U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday the Taliban had been reminded in recent hours that the international community is holding the group to its commitment to let anyone with valid travel papers leave Afghanistan if they choose. Speaking during a visit to Qatar, Blinken said the number of U.S. citizens, including dual nationals, believed to still be in Afghanistan is about 100. He said the State Department is in direct contact with them, with case managers assigned to each one to make sure those who want to leave can do so. He said in the past 24 hours the Taliban had upheld its commitment in the case of a family of four Americans who had safely left Afghanistan using an overland route. A senior State Department official said Monday the Taliban was aware of the crossing, without specifying which country the Americans entered. Blinken also expressed “deep gratitude to the Qatari people” for the country’s role in the massive evacuation of U.S. citizens, at-risk Afghans and foreign nationals following the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan. He said that for many of the 58,000 people who transited through Doha, the stop in Qatar was the first “on a journey to a more peaceful and hopeful future.” “What Qatar has done here for Americans, for Afghans, for citizens of many other countries, will be remembered for a long, long time,” Blinken said. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, fourth left and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, fifth left, takes part in a meeting with Qatari counterparts in Doha, Qatar, Sept. 7, 2021.He spoke to reporters alongside U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammad bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Defense Minister Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah after a meeting to discuss the situation in Afghanistan along with other issues such as trade, counterterrorism and humanitarian aid. Al Thani said teams from Qatar have been providing technical assistance in Kabul in order to try to get the airport there functioning for both humanitarian aid deliveries and commercial flights. He said several challenges remain, including necessary equipment upgrades and meeting security standards before passengers can board international flights from Kabul. “If we can get the security measures in place and agree on them with the Taliban, then things will be easier,” Al Thani said. The Kabul airport was the scene of several chaotic days as the Taliban moved into the city and the U.S. military worked to secure the airport in order to facilitate evacuation flights. It was also the sight of an attack by Islamic State Khorasan militants that killed 13 U.S. service members and 169 Afghans. Austin defended the effort and said what happened in the final days of the two-decade U.S. military presence in Afghanistan “will be studied in the days and months ahead.” “I’m absolutely proud of the tremendous work that our brave servicemen and women did as we evacuated 125,000 people from the Kabul airport in a short amount of time,” Austin said. “No operation is ever perfect, there are lessons to be learned.” With U.S. troops no longer in Afghanistan, Lloyd said there is “no questions that it will be more difficult to identify and engage threats that emanate from the region.” But he said the United States still has what he called “robust capabilities” and is committed to ensuring threats to the country do not develop. “There isn’t a scrap of earth that we can’t reach out and touch when we need to. We’ve demonstrated that time and time again,” he said. While in Doha on Tuesday, Austin and Blinken are also touring an in-processing center in Doha and visiting with U.S. military and diplomatic personnel. Blinken is set to travel on to Germany to meet with U.S. troops and Afghan refugees at Ramstein U.S. Air Force Base. He is also scheduled to lead a virtual 20-nation ministerial meeting on Afghanistan on Wednesday alongside German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. Blinken said the 20 countries “all have a stake in helping to relocate and resettle Afghans and in holding the Taliban to their commitments.” Austin’s tour of U.S. allies in the Middle East also includes stops in Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
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Month: September 2021
Afghan Taliban, Pakistan Discuss Anti-Terror Cooperation
Afghanistan’s Taliban said Monday they had discussed bilateral security cooperation with Pakistan, including measures needed at border crossings between the two countries to stem the movement of terrorists into Pakistan.Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters in Kabul that a delegation from Islamabad visited the country over the weekend for the discussions. The Pakistani team was led by General Faiz Hameed, the head of the country’s spy agency, known as the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI. Mujahid said the visitors conveyed their concerns over multiple jail breaks during the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and the release of hundreds of prisoners involved in militant attacks in Pakistan. He said the Taliban had assured the delegation that no one will be allowed to use Afghan soil against Pakistan.“It was also discussed that there shall be a check or scrutiny system at the (border) gates to detect individuals who want to harm Pakistan, as per their information, and we don’t know about them because we are dealing with this new situation where doors of prisons had already been opened,” he said.Mujahid said his side had stressed the need for not using this issue to close border gates to Afghan travelers, including patients, refugee families and daily wage workers who move across the border in search of work.Official sources in Islamabad told VOA the ISI chief went to Kabul to discuss with Taliban representatives matters related to border management and “overall security issue(s) to ensure that spoilers and terrorist organizations do not take advantage of the situation.” The sources spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to publicly interact with media.”Will you be meeting senior people in the Taliban?”@lindseyhilsum asks Pakistan’s intelligence chief Lt Gen Faiz Hameed, about their hopes for Afghanistan as he arrives in Kabul. pic.twitter.com/rp72c8Si9E
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) People arriving from Afghanistan gather after they cross into Pakistan at the Friendship Gate crossing point, in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border town of Chaman, Pakistan, Sept. 6, 2021.“For Pakistan, getting the Taliban to curb the TTP amounts to an ambitious task. The TTP has long been allied with the Taliban, and it has partnered operationally with the Taliban. The Taliban isn’t known for denying space to its militant allies, and I don’t see the TTP being an exception to the rule,” said Michael Kugelman, deputy Asia director at Washington’s Wilson Center. Analysts note an increase in deadly TTP-orchestrated attacks in Pakistan. The latest one occurred Sunday, when a suicide bomber in the city of Quetta killed four Pakistani troops and wounded at least 18 others.“It was widely assumed that as the Afghan Taliban are close to Pakistan for several reasons, the TTP threat to Pakistan will automatically decline/end with its takeover of Afghanistan. However, the August TTP attacks list shows its opposite. TTP has claimed the highest number of attacks in August than in a single month of the last four to five years,” observed Abdul Sayed, a regional security expert.Sayed, who is based in Sweden, noted that around 800 TTP members secured their freedom from Afghan jails with the arrival of the Taliban in Kabul.Pakistani officials, however, remain upbeat that landlocked Afghanistan requires a free flow of trade and transit trade facilities through Pakistan to overcome its humanitarian and critical economic challenges.That leverage, the officials say, and counterterrorism commitments the Taliban have given to the United States and neighboring countries would be used to press the new Afghan rulers to deliver on their pledges.Just before the Taliban took over Kabul, their chief, Hibatullah Akhundzada, had set up a three-member high-powered commission to persuade TTP members to stop violence against Pakistan and return to their homes across the border to live peacefully, VOA had learned from highly placed official sources in Islamabad.Afghan Taliban Commission Looking Into Pakistan’s Terror-Related ConcernsTaliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada set up the tripartite panel recently to look into Islamabad’s complaints that the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is using Afghan soil to plot cross-border terrorist attacksAnalysts say the Taliban are under international scrutiny and must live up to their counterterrorism commitments if they want their country to remain part of the regional community or the world at large and earn global recognition for their rule.On Monday, Taliban spokesman Mujahid said that they would like to join a multibillion-dollar bilateral project China has initiated in Pakistan.“The CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) project is important for entire Asia, including Afghanistan. If the CPEC route goes through Afghanistan, we would cooperate,” he said.China has spent more than $25 billion in Pakistan over the past six years under the bilateral collaboration, building road networks, power plants and a deep-water port on the Arabian Sea and developing agriculture as well as social sectors.Both Islamabad and Beijing say they are set to bring roads and other CPEC-related infrastructure into Afghanistan to help in the reconstruction of the war-shattered nation.Beijing has in recent years developed close contacts with the Taliban and expects the Islamist movement to fight the banned East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which is blamed for conducting terrorist attacks in China.
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Goodbye Columbus: Mexico Statue to be Replaced by Indigenous
Christopher Columbus is getting kicked off Mexico City’s most iconic boulevard. Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum announced that the Columbus statue on the Paseo de la Reforma, often a focal point for Indigenous rights protests, would be replaced by a statue honoring Indigenous women. “To them we owe … the history of our country, of our fatherland,” she said. She made the announcement on Sunday, which was International Day of the Indigenous Woman. The Columbus statue, donated to the city many years ago, was a significant reference point on the 10-lane boulevard, and the surrounding traffic circle is — so far — named for it. That made it a favorite target of spray-paint-wielding protesters denouncing the European suppression of Mexico’s Indigenous civilizations. FILE – Workers clean the statue of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, surrounded by metal fencing during Columbus Day, in Mexico City, Mexico, October 12, 2020.It was removed last year supposedly for restoration, shortly before October 12, which Americans know as Columbus Day but Mexicans call “Dia de la Raza,” or “Day of the Race” — the anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the Americas in 1492. When the statue was removed last year, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador noted that “it is a date that is very controversial and lends itself to conflicting ideas and political conflicts.” This year is the 700th anniversary of the founding of Tenochtitlan — what is now Mexico City — as well as the 500th anniversary of its fall to the Spanish conquistadores, and the 200th anniversary of Mexico’s final independence from Spain. Most Mexicans have some indigenous ancestry and are well aware that millions of Indigenous people died from violence and disease during and after the conquest. Sheinbaum said the new statue, “Tlali,” might be ready near the date of Dia de la Raza this year. The Columbus statue isn’t being discarded, but will be moved to a less prominent location in a small park in the Polanco neighborhood. Sheinbaum referred to Columbus “a great international personage.”
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Dispute Over Spy Chief Could Portend New Power Struggle in Somalia
A fresh political rift between Somalia’s president and prime minister appears to be opening a power struggle between the two top leaders of the country, which is struggling to hold elections and prevent frequent terrorist attacks. On Monday, Somalia Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble suspended Fahad Yasin, chief of the National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA), over failing to provide reliable evidence of investigations into the alleged killing of 24-year-old Ikran Tahlil Farah, who worked in NISA’s cybersecurity department. NISA last week blamed the Islamist militant group al-Shabab for Ikran’s death, prompting angry and frustrated posts on social media from Ikran’s parents and opposition leaders, who say the agency itself had been involved. FILE – Somalia’s Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble speaks at the parliament in Mogadishu, Somalia, September 23, 2020.In a statement published Friday on pro-al-Shabab websites, a spokesman for the group said al-Shabab knows nothing about Ikran’s alleged killing. Roble’s move against the NISA chief has prompted a public rebuke from President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, better known as Farmajo, who in a counter move hours after the prime minister’s decision, issued a directive reinstating the intelligence chief. Both men were citing constitutional articles to support their cases. Roble said he suspended Fahad “for failing to deliver a report on the murder of one of the agency’s agents.” In April, after anger and armed violence in the capital, Mogadishu, that followed Parliament’s move to extend the president’s four-year term by another two years, the confrontation was resolved when the president put the prime minister in charge of security and organizing long-delayed indirect elections. Mohamed issued his own statement calling the prime minister’s move unconstitutional. “(Yasin) should continue being the director of NISA,” the president said. Analysts say this latest rift is highlighting a growing division at the heart of the country’s political elite and threatens to put the country into a new political crisis. “The political exercises of the president and the minister is clear evidence that there has been a growing mistrust and a power struggle between the two leaders,” Shoki Ahmed Hayir, a Somalia political analyst and professor at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, told VOA Somali. “We know the prime minister took this decision to address a sensitive issue over the disappearance of a female intelligence officer that could plunge the country into political and security risks,” said Hussein Moalim Mohamud, Somalia’s former national security adviser. Opposition leaders have welcomed Roble’s move to suspend Fahad, a former Al-Jazeera journalist, whom they believe to be a close friend of the president. The new dispute followed months of political wrangling that have threatened to further destabilize a country already riven by militant attacks and clan rivalries. Hayir believes the new power struggle between the president and the prime minister is threatening the country’s long-delayed upcoming elections. “This is not only a political threat, but also a threat to the country’s future, including the possibility of holding elections. It is also a threat to a justice for the family of Ikran,” Hayir said. “The problem is that there are contradicting and unclear chapters in the country’s draft federal provisional constitution over the powers of the president and the prime minister,” said Abdirahman Dhubad, a political and legal analyst in Mogadishu.
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Guinea Junta Leader Promises ‘Government of National Union’
The military leaders who seized power and dissolved Guinea’s National Assembly said Monday they would set up a transitional government. The details of the promised transition were not immediately clear, but they followed widespread condemnation of the coup from the international community. In a speech the day after his men declared on national television that they had arrested the president and dissolved the country’s constitution, Army Colonel Mamady Doumbouya promised a “government of national union.” People celebrate as the Guinean Special Forces arrive at the Palace of the People in Conakry, September 6, 2021.He also stated that there would be no “witch hunt” of the government officials he dismissed during the takeover and replaced with regional military commanders. Doumbouya hoped to calm concerns about economic upheaval, promising that Guinea would “uphold all its undertakings (and) mining agreements,” stressing “its commitment to give favorable treatment to foreign investment in the country.” A screengrab taken from footage sent to AFP by a military source shows the President of Guinea Conakry Alpha Conde after he was captured by army putschists during a coup d’etat in Conakry on September 5, 2021.Mining accounts for roughly 35% of GDP in Guinea, whose citizens rarely reap the benefits of the country’s mineral wealth because of corruption and lack of infrastructure. A video emerged hours into the apparent takeover that showed Guinean President Alpha Conde in a room surrounded by special forces soldiers. Members of the military who referred to themselves as the National Rally and Development Committee (CNRD) later issued a statement saying the 83-year-old Conde was not harmed and was in contact with his doctors. In October, Conde won a third term in office after amending the constitution to allow him to run again. The controversial election sparked violent protests throughout the country.Guinea President Appears to Have Won Controversial 3rd Term in Office Final results in Guinea’s presidential election expected Saturday Fighting was reported earlier Sunday in the capital, Conakry, but following the announcement of the takeover, many people celebrated in the streets for what they believed to be a successful coup. A statement issued Sunday by the U.S. State Department condemned the coup, warning that the “extra-constitutional measures will only erode Guinea’s prospects for peace, stability, and prosperity” and limit the ability of the United States and Guinea’s other international partners “to support the country as it navigates a path toward national unity.” The State Department urged all sides to forge “a process of national dialogue to address concerns sustainably and transparently to enable a peaceful and democratic way forward for Guinea to realize its full potential.” The United Nations, France and the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, were quick to condemn the unrest in Guinea. Mohamed Ibn Chambas, former special representative of the U.N. secretary general and former head of the U.N. Office for West Africa and the Sahel, told VOA that ECOWAS bears no responsibility for the unrest in Guinea because its leadership repeatedly warned Conde against amending the constitution and running for a third term. Chambas says he expects ECOWAS to reiterate its “policy of zero tolerance for military coups d’état,” adding that there “is no way that the current situation can be accepted by the authority of heads of state and government.” VOA’s James Butty contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.
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Curtain Divides Male, Female Students as Afghan Universities Reopen
Students across Afghanistan have started returning to university classrooms after the Taliban stormed to power, and in some cases females have been separated from their male peers by curtains or boards down the middle of the room.What happens in universities and schools across the country will be closely watched by foreign powers for signs of what rights women will have now the Islamist militant movement is back in charge.Some Western countries have said vital aid and recognition of the Taliban would depend on how they ran the country, including their treatment of girls and women.When it last ruled from 1996-2001, the group banned girls from school and women from university and work.Despite assurances in recent weeks that women’s rights would be honored in accordance with Islamic law, it is unclear what that will mean in practice.Teachers and students at universities in Afghanistan’s largest cities – Kabul, Kandahar and Herat – told Reuters that female students were being segregated in class, taught separately or restricted to certain parts of the campus.”Putting up curtains is not acceptable,” Anjila, a 21-year-old student at Kabul University who returned to find her classroom partitioned, told Reuters by telephone.”I really felt terrible when I entered the class … We are gradually going back to 20 years ago.”Even before the Taliban took over Afghanistan, Anjila said female students sat separately from males. But classrooms were not physically divided.The Taliban said last week that schooling should resume but that males and females should be separated.A Taliban spokesperson did not comment on the photograph of the segregated class or on what measures were to be put in place at universities.But a senior Taliban official told Reuters that such dividers were “completely acceptable,” and that Afghanistan had “limited resources and manpower, so for now it is best to have the same teacher teaching both sides of a class.”‘Keep studying’Photographs shared by Avicenna University in Kabul, and widely circulated on social media, show a grey curtain running down the center of the classroom, with female students wearing long robes and head coverings but their faces visible.It was not immediately clear whether the classroom dividers were the result of a Taliban directive.Several teachers said there was uncertainty over what rules would be imposed under the Taliban, who have yet to form a government more than three weeks after they seized Kabul with barely a shot fired in anger.Their return to power has alarmed some women, who fear they will lose the rights they fought for in the last two decades, in the face of resistance from many families and officials in the deeply conservative Muslim country.A journalism professor at Herat University in the west of the country told Reuters he decided to split his one-hour class into two halves, first teaching females and then males.Of 120 students enrolled for his course, less than a quarter showed up at school on Monday. A number of students and teachers have fled the country, and the fate of the country’s thriving private media sector has suddenly been thrown into doubt.”Students were very nervous today,” he said. “I told them to just keep coming and keep studying and in the coming days the new government will set the rules.”Sher Azam, a 37-year-old teacher at a private university in Kabul, said his institute had given teachers the option of holding separate classes for men and women, or partitioning classrooms with curtains and boards.But he was worried about how many students would come back, given the economic crisis the Taliban’s victory has triggered.”I don’t know how many students will return to school, because there are financial problems and some students are coming from families who have lost their jobs.”
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Sweden Arrests Two Women Linked to IS
Swedish police said Monday they had arrested two women linked to Islamic State after they flew back from Syria, as media reported that one was being investigated for war crimes. Stockholm police spokesman Ola Osterling said the prosecutor leading the investigation into the two women had ordered their arrest. “We executed that decision when the plane arrived in Stockholm in the afternoon,” Osterling told AFP. A third woman had been taken in for questioning, he added. A statement Monday from the Prosecution Authority said multiple investigations were underway against men and women returning from areas that had been controlled by Islamic State. “The international crimes that are relevant for people returning from IS-controlled areas are war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity,” public prosecutor Reena Devgun said in the statement. “Sweden has an international commitment to investigate and prosecute these crimes,” she added. The Prosecution Authority added that it could not comment on individual cases or the number of investigations underway. But public broadcaster SVT reported that at least one of the women arrested was being investigated for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. SVT also reported that the women who had returned Monday had been staying in camps in northern Syria but were deported after Kurdish authorities decided they did not have enough evidence to prosecute them.
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UK Delays Post-Brexit Border Checks, Seeks New Talks with EU
Britain said Monday it is postponing the start of post-Brexit border checks on goods going to Northern Ireland, as it seeks breathing space in its tense standoff with the European Union over trade rules. Brexit Minister David Frost said the government would continue to trade “on the current basis,” maintaining grace periods that the U.K. gave itself after splitting from the EU’s economic embrace at the end of 2020. He did not set a new end date for the grace periods, some of which had been set to finish on September 30. Frost said the standstill would “provide space for potential further discussions” with the EU over the two sides’ deep differences on the Brexit divorce agreement. U.K.-EU relations have soured over trade arrangements for Northern Ireland, the only part of the U.K. that has a land border with the 27-nation bloc. The divorce deal the two sides struck before Britain’s departure means customs and border checks must be conducted on some goods moving between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K. FILE – Lorries and cars disembark from a ferry arriving from Scotland at the P&O ferry terminal in the port at Larne on the north coast of Northern Ireland, Jan. 1, 2021.The regulations are intended to prevent goods from Britain entering the EU’s tariff-free single market while keeping an open border between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland — a key pillar of Northern Ireland’s peace process. But the checks have angered Northern Ireland’s British unionists, who say they amount to a border in the Irish Sea and weaken Northern Ireland’s ties with the rest of the U.K. One of the deferred measures, which had been set to take effect October 1, would ban chilled meats such as sausages from England, Scotland and Wales from going to Northern Ireland. The “sausage war” has been the highest-profile element of the U.K.-EU dispute, raising fears that Northern Ireland supermarkets may not be able to sell British sausages, a breakfast staple. The trade tensions have destabilized Northern Ireland’s delicate political balance and raised tensions with the EU, which is calling for Britain to implement the deal it agreed to, and with the U.K. government, which says the rules need fundamental reform. Britain’s Conservative government is seeking to remove most checks, replacing them with a “light touch” system in which only goods at risk of entering the EU would be inspected. Frost warned last week that the U.K. and the EU risked entering a long period of “cold mistrust” unless issues around the agreement were resolved. The U.K.’s previous unilateral extension of the grace period angered the EU, which responded by launching legal action. The bloc has since put that action on hold, and the two sides have taken tentative steps to cool the situation. Monday’s announcement by Britain was made with the advance knowledge of the bloc. Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said he expected the EU would agree to an extension of the grace periods in order to allow for “deep and meaningful” talks with Britain.
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Russia Blocks Navalny Voting Site Ahead of Polls
Russian authorities on Monday blocked a website of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny that instructed supporters how to vote out candidates from the ruling party in polls later this month. In a statement to AFP, state communications watchdog Roskomnadzor said that access to the website votesmart.appspot.com had been blocked in Russia “because it is being used to continue the work… of an extremist organization.” FILE – A woman crosses the road behind election campaign billboards in Moscow, Aug. 27, 2021.Parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place on September 17-19, with nearly all vocal Kremlin critics including Navalny’s allies barred from running. Navalny, 45, has this year seen his organizations declared “extremist” and banned, while his top aides have fled the country. After barely surviving a poisoning with nerve agent Novichok last summer, Navalny was jailed in February in what supporters say is punishment for seeking to challenge President Vladimir Putin’s two-decade hold on power. FILE – A still image from CCTV footage published by Life.Ru shows what is said to be jailed Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny speaking with a prison guard at the IK-2 corrective penal colony in Pokrov, Russia, in this image released Apr. 2, 2021.Roskomnadzor earlier barred access to dozens of websites linked to Navalny, including his main site navalny.com. Last week the media regulator also urged Google and Apple to remove an app dedicated to Navalny’s “Smart Voting” campaign from their app stores, but they have yet to respond. The “Smart Voting” tactic has led the increasingly unpopular United Russia party, currently polling at less than 30%, to lose a number of seats in recent local elections.
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Taliban: Pakistan’s Terror-Related Security Concerns Addressed
Afghanistan’s Taliban said Monday they had discussed bilateral security cooperation with Pakistan, including measures needed at border crossings between the two countries to stem the movement of terrorists into Pakistan.Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters in Kabul that a delegation from Islamabad visited the country over the weekend for the discussions. The Pakistani team was led by General Faiz Hameed, the head of the country’s spy agency, known as the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI. Mujahid said the visitors conveyed their concerns over multiple jail breaks during the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and the release of hundreds of prisoners involved in militant attacks in Pakistan. He said the Taliban had assured the delegation that no one will be allowed to use Afghan soil against Pakistan.”It was also discussed that there shall be a check or scrutiny system at the (border) gates to detect individuals who want to harm Pakistan, as per their information, and we don’t know about them because we are dealing with this new situation where doors of prisons had already been opened,” he said.Mujahid said his side had stressed the need for not using this issue to close border gates to Afghan travelers, including patients, refugee families and daily wage workers who move across the border in search of work.Official sources in Islamabad told VOA the ISI chief went to Kabul to discuss with Taliban representatives matters related to border management and “overall security issue(s) to ensure that spoilers and terrorist organizations do not take advantage of the situation.” The sources spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to publicly interact with media.”Will you be meeting senior people in the Taliban?”@lindseyhilsum asks Pakistan’s intelligence chief Lt Gen Faiz Hameed, about their hopes for Afghanistan as he arrives in Kabul. pic.twitter.com/rp72c8Si9E
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) People arriving from Afghanistan gather after they cross into Pakistan at the Friendship Gate crossing point, in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border town of Chaman, Pakistan, Sept. 6, 2021.”For Pakistan, getting the Taliban to curb the TTP amounts to an ambitious task. The TTP has long been allied with the Taliban, and it has partnered operationally with the Taliban. The Taliban isn’t known for denying space to its militant allies, and I don’t see the TTP being an exception to the rule,” said Michael Kugelman, deputy Asia director at Washington’s Wilson Center. Analysts note an increase in deadly TTP-orchestrated attacks in Pakistan. The latest one occurred Sunday, when a suicide bomber in the city of Quetta killed four Pakistani troops and wounded at least 18 others.”It was widely assumed that as the Afghan Taliban are close to Pakistan for several reasons, the TTP threat to Pakistan will automatically decline/end with its takeover of Afghanistan. However, the August TTP attacks list shows its opposite. TTP has claimed the highest number of attacks in August than in a single month of the last four to five years,” observed Abdul Sayed, a regional security expert.Sayed, who is based in Sweden, noted that around 800 TTP members secured their freedom from Afghan jails with the arrival of the Taliban in Kabul.Pakistani officials, however, remain upbeat that landlocked Afghanistan requires a free flow of trade and transit trade facilities through Pakistan to overcome its humanitarian and critical economic challenges.That leverage, the officials say, and counterterrorism commitments the Taliban have given to the United States and neighboring countries would be used to press the new Afghan rulers to deliver on their pledges.Just before the Taliban took over Kabul, their chief, Hibatullah Akhundzada, had set up a three-member high-powered commission to persuade TTP members to stop violence against Pakistan and return to their homes across the border to live peacefully, VOA had learned from highly placed official sources in Islamabad.Afghan Taliban Commission Looking Into Pakistan’s Terror-Related ConcernsTaliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada set up the tripartite panel recently to look into Islamabad’s complaints that the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is using Afghan soil to plot cross-border terrorist attacksAnalysts say the Taliban are under international scrutiny and must live up to their counterterrorism commitments if they want their country to remain part of the regional community or the world at large and earn global recognition for their rule.On Monday, Taliban spokesman Mujahid said that they would like to join a multibillion-dollar bilateral project China has initiated in Pakistan.”The CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) project is important for entire Asia, including Afghanistan. If the CPEC route goes through Afghanistan, we would cooperate,” he said.China has spent more than $25 billion in Pakistan over the past six years under the bilateral collaboration, building road networks, power plants and a deep-water port on the Arabian Sea and developing agriculture as well as social sectors.Both Islamabad and Beijing say they are set to bring roads and other CPEC-related infrastructure into Afghanistan to help in the reconstruction of the war-shattered nation.Beijing has in recent years developed close contacts with the Taliban and expects the Islamist movement to fight the banned East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which is blamed for conducting terrorist attacks in China.
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Irish Gang on Trial in France, Accused of Rhino Horn Smuggling
Four alleged members of an Irish crime gang and five other defendants went on trial Monday in France accused of trafficking rhino horn and ivory to markets in east Asia. French prosecutors started a probe in 2015 after police discovered several elephant tusks and 32,800 euros ($38,900) in cash in a BMW during a random roadway traffic inspection. Prosecutors say the occupants of the car, who claimed they were antique dealers, were members of the Rathkeale Rovers, an Irish crime gang with roots in the Irish Traveller community. The nine defendants on trial in the town of Rennes, which include alleged traders of Chinese and Vietnamese origin, face up to 10 years in jail and heavy fines, although two of those charged are on the run. “We’re hoping for heavy sentences including fines to dissuade people from taking part in smuggling activities which encourage the cruelty of poaching,” Charlotte Nithart, head of French anti-poaching charity Robin des Bois, told AFP. Nithart, who was in court as an observer, said that the case files and the first day of hearings underlined how Europe, and European auction houses, played a role in supplying east Asia with horns and tusks. “What you can see in the intercepted telephone records is that the supply comes from lots of different towns in France and around Europe. The networks are well structured,” she added. Many of the objects are old ornaments and antiques, but the seizures by police of several tusks that are less than 20 years old suggest that recently poached animal parts are also being traded. As part of their investigation, French police also found that tusks and rhino horns were being turned into powder, flakes, and other objects on French soil before being exported to Vietnam and China. Vietnamese defendant David Ta, a 51-year-old owner of an export company in the Paris region, denied illegally trafficking protected animals, despite the discovery of 14 tusks on a pallet at his home. “I’m a collector. It’s a passion,” he told the court. Four suspected members of the Rathkeale Rovers — Tom Greene, Richard O’Riley, Edward Gammel, and Daniel MacCarthy — are accused of supplying horns and tusks to exporters in France with links to China and Vietnam. An exceptionally large horn weighing nearly 15 kilos seized from the gang during the investigation would have earned around $15 million once processed at Asian market prices at the time, according to the Robin des Bois group. The organized crime group from the Limerick region of western Ireland “have many activities, but what is of interest to us is their speciality in trading rhino horns,” Nithart said. They have been linked to thefts from museums and private collections. There were suspicions they had been involved in the shocking 2017 killing of a white rhino in Thoiry zoo outside Paris. The animal’s horn was hacked off in a grisly overnight raid. The Rathkeale Rovers were the target of a joint investigation by European police in 2010 that led to 31 people being arrested, including for the theft of rhino horns, according to the Europol police agency’s website. Two members were arrested in the United States in 2010 after paying undercover investigators in Colorado about $17,000 for four black rhino horns.
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Phone Blackout Imposed on Nigerian State Amid Crackdown on Kidnappers
Mobile telephone networks were shut down in the northwestern Nigerian state of Zamfara, residents said on Monday, after authorities ordered a telecoms blackout to help armed forces tackle armed gangs of kidnappers terrorizing the area. Two residents of Zamfara, reached by phone after they traveled to neighboring Sokoto State, said their mobile networks had stopped functioning over the weekend. Calls to police and officials inside the state were not going through. The blackout was “to enable relevant security agencies [to] carry out required activities towards addressing the security challenge in the state,” according to a letter from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to network provider Globacom. Zamfara has been one of the worst-hit states in a wave of mass abductions of pupils from schools across northwestern Nigeria by armed gangs of ransom seekers operating from remote camps. FILE – Girls who were kidnapped from a boarding school in the northwest Nigerian state of Zamfara walk in line after their release, in Zamfara, Nigeria, March 2, 2021.A source at the Nigerian air force, asked to comment on media reports that military operations against the gangs were under way, said: “We are clearing these elements fiercely and decisively. It’s a total operation.” The NCC letter instructed Globacom to suspend phone and internet services to Zamfara from Sept. 3 for an initial two weeks. Reuters could not immediately reach Globacom for comment. Britain’s Foreign Office updated its Nigeria travel advice, warning about the blackout in Zamfara and saying areas of neighboring states may also be affected. In the latest incident in Zamfara, more than 70 pupils were kidnapped from a secondary school in the village of Kaya last week. One of the Zamfara residents contacted by Reuters, lecturer Abubakar Abdullahi Alhasan, said he had heard that a military crackdown had been going on since the mobile networks had stopped working. “The Nigerian air force and army were succeeding in dislodging some of the bandits’ camps. They killed many and recovered arms and ammunition while many others were arrested,” he said. Military spokespeople in the capital Abuja were not responding to requests for comment.
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Parole for S.Africa’s Zuma Ahead of Graft Trial Angers Opposition
South African leader Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday hailed the placement of his jailed predecessor Jacob Zuma on medical parole as opposition and other groups suspected it was a political move and demanded answers.Just 60 days into his 15-month jail term for defying an order to answer questions before graft investigators, prison authorities announced Sunday that the 79-year-old politician was placed on medical parole.Zuma was hospitalized a month into his incarceration, at a facility outside the prison, under the care of military medics. He remains there and his illness remains a closely guarded secret. The decision coincided with a meeting of the ruling African National Congress’s National Executive Committee.”We welcome this,” Ramaphosa said in a televised briefing to mark the end of the meeting. “We would like to wish him a quick recovery as he is restored back to his home to be with his loved ones.” But the granting of parole has angered opposition and civil society groups, which suspect it was a politically inspired move and want answers.”It’s extremely suspicious,” John Steenhuisen, leader of the largest opposition Democratic Alliance, told AFP. “This is a political decision, not a medical decision.”He and other opposition figures have vowed to force the prisons to publish details outlining the steps taken to reach the parole decision.Mmusi Maimane, leader of pressure group One South Africa movement, said the action demonstrated that “if you are politically connected, the inside of the prison is not a place for you”.But a prisons official insisted the decision was above board and based on doctors’ conclusions. “Mr Zuma does require a great deal of medical attention” and met the criteria for medical parole, the official said, while declining to disclose Zuma’s illness.Lawson Naidoo, head of a civic group, the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution, said “the timing of the announcement, apart from coming on a Sunday afternoon, does raise questions because… Mr. Zuma would have been eligible for parole in a few weeks’ time, having served the minimum requirement for a 15-month jail sentence.”The news came just three days before the resumption Thursday of Zuma’s long-running corruption trial over an arms deal dating back more than two decades.Last month, the trial was postponed to September 9, pending a medical report on his fitness to stand trial.”Given Mr Zuma’s elongated Stalingrad strategy in terms of avoiding having to answer charges of fraud and corruption related to the arms deal, it would come as no surprise to anyone if this medical parole is now going to be used… as a pretext to say he is not fit to stand trial,” he said.Another opposition group, ActionSA, complained that the parole pointed to a “criminal justice system (that) treats the most powerful amongst us with kid gloves and allows them to evade justice and accountability at the first opportunity”.
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Taliban Claim Victory Over Resistance, but Massoud Vows to Fight
The Taliban said road links to Panjshir valley are now open, and food and other supplies can now be transported. Soon after declaring they had taken over the valley and ended remnants of resistance against their rule, the group said electricity, cellphone and internet services would be restored soon. “Thank God that we do not have civilian casualties in our fight to capture and conquer Panjshir,” Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a press conference in Kabul on Monday.The Taliban have taken over the provincial capital and the governor’s compound in the valley and shared videos of their fighters in the capital.Taliban Claim Victory in Panjshir ValleyNo immediate reaction from Afghan opposition forcesMeanwhile, in an audio message on his Facebook page, resistance leader Ahmad Massoud said his forces are still present in Panjshir and will continue to fight the Taliban.Earlier in the day, pro-resistance Twitter accounts claimed their fighters retreated to the mountains to regroup but that they will continue to fight. “Last night, we had to make a hard decision in the face of furious enemy attacks and depleted amunations (sic),” said their Twitter message posted Monday afternoon. “Make a last stand in Bazarak and risk the total elimination of our leadership, or retreat to higher ground in order to continue the resistance. We choose the latter.” Last night we had to make a hard decision in the face of furious enemy attacks and depleted amunations. Make a last stand in Bazarak and risk the total elemination of our leadership or retreat to higher ground inorder to continue the resistance. We choose the latter. #Panjshir— Resistance 2.0 🇦🇫 جبهه مقاومت (@AFG_Resistance) September 6, 2021Another message, posted at the same time, said their leaders were safe and in good spirits.“We are on a terrain that we know and best suits the next chapter of our resistance. We know what we are doing! This was expected!” the tweet said.We don’t fight for governor’s compound or Panjshir. We fight for freedom and the freedom of all #Afghanistan. Everyone is safe and in good spirits. We are on a terrain that we know and best suits the next chapter of our resistance. We know what we are doing! This was expected!— Resistance 2.0 🇦🇫 جبهه مقاومت (@AFG_Resistance) September 6, 2021Massoud is the son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Northern Alliance leader who successfully resisted Taliban rule in the 1990s and was nicknamed the “Lion of Panjshir.” Mujahid said those in the resistance who wanted to return to a normal life in Afghanistan were welcome, but efforts to undermine the new Taliban regime would be considered sedition and dealt with accordingly.He said work for the formulation of a new Taliban government was complete, but the announcement was delayed since some technical issues remained. The new ministers, the Taliban spokesman said, might be considered acting ministers to give the government the flexibility to enact changes if needed. He also assured journalists that Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada was alive and would appear in public soon. Akhundzada’s public absence has given rise to rumors of his death. Taliban founder Mullah Omar had been dead for two years before news of his demise leaked in 2015.Mujahid also asked women and men to refrain from protesting while the country was going through a transition.“Why are you protesting at a time when the new government has not taken over yet? We have seen the protests by women. We are trying, and we hope to resolve their issues as soon as possible,” he said.On Saturday, Taliban fighters in Kabul forcefully broke up a protest by a group of women demanding equal participation in the government. Protesters said the Taliban beat some of them with the butt of their guns, leaving them bloodied, as seen on their social media videos and testimonies.Rabia Sadat one of the today’s protestor in #Kabul beaten by Taliban.#Afghanistan. pic.twitter.com/1s3El4TZHW— Zaki Daryabi (@ZDaryabi) September 4, 2021Mujahid said gatherings of people could become a security issue.“As you saw, the Kabul airport had a lot of chaos, and then there were horrible attacks there in which foreigners also died,” he said.A suicide bomb blast at the airport last month, as thousands of Afghans were clamoring to enter the premises in hopes of getting on one of the U.S. or European evacuation flights, left at least 169 Afghans and 13 Americans dead.The attack was claimed by Islamic State Khorasan Province, the regional chapter of IS. It was considered the first big challenge for the Taliban, who had promised that no terrorist group would be able to use Afghan soil against any other country under their watch.In Monday’s press conference, Mujahid also promised swift restoration of the Kabul airport with the help of Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.“I want to assure you that the airport will be ready for flights soon,” Mujahid said, pointing out that some local flights from Kabul to other Afghan cities had already resumed but work was needed to repair the radar system that he claimed was damaged, along with some other equipment, by U.S. forces before they left. Hinting at Taliban foreign policy going forward, especially at the Taliban’s interest in the Chinese One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative, Mujahid said given its economic might, China could play a very important role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. “The CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) project is important for entire Asia, including Afghanistan. If the CPEC route goes through Afghanistan, we would cooperate,” Mujahid said.CPEC is an arm of the OBOR project, which links northwest China’s Xinjiang province through Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. China has hinted it wants to extend the project to central Asia. Mujahid also responded to questions on the visit to Kabul over the weekend of Pakistan’s intelligence chief, General Faiz Hameed, the first senior foreign official to visit the Afghan capital since the Taliban takeover.He said the visit was focused on Pakistan’s concerns over multiple jail breaks during the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and the release of prisoners involved in militant attacks in Pakistan.According to Mujahid, Kabul’s security would now be handed over to the Taliban in uniform. Discussing the fate of the former Afghan security forces and military, the Taliban spokesman said they will be merged with Taliban fighters into security forces for the new government.
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Somalia PM Suspends Intelligence Chief, Prompting Rebuke from President
Somalia’s prime minister suspended the intelligence chief on Monday, prompting a public rebuke from the president and highlighting growing divisions at the heart of the political elite.Analysts said the suspension – triggered by a dispute over investigations into an unsolved murder – pointed to a deeper power struggle that could further destabilize a country already riven by militant attacks and clan rivalries.Prime Minister Mohammed Hussein Roble said he had told Fahad Yasin, the director of Somalia’s National Intelligence Service Agency (NISA), to step aside for failing to deliver a report on the murder of one of the agency’s agents.Soon after, President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed issued his own statement calling the prime minister’s move unconstitutional. “(Yasin) should continue being the director of NISA,” the president said.Somalia’s police chief called an emergency security meeting on Monday, officers told Reuters on condition of anonymity without going into further details.”This shows the rift between the president and the prime minister is fully in the open – something that had been bubbling beneath the surface for some time,” Mahmood Omar, Somalia analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Reuters.”It could result in another security crisis as the president is telling Roble there are some clear red lines to what he will accept, while Roble interprets his authority differently. The danger is either side, … will try to impose their will on the other.”‘Serious divisions’The immediate cause for the dispute – the murder of the young female agent, Ikran Tahlil Farah, who worked in the cybersecurity department and went missing in late June – has been a highly contentious issue.The government last week blamed the Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab for her death, prompting scores of angry posts on social media from people who said the agency itself had been involved. Al-Shabaab took the unusual step of denying any involvement.”This is a very serious issue,” said Rashid Abdi, a Nairobi-based independent analyst.”It will most likely sow serious divisions within the security services and result in the type of violence we saw in April between the fragmented security forces.”In April, factions of the security forces seized positions in the capital, angered by moves to extend the president’s four-year term by another two years, which the opposition said was part of a power grab.That confrontation was resolved when the president put the prime minister in charge of security and organizing delayed indirect elections.Voting for lawmakers by elders had been due to be completed this week, with the election of a speaker and swearing in of members of parliament happening next week – in time for them to pick a president on Oct. 10.But in a separate development on Monday, voting for members of the lower house of parliament was rescheduled to late November, causing a further delay to the whole process.
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Migrant Caravan Broken Up Again in Southern Mexico
Mexican border agents and police broke up a caravan of hundreds of migrants Sunday who had set out from southernmost Mexico — the fourth such caravan officials have raided in recent days.The group of about 800 — largely Central Americans, Haitians, Venezuelans and Cubans — had spent then night at a basketball court near Huixtla, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) up the road from the border city of Tapachula where they had been kept awaiting processing by Mexican immigration officials.But shortly before dawn, immigration agents backed by police with anti-riot gear went into the crowd, pushing many into trucks.Hundreds of the migrants escaped running toward a river and hid in the vegetation.“They began to hit me all over,” a woman said amid tears, alleging that police also beat her hustband and pulled one of her daughters from her arms.“Until they give me my daughter, I’m not leaving,” she told an Associated Press camera crew. But immigration agents surrounded the woman, her husband nd other child and detained them.The group was at least the fourth to be broken up over the past week after heading out north in a caravan, frustrated by the slow pace of immigration processing and poor conditions in Tapachula, where they are unable to work legally.The government has insisted that excessive force against a Haitian migrant caught on camera the past weekend was an aberration and two immigration agents were suspended.Mexico has faced immigration pressures from the north, south and within its own borders in recent weeks as thousands of migrants have crossed its southern border, the United States has sent thousands more back from the north and a U.S. court has ordered the Biden administration to renew a policy of making asylum seekers wait in Mexico for long periods of time.President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Thursday the strategy of containing migrants in the south was untenable on its own and more investment is needed in the region to keep Central Americans from leaving their homes.Thousands of mostly Haitian migrants stuck in Tapachula have increasingly protested in recent weeks. Many have been waiting there for months, some up to a year, for asylum requests to be processed.Mexico’s refugee agency has been overwhelmed. So far this year, more than 77,000 people have applied for protected status in Mexico, 55,000 of those in Tapachula, where shelters are full.Unable to work legally and frustrated by the delay and poor conditions, hundreds have set out north.
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