Karimi Dismisses Concerns Voiced in Doha Meeting of Terrorist Presence

May 3, 2023 Current News Articles

Banafsha Binesh

Tolo News

3 May 2023

The meeting in Doha was held for two days and attended by representatives of more than 22 countries and organizations.

The Islamic Emirate deputy spokesperson said that the concerns of participants at the UN meeting in Doha regarding the presence of the terrorists in Afghanistan are baseless.

Speaking at a press conference, the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres said that the participants of the Doha meeting are worried about the stability of Afghanistan and “they have expressed those serious concerns; they relate to the persistent presence of terrorist organizations’ risk for the country, the region and further… the lack of inclusivity which importantly includes human rights, particularly those of women and girls, severely undermined by recent Taliban decision.”

The deputy spokesman of the Islamic Emirate, Bilal Karimi, said that Afghan soil is secure and no one should be concerned.

“These remarks and allegations are baseless. No side should be worried about the security in Afghanistan,” Karimi said.

Political analysts gave various opinions in this regard.

“There is no hope until they accept the legitimate wishes of the world and UN,” said Torialai Zazai, a political analyst.

“The focus of the Doha meeting is more about forming a framework regarding Afghanistan but I think there were expectations from the Doha meeting to seriously solve the issues of Afghanistan, and I don’t think we will reach that result,” said Nematullah Bizhan, a political analyst.

Guterres also said that the UN will convene a similar meeting in the future.

This comes as some citizens interviewed by TOLOnews urged the international community to take practical actions regarding the issues of Afghanistan.

“The schools should be reopened, so that everyone can be educated,” said Nabi, a resident of Jawzjan.

“The representative of the Islamic Emirate should be invited so that they can form a national consensus,” said Safiullah Aziz, a resident of Uruzgan.

The meeting in Doha was held for two days and attended by representatives of more than 22 countries and organizations.

Report: Taliban interfering with NGO work in Afghanistan

May 3, 2023 Current News Articles

Associated Press

3 May 2023

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A Taliban fighter recently fired his rifle into the air at a food distribution event in Afghanistan, an example of their harassment of nongovernmental groups operating in the country, a report from a U.S. watchdog said Wednesday.

The Taliban last December barred Afghan women from working at NGOs, allegedly because they were not wearing the hijab — the Islamic headscarf — correctly and were not observing gender segregation rules. In April, they said this ban extended to U.N. offices and agencies in Afghanistan.

The measure is being actively enforced by the country’s intelligence agency, which reports to the Taliban’s leadership in Kandahar, although their chief spokesman says there are no obstacles for U.N. operations in Afghanistan.

The latest quarterly report from the watchdog for U.S. assistance to Afghanistan, SIGAR, cited examples of Taliban interference and harassment of NGOs, including the rifle incident.

Organizations face security risks and harassment at Taliban checkpoints, unannounced Taliban visits to NGO offices, repeated requests for information on work plans, budgets, operations, and personnel, and demands for increased involvement in project decision-making and implementation.

The April ban on women working for the United Nations likely signals that they will “continue to interfere” in NGO operations to the detriment of the Afghan people, according to the report.

The U.N. told SIGAR that, in addition to the challenges posed by specific Taliban policies, weak Taliban governance and tension between central and provincial authorities make an effective humanitarian response difficult to implement.

“This dysfunction is expected to limit the ability to implement policies which sustain critical public and basic services and reduce needs,” the report said, with the U.N. telling the watchdog that a “more restrictive environment lies ahead.”

Aid agencies have been providing food, education and health care support to Afghans in the wake of the Taliban takeover in August 2021 and the economic collapse that followed it. But distribution has been severely affected by the Taliban edict banning women from working at NGOs — and, now, also at the U.N.

The Economy Ministry, which supervises NGO work in Afghanistan, rejected the SIGAR claims. Ministry spokesman Abdul Rahman Habib said there were no reports of checkpoint harassment or other interference.

A “special procedure” to improve NGO performance and solve problems has been shared with all aid agencies and U.N. offices in Afghanistan, he said, without providing further details on the procedure.

He also reiterated that the December order, issued by the ministry, remains in place. Afghan women are permitted to work for NGOs in certain sectors, such as health and education, but not others.

SIGAR’s report follows a closed-door U.N. summit on Afghanistan that the world body described as an event where nations and organizations were trying to reach unified stances on human rights, governance, counterterrorism and anti-drug efforts related to Afghanistan.

The Taliban were not invited to the meeting, which was held in Qatar.

U.N. Security Council Unanimously Condemns Taliban’s Treatment of Women

May 3, 2023 Current News Articles

By Farnaz Fassihi

The New York Times

Published April 28, 2023

The resolution, an uncommon display of consensus on the Council, called for the Taliban to end their prohibitions on women working and attending school after sixth grade.

In a rare show of unity, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution on Thursday condemning the Taliban’s discrimination against women and girls in Afghanistan and called for the country’s leadership to swiftly reverse policies banning education, employment and equal public participation of women and girls.

The resolution, co-sponsored by over 90 countries, received 15 yes votes and was unanimously adopted in Russia’s last days in its monthlong role as the rotating president of the Council.

“The world will not stand by silently as the women of Afghanistan are erased from society,” said Lana Nusseibeh, the U.A.E.’s U.N. ambassador, who led the drafting of the resolution with Japan’s representative. She said the Council was sending an “unequivocal message of condemnation” to the Taliban for their treatment of women and girls.

The resolution, which called for the “full, equal, meaningful and safe participation of women and girls in Afghanistan,” also addressed the Taliban administration’s edict on April 4 prohibiting the United Nations from employing Afghan women. That stance — “unprecedented in the history of the United Nations,” the resolution said — “undermines human rights and humanitarian principles.”

The 15-member Security Council has been sharply divided since Russia invaded Ukraine, unable to find a consensus position on many of the world’s most pressing problems. While the Council was able to finally come together over the Taliban’s treatment of women, the negotiations over the resolution’s final wording were complex and lengthy, according to diplomats involved in the talks.

The resolution, legally binding under international law, does not specify what consequences the Taliban administration in Afghanistan will face if they violate its demands. But generally the Security Council can impose sanctions on countries or governments that do not comply with its resolutions.

“The Taliban has reneged on its promises to the international community and to Afghan women and girls by implementing oppressive measures against them, including barring them from working with the U.N. and N.G.O.s and from attending universities and secondary schools,” said Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., in a written statement after the vote. “These draconian edicts only prevent Afghanistan from achieving stability, economic prosperity and future growth.”

Even with the Council reaching unanimity on the vote, tensions were evident.

After its withdrawal from the country, the United States froze $7 billion in assets from Afghanistan’s Central Bank.

With Afghanistan’s economy in dire condition, the resolution stressed the need for the international community to help on the financial front, “including through efforts to enable the use of assets belonging to Afghanistan’s Central Bank for the benefit of the Afghan people.”

In its address to the Council, China criticized the hasty American exit from Afghanistan and its decision to freeze the assets. China, one of the Council’s permanent members, urged Washington to “make up for the harm it has caused to the Afghan people rather than continue to aggravate their suffering.”

Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vasily A. Nebenzya, said the Western members of the Council had blocked a more ambitious resolution that would have addressed the impact of sanctions on the Taliban and how to restore the assets that he said the United States had “stolen” from the country when it froze the Central Bank funds.

The continued discrimination against women and girls has been a major obstacle in the Taliban’s attempt to gain recognition as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal in 2021 and the collapse of the Western-backed government.

Despite the Taliban’s ban on employing Afghan women, the United Nations has said it is not yet planning to pull out of the country because of the grave humanitarian needs of the Afghan people. Nearly two-thirds of Afghanistan’s 40 million population rely on humanitarian aid for food and medicine.

The U.N. mission in Afghanistan said in a statement in April that it cannot comply with the ban because it is against international law and the principles of the U.N. charter. It has ordered its Afghan employees, both women and men, to stay home, and has launched a full review of its operations in Afghanistan that is due on May 5.

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

Since seizing power in August 2021, the Taliban have steadily limited the rights of women and girls, reversing the advances made over two decades since a U.S.-led military invasion in 2001 ended the Taliban’s first phase as Afghanistan’s rulers.

Over the past year, the Taliban’s top leadership has banned girls from education after sixth grade, prevented women from working most jobs and restricted their presence in public life.

In a statement released on Friday, the Taliban said they welcomed “parts” of the resolution, including its “acknowledgment that Afghanistan faces multifaceted challenges.” But they added that their decision to restrict Afghan women from working with the United Nations “is an internal social matter of Afghanistan that does not impact outside states.”

António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, is convening a meeting next month in Doha, Qatar, to find a way forward in Afghanistan with regards to humanitarian operations, the governance of the Taliban and counterterrorism.

The United Nations has said the Doha meeting is not about recognition for the Taliban, an issue that is up to member states to decide.

Afghanistan’s seat at the United Nations is still held by the former government. The Taliban have appointed Suhail Shaheen, head of the group’s political office in Doha, but so far, he has not been recognized by the U.N.’s credentials committee.

Christina Goldbaum contributed reporting.

Farnaz Fassihi is a reporter for The New York Times based in New York. Previously she was a senior writer and war correspondent for the Wall Street Journal for 17 years based in the Middle East.

Afghanistan: ‘Nothing we can do but watch babies die’

May 3, 2023 Current News Articles

By Yogita Limaye

Afghanistan correspondent

BBC News

2 May 2023

Three-month-old Tayabullah is quiet and motionless. His mother Nigar moves the oxygen pipe away from his nose and puts a finger below his nostrils to check if she can feel him breathing.

She begins to cry as she realises her son is fading.

At this hospital in Afghanistan, there is not a single working ventilator.

Mothers hold oxygen tubes near their babies’ noses because masks designed to fit their small faces are not available, and the women are trying to fill in for what trained staff or medical equipment should do.

Every day, 167 children die in Afghanistan from preventable diseases, according to the UN children’s fund Unicef – illnesses that could and should be cured with the right medication.

It is a staggering number. But it’s an estimate.

And when you step inside the paediatric ward of the main hospital in the western province of Ghor, you will be left wondering if that estimate is too low.

Multiple rooms are full of sick children, at least two in each bed, their little bodies ravaged by pneumonia. Just two nurses look after 60 children.

In one room, we saw at least two dozen babies who appeared to be in a serious condition. The children should have been continuously monitored in critical care – impossible at this hospital.

Yet, for the million people who live in Ghor, this basic facility is still the best equipped public hospital they can access.

Public healthcare in Afghanistan has never been adequate, and foreign money which almost entirely funded it was frozen in August 2021 when the Taliban seized power. Over the past 20 months, we have visited hospitals and clinics across this country, and witnessed them collapsing.

Now the Taliban’s recent ban on women working for NGOs means it’s becoming harder for humanitarian agencies to operate, putting even more children and babies at risk.

Already defeated by a lack of resources, medics at the Ghor hospital used whatever little they had to try to revive Tayabullah.

Dr Ahmad Samadi was called in to check his condition, fatigue and stress visible on his face. He put a stethoscope to Tayabullah’s chest – there was a faint heartbeat.

Nurse Edima Sultani rushed in with an oxygen pump. She put it over Tayabullah’s mouth, blowing air into it. Then Dr Samadi used his thumbs to perform compressions on the boy’s tiny chest.

Watching on looking stricken was Tayabullah’s grandfather Ghawsaddin. He told us his grandson was suffering from pneumonia and malnutrition.

“It took eight hours on rubble roads to bring him here from our district Charsadda,” Ghawsaddin said. The family, who can only afford to eat dry bread for meals, scraped together money to pay for the ride.

For half an hour, the efforts to revive his grandson continued. Nurse Sultani then turned towards Nigar and told her Tayabullah had died.

The sudden silence which had enveloped the room was broken by Nigar’s sobs. Her baby boy was wrapped in a blanket and handed over to Ghawsaddin. The family carried him home.

Tayabullah should be alive – every disease he had was curable.

“I’m also a mother and when I saw the baby die, I felt like I’ve lost my own child. When I saw his mother weeping, it broke my heart. It hurt my conscience,” said Nurse Sultani, who frequently does 24-hour shifts.

“We don’t have equipment and there is a lack of trained staff, especially female staff. When we are looking after so many in serious conditions, which child should we check on first? There’s nothing we can do but watch babies die.”

Minutes later, in the room next door, we saw another child in severe distress, with an oxygen mask on her face, struggling to breathe.

Two-year-old Gulbadan was born with a heart defect, a condition called patent ductus arteriosus. It was diagnosed six months ago at this hospital.

Doctors have told us the condition is not uncommon or hard to treat. But Ghor’s main hospital is not equipped to perform routine surgery that could fix it. It also doesn’t have the medicines she needs.

Gulbadan’s grandmother Afwa Gul held down her small arms, to try to prevent the little girl from pulling down her mask.

“We borrowed money to take her to Kabul, but we couldn’t afford surgery, so we had to bring her back,” she said. They approached an NGO to get financial help. Their details were registered but there’s been no response since then.

Gulbadan’s father Nawroze stroked her forehead, trying to soothe his daughter who winced with every breath she took. Stress etched on his face, he pursed his lips and let out a sigh of resignation. He told us Gulbadan had recently begun to talk, forming her first words, calling out to him and other members of their family.

“I’m a labourer. I don’t have a stable income. If I had money, she would never have suffered this way. At this moment, I can’t even afford to buy one cup of tea,” he said.

I asked Dr Samadi how much oxygen Gulbadan needs.

“Two litres every minute,” he said. “When this cylinder gets empty, if we don’t find another one, she will die.”

When we went back later to check on Gulbadan, we were told that’s exactly what had happened. The oxygen cylinder had run out, and she died.

The oxygen production unit at the hospital isn’t able to produce sufficient oxygen because it only has power at night, and there isn’t a steady supply of raw material.

In a matter of a few hours, two children died of diseases that could have been prevented or cured. It’s a crushing but all too familiar blow for Dr Samadi and his colleagues.

“I feel exhaustion and agony. Every day we lose one or two beloved children of Ghor. We have almost got accustomed to it now,” he said.

Walking around the rooms, we saw an overwhelming number of children in distress. One-year-old Sajad’s breathing was raspy. He’s suffering from pneumonia and meningitis.

In another bed is Irfan. When his breathing became more laboured, his mother Zia-rah was given another oxygen pipe to hold near his nose.

Wiping tears that rolled down her cheeks with her upper arm, she carefully held both pipes as steady as she could. She told us she would have brought Irfan to the hospital at least four or five days earlier if the roads had not been blocked by snow.

So many simply can’t make it to hospital, and others choose not to stay once they get there.

“Ten days ago a child was brought here in a very critical condition,” Nurse Sultani said. “We gave him an injection, but we didn’t have the medicines to cure him.

“So his father decided to take him home. ‘If he has to die, let him die at home’,” he told me.

What we saw in Ghor raises serious questions about why public healthcare in Afghanistan is crumbling so quickly, when billions of dollars were poured into it by the international community for 20 years until 2021.

Where was that money spent, if a provincial hospital doesn’t have a single ventilator for its patients?

Currently there is a stop-gap arrangement in place. Because money can’t be given directly to the internationally unrecognised Taliban government, humanitarian agencies have stepped in to fund salaries of medical staff and the cost of medicines and food, that are just about keeping hospitals like the one in Ghor running.

Now, that funding, already sorely inefficient, could also be at risk. Aid agencies warn that their donors might cut back because the Taliban’s restrictions on women, including its ban on Afghan women working for the UN and NGOs, violates international laws.

Only 5% of the UN’s appeal for Afghanistan has been funded so far.

We drove up one of the hills near the Ghor hospital to a burial ground. There are no records or registers here, not even a caretaker. So it’s not possible to find out who the graves belong to, but it’s easy to distinguish big graves from small ones.

From what we saw, a disproportionate number – at least half – of the new graves belong to children. A man who lives in a house close by also told us most of those they are burying these days are children.

There may be no way to count how many children are dying, but there is evidence everywhere of the scale of the crisis.

Additional reporting by Imogen Anderson and Sanjay Ganguly

UN chief says ‘not the right time’ to engage with Taliban

May 3, 2023 Current News Articles

By Al Jazeera Staff

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made the comments after a closed-door conference in Doha to build consensus on the challenges facing Afghanistan.

Doha, Qatar – An international conference on Afghanistan organised by the United Nations has ended in the Qatari capital with no formal acknowledgment of the Taliban, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it was not the right time for him to directly engage with the Afghan rulers.

“The meeting was about developing a common international approach, not about recognition of the de facto Taliban authorities,” Guterres told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday in Doha, adding he would hold similar meetings in the future.

Representatives of some 20 countries participated in the closed-door conference aimed at coordinating with international players on issues facing Afghanistan such as humanitarian crisis, women’s rights and counterterrorism.

Guterres condemned the Taliban rulers’ attacks on women’s rights, including the ban on school and university education.

“Let me be crystal clear, we will never be silent in the face of unprecedented systemic attacks on women’s and girls’ rights. We’ll always speak out when millions of women and girls are being silenced and erased from sight,” he said.

Since the Taliban took over in September 2021 in a swift and stunning victory, they have imposed strict conditions on women in the country that include stopping women from attending university and closing girls’ high schools.

The UN chief also said that the international community was “worried” about the stability of Afghanistan under the Taliban, which took over the country in the wake of the withdrawal of US forces after 20 years of war.

“They relate to the persistent presence of terrorist organisations, a risk for the country, the region and further,” he said, referring to the security threat posed by the ISIL (ISIS) Afghan affiliate Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP).

Al Jazeera’s Diplomatic Editor James Bays, reporting from Doha, said not much has come out of the meeting. The only concrete thing that has been announced, Bays said, is that they are going to convene another meeting, possibly three to six months from now.

According to a senior UN source, the meeting was an effort to get all of the international community “on the same page, speaking with one voice”, the Al Jazeera correspondent said.

“They are hoping, for example, when the Chinese and Pakistan foreign ministers meet the Taliban Foreign Minister [Amir Khan Muttaqi] in the coming days, the parametres of those conversations will have been set by this meeting,” he said.

“But we are a long way from the Taliban being recognised.”

Muttaqi, who is under a UN travel ban, has been given exemptions to travel to Islamabad for the scheduled meeting.

But the Taliban has criticised the two-day meeting, saying its exclusion was “discriminatory and unjustified”. Suhail Shaheen, the Taliban’s ambassador-designate to the UN, earlier told Al Jazeera that issues facing his country can be solved only through the participation of the Taliban authorities – the main party to the issue – in the UN meeting.

Shaheen on Sunday met diplomats from the United Kingdom and China in Doha.

Former US envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad told Al Jazeera on Monday that Guterres had opted not to extend the invitation to the Taliban due to “opposition from Western countries”.

A coalition of Afghan women’s groups on Sunday wrote an open letter to Guterres saying they would feel “outraged” if any country were to consider formal ties with the Taliban, citing the issues of women’s rights in the country.

The Taliban administration remains diplomatically isolated as no country has recognised it and many of its senior leaders remain under international sanctions.

When questioned by Al Jazeera about the circumstances under which he will be willing to meet with the Taliban, the UN chief said currently it was not the right moment to do so.

“When it is the right moment to do so, I will obviously not refuse that possibility,” he said.

Humanitarian crisis

Guterres said Afghanistan is among the largest humanitarian crises in the world today, and vowed to stay in the country but said that UN funding was drying up.

“Ninety-seven percent of the people live in poverty,” he told reporters.

“Humanitarian aid is a fragile lifeline for millions of Afghans. The United Nations will not waver in our commitment to support the people of Afghanistan.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

UN holds crucial Afghanistan talks in Qatar, without Taliban

May 3, 2023 Current News Articles

By Osama Bin Javaid

Al Jazeera

Talks will include diplomatic envoys and aid donors as the UN plans to press the Taliban to ease restrictions on women.

Doha, Qatar – The Taliban has not been invited to a United Nations-organised conference on Afghanistan in Doha, with the Afghan group governing the South Asian country saying that the two-day meeting would be “ineffective” without its participation.

Envoys from the United States, China and Russia, as well as major European aid donors and key neighbours such as Pakistan, are among the representatives from about 25 countries and groups called to the two days of closed-door talks by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in the Qatari capital on Monday.

“Any meeting about Afghanistan without the participation of the Afghan government is ineffective and counterproductive,” Abdul Qahar Balkhi, the Taliban foreign ministry spokesperson, told Al Jazeera.

Last week, the UN chief said the de facto Afghan rulers would not be invited to the meeting to discuss the dire humanitarian situation in the country and its international isolation. A UN source told Al Jazeera on Monday that Taliban recognition was not on the agenda.

His statement came after members of the Afghan diaspora and some Western countries expressed concerns against the possible recognition of the government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), as the Taliban refers to the country, in the wake of a statement by UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed.

In an open letter on Sunday, a coalition of Afghan women’s groups said they were “outraged” that any country would consider formal ties because of the record of the government that says its handling of women’s rights is “an internal social issue”.

“The Taliban’s brutal treatment of women and girls is unacceptable. We must not forget the progress we have made over the years, and we must continue to fight for women’s rights in Afghanistan,” Fawzia Koofi, a prominent Afghan politician, recently tweeted.

The Taliban has been criticised for its growing curbs on women, including a ban on education and employment.Mohammed suggested on April 24 that the Doha meeting “could find those baby steps to put us back on the pathway to recognition” [of the Taliban].

The UN said the comments were misinterpreted. No country has recognised the Taliban government, which has struggled to address the humanitarian and economic crisis.

Shaheen said issues facing his country can be solved only through a pragmatic approach and with the participation of the IEA – the main party to the issue – in the UN meeting.

“How a decision taken at such meetings can be acceptable or implemented while we are not part of the process?” he asked.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the former US envoy to Afghanistan, told Al Jazeera that the UN chief decided not to invite the Taliban “because of opposition from Western countries”.

Khalilzad, who signed the 2020 Doha Agreement with the Taliban, hoped that the meeting will produce a realistic roadmap for international engagement with Afghanistan.

The Doha Agreement resulted in the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 after 20 years of occupation, leading to the collapse of the West-backed government.

The Taliban was accused of violating the Doha Agreement after military takeover of the country but the group has defended its move. It says the international sanctions and its isolation is against the spirit of the Doha Agreement while it has kept the promise to not allow Afghanistan to become a haven for armed groups such as ISIL (ISIS).Before the Doha meeting, the office of the UN chief said the meeting “is intended to achieve a common understanding within the international community on how to engage with the Taliban” on women’s and girls’ rights, inclusive governance, countering terrorism and drug trafficking.

An unnamed European diplomat told Al Jazeera that he did not expect anything will come out of the meeting, while an Asian diplomat, who wished to remain anonymous, said any outside effort to set priorities for Afghanistan will always be pushed back.

The UN Security Council on Thursday condemned the curbs on Afghan women. The UN, which has been engaging with the Taliban, provides food aid to millions of Afghans. The UN deputy chief travelled to Kabul in January to meet Taliban leaders to press the group on women’s rights and education.

The Doha meeting is crucial for the international community’s engagement with Afghanistan.

It comes as the UN is expected to review its critical relief operation in Afghanistan in the wake of Afghan women being stopped from working with the global agency.

The UN has said it faces an “appalling choice” over whether to maintain its huge operation in the country of 38 million. The review is scheduled to be completed on Friday.

UN agency: Afghanistan needs $4.62 billion in aid for 2023

April 26, 2023 Current News Articles

By Rahim Faiez

Associated Press/AP

April 26, 2023 at 6:52 a.m. EDT

ISLAMABAD — Afghanistan needs $4.62 billion in humanitarian aid from the international community this year for nearly 24 million people in need, the U.N.’s humanitarian affairs agency said.

Afghanistan is facing its third consecutive year of drought, its second year of severe economic hardship and the continued consequences of decades of war and natural disasters, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Tuesday on Twitter.

“With Afghanistan, humanitarian aid remains the last lifeline for much of the population,” the agency said.

Mohammad Shukran, 32, a Kabul resident and government employee, said life in Afghanistan is difficult: “Everyone is just trying to survive,” he said.

The U.N. food agency said earlier this month it urgently needs $800 million for the next six months to help Afghanistan, which is at the highest risk of famine in a quarter of a century.

Aid agencies have been providing food, education and health care support to Afghans in the wake of the Taliban takeover of August 2021 and the economic collapse that followed it. But distribution has been severely impacted by a Taliban edict last December banning women from working at national and international nongovernmental groups.

The U.N. was not part of this ban but earlier this month it said the Taliban-led government has stopped Afghan women from working at its agencies in the country. Authorities have yet to comment on the restriction.

Unemployment has increased like never before, said Shah Mir, 45, a father of four children. He works at a non-governmental organization in the health sector in eastern Nangarhar province.

“We don’t know when our office will be closed by the Taliban and we will also lose our jobs,” he said.

Despite initial promises of a more moderate rule than during their previous stint in power in the 1990s, the Taliban have imposed harsh measures since taking over as U.S. and NATO forces pulled out of Afghanistan after two decades of war.

A spokesman for the Afghan Economy Ministry, Abdul Rahman Habib, said the government’s future plans include developing the agricultural and industrial sectors and mine extraction.

“Supporting domestic business and products, more focus on exports, attracting foreign investors, creating special economic zones in the country are important,” he said.

Habib said international banking restrictions and climate change that has created years of drought are the main reasons for the country’s poor economy and high rate of poverty.

Health Ministry: Malaria Increased by 45% in 2022

April 26, 2023 Current News Articles

TOLOnews

TV Network

25 April 2023

Taliban kill mastermind of suicide bombing at Kabul airport

April 26, 2023 Current News Articles

By FARNOUSH AMIRI, MATTHEW LEE, AAMER MADHANI and LOLITA C. BALDOR

Associated Press

26 April 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — A ground assault by the Taliban killed the Islamic State militant who spearheaded the August 2021 suicide bombing at the Kabul airport that left 13 U.S. troops and about 170 Afghans dead during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

Initially, neither the U.S. — nor apparently the Taliban — were aware that the mastermind was dead. He was killed during a series of battles early this month in southern Afghanistan between the Taliban and the Islamic State group’s affiliate, according to several officials.

But in the past few days, U.S. intelligence confirmed “with high confidence” that the Islamic State leader had been killed, a senior administration official said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

Late Tuesday night, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder issued a statement confirming that the plotter had been killed by the Taliban. “The United States was not involved in this operation,” Ryder said.

Over the weekend, the U.S. military began to inform the parents of the 11 Marines, the sailor and the soldier who were killed in the blast at Abbey Gate, and they shared the information in a private group messaging chat. The father of one of the Marines said the death of his son’s killer brings little comfort.

“Whatever happens, it’s not going to bring Taylor back and I understand that,” Darin Hoover, the father of Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover, said in a phone call with The Associated Press. “About the only thing his mom and I can do now is be an advocate for him. All we want is the truth. And we’re not getting it. That’s the frustrating part.”

Hoover said he and his son’s mother, Kelly Henson, have spent the past year and a half grieving his death and praying for accountability from the Biden administration for the handling of the withdrawal.

He added that the Marines provided only limited information to him and did not identify the Islamic State leader or give the circumstances of his death. U.S. officials declined to provide many details because of sensitivities in the intelligence gathering.

The administration official said it was their “moral responsibility” to let the victims’ families know that the “mastermind” and “person most responsible for the airport attack” had been taken off the battlefield. The official added that intelligence officials determined that the leader had “remained a key plotter and overseer” for the group.

Several officials said the U.S. played no role in the killing and did not coordinate at all with the Taliban. The administration official called the Taliban action “significant” and said the U.S. only learned of the operation through its “over the horizon” intelligence capabilities.

Hoover is among a group of 12 Gold Star families that have kept in touch since the bombing, supporting one another and sharing information through the messaging chat. The chat was created by Cheryl Rex, the mother of Marine Lance Cpl. Dylan Merola, who died in the blast.

Rex, who has been a vocal critic of the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal, told the AP it was through the chat group that they were informed late Monday about the killing as they awaited official confirmation from U.S. military officials.

The fallen service members were among those screening the thousands of Afghans frantically trying on Aug. 26, 2021, to get onto one of the crowded flights out of the country after the brutal Taliban takeover. The scene of desperation quickly turned into one of horror when a suicide bomber attacked. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility.

The blast at Abbey Gate came hours after Western officials warned of a major attack, urging people to leave the airport. But that advice went largely unheeded by Afghans desperate to escape the country in the last few days of an American-led evacuation before the U.S. officially ended its 20-year presence.

The Afghanistan-based offshoot of the Islamic State — called Islamic State-Khorasan — has up to 4,000 members and is the Taliban’s most bitter enemy and top military threat. The group has continued to carry out attacks in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover, especially against the country’s minority groups.

After the Trump administration reached a 2020 deal with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the Biden administration followed through on that agreement in 2021, there had been hope in Washington that the Taliban’s desire for international recognition and assistance for the country’s impoverished population might moderate their behavior.

But relations between the U.S. and the Taliban have deteriorated further since they imposed draconian new measures banning girls from school and excluding women from working for international aid and health agencies.

However, a line of communication still exists between the two sides, led by the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan, Tom West. West’s contacts are primarily with Taliban officials in Kabul and not with the group’s more ideological wing based in Kandahar.

The U.S. decision to withdraw all troops fueled the swift collapse of the Afghan government and military, which the U.S. had supported for nearly two decades, and the return to power of the Taliban. In the aftermath, President Joe Biden directed that a broad review examine “every aspect of this from top to bottom” and it was released earlier this month.

The Biden administration in the publicly released version of the review largely laid blame on President Donald Trump for the deadly and chaotic 2021 withdrawal, which was punctuated by the suicide bombing at Abbey Gate.

News of the killing came on the same day that Biden formally announced he will seek a second term as president, offering a reminder of one of the most difficult chapters of his presidency. The disastrous drawdown was, at the time, the biggest crisis that the relatively new administration had faced. It left sharp questions about Biden and his team’s competence and experience — the twin pillars central to his campaign for the White House.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday the U.S. has “made clear to the Taliban that it is their responsibility to ensure that they give no safe haven to terrorists,” whether from al-Qaida or the Islamic State.

“We have made good on the President’s pledge to establish an over-the-horizon capacity to monitor potential terrorist threats, not only from in Afghanistan but elsewhere around the world where that threat has metastasized as we have done in Somalia and Syria,” Kirby said in a statement.

Yet Rex said the administration has not done enough to take responsibility for what happened at Abbey Gate.

“I feel like this is the administration trying to get the pressure off of them for accountability by saying that we’re holding ISIS accountable for our kids’ death,” Rex said.

Associated Press writers Tara Copp and Ellen Knickmeyer contributed to this report.

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