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How Islamic State Infiltrated Kabul University

By Ezzatullah Mehrdad

Expanding its reach, the Islamic State has aimed recruitment efforts at Afghan universities.

In September 2018, Ghulam Abas, coach of Maiwand wrestling club in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood of Kabul, was training athletes when an Islamic State suicide bomber opened fire on the guard. As he rushed to open the emergency door, the bomb denoted in the club, which was packed with athletes. Abas lost his left arm but survived; 20 of his young trainees were killed and 70 others wounded.

In July 2019, Afghanistan’s spy agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), arrested four suspects on charges of designing the attack on the wrestling club. The suspects were not from Afghanistan’s rural areas — they were lecturers and students at the country’s largest university: Kabul University.

“We do not expect students of Kabul University to target our club,” said Abas. “Students of Kabul University are expected to build a bright future for the country and run the country tomorrow.”

Amid raging insurgency in the country, people pin their hope on the partially U.S.-funded Kabul University to educate a liberal and open-minded generation. But the newly emerged Islamic State (IS) in Afghanistan has infiltrated the country’s oldest university to recruit fighters from among students, an issue that rings alarm bells about the expansion of the Islamic State amid a possible peace deal between the United States and the Taliban.

The Islamic State, or Daesh, has recruited “many students” from Kabul University and sent them to its stronghold in eastern Nangarhar province for training, said one of the students who was arrested in a recorded confession released by NDS.

The NDS arrested Mubasher Muslimyar, an Islamic law lecturer at Kabul University, two Kabul University graduates, and one relative of Muslimyar in July. Earlier, the spy agency had detained Zaher Dai and Maroof Rasikh, two Islamic law lecturers at Kabul University, on charge of recruiting students for the Islamic State.

Ahmad Tariq, one of the detained students, confessed to NDS investigators that Muslimyar initially attempted to convert students to Salafism, a fundamentalist branch of Sunni Islam, before encouraging them to join Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), the Afghanistan-based branch of the terrorist group.

The spy agency blamed Tariq and Ahmad Farouq, two university graduates, for attacks on Maiwand Wrestling club, a bus carrying government employees and Hamid Karzai International Airport in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

“Many of the divided and unhappy Taliban commanders left the Taliban group following division over the group leadership after Mullah Omar, emir of the group, died in 2013,” said Khadem Hussain Karimi, author of a book about the Islamic State and Afghanistan’s Shiites. The “Pakistan army pushed extremist groups out of its soil” and together they formed ISKP in 2014.

The United States and the Afghan government were unable to eliminate affiliates of ISKP and its suicide bombers carried out deadly attacks across the country. ISKP still controls a swath of eastern and northeastern Afghanistan and the group is expanding its footprint.

“The first priority of [ISKP] was of course establishing a sufficiently solid presence in pockets of Khorasan, on which to start building a more sophisticated structure and from where to spread,” wrote Antonio Giustozzi in his book The Islamic State in Khorasan. The group was “a largely alien entity that needs to somehow disembark and gradually establish roots and organize itself.”

To expand its reach, the Islamic State targeted Afghan universities across the country, including Kabul University as well as Nangarhar University in eastern Afghanistan. The academic institutions proved to be vulnerable for exploitation by the Islamic State.

Ramin Kamangar, a researcher based in Kabul, said that historically many extremist groups had deep roots in Afghan society. The academic curriculum was designed in such a way that every group could manipulate academic textbooks, including Sharia law textbooks, which are mandatory courses for every faculty across the country.

“The textbooks of Islamic law are not academic,” Kamangar said. “They present that Islam is the best religion and speak in the form of ideological black and white.”

Kamangar conducted research about religious radicalization in Afghanistan’s higher education system with the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies. The research found that half of 373 students surveyed at three major Afghan universities — Kabul University, Herat University, and Nangarhar University — supported an Islamic Emirate or Caliphate as political system.

About 20 percent of the students were opposed to secularism or living alongside religious groups other than their own. Three-quarters of the students supported the idea of proselytizing Islam globally.

Kamangar believes that the educational system does not encourage critical thinking and failed to produce graduates who were able to think and understand their surroundings independently — and therefore, they were vulnerable to recruitment by extremist groups, particularly the Islamic State.

Graffiti written on the wall of Kabul University reads “Long Live Daesh (Islamic State).” Photo courtesy of social media.

While the U.S.-Taliban peace talks make progress and U.S. President Donald Trump impatiently waits for an exit from Afghanistan, the Islamic State enjoys space to recruit Afghan youths to wage a new episode of war in the country and in the region.

In the eighth round of U.S. negotiations with the Taliban group in Doha, Qatar, U.S. special envoy Khalilzad said that the two sides made “excellent progress” over a deal with the Taliban. Their teams are reportedly working on details and implementation of the deal.

The Islamic State threatens to complicate any peace deal. ISKP “also had a strategic aim of ultimately replacing the Taliban, TTP [Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan] and other insurgent groups in Khorasan, establishing its own monopoly as it has been trying to do in Syria and Iraq,” wrote Guistozzi. He quoted an Islamic State fighter as saying: “If Taliban made peace with the Kabul government, maybe a lot of Taliban would join us.”

Razaq Modaber, a 23-year old, who graduated from Kabul University last year, says Islamist extremist groups have the upper hand everywhere, including Kabul University. The Islamic State, particularly, could have rooted deeply among students.

“One year ago, they [the suspects detained by NDS] were students of economy faculty of Kabul University,” said Modaber. “It is hard to trust my classmates and other students.”

One of many students who was recruited by the Islamic State was 23-year-old Mohammad Rafi. In 2015, Wali Mohammad Darwazi, father of Rafi, searched for his son after Rafi vanished with several former classmates from Kabul University.

Darwazi was able to connect by phone with one of his son’s classmates, who was in Syria, fighting for the Islamic State. “Rafi has been martyred,” he told Darwazi, saying that Rafi and other Afghans had been killed in a U.S. coalition airstrike near Baiji, Iraq, in May 2015.

According to Rafi’s relatives, the computer science student and soccer lover enrolled in an Islamic culture course at Kabul University and began to grow more religious. Rafi attended mosques in two upscale neighborhoods of Kabul and grew a beard. His parents believed that some Islamic lecturers at Kabul University identified Rafi as a potential recruit and radicalized him in sessions after classes or after mosque prayers.

“He was influenced by Afghans who studied in Arab countries,” Darwazi told the Washington Post in 2015. “They misused his innocence.”

Naya Kashmir: It’s not a new idea | Opinion

Srinath Raghavan

Like Modi, Indira Gandhi, too, wanted to alter the status quo in the state almost 50 years ago.

After his government voided Article 370, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that “a new age has begun in Jammu-Kashmir and Ladakh”. In fact, the quest for a new beginning is not all that novel in the history of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).

Indira Gandhi, too, wanted to alter the status quo in Kashmir.

In explaining its decision to abolish the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, the Modi government has emphasised the developmental and political benefits that are expected to flow from these arrangements. These moves have indeed wrought a radical change in the constitutional relationship between the Indian Union and the erstwhile state of J&K. As we ponder how these arrangements will work out, it may be useful to look back to Indira Gandhi’s attempt at a new beginning.

“We will build a new Kashmir, quickly if you help, slowly if you don’t, but build it we will!” Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had said while addressing a public rally in Srinagar in June 1970. Indeed, important changes were already underway.

Then J&K chief minister, GM Sadiq, had been in office since 1964. A year into his tenure, he had merged his splinter group, the Democratic National Conference, with the Congress. What’s more, Sadiq had enabled the erosion of the state’s special status by accepting more provisions of the Indian Constitution (including Article 356, which caters for President’s rule) and amending the state’s constitution to convert the elected Sadr-e-Riyasat into a governor appointed by the central government. Following assembly elections in 1967, Sadiq returned with a comfortable majority. New Delhi was poised to tighten its grip over the state.

Yet the government struggled to create jobs or promote investments in Kashmir. Sadiq noted that the educated young people of the state were increasingly drawn to the secessionist groups. Indira Gandhi deputed her confidante, IK Gujral, to mobilise investments in the state. But Gujral reported that industries were not prepared to invest in a conflict zone and the best he could do was to get two public sector units to open factories in the state.

The central challenge, however, was posed by the stalwart leader of Kashmiris: Sheikh Abdullah. Although Abdullah had been in and out of prison since his dismissal and arrest in 1953, his standing in the Kashmir Valley was unrivalled. Indira Gandhi understood the importance of co-opting Abdullah to ensure that New Delhi’s hold over Kashmir remained 

Among the inputs that shaped her thinking was advice from an unlikely quarter. Jayaprakash Narayan had been an advocate of self-determination for Kashmir, but had changed his mind after Pakistan’s aggression in 1965. The following year he wrote to Indira Gandhi arguing that Kashmiris could be enthused about autonomy within India if Abdullah advocated it. The Sheikh might have flirted with independence in the past, but now “he is realist enough to realise” that India would not part with any portion of Kashmir. To secure Kashmir, it was imperative to forge a new concord with Abdullah, who remained under arrest.

In October 1967, Gandhi tasked foreign secretary, TN Kaul, with reaching out to Abdullah in his “private” capacity. Kaul had known Abdullah for nearly four decades. In a series of meetings with the Sheikh, he probed the latter’s mind. Abdullah said that the “gradual whittling of Article 370 … was unfortunate”, but agreed that India’s interests should “not be harmed in any way”. At the same time, he noted that it was difficult to make the case for autonomy: “no fruitful dialogue was possible unless a free and congenial atmosphere was created in Kashmir …[Kashmiris] were not prepared to accept this master-slave relationship.”

When Kaul pointed out that New Delhi would not parley with anyone demanding self-determination, Abdullah retorted, “It was very strange … that while Government of India had no hesitation in talking to Nagas who were in open armed revolt against her they should refuse to meet the real representatives of the Kashmiri people.” In the event, Abdullah was open to meeting the prime minister when he was out of prison.

Abdullah was released in March 1968, but Indira Gandhi chose not to meet him. She evidently hoped that the Sheikh would reconcile himself to the new realities in Kashmir. She was not off the mark. In 1971, she returned to power with a massive majority and the next year, following the military defeat of Pakistan, the Congress won 57 out of the 74 seats in the J&K assembly elections. With Sadiq’s passing in December 1971, Syed Mir Qasim took over as chief minister. These dramatic developments left Abdullah with few cards to play.

Meanwhile, PN Haksar, the prime minister’s principal secretary, advised her that “it is imperative to make a fresh start and lead him [Abdullah] by hand on the difficult and tortuous road whose ultimate destination is reconciliation”.

Haksar also advocated a quiet dialogue between New Delhi and Abdullah to work out a model of autonomy acceptable to both sides. The ensuing negotiations between G Parthasarathi and MA Beg led to an agreement in November 1974. The accord paved the way for Abdullah’s return to power, but at the cost of further hollowing out the autonomy of J&K.

In February 1975, Abdullah took over as chief minister with the support of the Congress. To Abdullah’s surprise and consternation, these developments drew widespread criticism in the Valley. Thereafter, he sought to maintain a prudent distance from the Congress. When the latter suggested that the National Conference should merge with the Congress, Abdullah demurred. He also refused to take any suggestions from the Congress on the composition of his cabinet beyond agreeing to give them four berths. Lastly, Abdullah dug in his heels on seat sharing with the Congress in local body elections. By October 1976, an irate Indira Gandhi was telling Gujral that Abdullah had become “a pain in the neck”. Indeed, she was seriously contemplating removing him from office.

It was Indira Gandhi who was ousted from power in March 1977. The Congress withdrew its support to Abdullah’s government in J&K. Released from these ties, the Sheikh won a handsome victory in the assembly elections. When Indira Gandhi returned to power in 1980, she had to make yet another new start in Kashmir — this time with more deleterious consequences.

The attempts during the Indira Gandhi years to create a new normal suggest that there are limits to the plasticity of politics in Kashmir. The challenge of fostering new leaders who cleave to New Delhi’s vision may be greater today. To be sure, the context now is very different. Yet we would do well to recall JP’s advice in his missive to Indira Gandhi:

“To think that we will eventually wear down the people and force them to accept at least passively the Union is to delude ourselves. That might conceivably have happened had Kashmir not been geographically located where it is. In its present location and with seething discontent among the people, it would never be left in peace by Pakistan … With the issue settled to the satisfaction of the great majority of the people, the external mischief-makers would not find a favourable soil for sowing their mischief.”

https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/naya-kashmir-not-a-new-idea/story-USoLbmAt2x9dXlBuasbGgI.html

International community should take notice of Indian violations across LoC: Bilawal Bhutto

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Thursday urged the international community to take notice of unprovoked firing across Line of Control (LoC) by the Indian troops, ARY News reported.

The PPP leader in a statement has condemned the unprovoked Indian firing along the Line of Control (LoC) and prayed for higher ranks in Jannah for the soldiers who embraced martyrdom due to Indian firing.

“The martyred soldiers are real heroes of Pakistan,” he added.

Prime Minister Imran Khan also condemned the unprovoked Indian firing along the Line of Control (LoC).

Earlier in the day, three Pakistani soldiers embraced martyrdom as Indian forces resorted to unprovoked firing across the Line of Control (LoC).

https://arynews.tv/en/bilawal-bhutto-international-community-loc-violations/

'Silenced': Pakistan's journalists decry new era of censorship

By Asad Hashim

Journalists tell Al Jazeera coverage of opposition leaders and civil society dissenters 'banned' by government and army.

Former Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari grins like a Cheshire cat - looking a little worse for wear three weeks after he was arrested on corruption charges - as he begins an hour-long interview with journalist Hamid Mir.

A few minutes in, Mir, the country's most-watched television news show host, asked Zardari about his belief that charges against him are politically motivated but transmission was interrupted by a commercial break, a bowl of frozen chicken meatballs exploding onto the screen.

The rest of the interview never aired.

Days later, three television news channels - Abbtak News, 24 News and Capital TV - saw their transmissions abruptly suspended, shortly after covering a press conference by opposition politician Maryam Nawaz.

Maryam, daughter of former three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who was controversially removed from power in 2017 and is serving a jail sentence for corruption, alleged in the press conference that she had evidence the judge who jailed her father had done so under pressure.

Less than a week later, a live interview with Maryam Nawaz on Hum News was "stopped forcefully" a few minutes into transmission, according to Nadeem Malik, the journalist who conducted it.

A sustained campaign

These were the latest incidents in what journalists in Pakistan described to Al Jazeera as a sustained campaign of censorship that has targeted news organisations across the board, banning coverage of opposition politicians - and dissent more generally - under the aegis of Prime Minister Imran Khan's government and the country's powerful military.

"Not [the media regulator], not the information ministry, not the information minister, no one has to date told us why the Asif Zardari interview was taken off the air," said Mir, who was informed days later that he would no longer be allowed to conduct his show live.

Transmission of Geo News, his employer, remains disrupted across the country.

An anchor delivers the news at Geo News television, whose distribution was disrupted across the country [Asad Hashim/Al Jazeera]

Pakistan has had a chequered history with press censorship, military rulers and politicians alike imposing strict rules on what could be reported, often citing national security.

Pakistan's information ministry denied any involvement in press censorship to Al Jazeera.
 "We do not have any instrument, law or anything else by way of which we could apply pressure to anyone," said ministry spokesperson Tahir Khushnood.

In response to Al Jazeera's questions, Pakistan's military spokesperson said the "[media regulator] undertakes such regulatory measures as per law".

"ISPR [the military's press wing] interacts with news media as official mouthpiece of military to share military's perspective on various security issues," said Major General Asif Ghafoor.

The media regulator, Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), offered no comment to Al Jazeera.

Journalists say this time the censorship is worse than in the past because it is not imposed through formalised regulations.

"Earlier, we knew who was angry with us, who was pressuring us, and who was imposing censorship on us," said Mir. "Now, they are so brave that we can't tell who is doing it, no one is owning it and everything is happening."

'We need to shut this down'

Speaking at the Washington-based United States Institute of Peace in late July, PM Khan, also the chief of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party which swept into power in a controversial 2018 general election, denied accusations of curbing press freedom.

"The Pakistani media, in my opinion, is even freer than the British media," he said, advocating for greater internal media regulation. "The media in Pakistan is not just free, but sometimes out of control."

Days later, media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) termed that claim "an obscenity" in an open letter to Khan, documenting a series of attacks on press freedom perpetrated during Khan's tenure, including legal cases against journalists, suspension of news channels and fatal attacks on reporters. 

"These brazen cases of censorship, which seriously threaten journalistic independence and pluralism, are characteristic of non-democratic regimes," said RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire in the letter.

RSF's press freedom index for 2019 ranked Pakistan at 142, down from 139 last year.

Now they don't threaten your life, they threaten the organisation's life.

PAKISTANI JOURNALIST

Pakistani journalists told Al Jazeera the red lines on what they can and cannot report are now clear.

"The unspoken rule that certain people, personalities or parties are not to get any coverage is sacrosanct," said a senior journalist working for a television news channel, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

He narrated how, last month, he was ordered to stop coverage of Maryam Nawaz addressing a political rally in the western city of Quetta.

"[They] said we need to shut this down, delete it and remove it [off the website and social media]."

The journalist documented further cases where he was either ordered to cease coverage or remove reports deemed critical of the state or the military from digital platforms.

"You can't tweet something critical and survive. You can't speak the truth about what's happening or what happened - if you speak the truth, trust me, I think you're going to vanish [off-air]."

Amber Shamsi, a television news show host, echoed that sentiment, saying that where censorship used to affect only certain kinds of dissent, its scope is now much broader.

"It has spread to mainstream politics, it's not just people on the fringe. It's mainstream politicians, obviously opposition," she told Al Jazeera. "There is no consequence for it, so it has become worse."

Shamsi said that since the interrupted interviews in early July, there was an unannounced ban on any media channels interviewing prominent opposition politicians such as Maryam Nawaz and Zardari and that it was "completely off-limits" to cover such politicians live on television.

"With Maryam Nawaz, you can no longer run clips on your shows, interviews are out of the question."

Information ministry spokesperson Khushnood denied there was a ban on covering opposition politicians, despite a federal cabinet order in early July asking the media regulator to stop coverage of leaders accused of corruption.

The media in Pakistan is not just free, but sometimes out of control.

PRIME MINISTER IMRAN KHAN

Managers at news organisations said the punishment for non-compliance with the unwritten rules can be immediate and dire.

"If there is a programme that the establishment or the PTI government don't like, they won't call the journalist, they will call the managers, or they'll just shut down the channel," said one Karachi-based senior television journalist, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

"The mechanism used [for censorship] is to shut down the channel or stop the newspaper's distribution. Then when we go to them to find out what is happening, that is when demands are made."

Several journalists told Al Jazeera censorship requests were communicated to groups of editors, managers and media owners by the military's press wing through WhatsApp messages.

"They have a one-window operation, usually a WhatsApp group," said one Karachi-based senior television producer. "A tweet or a screenshot will be shared on that group [by a military officer]. And a question mark."

Other journalists confirmed the existence of such WhatsApp groups.

"In [the 1990s], there were post-it notes, now there are WhatsApp requests," said a journalist. "Please play this, this or this, or please push this, this or this, requested by ISPR [the military press wing]."

Asked what the penalties for non-compliance were, the journalist laughed. "Besides going off-air, magically? Besides that?"

Chilling effects of censorship

The crackdown on dissent by the government and military includes arrests and intimidation that go beyond the media, rights groups and political leaders say, with the media unable to cover those events critically.

Muhammad Ismail, a retired professor and development consultant, sits in his modest two-storey home in the suburbs of the Pakistani capital Islamabad, wondering when armed men would raid his house next.

Ismail's daughter, Gulalai Ismail, 33, is a prominent feminist and activist in the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), an ethnic Pashtun rights group that has been campaigning since 2018 for the military to be held accountable for alleged rights violations committed in its war against the Taliban in the country's northwest.

In late May, after several unsuccessful raids on her home to arrest her on sedition charges, Gulalai went into hiding. Days later, unidentified men once again raided the house, her father said, this time taking away their driver, Nadeem-ur-Rehman, and allegedly torturing him with drugs and electric shocks for information on her whereabouts.

"The whole world, as well as Pakistan, says she is an icon for women's rights and peace," he said. "But now when she points out things … that they disapprove of, and suddenly she is a traitor, her parents are traitors."

When Gulalai fled home, Ismail said he argued with her, warning her to stop her activism because he could not protect her against the military.

"She gave me a very stern answer: 'If I don't […] raise my voice, and I just take money from NGOs, then that means it is another kind of prostitution. This is not human rights activism, it is prostitution. And I cannot bargain on women's rights'," he recalls her saying as she left.

Ghafoor, the military spokesperson, denied any raids were carried out, saying Gulalai Ismail was "at large, presumably to evade trial by the court of law".

Asked if the news media could cover Gulalai Ismail's case, the answer from journalists was clear.

"No, we cannot cover Gulalai's case," said Shamsi, the television journalist. "The few times I have mentioned [jailed PTM leaders] Mohsin Dawar and Ali Wazir on air, I found myself stuttering."

Whither journalism?

For many journalists, with the stakes so high, much of the censorship has now been internalised, not requiring intervention from the authorities.

"[Journalists] know no new instructions are coming in from the editor, they know the news editor is not stopping them … from writing certain things, but the overall atmosphere that has been created through intimidation and other methods, it is having a psychological impact and it is affecting our journalism," said Zaffar Abbas, editor-in-chief at Dawn, the country's leading English language newspaper.

Abbas said that because the censorship is unofficial and undocumented, it is more insidious.

"To deprive the reader of that information and to give an impression that everything that is being printed is the whole truth is far more dishonest than living in an era where there is complete censorship, and you can [openly] say 'I'm sorry but I am unable to publish this.'"

Right now, it is just about survival. We will see about journalism later.

MEDIA EXECUTIVE

One journalist said the existential threat to television news organisations posed by shutting down transmission was paralysing.

"The problem is initially, as journalists, you take risks, thinking that there is a threat to your own life," he said. "Now, they don't threaten your life, they threaten the organisation's life. So on your head are all 3,000 employees and everything."

"We currently don't plan for years ahead, we're planning for weeks ahead," said a senior media executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity fearing reprisals against his news organisation.

Others warned that, in the current era, it was becoming impossible to conduct real journalism.

"I don't know what journalism is any more," said Shamsi.

"It used to be very easy. This is a story, this is how you treat it, and you're done. Now we're worried about who we're upsetting and what that means for us and the people we work for and the people who work with us."

The media executive put it simply: "Right now, it is just about survival. We will see about journalism later."

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/pakistan-journalists-decry-era-censorship-190813064754381.html