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katyshannon

Taliban Fighters Capture Kunduz City as Afghan Forces Retreat - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...z-in-northern-afghanistan.html

taliban capture afghan city new york times crisis

shared by katyshannon on 29 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • ABUL, Afghanistan — After months of besieging the northern Afghan provincial capital of Kunduz, Taliban fighters took over the city on Monday just hours after advancing, officials said, as government security forces fully retreated to the city’s outlying airport.
  • The Taliban’s sudden victory, after what had appeared to be a stalemate through the summer, gave the insurgents a military and political prize — the capture of a major Afghan city — that had eluded them since 2001.
  • Afghan officials vowed that a counterattack was coming, as commando forces were said to be flowing by air and road to Kunduz. But by nightfall, the city itself belonged to the Taliban. Their white flag was flying over several public areas of Kunduz, residents said.
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  • the Taliban issued a statement saying that the group “has no intention” of looting or carrying out extrajudicial killings.
  • But witness accounts and videos posted to social media showed some scenes of chaos. The insurgents had set fire to police buildings, and witnesses reported that jewelry shops were being looted, though by whom was unclear.
  • The Taliban also appeared to have freed hundreds of inmates from the city’s prison
  • One video showed a crowd gathered around the city’s main traffic circle, responding to the chants of a Taliban fighter. “Death to America! Death to the slaves of America!” the fighter shouted into a megaphone, as the crowd responded: “Death to Mir Alam! Death to Nabi Gechi!” Both of those men are local militia commanders fighting on the side of the government
  • katyshannon on 29 Sep 15
     
    Taliban capture major Afghan city
kennyn-77

The AP Interview: Taliban seek ties with US, other ex-foes | AP News - 0 views

apnews.com/...475a3370ea219aabb3ded311911cc1

interview taliban Afghanistan policy

shared by kennyn-77 on 13 Dec 21 - No Cached
  • Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers are committed in principle to education and jobs for girls and women, a marked departure from their previous time in power, and seek the world’s “mercy and compassion” to help millions of Afghans in desperate need, a top Taliban leader said in a rare interview.
  • Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi also told The Associated Press that the Taliban government wants good relations with all countries and has no issue with the United States. He urged Washington and other nations to release upward of $10 billion in funds that were frozen when the Taliban took power Aug. 15, following a rapid military sweep across Afghanistan and the sudden, secret flight of U.S.-backed President Ashraf Ghani.
  • “Making Afghanistan unstable or having a weak Afghan government is not in the interest of anyone,” said Muttaqi, whose aides include employees of the previous government as well as those recruited from the ranks of the Taliban.
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  • Taliban officials have said they need time to create gender-segregated arrangements in schools and work places that meet their severe interpretation of Islam.
  • When they first ruled from 1996-2001, the Taliban shocked the world by barring girls and women from schools and jobs, banning most entertainment and sports and occasionally carrying out executions in front of large crowds in sports stadiums.But Muttaqi said the Taliban have changed since they last ruled. “We have have made progress in administration and in politics ... in interaction with the nation and the world. With each passing day we will gain more experience and make more progress,” he said.
  • Muttaqi said that under the new Taliban government, girls are going to school through to Grade 12 in 10 of the country’s 34 provinces, private schools and universities are operating unhindered and 100% of women who had previously worked in the health sector are back on the job. “This shows that we are committed in principle to women participation,” he said.
  • He claimed that the Taliban have not targeted their opponents, instead having announced a general amnesty and providing some protection. Leaders of the previous government live without threat in Kabul, he said, though the majority have fled.
  • He said the Taliban have made mistakes in their first months in power and that “we will work for more reforms which can benefit the nation.” He did not elaborate on the mistakes or possible reforms.
  • Meanwhile, Islamic State militants have stepped up attacks on Taliban patrols and religious minorities in the past four months. The IS affiliate in Afghanistan has targeted Shiite mosques in the provincial capitals of Kunduz and Kandahar, and carried out frequent attacks on Taliban vehicles.
  • “My last point is to America, to the American nation: You are a great and big nation and you must have enough patience and have a big heart to dare to make policies on Afghanistan based on international rules and relegation, and to end the differences and make the distance between us shorter and choose good relations with Afghanistan.”
Ellie McGinnis

Peace Talks May Be Casualty as Pakistani Taliban Pick Hard-Liner as Leader - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...llah-fazlullah-new-leader.html

pakistani taliban politics policy

shared by Ellie McGinnis on 07 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • In a surprise choice that bodes poorly for proposed peace talks, the Pakistani Taliban on Thursday appointed as its new leader the hard-line commander responsible for last year’s attack on Malala Yousafzai, the teenage Pakistani education activist.
  • Mullah Fazlullah, the head of a militant faction in the northwestern Swat Valley,
  • Mr. Fazlullah is best known for ordering public beatings, executions and beheadings, and delivering thunderous radio broadcasts — in which he denounced polio vaccinations, among other topics
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  • But the news was likely to be received with less enthusiasm by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government
  • Furious government officials criticized the United States’ killing of the previous Taliban leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, in a drone strike last Friday, claiming that the Mr. Mehsud had been on the verge of starting peace talks that could end seven years of bloodshed in Pakistan’s major cities.
  • He set up a pirate radio station that broadcast jihadist propaganda across the valley, at one point urging women not to sleep with their husbands if they refused to join his jihad.
  • Mr. Sharif “bargained and sold out Hakimullah to the Americans,” he said.
  • Shahidullah Shahid, said there would be “no more talks as Mullah Fazlullah is already against negotiations.”
  • “This changes the entire equation,” said one senior government official in Peshawar.
  • For the Pakistani military, Mr. Fazlullah is a cherished enemy, too. He escaped the army’s toughest anti-Taliban offensive of recent years in 2009 when, as thousands of soldiers swept through Swat, following the collapse of a peace deal, he slipped through the dragnet and fled across the border into Afghanistan.
  • armed fighters displaced the civil government, instituting a authoritarian and often cruel rule that mandated public floggings, executions and the closure of girls’ schools.
  • But those compromises quickly foundered — there was public outrage across Pakistan over a video that showed Taliban fighters flogging a teenage girl in Swat — and by summer 2009, the army had moved in.
  • Mr. Khan has vowed to block NATO military supply lines into Afghanistan after Nov. 20 if the United States does not halt drone attacks in the tribal belt.
  • But Mr. Khan’s aggressive anti-American stance could be complicated by a fresh wave of Taliban violence — particularly if it is engineered by a Taliban leader who hails from the province that Mr. Khan controls.
  • The Pakistani Taliban is related to, but distinct from, the Afghan Taliban. The group has largely attacked targets inside Pakistan but has also deployed suicide bombers into Afghanistan and claimed responsibility for an attempted bombing of Times Square in May 2010. As a result, its leadership has been repeatedly targeted by American drones.
criscimagnael

Taliban Renege on Promise to Open Afghan Girls' Schools - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...tan-girls-schools-taliban.html

shared by criscimagnael on 25 Mar 22 - No Cached
  • The schools were supposed to reopen this week, and the reversal could threaten aid because international officials had made girls’ education a condition for greater assistance.
  • Under the Taliban’s first rule, from 1996 to 2001, the group barred women and girls from school and most employment.
  • The news was crushing to the over one million high school-aged girls who had been raised in an era of opportunity for women before the Taliban seized power in August last year — and who had woken up thrilled to be returning to classes on Wednesday.
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  • One 12th-grade student in Kabul said the decision had stamped out her last bit of hope that she could achieve her dream of becoming a lawyer.
  • “Education was the only way to give us some hope in these times of despair, and it was the only right we hoped for, and it has been taken away,” the student, Zahra Rohani, 15, said.
  • On Monday, the Ministry of Education had announced that all schools, including girls’ high schools, would reopen on Wednesday at the start of the spring semester. The following day, a Ministry of Education spokesman released a video congratulating all students on the return to class.
  • Mehrin Ekhtiari, a 15-year-old student in 10th grade, said she and her classmates were shocked when a teacher announced the news to the classroom on Wednesday morning.
  • “My hope was revived after eight months of waiting,” she said, adding later that the announcement had “dashed all my dreams.”
  • In recent months, the Taliban had also come under mounting pressure to permit girls to attend high school from international donors, aid from which has helped keep Afghanistan from plunging further into a humanitarian catastrophe set off by the collapse of the former government and Western sanctions that crippled the country’s banking system.
  • . He attributed the decision to a lack of a religious uniform for girls and the lack of female teachers for girls, among other issues.
  • Many principals and teachers said they only received the new instructions from the ministry after students had already arrived for classes Wednesday.
  • The move came a little more than a week before a pledging conference where the United Nations had hoped donor countries would commit millions of dollars in badly needed aid, as Afghanistan grapples with an economic collapse that has left over half of the population without sufficient food to eat. It is unclear whether donors will be willing to contribute following the Taliban’s abrupt reversal on the key commitment of girl’s education.
  • The Taliban on Wednesday abruptly reversed their decision to allow girls’ high schools to reopen this week, saying that they would remain closed until officials draw up a plan for them to reopen in accordance with Islamic law.
  • When schools reopened in September for grades seven through 12, Taliban officials told only male students to report for their studies, saying that girls would be allowed to return after security improved and enough female teachers could be found to keep classes fully segregated by sex.
  • Later, Taliban officials insisted that Afghan girls and women would be able to go back to school in March, and many Western officials seized on that promise as a deadline that would have repercussions for the Taliban’s efforts to eventually secure international recognition and the lifting of at least some sanctions.
  • “I’m deeply troubled by multiple reports that the Taliban are not allowing girls above grade 6 to return to school,” tweeted Ian McCary, the chief of mission for U.S. Embassy Kabul, currently operating out of Doha, Qatar. “This is very disappointing & contradicts many Taliban assurances & statements.”
  • At one girls’ private high school in Kabul, more female students had arrived for classes Wednesday morning compared to previous years, the school’s principal said in an interview.
  • “They came to my office, crying,” said the principal,
  • The decision “doesn’t make sense at all, and it has no logic,” the principal added, noting that the new government has had over seven months to design a new uniform and address the teacher shortage.
  • Since seizing power, the Taliban have been reckoning with the need for consistent policies while struggling to tread a delicate line that satisfies their more moderate members, their hard-line base and the international community.
  • The sudden reversal on the girls’ secondary schools seemed to validate existing concerns among Western donors that, despite assurances, they are dealing with much the same Taliban as the 1990s.
  • “The Taliban have been solidifying their position and becoming hard-line on a lot of issues,” Mr. Bahiss said.
  • In recent months, the new government has issued restrictions on local media and cracked down on peaceful protests. Taliban officials have also issued new restrictions on women, including a ban on traveling farther than 45 miles in a taxi unless they are accompanied by a male chaperone.
  • “You can’t exercise your other rights if you can’t leave your house to attend your job or attend education classes,” Ms. Barr said. “It’s a really alarming sign of what may be to come, it’s likely to herald further crackdowns on women.”
julia rhodes

Karzai Arranged Secret Contacts With the Taliban - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...contacts-with-the-taliban.html

US history politics crisis policy taliban obama afghanistan karzai

shared by julia rhodes on 04 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has been engaged in secret contacts with the Taliban about reaching a peace agreement without the involvement of his American and Western allies, further corroding already strained relations with the United States.
  • The secret contacts appear to help explain a string of actions by Mr. Karzai that seem intended to antagonize his American backers, Western and Afghan officials said.
  • The clandestine contacts with the Taliban have borne little fruit, according to people who have been told about them. But they have helped undermine the remaining confidence between the United States and Mr. Karzai, making the already messy endgame of the Afghan conflict even more volatile.
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  • Mr. Karzai seemed to jump at what he believed was a chance to achieve what the Americans were unwilling or unable to do, and reach a deal to end the conflict — a belief that few in his camp shared.
  • Afghan officials have struggled in recent years to find genuine Taliban representatives, and have flitted among a variety of current and former insurgent leaders, most of whom had only tenuous connections to Mullah Omar and his inner circle, American and Afghan officials have said.
  • . The continued presence of American troops after 2014, not to mention billions of dollars in aid, depended on the president’s signature. But Mr. Karzai repeatedly balked, perplexing Americans and many Afghans alike.
  • And it is not clear whether the Taliban ever intended to seriously pursue negotiations, or were simply trying to derail the security agreement by distracting Mr. Karzai and leading him on, as many of the officials said they suspected.
  • But other Afghan and Western officials said that the contacts had fizzled, and that whatever the Taliban may have intended at the outset, they no longer had any intention of negotiating with the Afghan government. They said that top Afghan officials had met with influential Taliban leaders in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in recent weeks, and were told that any prospects of a peace deal were now gone.
  • The diplomats repeatedly found themselves incurring the wrath of Mr. Karzai, who saw the effort as an attempt to circumvent him; he tried behind the scenes to undercut it.
  • American forces are turning over their combat role to Afghan forces and preparing to leave Afghanistan this year, and the campaigning for the Afghan national election in April has begun. An orderly transition of power in an Afghanistan that can contain the insurgency on its own would be the culmination of everything that the United States has tried to achieve in the country.
  • Mr. Karzai has been increasingly concerned with his legacy, officials say. When discussing the impasse with the Americans, he has repeatedly alluded to his country’s troubled history as a lesson in dealing with foreign powers. He recently likened the security agreement to the Treaty of Gandamak, a one-sided 1879 agreement that ceded frontier lands to the British administration in India and gave it tacit control over Afghan foreign policy. He has publicly assailed American policies as the behavior of a “colonial power,” though diplomats and military officials say he has been more cordial in private.
  • In some respects, Mr. Karzai’s outbursts have been an effort to speak to Afghans who want him to take a hard line against the Americans, including many ethnic Pashtuns, who make up nearly all of the Taliban. With the American-led coalition on its way out and American influence waning, Mr. Karzai is more concerned with bridging the chasms of Afghan domestic politics than with his foreign allies’ interests.
  • Mr. Karzai has insisted that he will not sign the agreement unless the Americans help bring the Taliban to the table for peace talks. Some diplomats worry that making such a demand allows the Taliban to dictate the terms of America’s long-term presence in Afghanistan. Others question Mr. Karzai’s logic: Why would the insurgency agree to talks if doing so would ensure the presence of the foreign troops it is determined to expel?
anonymous

Taliban officials 'in talks with Afghan government', US says - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-asia-44313474

taliban politics US crisis

shared by anonymous on 31 May 18 - No Cached
  • The Taliban have held secret meetings with Afghan officials to discuss a ceasefire, the US military says.
  • However, the Taliban rejected the claims, saying the group did not "want to waste time in the name of talks" with the Afghan government "in the presence of the occupying forces".Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has previously proposed negotiations with the Taliban, saying they could be recognised as a political party if they accepted a ceasefire and recognised the country's constitution.
  • The Taliban have shown an openness to talks in the past, suggesting that, in addition to the armed struggle, negotiations were a "legitimate" way of achieving their main objective: an end to what they call the "occupation by foreign forces".
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  • On the other hand, the US insists that the Taliban must talk to the Afghan government. US officials say that the war in Afghanistan is primarily between the two Afghan sides, and that the US cannot substitute for direct negotiations between the ruling government in Kabul and the Taliban.
  • It is estimated that about 15 million people - half the population - are living in areas that are either controlled by the Taliban or where the Taliban are openly present and regularly mount attacks.
  • The hardline Islamic Taliban movement swept to power in Afghanistan in 1996 after the civil war that followed the Soviet-Afghan war, and were ousted by the US-led invasion five years later.
  • In 2016, Afghan civilian casualties hit a new high - a rise attributed by the UN largely to the Taliban.
annabelteague02

Taliban Peace Deal: U.S. Signs Agreement With Islamist Group In Afghanistan : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...-decades-of-war-in-afghanistan

taliban peace deal u s agreement afghanistan

shared by annabelteague02 on 29 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • The drawdown process will begin with the U.S. reducing its troop levels to 8,600 in the first 135 days and pulling its forces from five bases.
    • annabelteague02
      annabelteague02 on 29 Feb 20
       
      i do hope this leads to peace, and i am not edcuated on the history of this issue, but from what I have heard the Taliban are very dangerous and radical, and pulling back from them might be a good idea, but it is a scary thought
  • The Afghan government also will release up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners as a gesture of goodwill, in exchange for 1,000 Afghan security forces held by the Taliban.
    • annabelteague02
      annabelteague02 on 29 Feb 20
       
      what is the taliban doing in return?
  • The Afghan government will also begin negotiations with the Taliban to map out a political settlement which would establish the role the Taliban would play in a future Afghanistan. These negotiations are expected to start next month. One of the first tasks in these intra-Afghan talks will be to achieve a lasting ceasefire in Afghanistan.
    • annabelteague02
      annabelteague02 on 29 Feb 20
       
      this seems like a constructive way to find peace, but i feel like the taliban is not giving anything up in this agreement, while the U.S. and the Afghan government are.
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  • President Trump walked away from those talks after a U.S. service member was killed in a September car bombing in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
  • The Taliban's rule in Afghanistan, which lasted just five years, ended abruptly with the invasion of a U.S.-led military coalition shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Their overthrow was a reprisal for having harbored Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaida, whose militants hijacked and crashed four American airliners in those attacks.
    • annabelteague02
      annabelteague02 on 29 Feb 20
       
      I did not know this before reading this article! It shows how little I really know about politics and foreign affairs.
  • Trump added 4,000 U.S. troops to the 8,900 American forces already deployed there.
    • annabelteague02
      annabelteague02 on 29 Feb 20
       
      that is undeniably making America's involvement in the war in Afghanistan stronger, as opposed to ending it
  • A commitment by the Taliban to end support for U.S.-deemed "terrorist organizations"
    • annabelteague02
      annabelteague02 on 29 Feb 20
       
      this is good! i wonder how they will do this, though
maddieireland334

Taliban Say They Won't Attend Peace Talks, but Officials Aren't Convinced - The New Yor... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...officials-arent-convinced.html

Taliban policy peace talks Pakistan US international

shared by maddieireland334 on 06 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • he Taliban said on Saturday that they would not participate in international peace talks, citing what they claimed were increased American airstrikes and Afghan government military operations.
  • The talks, convened by the United States, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan, were expected to start this month in Pakistan.
  • Afghan and Pakistani government officials said the talks would continue despite the Taliban statement, but pushed the start date back to sometime later this month.
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  • In a statement posted on the insurgents’ website, the Taliban denied that a representative would attend the talks.
  • Previous talks have taken place without Taliban representatives present, but Afghan and Pakistani officials had expressed confidence that direct talks between the Afghan government and the militants would resume in March, and they maintained that position on Saturday.
  • The official said the Pakistan military leader, Gen. Raheel Sharif, who visited Kabul last week, had assured Afghan leaders that talks would go ahead.
  • Direct talks began last summer in Pakistan, but quickly fell apart after Afghan officials concerned about the authority of the insurgent delegation leaked word that the Taliban’s longtime leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, had been dead for two years.
  • The leader who took over, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, had been known to favor participation in the negotiations. Since Mullah Mansour took power, the group has been riven by dissension over the leadership change, and fighting off challenges in some areas from insurgents allied with the Islamic State group.
  • The request does not seem to have gone over well with Taliban leaders, who have insisted that their political office in Qatar is the only address for peace talks.
  • While there are no confirmed reports that the United States has increased troop levels in Afghanistan — there are now about 10,000 American service members in the country — the United States military is carrying out airstrikes in support of Afghan government operations and secret American Special Operations missions.
  • Pakistan has leverage over the Taliban because the group enjoys sanctuary in Pakistani territory, and many of its fighters receive medical treatment there.
anonymous

Al-Qaeda still 'heavily embedded' within Taliban in Afghanistan, UN official warns - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-asia-54711452

world taliban afghanistan al-qaeda terrorism

shared by anonymous on 29 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • Al-Qaeda is still "heavily embedded" within the Taliban in Afghanistan, in spite of a historic US-Taliban agreement earlier this year, a senior United Nations official has told the BBC.
  • withdrawing all American forces from the country by next summer if the Taliban ensured groups including al-Qaeda were not able to use Afghan territory to plot international attacks.
  • the two groups would remain allies.
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  • the Taliban promised al-Qaeda
  • a good deal of military action and training action with the Taliban
  • Al-Qaeda's strength and ability to strike the West has significantly diminished
  • its leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is believed to still be based in Afghanistan along with a number of other senior figures in the group.
  • al-Qaeda remained "resilient" and "dangerous"
  • they aim only to implement an "Islamic government" within Afghanistan, and will not pose a threat to any other country.
  • US withdrawal plans were no longer "condition based" but "agenda based", suggesting President Trump's overriding priority is to end America's longest-ever war.
  • President Trump has made clear his desire to bring US troops home as soon as possible
  • Rahmatullah Andar, a former Taliban commander and now spokesman for the Afghan government's National Security Council, warned of the threat of a resurgence from al-Qaeda and other global militant groups.
  • Al-Qaeda members swear allegiance to the Emir, or leader, of the Taliban.
  • Taliban hardliners thought to oppose any measures cutting their links with al-Qaeda.
  • There are fears that if US troops are withdrawn next year, before an agreement has been reached, the violence could intensify and the Taliban push for a military victory.
redavistinnell

Taliban widen offensive as Nato special forces join fight for Kunduz | World news | The... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...an-army-fails-to-retake-kunduz

taliban nato special forces the guardian news

shared by redavistinnell on 30 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • Taliban widen offensive as Nato special forces join fight for Kunduz
  • Nato special forces officially flown in to “advise and assist” Afghan commandos and ordinary troops joined combat in the early hours of the morning, spokesman Col Brian Tribus told Reuters news agency.
  • Kunduz is the first major city in Afghanistan to come under Taliban control since 2001.
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  • If the airport falls, the Taliban will control all access to the city, making any operation to claim it back much more challenging.
  • According to local people, Taliban fighters are walking the streets freely inside Kunduz assuring people they do not intend to harm civilians, in an apparent attempt to win local support.
  • The UN estimated that at least 100 civilians had already been killed in the fighting, and that up to 6,000 civilians had fled.
  • The fall of Kunduz is a powerful propaganda victory for the Taliban, a demonstration of unity and strength under Mansoor, after the group was roiled by news that founding leader Mullah Omar had been dead for several years.
  • Barack Obama is aiming for a withdrawal to a troop size small enough to be housed at the US embassy in Kabul by the end of 2016, but critics in Washington insist that is premature.
  • The top US commander in Afghanistan, Gen John Campbell, has previously advised against the planned withdrawal of American troops, arguing that it would put the country’s security forces at risk of losing more ground.
  • “Everybody knew this was a threat, but nobody took it seriously,” Ali said. “Kunduz fell into the hands of the Taliban because of lack of political leadership, and lack of military leadership in responding to the crisis.”
anonymous

Taliban conflict: Afghan fears rise as US ends its longest war - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-asia-54600781

foreignpolicy afghanistan military taliban

shared by anonymous on 20 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • The Taliban are advancing while peace talks stall.
  • At this hour, as America edges closer to ending its longest war, it seemed fitting that a visiting delegation of senior American and Afghan military officers should pause at this spot to acknowledge a 32-year-old CIA officer - the first US casualty in the war to topple the Taliban in 2001.
  • The Taliban, now at their greatest strength since 2001, are advancing and attacking in districts across Afghanistan - despite a deal signed with the US in February which seemed to promise a respite to a nation exhausted by war and increasingly worried it will only get worse.
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  • Under the terms of the February agreement, signed after more than a year of arduous negotiations in the Gulf state of Qatar, the last of 4,500 American troops, and 6,100 other Nato forces, are expected to leave by May of next year.
  • the agreement says that is contingent on the Taliban meeting their commitments
  • They want to to ensure Afghanistan does not become a haven to mastermind strikes like the 11 September 2001 attacks
  • "Those are political decisions," Gen Miller tactfully replied to a question on whether the early May timeline in the deal was still a credible target.
  • "We make military recommendations. And I'll leave that for policy guidance and a view on how the peace process is going."
  • We're doing everything we can to give peace with the Taliban a chance,
  • But peace and war go together and we are also preparing for other scenarios.
  • Afghan security forces including special forces inflicting defeat and casualties in some battles; losing ground in others; and gratitude for continuing US air support which has made the difference, time and again, in denying Taliban fighters the prize of a provincial capital.
  • Civil war 'very likely'
  • In a stark warning that the threat of civil war was "very likely", he emphasised that the entire leadership of the government was now doing "all we can to mitigate it".
  • US airpower, one of the most powerful weapons in its Afghan arsenal, turned the tide again this month
  • Yes, the American help was critical in Helmand,
  • The US's blistering aerial attacks in Helmand provoked furious Taliban accusations that the Americans were violating the terms of their deal.
  • "One hundred percent, Taliban are here," he shouted, his voice rising in alarm. "They are here, amongst us."
criscimagnael

The Taliban Have Staffing Issues. They Are Looking for Help in Pakistan. - The New York... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...taliban-members.html

shared by criscimagnael on 13 Jan 22 - No Cached
  • Then, after Kabul fell to the Taliban last August, Khyal Mohammad Ghayoor received a call from a stranger who identified himself only by the dual honorifics, Hajji Sahib, which roughly translates to a distinguished man who has made a pilgrimage to Mecca. The man told Mr. Ghayoor he was needed back in Afghanistan, not as a baker but as a police chief.
  • “I am very excited to be back in a free and liberated Afghanistan,” he said.
  • A similar mass exodus of Afghanistan’s professional class occurred in the 1980s and 1990s, when the Soviets withdrew and the Taliban wrested control from the warlords who filled the leadership vacuum.
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  • To help fill the gaps, Taliban officials are reaching into Pakistan.
  • Now, the Taliban are privately recruiting them to return and work in the new government.
  • It is unclear how many former fighters have returned from Pakistan, but there have already been several high-profile appointments, including Mr. Ghayoor.
  • The new hires are walking into a mounting catastrophe. Hunger is rampant. Many teachers and other public sector employees have not been paid in months. The millions of dollars in aid that helped prop up the previous government have vanished, billions in state assets are frozen and economic sanctions have led to a near collapse of the country’s banking system.
  • “Running insurgency and state are two different things,” said Noor Khan, 40, an accountant who fled Kabul for Islamabad in early September, among hundreds of other Afghan professionals hoping for asylum in Europe.
  • Five months after their takeover of Afghanistan, the Taliban are grappling with the challenges of governance. Leaders promised to retain civil servants and prioritize ethnic diversity for top government roles, but instead have filled positions at all management levels with soldiers and theologians. Other government employees have fled or refused to work, leaving widespread vacancies in the fragile state.
  • Mr. Ghayoor, the baker turned police chief, said that Kabul changed markedly in the two decades that he was away. As part of his duties, he tries to instill order at a busy produce market in Kabul as vendors tout fruit and vegetables, and taxi drivers call out stops, looking for fares.
  • Sirajuddin Haqqani, head of the militant Haqqani network and labeled a terrorist by the F.B.I., was appointed acting minister of the interior, overseeing police, intelligence and other security forces.
  • “They have no experience to run the departments,” said Basir Jan, a company employee. “They sit in the offices with guns and abuse the employees in the departments by calling them ‘corrupt’ and ‘facilitators of the invaders.’”
  • Taliban leaders blame the United States for the collapsing economy. But some analysts say that even if the United States unfreezes Afghanistan’s state assets and lifts sanctions, the Finance Ministry does not have the technical know-how to revive the country’s broken banking system.
  • “Their response to the catastrophic economic situation is ‘It’s not our fault, the internationals are holding the money back.’ But the reality is that they don’t have the capacity for this kind of day-to-day technical operation,”
  • Foreigners intentionally evacuated Afghans, most importantly, the educated and professional ones, to weaken the Islamic Emirates and undermine our administration,” Mr. Hashimi said.
  • “We are in touch with some Afghans in different parts of the world and are encouraging them to return to Afghanistan because we desperately need their help and expertise to help their people and government,”
  • Then as now, the Taliban preferred filling the government ranks with jihadis and loyalists. But this time, some civil servants have also stopped showing up for work, several of them said in interviews, either because they are not being paid, or because they do not want to taint their pending asylum cases in the United States or Europe by working for the Taliban.
  • Mr. Ghayoor said in December that neither he nor any other member of the Kabul police force had been paid in months. Nevertheless, he said he decided to sell his bakery in Quetta, a city in southwestern Pakistan, and move his extended family, including nine children, to Kabul.
sarahbalick

Afghan Taliban announce successor to Mullah Mansour - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-asia-36375975

taliban successor

shared by sarahbalick on 25 May 16 - No Cached
  • Afghan Taliban announce successor to Mullah Mansour
  • The Afghan Taliban have announced a new leader to replace Mullah Akhtar Mansour who was killed in a US drone strike.
  • Analysts say it is unlikely the group will change direction under hardline religious scholar Akhundzada.
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  • Last year the Taliban were plunged into turmoil when Mansour replaced the group's founder Mullah Mohammad Omar.
  • It doesn't look as if there will be a major shift in the Taliban's approach to peace talks under the new leadership. Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada was deputy to Mullah Mansour and held senior positions under the movement's founder Mullah Omar.
  • A Taliban statement said the new appointment had been unanimous, the same word the Taliban used when Mullah Mansour took over. Splits soon emerged after that - this time there could still be some disagreements, but probably not enough to challenge the new leader's authority.
  • Hibatullah Akhundzada has been appointed as the new leader of the Islamic Emirate (Taliban) after a unanimous agreement in the shura (supreme council), and all the members of shura pledged allegiance to him,"
  • "We invite Mula Hibatullah to peace. Political settlement is the only option for the Taliban or new leadership will face the fate of Mansour," Javid Faisal tweeted.
  • Separately on Wednesday, 10 people were killed and four injured in a suicide attack that hit a bus carrying court employees in Kabul, government officials told the BBC.
johnsonma23

New Taliban leaders may mean more attacks on US targets | MSNBC - 0 views

www.msnbc.com/...y-mean-more-attacks-us-targets

taliban attacks US Crisis

shared by johnsonma23 on 27 May 16 - No Cached
  • New Taliban leaders may mean more attacks on US targets
  • The U.S. drone strike that killed the Taliban’s leader has also set up a potential leadership struggle between two of the terror group’s up-and-comers — and may signal more attacks on Western targets.
  • When the Taliban issued a statement Wednesday confirming that its top man, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, was killed in a recent U.S. strike, it also announced a new leadership team.
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  • aqoob is believed to be in his early to mid-twenties, but is the son of perhaps the Taliban’s most important leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, who disappeared several years ago. The Taliban confirmed Omar’s death last summer.
  • The U.S. official told NBC News that intelligence agencies are now gathering more information about how the new team might change the already complicated dynamics in the region
  • The Taliban, which has its roots in northern Pakistan, controlled Afghanistan from 1996 until the U.S. invasion in 2001. It continues to operate in large chunks of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to launch deadly attacks on both civilian and military targets.
  • The U.S. State Department has listed Haqqani as a “specially designated global terrorist” who was instrumental in introducing suicide bombing to Afghanistan and for maintaining close ties with al Qaeda.
  • The U.S. official told NBC News that authorities are keenly interested in seeing if the new Taliban team, especially with Haqqani in a more visible position, signals an increasing focus on attacks against Western interests in Afghanistan and possibly elsewhere.
  • The U.S. government has offered a $5 million bounty for Haqqani, saying he is wanted for questioning in connection with a January 2008 attack on a Kabul hotel that killed an American citizen and five other people.
  • The Russian government also views Haqqani as a significant threat, with a top Russian diplomat saying before Wednesday’s announcement that there would be “hell to pay” if he had been picked as the new Taliban leader.
rachelramirez

The Taliban's Cruel New Leader - The Daily Beast - 0 views

www.thedailybeast.com/...aliban-s-cruel-new-leader.html

taliban politics US Pakistan

shared by rachelramirez on 02 Jun 16 - No Cached
  • The Taliban’s Cruel New Leader
  • Afghan Taliban leaders have long enjoyed safe haven in Pakistan, especially in Baluchistan, under the watchful eye of the some elements in the country’s intelligence services.
  • As Bruce Riedel of Brookings wrote in The Daily Beast on Sunday, the hit on Mansour was a clear message to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (the ISI) that the days of the Baluchistan refuge may be coming to an end. 
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  • But a senior Taliban figure tells The Daily Beast that while Omar was in charge, Akhondzada did not have much seniority and was not on anyone’s list as a potential leader. His rise toward the top of the Taliban hierarchy only came after the announcement of Omar’s death and Mullah Mansour’s succession last year.
  • Within Taliban circles Mullah Haibatullah Akhondzada has the reputation of being very conservative, even by Taliban standards. Some claim he is sadistic with underlings and has little idea about or interest in politics as such
clairemann

Opinion | The U.S. Must Work With the Taliban in Afghanistan - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...afghanistan-taliban-us.html

afghanistan Biden crisis sanctions

shared by clairemann on 14 Jan 22 - No Cached
  • When the United States withdrew from Afghanistan last summer, it was left with a critical choice: allow the collapse of a state that had mostly been kept afloat by foreign aid or work with the Taliban, its former foes who were in power, to prevent that outcome.
  • The United States should swallow the bitter pill of working with the Taliban-led government in order to prevent a failed state in Afghanistan. Kneecapping the government through sanctions and frozen aid won’t change the fact that the Taliban are now in charge, but it will ensure that ordinary public services collapse, the economy decays and Afghans’ livelihoods shrink even further.
  • Their cash-based economy is starved of currency, hunger and malnutrition are growing, civil servants are largely unpaid, and essential services are in tatters.
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  • That playbook is how Washington typically tries to punish objectionable regimes. But the result has been catastrophic for civilians.
  • Isolation was fast and easy to do: It cost no money or political capital and satisfied the imperative of expressing disapproval.
  • Funding for emergency aid delivered by the United Nations and humanitarian organizations has grown, with Washington providing the largest share, nearly $474 million in 2021. The U.S. government also has gradually broadened humanitarian carve-outs from its sanctions and has taken the lead in getting the Security Council to issue exemptions from U.N. sanctions, making it easier for those delivering aid to carry out their work without legal risk.
  • But these steps are insufficient.
  • The United States should draw a distinction between the Taliban as former insurgents and the state they now control.
  • It will help curb growing migration from the country and rising illicit narcotics production by Afghans desperate for income. It could also produce at least limited opportunity for getting the Taliban to cooperate with the United States to suppress terrorist threats from the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan and other groups.
  • And appearing to turn a blind eye to the Taliban’s past and current human rights violations is deeply unappealing.
  • But I’ve seen over the past two decades how Western powers have consistently overestimated their ability to get Afghan authorities — whoever they are — to acquiesce to their demands. Governments that were utterly dependent on U.S. security and financial support brushed off pressure to adopt Washington’s preferred peacemaking, war-fighting and anti-corruption strategies.
  • The Taliban are never going to have a policy on women’s rights that accords with Western values. They show no signs of embracing even limited forms of democratic governance.
  • But the alternative is worse, foremost for the Afghans who have no choice but to live under Taliban rule and who need livelihoods.
zachcutler

Taliban Say They Won't Attend Peace Talks, but Officials Aren't Convinced - The New Yor... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...officials-arent-convinced.html

taliban peace talks US crisis

shared by zachcutler on 06 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban said on Saturday that they would not participate in international peace talks, citing what they claimed were increased American airstrikes and Afghan government military operations.
  • In a statement posted on the insurgents’ website, the Taliban denied that a representative would attend the talks. “We reject all such rumors and unequivocally state that the esteemed leader of Islamic Emirate has not authorized anyone to participate in this meeting,” read the statement, posted in English.
  • The official said the Pakistan military leader, Gen. Raheel Sharif, who visited Kabul last week, had assured Afghan leaders that talks would go ahead.
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  • The Afghan government has given Pakistan a list of specific insurgents with whom it hopes to negotiate, the Afghan official said. Hoping to achieve some immediate reduction in violence, Mr. Ghani’s government wants to engage commanders in the field, as well as political leaders abroad who have direct influence over the level of fighting.
  • While there are no confirmed reports that the United States has increased troop levels in Afghanistan — there are now about 10,000 American service members in the country
  • A spokesman for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, Mohammad Nafees Zakaria, said the four countries sponsoring the talks had recommended that there should be no preconditions. “All four countries are making efforts to bring the Taliban groups to the negotiation table,” he said.
redavistinnell

Afghan Taliban kill dozens at Kandahar airport - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-asia-35043938

afghan taliban airport

shared by redavistinnell on 10 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Dozens of people have been killed in a Taliban attack on a heavily fortified civilian and military airfield in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
  • At least 37 people, including many children,
  • The Taliban briefly seized the northern city of Kunduz in September.
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  • were killed in the clashes, along with at least nine militants, the defence ministry said.
  • Correspondents say the attack is a huge security failure because the attackers were able to smuggle weapons into an area supposed to have been made secure by the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).
  • Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani, speaking at the conference, called on Pakistan to help restart stalled peace talks with the Taliban.
  • Witnesses reported that some of the militants took families hostage and used them as human shields. They said they could hear Afghan soldiers calling on the fighters to let the women and children go.
  • Separately, the Taliban claimed to have captured Khanashin district in southern Helmand province. A local official confirmed the district had fallen.
  • Militant violence has increased across Afghanistan since the departure of most Nato and US forces last year.
  • The statement by the Taliban claimed that they had killed up to 80 soldiers. This figure could not be verified.
  • Afghan Taliban kill dozens at Kandahar airport
  • The attack continued until one gunman who had out on his own for several hours was killed late on Wednesday.
rerobinson03

C.I.A. Scrambles for New Approach in Afghanistan - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...cia-afghanistan-pakistan.html

shared by rerobinson03 on 07 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • The C.I.A., which has been at the heart of the 20-year American presence in Afghanistan, will soon lose bases in the country from where it has run combat missions and drone strikes while closely monitoring the Taliban and other groups such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. The agency’s analysts are warning of the ever-growing risks of a Taliban takeover.
  • Any deal now would have to work around the uncomfortable reality that Pakistan’s government has long supported the Taliban. In discussions between American and Pakistani officials, the Pakistanis have demanded a variety of restrictions in exchange for the use of a base in the country, and they have effectively required that they sign off on any targets that either the C.I.A. or the military would want to hit inside Afghanistan, according to three Americans familiar with the discussions.
  • Recent C.I.A. and military intelligence reports on Afghanistan have been increasingly pessimistic. They have highlighted gains by the Taliban and other militant groups in the south and east, and warned that Kabul could fall to the Taliban within years and return to becoming a safe haven for militants bent on striking the West, according to several people familiar with the assessments.As a result, U.S. officials see the need for a long-term intelligence-gathering presence — in addition to military and C.I.A. counterterrorism operations — in Afghanistan long after the deadline that Mr. Biden has set for troops to leave the country. But the scramble for bases illustrates how U.S. officials still lack a long-term plan to address security in a country where they have spent trillions of dollars and lost more than 2,400 troops over nearly two decades.
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  • The C.I.A. used the Shamsi air base in western Pakistan to carry out hundreds of drone strikes during a surge that began in 2008 and lasted during the early years of the Obama administration. The strikes focused primarily on suspected Qaeda operatives in Pakistan’s mountainous tribal areas, but they also crossed the border into Afghanistan.
  • Pakistan is a longtime patron of the Taliban; it sees the group as a critical proxy force in Afghanistan against other groups that have ties to India. Pakistan’s spy agency provided weapons and training for Taliban fighters for years, as well as protection for the group’s leaders. The government in Islamabad is unlikely to sign off on any U.S. strikes against the Taliban that are launched from a base in Pakistan.
  • Two decades of war in Afghanistan have helped transform the spy agency into a paramilitary organization: It carries out hundreds of drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan, trains Afghan commando units and maintains a large presence of C.I.A.
  • Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke this month with his counterpart in Tajikistan, though it is not clear if base access was discussed during the call. Any negotiations with those countries are likely to take considerable time to work out. A State Department spokeswoman would say only that Mr. Blinken was engaging partner countries on how the United States was reorganizing its counterterrorism capabilities.
clairemann

Taliban say bombers target minivan in Afghanistan, 7 dead - ABC News - 0 views

abcnews.go.com/...ivan-afghanistan-dead-82416238

crisis afghanistan politics

shared by clairemann on 22 Jan 22 - No Cached
  • A bomb attached to a packed minivan has exploded in Afghanistan’s western Herat province, killing at least seven civilians and wounding nine others
  • No one immediately claimed responsibility for the explosion, but the Islamic State has claimed credit for similar attacks on civilians and the country’s new Taliban leaders elsewhere in the country since the group seized power on Aug. 15.
  • Since their return to power, the Taliban have imposed widespread restrictions, many of them directed at women.
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  • A Taliban intelligence official in western Herat told the Associated Press that the bomb was attached to the van’s fuel tank. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn’t authorized to release the information to the public.
  • The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on Saturday called on the Taliban to find two women rights activists — Tamana Zaryab Paryani and Parawana Ibrahimkhel — who disappeared on Wednesday from Kabul.
  • The women rights activist posted a video on social media shortly before they were taken away, showing them frightened, breathless and screaming for help. She said that Taliban were banging on her door.
  • Paryani was among about 25 women who took part in an anti-Taliban protest last weekend against the compulsory Islamic headscarf, or hijab, for women.
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