8am: Officials in Mazar-e-Sharif say that 85% of manufacturing plants in the province are closed due to restrictions on monetary services and banks. They call on the Taliban to take action immediately to address their challenges while supporting domestic production. Click here to read more (external link).
More Economic News
Sayaf
8am: Abdulrabb Rasul has asked the Taliban to express their opinion about these [suicide] attacks, and are their views changed regarding suicide attacks or not? “Are suicide training camps closed or are they still training people?”, Sayyaf also added. Click here to read more (external link).
Reuters: World soccer’s governing body FIFA said on Friday it had worked with the Qatari government to evacuate almost 100 football players and their families from Afghanistan. Click here to read more (external link).
Kirby
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
October 16, 2021
The U.S. Defense Department says it is has offered to pay compensation to relatives of the 10 people who were killed in a drone strike in August during the final phase of the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The Defense Department is also working with the State Department to help family members relocate to the United States, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement on October 15.
Kirby said Colin Kahl, undersecretary of defense for policy, reiterated Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s commitment to offer condolence payments during a virtual meeting this week with Steven Kwon, founder and president of the nonprofit Nutrition & Education International (NEI).
The missile struck a car driven by Zemerai Ahmadi, an employee of NEI, killing him and 10 members of his family, including seven children.
Kwon said Ahmadi had work with the NEI for many years “providing care and lifesaving assistance for people facing high mortality rates in Afghanistan,” according to Kirby.
Kirby did not say how much money would be offered to the family. He said Ahmadi and the others who were killed in the strike were innocent victims who bore no blame and were not affiliated with Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) or threats to U.S. forces.
The drone strike occurred on August 29 as the U.S. military rushed to evacuate U.S. citizens and Afghans who had worked with U.S. forces during the war. Three days earlier, a suicide attack claimed by IS-K outside the airport killed some 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops.
The U.S. military said at the time that there was “very credible” intelligence that IS-K militants were planning another attack on people gathered at the airport trying to leave the country after the Taliban took over the government.
A spokesman for U.S. Central Command initially said that the drone strike thwarted an imminent attack by IS-K on the evacuation, but last month General Kenneth McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, admitted it was a mistake and apologized.
With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP
#BREAKING
IS-K claimed responsibility for the attack on the #Shia mosque in #Kandahar. The group identified the two suicide bombers as Anas Khurasani and Abu Ali Baluchi. https://t.co/7RUj3Iau2F— Muslim Shirzad (@MuslimShirzad) October 15, 2021
Putin
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
October 15, 2021
Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 15 said the Islamic State (IS) militant group has thousands of fighters in northern Afghanistan, as Moscow prepares to host international talks next week on the situation in the country.
“According to our intelligence, the number of (IS) members alone in northern Afghanistan is about 2,000 people,” Putin said during a video address to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) summit of ex-Soviet states.
The Russian leader claimed the alleged IS fighters planned to move between ex-Soviet Central Asian countries disguised as refugees in order to stir up religious and ethnic discord. He did not give details.
Earlier this week, Putin warned of the threat of veteran fighters from Iraq and Syria with IS links crossing into Afghanistan, while the Russian Foreign Ministry urged the Taliban rulers to deal with the threat.
Putin’s special envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, said on October 15 that next week’s talks would focus on trying “to work out a common position on the changing situation in Afghanistan.”
The United States, China, and Pakistan will join talks scheduled for October 19, Kabulov said, adding that the Taliban and other regional actors will join the meeting a day later.
He said the Taliban had yet to announce the composition of its delegation.
Kabulov said Moscow did not expect any “breakthrough solutions” but would “openly state our complaints to the Afghan delegation.”
The Taliban, which seized control of Kabul from the internationally recognized government in mid-August, is seeking international recognition and aid in order to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe as Afghanistan’s economy is in free fall.
Since the Taliban takeover, Moscow has voiced concern about the possibility of Islamist militants infiltrating the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, which it sees as its backyard, and has held military exercises in Tajikistan, beefing up equipment at its military base there.
Putin on October 15 said there was no need to rush official recognition of the Taliban but noted that “we understand that we need to interact with them.”
Moscow fought a disastrous war in Afghanistan in the 1980s that killed up to 2 million Afghans, forced 7 million more from their homes, and led to the deaths of more than 14,000 Soviet troops.
With reporting by AFP and TASS
Related
Ayesha Tanzeem
VOA News
October 15, 2021
ISLAMABAD — An explosion ripped through a Shiite mosque Friday in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, killing at least 32 people and wounding more than 70, according to sources at the local Mirwais hospital and local media.
The blast went off during Friday prayers, usually attended by large crowds. Pictures and videos shared on social media showed a bloody scene inside the mosque, with bodies and body parts strewn about and worshippers trying to rescue the wounded.
A spokesman for the Taliban, Bilal Karimi, confirmed to VOA that the bomb attack in Kandahar “killed and injured a number of compatriots.” He said an investigation into the violence is ongoing “to identify the culprits and bring them to justice.”
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The explosion came a week after a Friday-prayer attack in another Afghan city, Kunduz, left more than 50 dead. That attack was claimed by Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), the local branch of the Islamic State group. ISKP had claimed a Uyghur carried out the Kunduz attack.
In an interview with VOA earlier this week, Taliban Deputy Information Minister Zabihulah Mujahid denied that ISKP was a serious threat, despite multiple attacks, including one on a gathering for the last rituals of Mujahid’s own mother in Kabul.
He said the only reason why ISKP had managed to carry out attacks in recent weeks was that the Taliban broke open many jails when it took over the country, allowing ISKP facilitators to escape.
“Our forces are trying to find its roots. In the last week-and-a-half we have arrested several people belonging to IS and have destroyed several of their safe houses. We have neutralized several of their attacks,” Mujahid said.
ISKP claimed a Uyghur had carried out the Kunduz attack, but Mujahid said China had not discussed the issue with the Taliban.
This is the fourth high-profile attack IS Khorasan has carried out since August 15, the day the Taliban walked into Kabul.
The group also claimed responsibility for the deadly attack on Kabul airport while thousands of Afghans who were fleeing from the Taliban were being evacuated. That attack killed nearly 100 Afghans and 13 American service personnel.
VOA’s Ayaz Gul contributed to this report.
New York Post: The team tried desperately and fruitlessly to get inside Hamid Karzai International Airport amid the frantic US evacuation, according to team member Soraya Karimi, 25, who was also a law student and rights activist, as well as the proud daughter of a woman police officer. Still, each time they got close to the gates, authorities turned them away. Click here to read more (external link).