Ending his six-day trip to Asia, U.S. President Joe Biden used the war in Ukraine to signal a warning to China to uphold fundamental principles of the international order. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report from Tokyo.
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Mina Le has a slight smile in the faded photograph. In it, she is 8 years old and has just landed in the United States with her parents and eight siblings. They arrived from Vietnam with nothing except the knowledge that they had escaped the war in their homeland.

Today, Le remembers the many years that passed before her family and other Vietnamese refugees became self-sufficient, often because of the trauma they carried.

“From the years during the war in our country, the trauma from coming here, losing everything, starting over again and all that trauma we hold inside of us — and it manifests itself in many different ways.”

Saigon, Kabul

When Le watched videos of Afghans desperately crowding the airport in Kabul in August 2021 to escape, she had flashbacks. The parallel with the hasty U.S. pullout from Vietnam in 1975 prompted her to action. More than 40 years after her arrival in the U.S., she is helping another generation of refugees — new arrivals from Afghans.

Le and Ismail Khan, a former U.S. military interpreter in Afghanistan who arrived in the U.S. in 2014 on a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) and is now a U.S. citizen, co-founded the Afghans of Puget Sound Alliance to assist new Afghan arrivals.

Since August, 3,000 Afghans have arrived in Washington state, and more than two-thirds have settled in the Seattle area. Those who assisted the U.S. during the war in Afghanistan may qualify for an SIV.

‘They will be homeless’

The SIV is a complex and highly vetted immigration process intended to take nine months, but now has a backlog of three or four years. If granted, visa holders and their immediate family are given permanent residency upon arrival.

Others who evacuated Afghanistan were given humanitarian parole for up to two years.

On May 16, the Biden administration granted temporary protected status (TPS) of 18 months to those already in the U.S. who pass a background check.

Neither option provides a path to citizenship. Afghans can apply for additional parole time, but Khan worries the humanitarian parole designation will expire before the government is able to approve the thousands of asylum or family or work sponsorship applications that have already been submitted.

“They will not be able to work,” predicts Khan. “Not being able to pay their bills, they will be homeless.”

The Afghan Adjustment Act, which allows some Afghans to apply for permanent residency, is the solution, supporters say. It would protect them from deportation and give them permission to work while the applications are being processed.

The Biden administration requested the measure be included in a supplemental spending bill that gave $39 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine. Opponents blocked the addition, citing concerns over vetting and required expediency to get money to Ukraine. It failed to be included in the measure and is now in limbo. One of its proponents, Democratic Senator Chris Coons, wants the measure reintroduced, saying, “Our nation’s moral and global leadership depends on us taking up and swiftly passing” the bill.

For now, government resettling agencies assist evacuees with basic needs until 2023.

But Le says the organizations are short-staffed and lack “the infrastructure to absorb this amount of refugees in such this short a time.”

‘You are not welcome here’

Many new refugees like Liaqat Bahar were left overwhelmed with no ongoing support. Upon landing in the U.S., he and his brother were sent to a Miami, Florida, hotel for two months, where he was told by his caseworker, “You are not welcome here.” He became ill and was bewildered.

“How do I make an appointment? And where do I go to see the doctor?” he wondered.

A friend contacted Khan, who flew the Bahar brothers to Seattle because “I was in their shoes once, and I can see how much help they need,” Khan said.

The Afghans of Puget Sound Alliance was created to supplement assistance from U.S. government agencies.

The alliance organizes help for new arrivals through a group of Seattle volunteers, often former Vietnamese or Afghan refugees, to assist families with specific needs.

Khan and Le meet regularly with the male heads of the families to help them file job applications. The first priority is language skills, Khan explained.

“If someone speaks English, they go right to college to get those certifications and those degrees. And for those who don’t speak English, we introduce them to ESL classes,” Khan said.

From embassy nurse to stacking pistachios

Mohammad Mushtaq Azizi stacks clear containers of dates on the shelf next to the saffron pistachios at the 786 Market in Kent, Washington.

“This is not my permanent job,” said Azizi, acknowledging he must improve his language skills before moving to another job. He makes a minimum wage of $14.50 an hour for his family of five, including a newborn. It is a big contrast to his previous job as a nurse at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul that he had held for years. Azizi will study for a nursing certification to work in a U.S. hospital.

Most new arrivals were forced to leave extended family members — parents and siblings — in Afghanistan because the immigration status includes only immediate family. With technology, the Afghans in the U.S. hear their struggles daily through video calls and emails.

Le says it’s something she’s familiar with — the struggle to balance a new life with what is left behind.

“They have an eye toward the future. But their whole body is tilted toward their (home) country, because that’s where their family is,” she said.

Aline Barros contributed to this report.
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The Taliban government signed an agreement Tuesday with a state-run United Arab Emirates aviation company to allow it run “ground-handling” operations at three airports in Afghanistan, including Kabul.

Taliban Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and officials of the UAE-based GAAC Solutions attended the signing ceremony in the Afghan capital.

Addressing the event, Baradar said he hoped the deal would give confidence to all international airlines to return to Afghanistan in peace and lead to increased trade with other countries.

“Afghanistan has been affected by wars and extreme poverty, and now we are rebuilding it,” he said. “We seek good relations with all countries and urge them to invest in Afghanistan to help its strife-torn people.”

The Taliban leader assured investing nations his government will provide them with all facilities, cooperation and security so they can invest in all Afghan sectors, including mining.

Under the 18-month contract, control and management of airports in the southern city of Kandahar and western city of Herat will also be handed over to the UAE company.

The GAAC was handling ground operations in Kabul until August 15, 2021, when the Taliban insurgency seized power from the now defunct Western-backed government.

The last U.S. and NATO troops withdrew from Afghanistan later that month, ending almost 20 years of war with the Taliban.

Taliban officials noted they renegotiated the existing agreement directly with GAAC, with certain amendments, and clarified that the deal was with only the company and not with the UAE government.

The UAE’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment, according to wire news reports.

Razeq Aslam Mohammad Abdul Razeq, GAAC’s managing director, sounded optimistic that the renewed deal would signal the return to Afghanistan of business, trade, commerce and people-to-people contact after months of disruption.

“We are hoping that they would come back to us in terms seeing the continuity of the same people who handled them before the events of August 2021,” Razeq said during Tuesday’s event.

The global community has not yet recognized the Taliban government, citing a lack of inclusivity and concerns related to human rights and terrorism.

The Islamist group has increasingly curbed women’s rights since returning to power despite global outcry and warnings that such measures would discourage donor nations from establishing political and economic ties with Kabul.

Qatar and Turkey had sent temporary technical teams to help airport operations and security after the Taliban takeover of Kabul last year.

A Qatar-Turkey consortium has been in talks with the Taliban aviation ministry for months over airport operations in Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, and Mazar-i-Sharif as well as the southeastern city of Khost.

Those talks could not make headway because the Taliban reportedly insisting that their forces, not foreigners, would guard the airports. The fate of the dialogue is unknown and Taliban officials Tuesday declined to comment on the subject.

Some information for this report comes from Reuters. 

 
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Police in Pakistan have launched criminal proceedings against at least six journalists and political talk show hosts in retaliation for their work, defense attorneys told a high court Monday.

A string of identical complaints has been registered with police in several Pakistani cities by so-called “patriotic citizens” over the past couple of days, accusing the journalists of spreading hate against the army and state institutions in their reporting.

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan described the cases as “political retaliation” and accused the government of being behind the slew of complaints.

News of the criminal proceedings coincided with a statement issued Monday by Pakistan’s Electronic Media Regulation Authority (PEMRA), warning digital news outlets and broadcasters against airing content that “ridicules” state institutions, particularly the judiciary and army. A federal institution, PEMRA, which is responsible for the regulation and issuing of broadcast, print, and electronic media licenses, warned that violations could be met with immediate broadcast suspensions and fines.

Pemra had issued a similar warning on May 9.

If formally charged and convicted, the journalists could face up to seven years in prison and fines.

Unprecedented scope

Pakistan ranks 145 out of 180 on the most recent World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Pakistani journalists are routinely subjected to violence, harassment and intimidation, but never before have so many media personnel collectively faced criminal proceedings.

Some of the journalists in question, including Arshad Sharif, host of a popular political talk show on private ARY channel, petitioned a court in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, through their attorneys to seek judicial protection against arrest.

Their attorneys told reporters that they had argued during Monday’s hearing at the Islamabad High Court that the police cases against their clients were solely aimed at harassing and discouraging them from objectively reporting political events.

The chief judge, Athar Minallah, ruling on the multiple petitions, barred federal police from taking into custody any of the journalists working out of Islamabad and advised provincial courts to take similar steps.

The judge also ordered federal authorities to submit details of the police complaints registered in cities across Pakistan when the court reconvenes next month.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government and provincial authorities have not yet commented on the cases but media watchdogs and journalists denounced them as an assault on freedom of the press in Pakistan.

The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) slammed the registration of cases, or the First Information Reports (FIRs), against Pakistani journalists.

“Journalists should not have to face legal harassment for critical comments on the military or any other institutions in Pakistan,” Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator in Washington told VOA. “These multiple FIRs should be withdrawn at once.”

CPJ identifies Pakistan as one of the most dangerous countries for journalists where successive civilian governments and military-led security agencies, commonly referred to as the “establishment,” are routinely accused of intimidating and harassing reporters.
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Three Afghan women leaders have been awarded the 2021 Lantos Human Rights Prize this week in Washington. But they say the award doesn’t mean their work is done. Sahar Azimi has the story.
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Pradeep Kumar can earn nearly eight dollars a day selling the traditional Indian drink with cumin and lemon that he makes at his cart in a popular market in New Delhi — supposed to cool the body, the beverage has been much in demand in recent months as north India reeled under a brutal heat wave.

But on some days, he says he could not summon up the energy to set up his cart as the punishing temperatures took a heavy toll on those working outdoors.

“I am exhausted every night after standing under the sun. Sometimes I fall sick due to the heat and then I need to rest for a few days,” said Kumar. “Once I could not come for a week.”

It is not surprising — while temperatures are normally high in May and June, the heat spell began unusually early this year. Temperatures in March shattered a 122-year record, April was the hottest month on record in north and central India and this month the mercury has topped 45 degrees Celsius on several days.

In a city where tens of thousands work as construction labor, rickshaw pullers, hawkers or at pavement stalls, many like Kumar have lost income due to the weekslong searing heat. Although temperatures eased Monday, the respite is likely to be brief.

India suffers the highest loss of productivity in the world due to extreme heat — it lost more than 100 billion hours of labor every year between 2001 and 2020, costing the country billions of dollars, according to a study published in Nature Communications by Duke University.

The heat waves are a huge health hazard — most of those working outdoors cannot heed a government advisory to avoid being out between noon and 3 pm on hot days.

“Heat strokes are the second biggest natural force which is killing people in India after lightning,” said Avikal Somvanshi, senior program manager of Urban Lab at the Center for Science and Environment citing government data. “In fact, more than 20,000 people have died in last 20 years because of heat stroke and over half of them are men aged between 30 to 60 who are working outdoors. This is not just exhaustion or discomfort. It is actually killing people.”

The impact is worsened by what is called the “heat-island effect” — the concentration of concrete buildings and roads that leads to much higher temperatures in city centers compared to suburban or rural areas.

Divyanshu Pratap, who has come to New Delhi from his village to work at a pavement stall for the first time, has experienced it firsthand.

“When I am standing and the sun blazes on my head, I get dizzy spells. Then I feel weak and fall down,” he said. “It was also hot in my village, but nothing compares to this.”

Homes in densely packed urban slums provide little respite at night — not only are they unbearably hot, but the situation is worsened by the long power outages that India has experienced this year as the intense heat triggered higher demand.

The situation for these workers could worsen in the coming years as studies warn that climate change will make such heat waves even more frequent.

A recent analysis by Britain’s Met Office said that record-breaking temperatures in northwestern India and Pakistan have become 100 times more likely due to climate change. Scientists said that heat waves could happen every three years whereas such extreme events would be expected only every 300 years in the absence of climate change.

“Extreme climate events will become increasingly normal if we continue to see inaction in bringing down global temperatures,” said Abinash Mohanty at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water in New Delhi. “Cities will face the brunt of climate extremities — Delhi might have more severe heat waves, while others like Mumbai may face flooding if we do not put in more aggressive climate action.”

The Health Ministry last month issued an advisory to employers asking them to install temporary shelters and limit hours for new workers. Several cities in India have put in place a Heat Action Plan that focuses on raising public awareness and reserving beds in hospitals for victims of heat stroke.

“This does not stop the exposure. It is like an emergency response to a tragedy that has already happened,” pointed out Urban Lab’s Somvanshi. “As far as adaptation, mitigation, or building resilience to this heat, no concrete plan has been made in India. Even globally, governments are just coming to recognize that rising temperatures pose a big challenge.”

Those involved in manual labor face the grimmest situation. Virendra, a rickshaw puller ferries customers over short distances of about two kilometers but keeps a look out for a tree to sit under after the ride is over.

“It is unbearably hot. My throat keeps getting parched and I worry that I will fall sick,” he said. “It takes much more energy to ride the rickshaw in summer.”

Although the work is hard, Virendra said he has no choice — he makes more money as a rickshaw puller than he would doing unskilled labor.
…

The most devastating impact of a deadly heat wave that has wracked India for more than two months is felt by people who work outdoors in its vast cities. From New Delhi, Anjana Pasricha reports on the hardship such extreme climate events are having on vulnerable populations.
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Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan announced Sunday he would lead a massive anti-government “peaceful march” on the national capital, Islamabad, later this week to press his demand for fresh elections.

Khan asked supporters of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and Pakistanis at large to reach the city to join his rally starting Wednesday, saying it would ultimately turn into a sit-in protest and continue until his demands are met.

An opposition-led alliance ousted the cricketer-turned-politician from office last month in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence, ending his nearly four-year-old government. Khan’s staunch political rival, Shehbaz Sharif, replaced him as the head of a new ruling coalition.

“We will never under any situation accept this government,” Khan told a televised news conference in the northwestern city of Peshawar, while announcing his plan for the march. He warned authorities against forcefully blocking the rally.

“No matter how long we have to remain in Islamabad we will remain there until they dissolve the assemblies and announce a date for transparent elections that are without any foreign interference.”

Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb criticized Khan’s call for the protest march and rejected his demand for early elections, saying he “cannot bully the government to announce general elections at a time of his choice with his threats.”

Aurangzeb said the new elections would be announced by her government in “collaboration and consensus with all allies.”

Khan has addressed massive public rallies across the country since his downfall in a bid to garner support for the May 25 march. He dubbed it as a move to ensure Pakistan’s political and foreign policy matters are guarded against external interventions.

The 69-year-old former leader Sunday renewed his accusations that the United States had conspired with his political opponents to bring down his government, charges Washington has rejected, along with Prime Minister Sharif.

Khan maintains he was punished for pursuing an independent foreign policy and ignoring Washington’s advice against visiting Russia. Khan met with President Vladimir Putin on February 24, when Russian troops invaded Ukraine.

“We are not going to let propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation – lies – get in the way of any bilateral relationship we have, including with the bilateral relationship we have with Pakistan, one we value,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told a regular news conference earlier this month.

Political tensions have increased in Pakistan at a time when the nascent Sharif government is struggling to deal with a deepening economic crisis, which stems from rising inflation.

The political uncertainty has led stocks to tumble. The Pakistani rupee is at a record low and foreign exchange reserves have rapidly depleted, adding pressure on the beleaguered coalition government.

Pakistan is trying to negotiate the remainder of a suspended $6 billion financial bailout package with the International Monetary Fund that’s needed to help shore up dwindling foreign exchange reserves.

The IMF wants Islamabad to withdraw fuel and power subsidies as part of any agreement for financial assistance, a move that could fuel inflation and public anger against the government.
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Female program presenters in Afghanistan went on the air Sunday with their faces covered to comply with a fresh decree by the country’s Islamist Taliban rulers.

Since seizing power nine months ago, the male-only interim Taliban government has subjected women and girls to a series of onerous curbs, drawing international criticism.

Last week, the Ministry of Vice and Virtue, charged with interpreting and enforcing the Taliban’s version of Islamic Sharia law, ordered all Afghan television channels to ensure that female presenters start covering their faces while on screen.

On Sunday, female presenters and journalists aired news bulletins across leading channels, including TOLO news, Ariana Television, Shamshad TV and 1TV, wearing full hijabs and face-covering veils that left only their eyes in view. The Taliban had previously required women presenters to wear a headscarf.

Female staff at the TOLO news said they had initially resisted covering their faces, but the Taliban pressured their employer, asking them to remove those who defy the order.

Khpolwak Sapai, the TOLO news deputy director, said his channel was told to strictly follow the Taliban order and force staff to comply with it.

“I was called on the telephone yesterday and was told in strict words to do it. So, it is not by choice but by force that we are doing it,” Sapai said.

Male colleagues at TOLO news also wore face coverings in solidarity with female staff.

“We are in deep grief today,” Sapai lamented in a social media post.

Afghan TV channels have already been barred from broadcasting dramas and soap operas featuring women.

The Vice and Virtue ministry spokesman dismissed media claims, however, that the Taliban were against women presenters working in the channels.

“We have no intention of removing them from the public scene or sidelining them or stripping them of their right to work,” said Mohammad Akif Sadeq.

Earlier this month, the Taliban decreed that Afghan women must wear head-to-toe garments covering their faces when in public. Male guardians of those not complying with the decree could be sentenced to jail for three days or more.

The edict empowers authorities to fire women government employees if they fail to follow the dress code while male staff also risk suspension from work if their female relatives fail to comply.

The Taliban have told most women not to return to their workplace or undertake long road trips unless accompanied by a close male relative. Secondary school girls over the age of 12 have not been allowed to resume classes.

The crackdown on women’s rights has outraged Afghan activists and the international community. Even leaders within the Taliban have begun questioning some of the restrictions, including those related to female education, underscoring growing internal rifts.

The Taliban have defended the measures as in accordance with Afghan culture and Islamic tradition, a position repudiated by some Islamic law scholars who say the gender-specific dress codes are inspired only by rural Afghan norms.

But in a rare public criticism of his government women-related policies, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, a central Taliban leader and deputy foreign minister, said Sunday Afghan women have not yet been given their due rights. His remarks underlined persistent internal rifts on the level of access women should have to education and work.

“No one has yet given women the right to education. Where will women go to learn Islam and Shariat? Obviously, they will learn it in schools and seminaries,” Stanikzai told a big gathering of Taliban leaders in the capital, Kabul.

“Half of Afghanistan’s around 40 million population are women. Women must be given the rights, which the Almighty, the holy Prophet and our Afghan culture have given them,” said the Taliban leader, who negotiated the February 2020 troop withdrawal pact with the U.S.

During two decades of the U.S.-led foreign military intervention in Afghanistan, which ended last August with the return to power of the Taliban, women and girls had made marginal gains in the deeply patriarchal South Asian nation.

Tom West, the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan, and Rina Amiri, U.S. envoy for Afghan women, girls and human rights, spoke to Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi on Saturday to convey “unified international opposition to ongoing expanding” curbs on women’s role in society.

“Girls must be back in school, women free to move & work w/o restrictions for progress to normalized relations,” West posted on Twitter while sharing details of the discussions.

West said the dialogue with the Taliban will continue “in support of Afghan people and our national interests.”

Amiri wrote on Twitter that she had raised U.S. concerns regarding the dissolution of several rights bodies by the Taliban and stressed that “this contradicts demands of Afghans for greater accountability & needs to be remedied.”

Last week, the Taliban dissolved the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) and four other bodies protecting rights of Afghans, saying they were not needed anymore in the face of a $500 million annual budget shortfall.

The international community has not recognized the new Taliban government. It requires the Islamist group to deliver on its pledges to fight terrorism, rule the country inclusively and uphold the rights of all Afghans, including those of women, before considering Kabul’s calls for granting it diplomatic legitimacy.

Information from AFP was used in this report
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Rescuers on Saturday found the bodies of eight more workers in Indian-controlled Kashmir, officials said, taking the death toll to nine after part of a tunnel collapsed in the Himalayan region.

The tunnel is part of a mountainous highway tunnel system that was under construction when it collapsed Thursday night in the southern Ramban district.

The body of one worker was recovered Friday.

Aamir Ali, an official at the government’s disaster management department, said one worker was still missing. Emergency crews were using earthmovers to clear the wreckage and find the trapped worker.

Officials said the section that collapsed was an approach tunnel used for ventilation and moving supplies and equipment to the main, under-construction tunnel.

The tunnel is part of a vast network of bridges and tunnels on the strategic highway that connects two key cities, Srinagar and Jammu, in the disputed region.
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Anti-corruption authorities in Pakistan arrested a female opposition leader Saturday on land-grabbing allegations dating back five decades, a move that critics swiftly condemned as politically motivated.

Former human rights minister Shireen Mazari, a vocal critic of the powerful Pakistani military for its alleged meddling in politics, was dragged out of car and taken into custody near her residence in the capital, Islamabad, according to witnesses and video footage of the incident.

Mazari faces investigation and prosecution for an offense her family allegedly committed in 1972, when she was six years old, according to the police complaint registered against her late last month.  

The detainee served in Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Cabinet until an opposition-led parliamentary vote of no-confidence toppled his nearly four-year-old government in early April and political rival Shehbaz Sharif replaced Khan as the head of the new ruling coalition.

“Her arrest smacks of political victimization, which has regrettably become an entrenched practice and is deplorable no matter which party is the perpetrator,” the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said on Twitter, while denouncing Mazari’s arrest and “manhandling.”  

The rights monitoring group demanded the incident be investigated immediately.

Former prime minister Khan also took to Twitter to denounce the Sharif government, saying Mazari was “violently abducted from outside her house by this fascist regime.”  

Khan has accused the United States of conspiring with Sharif-led Pakistani opposition parties to oust him from power and condemns the ruling coalition as an “imported government.”  

Sharif rejects the accusations as lies, and U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said last month “there is absolutely no truth to the allegations.”

Khan, a cricketer-turned-politician, has held massive anti-government rallies across Pakistan since his ouster last month to demand early elections. He said on Sunday he would announce details of a long-promised march on Islamabad.
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A mosque in northern India adjacent to a Hindu temple has become the focal point of a religious dispute after reports that a stone shaft believed to be the symbol of a Hindu god lies on the mosque’s premises.

This is the second mosque in northern India to be caught up in contentious claims.  A decades-old dispute between Hindu and Muslim groups involving a 16th-century mosque in the northern town of Ayodhya led to its demolition by a Hindu mob in 1992. 

The Gyanvapi mosque, over which the latest dispute has erupted, is next to the grand Hindu Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi, the holiest city in India for Hindus and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency.  

A team appointed by a local court to survey the mosque has said that a stone shaft found in the complex is the representation of Hindu deity Shiva.  Mosque authorities have refuted the claim and say the relic is in fact a fountain.

The video-recorded survey was ordered after five Hindu women petitioned a local court for the right to pray within the mosque complex. 

There are fears that the issue could deepen religious fault lines between India’s majority Hindus and minority Muslims even as it winds its way through courts.  

“The issue has the potential to catch people’s sentiments. No one is going to get into the logic or rationale because in matters of faith people are driven by sentiment rather than the legality of it,” said Rasheed Kidwai, author and political analyst. 

Right-wing Hindu groups have long claimed that Mughals, who ruled India for about 300 years, starting in the 16th century, built several mosques on the site of prominent temples that they demolished, and they say the Gyanvapi mosque is one of them. 

The Supreme Court has allowed Muslims to pray in the mosque, overturning a lower court judgment that had banned large prayer gatherings earlier this week. It has also ordered local authorities to seal off and protect the area where the stone shaft was found. 

The current dispute is reminiscent of what happened with Babri mosque in Ayodhya, where Hindu groups are now building a grand temple on the site of the mosque torn down by Hindu mobs. Deadly riots wracked India following its 1992 demolition.

After Hindu and Muslim groups failed to reach a settlement, the Supreme Court handed the site to Hindus in 2019 and an alternate site to Muslims to build a mosque. It was seen as a huge victory for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, which had been in the forefront of the campaign to build the temple during the 1980s, when it was in the opposition. The dispute had played a key role in catapulting the party to national prominence.  

“The issue over Gyanvapi mosque is obviously being spearheaded at the behest of the Hindutva forces linked to the BJP. This is one way to keep the communal pot boiling and to benefit from the polarization we have witnessed,” said Niranjan Sahoo, a political analyst at the Observer Research Foundation, referring to a Hindu nationalist movement. “We will see more and more controversial claims made by Hindu groups over mosques.”

Hindu groups are also eying another mosque. This week a court agreed to hear a lawsuit demanding the removal of a mosque in the town of Mathura because they say it was built on the birthplace of Hindu god Krishna.  

Leaders of Muslim political groups view the moves as attempts by hardline Hindus to undermine their right to worship, and say they will fight legal battles against Hindu groups disrupting the sanctity of mosques and tombs.

“We won’t allow them to sting us for the second time and it’s our responsibility to keep our mosques intact by regularly offering prayers there,” Asaduddin Owaisi, a federal lawmaker and leader of a regional Islamic political party tweeted this week.

Questions have also been raised whether such disputes violate a 1991 law that forbids the conversion of a place of worship and stipulates its religious character should be maintained as “it existed” on August 15, 1947, India’s Independence Day. The law was passed to prevent communal conflicts of the kind that erupted over the Babri mosque. 

While it could take years of litigation to resolve the case over the Gyanvapi mosque, the focus will be on the stance that the ruling BJP takes in the run-up to 2024 national elections.  

“The truth has come to light. We will welcome and follow orders of the court in the matter,” Keshav Prasad Maurya, the deputy chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state, said, referring to the Gyanvapi mosque dispute after reports of the relic of the Hindu deity became public. Varanasi city is in Uttar Pradesh.  

Several analysts, who say Modi’s government has been following a Hindu-first agenda, warn the latest dispute could emerge as a flashpoint. 

 “There are elements in the political class who want to sharpen the religious polarization,” Kidwai said.

“I think it is posing a challenge to the liberal ethos and composite culture of India that we have been very proud of. There is still great diversity in India, but BJP has got an upper hand because of flagging these emotive issues,” he said.
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The Taliban’s decision to dissolve Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission is a major setback for the country, say human rights groups and defenders.   

Criticism came swiftly after Taliban authorities on Tuesday said the AIHRC and four other “unnecessary” departments had been axed in the face of a $500 million annual budget shortfall.   

“Because these departments were not deemed necessary and were not included in the budget, they have been dissolved,” Innamullah Samangani, the Taliban government’s deputy spokesman, told Reuters.  

“Nothing more than that can be expected” from the Taliban, which has a poor human rights record, said Mohammad Naim Nazari, former deputy head of the AIHRC. 

“The Taliban do not recognize the rights of women, who constitute half of the population,” he told VOA’s Pashto Service. “They do not believe in freedom of speech and have imposed restrictions on media. … The Taliban do not recognize the rights of minorities.”   

Calling Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban “afraid” of human rights groups, Nazari described their style of governance as incompatible with formal humanitarian oversight. 

The Taliban, however, defended Tuesday’s decision, calling the department closures in keeping with a national budget “based on objective facts” and intended only for departments that had been active and productive. 

Samangani, the Taliban spokesperson, also said the departments could be reactivated in the future “if needed.”   

But human rights advocates aren’t optimistic. Many of them view Tuesday’s announcement as a tragic reversal after 20 years of key improvements for human rights in the country.   

“I am dismayed at the reported decision of the Taliban to dissolve the country’s Independent Human Rights Commission,” said U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet in a prepared statement. 

Calling it “a massive setback,” Richard Bennett, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, described the commission’s role as an independent, domestic mechanism for documenting and monitoring complaints “critical for human rights protection in #Afghanistan.” 

Andreas Von Brandt, the EU ambassador for Afghanistan, called the Taliban’s decision “a step in the wrong direction” for national institutions that serve as vital points of connectivity with the outside world. 

“Those bridges are being increasingly destroyed,” he tweeted. Their dissolution, he said, “excludes #Afghanistan from universally agreed rights and principles and is also strange for a country which relies heavily on international #foodaid and support.” 

Also dissolved was the High Council for National Reconciliation (HCNR), the once high-powered National Security Council, and the commission for overseeing the implementation of the Afghan constitution. 

The HCNR was last headed by the country’s one-time second-ranking government official Abdullah Abdullah, and was working to negotiate a peace between the U.S.-backed government of former President Ashraf Ghani and the then-insurgent Taliban.   

Dissolving the institutions mean that thousands of professional Afghans have lost their jobs, said Abdul Qadir Zazai, a former member of the Afghan parliament, adding that “these people were trained for their jobs over the last 20 years.”   

Founded in 2002 to document and report on human rights abuses throughout the country, the AIHRC lost seven of its employees “to violence and terrorism [most directly attributed to the Taliban] since its establishment,” tweeted former AIHRC chairperson Shaharzad Akbar.

The commission halted its activities after the Taliban regained power in 2021, and all its nine commissioners escaped the country fearing Taliban reprisals.

 Former AIHRC commissioner Shabnam Salihi told VOA that although human rights violations continue to be reported via foreign groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the dissolution of Afghanistan’s only independent rights commission means many more violations are now expected to be overlooked. 

“We hear people are tortured and killed. We hear about war crimes. At such a time, there is no organization to watch on the [Taliban] government,” Salihi told VOA. 

Although AIHRC was unable to work under the Taliban, “it was an important institution for Afghanistan,” Heather Barr of Human Rights Watch told VOA.  

“The Taliban, by abolishing this office, are saying very openly that they don’t intend to comply with human rights,” she added. “They’re not interested in respecting Afghanistan’s obligations under international law. And they don’t care if people whose rights are violated have nowhere to go for help.” 

The Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 with an iron fist and implemented a harsh version of Islamic rule, including banning women from education and work. After taking over last year, the Taliban assured the world they would be more moderate.   

However, they have yet to allow girls to restart secondary school education and have also introduced rules that mandate that women and girls wear veils and require them to have male relatives accompany them in public places. 

This story originated in VOA’s Pashto Service. Some information is from Reuters. 
…

A Taliban mandate that women cover their faces while on television is seen as an attempt to erase female journalists, say media and women’s rights activists.

Afghan media outlets on Thursday said the Taliban Ministry of Vice and Virtue informed them that female presenters must cover their faces while on air.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told media on Thursday the move is “a religious order” that all women, including journalists, should obey.

“It helps them with their modesty and honor. It helps with their family’s modesty. It is not something to call a threat,” said Mujahid.

But female journalists and rights activists who spoke with VOA see the order as a further obstacle to them working. Many see it as a step backward and say it will be harder to communicate if their faces are covered.

“We are very concerned about the new restrictions,” Lima Spesali, a presenter at the Kabul station 1TV, said. “It has become increasingly clear that the Taliban are imposing further restrictions on women journalists.”

“In their first decrees, they recommended (to us) to observe hijab, and today they are telling us to cover our faces. Later, I think, they will bar women (media) from appearing on TV and order them to stay home,” said Spesali.

Spesali said that the orders are making it difficult for women to work as journalists.

One female journalist in Kabul, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told VOA that by ordering women to cover their faces on air, the Taliban want “to erase them from media.”

She called the new rule a violation of rights for women and journalists.

Parwiz Aminzada, a spokesperson for the Afghan Independent Journalists Association, told VOA he agrees that the hijab should be observed, “but not the way it is now.”

“We believe that we should talk and have a discussion or a dialogue on how hijab has to be observed by media in Afghanistan so we can reach a conclusion that is acceptable to all the parties,” Aminzada said.

Somia Walizada, a board member of the Afghan Journalists Center who is based in Turkey, says she sees the order as “a warning for female journalists.”

“In addition to having a negative psychological impact, female journalists will not be able to communicate their message to their audience on TV by wearing niqab,” she said, referring to a veil that covers the face.

She called on the Taliban to reconsider the order.

But TOLOnews, in a statement Thursday, said that the Taliban have called the order “a final verdict and not up for discussion.”

After seizing power in August 2021, the Taliban imposed restrictions on women, including their rights to education, work and travel.

Women are now required to cover up from head to toe when outside their homes.

Heather Barr, of the international nonprofit Human Rights Watch, told VOA’s Afghan Service the mask mandate aims to “erase women” from public life.

“This rule for women journalists is incredibly harmful and it is a violation of their rights, their expression and it is another step toward the Taliban’s efforts to erase women completely from public life in Afghanistan,” she said.

The Taliban takeover had an immediate impact on female journalists, media rights groups say.

A joint survey by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Afghan Independent Journalists Association in December found that 84% of women journalists and media workers had lost their jobs since August 2021.

Khadija Ashraf, who used to be managing editor of Bakhtar News Agency in Ghazni province, told VOA the restrictions will make life for the few female journalists still in Afghanistan even more difficult.

“Many female journalists were forced to leave Afghanistan. Female journalists in the provinces have to stay home. And the new restrictions will make it difficult for those who are still working,” Ashraf said. She moved to Europe after the takeover.

“If this continues, we will not have any female journalists, and no one will be there to raise the voices of women in Afghanistan,” she said.

This story originated in VOA’s Afghan division. 
…

During the mayhem of his evacuation flight from Kabul last year, Sultan Ahmad was separated from his wife and his elderly mother.

“It was so chaotic, and women couldn’t get through to the airport,” Ahmad said, recalling events of August, when thousands of fearful Afghans rushed to Kabul airport to board U.S. military planes.

Over the past several months, as he received settlement assistance in the state of Virginia, Ahmad asked almost everyone for assistance to reunite his family with him.

“I fear for their safety and well-being in Afghanistan,” the young Afghan man told VOA as he spoke about his wife and mother.

Their immediate reunification appears unlikely, if not impossible, partly because of Ahmad’s temporary status in the U.S. and also because evacuation and resettlement programs for Afghans still remaining in Afghanistan have nearly stalled, according to refugee support organizations.

Last year, the U.S. government brought tens of thousands of Afghans to the U.S., most of them lacking travel documents, and offered them humanitarian paroles.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security started a Temporary Protected Status registering process for Afghan evacuees.

“To be eligible for TPS under the Afghanistan designation, individuals must demonstrate their continuous residence in the United States since March 15, 2022, and continuous physical presence in the United States since May 20, 2022,” DHS said in a statement.

About 72,500 Afghan evacuees may be eligible for the TPS registration, the statement added.

The DHS announcement came days after the U.S. House of Representatives dropped a provision in the Ukraine support bill that sought a legal pathway for Afghan evacuees to become permanent residents. On Thursday, the Senate approved the bill without the Afghan provision.

Dwindling support?

Congress often puts changes into or rejects parts or all of a proposed bill.

Lawmakers’ decision to remove the Afghan settlement provision from the Ukraine support bill, however, can also be a sign of eroding bipartisan support for Afghan evacuees, some advocates say.

“Unfortunately, it seems that the same rhetoric we hear about immigrants, any kind of immigrants, is what we’re hearing about Afghans here, despite them having stood with us for years and years,” Shawn VanDiver, a Navy veteran and founder of AfghanEvac, an umbrella organization supporting Afghan evacuees, told VOA.

The provision might have been dropped because it could be perceived as unrelated to the Ukraine support bill, which specifically asked for funding for the Ukraine’s resistance against the Russian invasion, said Robert Law, director of regulatory affairs policy at the Center for Immigration Studies.

Last week, when asked what alternate avenues would be explored for the eventual settlement of Afghan evacuees, Jen Psaki, former White House press secretary, said, “We have been having conversations with congressional leadership about this — they are ongoing — on the best path forward for this and other priorities that were not included in the package.”

But with the White House focused on the war in Ukraine and the lawmakers facing midterm elections in the next few months, experts say neither side will be interested in undertaking a new immigration bill for the Afghans.

“I think the likely outcome for the next couple of years is going to be a continuation of the temporary parole,” Law told VOA.

Since many of the Afghan evacuees do not fall under the established immigration programs such as the Special Immigration Visa, Congress will need to approve a new legal pathway for their permanent settlement.

“Our immigration laws, as they are currently structured, do not accommodate this type of population,” said Law, adding that only those Afghans who have come to the U.S. through SIV or refugee programs “as defined by the law” have a path for permanent settlement.

Thousands wait

U.S. officials have said Afghan nationals who qualify under the SIV program or whose life is at risk in Afghanistan because of their affiliation with the U.S. before the Taliban seized power will be helped to migrate to the U.S.

“We’ve worked intensely to evacuate and relocate Afghans who worked alongside us and are at particular risk of reprisal. We’ve gotten many out, but many are still there. We will keep working to help them. Our commitment to them has no deadline,” U.S. Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken said August 30, when announcing the end of evacuation flights from Kabul.

It’s unclear how many Afghans will be assisted to migrate to the U.S. under the SIV and a Priority-2 program in the future, but Afghans have reportedly submitted more than 45,000 applications for humanitarian parole entry into the U.S.

“The SIV program and P2 have been stalled, and we’re also concerned for those Afghans who do not have a history of working with the U.S. government and may not be eligible for SIV or P2, including the 45,000-plus Afghans who have pursued humanitarian parole,” Laila Ayub, an immigration attorney and a coordinator with Afghan Network of Advocacy and Resources, told VOA.

Like other Afghans who want to migrate to the U.S., Sultan Ahmad’s wife and mother will need to travel to a third country and submit their applications. Their wait will be long because tens of thousands of applicants are already ahead in the line in neighboring Pakistan, and it’s not clear if they will ever be issued visas.
…

Sri Lankan authorities on Friday closed schools and asked public officials not to come to work in a desperate move to prepare for an acute fuel shortage that is expected to last days amid the nation’s worst economic crisis in decades.

The Public Administration Ministry asked the public officials — except for those who maintain essential services — not to come to work on Friday “in a view of current fuel shortage and issues in transport facilities” across the country.

State- and government-approved private schools also closed Friday amid the worsening fuel shortage, with thousands of people waiting in queues at fuel stations across the country for days at a time.

Sri Lanka is now almost without gasoline and faces an acute shortage of other fuels as well.

The government has been struggling to find money to pay for the importation of fuel, gas and other essentials in recent months as the Indian Ocean island nation is on the brink of bankruptcy.

Its economic woes have brought on a political crisis, with the government facing widespread protests.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa swore in nine Cabinet ministers Friday, raising the total number to thirteen as he attempts to stabilize the government after a string of resignations.

The new ministers include four independent lawmakers, three from the ruling party and two from the main opposition. Four ruling party lawmakers were appointed as Cabinet ministers last week.

Rajapaksa sought a unity government in early April but the largest opposition political party, the United People’s Force, had rejected the proposal.

For months, Sri Lankans have endured long lines to buy those essentials, most of which come from abroad. Shortages of hard currency have also hindered imports of raw materials for manufacturing and worsened inflation.

Protesters blocked main roads to demand gas and fuel, and television stations showed people in some areas fighting over limited stocks.

Authorities have announced countrywide power cuts of up to four hours a day because they can’t supply enough fuel to power generating stations.

Sri Lanka has suspended repayment of about $7 billion in foreign loans due this year out of $25 billion to be repaid by 2026. The country’s total foreign debt is $51 billion. The finance ministry says the country currently has only $25 million in usable foreign reserves.

Protesters have occupied the entrance to the president’s office for more than a month, calling for Rajapaksa to resign.

Months of anti-government rallies have led to the near-dismantling of the once-powerful ruling family, with one of the president’s brothers resigning as prime minister, and other siblings and a nephew leaving their Cabinet posts. Protesters accuse the Rajapaksas of triggering the crisis through corruption and misrule.

Sri Lanka’s new Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said Monday that about $75 billion is needed urgently to help provide essential items, but the country’s treasury is struggling to find even $1 billion.

Attacks by Rajapaksa’s supporters on protesters last week sparked nationwide violence that left nine people — including a lawmaker — dead, and more than 200 injured. Homes of lawmakers and their supporters were burned down. 
…

In Iraq’s city of Mosul, a few families earn a living through the 200-year-old tradition of making charcoal. For VOA, Kawa Omar has this report, narrated by Rikar Hussein. Camera: Kawa Omar
…

The ruling Taliban ordered local television channels in Afghanistan Thursday to ensure that female program presenters cover their faces while on screen, increasing curbs on women’s rights despite a global outcry.

Afghan media outlets confirmed that they had received the edict from the Ministry of Vice and Virtue, charged with interpreting and enforcing the Taliban’s version of Islamic Shariah law.

The country’s Tolo News television said in a statement that ministry officials had called the new order “a final verdict and not up for discussion.” The media outlet wrote on Twitter the “new order demanded all female presenters working in all TV channels to cover their faces while presenting programs.”

Ministry spokesperson Akif Sadiq confirmed to VOA that it had directed all domestic media outlets in the Afghan capital, Kabul, to bar female staff from broadcasting unless their faces are covered.

Critics slammed the continued Taliban crackdown on women’s rights.

“In addition to violating women’s rights to freedom and expression, this will also block access to information for people with impaired hearing who lip read and … people who rely on visual speech cues to help them understand people on TV,” wrote Heather Barr of Human Rights Watch on Twitter.

Since regaining power in August 2021, the interim male-only Taliban government has subjected women to a series of onerous curbs.

Afghan women have been ordered to wear head-to-toe garments covering their faces when in public. Male guardians of those not complying with the decree could be sentenced to jail for three days or more.

Most women have been told not to return to their workplace or undertake long road trips unless accompanied by a close male relative. Secondary school girls over the age of twelve have not been allowed to resume classes.

The crackdown on women’s rights has outraged Afghan activists and the international community. But the Taliban have defended the measures as in accordance with Afghan culture and Islamic tradition, a position repudiated by some Islamic law scholars who say the gender-specific dress codes are inspired only by rural Afghan norms. 

Most Taliban leaders have reportedly been educated at religious seminaries in rural parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Thursday’s edict comes as the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, is visiting the country, where he met with Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and other Taliban leaders.

Bennett discussed the issue of human rights, particularly those of women.

Muttaqi’s office said in a post-meeting statement that he asked Bennett to look at the rights situation in the Muslim nation through the lens of local attitudes and customs.

“Minister Muttaqi asked Mr. Bennett to report objectively & not based on statements by media, antagonist circles & self-exiled opposition,” the Taliban foreign ministry wrote on Twitter.

Bennett’s visit coincided with the Taliban’s announcement on Tuesday that they had dissolved the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC). The U.N. envoy criticized the move on Thursday.

“The abolition of is a massive setback,” Bennett tweeted. “An independent domestic mechanism to monitor & promote human rights & receive complaints is critical for human rights protection in Afghanistan. Following up with defacto authorities.”

“The AIHRC performed extraordinary work in extremely difficult conditions over many years, shining a spotlight on the human rights of all Afghans, including victims on all sides of the conflict,” said UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet in a statement released Thursday. “The AIHRC has been a powerful voice for human rights and a trusted partner of UN Human Rights, and its loss will be a deeply retrograde step for all Afghans and Afghan civil society.”

The Taliban have also closed several other bodies that worked for the promotion of the freedom of Afghans, including the electoral commission and the ministry for women’s affairs, since taking over Afghanistan in August.
…

Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban confirmed Wednesday they hosted fresh peace negotiations between Pakistan and fugitive leaders of an outlawed militant group waging cross-border terrorist attacks against Pakistani forces out of Afghan sanctuaries.

Highly-placed sources told VOA a top Pakistani army commander, Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed, led his team in this week’s meeting with representatives of the extremist group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or the Pakistani Taliban, in the Afghan capital, Kabul. The two-day discussions were held in secrecy. Pakistani officials have not publicly commented on the talks but TTP has confirmed them.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the chief spokesman for the host government, while sharing a few details of the talks for the first time Wednesday, said they were mediating the dialogue process.

The negotiating teams have agreed to temporarily cease hostilities to move the talks forward, Mujahid wrote on Twitter. He said without elaborating that “significant progress on related issues” was also made.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, in good faith to promote peace, strives for the negotiating process to succeed and expects both sides to be tolerant and flexible,” stressed Mujahid, using the self-styled name of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

The TTP issued a statement to media Wednesday, saying the “negotiations are underway” with the mediation of the Kabul rulers. A 10-day truce previously agreed to for the Muslim festival of Eid has been extended until May 30, said the militant statement.

Militant and security sources close to the talks said they had resulted in the freeing of dozens of TTP prisoners from Pakistani jails. The men included two key commanders, namely Muslim Khan and Mehmood Khan.

The prisoners were released to their families and they had either served out their sentences or gone through government-run de-radicalization centers in Pakistan.

Security sources stressed that there would be no “blanket amnesty” for “hardcore” militants and they would have to face the legal process if the peace process eventually encourages them to return from Afghanistan and resume a normal life.

TTP attacks have spiked in Pakistan since last August when the Taliban took over Afghanistan. The violence has killed scores of Pakistani security forces, straining Islamabad’s relations with Kabul.

Pakistan has been urging the Taliban to meet their pledges to the outside world that they would not allow Afghan soil to be used against other countries by terrorist groups, including the TTP.

The United States also lists the Pakistani Taliban as a terrorist organization.

Last month, Taliban officials said Pakistani airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan killed dozens of people, fueling mutual tensions. Kabul lodged a diplomatic protest over what it denounced as a “cruelty” and warned of a retaliation to any such actions in future. It did not elaborate.

Islamabad did not comment on the strikes and in turn urged Kabul to strengthen border security on its side to deter deadly militant attacks against Pakistan.

The Afghan Taliban late last year also hosted talks between the TTP and Pakistan, leading to a monthlong cease-fire. But the militant group refused to extend that truce, alleging Pakistani authorities were refusing to free dozens of TTP prisoners in violation of the deal.

Critics say the Afghan Taliban are reluctant to forcefully evict the TTP from their country because both share the same ideology and maintain close ties.

For years, the TTP sheltered the Afghan Taliban on the Pakistani side and provided them with recruits to wage insurgent attacks against the now-defunct Western-backed Kabul government and its U.S.-led foreign military partners.

Pakistani officials have long maintained that any discussions with the TTP would be held for the militants to “surrender to Pakistan’s constitution and lay down their arms.” These “red lines” would have to be respected for advancing any peace effort, the officials insisted.

The TTP demands the Pakistani government withdraw troops from northwestern districts on the Afghan border that once served as strongholds for local and foreign militants, including the Afghan Taliban.

The militant group also wants restoration of the traditional semiautonomous status of the districts in question and calls for implementing an Islamic system in Pakistan in accordance with the TTP’s own interpretation of Islam. But Islamabad rejects as unacceptable those demands, ruling out any talks on the constitution and the status of the troops or the border districts.
…

He regularly meets foreign diplomats and speaks in public but is also the FBI’s most wanted man in Afghanistan.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s acting interior minister, even appeared on CNN on Tuesday with a conciliatory message for Americans. “In the future, we would like to have good relations with the United States,” he told CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour, who donned a green headscarf for the rare interview.

Last week, Tomas Niklasson, the European Union’s special envoy for Afghanistan, met Haqqani in Kabul and urged him to reopen secondary schools for girls. Last month, Haqqani spoke with Martin Griffiths, the United Nations’ under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, about the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.

Haqqani’s public appearances stand at odds with a U.S. call for information about his whereabouts. Reward for Justice, a U.S. Department of State program aimed at combating international terrorism, offers $10 million for information that will lead to Haqqani’s arrest.

“The bounty on Siraj[uddin] Haqqani at this point is meaningless,” Asfandyar Mir, a senior analyst at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), told VOA. “Haqqani is now one of the main — if not the main — interlocutors for the international community in Afghanistan.”

The U.S. government does not recognize the Taliban’s de facto government and has closed the U.S. embassy in Kabul indefinitely. There is no indication U.S. officials have met with Haqqani.

U.S. officials have, however, met with Haqqani’s younger brother, Anas Haqqani — who is not wanted — during talks with Taliban representatives in Qatar. In addition to Sirajuddin Haqqani, the U.S. government is offering a $5 million bounty on Abdul Aziz Haqqani, another younger brother of Sirajuddin, and $3 million for Khalil Haqqani, Sirajuddin’s uncle and a current Taliban cabinet minister.

Heirs to insurgent commander

The three most wanted Haqqanis are heirs to Jaluluddin Haqqani, the late Afghan guerrilla commander who allegedly received U.S., Saudi and Pakistani support to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan in 1980s. Jaluluddin died from an unspecified illness in 2018 at age 78.

While functionally part of the Taliban group, the Haqqanis run a distinct terror, kidnapping and criminal enterprise known as the Haqqani network, or HQN. In 2012, the U.S. government designated the HQN as a foreign terrorist organization, accusing it of perpetuating terrorist attacks against U.S. personnel and Afghan allies in Afghanistan.

“Siraj[huddin] Haqqani is very powerful in the Taliban government,” Graem Smith, a senior analyst at International Crisis Group (ICG), told VOA, adding that under restructuring, the Taliban have brought in the Afghan government and that the administration of all of Afghanistan’s more than 300 districts fall under Haqqani’s writ.

The HQN reportedly enjoys strong backing from Pakistan. In 2011, Michael Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described the HQN as “a veritable arm of Pakistan’s” intelligence agency — a charge Pakistani officials dismissed immediately. 

Both the Taliban and the Haqqanis have denied the very existence of the HQN as an independent group.

As one of the two deputies to the Taliban’s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, Siraj Haqqani is in line to be the Taliban’s next top leader.

A political tool?

“The Rewards for Justice program has been very successful,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA. “Since its inception in 1984, the program has paid in excess of $200 million to more than 100 people across the globe who provided actionable information that helped prevent terrorism, bring terrorist leaders to justice, and resolve threats to U.S. national security.”

In 1997, the program paid for information that led to the arrest of Aimal Kansi in Pakistan. Accused of killing two Central Intelligence Agency employees and wounding three others in Virginia in 1993, Kansi was tried in the U.S. in 1997 and subsequently executed in 2002.

Despite other successful prosecutions, some analysts question the validity and overall effectiveness of the program.

“The Rewards for Justice program has long been a way to make a political point against high-value individuals — and not a real law enforcement, intelligence collection or targeting tool against them,” said Mir of USIP.

In addition to setting monetary rewards for their arrest, the U.S. government imposes strict sanctions on designated terrorist individuals and entities.

With the Taliban’s return to power, the U.S. and the U.N. have extended strict financial sanctions over Taliban-controlled Afghan state institutions, and against the designated terrorist groups themselves, including the Taliban and HQN.

But some observers say the sanctions alone don’t do enough to keep the groups in check.

“The stigma of sanctions is not hurting the Haqqanis, who enjoy power in Kabul, but the sanctions continue to affect the Afghan economy,” said the ICG’s Smith.

Afghanistan’s per capita income has fallen by more than one-third since the Taliban seized power last year, prompting one of the worst humanitarian crises the landlocked country has experienced, according to aid agencies.
…

An official U.S. agency report has blamed the sudden demise of Afghan security forces in August 2021 mainly on Washington’s decision to rapidly withdraw the American military, leading to the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), tasked to monitor events in the war-torn nation, on Wednesday released what it said was the first U.S. government report on how and why the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) fell apart abruptly.

The 300,000-member ANDSF, which had received billions of dollars in U.S. training and equipment over two decades, crumbled without offering any significant resistance in the face of a lightning, 11-day insurgent offensive that brought almost the entire country, including the capital, Kabul, under the Taliban control on August 15.

“(The) SIGAR found that the single most important factor in the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces’ collapse in August 2021 … was the decision by two U.S. presidents to withdraw U.S. military and contractors from Afghanistan, while Afghan forces remained unable to sustain themselves,” the report said.

President Joe Biden and his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, who reached a deal with the Taliban in February 2020 to withdraw U.S. and allied troops and end the longest U.S. war, not only announced deadlines for the troop exit but the U.S. military significantly reduced its battlefield support of Afghan forces, leaving them without the crucial backing of American airstrikes. The SIGAR assessment is based in part on interviews with U.S. and former Afghan government officials and military leaders.

“We built that army to run on contractor support. Without it, it can’t function. Game over … when the contractors pulled out, it was like we pulled all the sticks out of the Jenga pile and expected it to stay up,” a former U.S. commander in Afghanistan told SIGAR.

Former Afghan generals told the agency that most of the U.S.-made UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters were grounded shortly after American contractors withdrew in spring 2021, including those who performed maintenance on the helicopters.

“In a matter of months, 60 percent of the Black Hawks were grounded, with no Afghan or U.S. government plan to bring them back to life,” one Afghan general told the U.S. monitor. As a result, Afghan soldiers in isolated bases were running out of ammunition or dying for lack of medical evacuation capabilities, according to the report. It noted that the U.S.-Taliban deal and subsequent withdrawal announcement degraded ANDSF morale, with some Afghan army officials denouncing the pact as “a catalyst for the collapse.”

In 2019, the U.S. military conducted 7,423 airstrikes against insurgents, the most in a decade. In 2020, the U.S. conducted 1,631 airstrikes, with almost half occurring in the two months before the U.S.-Taliban agreement. A former Afghan special operations’ commander told SIGAR that “overnight … 98 percent of U.S. airstrikes had ceased.”

Afghan military officials were quoted as saying that the agreement’s psychological impact was so great that the average soldier switched to “survival mode and became susceptible” to accepting other offers, knowing they were not the winner. The deal also introduced tremendous uncertainty into the U.S.-Afghan relationship, according to SIGAR findings.

Afghans share blame

The report also blamed successive U.S.-backed Afghan governments for not doing their part to address the long-running problems facing ANDSF and affecting their determination to keep fighting. SIGAR identified low salaries, poor logistics that led to food, water and ammunition shortages; and corrupt commanders who colluded with contractors to skim off food and fuel contracts. It was not until Biden’s April 14, 2021, announcement of the final troop and contractor withdrawal date that deposed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s inner circle said they realized that the ANDSF had no supply and logistic capabilities. Although the Afghan authorities had operated in this way for nearly 20 years, their realization came only four months before its collapse, the report said. A former Afghan interior ministry official told SIGAR that Ghani and his aides had been dismissing the impending foreign troop withdrawal as “a U.S. plot” until early that April, believing it was merely intended to pressure the embattled president as opposed to being official U.S. policy.

“The U.S. and Afghan governments share in the blame. Neither side appeared to have the political commitment to doing what it would take to address the challenges, including devoting the time and resources necessary to develop a professional ANDSF, a multigenerational process,” the SIGAR concluded. “In essence, U.S. and Afghan efforts to cultivate an effective and sustainable security assistance sector were likely to fail from the beginning. The February 2020 decision to commit to a rapid U.S. military withdrawal sealed the ANDSF’s fate,” the report said.

The U.S.-led Western military alliance invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 to punish the then-Taliban government in Kabul for harboring the al-Qaida leaders who Washington said were behind the deadly terrorist attacks against U.S. cities in September of that year. The Islamist group, however, quickly regrouped in alleged sanctuaries in neighboring Pakistan before unleashing a deadly insurgency against international forces and their Afghan allies. U.S. and Afghan officials accused the Pakistani spy agency of covertly helping the Taliban sustain and expand their insurgency.

Islamabad rejected the charges and blamed several million Afghan refugees on its soil for sheltering insurgents. The allegations strained Pakistan’s relationship with the U.S. but did not rupture it, mainly because Pakistani ground and air routes were playing a crucial role in ferrying supplies to the foreign military mission in landlocked Afghanistan for nearly 20 years until the last American and allied troops flew out of Kabul on August 30.
…

Recent assessments by U.S. military officials are raising questions about Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers and what they are willing to do to keep the al-Qaida terror group in check.

As part of the February 2020 Doha Agreement with the United States that paved the way for the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban agreed to make sure Afghanistan would never again be used as a launchpad for terror attacks against the West.

But the assessments by U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military forces in the Middle East and South Asia, and shared with the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General indicate that while that pledge is holding for now, the Taliban may be ready to consider a change.

“The Taliban will likely loosen these restrictions over the next 12 to 24 months, allowing al-Qaida greater freedom of movement and the ability to train, travel, and potentially re-establish an external operations capability,” according to an inspector general report released Tuesday.

CENTCOM’s assessment does not explain why the Taliban appear willing to let al-Qaida operate more freely, though the inspector general report points to military intelligence estimates that note both al-Qaida and its regional affiliate, al-Qaida in the Indian subcontinent (AQIS), certainly aspire to attack the U.S. and U.S. targets.

However, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency has also said that al-Qaida’s progress has been stunted despite the lack of a U.S. counterterrorism presence in Afghanistan.

“Al-Qaida has had some problems with reconstitution, leadership and, to a degree, I think the Taliban have held to their word about not allowing al-Qaida to rejuvenate,” DIA Director Lieutenant General Scott Berrier told lawmakers in Washington on May 10.

“It’s something that we watch very, very carefully,” he said, adding that it would likely take more than a year for al-Qaida to be able to launch or direct attacks against the U.S.

Recent intelligence estimates from the United States and from other countries put the number of al-Qaida followers in Afghanistan at several hundred, including al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

A United Nations report issued this past February, however, cautioned that, “some of its [al-Qaida’s] closest sympathizers within the Taliban now occupy senior positions in the new de facto Afghan administration.”

Intelligence shared by U.N. member states indicates AQIS has up to 400 fighters in Afghanistan spread across at least six provinces, though the recent U.S. assessments put the number at about half that.

Taliban officials rarely speak publicly about al-Qaida, likely given the close relationship between the two groups. However, U.S. military and diplomatic officials have said that, at least until now, the Taliban have taken steps to make good on their counterterrorism commitments.

Taliban officials have been willing to publicly discuss the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan, also known as IS-Khorasan Province or ISIS-K. And in a statement Tuesday, Taliban Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi assured the U.N. Mission in Afghanistan that that IS-Khorasan has been eradicated.

Islamic State

U.S. military and intelligence officials, though, caution that contrary to the Taliban’s assertions, IS-Khorasan may be poised to expand its operations in Afghanistan and beyond.

DIA officials told the Pentagon Inspector General that IS-Khorasan likely has about 2,000 fighters across Afghanistan and that the group could direct an attack in the West within the next year if the terror group so chooses.

The DIA also warned IS-Khorasan has increased its efforts to recruit inside Afghanistan and that it had made a concerted effort to recruit from Afghanistan’s neighbors.

“Since January ISIS-K has been publishing media in Central Asian languages to reach ethnic minorities in the region,” the report said. “[It] aims to inspire supporters in these regions to travel to Afghanistan or conduct attacks where they are located, potentially against Western personnel and interests.”

Western intelligence and humanitarian officials warned VOA last year that IS-Khorasan was busy laying the groundwork to expand its reach into Central Asia.

“They are building local infrastructure for the recruitment, logistics, economic support, economic infrastructure to support that,” one humanitarian official who asked not to be named for fear they might be target, told VOA last July.

The focus was on “more quality and less numbers,” the official said.

No counterterror strikes

The U.S. has not conducted any counterterrorism strikes in Afghanistan since the last U.S. forces left the country last year, with the Pentagon saying on Tuesday airstrikes have not yet been necessary.

“We haven’t felt the need to do that,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters.

“We’re not just sitting idly by,” he added. “We’re working continually on making sure we have strong over-the-horizon counterterrorism capabilities.”

Kirby also said the Pentagon is watching the situation with the Taliban and al-Qaida as closely as it can.

“We’ve long said that we’re going to judge the Taliban by what they do, not what they say,” Kirby said in response to a question from VOA. “Nobody wants to see al-Qaida regain any kind of tangible footprint in Afghanistan or any ability to plan or attack outside the region.”

According to the Defense Department Inspector General report, Pentagon financial officials estimate the U.S. will spend about $19.5 billion in fiscal 2022 to support its counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan out of a headquarters in Doha.
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A high-profile leader of Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban has pledged his country will never again be a terrorist threat to the United States and promised “very good news” soon on the return of Afghan women and girls to secondary schools.

Acting Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, also the deputy Taliban chief, renewed the assurances in a rare interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour broadcast on Monday.

The Taliban regained power after U.S. and NATO troops withdrew from the war-torn South Asian nation last August and established an all-male interim government, calling it the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

The hardline group has allowed female university students to return to classes in a newly introduced, strictly gender-segregated education system. But despite repeated pledges to let teenage Afghan girls return to their classes, the Taliban have not yet reopened high schools to girls.

“There is no one here who opposes education for women, and girls up to grade 6 are already allowed to go to school,” argued Haqqani, long one of the most secretive Taliban leaders and who showed his face in public for the first time in March.

He said that “the work is continuing on a mechanism” to allow girls above grade 6 back to school. ”Very soon you will hear very good news about this issue,” the minister added. Haqqani indicated reopening of girls’ schools depends on dress codes.

“We must establish the conditions so that we can ensure their honor and security. We are acting to ensure this,” he said, adding that education should be based on Afghan “culture” and “Islamic rules and principles.”

Since returning to power nine months ago, the Taliban have decreed that women must wear a full veil in public and preferably a burqa, which had been mandatory when the radical group first ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001.

The veil restriction, announced a week ago, has outraged domestic critics and the international community.

The Taliban have already banned women from undertaking long road trips without a close male relative and barred males and females from visiting parks at same time, among other curbs on women’s rights. Most female government employees have not been allowed to return to work.

The international community has not yet recognized the Taliban government and warned escalating restrictions on women’s rights could further alienate donor countries and organizations.

Ties with US

Haqqani defended the Taliban insurgency, saying it was a defensive action against occupation of Afghanistan, he told CNN. But, he said, the Taliban would like to have good relations with the U.S. in the future and the international community at large.

“Currently we do not look at them as enemies, and we have time and again spoken about diplomacy,” he said when asked whether his group still considers America its enemy.

The minister insisted that the Taliban intend to respect the landmark troop withdrawal agreement signed with Washington in 2020, which binds the group not to allow Afghanistan to become a haven again for international terrorists.

Haqqani was heading a group of militants, known as the Haqqani network, and aligned it with the Taliban to wage insurgent attacks against the now defunct Western-backed Afghan government and U.S.-led foreign troops in the past 20 years.

Haqqani is still on the FBI’s most wanted list for plotting deadly attacks against American and allied troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. has a $10 million reward for his arrest.
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Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sri Lanka’s newly installed prime minister, has warned the small South Asian nation that the next few months “will be the most difficult of our lives.”

During a nationally televised address Monday, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe said Sri Lanka needed $75 million within the next few days to buy essential supplies of fuel and medicine, but admitted the treasury was struggling to even find $1 million. He also said the country had just a single day of fuel left, and that daily electricity cuts could increase as much as 15 hours a day.  

The South Asian island nation is struggling under the weight of heavy debt and declining foreign reserves that have created critical shortages of medicine, food and fuel that have led to several hours of power blackouts a day and led to rising fuel and transportation costs. The COVID-19 pandemic has also ground Sri Lanka’s vital tourism industry to a halt, dealing an additional blow to its economy.    

Wickremesinghe said he would seek to privatize SriLankan Airlines and ask for foreign assistance to pay for critical fuel shipments that are anchored within its maritime zone.  

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa named Wickremesinghe as prime minister last week to succeed his brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who stepped down from the post on May 9 as the political and economic crisis took a violent turn, when supporters of the Rajapaksa brothers attacked demonstrators who had gathered peacefully in the capital, Colombo, demanding their resignation. 

Nine people were killed and more than 200 injured after several days of fighting between protesters and government.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse.
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