A. Stanikzai
8am: The former captain of the national cricket team Asghar Afghan stepped down from the cricket matches. Afghan resigned after the recent criticisms. The presence of Asghar Afghan and his brother, Karim Janat, in the match with Pakistan, which was blamed for the loss, provoked many reactions. Click here to read more (external link).
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Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
October 31, 2021
The reclusive leader of Afghanistan’s Taliban made a rare public appearance at a religious school in the city of Kandahar on October 30.
Taliban Supreme Leader Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada had not been seen in public since he became the Taliban leader in 2016, even after the movement took control of Afghanistan in September.
During his visit to the Darul Uloom Haakimah madrasah, Akhundzada prayed for Taliban “martyrs” and asked God to “reward the oppressed people of Afghanistan who fought the infidels and the oppressors for 20 years.”
No video or photographs of the event, which took place under heavy security, have been released, but an audio recording of Akhundzada’s remarks has appeared on social media.
During his 10-minute address, Akhundzada prayed for officials undergoing the “big test” of building the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.”
Akhundzada was a relatively low-profile religious figure in the Taliban before being named the movement’s leader following the death in a U.S. drone strike of his predecessor, Mullah Akhtar Mansour.
His public profile has been largely restricted to the regular release of messages to mark Islamic holidays.
His appearance in Kandahar has fueled speculation that he intends to take a more active role in running the country.
Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP
Zabihullah Mujahid
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
October 30, 2021
The Taliban said Saturday that a failure by the United States to recognize their government in Afghanistan would prolong multiple crises facing the country and it could eventually turn it into a problem for the world.
The Islamist group regained control of the country in August and established an interim government in Kabul after U.S.-led NATO troops withdrew from the country, ending nearly 20 years of involvement in the Afghan war.
But the global community in general has not granted legitimacy to the Taliban administration and has blocked its access to about $10 billion in Afghan assets parked largely with the U.S. Federal Reserve, even as Afghanistan faces a deepening humanitarian crisis and prospects of an economic meltdown.
“Granting recognition to the current system is the right of Afghans and no one can deprive us of this right nor will it benefit anyone,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told a news conference in Kabul.
“Our message to America is, if non-recognition prolongs, problems of Afghanistan prolong, it is the regional problem and could eventually become a problem for the world,” Mujahid said. He noted that in a meeting in Qatar earlier this month, Taliban leaders conveyed the same message to U.S. officials.
“We are hoping they will consider it and, God willing, this issue will be resolved,” he added.
2001 invasion
While reiterating Kabul’s call for unfreezing Afghan assets abroad, Mujahid insisted the reason the Taliban and the United States went to war 20 years ago was the absence of bilateral diplomatic ties and recognition of the Taliban government at the time.
The U.S.-led military coalition invaded Afghanistan following the deadly September 2001 terrorist attack on America. It ousted the then-Taliban government for refusing to hand over al-Qaida chief Osama bin Ladan, whom Washington accused of planning the attack.
“Those issues could have been resolved through negotiations, through a political compromise and could have prevented the ensuing, utterly exhausting 20 years of war,” Mujahid said.
The Taliban spokesman said they have also conveyed to Washington their desire to see the U.S. embassy in Kabul reopen and resume normal diplomatic activities.
While the U.S.-led Western countries have shut their embassies in Kabul after the Taliban takeover of the country, some of Afghanistan’s neighbors and regional countries, including China, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Russia, have kept their diplomatic missions open and held direct high-level meetings with Taliban officials in Afghanistan and abroad.
Taliban pledges
The Islamist group is under pressure to live up to its public pledges of protecting rights of Afghan women and minorities.
Under the previous five-year Taliban rule, women were barred from leaving their home unaccompanied and girls could not receive an education, among other human rights abuses, leaving Kabul internationally isolated at the time.
The Taliban have allowed boys to attend grades 6 to 12, but they have prevented girls in the same grades from resuming their education, saying regulations and arrangements are being put in place to ensure a safe environment for female students.
Mujahid said Saturday that young girls in many Afghan provinces have returned to school and the issue is gradually being resolved for others across the country.
“But we will not give this right to foreigners to direct us about how our girls should undertake educational activities. That is an internal Afghan matter,” he said.
“We are part of the global community and we have fulfilled all the conditions required for the world to formally recognize our government,” Mujahid insisted.
“There are issues in numerous countries vis-a-via international laws, but [those countries] have been formally recognized,” he said. “They have no democratic systems, they have dictatorships, kingdoms and other ruling systems. Why have they been recognized and why are conditions being set for us?”
UN says aid is urgent
The United Nations has been urging the global community to send urgent humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, saying more than four decades of deadly conflicts and recurrent natural disasters have resulted in a protracted food crisis in the country.
A new U.N. study said this week humanitarian needs have grown to unprecedented levels, and more than half of the conflict-torn country’s estimated 40 million people will “face acute food insecurity” by November.
Washington announced on Thursday it is providing nearly $144 million in new humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, bringing the total U.S. relief assistance in Afghanistan and for Afghan refugees in the region to nearly $474 million in 2021, the largest amount of assistance from any nation.
#AFG “At least 2 civilians were murdered by Taliban soldiers and at least 8 civilians were wounded by Taliban soldiers. Taliban soldiers opened fire on a wedding party because villagers were playing music in Sarkhroad district in Ningarhar.” Residents in SarkhRoad tells me. pic.twitter.com/YqbPf8PtBn
— BILAL SARWARY (@bsarwary) October 30, 2021
Ariana: Thousands of skilled and educated people have left or are leaving the country due to an uncertain future. Many of whom are reportedly qualified professionals from civil servants to lawyers, IT experts and health professionals. Click here to read more (external link).
8am: As Pakistan hasn’t recognized the Taliban, the new Taliban representative to run the affairs of the Afghan embassy in Islamabad will not have the official title of “ambassador”. Click here to read more (external link).
The Guardian (UK): A group of LGBT+ Afghans has arrived in Britain, the first since the Taliban’s return to power in August caused panic among gay and transgender Afghans, who feared persecution and even death under the Islamists’ rule. Click here to read more (external link).
John Sopko
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
October 30, 2021
A U.S. government watchdog on October 29 accused the State Department and Pentagon of withholding information about the collapse of Afghanistan’s government and the true strength of the country’s military forces.
John Sopko, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), said the withheld information would have helped lawmakers and the American people assess whether the U.S. should have ended its mission sooner, and he called on the two departments to release all the relevant information.
“The full picture of what happened in August — and all the warning signs that could have predicted that outcome — will only be revealed if the information that the Departments of State and Defense have already restricted from public release is made available,” Sopko said.
Sopko, who has been a frequent critic of the way the Afghan war was conducted, spoke at the annual conference of the Military Reporters & Editors Association in Arlington, Virginia.
He said the State and Defense departments “should declassify and make available to SIGAR and Congress all internal DOD and State Department cables, reports, and other material reflecting the security situation on the ground over the last few years — especially those reports that differed from the public statements of the agencies in Washington.”
Sopko said among the information that the Defense Department (DOD) restricted was on the performance of the Afghan security forces.
In public the Pentagon repeatedly touted the size and strength of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces as superior to the Taliban. In reality, “nearly all the information you needed to determine whether the Afghan security forces were a real fighting force or a house of cards waiting to fall” was restricted, he said.
“In light of recent events, it is not surprising that the Afghan government, and likely some in DOD, wanted to keep that information under lock and key,” Sopko said.
The Afghan military collapsed as the Taliban swept across the country, ultimately seizing power in Kabul on August 15 with barely a shot fired.
Sopko said shortly afterward the State Department asked him to temporarily suspend online access to certain reports on SIGAR’s website to ensure the safety of U.S.-affiliated Afghans.
After Sopko complied, the State Department request that SIGAR redact information from its reports, including removing all mentions of former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
Sopko said that while he is sure the former president “may wish to be excised from the annals of history,” the department “was never able to describe any specific threats to individuals that were supposedly contained in our reports.”
A State Department spokesperson told Reuters the department had requested “some reports be temporarily removed to redact identifying information from public records and protect the identities of Afghans and Afghan partner organizations” due to security concerns.
The SIGAR was established by Congress in 2008 and since then has released more than 50 quarterly reports for Congress detailing U.S. operations and spending in Afghanistan.
In his introduction to the latest report, released on October 30, Sopko said that U.S.-funded reconstruction has now paused in Afghanistan except for some humanitarian aid to address food shortages aggravated by drought and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The United States is not providing any assistance to the Taliban or any part of the government of Afghanistan,” according to the report.
Sopko notes that the single costliest reconstruction effort — training and equipping the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), which no longer exists — had a price tag of $89 billion and other reconstruction objectives, such as to assist women and girls, are under threat from the Taliban regime.
“These are sobering facts, and we owe all who served in Afghanistan — as well as the American taxpayer — an accurate accounting of why the 20-year U.S. mission in Afghanistan ended so abruptly, with so little to show for it,” Sopko said.
With reporting by Reuters, the Hill, and CNN
Taliban Militant Leadership
Ron Synovitz
RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
October 29, 2021
War, drought, and COVID have devastated farmers across Afghanistan.
Now, Afghan farmers who’ve lost money trying to grow crops over the past year say the Taliban is dealing them another crippling blow.
The cash-strapped regime is making them pay so-called charity taxes on their land and harvests, describing the payments as an obligation under Islamic law.
The charity taxes are being collected despite the fact that farmers themselves are among the 14 million Afghans that the World Food Program says are already facing acute hunger.
Samiullah, a 28-year-old Afghan farmer with eight acres of land in Kapisa Province north of Kabul, is among those whose families need humanitarian aid to survive the coming winter.
Irrigation canals in the so-called green belt around Samiullah’s village of Kham Zargar helped him weather the drought better than farmers who had to haul water from wells to keep their crops alive.
But even before the Taliban seized power in Kabul in August, the cost of fertilizer and other agricultural chemicals had soared due to Taliban blockades on transport routes and global COVID supply-chain disruptions.
Samiullah was not allowed to write off the thousands of dollars in unexpected costs he incurred due to war and COVID. Taliban tax collectors do not take into consideration the losses farmers have incurred.
Thus, Samiullah’s “ushurp” tax was calculated as a flat 10 percent of the funds he received for his harvest.
Samiullah also has to pay a 2.5 percent “zakat” tax on the value that Taliban tax collectors estimated his property is worth.
“When we calculate our costs, with such a high price for chemical fertilizer alone, there is nothing left for us in the end except the hard work we go through,” Samiullah tells RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.
To the east of Kabul, in neighboring Nangarhar Province, 30-year-old livestock rancher Ezat took out loans last year to buy land.
But the drought and economic collapse under the Taliban have left Ezat unable to repay those loans — forcing him to sell much of his land at a loss.
Now, because the Taliban taxes him without considering his losses, Ezat says he cannot afford to pay the tithes and “zakat.”
Charitable Obligation
The Taliban justifies its charity taxes as one of the five pillars of Islam that are considered obligations for all Muslims.
Other such obligations include a declaration of faith, daily prayer, fasting during the month of Ramadan, and taking part in the Hajj pilgrimage.
Zakat differs from the voluntary act of giving charitable gifts out of kindness or generosity.
It is meant to be compulsory for those who earn incomes above a certain amount, and it is based on a person’s income as well as the value of their possessions.
Recipients of zakat are meant to be the poor and needy, struggling converts to Islam, people who are enslaved or in debt, stranded travelers, and soldiers who fight to protect the Muslim community.
Those who collect zakat also are compensated for the work they do.
Critics of zakat include Islamic scholars and aid workers who note that the practice has failed to alleviate poverty in the Muslim world.
They argue that the funds often are wasted and mismanaged.
Agha Gol, a resident of Kabul’s Shakardara district, was forced to pay taxes to the Taliban for his garden.
Gol says the Taliban has yet to standardize its rules on collecting tithes and charity taxes. He says that can make the taxes arbitrary and prone to corruption by abusive tax collectors.
“You have to pay the [Taliban-led] government,” Gol told Radio Azadi. “But first, they need to have a specific law and create a specific office for payments to be forwarded to the Taliban’s treasury.”
In Kabul, the Taliban-led government’s Agriculture Ministry says it is collecting charity taxes from farmers, ranchers, and people with small garden plots in order to bolster revenues and increase the “self-sufficiency” of the country.
Representatives of the Taliban ministry tell Radio Azadi that they are not sending out tax payment notification letters through mosques and villages in rural areas.
But they admit that work on collecting tithes and charity taxes is under way.
Residents of Ghor Province refute the ministry’s claim that the Taliban is not delivering tax payment notifications.
They tell Radio Azadi the Taliban’s tax collection process began when local militants posted so-called night letters at local mosques and on the walls of residential compounds.
Farmers in the central Afghan province also tell Radio Azadi that Taliban gunmen have stormed their homes at night to demand that they pay tithes and charity taxes.
Those without money to make the payments say the Taliban has seized their livestock instead — making their families even more dependent on humanitarian aid in the months ahead.
Taliban Cash Crunch
The Taliban argues that its cash shortage could be alleviated if Washington would release $9.4 billion in Afghan central bank reserves held in the United States.
Those reserves remain frozen amid uncertainties about the Taliban regime’s human rights record and reservations about whether to recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate government.
Nabila Massrali, spokeswoman for European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, notes that regular EU development aid to Afghanistan also remains frozen.
Massrali says a $350 million EU humanitarian aid package announced to support “basic needs in direct benefit of the Afghan people” will not be delivered through the Taliban.
“It goes through international organizations, I mean the United Nations, and nongovernmental organizations on the ground” to guarantee the aid is not diverted by the Taliban, she told Radio Azadi.
“The Taliban are facing a shortage of liquidity not just to pay salaries but to pay everything. So they need the international community’s help,” Massrali explained. “Our engagement will also depend on the action of the Taliban.”
Meanwhile, cash shortages, bank closures, and the suspension of money transfers to Afghanistan since the Taliban seized Kabul continue to contribute to hyper inflation and rising food costs.
According to the World Food Program (WFP), more than 60 percent of Afghans rely on agriculture for their incomes.
In September, just weeks after the Taliban seized power, the WFP estimated that 93 percent of Afghans were not getting enough food to eat — an increase from 80 percent before the Taliban took over.
“Taliban control will undoubtedly make a bad situation worse,” says Jamie Lutz, a global food security researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Lutz notes that the former Afghan government depended heavily on foreign aid, with about 80 percent of its budget coming from the United States and other international donors.
“The withdrawal of international support in the country has raised questions about how the Taliban will fund social services and food assistance,” Lutz says.
“The Taliban takeover is also worsening disruption to food supply chains,” she concludes.
Written by Ron Synovitz in Prague with reporting by RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.