Blast Kills Afghan TV Journalist in Shi’te Neighborhood Of Kabul

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By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
November 13, 2021

A bomb attack on a minivan in a Shi’ite neighborhood of Kabul has killed a well-known Afghan television journalist, according to an Afghan media watchdog and the journalist’s wife.

The Afghan Journalists’ Center tweeted hours after the November 13 blast in western Kabul’s Dasht-e Barchi neighborhood that the explosion had killed Hamid Seighani, who worked for the Ariana television network.

Seighani’s wife, who is also a journalist, confirmed his death in a Facebook post, saying, “I have lost Hamid.”

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s main spokesman, said the blast caused a fire in Dasht-e Barchi. He said at least one civilian was killed. Mujahid said an investigation by the Taliban was under way.

Residents of the Dasht-e Barchi neighborhood confirmed hearing an explosion and seeing a vehicle burning after the blast.

A local man who gave his name as Ismael said he helped carry wounded people to a nearby hospital. He said at least three people were killed.

There was no confirmation of casualty numbers from hospital workers and no immediate claim of responsibility.

But the director of a nearby hospital who specializes in burn cases said at least two people suffered serious burn injuries.

Dr. Hakim Nasir Khesrow Balkhi said two wounded people were in critical condition when they were admitted to the hospital.

The bus driver, who goes by the single name Murtaza, told the AP at the hospital that a suspicious man got onto the vehicle a few minutes before an explosion went off at the back of the bus.

The driver said he saw two passengers with their clothes on fire falling out of the back of the vehicle. He said other passengers escaped out the front.

The Dasht-e Barchi area is heavily populated by Shi’ite ethnic Hazara, who have been the target of repeated attacks by Islamic State militants — including a bomb attack on May 12, 2020, at the maternity ward of the local hospital that killed 24 people.

The latest attack came a day after a bomb exploded inside a Sunni mosque in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Nangarhar.

That blast, which killed at least three people, occurred during Friday Prayers at the village mosque of Tarela in the Spin Ghar district.

The office of Nangarhar’s Taliban-appointed governor issued a statement on November 13 saying that two “perpetrators” were arrested in connection with the mosque attack. It did not provide further details about the suspects.

“Further investigation into the incident is ongoing and more actions will be taken,” the statement said.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and dpa

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.

Special forces hid evidence of Afghan killings

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BBC News: Senior military officers buried evidence that British troops were executing detainees in Afghanistan, the High Court has been told. Ministry of Defence documents reveal UK Special Forces officers suspected their men were killing unarmed Afghans who posed no threat. Click here to read more (external link).

Taliban FM: Afghanistan Needs Smaller Military

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Muttaqi

Ayesha Tanzeem
VOA News
November 12, 2021

ISLAMABAD — Afghanistan does not need a large military anymore and would not keep all the people who worked in the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) under the previous administration, said the Taliban’s foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, Friday in Islamabad.

“The army that was created by foreign intervention, we are no longer in need of having such large numbers,” said Muttaqi at a public talk in one of Pakistan’s government-sponsored policy organizations, the Institute of Strategic Studies.

He was responding to a question about the Taliban’s strategy for integrating Taliban fighters and ANDSF personnel into one military, something the Taliban had indicated in the past they might consider if they took over the country.

He said his country needed a small army “made up of people with fidelity and commitment and patriotism ingrained in them.”

The Taliban foreign minister was in Pakistan with a 20-member delegation for negotiations on opening trade routes among other things. On Thursday, he also met the special representatives on Afghanistan from the United States, China, and Russia, who were in Pakistan for a meeting under the Troika Plus format—the three countries plus Pakistan—on Afghanistan.

Muttaqi bristled when asked about issues of human rights and inclusivity in his administration, accusing the international community of using the issues for political purposes.

“Yesterday, the opposition [the Taliban] deserved to die. Yet, that was not a violation [of human rights] and today it is a violation,” he said, warning that the international community has not learned the lesson in 20 years that pressure tactics do not work with the Taliban.

He also claimed the current Taliban administration is inclusive because it has members of various ethnicities in it, but asserts the international community is trying to force them to include their political opponents, which is not the norm anywhere else.

“We have never asked [U.S.] President [Joe] Biden to include [former] president [Donald] Trump in his cabinet,” he said.

Journalist Tahir Khan, who has covered the Taliban for many years, said that so far, the Taliban have not appointed anyone who was not already aligned with them.

“Ninety percent of the appointments are active members of Taliban, either commanders or fighters. The other 10% are their supporters on social media or otherwise.”

In multiple regional conferences on Afghanistan since the Taliban took power, including the Troika Plus in Islamabad Thursday, the demand for inclusivity has taken center stage.

The joint statement issued after Thursday’s meeting “called on the Taliban to work with fellow Afghans to take steps to form an inclusive and representative government that respects the rights of all Afghans and provides for the equal rights of women and girls to participate in all aspects of Afghan society.”

Similar statements were made earlier in conferences in New Delhi, Tehran, and Moscow.

Khan said it was obvious the world “is demanding that the Taliban include other political groups and forces in the government.”

On rights of women to work and study, Muttaqi said the situation is gradually improving.

“Currently, 100% female workers in the health sector have returned to work,” he said. “In [the] education sector, it is now up to 75%.”

He also claimed the Taliban have not fired a single woman from her job since they came to power. Human Rights Watch’s Heather Barr disagreed.

“Maybe they didn’t say to any women you are fired from your job, but they’ve certainly told many, many, many women that they shouldn’t come to work, and they shouldn’t come to work indefinitely,” she said.

Women’s rights activists underscore that since the Taliban takeover of the country, girls in secondary schools in most of the country have been denied access to education, even though boys’ schools are open. Taliban officials say they are working on a plan to open schools for everyone but have not given a time frame.

“We have 200,000 teachers that work in these educational institutions, and we need help and assistance in providing their salaries. No one has yet practically stepped forward to pay their salaries,” Muttaqi said when VOA specifically questioned him on this issue.

Rights advocates say that is an excuse the Taliban are using to discriminate against women.

“If the problem is that they can’t pay teachers, then that’s a problem for boys as well as girls. … and if they’ve made a decision that with limited resources they should prioritize boys’ education over girls’ education, well, that’s very discriminatory, isn’t it?” Barr asked.

The Taliban have repeatedly said they are making preparations to open secondary schools, which, according to Barr, made it sound like the schools needed to comply with their views on Shariah.

“The truth is that there were no mixed government secondary schools in Afghanistan prior to August 15 … so, this is a completely fake reason,” she said.

UNICEF announced earlier this month it was setting up a system to be able to pay Afghan teachers directly, bypassing the Taliban, according to a Reuters report. Funding to or through the Taliban-led administration is frozen by the international community.

In a telephone briefing from Brussels earlier this week, the U.S. special representative on Afghanistan, Thomas West, said several international organizations were doing “creative and urgent thinking” to deliver salaries to teachers, civil servants and other in Afghanistan.

“The United States has not taken a position on this matter,” he said.

Muttaqi said the current Taliban administration was trying to take a balanced approach in international relations, unlike previous governments that either completely caved under international pressure or divorced themselves from the international community altogether. The latter was a reference to the earlier Taliban regime that ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001.

He said, while formal recognition of the Taliban regime is yet to come, they enjoyed de facto recognition.

“As for international recognition, what we are experiencing is that we are being recognized and treated as an official government of Afghanistan in our travels and in other cases,” he said. “Embassies are open inside our country, and we have embassies and representation in foreign countries.”

Kabul Airport is Functional But Intl Flights Scarce, Expensive

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Tolo News: Officials at Afghanistan’s Civil Aviation Authority (ACAA) said that although the airport is operational to allow for international flights in the country, due to the political challenges the flights have not become normal. “We do not have a specific timetable and schedule for flights as we used to have in Kabul airport. Only our domestic flights continue to a few provinces of the country: From Kabul to Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat and Kandahar,” said Ghulam Jailani Wafa, deputy chief of (ACAA). Click here to read more (external link).

Iran deporting thousands of Afghan refugees

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Al Jazeera: Iran is sending tens of thousands of Afghan refugees back over the border, aid agencies and witnesses say, amid allegations of mistreatment by Iranian authorities. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) found that just over one million Afghans have been sent back this year, including more than 28,000 Afghans in the last week of October, despite the dire conditions awaiting them. Click here to read more (external link).

Siavash Family: ‘Ajmal Ahmadi’s Place Is in Prison, Not Harvard’

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Ajmal Ahmadi

8am: The family of journalist Yama Siavash, assassinated in Kabul, has filed a lawsuit, calling on Harvard University to revoke the seat of Ajmal Ahmadi, the former director of Afghanistan’s central bank. He [Ahmadi] is the son-in-law of Ashraf Ghani’s brother. He has reportedly been accused of coercion, illegal recruitment and dismissal, and improper use of central bank resources. Click here to read more (external link).

U.S. Said To Reach Deal For Qatar To Represent Washington In Kabul

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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
November 12, 2021

An unnamed senior U.S. official quoted by Reuters says the United States and Qatar have agreed that that Persian Gulf state will represent U.S. diplomatic interests in Afghanistan.

The arrangement could signal possible direct engagement between Washington and Kabul, where a Taliban-led government came to power two months ago as U.S.-led international troops withdrew and a UN-backed elected government fled.

The source said that Qatar and the United States on November 12 would sign onto Qatar becoming a “protecting power” for U.S. interests and facilitating talks, which are complicated by the United States’ and other countries’ refusal to recognize the Taliban government.

“As our protecting power, Qatar will assist the United States in providing limited consular services to our citizens and in protecting U.S. interests in Afghanistan,” the official, who is from the State Department and requested anonymity, told Reuters.

They are especially critical of the hard-line veteran militants’ apparent abandonment of pledges of political and ethnic “inclusivity” as well as their harsh treatment of women and minorities.

A separate deal was struck for Qatar to temporarily host as many as 8,000 at-risk Afghans applying for special immigrant visas and their family members at Camp Al-Sayliyah and Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the official added.

International groups have warned that a race is on against the onset of severe winter in the South Asian country that could exacerbate an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe as infrastructure, finance, and other key elements of society fail an impoverished Afghanistan and its 39 million or so people.

The U.S.-Qatari arrangement reportedly calls for a U.S. interests section within the Qatari Embassy in Kabul that coordinates tightly with the U.S. State Department and a U.S. mission in Doha.

It is said to come into effect on December 31.

The unnamed official said Washington would also continue to engage with Taliban representatives in Doha, where a number of sides long sought to negotiate a peaceful end to a two-decade war that began soon after 9/11.

The “U.S. interests section” will reportedly operate out of part of the former compound of the U.S. Embassy before its suspension of operations, with security the responsibility of Qatar.

It could provide services like passport applications, documentation support, information, and emergency assistance, the official said.

Millions of Afghans are facing starvation and drought, in addition to the collapsed economy and shortages made worse by a suspension of much of the financial aid that was flowing into the country for years during the conflict.

The chaotic withdrawal of international troops stranded many U.S. allies, trained personnel, and others who might face retribution from Taliban gunmen.

The Taliban is also battling a seemingly rejuvenated campaign of violence by militants loyal to the Islamic State (IS).

With reporting by Reuters

Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.