When should world governments recognize the Taliban regime in Afghanistan?

[MenInG]

HERAT, Afghanistan: Taliban officials in Afghanistan’s most progressive city have told driving instructors to stop issuing licenses to women, professionals from the sector said.

While Afghanistan is a deeply conservative, patriarchal country, it is not uncommon for women to drive in larger cities — particularly Herat in the northwest, which has long been considered liberal by Afghan standards.

“We have been verbally instructed to stop issuing licenses to women drivers ... but not directed to stop women from driving in the city,” said Jan Agha Achakzai, the head of Herat’s Traffic Management Institute that oversees driving schools.

Adila Adeel, a 29-year-old woman driving instructor who owns a training institute said the Taliban want to ensure that the next generation will not have the same opportunities as their mothers.

“We were told not to offer driving lessons and not to issue licenses,” she said.

The insurgents-turned-rulers seized back control of the country in August last year, promising a softer rule than their last stint in power between 1996 and 2001, which was dominated by human rights abuses.

But they have increasingly restricted the rights of Afghans, particularly girls and women who have been prevented from returning to secondary school and many government jobs.

“I personally told a Taliban (guard) that it’s more comfortable for me to travel in my car than sit beside a taxi driver,” said Shaima Wafa as she drove to a local market to buy Eid Al-Fitr gifts for her family.

“I need to be able to take my family to a doctor in my car without waiting for my brother or husband to come home,” she said.
Naim Al-Haq Haqqani, who heads the provincial information and culture department, said no official order had been given.

The Taliban have largely refrained from issuing national, written decrees, instead allowing local authorities to issue their own edicts, sometimes verbally.

“It is not written on any car that it belongs only to men,” said Fereshteh Yaqoobi, a woman who has been driving for years.
“In fact it is safer if a woman drives her own vehicle.”

Zainab Mohseni, 26, has recently applied for a license because she says women feel safer in their own cars than in taxis driven by male drivers.

To Mohseni, the latest decision is just a fresh sign that the new regime will stop at nothing to prevent Afghan women from enjoying the few rights they have left.

“Slowly, slowly the Taliban want to increase the restrictions on women,” she said.

https://www.arabnews.com/node/2074866/world

 

[JaDed]

“We have been verbally instructed to stop issuing licenses to women drivers ... but not directed to stop women from driving in the city,” said Jan Agha Achakzai, the head of Herat’s Traffic Management Institute that oversees driving schools.

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Thousand Splendid Suns writing itself again.

 

[MenInG]

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday urged the international community to come forward and provide emergency assistance to the Afghan people dealing with the aftermath of devastating floods in Afghanistan.

The premier expressed grief over the floods which led to the loss of precious lives and financial damages in 10 provinces of the war-torn country, adding that the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan will likely intensify.

Currently, emergency measures are required as the risk of casualties increases. PM Shehbaz has ordered relief provisions, including emergency aid, to be sent to those affected by the floods.

The premier reiterated his solidarity with the Afghan interim government and people in this hour of need.

“We will do everything possible to help, and call on the international community to deal with the devastating floods,” said the premier adding that the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has been requested to step up efforts to assist the affected Afghan people through the Afghan Humanitarian Trust forum.

PM Shehbaz expressed sympathy to the families of the victims and urged the international community, particularly the United Nations, to launch a programme to provide shelter, food, medical aid to the displaced.

Read Afghan women defend right to drive as Taliban curb licences

On Thursday heavy rain and flooding killed 22 people, destroyed hundreds of homes and damaged crops in Afghanistan, which is already facing a humanitarian crisis.

The Taliban government, struggling to cope with the disaster that has affected more than a third of its provinces, will approach international relief organisations for help, officials said.

"Due to flooding and storms in 12 provinces, 22 people have died and 40 injured," said Hassibullah Shekhani, head of communications and information at Afghanistan's National Disaster Management Authority.

Shekhani said 500 houses were destroyed, 2,000 damaged, 300 head of livestock killed and some 3,000 acres of crops damaged.

He said the International Committee of the Red Cross was helping and officials will approach other international organisations for help.

The international community is grappling with how to help the country of some 40 million people without benefiting the Taliban.

Express Tribune

 

[MenInG]

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar on Monday emphasised that persistent, patient, and prudent engagement of the international community would go a long way in achieving the shared objectives of a peaceful, stable, democratic and prosperous Afghanistan.

The state minister expressed these views as she participated in an event on ‘Afghanistan: The Path Forward’ at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting in Davos.

She highlighted that as an immediate neighbour, with a 2,600km border, Pakistan has to deal with Afghanistan with a broader lens that encompasses all dimensions - peace, security, and socioeconomic development, a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

The state minister said as a country that has constitutional provisions for women to have an equal and effective role in all institutions and walks of life, Pakistan looks towards full respect for and enjoyment of fundamental rights of women and girls, especially the right to education.

"Pakistan is equally concerned about the devastating effects of the serious humanitarian situation and economic implosion on the lives and livelihoods of ordinary Afghans," she added.

The state minister underlined that both the international community and the interim Afghan government needed to revisit their approaches by prioritising the interests and aspirations of the ordinary Afghans.

This would be essential to avoid a further exacerbation of the already dire economic situation, she maintained.

Achim Steiner, administrator at the UN Development Programme (UNDP), also delivered remarks at the event as a panelist.

The attendees included representatives from the business community, civil society organisations and international media.

Express Tribune

 

[MenInG]

Ten months after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan and promised "amnesty for all", data suggests they are the largest perpetrators of violence against civilians in the country - killing at least 341 people.

Since 15 August 2021 - when the capital Kabul fell - the Armed Conflict Location and Event Project (ACLED) has recorded 818 incidents of violence involving civilians - and over half of them were allegedly carried out by the Taliban.

Habib Khan, founder of Afghan Peace Watch that works with ACLED to track political violence, said the figure could be even higher.

He said: "We believe that most of the violence we have coded in the unidentified armed groups category (35% in total) is perpetrated by the Taliban."

Due to limited sources, Mr Khan's team classify these incidents as conducted by unidentified groups.

Incidents recorded include IEDs (improvised explosive devices), suicide bombs and shelling, but also targeted violence against civilians such as attacks, sexual violence and forced abductions.

Mr Khan said "despite the amnesty, the Taliban is systemically targeting former members of Afghan national defence and security forces", as well as women, activists and journalists.

There are a small number of videos and pictures of these incidents, but they are too graphic to publish.

Violence against civilians has been recorded across Afghanistan since the Taliban took control.

This can be mapped. Each red dot is a location. The larger the dot, the more recorded incidents.

Afghanistan’s capital Kabul has the highest recorded number of incidents, totalling 138 since the Taliban took control.

On 14 May, a businessman was shot and killed by the Taliban at a checkpoint in the Khair Khana area of Kabul.

Many of these violent events have targeted women. On 12 April, a group was beaten by the Taliban in Lashkar Gah, Helmand.

Eyewitnesses claimed that the women were beaten due to the clothes they wore and for being unaccompanied by a man, which was a rule recently introduced by the Taliban.

A month earlier, one woman was killed, and others injured after the Taliban opened fire at a civilian vehicle after it failed to stop at a checkpoint in Kandahar. The group was reportedly out food shopping.

In Herat on 21 February, the Taliban opened fire at a vehicle and killed the three civilians inside, including a former police officer.

It is not just the Taliban

Some of the attacks by unidentified groups have occurred in areas of Afghanistan that the Taliban is in full control of, such as the south. It is possible they are groups linked to Islamic State or other armed factions.

Khan's team has observed Islamic State "stepping up attacks" in eastern and northern Afghanistan. The group has carried out several bombings and attacks since the Taliban took over, killing at least 377 civilians.

While Islamic State is recorded to have killed more civilians than the Taliban, almost half of the figure comes from the attack on 26 August 2021 at Kabul airport that killed 170 civilians. The Taliban has also perpetrated seven times as many acts of violence against civilians.

The Taliban responds

The number of events in which civilians have been the victims of violence in the country has overall declined since the Taliban came to power. But this is mostly due to the end of the conflict which began in 2001, and with it a decrease in wartime violence such as shelling, airstrikes and IEDs.

The nature of violence recorded in Afghanistan is now that of predominantly targeted violence against individuals and groups.

Dr Roudabeh Kishi, director of research and innovation at ACLED, said "we're seeing much more kind of direct targeting (of civilians), whether it's by the hands of the Taliban, which much of it is, but also the Islamic State and unidentified armed groups".

In a recent report, the Foreign Affairs Committee warned the Taliban have been carrying out targeted killings and attacks. The Foreign Office has also said there is "limited evidence" that the regime is responding to international pressure on human rights.

In response to the new data, a spokesman for the Taliban told Sky News: "We are protecting honour, property and life of the people. We don't commit any violations against them. Why we should? They are our people."

SKY

 

[MenInG]

The Taliban-led interim administration on Thursday chided the US decision to rescind Afghanistan’s designation as a major non-NATO ally.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) is not worried,” Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesperson for the interim government, said about US President Joe Biden’s intention.

“What benefit did this title have for Afghanistan?” Mujahid asked in a statement.

Biden on Wednesday notified Congress of his intent to officially rescind Afghanistan’s designation as a major non-NATO ally.

“In accordance with section 517 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended (22 U.S.C. 2321k), I am providing notice of my intent to rescind the designation of Afghanistan as a Major Non‑NATO Ally,” Biden said in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

In July 2012, the US named Afghanistan a major non-NATO ally, which made it easier for Kabul to receive defence equipment from Washington.

Mujahid said Afghans have “suffered from this status” in the past 20 years and “they do not have good memories of it.”

However, the interim administration spokesperson added that Afghanistan under the Taliban rule wants good relations with Washington in the diplomatic and commercial sectors.

The Taliban returned to power after 20 years of war last August after the complete withdrawal of the US-led foreign forces from Afghanistan.

Express Tribune

 

[MenInG]

Pakistan on Friday urged the United States again to unfr*ee**ze Afghan assets and condit*ionally allow the Taliban regime to use those funds for dealing with the economic and humanitarian crisis in the war-ravaged country.

Foreign Office spokesman Asim Iftikhar, at a weekly media conference, said the Afghan assets held in the US should be released urgently and “in a manner that would make it easier for the interim authorities to utilise this money.”

He was responding to a question relating to reports that the process for the unfreezing of the funds could face delays because of renewed concerns in the US, after Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri’s killing in Kabul late last month, that the money could be diverted to terrorist groups.

The US government had last year frozen $7 billion, ow**ned by Afghanistan, aft*er the Taliban took over con*trol of the country. President Bid*en, earlier this year, split this amount equally between the families of victims of the Sept 11 terror attacks and aid for suffering Afghans.

Washington has since then been establishing a process for the release of those funds. Zawahiri’s kill*ing has reinforced doubts in the US about Taliban’s cou*n***ter-terrorism commit*me*nts.

Mr Iftikhar recalled that Pakistan too wants that the release “shouldn’t be done without strings attached”. He particularly noted that the US provided a lot of hum*anitarian assistance for Afg*hanistan over the past year.

The spokesman, while referring to recent visit by Centcom chief Gen Michael Kurilla and other bilateral engagements said that be**sides the bilateral agen**da, the two sides also discussed the situation in Afghanistan.

“As far as this ministry and the political leadership are concerned, we recognise that, and I think similar recognition is there at the other end in Washington, that this is an important relationship, which we have to build on the basis of trust, mutual interest and mutual benefit. We will continue to do that,” he said about the efforts to rebuild ties after the crisis witnessed in the relationship earlier in the year because of allegations that the US government conspired to oust former prime minister Imran Khan from office.

Published in Dawn, August 20th, 2022

 

[MenInG]

The Taliban have released a US engineer they had held hostage since 2020 in exchange for an Afghan tribal leader held in US custody since 2005.

Mark Frerichs was handed over at Kabul airport on Monday, the Taliban said.

In return they received Bashir Noorzai, a Taliban ally serving a life sentence for drug trafficking.

US President Joe Biden said that the swap required "difficult decisions" that he did not take lightly.

Mr Frerichs, 60, was abducted by the Taliban the year before the group swept back to power in Afghanistan and its Western-backed government collapsed.

He had been living and working in Kabul as a civil engineer for 10 years. Mr Frerich's sister, Charlene Cakora, said the family had never given up hope of getting him back.

"I am so happy to hear that my brother is safe and on his way home to us. Our family has prayed for this each day of the more than 31 months he has been a hostage," she said in a statement.

"There were some folks arguing against the deal that brought Mark home, but President Biden did what was right. He saved the life of an innocent American veteran."

Art Frerichs, Mr Frerichs' father, told the BBC that while they received a phone call from Mr Biden, they have yet to speak to Mark.

"We're definitely feeling very relieved. It's been a long time," he said.

The detention of the former navy officer has been a major impediment to improving relations between the US and the Taliban, whose government is still to be recognised by any country in the world.

President Biden said in January: "The Taliban must immediately release Mark before it can expect any consideration of its aspirations for legitimacy. This is not negotiable."

At least one other American remains in Taliban hands. Filmmaker Ivor Shearer and his Afghan producer, Faizullah Faizbakhsh, were detained in Kabul in August.

Eric Lebson, a former national security official who worked as a volunteer to help the Frerichs family, said he hoped Mr Biden's actions to secure Mr Frerichs' release "are an indicator of his commitment to do the same on an urgent basis for other Americans held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad".

"They are being held because they are Americans and they need the US government to bring them home," Mr Lebson said.

Bashir Noorzai was given a hero's welcome on his return to the Afghan capital, and was greeted by Taliban fighters carrying garlands of flowers.

"My release together with that of an American will make peace between the countries," he told a news conference.

Noorzai was a close ally and friend of Taliban founder Mullah Omar and helped finance the first Taliban government in the 1990s.

He did not hold an official position but "provided strong support including weapons", Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told the AFP news agency.

Noorzai had served 17 years in US custody for heroin smuggling. Prosecutors said he ran a vast opium-growing operation in Kandahar province, the Taliban's traditional heartlands in the south of the country.

At the time of his arrest in 2005, he was considered one of the biggest drug dealers in the world, controlling more than half of Afghanistan's drug exports, which account for most of the world's harvest.

In 2008, he was convicted by a court in New York of conspiring to smuggle more than $50m of heroin into the United States.

BBC

 

[MenInG]

An explosion at the entrance of a military airfield in Kabul killed and wounded several people on Sunday, an Interior Ministry spokesman has said.

Abdul Nafi Takour said, "a number of our compatriots" were killed in the blast, without providing exact figures.

"Today morning an explosion took place outside Kabul military airport, due to which a number of our citizens were martyred and injured," he told Reuters, adding that investigations are underway.

He did not specify the nature or target of the explosion.

Residents of the Afghan capital said they heard a loud explosion before 8 am on the military side of the city's heavily fortified international airport, Reuters reported.

The area was sealed off by security forces, and all roads were closed, residents said.

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers say they have improved security since seizing power in August 2021, but there have been dozens of bomb blasts and attacks in the country, many claimed by ISIS.

The terrorist group has launched attacks on key sites in Kabul in recent weeks, including the Russian and Pakistani embassies and the office of the former prime minister.

The group also claimed an attack on December 12 on a Kabul hotel that is popular with Chinese businessmen. Five Chinese citizens were among 18 people injured before Taliban security forces killed the three attackers.

Hundreds of people, including members of Afghanistan's minority communities, have been killed and wounded in attacks since the Taliban returned to power.

Analysts say the targeting of the embassies and the hotel appear to be part of a trend of attacks aimed at scaring off any foreign investors or partners interested in working with the Taliban-led government.

Afghanistan's new rulers have faced international isolation since they stormed Kabul and deposed the Western-backed government and they are under pressure to stabilise an economy hit by banking sanctions and a cut in development aid.

"The idea is to push potential partners — the few the Taliban can count on — away from the Taliban," said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Washington-based Wilson Centre.

 

[MenInG]

A group of Afghan women protested in Kabul on Saturday, defying a crackdown on dissent to urge foreign nations not to formally recognise the Taliban government ahead of a UN summit next week.

Protesters opposing creeping curbs on women’s rights have been beaten or detained since the Taliban surged back to power in 2021 and security forces have fired into the air to disperse some rallies.

However, small groups of women have continued to stage sporadic gatherings.

Around 25 women marched through a residential area in the Afghan capital on Saturday ahead of a summit in Doha that the United Nations says will discuss a “durable way forward” for the country.

DAWN

 

[MenInG]

A UN Security Council committee on Monday agreed to allow the Taliban administration's foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi to travel to Pakistan from Afghanistan next week to meet with the foreign ministers of Pakistan and China, diplomats said.

Muttaqi has long been subjected to a travel ban, asset freeze and arms embargo under Security Council sanctions.

According to a letter to the 15-member Security Council Taliban sanctions committee, Pakistan's UN mission requested an exemption for Muttaqi was to travel between May 6-9 "for a meeting with the foreign ministers of Pakistan and China."

It did not say what the ministers would discuss. It said Pakistan would cover all costs associated with Muttaqi's trip.

Chinese and Pakistani officials have both said in the past that they would welcome Taliban-led Afghanistan into the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) infrastructure project, part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Afghanistan sits as a key geographical trade and transit route between South and Central Asia and has billions of dollars of untapped mineral resources. The Taliban seized power in August 2021 as US-led forces withdrew after 20 years of war.

The Security Council committee allowed Muttaqi to travel to Uzbekistan last month for a meeting of the foreign ministers of neighboring countries of Afghanistan to discuss urgent peace, security, and stability matters.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres began a two day meeting on Monday in Doha with special envoys on Afghanistan from various countries that aims "to achieve a common understanding within the international community on how to engage with the Taliban," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

Dujarric said the closed-door meeting would discuss key issues key issues, such as human rights - in particular women's and girls' rights - inclusive governance, countering terrorism and drug trafficking.

Taking part are China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Norway, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Britain, the United States, Uzbekistan, the European Union and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation

 

[MenInG]

Two years since the Taliban swept into power in Afghanistan, not a single country has formally recognised their rule.

Even engaging with the Taliban government remains deeply controversial. Some say talking with them will help bring about change, others insist the Taliban will never change so there's no point in talking.

And as the world struggles to decide how to deal with Afghanistan's new rulers, women's rights - even their beauty salons - have become frontlines in political battles.

Beautician Sakina - in a dimly lit room, curtains tightly drawn, alongside bunches of lip pencils and gleaming palettes of eye shadow - reflects on why she feels women like her have become a bargaining chip.

"The Taliban are putting pressure on women because they want to push the international community to recognise their rule," she says in her new secret salon in Kabul.

She was forced underground two weeks ago after the government ordered all women's beauty parlours to shut. It is the latest in a seemingly endless raft of decrees restricting the lives and liberties of Afghan women and girls.

Sakina is uncertain what approach to the Taliban will work.

"If the Taliban are accepted as the government, they might remove restrictions on us, or they could impose even more," she says, with the kind of uncertainty and anxiety that plagues this huge, sensitive political issue.

The Taliban insist issues like women's rights are none of the world's business.

Who are the Taliban?
What has changed in Afghanistan in 20 years
Bleak future puts Afghan women in mental health crisis
"Focusing on this one issue is just an excuse" says Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman for the Taliban.

Speaking to the BBC from the Afghan city of Kandahar - home to the Taliban's supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada - he insists that "the current government should have been recognised long ago. We have made progress in some areas and we will also sort this issue."

Whether to talk or not to the Taliban government sharply splits many communities with a stake in Afghanistan's future.

This includes a deeply embittered and still shaken Afghan diaspora, forced to flee their own country when the Taliban swept into power - for a second time - on 15 August 2021.

"Saying don't talk is easy," says Fatima Gailani, one of four women who were on the Afghan team that tried to negotiate with the Taliban right up to the moment they seized power.

"If you don't talk, then what do you do?"

Since the collapse of the last government, she's been involved in backchannel initiatives.

"We don't need another war", she emphasises, in a nod to voices, including former military commanders and old warlords, who still harbour hopes of eventually toppling the current order by force.

A woman in a burqa reaches out for a loaf of bread. Photo taken in Nov 22
Image caption,
As poverty in Afghanistan increases, more families are forced to wait in Kabul for donated bread
Others in the diaspora are calling for greater pressure, including more sanctions and additional travel bans, to intensify the isolation.

"What is the point of engagement?" demands Zahra Nader, editor-in-chief and founder of Zan Times, a women-led newsroom in exile. "They have shown who they are and what kind of society they want to build."

Diplomats involved in dialogue emphasise that engagement is not recognition, and concede there is little to show so far.

But signs of dissatisfaction, even among senior Taliban leaders, with the most extreme edicts imposed by the ageing ultra-conservative supreme leader, keep kindling faint hope.

"If we don't engage Afghans who want to engage, in the smartest possible way, we'll give free reign to those who want to keep a large part of the population essentially imprisoned," says a Western diplomat involved in recent meetings with mid-level Taliban representatives.

Sources point to a recent unprecedented meeting between the reclusive Akhundzada with Qatar's Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani - the supreme leader's first with a foreign official. Diplomats briefed on the discussions say they confirmed wide gaps, especially when it comes to education and women's rights, but also indicated a possibility to find a way forward, however slowly.

Discussions are tough - it's hard to find common ground.

"There's a lot of distrust, even disdain, between sides who fought each other for years," says Kate Clark of the Afghanistan Analysts Network. "The Taliban think the West still wants to corrupt their nation and the West doesn't like the Taliban policy on women's rights and their authoritarian rule."

Inside the Taliban's drug war - opium poppy crops slashed
'Nothing we can do but watch babies die': Desperation in Afghan hospitals
Ms Clark highlights a fundamental disconnect: "The West may see issues like recognition as concessions, but the Taliban see it as their right, a God-given right to rule after they defeated the US superpower and returned to power, for a second time."

Outside powers balance criticism with praise for progress, such as a crackdown on corruption which boosted revenue collection, and some efforts to tackle security threats posed by the Islamic State group. And Western powers look to Islamic countries and scholars to take the lead on shared concerns over the Taliban's extreme interpretations of Islam.

But there is also a toughening of tactics.

Even the UN now speaks of "gender apartheid" as the Taliban tighten the vice around women by even banning them from public parks, women's gyms and beauty parlours. Moves are now underway to develop a legal case for "crimes against humanity".

BBC