Afghan Politicians React to War in Panjshir

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Dr. Abdullah

Tolo News: Abdullah, referring to the war in Panjshir, wrote on his Facebook page that imposing demands on people by force will not have positive results and will lead to the continuation of conflict and suffering. Mohaqiq, condemning the attack on Panjshir, wrote on his Facebook page that Panjshir did not deserve such a large-scale and cruel offensive. Mohaqiq also warned against “foreign intervention.” Nabil has also said the current situation is not acceptable to the people of Afghanistan. He sharply criticized what he has called Pakistan’s intervention in Afghanistan. Click here to read more (external link).

Who Is Mawlawi Akhundzada, The Taliban’s ‘Supreme Leader’ Of Afghanistan?

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Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada

By Abubakar Siddique
September 7, 2021
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

The Afghan Taliban has named a reclusive, hard-line Sunni cleric as its supreme leader in a still-unrecognized governing structure weeks after a dramatic takeover in which the militants seized most of Afghanistan even before the final withdrawal of U.S. and allied forces.

Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada, 55, was already the radical fundamentalist group’s appointed leader. That’s a position he secured in May 2016, days after the second leader in the Taliban’s quarter-century history, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansur, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in southwestern Pakistan.

On September 7 Ahmadullah Wasiq, a Taliban spokesman, confirmed to the BBC that Akhundzada will be formally called “commander of the faithful.”

“[Akhundzada] is a religious figure who commands tremendous respect because of his religious credentials,” Afghan journalist Sami Yousafzai told RFE/RL’s Gandhara. “He was a senior Taliban judge and a close confidant to the movement’s founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar.”

Akhundzada is often referred to as Shaikhul Hadis, a Deobandi — or Sunni revivalist — clerical title signifying his status as an authority on the life and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. “He is an Islamic scholar and has authored several books [on religious issues],” Yousafzai noted.

He said that after the fall of the Taliban regime to U.S.-led invasion forces in late 2001, Akhundzada joined the movement’s leaders to seek refuge in the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan.

“He used to run a madrasah near Quetta,” Yousafzai said of Akhundzada’s time leading a religious school in exile in Balochistan’s provincial capital. “He was known as Akhundzada of Kuchlak and frequently addressed graduation ceremonies of various madrasahs in the region.” Kuchlak is a small town near Quetta where many senior Taliban leaders were believed to have sheltered over the past two decades.

Recent Taliban statements indicate that Akhundzada will likely determine the strategic direction of the movement’s new government atop what it calls an Islamic Emirate.

“The leader of the Islamic Emirate offered comprehensive instructions and made everyone aware of their responsibilities,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted at the end of a three-day consultation among Taliban leaders in the southern city of Kandahar this week.

The Taliban appears to be keen on projecting him as a visionary leader.

“After the withdrawal of all foreign forces from our country, we would like to establish good relations with the world, including the United States,” Taliban media quoted Akhundzada as saying in July. “Such relations should have diplomatic, political, and economic aspects within a framework of mutual benefit.”

Like the movement’s founder, Mullah Omar, Akhundzada hails from Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar Province, where the Taliban movement first emerged in 1994. He rose through its ranks and was appointed caretaker chief judge of the Taliban’s military courts by the late 1990s in large part due to his theological credentials.

His tribal connections, good standing with the late leader Mansur, and status as a religious authority cemented his appointment as Mansur’s deputy in 2015 after the latter assumed informal leadership of the Taliban. After a messy struggle, Mansur was formally appointed Taliban leader in 2015, but he had acted as de facto leader while covering up the news of Omar’s death for two years. Omar is thought to have died in April 2013.

Nazar Mohammad Mutmaeen, a Kabul-based former Taliban official who often attempts to explain Taliban positions, wrote that Akhundzada is an unflappable religious scholar with a penchant for long religious speeches.

“He can command his emotions, and the Taliban is now looking to him as someone capable of uniting its ranks,” he said.

Under Akhundzada’s leadership, the Taliban scored diplomatic and military victories. With his political deputy, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, it also successfully negotiated a key agreement with the United States. The February 2020 Doha Agreement paved the way for a full withdrawal of U.S. and allied forces from Afghanistan.

He kept the Taliban’s military ranks united by promoting Omar’s eldest son, Mullah Yaqoob, as his deputy and placing him in charge of the movement’s military arm along with Sirajuddin Haqqani, leader of the Haqqani network.

Now that the Taliban military machine has swiftly overrun Kabul and most of the rest of Afghanistan since the beginning of the final U.S. military withdrawal in May, Akhundzada faces a host of challenges.

Under his leadership, the Taliban could be hard-pressed to win international legitimacy, resolve a growing domestic economic crisis, or deliver good governance to Afghanistan’s some 38 million people, who are likely to demand prosperity and personal freedoms in addition to security.

While the Taliban has made sweeping promises of reform under the watchful eye of the global community, Akhundzada’s challenge will be to lead the movement in delivering on the growing demands and expectations of a militant group whose credibility will be under intense scrutiny at home and abroad.

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.

Key Figures In The Taliban’s New Theocratic Government

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Sirajuddin Haqqani

By Frud Bezhan
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
September 7, 2021

The Taliban has formed a new, theocratic government in Afghanistan, weeks after the August 15 collapse of the internationally recognized administration in Kabul and within days of international troops’ departure.

Taliban leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, a hard-line cleric and former chief justice, has been named supreme leader. He will have the ultimate say in political, religious, and military affairs in the country under a system reminiscent of the clerically led establishment in neighboring Iran since 1979.

Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, a founding member of the group in the early 1990s who also served as foreign minister and a deputy prime minister during the Taliban’s regime from 1996-2001, has been named head of government and will oversee day-to-day affairs.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a co-founder of the Taliban who previously served as one of Akhunzada’s three deputies, will be Akhund’s first deputy.

Mawlawi Hanafi, a senior Taliban figure who served on the negotiating team at the peace talks in Qatar, has been named as Akhund’s second deputy.

Other key positions have been filled by two other deputies: Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, the son of the late Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, was named defense minister.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the Haqqani network, a powerful Taliban faction, will serve as interior minister.

Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, a key Taliban political leader who has worked as a key diplomatic envoy, has been named deputy foreign minister.

One of the Taliban government’s first tasks will be trying to open diplomatic and economic channels while seeking recognition from foreign governments, some of whom in the West have already signaled policies of “engagement” without such recognition.

All positions were named as being in an “acting” capacity.

Mullah Hassan Akhund

Akhund is one of the Taliban’s most senior figures. He was a founding member of the group in the early 1990s and a deputy prime minister during the Taliban’s regime from 1996-2001. He also served as foreign minister and a provincial governor during that time.

Akhund, who hails from Kandahar, considered the birthplace of the Taliban, was believed to have been a close associate of late spiritual leader Mullah Omar.

During the Taliban’s insurgency, Akhund was a senior military commander. He also headed the Taliban’s leadership council, the group’s highest decision-making body, which is based in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta.

Akhund has been on the United Nations terror list since 2001, when the U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban from power. The UN has described him as one of the “most effective Taliban commanders.” It says he was born between 1955 and 1958.

Ibraheem Bahiss, an independent Afghan research analyst, says that considering Akhund’s seniority and status it is not a “huge surprise” that he was appointed as the new head of government.

Mullah Baradar

Abdul Ghani Baradar, a veteran Taliban leader, is the most public face of the three-decade-old militant Islamist group.

The 53-year-old Baradar served as the Taliban’s second-in-command under Mullah Omar and coordinated the group’s military operations in Afghanistan before his arrest in neighboring Pakistan in 2010.

Baradar was jailed by Pakistani authorities after he reportedly facilitated talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban command without the approval of Pakistan, the group’s main foreign sponsor.

Baradar spent eight years in prison in Pakistan, where many Taliban leaders fled following the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 that toppled their brutal regime.

He was released in 2018 at the behest of the United States following the launch of direct talks between the militants and Washington, becoming the head of the Taliban’s political office in Qatar and chief negotiator. Baradar signed the February 2020 agreement with U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in a ceremony in Doha.

“Baradar has been a key figure in Taliban leadership and diplomacy,” said Graeme Smith, an author on Afghanistan and a consultant for the International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based think tank.

But he says it would be a mistake to focus exclusively on any single Taliban leader. “The Taliban leadership is much more collective than the top-down hierarchies of other organizations,” Smith said. “They consult widely, not just among the leadership, but also a number of councils within the group.”

Hailing from the southern province of Uruzgan, Baradar is a Durrani Pashtun from the Popalzai tribe. Southern Pashtuns make up the bulk of the Taliban’s leadership. His close relationship with the late Mullah Omar earned him the nom de guerre “Baradar,” or “brother.”

Mullah Yaqoob

Mullah Yaqoob was virtually unknown until 2015, when the Taliban acknowledged the death of his father, Mullah Omar, who had died more than two years earlier in Pakistan.

Since then, the ambitious Yaqoob has soared through the Taliban’s ranks. He consolidated power after his failed bid to succeed his father that year, first becoming deputy leader before being named as a military chief.

Yaqoob, believed to be in his 30s, oversaw military operations in 13 southern and western provinces despite his lack of battlefield experience. Yaqoob was a graduate of several hard-line Islamic seminaries in Pakistan.

Experts say the prestige of being Mullah Omar’s eldest son elevated Yaqoob’s standing among the Taliban’s field commanders and its rank and file.

“Mullah Omar was a charismatic leader and there remains huge respect for him, his family, and even his close associates, many of whom have been promoted to influential positions over the years,” said Obaid Ali, an expert on the insurgency at the Afghanistan Analysts Network, an independent think tank in Kabul.

Sirajuddin Haqqani

Sirajuddin Haqqani is a deputy Taliban leader and a military chief who oversaw operations in 21 eastern and northern provinces. He is also the leader of the Haqqani network, the most lethal and powerful faction of the Taliban. The network is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States.

Experts say the network has close links with Al-Qaeda and Pakistan’s military establishment, which has long been accused of providing safe haven and material support to the Taliban.

The network — based in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan — has been blamed for some of the deadliest attacks against civilians and Afghan and foreign security forces, gaining notoriety for its use of suicide bombers in complex, urban attacks.

Haqqani, who has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head, is the son of the late radical Islamist leader Jalaluddin Haqqani, who was a key resistance commander in the war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai

Stanekzai was Baradar’s deputy at the Taliban’s political office in Qatar.

Stanekzai trained at and graduated from prestigious military schools in India in the 1980s before he joined the mujahedin, the U.S.-backed Islamist guerrillas who fought Soviet forces during their decade-long occupation of Afghanistan.

When the Taliban seized most of Afghanistan in 1996, following a devastating four-year civil war, Stanekzai was appointed deputy foreign minister.

A fluent English speaker, he is a key leader in the Taliban’s political wing and has been one of the group’s key envoys to foreign diplomats and media.

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.

Taliban Names Afghan Government, With Its Leader Vowing To ‘Uphold Shari’a Law’

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Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada

By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
September 7, 2021

The Taliban has named its reclusive leader Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada as a supreme leader and a founding leader, Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, to lead a new Afghan regime as the radical fundamentalist group seeks to establish its rule after the UN-backed government collapsed in mid-August.

The announcement by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on September 7 in Kabul comes eight days after the United States announced the final withdrawal of U.S. and other international forces after a nearly 20-year war against the Taliban and other anti-government elements.

Many of the world’s leading powers have been waiting to see who is in the still-unrecognized government and whether it will act in line with Taliban promises of being more moderate than during its brutal rule 20 years ago, when it enforced a radical form of Islamic law.

Soon after the announcement, Akhundzada issued a public statement that could do little to assuage those international concerns.

“I assure all the countrymen that the figures will work hard towards upholding Islamic rules and Shari’a law in the country,” Akhundzada said in the statement, which was distributed in English.

At least two of the new ministers are on UN or U.S. lists of designated terrorists.

Taliban spokesman Mujahid described the new appointments as “acting” leaders and said there could be changes in the future.

The hard-line Sunni cleric Akhundzada will be a sort of supreme leader with the final word on political, religious, and military affairs under a governing structure that some have likened to Iran’s clerically dominated system.

Akhundzada, 55, was already the Taliban’s appointed leader.

Separately, another Taliban spokesman, Ahmadullah Wasiq, confirmed to BBC that the country should be known as “the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” — the title the group used during its mostly unrecognized rule in 1996-2001 — and Akhundzada’s post is “commander of the faithful.”

The 60-something Akhund, a longtime confidant of the late Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and former “foreign minister” under the previous period of Taliban rule, is expected to lead day-to-day affairs of the new regime in something akin to a prime ministerial role.

He has been on the UN terror list since 2001.

Mawlawi Amir Khan Mutaqqi was named as foreign minister.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of a powerful Taliban faction known as the Haqqani network, which is designated a terrorist organization by the United States, will serve as interior minister.

Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, the son of Mullah Omar, was named defense minister.

Other senior figures in the new government include Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who has arguably been the most public face of the Taliban, as Akhund’s first deputy.

Baradar was released from Pakistani custody in 2018 at the behest of the United States following the launch of direct talks between the militants and Washington that eventually led to the withdrawal agreement reached in early 2020.

Mawlawi Hannafi, a participant in the international talks in Doha, was named Akhund’s second deputy.

The justice minister, Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai, led the Taliban’s international negotiating team in Doha and headed the Taliban’s Pakistan-based shadow Supreme Court.

One of the Taliban government’s first tasks will be trying to open diplomatic and economic channels while seeking recognition from foreign governments, some of whom in the West have already signaled policies of “engagement” without such recognition.

The government announcement comes less than two days after the Taliban claimed to have defeated holdout forces in the Panjshir Valley, although the leader of the National Resistance Front (NRFA) insists he has thousands of fighters and will continue to oppose Taliban control of the region, north of Kabul.

NRFA leader Ahmad Masud, son of the storied late mujahedin commander known as the “lion of Panjshir,” Ahmad Shah Masud, in an audio message rejected the Taliban claim of “victory” and said his ranks would keep up the fight. He also urged Afghans in and outside the country to “start a general uprising.”

On September 7, the brother of the late Ahmad Shah Masud, Ahmad Wali Masud, told a symposium in Geneva that the resistance was “really wounded” but that “any time they can come back.”

“We still have thousands of fighters in the valley,” Wali Masud said, “and any time they can come back and you will be witnessing that one.”

“Yes, we have been wounded and we have been really wounded, but we have not died, we are still alive.”

The Taliban announcement came with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken engaged in crisis talks in Qatar, a U.S. ally that has emerged as a key interlocutor to the Taliban, including to discuss ongoing efforts to evacuate Western nationals and as many as thousands of Afghans who cooperated with the Western-backed administration.

Blinken said on September 7 that the United States had been “engaging with the Taliban…in recent hours” on the evacuation issue.

The militant group declared an amnesty for all Afghans who worked with foreign forces during the war that ousted it from power and said it was in talks with “all factions” to reach an agreement on its future government.

But many reports have said summary executions and house-to-house searches for those who worked with international groups or the previous government are occurring across the country.

Taliban gunmen meanwhile fired warning shots into the air to disperse a rally in Kabul on September 7 by women and others denouncing Taliban rule, urging respect for women’s rights, and fearful of a repeat of the group’s previous brutal rule two decades ago.

Small, isolated demonstrations have been held this week in cities including Herat in the west and Mazar-e Sharif in the north.

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.

Taliban announce their new government

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Aamaj News:

Zabihullah Mujahid has announced that Mullah Mohammad Hassan will lead the new government.

Mullah Baradar was appointed as first deputy.

Mawlavi Hannafi was appointed as second deputy.

Mullah Yaqub was appointed by the Taliban to head the Ministry of National Defense.

Sirajuddin Haqqani has been appointed by the Taliban as acting interior minister.

Shir Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai was appointed by the Taliban as deputy foreign minister.

Other positions

Acting Foreign Minister: Amir Khan Muttaqi
Acting Finance Minister: Mullah Hedayatullah Badri
Acting Education Minister: Sheikh Mawlawi Noorullah
Acting Minister for Information and Culture: Mullah Khairullah Khairkhah
Actng Minister of Economy: Qari Din Hanif
Acting Minister for Hajj amd Religious Affairs: Mawlawi Noor Mohammad Saqib
Acting Minister of Justice: Mawlawi Abdul Hakim Sharie
Acting Minister of Borders and Tribal Affairs: Mullah Noorullah Noori
Acting Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development: Mullah Mohammad Younus Akhundzada
Acting Minister of Public Work: Mullah Abdul Manan Omari
Acting Minister of Mines and Petroleum: Mullah Mohammad Esa Akhund

FAO: Afghanistan is Facing a Looming Hunger Catastrophe

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Lisa Schlein
VOA News
September 7, 2021

GENEVA – The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization warns millions of Afghans are at risk of starving if farmers do not receive the seeds they need to plant their winter wheat crop before the end of the month.

About 70% of all Afghans live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.  The Food and Agriculture Organization reports one in three people, or 14 million are suffering from acute hunger, with four million on the brink of famine.

The FAO director of emergencies and resilience, Rein Paulsen, says more than 20% of households are facing catastrophic gaps in their food consumption.  He says malnutrition levels are soaring and many children risk dying.

Speaking on a video link from Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, Paulsen says Afghanistan’s critical winter wheat season is under threat.  This, from the prevailing drought, as well as the many uncertainties due to the fluid political and military situation in the country.

He warns the window of opportunity to assist farmers for the fast-approaching winter wheat season is narrowing.

“Towards the end of September, we need to make sure that that planting is starting.  There is a very short window of time to be able to address that.  The seeds cannot wait, the farmers cannot wait.  We need to do everything we can to ensure that those vulnerable households are supported,”  he said.

Paulsen notes wheat is the most important cereal crop in Afghanistan, providing more than half of the population’s daily caloric intake.  In addition to winter wheat, he says millions of Afghans also depend upon their livestock for survival.

“There are more than three million livestock at risk.  We are approaching winter.  Support to ensure that that livestock survives and thrives is vital.  So, the drought has already posed a major threat to the livestock.  The winter season is a challenge too.  So, working with vulnerable herders, ensuring that feed, concentrate feed gets into the hands of those herders and farmers is vital,” he said.

FAO has supported more than 1.5 million people across 26 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces this year.  The agency says it plans to support another 1.5 million people with seeds, cash, and other aid for the rest of the year, but needs $15 million to do so.

Warning Shots Fired At Kabul Protest; U.S. Working With Taliban On Flights

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Anti Taliban Protesters

By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
September 7, 2021

Taliban militants have fired shots into the air to disperse a rally in Kabul after the militant group swept to power last month, as the United States sought to reassure it was working so that flights chartered by NGOs that are waiting to evacuate Americans and at-risk Afghans can leave the war-torn country safely.

The hard-line Islamist group took control of most of Afghanistan three weeks ago following the collapse of the Western-backed government, but as of September 7 had yet to announce a new government.

Nonetheless, Afghan women, wary of a repeat of the group’s previous brutal rule between 1996 and 2001, have been holding for the past week small, isolated demonstrations in cities including Kabul, Herat, and Mazar-e Sharif.

In Kabul on September 7, hundreds of protesters, including many women, took to the streets to denounce the Taliban and demand women’s rights be preserved.

They shouted slogans such as “Long live the resistance,” and “Death to Pakistan,” as many believe the neighboring country supports the Taliban, which Islamabad denies.

Witnesses said Taliban members fired shots into the air to disperse the crowd, while video clips showed scores of people running as volleys of gunfire are heard in the background.

“Groups of women from Khairkhanah, Parwan-e Seh [in Kabul], and some other places gathered along with men,” Freshta Mowahid, who was among the protesters, told RFE/RL via Skype.

“Many Taliban members wanted to disrupt it at first. Another group started protesting in front of the Pakistani Embassy, and the Taliban shot to disperse them.”

Journalists were prevented from filming at the rally, and Afghanistan’s TOLOnews reported that one of its cameramen was detained by the Taliban for nearly three hours.

There were no immediate reports of injuries.

In the central province of Ghor, about 10 women protested against Pakistan’s alleged involvement in the Afghan conflict and for an end to the fighting in Panjshir Valley, where rebel forces have been the last pocket of resistance to the militants.

The demonstrations follow a weekend visit by Pakistan’s intelligence chief Faiz Hameed and unconfirmed reports that Pakistan had helped the Taliban by using drones to bomb Panjshir, a rugged valley located about 100 kilometers northeast of Kabul where an armed resistance group had been holding out.

A Pakistani military spokesman rejected the allegations, saying his country “has nothing to do with what is happening inside Afghanistan, be it Panjshir or anywhere else.”

In the weeks before the last U.S. troops completed their withdrawal from Kabul on August 31, U.S.-led foreign forces evacuated more than 123,000 foreigners and at-risk Afghans but several American and tens of thousands who fear Taliban retribution were left behind.

More than a dozen U.S. citizens and hundreds of others, including children, have reportedly been prevented for days from flying out of the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif on planes chartered by several U.S. nongovernmental organizations.

Marina LeGree, the founder and executive director of the U.S.-based NGO Ascend, said on September 7 that some 600 to 1,300 people, including teenage girls from her group, have been waiting near the city’s airport for as long as a week to board planes on the ground.

“It’s been seven days and nothing’s moving,” LeGree, whose group trains Afghan girls in leadership through physical activities like mountain climbing, told AFP, accusing the Taliban of “simply not letting anything move.”

Six chartered planes were waiting at the airport to evacuate those waiting, who are meanwhile being housed in various places in the city, LeGree said.

During a visit to Qatar, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States was in contact with about 100 Americans who remained behind and continues to work to make sure such charter flights can leave safely.

Blinken told reporters that members of the Taliban has told the United States “they will let people with travel documents freely depart.”

“We will hold them to that,” he added.

Speaking alongside the top U.S. diplomat, Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani expressed hope that Kabul airport would be operational in the next few days, but no deal had yet been reached on how to run it.

The Taliban is also grappling with looming financial and humanitarian crises.

The United Nations emergency aid office (OCHA) appealed for almost $200 million in extra funding for life-saving aid in Afghanistan, where a total of $606 million is needed until the end of the year to provide critical food and livelihood assistance to nearly 11 million people and essential health services to 3.4 million.

The office said the funds would also go toward treatment for acute malnutrition for more than 1 million children and women, water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions, and protection of children and survivors of gender-based violence.

“Basic services in Afghanistan are collapsing and food and other life-saving aid is about to run out,” said OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke.

Meanwhile, UNICEF said the UN children’s agency and its partners had registered around 300 unaccompanied and separated children evacuated from Afghanistan since August 14, and that this number is expected to rise “through ongoing identification efforts.”

“It is vital that they are quickly identified and kept safe during family tracing and reunification processes,” UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said in a statement, stressing that “all parties must prioritize the best interests of the child and protect children from abuse, neglect and violence.”

With reporting by AFP, AP, Reuters, and the BBC

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.

Afghan Taliban, Pakistan Discuss Anti-Terror Cooperation

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Zabihullah Mujahid

Ayaz Gul
VOA News
September 6, 2021

ISLAMABAD – Afghanistan’s Taliban said Monday they had discussed bilateral security cooperation with Pakistan, including measures needed at border crossings between the two countries to stem the movement of terrorists into Pakistan.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters in Kabul that a delegation from Islamabad visited the country over the weekend for the discussions. The Pakistani team was led by General Faiz Hameed, the head of the country’s spy agency, known as the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI.

Mujahid said the visitors conveyed their concerns over multiple jail breaks during the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and the release of hundreds of prisoners involved in militant attacks in Pakistan. He said the Taliban had assured the delegation that no one will be allowed to use Afghan soil against Pakistan.

“It was also discussed that there shall be a check or scrutiny system at the (border) gates to detect individuals who want to harm Pakistan, as per their information, and we don’t know about them because we are dealing with this new situation where doors of prisons had already been opened,” he said.

Mujahid said his side had stressed the need for not using this issue to close border gates to Afghan travelers, including patients, refugee families and daily wage workers who move across the border in search of work.

Official sources in Islamabad told VOA the ISI chief went to Kabul to discuss with Taliban representatives matters related to border management and “overall security issue(s) to ensure that spoilers and terrorist organizations do not take advantage of the situation.” The sources spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to publicly interact with media.

The Taliban retook control of Afghanistan last month, nearly 20 years after U.S.-led international forces removed the Islamist movement from power for harboring al-Qaida planners of the terror strikes on the United States on September 11, 2001.

Pakistan has long complained that leaders of an alliance of militant organizations known as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, use sanctuaries in volatile Afghan areas to organize cross-border terrorist attacks.

Islamabad has had strained diplomatic ties with the former Afghan government that collapsed in the face of stunning Taliban victories, enabling the Islamist movement to seize control of Kabul on August 15.

The tensions stemmed from allegations that Islamabad was covertly supporting Taliban military activities and sheltering insurgent leaders on Pakistani soil. For their part, Pakistani authorities accused Kabul of supporting the TTP in plotting terrorist attacks against Pakistan.

When the Taliban marched into the Afghan capital last month, inmates from a prison facility at the Bagram Airfield, 50 kilometers north of Kabul, managed to flee with the help of supporters taking advantage of the chaos. The prisoners included TTP operatives, a development that alarmed Pakistan.

The U.S. controlled the Bagram Airfield until July. The American military vacated the facility as part of its withdrawal from the country that was concluded on August 31.

Pakistan’s long-running ties with the Taliban might have generated hopes the Islamist group would help rein in TTP cross-border violent activities from their Afghan hideouts, say analysts. But they say those expectations could be misplaced, citing the ideological closeness between the Afghan and the Pakistani Taliban.

“For Pakistan, getting the Taliban to curb the TTP amounts to an ambitious task. The TTP has long been allied with the Taliban, and it has partnered operationally with the Taliban. The Taliban isn’t known for denying space to its militant allies, and I don’t see the TTP being an exception to the rule,” said Michael Kugelman, deputy Asia director at Washington’s Wilson Center.

Analysts note an increase in deadly TTP-orchestrated attacks in Pakistan. The latest one occurred Sunday, when a suicide bomber in the city of Quetta killed four Pakistani troops and wounded at least 18 others.

“It was widely assumed that as the Afghan Taliban are close to Pakistan for several reasons, the TTP threat to Pakistan will automatically decline/end with its takeover of Afghanistan. However, the August TTP attacks list shows its opposite. TTP has claimed the highest number of attacks in August than in a single month of the last four to five years,” observed Abdul Sayed, a regional security expert.

Sayed, who is based in Sweden, noted that around 800 TTP members secured their freedom from Afghan jails with the arrival of the Taliban in Kabul.

Pakistani officials, however, remain upbeat that landlocked Afghanistan requires a free flow of trade and transit trade facilities through Pakistan to overcome its humanitarian and critical economic challenges.

That leverage, the officials say, and counterterrorism commitments the Taliban have given to the United States and neighboring countries would be used to press the new Afghan rulers to deliver on their pledges.

Just before the Taliban took over Kabul, their chief, Hibatullah Akhundzada, had set up a three-member high-powered commission to persuade TTP members to stop violence against Pakistan and return to their homes across the border to live peacefully, VOA had learned from highly placed official sources in Islamabad.

Analysts say the Taliban are under international scrutiny and must live up to their counterterrorism commitments if they want their country to remain part of the regional community or the world at large and earn global recognition for their rule.

On Monday, Taliban spokesman Mujahid said that they would like to join a multibillion-dollar bilateral project China has initiated in Pakistan.

“The CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) project is important for entire Asia, including Afghanistan. If the CPEC route goes through Afghanistan, we would cooperate,” he said.

China has spent more than $25 billion in Pakistan over the past six years under the bilateral collaboration, building road networks, power plants and a deep-water port on the Arabian Sea and developing agriculture as well as social sectors.

Both Islamabad and Beijing say they are set to bring roads and other CPEC-related infrastructure into Afghanistan to help in the reconstruction of the war-shattered nation.

Beijing has in recent years developed close contacts with the Taliban and expects the Islamist movement to fight the banned East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which is blamed for conducting terrorist attacks in China.

Resistance against Taliban continues in Panjshir

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Taliban Imposes New Dress Code, Segregation Of Women At Afghan Universities

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By Frud Bezhan
RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
September 6, 2021

KABUL — The Taliban has imposed a new dress code and gender segregation for women at private universities and colleges in Afghanistan, in line with a decree issued to educational institutions and obtained by RFE/RL.

All female students, teachers, and staff must wear an Islamic abaya robe and niqab that covers the hair, body, and most of the face, according to the extensive document issued by the Taliban-run Education Ministry on September 5. The garments must be black, the text added, and women must also wear gloves to ensure their hands are covered.

Classes must also be segregated by gender — or at least divided by a curtain — according to the order, which added that female students must be taught only by other women. But it added, though, that “elderly men” of good character could fill in if there were no female teachers.

Since seizing power after the collapse of the internationally recognized government in Kabul last month, the Taliban has said “women and girls will have all their rights within Islam.”

The militants have attempted to project a more moderate image and reassure Afghans and the world that it has changed. During its brutal regime from 1996-2001, the Taliban oppressed women and severely restricted girls’ education.

But the Taliban’s new rules — which came into effect on September 6 as private universities reopened — highlight how women’s lives are set to dramatically change under the rule of the hard-line Islamist group after the gains of the past 20 years.

‘Clear Sign Of Repression’

“The new changes like gender segregation in schools and universities are clearly creating more fear and a culture of discrimination against women and girls,” said Samira Hamidi, an exiled women’s rights activist who fled Afghanistan due to threats by the Taliban.

“Women wearing black veils do not represent Afghan culture,” she added. “It is a clear sign of repression in the life of women and girls.”

Before the Taliban’s return to power, Afghan women studied alongside men and attended classes with male teachers. There was also no dress code that forced women to cover themselves.

But women are now confronted with a new, harsher reality.

Photos widely shared by Afghans on social media showed men and women at Ibn Sina University, a private institution in Kabul, separated in classes by a curtain. Many of the women pictured wore black robes and hijabs, although their faces were visible — an apparent violation of the new dress code.

According to the decree issued by the Taliban, women should wear an abaya, the figure-shrouding outer garment, and niqab, a cloth that covers the face except for the eyes.

Maryam, a woman from the southeastern city of Khost, told Radio Azadi that many women were ready to wear a hijab, which covers the head. But she said the all-encompassing niqab or burqa would not be “acceptable to Afghan women.”

‘Good Behavior’

The Taliban also imposed the wearing of burqas in the 1990s.

The Taliban’s decree also said men and women should use separate entrances and exits at universities and colleges.

“Universities are required to recruit female teachers for female students based on their facilities,” the document said.

If it is not possible to employ female teachers, then institutions “should try to hire elderly men teachers who have a record of good behavior.”

While women must study separately, they are also required to finish their classes five minutes earlier than men to stop them from meeting outside.

The documents also stipulates that women must remain in waiting rooms until their male classmates have left the building.

Despite the new restrictions, the Taliban permitting education for women is a positive, said 18-year-old Salgy Baran, who received the highest score in Afghanistan on her university entrance exams this year.

“The Taliban must deliver on what they promise,” she told Radio Azadi, referring to the militant group’s pledge to protect women’s rights, including the right to education. “Our university professors must be encouraged and appreciated, and we must be optimistic about the future.”

Violating Women’s Rights

But others are not convinced that the Taliban has changed and will permit women to exercise their right to education and work.

After the U.S.-led invasion, university admission rates soared in Afghanistan, particularly among women. Millions of girls of all ages also flocked back to school, though the gains in female education were mainly restricted to the cities.

Women also played a role in public life as ministers, members of parliament, and provincial officials. They also had the right to vote and work outside their homes.

When it previously controlled Afghanistan from 1996-2001, the Taliban forced women to cover themselves from head to toe, banned them from working outside the home, limited education only to pre-adolescent girls, and required women to be accompanied by a male relative if they left their homes.

The Taliban has, thus far, reimposed many of the same repressive laws and retrograde policies that defined its extremist former rule.

In Kabul, the Taliban has advised women to largely remain indoors. The militants have dismissed female journalists working for state-run television. The Taliban has also ordered many former female government workers not to return to work even as their male colleagues went back. Many girls’ schools have also remained shut in the capital.

Scores of women have staged protests in Kabul, the western city of Herat, and the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif in recent days, demanding equal rights.

Protest organizers said Taliban militants violently dispersed a crowd of women who had taken to the streets of Mazar-e Sharif on September 6 to call for their rights to be preserved and their inclusion in the new government.

Dozens of women held placards with slogans such as “Violation of women’s rights = Violation of human’s rights” and “We want political participation at all levels,” according to photos shared on social media.

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.