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Taliban sources tell Al Jazeera that US officials assured them during a meeting in Doha.

Doha, Qatar The United States has assured Afghanistans Taliban rulers that Washington will not fund any armed groups or non-state actors in the country, Taliban sources have told Al Jazeera.

The assurances were welcomed by the Taliban as Tajik armed groups, which have been backed by the West in the past, continue to challenge the groups leadership even as it has managed to contain the Tajik-dominated National Resistance Front and other groups aligned with the former Western-backed government since it returned to power in August last year.

The assurances were given during a meeting between US Department of State officials and Taliban representatives in Doha earlier this month.

While few details about the meeting in the Qatari capital are available, Taliban sources told Al Jazeera its members met with members of a high level US delegation, including CIA deputy director.

This meeting was the first since July when the US said it killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone attack on his hiding place in Afghanistans capital, Kabul.

Al-Zawahiris presence in Afghanistan led the West to accuse the Taliban of violating the 2020 Doha Agreement, in which the Afghan group agreed not to provide safe haven to al-Qaeda and other armed groups.

The Taliban swept into power last year in a lightning offensive but violence by armed groups such as ISIL affiliate ISKP has surged in recent months, posing a security challenge to the group.

In the meeting, the Taliban also conveyed its rejection of the US announcement that it would transfer $3.5bn in frozen Afghan central bank assets into a Swiss-based trust, according to the Taliban sources, who have knowledge about the meetings.

Last month, the Taliban said the US decision to put part of nearly $10bn in Afghan assets which it froze last August in an attempt to keep the Taliban from accessing it into trust was unacceptable and a violation of international norms.

The US announcement had said the fund will be managed by an international board of trustees and used for debt payments, electricity, food, printing new currency and other essential needs and services.

The Afghan group has repeatedly called for the lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen funds, including international aid that was suspended after the Taliban takeover, to help its dying economy. Sanctions that had been placed on the Taliban during their first period of rule that ended in 2001 came back into force with them taking power last year.

More than half of Afghanistans 39 million people need humanitarian help and six million are at risk of famine, the United Nations said in August.

No country has recognised the Talibans self-styled Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and its diplomatic and financial isolation has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in the country, which has suffered from decades of war, including the last 20 years under US occupation.

The international community has urged the Taliban to respect human rights, including allowing girls access to schools and workplaces. But the group has put in place increasing curbs on human rights, further angering the international community and dashing any hopes of recognition.

However, the revelations about the Doha meeting show the US continues to engage with the Taliban despite the rift.

A state department spokesperson confirmed the Doha meetings to Al Jazeera.

As weve made clear, well continue to engage the Taliban pragmatically regarding American interests, she told Al Jazeera.

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US will not fund non-state actors in Afghanistan: Taliban sources

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A gay Afghan man was kidnapped and shot to death by the Taliban, according to activists who knew him, Pink News was the first to report.

Hamed Sabouri of Kabul, Afghanistan, died on August 5, activists said. The news of the 22-year-old's death only became public this week after his former boyfriend informed the media.

Graphic video footage of a murder, which Insider has viewed, appears to show a man resembling Sabouri being shot in the neck and head at least 12 times.

Days later, the Taliban sent the disturbing execution video to Sabouri's relatives and friends, who, in turn, forwarded it to the Afghan LGBTQ+ group Roshaniya.

In a statement to Insider, Nemat Sadat, Roshaniya's executive director, said: "Hamed Sabouri was a gay man with big dreams that have now been shattered."

Sadat said Sabouri, who had wanted to be a doctor, had "endured discrimination his whole life for being gay and his life came to an abrupt end with no one there to help him."

The footage, Sadat said, shows "the Taliban's merciless brutality against LGBT+ people in Afghanistan."

Bahar (his nickname, used to protect his identity), a gay Afghan man in a relationship with Sabouri, was one of the recipients of the video. "I think the Taliban wanted to send a dangerous message to his family," he told Insider.

Bahar described his former boyfriend as a "very kind boy" who was "brutally killed" because of his sexuality.

Bahar said he thought Sabouri was joking when he told him in July that the Taliban was targeting him and was "in danger" for being gay. However, Sabouri was abducted at the start of August, and his body was discovered five days later, Bahar said.

Since Sabouri's death, Bahar said he had been arrested by the Taliban twice. He said he was sexually assaulted in prison and managed to escape on two separate occasions by bribing prison officers and hiding in a garbage truck.

The Taliban searched Bahar's family home on Friday, he said, and informed his mother that they were looking to arrest him again. "If I am arrested this time, I will be executed or stoned," Bahar said. "My life is not safe."

Bahar, who is in hiding, is the media outreach officer of Behesht a collective for LGBTQ Afghans.

In a statement provided to Insider, Behesht said: "The Taliban didn't only kill Hamed Sabouri. They buried the aspirations of 1,250 Afghan LGBTQ+ who are part of Behesht Collective and the hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ+ outside of our network who remain stuck in Afghanistan."

The statement continued: "If the world doesn't help us, then we will all be gone like Hamed. Please help us get out of this hellhole."

When the Taliban took over, Insider spoke to several gay men in Afghanistan who described how they were living in fear. One Afghan activist predicted gay people in Afghanistan would be "weeded out and exterminated."

In a January 2022 report by Human Rights Watch and OutRight Action International, LGBTQ Afghans described fleeing their homes, being attacked by family members, and being gang-raped by Taliban members.

October 20, 2022: The main images in this article were replaced pending a review of the photos originally used..

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Afghanistan: Taliban Shot Gay Man Dead, Sent Video Footage to Family

"President Trump rushed to complete his unfinished business," Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said at the House Jan. 6 committee meeting Thursday. "One key example is this: President Trump issued an order for large-scale troop withdrawals." (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

After the 2020 election, then-President Trump rushed to sign an immediate withdrawal order to pull troops out of Afghanistan in what a member of the congressional committee investigating Jan. 6, 2021, described as evidence he knew his term was coming to an end.

Knowing that he had lost and that he had only weeks left in office, President Trump rushed to complete his unfinished business, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said. One key example is this: President Trump issued an order for large-scale troop withdrawals.

In swiftly signing the order on Nov. 11, 2020, to withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan and Somalia before incoming President Bidens inauguration, Kinzinger argued, Trump disregarded concerns about the consequences for fragile governments on the front lines of the fight against ISIS and Al Qaeda terrorists.

Military and national security leaders panned the order in recorded interviews with Jan. 6 investigators.

It is odd. It is non-standard, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told the panel. It is potentially dangerous. I personally thought it was militarily not feasible nor wise.

Gen. Keith Kellogg, former Vice President Mike Pence's national security advisor, said he told the White House Presidential Personnel Office and Douglas Macgregor, a former advisor to the Defense secretary, that if I ever saw anything like that, I would do something physical, because I thought what that was doing was a tremendous disservice to the nation.

Kellogg said an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan wouldve been catastrophic and a debacle.

During the portion of the committees business meeting that Kinzinger led, the panel highlighted interviews and depositions from top Trump administration officials indicating that Trump was fully aware that he had lost the presidential election to Biden and had even conceded as much in private.

I remember maybe a week after the election was called, I popped into the Oval [Office] just to, like, give the president the headlines and see how he was doing, former White House communications director Alyssa Farah told the committee in an interview clip. And he was looking at the TV and he said, Can you believe I lost to this effing guy?

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

See the article here:
Trump signed order for immediate 'large-scale troop withdrawals' from ...

The Group of Friends of Women in Afghanistan express deep concern regarding the increasing erosion of respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of women and girls in Afghanistan by the Taliban, including through continued restrictions that limit access to education for women and girls.

The members call on the Taliban to immediately reverse the effective ban on girls secondary education in Afghanistan, which has been in place for over one year. Members are deeply disturbed by developments where local community demands lead to the reopening of some girls secondary schools, only to see them forcibly shut down by the Taliban once again. They underscore that the decision by the Taliban to exclude girls from schools does not reflect the wishes and demands of the majority of the Afghan people and that it makes Afghanistan the only country in the world that bans girls secondary education.

The members of the Group reaffirm the right to education for all Afghans, including girls, and call on the Taliban to respect the right to education and adhere to their commitments to reopen schools for all female students across the country without further delay. They note the importance of education of all people to economic stability and reiterate that exclusion from education prevents women and girls from contributing to Afghanistans future economic growth and prosperity. Furthermore, they emphasize findings by the World Economic Forum that banning women from working in the government and formal sectors will cause Afghanistans GDP to contract by a minimum of $600 million in the immediate term and restrictions on womens private sector employment could lead to a $1.5 billion loss of output by 2024.

The members of the Group note the heightened risks associated with disruption of access to education, particularly for girls, making them more vulnerable to child labour and child, early, and forced marriages, as well as to their future economic opportunities, and the long-term consequences this has for durable peace, security and development.

The members of the Group request the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) to continue to closely monitor and report on the situation, and request the Special Representative of the Secretary-General to continue to engage with all relevant Afghan political actors and stakeholders, including relevant authorities, on this issue, in accordance with the mandate of UNAMA.

This statement is endorsed by the following members of the Group of Friends of Women in Afghanistan: United Kingdom, Qatar, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Chad, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, United States

More here:
Statement of the Group of Friends of Women in Afghanistan - GOV.UK

A year of regressive Taliban policies and a spate of terrorist attacks targeting female students have sparked protests across Afghanistan. The international community must stand with Afghan women demanding their fundamental right to receive an education and ensure that Afghan girls are allowed to return safely to secondary schools.

LONDON Thousands of women and girls have taken to the streets of Afghanistans cities to protest the repeated violation of their right to an education. The trigger for the protests occurring simultaneously with protests in Iran was last months terrorist attack on an education center in Kabul that killed 53 students and injured more than 110 most of them girls and young women. But this was just the latest in a long series of attacks against female students, many of which targeted girls from the Hazara community.

Septembers deadly attack, which occurred as female students were getting ready to take a practice university entrance exam, came on the heels of an extremely damaging year for girls education in Afghanistan.

When the Taliban took over Afghanistan following the US militarys withdrawal in August 2021, its leaders promised to keep all primary, secondary, and tertiary schools open for both boys and girls. But it soon reneged. In March of this year, it barred girls from attending school beyond the sixth grade, effectively revoking the right to learn. When women in Kabul and other cities protested, Taliban forces responded violently, beating protesters and firing warning shots over their heads. Most of the 1,880 girls secondary schools in Afghanistan are currently shuttered, and the Taliban has threatened to close those that remain in operation.

At the same time, increased levels of conflict and violence, together with a severe drought and a succession of economic shocks, have made Afghan girls and women more vulnerable. These developments have resulted in an even greater degradation of womens rights, as evidenced by Afghanistans higher rates of early marriage and child labor since the Taliban takeover.

What makes the Talibans decision to prohibit girls secondary education even more tragic is that it reversed two decades of significant progress in expanding girls access to education in Afghanistan. The number of Afghan girls enrolled in school increased from just 100,000 in 2000 to more than 3.5 million in 2019, and female literacy doubled between 2011 and 2018. But while the Education Cannot Wait fund and its partners including UNICEF, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and Save the Children continue to try to reach these girls, the Taliban ban has undoubtedly forced many more girls out of school.

We must follow the lead of the Afghan women and girls protesting in the streets, risking their lives to fight for their fundamental rights, and take immediate action. For starters, the members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation must use their platform and demand that Afghanistans de facto authorities ensure that secondary-school girls return to school and that educational institutions, teachers, and students, particularly girls, are protected from attacks. Moreover, every young and adolescent girl must be welcomed back into classrooms with the teachers, infrastructure, and supplies needed for a quality education.

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Given the disastrous economic and humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, the international community must ensure that schools have sufficient resources to provide safe and protective spaces and quality education for all girls and boys, including those living with disabilities. We must also provide Afghan educators with the training and materials they need to teach their students.

In a country as ravaged by war and disaster as Afghanistan is, we must also guarantee that all girls and boys have access to mental-health resources and psychosocial support. And we must all work to establish alternative learning environments for girls and boys who cannot attend public schools.

The Education Cannot Wait fund has invested more than $58 million in education in Afghanistan since 2017, some of it through emergency responses and some through a multiyear resilience program launched in 2019. Owing to the dedicated work of our partners, this funding has reached 51% of Afghanistans young female students and more than 181,000 girls and boys altogether. Soon, we will launch a new multiyear program to increase girls and boys access to community-based education, even in the most remote and challenging environments.

But much more needs to be done. The women and girls of Afghanistan are fighting for their rights in the face of violent attacks, and they are asking for help. It is our collective duty to heed their call.

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Afghanistans Girls and Women Fight Back by Gordon Brown & Yasmine Sherif - Project Syndicate