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KABUL, March 21 (Reuters) - Afghanistan's school year started on Tuesday, the education ministry said, as the U.N. children's agency renewed calls for teenage girls to be able to rejoin the classroom.

A year ago, after signalling that they would open schools for all students, Taliban authorities made a U-Turn, leaving many girls who had turned up to their high school classes in tears and sparking global condemnation that has hampered the Taliban's efforts to gain formal international recognition.

Since then primary schools for girls have stayed open but most high schools have been closed and the Taliban barred female students from university in December, provoking international outcry and protests In some Afghan cities.

A letter from the education ministry confirming the official start of the school year after the winter break this week made no mention of any change in access for girls. The head of the U.N. children's agency in Afghanistan said authorities needed to open schools to all students so they could resume socialisation and building skills as well as academic learning.

"As the new school year in Afghanistan begins, we rejoice in the millions of boys and girls returning to primary school classrooms. Yet, we are deeply disappointed not to see adolescent girls going back to their classrooms as well," said Fran Equiza, UNICEF's Afghanistan representative, in a tweet.

As many Afghan women have continued calling for schools to re-open, enrolment at female religious schools - the only remaining option - has gone up over the past year.

In Kunduz province, one of a handful of northern provinces where some girls' high schools had quietly remained open last year, authorities said they were closed for now.

"This year the schools are open up to class six for girls, we are waiting for further notice about secondary classes," Mohammed Ismail Abu Ahmad, the head of Kunduz's education department told Reuters.

In the capital Kabul, school openings appeared limited on Tuesday which fell on Nowruz, the Persian New Year that is widely celebrated in Afghanistan and which had previously been a public holiday.

Taliban authorities said last year that they would not recognise Nowruz as a public holiday, though they had not barred people from celebrating privately.

Reporting by Mohammad Yunus Yawar; Writing by Charlotte GreenfieldEditing by Tomasz Janowski

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Afghanistan's school year starts with calls for all girls to be allowed back - Reuters

PESHAWAR/KABUL, March 22 (Reuters) - At least 13 people were killed and more than 90 injured in Pakistan and Afghanistan after a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck late on Tuesday, government officials said.

At least nine people were killed and 44 injured in northwest Pakistan, a Pakistani government official said, and hospitals in northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province were put into a state of emergency overnight.

At least four people were killed and 50 injured in Afghanistan, a health ministry official there said.

Houses and buildings in both countries were also damaged, authorities said.

The quake was felt over an area more than 1,000 kilometres (621 miles) wide by some 285 million people in Pakistan, India, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre said.

[1/3]People come out of a restaurant after a tremor was felt in Lahore, Pakistan March 21, 2023. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

The epicentre was in the Hindu Kush mountains, in the sparsely populated northeastern Afghan province of Badakhshan, 40km southeast of Jurm village, at the considerable depth of 187km, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

In Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province senior provincial official Abdul Basit said that addition to the dead and injured, at least 19 houses were damaged.

Shafiullah Rahimi, a spokesperson for Afghanistan's disaster mitigation ministry, said late on Tuesday that two people had been killed in the eastern province of Laghman.

Large parts of South Asia are seismically active because a tectonic plate known as the Indian plate is pushing north into the Eurasian plate.

A 6.1 magnitude earthquake in eastern Afghanistan killed more than 1,000 people last year.

In 2005, at least 73,000 people were killed by a 7.6 magnitude quake that struck northern Pakistan.

Reporting by Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar, Mohammad Yunus Yawar and Charlotte Greenfield in Kabul; Writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by Jacqueline Wong

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Earthquake in Afghanistan kills at least 13, nine of them in Pakistan - Reuters

Afghanistan

Lord Justice Haddon-Cave issues call for evidence, saying it is critical law-breakers be referred to authorities

A judge investigating allegations of more than 50 summary killings by SAS soldiers in Afghanistan has issued a call for anyone with evidence to come forward, saying it was critical that law-breakers be referred to authorities.

Launching his independent inquiry, Lord Justice Haddon-Cave said he was very hopeful there would be full cooperation with his work, which he said was ultimately about restoring the reputation of the military and moral authority.

Either the allegations are untrue, or if some of them are true then the military and the country can hold its head high and say we have looked into these properly and thoroughly. Its about, ultimately, reputation, he said.

He said he was confident he and his team would get to the bottom of the claims, which include an alleged cover-up of illegal activity and claims of inadequate investigations by the Royal Military Police.

Asked if his investigations could extend to taking evidence from the Taliban, and about the obstacles in terms of communicating with witnesses in Afghanistan, Haddon-Cave said he and his team would do everything in our power to facilitate contributions.

Ministers announced the statutory judge-led inquiry, which will have powers to compel people to give evidence, in December after allegations 54 Afghans were killed in suspicious circumstances by one SAS unit in Helmand province between 2010 and 2011, and accusations these amounted to war crimes.

A high court case brought by the law firm Leigh Day on behalf of one man, Saifullah, alleged that his father, two brothers and a cousin were killed during an SAS raid on a compound in southern Afghanistan in February 2011.

The inquiry is tasked with determining whether investigations conducted by the Royal Military Police were carried out properly and effectively, and whether there is credible information that numerous extrajudicial killings were carried out by British armed forces between 2010 and 2013. The judge said the three-year period sufficiently captures the allegations currently being made.

The inquiry will also seek to determine whether the circumstances of alleged extrajudicial killings were covered up at any stage and what lessons can be learned.

A case management hearing is scheduled for 25 April in London, which will hear further details of four phases that will start with the collection and scrutiny of thousands of documents, many highly sensitive. This will be followed by what Haddon-Cave described as background briefings about military operations and the role of British forces in Afghanistan, followed by hearings.

It was his intention to hold as many of these as possible in public, he said, but national security and the need to protect witnesses meant many would have to be held in private. When it came to evidence from members of special forces such as the SAS, he said it was doubtful anyone other than the inquiry team could be present.

Asked why the term special forces was not mentioned in his opening statement, he told reporters that armed forces was the phrase that was to be used in the terms of reference but would not elaborate.

I would urge anyone, who has got any information or material, which they think may be relevant to theinquiry, to please get in touch with the inquiry team as soon as possible, he said, as an official website went live.

The fourth phase of the inquiry will involve the finalisation of the report before it is laid before parliament and made public.

The families of eight people, including three young boys, who were allegedly murdered by UK special forces in two separate incidents during night raids in Afghanistan in 2011 and 2012 have previously welcomed the inquiry.

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UK begins inquiry into alleged SAS extrajudicial killings in Afghanistan - The Guardian

A year and a half after the developments of August 15, 2021, when the Islamic Emirate regained control of Afghanistan, the situation in the country remains extremely hopeful.

The security situation has improved significantly. Violence levels have dropped sharply over the past 18 months and continue to reach new lows, despite doomsday predictions from critics of the new government in Kabul.

Even in the hotel lobbies of Doha during negotiations, many diplomats had harped on about the possibility of another destructive civil war, unless their demands were met. But the leaders of the Islamic Emirate took this contingency into account and enacted measures to avoid such an outcome.

While gaining control of the entire country, we took steps to weaken the possibility of a renewed war, by answering the concerns of Afghans and adopting the humane Islamic message of general amnesty and brotherhood.

Today, not only has the war come to an end but Afghanistan is being administered by an independent, powerful, united, central and responsible government. This is a first for Afghanistan in more than four decades.

The government has taken steps to disentangle Afghanistan from the crippling reliance on foreign aid which defined the political setup of the past decades. Not only that, we are Afghanising all sectors, making them more accountable to the needs of the local population, and with a focus on capacity building and sustainability. This gives strength to our feeling of ownership of our own territory.

At the same time, we also understand that the globalised nature of modern relations means that all state actors must learn to live in harmony and peace with one another. Such relations should be founded on the immutable principles of equality, mutual respect and cooperation through the pursuit of shared interests. Bearing this in mind, the current government of Afghanistan once again extends its hand of positive engagement to the world.

We think a unique opportunity has emerged to embark on rapprochement between Afghanistan and the world. Domestically, the unity and cohesion of Afghan society are stronger than ever before. We celebrate, and take pride, in our diversity and rich history. We dont believe in imposing the majoritys will on a minority. In our view, every citizen of the country is an inseparable part of the collective whole.

The conditions are ripe for Afghanistan to rise up as a responsible and independent member of the international community and to fulfil its responsibility in promoting global peace and security. The international community, on its part, should reciprocate by welcoming Afghanistan into its fold while paying respect to its independence and assisting it to stand on its feet. Our foreign policy will be based on a balanced and independent approach, that avoids entanglement in global and regional rivalries. We will pursue opportunities for shared interests and peaceful coexistence, based on the principle of equality and respect.

As for our internal affairs, which have at times been misconceived or misconstrued, there remains the need to dispel misinformation and depict an accurate picture of the values and needs of Afghanistan. The religious and cultural sensibilities of our society require a cautious approach. Any government that has not maintained the proper equilibrium, pertaining to such sensibilities, has ultimately faced serious difficulties. This is a lesson that our recent history has emphasised over and over again.

We believe in dialogue and an exchange of ideas, in an atmosphere free from political or economic pressures, and aimed at finding practical solutions and dispelling misunderstandings. Past experiences show that weaponising human suffering does not bear fruit. Alleviating the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is our joint moral responsibility. Seeking to obtain political concessions by perpetuating mass suffering is neither civilised nor morally justifiable.

The primary cause of the ongoing economic crisis is the imposition of sanctions and banking restrictions by the United States. This impedes and delays our efforts to address the humanitarian crisis. The only path that respects the dignity of the Afghan people requires the lifting of sanctions and other commercial restrictions on the country. Space should be created to nurture the spirit and initiative of the Afghan people. Moreover, the US should unfreeze Afghanistans frozen assets, and in line with the Doha agreement, lift all sanctions. What moral and political justifications can the US have for imposing crippling sanctions on a war-torn nation?

We remind the US and others that sanctions and pressures do not resolve differences. Only mutual trust does. Afghanistan has a history of failed states and collapsed governments. Not even global powers and grand alliances were able to prevent this.

What would be the consequence of weakening this government? Surely, such a scenario will be accompanied by a great human tragedy that will not be limited to Afghanistan, but rather usher in new and unforeseen security, refugee, economic, health and other challenges for our neighbours, the region and the world.

The bitter reality is that over the past two decades, the Afghan economy was made wholly dependent on foreign aid, almost to the point of addiction. With the screeching halt of foreign aid, there is now a need to address the basic and fundamental needs of the Afghan people.

We recommend that aid should prioritise the creation of jobs and the completion of infrastructural projects with a durable impact. Simply handing out bags of money will not result in sustainable livelihoods for millions of people unless the domestic economy is revived.

The first prerequisite for that is the removal of sanctions, to pave way for the private sector to be revitalised. All obstacles to transnational trade, extraction of natural resources, and the implementation of national mega projects should be removed. We, on our part, remain committed to ensuring a conducive environment and to working with all states based on our shared interests. A self-reliant Afghanistan is in the interest of everyone while a failed Afghanistan jeopardises all.

There is a need for the international community to establish political and economic relations with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, while respecting its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

We have made important progress in the past year and a half. This, despite the fact that we inherited a collapsed narco-state, with an emptied treasury, unpaid bills, millions of drug addicts, rampant corruption, universal poverty and unemployment and a stagnant economy.

We established a professional security force, maintained nationwide security and ensured that no one uses the territory of Afghanistan against other countries. We have completely banned the cultivation of drugs. We welcome those that remain sceptical to visit Afghanistan and witness these undeniable facts up close.

Similarly, for the first time in decades, an Afghan government procured its budget entirely from domestic revenues. In the past, over two-thirds of the government budget was comprised of foreign grants. Moreover, the government has nationalised economic institutions, ensuring that these institutions serve their domestic mandates. In January, the World Banks latest report reflected these advances.

Furthermore, the government has clamped down on corruption, which, in the past, resulted in Afghanistan being listed at the top of the most corrupt countries. It has also facilitated movement for Afghans who wish to travel domestically or move overseas. This was done to address the demand of the international community; we also retained around 500,000 members of the previous administration, while increasing the size of the public sector.

We do acknowledge that there remain challenges and shortcomings. But their solution requires time, means and cooperation. Broadly speaking, virtually all countries of the world have problems of their own. Yet, we choose to assist and alleviate, rather than shun and exacerbate.

Let us recall that the international military coalition of the past two decades brought in hundreds of thousands of troops, and expended trillions of dollars, yet were unable to obtain their desired outcome. Even now, they have chosen to live in the past, rather than turn a new leaf. They have repeatedly chosen to turn a blind eye to the positive steps of the government, and have only adopted a policy of accusations and pressure.

Hence, there remains a need to understand and accept the reality that one hand cannot clap.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.

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Afghanistan is ready to work with the US, but sanctions must go - Al Jazeera English

Since returning to power in Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban have struggled to contain the Islamic State Khorasan province, or ISIS-K the official Islamic State group affiliate operating in Afghanistan.

Now, a fresh wave of assassination attempts on top Taliban officials has rocked multiple regions across the country and prompted fears of the groups potential to attack targets outside Afghanistan, including U.S. and Western interests.

On March 9, 2023, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed Mohammad Dawood Muzammil, the Taliban governor of Balkh province in northern Afghanistan, along with two others. One day earlier, the groups fighters carried out a targeted killing against the head of the water supply department in Afghanistans western Herat province. And most recently, on March 15, the group claimed a failed attack on a Taliban district governor in the eastern province of Nangarhar, a former ISIS-K stronghold.

ISIS-K seeks to advance the Islamic State groups goal of creating a global caliphate based on its own interpretation of Islamic law.

As scholars who have studied ISIS-K for years, we know that the recent attacks are only a few in a long line of attacks the group has carried out or attempted in Afghanistan since forming in 2015.

ISIS-K has tried often successfully to kill government and military officials, media influencers, religious leaders and other civil society figures. The group is also responsible for the bombing that left 13 U.S. service members and scores of Afghans dead in August 2021, following the collapse of the former government and the U.S.-led withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Some of ISIS-Ks ambitious plots have failed. Notable examples include claimed attempts against NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and former U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis in 2017, former Afghanistan vice president Abdul Rashid Dostum in 2018, former Afghanistan president Ashraf Ghani in 2020 and former U.S. diplomat in Kabul Ross Wilson in 2021.

Despite both being Islamist organizations, ISIS-K and the Taliban are strategic rivals locked in a battle that has persisted since ISIS-Ks inception. Targeted assassinations of Taliban security and political officials, across multiple ranks and levels, have been a consistent feature of ISIS-Ks resurgence. The recent killings are simply a continuation of the groups attack priorities.

Assassinations are a fundamental pillar of the Islamic State groups insurgency doctrine, which is adopted by its affiliates and serves multiple purposes.

For one, theyre a way to retaliate against heavy losses. Just days before the latest string of attacks, ISIS-K threatened to amplify its violence after Taliban raids in January and February killed key Islamic State leaders and attack planners.

For another, assassinations can whittle away key leaders in the enemys ranks, as well as foreign influence. The latest issue of the Islamic State groups weekly newsletter, Al-Naba, claimed that Gov. Muzammil was not only a significant player in the Talibans campaign against ISIS-K in Nangarhar, but that he was also acting on behalf of Iran. Countering actual or perceived foreign state influence in Afghanistan even the lifesaving work of international humanitarian groups has been a consistent feature of ISIS-K propaganda and violence.

In addition, assassinations of high-profile opponents serve to raise morale among fighters, prevent defections and boost recruitment. The ability to assassinate top Taliban leaders and commanders showcases ISIS-Ks strength to potential recruit, including from within the Talibans ranks.

Finally, high-profile attacks signal to the Islamic State groups core leadership in Iraq and Syria that its affiliate in Afghanistan deserves continued support and investment. ISIS-K leaders have frequently sent letters to Islamic State group leadership boasting of their successful assassinations and other operations. After the attack on the Kabul airport in August 2021, ISIS-K received new cash payments from top Islamic State group leaders either as a reward, investment or both.

How successful ISIS-K is in rebuilding its insurgency and replicating the caliphate model in Iraq and Syria will depend on a number of factors.

Most important is its continued ability to leverage its strategic alliances and rivalries. Partnering with other jihadist groups in the region helps ISIS-K sustain its capacity for violence. And accusing the Taliban of apostasy for accepting foreign investment and humanitarian aid from infidel or enemy governments including China, the U.S., Iran, Turkey and others helps distinguish ISIS-Ks own brand from its rivals. Targeting killings of such opponents further reinforces this distinction.

A strengthened ISIS-K insurgency in Afghanistan has direct consequences for U.S. and Western security interests. A February 2023 U.S. intelligence report warned of ISIS-Ks desire to attack the West. And on March 16, U.S. CENTCOM commander Gen. Michael Kurilla testified that ISIS-K will be able to attack American and Western interests outside Afghanistan in less than six months.

Whether or not this assessment is accurate, the recent claimed assassinations by ISIS-K are one of many indicators that point to its growing threat in Afghanistan a threat that we believe the Taliban cant take on alone.

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A string of assassinations in Afghanistan point to ISIS-K resurgence and US officials warn of possible attacks on American interests in next 6 months...