Pakistan says Afghanistan building ‘unlawful structures’ along tense border

September 12, 2023 Current News Articles

Al Jazeera

Pakistan accuses Taliban government of ‘indiscriminate firing’ at the key Torkham border crossing, closed for nearly a week.

Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan has accused Afghanistan’s Taliban government of constructing “unlawful structures” at a key border crossing, calling it a violation of territorial sovereignty.

The Torkham border crossing in Pakistan’s northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been closed since Wednesday after a deadly exchange of fire between their forces. Hundreds of trucks carrying essential goods have since been stranded on both sides.In a statement on Monday, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said “unprovoked and indiscriminate firing” by Afghan forces led to the closure of the most important trade route between the two countries.

“On the 6th of September, instead of a peaceful resolution, Afghan troops resorted to indiscriminate firing, targeting Pakistan military posts, damaging the infrastructure at the Torkham Border Terminal, and putting the lives of both Pakistani and Afghan civilians at risk, when they were stopped from erecting such unlawful structures,” it said.

The statement came a day after talks between the two countries on reopening the Torkham crossing failed.

On Saturday, the Taliban government accused the Pakistani security forces of firing on its troops when they were repairing an “old security post”. It said Islamabad was “causing hindrances and delays” in opening the transit point.

“[The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan] reminds the Pakistani side that such actions are detrimental to the trade of Afghanistan, region and national economy of Pakistan, which is heavily dependent the most on exports in the current situation,” said the Afghan statement.

Pakistan has alleged the Afghan forces were “illegally” building a new border post, which led to last week’s exchange of fire between the guards. The Taliban said two of its guards were killed in the firing.

The Torkham border closure came as relations between the two countries remain frosty, with Pakistan repeatedly urging Afghanistan to control the movement of armed attackers and stop them from entering its territory.

Afghanistan denies the allegation that it allows its soil to be used by armed groups to launch attacks on other nations.

Pakistan’s allegation follows a surge in armed attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces since the Taliban came to power in 2021.

Most such attacks are claimed by the outlawed Pakistan Taliban, also known by the acronym TTP, which is ideologically aligned with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

On the day of the Torkham firing, TTP claimed to have attacked two military checkposts in remote Chitral district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing four Pakistani soldiers. At least 12 TTP fighters also died in the attacks.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

Afghan Taliban criticises closure of main border crossing with Pakistan

September 10, 2023 Current News Articles

Reuters

September 10, 2023

KABUL, Sept 10 (Reuters) – The Afghan Taliban criticised the closure of its main border crossing with Pakistan this week after clashes between security forces, saying the halt in trade would see heavy losses for businesses.

The busy Torkham border crossing closed on Wednesday after Pakistani and Afghan Taliban forces started firing at each other, according to local officials.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan deems the closure of Torkham gate and opening of fire on Afghan security forces by the Pakistani side contrary to good neighbourliness,” Taliban administration’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement late on Saturday.

The statement said the incident had started after Pakistani security forces fired at Afghan Taliban forces fixing an old security outpost near the border. Pakistan’s foreign office did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Hundreds of trucks laden with goods have been halted and traders have complained that trade is affected.

“The closure of Torkham gate can adversely affect bilateral and regional trade, and cause trade and financial losses to common mercantile class on both sides,” the statement said, adding many travellers were also stuck on each side of the border.

Disputes linked to the 2,600 km (1,615 mile) border have been a bone of contention between the neighbours for decades.

Reporting by Mohammad Yunus Yawar and Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Michael Perry

Retirees Continue to Call for Payment of Pensions

September 10, 2023 Current News Articles

TOLOnews

10 Sept 2023

Islamic Emirate Officials Discuss With Pakistan Reopening Torkham Gate

September 10, 2023 Current News Articles

Nazir Shinwari

Tolo News

10 Sept 2023

Afghanistan is the fastest-growing maker of methamphetamine, U.N. drug agency says

September 10, 2023 Current News Articles

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

ISLAMABAD — Afghanistan is the world’s fastest-growing maker of methamphetamine, a report from the United Nations drug agency said Sunday. The country is also a major opium producer and heroin source, even though the Taliban declared a war on narcotics after they returned to power in August 2021.

The United Nations’ Office on Drugs and Crimes, which published the report, said meth in Afghanistan is mostly made from legally available substances or extracted from the ephedra plant, which grows in the wild.

The report called Afghanistan’s meth manufacturing a growing threat to national and regional health and security because it could disrupt the synthetic drug market and fuel addiction. It said seizures of meth suspected to have come from Afghanistan have been reported from the European Union and East Africa.

Annual meth seizure totals from inside the country rose from less than 100 kilograms (220 pounds) in 2019 to nearly 2,700 kilograms (6,000 pounds) in 2021, suggesting increased production, the report said. But it couldn’t give a value for the country’s meth supply, the quantities being produced, nor its domestic usage, because it doesn’t have the data.

Angela Me, the chief of the UNODC’s Research and Trend Analysis Branch, told The Associated Press that making meth, especially in Afghanistan, had several advantages over heroin or cocaine production.

“You don’t need to wait for something to grow,” said Me. “You don’t need land. You just need the cooks and the know-how. Meth labs are mobile, they’re hidden. Afghanistan also has the ephedra plant, which is not found in the biggest meth-producing countries: Myanmar and Mexico. It’s legal in Afghanistan and it grows everywhere. But you need a lot of it.”

Me said it was too early to assess what impact the Taliban’s drug crackdown has had on meth supplies.

A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry, Abdul Mateen Qani, told the AP that the Taliban-run government has prohibited the cultivation, production, sale and use of all intoxicants and narcotics in Afghanistan.

“We cannot claim 100% that it is finished because people can still do these activities in secret. It is not possible to bring it to zero in such a short time,” said Qani. “But we have a four-year strategic plan that narcotics in general and meth in particular will be finished.”

A U.N. report published in November said that opium cultivation since the Taliban takeover increased by 32% over the previous year, and that opium prices rose following authorities’ announcement of a cultivation ban in April 2022. Farmers’ income from opium sales tripled from $425 million in 2021 to $1.4 billion in 2022.

The 2022 report also said that the illicit drug market thrived as Afghanistan’s economy sharply contracted, making people open to illegal cultivation and trafficking for their survival.

Afghans are dealing with drought, severe economic hardship and the continued consequences of decades of war and natural disasters.

The downturn, along with the halt of international financing that propped up the economy of the former Western-backed government, is driving people into poverty, hunger, and addiction.

An Afghan health official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said around 20,000 people are in hospitals for drug addiction, mostly to crystal meth. Of these patients, 350 are women. He said children are also being treated, but did not give the number nor their ages.

New US intelligence suggests al Qaeda unlikely to revive in Afghanistan, but officials warn ISIS threat remains

September 9, 2023 Current News Articles

Natasha Bertrand and Katie Bo Lillis

New US intelligence assessments suggest that is “unlikely” al Qaeda will revive in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that counterterrorism operations by the Taliban in Afghanistan have degraded the Islamic State’s presence there, two senior US officials said on Friday.

The assessments described by the officials in a briefing to reporters paints an optimistic picture of the overall terrorist presence in Afghanistan, suggesting it has been waning despite the US military’s withdrawal from the country in 2021.

Since the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan – and as the US has shifted intelligence resources away from counterterrorism priorities to focus on China and Russia – the Biden administration has been at pains to emphasize that it retains “over the horizon” capabilities to track terrorism threats emanating from South Asia.

Still, some US officials have privately raised concerns that as the US has transitioned intelligence assets away from the Middle East and South Asia, the Biden administration may struggle to track the threat posed by ISIS, which continues to operate in ungovernable areas in Syria and elsewhere.

ISIS-Khorasan, the Afghanistan affiliate of ISIS, has continued to attack high-profile targets inside Afghanistan. ISIS-K attacks have killed and wounded dozens of civilians since the Taliban took over in 2021, part of an attempt to undermine the Taliban’s rule and erode public confidence in its assurances of security.

ISIS-K carried out the Abbey Gate bombing that killed 13 US servicemembers in 2021 – the last to die in America’s longest war. Between late 2022 and early 2023, the group attacked the Pakistani and Russian embassies, hit a hotel where Chinese business representatives were staying and carried out an explosion at an air force compound, CNN has reported.

“ISIS-K is a threat that we are certainly concerned about, from an external operations perspective,” one of the officials said. “But it’s a fundamentally different kind of threat than what we saw from al Qaeda on 9/11.”

The officials added that intelligence shows ISIS-K has been under increasing pressure from the Taliban and many of its key leaders have fled the country in recent months, the officials said.

“ISIS Khorasan members involved in media, facilitation and recruitment in support of external operations are increasingly moving to neighboring countries to evade the Taliban [counterterrorism] campaign,” the official said.

The officials said that the threat from al Qaeda, meanwhile, is at its lowest point in decades.

“Al Qaeda is at its historical nadir in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and its revival is unlikely,” one of the senior officials told reporters in a briefing, adding that the group’s “ability to threaten the United States from Afghanistan or Pakistan is probably at its lowest point” in decades.

That is at least partly because al Qaeda has lost one of its primary targets: US troops, the official said. The US withdrew its forces from Afghanistan in August 2021, leaving al Qaeda without a “proving ground” to train fighters and operatives.

After a US drone strike killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in August 2022, the group was left without “leadership talent” and “strategic guidance,” the official added. The Taliban claimed at the time that they did not know Zawahiri was residing in the Afghan capital of Kabul when the US targeted him.

Notably, the US assessments downplaying a terrorist resurgence appear to contrast with a report released in June by the United Nations’ Sanctions Monitoring Team, which assessed that al Qaeda “is in a reorganization phase,” and had been establishing new training facilities in Afghanistan’s Kunar and Nuristan provinces.

The report also said that ISIS-K “continues to pose a significant threat within Afghanistan, and Member States are concerned about its potential to develop external operations capability and to project a threat into the region and beyond.”

Asked about the contrast between the US and UN assessments, one of the senior officials said the UN report was “wildly out of whack” with intelligence collected by the US and its partners.

“We have tried to engage with those who produced the report to understand where it comes from better and ideally, educate them back,” the official said. “The bottom line is, that report is an outlier within the UN system.”

CNN’s Oren Liebermann contributed reporting.

Prime Minister’s Absence From Meetings Raises Questions

September 9, 2023 Current News Articles

By Fatema Adeeb

Tolo News

9 Sept 2023

UN Education Official Comments on Education of Afghan Women

September 9, 2023 Current News Articles

Mitra Majeedy

Tolo News

9 Sept 2023

According to some political analysts, investing in the education of girls and boys in the country is a serious need.

Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of the UN’s Education Cannot Wait (ECW), on the occasion of International Literacy Day, said that the official opinion of the ruling authorities in Afghanistan about the education of women in the country contravenes the UN Charter and international human rights.

Speaking at the press conference, Sherif added that the UN offers various training programs in negotiations with the local commanders in Afghanistan.

Sherif said that, given the challenges facing Afghanistan, women’s inclusion in society is crucial for the nation’s rebuilding.

“We are still delivering education in certain provinces of Afghanistan, these can be home based schools, and these can be locally negotiated agreements with local commanders,” Yasmine Sherif said.

“After the Islamic Emirate arrived in Afghanistan, the scope of education was expanded to 100% of the country’s territory, and a very good progress was made in the expansion of education,” said Bilal Karimi, deputy spokesperson of the Islamic Emirate.

The Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW), added that they need more funding to provide education services to 20 million children, including in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and a number of African countries.

“To reach another twenty million children and adolescents in the coming years from Afghanistan, to Mali, Burkina Faso, South Sudan, Sudan, the regional refugee crisis, in Egypt, Chad, Ethiopia, Central African Republic or South Sudan, across the Sahel, the Venezuelan refugees and Latin America … We have the coordination system in place but it we have more funding we could help more than twenty million,” Sherif noted.

According to some political analysts, investing in the education of girls and boys in the country is a serious need.

“Anyone who wants to develop Afghanistan and anyone who has an idea of the progress of Afghanistan should invest in the education sector,” said Mohammadi, a political analyst.

Nearly 720 days have passed since schools have been closed for girls above sixth grade in Afghanistan, and until now there is no news of their reopening.

The Islamic Emirate has consistently stated that efforts are being made to reopen the country’s schools and universities for girls and that the ban on women and girls’ education is not permanent.

US Officials: ‘Unlikely’ Al Qaeda Will Revive in Afghanistan

September 9, 2023 Current News Articles

Fatema Adeeb

Tolo News

9 Sept 2023

They added that the terrorist presence in Afghanistan has been waning despite the US military’s withdrawal from the country in 2021.

New US intelligence assessments suggest that it is “unlikely” al Qaeda will revive in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that counterterrorism operations by the “Taliban” in Afghanistan have degraded the Islamic State’s presence there, senior US officials said on Friday.

They added that the terrorist presence in Afghanistan has been waning despite the US military’s withdrawal from the country in 2021.

According to US officials, “ISIS-K has been under increasing pressure from the Taliban and many of its key leaders have fled the country in recent months,” and “the threat from al Qaeda, meanwhile, is at its lowest point in decades.”

The Islamic Emirate’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that the soil of Afghanistan is safe and that no terrorist group exists on Afghan territory.

“There is no doubt that we created a government that ensures security, and all sides accept that Afghanistan is safe and is not a threat to anyone and is not a problem for anyone,” Mujahid noted.

Some analysts asked the current government to take the necessary measures against terrorist groups, especially the Khorasan branch of Daesh, in order to reassure the international community.

“The strictness of the Taliban government against Daesh is already tangible, and the fact that an American official expresses optimism is a positive step,” said Asadullah Nadim, a military analyst.

“A positive view can have positive effect on diplomatic relations between countries,” said Sadiq Shinwari, another military analyst.

Earlier, US President Joe Biden in response to a question about “mistakes in Afghanistan withdrawal,” said: “Remember what I said about Afghanistan? I said al-Qaida would not be there. I said it wouldn’t be there. I said we’d get help from the Taliban. What’s happening now? What’s going on? Read your press. I was right.”

Taliban Sell Afghanistan’s Mines Despite Sanctions

September 8, 2023 Current News Articles

Akmal Dawi

Voice of America/VOA

September 07, 2023 8:05 AM

FILE - The Mes Aynak valley, southwest of Kabul, Afghanistan, is pictured March 2, 2022. The unexploited copper source is estimated to be worth nearly $1 trillion. China's MCC won the contract to exploit the mine over 10 years ago. — FILE – The Mes Aynak valley, southwest of Kabul, Afghanistan, is pictured March 2, 2022. The unexploited copper source is estimated to be worth nearly $1 trillion. China’s MCC won the contract to exploit the mine over 10 years ago.

The Taliban, facing international sanctions and a dire economic outlook at home, have intensified efforts to leverage Afghanistan’s vast natural resources.

From oil to copper, gold and lithium, the Islamist leadership, unrecognized by any nation as Afghanistan’s legitimate government, has inked multibillion-dollar mining deals with Chinese and other foreign companies.

The landlocked country has plunged deep into economic trouble since Western donors cut off all development assistance, amounting to several billion dollars annually, after the Taliban seized power in August 2021.

Donors have also slashed humanitarian funding for Afghanistan, prompting aid agencies to suspend critical funding for about 10 million Afghans facing acute food insecurity.

Taliban officials contend they are using domestic sources to try to bridge the chasm left by the withdrawal of foreign aid. Critics, however, contend that the Taliban have other intentions.

“What the Taliban see in these contracts is both cash and a diplomatic link to the Chinese government,” said Arian Sharifi, a lecturer at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs.

Afghanistan’s untapped mineral wealth, estimated to be worth trillions of dollars, has historically struggled to attract foreign investment because of security concerns and a lack of infrastructure.

Work under a $3 billion contract signed in 2007 between China Metallurgical Group Corp. and the Afghan government for copper mining has yet to commence, despite a 25-year time frame.

This past January, another Chinese company, Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Company, pledged a $540 million investment until 2026 for oil extraction in northern Afghanistan.

Evading sanctions?

For over three decades, numerous Taliban leaders have remained on the United Nations’ terrorism sanctions list, barring them from foreign business and travel.

Several Western countries, including the United States, Canada and various European nations, have also imposed economic, banking and political sanctions on Taliban individuals and entities.

Spokespersons at the U.S. State and Treasury departments did not answer questions on whether the Taliban’s mining contracts with Chinese companies violated the existing sanctions regime.

“U.S. sanctions generally require U.S. persons and some foreign persons to comply,” said Alex Zerden, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

“A foreign company could be violating U.S. sanctions if the company engages in a transaction or dealing with a designated person and the transaction or dealing has a nexus to the United States,” Zerden told VOA.

U.S. sanctions do not necessarily apply to Chinese companies doing business with the Taliban as long as they avoid going through U.S. financial systems, experts say.

“When it comes to bilateral sanctions from the U.S. side, it’s basically that no U.S. entity, be it a company or an individual, is able to do anything with the Taliban. And that has nothing to do with other countries, because other countries don’t abide by bilateral sanctions,” said Princeton’s Sharifi.

China, however, has supported U.N. Security Council Resolution 1988 (2011), which calls on all member states to freeze Taliban assets and economic resources, deny their entry and transit, and prevent the sale, supply and transit of weapons to them.

The U.N. resolution, experts say, needs urgent revisions to respond to the realities in Afghanistan, where the Taliban function as the only governing body.

Like other regimes facing sanctions, the Taliban claim U.N. and U.S. sanctions primarily hurt ordinary people by limiting and weakening the national economy.

Last year, the U.S. government issued exemptions allowing certain commercial transactions with Afghanistan’s governing institutions, except those directly benefiting sanctioned Taliban individuals.

US to Allow All Commercial Transactions with Afghanistan

Graeme Smith, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, said as long as revenue from a business or contract does not go directly into the pockets of sanctioned Taliban officials, fees, taxes or royalties can be paid to the de facto Afghan government.

“In early 2022, the U.S. government specifically clarified that such agreements are permitted under American law,” Smith said, adding that Washington and its allies have strategic interests in the stability of the region, including in the economic revival.

Smith said the lingering effects of sanctions and other economic pressures have hobbled the Afghan banking system, complicating large-scale investments in mining and other sectors.

“Mining requires heavy investment up front, with years of work before profits flow. So, the investors are taking a risk, and making the assumption that the Taliban will guarantee stability and keep their side of the bargain,” he told VOA.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington and the foreign ministry in Beijing did not respond to requests for comment.

While pressing the Taliban on women’s rights and other governance issues — in addition to terrorism-related sanctions — the U.S. government has refrained from supporting anti-Taliban groups that seek to topple the Taliban.

Weakening the Taliban could risk internal war in Afghanistan, thereby giving terrorist groups opportunities to flourish and target other countries, experts say.

“America and its allies have strategic interests in the stability of the region, and that requires economic revival,” said Smith.

Natasha Bertrand and Katie Bo Lillis

US to Allow All Commercial Transactions with Afghanistan

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