The interlocutors considered it expedient for the countries to further build up their diplomatic efforts.

On September 5, in Dushanbe, meetings were held between the CSTO Secretary General Imangali Tasmagambetov and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tajikistan Sirojiddin Mukhriddin, the Minister of Defense of Tajikistan Colonel General Sherali Mirzo, as well as the Secretary of the Security Council of the country Mahmudzoda Nasrullo Rahmatjon. Current issues of preparation for the upcoming meetings of the organization’s statutory bodies – the Collective Security Council, the Council of Foreign Ministers, the Council of Defense Ministers and the Committee of Secretaries of Security Councils – were discussed, inbusiness.kz reports with reference to the CSTO press service.

“The CSTO Secretary General informed the interlocutors about the progress in agreeing on draft documents planned for consideration during these events, including the issue related to improving the organization’s crisis response system and the draft CSTO Targeted Interstate Program for strengthening sections of the Tajik-Afghan border.

Imangali Tasmagambetov also announced the preparation by the CSTO Secretariat of an International Scientific and Practical Conference on the topic: “The situation in Afghanistan and its impact on the security of the CSTO member states,” which is scheduled for October 2023,” the message says.

In the context of discussing the situation on the Tajik-Kyrgyz border, the interlocutors recognized it as advisable for the countries to further build up diplomatic efforts to finally resolve the issue.

Source: In Business

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BOTTOM LINE

• Since their return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban have managed to reach an understanding with most of the Central Asian governments to preserve a relative calm along the areas of the Afghan-Central Asian frontier.
• Disputes over water use have suddenly become an issue that could derail ties between Afghanistan and Central Asian states. Specifically, the construction of the Qosh Tepa canal in northern Afghanistan could lead to the loss of water for tens of thousands of people in downstream communities in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
• In addition, three people were killed in recent clashes between Iranian border guards and Taliban fighters along the Afghan-Iranian border over rights to water from the Helmand River.

When the Taliban entered Kabul in mid-August 2021, the Central Asian governments, with the exception of the Tajik government, simply continued, to the extent possible, business as usual with Afghanistan.

Uzbekistan temporarily closed its border crossings with Afghanistan, mainly to prevent Afghans from fleeing into Uzbekistan. But traffic resumed before the end of August and during the following weeks, all the Central Asian states, again with the exception of Tajikistan, sent diplomatic missions to Kabul to meet with Taliban officials.

There were Central Asian militants in Afghanistan, mostly Tajiks and Uzbeks, who were the Taliban’s allies in fighting against the Afghan government and foreign troops. The Taliban promised not to allow these Central Asian militants to use Afghan territory to plan or launch attacks against the neighboring Central Asian countries.

That promise, combined with infrastructure and communications projects completed during the twenty years when foreign forces were in Afghanistan that connected Central Asia to Afghanistan economically, seems to have convinced Central Asian governments that some level of cooperation with the Taliban was beneficial. When the Taliban controlled Afghanistan in the late 1990s, all the Central Asian countries except Turkmenistan were hostile to the Taliban with the result that tensions were always high along the Central Asia-Afghan border.

The situation now is different. Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan sell electricity to Afghanistan via power transmission lines constructed during the years foreign troops were in Afghanistan. Tentative trade between Central Asia and Pakistan and India via Afghan roads has started and there are plans to build a railway line through Afghanistan that would connect Central Asia to Pakistani ports on the Arabian Sea.

In April, Kazakh Trade Minister Serik Zhumangarin visited Kabul to deliver a shipment of humanitarian aid. Zhumangarin announced Kazakhstan would open a trading house in Afghanistan. Taliban acting Foreign Minister Abdul Ghani Baradar said during his meeting with Zhumangarin that Kazakhstan had also agreed to reopen the Afghan embassy and consulate and Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesman Aibek Smadiyarov later confirmed the accreditation of Taliban diplomats.

Taliban representatives have already moved into the Afghan embassies in Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan (as well as the Afghan embassies in Russia, China, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Pakistan).

Tajikistan was the one Central Asian country that continued to warn of dangers from Afghanistan after the Taliban returned to power. It shunned contact with new Afghan government. The Afghan embassy in Tajikistan is still occupied by the ambassador appointed by ousted Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Some suspect the Tajik government is supporting the National Resistance Front, a group of former Afghan government soldiers, mainly ethnic Tajiks, who are still fighting the Taliban in northeastern Afghanistan.

A Taliban delegation visited Tajikistan at the end of March, stopping in the capital Dushanbe before going to Khorugh in eastern Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast to inspect the Afghan consulate there that suffered damage during an avalanche this last winter. The Tajik government did not mention the visit, but according to at least one report, control of the consulate passed to the Taliban sometime in early 2023.

New Canal Threatens Water Flows in Central Asia

In late March 2022, work started in northern Afghanistan on the Qosh Tepa canal that will run through the Balkh, Jowzjan, and Faryab provinces. The approximately 175-mile canal aims to help irrigate agricultural fields in northern Afghanistan and ease some of Afghanistan’s chronic food shortage problems.

The water for the canal will come from the Amu-Darya, one of Central Asia’s two great rivers and also the border between Central Asia and Afghanistan for some 950 miles. The canal will connect with the Amu-Darya along the Uzbek border, so upstream, Tajikistan’s section of the river is not affected by the project. According to some estimates, some 15 percent of the water from the Amu-Darya could be diverted into the Qosh Tepa canal.

The Amu-Darya once reached the Aral Sea. Diversion of water from the river to irrigate fields, mainly cotton fields, in southern Uzbekistan and southeastern Turkmenistan, not to mention fill the Kara-Kum canal that runs some 850 miles to the Turkmen capital Ashgabat, has led to Uzbekistan’s section of the Aral Sea drying up. Water to downstream communities in the areas along the Turkmen-Uzbek border continues to gradually decrease.

A report from June 4 said water in Amu-Darya in Turkmenistan’s eastern Lebap Province was at one-third of its normal level for this time of year. Once finished, the Qosh-Tepa canal, which would take water further upstream, will compound that problem.

Uzbekistan’s kun.uz reported the Qosh Tepa canal “could have  serious consequences for [Uzbekistan’s] Khorezm, Bukhara, Surhandarya and Navoi provinces, as well as the Republic of Karakalpakstan.”

Taliban acting Foreign Minister Baradar said at the end of March that he had discussed construction of the canal with Uzbek officials and the latter indicated they were prepared to cooperate in building the canal. It was unclear from Baradar’s remarks what sort of cooperation that would be.

On June 20, Uzbek Minister of Water Resources Shavkat Hamrayev confirmed that offer to Taliban officials and said the Uzbek delegation had expressed concerns that the Qosh Tepa canal could contribute to water shortages in Uzbekistan. According to Hamrayev, Taliban officials said they need the water to ease food shortages in Afghanistan and construction of the canal would not halt.

Turkmenistan still has not commented publicly about the Qosh Tepa canal.

The loss of water will affect tens of thousands of people in downstream communities in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The canal is not due to be completed until 2028, but construction is proceeding ahead of schedule.

Afghanistan and its Central Asian neighbors have not signed any agreements on water use. During the Soviet era, water was diverted from the Amu-Darya without consulting Afghanistan. More than forty years of war have prevented Afghanistan from undertaking projects that use water from the Amu-Darya, so the Taliban can reasonably argue they are only taking their fair share after years of Afghanistan being unable to take advantage of the water the same way as its Central Asian neighbors have been.

Afghan media outlet Khaama said as much on March 16, writing that “due to the two decades of conflict, [Afghanistan] has yet to be able to use its water resources … most neighboring countries took advantage of the situation and utilized the water.”

Tough negotiations seem inevitable and while the governments in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan ponder their strategy, they must be alarmed at the May 21 clash on the Afghan-Iranian border caused by a water dispute.

Deadly Afghan-Iranian Border Clash 

Iran has complained for several years that the Afghans are not allowing Iran to have its fair share of water from the Helmand River that originates in Afghanistan. Several dams were built along the Helmand River in Afghanistan between 2001–2021. The Iranians say Afghanistan is restricting water flows out of these dams. The Taliban say water levels are simply low.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visited the parched eastern Sistan and Baluchistan Province on May 18. After hearing reports from local officials, Raisi said, “I warn the rulers of Afghanistan to give the people of Sistan and Baluchistan the right to water.”

Raisi said Iran was prepared to send experts to Afghanistan to check Taliban claims about low water levels upstream in the river. He also said the Taliban should “Take my words seriously so that you don’t complain later.”

The Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid posted a statement on May 19 that read, “Iranian officials should first complete their knowledge about water in Helmand and then present their requests with appropriate language.”

The Taliban, who banned music when they were in power in the late 1990s, increased tensions when they released a music video on pro-Taliban accounts online several days after Mujahid’s statement. The song that accompanied the video of Taliban fighters and military vehicles urged “our leader Mullah Yaqoob to stand against Iran.” Mullah Yaqoob is the acting Taliban defense minister, and the son of deceased Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

Then on May 27, fighting erupted at a place along Afghanistan’s Nimroz Province and Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan Province. Each side blames the other for starting the clash. The two sides used mortars and heavy machine guns. At least two Iranian border guards and one Taliban fighter were killed. Officials from both sides eventually calmed tensions but the underlying cause of the dispute remains.

Afghanistan has the right to use water from the Amu-Darya just as Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have been using it for decades. But the Qosh Tepa canal will be costly for Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Both countries are looking at a major blow to agriculture and the resettlement of thousands of people. And now the Turkmen and Uzbek governments have seen from the Iranian-Afghan border clash that finding a compromise with the Taliban might be difficult.

Source: FPRI News

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A group of UN experts on Monday declared that the refusal of education to girls and young women in Afghanistan “marks a global nadir … impacting an entire gender, a generation, and the country’s future.”

“On 22 March 2023, schools should be reopening to girls across Afghanistan. Instead, it appears that for the second successive school year, teenage girls will be banned from resuming their studies – making Afghanistan the only country in the world that forbids girls and young women from attending secondary school and places of higher education,” read a UN statement.

The Taliban denied women and girls their right to education during their initial rule between 1996 and 2001, and have done the same after seizing power for a second time in 2021, the experts said.

Education is a crucial enabling right for realizing other human rights, including the right to work, an adequate standard of living, health, participation in society and communities, equality before the law, and fundamental freedoms, read the statement.

The experts include Richard Bennett, special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan; Farida Shaheed, special rapporteur on the right to education; and Fionnuala Ni Aolain, special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism.

“Denying this right to half the population effectively denies women and girls most other human rights,” the experts asserted.

They said the Taliban have no justification for the decision “on any grounds, including religion or tradition.”

“Being a state party to United Nations human rights treaties … Afghanistan is obliged to respect, protect and fulfil the right to education without discrimination on the basis of gender or any other ground, irrespective of the authority in power,” the experts said.

The treaties include the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.

Both times, the Taliban introduced bans on girls’ education as temporary measures, the statement added.

However, during the first period, the ban was not lifted, and unless the Taliban fulfills its promises to reopen secondary schools and universities immediately, it shows they have no intention of doing so, said the experts.

“If the ban on education continues, life outcomes for girls, but also all children, will continue on a negative trajectory, and recovery will take decades,” the experts warned.

They also said that child marriage and child labor rates have increased since the ban was imposed, along with reports of children being medicated to overcome hunger and even dying from malnutrition.​​​​​​​

Source : AA

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The U.N. Mission said that Afghanistan’s new rulers have shown an almost “singular focus on imposing rules that leave most women and girls effectively trapped in their homes.”

Despite initial promises of a more moderate stance, the Taliban have imposed harsh measures since seizing power as U.S. and NATO forces were in the final weeks of their pullout from Afghanistan after two decades of war.

Girls are banned from education beyond sixth grade and women are barred from working, studying, traveling without a male companion, and even going to parks or bath houses. Women must also cover themselves from head to toe and are barred from working at national and international non-governmental organizations, disrupting the delivery of humanitarian aid.

“Afghanistan under the Taliban remains the most repressive country in the world regarding women’s rights,” Roza Otunbayeva, special representative of the U.N. secretary-general and head of the U.N. political mission in Afghanistan, said in a statement.

She later told the U.N. Security Council in New York that “the Taliban claim to have united the country, but they have also severely divided it by gender.” The Taliban tell the U.N. “that this gender segregation is not a significant issue and is being addressed” and “they say they should be judged on other achievements,” she said.

At a time when Afghanistan needs to recover from decades of war, Otunbayeva said, “half of the country’s potential doctors, scientists, journalists, and politicians are shut away in their homes, their dreams crushed and their talents confiscated.”

“It has been distressing to witness their methodical, deliberate, and systematic efforts to push Afghan women and girls out of the public sphere,” she added.

The restrictions, especially the bans on education and NGO work, have drawn fierce international condemnation. But the Taliban have shown no signs of backing down, claiming the bans are temporary suspensions in place allegedly because women were not wearing the Islamic headscarf, or hijab, correctly and because gender segregation rules were not being followed.

As for the ban on university education, the Taliban government has said that some of the subjects being taught were not in line with Afghan and Islamic values.

“Confining half of the country’s population to their homes in one of the world’s largest humanitarian and economic crises is a colossal act of national self-harm,” Otunbayeva said.

“It will condemn not only women and girls, but all Afghans, to poverty and aid-dependency for generations to come,” she warned. “It will further isolate Afghanistan from its own citizens and from the rest of the world.”

At a carpet factory in Kabul, women who were former government employees or high school and university students now spend their days weaving carpets.

“We all live like prisoners, we feel that we are caught in a cage,” said Hafiza, 22, who goes only by her first name and who used to be a first-year law student before the Taliban banned women from attending classes at her university. “The worst situation is when your dreams are shattered, and you are punished for being a woman.”

Another worker at the factory, 18-years-old Shahida, who also uses only one name, said she was in 10th grade at one of Kabul high schools when her education was cut short.

“We just demand from the (Taliban) government to reopen schools and educational centers for us and give us our rights,” she said.

An Afghan women’s rights campaigner, Zubaida Akbar, told the Security Council that since the Taliban seized power “the rights of Afghan women and girls have been decimated through over 40 decrees.”

“The Taliban have sought not only to erase women from public life, but to extinguish our basic humanity,” said Zubaida, who spoke on behalf of the rights group Freedom Now that deals with 20 mostly women-led grassroots movements inside Afghanistan. “There is one term that appropriately describes the situation of Afghan woman today — gender apartheid.”

Alison Davidian, the special representative for UN Women in Afghanistan, said: “The implications of the harm the Taliban are inflicting on their own citizens goes beyond women and girls.”

No officials from the Taliban-led government were available for comment.

At the Security Council, the U.N.’s Otunbayeva said there is a faction in the Taliban that doesn’t agree with the crackdown on women and girls and understands that attention must be paid to the real needs of all Afghans.

“Perhaps it can eventually execute a change of direction,” she said. “But time is running short. Global crises are multiplying. Demands on donor resources are multiplying as the availability of those resources diminishes.”

In conjunction with the observances of International Women’s Day on March 8, about 200 Afghan female small business owners put together an exhibition of their products in Kabul. Most complained of losing business since the Taliban takeover.

“I don’t expect Taliban to respect women’s rights,” said one of them, Tamkin Rahimi. “Women here cannot practice their rights and celebrate Women’s Day, because we cannot go to school, university or go to work, so I think we don’t have any day to celebrate.”

Ten of the 15 Security Council members issued a joint statement demanding that the Taliban immediately reverse all its oppressive measures against women and girls.

“Recovery in Afghanistan cannot happen without women’s full, equal and meaningful participation in all aspects of political, economic and social life,” said the statement by Albania, Brazil, Ecuador, France, Gabon, Japan, Malta, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates and United Kingdom.

Source : Milwaukee

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Burlington, VT– Families from Afghanistan who resettled in Vermont came together Sunday to celebrate a holiday symbolizing hope and new beginnings.

Nowruz is a holiday that marks the beginning of spring, but also symbolizes peace and understanding.

“It’s a celebration that brings millions of people together across the globe, transcending cultures, borders and languages,” says Sayed Khaliullah Anwari of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. “It helps us navigate the darkness and uncertainty that may come our way,” he adds.

Organized by the USCRI and the Vermont Afghan Alliance, close to 150 families came from all over the state, including Brattleboro, Bennington and Rutland.

House Speaker Jill Krowinski welcomed them. “The United States is a nation of immigrants, and we are all shaped by the cultures and traditions of the people that make up our great country,” says Krowinski.

Nowruz means “a new day,” and the holiday dates back over 3,000 years. It sends a message of renewal, rebirth, and friendship.

“It has deep roots in the Middle East and Asia. Celebrating this festival helps other people from across the world to understand your culture, values and tradition,” says Wazir Hashimi, the founder of the Vermont Afghan Alliance. “People exchange peaceful message and forget the difference in order to make their relationship strong,” he says.

Families were excited to mark a new chapter with this holiday and celebrate hope.

Source : Mychamplainvalley

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WASHINGTON – The results of the long-delayed government review of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan will be released next month, the White House announced Wednesday, with Congress and the public set to see an assessment of what went wrong as America ended its longest war.

The August 2021 pullout of U.S. troops led to the swift collapse of the Afghan government and military, which the U.S. had supported for nearly two decades, and the return to power of the Taliban. In the aftermath, President Joe Biden directed that a broad review examine “every aspect of this from top to bottom.”

It was originally set to be released at the one-year anniversary of the withdrawal but was delayed while agencies continued their work.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday that the work was nearly complete and that the administration was readying the release next month.

“We expect to be able to share those takeaways with the public by mid-April,” Kirby said. He said the administration would share classified sections of the report with congressional oversight committees.

House Republicans have been pushing the Biden administration since the withdrawal to release documents related to official communications and the review of how the chaotic fall of Kabul came to be.

There are currently two ongoing investigations into the withdrawal. One them is being led by Rep. Mike McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who requested documents from Blinken in January. On Wednesday, the House Republican received the first batch of documents from the State Department.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to appear Thursday before McCaul and the Foreign Affairs committee, where he is expected to be grilled on the withdrawal.

Source : News 4 Jax

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A probe into whether UK soldiers stormed the houses of two innocent Afghan families and summarily executed their relatives began Wednesday, part of an effort by investigators looking into allegations of war crimes committed by the British Armed Forces in Afghanistan – and the purported coverups that followed them.

The two families, the Saifullahs and the Noorzais, lost four relatives each during separate incidents in February 2011 and October 2012. They have been seeking justice for more than a decade.

The independent inquiry, commissioned by Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, was first announced in December. A member of the Noorzai family at the time recounted how his two brothers and his brother-in-law were all killed.

“I was handcuffed, beaten and interrogated outside our family home by British soldiers. My relatives and friend were each shot in the head as they sat drinking tea,” the individual said. “My family has waited 10 years to find out why this happened.”

While the probe stems from the two families’ legal battles, it will cover “numerous” alleged crimes committed in Afghanistan from mid-2010 until mid-2013, including those investigated by prominent British media organizations such as the The Sunday Times and BBC Panorama.

Charles Anthony Haddon-Cave, the judge presiding over the investigation, asked anyone with information about the incidents in question to get in touch with his team. However, there is no clear mechanism yet on how his team would communicate with witnesses in Afghanistan, which is currently under the rule of the Taliban – the group British and American forces fought for years before the US withdrawal in 2021.

Though some of the inquiry’s work, including several hearings, will be conducted behind closed doors due to national security reasons, Haddon-Cave said he intends to “hold open hearings where possible and where appropriate.”

“Everybody has to understand the material I and my team are dealing with is highly sensitive,” he added.

This is not the first time the British Armed Forces has been investigated for committing potential war crimes and then covering them up. The International Criminal Court launched a preliminary investigation into the British military’s conduct in Iraq but ended the examination in 2020 without pursuing an investigation due in part to the “inadequate” response of the British army at the time.

The inquiry will also examine the previous Royal Military Police investigation that produced no prosecutions. A significant part of the inquiry’s work will be to determine “whether there was a coverup, when, by whom, [and] at what level,” Haddon-Cave said.

Haddon-Cave said he has been assured by the relevant authorities that his team’s work will not be impeded. He said he has the power to compel witnesses and order the reproduction of documents.

“I’m very hopeful that there will be full cooperation, not least because what we are looking at here is really restoring the reputation of the military and the country,” he said.

Source : CNN

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DOHA, Qatar—“No, it wasn’t worth it.” 

That’s how an advisor to Iraq’s prime minister responded to journalist Peter Bergen’s oft-asked question about the American invasion of Iraq.

Bergen posed it on stage at a conference of counterterrorism professionals here just a few days shy of the 20th anniversary of the invasion’s start, and Mohammed Al-Darraji answered bluntly.

The human and financial cost of the American destabilization of Iraq left behind a failed state. And in recent weeks, new alarms are sounding about the security threats simmering from Iraq to Afghanistan that can be traced back to that fateful decision so long ago.

In their own remembrances this week, Western news pages and airwaves are filled with heartrending stories recalling the horrors of that war, the folly of nation-building, the unpunished culpability of the American politicians who ordered it, the way it changed the military, the lasting trauma of its veterans, and the relentless grief for those who died. Our collective sentiment for the Iraq War remains overwhelmingly negative, angry, and unsettled.

But looking forward, the outlook for Iraq, the region, and the adjacent global war on terrorism is once again alarmingly bleak. In the past month, generals, journalists, officials, and activists have issued new warnings.  

“Saddam [Hussein]’s brutal regime was replaced with a dysfunctional kleptocracy that can’t deliver to its people,” Simona Foltyn, an international journalist who lives in Baghdad, said at the Global Security Forum last week. 

The annual counterterrorism-focused event included a panel on Iraq, and gloom about the past war and the future was palpable. Despite five successful elections and relatively peaceful power transfers since Saddam, Foltyn said Iraq’s fragile post-war political system is more entrenched than most outsiders realize. 

“There’s almost an infinite level of fragmentation…that keeps destabilizing the country.,” she said. 

And should democratic governance fail, Muqtada al-Sadr is still there, waiting to take advantage. 

Omar Muhammed, formerly known as the activist MosulEye, was less interested in reliving the invasion than highlighting Iraq’s long list of current problems, like water, energy dependence, and thousands of missing or encamped people from the war and later ISIS occupation. 

“Every day there is a new problem or a new challenge in Iraq. Every day there is more and more poverty,” and drinking water “is as scarce as any other material.” The U.S. invasion in 2003, he said, “destabilized the entire social stability of the country.” 

Gen. Erik Kurilla knows this. The commanding general of U.S. Central Command has been shuttling to the region at a frenetic pace. He told the Senate last week that ISIS, now based in Syria, “maintains the capability to conduct operations within the region and has the desire to strike outside of it.”

Kurilla likes to talk about ISIS as three parts. First is the “at-large” organization, about which he says, “I think we have contained ISIS, but the ideology is uncontained and unconstrained.” 

Second is the ISIS army in detention. “There are over 10,000 ISIS detainees spread across 26 different prisons in northeast Syria,” Kurilla said. 

Last year, 1,000 made it over the outside wall in a breakout and 400 were killed in a 10-day fight with U.S. and Syrian Democratic Forces. 

Third is the camps for refugees and displaced persons, as at al-Hol, where 51,000 people live, over half of whom are children. “They’re at risk from radicalization. About 50 percent of the camp holds some—espouses, some form of ideology according to the camp guards, the camp administrators, and the residents. And the other half are trying to escape ISIS.” Half of the internally displaced persons there are from Iraq. The repatriation rate back to Iraq is so slow Kurilla estimates it will take another four years to move them all out. 

It is all a direct result of the spiral of chaos caused by the U.S. invasion of Iraq. By now it’s well documented that the invasion sparked a series of violent extremist terrorist movements and a corrupt trail of divided governments. Al-Qaeda gave way to the Islamic State has mostly morphed from the Iraq-Syria border regions clear into Afghanistan. There, with no U.S. troop presence since the evacuation of 2021, the threat from ISIS-Khorasan is much worse. 

“It is my commanders’ estimate that they can do an external operation against U.S. or Western interests abroad in under six months with little to no warning,” which includes targets in Europe, Kurilla told the committee. He estimates ISIS-K could have the ability to strike the United States homeland in six months.

Since the U.S. withdrawal, the Islamic State in Afghanistan has tripled its attacks, increased propaganda, and is expanding to become a regional organization by “actively trying” to absorb minor groups. “IS-K is growing in strength.” 

There has been a pile of informed ink written about the Iraq War’s 20-year legacy, much of it hard to read. And there is good documentation of Iraq’s difficulties today. But as the world (and the Pentagon) focuses on the pending Cold War with China and Russia’s hot war in Ukraine, we should also be reminded by this anniversary that there is simply more work ahead of us in Iraq—and because of it. 

Source : Defense One

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The European Union representatives in a United Nations Commission on the Status of Women’s session said that the ban on female education deprived women and girls of enjoying the human right to education, increases risks of experiencing gender-based violence, and “undermines Afghanistan’s stability,” according to the statement released by UN members.

In a statement, the UN said, “In recognition of the ideals and principles and the Commission on the Status of Women, and recalling the commitments made during International Women’s Day on March 8th, we wish to express our strong concerns about the weakening of respect for the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan who face extreme restrictions seen nowhere else in the world on the enjoyment of their rights, freedoms, and access to life-saving aid.”

It further added that the Taliban continues to defy the will of the Afghan people, retracting their promises to the international community and implementing oppressive measures against women and girls.

The UN remains concerned that, despite international advocacy, the Taliban has not changed course after a full year of this repression – if anything, they’ve become more entrenched.

The UN members noted that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in its January 2023 meeting, “emphasized the position of Islamic [law] on the need for women’s education, work, and participation in public life.”

“In addition, the order barring female employees of national and international NGOs from the workplace means that millions of Afghans will be unable to access life-saving humanitarian assistance and face an even higher risk of violence, exploitation, and abuse. One-third of the humanitarian workforce in Afghanistan is female. They are now unable to work or reach women and other vulnerable people in need of basic support such as food, social services, and safe drinking water, with devastating consequences for their health and well-being,” the statement read.

Taliban has imposed draconian restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly, and movement for women and girls.

The Taliban’s decision to ban female students above grade six from going to school has drawn widespread criticism at the national and international levels. Further, the Taliban regime which took over Kabul in August last year has curtailed women’s rights and freedoms, with women largely excluded from the workforce due to the economic crisis and restrictions.

Recently, the Taliban banned female students from sitting in university entrance exams which are slated to take place next month, the Afghan news agency TOLOnews reported.

The Taliban Ministry of Higher Education has sent a notice to the universities which state that the girls cannot apply for the exams until further notice. Apparently, they have banned girls from registering for the 1402 (solar year) university entrance exam.

As a result of this, women and girls in Afghanistan are facing a human rights crisis, deprived of the fundamental rights to non-discrimination, education, work, public participation, and health.

Source : BS

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Burlington, VT– Families from Afghanistan who resettled in Vermont came together Sunday to celebrate a holiday symbolizing hope and new beginnings.

Nowruz is a holiday that marks the beginning of spring, but also symbolizes peace and understanding.

“It’s a celebration that brings millions of people together across the globe, transcending cultures, borders and languages,” says Sayed Khaliullah Anwari of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. “It helps us navigate the darkness and uncertainty that may come our way,” he adds.

Organized by the USCRI and the Vermont Afghan Alliance, close to 150 families came from all over the state, including Brattleboro, Bennington and Rutland.

House Speaker Jill Krowinski welcomed them. “The United States is a nation of immigrants, and we are all shaped by the cultures and traditions of the people that make up our great country,” says Krowinski.

Nowruz means “a new day,” and the holiday dates back over 3,000 years. It sends a message of renewal, rebirth, and friendship.

“It has deep roots in the Middle East and Asia. Celebrating this festival helps other people from across the world to understand your culture, values and tradition,” says Wazir Hashimi, the founder of the Vermont Afghan Alliance. “People exchange peaceful message and forget the difference in order to make their relationship strong,” he says.

Families were excited to mark a new chapter with this holiday and celebrate hope.

Source : Mychamplainvalley

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