sought to reassure neighboring countries and Russia that it poses no threat since gaining control last month over almost all of Afghanistan’s territory, including Kabul, the capital.
Russia, which has military bases in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, has vowed to defend Moscow’s allies in Central Asia against any security threat from Afghanistan.
After undergoing the traumatic experience of leaving their home country, thousands of Afghans are relieved to be in the United States. Many are finding, however, that they have been granted temporary status, forbidding them to work or attend school. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti takes a look at how evacuees are coping with the lack of benefits and opportunity in a foreign country.
VOA News
September 12, 2021
Some Afghan pilots who have been held in Uzbekistan for about a month began leaving Sunday for the United Arab Emirate, Reuters reported.
A U.S.-trained Afghan pilot told Reuters that one group would depart Uzbekistan on Sunday for the UAE under a U.S.-brokered deal, despite Taliban demands that they return to Afghanistan.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that pilots would go to the U.S. military base in Doha, Qatar, before being relocated to third countries.
It was not immediately clear what would happen to the 46 aircraft in Uzbekistan, which included A-29 light attack planes and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, according to Reuters.
Hours before the fall of Kabul on August 15, a total of 585 Afghan military personnel and their families flew to Uzbekistan aboard 22 military aircraft and 24 helicopters. They were intercepted by Uzbek military aircraft and forced to land at an international airport in Termez, just across the border from Afghanistan.
The Taliban pressured the Uzbek government to hand over the aircraft and the pilots, current and former U.S. officials told Reuters. The Taliban seized aircraft including helicopters and drones late last month and have demanded that any vehicles taken before they declared their takeover of Kabul be returned.
Uzbekistan, which supported the Taliban before last month’s takeover, had urged the United States to take action because they feared increased tensions with their neighbors around the pilots.
Neither the U.S. State Department, the United Nations nor the Taliban have publicly commented on Sunday’s reported development.
Pilots at the Uzbek camp near the city of Termez described tense situations, restrictions on movement and a lack of medicine and food, prompting outrage from international rights groups.
About a week ago, according to Reuters, U.S. officials arrived in the camp to screen the Afghans using biometrics since many fled with just what they wore.
John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Uzbekistan, praised the evacuation, telling Reuters, “I hope we have plans under way to make sure the aircraft they got out get back to the United States and certainly do not return to the Taliban.”
“Iran should not allow Pakistan to play the role of the U.S. in Afghanistan.”
Iranian MP: Pakistan's ISI head is involved in #PanjshirValley offensive as well as the formation of the Taliban cabinet. pic.twitter.com/5FpUcQdLN9
— Tehran Times (@TehranTimes79) September 12, 2021
Tajikistan's President Emomali Rahman says he will not abandon the Afghan people "we are with you, don't worry, this too shall pass" following an Afghan singer's performance to mark Tajikistan's independence day pic.twitter.com/kr7qYxX7PJ
— Yalda Hakim (@BBCYaldaHakim) September 12, 2021
Afghanistan Analysts Network: Set alongside their sustained military campaign in the Panjshir, the only province that held out against the Taleban takeover, and their violent response to protests across the country, it seems the movement’s priorities have coalesced – internal cohesion, monopolisation of power, silencing of open dissent and dividing the ‘spoils of war’, in terms of government posts, between themselves. Also noticeable, reports AAN’s Martine van Bijlert (with input from Kate Clark and Thomas Ruttig), is the absence, still, of Taleban supreme leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada. Click here to read more (external link).