Salima Mazari
Times of India: Taliban fighters have taken Salima Mazari, one of the only three women governors of Afghanistan, into their custody, according to local reports. Mazari is the Hazara district Governor of Chaharkint, Balkh. Mazari, who is known for raising her voice against the Taliban, had said earlier there will be no place for women if the insurgents take control of the country. Click here to read more (external link).
Ashraf Ghani
CNBC: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who fled his country as its capital Kabul was being overtaken by Taliban fighters, is now in the United Arab Emirates, the UAE government has confirmed. “The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation can confirm that the UAE has welcomed President Ashraf Ghani and his family into the country on humanitarian grounds,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement early Wednesday evening local time. Click here to read more (external link).
Donald Trump
Ariana: Former President Donald Trump described the recent events in Afghanistan as the worst humiliation in American history but defended the agreement his administration struck with the Taliban last year. “It’s a great thing that we’re getting out, but nobody has ever handled a withdrawal worse than Joe Biden,” the former president told Fox News Tuesday. “This is the greatest embarrassment, I believe, in the history of our country,” he said. Click here to read more (external link).
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Taliban Militant Leadership
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 18, 2021
Gunshots rang out in Kabul and some militants violently broke up a protest in eastern Afghanistan as foreign powers watch every action of the Taliban to see if it will live up to its promises of having left the group’s brutal human rights record behind.
Hundreds boarded planes and left the war-torn country on August 18 as U.S. and British troops oversaw a massive evacuation of people, many of whom helped U.S.-led foreign forces over two decades, after chaos earlier in the week forced the Kabul airport, the country’s only functioning port of exit, to temporarily close.
After seizing the capital, Kabul, following a blistering offensive that swept up cities and toppled the Western-backed government, the Taliban said on August 17 that it wanted peace and an inclusive government — within the values of Islam.
However, video reports showed some militants in the capital whipping people who were trying to make their way through massive crowds to get to the airport, while gunshots could be heard in the background.
A NATO security official told Reuters that 17 people were wounded on August 18 in a stampede at a gate to the airport.
The militants on August 18 also quashed a rare public show of dissent in the city of Jalalabad, where video footage showed militants firing shots and attacking dozens of people who had gathered in support of the black, red, and green Afghan national flag a day before Afghanistan’s Independence Day, which commemorates the end of British rule in 1919.
A reporter for a local news agency said he and a TV cameraman from another agency were beaten by the Taliban as they tried to cover the unrest.
Reuters quoted witnesses as saying three people were killed in the violence. The agency said the deaths — which could not be verified — took place when the marchers tried to install Afghanistan’s flag at a square. AP reported that one person was killed and six were wounded in Jalalabad.
The insurgents have raised their own flag — a white banner with a black “shahada,” or statement of faith, on it — in the territories they have seized.
The reports came after some people were reportedly beaten by militants as they tried to reach the airport, and news that the Taliban have blown up the statue of a Shi’ite militia leader who fought against them during the civil war in the 1990s, sowed further doubt about their true intentions.
“We will judge this regime based on the choices it makes, and by its actions rather than by its words, on its attitude to terrorism, to crime and narcotics, as well as humanitarian access, and the rights of girls to receive an education,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Parliament, which was recalled on August 18 from its summer break to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.
The United States has sent military reinforcements to protect the evacuation of foreigners and Afghan civilians, with troop numbers swelling to 4,000 on August 17 after the airport was temporarily closed because thousands of Afghans flooded the airfield in a panic to escape the Taliban.
In Kabul, there have been signs of life cautiously resuming, with Kabul-based journalist Ali Latifi saying early in the day that he saw stores and restaurants reopening.
“Crowds are back (only a few dozen women, though), cars and generators are back and much fewer Talibs out on the streets as the last 48 hrs,” he tweeted.
Another journalist said that Kabul’s “famous ice cream carts started playing their loud music again this morning.”
“In the last 20 years they were often misused for IEDs, suicide attacks in Deh Mazang, or as a front for Taliban surveillance. But today, just ice cream,” Bilal Sarwary wrote on Twitter.
As Afghanistan adjusts to its new reality, Western powers face the decision whether to deal with the Islamist insurgents they had fought for nearly 20 years.
A senior member of the movement told Reuters on August 18 that the Taliban leaders will show themselves to the world, unlike during the past two decades when its leaders had lived largely in secret.
“Slowly, gradually, the world will see all our leaders, there will be no shadow of secrecy,” said the Taliban member, who declined to be identified.
A member of the Taliban political office in Qatar, Mullah Khairullah Khairkhwah, said that leaders of the group were in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar to discuss the formation of an internationally acceptable government for Afghanistan.
Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar arrived in Kandahar on August 17 from Qatar, where he has spent months leading talks with the United States and then Afghan peace negotiators.
The Taliban has said it had been in touch with Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the Afghan National Reconciliation Council, former President Hamid Karzai; as well as Gulbudin Hekmatyar, leader of Hizb-e Islami political and paramilitary group.
A member of the Taliban administration who declined to be identified said on August 18 that a senior leader of the Haqqani network militant group, Anas Haqqani, had met with Karzai, who was accompanied by Abdullah. He did not provide further details.
The Haqqani network is linked to the Taliban. It has been accused in recent years of some of the most deadly militant attacks in Afghanistan.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said the EU was suspending payments of development assistance to Afghanistan “until we clarify the situation” with Taliban leaders, warning that the group must respect UN Security Council resolutions and human rights to earn access to funds.
That move comes after the United States decided to freeze Afghan central bank reserves in U.S. accounts, depriving the Taliban of billions of dollars.
Ajmal Ahmaty, the bank’s acting governor who has now fled Kabul, said on August 18 that the country had some $9 billion in reserves abroad and not in physical cash inside the country.
Ahmaty wrote on Twitter that the majority of that — some $7 billion — was being held in U.S. Federal Reserve bonds, assets, and gold.
The Taliban is on the U.S. sanctions list, meaning they are likely to have difficulty accessing external funds unless Washington and its allies recognize the new government.
Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world and is highly dependent on foreign aid, which has covered about three-quarters of the government budget, according to the World Bank.
U.S. President Joe Biden and Johnson said they had agreed to hold a virtual meeting of Group of Seven leaders next week to discuss a common approach to Afghanistan.
The head of the British military, meanwhile, said on August 18 that the world may discover that the insurgents cast as militants by the West for decades have become “more reasonable” than when they ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001, but others were doubtful.
“They’ve taken power by force and they’re now desperate for international recognition, from China, from Russia, and the West, they need that. So of course they’re going to use these charming words about equal opportunities for women,” Charlie Herbert, a former British Army major general who served in Afghanistan, told Sky News.
The British government says it is planning to resettle up to 20,000 Afghan refugees in Britain, with an initial target of resettling 5,000 within the first year.
The new plan is on top of the existing scheme for interpreters and other staff who have worked for Britain. Some 5,000 Afghans and family members are expected to benefit from that policy.
As Biden faces increased criticism at home that the United States’ reputation as a global power had been badly tarnished, a government watchdog painted a bleak portrait of two decades of U.S. intervention in Afghanistan.
In a report published late on August 17, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction concluded that the U.S. intervention in the war-torn country had “bright spots,” such as lower child-mortality rates, increases in per capita gross domestic product, and increased literacy rates.
But it also questioned whether these gains were “commensurate” with the $145 billion spent over the past 20 years to try to rebuild Afghanistan to be a sustainable democracy after U.S. troops left.
Among the areas of failure identified in the report, administrations consistently “underestimated” the time required to rebuild the country and “misunderstood” its context.
With reporting by AFP, AP, Reuters, the BBC, and dpa
This story also includes reporting by Radio Azadi correspondents on the ground in Afghanistan. Their names are being withheld for their protection.
Related
As the Taliban completed its rapid takeover of Afghanistan in recent days, they captured the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, 23 years after last seizing it and massacring several thousand of its inhabitants. Two women who survived that massacre spoke to VOA about the family members they lost in the Taliban killing spree and their concerns about the future, in this report by Mahdy Mehraeen.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 18, 2021
The United States has frozen Afghan central bank reserves in U.S. accounts, depriving the Taliban of billions of dollars.
“Any central bank assets the Afghan government have in the United States will not be made available to the Taliban,” a U.S. administration official said on August 17.
The administration of President Joe Biden made the decision over the weekend as the Taliban seized the capital, Kabul, on August 15 following a blistering offensive that swept up cities and toppled the Western-backed government.
According to the International Monetary Fund, the Da Afghanistan Bank’s gross reserves totaled $9.4 billion at the end of April.
Most of the reserves are believed to be held at the New York Federal Reserve Bank and other U.S. financial institutions. The assets include dollars, gold, and U.S. treasuries.
The Taliban is on the U.S. sanctions list, meaning they are likely to have difficulty accessing external funds unless Washington and its allies recognize the new government.
In addition to freezing assets, Washington could also block aid to Afghanistan from international lenders such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world and is highly dependent on foreign aid, which has covered about three-quarters of the government budget, according to the World Bank.
With reporting by AFP, Bloomberg, and Reuters
Related
By Jonny Tickle
RT / August 17, 2021
The capture of Afghanistan by the Taliban is “another American scam against Muslims.” That’s according to Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia’s Chechnya region, who suggested that the terrorist group is controlled by Washington.
Speaking on a video posted by one of his sons, Adam, Kadyrov urged everyone to be on guard.
“America has come up with another scam against Muslims. They said they would never get out of [Afghanistan], and now they’ve abandoned everyone and run away,” Kadyrov said. “Imagine, for decades, people have been dying there. Five years ago, there were already more than two million civilians killed!”
According to the Chechen leader, the Taliban is an American project and is not to be trusted. He compared the group to Bin Laden, the former leader of Al-Qaeda, who Washington funded in the war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
“So we, and our allied nations, need to strengthen our borders, prepare for the worst,” he continued, noting that Uzbeks, Tajiks, Kyrgyz, and Turkmen people must defend their borders well.
“It’s no problem for us. We will stop anyone who threatens our state, our sovereignty and our people,” he said.
Kadyrov, an ardent Muslim, regularly speaks out against terrorist organizations, such as Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). Like IS, the Russian Supreme Court declared the Taliban to be a terrorist organization on February 14, 2003, and its activities are outlawed nationwide.
The situation in Afghanistan has intensified in recent weeks, following the US decision to withdraw its troops from the country. On Sunday, militants from the Taliban entered the Afghan capital of Kabul and declared that they had taken control of the entire nation, including all its major cities and border checkpoints. On the same day, ousted Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.
Ghani became president of Afghanistan in September 2014, marking the first time in the country’s history that power was democratically transferred. Since his election, Ghani has enjoyed a close relationship with the US, which has pumped almost a trillion dollars into the country. According to a 2019 study by Brown University, Washington has spent around $978 billion in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2001.
By Mike Eckel
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 17, 2021
Chaos enveloped Kabul’s main airport, with thousands of Afghans frantically rushing to flee Taliban fighters while U.S. Marines sought to provide security for American diplomats and allies being evacuated.
Across town outside the Russian Embassy on August 16, it was a different scene: Taliban fighters taking up guard duties at the outer perimeter of the sprawling post: steel, brick, and barbed-wire walls outside; fountains, manicured lawns and rose bushes inside.
“They made a good impression on us, proper guys, well-armed, stood around the outer perimeter of the embassy so that no one could break through to us: not a terrorist, not a madman,” Ambassador Dmitry Zhirnov said in a televised interview with Russian state TV. “Taliban representatives assured us again that they will not touch a hair on the heads of Russian diplomats there. They said, ‘You can safely continue working.'”
Zhirnov’s unruffled remarks, and his elaborate praise for members of a militant group that is officially designated a terrorist group by the Russian government, belie a far more complicated calculus for Moscow following the Taliban takeover.
On the one hand, the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan means one less location close to what Russia sees as its historical sphere of influence where Washington has a formidable military deployment, a perennial source of anxiety for Russian planners.
But the sudden, messy vacuum the United States is leaving behind means a new set of uncertainties and potential problems for the Kremlin.
At the very least, there’s one reaction coming from Moscow that was easy to foresee: gloating over the fact that the United States, in the Kremlin’s eyes, has failed at nation building and suffered a blow to its image on the world stage.
“To some degree it came as a surprise,” Zamir Kabulov, the Kremlin’s special envoy for Afghan affairs, said of the quick collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.
“We proceeded from the understanding that the Afghan Army…would still resist for some time. But apparently, we were too optimistic in assessing the quality of the armed forces trained by the Americans and NATO,” he told the Moscow radio station Ekho Moskvy.
He also pointedly contrasted the fast-paced developments this summer, ahead of the planned withdrawal of U.S. military forces by August 31, with the Soviet pullout in 1989 after a nearly decade-long war of occupation. The Soviet-backed government stayed in power in Kabul for nearly three years after Soviet troops. The U.S.-backed government of Ashraf Ghani effectively collapsed even before the U.S. withdrawal.
Soviet-backed Afghan leader Mohammad Najibullah’s regime “stood for another three years,” Kabulov said. “The regime they created collapsed even before the Americans left. This is where the fundamental difference lies.”
The opportunity to make such comparisons may be a benefit, at least in terms of propaganda, but on a practical level the developments present problems for Moscow.
One of them: How do you refer to the new government in Kabul when its members are considered terrorists under Russian law — a designation, since 2003, that obligates Russian media to include a tedious disclaimer in all news articles mentioning them?
A more nuanced political situation might suit the Kremlin better than full Taliban rule, giving Russia a chance to gain influence and play to various sides as the United States steps back.
“For Russia, the formation of a transitional government in Afghanistan, where the Taliban would invite other participants in Moscow meetings, would be one of the best possible scenarios,” Kirill Krivosheyev, a political observer and newspaper columnist, wrote in an opinion piece for the Carnegie Moscow Center. “This would make it possible, on the one hand, not to directly recognize the authority of the organization declared terrorist, and on the other, not to spoil relations with the Taliban.”
1996 Vs. 2021
Moscow’s long-standing fear of instability on its southern borders is the primary factor in its calculations with Kabul. That depends on the ability of the Central Asian nations bordering Afghanistan — Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan– to defend their borders and keep Taliban fighters, and extremist ideology, from destabilizing their own societies.
But Moscow has quietly built up its diplomatic ties with the Taliban for several years now. And ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks make up a sizable proportion of Afghanistan’s population, meaning they also have longstanding cultural, linguistic, and economic levers to pull on the Kabul government.
“While Russia may be open to limited forms of cooperation with major powers such as China, India, and even the United States on Afghanistan and regional security, it has also invested directly in cultivating relationships with senior Taliban leaders,” Matthew Rojansky, director of the Kennan Institute in Washington, D.C., said in an analysis. “Consequently, Russia now has some ability to exert direct leverage within Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.”
In fact, Kabulov suggested that, while the Taliban takeover came swiftly in the end, Russia may have been preparing for the possibility for years.
“It is not in vain that we have made contacts with the Taliban movement for the last seven years, discussed many points,” he said in his interview with Ekho Moskvy. “And we saw that yes, this force would eventually, if not fully come to power, in any case play a leading role in the future in Afghanistan.”
The last time the Taliban came to power was in 1996, amid civil war and near total anarchy, Moscow was more fearful of the consequences.
Russia itself was roiling still from the Soviet collapse five years earlier. It also feared the weakness of the newly independent Central Asian states who were dealing with their own turmoil: Tajikistan was racked by its own civil war in the 1990s; the Ferghana Valley, whose borders skein through Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, regularly saw outbursts of violence; the First Chechen War had cracked the entire region’s door to Islamic extremist ideology.
That isn’t the case now, said Ivan Klyszcz, a researcher and political scientist at the University of Tartu, in Estonia.
“The [Taliban] takeover doesn’t change Moscow’s fundamental policy toward Afghanistan: to keep the instability of the civil war away from Central Asia,” he told RFE/RL.
Having open lines of communication — Zhirnov met on August 17 with Taliban representatives for the first time since the Taliban takeover — also doesn’t necessarily mean Moscow will be able to drive policy.
“It’s more about making sure they have privileged or constant communication with the Taliban, especially where it comes to the borders with Central Asia, and the fight with [Islamic State],” Klyszcz said.
“The main problem for Russia will be making sure that the Taliban does not try to foment violence, or spread its harsh version of Islam, beyond Afghanistan’s border,” said Arkady Dubnov, a longtime expert on South and Central Asia, said in an interview with Republic magazine. Depending on this, “Moscow will promote political recognition of the Taliban and getting them taken off the United Nations list of terrorist organizations.”
“One can hardly expect any significant financial assistance from Moscow to Kabul. This will be done by the Americans and the collective West, because it is largely responsible for what happened in Afghanistan today. Russia is, as they say, out of the business here,” he said.
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Empty Words?
It’s the fight with Islamic State, and other extremist groups like Al-Qaeda, where Moscow’s interests are more likely to dovetail with those of the United States and the West: The Kremlin not only was happy to support U.S. invasion of Afghanistan 20 years ago, it facilitated the use of Russian airspace, and signaled support for the United States to use bases in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
As time went on, however, Moscow’s tolerance for the U.S. presence in Central Asia waned, and it worked to push the Americans out in the 2000s. Since then, Moscow has bolstered a major military base in Tajikistan and more recently held military exercises with both Tajik and Uzbek forces along the border.
Still, Washington and Moscow aren’t entirely adversarial where South Asia is concerned.
The top U.S. and Russian diplomats, Antony Blinken and Sergei Lavrov, spoke by phone on August 16, discussing “the situation in Afghanistan after the flight of the country’s leader, the disintegration of the existing government bodies, and a de-facto ongoing regime change,” according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.
The two also agreed “to continue consultations” that would involve China, Pakistan, other “interested nations” and to press the United Nations to organize some sort of meeting of Afghan society and government.
Aleksei Pushkov, a sharp-tongued Russian lawmaker and perennial critic of the West, proclaimed the U.S. pullout “a powerful blow to the international reputation of the United States and its capacity for “global leadership.”
“The decline of a whole school of thought, a whole system of myths and ideas’ about the ‘end of history’ and the triumph of the Western model,” he called the defeat in a post to Telegram.
But Russian gloating over the U.S. withdrawal shouldn’t be taken overly seriously, Klyszcz said.
“They’re mostly empty words, a convenient way to push a narrative about U.S. decline, the rise of multipolarity, the rise of other partners in the global system etc.” he said. “But it also has a strategic value, it’s not as much about U.S. decline, it’s about Western models of governance and conflict management. Moscow can use the [U.S. failures in Afghanistan] to promote its own model of conflict resolution by reducing the prestige of the competing Western model.”
Amrullah Saleh
August 17, 2021
MOSCOW, August 17 – RIA Novosti. Vice President Amrullah Saleh’s forces have recaptured the Taliban area in the Charikar area in Parwan province north of Kabul, a military source in the Afghan capital told RIA Novosti.
“Fighting is now going on in the Panjshir area,” the source said.
Ten thousand Afghan army personnel are currently being sent to the region under the leadership of General Abdul-Rashid Dostum.
The strategically important road through the Salang Tunnel passes through Charikar, which connects Kabul with Mazar-i-Sharif, the largest city in northern Afghanistan.
Earlier Saleh said that, unlike the fled President Ashraf Ghani, he remained in the country and, according to the Constitution, is the interim head of state.
Several weeks ago, against the background of the withdrawal of the American contingent from Afghanistan, the situation in the republic sharply deteriorated: the Taliban launched an offensive on large cities. On Sunday, they took complete control of Kabul and seized power in the country.
Taliban * political office spokesman Muhammad Naim said the 20-year war is over and a new form of government will soon become clear.
* Terrorist organization banned in Russia.