Afghanistan
UN calls on Taliban to drop restrictions on women
The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday decried increasing restrictions on women's rights in Afghanistan, urging the country's Taliban rulers to reverse them immediately.
The Security Council “reiterated its deep concern of the suspension of schools beyond the sixth grade, and its call for the full, equal, and meaningful participation of women and girls in Afghanistan,” it said in a press statement.
Read more: 4 NGOs suspend work in Afghanistan after Taliban bar women
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk pointed to “terrible consequences” of a decision to bar women from working for non-governmental organizations.
Last week, Taliban authorities stopped university education for women, sparking international outrage and demonstrations in Afghan cities. On Saturday, they announced the exclusion of women from NGO work, a move that already has prompted four major international aid agencies to suspend operations in Afghanistan.
“No country can develop — indeed survive — socially and economically with half its population excluded," Türk said in a statement issued in Geneva. "These unfathomable restrictions placed on women and girls will not only increase the suffering of all Afghans but, I fear, pose a risk beyond Afghanistan’s borders.”
“This latest decree by the de facto authorities will have terrible consequences for women and for all Afghan people,” Türk said, adding that banning women from working for NGOs will deprive them and their families of incomes and of the right to “contribute positively” to the country's development.
Read more: Taliban bar women from university education in Afghanistan
“The ban will significantly impair, if not destroy, the capacity of these NGOs to deliver the essential services on which so many vulnerable Afghans depend," he said.
Despite initially promising a more moderate rule respecting rights for women and minorities when they took power last year, the Taliban have widely implemented their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia.
They have banned girls from middle school and high school, restricted women from most employment and ordered them to wear head-to-toe clothing in public. Women are also banned from parks and gyms.
“Women and girls cannot be denied their inherent rights," Türk said. “Attempts by the de facto authorities to relegate them to silence and invisibility will not succeed — it will merely harm all Afghans, compound their suffering, and impede the country’s development.”
US slams Taliban for women’s NGO jobs ban in Afghanistan
The U.S. has condemned the Taliban for ordering non-governmental groups in Afghanistan to stop employing women, saying the ban will disrupt vital and life-saving assistance to millions.
The Taliban takeover last year sent Afghanistan’s economy into a tailspin and transformed the country, driving millions into poverty and hunger. Foreign aid stopped almost overnight. Sanctions on Taliban rulers, a halt on bank transfers and frozen billions in Afghanistan’s currency reserves have already restricted access to global institutions and the outside money that supported the country’s aid-dependent economy before the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces.
“Women are central to humanitarian operations around the world,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday. “This decision could be devastating for the Afghan people.”
Read more: Taliban bar women from university education in Afghanistan
The NGO order came in a letter from Economy Minister Qari Din Mohammed Hanif. It said any organization found not complying with the order will have their operating license revoked in Afghanistan. It is the latest blow to female rights and freedoms since the Taliban seized power last year and follows sweeping restrictions on education, employment, clothing and travel.
The flurry of edicts from the all-male and religiously driven Taliban government are reminiscent of their rule in the late 1990s, when they banned women from education and public spaces and outlawed music, television and many sports.
The U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was deeply disturbed by reports of the NGO ban.
Read more: Taliban official: 27 people lashed in public in Afghanistan
“The United Nations and its partners, including national and international non-governmental organizations, are helping more than 28 million Afghans who depend on humanitarian aid to survive,” he said in a statement.
Aid agencies and NGOs are expected to make a statement Sunday.
The Economy Ministry’s order comes days after the Taliban banned female students from attending universities across the country, triggering backlash overseas and demonstrations in major Afghan cities.
At around midnight Saturday in the western city of Herat, where earlier protesters were dispersed with water cannons, people opened their windows and chanted “Allahu Akbar (God is great)” in solidarity with female students.
In the southern city of Kandahar, also on Saturday, hundreds of male students boycotted their final semester exams at Mirwais Neeka University. One of them told The Associated Press that Taliban forces tried to break up the crowd as they left the exam hall.
“They tried to disperse us so we chanted slogans, then others joined in with the slogans,” said Akhbari, who only gave his last name. “We refused to move and the Taliban thought we were protesting. The Taliban started shooting their rifles into the air. I saw two guys being beaten, one of them to the head.”
A spokesman for the Kandahar provincial governor, Ataullah Zaid, denied there was a protest. There were some people who were pretending to be students and teachers, he said, but they were stopped by students and security forces.
Military bases had $260M in damages from Afghan evacuation
Military bases that housed tens of thousands of Afghan refugees in the U.S. incurred almost $260 million in damages that in some cases rendered buildings unusable for troops until significant repairs to walls and plumbing are made, the Pentagon’s inspector general found.
Over the last two weeks of August 2021, the U.S. Air Force managed the largest humanitarian evacuation in its history, airlifting 120,000 people from Afghanistan in just 17 days. The bulk of those passengers were Afghans fleeing Taliban rule, and U.S. aircraft delivered tens of thousands of those Afghans initially to bases in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Spain, Italy, Bahrain and Germany.
After processing, many of the refugees were flown to eight military bases in the U.S., where many were housed for months as they awaited visa processing and resettlement; the last Afghan refugee left military housing in February.
The refugees were housed at Fort Bliss, Texas; Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey; Fort McCoy, Wisconsin.; Camp Atterbury, Indiana; Fort Pickett, Fort Lee, and Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia; and Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico.
The sheer volume of people in the temporary housing left those barracks and buildings with significant wear and tear, the inspector general found.
Read more: Afghan survivors of US drone strike: Sorry ‘is not enough’
In one case, training for the Indiana National Guard was relocated from Camp Atterbury to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, due to damages caused during “Operation Allies Welcome.” The facilities need to be restored “to a condition that enables them to conduct trainings, prepare for future events, and return to normal base operations,” the IG found.
For example, of the $260 million in approved restoration costs, the Defense Department approved about $16 million for Camp Atterbury “to replace mattresses and furniture and repair floors, doors, windows, plumbing, fire alarm systems, and landscaping.”
But the inspector general questioned whether all the repair work requested by the eight bases was connected to the refugees’ stay.
For example, Fort McCoy, which housed 12,706 refugees, was approved for $145.6 million to repair buildings and plumbing, an amount that was more than three times the combined restoration needs of Fort Bliss and Fort Pickett, which had housed similar numbers of refugees.
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Taliban bar women from university education in Afghanistan
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers on Tuesday banned female students from attending universities effective immediately in the latest edict cracking down on women’s rights and freedoms.
Despite initially promising a more moderate rule respecting rights for women’s and minorities, the Taliban have widely implemented their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia.
They have banned girls from middle school and high school, restricted women from most employment and ordered them to wear head-to-toe clothing in public. Women are also banned from parks and gyms.
The Taliban were ousted in 2001 by a U.S.-led coalition for harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and returned to power after America’s chaotic departure last year.
Read: Taliban official: 27 people lashed in public in Afghanistan
The decision was announced after a government meeting. A letter shared by the spokesman for the Ministry of Higher Education, Ziaullah Hashmi, told private and public universities to implement the ban as soon as possible and to inform the ministry once the ban is in place.
Hashmi tweeted the letter and confirmed its contents in a message to The Associated Press without giving further details.
The decision is certain to hurt efforts by the Taliban to win recognition from potential international donors at a time when the country is mired in a worsening humanitarian crisis. The international community has urged Taliban leaders to reopen schools and give women their right to public space.
The university ban comes weeks after Afghan girls took their high school graduation exams, even though they have been banned from classrooms since the Taliban took over the country last year.
“I can’t fulfill my dreams, my hopes. Everything is disappearing before my eyes and I can’t do anything about it,” said a third-year journalism and communication student at Nangarhar University. She did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals.
“Is being a girl a crime? If that’s the case, I wish I wasn’t a girl,” she added. “My father had dreams for me, that his daughter would become a talented journalist in the future. That is now destroyed. So, you tell me, how will a person feel in this situation?”
Read: Taliban: 2 civilians killed in a bomb blast in Afghanistan
She added that she had not lost all hope yet.
“God willing, I will continue my studies in any way. I’m starting online studies. And, if it doesn’t work, I will have to leave the country and go to another country,” she said.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the decision, calling it another “broken promise” from the Taliban and a “very troubling” move.
“It’s difficult to imagine how a country can develop, can deal with all of the challenges that it has, without the active participation of women and the education,” Guterres said.
Robert Wood, the deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the Taliban cannot expect to be a legitimate member of the international community until they respect the rights of all Afghans.
U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the United States also condemned the move by the Taliban.
“This deplorable decision is the latest effort by Taliban leadership to impose additional restrictions on women and girls in Afghanistan and prevent them from exercising their human rights and fundamental freedoms,” Watson said.
“As a result of this unacceptable stance to hold back half of the population of Afghanistan, the Taliban will be further alienated from the international community and denied the legitimacy they desire,” she added.
Afghanistan’s U.N. seat is still held by the previous government led by former President Ashraf Ghani, despite the Taliban’s request to represent the country at the United Nations, which was recently deferred again.
Afghanistan’s charge d’affairs Naseer Ahmed Faiq said at the U.N. that the announcement “marks a new low in violation of most fundamental and universal human rights for all of humanity.”
Fuel tanker tunnel blast kills at least 19 in Afghanistan
At least 19 people were killed and 32 injured when a fuel tanker exploded in a tunnel north of the Afghan capital Kabul, a local official said Sunday.
The Salang Tunnel, which is around 80 miles north of Kabul, was originally built in the 1960s to assist the Soviet invasion. It is a key link between the country's north and south.
A spokesman for Parwan province, Said Himatullah Shamim, said Saturday night's tunnel explosion killed at least 19 people, including women and children. He said survivors remain trapped under rubble and that the number of casualties could rise.
It was not immediately clear what caused the incident, which happened at around 8.30 p.m.
Parwan's health department has received 14 dead and 24 injured so far, according to local official Dr. Abdullah Afghan. There are five women and two children among the dead, he said, and the rest are men who are severely burnt and cannot be recognized.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Public Works, Molvi Hamidullah Misbah, said earlier Sunday that the fire was extinguished and that teams were still working to clear the tunnel.
Afghan forces shell border town, killing 6: Pakistani army
Deadly shelling from Afghan forces killed 6 people in a border town on Sunday, Pakistan's military said, as relations continue to sour between the neighboring countries.
The violence hitting Chaman in southwestern Pakistan follows a series of deadly incidents and attacks that have skyrocketed tensions with Afghanistan's Taliban rulers. Chaman is the main border crossing for trade between the countries.
Read more: Taliban official: 27 people lashed in public in Afghanistan
The Pakistani army's media wing said the fire wounded 17 people and blamed the casualties on the “unprovoked and indiscriminate fire” of heavy weapons by Afghan forces on civilians.
In Afghanistan, a spokesman for Kandahar’s governor, Ataullah Zaid, appeared to link the clashes between Pakistani and Taliban forces with the construction of new checkpoints on the Afghan side of the border. He said one Taliban fighter was killed and 10 were wounded. Three civilians were also injured, he added.
Pakistan's army said troops responded to Afghan fire, but its media wing didn't give further details. It said Pakistan has approached authorities in the Afghan capital, Kabul, to highlight the severity of the border incident.
A doctor with a government-run hospital in Chaman, Akhtar Mohammad, told The Associated Press that live rounds injured 27 people who were brought into hospital for treatment. Of these, six died and seven were in a critical condition.
Read more: Roadside bomb kills 6 people in north Afghanistan: Taliban
A resident on Pakistan's side of the border, Wali Mohammad took his wounded cousin to the hospital in Chaman. He said there were a number of explosions followed by rapid gunfire.
“We were in the street like any other day off when suddenly a big explosion was heard and debris hit many people, including one of my cousins,” said Mohammad.
A deadly shooting in November shuttered the border at Chaman for eight days, causing heavy commercial losses and leaving thousands of people stranded on both sides.
Later in the month, Pakistan's embassy in Kabul came under gunfire. Pakistani officials called the incident an attack on its envoy there and blamed Taliban officials for the security breach. Islamabad also has said Afghanistan's rulers are sheltering militants who carry out deadly attacks on its soil.
Several countries, including Afghanistan, suffered due to foreigners’ role: Momen
Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen on Saturday advised the opposition leaders to reach out to people at the grassroots instead of seeking favour from foreigners, saying that foreigners have their own interests.
He mentioned that people in a number of countries, including in Afghanistan, suffered due to foreigners’ role there.
“Don’t listen to foreigners, listen to your leaders. After all, this is our own country. We don’t want to harm our country,” Momen told reporters.
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Recalling some foreigners’ role in the past, the Foreign Minister said, “I have much confidence in the people of this country.”
Momen said if the opposition parties reach out to the people it will be good for them and the country.
Responding to a question, Momen said diplomats stationed in Dhaka can convey to the government of Bangladesh if they have anything to say but this should be done by maintaining the code of conduct.
Momen cited examples of how the US expelled Russian diplomats and said powerful countries can do that. “But when the time comes, we will take action, too.”
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Earlier, he attended the "International Charity Bazaar" at the Foreign Service Academy hosted by the Foreign Office Spouses’ Association (FOSA).
T20 World Cup: Ibrahim, Nabi propel Afghanistan to 160 vs Bangladesh, Taskin takes three
Ibrahim Zadran and Mohammad Nabi scored 46 and 41 respectively to propel Afghanistan to 160 against Bangladesh in the warm-up match.
Right-arm pacer Taskin Ahmed did well taking three wickets.
Afghanistan won the toss and opted to bat first in Brisbane. Hazrat Zazai and Rahmanullah Gurbaz added only 19 runs in the opening stand.
But the number three Ibrahim came up with a steady innings and Nabi also did well to post a big total.
For Bangladesh, Taskin Ahmed bagged three wickets while Shakib Al Hasan and Hasan Mahmud scalped two wickets each.
After this match, Bangladesh will play their second warm-up match against South Africa on October 19 at the same venue.
At least 4 killed, 10 hurt in blast near Kabul mosque
At least four people are dead and 10 wounded after explosion went off near a mosque in Afghanistan's capital of Kabul on Friday, with a hospital confirming the number of casualties.
A column of black smoke rose into the sky and shots rang out several minutes after the blast in the city's diplomatic quarter.
The Italian Emergency Hospital in Kabul said it had received 14 casualties and that four people were dead on arrival.
Khalid Zadran, a spokesman for the Kabul police chief, said the blast targeted worshippers leaving the mosque after Friday prayers.
Interior Minister spokesman Abdul Nafi Takor said the blast went off on the main road near the mosque. He said the cause was under investigation. Takor said police teams were at the site and that an investigation was underway.
Mosques have previously been a target for attacks.
The blast took place near the Wazir Akbar Khan mosque which, in 2020, was struck by a bomb that killed two people, including the mosque’s prayer leader.
Asia Cup: India overpower Afghanistan as Virat Kohli hits ton after 1,000 days
India outplayed Afghanistan by 101 runs in their last Asia Cup match Thursday in the United Arab Emirates' Dubai.
Virat Kohli hit a ton in this match – his first after more than 1,000 days – and guided India to a big win.
Batting first after losing the toss, India posted 212.
Afghanistan scored 111 for eight in 20 overs. Ibrahim Zadran remained unbeaten on 64 off 59 balls with four fours and two sixes. Mujeeb Ur Rahman scored 18.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar picked up five wickets for four runs in four overs. Arshdeep Singh, Ravichandran Ashwin and Deepak Hooda took one wicket each.
Earlier, Lokesh Rahul fell prey to Fareed Ahmad for 62 off 41 balls with six fours and two sixes. But Virat stood like a rock at the other end of the wicket. Lokesh and Virat added 119 runs in the opening stand.
Virat completed his hundred off 53 balls. With a six off Fareed, Virat reached the magical figure. He remained unbeaten on 122 off 61 balls, the highest individual T20 score by an Indian batter, with 12 fours and six sixes.
In the group phase, Afghanistan beat both Sri Lanka and Bangladesh; India outplayed Pakistan and Hong Kong. But in the Super 4, both Afghanistan and India lost to Pakistan.
Pakistan and Sri Lanka will take on each other in the final on September 11. Before that, they will play another match on September 9 – the last match in the Super 4— whose result will be inconsequential.
Also read: Asia Cup: Pakistan win thriller against Afghanistan to make the final