Taliban
US urged to help more people escape Taliban-led Afghanistan
A coalition of organizations working to evacuate people who could be targeted by the Taliban rulers in Afghanistan appealed Monday for more assistance from the U.S. government and other nations as conditions deteriorate in the country.
Members of the AfghanEvac Coalition met in a video call with Secretary of State Antony Blinken to press the case for additional resources to help tens of thousands of people get out of Afghanistan, now faced with a deepening economic and humanitarian crisis in addition to a precarious security situation following the U.S. withdrawal.
Participants said afterward they were grateful for what the State Department has done so far, including helping to arrange a series of evacuation flights for U.S. citizens and residents since the withdrawal, but more will be needed in the months ahead.
Read: Allow unimpeded aid into Afghanistan, say NSAs in Delhi Declaration
“The State Department doing enough isn’t enough; we need whole of government solutions; we need the international community to step up and we need it quickly,” said Peter Lucier, a former Marine who served in Afghanistan who works with coalition-member Team America. “Winter is coming. There is a famine already. ”
Private groups, particularly with ties to the veteran community, have played an important role in the evacuation and resettlement of tens of thousands of Afghans since the U.S. ended its longest war and the government fell to the Taliban. Members of the coalition, which includes about 100 organizations, have been working to help people get on the scarce flights out of the country and helping them get settled in communities once they reach the United States.
State Department spokesman Ned Price said the call included discussion of what he called “our collective efforts” to aid visa holders and applicants and to “facilitate the departure of these individuals who are at a stage where it is appropriate to do so.”
About 82,000 people have come to the U.S. so far under what the Biden administration calls Operation Allies Welcome. The Department of Homeland Security said 10% were American citizens or permanent residents.
The rest were a combination of people who had obtained special immigrant visas, for those who had worked for the U.S. government as interpreters or in some other capacity; people applying for one of the visas but who hadn’t yet received it; or other Afghans who might be vulnerable under the Taliban, such as journalists or government officials, and qualified to come as refugees. Nearly half were children.
As of Monday, DHS said about 46,000 are still being housed at domestic U.S. military bases until they can be resettled by private refugee organizations around the country. Another 2,600 remain at overseas transit points, dubbed “lily pads,” as they undergo security vetting and health screening before coming to the U.S.
Read: In Afghanistan, a girls’ school is the story of a village
The State Department said separately Monday that some people coming to the U.S. from countries other than Afghanistan under the broader refugee program would be temporarily delayed so refugee agencies can focus on resettling Afghans. The pause would run through Jan. 11 and won’t apply to certain categories, including urgent cases, family reunifications and those who have already made travel arrangements.
The AfghanEvac Coalition has urged the U.S. government to establish more of the “lilly pads,” and work with other nations to create more pathways for people to reach safety. It’s unclear how many people need to be evacuated but organizations have estimated the number conservatively in the tens of thousands. Aid agencies said about 300,000 have fled Afghanistan into Iran, including many members of Shiite communities seeking refuge from both the Taliban and attacks by the Islamic State affiliate in the country.
Lucier and Shawn VanDiver, a founder of the coalition, said without providing specifics that they raised “specific stumbling blocks” and “choke points,” that are preventing people from reaching safety in the U.S. or elsewhere. Both said it will require more time and input from other parts of the government to solve those problems.
“The answers are complex,” Lucier said. “There are no simple technical fixes to a lot of this.”
The meeting takes place against a backdrop of intense criticism by some Republicans in Congress, attacking a frantic evacuation, which was set in motion by President Donald Trump’s decision to sign a peace deal with the Taliban and set a withdrawal date, and for what they have alleged is insufficient vetting of refugees. They have also accused the administration of understating the number of American citizens left behind.
Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee wrote Blinken on Monday seeking interviews with more than 30 State Department officials to address what they called the “many unanswered questions about the planning – or lack thereof – that preceded the drawdown and evacuation.” Those include the number of American citizens and residents still in Afghanistan and mechanisms for continued evacuations.
Read: US set to appeal UK refusal to extradite WikiLeaks' Assange
As of Monday, the U.S. has assisted the departure of 435 American citizens and 325 permanent residents since Aug. 31, including with some recent flights, Price said.
Blinken said Friday that the U.S. has offered the opportunity to leave Afghanistan to all American citizens and permanent residents it has identified as remaining in the country who wish to depart and have appropriate travel documents. Several hundred Americans are reported to still be in Afghanistan, though not all have indicated they want to leave, Biden administration officials have said.
The Gulf nation of Qatar has agreed to represent the United States in Taliban-run Afghanistan following the closure of the American Embassy in Kabul and will handle consular services for American citizens in Afghanistan and will deal with routine official communications between Washington and the Taliban government.
Now silent under Taliban, a Kabul cinema awaits its fate
The cool 1960s-style lines of the Ariana Cinema’s marquee stand out over a traffic-clogged roundabout in downtown Kabul. For decades, the historic cinema has entertained Afghans and borne witness to Afghanistan’s wars, hopes and cultural shifts.
Now the marquee is stripped of the posters of Bollywood movies and American action flicks that used to adorn it. The gates are closed.
After recapturing power three months ago, the Taliban ordered the Ariana and other cinemas to stop operating. The Islamic militant guerrillas-turned-rulers say they have yet to decide whether they will allow movies in Afghanistan.
Like the rest of the country, the Ariana is in a strange limbo, waiting to see how the Taliban will rule.
The cinema’s nearly 20 employees, all men, still show up at work, logging in their attendance in hopes they will eventually get paid. The landmark Ariana, one of only four cinemas in the capital, is owned by the Kabul municipality, so its employees are government workers and remain on the payroll.
The men while away the hours. They hang out in the abandoned ticket booth or stroll the Ariana’s curving corridors. Rows of plush red seats sit in silent darkness.
The Ariana’s director, Asita Ferdous, the first woman in the post, is not even allowed to enter the cinema. The Taliban ordered female government employees to stay away from their workplaces so they don’t mix with men, until they determine whether they will be allowed to work.
The 26-year-old Ferdous is part of a post-2001 generation of young Afghans determined to carve out a greater space for women’s rights. The Taliban takeover has wrecked their hopes. Also a painter and sculptor, she now stays at home.
Read: Taliban says US will provide humanitarian aid to Afghanistan
“I spend time doing sketches, drawing, just to keep practicing,” she said. “I can’t do exhibitions anymore.”
During their previous time in power from 1996-2001, the Taliban imposed a radical interpretation of Islamic law forbidding women from working or going to school — or even leaving home in many cases — and forcing men to grow beards and attend prayers. They banned music and other art, including movies and cinema.
Under international pressure, the Taliban now say they have changed. But they have been vague about what they will or won’t allow. That has put many Afghans’ lives — and livelihoods — on hold.
For the Ariana, it is another chapter in a tumultuous six-decade history.
The Ariana opened in 1963. Its sleek architecture mirrored the modernizing spirit that the then-ruling monarchy was trying to bring to the deeply traditional nation.
Kabul resident Ziba Niazai recalled going to the Ariana in the late 1980s, during the rule of Soviet-backed President Najibullah, when there were more than 30 cinemas around the country.
For her, it was an entry to a different world. She had just married, and her new husband brought her from their home village in the mountains to Kabul, where he had a job in the Finance Ministry. She was alone in the house all day while he was at the office.
But when he got off work, they often went together to the Ariana for a Bollywood movie.
After years of communist rule, it was a more secular era than recent decades, at least for a narrow urban elite.
“We had no hijab at that time,” said Niazai, now in her late 50s, referring to the headscarf. Many couples went to the cinema, and “there wasn’t even a separate section, you could sit wherever you wanted.”
At the time, war raged across the country as Najibullah’s government battled an American-backed coalition of warlords and Islamic militants. The mujahedeen toppled him in 1992. Then they turned on each other in a fight for power that demolished Kabul and killed thousands of people caught in the crossfire.
The Ariana was heavily damaged, along with most of the surrounding neighborhood, in the frequent bombardments and gunbattles.
It lay abandoned in ruins for years, as the Taliban drove out the mujahedeen and took over Kabul in 1996. Whatever cinemas survived around Kabul were shuttered.
The Ariana’s revival came after the Taliban’s ouster in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. The French government helped rebuild the cinema in 2004, part of the flood of billions of dollars of international aid that attempted to reshape Afghanistan over the next 20 years.
With the Taliban gone, cinema saw a new burst of popularity.
Read:Taliban say they won’t work with US to contain Islamic State
Indian movies were always the biggest draw at the Ariana, as were action movies, particularly those featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme, said Abdul Malik Wahidi, in charge of tickets. As Afghanistan’s domestic film industry revived, the Ariana played the handful of Afghan movies produced each year.
They had three showings a day, ending in the mid-afternoon, at 50 afghanis a ticket — about 50 cents. Audiences were overwhelmingly men. In Afghanistan’s conservative society, cinemas were seen as a male space, and few women attended.
Wahidi recalled how he and other staffers had to preview all foreign films to weed out those with scenes considered too racy — with couples kissing or women showing too much skin, for example.
Letting something slip through could bring the wrath of some movie-goers. Offended audiences were known to hurl objects at the screen, though it didn’t happen at the Ariana, Wahidi said. He remembered one patron at the Ariana, outraged by a scene, storming out and shouting at him, “How can you show pornography?”
Ferdous was appointed as the Ariana’s director just over a year ago. She previously led the Kabul municipality’s Gender Equality division, where she had worked to gain equal pay for women employees and install women as senior officers in the capital’s district police departments.
When she came to the Ariana, the male staff were surprised, “but they have been very cooperative and have worked well with me.”
She focused on making the cinema more welcoming to women. They dedicated one side of the auditorium for couples and families where women could sit. Those entering the cinema had to be patted down by guards as a security measure, and Ferdous brought in a female guard so women patrons would feel more comfortable.
Couples began coming regularly, she said. In March 2021, the cinema hosted a festival of Afghan films that proved very popular, attended by Afghan actors who held talks with the audiences.
Now it has all been brought to a halt, and the Ariana’s staff is left not knowing their fate. The male employees have received part of their salaries since the Taliban takeover. Ferdous said she has received no salary at all.
“It is women who suffer the most. Women are just asking for their right to work,” she said. “If they are not allowed, their economic situation will only get worse.”
Inanullah Amany, the general director of the Kabul Municipality’s cultural department, said that if the Taliban do ban movies, the Ariana’s employees could be transferred to other municipal jobs. Or they could be dismissed.
The staff said they couldn’t even guess what the Taliban will decide, but none held out much hope they would allow movies.
That would be a loss, said Rahmatullah Ezati, the Ariana’s chief projectionist.
“If a country doesn’t have cinema, then there’s no culture. Through cinema, we’ve seen other countries like Europe, U.S. and India.”
IS attack on Kabul hospital leaves 7 dead, 16 wounded
Islamic State militants set off an explosion at the entrance to a military hospital in the Afghan capital on Tuesday, killing at least seven people, a senior Taliban official said. It was one of the most brazen IS attacks yet since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in the summer.
Among those killed were three women, a child, and three Taliban guards, said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. Five attackers were also killed, he said, adding that Taliban guards prevented them from getting into the hospital. He said the attack was over within 15 minutes.
Read:In Afghanistan, a girls’ school is the story of a village
“No one was killed inside the hospital,” the spokesman said. He said Taliban guards thwarted IS plans to target medical staff and patients in the 400-bed facility.
He said Taliban special forces were subsequently deployed and searched the hospital and that a helicopter was used in the operation.
Health officials said 16 people were wounded in the attack on the Sardar Mohammad Dawood Khan hospital in Kabul’s 10th district. Mujahid said five Taliban fighters were among the wounded.
Earlier, another Taliban official had said the attack was carried out by six men, and that two of them were captured.
Read:Suicide attack on Shiite mosque in Afghanistan kills 47
During the attack, city residents had reported two explosions in the area, along with the sound of gunfire.
In recent weeks, IS militants carried out a series of bombing and shooting attacks. IS has stepped up attacks since the Taliban takeover of the country.
In Afghanistan, a girls’ school is the story of a village
Mina Ahmed smears a cement mixture to strengthen the walls of her war-ravaged home in rural Afghanistan. Her hands, worn by the labor, are bandaged with plastic scraps and elastic bands, but no matter, she welcomes the new era of peace under the Taliban.
She was once apprehensive of the group’s severe style of rule in her village of Salar. But being caught in the crosshairs of a two-decade long war has granted her a new perspective.
Taliban control comes with limits, even for women, and that is alright, the 45-year-old said. “With these restrictions we can live our lives at least.”
But she draws the line on one point: Her daughters, ages 13, 12 and 6, must go to school.
From a bird’s eye view, the village of Salar is camouflaged against a towering mountain range in Wardak province. The community of several thousand, nearly 70 miles from the capital Kabul, serves as a microcosm of the latest chapter in Afghanistan’s history — the second round of rule by the Taliban — showing what has changed and what hasn’t since their first time in power, in the late 1990s.
Residents of Salar, which has been under Taliban hold the past two years, are embracing the new stability now that the insurgents’ war with the U.S. military and its Afghan allies is over. Those displaced by fighting are returning home. Still, they fear a worsening economic crisis and a drought that is keenly felt in a province where life revolves around the harvest.
In Kabul and other cities, public discontent toward the Taliban is focused on threats to personal freedoms, including the rights of women.
In Salar, these barely resonate. The ideological gap between the Taliban leadership and the rural conservative community is not wide. Many villagers supported the insurgency and celebrated the Aug. 15 fall of Kabul which consolidated Taliban control across the country.
But even in Salar, changes are afoot, beginning with the villagers’ insistence on their local elementary school for girls.
Read: Suicide attack on Shiite mosque in Afghanistan kills 47
That insistence helped push the Taliban to accept a new, small school, funded by international donors. But what the school will become — a formal public school paving the way to higher education, a religious madrasa, or something in between — is uncertain, like the future of the village and the country.
A VILLAGE DEMAND
By 8 a.m., 38 small faces framed by veils are seated on a carpeted floor looking up at their teacher, Qari Wali Khan. With a stick in hand and furrowed brow, he calls on the girls to recite from the Quran.
Rokia, 10, is the unlucky first. Merely three words of classical Arabic escape her lips when Wali Khan interrupts, correcting her pronunciation. When she repeats again, he exclaims, “Afarin!” — “Excellent,” in Pashtu.
In three hours, the students, ages 9-12, will cover Quranic memorization, mathematics, handwriting, and more Islamic study. Homework: What is 105 x 25?
The school opened two months ago, marking the first time in 20 years girls in the village have ever stepped foot in a classroom, or something like it. In the absence of a building, lessons are held in Wali Khan’s living room.
The classes are the product of U.N. negotiations with the Taliban.
In 2020, the U.N. began working on a program to set up girls’ learning centers in conservative and remote areas, including ones under Taliban control at the time, like Sayedabad district where Salar is located.
Taliban interlocutors were initially reluctant to embrace the idea, but an agreement was eventually reached in November 2020, said Jeanette Vogelaar, UNICEF’s chief of education. International funding was secured, $35 million a year for three years to finance 10,000 such centers.
Launch was delayed by COVID-19. By the time centers were scheduled to open, the Taliban had taken over in Kabul. To everyone’s surprise, they allowed the project to go ahead, even using the previous government’s curriculum — though they have introduced more Islamic learning and insisted on gender segregation and female teachers.
Wali Khan, a madrasa teacher by training, got the job in Wardak because most educated women had left for the capital.
The program enables girls without formal schooling to complete six grades in three years. When completed, they should be ready to enter Grade 7.
It remains unresolved whether they can continue after that. In most districts, the Taliban have prohibited girls ages 12-17 from going to public school.
Still, it’s a good start, Vogelaar said. “Based on what we see now, somehow the Taliban doesn’t seem to be the same as how they behaved before,” she said.
Ten years ago, the Taliban were at the forefront of a deadly campaign targeting government officials in Wardak, with particular venom reserved for those campaigning for girls’ schools. Two village elders recounted the shooting death of Mirajuddin Ahmed, Sayedabad’s director of education and a vocal supporter for girl’s’ access to education.
Several public girls’ schools were burned down in 2007 in the province. To this day, not a single one stands.
Times have changed.
“If they don’t allow girls to go to this school now, there will be an uprising,” said village elder Abdul Hadi Khan.
Read: Taliban says US will provide humanitarian aid to Afghanistan
The shifting attitudes may be part of a broader trend in support of education. In 2000, when the Taliban were last in power, there were just 100,000 girls in school, out of a total 1 million schoolchildren. Now they are 4 million out of 10 million schoolchildren, according to the U.N.
Salar’s villagers wanted no different. They convinced Wali Khan to teach.
“They put their trust in me, they told me, this is a need in our society,” he said.
That might be one reason why the Taliban decided to cooperate; with the economy in ruins, they could not risk alienating a constituency that supported them throughout the insurgency.
There are concerns of how much the Taliban will shape the schooling. The U.N. is aware the Taliban enter villages and insist on more Islamic study, said Vogelaar.
Most families are not against it, either. Sayedabad district is composed primarily of Afghanistan’s dominant Pashtun ethnic group, from which the Taliban are mostly drawn. Religion and conservatism are central to daily village life.
But a madrasa-type education “was not the intention,” said Vogelaar.
Wali Khan said he received specific orders from the Taliban-controlled education directorate in Sayedabad to “include more religious study” in the curriculum. He obeyed.
In late October, local Taliban officials came to visit Wali Khan. They wanted to know how the classes were going.
“The girls have a hunger to learn,” he told them.
A FATHER’S PRIDE
After class, 12-year-old Sima runs home, whizzing past Salar’s mud-brick houses, a cloud of dust in her wake.
Her father, Nisar, is away picking tomatoes in the fields for 200 afghanis ($2.5) a day. He is their only breadwinner.
Her mother, Mina, is still mixing cement.
Mina expects it will be a long time before her home is in one piece again.
She’s rebuilding bit by bit, buying cement bags for the equivalent of $1 whenever she can. She has accumulated some 100,000 afghanis ($1,100) in debt to relatives and friends.
The family returned home just a month ago. Only one of the house’s four rooms was usable. Walls are still riddled with bullet holes.
They had fled more than 11 years earlier, moving to the other side of the village where it was safer. Their home was too dangerous, located on a strategic incline overlooking Highway One, which connects Kabul to the south and was a hotbed of insurgent activity throughout the war.
She remembers standing out in the cold as American troops inspected their house for insurgents. By 2007, ambushes of army convoys on the highway became frequent. Many times, Mina saw army tanks burst into flames from her kitchen window. She has lost two brothers-in-law.
Read: US, Taliban to hold first talks since Afghanistan withdrawal
The ruins of an army checkpoint lie above Mina’s home. The Afghan army held it for 18 years, until the Taliban took over the area decisively two years ago.
Mina has made slow progress with the house but fears what will happen as temperatures drop and market prices rise.
Afghanistan is grappling with an economic crisis after the U.S. froze Afghan assets in line with international sanctions against the Taliban. Foreign aid that once accounted for 75% of state expenditure has also paused.
Mina has six children and they all need to be fed, she said.
Everyone who has returned has a similar story.
“You won’t find one person in this village who is in a good situation,” said Mahmad Rizak, 38, standing outside his home with a face flecked with cement.
Food shortages are taking a toll. The Mohammed Khan Hospital, the only one in the district, is struggling with a rising number of malnourished newborns wailing in the maternity ward.
In the surgical ward, an unusual museum of mementos hangs on the wall. It consists of bullets and kidney stones removed from patients — the first from the war, the second from poor water quality.
“Tells you everything about this place,” said Dr. Gul Makia.
Drought has decimated the harvest, leaving many whose lives revolve around tilling the earth and raising livestock with no means to make a living.
When October ends, so does tomato-picking season, and Nisar will be out of work.
He joins his wife in mixing cement.
He points to the room once occupied by Afghan soldiers, and then Taliban insurgents after them. “My daughter will become a teacher one day, and we will make this into a school for her to educate other girls.”
“She will be our pride,” he said.
India to seek Taliban accountability based on UNSC resolution 2593
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will urge the G20 to demand accountability from Taliban based on the recent United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution on Afghanistan and call for an inclusive government in Kabul with participation of minorities and women at the G20 Extraordinary Summit on Afghanistan on Tuesday, reports The Economic Times.
Modi, who will be joined by US President Joe Biden among other G20 leaders in the virtual event, is also expected to highlight the possibility of external players (read Pakistan) seeking to use Afghan territory to promote cross-border terror, people aware of the matter told ET.
Last month, India had stated that the global approach to address the Afghan crisis must be guided by the UNSC resolution 2593 that demands that the territory of Afghanistan must not be used for terrorism or attack on any other country and that a negotiated political settlement should be found out to the conflict in the country. The resolution specifically refers to terrorist individuals proscribed by UNSC including those belonging to Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad.
Also read: Eye on China, India looks to step up engagement with Indian Ocean
Foreign secretary Harsh Shringla had last month said there was recognition of the need to uphold human rights, including of women and minorities, and to encourage all parties for an “inclusive, negotiated political settlement” and that India expected the international community to remain both responsive and united to deal with the Afghan crisis.
He had also said the UNSC resolution, adopted during India's presidency of the UNSC in August, also sets expectations on safe passage and secure departure of Afghans and all foreign nationals who wish to leave that country.
Prime minister Modi, during his address at the UN General Assembly last month, had said, “It is absolutely essential to ensure that Afghanistan's territory is not used to spread terrorism and for terrorist activities. We also need to ensure that no country tries to take advantage of delicate situation in Afghanistan and use it for its own selfish interests. At this time, people of Afghanistan, women and children, minorities need help. We must fulfil our duties by providing them with help.”
He had also highlighted the threat from the radical ideology.
Also read: India 'reviewing' Taliban's request for resumption of Kabul flights
Earlier in September, addressing the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, Modi had indicated that India would refrain from recognising the Taliban government in the near future and pointed out that the change in power in Afghanistan was not inclusive and happened without negotiations. This raised questions over the acceptance of the new system, he had said. Similar views were expressed by Russian President Vladimir Putin on the same occasion.
The G20 Extraordinary Summit convened by the group’s current chair Italy will seek to build upon UNSC resolution on Afghanistan and explore options to supply humanitarian aid without recognising the current Taliban regime, ET has learnt.
China has been lukewarm to the proposal of convening a special G20 summit on Afghanistan. It is expected to be represented by foreign minister Wang Yi.
Italy holds the rotating G20 presidency this year and its Prime Minister Mario Draghi had recently discussed Afghanistan including the special summit with world leaders including Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“We have to see whether there are shared objectives among the G20 nations...we have reached a point where we only need to worry about saving lives,: Draghi had said at a recent press meet.
The international community must also lay down a strategy to prevent Afghanistan becoming a haven for militants, he had said.
Qatar, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the United Nations will also participate in the Tuesday’s extraordinary meet that is taking place ahead of the annual G20 summit in Rome on October 30-31.
The Afghan crisis is fuelling worries within the European Union over the risk of massive flows of migrants and some member states have already opposed plans to accommodate refugees.
Italy is of the opinion that systematic violation of women’s rights makes it impossible to recognise the Taliban regime but has urged foreign government to guarantee financial support to the Afghan civilians. “I believe it is the duty of the richest countries in the world to do something to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe,” Draghi had said at the press meet.
Taliban says US will provide humanitarian aid to Afghanistan
The U.S. has agreed to provide humanitarian aid to a desperately poor Afghanistan on the brink of an economic disaster, while refusing to give political recognition to the country's new Taliban rulers, the Taliban said Sunday.
The statement came at the end of the first direct talks between the former foes since the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops at the end of August.
The U.S. statement was less definitive, saying only that the two sides “discussed the United States’ provision of robust humanitarian assistance, directly to the Afghan people.”
Read: Taliban say they won’t work with US to contain Islamic State
The Taliban said the talks held in Doha, Qatar, “went well,” with Washington freeing up humanitarian aid to Afghanistan after agreeing not to link such assistance to formal recognition of the Taliban.
The United States made it clear that the talks were in no way a preamble to recognition of the Taliban, who swept into power Aug. 15 after the U.S.-allied government collapsed.
State Department spokesman Ned Price called the discussions “candid and professional,” with the U.S. side reiterating that the Taliban will be judged on their actions, not only their words.
“The U.S. delegation focused on security and terrorism concerns and safe passage for U.S. citizens, other foreign nationals and our Afghan partners, as well as on human rights, including the meaningful participation of women and girls in all aspects of Afghan society,” he said in a statement.
Taliban political spokesman Suhail Shaheen also told The Associated Press that the movement's interim foreign minister assured the U.S. during the talks that the Taliban are committed to seeing that Afghan soil is not used by extremists to launch attacks against other countries.
On Saturday, however, the Taliban ruled out cooperation with Washington on containing the increasingly active Islamic State group in Afghanistan.
Read:US, Taliban to hold first talks since Afghanistan withdrawal
IS, an enemy of the Taliban, has claimed responsibility for a number of recent attacks, including Friday's suicide bombing that killed 46 minority Shiite Muslims. Washington considers IS its greatest terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan.
“We are able to tackle Daesh independently,” Shaheen said when asked whether the Taliban would work with the U.S. to contain the Islamic State affiliate. He used an Arabic acronym for IS.
Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who tracks militant groups, agreed the Taliban do not need Washington's help to hunt down and destroy Afghanistan's IS affiliate, known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, or ISKP.
The Taliban "fought 20 years to eject the U.S., and the last thing it needs is the return of the U.S. It also doesn’t need U.S. help,” said Roggio, who also produces the foundation's Long War Journal. “The Taliban has to conduct the difficult and time-consuming task of rooting out ISKP cells and its limited infrastructure. It has all the knowledge and tools it needs to do it.”
The IS affiliate doesn't have the advantage of safe havens in Pakistan and Iran that the Taliban had in its fight against the United States, Roggio said. However, he warned that the Taliban's longtime support for al-Qaida make them unreliable as counterterrorism partners with the United States.
Read: IS bomber kills 46 inside Afghan mosque, challenges Taliban
The Taliban gave refuge to al-Qaida before it carried out the 9/11 attacks. That prompted the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan that drove the Taliban from power.
“It is insane for the U.S. to think the Taliban can be a reliable counterterrorism partner, given the Taliban’s enduring support for al-Qaida,” Roggio said.
During the meeting, U.S. officials were expected to press the Taliban to allow Americans and others to leave Afghanistan. In their statement, the Taliban said without elaborating that they would “facilitate principled movement of foreign nationals."
Taliban say they won’t work with US to contain Islamic State
The Taliban on Saturday ruled out cooperation with the United States to contain extremist groups in Afghanistan, staking out an uncompromising position on a key issue ahead of the first direct talks between the former foes since America withdrew from the country in August.
Senior Taliban officials and U.S. representatives are meeting this weekend in Doha, the capital of Qatar. Officials from both sides have said issues include reining in extremist groups and the evacuation of foreign citizens and Afghans from the country. The Taliban have signaled flexibility on evacuations.
However, Taliban political spokesman Suhail Shaheen told The Associated Press there would be no cooperation with Washington on containing the increasingly active Islamic State group in Afghanistan. IS has taken responsibility for a number of recent attacks, including a suicide bombing Friday that killed 46 minority Shiite Muslims and wounded dozens as they prayed in a mosque in the northern city of Kunduz.
READ: IS bomber kills 46 inside Afghan mosque, challenges Taliban
“We are able to tackle Daesh independently,” Shaheen said, when asked whether the Taliban would work with the U.S. to contain the Islamic State affiliate. He used an Arabic acronym for IS.
IS has carried out relentless assaults on the country’s Shiites since emerging in eastern Afghanistan in 2014. It is also seen as the terror group that poses the greatest threat to the United States for its potential to stage attacks on American targets.
The weekend meetings in Doha are the first since U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan in late August, ending a 20-year military presence as the Taliban overran the country. The U.S. has made it clear the talks are not a preamble to recognition.
The talks also come on the heels of two days of difficult discussions between Pakistani officials and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman in Islamabad that focused on Afghanistan. Pakistani officials urged the U.S. to engage with Afghanistan’s new rulers and release billions of dollars in international funds to stave off an economic meltdown.
Pakistan also had a message for the Taliban, urging them to become more inclusive and pay attention to human rights and minority ethnic and religious groups.
READ: Taliban arrest 4 Islamic State militants north of Kabul
Later on Saturday, Doha-based Al-Jazeera English reported the talks had kicked off. The news outlet cited Ameer Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban-appointed foreign minister for Afghanistan, as saying the Taliban had asked the U.S. to lift its ban on the reserves of the Afghan central bank.
There was no immediate word from Washington on the talks.
Following Friday’s attack, Afghanistan’s Shiite clerics assailed the Taliban, demanding greater protection at their places of worship. The IS affiliate claimed responsibility and identified the bomber as a Uyghur Muslim. The claim said the attack targeted both Shiites and the Taliban for their purported willingness to expel Uyghurs to meet demands from China. It was the deadliest attack since U.S. and NATO troops left Afghanistan on Aug. 30.
Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the U.S.-based Wilson Center, said Friday’s attack could be a harbinger of more violence. Most of the Uyghur militants belong to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which has found a safe haven in the border regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan for decades.
“If the (IS) claim is true, China’s concerns about terrorism in (Afghanistan)—to which the Taliban claims to be receptive—will increase,” he tweeted following the attack.
Meanwhile, the Taliban on Saturday began busing Afghans who had fled from the insurgents’ blitz takeover in August and were living in tents in a Kabul park back to their homes in the country’s north, where threats from IS are mounting following the Kunduz attack.
A Taliban official in charge of refugees, Mohammed Arsa Kharoti, said there are up to 1.3 million Afghans displaced from past wars and that the Taliban lack funds to organize the return home for all. He said the Taliban have organized the return of 1,005 displaced families to their homes so far.
Shokria Khanm, who had spent several weeks in one of the tents in the park and was waiting Saturday to board the Taliban-organized bus back home to Kunduz, said she isn’t concerned about the growing IS threat in the northern province.
“At least there we have four walls,” she said but added that she was nervous about the future after fighting between the Taliban and Afghan government troops had destroyed her house.
“Winter is on the way. There is no firewood. We need water and food,” she said.
During the Doha talks, U.S. officials will also seek to hold the Taliban to their commitment to allow Americans and other foreign nationals to leave Afghanistan, along with Afghans who once worked for the U.S. military or government and other Afghan allies, a U.S. official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak on the record about the meetings.
The Biden administration has fielded questions and complaints about the slow pace of U.S.-facilitated evacuations from Taliban-ruled Afghanistan since the U.S. withdrawal.
US, Taliban to hold first talks since Afghanistan withdrawal
Senior Taliban officials and U.S. representatives are to hold talks Saturday and Sunday about containing extremist groups in Afghanistan and easing the evacuation of foreign citizens and Afghans from the country, officials from both sides said.
It's the first such meeting since U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan in late August, ending a 20-year military presence there, and the Taliban's rise to power in the nation. The talks are to take place in Doha, the capital of the Persian Gulf state of Qatar.
READ: IS bomber kills 46 inside Afghan mosque, challenges Taliban
Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen, who is based in Doha, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the talks will also revisit the peace agreement the Taliban signed with Washington in 2020. The agreement had paved the way for the final U..S. withdrawal.
“Yes there is a meeting . . . about bilateral relations and implementation of the Doha agreement,” said Shaheen. “It covers various topics.”
Terrorism will also feature in the talks, said a second official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Since the Taliban took power, Islamic State extremists have ramped up attacks on the militant group, as well as ethnic and religious minorities. On Friday, an IS suicide bomber killed at least 46 minority Shiite Muslims and wounded dozens in the deadliest attack since the U.S. departure.
IS has carried out relentless assaults on the country’s Shiite Muslims since emerging in eastern Afghanistan in 2014. IS is also seen as the greatest threat to the United States.
The U.S.-Taliban agreement of 2020, which was negotiated by the Trump administration, demanded the Taliban break ties with terrorist groups and guarantee Afghanistan would not again harbor terrorists who could attack the United States and its allies.
It seems certain the two sides will discuss in the weekend talks how to tackle the growing threat. The Taliban have said they do not want U.S. anti-terrorism assistance and have warned Washington against any so-called “over-the -horizon” strikes on Afghan territory from outside the country's borders.
The United States, meanwhile, would seek to hold Taliban leaders to commitments that they would allow Americans and other foreign nationals to leave Afghanistan, along with Afghans who once worked for the U.S. military or government and other Afghan allies, a U.S. official said.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak by name about the meetings.
The Biden administration has fielded questions and complaints about the slow pace of U.S.-facilitated evacuations from Taliban-ruled Afghanistan since the U.S. withdrawal.
State Department spokesman Ned Price said Thursday that 105 U.S. citizens and 95 green card holders had left since then on flights facilitated by the U.S. That number had not changed for more than a week.
U.S. veterans and other individuals have helped others leave the country on charter flights, and some Americans and others have gotten out across land borders.
READ: Taliban arrest 4 Islamic State militants north of Kabul
Hundreds of other foreign nationals and Afghans have also left on recent flights.
Dozens of American citizens are still seeking to get out, according to the State Department, along with thousands of green-card holders and Afghans and family members believed eligible for U.S. visas. U.S. officials have cited the difficulty of verifying flight manifests without any American officials on the ground in Afghanistan to help, along with other hold-ups.
Americans also intend to press the Taliban to observe the rights of women and girls, many of whom the Taliban are reportedly blocking from returning to jobs and classrooms, and of Afghans at large, and to form an inclusive government, the official said.
U.S. officials will also encourage Taliban officials to give humanitarian agencies free access to areas in need amid the economic upheaval following the U.S. departure and Taliban takeover.
The official stressed the session did not imply the U.S. was recognizing the Taliban as legitimate governors of the country.
IS bomber kills 46 inside Afghan mosque, challenges Taliban
An Islamic State suicide bomber struck at a mosque packed with Shiite Muslim worshippers in northern Afghanistan on Friday, killing at least 46 people and wounding dozens in the latest security challenge to the Taliban as they transition from insurgency to governance.
In its claim of responsibility, the region’s IS affiliate identified the bomber as a Uygher Muslim, saying the attack targeted both Shiites and the Taliban for their purported willingness to expel Uyghers to meet demands from China. The statement was carried by the IS-linked Aamaq news agency.
The blast tore through a crowded mosque in the city of Kunduz during Friday noon prayers, the highlight of the Muslim religious week. It was the latest in a series of IS bombings and shootings that have targeted Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers, as well as religious institutions and minority Shiites since U.S. and NATO troops left in August.
The blast blew out windows, charred the ceiling and scattered debris and twisted metal across the floor. Rescuers carried one body out on a stretcher and another in a blanket. Blood stains covered the front steps.
A resident of the area, Hussaindad Rezayee, said he rushed to the mosque when he heard the explosion, just as prayers started. “I came to look for my relatives, the mosque was full,” he said.
The worshippers targeted in Friday’s were Hazaras, who have long suffered from double discrimination as an ethnic minority and as followers of Shiite Islam in a majority Sunni country.
Read: 8 dead as al-Shabab claims blast in Somalia’s capital
The Islamic State group and the Taliban, who seized control of the country with the exit of the foreign troops, are strategic rivals. IS militants have targeted Taliban positions and attempted to recruit members from their ranks.
In the past, the Taliban managed to contain the IS threat in tandem with U.S. and Afghan airstrikes. Without these, it remains unclear whether the Taliban can suppress what appears to be a growing IS footprint. The militants, once confined to the east, have penetrated the capital of Kabul and other provinces with new attacks.
This comes at a critical moment, as the Taliban attempt to consolidate power and transform their guerrilla fighters into a structured police and security force. But while the group attempts to project an air of authority through reports of raids and arrests of IS members, it remains unclear if it has the capability to protect soft targets, including religious institutions.
The Biden administration condemned Friday’s attack. “The Afghan people deserve a future free of terror,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.
Also read: Afghan mosque blast kills at least 25, challenges Taliban
In Kunduz, police officials were still picking up the pieces Friday at the Gozar-e-Sayed Abad Mosque. Taliban spokesman Bilal Karimi told The Associated Press that 46 worshipers were killed and 143 wounded in the explosion. He said an investigation was under way.
The death toll of 46 is the highest in an attack since foreign troops left Afghanistan.
The United Nations mission in Afghanistan condemned the attack as “part of a disturbing pattern of violence” targeting religious institutions.
A prominent Shiite cleric, Sayed Hussain Alimi Balkhi, called on the Taliban to provide security for the Shiites of Afghanistan. “We expect the security forces of the government to provide security for the mosques since they collected the weapons that were provided for the security of the worship places,” he said.
Dost Mohammad Obaida, the deputy police chief in Kunduz pledged to protect minorities in the province. “I assure our Shiite brothers that the Taliban are prepared to ensure their safety,” he said.
The new tone struck by the Taliban, at least in Kunduz, is in sharp contrast to the well-documented history of Taliban fighters committing a litany of atrocities against minorities, including Hazaras. The Taliban, now feeling the weight of governing, employed similar tactics to those of IS during their 20-year insurgency, including suicide bombings and shooting ambushes.
And they have not halted attacks on Hazaras.
Earlier this week, a report by Amnesty International found the Taliban unlawfully killed 13 Hazaras, including a 17-year-old girl, in Daykundi province, after members of the security forces of the former government surrendered.
In Kunduz province, Hazaras make up about 6% of the province’s population of nearly 1 million people. The province also has a large ethnic Uzbek population that has been targeted for recruitment by the IS, which is closely aligned with the militant Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
Friday’s attack was the third to target a place of worship or religious study in a week.
IS has also claimed two deadly bombings in Kabul, including the horrific Aug. 26 bombing that killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. military personnel outside of Kabul airport in the final days of the chaotic American pullout from Afghanistan.
IS also claimed a bombing on Sunday outside Kabul’s Eid Gah Mosque that killed at least five civilians. Another attack on a madrassa, a religious school, in Khost province on Wednesday was not claimed.
If Friday’s attack is claimed by IS, it will also be worrying for Afghanistan’s northern Central Asian neighbors and Russia, which has been courting the Taliban for years as an ally against the creeping IS in the region.
Afghan mosque blast kills at least 25, challenges Taliban
A blast went off Friday at a mosque packed with Shiite Muslim worshippers in northern Afghanistan, killing at least 25 and wounding dozens in the latest security challenge to the Taliban as they transition from insurgency to governance.
The explosion tore through a mosque in the city of Kunduz during noon prayers, the highlight of the Muslim religious week. It blew out windows, charred the ceiling and scattered debris and twisted metal across the floor. Rescuers carried one body out on a stretcher and another in a blanket. Blood stains covered the front steps.
Area resident Hussaindad Rezayee said he rushed to the mosque when he heard the explosion, just as prayers started. "I came to look for my relatives, the mosque was full," he said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for what Kunduz police said may have been a suicide attack. But militants from a local Islamic State affiliate have a long history of attacking Afghanistan's ethnic and religious minorities.
The worshippers targeted Friday were Hazaras, who have long suffered from double discrimination as an ethnic minority and as followers of Shiite Islam in a majority Sunni country.
The Islamic State group has been behind a rise in attacks, including against the Taliban, since the departure of U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan at the end of August. IS and the Taliban, who seized control of the country with the exit of the foreign troops, are strategic rivals. IS militants have targeted Taliban positions and attempted to recruit members from their ranks.
In the past, the Taliban managed to contain the IS threat in tandem with U.S. and Afghan airstrikes. Without these, it remains unclear whether the Taliban can suppress what appears to be a growing IS footprint. The militants, once confined to the east, have penetrated the capital of Kabul and other provinces with new attacks.
This comes at a critical moment, as the Taliban attempt to consolidate power and transform their guerrilla fighters into a structured police and security force. But while the group attempts to project an air of authority through reports of raids and arrests of IS members, it remains unclear if it has the capability to protect soft targets, including religious institutions.
Read: 8 dead as al-Shabab claims blast in Somalia’s capital
In Kunduz, police officials were still picking up the pieces Friday at the Gozar-e-Sayed Abad Mosque.
Citing preliminary reports, the deputy Taliban police chief of Kunduz province, Dost Mohammad Obaida, said more than 100 people had been killed or wounded, and that he believed the dead outnumbered the wounded. Hours after his initial statement, police had still not provided an update.
An official at the Kunduz provincial hospital said at least 25 people were killed and 51 wounded in the attack. He said the figures were preliminary because casualties were being transferred to private hospitals as well. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to the media.
Even the preliminary death toll of 25 is already the highest in an attack since foreign troops left Afghanistan.
The United Nations mission in Afghanistan condemned the attack as "part of a disturbing pattern of violence" targeting religious institutions.
Obaida, the deputy police chief, pledged to protect minorities in the province. "I assure our Shiite brothers that the Taliban are prepared to ensure their safety," he said.
A prominent Shiite cleric, Sayed Hussain Alimi Balkhi, condemned the attack and called on the Taliban to provide security for the Shiites of Afghanistan. "We expect the security forces of the government to provide security for the mosques since they collected the weapons that were provided for the security of the worship places," he said.
The new tone struck by the Taliban, at least in Kunduz, is in sharp contrast to the well-documented history of Taliban fighters committing a litany of atrocities against minorities, including Hazaras. The Taliban, now feeling the weight of governing, employed similar tactics to those of IS during their 20-year insurgency, including suicide bombings and shooting ambushes.
And they have not halted attacks on Hazaras.
Read: At least 2 killed in German chemical blast; 31 injured
Earlier this week, a report by Amnesty International found the Taliban unlawfully killed 13 Hazaras, including a 17-year-old girl, in Daykundi province, after members of the security forces of the former government surrendered.
In Kunduz province, Hazaras make up about 6% of the province's population of nearly 1 million people. The province also has a large ethnic Uzbek population that has been targeted for recruitment by the IS, which is closely aligned with the militant Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
Friday's attack was the third to target a place of worship or religious study in a week.
IS has also claimed two deadly bombings in Kabul, including the horrific Aug. 26 bombing that killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. military personnel outside of Kabul airport in the final days of the chaotic American pullout from Afghanistan.
IS also claimed a bombing on Sunday outside Kabul's Eid Gah Mosque that killed at least five civilians. Another attack on a madrassa, a religious school, in Khost province on Wednesday was not claimed.
If Friday's attack is claimed by IS, it will also be worrying for Afghanistan's northern Central Asian neighbors and Russia, which has been courting the Taliban for years as an ally against the creeping IS in the region.