Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Afghanistan

Resurgent al-Qaida training camps latest black eye from Biden Afghanistan withdrawal

2024-02-25

[JustTheNews] UN report claims al-Qaida now has eight training camps in Taliban-controlled country.

Two reports released just days apart are providing stark new evidence of the lasting consequences of President Joe Biden’s bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan and his administration’s dealings with the Taliban ever since.

The United Nations Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team reported late last month that the terrorist group al-Qaida, though weakened from its heyday in the early 2000s, has reconstituted as many as eight training camps and five religious training schools known as madrassas on Afghan soil under the Taliban’s rule while also increasing its propaganda operations and recruitment.

“The relationship between the Taliban and Al-Qaida remains close, and the latter maintains a holding pattern in Afghanistan under Taliban patronage,” the report stated bluntly. “Regional States assess that the presence of Al-Qaida senior figures in the country has not changed and that the group continues to pose a threat in the region, and potentially beyond.”

You can read the full report here.

While the UN report blamed the Taliban for its hosting of al-Qaida, the Biden administration continued to send massive humanitarian dollars to the Afghan regime, in many cases through the UN and global charities, according to a separate report from an American watchdog.

John Sopko, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, reported a few days after the UN report was issued that the United States accounted for all but $300 million of the $2.9 billion in humanitarian aid sent to the Taliban since the withdrawal of American troops in August 2021. Most of it, he noted, came in cash.

“The U.S. is the largest international donor, having provided about $2.6 billion in funding for the UN, other PIOs, and NGOs operating in Afghanistan since August 2021,” the report noted. “More than $1.7 billion of that funding came from State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to support humanitarian activities.”

You can read Sopko's report here.

Experts said the flow of cash to help the Taliban while it allows al-Qaida to flourish sends a dangerous message to bad actors, and much of it is routed through the very UN that issued the report.

“America is the biggest funder of this thing. So the United States taxpayer is disproportionately on the hook paying for these activities,” former Deputy National Security Adviser Victoria Coates said recently.

And coupled with the billions in high-tech weaponry Biden left behind in Afghanistan, the dynamic is creating heartburn in Congress.

“This administration has a history of giving money to terrorist organizations, abandoning $80 billion worth of military equipment in Afghanistan so the Taliban can run around with our M4s and our Blackhawks, and all of our equipment. They have an American last agenda,” Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., told the Just the News, No Noise television show last week.

The Taliban, of course, claims it does not harbor al-Qaida and that the UN report was “propaganda.”

"There is no one related to al Qaeda in Afghanistan, nor does the Islamic Emirate allow anyone to use the territory of Afghanistan against others," the Taliban said in a statement.

But U.S. officials told Just the News they have significant intelligence of al-Qaida’s presence and reconstitution inside Afghanistan since the Taliban overthrew the democratically elected government as U.S. troops were withdrawing in 2021.

They noted that when U.S. drones killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in 2022, he was living inside a Taliban Cabinet member’s guest house in Kabul’s diplomatic district.

U.S. officials added they are concerned by al-Qaida’s resilience, especially since American intelligence efforts have less visibility inside Afghanistan since the bungled withdrawal.

The UN report, culled from intelligence from its various member nations, said that while al-Qaida does not have the capability to command and conduct long-range terror attacks like 9/11 right now, it is clearly showing signs of expansion and regional reach after years of diminishment from the Bush to the Trump years.

“Al-Qaida was reported to have established up to eight new training camps in Afghanistan, including four in Ghazni, Laghman, Parwan and Uruzgan Provinces, with a new base to stockpile weaponry in the Panjshir Valley,” the report said. “Some camps might be temporary.

“Five Al-Qaida madrasas operate in Laghman, Kunar, Nangarhar, Nuristan and Parwan Provinces,” it added. “The group maintains safe houses to facilitate the movement between Afghanistan and the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Provinces of Herat, Farah and Helmand, with additional safe house locations in Kabul.”

Equally troubling, the Islamic State terrorist group is also showing resiliency in several regions of the world, particularly Afghanistan, the UN warned.

“Member States assessed that, despite the recent loss of territory, casualties, and high attrition among senior and mid-tier leadership figures, ISIL-K continued to pose a major threat in Afghanistan and the region,” it noted.

Link

Afghanistan

Afghanistan: The Taliban's punishment of women is an act of desperation

2023-01-16

A few key paragraphs to give a sense of the essay. Go to the link to read the whole thing.

[MiddleEastEye] Ever since signing a peace deal with the US in Qatar
Qatar

...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
in 2020, the Taliban
...Arabic for students...
hoped for formal recognition. But not a single country has recognised them. In July last year, this mistrust reached new heights. The Taliban received their first major blow when al-Qaeda’s top leader, Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri
...Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area assuming he's not dead like Mullah Omar. He lost major face when he ordered the nascent Islamic State to cease and desist and merge with the orthodox al-Qaeda spring, al-Nusra...
, a criminal mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was killed in a US dronezap in Kabul’s high-security zone. He lived with top Taliban leaders as a "state guest"
[love toy?]
in a "safe house".

Zawahiri’s death raised many questions. Who gave on-the-ground intelligence for the US attack? Is Kabul safe anymore? Reportedly, even top Taliban leaders left the capital city for fear of more attacks.

Another side of the Taliban’s challenge is existential. Zawahiri’s death has confirmed the rumours that there are widening gaps in its ranks.

From the start, the militia was divided into two main groups: one led by its deputy prime minister, Abdul Ghani Baradar, called the Kandahari group, which is entrenched in Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second city, near Pakistain’s southern border; the other led by its hardline interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani

...son of Pashtun warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani, still titular head of the Haqqani Network....
, with links to the Pakistain military.

The Haqqani group controls Kabul and the provinces leading to Pakistain’s northwestern border and beyond, a strategic advantage it availed during fighting against the US-led NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis....
forces.

This division seems dormant, but the mutual tensions from time to time weaken the Taliban's grip over the country. The barometer of this division is their rival krazed killer group, the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
Khorasan (IS-K). The IS-K’s numbers doubled in 2022, spreading its operations to all of the country’s 34 provinces, targeting with precision the Taliban's interests, including attacks on Chinese, Russian and Pak missions in Kabul.

Without admitting the presence of the IS-K, the Taliban, however, understands that this challenge could not arise without defections in its own ranks. This rising threat can make the IS-K a site of convergence for anti-Taliban groups, including resistance in the country’s northern parts, and especially the Panjshir Valley.

Unleashing the current oppression against women, therefore, also reveals the Taliban leaders’ efforts to make their foot soldiers realise that their ideology of implementing their own ~~violent~~ mostly peaceful brand of sharia is intact, a system in which women are forced to stay at home.

Link

Afghanistan

Taliban reveal burial place of founder Mullah Omar, nine years after death

2022-11-07

[La Belle France24] The Taliban on Sunday revealed the final resting place of the movement's founder, Mullah Omar, whose death and burial they kept secret for years.

Rumours surrounding Omar's health and whereabouts abounded after the Taliban
Taliban

...Arabic for students...
were kicked out of power in 2001 by a US-led invasion, and they only admitted in April 2015 that he had died two years earlier.

Taliban front man Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP Sunday that big shots of the movement attended a ceremony at his gravesite earlier in the day near Omarzo, in Suri district of Zabul province.

The Taliban returned to power in August last year, routing government forces as the US-led military that propped up the regime ended a 20-year occupation.

"Since a lot of enemies were around and the country was occupied, to avoid damage to the tomb it was kept secret," Mujahid said.

"Only the close family members were aware of the place," he added.

Pictures released by officials showed Taliban leaders gathered around a simple white brick tomb, covered with what appears to be gravel and enclosed in a green metal cage.

"Now the decision has been made... there are no issues for the people to visit the tomb," Mujahid said.

Omar, who was aged around 55 when he died, founded the Taliban in 1993 as an antidote to the internecine civil war that erupted following the decade-long Soviet occupation.

Under his leadership the Taliban introduced an extremely austere version of Islamic rule, barring women from public life and introducing harsh public punishments -- including executions and floggings.

MASSOUD TOMB REPORTED VANDALISED
Omar's ceremony comes a day after provincial Taliban officials denied reports that the Panjshir Valley tomb of resistance hero Ahmad Shah Massoud had been vandalised, an act Mujahid said would be "punished" if true.

Massoud has a mixed legacy in the country, where he is hailed by ordinary Afghans for leading the resistance against the Soviet occupation, but loathed by the Taliban he also fought until his 2001 liquidation by al-Qaeda.

His tomb is in an imposing granite and marble mausoleum overlooking the picturesque Panjshir Valley, and guarded by Taliban fighters since their takeover of the country in August last year.

Local residents said a newly arrived contingent of fighters smashed the tombstone, and video of the desecrated grave -- which could not be verified -- was published by local media and circulating widely on social channels.

"It happened when the new forces entered Panjshir. The new forces from Helmand
...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan...
and Kandahar destroyed the tombstone of the national hero," one resident told AFP.

Nasrullah Malakzada, head of information and culture of Panjshir, province, denied the tomb had been damaged and issued a video purporting to show it intact.

The clip, however, pointedly did not display the entire structure -- particularly the part seen damaged in the original video.

Malakzada refused requests by journalists to visit or photograph the tomb for themselves.

Mujahid told news hounds that nobody had the right to insult the dead.

"Previously we had punished those who committed such acts," he said, adding "this will be investigated as well and necessary action will be taken"

Link

Afghanistan

Taliban are “looking into” a video circulating on social media that appears to show its fighters executing captured members of an Afghan insurgent group

2022-09-15

The #Taliban are “looking into” a video circulating on social media that appears to show its fighters executing captured members of an Afghan insurgent group, a government spokesman says.https://t.co/HTCrqIsvBH
— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) September 14, 2022

The National Resistance® Front (NRF), a nascent group operating mainly out of the Panjshir Valley, said the video showed some of its fighters being executed, and accused the Taliban
Taliban

...Arabic for students...
of "war crimes."

The video, being shared widely on social media, shows two groups of men squatting on a hillside with their hands tied behind their backs before being shot with automatic rifles by Taliban fighters.

The fighters can be heard shouting "Allahu Akbar," and a man is later heard saying "stop it, stop it" after the captives slump forward, apparently dead.

Checks by AFP’s digital verification team show the first versions of the video only appeared online in the last 24 hours, and government front man Bilal Karimi said authorities were investigating.

"We are looking into it to know exactly when these videos were filmed and to know whether they are old," Karimi told AFP.

"But so far, we absolutely don’t know about the place, timing of the videos, or who the people in them are."

The footage went viral a day after the Taliban said its forces had killed at least 40 NRF fighters in festivities in the Panjshir Valley.

The NRF said those shown being executed in the video were captured during fighting in the valley.

"The criminal Taliban... committed a war crime again by shooting & martyring eight" members of the NRF, the holy warrior group’s front man Sibghatullah Ahmadi said on Twitter.

The scenic Panjshir Valley is famed for being the center of Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation of the 1980s and the Taliban’s first stint in power in the late 1990s.

It was the last part of Afghanistan to hold out against the Taliban when they returned to power in August last year.

The NRF is headed by Ahmad Massoud, the son of legendary anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban fighter Ahmad Shah Massoud.

The elder Massoud, known as the Lion of Panjshir, was assassinated in 2001 by al-Qaeda, two days before the September 11 attacks in the US.

His son has since picked up the mantle against Taliban forces, repeatedly denouncing the Islamist regime as "illegitimate".

In July, the United Nations
...boodling on the grand scale...
mission in Afghanistan accused the Taliban of carrying out hundreds of human rights
...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless...
violations, including extra-judicial killings and torture, since they seized power.

Many of the victims were former government officials and national security force members, the mission said, an accusation denied by the Taliban.

Link

Afghanistan

Report: Taliban casualties claimed in clashes with NRF in Baghlan and Panjshir

2022-07-18

If someone would give us a translation from the Farsi/Dari so we can have more details, that would be lovely.

Report: Taliban casualties claimed in clashes with NRF in Baghlan and Panjshir. #Afghanistan https://t.co/Fp5GXQ2BHg
— FJ (@Natsecjeff) July 16, 2022

The National Resistance® Front of Afghanistan (NRF), the necessary reincarnation of the primarily Tajik Northern Alliance that drove back the Taliban a generation ago, is based in the Panjshir Valley, led by Ahmad Massoud, son of the great Northern Alliance commander Ahmad Shah Massoud. Pops was assassinated by the Taliban two days before 9/11.

Link

Afghanistan

NRF Leader Ahmad Massoud May Meet with the Taliban Representatives in Dushanbe

2022-07-08

[KhaamaPress] The National Resistance® Front of Afghanistan (NRF),

...the necessary reincarnation of the primarily Tajik Northern Alliance that drove back the Taliban a generation ago, based in the Panjshir Valley...

headed by Ahmad Massoud,

...son of the late Northern Alliance commander Ahmad Shah Massoud...

will reportedly meet with Taliban
...Arabic for students...
leaders in Dushanbe, according to Sputnik Tajikistan.

The date of the conference is currently undetermined, but it is planned to invite 50 participants to attend, including representatives from political parties, intellectuals, prominent people, and others.

According to Sputnik Tajikistan, citing a source within the National Resistance® Front of Afghanistan, the purpose of the conference is to seek a political solution to the current crisis and to build an inclusive government that includes all political factions in Afghanistan.

The Afghan Embassy in Dushanbe—the embassy of the former Afghan government—has been cited by the media as the source of this information’s veracity.

They claimed that neither official bodies nor National Resistance® Front representatives had informed them of such information; hence they did not have such information.

Russian President Vladimir Putin

...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...
met with Ahmad Massoud on his visit to Tajikistan and was interested in Massoud’s vision of the circumstances in Afghanistan, according to Asia Plus News, citing reliable sources.

The National Resistance® Front of Afghanistan (NRF), often referred to as the Second Resistance®, is an anti-Taliban military alliance largely composed of members of the Northern Alliance and other fighters who are faithful to the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Afghanistan.

News reports suggest that the NRF led by Ahmad Massoud is determined to hold a meeting in #Tajikistan with the presence of #Taliban representatives.
The exact date of this meeting has not been determined; but it has been said that representatives of political parties... pic.twitter.com/mc9mJ8CMNJ
— Reporterly (@Reporterlyaf) July 7, 2022

Link

Afghanistan

Afghan ‘Fighting Season’ Ushers in New Anti-Taliban Groups

2022-06-12

[VOA] With the onset of the "fighting season" in Afghanistan, small pockets of anti-Taliban
...Arabic for students...
resistance appear to be forming across much of the country.

The development, coupled with a spike in deadly attacks by the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
terrorist group, could threaten the Taliban's hold on power eight months after their takeover of Afghanistan.

In recent weeks, about a half-dozen previously unknown "resistance" groups have announced their existence, vowing to fight the Taliban alongside the National Resistance® Front, the only prominent anti-Taliban group.

The new groups have names such as the Afghanistan Freedom Front and the Afghanistan Islamic National & Liberation Movement. But beyond claims made on social media, little is known about their kinetic power.

Researchers who have studied the groups say while they all share the goal of toppling the Taliban’s eight-month-old government, they are hobbled by a lack of unity and coordination.

"It will take some coordination and unity to be able to have a more decisive effect in terms of contesting Taliban governance," said Peter Mills, Afghanistan researcher at the Institute for the Study of War, who recently published a study of anti-Taliban groups.

As a result, the anti-Taliban groups have been unable to coalesce into a broader resistance movement, said Jonathan Schroden, director of the Countering Threats and Challenges Program at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), a nonprofit research and analysis organization.

"In that regard, they still retain relatively low levels of capability overall," Schroden said.

But lack of coordination is not the only weakness preventing them from becoming an effective fighting force. Among other things, Death Eater groups require external support. Yet in contrast to the 1990s, when Russia, Iran
Iran

...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites....
and India all backed the Northern Alliance against the Taliban, no country has rushed to the new anti-Taliban cause.

Consequently, in the short term, Schroden said, the groups will likely represent little more than "low-level annoyance" for the much-better-armed and numerically larger Taliban.

For their part, since routing the National Resistance® Front from the Panjshir Valley in September, the Taliban have largely dismissed these groups as opposition propaganda.

But insurgencies have a way of persisting for many years, experts say, and what may be a small, inchoate patchwork of cells today could turn into a full-blown, bloody insurgency.

In the long term, several factors could tip the scales in the fight, Schroden said: the anti-Taliban groups’ success in finding a "state sponsor," their ability to coalesce under a "common banner" and growing popular discontent with the Taliban regime.

Here is a look at the anti-Taliban groups:

National Resistance® Front of Afghanistan
Led by Ahmad Massoud, the son of the late Northern Alliance commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, the National Resistance® Front of Afghanistan (NRF) is the "most well-developed" of all the anti-Taliban outfits, said Mills, who estimates it has a few thousand fighters.

In addition to its homebase of the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul, the group operates in the nearby Andarab valley through an affiliate known as the Andarab Resistance® Front, a collection of small cells headed by local commanders who have declared loyalty to Massoud.

The two fronts sometimes "interoperate," Mills said.

"We know, for example, that the NRF was providing support and sending forces to work with the Andarab Resistance® Front and fighting in the Andarab," he said.

The NRF claims to operate in at least a dozen provinces, including Panjshir and Baghlan. In a recent interview with the London-based Afghanistan International Radio, Ali Maisam Nazary claimed the Taliban had "suffered repeated defeats in Panjshir, Andarab and other parts of the Hindu Kush mountains."

The claim could not be independently verified. But Mills said the NRF has demonstrated that "they’re able to hold some rural, remote kind of valley, some of this remote, rural mountainous terrain in places like Baghlan, parts of Takhar, Panjshir, parts of Badakhshan."

Afghanistan Freedom Front

This group popped up on March 11 when it announced its launch on Twitter and Facebook with the goal of "fighting for freedom of the country from occupation."

It has not disclosed its leadership, but recent reports have indicated that General Yasin Zia, a former defense minister and chief of general staff, is one of the Front's leaders.

Zia, who served as an aide to the late Ahmad Shah Massoud in the 1990s, could not be reached for comment.

In the weeks since the March announcement, the group has claimed attacks on Taliban targets in several provinces, from Badakhshan in the north to Kandahar in the south, offering as proof nighttime videos of fighting.

While the dark videos are not always easy to verify, "we know at least some of these attacks that are being claimed and discussed are real and are happening," Mills said.

One incident Mills said he was able to confirm was an April 8 video of a daytime hand grenade attack on a cop shoppe in Kandahar.

"We were able to see someone actually throwing a grenade into this cop shoppe in Kandahar," Mills said.

Afghanistan Islamic National & Liberation Movement

This is believed to be the only major Pashtun anti-Taliban group. Led by Abdul Mateen Sulaimankhail, a former Afghan Army special forces commander, the group launched on February 16. Sulaimankhail has said he set up the group in response to the Taliban’s alleged killings of former military personnel, calling their amnesty a "lie."

In an April 13 interview with the Afghanistan International TV network, Sulaimankhail claimed his group was engaged in "military and political activities" in 26 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, a claim questioned by researchers. Citing security reasons, he declined to say how many members his group has.

The group has grabbed credit for attacks in its home base of Nangarhar
The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country..
and several other provinces, but it has offered little proof of the attacks, with videos posted on the group’s Facebook page showing armed masked men indoors vowing to fight the Taliban.

While the group’s recent claim of killing a Taliban commander in Helmand
...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan...
appears credible, Mills said its "actual capability seems to be limited."

Other groups
In recent weeks, small cells of self-styled anti-Taliban fighters affiliated with Tajik warlord Ata Mohammad Noor have appeared in videos purportedly shot in northern Afghanistan.

In a recent video, one of several masked gunnies describes them as members of the "high council of resistance," led by Noor, former Balkh province governor. The man then vows the group is prepared to launch "guerrilla attacks" as soon as they receive orders from Noor, who is believed to be living in exile in the United Arab Emirates.

Noor's nephew Sohail Zimaray was killed in a shootout with Taliban forces in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif late Thursday, police said.

While the so-called "Noor guerillas" claim to be operating in every province in northern Afghanistan, Mills said he had "not seen them carry out any attacks or claim any attacks."

Other groups that have publicized their efforts in recent weeks include Freedom Corps, Liberation Front of Afghanistan, Liberation Front of Afghanistan, Soldiers of Hazaristan, Freedom and Democracy Front.

Link

Afghanistan

Taliban Defense Minister Visits Panjshir; We Do Not Allow “disruptors” to Disrupt Security

2022-05-22

Life is getting a tad more exciting in the Panjshir Valley. It will be interesting to see if the current generation can repeat the deeds of the previous generation — including those of the previous generation who returned from retirement to fight the second generation of Talib tyrants. Good luck, guys!

[KhaamaPress] The Taliban
Taliban

...Arabic for students...
Ministry of Defense said that Mullah Yaqub, the Acting Minister of Defense, has visited Panjshir province to assess the security situation.

Mullah Yaqub met security officials and tribal elders in the province, today May 21st, according to Inayatullah Khawarazmi, the front man for the Taliban Ministry of Defense.

Khawarazmi added that the Acting Minister of the Taliban’s Defense Ministry had told the residents of Panjshir province that they should not be galvanized by enemy propaganda and should continue living their "normal" lives.

The residents of the province were also advised to cooperate with the Taliban to restore "order" in the province. The Acting Minister of Defense also emphasized that the Taliban in the province will not allow anyone, particularly "disruptors" to disrupt security.

In recent days, battle between Afghan National Resistance® Front forces led by Ahmad Massoud and Taliban forces in Panjshir province has escalated.

Amrullah Saleh and Ahmad Massoud founded the Resistance® Front after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in Panjshir. Saleh and Massoud, as well as the Front’s leadership council, are based outside of Afghanistan.

In the most recent case, battle started two days ago in the Khanj district of Panjshir province between Taliban and Resistance® Front fighters, and it is said to be still unfolding.

The Taliban Air Force Commander, who visited Panjshir earlier this week, told the people of the province "not to kill themselves for the sake of those in Tajikistan and La Belle France."

"Do not kill yourself for the benefit of those who live in Tajikistan and La Belle France and raise money from your blood there," said Amanuddin Mansoor, commander of the Taliban Ministry of Defense Air Force, in a message to the people of Panjshir released on May 14, through the ministry.

The Taliban official called on the people of Panjshir to stop resisting and join the Taliban. According to him, if the people of Panjshir unite with the Taliban, their "lives, property, honor and reputation" will be protected and no one will "invade" Panjshir.

Link

Afghanistan

Civilians flee fighting in Panjshir Valley

2022-05-15

See, O Pakistan, what your vicious little pets have wrought!

[Dawn] Scores of civilians have fled fighting in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley after an Death Eater group launched an offensive against Taliban
Taliban

...Arabic for students...
forces, residents said on Saturday.

The Panjshir Valley is famed for being a site of resistance by Afghans against Soviet forces in the 1980s and as a base for rebels opposed to Taliban rule during the Islamists’ first stint in power in the late 1990s.

The National Resistance® Front (NRF) were the last to hold out against the Taliban’s takeover of the country last year by retreating to the valley.

Headed by the son of late anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, NRF forces last week announced an offensive against the Taliban — their first since the hardline Islamists seized power in August.

Both sides claim to have killed dozens of each other’s fighters in recent days.

"We could only pick up one or two items of clothing," Lutfullah Bari said, adding he fled with dozens of families.

Link

Afghanistan

Taliban defeated in battle with the Andarabis

2022-03-30

"Local sources tell Amaj that despite the Taliban's efforts to launch a massive offensive against the Andarabis, they were defeated in the battle with heavy casualties and were forced to retreat. The Taliban have not yet commented." #Afghanistan https://t.co/rq41S5kOyn
— FJ (@Natsecjeff) March 29, 2022

Andarab is a valley and district in the south of Baghlan province populated by Tajiks, historically known for its grain products. It lies next to Panjshir Valley, home of Ahmad Massoud’s anti-Talib National Resistance Front, and is aligned with the NRF. It appears the Talib conquest of Afghanistan remains incomplete, despite taking women and children hostage.

Link

Afghanistan

Taliban official meets son of 'lion of Panjshir' in Iran

2022-01-11

[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The Taliban
...Arabic for students...
’s foreign minister said Monday he held talks in Iran
Iran

...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites....
on the weekend with Ahmad Massoud, son of the late legendary Afghan resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, and guaranteed his security if he returned home.

If he believes promises from the follower of the Father of Lies, he’s a fool.

Massoud’s Panjshir Valley forces provided the last resistance in September to the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, weeks after government troops capitulated.

In a video posted Monday by state media on Twitter, Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said he also met Ismail Khan, a Herat
...a venerable old Persian-speaking city in western Afghanistan, populated mostly by Tadjiks, which is why it's not as blood-soaked as areas controlled by Pashtuns...
province warlord who surrendered to the Taliban and left the country.

The Taliban had announced Muttaqi’s departure to Tehran for talks with Iranian officials but made no mention of any plans to meet exiled leaders.

"We met commander Ismail Khan and Ahmad Massoud, and other Afghans in Iran, and assured them that anyone can come to Afghanistan and live without any concerns," Muttaqi said in the video.

"It’s home to all, and we do not create insecurity or other problems for anyone. Everyone can come freely and live."

The Panjshir Valley is famed for being the site of resistance to Soviet forces in the 1980s and the Taliban in the late 1990s, during their first stint in power.

Its most revered figure is Ahmad Shah Massoud, known as the "Lion of Panjshir," who was assassinated in 2001 by al-Qaeda two days before the 9/11 attacks.

His son has since picked up the mantle, and there have been reports of him organizing a resistance with other exiled Afghan leaders.

The Massoud-led National Resistance® Front has repeatedly denounced the Taliban -- calling it an "illegitimate government" -- but does not appear to have made any physical attacks.

Afghanistan’s former president Ashraf Ghani
...former chancellor of Kabul University, ex-president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. When Biden abandoned the country left with a helicopter, four cars, and part of the national treasury...
fled the country with many brass hats as the Taliban closed in on Kabul, but several other prominent leaders remained -- including ex-head of state Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai
...A product, and probably the sole product, of the Southern Alliance...
The Taliban promised a general amnesty to all opponents and critics after taking over, but rights organizations say at least 100 people associated with the former regime have been killed since then.

See? Don’t trust ‘em.

A prominent Afghan university professor and open critic of the Taliban was arrested in Kabul on the weekend after repeatedly speaking out on television against the country’s new rulers.

The hardline Islamists have swiftly cracked down on dissent, forcefully dispersing women’s rights protests and briefly detaining several Afghan journalists.

Link

Afghanistan

Taliban Accused Of Forcibly Evicting Ethnic Uzbeks, Turkmen In Northern Afghanistan

2021-12-11

[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

Taliban Accused Of Forcibly Evicting Ethnic Uzbeks, Turkmen In Northern Afghanistanhttps://t.co/lXKsAMqqgA
— SHAFAQ News (@Shafaqnews) December 10, 2021

Not even a hint of this in our usual Afghan sources, except the eviction of Hazeras in September and complaints from Panjshir Valley after the Talibs put down the rebellion.

Taliban
...Arabic for students...
fighters have been accused of forcibly evicting more than 1,000 people in northern Afghanistan, with the evictions targeting members of the ethnic Uzbek and Turkmen communities.

Ethnic Uzbeks and Turkmen allege that Pashtuns seized their homes and land in the northern province of Jowzjan with the help of the Taliban, a predominately Pashtun group.

The evictions came as Taliban fighters have expelled hundreds of Shi’ite Hazara
Hazara

...a grouping of Dari-speaking people of Sino-Tibetan descent inhabiting Afghanistan and Pakistain. They are predominantly Shia Moslems and not particularly warlike, which makes them favored targets...
families from their homes and farms in five provinces since the ~~bandidos~~ holy warriors seized power in Afghanistan in August.

Rights groups say the Taliban’s forced displacement of residents is an attempt to distribute land to their own supporters and collectively punish communities that backed the former government.

Abdullah says he is among those who have been displaced in Darzab, a remote district in Jowzjan.

He says Taliban fighters accompanied by Pashtun nomads forced more than 1,000 ethnic Uzbeks and Turkmen from their homes and farms in Darzab and Qush Tepa, a neighboring district in Jowzjan, on November 27.

Abdullah, who requested that his real name not be used out of concern for his safety, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi that the provincial Taliban authorities had promised to send a delegation to investigate the alleged land seizures. But he said on December 8 that the delegation had yet to arrive.

"This has been our land for hundreds of years," he says. "We have cultivated it and it belongs to us."

Faizullah, a resident of Qush Tepa, says Pashtun nomads with the help of the Taliban seized more than 20,000 acres of their land.

"Nobody could resist," he says. "If we raised our voices, we would be killed."

Ghulam Sarwar Alizai, a representative for Pashtun nomads in Jowzjan, says land ownership is often unclear because the disputed properties are on government land.

He says the nomads want to return to the pastures that they were prevented from accessing for around two decades.

"Some of our [Uzbek and Turkmen] brothers acknowledge that the land is owned by the government, but they had worked hard to cultivate the barren land," he told Radio Azadi. "A tribal council comprising five people from each side will be the best setting to find a solution."

The Taliban did not respond to calls and text messages from RFE/RL seeking comment.

But in comments to the BBC on November 29, Taliban front man Bilal Karimi denied any forced displacements had taken place in Jowzjan.

"No such thing has happened and the situation in Qush Tepa is calm," he said, adding that the authorities were investigating the issue "and would not allow anyone or any group to encroach on anyone's property."

Disputed sample censuses dating back to the 1970s estimate the Pashtun population at just over 40 percent, followed by ethnic Tajiks at less than 30 percent with Hazara and Uzbeks at around 10 percent. Various smaller minorities account for the rest of the population.

Since regaining power, the Taliban has been accused of forcibly evicting thousands of people across the country.

In October, the Taliban forcibly evicted hundreds of Hazara families from southern Helmand
...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan...
Province and the northern province of Balkh.

In late September, some 700 Hazara were forcibly evicted by the Taliban in the central province of Daikundi. The Taliban claimed that they were implementing a Taliban court order that required the land to be returned to what it said were its original owners.

The evictions have not only targeted non-Pashtuns. The Taliban also evicted fellow Pashtuns in the southern province of Kandahar. The evictions targeted those who had served in the former government or its armed forces.

"The Taliban should cease forcible evictions and adjudicate land disputes according to the law and a fair process," Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), told RFE/RL.

Gossman said northern Afghanistan has a long history of collective punishment and forced evictions. She said that after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 toppled the Taliban regime from power, the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance "engaged in evictions of local Pashtuns."

The former Northern Alliance, a coalition of anti-Taliban groups that resisted Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, consisted mainly of ethnic Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazara.

Before the Northern Alliance, the "Taliban did it against other groups," Gossman adds.

"Efforts after 2001 to reform the land ownership system failed because of the power of strongmen and warlords, including those in the administration and parliament," she said.

Many of the land disputes in northern Afghanistan are a legacy of the forced and voluntary resettlement of Pashtuns in the region in the 19th century. Starting from the 1880s, Afghan King Abdur Rahman Khan, a Pashtun from the south, forcibly relocated thousands of people from rival Pashtun communities from eastern Afghanistan to the north, where there was only a tiny Pashtun population. The Pashtun settlers were often given free land and received tax exemptions. In the 20th century, Pashtuns also voluntarily settled in northern Afghanistan.

"Both the forced and voluntary ~~migrants~~ colonists were allocated land by the central government, a development that fostered tensions with communities that consequently lost access to farmland and pastures," said a HRW report released in 2002.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, refugees from Central Asia also arrived in northern Afghanistan. Many of them fled Tsarist Russia’s invasion of Central Asia and the emergence of the Soviet Union.

Link

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