Archive for the ‘Afghanistan’ Category
Taliban: 2 senior IS members killed in Afghanistan – ABC News
ISLAMABAD -- Two senior regional members of the Islamic State group have been killed in Afghanistan in recent weeks in separate operations by the Taliban security forces, a Taliban spokesman said Tuesday.
Taliban forces killed Qari Fateh, the regional IS intelligence and operations chief, during a raid in Kabul over the weekend, Zabihullah Mujahid, the main spokesman for the Taliban government, said in a statement.
A news outlet allied with the Islamic State group on Tuesday posted confirmation of Fateh's death on an IS-run Telegram chat.
Earlier this month in a separate operation in Kabul, three IS members including senior IS leader Ijaz Amin Ahingar were killed.
Mujahid said that a number of other IS members, including foreign nationals planning deadly attacks, also have been detained in recent days.
The regional affiliate of the Islamic State group known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province is a key rival of the Taliban. The militant group has increased its attacks in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover of the country in August 2021. Targets have included Taliban patrols and members of Afghanistans Shiite minority.
In January, eight IS militants were killed and nine others arrested in a series of raids targeting key figures.
The raids in the capital city and western Nimroz province targeted IS militants who organized attacks on Kabuls Longan Hotel, Pakistan embassy and the military airport.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a deadly bombing near a checkpoint at the Afghan capitals military airport. IS said that attack was carried out by the same militant who took part in the Longan Hotel assault in mid-December.
IS claimed the attack on a Chinese-owned hotel in the heart of Kabul, causing China to advise its citizens to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible.
Earlier, the IS also claimed a shooting attack targeting the Pakistani Embassy in Kabul. Shots were fired at the embassy from a nearby building, triggering anger in Pakistan and raising tensions between the two South Asian neighbors.
Pakistans top diplomat in Kabul was walking across the lawn inside the embassy compound at the time of the attack. He was unharmed, but one of his Pakistani guards was wounded.
The Taliban swept across the country in mid-August 2021, seizing power as U.S. and NATO forces were withdrawing from Afghanistan after 20 years of war.
The international community has not recognized the Taliban government, wary of the harsh measures they have imposed since their takeover including restricting rights and freedoms, especially for of women and minorities.
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Taliban: 2 senior IS members killed in Afghanistan - ABC News
The U.S. Set Up the Afghan Army to Fail – The Intercept
- The U.S. Set Up the Afghan Army to Fail The Intercept
- Afghanistan watchdog 'not super optimistic' that US will learn its lessons from Afghanistan to help Ukraine CNN
- Report to Congress on Afghanistan and U.S. Policy - USNI News USNI News
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The U.S. Set Up the Afghan Army to Fail - The Intercept
A Timeline Of Afghanistan’s 4 Decades Of Instability : NPR
The Soviet army in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Dec. 31, 1979. Francois Lochon/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images hide caption
The Soviet army in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Dec. 31, 1979.
The collapse of the Afghan government and the Taliban's recapture of power came after a blitz by the militant group that stunned many Afghans and the world. It is the latest chapter in the country's nearly 42 years of instability and bitter conflict.
Afghans have lived through foreign invasions, civil war, insurgency and a previous period of oppressive Taliban rule. Here are some key events and dates from the past four decades.
December 1979
Following upheaval after a 1978 Afghan coup, the Soviet military invades Afghanistan to prop up a pro-Soviet government.
1980
Babrak Karmal is installed as Afghanistan's Soviet-backed ruler. Groups of guerrilla fighters known as mujahideen or holy warriors mount opposition and a jihad against Soviet forces. The ensuing war leaves about 1 million Afghan civilians and some 15,000 Soviet soldiers dead.
Millions of Afghans begin fleeing to neighboring Pakistan as refugees. The U.S., which had previously been aiding Afghan mujahideen groups, and Saudi Arabia covertly funnel arms to the mujahideen via Pakistan through the 1980s.
Afghan refugees are shown in a camp on Kohat Road outside of Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1980. Peter Bregg/AP hide caption
Afghan refugees are shown in a camp on Kohat Road outside of Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1980.
1983
President Ronald Reagan welcomes Afghan fighters to the White House in 1983, and mujahideen leader Yunus Khalis visits the Oval Office in 1987.
Former President Ronald Reagan meets in the Oval Office in 1983 with Afghan fighters opposing the Soviet Union. Bettmann/Getty Images hide caption
Former President Ronald Reagan meets in the Oval Office in 1983 with Afghan fighters opposing the Soviet Union.
1986
The CIA supplies Stinger antiaircraft missiles to the mujahideen, allowing them to shoot down Soviet helicopter gunships.
An Afghan guerrilla handles a U.S.-made Stinger anti-aircraft missile. David Stewart Smith/AP hide caption
An Afghan guerrilla handles a U.S.-made Stinger anti-aircraft missile.
1987
Mohammad Najibullah, groomed by the Soviets, replaces Karmal as president.
1988
The Geneva peace accords are signed by Afghanistan, the Soviet Union, the U.S. and Pakistan, and Soviet forces begin their withdrawal.
Feb. 15, 1989
The last Soviet to leave Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Boris Gromov, walks with his son on the bridge linking Afghanistan to Uzbekistan over the Amu Darya River. The Soviet commander crossed from the Afghan town of Khairaton. Tass/AP hide caption
The last Soviet to leave Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Boris Gromov, walks with his son on the bridge linking Afghanistan to Uzbekistan over the Amu Darya River. The Soviet commander crossed from the Afghan town of Khairaton.
The last Soviet soldier leaves Afghanistan.
1992
Following the withdrawal of Soviet forces and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Najibullah's pro-communist government crumbles. He is blocked from leaving Afghanistan and takes refuge at the Kabul United Nations compound, where he remains for more than four years.
Mujahideen leaders enter the capital and turn on each other. Refugees continue to flee in huge numbers to Pakistan and Iran.
The presidential palace in Kabul is severely damaged after being hit by tank shells and rockets fired by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami fighters. Udo Weitz/AP hide caption
The presidential palace in Kabul is severely damaged after being hit by tank shells and rockets fired by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami fighters.
Kabul, largely spared during the Soviet war, comes under brutal attack by forces loyal to mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Much of the city is left in rubble. The national museum is rocketed and looted. Some 50,000 people are killed.
1994
The Taliban, ultraconservative Afghan student-warriors emerging from mujahideen groups and religious seminaries in Pakistan and Afghanistan, take over the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, promising to restore order and bring greater security. They quickly impose their harsh interpretation of Islam on the territory they control.
A Taliban fighter guards a road southeast of Kabul in 1995. Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
A Taliban fighter guards a road southeast of Kabul in 1995.
May 1996
Saudi-born al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden arrives in Afghanistan after being expelled from Sudan, and eventually ingratiates himself with the one-eyed Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar. Bin Laden had previously aided Afghan mujahideen forces during the Soviet war years as one of many so-called "Afghan Arabs" who joined the anti-Soviet fight.
Osama bin Laden speaks at a press conference in Khost, Afghanistan, in 1998. Mazhar Ali Khan/AP hide caption
Osama bin Laden speaks at a press conference in Khost, Afghanistan, in 1998.
Sept. 26, 1996
The Taliban take over Kabul. They capture Najibullah, the former president, from the U.N. compound, kill him and hang his body from a lamppost.
Taliban rally in Kabul, October 1996. Robert Nickelsberg/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images hide caption
Taliban rally in Kabul, October 1996.
1997-1998
Gaining control over most of the country, the Taliban impose their rule, forbidding most women from working, banning girls from education and carrying out punishments including beatings, amputations and public executions. Only three countries officially recognize the Taliban regime: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
In August 1998, the U.S. launches cruise missile strikes on Khost, Afghanistan, in retaliation for al-Qaida attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Afghan women wear Taliban-imposed burqas in Kabul. Roger Lemoyne/Liaison/Getty Images hide caption
Afghan women wear Taliban-imposed burqas in Kabul.
1999
The U.N. Security Council imposes terrorist sanctions on the Taliban and al-Qaida.
In December, an Indian Airlines passenger jet, bound from Kathmandu to New Delhi, is hijacked to Kandahar. The Taliban serve as mediators between the hijackers and Indian authorities, who decide to free three terrorists from Indian prisons and hand them over to the hijackers in exchange for the passengers' safety.
March 2001
Rejecting international pleas, the Taliban blow up two 1,500-year-old colossal Buddha statues carved into a mountainside in Bamiyan, saying the statues were "idols" prohibited under Islam.
Afghan Taliban in front of the empty niche that held one of the two giant Buddha statues the Taliban blew up in Bamiyan in March 2001. Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Afghan Taliban in front of the empty niche that held one of the two giant Buddha statues the Taliban blew up in Bamiyan in March 2001.
August 2001
The Taliban put a group of Western aid workers on trial, accusing them of preaching Christianity, a capital offense. Two American women are among the accused.
September 2001
Anti-Taliban Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud is assassinated on Sept. 9 by al-Qaida operatives posing as TV journalists.
After al-Qaida's Sept. 11 attacks in New York City and Washington, the U.S. demands that the Taliban hand over bin Laden. They refuse.
Oct. 7, 2001
An undated file photo shows a U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress heavy bomber. The U.S.-led coalition launched air and missile strikes in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001. U.S. Air Force/Getty Images hide caption
An undated file photo shows a U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress heavy bomber. The U.S.-led coalition launched air and missile strikes in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001.
A U.S.-led coalition launches Operation Enduring Freedom, targeting the Taliban and al-Qaida with military strikes.
November-December 2001
The U.S.-backed Northern Alliance enters Kabul on Nov. 13. The Taliban flee south and their regime is overthrown. In December, Hamid Karzai is named interim president after Afghan groups sign the Bonn Agreement on an interim government. Under that agreement, some warlords are named provincial governors, military commanders and cabinet ministers, as are members of the Northern Alliance. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force is established under a U.N. mandate.
2003
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signals an end to "major combat activity" in Afghanistan, saying, "We clearly have moved from major combat activity to a period of stability and stabilization and reconstruction and activities."
2004
Afghanistan holds a presidential election, won by Hamid Karzai.
2005
Afghanistan's parliament opens after elections bring in lawmakers including old warlords and faction leaders.
2006
The Taliban seize territory in southern Afghanistan. NATO's ISAF assumes command from the U.S. in the south, something the NATO secretary general calls "one of the most challenging tasks NATO has ever taken on."
2009
Karzai is reelected president.
The U.S. "surge" begins after President Barack Obama orders substantial troop increases in Afghanistan. Obama says that U.S. forces will leave by 2011.
2012
NATO announces it will withdraw foreign combat troops and transfer control of security operations to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.
2013
The Afghan army takes on security operations from NATO forces.
The Obama administration announces plans to start formal peace talks with the Taliban.
2014
After a disputed election, Ashraf Ghani succeeds Karzai as Afghanistan's president. Ghani's rival, Abdullah Abdullah, is named chief executive.
A U.S. soldier walks past burning trucks at the scene of a suicide attack in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province in 2014. Noorullah Shirzada/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
A U.S. soldier walks past burning trucks at the scene of a suicide attack in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province in 2014.
At the end of the year, U.S. and NATO forces formally end their combat missions.
2015
NATO launches its Resolute Support mission to aid Afghan forces. Heavy violence continues as the Taliban step up their attacks on Afghan and U.S. forces and civilians, and take over more territory. At the same time, an Afghan ISIS branch also emerges.
Taliban members and Afghan officials meet informally in Qatar and agree to continue peace talks.
The Taliban make publicly known that Mullah Omar, the group's founder, died years earlier. Mullah Akhtar Mansour is named as the new leader. He is killed the following year in a U.S. drone attack in Pakistan.
2016
The Afghan government grants immunity to former mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, known in the civil war years as the "butcher of Kabul."
2017
Fighting continues between government forces and the Taliban, and attacks attributed to the Taliban and ISIS convulse the country.
2018
President Donald Trump appoints former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad as his special representative to negotiate with the Taliban.
2020
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A Timeline Of Afghanistan's 4 Decades Of Instability : NPR
Report says donors turning away from Taliban-ruled Afghanistan
A new report by Crisis Group warns against international donors cutting aid to Afghanistan in the wake of the Talibans curbs on womens education and ability to work at NGOs, instead arguing for Western countries to find a liminal space between pariah and legitimate status to respond to the ongoing humanitarian crisis.
The report, released on Thursday, focused primarily on two Taliban edicts announced in December the first suspending female education at private and public universities, and the second banning Afghan women from working at local and international NGOs. The moves led to protests and global condemnation, while sounding a possible death knell for the Talibans initial openness to engage with the international community following its takeover of the country in August 2021.
Accompanying the Talibans clampdown has been a reassessment of international aid from key international government donors, according to the reports authors. That aid, despite being immediately paused in the wake of the groups rise to power, had resumed amid concerns over widespread hunger and poverty in the country of about 40 million.
Donors are turning away from Afghanistan, disgusted by the Talibans restrictions on womens basic freedoms, Graeme Smith, Crisis Groups Senior Consultant on Afghanistan, said in a statement accompanying the report.
However, cutting aid to send a message about womens rights will only make the situation worse for all Afghans, he added. The most principled response to the Talibans misogyny would be finding ways to mitigate the harms inflicted on women and other vulnerable groups.
The report which drew on dozens of interviews with Afghan and international women activists, current and former Afghan officials, teachers, students, aid workers, human rights defenders, development officials, diplomats, business leaders and other interlocutors noted Western governments in the second half of 2022 warned aid agencies of a growing sense of donor fatigue towards Afghanistan. It did not name the governments to which it referred.
The authors further warned that following the most recent rights rollbacks, many Western politicians fear voters will not accept the idea of their taxes helping a country ruled by an odious regime, while adding that consultations in January 2023 among major donors produced initial thinking that aid should be trimmed back to send a message to the Taliban, although the governments involved did not agree on which budgets to cut.
Again, the report did not name the countries in question.
The United Nations, which has already had to roll back some aid operations in the wake of the ban on NGO workers, has appealed for $4.6bn to aid Afghanistan. The sum is the largest request for a single country ever. The UN has warned that 28 million people are in need of humanitarian aid, accounting for two-thirds of the countrys population.
But Crisis Group warned that Western governments seemed poised to fall significantly short of that appeal.
The report authors added that options discussed in the wake of the December edict have included deepening sanctions, cutting aid or levying other forms of punishment in response.
They noted that the G7 grouping of the worlds most wealthy countries had said there would be consequences for how our countries engage with the Taliban in the wake of the December edicts. The grouping had provided $3bn in humanitarian funding for Afghanistan in 2022, the report noted.
In the United States, which imposed a raft of new sanctions on the Taliban in October over their treatment of women, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: There are going to be costs if this is not reversed.
The reports authors argued any approach that included short-term cuts to aid in the hopes of undermining the Talibans authority would further harm those targeted by the Talibans recent moves.
Testing such assumptions would involve a high-stakes gamble with potentially millions of human lives. Win or lose, the costs of taking the gamble would be paid in large part by Afghan women, as the burdens of the crisis fall disproportionately on them, the report said.
It noted that women and girls often get the smallest share of food in Afghan families, which means that in times of scarcity they are most vulnerable to malnutrition and disease, while child marriages tend to increase during times of increased hardship.
Instead, Crisis Group argued that continuing to offer humanitarian aid, while supporting longer-term development aid, would address the populations immediate needs, while undermining the Talibans overheated rhetoric about a titanic clash between Islam and the West.
The authors further cautioned against expecting outside pressure to change the Talibans approach, highlighting the opaque nature of the groups decision-making. They noted its reclusive leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has appeared to insist on the strict measures out of personal conviction and to assert his authority over the movement and the country.
As the world considers its options, the idea of coaxing the Taliban into behaving like an internationally acceptable government should be set aside for the moment, the report said.
There is little room for opposing views within the Taliban leadership, it added, and influence from outside Muslim figures has proven ineffective as the Talibans policies are drawn not only from their atypical interpretation of Islam, but also from aspects of local culture.
Meanwhile, political talks with the Taliban aimed at creating a roadmap to normalisation have all but stalled. It also remains unclear how much money the group may be earning from narcotics and other forms of smuggling, bringing into question how much sanctions will actually affect the upper echelons of leadership.
Western policymakers must stand up for Afghan women and girls. At the same time, they should be careful to avoid self-defeating policies, the report concluded.
Practical steps that materially benefit Afghan women, improving their lives in tangible ways, would be superior to angry denunciations of the Talibans wrongheadedness.
The authors added: The Taliban should find a better way of making decisions, instead of following the whims of a leader who has proven his determination to oppress women and block the rebuilding of his country. Until that happens, the future of Afghanistan looks bleak.
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Report says donors turning away from Taliban-ruled Afghanistan