Al Qaeda Is Back—and Thriving—in Afghanistan

March 27, 2024
By
A columnist at Foreign Policy and an Australian journalist and author.
22 March 2024

Al Qaeda is back to its old tricks in Afghanistan. Much as it did before masterminding the 9/11 attacks, the terrorist group is running militant training camps; sharing the profits of the Taliban’s illicit drug, mining, and smuggling enterprises; and funneling the proceeds to affiliated jihadi groups worldwide.

An unpublished report circulating among Western diplomats and U.N. officials details how deeply embedded the group once run by Osama bin Laden is in the Taliban’s operations, as they loot Afghanistan’s natural wealth and steal international aid meant to alleviate the suffering of millions of Afghans.

The report was completed by a private, London-based threat analysis firm whose directors did not want to be identified. A copy was provided to Foreign Policy and its findings verified by independent sources. It is based on research conducted inside Afghanistan in recent months and includes a list of senior al Qaeda operatives and the roles they play in the Taliban’s administration.

To facilitate its ambitions, al Qaeda is raking in tens of millions of dollars a week from gold mines in Afghanistan’s northern Badakhshan and Takhar provinces that employ tens of thousands of workers and are protected by warlords friendly to the Taliban, the report says. The money represents a 25 percent share in proceeds from gold and gem mines; 11 gold mines are geolocated in the report. The money is shared with al Qaeda by the two Taliban factions: Sirajuddin Haqqani’s Kabul faction and Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada’s Kandahar faction, suggesting both leaders, widely regarded as archrivals, see a cozy relationship with al Qaeda as furthering their own interests as well as helping to entrench the group’s overall power.

The Taliban’s monthly take from the gold mines tops $25 million, though this money “does not appear in their official budget,” the report says. Quoting on-the-ground sources, it says the money “goes directly into the pockets of top-ranking Taliban officials and their personal networks.” Since the mines began operating in early 2022, al Qaeda’s share has totaled $194.4 million, it says.

AFTER REGAINING POWER IN AUGUST 2021, the Taliban integrated a large number of listed terrorist groups that fought alongside them against the U.S.-supported Afghan republic. The Biden administration, however, has persistently denied that al Qaeda has reconstituted in Afghanistan or even that al Qaeda and the Taliban have maintained their long, close relationship.

Those denials ring hollow as evidence piles up that the Taliban and al Qaeda are as close as ever. The U.N. Security Council and the U.S. Congress-mandated Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) have consistently reported on the Taliban’s symbiotic relationship with dozens of banned terrorist outfits, including al Qaeda.

Few experts believed Taliban leaders’ assurances, during negotiations with former U.S. President Donald Trump that led to the ignominious U.S. retreat, that the group’s relationship with al Qaeda was over; bin Laden’s vision of a global caliphate based in Afghanistan was a guiding principle of the war that returned the Taliban regime, which one Western official in Kabul said differs only from the previous regime in 1996-2001 in that “they are even better at repression.”

The historic relationship hit global headlines when bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was killed on July 31, 2022, in a U.S. drone strike as he stood by the window of a Kabul villa. The property was linked to Haqqani, the head of the largely autonomous Haqqani network and a member of al Qaeda’s leadership structure. He is also a deputy head of the Taliban and its interior minister, overseeing security. He is believed to harbor ambitions for the top job of supreme leader, with aspirations to become caliph.

Now that they can operate with impunity, the reports says, the Taliban are once again providing al Qaeda commanders and operatives with everything they need, from weapons to wives, housing, passports, and access to the vast smuggling network built up over decades to facilitate the heroin empire that bankrolled the Taliban’s war.

The routes have been repurposed for lower-cost, higher-return methamphetamine, weapons, cash, gold, and other contraband. Militants from Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and the Palestinian territories also circulate through the al Qaeda training camps that have been revived since the Taliban takeover. Security is provided by the Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence.

The report includes a list of al Qaeda commanders, some of whom were bin Laden’s lieutenants when he was living in Afghanistan while planning the attacks on the United States. Those atrocities precipitated the U.S.-led invasion that drove him, and the Taliban leadership, into Pakistan, where they were sheltered, funded, and armed by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

The report’s findings “demonstrate that, as expected, the Taliban leadership continues to be willing to protect not only the leadership of al Qaeda but also fighters, including foreign terrorist fighters from a long list of al Qaeda affiliates,” said Hans-Jakob Schindler, the senior director of the Berlin- and New York-based Counter Extremism Project and an expert on terrorism. “It is clear that the Taliban have never changed their stance toward international terrorism and, in particular, al Qaeda.”

Many analysts believe President Joe Biden’s decision to stick to Trump’s withdrawal deal led to Afghanistan becoming an incubator of extremism and terrorism. Leaders of neighboring and regional states, including Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and countries in Central Asia, have expressed concern about the threat posed by the Taliban’s transnational ambitions. U.N. figures, including Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett, have repeatedly called out Taliban suppression of rights and freedoms and the imprisonment and killing of perceived opponents.

In February, the George W. Bush Institute released the first report in its three-part Captured State series titled “Corruption and Kleptocracy in Afghanistan Under the Taliban,” which recommends action by the United States and the U.N. to rein in Taliban excesses. It calls on the United States and allies “to pressure foreign enablers of Taliban corruption and reputation laundering to stop facilitating corrupt economic trading activities, illicit trafficking, and moving and stashing personal wealth outside Afghanistan.”

Pointedly, it says the U.N. and other aid organizations “should demand greater accountability for how aid is spent and distributed” and urges international donors to support civil society, which has been decimated by the Taliban.

It’s a reference to the billions of dollars in aid that have been sent to Afghanistan since the republic collapsed—including, controversially, $40 million in cash each week, which has helped keep the local currency stable despite economic implosion. The United States is the biggest supporter, funneling more than $2.5 billion to the country from October 2021 to September 2023, SIGAR said. Foreign Policy has reported extensively on the Taliban’s systematic pilfering of foreign humanitarian aid for redistribution to supporters, which has exacerbated profound poverty.

The Bush Institute paper is one of the few comprehensive studies of the impact of the Taliban’s return to power to publicly call for the group to face consequences for its actions. It suggests, for instance, the enforcement of international travel bans on Taliban leaders, which are easily and often flouted.

Recognition of the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan “would reinforce the Taliban’s claim to power and strengthen their position” by giving them even greater access to “cold, hard cash,” the report says, a warning that comes amid growing fears that the United States could be preparing to reopen its Kabul embassy, which the Taliban would see as tacit recognition.

By “capturing the Afghan state, the Taliban have significantly upgraded their access to resources,” the Bush Institute argues, putting the group “in the perfect position now to loot it for their own individual gain.”

That plundered resource wealth also appears to be boosting the coffers of like-minded groups. The London firm’s unpublished report identifies 14 al Qaeda affiliates—most of them listed by the U.N. Security Council’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team—that are directly benefiting from the mining proceeds. They include seven inside Afghanistan (among them, the anti-China East Turkestan Islamic Movement, the anti-Tajikistan Jamaat Ansarullah, and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, which is fighting the Pakistani state) and seven operating elsewhere: al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al Qaeda in Yemen, al Qaeda in Iraq, al Qaeda in Syria, al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, al Qaeda in the Mahgreb, and al-Shabab, largely active in East Africa.

For Western governments that might be pondering a closer relationship with the Taliban regime or even diplomatic recognition, Schindler of the Counter Extremism Project sounded a note of warning. The Taliban, he said, are “not a viable counterterrorism partner, even on a tactical level.” Instead, the group “remains one of the prime sponsors of terrorism” worldwide.

Lynne O’Donnell is a columnist at Foreign Policy and an Australian journalist and author. She was the Afghanistan bureau chief for Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press between 2009 and 2017.

Al Qaeda Is Back—and Thriving—in Afghanistan
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Female journalists in Eastern Afghanistan persist despite economic hardships

March 26, 2024
Khaama Press

Female journalists in local media in Nangarhar say that despite economic difficulties and recent changes making work conditions tougher, they continue working in the media.

They mention that media outlets offer minimal benefits for the work they do. They receive this compensation for their extensive work while work conditions for women in local media in this province are severely restricted.

Female journalists in this province say that conditions are worsening daily, and restrictions are increasing.

It’s worth noting that in Nangarhar, apart from national radio and television, two private televisions and 14 private radios are operating daily.

The presence of female journalists in Nangarhar media

With the fall of the Republic system in Afghanistan and the resurgence of the Taliban administration, restrictions against work, education, and movement for women have been put into effect through separate orders.

This situation has left many female journalists and media workers unemployed. Most of them are now concerned about their uncertain fate.

A journalist who has lost her job and is now confined to her home spoke to Khaama Press, saying, “They show some sensitivity towards women. We hope with continued work, this situation will change and improve. We hope to see equal opportunities for women’s involvement and job opportunities. We hope the restrictions will be lifted.”

Despite financial problems, unemployment, and lack of access to information, female journalists in this province are grappling with additional challenges that restrict their media activities.

Fatima Samimi, a journalist in a private media outlet, told Khaama Press about her daily challenges: “The subject of reporting often changes due to pressures, and sometimes the reports remain incomplete.”

However, Sadiqullah Qureshi, the information officer of the Taliban’s Information and Culture Directorate in Nangarhar province, assured female journalists that no one could prevent them from working under the conditions of the Taliban government.

But Ms. Samimi says, “When we inquire about their views on our reports from government officials, they do not share information with us. Experts and the public refrain from sharing information due to fear, leading us to change the subject. Although our subject is not sensitive, we change it because our report remains incomplete.”

An employee of the Gender Equality Department of a media-supporting institution in Nangarhar province, commenting on the problems female journalists face, said, “The presence of women in the media has decreased due to recent economic constraints and limitations. According to her, the economic downturn in Nangarhar has hit some media outlets hard.

Currently, most media outlets in Nangarhar are facing economic difficulties, which have negatively impacted female journalists’ work.

Mursal Ahmadi, a journalist who is the sole breadwinner for her family of eight, is active in media in Nangarhar province.

She used to work in a media organization with a salary of $600 before the Taliban’s takeover, but now she works with a local radio station for a monthly salary of only 1,500 Afghanis.

It is worth mentioning that following the current conditions, many media outlets in the province have dismissed many of their female reporters, correspondents, and staff.

It is worth mentioning that in the previous republic system, there were 530 active media outlets in Afghanistan, including 70 television stations, 300 radio stations, and the remaining print media and news agencies where hundreds of female journalists worked, and the field was conducive to women’s media activities.

Female journalists in Eastern Afghanistan persist despite economic hardships
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ISIS Affiliate Linked to Moscow Attack Has Global Ambitions

March 26, 2024

Reporting from Washington

The New York Times

The Islamic State in Khorasan is active in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran and has set its sights on Europe and beyond.

Five years ago this month, an American-backed Kurdish and Arab militia ousted Islamic State fighters from a village in eastern Syria, the group’s last sliver of territory.

Since then, the organization that once staked out a self-proclaimed caliphate across Iraq and Syria has metastasized into a more traditional terrorist group — a clandestine network of cells from West Africa to Southeast Asia engaged in guerrilla attacks, bombings and targeted assassinations.

None of the group’s affiliates have been as relentless as the Islamic State in Khorasan, which is active in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran and has set its sights on attacking Europe and beyond. U.S. officials say the group carried out the attack near Moscow on Friday, killing scores of people and wounding many others.

In January, Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K, carried out twin bombings in Iran that killed scores and wounded hundreds of others at a memorial service for Iran’s former top general, Qassim Suleimani, who was targeted in a U.S. drone strike four years earlier.

“The threat from ISIS,” Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, told a Senate panel this month, “remains a significant counterterrorism concern.” Most attacks “globally taken on by ISIS have actually occurred by parts of ISIS that are outside of Afghanistan,” she said.

Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, the head of the military’s Central Command, told a House committee on Thursday that ISIS-K “retains the capability and the will to attack U.S. and Western interests abroad in as little as six months with little to no warning.”

American counterterrorism specialists on Sunday dismissed the Kremlin’s suggestion that Ukraine was behind Friday’s attack near Moscow. “The modus operandi was classic ISIS,” said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The assault was the third concert venue in the Northern Hemisphere that ISIS has struck in the past decade, Mr. Hoffman said, following an attack on the Bataclan theater in Paris in November 2015 (as part of a broader operation that struck other targets in the city) and a suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester Arena, England, in May 2017.

Islamic State Khorasan, founded in 2015 by disaffected members of the Pakistani Taliban, burst onto the international jihadist scene after the Taliban toppled the Afghan government in 2021. During the U.S. military withdrawal from the country, ISIS-K carried out a suicide bombing at the international airport in Kabul in August 2021 that killed 13 U.S. service members and as many as 170 civilians.

Since then, the Taliban have been fighting ISIS-K in Afghanistan. So far, the Taliban’s security services have prevented the group from seizing territory or recruiting large numbers of former Taliban fighters, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials.

But the upward arc and scope of ISIS-K’s attacks have increased in recent years, with cross-border strikes into Pakistan and a growing number of plots in Europe. Most of those European plots were thwarted, prompting Western intelligence assessments that the group might have reached the lethal limits of its capabilities.

Last July, Germany and the Netherlands coordinated arrests targeting seven Tajik, Turkmen and Kyrgyz individuals linked to a ISIS-K network who were suspected of plotting attacks in Germany.

Three men were arrested in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia over alleged plans to attack the Cologne Cathedral on New Year’s Eve 2023. The raids were linked to three other arrests in Austria and one in Germany on Dec. 24. The four people were reportedly acting in support of ISIS-K.

American and other Western counterterrorism officials say these plots were organized by low-level operatives who were detected and thwarted relatively quickly.

“Thus far, ISIS-Khorasan has relied primarily on inexperienced operatives in Europe to try to advance attacks in its name,” Christine S. Abizaid, the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, told a House committee in November.

But there are worrisome signs that ISIS-K is learning from its mistakes. In January, masked assailants attacked a Roman Catholic church in Istanbul, killing one person. Shortly afterward, the Islamic State, through its official Amaq News Agency, claimed responsibility. Turkish law enforcement forces detained 47 people, most of them Central Asian nationals.

Since then, Turkish security forces have launched mass counteroperations against ISIS suspects in Turkey, Syria and Iraq. Several European investigations shed light on the global and interconnected nature of ISIS finances, according to a United Nations report in January, which identified Turkey as a logistical hub for ISIS-K operations in Europe.

The Moscow and Iran attacks demonstrated more sophistication, counterterrorism officials said, suggesting a greater level of planning and an ability to tap into local extremist networks.

“ISIS-K has been fixated on Russia for the past two years,” frequently criticizing President Vladimir V. Putin in its propaganda, said Colin P. Clarke, a counterterrorism analyst at the Soufan Group, a security consulting firm based in New York. “ISIS-K accuses the Kremlin of having Muslim blood in its hands, referencing Moscow’s interventions in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Syria.”

A significant portion of ISIS-K’s members are of Central Asian origin, and there is a large contingent of Central Asians living and working in Russia. Some of these individuals may have become radicalized and been in position to serve in a logistical function, stockpiling weapons, Mr. Clarke said.

Daniel Byman, a counterterrorism specialist at Georgetown University, said that “ISIS-K has gathered fighters from Central Asia and the Caucasus under its wing, and they may be responsible for the Moscow attack, either directly or via their own networks.”

Russian and Iranian authorities apparently did not take seriously enough public and more detailed private American warnings of imminent ISIS-K attack plotting, or were distracted by other security challenges.

“In early March, the U.S. government shared information with Russia about a planned terrorist attack in Moscow,” Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said on Saturday. “We also issued a public advisory to Americans in Russia on March 7. ISIS bears sole responsibility for this attack. There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever.”

Russian authorities on Saturday announced the arrest of several suspects in Friday’s attack. But senior American officials said on Sunday that they were still digging into the background of the assailants and trying to determine whether they were deployed from South or Central Asia for this specific attack or if they were already in the country as part of the network of supporters that ISIS-K then engaged and encouraged.

Counterterrorism specialists voiced concern on Sunday that the attacks in Moscow and Iran might embolden ISIS-K to redouble its efforts to strike in Europe, particularly in France, Belgium, Britain and other countries that have been hit on and off for the past decade.

The U.N. report, using a different name for Islamic State Khorasan, said “some individuals of North Caucasus and Central Asian origin traveling from Afghanistan or Ukraine toward Europe represent an opportunity for ISIL-K, which seeks to project violent attacks in the West.” The report concluded that there was evidence of “current and unfinished operational plots on European soil conducted by ISIL-K.”

A senior Western intelligence official identified three main drivers that could inspire ISIS-K operatives to attack: the existence of dormant cells in Europe, images of the war in Gaza and support from Russian-speaking people living in Europe.

One major event this summer has many counterterrorism officials on edge.

“I worry about the Paris Olympics,” said Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former top U.N. counterterrorism official who is now a senior adviser to the Counter Extremism Project. “They would be a premium terrorist target.”

Eric Schmitt is a national security correspondent for The Times, focusing on U.S. military affairs and counterterrorism issues overseas, topics he has reported on for more than three decades.

ISIS Affiliate Linked to Moscow Attack Has Global Ambitions
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IS-K: Who are the Islamic State jihadists blamed for Moscow attack?

March 26, 2024

By Frank Gardner

BBC security correspondent

March 25, 2024

Despite attempts by President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s state-controlled media to pin the blame for Friday’s deadly Moscow theatre attack on Ukraine, more details are emerging about the jihadist group IS-K, believed to have been behind it.

Who or what is IS-K?

IS-K is an abbreviation of Islamic State-Khorasan – a regional affiliate of the Islamic State group, which has been proscribed as a terror organisation by governments across the world.

It is focused on Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan and into Central Asia.

The group has given itself the name Khorasan as that was part of an historic Islamic caliphate spanning that region.

IS-K has been around for nine years but in recent months it has emerged as the most dangerous branch of the Islamic State group, with a long reach and a reputation for extreme brutality and cruelty.

Along with what is left of the group’s wider leadership in Syria and Iraq, IS-K aspires to a pan-national Islamic caliphate ruled through an ultra-strict interpretation of Sharia, Islamic law.

In Afghanistan it is waging a sporadic but still deadly insurgency against the country’s rulers, the Taliban, who it opposes on ideological grounds.

Has IS-K carried out attacks before?

It targeted the chaotic evacuation from Kabul airport in 2021 with a suicide bomb, killing 170 Afghans and 13 US servicemen.

The following year it targeted the Russian embassy in Kabul, killing at least six people and injuring others.

The group has carried out indiscriminate attacks on a maternity ward, bus stations and policemen.

In January this year, IS-K carried out a double bombing of a shrine in Kerman, Iran, killing nearly 100 Iranians.

In Russia it has carried out numerous small-scale attacks, the most recent being in 2020 – and already this year the FSB, Russia’s internal security service, says it has stopped several terror plots.

Who were the Moscow attackers?

According to Russian state media at least three of the men are Tajiks from the Central Asian republic of Tajikistan, which used to be part of the Soviet Union.

It is obvious from their battered and bruised appearance in court that they have been especially harshly interrogated to the point of torture.

The problem with that is according to international norms, their confessions will be worthless – people will say anything to make the pain stop, including confessing to a narrative that is simply untrue.

Reports have emerged that one of the men was seen carrying out surveillance of the venue in early March, around the time the US warned Russia there was an imminent threat of a terrorist attack on a public space – a warning the Kremlin dismissed at the time as “propaganda”.

Another report says at least two of the attackers arrived in Russia recently, implying that this was a “hit team” sent by IS-K, rather than a sleeper cell of residents.

Why did they target Russia?

There are several reasons.

IS-K consider most of the world to be their enemies. Russia is high up on their list, along with the US, Europe, Israel, Jews, Christians, Shia Muslims, the Taliban and all rulers of Muslim-majority states, who they consider to be “apostates”.

Islamic State’s hostility to Russia goes back to the Chechen wars in the 1990s and early 2000s, when Moscow’s forces devastated the Chechen capital Grozny.

More recently, Russia entered the Syrian civil war on the side of its ally, President Bashar al-Assad, and the Russian air force has carried out countless bombings of rebel and civilian positions, killing large numbers of Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda-linked fighters.

In Afghanistan, IS-K view Russia as being an ally of the Taliban, which is why they attacked the Russian embassy in Kabul in 2022.

They also bear a grudge for the 10 years of brutal Soviet occupation of that country from 1979-89.

Then there is the situation inside Russia itself.

Russia is viewed by IS-K as very much a Christian country and their video posted after the Moscow attack talks about killing Christians.

Tajik and other Central Asian migrant workers are sometimes subject to a degree of harassment and suspicion by the FSB as it seeks to head off terrorist attacks.

Finally, Russia – a nation currently distracted by its full-scale war with its neighbour Ukraine – may simply have been a convenient target of opportunity for IS-K, a place where weapons were available and their enemy’s guard was down.

What do we still not know about the Moscow attack?

There remain a number of unanswered questions about this whole episode.

For example, why were the attackers able to wander at will around the Crocus Hall with absolutely no apparent sense of urgency?

In a country where the police and special services, notably the FSB, are omnipresent, these gunmen behaved as if they knew they were not going to be interrupted by a police SWAT team.

Then there are the weapons – not just handguns but powerful, modern automatic assault rifles. How were they able to acquire these and smuggle them undetected into the venue?

Unlike many jihadist gunmen on a raid like this, these men were not wearing suicide vests or belts, in the manner of those who prefer death to capture.

And yet, it did not take long for the Russian authorities – the same Russian authorities who failed to stop the worst terror plot in 20 years unfolding beneath their noses – to round up the suspects and put them on trial.

All this is prompting some analysts to speculate about some sort of so-called “inside job” by the Kremlin, or a “false flag operation” to garner popular support for the war on Ukraine.

However, there is no hard evidence to support that theory and US intelligence has confirmed that in their view, it was Islamic State behind this hideous attack.

IS-K: Who are the Islamic State jihadists blamed for Moscow attack?
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Russian massacre suspects’ homeland is plagued by poverty and religious strife

March 26, 2024
BY JIM HEINTZ
Associates Press
March 25, 2024

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — The four men charged with the massacre at a Moscow theater have been identified by authorities as citizens of Tajikistan, some of the thousands who migrate to Russia each year from the poorest of the former Soviet republics to scrape out marginal existences.

Along with grinding poverty, Tajikistan is rife with religious tensions. Hard-line Islamists were one of the main forces opposing the government in a 1990s civil war that devastated the country. The militants claiming responsibility for the Moscow massacre that killed 139 people — a branch of the Islamic State group in neighboring Afghanistan — reportedly recruit heavily from Tajikistan.

The four suspects who were arraigned in a Moscow court late Sunday on terrorism charges appeared to have been beaten or injured during their detention. One was wheeled in on a gurney clad only in a hospital gown.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday described the suspects as “radical Islamists,” and he repeated his accusation that Ukraine might have played a role despite its strong denials.

Here is a look at the people, militant groups and political history connected to the Moscow attack:

THE SUSPECTS

The eldest defendant is Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, 32, who may have been living in Russia illegally. He was shown sitting in a glass cage in the courtroom with a black eye and bruised face.

Mirzoyev reportedly had obtained a three-month residency permit in the city of Novosibirsk, but it had expired. In video of his interrogation shared on Russian social media, he reportedly says he recently was living in a Moscow hostel with another of the suspects. The court said he is married and has four children, but it was unclear if he was employed.

Saidakrami Murodali Rachabalizoda, 30, is apparently unemployed. Registered as a resident in Russia, he could not remember in what city, according to Russian news reports. When he appeared in court, his head was awkwardly bandaged after Russian officers reportedly sawed off one of his ears.

Shamsidin Fariduni, 25, apparently had the most stable life of the four suspects. He was registered in Krasnogorsk, the Moscow suburb where the killings took place, and worked in a flooring factory. He reportedly told interrogators that he was offered 500,000 rubles (about $5,425) to carry out the attack — the equivalent of about 2.5 years of the average wage in Tajikistan.

Mukhammadsobir Fayzov, 19, was brought into the courtroom on a gurney, with a catheter attached and one eye injured or missing, and he appeared to fade in an out of consciousness. He had worked as an apprentice in a barbershop in the declining textile-mill city of Ivanovo, but reports said he left that job in November.

ISLAMIC TENSIONS IN TAJIKISTAN

As many as 1.5 million Tajik migrants are estimated to be in Russia after fleeing the poverty and unemployment that plague their landlocked, mountainous country. An array of mineral resources are present in Tajikistan, but the industry has been slow to develop because of belated foreign investment and poor geological data, among other factors.

Although its nearly 10 million people are overwhelmingly Muslim, tensions connected to Islam are common.

Islamists were a key opponent during a 1992-97 civil war in which the government killed as many as 150,000 people and devastated the economy. When the war ended, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon took steps to sharply curtail religious freedoms.

The government limited how many mosques could be built, prohibited women and children under 18 from attending mosques at all, and banned religious instruction outside the home for children. Critics say the limits encouraged people to turn to underground and radical Muslim factions via the internet.

Tajikistan has not made any official statement about the arrest of the four men suspected in the attack. But Rahmon was quoted by his government’s press service as telling Putin in a phone call that “terrorists have neither nationality, nor a homeland, nor religion.”

ISLAMIC STATE VS. RUSSIA

Most attacks tied to Islamic extremists that afflicted Russia in the past quarter century were committed by Chechen separatists, such as the 2004 Beslan school seizure that killed more than 300 people — or were blamed on them, as in the 1999 apartment bombings that triggered the second Russia-Chechnya war.

But attacks that began in 2015 were claimed by or attributed to the Islamic State group. The group opposed Russia’s intervention in Syria, where Moscow sought to tip the balance in favor of President Bashar Assad’s forces.

The U.S. government has said it had intelligence confirming IS was responsible for the weekend attack in Moscow.

After IS declared a caliphate in large parts of Syria and Iraq in June 2014, thousands of men and women from around the world came to join the extremist group. Those included thousands from the former Soviet Union, among them hundreds from Tajikistan.

One of the most prominent figures to join IS was Gulmurod Khalimov, who was an officer with Tajikistan’s special forces before defecting and joining IS in Syria in 2015. In 2017, the Russian military said Khalimov was killed in a Russian airstrike in Syria.

IS claimed responsibility for the 2015 bombing of a Russian airliner that was bringing tourists home from the Egyptian resort Sharm al-Sheik. Two years later, it claimed to be behind the suicide bombing of a subway train in St. Petersburg that killed 15 people.

Two weeks before the Moscow theater massacre, Russian officials said they had wiped out members of an IS cell that was planning to attack a synagogue. Earlier in the month, it reported killing six IS fighters in the Ingushetia region adjacent to Chechnya.

Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Lebanon, contributed to this report.

 

Russian massacre suspects’ homeland is plagued by poverty and religious strife
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Stoning Punishment Based on Sharia: Mujahid

March 26, 2024
Sodaba Nazhand
Tolo News
26 March 2024

Previously, Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, called the implementation of stoning sentences on women in Afghanistan disappointing

The Islamic Emirate said that the United Nations’ concern about the implementation of stoning sentences for women in the country is baseless.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesperson for the Islamic Emirate, said that stoning is part of Sharia law and the world should not misinterpret it.

“Without a doubt, one of the Sharia laws is stoning. If the conditions for it arise again, we will undoubtedly implement the Sharia decrees; whether it is prayer or stoning, we will carry it out,” Mujahid told TOLOnews.

Previously, Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, called the implementation of stoning sentences on women in Afghanistan disappointing and said that restrictions on women and girls in the country should be lifted.

“it’s extremely disheartening, as you know we have been expressing our concern consistently about the mistreatment of women and many of the rulings by Taliban and we have called for those edicts to be revoked and we will continue pressure on that to push for the equal rights of women in Afghanistan and indeed in all countries,” Farhan Haq said.

“Although women’s rights are greatly violated in Afghanistan, and they are deprived of all their fundamental rights; in my opinion, it would be better if the Islamic Emirate chooses an alternative to stoning for a female offender,” said Fazila Sarwari, a women’s rights activist.

Although some institutions and countries around the world have consistently criticized what they consider to be human rights violations, especially the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan, the Islamic Emirate has stated that the rights of all citizens are protected under Islamic laws in the country.

Stoning Punishment Based on Sharia: Mujahid
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Moscow Claims Washington Supports Daesh, Al-Qaeda

March 26, 2024
 Mitra Majeedy
Tolo News
26 March 2024

The Islamic Emirate said that Daesh emerged during the presence of the United States in Afghanistan.

Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in an article for Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper said that Daesh has targeted opponents of the United States, including the “Taliban,” in recent years.

In the article, Maria Zakharova accused the United States of supporting Al-Qaeda and Daesh.

“Oddly enough, ISIS has adjusted its plans in recent years and now attacks mostly enemies of the US, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Iranians, the legitimate authorities in Syria, and Russia,” she told Komsomolskaya Pravda.

Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, also made accusations against the US the day before, regarding support for Daesh.

The Islamic Emirate said that Daesh emerged during the presence of the United States in Afghanistan.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesperson for the Islamic Emirate, does not consider Daesh a threat to Afghanistan and says that Western countries exaggerate Daesh in Afghanistan for their specific goals.

“Daesh was one of the phenomena that grew and emerged under the American occupation in Afghanistan and created problems for the Afghan people, against whom the Islamic Emirate fought after coming to power,” he said.

“They were supposed to work for the interests of the United States, which they were unable to do properly, and I think that against Daesh, there should be a comprehensive and universal fight by the international community and all countries because it is an inappropriate phenomenon,” said Samim Shamsi, a political analyst.

Previously, the New York Times also claimed in a report that Daesh’s Khorasan branch in Afghanistan is targeting the embassies of Iran, China, and India in Kabul; a claim that was dismissed as baseless by the Islamic Emirate.

Moscow Claims Washington Supports Daesh, Al-Qaeda
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Philadelphia college student hopes to pave the way for more Afghan women to join the medical field

March 26, 2024

By Marcella Baietto

CBS News

 / CBS Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — When Alaha Abdul Faruq isn’t at the library or at a lecture, she’s finding time to help Afghan women and their children adapt to life in Philadelphia.

“Women will come over and tell you, ‘Thank you so much for having this. We are all alone in Philadelphia. Most of our family is in Afghanistan, but coming here we weren’t able to feel that separation and that loneliness.’ And that just makes everything worth it,” Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine student Abdul Faruq said.
She and others started the group Afghans of Philadelphia x Sola in 2021 to help families who were fleeing from the Taliban.

Her own family also left Afghanistan shortly after she was born more than 20 years ago in search of more opportunities.”Being a woman was very difficult there,” Abdul Faruq said. “There’re certain areas where they can’t even go outside alone without a male chaperone. They can’t go to school, get a higher education. So, I, their first child, was born and I was a girl so I feel like it was that extra push for them to get out in order to speak a better future.”

Her family eventually found their new home in Northeast Philly.

“Coming to Philadelphia, which is known as the City of Brotherly Love, it’s like a great combination between Afghans and Philadelphia because we’re both so hospitable and there’s just so much love and diversity here,” Abdul Faruq said.

Now the 26-year-old is a first-year medical student at PCOM.

“Not only are there not a lot of Afghans represented overall in the community, but there’s even less in medicine and there’s even less female Afghans in medicine as well,” Abdul Faruq said. “Just being part of that group, I feel like it’s a way to inspire others as well.”

She hopes to do that through her role as co-president of the American Medical Women’s Association on campus.

Each accomplishment is a reminder to her family that she will always remember where she came from.

“If I can at least change one person’s perspective on what Afghanistan is and who the people are from there and their culture, then I feel like I’ve done a tremendous job because there is just so much more to our culture,” Abdul Faruq said.

Once Abdul Faruq is done with medical school, she hopes to go back to Afghanistan and open up a clinic there to provide healthcare to communities.

Marcella Baietto is a bilingual reporter with CBS News Philadelphia. She’s originally from Phoenix, Arizona, but considers El Salvador her second home since much of her family still lives there.

Philadelphia college student hopes to pave the way for more Afghan women to join the medical field
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Moscow concert hall attack: How did ISIL recoup, five years after ‘defeat’?

March 26, 2024

By Charu Sudan Kasturi

Al Jazeera

Published On 24 Mar 2024
The group’s Afghanistan arm in particular has gained since the return of the Taliban — even though the two are enemies — say analysts.

On Thursday morning, US State Department official Ian McCary sat down in a blue suit, red tie and brown shoes for a question-and-answer session at The Washington Institute to mark the fifth anniversary of the “defeat” of ISIL (ISIS) in Syria.

The US-led coalition, along with its local partners, had on March 23, 2019 pushed the armed group out of Baghuz in Syria — a country where it once had its de facto capital, in Raqqa. “This was and remains a milestone in our continued efforts to ensure ISIS cannot resurge,” McCary said in his comments.

Just a day later, gunmen would barge into a packed concert hall in Moscow, Russia, spraying music lovers with bullets and setting the venue on fire, on the eve of that “milestone” victory.

More than 130 people have been killed, including three children, and over 100 others have been injured, in the worst such attack that Russia has witnessed in two decades.

ISIL’s Afghanistan arm — also known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, ISKP (ISIS-K) – swiftly claimed responsibility. The United States has said that its intelligence suggests the claim is accurate.

On ISKP social media channels, supporters have been celebrating the attack, according to analysts. It’s the latest sign, say strategic experts, of how ISIL has recovered from some of its setbacks in Syria and Iraq, and how Afghanistan has emerged as a vital staging ground for its growing ambitions.

“Should the attack in Russia be definitively attributed to ISKP, it would underscore the group’s resolve to align its actions with its pronounced objectives — targeting countries that play pivotal roles in the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East and South and Central Asia,” said Amira Jadoon, assistant professor of political science at the South Carolina-based Clemson University, and co-author of the 2023 book, The Islamic State in Afghanistan and Pakistan: Strategic Alliances and Rivalries.

The Russia concert attack comes two months after suicide bombings in Kerman, Iran, killed more than 90 people and injured nearly 300 others. ISKP claimed responsibility for those attacks too.

While Russia — seen by ISIL as an oppressor of Muslims in Chechnya, Syria and Afghanistan (during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s) — and Shia-majority Iran have long been in the crosshairs of the armed group, there’s a broader strategic intent behind recent attacks too, said Jadoon.

“By directing its aggression towards nations such as Iran and Russia, ISKP not only confronts regional heavyweights but also underscores its political relevance and operational reach on the global stage,” she told Al Jazeera.

Yet analysts say that none of this would have been possible without the group’s success in building a safe base in Afghanistan — and actually bolstering its presence in that country even after its archenemy, the Taliban, took control of that nation in August 2021.

‘More breathing room’

At the height of its influence, ISIL controlled about a third of Syria and 40 percent of Iraq.

Faced with military pressure from a range of otherwise battling regional players — a US-led alliance, Russia and Iran — as well as the governments of those two countries, it lost 95 percent of that territory by the end of 2017. The March 2019 loss of Baghuz eliminated the group’s physical control of any town, city or region in Iraq or Syria.

Meanwhile, its Afghanistan affiliate, the ISKP was continuing to build its reputation as a deadly force: In May 2020, it was blamed for an attack on a maternity ward in Kabul that killed 24 people, including women and infants. Six months later, its fighters attacked Kabul University, killing at least 22 students and teachers.

Then, as the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, ISKP sent a chilling message to its local nemesis and to the hurriedly departing US military, with devastating bombings at Kabul airport that killed at least 175 civilians and 13 US soldiers.

Since then, “ISKP in Afghanistan has grown in strength significantly”, said Kabir Taneja, a fellow at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation and author of the 2019 book, The ISIS Peril. Its attacks have spilled over the border into Pakistan too, where the group bombed an election rally last July, killing more than 50 people.

And the Taliban’s power grab in Afghanistan has helped, said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Washington-based Wilson Center.

“ISIS-K may be a rival of the Taliban, but ISIS-K benefitted from the Taliban’s takeover, and also the US withdrawal,” Kugelman told Al Jazeera.

“The Taliban staged prison breaks that ended up freeing ISIS-K fighters,” he said. The collapse of the US-backed Afghan military gave the ISKP opportunities to seize weapons. And the Taliban’s lack of an air force has given the group a chance to take and hold ground.

“The absence of NATO air strikes — perhaps the most effective tactic used to manage the ISIS-K threat — gives the group more breathing room, especially because the Taliban can’t operate airpower,” Kugelman said. “In effect, ISIS-K has benefited from an enabling environment in Afghanistan, emboldening it to expand its focus far beyond its bastion areas.”

New ambitions

It isn’t just the ISKP that has grown its influence — the main ISIL has too, said Taneja.

“ISIS in its original regions of operations, Syria and Iraq, also sees [an] uptick in operational capabilities,” he told Al Jazeera. ISIL, Taneja said, today exists in a form of “suspension, where it’s ideologically powerful even if politically, tactically or strategically not that powerful any more.

“And how to combat this is the big question at a time when big power completion and global geopolitical churn has put counterterrorism on the back burner.”

“In essence, orchestrating international attacks beyond the confines of Pakistan and Afghanistan is a deliberate tactic within ISKP’s strategy to globalise its campaign,” she said.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
Moscow concert hall attack: How did ISIL recoup, five years after ‘defeat’?
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 First Intl Water Conference to Be Held Soon in Kabul

March 26, 2024
Sevanal-Naveed
Tolo News
25 March 2024

Roza Otunbayeva, and Raffaella Iodice, pledged that they will cooperate with the government and people of Afghanistan in various sectors.

Abdul Rasheed Iqbal, chancellor of Kabul Polytechnic University, said that lecturers and scientists from several countries, including Russia, India, Pakistan, and Iran, are interested in participating in this conference.

“We plan to organize an international water conference at Kabul Polytechnic University at the end of September 2024, and this will be the first international water conference in Kabul,” Abdul Rasheed Iqbal said during a tree planting campaign program.

At the same time, the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock, Sadrazam Osmani, stated that Afghanistan currently needs global assistance in the sectors of climate change, water management, and forest development.

He called on international organizations and the European Union to help Afghanistan in mitigating the impacts of climate change.

“Our country is greatly harmed, and the reason is that greenhouse gas production in Afghanistan is low, yet its vulnerability is high,” Sadrazam Osmani added.

Roza Otunbayeva, the head of UNAMA, and the European Union Chargée d’Affaires to Afghanistan, who also attended the program, pledged that they will cooperate with the government and people of Afghanistan in various sectors.

“Afghanistan faces very severe climate change, and today we are here again — those programs which you have and all the international organizations, the international community, will do our best to help your country in this regard also,” said Roza Otunbayeva.

“We acknowledge and we are here to acknowledge that Afghanistan, despite being one of the countries least responsible for the emission of greenhouse gasses, is one of the most affected,” said Raffaella Iodice, the EU Chargée d’Affaires to Afghanistan.

Previously, officials of the Islamic Emirate have stated that Afghanistan ranks sixth among the countries most affected by climate change, and international aid in this sector has decreased in Afghanistan.

 First Intl Water Conference to Be Held Soon in Kabul
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