Current News Articles | Page 308 | Afghanistan peace campaign

OIC Delegation to Travel to Kabul

April 13, 2023 Current News Articles

Bibi Amina Hakimi

TOLOnews’ Reporter

13 April 2023

Former Afghan interpreter graduates from boot camp to become a Marine

April 13, 2023 Current News Articles

BY JEFF SCHOGOL

Task and Purpose

PUBLISHED APR 12, 2023

Aformer Afghan interpreter who served with the U.S. Marines in his home country has earned the title of Marine.

Marine Pfc. Aimal Taraki, who left Afghanistan after serving as an interpreter for U.S. forces, graduated from Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego on April 7, 2023. Lance Cpl. Alexander Devereux/U.S. Marine Corps.

Pfc. Aimal Taraki, who graduated from Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego on April 7, said he was inspired to join the Corps by his time working with the U.S. military in Afghanistan, according to a Marine Corps news story.

“Growing up I was always interested in America and the western world, and was always very in tune with American culture,” Taraki said for the news story. “I applied for a translator job working with the troops because they were hiring local Afghan people. I worked with Marines and other NATO forces, which is what gave me the idea to move from Afghanistan.”

Taraki was born in Mazar-i-Sharif in 1994, when Afghanistan was in the midst of a civil war that brought the Taliban to power two years later. His family later fled to Pakistan, where he learned English.

After spending about six years in Pakistan, his family returned to Afghanistan and settled in Kabul. Even though the Taliban were no longer ruling the country, they continued to carry out attacks in Kabul and elsewhere in Afghanistan.

“There’s a place called the Massoud Circle, which is right next to the U.S. Embassy [in Kabul],” Taraki said. “It was a perfect place for the Taliban to make an attack. They filled a car with explosives, and when they detonated it, I was sleeping. I remember waking up to the explosion and all of our windows were shattered even though we were several miles away.”

Former Afghan interpreter graduates from boot camp to become a Marine — *U.S. Marine Corps PFC Aimal Taraki at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, April 3, 2023. (Lance Cpl. Alexander Devereux/U.S. Marine Corps)*

The U.S.-led war to oust the Taliban and turn Afghanistan into a functioning democracy lasted 20 years, during which the Taliban insurgency only grew stronger as the war dragged on. Many brave Afghans worked for the American military, often risking their lives in combat to protect the troops they served with.

In 2016, Taraki decided to use the English language skills he developed in Pakistan to become an interpreter for the U.S. and other NATO troops. Two years later, he secured a visa that allowed him to come to the United States, where the rest of his family lives.

Taraki is lucky to have left Afghanistan before the Taliban took control of the country in August 2021. At least 78,000 Afghans who had applied for Special Immigrant Visas were left behind when the last U.S. troops departed the country, according to the Association of Wartime Allies, an advocacy group for Afghans who worked for the U.S. government. When he arrived in San Diego, he considered several options about what type of career he should pursue, but ultimately decided to repay the U.S. military for providing a path for him to start a new life in the United States.

“I had a lot of different things I wanted to do with my life after I moved to the U.S.,” Taraki said. “I thought, ‘Should I go to college? Start my own business?’ I decided that I can do any job and have any career, but first I want to be a Marine. This way I can say thank you to the United States and the Marine Corps for helping me.”

Russia, China FM attend high-level conference on Afghanistan

April 13, 2023 Current News Articles

Associated Press

13 April 2023

The top diplomats from Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan attended a conference Thursday that focused on ensuring regional security in light of the situation in Afghanistan.

The foreign ministers of the four countries met in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, and discussed the need to cooperate with Afghan authorities to maintain political stability and to prevent a humanitarian crisis, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

The ministers also talked about the coordination of efforts to “counter the threats of terrorism and drug trafficking from the Afghan territory.”

Russia and China are among a few countries that have kept their diplomatic missions in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, since the Taliban took power in August 2021.

Moscow worked for years to establish contacts with the Taliban, even though it designated the group a terror organization in 2003 and never took it off the list. It hosted several rounds of talks on Afghanistan that involved senior representatives of the Taliban and neighboring countries.

Beijing has taken a higher profile on regional issues related to Afghanistan as part of China’s efforts to extend its global clout.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang held separate talks on the sidelines of Thursday’s meeting to discuss a range of issues, including the situation in Ukraine, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

In a statement preceding the Uzbekistan conference, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Beijing was ready to work more closely with Afghanistan’s neighbors and the international community for stability, security, prosperity, and development in both the country and wider region.

The statement reaffirmed China’s pledge to respect the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Afghanistan, as well as the choices made by its people. It called on the international community to firmly support Afghanistan to combat terrorism, and urged the United States to live up to its commitment to the country.

Beijing also expressed hope that Afghanistan’s interim government would continue working actively to meet its people’s interests and the international community’s expectations for an open and inclusive political structure.

“We hope the Afghan interim government will protect the basic rights and interests of all Afghan people, including women, children and all ethnic groups,” the statement said.

Girls currently cannot attend school beyond sixth grade, and women are not allowed at universities in Afghanistan. Authorities present the education restrictions as a temporary suspension and not a ban, but universities and schools reopened in March without their female students.

Women also are barred from public spaces, including parks, and most forms of employment.

The policies have raised fierce international objections, increasing the country’s isolation at a time when its economy has collapsed and worsened a humanitarian crisis.

No country has recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

Taliban ban on Afghan women working for U.N. an ‘internal’ issue

April 12, 2023 Current News Articles

Reuters

12 April 2023

KABUL, April 12 (Reuters) – Afghanistan’s Taliban administration has said forbidding Afghan women from working for the United Nations was an “internal issue,” after the global organisation expressed alarm at the decision and said it would review its operations there.

In the Taliban administration’s first statement on the decision since the U.N. acknowledged hearing of the new restrictions last week, spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Wednesday the policy “should be respected by all sides”.

The United Nations has said it cannot accept the decision as it would breach its charter. It has asked all its staff not to go into its offices while it holds consultations and reviews its operations until May 5. On Tuesday, the U.N. Mission to Afghanistan said the Taliban administration would be responsible for any negative humanitarian impacts stemming from the ban.

Mujahid, in a statement, blamed foreign governments for the humanitarian crisis spurred by sanctions on its banking sector and the freezing of Afghan central bank assets held overseas, some of which have been placed in a Swiss trust fund.

Some diplomats and aid officials in Afghanistan and around the world have expressed concerns donors may withdraw support to Afghanistan’s humanitarian aid programme, the largest in the world, and that implementing programmes and reaching women in the conservative country would not be possible without female workers.

Taliban authorities in December said most Afghan female NGO workers would not be allowed to work.

The U.N. humanitarian agency has said a huge funding plan for Afghanistan for 2023 is less than 5% funded.

“If funding is not urgently secured, millions of Afghans will be staring down the barrel of famine, disease and death,” it said on Wednesday.

Reporting by Mohammad Yunus Yawar and Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Bernadette Baum

Taliban aim to boost Afghan security forces, anti-aircraft capacity -army chief

April 12, 2023 Current News Articles

By Mohammad Yunus Yawar

Reuters

12 April 2023

KABUL, April 12 (Reuters) – Defence has received the largest share of funds in Afghanistan’s budget as the Taliban government aims to boost forces by a third and build anti-aircraft missile capacity, the army chief told Reuters in a rare interview to foreign media.

The defence ambitions of the Taliban, which took over in 2021, come in the face of strong international criticism of its policies, such as restrictions on work and education for women, that have hampered steps towards diplomatic recognition.

In his remarks on Tuesday, Qari Fasihuddin Fitrat, a Taliban commander from the northern region of Badakhshan and the chief of army staff, condemned incursions by foreign drones into Afghan airspace.

Defence forces now numbering 150,000 are targeted to be increased by 50,000, he said, speaking in his office in the highly fortified defence ministry in Kabul, the capital, although he did not reveal the precise figure of the funds.

“The ministry of defence is the top-ranked in the budget,” he said, adding that it received a significantly higher sum than other ministries, as it was a priority in the budget, which is largely funded by boosted tax and customs revenue.

Since their takeover, the Taliban have spent 1-1/2 years building a civilian administration and a national military out of an insurgent force that fought a 20-year war against foreign forces and the previous U.S.-backed Afghan government.

No foreign nation has formally recognised the government, which is battling economic headwinds following sanctions on the banking sector and the cutoff of all development aid.

Fitrat said a major defence focus was securing Afghan airspace against drones and other incursions.

“Anti-aircraft missiles are the need of countries,” he said, adding that all nations sought developed weapons to ensure the integrity of their territory and airspace, a problem Afghanistan also faced.

“There is no doubt that Afghanistan is trying, and doing its best, to have it.”

But Fitrat declined to elaborate on where authorities were looking to procure anti-aircraft missiles from.

He also stopped short of naming Pakistan, against which the Taliban administration has regularly protested, accusing its neighbour of allowing drones to enter Afghanistan.

“We are doing our best to find a solution for protection of our airspace. We will work on it by using all our capability,” Fitrat added.

“From where we will obtain it is confidential, but we should have it.”

Pakistan’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Pakistan officials have not confirmed whether its airspace is used for drone access to Afghanistan.

“We have always tried, and will try, to solve the issue using diplomatic ways, and we have done our best to be patient regarding these cases,” Fitrat said, but sounded a note of caution.

“Neighbouring countries should not let our patience be exhausted.”

Ties between the neighbours have occasionally been tense as as Pakistan has accused the Taliban administration of allowing Afghan territory to be used as a haven for militant groups.

Among these is the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), which has stepped up attacks in Pakistan in recent months.

The Taliban administration denies allowing its territory to be used for attacks on others, however.

There have been border clashes between the forces of both, and analysts say that in the event of conflict escalating, Pakistan’s airforce would give it a strong edge.

Fitrat said former security personnel, who form a significant share of Afghanistan’s forces, were being paid and treated in the same way as Taliban fighters.

The comments follow concern voiced by international rights groups and the United Nations that some former members of Afghan security forces members were targeted or killed.

While the Taliban have declared a general amnesty for former combatants, saying they would investigate cases of wrongdoing, they have not detailed legal action regarding alleged extrajudicial targeting.

Reporting by Mohammad Yunus Yawar; Writing by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Clarence Fernandez

West Kicks Off Visit to Region to Discuss Afghan Situation

April 12, 2023 Current News Articles

Banafsha Binesh

Tolo News

12 April 2023

This comes as some political analysts said that the meetings of the US special envoy have not been significantly effective.

The US special envoy for Afghanistan, Thomas West, is traveling to the UAE, Qatar and Turkey to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.

In Doha, West will meet with Qatari colleagues, Afghan civil society leaders, and partner missions, according to a statement of the US Department of State.

The statement said that West will also meet with his UAE counterpart, and Afghan business and thought leaders in the UAE.

“As we had a meeting with Mr. West last time, we are planning to have a meeting with him again to negotiate with him on behalf of the traders. We have conveyed the problems to him. It is clear for him,” said Haji Obaidullah Sader Khail, head of the Afghan Business Council in the UAE.

The US State Department further said that West will hold consultations with Afghan political leaders, journalists, humanitarian professionals and human rights activists in Istanbul.

“SRA West is conducting outreach in the region to secure input as the international community seeks solutions to Afghanistan’s compounding challenges, made worse by the Taliban’s recent decisions to limit women’s participation in humanitarian operations and ban them from their vital work for the UN,” the statement said.

“(Either) the president should be changed in one and half years in the US or there will be a general change in Afghanistan, so that the US stance regarding Afghanistan will change then. Otherwise, these visits are only diplomatic and administrative,” said Torek Farhadi, a political analyst.

This comes as some political analysts said that the meetings of the US special envoy have not been significantly effective.

“This type of visit has two goals. On the one hand, it is aimed to promote the general views of the US around the world to show that Mr. Thomas West is doing his job as the representative of the US,” said Noorullah Raghi, a former diplomat.

West’s visit come after the Islamic Emirate’s recent decision to ban all Afghan female UN staff from going to work, which was followed by strong reactions at a national and international level.

24 Million Afghans Need Humanitarian Assistance: Dujarric

April 12, 2023 Current News Articles

Mohammad Farshad Daryosh

TOLOnews’ Reporter

12 April 2023

An economist, Shabir Basheeri said that the issue will cause a rise in poverty in Afghanistan.

The UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that almost 24 million Afghans need humanitarian assistance.

“UN national personnel – both women and men – have been instructed not to report to UN offices, with only limited and calibrated exceptions made for critical tasks, but they will be working from home and continue to be paid. The mission said any negative consequences of this crisis for the Afghan people will be the responsibility of the de facto authorities. Just to confirm that we will maintain principled and constructive engagement with all possible levels of the Taliban de facto authorities, as mandated by the Security Council,” Dujarric told a press conference.

The Chair of the European Parliament Delegation for relations with Afghanistan, Petras Auštrevičius, “strongly” condemned the decision of the Islamic Emirate to ban female Afghan UN staff from working.

“Humanitarian aid provided by EU has to match our principle and I call for this to be respected. Only the Taliban regime will be held responsible for aggravating the suffering it is inflicting to its citizens,” he said.

An economist, Shabir Basheeri said that the issue will cause a rise in poverty in Afghanistan.

“We need to implement strategic programs and programs by the government to deal with this matter and to be able to provide jobs for the people,” he said.

Human rights defenders said the people of Afghanistan should not become victims of political agendas.

“The people of Afghanistan should not become victims of unfair international and foreign politics with the Afghan caretaker government,” said Suraya Paikan, a women’s rights activist.

The Office of the Chief of Staff of the Prime Minister said the political deputy Mawlawi Abdul Kabir met with political and economic affairs officials of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

“It was agreed that any problem that happens, the Islamic Emirate and UNAMA must sit face to face to and solve it,” the office said on Twitter.

The Islamic Emirate’s spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said that the Islamic Emirate is committed to the rights of all citizens.

“The issues that the Islamic Emirate has mentioned are based on Sharia law. We also call on the UN to not link its major programs to small issues that are internal matters of Afghanistan,” said Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Islamic Emirate.

UNAMA in a statement called the ban on its female employee “unlawful.”

China Spells Out Its Position on Afghanistan

April 12, 2023 Current News Articles

Mujeeb Rahman Awrang Stanikzai

Head of TOLOnews’ Online Department

12 April 2023

China also vowed to provide assistance through bilateral and multilateral channels for the Afghan refugees.

The embassy of China in Kabul shed light on 11 points that clarified the country’s position regarding Afghanistan.

The point first, the embassy said in a statement, was that China respects the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan and that it also respects the independent choices made by the Afghan people and respects the religious beliefs and national customs of Afghanistan.

“China never interferes in Afghanistan’s internal affairs, never seeks selfish interests in Afghanistan, and never pursues so-called sphere of influence,” the statement said.

The statement gives ten more points:

Supporting moderate and prudent governance in Afghanistan.
Supporting peace and reconstruction of Afghanistan.
Supporting Afghanistan in countering terrorism resolutely and forcefully.
Calling for greater bilateral and multilateral counter-terrorism cooperation.
Working together to fight terrorism, separatism and extremism in Afghanistan.
Urging the US to live up to its commitments and responsibilities to Afghanistan.
Opposing external interference and infiltration in Afghanistan.
Strengthening international and regional coordination on the Afghan issue.
Facilitating solution to Afghanistan’s humanitarian and refugee issues.
Supporting Afghanistan’s fight against narcotics.

The statement furthered that China hopes that “Afghanistan could build an open and inclusive political structure, adopt moderate and prudent domestic and foreign policies, and engage in friendly exchanges with all countries especially neighboring countries.”

The statement stressed protecting the basic rights and interests of all Afghan people by the interim Afghan government “including women, children and all ethnic groups.”

According to the statement, China will continue to “do its best” to help Afghanistan with reconstruction and development, as well as promote steady progress in economic, trade and investment cooperation.

“China welcomes Afghanistan’s participation in Belt and Road cooperation and supports Afghanistan’s integration into regional economic cooperation and connectivity that will transform Afghanistan from a land-locked country to a land-linked country,” the statement said.

The statement also expressed concerns over the presence of the “East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM)” saying that it poses a severe threat to the security of China, Afghanistan and the region. It hoped that “Afghanistan will fulfill its commitment in earnest and take more effective measures to crack down on all terrorist forces.”

It suggested that Afghanistan should be supported in taking comprehensive measures to address both the symptoms and root causes of terrorism and “prevent the country from again becoming a safe haven, breeding ground and source of terrorism.”

The statement also criticized the US: “It is a widely-held view in the international community that, by seizing Afghanistan’s overseas assets and imposing unilateral sanctions, the US, which created the Afghan issue in the first place, is the biggest external factor that hinders substantive improvement in the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan.”

“The US should draw lessons from what happened in Afghanistan, face squarely the grave humanitarian, economic and security risks and challenges in Afghanistan, immediately lift its sanctions, return the Afghan overseas assets, and deliver its pledged humanitarian aid to meet the emergency needs of the Afghan people,” the statement reads.

According to the statement, it is a shared view of regional countries that the military interference and “democratic transformation” by external forces in Afghanistan over the past 20-years have inflicted “enormous losses and pain on Afghanistan.”

The statement suggested that “under the new circumstances,” Afghanistan should be a platform for cooperation among various parties rather than geopolitical games.

China also vowed to provide assistance through bilateral and multilateral channels for the Afghan refugees.

“China looks forward to and supports more concrete actions by Afghanistan to counter narcotics cultivation, production and illicit trafficking, and will work with the international community to help Afghanistan with alternative development and crackdown on cross-border drug-related crimes, so as to eliminate the source of narcotics in the region,” the statement said.

Taliban say there’s no obstacles for UN work in Afghanistan

April 12, 2023 Current News Articles

Associated Press

12 April 2023

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Taliban’s chief spokesman said Wednesday there are no obstacles for the U.N. to function in Afghanistan, after they barred Afghan women from working at the global body.

Last week, the country’s Taliban rulers took a step further in the restrictive measures they have imposed on women and said that female Afghan staffers employed with the U.N. mission can no longer report for work. The ban is being actively enforced by the country’s intelligence agency, which reports to the Taliban’s leadership in Kandahar.

The U.N. says it cannot accept the decision, calling it unlawful and an unparalleled violation of women’s rights. It says women are crucial for the delivery of life-saving aid to millions of Afghans, and has instructed its national staff, male and female, to stay at home.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban-led government’s chief spokesman and part of the supreme leader’s inner circle, denied authorities were to blame for Afghanistan’s many crises.

The decision to bar Afghan women from working at the U.N. was an internal matter and should be respected by all sides, Mujahid said, as he set out the Taliban’s position and demands to the international community.

“This decision does not mean there is discrimination here, or that the activities of the United Nations are blocked. On the contrary, we are committed to all the rights of all our countrymen, taking into account their religious and cultural interests.

“Considering the emergency situation in Afghanistan, it is necessary for the member countries of the United Nations to resolve the problem of frozen Afghan assets, banking, travel bans and other restrictions as soon as possible so that Afghanistan can progress in economic, political and security areas. Afghans have the capacity to stand on their own feet.”

Aid agencies have been providing food, education and health care support to Afghans in the wake of the Taliban takeover and the economic collapse that followed it. But distribution has been severely affected by a Taliban edict banning women from working at non-governmental organizations — and, now, also at the U.N, allegedly because they weren’t wearing the hijab, or Islamic headscarf correctly, or following gender segregation.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Abdul Qahar Balkhi, called the order barring Afghan women from NGO and U.N. work “an internal values-based issue” that is not harming others.

The United Nations’ head of mission in the country, Roza Otunbayeva, has “initiated an operational review period” lasting until May 5 in response to the ban, according to a U.N. statement.

During this time, the U.N. will “conduct the necessary consultations, make required operational adjustments, and accelerate contingency planning for all possible outcomes,” a veiled suggestion that it could move to suspend its mission and operations in the embattled country.

The U.N. has warned that its Afghan operations are also under threat because of a severe funding crisis, putting millions of lives at risk.

“Already, the food basket has had to be cut to half due to insufficient resources. If funding is not urgently secured, millions of Afghans will be staring down the barrel of famine, disease & death,” its office for humanitarian affairs said in a tweet Wednesday.

No country has recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan and the country’s seat at the U.N. is held by the former government of President Ashraf Ghani.

Taliban ban on women has forced UN into ‘appalling choice’

April 12, 2023 Current News Articles

Al Jazeera

Published On 11 Apr 2023

UN says negative consequences of the crisis for Afghan people will be the responsibility of the de facto authorities.

The United Nations is being forced to make an “appalling choice” about whether to continue operations in Afghanistan while the Taliban government bans women from working for the organisation.

Taliban authorities have imposed a slew of restrictions on Afghan women since seizing power in 2021, including banning them from higher education and many government jobs. In December, the Taliban banned Afghan women from working for domestic and foreign non-governmental organisations, and on April 4 extended that to UN offices across the country.

In a statement on Tuesday, the UN mission in Afghanistan said the ban was “unlawful under international law, including the UN Charter, and for that reason, the United Nations cannot comply”.

“Through this ban, the Taliban de facto authorities 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,” it said.

The increasing curbs are reminiscent of the Taliban’s first takeover of Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, when the UN said they were responsible for repeated human rights violations – particularly against girls and women.

“It should be clear that any negative consequences of this crisis for the Afghan people will be the responsibility of the de facto authorities,” the statement said.

Decree in violation of UN’s charter

The UN employs approximately 400 Afghan women in the country, with local employees making up the bulk of that figure. Earlier this month, UN humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan Ramiz Alakbarov said that the decree violated the world body’s charter.

“It is absolutely clear that no authority can give instructions to the United Nations … on who should be employed,” he told the AFP news agency. “We are not going to make an exception.”

Since the ban was announced, the UN has ordered all its Afghan staff, men and women, not to report to the offices until further notice.

The ban triggered international outrage, with the Taliban authorities coming under severe criticism. They have so far not issued any clarification or reason for the UN ban.

In total, there are about 3,300 Afghans in the country’s 3,900-strong UN workforce.

Many NGOs suspended all operations in the country in protest after the ban on women staff was announced in December, piling further misery on Afghanistan’s citizens, half of whom face hunger, according to aid agencies.

It was agreed after days of discussion that women working in the health sector would be exempt from the decree, although the UN also enjoyed a general exemption.

The restriction will also hamper donation-raising efforts by the UN at a time when Afghanistan is enduring one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, UN officials have said.

The UN airlifted $1.8bn into Afghanistan between December 2021 and January 2023, funding an aid lifeline for the nation’s 38 million citizens and shoring up the domestic economy.

In other restrictions placed on Afghan women since 2021, teenage girls have been barred from secondary school, women have been pushed out of many government jobs, prevented from travelling without a male relative and ordered to cover up outside the home, ideally with a burqa.

Women have also been banned from universities and are not allowed to enter parks, gyms or public baths.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

In a statement on Tuesday, the UN mission in Afghanistan said the ban was “unlawful under international law, including the UN Charter, and for that reason, the United Nations cannot comply”.

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