Mujahid, condemning the mentioned attacks, said that such attacks would have bad consequences that Pakistan would not be able to handle.
In response to the Pakistani military’s air strikes in the early morning on Monday on the Barmal district of Paktika and the Spera district of Khost, the Ministry of Defense of the Islamic Emirate has issued a statement saying that they have responded to these attacks and targeted Pakistani military centers with heavy weapons.
The statement said: “Once again, Pakistani military and reconnaissance jets have entered Afghanistan’s territory and bombarded the homes of civilians in Barmal of Paktika and Spera of Khost.”
Meanwhile, Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesperson for the Islamic Emirate, in a statement said that any violation of Afghanistan’s sovereignty would have bad consequences.
Mujahid, condemning the mentioned attacks, said that such attacks would have bad consequences that Pakistan would not be able to handle.
Zabihullah Mujahid’s statement said the following: “Last night around 3 AM, Pakistani aircraft bombed civilian homes in the Laman area of Barmal district in Paktika province and the Afghan Dubai area of Spera district in Khost province, resulting in 6 martyrs in Paktika, including 3 women and 3 children, and one house destroyed, and in Khost province, one house was destroyed and 2 women were martyred.”
He has requested the new government of Pakistan not to spoil the relations between the two countries because of the “reckless” actions of a few military generals and not to shift the blame of their incompetence onto the Afghan side.
Pakistani media reported that a commander of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) named Abdullah Shah was killed in these attacks.
Meanwhile, a commander of the TTP named Abdullah Shah, in a video where he speaks himself, has denied this news and said that he resides in South Waziristan and his activities continue there.
At the same time, in the Dand-e-Patan district of Paktia, a military confrontation between the Islamic Emirate and Pakistani soldiers started this morning (Monday) at seven and is ongoing, according to sources.
Sources have told TOLOnews that in the artillery fire by the forces of the Islamic Emirate, three Pakistani soldiers were wounded in the Burki area across the Durand Line.
Official Islamic Emirate sources have not yet commented on the fight in Paktia.
Islamic Emirate Fires on Pakistan in Response to Airstrikes in East
The report states that the regional powers will cautiously proceed with the Kabul’s request.
The Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community has stated that the near-term prospects for regime-threatening resistance in Afghanistan remain low.
The annual report reads that, large swathes of the Afghan public being weary of war and fearful of “Taliban” reprisals, and since armed remnants lack strong leadership and external support, the threats to the Islamic Emirate are low.
The report further reads that the current Afghan government has strengthened its power, suppressed its opponent groups and has bolstered international engagement but the issues of humanitarian crisis and rights are unlikely to be addressed adequately.
“The Taliban will not adequately address Afghanistan’s persistent humanitarian crisis or structural economic weaknesses. The Taliban will continue to implement restrictive measures, carry out public punishments, crack down on protests, and prevent most women and girls from attending secondary school and university,” reads part of the annual report.
Regarding the request of the Islamic Emirate to be formally recognized, the report states that the regional powers will cautiously proceed with the Kabul’s request.
“Regional powers will continue to focus largely on keeping problems contained in Afghanistan and seek to develop transactional arrangements with the Taliban while proceeding cautiously with Taliban requests for formal recognition,” part of the report.
The Islamic Emirate top officials have persistently said that they want positive engagement with all countries in the world including the US and Russia and that the current diplomatic and economic relations with countries, is recognition of the caretaker government.
The intelligence report has also expressed concern about the US persons possibly facing ideologically diverse threat from terrorism.
According to the report, al-Qa‘ida has reached an operational nadir in Afghanistan and Pakistan and ISIS has suffered cascading leadership losses in Iraq and Syria, regional affiliates will continue to expand.
Earlier, the Islamic Emirate has said that Afghanistan’s soil is secure and that no group will be allowed to threaten other countries from it.
In respect to its opponents, top officials in Kabul have continuously asked those who have left Afghanistan to return to country and contribute to rebuilding Afghanistan.
US Intelligence Report: Low Threat of Uprising in Afghanistan
A growing number of governments, including China, are going against Washington’s approach and are not treating the Islamic Emirate as a pariah regime.
According to an article published in Foreign Affairs, the United States and its allies’ approach has been to isolate the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), by withholding diplomatic recognition and the benefits that usually come with normal diplomatic relations.
The approach that the United States and its allies and partners ultimately converged on was a commitment to continue engaging with the Afghan people—for example by providing substantial humanitarian aid—while withholding diplomatic recognition of the IEA and the benefits that usually come with normal diplomatic relations.
In fact, over the past two years, the United States has sought to build on this approach—not only by withholding its own recognition of the IEA but also by sustaining an international consensus on nonrecognition.
However, in the wake of concerted diplomatic efforts by the IEA to court neighboring countries and others in the region, several nations have been willing to accommodate the Islamic Emirate.
As Foreign Affairs reported, these states are among foreign governments that have embassies in Kabul and that host Afghan embassies overseas.
In January, several of these powers, including China, Iran, and Russia, even took part in a multilateral conference of their own hosted by the IEA.
Meanwhile, the IEA appears to be unmoved by global shaming, in particular when it comes to what they deem domestic affairs, such as the question of girls’ access to higher education and women’s right to work, Foreign Affairs reported.
Instead, Afghanistan’s leaders have portrayed international pressure as a violation of the country’s sovereignty, framing calls by Western leaders to uphold international norms as the latest episode in a long history of interference and intervention.
As the IEA has become more established in power, they have doubled down on a posture of resistance. As a result, rather than moderate their policies, they have pressed forward with further restrictions on women and social norms, Foreign Affairs reported.
The article stated that the erosion of the consensus on diplomatic isolation of the IEA raises important questions for Washington and its partners.
Nonrecognition is no longer a credible coercive tool, and if the United States seeks to influence the Islamic Emirate’s behavior, it must find other ways to achieve its desired aims.
Moreover, the Afghan case echoes similar situations Washington has faced with other difficult regimes, including its failure to prevent Arab countries from normalizing ties with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, despite crimes committed during the Syrian civil war, or to enforce a global consensus on the isolation of Russian President Vladimir Putin following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Today, attempts by the United States to impose pariah status on regimes it doesn’t like are running up against serious limits.
However, analysts disagree on why Russia and China have not taken the final step of recognizing the IEA. One possibility is that both powers still seek more assurances from Kabul, especially concerning potential terrorist threats from (Daesh) Islamic State Khorasan and a number of other groups.
And as long as the United States actively promotes a nonrecognition strategy, Moscow and Beijing can reap many of the benefits of recognizing the IEA without having to formally buck the international consensus, Foreign Affairs reported.
“Thus, they can reassure the Taliban (IEA) they are on their side (for example by backing them in last December’s UN Security Council proceedings, defending Taliban positions on the recommendations of a recent UN assessment) while also withholding full recognition,” the article read.
Overall, the IEA is not being treated as a pariah regime – despite concerted US efforts to maintain an international consensus on nonrecognition. On the contrary, the region, led by China, is gradually normalizing with Kabul—and intends to continue doing so.
The IEA, for their part, are being validated by this expanding engagement. Their sense of confidence and a loss of patience with conditions-based, Western-backed engagement was evident in their refusal to attend the UN meeting of Afghan envoys in February.
The IEA was not invited to last year’s summit, so they rejected the new meeting as “ineffective and counterproductive.” Likely emboldened by Beijing treating them as a normal regime, the IEA responded to the UN’s invitation by insisting they be treated as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
Foreign Affairs reported that with new sources of support, the IEA has less reason to submit to Western demands on human rights or inclusiveness in their government.
The failure of Washington’s existing IEA approach highlights the growing challenges to US diplomatic power around the world, Foreign Affairs stated.
Amid two major wars and intensifying strategic competition with China, the United States faces new difficulties in forging a collective international response to pressing global crises.
Meanwhile, China and regional actors are charting their own diplomatic paths, and regimes that the United States seeks to pressure can often find enough friends to defy Washington and maneuver for diplomatic gain, Foreign Affairs reported.
Washington struggling to isolate the Islamic Emirate
Local lore says that one 82-year-old professor has probably taught more Afghan women drivers in a California town than there are in all Afghanistan. For them, it’s not about empowerment; it’s for groceries
Bibifatima Akhundzada wove a white Chevy Spark through downtown Modesto, Calif., on a recent morning, practicing turns, braking and navigating intersections.
“Go, go, go” said her driving instructor, as she slowed down through an open intersection. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”
Her teacher was Gil Howard, an 82-year-old retired professor who happened upon a second career as a driving instructor. And no ordinary instructor. In Modesto, Calif., he is the go-to teacher for women from Afghanistan, where driving is off limits for virtually all of them.
In recent years, Mr. Howard has taught some 400 women in the 5,000-strong Afghan community in this part of California’s Central Valley. According to local lore, thanks to “Mr. Gil,” as he is known in Modesto, more Afghan women likely drive in and around the city of about 220,000 than in all Afghanistan.
For many Americans, learning to drive is a rite of passage, a skill associated with freedom. For Afghan immigrants it can be a lifeline, especially in cities where distances are vast and public transportation limited. So when Mr. Howard realized the difference driving made to the Afghan women, teaching them became a calling, the instruction provided free of charge.
After the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021 and instituted a strict Islamic rule, they banned girls and women from schools and universities and barred them from driving.
But even before the fall of Kabul, most Afghan women rarely got behind the wheel. In Afghanistan’s conservative society, women are often kept at home unless accompanied by male family members.
In the United States, Afghan newcomers tend to preserve religious and cultural customs: Most women wear head scarves, or hijabs. Many who are learning English prefer single-sex classes. Married women who were interviewed for this article agreed to be photographed only if their husband consented, and many let men speak on their behalf.
Yet when it comes to driving, many Afghan women are keen to assimilate — though you will not hear them invoke gender equality or empowerment. Their principal motivation? Getting from point A to point B.
“It was my goal to drive to help the family,” said Latifa Rahmatzada, 36, who got her license last September.
In Kabul, Ms. Rahmatzada, the mother of three young boys, had been mainly confined to the extended family’s compound. Shopping was a man’s job. On rare outings, she was escorted by her husband or a male relative.
Nearly 7,500 miles away in Modesto, she had no trouble convincing her husband, Hassibullah, to give her the greenlight to drive. “I supported her right away. It was so stressful for me doing everything,” he said, and so he contacted Mr. Howard.
These days, while her husband is working nine-hour shifts stocking shelves at Walmart, Ms. Rahmatzada is often steering a 1992 Honda Accord — it had logged some 190,000 before it was donated to them — to their sons’ elementary school, the supermarket and other places around town.
The United States is home to about 200,000 Afghans, concentrated in California, Texas and Virginia. Roughly half of them have arrived since the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, and more are on their way.
Coming from a country where traffic lanes, lights and signs were virtually nonexistent, even men who drove in their homeland face a big adjustment to the rules of the road in the United States. Some do not feel qualified to teach their spouses.
“All Afghan women and men are happy with Mr. Gil’s classes,” said Ms. Akhundzada’s husband, Sangar.
It became essential for Ms. Akhundzada, 22, to learn to drive after her husband started driving for Uber several days a week in San Francisco, 90 miles away.
“She needs driving to bring groceries, bread and for going to the park with kids,” Mr. Akhundzada said.
Ms. Akhundzada speaks little English, but in California, driving tests are offered in 38 languages. She was able to pass the exam for her learner’s permit in Dari, the most widely spoken language in Afghanistan.
She then waited several months until Mr. Howard could squeeze her into his schedule.
Mr. Howard, who is quietly firm with his students, uses simple English and hand gestures for instruction. But he has also learned key words in Dari, like left, right, stop and go, to communicate with his pupils, and he used them while crisscrossing Modesto with Ms. Akhundzada.
“You’re learning pretty fast,” he said, after she parallel parked. “Another lesson or two and you’re ready to go.” Ms. Akhundzada responded with a giggle.
Mr. Howard, who lives alone and has grown children, moved to Modesto in 2012, after decades teaching operations research and mathematics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.
“I thought I would work on my garden and do some traveling,” he said.
Moved by images of migrantsdrowning during attempts to cross the Mediterranean and reach the West, Mr. Howard decided to volunteer at World Relief, a nonprofit that helps to settle refugees in the United States. Soon he was furnishing apartments for refugees, ferrying them to appointments and distributing secondhand bicycles.
Many of the refugees had fled Afghanistan after their lives were threatened for working alongside U.S. troops. Mr. Howard took a deep interest in some of the families.
Unexpectedly, his 65 years of driving experience came in handy.
In 2017, two Afghan sisters who had settled in the area with their mother and young brother asked if he would teach them how to drive.
Mr. Howard initiated them in an empty parking lot.
“I had never seen a woman driving a car in Afghanistan,” recalled Morsal Amini, 24, one of the sisters. “Here it is so hard if you can’t drive.”
“D is for drive, R is for reverse, P is for parking,” Ms. Amini recalled Mr. Howard telling her.
Once the sisters had mastered the basics, they began plying country roads and then city streets with their instructor, whom Ms. Amini described as an “angel, comforting and patient.”
There was a close call when a truck stopped in front of her — and Ms. Amini did not immediately react. “Didn’t you see the brake lights?” Ms. Amini, now 24, recalled Mr. Howard asking her. She had no idea what they were.
It took a few tries, but both women passed their road tests and bought a car. “Our life changed completely,” Ms. Amini recalled.
So did Mr. Howard’s.
Soon he was fielding a steady stream of requests to teach other Afghan women. Many of them had taken an “English for Driving” course at Modesto Junior College. Initially, some were accompanied to lessons by chaperones, like an older brother or male relative, who sat in the back seat.
When women were ready for the road test, Mr. Howard would usually accompany them.
Demand for his tutelage soared after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in 2021, ushering in a fresh wave of Afghan evacuees to the United States, including Modesto.
To keep track of his expanding roster of students, he created a spreadsheet on his cellphone and prioritized those with learners’ permits close to expiring.
Some days, he teaches five back-to-back classes, each 90 minutes to two hours long.
His only qualm, he said, was that his blood pressure has risen from all the oil and salt in the rich Afghan food that he receives from students as a token of their appreciation.
On a recent Wednesday, Mr. Howard’s second pupil of the day was Zahra Ghausi, 18, whose road test was scheduled for the following week.
The college student was cruising down a residential street when she approached a school. “Watch the speed,” said Mr. Howard, his hand resting atop the hand brake, just in case.
He instructed her to get on the 99 Freeway. At 65 miles per hour, Ms. Ghausi sped by almond groves that lined the highway and changed lanes to pass a truck laden with metal sheets. The speedometer read 70 m.p.h.
“This is one I don’t have to say ‘go, go, go’ to,” Mr. Howard said. “She goes.”
Ms. Ghausi exited at Taylor Road and zipped to California State University in nearby Turlock.
“I just love driving,” she said, pulling into the campus. “I really love sports cars, too. Hopefully, one day I’ll drive a racing car.”
Mr. Howard then headed back to Modesto. There was another student waiting for a lesson.
Miriam Jordan reports from a grass roots perspective on immigrants and their impact on the demographics, society and economy of the United States
Driving With Mr. Gil: A Retiree Teaches Afghan Women the Rules of the Road
Interview with Alexander Jones, Director of the FAO’s Resource Mobilization Division, on his recent field visit to Afghanistan to see how FAO is helping farmers to get back on their feet
Alexander Jones, FAO’s director of resource mobilization, and FAO Afghanistan representative, are visiting a group of wheat farmer at Daman district of Kandahar to learn about the challenges that they are facing in agriculture, Afghanistan, February 2024.
Rome – Afghanistan is the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation’s (FAO) single largest country programme, where it continues to carry out its operations despite the ongoing political instability. The Organization has over 400 employees on the ground and is present in every one of the 34 provinces in the country.
The food security situation remains alarming with over 15 million people or 36 percent of the population being food insecure. However, the work that FAO has been doing there with other partners— having reached over 10 million farmers last year and intending to reach more this coming year with wheat seed, animal vaccines, and other agricultural production inputs— is contributing to the gradual reduction in the food insecurity numbers. These interventions play a vital role since 80 percent of the country’s population derive their income from agriculture.
Alexander Jones spoke with us on his return from a field visit to Afghanistan, where he met with rural farming communities and pastoralists. In this interview, he sheds light on the current challenges members of these communities are facing, how the climate crisis is affecting them, their priority needs and ways to stabilise the situation. He also speaks about concrete projects on the ground and what difference they are making in rural people’s lives, while sharing his thoughts and observations on how the country has changed over the years.
You visited rural farming communities in three provinces: Kapisa, Kandahar and Helmand. What is the current food security situation there and what are the biggest challenges faced by Afghani farmers and pastoralists at the moment?
Alexander Jones: The food situation has improved compared to a year or two years ago, but it is still quite dire. There is a loss of income, there are problems with migration, a recent influx of returnees from Pakistan, and, of course, drought and climate change are affecting them very seriously. But things have improved substantially, also thanks to the huge job that the United Nations in general, and FAO specifically, has been doing over the last two years to support farmers. In short, improving, but a huge amount of work is still to be done.
Drought, water scarcity, rapidly descending ground water levels hit farmers and pastoralists the most, and rural people consequently suffer from these issues. How do climate change impacts affect the humanitarian situation in the country?
Climate change is particularly severe in terms of impacts in Afghanistan because it is a very arid country.
In addition, we have also had four consecutive years of drought. The expectation was that this year was going to be a really good one from a climatic perspective, because normally in El Niño years Afghanistan benefits. Instead, we have seen an inversion of the El Niño, followed by a horrendous drought situation. And this is affecting the whole country. Obviously, there is not a lot we can do about this in the short term. But, for example, FAO over the last two years has supported communities through cash-for-work programmes in building more than 6,000 check dams to support better water infiltration and a recharge of the groundwater.
And we also have a lot of plans to support farmers on improved on-farm water management because there is a lot of wastage due to the techniques they are using now.
You saw at firsthand how rural communities live and work there and what kind of support they need. Can you give a concrete example of how FAO is helping farmers to cope with water scarcity and mitigate crop losses?
It is a huge programme. In fact, this is the biggest programme FAO is implementing anywhere in the world, and we are also the largest programme being implemented in Afghanistan.
We are talking hundreds of millions of dollars. FAO, just in the last year, has supported over ten million people, so it is a vast scale. The most concrete example has been the supply of very high-quality wheat seed to boost farmers’ production accompanied by fertilizers and some other inputs.
This has been the quick fix I would say, and it has been spectacularly successful. We are already moving beyond that into some types of water management, mostly check dams, some water harvesting, and solar dryers to help farmers preserve fruit and vegetables for the winter season.
There is a lot of work going on including some specifically focused on women farmers and women farming families, who are in an extremely difficult situation due to the bans that prohibit them from accessing education beyond the age of 12, and place severe restrictions on their ability to work and engage in business. There are things like mushroom farming or horticulture – areas where they are allowed to work even under the very strict rules.
The food security situation has slightly improved, but there are still concerns about a large portion of the population – over 35 percent – being food insecure. In what ways is FAO addressing the food security issues?
The important point is that things have improved, but the crisis is definitely not over. Having stabilized the situation through a massive humanitarian programme, we do want to start moving into more longer-term food security issues. We are not at the point of talking about development, also given the political uncertainty. But there are many interventions we would like to get involved in.
Just one concrete example is that most Afghan farmers have tiny land allocations. We are talking 4,000 or 5,000 square meters. Two ”Jerib”, as they call it. That is really not enough to feed a family of 10 growing wheat. So the whole point is to try to move into higher value-added crops – such as pomegranates, grapes, apricots and all kinds of vegetables – of which they have very good knowledge, and which can be sold in markets.
But to do this, we would face several challenges relating to inputs, cold storage, markets, labelling, packaging, and so forth. It is a difficult step. But what is most interesting is that the farmers themselves are actually asking for these things. In every village meeting I sat down in, and I did 10, they were literally listing all these things: water management, solar drying, cold storage, and markets.
What you describe is a combination of emergency aid and anticipatory action to make farmers more resilient to multiple shocks they face. Can you elaborate on how important investing in anticipatory action is?
It is very important. The drought, the soil conditions, the lack of infrastructure, these are constant problems in Afghanistan and will remain that way for the foreseeable future.
We do need to look at more sustainable models for food security, anticipatory action in many areas including in livestock. FAO recently helped to control and suppress a massive outbreak of lumpy skin disease, which thankfully we managed to stop quickly. So, anticipatory action remains fundamental, but it requires a continued availability of resources.
What struck you the most during this trip?
I lived in Afghanistan 21 years ago, I had not been back to Kandahar since then. It was amazing to see some old friends, it was amazing to be back. It was striking how little had changed.
In 21 years, that was a bit disappointing. There are a few things that have changed radically, including the use of extensive solar pumping of groundwater for irrigation, which is now severely lowering water tables to the point where they are too deep for many communities. So, some things are better, some things are a bit worse as could be expected two decades later.
On a very positive note, it is possible to travel pretty much anywhere in Afghanistan now. Security has significantly improved, although FAO continues to operate under very high security protocols. So we have full access to the population. We have good cooperation with the de facto authorities, especially at the local level, although, of course, we operate separately and in parallel. But I do recognize that we are allowed to do what needs to be done. And there is a great humanitarian community there. Just to mention that 85 percent of our staff in Afghanistan are Afghans, and they are doing an amazing job.
Afghanistan: the food security situation is improving, but the crisis is far from over
Trading guns for hair clippers and dumbbells, they’ve had to desert their dreams, as their government deserted them.
New Delhi, India – It is almost 5:40 in the evening. A hair salon in New Delhi’s bustling New Friends Colony neighbourhood is alive with the sound of buzzing clippers and chattering customers. The air is thick with the scent of hair spray and aftershave.
Zaki Marzai, 29, stands behind a barber’s brown chair, his hands moving with precision as he snips a customer’s hair.
Wooden shelves on the walls bear colourful bottles of shampoo and styling products. The mirrors reflect Marzai, his eyes focused on the hair before him. His customer looks satisfied.
Marzai, though, would rather be elsewhere – with a rifle in his hand, not a razor.
Three years ago, Marzai was a soldier in the elite special force of Afghanistan’s army, fighting the Taliban in a war that started with the United States and NATO forces invading the country in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The Western-backed Afghan government had sided with the US in the 20-year war. Marzai joined the army in 2015 as a sergeant and was on track to become a commissioned officer.
Everything changed on June 20, 2018.
Zaki Marzai, 29, in his room in Bhogal, New Delhi [Luqmaan Zeerak/Al Jazeera]
‘Sitting ducks’
At about 2am that day, Marzai was stationed outside a camp in Ghazni province of Afghanistan when a barrage of bullets hit him and his fellow soldiers.
Before Marzai and his comrades could realise what happened, 25 soldiers had died on the spot and six others had been injured. Bullets had pierced through Marzai’s chin and right leg.
“The attack was so intense we couldn’t do anything. The bullets were coming from all four sides. We were sitting ducks. The Taliban wiped out the entire camp,” he recalls. According to the United States Institute of Peace, an estimated 70,000 Afghan military and police personnel lost their lives in two decades of war in Afghanistan.
It was eight hours before any backup arrived to rescue the wounded. Marzai, who had lost a lot of blood, was first taken to a nearby hospital in Ghazni and soon transferred to a hospital in Kabul for further treatment on his jaw.
After nearly a year of treatment, his jaw was still deformed, so the Afghan government sent him to India for better care. He left behind his parents, a sister and seven brothers.
In 2019, Marzai arrived at a medical facility in Gurgaon, a city adjoining New Delhi. Later, he was also taken to two other public sector hospitals in the Indian capital.
By August 2021, Marzai hoped to return to Afghanistan, his face finally fixed. But the Afghanistan he knew was about to be broken.
Bullets had pierced through Marzai’s chin during the Taliban attack [Luqmaan Zeerak/Al Jazeera]
‘I cried all night’
As the Taliban grabbed control of province after province in Afghanistan in early August, Marzai was following the news on his phone, watching YouTube, tracking Twitter and waiting for Facebook updates.
Then, on August 15, the Taliban stormed into Kabul and took power, forcing the US and NATO forces to flee the country in a chaotic exit. Marzai tried to reach his family and soldier colleagues on the phone, but couldn’t get through because mobile networks were down.
He was stunned: Marzai had expected a fight, not a meek surrender from the country’s politicians, whom he accuses of looting Afghanistan and then escaping.
“I cried all night when the Taliban took over the country,” says Marzai. “I was heartbroken. I was looking forward to returning to my family and rejoining the army, but now I am stuck here [in India].”
Marzai is from Ghazni, an Afghan province dominated by the Shia Hazara community, which has been persecuted by the mainly Sunni Taliban for a long time.
And he is a former soldier for a government that the Taliban viewed as the enemy. Since August 2021, despite a general amnesty announced by the Taliban after its takeover, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) reported that at least 200 former Afghan soldiers and government officials have been killed extrajudicially by the new authority.
Marzai is not the only Afghan soldier in India, unable to return home.
Zaki Marzai displaying his picture when he was hospitalised after the Taliban attack [Luqmaan Zeerak/Al Jazeera]
‘We couldn’t return’
Khalil Shamas, a 27-year-old former lieutenant who now works as a waiter at a New Delhi restaurant, arrived in India in 2020 for training at the elite Indian Military Academy (IMA) in Dehradun, the hilly capital of India’s northern state of Uttarakhand. By the time he and his colleagues completed the course, the Afghan army had ceased to exist on the ground.
He says there were about 200 Afghan soldiers training at the IMA. A few returned to Afghanistan. Many others migrated to Iran, Canada, the US and Europe.
But at least 50 of them stayed back in India – unable to get visas to the West, and too scared to return to Afghanistan.
Back in India, the difficulties for Afghan soldiers forced to stay in exile worsened after the Afghanistan embassy in New Delhi, their only source of contact and support, stopped funding their stay after the government in Kabul changed. The soldiers are reticent about sharing details of just how the embassy supported them financially.
“Since 2021, we have not received any help from the embassy. We have been left on our own, to fend for ourselves,” says Marzai.
After exhausting all of his savings and with no help coming, Marzai managed to enrol in a six-month haircutting course and started working in a salon.
He lives in a two-room apartment with a damp odour, with three other Afghan men in the congested Bhogal area of South Delhi. The paint is peeling off the walls, and dirty quilts are strewn about.
Zaki Marzai in his room in Bhogal, New Delhi [Luqmaan Zeerak/Al Jazeera]
Not far from Bhogal, Shamas lives with seven Afghan friends in a small apartment in the city’s Malviya Nagar area. “It is challenging to live in a foreign land without any financial assistance from your government. I had to not only look after myself but also send money back home for my family,” he says.
Shamas’s older brother Dost Ali Shamas was a district governor in his hometown, Ghazi, when Taliban fighters killed him in an ambush in 2018. After the incident, the family moved to Kabul in search of a safer environment.
Since 2022, India has also slowly increased its engagement with the Taliban, a group it shunned when it was in power in the 1990s and when it was fighting US-backed forces between 2001 and 2021. In June 2022, the Indian government reopened its Kabul embassy and deployed a team of “technical experts” to manage its mission.
In November last year, the Afghan embassy in New Delhi, which was led by diplomats appointed by the elected government that the Taliban overthrew, announced that it was shutting down, accusing the Indian government of no longer cooperating with it.
Now, in addition to no longer receiving financial support from the mission, the Afghan soldiers also have nowhere to go for paperwork to authenticate that they were once part of their country’s army.
According to a 2023 report by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), India is home to more than 15,000 Afghan refugees. Nearly 1,000 of those are Afghans who took shelter in India after the Taliban came to power in 2021.
The report says nearly 1.6 million Afghans have fled the country since 2021, bringing the total number of Afghans in the neighbouring countries to 8.2 million.
Among them is Esmatullah Asil.
Khalil Shamas, a 27-year-old lieutenant in the former Afghan national army lives in New Delhi, where he works as a waiter in a restaurant [Luqmaan Zeerak/Al Jazeera]
‘My dream came crashing down’
Asil, another former Afghan soldier, begins his day at 7am. Dressed in a black sports T-shirt and trousers, he hurries to work where young boys and girls wait for his instructions.
Asil, 27, is a gym trainer in South Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar, home to hundreds of Afghan migrants who have opened restaurants, shops and pharmacies there.
After finishing his master’s degree in social science from Herat University in western Afghanistan, Asil enrolled in the army and was set to become a lieutenant. “It was my dream to join the army and serve my country. But after the Taliban returned, my dream came crashing down,” he says.
While at the IMA, Asil used to visit the academy’s gym, where he learned bodybuilding. It was a skill that came in handy when he then sought work at the Lajpat Nagar gym.
“I told the gym owner to give me a chance and worked there for free for six months. If I hadn’t secured the job, I don’t know how I would have survived here,” he says.
The former Afghan soldiers in India say they are afraid of returning to Afghanistan – they fear they will be targeted for supporting the US-led NATO forces.
Shamas, whose brother was killed by the Taliban, recounts the threats that preceded that assassination.
“My brother received numerous threatening letters from the Taliban demanding to quit his position before they ultimately killed him,” Shamas recalls.
Marzai has his own demons.
He says he still wrestles with nightmares from the “harrowing night” he was ambushed. He instinctively moves his hands and legs in sleep, as if trying to evade the bullets that rained on him years ago.
“I sleep alone in a separate room. My roommates are reluctant to sleep beside me. I don’t know whom I will hit in my sleep because I move unconsciously,” he says.
Khalil Shamas shows his photo from his IMA training in Dehradun, India. Shamas is wearing his Afghan army uniform in the photo [Luqmaan Zeerak/Al Jazeera]
‘Never tastes like home’
In their free time, Asil and Shamas visit each other’s homes, recalling with nostalgia their days of hope and dreams at the IMA, where they first met. Conversations often end up veering towards the state of present-day Afghanistan – and the realisation that they need to distract themselves.
“We usually play cards, listen to songs – Afghani and Bollywood – watch movies on Netflix, and on occasions also cook,” Asil says. “My favourite actor is Shah Rukh Khan, and actress is Deepika Padukone,” he adds, laughing, referring to the Bollywood stars.
They cook their favourite dishes. Asil prefers kebabs and ashak, pocket-sized dumplings filled with chives, and typically served with yoghurt and a mint seasoning. Shamas has a weakness for kabuli pulao.
“We try our best to cook our favourite dishes. But it never tastes like home,” Shamas said.
And the delicacies of home can’t fill the void of missing out on family functions.
Shamas’s niece got married in early March, while Asil’s brother was married five months ago. One of Marzai’s older brothers got married in 2022.
“I desperately wanted to be there as my brother is no more. But, I couldn’t travel. I watched the wedding through a video call,” Shamas says.
Shamas and Asil want to migrate to the US. However, their lack of active service in the Afghan army makes them ineligible to seek asylum, they say.
“Because we were still in training and had not yet joined the army in active duty, the US authorities are not considering us for asylum despite the dangerous conditions we face in Afghanistan,” says Shamas.
According to the International Rescue Committee, up to 300,000 Afghans had been associated with US operations in Afghanistan since 2001. Since the withdrawal of the US, approximately 88,500 Afghans have been resettled in the US, according to the US Department of Homeland Security, while thousands more have applied, seeking asylum.
Asil is trying to move to other countries as well. “Let’s see what God has in store for me. I have no plans to return to Afghanistan. I want to settle in any Western country and later bring my family there as well,” he says.
Marzai is trying to get asylum in Europe or the US. “I am worried about my family. I want to go home but I am afraid of the Taliban. I am hoping that as a serving soldier, I will find a home in the West,” he said.
But for now, they must stay in India. And while the Afghan army they once served no longer exists, they can’t get rid of the habits they picked up over years of training.
Whenever Marzai meets a senior ex-officer, he maintains the same routine of discipline and respect he had been trained in, lowering his head and standing at attention while greeting the officer.
In Marzai’s head, he’s still a soldier.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
Elite Afghan soldiers turn barbers, gym trainers in India to escape Taliban
The world is “tantalisingly close” to eradicating polio – with no confirmed cases of wild polio anywhere so far this year. But experts warn that vaccination efforts – and funding – must not falter if the world is to rid itself of a human infectious disease for the second time in history, after smallpox.
There have been no reported cases of wild polio infection in people for the last 19 weeks. Figures from the World Health Organization reveal that the last confirmed cases were on the borders of Pakistan and Afghanistan in October and September 2023 respectively; these are the last nations on Earth where polio is endemic.
“To have gone 19 straight weeks … is a long period to go without a single case, that’s why there is some hope [of eradication],” Gordon McInally, president of Rotary International, a founding partner in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), told the Observer. “All of us who are involved in this, every week we get an email giving us the updated figures … and every week when I click open that email my heart rate goes up until I see the number in the hope that it will be zero and not one, or worse. But we take it week by week.”
But those involved in eradication efforts are taking nothing for granted. The programme has come under fire before for its “almost-there narrative”, as described in a report last September by the Independent Monitoring Board, led by Liam Donaldson, a former chief medical officer for England.
Still, said McInally, if they can get through another 33 weeks (one full year after the last case), they will be “celebrating cautiously”, and if the world stays two years disease-free they can officially declare the global eradication of polio.
While the absence of confirmed cases is “really encouraging”, Aidan O’Leary, director for polio eradication at the WHO, said: “It’s important we don’t call the figures great.” The campaign needs to be aggressive in closing any immunisation gaps, he added.
The latest WHO figures do reveal 34 samples of wild poliovirus detected from environmental and other sources in the first three months of this year, including from surveillance samples of sewage (where shed virus may circulate). “We are identifying environmental isolates which does indicate there’s some transmission,” said O’Leary, adding this needs to be zero too.
O’Leary, McInally and other stakeholders met Andrew Mitchell, the minister for development, and his team on Wednesday to update them on polio, and ask the UK government to continue with its funding, which ends this year. They are asking the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for £100m for the next two years. GPEI’s goal is to eradicate polio by 2026.
The UK government has been the second biggest contributing government after the US towards eradicating polio, said McInally. He said funding is crucial because “we’re at that challenging point in time where because of the geography, the nomadic nature of many of the people we’re trying to reach, it’s not easy to reach everybody to get it finished, and there is a realisation that unless we finish it completely we run the risk of it bubbling up again.”
If they fail to eradicate polio in Afghanistan and Pakistan, WHO modelling suggests there could be a “global resurgence” resulting in some 200,000 new cases of polio each year within 10 years. Until this is done, McInally said, polio is only a “plane-ride away”. Imported polioviruses caused alarm in 2022 when an unvaccinated adult in New York was paralysed by the disease, and poliovirus was detected in sewage in London.
But McInally is hopeful, in part because of the programme’s success in India – 27 March will mark the country’s 10-year anniversary since it became officially polio-free. There are some parallelswith rural India which give him hope. “Many people said ‘you will never get rid of polio from India’…and it was done.”
Immunisations have been stepped up in Afghanistan and Pakistan; with the programme extending its target age for immunising children from under five to under 10, said O’Leary, and synchronising on both sides of the border.
Another crucial challenge is “vaccine-derived” poliovirus transmission. This derives from the oral polio vaccine, still used in some regions, which harnesses live but weakened poliovirus.
This would not cause issues of itself, but if immunisation rates are low in a population, the vaccine strain can circulate and genetically change over time, and in rare cases cause paralysis like wild polio.
“Any case is a worry,” said McInally. “But once we can eliminate wild virus then the vaccine-derived cases will clear up relatively quickly.”
O’Leary notes that there were 1,000 cases of polio a day in 125 countries in 1988 when the GPEI started. He likens the polio programme to running a marathon – with a few hundred metres to go. Nonetheless he remained cautious: “Eradication is a zero-sum game. We have to be very clear-eyed – when we look back and everything is zero, then we can say it’s great.”
Global eradication of polio ‘tantalisingly close’ with UK urged to keep up funding
Following the extension of UNAMA’s mission in Afghanistan by the United Nations Security Council, Amnesty International has welcomed the one-year extension and urged the head of UNAMA to focus its objectives in the current year on the rights of women, girls, minorities, and the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.
Amnesty International, on its social media platform X, stated on Friday, March 15th, in response to the extension of UNAMA’s mission in Afghanistan, that they urged Roza Otunbayeva, the head of this body, to prioritize the rights of women, girls, minorities, and address the humanitarian crisis to tackle the emergency situation of human rights in the country.
Amnesty International has stated that UNAMA’s monitoring and reporting on the human rights situation in this country is vital.
The organization has stated that UNAMA should continue its robust and regular public reporting on human rights and exert pressure to repeal restrictive laws against the rights of women and girls.
Last night, the United Nations Security Council extended UNAMA’s mission in Afghanistan for another year by unanimously adopting a resolution.
Based on this decision, the mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan has been extended until March 17, 2025.
In Afghanistan, there is a dire humanitarian crisis happening right now. Alongside this crisis, strict rules, particularly for women, are making life even harder. Women are not allowed to go to school or work, which prevents them from supporting their families.
Amnesty International urges UNAMA to prioritize women’s rights in Afghanistan
They emphasize their unwillingness to endure the hardships they faced over the past two years, marked by a lack of access to education.
With the start of the new academic year just six days away, several girls who have missed out on education are voicing their concerns over the ongoing school closures, expressing a strong desire to return to their studies..
Yalda, who was close to completing the tenth grade, has found solace in painting during her time away from school.
In a conversation with a TOLOnews reporter, she shared her readiness for the new academic year, along with her hopes to rejoin her classmates soon.
“I hope this year marks my return to school; we’re prepared, having purchased school uniforms, notebooks, pens, and books. I’ve also been keeping in touch with my friends,” Yalda added.
For many girl students, the thought of schools reopening and returning to their studies has become a dream.
Nourin, another student, shared her hopes: “This year, we aim not to revisit the bitter experiences of the past but to concentrate on realizing our future dreams and aspirations.”
Addressing the ongoing closure of schools, Bahar, another student, appealed to the Islamic Emirate: “I urge the authorities to reopen the schools for us. I don’t want to face disappointment as I did last year, being turned away at the school gates.”
University professors have highlighted the broader societal implications of continued school closures.
Professor Parviz Khalili said: “With each day that girls are barred from education, Afghanistan confronts increasing challenges and problems.”
Although the Islamic Emirate has not recently commented on the reopening of schools for girls in the new academic year, it has previously stated that the closure of schools and universities for girls is temporary, with efforts underway to reopen them.
Girls Express Hopes and Dreams for New Academic Year
Resolution 2727, which won the unanimous support of the 15-member council, decided to extend UNAMA’s mandate until March 17, 2025.
The UN Security Council on Friday adopted a resolution to renew the mandate of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) for a year.
Resolution 2727, which won the unanimous support of the 15-member council, decided to extend UNAMA’s mandate until March 17, 2025.
The draft resolution for the renewal of the UNAMA mandate has been prepared by Japan, and the majority of its members agree on this draft.
The resolution stresses the critical importance of a continued presence of UNAMA and other UN agencies, funds and programs across Afghanistan.
“The resolution we have just adopted ensures that UNAMA will remain equipped with a sufficient, robust and flexible mandate as it tackles the multifaceted challenges faced by Afghanistan. UNAMA’s role is more important than ever in addressing the worsening humanitarian and human rights situation, especially for women and girls,” the Permanent Representative of Japan to the United Nations, Yamazaki Kazuyuki said.
“We are pleased that today’s resolution highlights UNAMA’s crucial role in promoting peace, stability, and inclusive governance in Afghanistan, particularly in monitoring and reporting on human rights, including the situation of women and girls,” said Naseer Ahmad Faiq, Chargé d’Affaires of the Afghanistan Permanent Mission to the UN.
In this meeting, representatives of the United States and Russia emphasized peace and stability in Afghanistan.
“Regarding a UN Special Envoy, we again call on the UN to fully implement Resolution 2721: Undertaking consultations and, ultimately, appointing someone to work with the international community, the Taliban, and Afghans. The Afghan people deserve to see peace, security, and stability; to enjoy human rights and fundamental freedoms. Let us continue to work together to create that reality,” said Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US ambassador to the United Nations.
The representative of Russia asserted that cooperation with the current Afghan government is vital to establishing a lasting peace in Afghanistan.
“We are convinced that the Security Council’s consistent support for the efforts of UNAMA sends a signal to the people of Afghanistan about the international community’s shared commitment to establishing long-awaited peace and stability in that much suffered country. Pragmatic interaction between UNAMA and the de facto authorities on all issues related to United Nations’ tasks in Afghanistan remains an imperative,” said Anna Evstigneeva, Deputy Representative of Russia to the UN.
The representative of China, meanwhile, expressed regret that the resolution failed to reflect the latest developments in Afghanistan, stating that — over two years after the withdrawal of foreign troops — the country’s overall domestic situation is stable.
“The international community should strengthen its engagement with the Afghan interim government to ensure humanitarian assistance on the one hand, and provide more help in mine clearance, alternative cultivation, restoration of the banking system, unfreezing of overall assets, and safeguarding the rights and interests of the entire population on the other,” Geng Shuang, China’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations said.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) was established by the United Nations Security Council with Resolution 1401 on March 28, 2002, to support Afghanistan in governance, security, and development.
Afghanistan Peace Campaign
m.jpg?sfvrsn=ddaedf39_3 "Afghanistan: the food security situation is improving, but the crisis is far from over")
