Afghanistan Among Top Ten Countries Most Vulnerable to Climate Change

IOM added that since 2022, climate change has been recognized as the main driver of internal displacement in Afghanistan.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM), in its latest report, has named Afghanistan as one of the ten countries most vulnerable to climate change.

According to this organization, despite contributing minimally to global carbon emissions, Afghanistan ranks among the top ten countries most affected by climate change.

IOM added that since 2022, climate change has been recognized as the main driver of internal displacement in Afghanistan.

The organization said: “Since 2022, climate change has replaced conflict as the primary driver of internal displacement in the country, according to the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) data.”

The report also mentioned droughts and severe floods in the past three years, which, according to the organization, have affected half of the country’s population.

The IOM report reads: “Severe droughts and floods have worsened over the last three years, now impacting more than half of Afghanistan’s population. These events have caused water shortages, land damage, desertification, food insecurity, economic difficulties and displacement.”

Earlier, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had also reported the number of internally displaced persons to be over three million.

Afghanistan Among Top Ten Countries Most Vulnerable to Climate Change
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Exclusive: Airlines fly over Afghanistan as Middle East becomes the greater risk

By  and 

LONDON/SEOUL, Aug 23 (Reuters) – Singapore Airlines, British Airways (ICAG.L), opens new tab and Lufthansa (LHAG.DE), opens new tab have increased their flights over Afghanistan after years of largely avoiding it now the Middle East conflict has made it seem a relatively safe option.
The carriers mostly stopped transiting Afghanistan, which lies on major routes between Asia and Europe, three years ago when the Taliban took over and air traffic control services stopped.
Those services have yet to resume, but airlines increasingly consider the skies between Iran and Israel are riskier than Afghan airspace. Many had started routing through Iran and the Middle East after Russian skies were closed to most western carriers when the Ukraine war began in 2022.
“As conflicts have evolved, the calculus of which airspace to use has changed. Airlines are seeking to mitigate risk as much as possible and they see overflying Afghanistan as the safer option given the current tensions between Iran and Israel,” Ian Petchenik, a spokesperson for flight tracking organisation Flightradar24, said.
There were more than seven times the number of flights over Afghanistan in the second week of August than during the same period a year ago, according to a Reuters analysis of FlightRadar24 data.
Reuters Graphics
Reuters Graphics
The shift began in mid-April during reciprocal missile and drone attacks between Iran and Israel. Flight tracking data from the time shows Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, British Airways and others began to send a few flights a day over Afghanistan.
Flight path of Singapore Airlines flight 326 from Singapore to Frankfurt
Flight path of Singapore Airlines flight 326 from Singapore to Frankfurt
But the main growth has been since the killing of senior members of militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah in late July raised concerns of a major escalation.
Some pilots are concerned.
“You’re depending on the analysis of your airline. Every time I fly out there, I don’t like the feeling of flying over a conflict area where you don’t know, actually, what is happening,” said Otjan de Bruin, a commercial pilot and head of the European Cockpit Association.
“It’s always safe enough, until proven otherwise.”
Flight path of Singapore Airlines flight 326 from Singapore to Frankfurt Daily flights over Afghanistan for select airline groups
Flight path of Singapore Airlines flight 326 from Singapore to Frankfurt Daily flights over Afghanistan for select airline groups
Lufthansa Group told Reuters it decided to resume overflying Afghan airspace from early July.
Other carriers that have increased overflights since April include Turkish Airlines (THYAO.IS), opens new tab, Thai Airways (THAI.BK), opens new tab and the Air France-KLM (AIRF.PA), opens new tab group, data shows.
“Based on actual security information, KLM and other airlines currently safely overfly Afghanistan only on specific routes and only at high altitudes,” KLM told Reuters.
British Airways, Thai Airways, Turkish Airlines and Singapore Airlines did not respond to requests for comment.
Taiwan’s EVA Air (2618.TW), opens new tab began from late July, flight tracking data shows. EVA told Reuters it chooses routes based on safety, the current international situation and flight advisories.

REGULATION’S ROLE

The route changes have been facilitated by aviation regulators easing guidance on Afghanistan.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in early July said planes could fly at a lower altitude over a sliver of north-eastern Afghanistan, the Wakhan Corridor, which is used to cross from Tajikistan to Pakistan – opening that path to more types of flights.
A year earlier, the FAA lifted its ban on overflights for the entire country, but said planes must stay above 32,000 feet (9,753.6 m) where surface-to-air weapons are considered less effective.
But few started using Afghanistan until April.
Although more traffic has been using the airspace without incident, there is no guarantee of crew or passenger safety if a plane has to land, flight safety group OPSGROUP said in July.
In the absence of air traffic control, pilots crossing Afghanistan talk to nearby planes over radio according to a protocol drawn up by U.N. aviation body ICAO and Afghanistan’s Civil Aviation Authority.
European aviation safety regulator EASA said in a conflict-zone information bulletin re-issued in July that “extremist non-state actor groups remain active and might sporadically target aviation facilities in multiple ways.”
The industry is haunted by the memory of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, which was shot down over eastern Ukraine in 2014, as fighting raged between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces.

COST AND LIMITED CHOICE

Airlines are under pressure to save money after the loss since 2022 of many shorter paths through Russian airspace, and as they re-build from the pandemic.
There are few international rules that dictate which areas of airspace are safe and airline safety decisions are left largely to the discretion of individual carriers.
If an airline cannot fly through Russia, Ukraine or Iran, central Afghanistan offers a more direct route into southern Asia from Europe.
“This route saved us a fair chunk of time and fuel,” OPSGROUP reported from a pilot in July who flew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur across central Afghanistan.
Exclusive: Airlines fly over Afghanistan as Middle East becomes the greater risk
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Afghanistan Slides Into ‘Ever More Hellish Conditions’ After New Morality Law Enacted

The Taliban has attempted to police the public appearances and behavior of millions of Afghans, especially women, since seizing power in 2021.

But the enforcement of the extremist group’s rules governing morality, including its strict Islamic dress code and gender segregation in society, was sporadic and uneven across the country.

Now, the hard-line Islamist group has formally codified into law its long set of draconian restrictions, triggering fear among Afghans of stricter enforcement.

The Law On the Propagation Of Virtue And Prevention Of Vice, which was officially enacted and published on August 21, imposes severe restrictions on the appearances, behavior, and movement of women. The law also enforces constraints on men.

Adela, a middle-aged woman, is the sole breadwinner for her family of 10. She is concerned that the new morality law will erode the few rights that women still have.

The Taliban has allowed some women, primarily in the health and education sectors, to work outside their homes.

“I fear that Afghan women will no longer be able to go to their jobs,” Adela, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.

Dilawar, a resident of the capital, Kabul, warned of a public backlash if the Taliban intensified the enforcement of its widely detested restrictions.

“The youth are suffering from extreme unemployment. Oppressing them…will provoke reactions,” the 26-year-old, whose name was also changed due to security concerns, told Radio Azadi.

Long List Of Restrictions

The new morality law consists of 35 articles, many of which target women.

Women are required to fully cover their faces and bodies when in public and are banned from wearing “transparent, tight, or short” clothing. The law also bans women from raising their voices or singing in public.

Women must also be accompanied by a male chaperone when they leave their homes and cannot use public transport without a male companion.

The law forbids unrelated adult men and women from looking at each other in public.

Men must also dress modestly, even when playing sports or exercising. They are prohibited from shaving or trimming their beards. Men are also compelled to attend prayers as well as fast during the holy Islamic month of Ramadan.

“[Men] should not get haircuts, which violate Islamic Shari’a law,” says one of the articles in the law. “Friendship and helping [non-Muslim] infidels and mimicking their appearance” is prohibited.

Afghans are forbidden from “using or promoting” crossses, neckties, and other symbols deemed to be Western.

Premarital sex and homosexuality are outlawed. Drinking alcohol, the use of illicit drugs, and gambling are considered serious crimes.

Playing or listening to music in public is banned. Meanwhile, the celebration of non-Muslim holidays, including Norouz, the Persian New Year, are also prohibited.

The Taliban’s dreaded morality police are responsible for enforcing the morality law. The force, believed to number several thousand, is overseen by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.

Under the new law, the powers of the morality police have been expanded.

Members of the force will be deployed across the country to monitor compliance, according to the law. Members of the morality police are instructed to issue warnings to offenders. Repeat offenders can be detained, fined, and even have their property confiscated.

The morality police can detain offenders for up to three days and hand out punishments “deemed appropriate” without a trial.

The Taliban revealed last week that the force detained more than 13,000 Afghans during the past year for violating the extremist group’s morality rules.

‘Hellish Conditions’

The Taliban’s morality law has been widely condemned by Afghans, Western countries, and human rights organizations.

The Taliban has defended the law, which it claims is “firmly rooted in Islamic teachings.”

“This new law is deeply harmful,” said Heather Barr, associate women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “It represents a hardening and institutionalization of these rules by giving them the status of law.”

She said the law is a “serious escalation” and “swift slide to ever more hellish conditions for Afghan women and girls.”

Roza Otunbaeva, head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, on August 25 called the law a “distressing vision for Afghanistan’s future” because of the broad powers the Taliban’s morality police will have “to threaten and detain anyone based on broad and sometimes vague lists of infractions.”

Obaidullah Baheer, a lecturer of politics at the American University of Afghanistan, said that parts of the morality law are “extremely vague.”

Yet, the morality police are given broad powers, including to “arbitrarily” punish people without due process, he said.

“[This is] making them the judge, jury, and executioner,” said Baheer.

Afghanistan Slides Into ‘Ever More Hellish Conditions’ After New Morality Law Enacted
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They fled Afghanistan. In the US, they have freedom – but fear a return

in Sacramento

Almost three years after Esmatullah Sultani rushed to Kabul’s international airport, at the time besieged by Taliban forces who were seizing control of Afghanistan, the 24-year-old man walked into a busy neighborhood market near Sacramento, California.

Sultani greeted many of the stallholders, fellow Afghans, and ordered kebabs for lunch in Dari, a language spoken by more than 35 million people in Afghanistan.

Since the United States ended its 20-year military presence there, Afghanistan has become a country where those who assisted American forces are in danger of persecution and where women are deprived of fundamental rights, including education.

“This is the closest I am to home,” Sultani said, walking through aisles packed with canned food from the Middle East and an area adorned with colorful rugs and long-sleeved dresses known as kameez.

“But here in California, we are safe. My little sister can go to school. I go on picnics with my whole family and we even play soccer.”

While the Biden administration helped to airlift, screen and resettle tens of thousands of Afghans in the US, three years after the chaotic withdrawal of the US military, many continue to live in uncertainty, with only short-term legal protections amid fear of being returned to the country they were obliged to flee.

More than 77,000 Afghans have been relocated to the US under an immigration authority known as parole, according to data provided by the Department of Homeland Security. Sacramento county is home to the largest Afghan community in the US, with a population of almost 17,000, according to statistics from the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan thinktank in Washington.

Sultani’s father had worked as a civil engineer for several US military construction projects in Afghanistan and, thanks to a work certificate he brought with him to Kabul’s airport, Sultani managed to get on a US aircraft and evacuate as the Taliban closed in.

His humanitarian parole status was meant to be a quick, temporary fix, valid for two years, with evacuees instructed to apply for special immigrant visas, or for asylum.

Asylum offers refuge to immigrants fleeing persecution based on certain factors such as their race, religion and political views. The visas, on the other hand, are available to Afghans who served American forces as translators, as interpreters or in other roles. Both benefits offer recipients and their immediate relatives permanent legal status.

Sultani applied for asylum and waited anxiously.

“My asylum was approved, and then I applied for a green card, but until the day it comes in the mail the idea of going back to Afghanistan won’t disappear,” said Sultani, who is getting an associate degree in computer information science at American River College in Sacramento. With his father still in Afghanistan and his mother and siblings in the US, Sultani also works to help his family in both countries stay afloat.

More than 21,000 Afghan evacuees across the US have submitted asylum applications, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is reviewing a total of 1.2m pending asylum cases.

The Biden administration has created various temporary avenues for those Afghans in limbo, including extending temporary work permits and protections from deportation. Also, a temporary protected status program for Afghans in the US allows them to work here legally under a different law designed to protect immigrants from countries beset by armed conflict or other crises.

So far, 3,100 Afghans have successfully extended their temporary protected status through May 2025, according to the DHS.

But much uncertainty remains. The US military withdrawal should not end America’s commitment to vulnerable Afghans, said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, who served as a policy director for Michelle Obama and is now the president of Global Refuge, an immigrant rights group.

“The bottom line is that our current system has proven insufficient for extending Afghans permanent protection in a timely manner,” she added, saying: “Three years later, thousands of Afghan allies have yet to secure a long-term status through asylum or special immigrant visas. And that’s because Congress failed to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act last year.”

Global Refuge has helped resettle more than 23,500 Afghans in the US, said Timothy Young, the director for public relations at the organization.

The Afghan Adjustment Act would have created a path to permanent status for evacuees such as Sultani, but the initiative, which received bipartisan support, has been stalled in Congress for more than two years.

Advocates say Afghans have been treated differently from similar refugee groups who have been offered permanent status under adjustment acts passed by Congress, such as Cubans escaping communism, Hungarians fleeing Soviet repression and Vietnamese refugees following the fall of Saigon.

The day that Kabul fell, Jaber, 24 – who asked for his last name to be withheld out of concerns for the safety of his family, who remain in Afghanistan – planned to go to the international airport with his siblings, hoping to get evacuated by US military aircraft. Instead, he had to stay home because two suicide bombers and gunmen killed 60 Afghans and 13 US marines.

Jaber is part of the long-persecuted Hazara ethnic minority group and said he had been an intern for a journalistic association in Afghanistan.

One month before the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, the United Nations discovered mass graves of Hazaras in Bamiyan, part of an ethnic-cleansing campaign. After the Taliban swept back into power more than 20 years later, Jaber and his family lived in fear.

Having failed to get evacuated, Jaber fled to Iran, where he stayed for seven months with a visa. He then traveled to Brazil and, after two weeks of sleeping in churches and parks, he decided to head for the US.

Like hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees, he embarked on a perilous land journey, traversing Peru, Ecuador, the deadly jungle between Colombia and Panama known as the Darién Gap and the entirety of Central America before reaching the US-Mexico border in August 2022.

“I slept under benches with dogs. I remember my shoes had holes in the soles, and I had no money,” said Jaber, who now lives in northern California and works as a dispatcher for a security company.

“After I left Afghanistan, Taliban members came to our house and searched for any documents that would lead to the arrest of any of my family members.”

One of Jaber’s siblings escaped to Germany, but others remain in Afghanistan.

With the help of the International Rescue Committee, a resettlement organization that has assisted 11,621 Afghan evacuees, Jaber was granted US asylum this summer. His dream, he said, was to pursue a career in journalism, a job that might have gotten him killed in Afghanistan.

“For those coming up over the southern border, there are even fewer resources for them. They don’t have the same access to benefits as those that are paroled in,” said Tara Winter, executive director of the IRC’s chapter in northern California.

“They don’t qualify for the same family reunification benefits as other refugees do, and they experience so much anguish as they read about the worsening humanitarian situation in Afghanistan. It’s just a sort of unending legal limbo that makes it really hard for people to focus on rebuilding their lives here.”

They fled Afghanistan. In the US, they have freedom – but fear a return
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Afghanistan 3 years later: Many remain in limbo, feeling let down

BY REBECCA BEITSCH 

Politico

09/01/24 06:00 AM ET

Three years after the deadly and chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, many evacuees and allies remain in limbo.

Thousands airlifted out of the country are stuck in an immigration backlog that leaves them without a permanent way to remain in the U.S.

Those who worked with the U.S. military in Afghanistan, which is now under the rule of the Taliban, face significant obstacles and a crushing timeline for securing a visa to the U.S.

“It’s Groundhog Day. The things that mattered three years ago still matter. People are still not getting evacuated. People don’t have permanent status here. … There’s no money. All the little nonprofits that popped up, they’re out of money,” Joseph Azam, board chair of the Afghan-American Foundation, told The Hill.

The withdrawal succeeded in evacuating roughly 80,000 people who worked with the U.S. in Afghanistan, the largest such operation since the U.S. exited Vietnam.

But when the last flight went wheels up on Aug. 30, 2021, an estimated 100,000 more were left behind. It’s a group that includes former military interpreters, those who worked on U.S. democracy and civil rights efforts and others vulnerable under Taliban rule.

The different constituencies are united by the same feeling: the U.S. hasn’t fulfilled its promise to Afghan allies.

For evacuees

Most Afghans who managed to navigate the dangerous conditions to get to Hamid Karzai International Airport and secure limited flights to the United States believed that they would be able to permanently stay.

But sweeping legislation from Congress to ensure that has yet to be passed, leaving many Afghans feeling burned compared to other groups the U.S. had helped, such as people who fled Vietnam and Cuba.

“I think our situation was treated very exceptionally, and not favorably exceptionally. That was a little bit of a disappointment,” said Naheed Sarabi, an evacuee who previously served as the deputy minister for policy in Afghanistan’s Ministry of Finance.

Sarabi, who was only granted asylum to remain in the U.S. in April, 2 1/2 years after her arrival, noted that many Afghans held off on applying for asylum because they could not afford the legal fees associated with the process.

The U.S. has had some success with those who could afford it, processing 19,000 out of 21,000 applications for asylum among those who left during the evacuation.

And of the 35,000 who aided the U.S during the war effort and arrived in the U.S. on a so-called special immigrant visa (SIV), 21,000 have been awarded permanent residency.

But that leaves about 20,000 Afghans who were evacuated but remain on some kind of temporary program.

A shaky immigration status is just one roadblock facing those seeking to adjust to a new country.

Sarabi is U.S.-educated and has established her own development consultancy in addition to working as a fellow at Brookings Institution. But she said those without such strong English skills or whose professional credentials aren’t accepted in the U.S. have struggled to earn enough to pay their bills.

“I knew I was going to a new country just a week before, and the next week I’m on a plane going to the U.S. I had no plan. I came with a backpack. It’s really difficult to build a life based on a backpack,” she said.

She said many are still in mourning over their past lives.

“For some of us who have come who had leadership roles, it’s not about having a comfortable life here, although we are very thankful about it, but it’s also the burden of what we have lost in our country. For me, that’s heavier than my challenges in the U.S. to be honest,” Sarabi said of her long career in development work.

“Every day I think about Afghanistan, where I had an impact. I think, what impact do I have here? … It’s not about having power or having positions. It’s just about the impact that you make in your everyday life.”

Many are also struggling with the weight of hearing about the dire situation faced by friends and relatives.

“Every day, [you’re] hearing about your country, about your relatives being in distressed situations, the poverty level. Every day, I get calls and text messages from my former coworkers that they need help, they need money. And there’s a limit that you can help personally, to be honest,” she said.

“So there’s a lot of trauma and burden on you to function as you’re already trying to be settled in a country that you don’t know.”

For those left behind

In Afghanistan, quality of life under Taliban rule has plummeted across the board, but most acutely for women.

United Nations report from last year concluded that Taliban rule has “ushered in a new era characterized by rapid economic rapid economic decline, hunger and risk of malnutrition, inflation driven by global commodity shocks, drastic rises in both urban and rural poverty, a near-collapse of the national public health system, a stifling of the media and civil society sectors, and almost-total exclusion of half the population – women and girls – from public life.”

People who helped the U.S. when it was in Afghanistan, including former interpreters or military contractors or those who worked on democracy and civil rights efforts, face hurdles to reaching the United States even if they are eligible.

While there are procedures in place to process visas for allies, the more than 135,000 who may be eligible face what could be a decades-long backlog.

Some are getting out. About 14,600 Afghans have arrived in the U.S. and applied for temporary protected status, which bars deportation from the United States, when the process opened anew in September of last year.

But the U.S. has processed just under 2,000 SIVs so far this year of allies still in Afghanistan, according to the latest data available through the end of March, a pace advocates see as too slow given the demand. The report notes the average processing time for the visa is 569 days.

Much of that is done under the auspices of the State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts (CARE), which contends with the complications of arranging relocation from a country where the U.S. no longer has an embassy.

“CARE team gets a slap on the shoulder. They’re really trying. They’ve done a good job. They put something in place that is working. Yet overall, no one has a right for any victory laps in this. And there’s a lot of people that are trying to put a little victory lap out there right now. And it’s not earned. It’s absolutely not earned,” said Kim Staffieri, director of the Association of Wartime Allies.

By her own estimates, Staffieri said current processing rates mean the government will take at least 15 years to offer an SIV to those who aided the U.S. during the war.

Getting an SIV is a complex process that involves securing proof of employment from supervisors as well as getting through a series of government hoops and stages of approvals. Staffieri said the slow processing is leaving the vast majority of applicants unsure of whether they will ultimately qualify. Meanwhile, she’s seen unusually high denial rates lately — leaving her wondering if the government is taking the time to validate each applicant’s employment credentials.

“All these people that should be coming here, we’re not going to get them here. We’re not going to fulfill our promise in time for them. That’s what keeps me up at night. We’re not going to fulfill this promise in time. It’s getting so bad over there that we’re going to lose folks. And that’s — it’s wrong,” Staffieri said. “It’s just so wrong.”

Staffieri said it’s clear the government needs to invest more in the program — something that’s been evident well before the evacuation when government watchdogs expressed alarm over slow processing.

“They know what they need to do. They need to surge staffing, they need to put the budget in place, and they need to get the f‑‑‑king job done,” she said.

“And that’s all there is to it.”

For advocates

Perhaps the biggest setback to security for Afghans is inaction from Congress.

Advocates have organized around the Afghan Adjustment Act, which would allow evacuees to remain in the U.S.

The bill is modeled after past legislation that helped groups in large-scale evacuations to start their journey to U.S. citizenship.

“We were told at the beginning that this act would be approved and everybody would have a path towards residency. But the bill was never passed,” Sarabi said.

At various turns, Congress has failed to advance the bill or attach it to a must-pass legislative vehicle.

There are a few lawmakers who have opposed the legislation over concerns about vetting — even though allowing Afghans to seek citizenship would kick off additional security reviews for a group of people already in the U.S. as it is.

But much of the GOP’s interest in Afghanistan has been focused on investigating the withdrawal itself. Congressional Republicans have long used the issue to attack President Biden, while more recently the Trump campaign has been hitting Vice President Harris over the issue. While the attacks focus on Democratic leadership, it was the Trump administration that first agreed to leave the country.

This has left advocates for some of the Afghan refugees and allies frustrated.

“Congress loves to blame Biden for all of these problems. And yeah, fine, yes, a lot of the issues that we’re facing now are because of the withdrawal and blame deserves to go around,” said Chris Purdy, founder of the veterans organization Chamberlain Network, who previously lobbied to improve processing of Afghan evacuees.

“But the policy can’t be just to blame the administration. Like you gotta fix it, right? And sometimes you gotta fix problems that you didn’t create. That’s what being a grown-up is. And hopefully we have grown-ups in Congress,” Purdy said. “They have real pieces of legislation that could make things so much better, and they just don’t — they just don’t do it for a variety of reasons.”

This result is that Afghans’ future is very much in the hands of the next presidential administration.

“We’d love to see Congress act statutorily, so that the next administration, whoever they may be, can’t just come in and say, ‘All these good things that we’ve done over the past three years, we’re just gonna kick it to the curb,’” Purdy said.

But he added that he’s concerned a Trump administration would not take action to help those in asylum limbo.

“What we do know is that the people who he intends to stack his administration with on immigration are not friendly to immigration … it’s highly unlikely that Stephen Miller will want to continue these efficiencies.”

Afghanistan 3 years later: Many remain in limbo, feeling let down
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ISIL claims responsibility for deadly Kabul attack

Al Jazeera

The ISIS (ISIL) group has claimed responsibility for a deadly suicide bombing in Kabul that killed at least six people.

In a Telegram post on Tuesday, ISIL said one of its members detonated an explosive vest in the Afghan capital the previous day, targeting the Taliban government’s prosecution service.

The bomber waited until government employees finished their shifts and then detonated the explosive in the middle of a crowd, the post said.

Thirteen people were wounded in the attack in Kabul’s southern Qala-e-Bakhtiar area, according to Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran.

ISIL, which put the casualties at “more than 45”, said the attack was revenge for “Muslims held in Taliban prisons”.

Afghanistan’s biggest security threat

While overall violence has waned in Afghanistan since the Taliban’s 2021 takeover, ISIL’s affiliate in the Khorasan region – Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) – remains active, regularly targeting civilians, foreigners and Taliban officials with gun and bomb attacks.

The last suicide attack in Afghanistan claimed by the regional chapter of ISIL was in the southern city of Kandahar – the Taliban’s historic stronghold – in March. That bombing, striking a group of people waiting outside a bank branch, killed more than 20 bystanders.

In 2022, an ISIL-linked suicide bombing killed 53 people, including 46 girls and young women, at an education centre in a Shia neighbourhood of Kabul.

Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told the AFP news agency last month that ISIL “existed” in the country before but the Taliban “suppressed them very hard”.

“No such groups exist here that can pose a threat to anyone,” Mujahid said.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
ISIL claims responsibility for deadly Kabul attack
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Afghan women sing in defiance of Taliban laws silencing their voices

 and agencies

Afghan women, both inside and outside the country, have posted videos of themselves singing in protest against the Taliban’s laws banning women’s voices in public.

Late last month the Taliban published new restrictions aimed, it said, at combating vice and promoting virtue. The 35-article document, which includes a raft of draconian laws, deems women’s voices to be potential instruments of vice and stipulates that women must not sing or read aloud in public, nor let their voices carry beyond the walls of their homes.

As rights campaigners reacted with horror, Afghan women began pushing back. Across the country, women began uploading videos of themselves singing, in defiance of the Taliban’s systematic efforts to erase women from the public sphere.

“No command, system or man can close the mouth of an Afghan woman,” one 23-year-old said after posting her own video.

The 39-second video showed her singing outdoors. The song she sang had been carefully chosen for its lyrics, which spoke of protest and strength. “I am not that weak willow that trembles in every wind,” she sang. “I am from Afghanistan.”

In another video, reportedly recorded in Kabul, a woman is shown singing while dressed from head to toe in black. “You have silenced my voice for the foreseeable future,” she sang, her face concealed by a long veil. “You have imprisoned me in my home for the crime of being a woman.”

Other videos showed women in Afghanistan singing alone or in small groups, using hashtags such as “#My voice is not forbidden” and “#No to Taliban” as they raised their voices against what UN officials have described as a “gender-based apartheid”.

Others around the world soon joined in. “We do not go to the field with a gun, but our voice, our image,” said Hoda Khamosh, an Afghan woman living in Norway. She posted her own video in a bid to show “that we women are not just a few individuals who can be erased”, she said.

The new laws also force women to wear thick clothes that completely cover their bodies – including their faces – while in public, and bans them from looking directly at men they are not related to by blood or marriage.

Those who fail to comply with the restrictions can be detained and punished in a manner deemed appropriate by Taliban officials.

On Tuesday, the UN high commissioner for human rights called for the law to be repealed, describing it as “utterly intolerable”.

The new law cements policies that seek to completely erase women’s presence in public, “effectively attempting to render them into faceless, voiceless shadows”, said a spokesperson, Ravina Shamdasani.

Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, they have steadily eroded women’s rights. Women and girls have been blocked from attending secondary school, banned from nearly all forms of paid employment, and barred from public parks and gyms.

Earlier this year, the Taliban also announced that they would resume the practice of stoning women to death for adultery.

Afghan women sing in defiance of Taliban laws silencing their voices
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Taliban: Suicide bomb blast in Kabul kills 6 Afghan civilians

Voice of America


Taliban authorities in Afghanistan reported Monday that a suicide bomb blast in Kabul killed at least six people, including a woman, and wounded 13 others.

Police confirmed the deadly attack in the Afghan capital, saying it occurred in the city’s southwestern Qala Bakhtiar area when a suicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body.

Kabul police spokesperson Khalid Zadran wrote on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that the victims were civilians and that investigations into the attack were ongoing. He shared no further details.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility, but the Afghan offshoot of the Islamic State, IS-Khorasan, is the primary suspect. The terrorist outfit has taken credit for almost all recent attacks in Kabul and elsewhere in Afghanistan.

Taliban officials say their sustained counterterrorism operations have “almost decimated” IS-Khorasan, and it has no “physical presence” in the country. The United States and regional countries dispute these claims.

“We know that we can’t turn a blind eye to the threats from organizations such as ISIS-K and that we must keep a relentless focus on counterterrorism,” Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder told reporters in Washington last week while reiterating U.S. worries about the growing threat of terrorism in Afghanistan. He used an acronym for IS-Khorasan.

Taliban: Suicide bomb blast in Kabul kills 6 Afghan civilians
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As a young Afghan interpreter, he helped a US officer. Then he needed help getting out

Chris Kenning

USA TODAY

August 30, 2024

One day in April, Ahmadullah Karimi nervously packed his family’s meager belongings into a handful of suitcases, knowing the next few hours would decide his fate.

Karimi, 31, was in Pakistan. He’d been holed up there with his wife and two kids for more than 2½ years, waiting.

When the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan ended on Aug. 30, 2021, he had stood outside Kabul’s airport, watching fellow Afghans so desperate to flee some of them clung to the outside of military planes as they lumbered into the air.

But Karimi, a former U.S. military interpreter – like thousands of other Afghan allies vulnerable to Taliban reprisal – had been left behind.

Instead, he and his family had made it as far as neighboring Pakistan. Interpreters like Karimi were supposed to be eligible for a pathway to the U.S. called a special immigrant visa. Now, after years of struggle, red tape and critical help from his former boss and friend, retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Will Selber, Karimi finally had his.

Still, Selber, who worked in intelligence and spent countless hours since the withdrawal helping other former Afghan colleagues, knew even the visa wasn’t a guarantee. He had seen some people disappear or be killed. Both men feared that despite valid paperwork, Karimi could still be blocked, detained or even deported to Afghanistan by Pakistani authorities.

“If they see me and my family trying to go to the airport, they probably will make some excuses” to intervene, said Karimi, who was with his wife, 6-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter.

Being sent back to live under Taliban rule would mean he could face death for his work with U.S. forces, while his wife would be prohibited from studying beyond the sixth grade or showing her face in public.

Selber, 46, who monitored his progress from the United States, knew that despite organizing help, nothing was certain. “A thousand things could go wrong,” he said.

Today, three years after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan ended the nation’s longest war, the U.S. has resettled more than 160,000 such vulnerable Afghans and their families as part of what veterans and advocates view as a national moral obligation.

The Biden Administration has worked to accelerate processing for Afghans who seek admission as refugees or through other immigration programs. Special immigrant visas, for example, for those who worked directly with the U.S., are on pace this year to surpass the 18,000 granted last year, according to the State Department.

Yet despite the progress, at least 250,000 vulnerable Afghans, including former interpreters, Afghan military personnel, civil society staff and family members remain stranded in Afghanistan and third countries amid barriers and backlogs, according to advocates.

Many are still waiting for eligibility decisions including about 130,000 applicants for special immigrant visas, according to Andrew Sullivan of the group No One Left Behind.

Long waits have led several thousand to risk a dangerous trek to the U.S. southern border. Still more face challenges in bringing extended family members to safety.

And Congress has yet to approve the Afghan Adjustment Act, proposed two years ago to speed resettlement and provide Afghans admitted under temporary, two-year parole a path to permanent residency.

“So much more needs to be done to keep our promise to protect our allies,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, the head of Global Refuge, a resettlement agency.

Though the effort will take years, progress is being made and thousands are being relocated to the U.S. each month, said Shawn VanDiver, President of the group AfghanEvac.

He said those gains have come in partnership with veteran and nonprofit groups that have scrambled to help relocate former friends and colleagues. Individually, many veterans have helped people they knew with money for housing or help with bureaucratic jams.

That includes Selber, who served multiple times in Afghanistan and has aided many former Afghan allies. Most made it, he said. Some didn’t.

Karimi was the last interpreter he knew well still in harm’s way. He vowed to do everything he could to see him to safety.

But it would be no easy feat.

Trusted Afghan allies form bond in war 

The men’s paths first crossed a decade earlier in a dusty Afghan outpost northwest of Kandahar.

The village in the Ghorak district had no schools or medical facilites. Residents lived in deep poverty. With the Taliban not far away, supplies had to be air-dropped to his small camp.

It marked Selber’s second deployment to Afghanistan. During his first, he had worked on projects such as digging wells and repairing mosques, stories he would later recount in a book review. The job let him spend long hours drinking chai with Pashtun elders. He found Afghans generous and fascinating.

He would learn the language, but still needed a translator for his new mission – serving as the local governor’s adviser to build support for the U.S.-backed Afghan government. The few dozen special forces soldiers he was with were tasked with training and supporting local police.

Karimi hadn’t yet turned 20 – a young interpreter from Kandahar who loved reading and cricket. He’d taken the job mainly because it would qualify him for a U.S. visa, Karimi said.

“He was a baby,” Selber recalled, laughing. “Eager and green and excited.”

Over that year, they bonded during meetings with area elders and civilians. Back at base, not far from where the governor had been installed in a rented house, Selber and Karimi hung out in the interpreters’ tent. They posed for a photo, arm-in-arm, in desert-colored fatigues near armored vehicles.

While they didn’t see combat together, Karimi learned the risks of his job were ever-present. Military interpreters were despised by some in rural areas more favorable to the Taliban, he said.

“They were hating us” for working with U.S. forces, he said. “And they announced money if anybody killed us.”

When Selber’s deployment ended, he wrote Karimi a letter of recommendation for his SIV visa.

He lost track of Karimi as a steady stream of Afghan interpreters came and went during his deployment to Afghanistan in 2014 and again in 2020 ahead of the U.S. withdrawal.

“I said goodbye to Ahmadullah,” Selber said in a blog post, “and hoped to run into him sometime down the road.”

They would indeed reconnect – but not where either man expected.

After Afghanistan:Tens of thousands of allies were left behind. Why have so few reached US safety?

Fall of Kabul brings a blocked path

In August 2021, Ahmadullah barrelled toward Kabul with his family in hopes of getting on a plane to safety.

Ahead of the U.S. withdrawal, the Tablian began retaking territory. By mid-August, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country as Taliban forces advanced on the capital.

President Joe Biden later said U.S.-trained and equipped Afghan National Security collapsed faster than some expected.

Karimi had stopped interpreting for the military in 2014 to earn a college degree. He went on to work for a United Nations-funded aid organization. But he knew his past work for the military meant he would be a target for reprisal killings.

“Especially my mom, she was really concerned about me,” he said. “We worked for the U.S. forces. So they won’t let us live. They will kill us.”

With his visa eligibility, and a sister in Canada advocating on his behalf, he was hopeful he’d get a seat on a plane.

Meantime, Selber, whose deployment at the U.S. Embassy ended earlier that summer, was back in the U.S. working the phones and contacts to help the U.S. get vulnerable allies inside an airport thronged by chaotic crowds and surrounded by Taliban checkpoints.

Selber didn’t know Karimi and his family were among them, waiting for hours in the sun, moving back and forward with the crowd, hoping for an opening to reach U.S. forces and tell them he had worked as a military interpreter.

On Aug. 30, he finally got close to U.S. forces to do that. But he was told there were no more flights for civilians or Afghans. He waited at the door for four or five hours, hoping that might change. But the answer was the same.

“It’s all over,” he was told.

But he still had to get out. Like others, he looked to the nearest border.

The following month, they packed a car and drove south to a Pakistani crossing, hoping to pass unnoticed. He waited for hours in a line of refugees, his kids thirsty and crying, hoping he wasn’t stopped by the Taliban or refused entry.

At the border station, he showed his Afghan identification. The guards asked his reason for seeking to enter Pakistan.

“My wife is sick,” he recalled telling them. “I want to take her to the hospital.” He handed over 20,000 Pakistani rupees, about $71 today. He was waved across.

But he wasn’t out of danger yet.

Facing danger and red tape, veterans aid former allies

In 2022, an email with an unexpected question landed in Selber’s inbox: Are you Maj. Will Selber?

“I’m Lt. Col. Will Selber,” he corrected the emailer. “What’s up?”

It was a lawyer hired by one of Karimi’s longtime supporters, a U.S. online English teacher who formerly taught his sister. They sought to find Selber – not only Karimi’s last U.S. military supervisor, but a friend he knew would come to his aid.

He’d tried to reach Selber. He still had the recommendation letter Selber had written nearly a decade earlier, but the listed email address no longer worked after Selber had taken on new assignments.

Selber learned that Karimi had applied for the SIV, by then a notoriously slow program. But there were hitches, including a clerical error from his former interpreter contractor showing he’d been fired, which wasn’t the case. Could he help?

Selber, who had been consumed by efforts to help evacuate Afghan allies since 2021, remembered his old friend and colleague and quickly agreed.

“By the time Ahmadullah reached out to me, I’d become an expert at it,” he said.

Karimi’s family had reached Islamabad, a city filled with refugees seeking safe passage out, living on financial help from family and friends. He’d registered with the United Nations refugee system, a process that can take years. His son fought an illness while he battled red tape.

He told his family they’d be here for a few months, tops. His son kept asking. “Dad, when will your three months get completed?”

He still sought to win an SIV visa, and with it, eventual U.S. permanent residency.

Selber penned an affidavit vouching for him and pushed to get his mistaken record corrected. Once it was, Karimi submitted his SIV application again.

“It sailed through,” Selber recalled. “He got his approval within a year, which is pretty fast.”

In 2023, however, staying in Pakistan got more dangerous when the country announced plans to deport large numbers of Afghan refugees, Sullivan said.

And the dangers in Afghanistan were evident in reports from the U.N. and other groups that had documented reprisal killings of people who had worked with U.S. forces. Further, the economy had cratered and women’s rights were being strictly curtailed, with prohibitions on girls going to school and as time went on, women speaking in public.

Selber, with the help of fellow veterans, found the family safe house to stay hidden. He tapped his veteran community, setting up a GoFundMe campaign to help his former interpreter seeking about $7,000. It drew five times that much within days.

Finally, in April he was approved to go.

Selber and other supporters bought him a ticket instead of waiting what can be months for one provided by the government. He even had a U.S. letter stating that he should not be detained.

But Selber knew it could go sideways. He even told Karimi he might have to make a run for it.

On the way to the airport, his son was happy. Karimi tried to hide his nerves while his driver, whose identity he’d confirmed with a code phrase, took routes to avoid police checkpoints.

But all the support paid off. Karimi said that with help he got inside and through customs without being challenged or turned away.

Settling into his airplane seat on a flight to Qatar, he buckled his seatbelt and exhaled.

Amid ramped-up processing and new lives, others remain stuck 

In mid-April, Selber stood inside Boston Logan International Airport, wearing a shirt that read, Operation Enduring Freedom.

Soon Karimi walked from the gate with his wife, daughter and their son, who was dressed in jeans and tennis shoes, meeting Selber in what he described as an “unbelievable” moment.

“He did a lot for me and my family,” he said. “He saved my life.”

Selber, too, could finally relax after many nerve-wracking months. “I was just like, oh my God, I can finally rest,” he said.

Selber drove the family about 180 miles north to Montpelier, Vermont, a town of about 8,000 residents set along the Winooski River, where they would be resettled with the help of refugee agencies and friends.

They soon moved into their first apartment. Karimi was delivering food for Door Dash and Uber Eats. By late August, he started a new job as a cashier at a grocery. His son Abdullah was starting school and his wife was learning English and taking her daughter to the park.

“I’m really happy for my wife and my kids. They can go to school. They have freedom here. They have all the rights that a human should have,” he said.

At the same time, he said, “I have a lot of stress and tension and concern about my parents. They are still in trouble.”

His father worked as a government driver, he said, so his parents have been moving, changing where they stay every couple of months to keep ahead of the Tablian. Two of his sisters, who worked in healthcare, now can’t leave their homes.

Like others, he wants to help get his family out. But getting extended relatives visas is more difficult than for immediate family members. From Vermont, it’s anguishing to see what’s become of his country, he said.

“We lost all the progress that happened in the last 20 years,” he said. ”Everything is destroyed.”

Selber retired from the Air Force in July. He said a crowd of Afghans came to the event. He still keeps in touch with Karimi and other former interpreters and Afghan colleagues now in the U.S.

Many are thriving, he said. Some are still learning English. Some former Afghan elites are driving Uber or working as security guards. Most are financially supporting families back home. Still more have survivor’s guilt.

“All of them are 100% grateful to be here,” he said. “But I’ve never met one that didn’t wish they could come back.”

There are hopeful signs more will follow in Karimi’s path. SIV and refugee admissions have risen and earlier this year Congress expanded the available SIV visas. Recently, the Philippines agreed to temporarily host a visa processing center for a small number of Afghans seeking to resettle in the U.S.

But advocates say the progress needs to be sustained over a number of years to get everyone eligible to safety. And they hope Congress will pass the Afghan Adjustment Act in part so that those here on a temporary status can avoid the U.S. asylum system that has a backlog of more than 2 million applicants.

“It’s still frustratingly slow for people who are facing danger in Afghanistan,” said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute.

Selber said that the way things ended in Afghanistan broke his heart. But he hopes his efforts to help Karimi and others help him heal.

Earlier this week, Karimi called Selber with welcome news. He’d received his coveted “green card,” making him a permanent resident – a fitting coda to a friendship that Karimi credits with saving his life.

“I don’t have words to tell him thank you,” Karimi said.

As a young Afghan interpreter, he helped a US officer. Then he needed help getting out
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‘I feel peace’: 3 Afghan refugees reflect on their escape to America

By Claudia Kolker

The Washington Post

Claudia Kolker, a former member of the Houston Chronicle editorial board, is the author of “The Immigrant Advantage: What We Can Learn From Newcomers to America About Health, Happiness, and Hope.”

Three years after the collapse of their government, more than 76,000 Afghans live in the United States under humanitarian parole. After the U.S. military completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan on Aug. 30, 2021Houston became the top destination for these refugees. For those who escaped, the anniversary of those weeks can summon chaotic emotions. Some don’t want to discuss it. Most worry about those who didn’t get out. And many, especially women, see their escape as an almost otherworldly reprieve from gender-based cruelty.

None of these refugees, though, could say that their escape is solely history. The Taliban’s stranglehold on civil society, and women most of all, keeps tightening. Last week, the group announced new “vice and virtue” laws threatening to arrest women who reveal their faces (or speak) in public.

Here, three Afghan refugees in Houston reflect on their escapes. The interviews, edited and condensed for length, were interpreted by Zala Hashmi.

Khadija Sakhizad

Khadija, 27, kneels quietly in her living room, which is furnished with nothing more than two chairs and a new carpet. In Afghanistan, she and her husband Jawad belonged to the Hazara minority, which according to legend descends from Genghis Khan. Under the Taliban, the Hazara have been marginalized, tortured and massacred. Here in Houston, Khadija cares for her sons, ages 4 and 6.

My husband worked for six months as a carpenter with a U.S. company in Kabul. It was a good place. They said, “If anything happens, we will take you to the U.S.” A relative had told my husband about the job. “It’s not safe,” the relative said. “But you have no choice.” Before that, we led a very bad life. My husband made about 50 afghani a day [about 70 cents]. In the new job, he made 10,000 a month. Then, on Aug. 15, 2021, I was washing clothes when he came home and said, “The Taliban took everything.” I sewed our valuables into a pillow and handed it to my husband, who left to hide. Soon after, three Talibs tore through our house.

When they were gone, a relative told my husband it was safe to come home. By now, he was getting emails: Go to the airport. We went, with our two small sons in diapers, four times. The first two times, the Taliban wouldn’t let us in. The third time, a bomb exploded a few yards from me. I said, “If we are going to die, I want to die at home.” So for one year, we hid. My husband said, “We will die together by starving but we will not separate.” The emails kept coming. Finally, one directed us to a new spot and we went. There, a team picked us up and drove us into the airport. From there, we flew to Qatar, then to the United States.

Look at me. I’m 27, but I look 40. But now, my son is going to school, and whatever he learns, I learn, too.

Atefa Asma

In 20-year-old Atefa’s family apartment, a sewing machine sits in one corner, a parrot perches in a cage by the window, and a shelf of notebooks line the wall. Safe from the Taliban, everyone in the family — two parents and 11 children — is studying English.

For most of my life, we lived with my father’s extended family of 30 people. I helped my mother because she did absolutely everything for them. If my mother didn’t serve them just right, and exactly on time, my father-in-law beat her. Then, four months before the Taliban came, we got our own place. My father, who is a cook, got a new job in Kabul with Americans. Life was good. The day the Taliban took over, I cried, because my dad had worked with foreigners for 12 years. But he escaped, hiking barefoot for 23 hours until he arrived home, with no toenails. We hid him in an upstairs room.

The Taliban burst in the next day. “Bring us tea, bring us food,” they demanded. “Did you work with Americans?” I had only seen them on YouTube. They were just as horrifying in real life: long hair, beards to their stomachs, black eyeliner. But we fed them, and they left.

For six months after that, my father hid. Then, his company emailed him: Get to a second country, and we can help. We drove two rented cars to Peshawar, Pakistan, and after 80 days, we got travel documents.

Now, it seems unbelievable that we’re here. Not everything is what I expected. In movies, I always saw tall buildings, so when I saw our small apartment, I said “Really?” The best thing is, if you want to study, you can. Even my mother, who didn’t learn to read, is learning English. No one will stop you because you’re a woman.

Hussain Mohammadi

Hussain, the 34-year-old son of farmers with little formal education, graduated with an English language diploma in Kabul, then interpreted for the U.S. military while running a language and computer education center there.

I was living with family in Kabul, running an educational center with more than 2,000 students. Then on Aug. 15, 2021, I got an urgent email. Go to the airport, it said. Everyone who worked for the U.S. military got a similar message.

Most of my siblings were working or studying outside Afghanistan at the time. But one sister was at home with me, and I thought: We need to get out. Under the Taliban, her life will be impossible. So my sister, my nephew’s wife and I drove to the airport. We left another sister behind in Kabul; I wanted to take her, but she has two small daughters and I saw on TV that some children had died in the airport crowd.

When we arrived, we couldn’t get inside the airport. Instead, we waited on the packed road outside for 10 days. No space, no food, no phone batteries. The Taliban were beating people with long sticks. We went home for one night and returned — this time to the U.S. military entrance.

Underneath the wall ran a dark, shallow river: sewage. I settled the family nearby and waded in, holding my documents up until a soldier approved them. But they wouldn’t open the gates. “Give me your hands,” he said, pulling each of my family members over the wall. Then they pulled me up, too.

After two days in the Kabul airport, we were flown to Qatar, then Italy, then Philadelphia, then El Paso — and, finally, Houston. YMCA International got us an apartment at this complex, Piney Point. “Hey, I’m looking for a job,” I said when I signed the lease. The owner heard and hired me as a leasing agent. Five months ago, they promoted me to manager. I have a lot of energy since coming to the United States. I helped my family. I feel peace.

One month after the Taliban victory, another urgent message went out to Hussain Mohammadi. This one was on paper, stuck on his door in Kabul. Go immediately to Taliban headquarters, it commanded. We know you worked with the Americans. But Mohammadi, like thousands of other Afghans who managed to make it to the United States, was long gone.

‘I feel peace’: 3 Afghan refugees reflect on their escape to America
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