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Mohammad Nasir Akhund Appointed Finance Minister

May 30, 2023 Current News Articles

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Afghan Women Who Aided U.S. Military Wait for Asylum in America

May 30, 2023 Current News Articles

By Ava Sasani

The New York Times

Reporting from Westchester County, N.Y., and Dallas

May 30, 2023

Members of the Afghan Army’s all-female platoon are some of the roughly 70,000 Afghans living in the United States whose temporary status has left them with an uncertain future.

It was almost 3 a.m. in New York, but Nazdana Hassani refused to fall asleep.

She stared at her phone, closing and refreshing WhatsApp, hoping that her mother’s internet had been restored at her home in Afghanistan.

She tried three more times, but the call would not go through.

The last time Ms. Hassani saw her mother in person was August 2021, days before the Taliban seized control of Kabul.

Ms. Hassani, 24, served in the Afghan National Army’s Female Tactical Platoon, a squad of all women that accompanied U.S. Special Operations troops on missions seeking out high-level Taliban, Al Qaeda and ISIS targets. As the Taliban took over two summers ago, Ms. Hassani faced a decision: live under a repressive government as a woman who worked alongside the U.S. Army, or flee her home country for the United States.

“If I stayed, the Taliban would have killed me and my family,” she said.

Of the 45 Afghan women who served in Ms. Hassani’s platoon, 39 escaped amid the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops nearly two years ago.

Now Ms. Hassani and most of her platoon are among the tens of thousands of Afghans living in the United States as humanitarian parolees, a temporary legal status. This month, the Biden administration announced a plan to allow Afghans to apply for a parole extension so they can continue living and working in the United States after their status expires in August. It is unclear if the extensions, if granted, would be for two years, as they were the first time.

For those who were in the platoon, the goal is to stay in the United States long term and to have their families, who are still in Afghanistan, join them. Ms. Hassani and nearly all of the platoon members have applied for asylum — a protected status for those fearing persecution in their home country — but the system is severely backlogged. Only three of the women so far have been granted asylum, which enables them to obtain a green card and bring their families over.

Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, has sponsored the Afghan Adjustment Act, a bill that would create a legal pathway for permanent residency for Afghans who worked alongside Americans during the Afghanistan conflict.

“So many of our Afghan allies risked their lives and their loved ones’ safety to protect our service members,” Ms. Klobuchar said.

The legislation stalled in the last Congress amid Republican concerns about the vetting of applicants, but Ms. Klobuchar said she was working with Republicans to build support for another attempt later this year.

Ms. Hassani, who works at a gift shop in a quiet suburb of Westchester County, N.Y., shares an apartment with two Afghan women whom she met at a shelter for evacuees in 2021.

The only piece of art in Ms. Hassani’s room is a painting propped up by the foot of her bed.

“I made this when I first came to the U.S.,” she said. “Some volunteers at the camps gave us paint and canvas.”

Joining the army was Ms. Hassani’s childhood dream. The youngest member of the platoon, she was born just months before the start of America’s two-decade war in Afghanistan.

“I remember my mom telling us, the Americans, they are here for us, they are good people,” Ms. Hassani said.

The idea for Ms. Hassani’s platoon came about a decade into the war, when the U.S. military decided it needed female troops to help patrol rural villages. It was considered culturally insensitive for the male soldiers to search or talk to Afghan women.

Mary Kolars, an Army captain who worked closely with the platoon, said having them on missions was invaluable. “They had information about tribal affiliations, they could look at a village and tell us what doesn’t fit, they helped us search for high-ranking targets.”

Today, most of the platoon members are scattered across the United States working minimum-wage service jobs.

Since arriving, Ms. Hassani clings to memories of her adventures in the army.

“I try to be grateful for my life here,” she said. “But my life and job, it’s all just very different now.”

Last month, Ms. Kolars, Ms. Hassani and nearly all of the platoon members in the United States traveled to Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act.

“Every day hurts, because I know that my family is not safe in Afghanistan,” Ms. Hassani said.

She and other members of the platoon said they underwent extensive background checks to serve alongside the American military. The women also said that they had to obtain written permission from male relatives to join the Afghan Army. Those documents contained information about the women’s families and remained in Afghan government files after Kabul fell.

Many of the women said that since then, relatives have been threatened, tortured or killed by Talibs, according to Ms. Kolars. She and other American soldiers who worked with the platoon said they think the Taliban has used the documents to track down family members.

“It’s just hard, to live life with this constant anxiety about the family that is back home,” said Jawida Afshari, 34, who served in the platoon for nearly a decade and who helped train recruits, including Ms. Hassani.

Both women interviewed for asylum last October — Ms. Afshari was granted asylum, while Ms. Hassani’s application is still pending.

Ms. Afshari, who works at a Chick-fil-A near her Dallas apartment complex, said she often finds herself thinking about life before Kabul fell. She had been weeks away from obtaining a law degree at Kabul University.

“I am so lucky, because the women in Afghanistan, they can’t work at restaurants, they can’t leave the house,” Ms. Afshari said. “But it can be hard to remember how long I worked and studied at home, and how that was all taken away so quickly.”

While she waits for the opportunity to apply for a green card, Ms. Afshari tries to carve out pockets of joy from her life in Dallas. Most of her neighbors are immigrants from Iraq and Mexico. “None of us can speak English, but we find a way to talk,” she said with a laugh.

The day she discovered an Arabic grocery store nearby that stocks halal meats, Ms. Afshari cooked a feast of Afghan shawarma for her neighbors.

Mahnaz Akbari, the commander of the platoon, also does not have asylum. She has used her English language skills to work for a nonprofit in Washington. She said she tries to keep morale high even when the women are exhausted, often through group video calls.

While cooking dinner in her Silver Spring, Md., apartment last week, Ms. Akbari propped up her phone on the kitchen counter, waiting for platoon members on the West Coast to join.

During these calls, the women exchange photos, share Afghan recipes that can be made using American groceries and advise one another on questions about life in the United States. How many credit cards are you supposed to open? Is going to the D.M.V. as bad as people say? Ms. Hassani said those calls have become a lifeline.

In the weeks after her asylum interview, Ms. Hassani was consumed by anxiety, wondering why there had been no update on her case. She kept replaying the interview in her head, wondering if she had somehow made a misstep. Ms. Hassani said Ms. Akbari’s support helped her stay calm.

“Mahnaz takes time to cheer us up,” she said, “so we don’t give up.”

Luke Broadwater contributed reporting.

Ava Sasani is a reporter for the National desk.

A version of this article appears in print on May 30, 2023, Section A, Page 12 of the New York edition with the headline: Afghan Women Who Aided U.S. Troops Live in Uncertainty in America.

Afghan Farmers Face Locusts, Flooding

May 29, 2023 Current News Articles

TOLOnews

29 May 2023

At Least Three Are Killed in Clashes on Iranian-Afghan Border

May 29, 2023 Current News Articles

By Christina Goldbaum

May 29, 2023

The fighting comes amid rising political tension between the two countries over the flow of water from the Helmand River in Afghanistan into eastern Iran.

At least three people were killed and several others injured after clashes broke out along the Iranian-Afghan border on Saturday night, according to Iranian state media and an Afghan official, escalating tensions between the two countries amid a heated dispute over water rights in recent weeks.

At least two Iranian border guards were killed in the fighting, which began around noon on Saturday and ended after six hours along the southwestern border of Afghanistan, according to Iranian state media and Afghan news reports. One soldier with the Taliban administration in Afghanistan was also killed, the Afghan Ministry of Interior said.

Officials from both countries accused the other of initiating the clashes. An official in southeastern Iran said that calm had returned to the border area on Saturday night, according to Iranian state media.

The skirmishes come amid rising political tension between the two countries over the flow of water from the Helmand River in Afghanistan into eastern Iran, a region that has been plagued by drought. The mouth of the river is along the border in southwestern Afghanistan and southeastern Iran, where the clashes took place.

In recent weeks, Iranian officials have accused the Taliban administration of violating a decades-old treaty between the two countries by restricting the flow of water out of Afghanistan, an accusation Taliban officials have denied.

The issue of water has been a flashpoint between Afghanistan and Iran for centuries. The two countries are bound by the Helmand River, the longest river in Afghanistan, which flows from the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountain range and feeds into wetlands along the country’s border with Iran. The river is a critical source of drinking water, as well as agriculture and fishing, in southern Afghanistan and southeastern Iran.

In the 1940s and ’50s, Afghan governments constructed two major dams along the Helmand River, giving Afghanistan the power to cut off the flow of water into Iran and alarming Iranian officials as the country experienced periods of intense drought. Though the two countries signed a treaty on sharing water resources in 1973, it was never ratified, and the flow of water from the river has remained a heated point of contention ever since.

Since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, the Iranian authorities have maintained relations with Afghanistan, and in February, Iran became one of a few foreign governments to accept Taliban-appointed diplomats in their country.

But this month, President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran warned the Taliban administration not to violate the terms of the 1973 water treaty and urged the Afghan government to allow Iranian hydrologists to check the river’s water levels.

“We will not allow the rights of our people to be violated,” Mr. Raisi said.

On Saturday morning, the Taliban administration’s minister of foreign affairs, Amir Khan Muttaqi, met with Iran’s top diplomat in Afghanistan, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, to discuss the water dispute, among other issues, according to Hafiz Zia Ahmad, the deputy spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

After the clashes broke out along the border, the Afghan Ministry of National Defense called for the two countries to reach a negotiated settlement.

“Making excuses for war and negative actions is not in the interest of any of the parties,” the ministry said in a statement.

Safiullah Padshah contributed reporting.

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

A version of this article appears in print on May 29, 2023, Section A, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: At Least 3 Are Killed in Clashes On the Iranian-Afghan Border

Kabul Does Not Want Tension With Anyone Including Neighbors: Karimi

May 29, 2023 Current News Articles

Banafsha Binesh

Tolo News

29 May 2023

Since the Islamic Emirate swept into power, there have been many clashes with Iran—although the two sides stressed negotiations to solve the issues.

Days after the armed disputes between the Islamic Emirate and Iranian border guards, Kabul said that it does not want tensions with any side including neighbors.

On Saturday, the Islamic Emirate’s forces and the Iranian border guards engaged in fighting which left two Iranian military personnel killed, according to Iranian media. One member of the Islamic Emirate forces was also killed in the clash, said an Islamic Emirate official.

The Islamic Emirate’s deputy spokesman, Bilal Karimi, said that the two sides are discussing the issue.

“The stance and policy of the Islamic Emirate is in general that it doesn’t want tensions with any side particularly the neighboring countries and regarding this small dispute that happened at a local level between the two neighboring countries along the border, the officials of the two sides are in contact and any incidents that happen, they will find a solution,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Iranian Minister of Interior, Ahmad Wahidi, said that the fighting was not very severe.

“It was a small clash and was solved. There were negotiations with the Taliban side. We don’t have a problem now and the border is calm. The border is open for travel,” he said.

The analysts suggested that the conflicts between Afghanistan and Iran should not lead to a proxy war between the two countries.

“These problems of theirs should be solved via negotiations and diplomatic ways. Also, the Taliban side said that they do not let their neighbors be threatened from Afghan soil,” said Samar Sadaat, military analyst.

“The current government of Afghanistan should stop itself from fighting along the border with the neighboring countries including Iran. The issues should be solved via negotiations,” said Asadullah Nadi, military analyst.

Since the Islamic Emirate swept into power, there have been many clashes with Iran—although the two sides stressed negotiations to solve the issues.

At least three killed in shooting at Iran-Afghan border

May 29, 2023 Current News Articles

Al Jazeera

29 May 2023

Several people were reportedly injured in the clash, which came amid tensions between the neighbours over water rights.

Two Iranian border guards and one Taliban fighter have been killed after shooting broke out near a border post between Iran and Afghanistan, sharply escalating rising tensions between the two countries amid a dispute over water rights.

“Today, in Nimroz province, Iranian border forces fired toward Afghanistan, which was met with a counter-reaction,” Afghan interior ministry spokesman Abdul Nafi Takor said in a statement.

“The situation is under control now. The Islamic Emirate [Afghanistan] does not want to fight with its neighbours,” the spokesman said, without identifying the victims.

He said one person had been killed on each side and several injured. However, Iran’s official IRNA news agency later said two Iranian border guards had been killed and two Iranian civilians injured.

The semiofficial, English-language newspaper Tehran Times said three Iranian border guards were killed.

The violence came as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi this month warned the Taliban not to violate a 1973 treaty by restricting the flow of water from the Helmand River to Iran’s eastern regions. Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have denied the accusation.

Enayatullah Khowarazmi, Taliban Ministry of Defence spokesman, said “Unfortunately, today once again in the border areas of Kong district of Nimroz province, there was a shooting by Iranian soldiers, [and] a conflict … broke out.”

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan considers dialogue and negotiation to be a reasonable way for any problem. Making excuses for war and negative actions is not in the interest of any of the parties,” Khowarazmi said.

Iran, in turn, accused Taliban forces of shooting first.

IRNA quoted Iran’s deputy police chief, Qasem Rezaei, as saying, “Without observing international laws and good neighbourliness, Taliban forces started shooting at the Sasoli checkpoint … drawing a decisive response.”

Following the clash, Iranian authorities closed the Milak-Zaranj border post, a major commercial crossing – and not the site of the clash – until further notice, IRNA said.

According to the outlet, Iran’s border guards said in a statement they had “used their superior heavy fire to inflict casualties and serious damage”.

The advocacy group HalVash, which reports on issues affecting the Baluch people in the predominately Sunni province of Sistan and Baluchestan, quoted residents in the area as saying that the fighting took place near the Kang district of Nimroz. It said some people in the area had fled the violence.

Raisi’s remarks directed to the Taliban on Iran’s rights were some of the strongest yet over the long-running concerns about water in Iran. The Helmand River, which is more than 1,000 kilometres long and flows across the border, is being dammed on the Afghan side to generate electricity and irrigate agricultural land.

Drought has been a problem in Iran for some 30 years, but has worsened over the past decade, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The Iran Meteorological Organization says that an estimated 97 percent of the country now faces some level of drought.

Earlier on Saturday, the Taliban’s acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi met an Iranian envoy to Afghanistan to discuss the Helmand River water rights, according to tweets from Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs official Zia Ahmad.

But tensions have otherwise been rising. Another video posted online in recent days purportedly showed a standoff with Iranian forces and the Taliban as Iranian construction workers tried to reinforce the border between the two countries.

In recent days, pro-Taliban accounts online also have been sharing a video with a song calling on the acting defence minister, Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, to stand up to Iran. Mullah Yaqoob is the son of Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban’s late founder and first supreme leader.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

Norway Refugee Council Chief Says European Envoys Should Return to Kabul

May 26, 2023 Current News Articles

Mohammad Farshad Daryosh

TOLOnews’ Reporter

26 May 2023

He suggested that suspension due to the “Taliban’s policies” is politicizing humanitarian assistance.

The Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, said that he is lobbying for his country’s ambassador — as well other European ambassadors — to return to Afghanistan.

In an interview with TOLOnews’ Hamid Bahram, Egeland said that Norway has recognized Afghanistan “for a very long time” and that regimes have come and gone but Oslo has recognized the country.

“In diplomacy. You don’t recognize regimes or governments — you recognize countries. My country — Norway — has recognized Afghanistan for a very long time… regimes have come and gone, governments have come and gone but we recognized Afghanistan and our ambassador should come very soon. I am lobbying for that. I am lobbying for the European ambassadors to come back… I am glad to see the European Union already. They should come and engage with the Taliban authorities,” he said.

Egeland, who also visited Kandahar, said that the Islamic Emirate’s official told him that the ban of girls’ education will be lifted with “guidelines.”

“They told me two things. Number one that the ban on female education and female work in humanitarian organizations is going to be lifted through the issue of guidelines and that these guidelines were nearly finished. So we are hoping to see the guidelines very soon, so we can restart work with the female colleagues across Afghanistan and girls can come back to secondary school to other schools—to universities,” Egeland said.

He suggested that suspension due to the “Taliban’s policies” is politicizing humanitarian assistance.

“When people say I dislike the Taliban … so we have to withdraw money from Afghanistan, I think that is politicizing aid because the aid is there to for the poorest of the poor, for the hungry, etc… they should engage with the Taliban leadership and tell them like I do that we disagree. Engagement is much better than withdrawal of aid to the poorest,” he said.

‘War on women’: Taliban curbs on Afghan females a ‘crime’

May 26, 2023 Current News Articles

Al Jazeera

Rights groups have denounced severe restrictions imposed on women and girls by the Taliban in Afghanistan as gender-based persecution, which is a crime against humanity under international law.

In a new report, Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) underscored how the Taliban crackdown on Afghan women’s rights, coupled with “imprisonment, enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment,” could constitute gender persecution under the International Criminal Court (ICC).

What is happening in Afghanistan is “a war against women” that amounts to “international crimes” that are “organized, widespread, systematic”, said Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary general.

Without elaborating, she called for the international community to dismantle “this system of gender oppression and persecution”.

The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 as United States and NATO troops were in the final weeks of their withdrawal from the country after two decades of war.

Despite initial promises of a more moderate rule, the Taliban started to enforce restrictions on women and girls soon after their takeover, barring them from public spaces and most jobs, and banning education for girls beyond the sixth grade.

The measures harked back to the previous Taliban rule of Afghanistan in the late 1990s, when they also imposed their strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Harsh Taliban edicts prompted an international outcry against the already ostracised group, whose administration has not been officially recognised by the United Nations and the international community.

The report by Amnesty and ICJ – titled The Taliban’s war on women: The crime against humanity of gender persecution in Afghanistan – cited the ICC statute that lists gender-based persecution as a crime against humanity.

In the report, Santiago A Canton, the ICJ secretary general, said the Taliban’s actions are of such “magnitude, gravity and of such a systematic nature,” that they qualify “as a crime against humanity of gender persecution”.

Both organisations called on the International Criminal Court to include this crime in their continuing investigation into what is happening in Afghanistan, and take legal action. They also called on countries “to exercise universal jurisdiction” and hold the Taliban accountable under international law.

The report also accused the Taliban of targeting women and girls who have taken part in peaceful protests by detaining, forcibly disappearing them and subjecting them to torture in custody. The Taliban has also forced them to sign “confessions” or “agreements” not to protest again, it said.

Amnesty also documented cases of women and girls being forcibly married to members of the Taliban. The report said those who refused such marriages were “subjected to abduction, intimidation, threats and torture”.

The report cited the case of a 15-year-old girl who was forced to marry a Taliban figure despite her family’s objections in the northeastern province of Takhar in August 2021. And that of a 33-year-old female journalist and social activist who was forcibly married to a Taliban commander the following month.

“We simply cannot afford to fail the women and girls of Afghanistan,” said Canton.

The Taliban has also targeted journalists, the LGBTQ community, rights activists and ethnic minorities, the report said.

Amnesty and ICJ also shared a summary of the report’s findings with the Taliban-appointed Foreign Ministry in Kabul, requesting a response. None was immediately provided, the groups said.

SOURCE: AP

UN High Commissioner Criticizes ‘Repressive’ Policies Against Women

May 25, 2023 Current News Articles

Fatema Adeeb

Tolo News

25 May 2023

US Has Suspended Assistance Operations in Ghor: Miller

May 25, 2023 Current News Articles

Mohammad Farshad Daryosh

Tolo News

25 May 2023

This comes as the Ministry of Economy (MoE) said that the suspension of some aid by the US will damage Afghanistan.

The US Department of State spokesperson said that Washington has suspended operations in Ghor province following “evidence of continued attempts by the Taliban” to divert assistance.

Speaking to reporters in Washington D.C., the US State Department’s Spokesman Mathew Miller also said that the World Food Program halted distribution in two districts of Ghazni province from January to April, when local officials attempted to interfere in distribution.

“In April, another US government partner suspended activities in Uruzgan province after the Taliban issued demands to provide transportation support to Taliban representatives … We have been very clear. We don’t provide funding for the Taliban and we have a very strict monitoring and compliance process in place for the partner with which we do work,” he said.

“The Islamic Emirate has the control of the whole country. And there is no doubt that they also have access to this money,” said Seyar Qureshi, an economist.

Miller said that the State Department and US Agency for International and Development (USAID) worked with all partners to provide basic needs assistance to the people of Afghanistan.

“The State Department and USAID continue to work with the World Bank, with the UN, with NGOs and other implementing partners and like-minded governments to provide humanitarian basic needs assistance to the people of Afghanistan. Not to the Taliban,” Miller said.

This comes as the Ministry of Economy (MoE) said that the suspension of some aid by the US will damage Afghanistan.

“The suspension of aid will damage the people of Afghanistan and it will cause livelihood challenges and so we demand that the US release the money of the people of Afghanistan,” said Abdul Latif Nazari, the deputy Minister of Economy.

“The reduction of aid by the US is kind of a pressure tactic on the Taliban and it can also be because of the lack of a formation of an inclusive government which is in favor of the US and West,” said Sayed Masoud, an economist.

Earlier, speaking to the US House Oversight Committee, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconciliation (SIGAR) John Sopko testified that he cannot say whether the US assistance is currently not “funding the Taliban.”

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