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Days after Afghanistans NDA detained10 Chinese spies on charges of espionage and operating a terror cell in the capital city of Kabul, the government has released them secretly and allowed them to fly back home in a chartered flight. According to reports, the Chinese nationals flew out of Afghanistan in a plane arranged by Beijing on Saturday.Set free after 23 days in detention, the 10 Chinese nationals had not been formally charged.

It is pertinent to note that the terms of the arrangement between Kabul and Beijing to secure the release of the 10 Chinese spiesremains unclear. Interestingly, soon after the arrest, Kabuls First Vice President had indicated that the Afghan government could consider a pardon for the Chinese spies if Beijing submits a formal apologythat admits to the violation of international norms and a betrayal of Kabuls trust. Otherwise, the Afghan government would go ahead with criminal proceedings against the 10 Chinese spies, he had said.

It was on December 10, 2020, that Afghanistans NDS started the crackdown. This was the first time in years that Chinese nationals had been caught spying in Afghanistan. The NDS had not only recovered explosives and other highly objectionable materials from these Chinese nationals but had also found proves which suggested that the kingpins of this espionage network had been meeting commanders of the Taliban-backed terror group Haqqani Network (HQN).

It was believed that Pakistans ISI has been acting as a mediator between Haqqani Network and these Chinese Intelligence agents.

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After asking China to apologise, Afghanistan quietly sends the 10 arrested Chinese spies back home in a chartered flight - OpIndia

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN - Afghanistan and India Sunday refuted allegations they are the source of terrorist attacks in Pakistan and instead questioned counterterrorism credentials of their South Asian neighbor.The strong rebuttal comes a day after Islamabad accused New Delhi of running some 66 militant training camps on Afghan soil to plot terrorism to destabilize Pakistan and hurt its economic partnership with China.

Pakistan Claims 'Irrefutable Evidence' of Indian Links to Terrorism on Pakistani Soil

Islamabad accuses New Delhi of running dozens of training camps in Afghanistan for multiple globally outlawed militant groups to plot terrorism on Pakistani soil to destabilize the country

The Pakistani government, in a nationally televised news conference, presented what it said was irrefutable evidence to substantiate the charges.The so-called claims of proof against India enjoy no credibility, are fabricated and represent figments of imagination, Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Anurag Srivastava said in a statement issued Sunday.We call upon Pakistan to end its support to cross-border terrorism. Concocting documents and peddling false narratives will not absolve Pakistan of such actions, Srivastava said.He reiterated long-running Indian allegations that Pakistan trains Islamist militants and helps them infiltrate into Indian-administered Kashmir to foment separatist violence in the Muslim-majority region.The incessant infiltration of terrorists and induction of weapons to fuel terror activities continues unabated, alleged Srivastava.

Pakistani-Indian Military Clashes Kill 13 in Kashmir

At least 13 people, including soldiers and civilians, are killed on both sides

Pakistan, which administers one-third of Kashmir, denies the accusations, saying they are an attempt by the neighboring country to cover up alleged human rights abuses being inflicted on Kashmiris.The two nuclear-armed rival nations have fought several wars and low-intensity conflicts over Kashmir since gaining independence from Britain in 1947. India and Pakistan claim the region in its entirety and it remains the primary source of bilateral military tension and acrimony.Afghan denialOfficials in Afghanistan also rejected allegations that its territory or citizens were being used for carrying out subversive activities against Pakistan.In a statement Sunday, the foreign ministry said that Afghanistan itself is a major victim of terrorism. Kabul, it said, is committed to a policy of combating all forms of terrorismand will never allow Afghan territory to be used for destructive activities against other countries.The statement noted that as the Afghan government is preparing for this weeks maiden visit to Kabul by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, it is expected Islamabad will raise issues of bilateral interest and debate through existing cooperation mechanisms between the two countries.Pakistan and Afghanistan share a nearly 2,600-kilometer border but mutual ties are marred by mistrust and suspicion. Kabul accuses Islamabad of supporting the Afghan Talibans violent campaign aimed at dislodging the Afghan government.For its part, Pakistan maintains that militant groups fleeing years of counterterrorism security operations have taken shelter in Afghan border areas and orchestrating cross-border attacks.Pakistani army spokesman Major-General Iftikhar Babar on Saturday displayed what he said were documents, banking transactions worth millions of dollars, audio clips and details of contacts between Indian intelligence operatives and diplomats with fugitive Pakistani militants operating out of Afghanistan.Uncontrivable evidence reveals that Indian embassies and consulates operating along Pakistans borders have become hub of terror sponsorship against PakistanWe have verifiable evidence of terrorists funding by India. Indian ambassadors in Afghanistan have been regularly supervising various terrorist activities, Babar said.

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India, Afghanistan Reject Terror-Related Charges by Pakistan - Voice of America

A new report reveals Afghanistan has been pushed deeper into an already dire food security crisis, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, extreme weather events, ongoing conflict and high food prices, with 13.15 million people, up from 11.15 million people just months ago, now facing acute hunger.

Government of Afghanistan lockdown measures imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19, between mid-March and the end of May, worsened an already desperate food security situation. Small-scale income-generating activities were mostly shut down, leading to diminished savings, impacting the ability to buy food.

Marianne OGrady, CARE Afghanistans Deputy Country Director, said, People are back at work after the lockdown, but the fallout from not saving for months is huge. Many people also accumulated debt during lockdown that they are now struggling to pay back, so day-to-day expenses were, and still are, affected. Putting food on the table is getting harder and harder and with winter coming, we are very worried for the people of Afghanistan. And for women, the situation is even more difficult. In Afghanistan, generally men eat first due to cultural norms, so when theres not enough food to go around, its the women who miss out.

Women often act as shock absorbers in times of crisis, when they have to take on greater economic responsibility for their households. CAREs programs, including community-based savings groups, have enabled women to better withstand the economic shock of the COVID-19 pandemic.

CARE conducted a Rapid Gender Analysis in Afghanistan in mid-2020. Sixty-two per cent of respondents said food is their highest need. A female respondent from Balkh Province said, The community is affected by a flood, I lost my house, but most people are now jobless and need assistance due to the lockdown.

There are currently over 40,000 reported COVID-19 cases in Afghanistan, but testing is extremely limited, so those numbers are feared to be much higher. The health system in Afghanistan was critically weak even before the pandemic hit, with only around 300 ventilators in the entire country. The health implications are huge and responsibility for caring for family members falls primarily on women, even if they are sick themselves.

In rural areas, accessing health facilities can be incredibly challenging. Often clinics are far from peoples homes and there are transportation costs to reach the clinics. If there are limited funds available for transportation, families must make tough decisions around who goes to the clinic, and men and working sons are usually given priority, said Ms OGrady.

Climate change is another factor driving food insecurity. Afghanistan is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change and one of the least equipped to manage the impact. Ive lived in Afghanistan for many years and during that time, weve seen less and less snow falling in the north of the country. Snow is a key source of water for agricultural production. Less snow means less crops and higher prices. Its another blow for the Afghan people and another factor driving the hunger crisis, explained Ms OGrady.

Man-made climate change has been projected to significantly reduce precipitation in Afghanistan during spring, an important season for food production. As 2020 marks the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement on climate change, we are still not seeing sufficient climate action by major emitting countries, nor adequate support for vulnerable countries like Afghanistan, to protect food production from the harmful impacts of the climate crisis. With the current global lack of ambition to slow global warming, Afghanistan is facing the risk of a 7 Celsius (44 Fahrenheit) average temperature increase by the end of this century, which would render catastrophic impacts. CARE calls on the G20 countries to deliver more ambitious climate plans in 2020 to put the world on track with the Paris Agreement limit of 1.5 Celsius (34 Fahrenheit) of warming, said Sven Harmeling, CAREs Global Policy Lead for Climate Change and Resilience.

Afghanistan also faces one of the most acute protracted internal displacement crises in the world. When conflict approaches, many families pack up their belongs and carry what they can to reach safety, and it is not unusual for their assets to be looted while they are gone. Ms OGrady explained, Many rural Afghans have agriculture-based livelihood skills but in urban areas, there is little demand for them. Earning an income becomes even harder when you are not living on your own land and can no longer rely on the skills that normally put food on the table.

The resilience of the Afghan people is incredible. Extra support from the international community to fund livelihood, emergency food and cash-for-work programs will enable them to recover and move their country forward.

Founded in 1945, CARE is one of the largest and oldest humanitarian aid organisations fighting global poverty. CARE has a special focus on empowering and meeting the needs of women and girls and promoting gender equality and works in 100 countries around the world.

CARE has a long history in Afghanistan, establishing its first mission there in 1961.CAREs programs in Afghanistan focus on womens social and economic empowerment, education, rural development and emergency response.

ENDS

For media enquiries contact:Suzy Sainovski (based in Melbourne, Australia)Asia Pacific Regional Communications & Media Advisor, CARE InternationalEmail: suzy.sainovski@care.orgSkype: suzy.sainovskiMobile: + 61 3 429 418 353

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Food crisis deepens in Afghanistan with 42% of the population now facing acute hunger - Afghanistan - ReliefWeb

WASHINGTON Consistent is not the adjective many would use to describe President Trumps national security policy. But there is one goal he has nurtured since the 2016 campaign: withdrawing all American troops from Afghanistan.

Now, in the waning days of his presidency, Mr. Trump is scrambling to make it so, aided by conservative antiwar forces who see it not only as good policy but also as a linchpin to any future he may seek in politics.

This week, Mr. Trump dismissed his defense secretary, Mark T. Esper, who had repeatedly expressed reluctance for a fast pullout from Afghanistan, replacing him with Christopher C. Miller, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, who may lack the stature and experience to push back effectively on Mr. Trumps 11th-hour foreign policy actions.

Notably, Douglas Macgregor, a retired Army colonel and fierce proponent of ending American involvement in Afghanistan, was named this week as a senior adviser to Mr. Miller.

Mr. Trump recently nominated a new ambassador to Afghanistan, William Ruger, the vice president for research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute a vocal and well-financed opponent of current conflicts abroad. Even before any Senate confirmation, which seems unlikely before Inauguration Day, Mr. Ruger maintains a large chair at Mr. Trumps foreign policy table.

The president has had difficulty finding personnel who would faithfully execute on his preferences, Mr. Ruger said in an interview on Friday. With the new Pentagon leadership, the president could really cement a legacy here, he said, adding that Mr. Trump could be the leader who ends Americas longest war.

This week, the American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Austin S. Miller, traveled to Washington on a previously scheduled trip as officials in both countries braced for a possible announcement as early as next week to quickly reduce the 4,500 United States troops still left in Afghanistan. Mr. Trump has said previously that he wants to pull all troops from Afghanistan by Christmas.

With his recent flurry of firings and appointments, Mr. Trump has effectively pulled down a majority of the personnel guardrails against a fast withdrawal.

Mr. Trumps views on reducing the United States footprint overseas are long standing and a central component of his America First foreign policy agenda. After originally supporting the war in Iraq, he spent years criticizing President George W. Bush for Americas wars in the region. During his 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump astonished fellow Republicans by directly attacking Mr. Bush about the war in Iraq and suggesting he failed to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

But what many Republicans failed to grasp is that Mr. Trumps positions on the so-called endless wars were good politics. Rancor toward those conflicts has grown among many conservatives, including those in the Koch circle, as well as libertarians among congressional Republicans and even those on the left, including Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, among others.

Last year, VoteVets, the liberal political action committee, and the conservative Concerned Veterans for America teamed up to persuade Congress to revoke authorizations of military force passed after Sept. 11. Mr. Trump also replaced the hawkish John R. Bolton with Robert C. OBrien as his national security adviser. Mr. OBrien has said the United States needs to redirect its resources from Afghanistan and toward the competition and possible conflicts with China and Russia.

Polls have shown that a majority of veterans have grown disenchanted with the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, which helped Mr. Trump earn strong support among veterans who voted in 2016. Many have been disappointed that troops remain deployed in Afghanistan and that other promises to reduce the military presence in other regions have not been fulfilled.

Exit polls this month suggest that Mr. Trump won veterans 54 percent to 44 percent; in 2016, the poll found he won veterans 60 percent to 34 percent, a major shift that could stem from a variety of factors including his mixed record on these issues.

Nov. 12, 2020, 7:30 p.m. ET

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will find himself having to address these political dynamics at home and the realities on the ground as progress toward peace between the Taliban and the Afghan government stalls.

Critics of a fast withdrawal before the Taliban meet the conditions of a recent peace agreement fear that any attempt to pull all American troops by years end would potentially result in deaths on the ground. Citing recent escalating violence across the country, they worry that the Taliban could succeed at seizing more territory, especially in the south, the groups historic center of power.

Its irresponsible to make troop reduction your entire political objective, said Evelyn N. Farkas, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense. If you withdraw irresponsibly, you put strategic objectives and military lives at risk.

Critics of an accelerated withdrawal point to logistical challenges of the strategy. Several current and former Pentagon officials have noted that a withdrawal within two months which seems to be Mr. Trumps goal would be challenging, given the amount of military equipment that would have to be shipped out to avoid becoming spoils for the Taliban.

Those in the Pentagon will use the logistics argument to slow this down, said Dan Caldwell, a senior adviser to Concerned Veterans for America, a group that has strongly influenced veterans policies under Mr. Trump. People there have slow-walked this and tried to box the president in and that likely upset the president and did not endear Secretary Esper to him.

Over the last year, the organization has spent over $3 million on advertisements in support of an Afghanistan withdrawal. Conservative news media personalities, including Tucker Carlson, have also advocated the drawdown. If Mr. Trump actually announces an expedited plan, we are going to go big, Mr. Caldwell said.

Of course with Mr. Trump, strongly expressed intentions concerning troops often do not come to fruition.

After announcing a full troop withdrawal from Syria in late 2018 and abandoning Kurdish allies, for which he was widely criticized he opted to leave several hundred troops in Syria.

He has also told aides he wanted to greatly reduce the 700 American troops in Somalia most of them Special Operations forces and so far that has gone nowhere.

Mr. Ruger said the pressure would remain when Mr. Biden takes office.

Regardless of who the president is, we will support good policies, he said. Getting out of Afghanistan is good policy.

Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed reporting from Kabul.

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Trump Pentagon Purge Could Accelerate His Goal to Pull Troops From Afghanistan - The New York Times

KABUL, Afghanistan Three U.S. presidents and 19 years later, it is President-elect Joseph R. Bidens turn to inherit the American war in Afghanistan. The question that is leaving Afghans hanging is just how quickly he will remove troops.

It is a desperately difficult time for Afghanistan. American troops, honoring President Trumps deal with the Taliban, are still on their way out of the country, despite the stalling of peace talks between the insurgency and the Afghan government, and a wave of intensified Taliban offensives near important cities.

Officials in Kabul are very aware that Americans are tired of the war a fact made clear by a near absence of the issue in presidential debates, and by Mr. Bidens seeming agreement with President Trumps desire to get out of Afghanistan.

It is past time to end the forever wars, which have cost the United States untold blood and treasure, Mr. Biden wrote in Foreign Affairs earlier this year. As I have long argued, we should bring the vast majority of our troops home from the wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East and narrowly define our mission as defeating al Qaeda and the Islamic State (or ISIS)."

Still, in Mr. Biden, Afghan officials said they hoped to gain a less capricious and more communicative ally, though they know he is unlikely to stop the troop withdrawal.

We understand theres not going to be U-turn on the U.S. side on the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, said Nargis Nehan, a former minister of mines and petroleum under President Ashraf Ghani. But under the leadership of the Biden administration, we hope and believe that its going to be done with a much more responsible strategy in comparison to the Trump administration.

Both in Kabul and Washington, officials with knowledge of security briefings said there was fear that President Trump might try to accelerate an all-out troop withdrawal in his final days in office though the amount of American infrastructure still in the country would be physically impossible to remove by January, according to security officials.

A Pentagon shake-up in recent days, while President Trump has sought to contest his election loss, has cast more confusion on the issue. Security officials said that on Thursday, the American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Austin S. Miller, was traveling to Washington for consultations.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan, Col. Sonny Leggett, denied that General Miller was going to Washington for consultations, saying instead that he was on preplanned travel.

American commanders, while careful not to contravene President Trump in public, have warned that it was vital to keep the withdrawal contingent on the Talibans keeping their pledges.

Afghan officials are also publicly urging Mr. Biden to better support the stalled peace talks in Qatar, which some Afghans felt were pushed too hard by the Trump administration without enough protections for them. On Monday, Afghanistans second vice president, Sarwar Danesh, called on the incoming Biden administration to conduct a review of the Afghan peace process and to put more pressure on the Taliban to negotiate fairly.

A decade ago, as vice president in the Obama administration, Mr. Biden was the in-house skeptic of the war, pushing against the huge troop surge in Afghanistan that began in 2009.

For years, U.S. policymakers and officials likened the task of building new government institutions and modern security forces in Afghanistan in the middle of a war to building an airplane midflight. In 2009, Mr. Biden sought a different approach: to focus on international terrorist threats in Afghanistan and little else.

I dont think he has his changed his mind much since then: to get out of Afghanistan, let Afghans govern themselves, but keep a light footprint in the form of counterterrorism, primarily to ensure U.S. national security interests, said Tamim Asey, a former Afghan deputy defense minister under Mr. Ghani.

That approach keeping a small number of troops in Afghanistan as a counterterrorism force to keep Al Qaeda and Islamic State loyalists in check has been urged by the Pentagon and some American lawmakers.

In the Feb. 29 agreement with the United States that started the troop withdrawal, the Taliban agreed to publicly separate itself from Al Qaeda which was under the Taliban governments protection when it launched the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and to deny terrorist groups the use of Afghan territory as a haven. But the troop withdrawal has continued even though last month a Qaeda leader was killed in a Taliban-controlled district in the countrys east, and there has been no evidence of any decisive severing of ties between the groups.

Afghan officials and analysts say they hope Mr. Biden will proceed more cautiously, and not be as likely to leave Afghanistan at the mercy of the Taliban and meddling neighbor countries.

A commitment to defeating Al Qaeda and the Islamic State is something that is part of Afghanistans formula for long-term stability and serves an important role here, said Orzala Nemat, an independent researcher in Afghanistan. A symbolic presence of international military forces balances this very weak position that Afghanistan is in the region, surrounded by nuclear powers.

Mr. Biden knows Afghanistan, he has been here a dozen times as a senator and he has interacted with many Afghan leaders, said Mr. Asey, the former deputy defense minister.

Afghan officials were quick to note that Mr. Biden and President Ghani have long been friendly toward each other. But Mr. Asey said that Mr. Biden also had a history of tension with other important Afghan officials notably with former President Hamid Karzai, whom he told that Pakistan was 50 times more important to the United States than Afghanistan, and whom he lectured about corruption.

One way that Afghan officials hope Mr. Biden can make a difference is by simply taking their concerns seriously. Some Afghan officials said they felt bullied by Trump and American officials to accept terms with the Taliban they did not agree to, particularly on the mass release of Taliban prisoners.

Human rights activists said they were also concerned that the peace process included too few protections for women and ethnic and religious minorities. In that, they are hoping the American Vice President-elect, Kamala Harris, can be an important voice as well.

We hope she will be a strong advocate for Afghan women within the Biden administration, said Ms. Nehan, the former mining minister, of Ms. Harris. We felt abandoned by the Trump administration.

Whatever achievement in regards to womens rights we are talking about does not just belong to Afghan women, its a universal achievement that we all have our own part in and a responsibility in protecting them, she added.

While there are currently around 4,500 U.S. troops still in Afghanistan, Taliban officials have implied that the February deal would collapse if the incoming Biden administration prolongs the presence of American forces in the country, including any counterterrorism forces.

But for now the Taliban leadership will watch and wait, as their fighters keep up their offensives.

The United States has responded by increasing airstrikes in defense of Afghan forces. While permitted under the February deal, anything drastically more under a new administration, such as attacking Taliban behind their front lines, could nullify the agreement.

October was the deadliest month in Afghanistan for civilians since September 2019, according to data compiled by The New York Times. At least 212 civilians were killed.

In a statement, the Taliban called the U.S. election and its outcome an internal issue of the United States.

The Islamic Emirate would like to stress to the new American president-elect and future administration that implementation of the agreement is the most reasonable and effective tool for ending the conflict between both our countries, the statement said.

But Qari Mohammad Farooq, a Taliban shadow district governor in Jowzjan Province, laid it out plainly.

I heard that Joe Biden won, but none of them are good for us, Mr. Farooq said. For me it doesnt matter who won, but it is important that they must leave.

Reporting was contributed by Najim Fahim from Kabul, Taimoor Shah from Kandahar and Eric Schmitt from Washington.

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U.S. Troops Are Still Leaving, but Afghans Hope Biden Will Help - The New York Times