Taliban says 2,400 killed after earthquake ravages western Afghanistan

October 9, 2023 Current News Articles

By Rick Noack and Haq Nawaz Khan

The New York Times

Updated October 8, 2023 at 3:26 p.m. EDT

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — One day after powerful earthquakes struck western Afghanistan, government officials estimated Sunday that more than 2,400 people were killed and thousands injured.

“Many are still trapped,” said Janan Saiq, a spokesman for the Taliban-run Ministry of Disaster Management who announced the toll. Several villages have “completely perished,” Saiq said, as the full extent of one of the deadliest natural disasters in Afghanistan in decades became increasingly clear.

Hundreds of people were hospitalized in and around the city of Herat, the provincial capital close to the epicenter, said health official Muhammad Talib Shahid, pushing medical resources there to the brink of collapse. There still appeared to be limited international assistance 24 hours after the quake. The United Nations and nongovernmental organizations said ambulances were on their way and that aid workers had begun to distribute emergency tents, clothes and medicine.

But Siddig Ibrahim, a senior UNICEF official in the region, warned that medicine and supplies in the region’s main hospital were “expected to be depleted soon.”

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs provided a lower number of confirmed fatalities than the death toll announced by the Taliban, saying Sunday night that 1,023 people were reported to have been killed and more than 500 were missing.

The initial 6.3-magnitude earthquake hit the surroundings of Herat on Saturday morning, severely damaging or destroying almost 2,000 homes, according to the government. Local officials later reported powerful aftershocks.

Baz Muhammad Sarwari, a Herat resident, said he was on the second floor of a building in the earthquake zone when it started shaking. “I haven’t experienced such a powerful earthquake in my whole life,” he said.

While footage on social media on Saturday showed chaotic scenes in Herat, one of Afghanistan’s most populous cities, the damage was most severe to the west of the city, near the border with Iran. Most of the deaths were reported from villages about 25 miles from the city center, the United Nations and local officials said, where cellphone access continued to be disrupted Sunday.

Afhan officials said the epicenter was in two districts, Zinda Jan and Ghurian, where mud brick houses collapsed within seconds of the initial earthquake, leaving residents with no time to escape.

First responders compared the destruction to the damage caused by the quake that struck eastern Afghanistan last year, killing more than 1,000 people and raising questions at the time about the internationally isolated Taliban government’s ability to respond to major disasters quickly and effectively.

Taliban officials appeared intent Sunday on portraying themselves as in control of the situation. Abdul Ghani Baradar, a senior Taliban leader, said that authorities dispatched helicopters to the earthquake epicenter within half an hour, state-run broadcaster RTA reported.

At least 10 search teams were sent to the earthquake zone, disaster management official Saiq said. Government members in Kabul announced 100 million afghanis, the equivalent of $1.3 million, in emergency aid.

But in Herat, which is not among the most earthquake-prone Afghan cities, locals observed an improvised response. Farid Ahmad, a resident, said authorities had to block lanes in the city on Sunday to allow ambulances to reach hospitals.

Taliban officials appealed to businesses to supply food and rescue equipment, and could be seen loading donated shovels and other equipment into their vehicles as they prepared to head to the epicenter of the quake. Locals joining the search-and-rescue effort dug for survivors with their bare hands.

Among the first volunteers to arrive was 32-year-old Ghulam Mehboob, who rushed to one of the devastated villages within hours of the first earthquake, hoping to be able to rescue people trapped under the rubble.

After he and others dug out dozens of bodies but no survivors, Mehboob said he abandoned the effort on Sunday and returned to Herat.

Khan reported from Peshawar, Pakistan.

Profile: Naib Rafi in Zindajan Hardest Hit Village in Herat Earthquake

October 8, 2023 Current News Articles

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8 Oct 2023 – 8:59 PM

Afghan earthquakes kill 2,445, Taliban say, as deaths mount

October 8, 2023 Current News Articles

By Mohammad Yunus Yawar

Reuters

October 8, 2023 6:20 PM EDT

KABUL, Oct 8 (Reuters) – More than 2,400 people were killed in earthquakes in Afghanistan, the Taliban administration said on Sunday, in the deadliest tremors to rock the quake-prone mountainous country in years.

The Saturday quakes in the west of the country hit 35 km (20 miles) northwest of the city of Herat, with one of 6.3 magnitude, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said.

They were among the world’s deadliest quakes this year, after tremors in Turkey and Syria killed an estimated 50,000 in February.

Janan Sayeeq, spokesman for the Ministry of Disasters, said in a message to Reuters that the toll had risen to 2,445 dead, but he revised down the number of injured to “more than 2,000”. Earlier, he had said that 9,240 people had been injured.

Sayeeq also said 1,320 houses had been damaged or destroyed. The death toll spiked from 500 reported earlier on Sunday by the Red Crescent.

Ten rescue teams were in the area, which borders Iran, Sayeeq told a press conference.

More than 200 dead had been brought to various hospitals, said a Herat health department official who identified himself as Dr Danish, adding most of them were women and children.

Bodies had been “taken to several places – military bases, hospitals”, Danish said.

Beds were set up outside the main hospital in Herat to receive a flood of victims, photos on social media showed.

Food, drinking water, medicine, clothes and tents were urgently needed for rescue and relief, Suhail Shaheen, the head of the Taliban political office in Qatar, said in a message to the media.

The mediaeval minarets of Herat sustained some damage, photographs on social media showed, with cracks visible and tiles fallen off.

Hemmed in by mountains, Afghanistan has a history of strong earthquakes, many in the rugged Hindu Kush region bordering Pakistan.

Death tolls often rise when information comes in from more remote parts of a country where decades of war have left infrastructure in a shambles, and relief and rescue operations difficult to organise.

Afghanistan’s healthcare system, reliant almost entirely on foreign aid, has faced crippling cuts in the two years since the Taliban took over and much international assistance, which had formed the backbone of the economy, was halted.

Diplomats and aid officials say concerns over Taliban restrictions on women and competing global humanitarian crises are causing donors to pull back on financial support. The Islamist government has ordered most Afghan female aid staff not to work, although with exemptions in health and education.

In August, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross said it was likely to end its financial support for 25 Afghan hospitals because of funding constraints. It was not immediately clear if the Herat hospital was on that list.

The quakes triggered panic in Herat, resident Naseema said.

“People left their houses, we all are on the streets,” she wrote in a text message to Reuters on Saturday, adding that the city was feeling aftershocks.

There are a total of 202 public health facilities in Herat province, one of which is the major regional hospital where 500 casualties had been taken, the World Health Organization (WHO)said in a report on Sunday.

A vast majority of the facilities are smaller basic health centres and logistical challenges were hindering operations, particularly in remote areas, the WHO said.

“While search and rescue operations remain ongoing, casualties in these areas have not yet been fully identified,” it said.

Reporting by Mohammad Yunus Yawar in Kabul; Additional reporting by Ariba Shahid and Gibran Peshimam in Karachi; Editing by William Mallard and Sanjeev Miglani

Entire Villages Razed as Death Toll Soars From Quakes in Afghanistan

October 8, 2023 Current News Articles

By Christina Goldbaum, Najim Rahim and Yaqoob Akbary

The New York Times

Oct. 8, 2023

Local officials reported 813 confirmed deaths, though the toll was expected to rise. Homes were reduced to rubble, and hospitals are overwhelmed.

The death toll from two major earthquakes in northwestern Afghanistan rose to at least 813 people on Sunday, according to the local authorities, making the dual shocks one of the deadliest natural disasters to hit the country in decades.

The two earthquakes, both 6.3 magnitude, hit Herat Province, along the country’s border with Iran, on Saturday, causing mud-brick homes in several districts to come crashing down and thousands of people in the province’s capital city to rush out of their houses and office buildings as the ground shook beneath them. At least seven tremors followed the initial quakes.

Two Earthquakes Near Herat

Two magnitude 6.3 earthquakes

50 mi.

50 km.

In the areas hit hardest, some villages were destroyed, with the number of casualties expected to rise as search-and-rescue efforts continued, according to Taliban officials and local volunteers. Earlier on Sunday, officials had announced that around 2,000 people had been killed, but they later clarified that that figure included deaths and injuries, according to the Ministry of Disaster Management.

Wakil Safi, 41, who was at home in the provincial capital, Herat City, on Saturday when the earthquakes struck, said he ran outside with his five children when the walls of his home began to tremble, but fell to the ground because of the intensity of the shaking.

“In my 41 years of life, I have never seen such a strong earthquake,” Mr. Safi said. On Saturday night, he and his wife and children — like thousands of others in Herat City — slept outside in frigid temperatures, a blustering wind chilling them to the bone, for fear of additional aftershocks that could bring their homes crashing down. Between the cold and two tremors in the night, they barely slept, Mr. Safi added.

Aid workers who arrived on Sunday in the remote, badly hit areas found scenes of devastation: Homes had been reduced to rubble, and, in some cases, entire families had been killed. Hospitals and clinics — already teetering on the brink of collapse because of shortfalls in funding — were overwhelmed with hundreds of injured people.

In one video circulating on social media, a survivor of the earthquake in a remote village, Wardakha, stood on a pile of rubble that used to be his home. He explained that he was the only surviving member of his family after the quake — all 14 of his relatives, including his 5-day-old child, had been killed when their home collapsed.

The earthquakes were the latest natural disaster to rattle Afghanistan, which has endured enormous floods, mudslides and earthquakes in recent years. In June 2022, a major earthquake struck southeastern Afghanistan and killed more 1,000 people, according to Taliban officials.

The twin shocks follow two other major quakes this year, in Turkey and Morocco, that killed tens of thousands of people combined.

The disasters have compounded the already dire humanitarian and economic crises that have engulfed Afghanistan since the Western-backed government collapsed two years ago, prompting millions of jobs to disappear practically overnight and the prices of basic goods to soar.

Today, nearly half of the country’s 39 million people face severe hunger, including about three million on the brink of starvation, according to the United Nations’ World Food Program.

Since the Taliban seized power in 2021, U.N. officials have said that Afghanistan represents the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. But two years into Taliban rule, aid money has begun to dry up as other crises have seized the world’s attention and the Taliban administration’s mounting restrictions on women have led to calls to cut off funding from the country entirely in response.

As the country heads into the frigid winter months, the suffering is expected to worsen as families are forced to choose between spending the little money they have on food or on firewood to keep their families warm.

The entrenched humanitarian crisis and series of natural disasters have tested the Taliban’s ability to coordinate vast and sustained aid efforts since seizing power in 2021.

After the earthquake on Saturday, Taliban officials said they had directed military and service organizations to prioritize rescue operations, transporting the injured, preparing homeless shelters and delivering food aid in the remote areas that were most affected. On Sunday, officials said that the country’s air force had made 32 flights transporting the wounded and that all relevant agencies were coordinating their response.

But the sudden and dire need for food, aid and shelter appeared to be overwhelming the government’s ability to respond.

“We sent tents, but the number of families was in the thousands, and we could only give tents to some families,” said Musa Ashari, the head of the Taliban’s disaster management department for Herat. “For example, 20 to 30 tents have been given to a hundred families. The rest of them don’t even have a tent to live in.”

At one school turned aid center on the outskirts of Herat City, hundreds of injured people from one of the worst-hit districts, Zinda Jan, lay on dusty blankets waiting for medical help to arrive on Sunday. Many were taken to Baba Ji High School on Saturday by volunteers who had dug them out of the piles of rubble that were once their homes.

Dazed and injured, they were taken to the school — which local leaders had designated as an aid distribution point — because hospitals and clinics were overwhelmed. But nearly 24 hours after they arrived, most had not received any water, medicine or food from government officials, according to a volunteer.

“The conditions are horrible,” said the volunteer, Jami, 44, who preferred to go by her last name for fear of retribution for speaking to the news media.

In many of the hardest-hit areas — mostly villages along mountainous dirt roads and where homes are little more than mud-brick single-story structures — volunteers said little, if any, government aid had arrived.

Qudos Khatibi, 37, a resident of Herat City, traveled to the Zinda Jan District on Sunday morning with other volunteers carrying local donations of water, food and other aid. The devastation, he said, was worse than they could have imagined.

In some villages once home to hundreds of people, there were only a few survivors. The bodies of dozens of children were covered in dust and sheet metal from the religious school they were attending when the quake struck. Village after village was reduced to rubble.

“The situation is very bad,” he said. “You could not tell the difference between a house and an alley.”

Safiullah Padshah contributed reporting.

Desperate people dig out dead and injured from quakes that killed over 2,000 in Afghanistan.

October 8, 2023 Current News Articles

BY RIAZAT BUTT

Associated Press

Updated 4:50 PM EDT, October 8, 2023

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Men dug through rubble with their bare hands and shovels in western Afghanistan Sunday in desperate attempts to pull victims from the wreckage left by powerful earthquakes that killed at least 2,000 people.

Entire villages were flattened, bodies were trapped under collapsed houses and locals waited for help without even shovels to dig people out.

Living and dead, victims were trapped under rubble, their faces grey with dust. A government spokesman said Sunday that hundreds were still trapped, more than 1,000 hurt and more than 1,300 homes destroyed.

“Most people were shocked … some couldn’t even talk. But there were others who couldn’t stop crying and shouting,” photographer Omid Haqjoo, who visited four villages Sunday, told The Associated Press by phone from Afghanistan’s fourth largest city, Herat.

Saturday’s magnitude 6.3 earthquake hit a densely populated area near Herat. It was followed by strong aftershocks.

A Taliban government spokesman on Sunday provided the toll that, if confirmed, would make it one of the deadliest earthquakes to strike the country in two decades.

An earthquake that hit eastern Afghanistan in June 2022, striking a rugged, mountainous region, wiped out stone and mud-brick homes and killed at least 1,000 people.

People in Herat freed a baby girl from a collapsed building after she was buried up to her neck in debris. A hand cradled the baby’s torso as rescuers eased the child out of the ground. Rescuers said it was the baby’s mother. It was not clear if the mother survived. The video was shared online and verified by The Associated Press.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake’s epicenter was about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of Herat. It was followed by three very strong aftershocks, measuring magnitude 6.3, 5.9 and 5.5, as well as lesser shocks.

With much of the world wary of dealing directly with the Taliban government and focused on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, Afghanistan hasn’t received an immediate global response. Almost 36 hours after the first earthquake hit Herat province, there have been no planes of aid flying in, no specialists.

Aid agencies and nongovernmental groups have appealed for the international community to come forward but only a handful of countries have publicly offered support, neighboring China and Pakistan among them.

The International Rescue Committee warned that the lack of rescue equipment could push up the death toll in western Afghanistan because trapped survivors cannot be freed.

“There’s not much disaster management capacity and what there is can’t cover people on the ground,” said Salma Ben Aissa, the committee’s country director for Afghanistan. “The numbers (of dead) are increasing hour by hour.”

People injured in the quake on Saturday can’t get the treatment they need because of poor medical infrastructure so they are losing their lives. A lack of food, shelter and clean water are increasing the health risks among communities.

Ben Aissa’s colleague, Jawed Niamati, said Herat city is empty. People are sleeping in the open air, on roadsides and in parks, because they fear more quakes. Temperatures drop to 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) at night, he said.

The world rushed in aid after an earthquake rocked Syria and Turkey this year, killing tens of thousands of people.

Abdul Wahid Rayan, a spokesman at the Ministry of Information and Culture, said Sunday that hundreds of civilians were buried under the debris in Herat, and he called for urgent help.

At least a dozen teams have been scrambled to help with rescue efforts, including from the military and nonprofit organizations like the Red Crescent.

The United Nations migration agency deployed four ambulances with doctors and psychosocial support counselors to the regional hospital. At least three mobile health teams were on their way to the Zenda Jan district, which is one of the worst-hit areas.

Doctors Without Borders set up five medical tents at Herat Regional Hospital to accommodate up to 80 patients. Authorities have treated more than 300 patients, according to the agency. UNICEF dispatched thousands of supplies, including winter clothes, blankets and tarpaulins as temperatures dropped.

Irfanullah Sharafzai, a spokesman for the Afghan Red Crescent Society, said seven teams were busy with rescue efforts while others were arriving from eight nearby provinces. They set up a temporary camp for the displaced, Sharafzai said.

Some aid groups, like the World Food Program, were already on the scene with essential items.

Later Sunday, people from surrounding villages brought equipment to support rescue efforts.

The first quake was the strongest, causing the most damage and casualties, photographer Haqjoo said, quoting survivors.

Save the Children said the scale of the damage was horrific. “The numbers affected by this tragedy are truly disturbing – and those numbers will rise as people are still trapped in the rubble of their homes in Herat,” said the aid group’s country director for Afghanistan, Arshad Malik. “This is a crisis on top of a crisis. Even before this disaster, children were suffering from a devastating lack of food.”

He called for an “urgent injection” of money from the international community.

Neighboring Pakistan said it was in contact with Afghan authorities to get an assessment of the urgent needs.

China’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Zhao Xing, said his government and the country’s charitable institutions were ready to provide all kinds of help. “We are in contact with Afghan government aid agencies to provide aid to the needy,” he said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Afghan cricket star Rashid Khan is donating all his Cricket World Cup fees to help Herat’s earthquake survivors. “Soon, we will be launching a fundraising campaign to call upon those who can support the people in need,” he told his 1.9 million followers on X.

Japan’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Takashi Okada, expressed his condolences on the social media platform X, saying he was “deeply grieved and saddened to learn the news of earthquake in Herat province.”

Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report.

At least 320 dead after 6.3-magnitude earthquake hits west Afghanistan

October 7, 2023 Current News Articles

Guardian staff and agencies

A magnitude 6.3 earthquake has killed at least 320 people in western Afghanistan, the UN has said.

The epicentre was 24.8 miles (40km) north-west of the region’s largest city, Herat, and was followed by an aftershock with a 5.5 magnitude, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported.

Crowds of residents fled buildings in the city at about 11am as the quakes began, lasting for over an hour. There have been reports of landslides and people being trapped under buildings

“We were in our offices and suddenly the building started shaking,” 45-year-old Herat resident Bashir Ahmad told Agence-France Presse. “Wall plasters started to fall down and the walls got cracks, some walls and parts of the building collapsed.”

“I am not able to contact my family, network connections are disconnected. I am too worried and scared, it was horrifying,” he said.

Women and children stood out in the wide streets, away from tall buildings, in the moments after the first quake.

“Significant casualties are likely and the disaster is potentially widespread,” a preliminary USGS report said. “Past events with this alert level have required a regional or national level response.”

A map posted on the USGS website indicates seven earthquakes in the region, including a magnitude 5.9 earthquake 21.7 miles north-north-west of Herat, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake 20.5 miles north-north-east of Zindah Jan and another 6.3 magnitude earthquake 18 miles north-north-east of Zindah Jan, which is about 26 miles west of Herat city.

“All people are out of their homes,” Samadi said. “Houses, offices and shops are all empty and there are fears of more earthquakes.

“Me and my family were inside our home, I felt the quake.”

There was no immediate comment from Taliban government officials on possible casualties or damage.

Telephone connections were down, causing difficulties in obtaining precise details from the impacted areas. Social media videos showed hundreds of people in the streets outside their homes and offices in Herat city.

Heart province borders Iran. The quake was felt in the nearby provinces of Farah and Badghis, according to local media reports.

In June 2022, a powerful earthquake struck a rugged, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan, flattening stone and mud-brick homes. The quake was Afghanistan’s deadliest in two decades, killing at least 1,000 people and injuring about 1,500.

The country is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, which lies near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.

Afghanistan is already in the grip of a grinding humanitarian crisis, with the widespread withdrawal of foreign aid since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.

ayib: ‘Gender Apartheid’ Belongs on UDHR Meeting Agenda

October 7, 2023 Current News Articles

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7 Oct 2023

Zabiullah Mujahid, said the Islamic Emirate is committed to the rights of women within a Sharia structure.

The Afghan envoy at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva suggested that the issue of “gender apartheid” be an “item on the agenda of the 75th anniversary of the UDHR (The Universal Declaration of Human Rights).”

The legal advisor of the Afghanistan Mission in Geneva, Mohibullah Tayib said this at a meeting voicing concerns over issues of human rights in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Hannah Neumann, a German member of the European Parliament, urged that “flexible visas” be provided for human rights defenders who are

“under threat” in Afghanistan.She said that the situation in Afghanistan “seems devastating, media spotlight has shifted – but our attention should not!”
“There are things we can do: advocate for gender apartheid to be recognized as a crime under international law, make sure that human rights defenders under threat are given flexible visas, so that they can continue their important work in Afghanistan,” she said.

Human rights defenders meanwhile urged the Islamic Emirate and the international community to pay attention to the rights of women in Afghanistan.
“In the current circumstances, there is no attention to the situation of women; neither by the Islamic Emirate nor from the international community,” said Frozan Daudzai, a human rights activist.

The Islamic Emirate’s spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said the Islamic Emirate is committed to the rights of women within a Sharia structure.

“The Islamic Sharia has determined the rights of men and women. The Islamic Emirate is committed to the rights which it has given to the men and women…. Afghanistan is an Islamic country, and its people also seek Islamic law and sharia laws,” Mujahid said.

The US special envoy for Afghan women and human rights, Rina Amiri, in a meeting held on the margins of the UN General Assembly last month, called on the Islamic Emirate to reconsider their decisions.

Several Strong Earthquakes Shake Western Region of Country

October 7, 2023 Current News Articles

Sayed Zabiullah Aqeel

Tolo News

7 Oct 2023

Pakistan Turns Up Heat Over Cross-Border Attacks

October 6, 2023 Current News Articles

Ayaz Gul
Voice of America
October 05, 2023 6:28 PM

FILE - Pakistan army troops observe the area from hilltop post on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, Aug. 3, 2021. Pakistan says increased terrorist attacks from the neighboring country are straining an already difficult bilateral relationship. — FILE – Pakistan army troops observe the area from hilltop post on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, Aug. 3, 2021. Pakistan says increased terrorist attacks from the neighboring country are straining an already difficult bilateral relationship.

ISLAMABAD — A senior Pakistani diplomat said Thursday that while the Taliban had brought peace and security to Afghanistan, increased terrorist attacks from the neighboring country threatened stability in Pakistan, putting strains on an already difficult bilateral relationship.

“Unfortunately, the peace dividends for us are missing,” Asif Durrani, Pakistan’s special representative on Afghanistan, told an international seminar in Islamabad.

He said his government was engaged in a sustained dialogue with the Taliban to seek an end to the cross-border terrorism orchestrated by fugitive leaders and militants of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, a globally designated terrorist organization.

“The TTP attacks on Pakistan along the borders have increased. They are taking shelter on the Afghan soil,” the envoy stated.

“I cannot blame the government in Afghanistan at the moment,” Durrani stressed. “But we as Pakistan expect that the kind of peace they have brought in their land should also contribute to peace in our borderlands, and those TTP people who are taking shelter in Afghanistan either should be returned to Pakistan or be neutralized.”

The seminar was organized by the state-run Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad in collaboration with the United States Institute of Peace.

Surge in militant attacks

Since the Taliban seized control of the neighboring country in August 2021, Pakistan has seen a dramatic surge in militant attacks that have killed hundreds of civilians and security forces. Officials say TTP leaders and other members have moved their operation bases to Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover and enjoy greater freedom of movement there.

The rising TTP-led attacks in Pakistan are the primary source of tensions between Islamabad and de facto Taliban rulers in Kabul, amid allegations Afghan nationals have also taken part in some of the recent suicide bombings and other terrorist raids.

Last month, members of a Durrani-led delegation to Kabul were reportedly told by their Taliban interlocutors that the Afghans had captured 200 TTP members for their involvement in cross-border attacks and had taken other steps to “neutralize” the militant activity. But Pakistani officials said the measures did not lead to a reduction in attacks.

FILE - Pakistani Taliban patrol in Shawal, in the Pakistani tribal region of South Waziristan, Aug. 5, 2012. The Taliban win in Afghanistan in August 2021 has given a boost to militants in neighboring Pakistan. — FILE – Pakistani Taliban patrol in Shawal, in the Pakistani tribal region of South Waziristan, Aug. 5, 2012. The Taliban win in Afghanistan in August 2021 has given a boost to militants in neighboring Pakistan.

TTP calls itself an extension of the Afghan Taliban to Pakistan, and its leaders pledge allegiance to Hibatullah Akhudzada, the supreme leader of the Taliban government in Kabul.

This week, the militant violence prompted the Pakistani government to order all illegal immigrants, including more than 1.7 million Afghans, to leave the country by November 1 or face deportation. The Taliban decried the move and urged Islamabad to review the decision.

“Pakistan’s decision to expel Afghans is unjustifiable and inhumane, and we condemn it,” Taliban Defense Minister Muhammad Yaqoob told a graduation ceremony at the police academy in the Afghan capital.

However, Durrani said that Pakistan and Afghanistan “enjoy a symbiotic relationship” and attempted to downplay tensions as mere “rivalries between cousins” under local traditions. “But that does not mean that we have become enemies. Not at all.”

Foreign ministers meet

Meanwhile, Pakistani Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani and his Taliban counterpart, Amir Khan Muttaqi, met on the sidelines of a China-hosted international conference Thursday.

Jilani’s office in Islamabad said he “underscored that challenges confronting regional peace and stability be addressed in collaborative spirit through collective strategies.”

Muttaqi’s spokesman said the two sides had discussed bilateral trade and problems facing Afghan businessmen and refugees in Pakistan. The Taliban foreign minister cautioned Jilani that “negative media statements, hurdles facing transit trade and harassing Afghan refugees” could adversely affect mutual ties.

Pakistan provides landlocked Afghanistan access to international markets through its land and seaports.

This week, Islamabad banned more than 200 items “prone to smuggling” under its Afghan transit trade agreement with Kabul and imposed a 10% process fee on commercial goods imported into Afghanistan through Pakistan.

The restrictions have upset the Taliban, and they have urged Pakistani officials to reverse them, warning they would harm bilateral trade and transit cooperation.

Pakistan also conducts its trade with landlocked Central Asian countries through Afghanistan, and there has been a significant increase in the transit trade since the Taliban takeover two years ago.

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October 6, 2023 Current News Articles

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6 Oct 2023

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