https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/pakistan-red-mosque-taliban/2021/09/24/e6d0c0ec-1b50-11ec-bea8-308ea134594f_story.html
Saturday, September 25, 2021
Radical leader of Pakistan’s Red Mosque emboldened by Taliban takeover of Afghanistan
Friday, September 24, 2021
#PAKISTAN - Global Community Can't Turn Blind Eye to Human Rights Violations Under the Taliban
Mohammad Taqi@mazdaki.
That Taliban 2.0 is a reformed version of its earlier avatar is a myth, as the experience of the past one month has shown that it is a hardline regime both ideologically and politically.It took just over a month for the Taliban to draw a damning indictment from international human rights groups over its systemic dismantling of rights and liberties that the Afghans had gained over the past two decades. In their joint report published on September 21, 2021, Amnesty International (AI), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) have documented the jihadist terror machine’s rampant atrocities and the sweeping “crackdown since their seizure of Kabul little more than five weeks ago”. Both Afghans and longtime Afghanistan observers never had any illusions about the Taliban being a band of treacherous and vicious thugs and its Emirate 2.0 merely a revival of its Emirate 1.0 that was one of the most ruthless regimes of the 1990s. But timely documentation of the Taliban brutalities by independent rights organisations was imperative, to put on notice, both the jihadist regime, as well as the governments and groups that have insisted on calling it a changed entity. Despite being much more media-savvy this time around and professing to be reformed, the Taliban has not actually made any tangible effort to be seen as ‘reformed’. On the contrary, after usurping power it has catered to its rank and file that remains ideologically anchored in austere Islamism and its coercive enforcement. In fact, it seems that the jihadist enterprise has been trying to make a statement both at the policy and practice levels that it has ushered in an era of austere Islamist rule. For days, the Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid and other surrogates parroted that the new government would be a hama-shamool – an all-inclusive one. But the announced interim cabinet and its first expansion showed that it included all men and only the Taliban. And over a dozen of them are designated terrorists or former Guantanamo detainees. While a few non-Pashtun Taliban have been included in the cabinet, it is heavily packed with Pashtuns, especially those from Pakistan’s most trusted proxy, the Haqqani Network (HQN). The HQN’s current leader and the Taliban’s deputy emir, Sirajuddin Haqqani, became the interior minister and a dozen-odd alumni of Pakistan’s Haqqania Madrassa received assorted other portfolios. Mullah Ghani Baradar, a relative political pragmatist who has been the political face of the Taliban and its chief negotiator for the past several years, was demoted to deputy prime minister and left Kabul after being roughed up in a palace brawl by the HQN’s Khalil Haqqani and his men. An ill-tempered, religious hardliner Mullah Hassan Akhund was chosen the prime minister, as a compromise. The Taliban’s emir Haibatullah Akhundzada, who has not been seen or heard from in years, was pronounced the Supreme Leader and has ostensibly called for the implementation of sharia. The messaging is clear: it will be a hardline regime, both ideologically and politically. As the Taliban’s chief political patron, Pakistan is bent on ensuring that the regime remains under its total control. That Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate chief Lt General Faiz Hameed arrived in Kabul for a victory lap, days before the Taliban announced the caretaker setup, merely consolidated the impression. The Taliban for its part had no qualms celebrating its victory by parading its suicide bombers along with their suicide vests and vehicle-borne explosive devices. The propaganda event boastfully titled Fa’teh Zua’k – the Victorious Force – to glorify suicide bombers in particular, was aired on Afghanistan’s state television. The narrator described the use of suicide attacks and devices as the core skill of the Taliban’s military campaign. The Taliban has banned women presenters from appearing on the same state television, since the day it seized power! It was not a one-off event. The Taliban has put its Badri 313 Brigade or Command – housed in a kindergarten building – in charge of security in Kabul, especially the airport. The contingent, now equipped with US-made gear and weaponry, is drawn from a pool of suicide bombers, who had been trained for special operations and the so-called complex or spectacular terrorist attacks such as the ones that targeted the US and Indian diplomatic missions in Kabul. The Taliban has deployed two suicide attack units in Badakhshan and Kunduz, ostensibly against the remnants of resistance there. The Badri 313, which has been under the HQN’s wing, gets its name from the seventh-century Battle of Badr, in which 313 Muslim fighters under Prophet Muhammad are said to have defeated a much larger Meccan pagan army. The name is a carry-over from al-Qaeda proper’s military wing, 313 Brigade, which was founded in Camp al-Badr, outside Peshawar, Pakistan. According to al-Qaeda’s primary sources, the HQN’s founder Jalaluddin Haqqani had collaborated with al-Qaeda’s founders to get military training going for the so-called Afghan Arab jihadist, and had served as one of the earliest hosts to Osama bin Laden. The relationship between the HQN and al-Qaeda remains alive and well. According to the UN reports, Sirajuddin Haqqani remains prominent in al-Qaeda’s senior leadership. Not only did al-Qaeda participate in the Taliban’s August offensive, especially in the country’s north, but also celebrated the victory in a comprehensive statement. Delusional United States The US intelligence community has already warned that al-Qaeda fighters are returning to Afghanistan and could threaten mainland US in one-two years. But the Joe Biden administration continued to proclaim through the secretary of state Anthony Blinken that al Qaeda has been severely degraded. Be that as it may, the situation for Afghans is much more dire and urgent. And it was deeply disconcerting to hear Blinken’s testimony to the US Senate and Congress last week. While lawmaker after lawmaker excoriated Blinken for Biden’s blood-soaked blunder in Afghanistan, he was shockingly obstinate in defending those disastrous policies. Blinken simply could not bring himself to say that the Taliban must be held to account for the atrocities it has committed in just one month of grabbing power, let alone the past two decades. He kept repeating by rote the line that the Biden administration would judge the Taliban by its actions and not its words, as if its most recent brutalities are not actions taking place in the here and now but something ethereal that he can’t fathom. It almost seemed that Blinken was setting the stage for recognising the Taliban government and avoided giving a hard commitment to Congress.US Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing examining the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, September 14, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein.The Biden administration’s tack appears rather straightforward. After having cut and run from Afghanistan, it wants to believe and have the public believe that al Qaeda and its Taliban allies are no longer a threat, and that ISIS-K is the more evil enterprise there and so long as the Emirate 2.0 partners with the US to target the local Da’eshis, it can get a free pass. Blinken also indicated that while reevaluating the US relationship with Pakistan in the context of the latter’s past behaviour, the Biden administration is looking at what it would need that country to do in the future. In other words, the Biden administration would seek some manner of overflight facility from Pakistan to launch the so-called over-the-horizon counterterrorism (CT) missions into Afghanistan, ostensibly to attack the ISIS-K. All in all, this game plan has disaster writ large. The parting US shot that pulverised an innocent Afghan family should have been a sentinel event calling for introspection in the Biden administration, but it clearly didn’t. The drone strike that murdered the Afghan family showed the limits of over-the-horizon CT efforts, including reliance on the Taliban for intelligence-sharing and Pakistan for overflight. This literally would mean more misery for the Afghan civilians as well as the US becoming beholden to the Taliban in addition to its patrons in Pakistan. It is in the context of the Biden administration’s pusillanimous reticence over the Taliban’s atrocities and the Taliban’s patrons going into overdrive to humanise the monster that the AI, FIDH, and OMCT’s joint briefing becomes all the more important. When governments try to shove the Taliban’s heinous acts under the rug of geopolitical expediency, rights defenders have to call the perpetrators out as well as call upon the bystanders to break their criminal silence and do their part. This timely joint briefing chronicles in detail the Taliban repression, reprisal and retributions against the Afghan population in general, and women in particular. An unmistakable footprint of violence In a little over a month, the Taliban has crushed dissent, fired upon and then banned protests. It has tortured journalists covering peaceful protests and forced media houses into self-censorship or overt restraint. Attacks on human rights defenders have become a norm. The regime has evicted and displaced civilians from their homesteads. The Taliban has practically banned girls’ education at secondary level and higher, prohibited women’s sports, forbidden female workers from their government jobs, induced women-owned businesses to shut down or female staff to stay off work. The regime has abolished the ministry for women and replaced it with the ministry for promoting virtue and curbing vice, a euphemism for its moral police. Despite the Taliban’s proclamations about a general amnesty for all, including those associated with the collapsed state, it has targeted and killed former government officials, servicemen and women, and anyone it deemed to be a “collaborator”. The consolidated report from the international human rights groups goes a long way to highlight the infinite human cost of the new phase in the 40-year-old Afghanistan conflict. It calls upon the Taliban and its regional locutors to abide by their word. The groups call upon the UN and the international community to facilitate and accommodate the Afghan refugees and migrants, especially the women. The report, released incidentally, on the eve of the Taliban asking to address the UN and eying Afghanistan’s seat there, rightly calls for the “international community must not turn a blind eye to the violations being committed by the Taliban. Taking concrete action at the UN Human Rights Council will not only send the message that impunity will not be tolerated but also contribute to preventing violations on a broader scale.” At a time when the Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid had the audacity to say that his regime would respect human rights only after it is recognised internationally as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, it was important to remind the world of the crass irony in this demand.In addition to putting the Taliban on the spot by documenting its viciousness, the rights groups’ briefing also shows how tenuous its tyrannical regime is. The Taliban, in all its brutal might and regional backing, is darned scared of the Afghan women coming out to protest its brutal rule. These brave women, out only in dozens not droves, are still doing the unthinkable. They have forced the Taliban regime to show both its true colours and its vile hand. When an austere, dark and dreary regime is foisted upon a people, the mere acts of smiling, wearing makeup and colourful clothes, and marching out in twos and tens are acts of high resistance. By trying to quell these nascent protests, the Taliban continues to prove the incompatibility of its medieval Islamist creed with both the current Afghan society and its historical values. The Taliban order is unjust and untenable; it could last a while, but its tyranny will not endure. https://thewire.in/south-asia/global-community-human-rights-violations-taliban-afghanistan
Pakistani News Crew Detained by Taliban for Over 10 Days
Murtaza Zehri
Late last month, Muhammad Iqbal Mengal traveled from Pakistan to Afghanistan to report on the Taliban takeover. But just a few days after arriving in Kabul, the journalist and his colleague were detained.
Members of the Taliban held Mengal and photojournalist Shehzad Ahmed for more than 10 days. The pair, who work for the Pakistani broadcaster 92 News, were released after the Pakistan embassy and journalism organizations intervened.
In an interview with VOA’s Urdu Service, Mengal described how Taliban fighters tied him and Ahmed up, before blindfolding and questioning them.
“They kept asking if we are spies and where did we come from?” Mengal said.
The journalists, who are based in the Khuzdar district of Balochistan in Pakistan, arrived in the Afghan border area of Spin Boldak on August 18—three days after the Taliban took control of the country’s capital.
“I wanted to cover the ground realities. I wanted the world to know what’s happening on the ground in Afghanistan and speak to [local] people,” Mengal said.
He and Ahmed reported from Kandahar and Herat before heading to Kabul.
On August 28, the journalists were reporting on the aftermath of the suicide bombing at Kabul airport. But when they tried to visit the emergency room of a city hospital, members of the Taliban blocked them.
“They said, we can't enter the hospital or cover the outside scenes because upper leadership doesn't allow it,” he said.
The journalists left the hospital but Mengal said they got lost and so approached a Taliban checkpoint for help.
Mengal said the Taliban fighters asked the journalists to come to a nearby office. But, he said, “They found us suspicious and took our mobile phones away. They started to search us and found Pakistani ID cards on us which made them more suspicious.”
After that, the journalists had their hands tied, were blindfolded and taken away for investigation.
At least 14 journalists have been detained briefly by the Taliban since August 15, according to media watchdog the Committee to Protect Journalists. Some of those detained said they were beaten.
The arrests have cast doubt on Taliban promises that media will be allowed to operate freely, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator Steven Butler said in a statement.
“We urge the Taliban to live up to those earlier promises, to stop beating and detaining reporters doing their job, and allow the media to work freely without fear of reprisal,” Butler said.
A Taliban spokesperson has said the beatings will be investigated.
Many of the arrests took place as media covered protests by women calling for their rights to be protected.
The spokesperson for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has also called on Taliban to allow Afghans to exercise their rights.
In a September 10 statement, the spokesperson called on the group “to immediately cease the use of force toward, and the arbitrary detention of, those exercising their right to peaceful assembly and the journalists covering the protests.”
Mengal and Ahmed of 92 News were finally released on September 9 without charge.
“Our [news] channel, friends, and family even the embassy in Kabul and journalist organizations, all came together to help us and that's how we got rescued,” Mengal said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/pakistani-news-crew-detained-by-taliban-for-over-10-days/6244262.html
#Pakistan #PPP - US Charge d'affaires, British HC meet Bilawal Bhutto
Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Friday met United States (US) Charge d’affaires Angela Aggeler and British High Commissioner Christian Turner at Zardari House in Islamabad.
Both the diplomates held separate meetings with Bilawal Bhutto and discussed regional issues, especially the situation in Afghanistan.
Both the diplomats also briefed the PPP chairman on their upcoming visit to Sindh.
The US Charge d’affaires told Bilawal that she wants to visit Sindh soon. The PPP chairman welcomed her and expressed hope that the visit would be memorable with the hospitality of the PPP.Meanwhile, the British High Commissioner also briefed the PPP chairman about his upcoming visit. Bilawal Bhutto welcomed the visit of Christian Turner to Sindh.
Turner also discussed the changing situation in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Chinese Ambassador Nong Rong also called on PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. During the meeting, long and lasting Pak-China friendship was discussed.
Bilawal and the Chinese Ambassador also discussed the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the situation in Afghanistan.
https://dunyanews.tv/en/Pakistan/621254-US-Charge-d-affaires-British-HC-meet-Bilawal-Bhutto
Thursday, September 23, 2021
#Pakistan Amnesty for TTP
How has COVID impacted Pakistan's education system?
Pakistan's schools have been heavily hit by the pandemic. Students have experienced several school closures, and experts speculate that such a loss could have impacts for years to come.
Last week, Pakistan opened both public and private schools in various districts of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, with Sindh province opening its schools in August.
Schools are now operating with a 50% attendance policy on alternating days due to the COVID regulations set forth by the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC). Vaccinations were also made mandatory for all staff and students over the age of 15.
Schools in Pakistan were closed for around seven months during the first COVID wave. However, they reopened in September 2020 and were closed again in November.
The government announced another phased opening of educational institutions in January of this year. However, this reopening was also short-lived, as schools closed again in April 2021 due to the third wave.
"The school year for 2021-22 has been extended to June 2022. Final examinations will be conducted in June 2022" Murad Raas, Punjab's Education Minister, tweeted last week.
Officials have introduced digital learning to compensate for the repeated closures. Recently, the minister of education also decided to promote some students who had failed by awarding them 33% concessional marks.
However, the effectiveness of these measures remains in doubt.
Millions of students lose out In a country already scarred by stark differences in the quality of education between public and private schools, as well as low literacy rates, the pandemic has affected the learning of approximately 40 million students across Pakistan. The World Bank has claimed that "even the most optimistic scenario suggests an overall loss of learning for every child enrolled." According to a study by UNICEF, students learned significantly less from home, compared with classroom learning before the pandemic. Their learning was harmed by a lack of access to technology, network connectivity issues and low levels of motivation. "Keeping the children interested and motivated in online classes is the biggest challenge, as children do not have any interest in them and their screen time is increased," Alia Malik, a mother of three, told DW. Arranging separate places and gadgets for all the children in the house presented a further challenge. g While talking to DW about the contrast between online and face-to-face learning, Shahram Ahmad, a private university student, said: "It's the same difference as between a call and meeting someone in person. It's a lot easier to understand difficult concepts when an instructor can use all tools at their disposal." Muhammad Qadeer, a secondary school teacher, told DW that since students are passing through a critical stage of their mental and biological development, the lack of regular coaching and extracurricular activities will have a huge impact on their learning. "This generation will always be remembered as the COVID generation," he said. 'A matter of privilege' As reported by UNICEF, remote learning was not possible for 23% of young children due to a lack of access to digital devices. The pandemic has hit poor and disadvantaged families the hardest, as they are unable to purchase even a single device. Geographical barriers have also had an impact. Around 26% of urban youth had no access to technology whereas, in the countryside, that figure rose to 36%. Remote learning is also challenging for children with disabilities and girls. "I did really well in my in-person classes but during lockdown, I had some domestic duties that couldn't be ignored. This severely affected my performance in university and my GPA hit rock-bottom," said Wyena Qureshi, a private university student. Students also had to drop out due to financial losses during the pandemic. Pakistan's economy was hit hard by the pandemic. Back in 2020, the World Bank predicted 930,000 children would drop out of primary and secondary education. "Pakistan is globally the country where we expect the highest [number of] dropouts due to the COVID crisis," the bank said. Two sides of the same coin? "It's been a challenging experience for all of us but we have also learned to function and stay connected from a distance," Yasmeen Hameed, an educator, told DW. "New learning techniques were adapted and gradually children have become familiar with them,” she said. Pakistan’s teleschool program for students in Punjab initially had a high number of viewers due to the support of stakeholders and a phase-by-phase rollout. However, the market research firm, IPSOS, found that usage decreased after six months. Zulfiqar Samin, deputy secretary for policy at the Ministry of Federal Education, told DW that the ministry has tried to overcome challenges with education through the digital programs. "We tried to reach all radio and TV channels that we possibly could and kept the language of communication as Urdu at the federal level to overcome any linguistic barriers. Parents have also cooperated very well with us," he said. He also stressed that developed countries like China, the United States, and Germany have also been affected similarly. He added that, while the government of Pakistan is pushing its vaccination campaign until the majority of people get vaccinated, they remain at risk. https://www.dw.com/en/how-has-covid-impacted-pakistans-education-system/a-59264829
Wednesday, September 22, 2021
This Is for All the Girls Who Grew Up Thinking Abortion Meant Death or Jail
By Melissa Ayala
#Pakistan - Appeasing terrorists
Zahid Hussain
FIRST, it was the president and then the foreign minister who appeared ready to offer amnesty to the terrorist group which has been responsible for the killing of thousands of people. Curiously, the statements came as the outlawed TTP intensified its attacks on the security forces. Casualties have included scores of soldiers over the past few months in clashes with the increasingly emboldened militants operating from their sanctuaries across the border.
In a recent interview to Dawn News, President Arif Alvi said that the government could consider granting amnesty to the militants who lay down their arms. A few days later, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi made a similar offer in an interview to a British newspaper.Interestingly, these assertions from the country’s top political leadership followed a declaration by the National Action Plan apex committee to step up efforts to deal with the rising terrorist threat. One wonders how amnesty for the militants can help deal with the emerging national security challenges. The policy of appeasement has not worked in the past and it certainly will not work now.Such statements are more puzzling as there is no indication that the militants are willing to renounce violence. According to some media reports, a TTP spokesman has rejected the government’s peace offer and vowed to continue with the group’s battle against the Pakistani state. The amnesty move is certainly seen as a sign of weakness and adds to the confusion in our counterterrorism policy.
The policy of appeasement has not worked in the past and it certainly will not work now.
The TTP has been revitalised in the past few months. Some 4,000 to 5,000 Pakistani militants are reportedly operating from across the Durand Line. Most of them had fled to Afghanistan after the Pakistani military operations in North and South Waziristan. The outfit disintegrated because of internal fighting. Some of them had joined the Middle East-based Islamic State that has been active in eastern Afghanistan. The split had affected the capability of the group to launch high-profile attacks in Pakistan. But early this year, various TTP splinter groups reunited. Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban reportedly played an important role in getting the group together.
Pakistani intelligence agencies had long suspected that the group had been closely linked with the former Afghan intelligence agency and India’s RAW. After regrouping, the TTP stepped up its activities in North and South Waziristan targeting Pakistani security forces. There have also been reports of the TTP reviving its organisation in the region. Many recent terrorist attacks in different parts of the country lead to the TTP. In fact, the group has been linked to the bomb attack on the bus carrying Chinese workers involved in the Dasu hydropower project that killed many of them.
It’s not surprising that the TTP’s revival has coincided with the Afghan Taliban gaining ground next door. The two groups may have different priorities but their objectives are more or less same. Most of the TTP commanders had also been fighting along with the Afghan Taliban against the foreign forces. On its formation in 2007, the TTP had declared its allegiance to the late Mullah Omar, the founder and supreme leader of the Afghan Taliban movement. Some senior security officials agree that they are the two sides of the same coin.
That umbilical cord has never been severed despite Pakistan’s efforts to delink the two. In eastern Afghanistan, Abdul Qayum Zakir, a top Afghan Taliban commander in the region and an important member of the group’s leadership council, is said to have facilitated the TTP sanctuaries. The return of Taliban rule in Afghanistan seems to have revitalised the TTP.Scores of TTP militants have been freed from the jails after the Taliban swept major Afghan cities. Among them is Fakir Muhammad, who once headed the TTP in the former Fata agency of Bajaur. He had fled to the Afghan province of Kunar after the military operation. The former Afghan government had arrested him a few years ago. He was given VVIP treatment after his release. Pictures of him being driven in a SUV went viral on social media.
An emboldened TTP has recently issued a warning to the Pakistani media to refrain from calling it a terrorist outfit. The group seems to be closely monitoring publications in the country. It is not for the first time that the TTP has threatened journalists. The group has killed many journalists in the past. The latest threat to the media must not be taken lightly given the group’s past actions.
In such a situation, the president’s peace offer to the outfit is incomprehensible. Moreover, it’s not clear whether it’s the president’s own wish or if he is enunciating the government’s new approach in dealing with the terrorist group. In either case, such statements are highly damaging for a country facing multiple security challenges.
Given the PTI’s soft spot for the militant group, such statements from the top government leadership may not come as a surprise to many. Imran Khan in the past as opposition leader had called for allowing the TTP to open its offices. The suggestion had come at the height of terrorist attacks carried out by the banned outfit.
One wonders if the latest amnesty offer is a manifestation of the same viewpoint. For any such move, the government must come out with a clear policy to be debated in parliament. It’s a very serious issue concerning our national security. The consequences of pardoning hardcore terrorists responsible for the death of thousands of Pakistanis could be disastrous. The country has paid a huge cost for the peace deals that the state has made with militant groups in the past.
The new Taliban regime in Afghanistan has repeatedly assured Pakistan and the international community that it will not allow its country’s soil to be used for terrorist action against any state. Pakistan’ military spokesman this week said that there is no reason to doubt the assurances held out by the Taliban regime. Yet there is no indication that the Taliban authorities would be willing to take action against the TTP sanctuaries in Afghanistan. A Taliban spokesman has reportedly advised the Pakistan government to make peace with the militants. This is certainly not very assuring for Pakistan.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1647735/appeasing-terrorists
Regional Extremists ‘Energized’ by Taliban’s Takeover Could Pose Threat to Pakistan, China Interests, Expert Says
By Roshan Noorzai & Guofu Yang
China and Pakistan expect the Taliban to fulfill pledges to crack down on foreign extremist groups in Afghanistan, but experts say these groups have already been "energized" by the Taliban’s takeover, posing new challenges for Pakistani and Chinese interests.
Last week, during the 20th Shanghai Cooperation Conference summit, President Xi Jinping of China and Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan both called on the international community to engage with the Taliban and called on the Taliban to fulfill their pledges to clamp down on terrorist groups.The Taliban have said that they will not allow any group to use Afghan soil against any country, without laying out specifics. Some experts say the group’s swift takeover of Kabul has already emboldened extremist groups in the region and regional countries should expect more insecurity, not less.“There is no evidence that the Taliban will clamp down on these groups,” said Aqil Shah, professor of South Asian Studies at the University of Oklahoma and non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, adding that the problem with the Taliban is that “they say one thing and they do quite the opposite.”
Shah said the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan leading up to the capture of Kabul was “a morale booster” for the terrorist groups, particularly those based in Afghanistan.
There are approximately 8,000 to 10,000 “foreign terrorist fighters” in Afghanistan, including people from “Central Asia, the north Caucasus region of the Russian Federation, Pakistan and the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of China” according to a U.N. report released in June 2021.
A July 2020 U.N. report stated 6,000 to 6,500 of the foreign fighters in Afghanistan are from Pakistan, and majority of these militants are affiliated with Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a U.S.-designated terror group that has mostly carried out attacks against Pakistani security forces.
Threat to Pakistan
The TTP, which pledges allegiance to the Taliban in Afghanistan, has increased its attacks in Pakistan in recent weeks.
The group killed seven Pakistani soldiers in a gunfight in South Waziristan, a district in northwest Pakistan near the Afghanistan border on September 15.
The TTP also claimed responsibility for a suicide attack in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province, on September 5 that killed at least three Pakistani soldiers.
Shah added that the TTP is “the main threat” to Pakistan’s security as it intends “to destabilize Pakistan” and eventually “overthrow the government in Pakistan.”Pakistani officials said the TTP is planning attacks from Afghanistan, and they expect the Taliban to make good on pledges to prevent the group from using Afghan soil to attack Pakistani security forces. But there is little public information so far to indicate that any kind of Taliban crackdown against the group is imminent.Abdul Basit, a research fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore, predicts the TTP will continue its attacks.
“For TTP, it is the same. If you can defeat the US, certainly you can defeat the Pakistani army,” added Basit.
Pakistani officials blamed TTP militants for a suicide bomb attack on a bus last month that killed 13 people, including nine Chinese workers who were headed to a dam construction project in the north of the country.Far from promising a crackdown on the TTP, Pakistani officials have made more conciliatory gestures. On September 15, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Islamabad is ready to pardon those members of the TTP who promise not to get involved in terrorist activities which the group rejected. He indicated he hoped the Taliban helps convince TTP members to submit to the Pakistani constitution and drop their armed insurgency.Qureshi said he remained concerned over reports that hundreds of TTP fighters were released from Afghan prisons as the Taliban took control of the country.Basit said the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan will further increase “radicalism” in the region, and “as a result, the recruitment for the groups would increase.”
He added the TTP has close relations with other extremist groups, including East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). “TTP provided them refuge. They lived together. They fought together.”
ETIM, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, is a Uighur separatist group that China calls “the most dangerous and extremist terrorist group” in its Xinjiang region. However although ETIM remains a U.N.-designated terrorist group with several hundred fighters reportedly located in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province, the U.S. removed the group from its terror list in 2020, citing “no credible evidence” that it continued to exist.
Threat to China
China now faces multiple threats from the region with America’s complete withdrawal from Afghanistan, Basit said.
“The Americans only fought the jihadists in the region. For China, it’s a double blow, because not only the Jihadists, (but) the ethno-nationalists are also against China.” Basit added, “these (terrorist) groups need a big enemy to justify their violence. For the last 20 years, the enemy was the U.S. forces. Now the next big villain is China.”
The Baloch National Freedom Movement, a terrorist organization that seeks the independence of Balochistan province in southwest Pakistan, has made it clear that China is their target. In August 2020, the Baloch National Freedom Movement announced an alliance with the Sindhu Desh Liberation Army, a terrorist organization based in Pakistan’s Sindh province. Together, the two accused China of expansionism and occupying local resources in the region.
While terrorist attacks inside China remain unlikely because of the tight security there, said Basit, the Chinese Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project in Pakistan is “China’s soft underbelly and (a) good opportunity for these (militant) groups to target and (pressure) China to amend its behavior (toward the) Xinjiang Muslim community. Otherwise, attacks would continue.”
CPEC is a series of infrastructure projects including highways and ports. Prime Minister Khan describes CPEC as the “flagship project” of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to expand China’s political and economic influence to Europe.
China hopes the Taliban will prevent the infiltration of ETIM militants into Xinjiang. That scenario is considered “a major threat” for China, said Huping Ling, history professor at Truman State University and visiting fellow of the Hoover Institute at Stanford University.
China and Afghanistan may only share a 75-km border, which is undeveloped and largely impassable during winter months, but Ling said the country has invested resources in securing the border.
“For China, it is strategically important to secure the border because that is one of the headaches regarding maintaining the stability,” Ling added.
She said the Taliban is looking to China to build up infrastructure in Afghanistan to extract an estimated $1 trillion to $3 trillion worth of minerals there. “It will be beneficial to both China and the Taliban’s government.”
The Taliban has repeatedly stated they want close relations with China, particularly as Afghanistan is on the verge of economic collapse since the international community has frozen donors’ funds and billions of dollars in assets.
“China is our main partner and represents a fundamental and extraordinary opportunity for us because it is ready to invest and rebuild our country,” Taliban spokesperson, Zabiullah Mujahid told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica on September 2.
Washington says China’s crackdown against ethnic Uighurs amount to a genocide against the majority Muslim group, but so far those repressive policies appear to have had little impact on the Taliban’s view of Beijing.
“They (Taliban) are so anxious to have political and economic assistance from China that they are forgetting the fact that China is one of the greatest abusers of Islamic population on the globe,” said Marvin Weinbaum, the director of the Afghanistan and Pakistan Program at the Washington-based Middle East Institute.
“This suggests that when it comes to the practical politics of governing, ideology takes the back seat,” said Weinbaum.
Human rights organizations accuse Beijing of committing crimes against humanity by arbitrarily detaining more than 1 million Uighurs and other Muslims in internment camps and forcing others into forced labor.
https://www.voanews.com/a/regional-extremists-energized-by-taliban-s-takeover-could-pose-threat-to-pakistan-china-interests-expert-says-/6236892.html
پشتون کلچر ہمارا قومی و تاریخی ورثہ ہے، جس پر پاکستان کو فخر ہے، چیئرمین پاکستان پیپلز پارٹی بلاول بھٹو زرداری
پاکستان پیپلز پارٹی کے چیٸرمین بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے پشتون کلچر ڈے کے موقعے پر جاری کردہ اپنے بیان میں پی پی پی چیٸرمین نے کہا کہ پشتون کلچر پاکستانی ثقافت کے گلدستے کا ایک خوبصورت پھول ہے۔
انہوں نے کہا کہ پشتون کلچر ہمارا قومی و تاریخی ورثہ ہے، جس پر پاکستان کو فخر ہے۔ انہوں نے کہا کہ ثقافتی دن منانے سے ملک میں امن اور بھاٸی چارے کو فروغ ملتا ہے۔
چیٸرمین بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے کہا کہ وفاقی حکومت و متعلقہ اداروں کو پشتون کلچر اور پشتو ادب کو عالمی سطح پر اجاگر کرنے کیلئے ہنگامی بنیادوں پر اقدامات اٹھائیں۔
https://www.ppp.org.pk/pr/25532/
Tuesday, September 21, 2021
Embarrassment For Imran Khan: Taliban Takes Down Pakistan Flag In Torkham, Tears It Apart
By Kamal Joshi
In the clip, Taliban terrorists can be seen taking down the Pakistan flag from a truck carrying Pakistan aid to the war-torn nation.In a major embarrassment for Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, Taliban, whom he considers his friend, have started unfurling their true colours. In the latest development coming from Afghanistan's Torkham, a border city between both countries, the terrorist group removed a flag from a truck carrying aid supplies and tore it apart. According to a video widely shared on social media platforms, Taliban terrorists can be seen taking down the Pakistan flag from a truck carrying Pakistan aid to the war-torn nation. After removing it, the extremists tore apart the flag and chanted "Nara e Takbeer, Allahu Akbar" (God is great) slogans. Reportedly, one of the Taliban terrorists also said that the flag should be burnt. On Sunday, Pakistan started dispatching humanitarian aid to Afghanistan via the Torkham border crossing and sent 13 trucks filled with food items including flour, cooking oil, sugar, pulses and rice. "Another four trucks of humanitarian assistance would also be crossing through Torkham soon," according to officials, reported PTI.After the Taliban takeover, the war-ravaged country is in a humanitarian crisis. Several western countries, India, and international organisations including United Nations have promised to provide aid. Taliban scorns Imran Khan's call for an inclusive Afghanistan government. Taliban on Monday schooled Pakistan after it asked the terrorists to establish an inclusive government. "We don’t give anyone the right to call for an inclusive government," Taliban leader Mohammad Mobeen said, adding that Afghanistan has freedom. His reaction came after Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said that he held meetings with "Afghanistan's neighbour". After promising an inclusive government, the Taliban on September 7 declared an all-male interim cabinet. The government is led by Taliban's Rehbari Shura Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund.
https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/rest-of-the-world-news/embarrassment-for-imran-khan-taliban-takes-down-pakistan-flag-in-torkham-tears-it-apart.html
Opinion: It’s time the U.S. ends its toxic reliance on Pakistan, before it really regrets it
By Barkha Dutt
The story of the disastrous American withdrawal from Afghanistan and its aftermath has been captured in numerous striking scenes: the images of desperate young men clinging to a departing U.S. transport plane at the Kabul airport, or, more recently, the photos of the bruised bodies of two Afghan journalists beaten and tortured by the Taliban for reporting on a street demonstration carried out by extraordinarily courageous Afghan women.
But there’s another photo, from Sept. 4, seemingly a less dramatic one, that says a lot about not just what went down in Kabul but also what could lie ahead: Pakistan’s chief spook, the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), calmly sipping coffee, dressed nattily in an open-collar pale blue shirt and blazer, smiling as he assured a reporter: “Don’t worry, everything will be okay.”While Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed was not the first intelligence officer to hotfoot it to Kabul — earlier, the head of the CIA met secretly with Taliban leaders to discuss the evacuation — he was probably the only one having his photo taken in public, his triumphalist gloating on free display.
That’s because the ascent of the Taliban is in fact the march of the Pakistani security state into Kabul, using Afghan fighters as battle camouflage. Pakistan is thrilled, not just because the terrorists it harbored and supported for years in places such as Quetta, when the rest of the world shunned them, are in government today; Islamabad is also celebrating because it has the United States exactly where it wants it.
And this is why the America must fundamentally change its policy toward Pakistan. Failure to do so will continue to compound the fatal clumsiness that led to the hasty Afghanistan withdrawal and endanger global security. But there are no signs of change in the horizon.
“There have been three phases in the history of U.S.-Pakistan when relations ramped up significantly,” Jonah Blank, a former Senate adviser to President Biden who traveled with him to Afghanistan, told me during an interview. “The first was during the Cold War, the second after the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviets, the third after 9/11. I fear this is the fourth such phase and we are going to see a lot of deals between Washington and Islamabad.”
The Biden administration appears to be falling back on Pakistan to play interlocutor with the Taliban, entering yet another phase of toxic dependency. The failure to end this dependency will only embolden the Pakistani security establishment to continue to use terrorism as a weapon of strategic influence. The immediate victim will be India. In the background, China’s hand will be strengthened. As the “Quad” coalition (a group consisting of the United States, Japan, India and Australia that was born from anxiety over what the rise of China could do to the international order) prepares to meet this week, the inevitable consequence of a Pakistan-China nexus upending the balance in Asia should set off alarm bells.Instead, American officials are delusional, as evidenced by the apparent belief the Taliban and the Haqqani network are different entities — kind of like saying there’s no overlap between the White House and the Pentagon. The Americans seem to have forgotten that the new interior minister of the Taliban government is one of the FBI’s most wanted terrorists with a $10 million bounty attached to his name. The Haqqani network has been nurtured for years in Pakistan’s North Waziristan. Biden should remember that Osama bin Laden was taken out, not in a cave in Afghanistan, but in a residential complex two hours from Pakistan’s capital.
The American presence in Afghanistan was often used to explain U.S. softballing of Pakistan. NATO troops used two supply lines through Pakistani territory — across the Khyber Pass into Kabul, and through Balochistan into Kandahar. Between 2002 and 2018, the United States gave Pakistan $33 billion in aid, $14 billion of which was meant to combat terrorism. The goal of administration after administration was to try to cajole Pakistan to do more to shut down havens for militants; needless to say, they all failed.
Leaving Afghanistan could have been used, like Alexander’s sword, to finally cut through the Gordian knot that has kept the United States intertwined with Pakistan for two decades. But if the responses to the oddly predicted Kabul airport attack are anything to go by, a hapless U.S. government has deluded itself into thinking the Taliban — and the Taliban’s patrons in Pakistan — will be “partners” against the Islamic State and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
This is pure wishful thinking. Not only has Afghan intelligence raised questions about the links between Pakistan and the Islamic State-Khorasan, but the Haqqanis are al-Qaeda’s biggest supporters within the Taliban.
In 2012, on a trip to India, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told me that Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s successor, was “somewhere, we believe, in Pakistan.” This year, Zawahiri apparently resurfaced in a video marking the anniversary of 9/11; a UN report in June said he was believed to be hiding “somewhere in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
What more does the United States need to end the self-deceptive partnership with Pakistan’s deep state? The toxic transactionalism is not only having disastrous consequences in an already volatile region, but it will almost certainly come back to hit the United States directly.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/21/us-pakistan-quad-biden-isi-afghanistan-taliban-end-reliance/
Pakistan is concerned by the potential blowback of the development in Afghanistan-Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari
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