Russia, China FM attend high-level conference on Afghanistan

April 13, 2023
Associated Press
13 April 2023

The top diplomats from Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan attended a conference Thursday that focused on ensuring regional security in light of the situation in Afghanistan.

The foreign ministers of the four countries met in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, and discussed the need to cooperate with Afghan authorities to maintain political stability and to prevent a humanitarian crisis, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

The ministers also talked about the coordination of efforts to “counter the threats of terrorism and drug trafficking from the Afghan territory.”

Russia and China are among a few countries that have kept their diplomatic missions in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, since the Taliban took power in August 2021.

Moscow worked for years to establish contacts with the Taliban, even though it designated the group a terror organization in 2003 and never took it off the list. It hosted several rounds of talks on Afghanistan that involved senior representatives of the Taliban and neighboring countries.

Beijing has taken a higher profile on regional issues related to Afghanistan as part of China’s efforts to extend its global clout.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang held separate talks on the sidelines of Thursday’s meeting to discuss a range of issues, including the situation in Ukraine, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

In a statement preceding the Uzbekistan conference, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Beijing was ready to work more closely with Afghanistan’s neighbors and the international community for stability, security, prosperity, and development in both the country and wider region.

The statement reaffirmed China’s pledge to respect the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Afghanistan, as well as the choices made by its people. It called on the international community to firmly support Afghanistan to combat terrorism, and urged the United States to live up to its commitment to the country.

Beijing also expressed hope that Afghanistan’s interim government would continue working actively to meet its people’s interests and the international community’s expectations for an open and inclusive political structure.

“We hope the Afghan interim government will protect the basic rights and interests of all Afghan people, including women, children and all ethnic groups,” the statement said.

Girls currently cannot attend school beyond sixth grade, and women are not allowed at universities in Afghanistan. Authorities present the education restrictions as a temporary suspension and not a ban, but universities and schools reopened in March without their female students.

Women also are barred from public spaces, including parks, and most forms of employment.

The policies have raised fierce international objections, increasing the country’s isolation at a time when its economy has collapsed and worsened a humanitarian crisis.

No country has recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

Russia, China FM attend high-level conference on Afghanistan
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What’s Next for the Taliban’s Leadership Amid Rising Dissent?

April 12, 2023

 BY: Andrew Watkins

US Institute of Peace

11 April 2023

Since their takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban have moved to restrict social freedoms, with a persistent focus on the rights of women and girls. Two edicts issued in December 2022, indefinitely banning Afghan women from attending universities and prohibiting working in NGO offices, constitute the most extreme restrictions yet — orders that were expanded this week to apply to women working for the U.N. as well.

The bans, as shocking as they are, were not a surprise to close observers; diplomats covering Kabul had flagged well in advance that these policies were imminent. Western and regional governments had warned the Taliban that such moves would only isolate Afghanistan further, and remove any hope for the foreign assistance and economic investment the country desperately needs.

Perhaps more surprising has been evidence of Taliban opposition to the edicts issued by the emir, Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada. Ever since he overruled the Taliban cabinet’s decision to permit girls to resume secondary education in March 2022, a growing number of their leaders seem to disagree with the emir’s overall policy agenda. A fundamental divergence has grown between Taliban elites over their visions for the future.

Dissenters Emerge

From the group’s inception, the Taliban have famously tended to their movement’s cohesion. But since the 2021 takeover, internal disagreements have spilled into public view as international condemnations have rolled in, humanitarian aid has been disrupted and as the U.N. paused all operations. Since February, some of the most important Taliban leaders have openly criticized the country’s trajectory — if not the Taliban’s first instance of public criticism from within, certainly the most prominent.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, acting minister of interior and leader of the notorious Haqqani network, said the Taliban’s “monopolization” of power was “defaming” their entire system. He did not name the emir, but in context his criticism was clear. Mohammad Yaqoub, acting defense minister and son of the movement’s revered founder Omar, said days later the Taliban must always listen to “legitimate demands of the people.” A deputy prime minister and several other ministers offered similar remarks. In response, the emir’s defenders chided critics and called for obedience. One diplomat referred to these leaders — who were once seen as rivals jockeying for power — as an emerging camp of “dissenters.” Their frustrations exist, and are growing, on two different planes. One is rooted in policy differences, concerns over the future direction of the country and what their state looks like; the other is about contestation for power and how the state will apportion it.

Media and Afghan popular discourse obsessed over this rare public display of internal tensions. Commentators described an “intense” power struggle and explored the potential for political upheaval. Rumors spread of a coup plot against the emir, the emir’s counterplots, and Taliban factions breaking into open conflict. In early March, the emir called for a cabinet meeting in Kandahar, in which Hidayatullah Badri, acting minister of finance and a representative of key tribal and factional interests, allegedly tried to resign in protest of the emir’s management of the country’s affairs. Some gossip suggested the entire “dissent” camp had attempted the same.

Yet weeks passed, with no major disruptions to the Taliban’s governance modus operandi, which has plenty of everyday dysfunction. The Islamic State managed to assassinate a senior official, but this merely reinforced an existing difficulty containing the terror group (ever since, Taliban security forces have responded with an expansive series of raids). By the end of March, it was announced that Badri would be reassigned to helm the country’s central bank — hardly the outcome of an explosive revolt against the emir’s authority.

The Emir Asserts Himself

Does the reclusive emir possess unchallenged, “godlike” authority? Or are Taliban leaders plotting to overthrow him? Are Taliban policy debates really just raw struggles for power?

With the virtue of hindsight, the past year of Taliban politics offers some clarity. For most of their insurgency, the group’s leadership council determined policy via obscured consensus, hidden from even their own fighters. In propaganda and in theory, the emir always retained the final say, yet military imperatives dominated the movement’s decisions. But, after the military takeover, the emir began gradually to assert a more robust definition of his authority. The March 2022 decision on girls’ schools was his return to the Taliban’s center stage. From then on, his interference in ministries’ daily affairs increased steadily. By year’s end, the emir’s office had effectively taken over most official appointments, a historical source of patronage and authority in many Afghan governments, including the highly sensitive security ministries. This was a direct challenge to powerful figures like Haqqani and Yaqoub, who already disagreed with the emir’s agenda of domestic social policy and foreign isolationism.

The emir’s overreach, including his December decrees, should be understood as deeply political, and as preoccupied with internal politics as with a harsh vision of a gender apartheid society. One apparent motive for these bans grew out of an increasing concern that the emir’s policies weren’t being enforced strictly enough. Reports gradually made their way to Kandahar of mass disregard for the girls’ school ban and other gender-based restrictions. Obedience, the cornerstone of the movement’s strength, was faltering.

Understanding the Taliban

These internal divisions and Akhundzada’s effort to consolidate power provide several critical takeaways for U.S. policymakers attempting to understand the Taliban today:

  • The emir’s increasingly frantic micromanagement of governance appears prompted in part by perceptions of rampant disobedience; he can either accept being undermined, or double down. In this light, it seems the emir is issuing ever-harsher edicts from a place of weakness, not unquestioned supremacy. This assessment is bolstered, inter alia, by his establishment of ulema councils in every province — which seem to function as the emir’s eyes and ears, like a nationwide “neighborhood watch” for loyal clerics to report violations among the Taliban’s own officials.
  • Dissent against the emir’s agenda is real, but even as a growing number of Taliban seem to believe the emir is overreaching, dissenters aren’t necessarily all in agreement, or even working toward the same objectives, which will make it difficult for them to act in concert.
  • Dissenters, who seem to want to develop the economy and engage with the outside world without betraying their militant roots and ideals, assume a more complicated stance than the emir. More than anyone, Haqqani embodies this struggle between former identities and aspirational new ones: He is an ambitious state builder yet believed responsible for hosting al-Qaida’s former chief in Kabul.
  • The emir, in contrast, offers consistency. In one of his rare public speeches, he said the jihad or struggle did not end when foreign military forces withdrew and the Afghan republic collapsed. The struggle continues to this day, with purification of society as its aim (and with enemies still set against them).
  • Having built a movement based on obedience, with the emir notionally anchoring their organizational discipline, attempting to sideline or overthrow him would pull the rug out from under their own feet. The leadership’s Byzantine decision-making process lacks any solid mechanism for challenging the emir, who for the past 20 years — across different leaders — had almost always deferred to the group’s consensus. Too direct of a challenge to the emir’s authority, and local commanders could quickly lose faith in the movement.
  • Public criticisms are a creative attempt among dissenters to fight back against the emir’s overreach, and perhaps lay the groundwork for a move against him. But it is yet unclear if these critiques are the opening salvo in an impending contest, or acting more like a pressure release valve, allowing leaders to blow off steam while they bide their time.
  • Dissenters are caught in what some political scientists term the moderates’ dilemma, or what some analysts in Kabul call the Taliban’s “propaganda trap.” To prove resilient against a superpower’s military might, the Taliban radicalized their fighters (many practically from birth) and flooded them with extremist propaganda. To shift away from the insurgency’s narratives too suddenly, to ramp up diplomatic engagement and moderate social policies, would be a betrayal to many Taliban fighters. It would cast the leadership as just another “puppet” regime, beholden to foreign interests — exactly what they fought against. As the dust settled after the takeover, which was so sudden and shocking that most of the state was kept running by the republic’s bureaucracy, there was grumbling among rank and file that the Taliban’s government seemed just like the last one, only now wearing turbans and beards. Amid this atmosphere lingers the local branch of the Islamic State, tempting Taliban members with propaganda disparaging the Taliban for meeting with foreigners, compromising on public policy and betraying the purity of the jihadist cause.
  • The above reflection suggests an ominous conclusion. The emir, rather than being portrayed as a fanatical recluse, may be continuing to operate in the same style that won him the job in 2016: a careful listener, deferential to other views and interests. It must be considered a possibility that the emir is not implementing a harsh gender apartheid regime solely out of personal zealotry, but out of firm belief that core constituencies in the Taliban zealously demand it.
  • If true, policymakers shouldn’t hope for too much “moderation” from dissenters, even if they manage to gain the upper hand against the emir and his camp. Even the most pragmatic Taliban figure, elevated to supreme leadership, would be bombarded by the same internal expectations and pressures. The militancy boiling within the movement has not yet cooled.
  • Finally, the Taliban is made up of many different interests and factions, not easily labeled but very easily oversimplified, in a way that can catch policymakers off-guard. In the first days after their takeover, much was made over a spat between the “Haqqanis and the Kandaharis,” in which Haqqanis were painted as dangerous hardliners and Mullah Baradar, former chief of the political office in Doha, supposedly represented moderates and all of southern Afghanistan. Over time, it became clear that Haqqani and Baradar were both far more pragmatic than the emir — so “Kandahar” became shorthand for the supreme leader’s circles. But newer binaries like “Kabul versus Kandahar” obscure the fact that the emir has loyalists based in Kabul and discontents next door.

For the first six months of their rule, observers fixated on Kabul and barely noticed the center of gravity emerging in Kandahar. As the emir flexed his authority over the past year, observers fixated on him and his role. But Taliban politics are churning with dozens of entrenched interests. We are likely not paying enough attention to the next dynamic that could dominate the movement.

What’s Next for the Taliban’s Leadership Amid Rising Dissent?
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Taliban ban on Afghan women working for U.N. an ‘internal’ issue

April 12, 2023
12 April 2023

KABUL, April 12 (Reuters) – Afghanistan’s Taliban administration has said forbidding Afghan women from working for the United Nations was an “internal issue,” after the global organisation expressed alarm at the decision and said it would review its operations there.

In the Taliban administration’s first statement on the decision since the U.N. acknowledged hearing of the new restrictions last week, spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Wednesday the policy “should be respected by all sides”.

The United Nations has said it cannot accept the decision as it would breach its charter. It has asked all its staff not to go into its offices while it holds consultations and reviews its operations until May 5. On Tuesday, the U.N. Mission to Afghanistan said the Taliban administration would be responsible for any negative humanitarian impacts stemming from the ban.

Mujahid, in a statement, blamed foreign governments for the humanitarian crisis spurred by sanctions on its banking sector and the freezing of Afghan central bank assets held overseas, some of which have been placed in a Swiss trust fund.

Some diplomats and aid officials in Afghanistan and around the world have expressed concerns donors may withdraw support to Afghanistan’s humanitarian aid programme, the largest in the world, and that implementing programmes and reaching women in the conservative country would not be possible without female workers.

Taliban authorities in December said most Afghan female NGO workers would not be allowed to work.

The U.N. humanitarian agency has said a huge funding plan for Afghanistan for 2023 is less than 5% funded.

“If funding is not urgently secured, millions of Afghans will be staring down the barrel of famine, disease and death,” it said on Wednesday.

Reporting by Mohammad Yunus Yawar and Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Bernadette Baum
Taliban ban on Afghan women working for U.N. an ‘internal’ issue
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Taliban aim to boost Afghan security forces, anti-aircraft capacity -army chief

April 12, 2023
By 
Reuters
12 April 2023

KABUL, April 12 (Reuters) – Defence has received the largest share of funds in Afghanistan’s budget as the Taliban government aims to boost forces by a third and build anti-aircraft missile capacity, the army chief told Reuters in a rare interview to foreign media.

The defence ambitions of the Taliban, which took over in 2021, come in the face of strong international criticism of its policies, such as restrictions on work and education for women, that have hampered steps towards diplomatic recognition.

In his remarks on Tuesday, Qari Fasihuddin Fitrat, a Taliban commander from the northern region of Badakhshan and the chief of army staff, condemned incursions by foreign drones into Afghan airspace.

Defence forces now numbering 150,000 are targeted to be increased by 50,000, he said, speaking in his office in the highly fortified defence ministry in Kabul, the capital, although he did not reveal the precise figure of the funds.

“The ministry of defence is the top-ranked in the budget,” he said, adding that it received a significantly higher sum than other ministries, as it was a priority in the budget, which is largely funded by boosted tax and customs revenue.

Since their takeover, the Taliban have spent 1-1/2 years building a civilian administration and a national military out of an insurgent force that fought a 20-year war against foreign forces and the previous U.S.-backed Afghan government.

No foreign nation has formally recognised the government, which is battling economic headwinds following sanctions on the banking sector and the cutoff of all development aid.

Fitrat said a major defence focus was securing Afghan airspace against drones and other incursions.

“Anti-aircraft missiles are the need of countries,” he said, adding that all nations sought developed weapons to ensure the integrity of their territory and airspace, a problem Afghanistan also faced.

“There is no doubt that Afghanistan is trying, and doing its best, to have it.”

But Fitrat declined to elaborate on where authorities were looking to procure anti-aircraft missiles from.

He also stopped short of naming Pakistan, against which the Taliban administration has regularly protested, accusing its neighbour of allowing drones to enter Afghanistan.

“We are doing our best to find a solution for protection of our airspace. We will work on it by using all our capability,” Fitrat added.

“From where we will obtain it is confidential, but we should have it.”

Pakistan’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Pakistan officials have not confirmed whether its airspace is used for drone access to Afghanistan.

“We have always tried, and will try, to solve the issue using diplomatic ways, and we have done our best to be patient regarding these cases,” Fitrat said, but sounded a note of caution.

“Neighbouring countries should not let our patience be exhausted.”

Ties between the neighbours have occasionally been tense as as Pakistan has accused the Taliban administration of allowing Afghan territory to be used as a haven for militant groups.

Among these is the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), which has stepped up attacks in Pakistan in recent months.

The Taliban administration denies allowing its territory to be used for attacks on others, however.

There have been border clashes between the forces of both, and analysts say that in the event of conflict escalating, Pakistan’s airforce would give it a strong edge.

Fitrat said former security personnel, who form a significant share of Afghanistan’s forces, were being paid and treated in the same way as Taliban fighters.

The comments follow concern voiced by international rights groups and the United Nations that some former members of Afghan security forces members were targeted or killed.

While the Taliban have declared a general amnesty for former combatants, saying they would investigate cases of wrongdoing, they have not detailed legal action regarding alleged extrajudicial targeting.

Reporting by Mohammad Yunus Yawar; Writing by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Clarence Fernandez
Taliban aim to boost Afghan security forces, anti-aircraft capacity -army chief
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West Kicks Off Visit to Region to Discuss Afghan Situation

April 12, 2023
Banafsha Binesh
Tolo News
12 April 2023

This comes as some political analysts said that the meetings of the US special envoy have not been significantly effective.

The US special envoy for Afghanistan, Thomas West, is traveling to the UAE, Qatar and Turkey to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.

In Doha, West will meet with Qatari colleagues, Afghan civil society leaders, and partner missions, according to a statement of the US Department of State.

The statement said that West will also meet with his UAE counterpart, and Afghan business and thought leaders in the UAE.

“As we had a meeting with Mr. West last time, we are planning to have a meeting with him again to negotiate with him on behalf of the traders. We have conveyed the problems to him. It is clear for him,” said Haji Obaidullah Sader Khail, head of the Afghan Business Council in the UAE.

The US State Department further said that West will hold consultations with Afghan political leaders, journalists, humanitarian professionals and human rights activists in Istanbul.

“SRA West is conducting outreach in the region to secure input as the international community seeks solutions to Afghanistan’s compounding challenges, made worse by the Taliban’s recent decisions to limit women’s participation in humanitarian operations and ban them from their vital work for the UN,” the statement said.

“(Either) the president should be changed in one and half years in the US or there will be a general change in Afghanistan, so that the US stance regarding Afghanistan will change then. Otherwise, these visits are only diplomatic and administrative,” said Torek Farhadi, a political analyst.

This comes as some political analysts said that the meetings of the US special envoy have not been significantly effective.

“This type of visit has two goals. On the one hand, it is aimed to promote the general views of the US around the world to show that Mr. Thomas West is doing his job as the representative of the US,” said Noorullah Raghi, a former diplomat.

West’s visit come after the Islamic Emirate’s recent decision to ban all Afghan female UN staff from going to work, which was followed by strong reactions at a national and international level.

West Kicks Off Visit to Region to Discuss Afghan Situation
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24 Million Afghans Need Humanitarian Assistance: Dujarric

April 12, 2023
Mohammad Farshad Daryosh
TOLOnews’ Reporter
12 April 2023

An economist, Shabir Basheeri said that the issue will cause a rise in poverty in Afghanistan.

The UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that almost 24 million Afghans need humanitarian assistance. 

“UN national personnel – both women and men – have been instructed not to report to UN offices, with only limited and calibrated exceptions made for critical tasks, but they will be working from home and continue to be paid. The mission said any negative consequences of this crisis for the Afghan people will be the responsibility of the de facto authorities. Just to confirm that we will maintain principled and constructive engagement with all possible levels of the Taliban de facto authorities, as mandated by the Security Council,” Dujarric told a press conference.

The Chair of the European Parliament Delegation for relations with Afghanistan, Petras Auštrevičius, “strongly” condemned the decision of the Islamic Emirate to ban female Afghan UN staff from working.

“Humanitarian aid provided by EU has to match our principle and I call for this to be respected. Only the Taliban regime will be held responsible for aggravating the suffering it is inflicting to its citizens,” he said.

An economist, Shabir Basheeri said that the issue will cause a rise in poverty in Afghanistan.

“We need to implement strategic programs and programs by the government to deal with this matter and to be able to provide jobs for the people,” he said.

Human rights defenders said the people of Afghanistan should not become victims of political agendas.

“The people of Afghanistan should not become victims of unfair international and foreign politics with the Afghan caretaker government,” said Suraya Paikan, a women’s rights activist.

The Office of the Chief of Staff of the Prime Minister said the political deputy Mawlawi Abdul Kabir met with political and economic affairs officials of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

“It was agreed that any problem that happens, the Islamic Emirate and UNAMA must sit face to face to and solve it,” the office said on Twitter.

The Islamic Emirate’s spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said that the Islamic Emirate is committed to the rights of all citizens.

“The issues that the Islamic Emirate has mentioned are based on Sharia law. We also call on the UN to not link its major programs to small issues that are internal matters of Afghanistan,” said Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Islamic Emirate.

UNAMA in a statement called the ban on its female employee “unlawful.”  

24 Million Afghans Need Humanitarian Assistance: Dujarric
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China Spells Out Its Position on Afghanistan

April 12, 2023
Mujeeb Rahman Awrang Stanikzai
Head of TOLOnews’ Online Department
12 April 2023

China also vowed to provide assistance through bilateral and multilateral channels for the Afghan refugees.

The embassy of China in Kabul shed light on 11 points that clarified the country’s position regarding Afghanistan.

The point first, the embassy said in a statement, was that China respects the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan and that it also respects the independent choices made by the Afghan people and respects the religious beliefs and national customs of Afghanistan.

“China never interferes in Afghanistan’s internal affairs, never seeks selfish interests in Afghanistan, and never pursues so-called sphere of influence,” the statement said.

The statement gives ten more points:

  1. Supporting moderate and prudent governance in Afghanistan.
  2. Supporting peace and reconstruction of Afghanistan.
  3. Supporting Afghanistan in countering terrorism resolutely and forcefully.
  4. Calling for greater bilateral and multilateral counter-terrorism cooperation.
  5. Working together to fight terrorism, separatism and extremism in Afghanistan.
  6. Urging the US to live up to its commitments and responsibilities to Afghanistan.
  7. Opposing external interference and infiltration in Afghanistan.
  8. Strengthening international and regional coordination on the Afghan issue.
  9. Facilitating solution to Afghanistan’s humanitarian and refugee issues.
  10. Supporting Afghanistan’s fight against narcotics.

The statement furthered that China hopes that “Afghanistan could build an open and inclusive political structure, adopt moderate and prudent domestic and foreign policies, and engage in friendly exchanges with all countries especially neighboring countries.”

The statement stressed protecting the basic rights and interests of all Afghan people by the interim Afghan government “including women, children and all ethnic groups.”

According to the statement, China will continue to “do its best” to help Afghanistan with reconstruction and development, as well as promote steady progress in economic, trade and investment cooperation.

“China welcomes Afghanistan’s participation in Belt and Road cooperation and supports Afghanistan’s integration into regional economic cooperation and connectivity that will transform Afghanistan from a land-locked country to a land-linked country,” the statement said.

The statement also expressed concerns over the presence of the “East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM)” saying that it poses a severe threat to the security of China, Afghanistan and the region. It hoped that “Afghanistan will fulfill its commitment in earnest and take more effective measures to crack down on all terrorist forces.”

It suggested that Afghanistan should be supported in taking comprehensive measures to address both the symptoms and root causes of terrorism and “prevent the country from again becoming a safe haven, breeding ground and source of terrorism.”

The statement also criticized the US: “It is a widely-held view in the international community that, by seizing Afghanistan’s overseas assets and imposing unilateral sanctions, the US, which created the Afghan issue in the first place, is the biggest external factor that hinders substantive improvement in the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan.”

“The US should draw lessons from what happened in Afghanistan, face squarely the grave humanitarian, economic and security risks and challenges in Afghanistan, immediately lift its sanctions, return the Afghan overseas assets, and deliver its pledged humanitarian aid to meet the emergency needs of the Afghan people,” the statement reads.

According to the statement, it is a shared view of regional countries that the military interference and “democratic transformation” by external forces in Afghanistan over the past 20-years have inflicted “enormous losses and pain on Afghanistan.”

The statement suggested that “under the new circumstances,” Afghanistan should be a platform for cooperation among various parties rather than geopolitical games.

China also vowed to provide assistance through bilateral and multilateral channels for the Afghan refugees.

“China looks forward to and supports more concrete actions by Afghanistan to counter narcotics cultivation, production and illicit trafficking, and will work with the international community to help Afghanistan with alternative development and crackdown on cross-border drug-related crimes, so as to eliminate the source of narcotics in the region,” the statement said.

China Spells Out Its Position on Afghanistan
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Taliban say there’s no obstacles for UN work in Afghanistan

April 12, 2023

Associated Press

12 April 2023

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Taliban’s chief spokesman said Wednesday there are no obstacles for the U.N. to function in Afghanistan, after they barred Afghan women from working at the global body.

Last week, the country’s Taliban rulers took a step further in the restrictive measures they have imposed on women and said that female Afghan staffers employed with the U.N. mission can no longer report for work. The ban is being actively enforced by the country’s intelligence agency, which reports to the Taliban’s leadership in Kandahar.

The U.N. says it cannot accept the decision, calling it unlawful and an unparalleled violation of women’s rights. It says women are crucial for the delivery of life-saving aid to millions of Afghans, and has instructed its national staff, male and female, to stay at home.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban-led government’s chief spokesman and part of the supreme leader’s inner circle, denied authorities were to blame for Afghanistan’s many crises.

The decision to bar Afghan women from working at the U.N. was an internal matter and should be respected by all sides, Mujahid said, as he set out the Taliban’s position and demands to the international community.

“This decision does not mean there is discrimination here, or that the activities of the United Nations are blocked. On the contrary, we are committed to all the rights of all our countrymen, taking into account their religious and cultural interests.

“Considering the emergency situation in Afghanistan, it is necessary for the member countries of the United Nations to resolve the problem of frozen Afghan assets, banking, travel bans and other restrictions as soon as possible so that Afghanistan can progress in economic, political and security areas. Afghans have the capacity to stand on their own feet.”

Aid agencies have been providing food, education and health care support to Afghans in the wake of the Taliban takeover and the economic collapse that followed it. But distribution has been severely affected by a Taliban edict banning women from working at non-governmental organizations — and, now, also at the U.N, allegedly because they weren’t wearing the hijab, or Islamic headscarf correctly, or following gender segregation.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Abdul Qahar Balkhi, called the order barring Afghan women from NGO and U.N. work “an internal values-based issue” that is not harming others.

The United Nations’ head of mission in the country, Roza Otunbayeva, has “initiated an operational review period” lasting until May 5 in response to the ban, according to a U.N. statement.

During this time, the U.N. will “conduct the necessary consultations, make required operational adjustments, and accelerate contingency planning for all possible outcomes,” a veiled suggestion that it could move to suspend its mission and operations in the embattled country.

The U.N. has warned that its Afghan operations are also under threat because of a severe funding crisis, putting millions of lives at risk.

“Already, the food basket has had to be cut to half due to insufficient resources. If funding is not urgently secured, millions of Afghans will be staring down the barrel of famine, disease & death,” its office for humanitarian affairs said in a tweet Wednesday.

No country has recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan and the country’s seat at the U.N. is held by the former government of President Ashraf Ghani.

Taliban say there’s no obstacles for UN work in Afghanistan
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Taliban ban on women has forced UN into ‘appalling choice’

April 12, 2023

Al Jazeera

Published On 11 Apr 2023

UN says negative consequences of the crisis for Afghan people will be the responsibility of the de facto authorities.

The United Nations is being forced to make an “appalling choice” about whether to continue operations in Afghanistan while the Taliban government bans women from working for the organisation.

Taliban authorities have imposed a slew of restrictions on Afghan women since seizing power in 2021, including banning them from higher education and many government jobs. In December, the Taliban banned Afghan women from working for domestic and foreign non-governmental organisations, and on April 4 extended that to UN offices across the country.

In a statement on Tuesday, the UN mission in Afghanistan said the ban was “unlawful under international law, including the UN Charter, and for that reason, the United Nations cannot comply”.

“Through this ban, the Taliban de facto authorities seek to force the United Nations into having to make an appalling choice between staying and delivering in support of the Afghan people and standing by the norms and principles we are duty-bound to uphold,” it said.

The increasing curbs are reminiscent of the Taliban’s first takeover of Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, when the UN said they were responsible for repeated human rights violations – particularly against girls and women.

“It should be clear that any negative consequences of this crisis for the Afghan people will be the responsibility of the de facto authorities,” the statement said.

Decree in violation of UN’s charter

The UN employs approximately 400 Afghan women in the country, with local employees making up the bulk of that figure. Earlier this month, UN humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan Ramiz Alakbarov said that the decree violated the world body’s charter.

Since the ban was announced, the UN has ordered all its Afghan staff, men and women, not to report to the offices until further notice.

The ban triggered international outrage, with the Taliban authorities coming under severe criticism. They have so far not issued any clarification or reason for the UN ban.

In total, there are about 3,300 Afghans in the country’s 3,900-strong UN workforce.

Many NGOs suspended all operations in the country in protest after the ban on women staff was announced in December, piling further misery on Afghanistan’s citizens, half of whom face hunger, according to aid agencies.

The restriction will also hamper donation-raising efforts by the UN at a time when Afghanistan is enduring one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, UN officials have said.

The UN airlifted $1.8bn into Afghanistan between December 2021 and January 2023, funding an aid lifeline for the nation’s 38 million citizens and shoring up the domestic economy.

In other restrictions placed on Afghan women since 2021, teenage girls have been barred from secondary school, women have been pushed out of many government jobs, prevented from travelling without a male relative and ordered to cover up outside the home, ideally with a burqa.

Women have also been banned from universities and are not allowed to enter parks, gyms or public baths.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
Taliban ban on women has forced UN into ‘appalling choice’
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In a Deadly Mountain Pass, a Tiny Hotel Is a Lifeline

April 10, 2023
By Christina Goldbaum and Yaqoob Akbary

The New York Times

SABZAK PASS, Afghanistan — The hotel is perched on the side of a mountain blanketed in snow. The ice-slicked road outside is treacherous. It stretches for miles in either direction through jagged peaks as it winds around the edges of cliffs and dips past piles of boulders left over from frequent rockslides.

It’s 6:30 a.m., and inside the hotel’s kitchen, Najibullah Bastani throws kindling onto a small fire and places a dented metal teapot above its flames.

“What will this day bring?” Mr. Bastani sighed, as he watched flurries of snow graze the road outside and waited for the day’s first cars to traverse the pass.

Ever since record-breaking winter weather seized Afghanistan this year, Mr. Bastani has assumed an outsize role in this desolate stretch of highway in Badghis Province, the only land bridge open year-round that connects cities across northern Afghanistan to the west.

But the trek across the 20-mile stretch of the Sabzak Pass — which is covered in snow six months of the year — is often as dangerous as the troubles being fled. Cars slide from the road in flash storms. Rusted snow chains, held together by twine, snap off tires. Piercing wind topples over trucks, blocking the pass for days.

For these and many other distressed travelers, Mr. Bastani’s hotel has become a lighthouse of sorts.

Every trucker and taxi driver who frequents the pass knows to call him when they find a vehicle that has run out of fuel or slipped off the road. He delivers food to the passengers, calls the closest mechanic and sends a local taxi driver to bring them to the comfort of the hotel.

His efforts illustrate that in times of crisis — civil war or foreign invasion or government collapse or an economic crisis like that gripping Afghans today — the kindness of strangers often holds the country together, an informal social backstop.

“It’s my duty if I know them or even if I don’t know them,” said Mr. Bastani, 52. “I have to help them.”

The small guesthouse, known as the Sayed Abad Hotel, sits on a small gravel strip at the center of the pass. Behind it is a small village, whose mud-brick dwellings are home to about 80 families. Next to the hotel are a few shops selling dust-coated cans of energy drinks, an outhouse with a rickety wooden door, and a shed of kindling that village children collect each morning.

Mr. Bastani let out a wry laugh and handed him a glass of tea. Soon some other men lumbered down from the village into the warmth of the kitchen and rested on a bench across from the fire.

“We can’t stay home, our children will destroy us — they make so much noise all the time,” said one of the men, Jalil Ahmad.

As the temperatures plummeted earlier in the year, congregating in the kitchen each morning had become their daily routine — looking for warmth as much as company.

The camaraderie was a welcome change for Mr. Bastani. When he arrived in the area a year ago and asked to lease the hotel, the men in the village were skeptical of the stranger. But Mr. Nabi, the hotel’s original owner, was also eager for help running the business.

For much of the past 20 years, the pass had been maintained by about 1,200 Afghan soldiers, tasked by the Western-backed government with protecting the vital route from the Taliban.

The soldiers oversaw the highway’s transformation from a dirt path to a paved road and assisted those who ran into trouble trying to traverse its unforgiving terrain. But when the Western-backed government collapsed, so too did the safety net those soldiers provided. Practically overnight, the hotel became the round-the-clock headquarters for roadside assistance.

“The government was solving people’s issues in the past,” Mr. Nabi said, adding that the Taliban administration has stationed far fewer of their soldiers along the pass.

After he took over running the hotel from Mr. Nabi, Mr. Bastani assumed the role of the so-called Keeper of the Pass, a guardian for everyone who dares cross it. Mr. Bastani said he relished the role, so different from what his life had been.

He spent his late teenage years fighting for an Afghan warlord who encouraged his troops to kill and steal at will, then deserted his comrades in search of work in Iran, where he became addicted to drugs. His new life, helping others along the road each day, seemed to offer him a sort of redemption.

His eagerness to serve has injected new energy into the surrounding village that — much like the pass — had languished since the Western-backed government fell and the economy tanked with it.

The 700 trucks that once had traveled the road each day shrank to around 300, squeezing the shopkeepers’ business. Shepherds lost their herds to drought and then freezing weather. Village elders suddenly struggled to collect enough leftovers to feed the community’s poorest.

“It didn’t used to be like this,” said one shopkeeper, Abdul Khaliq, 40. “It used to be when you went to relatives for help, they gave you money, gave you food. But if you go to a relative now and ask for help, they will say, ‘if I give you something now, then tomorrow what will I eat?’”

The struggle to provide for one another has been felt across the country, shaking the fabric of Afghan society as profoundly as the changes the new government has wrought.

But for the thousands of travelers braving the unforgiving pass each week, there is Mr. Bastani and his warm kitchen and his cellphone always at the ready and the men around him offering to lend a hand.

When the sound of ice crunching beneath tires alerted the men to the day’s first customers, the kitchen sprung into action. As four men walked into the hotel, Mr. Bastani put on a fresh pot of tea and instructed his 8-year-old son to offer the travelers bread.

“How many are you there? Want tea?” Mr. Bastani called through a window into the main room.

When the driver asked about the conditions of the road, Mr. Bastani recounted the story of a fatal accident only days earlier, after a bus without chains on its tires had slid off the road into a small ditch.

All of its passengers disembarked except for an older woman and young boy who stayed on board, not wanting to wait in knee-deep snow. But before Mr. Bastani and his men could move the bus back onto the road, it suddenly slid farther and tumbled off a cliff — killing both the woman and the boy.

“You need to put on chains,” one of the shopkeepers advised the driver sternly.

“And if you don’t put chains on,” Mr. Bastani added, “God only knows.”

Before the driver departed into the white landscape, he shook Mr. Bastani’s hand. He hoped not to see these men again, he confided, but was comforted knowing that, if he needed them, they would be there.

Christina Goldbaum is a correspondent in the Kabul, Afghanistan, bureau. 

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