Mohammad Arif Khan’s Olympic dream ended ignominiously when he failed to pass through a pair of poles on the Ice River course’s last leg, becoming one of 36 skiers who were unable to complete the slalom race.

But that did nothing to diminish his excitement or that of his family and supporters at home in Indian-administered Kashmir, who took huge pride in the only Indian athlete to have made it into the 2022 Winter Olympics.

“It was one of my dreams to be at the Winter Olympics and this is my first time. It really means a lot. It’s a great message back to our country, to our people to join the winter sports in the future,” Arif Khan told Olympics.com after his slalom run.

Khan made history by becoming the first Indian to qualify in two Winter Olympics sports — the slalom and giant slalom. He did better in the giant slalom, placing 45th to register the best-ever Olympic result by an Indian in that event.

By simply qualifying, he has become an inspiration to many young people in Kashmir.

Saima Rafiq, a female skier from North Kashmir who is pursuing an advanced course in skiing through the Department of Youth Services and Sports, told VOA that she is inspired by Arif Khan’s achievements and hopes to follow in his footsteps.

Karmankshi, another female who lives over 300 kilometers from Gulmarg in Jammu, considers Arif Khan as her inspiration and dreams of participating in a future Olympics.

The road to the Olympics is never easy for any athlete. In the case of Khan, the son of a ski shop owner in the community of Gulmarg, he began at age 4 and won his first national slalom title at the age of 12.

When he was 16, he debuted for India at a junior International Ski Federation (FIS) event in Yomase, Japan, placing 23rd in the giant slalom. He won gold medals at the South Asian Winter Games in 2011, the only edition hosted so far, in both the slalom and giant slalom.

In 2013, Khan had his first taste of the FIS World Ski Championships. The Indian alpine skier was eliminated after finishing 59th in the slalom and 91st in the giant slalom. Khan has competed in three more world championships since then, including his best finish in the giant slalom at the 2021 event in Italy.

Khan’s proud father, Mohammad Yasin Khan, told VOA it was his “happiest moment” to see his son competing in the Beijing Games. Yasin Khan, an avid skier himself, said Arif had planned to marry in September 2021, but instead opted to focus all of his efforts on qualifying for the Winter Olympics.

Now, Yasin Khan hopes to see many more skiers follow the trail his son has blazed. To attract more skiers to Kashmir, he is calling for the Indian government to carve more trails and slopes out of the region’s Himalayan landscape.

The region’s Department of Youth Services and Sports already has programs in place to train more skiers. Niyaz Ahmad Wani, a physical education lecturer and skiing instructor who has worked with the department for the last 30 years, said several hundred skiers are going through three-week courses every year.

“Khan and his father have struggled and faced lot of hurdles to earn this place,” he told VOA.

Another skiing instructor, Tariq Maqbool, stressed the importance of Khan’s achievement as an inspiration to other young skiers. He said he believes that with better skiing infrastructure, Gulmarg can attract many more young people to take up the sport.
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Skiers talk about being inspired by Olympic qualifier Mohammad Arif Khan of Indian-administered Kashmir while on the slopes in Gulmarg, Kashmir. (Hibah Bhat)
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Three U.S. government agencies, the Department of Defense, Department of Health and Human Services and the State Department, obligated more than $3.3 billion to support Operation Allies Welcome, the massive evacuation and resettlement of tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan. 

Immediately after the collapse of the former Afghan government last August, the U.S. government launched what Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called “one of the biggest airlifts in history” to evacuate at-risk Afghans from Kabul.  

The operation was chaotic at times with scenes showing desperate people hanging onto U.S. military planes while they took off from Kabul airport. There was also violence: More than 180 people, including 13 U.S. military personnel, were killed when an Islamic State-Khorasan suicide bomber detonated his explosives at an airport gate. 

Recent media reports based on declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act point to frustration and a lack of coordination between U.S. military personnel and diplomats during the evacuation. 

At the end of the two-week exercise, more than 124,000 individuals were safely evacuated from Kabul, according to U.S. officials.   

The State Department, which led the operation, paid $37 million for the evacuation flights, which were carried out August 16-31 of last year, according to figures by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 

U.S. military flights from Afghanistan stopped on August 31, but the State Department has continued evacuating Afghans through chartered and commercial flights. 

Afghan evacuees 

Many of those evacuated from Kabul were taken to U.S. military facilities in Qatar, where they were screened before being permanently resettled in the United States and other countries. Some evacuees were also taken to Germany and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). 

Over 76,000 of the Afghan evacuees have been brought to the U.S., according to a DHS update on February 15. 

Still, some of the evacuees remain in transit outside the U.S.

“Several hundred Afghan evacuees were prohibited from immediate onward travel to the United States in order to undergo additional screening and vetting outside of the United States,” reads a DHS situational update from January 16.

Last week, hundreds of Afghan evacuees sheltered at a camp in Abu Dhabi, UAE, protested for three days, calling for their resettlement in the U.S. 

A majority of the evacuees who have made it to the U.S. are Special Immigration Visa (SIV) applicants – individuals who worked for the U.S. military in Afghanistan. More than 3,500 of those evacuated last year were U.S. permanent residents. 

About 36,000 evacuees did not fall under any of the U.S. immigration programs for Afghans, but still were offered humanitarian parole upon entry to the U.S.

As part of their preparation for settlement, the Afghan evacuees first stayed at eight military installations in the United States. As of February 15, only 1,200 Afghan evacuees were left at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in the eastern state of New Jersey. 

The U.S. has closed its embassy in Kabul and Washington does not recognize the new Taliban government in Afghanistan, but immigration programs for Afghans who worked for the U.S. over the last two decades will continue. In addition to the SIV program, the U.S. announced a so-called priority-2 refugee admission program designated for Afghans last August. 

To apply for immigration to the U.S., Afghans will need to travel to a third country where there is a U.S. diplomatic mission.
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The U.S. government aims to open a new center in Northern Virginia to receive additional Afghan evacuees, according to four sources familiar with the matter, although even before any official announcement the local sheriff in the area raised concerns about the plan.

The center is due to open as the government closes down the last of eight sites on military bases that housed tens of thousands of people evacuated from Afghanistan since August. It would be staffed by multiple U.S. agencies involved with the resettlement effort and could be operational by late February or early March, a senior U.S. official told Reuters.

The site being considered is in Leesburg, Virginia, according to two of the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement to Reuters that it was still working to confirm the location of the center.

The sheriff’s office of Loudoun County, where Leesburg is located, issued a statement Thursday saying it was told by DHS that the government planned to bus some 2,000 Afghan evacuees a month, mostly relocating from Qatar, to the National Conference Center (NCC) from nearby Dulles International Airport beginning this month.

Sheriff Michael Chapman raised concerns about a “lack of communication, lack of planning, language barriers” as well as “the NCC’s unfenced proximity to a residential neighborhood and two public schools,” according to the statement.

DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the sheriff’s concerns. Chapman said he had spoken to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on the matter.

The remaining Afghans currently housed at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey – the last of the eight sites on military bases – are expected to be resettled in communities around the country in the coming days.

Major milestone

The move away from placing refugees in repurposed military installations marks a major milestone in U.S. President Joe Biden’s evacuation operation launched as the Taliban overran Afghanistan in August.

About 1,200 Afghans were still at the base, commonly known as Fort Dix, as of Tuesday, DHS said. The agency told Reuters that the base will continue housing evacuees awaiting resettlement until the new processing center is set up.

About 80,000 Afghans have been resettled in the United States as part of “Operation Allies Welcome” in the largest effort of its kind since the Vietnam War era.

The population passing through bases included applicants to the Special Immigrant Visa program, which is available to Afghans at risk of Taliban retaliation who worked for the U.S. government.

Others were admitted to the United States temporarily via “humanitarian parole” with the option to apply for asylum.

The Biden administration has urged Congress to create a more direct pathway to citizenship for Afghans.

Thousands of vulnerable Afghans are still stranded abroad as the U.S. government evaluates their cases and wrestles with logistical challenges to processing their admission. 

Eligible Afghans currently in third countries could be allowed entry through an expedited refugee admission process, Reuters reported earlier this month.

But for Afghans still inside Afghanistan the pathways are limited. As of data from mid-February, the U.S. government had only approved around 170 applications out of 43,000 Afghans who have applied for “humanitarian parole” to come to the United States.
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Microsoft co-founder turned philanthropist Bill Gates met with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday in Pakistan to acknowledge the country’s progress against polio.

During the trip, his first to Pakistan, Gates also stressed the need to curb virus transmissions in neighboring Afghanistan and preserve global gains.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries where wild polio virus continues to paralyze children, although not a single infection has been reported in Pakistan for more than a year.

Gates told reporters in Islamabad at the end of his visit that the South Asian nation, where the disease crippled approximately 20,000 Pakistani children a year in the early 1990s, has an opportunity to eliminate polio.

“We’re not done, but we’re certainly in by far the best situation we have ever been in. We’ve never had a year without zero cases,” he said.

But Gates cautioned that the polio virus was detected as recently as December in sewage samples in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan, stressing the need for Pakistan to keep up the momentum and stay vigilant.

“I think that the steps taken in Pakistan during 2022 will probably set us up to finish polio eradication,” Gates said while speaking alongside Faisal Sultan, the special assistant to Khan on health affairs.

Gates co-chairs the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is part of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative project between governments and international organizations.

In a televised ceremony, Pakistani President Arif Alvi conferred the Hilal-e-Pakistan, the country’s second-highest civilian award, on Gates for his work to fight poverty and diseases, including polio.

Gates and Sultan said polio transmissions in Afghanistan continue to pose a challenge to Pakistan’s eradication program and global gains against the disease. Gates noted, however, that Afghan vaccination rates have gone up in recent months after dropping off for more than three years.

“There is more vaccination taking place in Afghanistan now than for the last three years. … But it’s still not as high as it should be, and so there’s work to be done in terms of understanding how we support them,” Gates said when asked for his comments on the eradication efforts since the Taliban takeover of the country in August.

The United Nations says that in November and December 2021, health workers were able to deliver polio vaccinations to 2.6 million Afghan children who had been inaccessible since 2018 because of the conflict.

Sultan said Pakistan was closely working with Taliban authorities to stem polio transmissions through a joint effort on both sides of their common border.

Afghan authorities reported four cases of wild polio in 2021, down from 56 cases a year before.

“We have directly engaged with them and have ongoing conversations to make sure that a synchronized campaign for eradication of polio can continue because we look at our two countries adjacent to each other as, epidemiologically speaking, tightly linked to the eradication of polio,” Sultan explained.
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The man dubbed a leader of newly arriving Afghan refugees in Wausau, Wisconsin, was profiled in the local media as a U.S. ally and someone who had been persecuted by the Taliban in Afghanistan. He had plans to open a restaurant to give his new community a taste of Afghan cuisine.

But less than two months after settling into a rented apartment with his wife and six children, the refugee was arrested on charges of sexual assault in the fourth degree.

The unidentified victim, according to Wausau police department, was a woman who was helping the family’s resettlement.

Although he has been released on a signature bond, the 40-year-old has not spoken about the criminal charge against him and did not respond to VOA questions. As with all defendants in U.S. courts, he is presumed innocent until convicted.

Tens of thousands of Afghans have been evacuated to the U.S. since the collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan government last August because of fears they could be targeted by the Taliban.

Aid agencies say many of the newly arrived refugees face primarily housing and employment challenges as they resettle in communities across the U.S.

Some also experience cultural shock as they navigate through the intricacies of life in America.

“[We are] aware that there are cases of Afghan evacuees allegedly committing acts of interpersonal violence,” Emily Gilkinson told VOA. She is a spokeswoman for the Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC), which has helped the resettlement of some 6,000 Afghan refugees in Wisconsin and other states.

Three aid agencies involved in the resettlement of Afghan refugees in the U.S. said they have no records of such incidents. VOA found public reports of four Afghan refugees allegedly arrested on violence and sexual assault charges since September 2021.

Cultural education

Resettlement programs are funded by the U.S. government and one key requirement is cultural orientation.

“We provide robust cultural orientation classes to newly arrived refugees,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS).

Classes take 30 to 60 minutes and deal with health care, employment, personal finance, transportation, safety, education and other topics.

“The curriculum and process of delivering cultural orientation is something that ECDC continues to improve in order to better prepare newcomers for success in American society,” said Gilkinson.

One Afghan refugee in Wisconsin who asked to remain anonymous said his cultural orientation classes were short and mostly dealt with hypothetical situations.

“I think practical learning can be more important. Some of us will need cultural advising even after we settle in our new homes,” he said.

Resettlement agencies say they will continue to assist refugees in finding jobs and learning the necessary skills and knowledge to thrive in their new life in the U.S.

Hate crimes

Refugees and aid agencies applaud what they call a generous influx of support for the newly arrived Afghans from individuals and groups all over the country.

“I’ve never seen as generous and kind people as the Americans,” said Attaullah Rahmani, an Afghan refugee.

But the Afghan refugees are arriving in the U.S. at a time when the FBI is reporting a surge of racially inspired hate crimes, especially against people of Asian origin.

Although there is no aggregated data about instances of hate crimes involving Afghan refugees, there are isolated reports.

In late January, the FBI started investigating an alleged hate crime incident involving two Afghan refugees in Owensboro, Kentucky, local media reported.

In another incident, stickers with the message “Afghan refugee hunting permit” were seen at a university campus in Michigan last year.

Two refugees who spent about two months at Ford Dix in New Jersey as their resettlement cases were processed said they received lectures on racial and religious sensitivities in the U.S.

“They showed us signs which represent white supremacy and said we should avoid those people,” Ahmad Mohib, one of the refugees told VOA.

Domestic violence

Isolated incidents of domestic violence were first reported in refugee processing centers at U.S. military bases.

Afghanistan ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which prohibits and criminalizes gender-based violence, in 2003. In 2009, Afghanistan also enacted a law on elimination of violence against women. However, human rights organization say violence against Afghan women remains prevalent and the Afghan justice system often fails female victims.

“Domestic violence happens in every community,” said Naheed Samadi Bahram, U.S. director for Women for Afghan Women, a nongovernmental organization advocating for the rights of Afghan women and girls. She told VOA that interpersonal relations among the refugees are particularly strained because of the traumas they have experienced.

Other resettlement agencies have also tracked extreme stress and trauma among the Afghan refugees.

“The impact of losing the only home you’ve ever known, of leaving family behind, cannot be overstated,” said LIRS’s Vignarajah.

Bahram said her organization has offered awareness to some refugees about the consequences of domestic violence here in the U.S., which is different than how it’s dealt with in Afghanistan.

“Our main problem is language,” said Tamana Kohistani, who resettled in Virginia with her husband and three children in December. “Not knowing English here is like we don’t know anything and we can’t say anything as well.”
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Finance ministers from the Group of 20 industrialized nations began a two-day meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, amid a growing debt crisis. The coronavirus pandemic has seen many poorer countries build up large debts — and campaigners say it is undermining their ability to provide basic services like health care and education. In an interview with VOA, the secretary-general of the United Nations’ Conference on Trade and Development warned that creditor nations must take urgent action to avoid a “lost decade” in the developing world.
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Two local non-profit organizations are helping newly arrived Afghan families to resettle in Northern Virginia. VOA’s Zheela Noori has more on this.
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Weeks after the conclusion of bloody protests across Kazakhstan, attention in the Central Asian nation has turned to whether the government is capable of impartially investigating their origins — and of moving toward greater democracy.

The protests began in early January over a sharp increase in fuel prices and rapidly escalated in the face of a harsh crackdown by authorities. By midmonth, 225 people were dead and more than 12,000 were being detained, while the damage to businesses from fires, looting and sabotage was estimated in the billions of dollars.

On a recent visit to Washington, Deputy Foreign Minister Akan Rakhmetullin told U.S. officials that Kazakhstan was committed to a thorough, transparent investigation of the January events — including a meaningful dialogue with civil society — in accordance with the rule of law.

But civil society leaders in Kazakhstan remain dubious, noting that government officials continue to claim the violence was the product of some ill-defined “terrorist” activity from outside the country, rather than a spontaneous uprising prompted by years of poor governance.

Some in Kazakhstan even suggest the protests were orchestrated from within the nation’s own ruling elite in a bid to undermine President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who took office in 2019 following the retirement of long-ruling President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Independence demonstrated

Tokayev had been expected to serve as an interim figure pending his replacement by someone from Nazarbayev’s extended family, according to Sergei Gretsky, academic director of the Foreign Policy Academy at Georgetown University.

But Tokayev “did not live up to their expectations and was becoming increasingly independent,” Gretsky told an online forum at Harvard University.

For many civil society leaders, the handling of the investigation and the court cases against those arrested will be a test of whether the country can overcome endemic corruption and move toward greater democracy and respect for human rights.

“Human rights depend on the political context, and we are living in a totally authoritarian state,” argued Yevgeny Zhovtis, head of Kazakhstan’s International Bureau for Human Rights, an independent advocacy group, during the same Harvard forum on Central Asia.

Charging that Kazakhstan still lives with Soviet-style torture and lack of access to legal protections, he urged that the Kazakh court system be separated from the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

“We need new election legislation and a new constitution,” Zhovtis said.

Tokayev has told the country that socioeconomic changes must come first, and that only then will he push for political reforms.

‘A sense of unfairness’

But Eldar Abdrazakov, CEO of the Kazakh financial services group Centras Capital, says political and economic reforms must move forward in tandem if Kazakhstan is to address the underlying issues behind the January protests.

“People see increasing inequality, no meritocracy, no way for educated people to prosper,” he said at the Harvard forum. “Growing inequality and intense corruption reinforce a sense of unfairness. … Today people are more prepared to fight the government because they don’t see light at the end of the tunnel.”

Abdrazakov said he had not expected mass unrest of the kind that occurred in January. “Burning cars and buildings are unprecedented,” he said. But “inflation over the past year was 20 to 30 percent in real terms, far more than officially declared. And certainly, that was very painful for ordinary people.”

With widespread corruption in every sector, Abdrazakov expects strong pushback against reform initiatives. Nevertheless, he said, “we need to change the government’s top-down approach.”

Gretsky, the Foreign Policy Academy director, also predicted that corrupt officials would seek to sabotage any meaningful reforms. “You cannot just displace bureaucrats and politicians instantly,” he said.

Gretsky said new parties, established by popular leaders, would give the reform process credibility and legitimacy. But he cautioned against “the impatience of civil society activists who demand instant change and results,” denying Tokayev time to consolidate power.

“There have been frustrations and demands but no ideas or proposals from those who actively demand change. … They should offer their ideas on how Kazakhstan should change its political system,” he said.

Distrust in government

Aida Dossayeva, a specialist in strategic communications, said any reform effort would be complicated by a widespread and growing distrust in the government that has been made worse by its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Criticism has become more regular and sharper, especially in social media,” she said, noting the authorities had no clear strategy for communicating about COVID-19 and failed to connect with the public.

Surveys conducted by Tan Consulting, headed by Dossayeva, indicate the public views the government as incapable of managing crises. People do not believe official reports and resent the government’s deciding everything for them, the findings show.

Dossayeva noted complaints from residents of Almaty, the nation’s largest city and the scene of the most violent protests, that no one informed them what was happening in January because internet service had been cut off.

“Effective communication is a two-way process that involves clear messages delivered by appropriate channels and platforms to diverse audiences and shared by trusted people. Ultimately, success depends on public trust,” she said.
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Police arrested a prominent Pakistani journalist and government critic at his home on unspecified charges on Wednesday, his colleagues and local media said.

Mohsin Baig, editor for the news outlet Online, had just days earlier suggested on a TV talk show that Prime Minister Imran Khan had showed favoritism by granting an award to a government minister with whom he has a close friendship.

Khan had ranked Minister for Communication Murad Saeed as the top performer among his Cabinet. Saeed lodged a complaint against Baig to federal authorities following the comments, according to the information ministry.

Baig’s family told reporters that police and officials from a federal investigation agency raided his house in the capital, Islamabad, Wednesday morning and took him away without giving any reason for the arrest.

Baig’s arrest drew condemnation from Pakistani journalists on social media. Witnesses say police were still present at Baig’s home, although no other details were immediately available.

The government gave no immediate comment.

Pakistan has long been an unsafe country for journalists. In 2020, it ranked ninth on the Committee to Protect Journalists’ annual Global Impunity Index, which assesses countries where journalists are regularly killed and the assailants go free.
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A series of new financial agreements between China and Pakistan are signaling a shift in political alignments in the region with implications for South Asian neighbors, the United States and for the economic future of Pakistan itself. 

China and Pakistan issued a joint statement that solidified the growing economic ties between the two nations following a meeting between President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Imran Khan in Beijing during the Winter Olympic Games. 

The two countries pledged “bilateral cooperation in areas of economic and technical, industry, investment, infrastructure, space, vaccine, digitalization, standardization, disaster management, culture, sports and vocational education,” according to the statement. 

The meeting between the two leaders comes in the wake of the U.S-led diplomatic boycott of the Olympic Games to protest the allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, which China denies. 

The high-profile meeting was meant to showcase support for Beijing in this period of diplomatic tension, analysts say. 

“I think Imran Khan’s visit really shows support, Pakistan’s support, for China in the face of this boycott. So it’s a public display of support especially given the number of high-profile ministers who traveled with him to China,” said Madiha Afzal, a foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution. 

Chinese-Pakistani economic ties 

The diplomatic relationship between Beijing and Islamabad dates to 1951, and the alliance between the two countries was solidified as both countries recognized they had a mutual adversary – India – and sought to contain its dominance in South Asia. 

The first trade agreement between Pakistan and China was signed in 1963 and the economic ties strengthened in 2013 with the establishment of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a collection of Chinese-funded infrastructure projects designed to upgrade Pakistan’s infrastructure and improve its economy. CPEC is a part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. 

The economic relationship is not limited to trade and CPEC, as China is one of Pakistan’s largest lenders, holding more than 27% of Pakistan’s debt. 

“China doesn’t have friends and allies. China has countries which are indebted to China,” Aparna Pande, research fellow at the Hudson Institute, told VOA.   

Risk to the Pakistani economy 

Unemployment and poverty exacerbated by the pandemic have been indicators of Pakistan’s economic woes, with its GDP declining by 26.4% in the second quarter of 2020. The Pakistani economy has since partially rebounded.  

Pakistan has been facing currency devaluation and high inflation. Last November, the International Monetary Fund revived a $6 billion bailout for Pakistan’s economy originally approved in 2019.  

Some analysts note that the country’s unwillingness to undertake significant economic reforms contributes to its deteriorating economy.   

“Pakistan’s problem is it doesn’t have enough foreign exchange reserves because the economy isn’t growing fast enough for it to get money. It is refusing to undertake structural reforms, which would enable the second and third tranches of the IMF and enable other foreign investors to invest money,” Pande said. 

Tara Kartha, in an op-ed in ThePrint, an Indian online news outlet, described Pakistan’s practice of borrowing from China, paying interest, deferring repayment to other countries such as Saudi Arabia and looking to the IMF for bailouts. 

This is a “classic debt trap of its own making, only getting worse over the years as Islamabad skips nimbly from one loan to the next. It’s beyond bankruptcy. It’s a state of collapse,” Kartha wrote. 

But Afzal, the Brookings Institution fellow, cautioned against concluding too quickly that  Chinese loans are bad for the Pakistani economy. 

“It’ll depend on the terms of the loans, and China has proven to be a player which … holds Pakistan to the terms of the loans. So Pakistan can’t necessarily defer payments on those loans, even if it needs to or wants to,” Afzal said. 

Geopolitical implications 

Some analysts say the Sino-Pakistan joint statement symbolically confirms the growing alliance between China and Pakistan, but that it would not affect the strained relationship between Pakistan and the United States. 

The once-close relationship between the two nations has become increasingly estranged because of U.S. allegations that Pakistan harbors and sponsors terrorist groups and Pakistan’s frustrations with U.S. drone strikes and what it views as a violation of its sovereignty. 

“Pakistan and the U.S. both have explicitly said that they don’t want (the Sino-Pakistani) relationship necessarily to be part of those (lack of dialogue) blocks. The relationship has been strained, but I would not characterize it as strained beyond repair,” Afzal said.   

“We’ve made the point all along that it is not a requirement for any country around the world to choose between the United States and China,” Ned Price, U.S. State Department spokesman, said at a February 2 news briefing. 

When asked for comment on the potential benefits of Sino-Pakistan cooperation, the Pakistani embassy referred VOA to the joint statement, noting the deep economic ties that were announced. The Chinese embassy did not respond to VOA’s inquiry.  

But for India, Pande said, the joint statement validates the country’s concerns about closer ties between two adversaries. 

“It’s a dual threat on India’s continental landmass, combined with the threat on India’s maritime domain. So for India this just strengthens its belief that Pakistan is very close to China and that China continues to use Pakistan to cause problems for India,” Pande said. 

 
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Despite lingering concerns among some officials in Washington that Afghanistan is on its way to once again becoming a terrorist haven, recent U.S. defense and intelligence assessments seem to indicate that at least for now, groups like Islamic State and al-Qaida are not ready to use the country as a launch pad for attacks against the West. 

The appraisal from U.S. Central Command, the Defense Intelligence Agency and others is part of a just-released report by the Defense Department Inspector General examining the potential threats emanating from Afghanistan following the U.S. withdrawal from the country six months ago. 

It runs contrary to concerns voiced since October by top Pentagon officials, who warned IS-Khorasan could be ready to strike at the West and at the U.S. in as little as six months, with al-Qaida regenerating the same capacity in as little as a year. 

“Both al-Qaida and ISIS-K have the intent to conduct external operations,” Colin Kahl, Defense Department undersecretary for policy, told the Senate Armed Services Committee at the time, using an acronym for Islamic State’s Afghan affiliate. 

The new assessments agree the intent is still there, just that leaders from both terror groups have other priorities.  

IS-Khorasan Province, as the IS affiliate is also known, in particular seems more focused on solidifying its support within Afghanistan instead of preparing to strike at enemies further afield. 

“The DIA assessed that ISIS-K is prioritizing attacks within Afghanistan over external operations,” the report said, noting a series of attacks against Taliban security checkpoints, as well as a deadly attack in November at a military hospital in Kabul that killed at least 25 people and wounded more than 50.  

“ISIS-K’s targeted attacks on critical infrastructure highlighted the Taliban regime’s inability to provide basic security and worked to delegitimize the Taliban with the local population,” the report said.  

It added that the DIA assessed IS-Khorasan “has probably exploited anti-Taliban sentiment and governance shortfalls to boost its recruitment, especially among marginalized populations.” 

The report also warned that the group “maintains connections to fighters from countries across Central and South Asia, probably making the group a threat to U.S. interests in those countries.”

Intelligence shared by United Nations member states for a report issued earlier this month warned that IS-Khorasan has almost doubled in size since the U.S. withdrawal to nearly 4,000 fighters, and that the group again controls limited territory in the eastern part of the country. 

Taliban officials have launched several efforts to crack down on IS-Khorasan, though a number of analysts have noted the various operations have met with limited success. 

The same U.N. member states warned that al-Qaida, which has a longer history in Afghanistan, has enjoyed a “significant boost” since the U.S. withdrawal, noting “some of its closest sympathizers within the Taliban now occupy senior positions in the new de facto Afghan administration.” 

The inspector general report, however, says U.S. agencies believe the Taliban are still keeping al-Qaida officials somewhat isolated. 

“The Taliban has not permitted al-Qaida members to play a significant role in its so-called “interim government” and will likely aim to prevent al-Qaida attacks on the United States as it attempts to gain international legitimacy,” the report states, citing CENTCOM and the DIA. 

But U.S. officials also assess that Taliban leaders are in no rush to sever ties with the terror group, despite their assurances to Washington as part of the Doha Agreement. 

“The Taliban very likely will allow al-Qaida elements in Afghanistan to maintain a low profile within the country to preserve legacy relationships and avoid upsetting the most militant Islamic elements within the Taliban,” according to the inspector general report. 

U.N. officials estimate the al-Qaida core has several dozen officials living in Afghanistan, including the group’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. 

Al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent, a key affiliate, is thought to have up to 400 fighters in Afghanistan, some embedded with Taliban units. 

 
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Despite establishing near-total control over Afghanistan since regaining power six months ago, the Taliban have been struggling to secure international legitimacy for their government amid a growing humanitarian and economic crisis. 

The Islamist group seized the Afghan capital, Kabul, on August 15 as the Western-backed government collapsed and the United States along with allied troops withdrew from the country. 

But concerns over human rights, particularly those of women, the Taliban’s ties to terrorism and a lack of inclusivity in the new administration in Kabul, have discouraged the global community from recognizing the Taliban as legitimate rulers.  

The Taliban have cracked down on dissent, and blocked most women from the workplace and most girls from attending secondary school since returning to power. The group, which subscribes to a strict interpretation of Islam, revived many of the restrictions it had imposed during its previous rule in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. 

Female activists have been detained and released in recent weeks for protesting a rollback of their rights while journalists routinely complain of curtailed press freedoms and violence by Taliban authorities. 

Taliban forces have also allegedly carried out reprisals against former officials of the now-defunct Western-backed government despite announcing blanket amnesty for all Afghans after seizing power on August 15.   

Government officials in Kabul reject allegations of reprisals and repression, insisting they respect the rights of all Afghans, including women’s rights to education within the boundaries of “Islamic laws” and Afghan culture. At the same time, Taliban authorities have defended arresting those “who violate the law.”  

Suhail Shaheen, the Taliban permanent representative-designate to the United Nations, told VOA his government has met all conditions required for it to be given international recognition. 

“We rule all of Afghanistan and we are in control of its frontiers. We enjoy support of the [Afghan] public and, based on these conditions, our government must be formally recognized,” Shaheen said.  

The United States and even Islamic countries, including Afghanistan’s immediate neighbors such as Pakistan, contend, however, that the Taliban need to do more before seeking legitimacy for their rule.  

“I find so far an encouraging degree of [international] unity when it comes to holding on recognition for more meaningful steps toward respect for the rights of all Afghans, for a move toward a more representative government, toward responsible stewardship of the economy,” said Tom West, the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan, while speaking at a seminar Tuesday in Washington. 

West noted that in his dialogue with Taliban representatives he found them “very sincere in their intent to contain” Islamic State terrorists in the country. But he sounded skeptical about the Taliban’s efforts to contain al-Qaida, saying the U.S. would “want to have greater confidence in the steps” being taken against that terror network. 

The U.S. envoy said he has also raised concerns about reprisal killings and the disappearance of critics of the Taliban, saying such incidents “are under-reported” and those responsible have yet to be held accountable.  

Independent observers also are skeptical about the Taliban’s claims to have met all requirements for them to be declared the legitimate rulers of the country. 

Torek Farhadi, a former Afghan government official and analyst, said the fundamentalist group’s insistence that “we go by our customs regarding the women” is not acceptable to other countries and that no foreign government would risk its reputation by launching formal diplomatic ties with Kabul for now.  

“For many countries, recognizing [the] Taliban while they offer little clarity on universally accepted rights of women to work and education has been the real turnoff,” Farhadi said. 

“The Taliban have to understand they have to change and the world is not interested in lowering universal standards for them,” he said. “We hope they do change,” he added, because the consequence of Afghanistan not having a recognized government “punishes the entire population of the country.” 

China, Russia and Islamic countries, including Pakistan, all maintained close contacts with the Taliban even before they seized power, and intensified direct engagement with Kabul in recent weeks to help them deal with the nation’s humanitarian and economic crises. However, they have also ignored the Taliban’s calls for formal recognition, citing concerns over human rights and terrorism. 

“No country wants to be the first to recognize the Taliban, which has long been viewed as a pariah,” said Michael Kugelman of the Washington-based Wilson Center.  

“Many countries think it’s wrong to recognize a regime with ties to international terrorist groups and retrograde views about women, and that seized power without a power-sharing deal,” he said. 

Kugelman said the lack of recognition complicates global efforts to ease Afghanistan’s catastrophic humanitarian crisis because international assistance cannot be sent to Afghanistan through the Taliban under current circumstances. 

“There’s a very compelling case to be made for not recognizing the Taliban regime, but this throws up some major barriers to providing the international economic relief that Afghanistan badly needs. And it’s the Afghan people, not the Taliban regime, that suffer the most,” Kugelman lamented.  

West said the U.S. is working with other international partners and stakeholders to help address worsening humanitarian and economic conditions. He said such efforts are likely to continue even if the Taliban fail to make good on pledges regarding the treatment of women and other rights issues. 

Taliban officials have allowed women to resume their work in the health sector, opened private and public universities to female education while secondary school girls are also back in about a dozen of the 34 Afghan provinces. They have pledged to allow all girls to return to school next month, blaming delays on financial constraints and the time it takes to ensure that girls resume classes in accordance with Islamic Sharia law. 

Regional diplomatic sources say that although the Taliban have brought a degree of stability to Afghanistan, it is too early to know whether it will last, noting that armed opposition groups led by minority Tajik leaders have vowed to resist the Islamist rulers. Taliban rule could be put to the test in coming months when the traditional summer fighting season begins in the country. 
…

Britain announced Tuesday it would co-host an international conference with the United Nations next month to help address the growing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, where aid workers fear acute hunger could kill more people than the preceding 20 years of war.

The conference is being organized to raise $4.4 billion the U.N. is seeking to deliver food, shelter and health services to about 23 million Afghans — more than half of the country’s population – that need aid to survive.

“The scale of need is unparalleled, and consequences of inaction will be devastating,” British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement.

“The conference is a critical moment for the international community to step up support in an effort to stop the growing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan,” Truss stressed.

Tuesday’s announcement comes nearly a week after a high-level British delegation traveled to the Afghan capital, Kabul, for talks with Taliban leaders on how to respond to Afghanistan’s deepening humanitarian crisis.

Aid agencies say humanitarian needs have skyrocketed in the war-torn country since the Taliban took power last year and U.S.-led international forces withdrew from the country.

When the Islamist group took control of Afghanistan on August 15, wide-ranging terrorism-related international sanctions dating back to the Taliban’s first time in power from 1996 to 2001 followed.

The United States and other Western nations have also suspended non-humanitarian funding, amounting to 40% of the country’s gross domestic product. The funding had propped up 75% of public spending, including basic services.

Washington has frozen about $9.5 billion in Afghan foreign assets, mostly held in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, to keep the Taliban from accessing it.

The punitive financial measures have pushed the aid-dependent Afghan economy to the brink of collapse and exacerbated the simmering humanitarian crisis, which stems from more than four decades of conflict and natural calamities.

No country has recognized the Taliban government but international engagements with the group have gradually increased to help prevent one of the world’s worst humanitarian emergencies.

The International Rescue Committee said Tuesday that 97% of the Afghan population is expected to be living well below the poverty line by the second half of this year.

“Unaddressed, the current humanitarian crisis could lead to more deaths than 20 years of war,” the IRC warned.

Vicki Aken, IRC Afghanistan director, said the current economic crisis is contributing to a “catastrophic” humanitarian emergency, urging the U.S. and Europe to review their policy to help address the Afghan economic crisis.

Aken blamed the international policies for driving Afghanistan’s slide towards catastrophe, rather than conflict or natural disaster.

“Right now, every day Afghans are being punished by international policies that are leaving millions on the brink of starvation, she said.

“The next six months necessitate an improvement, and the power to ensure it happens lies in the hands of the international community,” she said. The cost of failure is too high,” Aken warned.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has taken steps to allow for humanitarian operations to continue, making changes to U.S. laws and following it up with a resolution at the U.N. Security Council.

“The U.S. strongly encourages both direct provision of humanitarian assistance as well as financial transactions that support those agencies that are providing humanitarian assistance,” a USAID official told VOA. “We have made it legal.”

Some relatives of victims of the September 2001 terror attacks on the United States have sought to gain access to the Afghan frozen funds since the Taliban takeover, to pay out compensation claims.

On Friday, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that will keep half of that money frozen for potential lawsuits and facilitate access to the other $3.5 billion to assist the Afghan people. The action has stoked anger among Afghans and critics warned it would worsen the economic crisis in the country.

Margaret Besheer at the UN contributed to this report.
…

The question of whether female students can wear hijabs in educational institutions has become a flashpoint in India’s southern Karnataka state, after a college barred six Muslim students from attending classes while wearing a headscarf, saying it violated the dress code. 

The controversy has turned the spotlight on what critics say are policies by the state’s Hindu nationalist government that discriminate against minorities.    

Five students from Udupi district petitioned the state’s High Court last month, saying that wearing the head scarf was their fundamental right and an essential practice of Islam. They study in a government-run pre-university college that is equivalent to a high school.   

After several government-run educational institutions also imposed similar bans, tensions over religious clothing spiraled in the state. While Muslim students protested for their right to wear hijabs at college gates, groups of Hindu activists and students donned saffron shawls, the symbolic color associated with Hindu nationalist groups in counterprotests.    

Experts say that the coastal region of Karnataka, where the controversy first erupted, is a stronghold of Hindu right-wing organizations.   

A 19-year-old Muslim woman came to be seen as the face of resistance for young Indian Muslim women after a video went viral showing her being heckled by the men wearing saffron scarves as she made her way across her college campus. While the youths, shouting “Jai Shri Ram” or “Victory to God Rama,” demand that she take off her face covering, Muskaan Khan, raising her hands, shouts back “Allahu Akbar” or “God is great.”  

Khan later told reporters that “Every religion has freedom to follow their culture. We will follow our culture.”  

Schools in the state were closed this week amid protests and incidents of stone-throwing but will reopen Monday for classes up to grade 10.

The state government, which is controlled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, has defended the right of educational institutions to enforce a dress code and issued an order in support of the hijab ban.  

“Just as rules are followed in the military, the same is to be done here [in educational institutions] as well. Options are open for those who are not willing to follow it,” Karnataka education minister B.C. Nagesh told reporters this week.  

The government has also said that if a uniform is not selected by authorities, “clothes which disturb equality, integrity and public law and order should not be worn.” 

A three-judge bench of the Karnataka High Court Thursday called on students not to wear any religious garments to school until it delivers a verdict. The hearing will continue Monday.   

But the issue is snowballing – protests have been held this week in cities such as Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad supporting a right to wear headscarves.  

Muslim women’s rights activists have thrown their weight behind the students in Karnataka and questioned the new rule, pointing out that they wore the hijab in classrooms earlier.   

“Even if the hijab is not an essential practice of Islam, it is the woman’s right to decide what she wants to wear,” said Zakia Soman, founder of a Muslim women’s group Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan. “It’s unfair and discriminatory to single out these girls. It is a clearcut case of double standards. We have a chief minister in Uttar Pradesh and union ministers in parliament who are clad in saffron clothes, so what is the hue and cry over these school girls wearing the hijab? It is singling out and targeting a community.” 

The ban on students wearing hijabs from entering classes in Karnataka also gained international attention with Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai asking Indian leaders in a tweet to “stop the marginalization of Muslim women.”  

“Refusing to let girls go to school in their hijabs is horrifying. Objectification of women persists, for wearing less or more,” the 24-year-old activist tweeted on Wednesday.  

Political analysts warn that such issues could deepen religious fault lines in India, where Muslims make up about 14% of the population and where critics say there has been a rise in hate speech targeting minorities. 

“I see the hijab ban as a consistent attempt by the Hindu majoritarian forces to invisibilize the Muslims in the country. For example, for the last several months there has been a very concerted campaign in North Indian towns against Muslims holding Friday prayers in open grounds,” said independent political analyst Nilanjan Mukopadhyay. “This will lead to further stratification in society and will eventually lead to a much deeper alienation.” 

The Karnataka state government has also banned the sale and slaughter of cows, which Hindus consider sacred and introduced a tough anti-conversion bill, which proposes prison terms for up to 10 years for unlawful conversions and could make it more difficult for interfaith couples to marry or for people to convert to Islam or Christianity. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not directly referred to the controversy over hijab wearing, but while holding a rally in Uttar Pradesh state on Thursday he said that people were finding new ways to block the rights and development of Muslim women but “we stand with every Muslim woman.” 

Activists like Soman however express concern at what they call the “active politics of religious divide being played by the BJP.”  

“The social harmony and peace of the country is getting threatened and I am afraid that this issue will contribute to further polarization of our society,” she said.

Suhasini Sood contributed to this story.
…

Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have reportedly detained two foreign journalists and their local colleagues for reasons not immediately known.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in a brief statement, confirmed the detentions, saying the journalists were working for the relief agency. It did not identify the journalists and the Afghans or who took them into custody.

“Two journalists on assignment with UNHCR and Afghan nationals working with them have been detained in Kabul. We are doing our utmost to resolve the situation in coordination with others,” the UNHCR said.  

“We will make no further comment given the nature of the situation,” the refugee agency tweeted. 

Taliban authorities have yet to comment.

The UNHCR statement came just hours after Afghanistan’s former vice president, Amrullah Saleh, said on Twitter that Taliban had “kidnapped” nine Westerners, including former BBC journalist Andrew North. He identified another Westerner in custody as Peter Juvenal.

“Due to no media, no reporting by citizens and a suffocating atmosphere, corruption, crime and atrocities aren’t well exposed,” Saleh wrote. “As an example, nine citizens of western countries have been kidnapped, amongst them Andrew North of BBC & Peter Juvenal, owner of Gandomak Restaurant,” he added. 

North, who has reported from Baghdad and Beirut for BBC, has been working as an independent journalist in Afghanistan and meeting with Taliban leaders, according to his personal website.   

The Taliban have been cracking down on dissent since regaining control of Afghanistan last August, briefly detaining several local journalists and subjecting them to physical violence. But no foreign journalists have been detained until now.
…

As India’s most populous state began casting votes Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi voiced optimism that his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party will win in Uttar Pradesh and in four other states that choose new governments in coming weeks, but political analysts say the elections will be an uphill battle for the BJP.

The polls in Uttar Pradesh are seen as a barometer of the party’s popularity and on its Hindu-first politics that have taken center stage during its second term in power in India.

But political analysts say that, while the BJP has wide appeal in its Hindu base, among the plethora of issues that will influence voters are anger among farmers, rising prices and growing unemployment.

The battleground state that is India’s biggest political prize is ruled by Hindu priest Yogi Adityanath, widely seen as a polarizing politician, whose controversial policies have included punitive laws on interfaith marriages.

“They [the people of Uttar Pradesh] will accept us in 2022 after seeing our work,” Modi told news agency ANI in an interview on the eve of the polls. “I have seen in all states that there is the inclination towards the BJP and we will win the elections with a full majority.”

Political analysts called it an effort to bolster the party’s enthusiasm.

“It will be a very tough battle and I don’t think the victory of any party can be taken for granted,” said Sandeep Shastri, vice chancellor of Jagran Lakecity University in Bhopal. “The race is going to be very competitive.”

During election rallies, the BJP, which had campaigned on a plank of economic development five years ago, has showcased airports and highways that it is building to boost infrastructure and create jobs.

But as they stepped into polling booths to cast their votes, many people in one of India’s least-developed states said that they have not seen the radical change the party had promised. The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the plight of millions, economists say.

“Nothing has been done for poor people like us. I have a meager income and prices of everything have gone up,” said Urmila Jaswant Singh, who runs a small shop in Noida, a town in Uttar Pradesh on the outskirts of the Indian capital, “How do we manage?”

A massive temple being built to honor Hindu god Rama at Ayodhya town in the state is winning traction with voters who tend to vote along traditional caste and religious lines. Many Hindus had wanted the temple built on the site where a mosque had previously stood.

“I am very happy that a temple is coming up in Ayodhya. They have settled the dispute that had lingered for so many decades,” said Kesh Ram Awana, a landowner, who said he is a staunch BJP supporter and turned up early to cast his vote.

Adityanath, the state’s chief minister, has said that law and order and issues of corruption have taken precedence over religion.

At polling booths, though, there were voices of unease with the increasing focus on religious issues.

“The focus should be on development, jobs, and above all peace and harmony,” businessman Yasir Arfat said.

“The BJP has always been invoking the communal angle, which makes a lot of people uncomfortable, whether you belong to the majority or minority community,” he said.

Thursday’s voting was held in the state’s western part, where the BJP faces an erosion of support among farmers who took part in a massive protest last year to demand the repeal of three farm laws. Many villagers here that had supported the BJP five years ago say they will vote for an alliance led by the regional Samajwadi Party that is the Hindu nationalist party’s main rival.

Six more rounds of voting will be held in coming weeks and results will be announced March 10.

According to opinion polls, the BJP, which won by a landslide five years ago, is likely to retain power in the state, although with a smaller margin. That would still dent its image, Shastri said.

“Any reduction in the number of seats they had compared to last time will also be seen as a defeat. I think the party is hoping to not only retain its seats but increase its share in preparation for more state elections and general elections in 2024,” he said.

Voters will also start casting ballots in coming days in four other, smaller states – Manipur, Goa, Uttarakhand and Punjab. The BJP governs all of them except Punjab. However, while showing a good performance in these states will be important for the party, they are unlikely to shape the political narrative in the same way as Uttar Pradesh will.

For the opposition Congress Party, which has been marginalized politically since Modi catapulted to the national stage in 2014, the polls do not hold hope of a revival. It only governs one of the five states going to the polls, Punjab, but here too it has been bruised by divisions in its ranks. A further setback in the elections for the party could bring more questions over the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, who analysts say has been unable to provide a credible alternative to Modi.
…

Major multinational companies including Hyundai, KFC and Domino’s are scrambling to contain a furious backlash in India after their Pakistani subsidiaries tweeted in support of Kashmiri aspirations for independence from New Delhi.  

The outrage is being felt as far away as Seoul, where the foreign ministry spokesperson was obliged Tuesday to express his regrets to his Indian counterpart. In New Delhi, South Korea’s ambassador was summoned Monday to the foreign ministry where “the strong displeasure of the Government … was conveyed to him.” 

Within the Indian parliament and government, even abject apologies from the offending companies are being dismissed as insufficiently sincere. 

The ruckus began on Sunday, when the Pakistani outlets tweeted their support for Kashmir’s mainly Muslim population to mark what is celebrated in that country as “Kashmir Solidarity Day.” The status of Kashmir has been disputed between India and Pakistan since partition in 1948 and has been the cause of three wars between them. 

“Let us remember the sacrifices of our Kashmiri brothers and stand in solidarity as they continue their battle for freedom,” said a post by Hyundai Pakistan’s Twitter handle @hyundaiPakistanOfficial. 

The post sparked an immediate furor in India, where social media users began calling for a boycott of Hyundai products. The demands for an apology were quickly picked up by the government and members of parliament. 

The company’s Indian subsidiary was quick to dissociate itself from the tweet, issuing a statement saying that that as matter of policy, Hyundai Motors Company does not comment on political or religious issues in any specific region. 

“It clearly against Hyundai Motor’s policy that the independently-owned distributor in Pakistan made unauthorized Kashmir-related social media posts from their own accounts,” it said. “We deeply regret any offense caused to the people of India by this unofficial social media activity.”

The parent company also weighed in, saying, “Once the situation was brought to our attention, we made the distributor acutely aware of the inappropriateness of the action. We have since taken measures to ensure the distributor, which misused the Hyundai brand identity, has removed the social media posts and we have put in place processes to prevent a future recurrence.” 

The company statement added: “Our subsidiary, Hyundai Motor India, is not associated with the distributor in Pakistan, and we strongly reject the distributor’s unauthorized non-business related social media activity.” 

Indian subsidiaries of U.S.-based KFC and Domino’s similarly apologized for social media posts that had appeared on the verified accounts of their Pakistani counterparts. 

“We deeply apologize for a post that was published on some KFC social media channels outside the country,” said a tweet from the fried chicken dynasty. “We honour and respect India, and remain steadfast in our commitment to serving all Indians with pride.”

Pizza maker Domino’s is also reeling, with the hashtag #boycottdominos trending on Twitter in response to a similar tweet sent by Domino’s Pakistani account. 

In a statement posted Wednesday, the business said, “This is the country we have called our home for the last 25 years, and we stand here to safeguard its legacy forever. We regret and apologize for the unsolicited social media handles outside the country.”

Maruti Suzuki, a subsidiary of the Japanese automaker, is also caught up in the ruckus.  

“We do not align with any political or religious inclination in any part of the world. Such communications from our dealers or business associates on these topics represents neither our company position nor authorized by us,” it said in a tweet.

Despite the apologies, the Indian government and many of its lawmakers are not assuaged. 

“Hyundai Global must have thought that they could get away with a vague half-hearted statement by its Indian subsidiary,” said Vijay Chauthaiwale, a senior official with India’s Foreign Affairs Department. “New India would not tolerate any such nonsense.”

Priyanka Chaturvedi, deputy leader of a right-wing party in the Indian parliament, urged Hyundai to avoid “wishy-washy words” and say “we are unequivocally sorry. Rest is all unnecessary.”

 
…

Six months after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, lawmakers have few good options for sending aid to prop up the struggling Afghan economy without enabling the Taliban. 

In the almost 20 years the U.S. was involved in Afghanistan, the country depended on foreign aid for more than half its economy. But the U.S. froze most of the country’s $9.4 billion in currency reserves last August to isolate the Taliban after they took control.

“There is frankly moral hazard in putting billions into Afghanistan right now,” Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said in a congressional hearing Wednesday. “We can do our best to route it around the Taliban, but there is no doubt that the partial effect of aid is to save the Taliban from itself. That is deeply distasteful.”

The United Nations issued an appeal to the international community last month for its largest-ever aid ask, saying $4.4 billion was needed as “a full-blown humanitarian catastrophe looms.” According to estimates by the World Food Program, only 2% of Afghans will have enough to eat this winter. 

“Six months ago, Afghanistan was a poor country, a very poor country,” David Miliband, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, told lawmakers. “Today, Afghanistan is a starving country, not just a poor country. The reason — I’m very sorry to report — the proximate cause of this starvation crisis is the international economic policy, which has been adopted since August and which has cut off financial flows not just to the public sector but in the private sector, in Afghanistan, as well.”

Miliband testified that his staff could confirm media reports that Afghans are selling organs to buy enough to eat amid a fall in currency prices that has dropped the value by at least one-quarter. 

Top lawmakers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee acknowledged that the Afghan people are suffering because of the United States’ concerns about enabling the Taliban’s repressive policies. But many warned of the dangers of sending aid.

“We of course must continue to be vigilant in our efforts to deny the Taliban any resources — financial or otherwise — they can use to conduct further acts of terror,” said Republican Senator Todd Young. “The worst-case scenario involved would be if humanitarian aid were diverted from legitimate recipients towards the Taliban and (their) partners and terror.”

The heads of nongovernmental organizations acknowledged the difficulty of easing some U.S. sanctions based on negotiations with the Taliban.

“The (U.S.) Treasury cannot feasibly list every permitted sector in the Afghan economy. Instead, U.S. officials must forbid what is not allowed — for example, arms trafficking,” said Graeme Smith, a consultant with the International Crisis Group.

“Unfortunately, many of these steps require cooperation with the Taliban. That is hard, and it is distasteful, especially as the Taliban continue to flout human rights standards. Months of talks between the Taliban and Western officials have not resulted in much progress when the impasse is partly the Taliban’s fault. They have resisted reasonable demands such as allowing education for girls of all ages. However, the U.S. is also pushing unrealistic goals, such as an inclusive government.”

Smith and Miliband told lawmakers the U.S. could take several steps to ease the humanitarian crisis, including releasing $1.2 billion in the World Bank-managed Afghan Reconstruction Fund to directly pay the salaries of Afghans, clarifying the application of U.S. sanctions in the private sector of Afghanistan’s economy, and releasing private assets while keeping Afghan government assets frozen.

But easing those restrictions could be a tough political argument to U.S. lawmakers weighing the cost of the U.S. effort to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan in trillions of dollars and thousands of lives lost.  

Democratic Senator Jean Shaheen said Wednesday, “We need to provide humanitarian assistance to ensure that the people of Afghanistan, the families in Afghanistan, are not starving. And I understand that that means to some extent, we’ve got to thread the needle. But I really reject the premise that we should enshrine with the Taliban their restrictive relationships with their citizens.”

The Biden administration pledged last month to donate an additional $308 million in humanitarian aid to address the crisis. 
…

Observers saw the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan last year as a strategic victory for neighboring Pakistan after years of frosty relations between Islamabad and the Western-backed government in Kabul that collapsed last August. Security concerns along the two nations’ border have since complicated the picture.

Many Pakistanis celebrated the Taliban’s return to power, including Prime Minister Imran Khan, who declared that Afghans had broken the “shackles of slavery.”

Some Pakistanis also welcomed a perceived blow to archrival India, which had close ties with the former Afghan government.

In the weeks that followed, Pakistan launched a diplomatic effort urging the international community to engage with the Taliban, help ease Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis and prevent it from descending into chaos again. For the first time, Pakistan even allowed India to transport humanitarian aid to Kabul through Pakistani territory.

In December, foreign ministers of the 56 nations belonging to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, along with Taliban and U.S. delegates, gathered in Islamabad. The meeting focused on Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis.

Despite such efforts, tensions have sometimes flared between Islamabad and Kabul, to the surprise of many in the region. Pakistan has complained of cross-border terrorist threats originating in Afghanistan since the Taliban came to power.

The Pakistani offshoot of the Afghan Taliban, known as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) or the Pakistani Taliban, has intensified attacks inside Pakistan from bases across the Afghan border, killing dozens of security forces in recent months.

On Sunday, heavy gunfire from inside Afghanistan targeted a northwestern Pakistani border post, killing five soldiers. The TTP took responsibility.

“Pakistan’s principal concern at this juncture is terrorism emanating from Afghan soil, of which it has been a victim in the last many years,” said Raoof Hasan, a special assistant to Khan.

“We are interacting closely with the Afghan authorities for formulating a coordinated and effective approach. We can’t afford to remain a hostage of these terrorist forces,” Hasan told VOA.

Pakistani security officials say that following the withdrawal of U.S. and allied forces from Afghanistan, TTP insurgents apparently enjoy greater operational freedom and mobility in the country.

U.S. drone attacks and Afghan military operations had killed dozens of TTP militants over the years. Earlier this month, the United Nations estimated between 3,000 and 5,000 Pakistani Taliban are in Afghanistan.

Historical tensions

Pakistani officials believe the Afghan Taliban have turned a blind eye to TTP activities since returning to power. Further inflaming tensions, the Afghan Taliban tried to stop Pakistani troops from erecting a security fence along the roughly 2,600-kilometer common border to deter terrorist infiltration.

Afghanistan has never accepted the border demarcation with Pakistan drawn up by 19th-century British colonial rulers. The border controversy has been an emotional issue for Afghans and a source of mutual tension irrespective of who is in power in Kabul.

But analysts say the Taliban, often branded as close allies of Pakistan, are taking a visibly hostile approach in a bid to win praise from Afghan nationalists and enhance their domestic legitimacy.

In video comments on Twitter, a Taliban Defense Ministry spokesman said that “Pakistan has no right to fence the border and divide [ethnic] Pashtuns living on either side of the border.”

The Taliban reject allegations that their territory is being used against Pakistan and have repeatedly pledged to disallow terrorist groups from launching attacks against other countries from Afghan soil.

While U.S. and former Afghan government leaders accused the Pakistani military of covertly supporting the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, the TTP — designated a global terrorist group by the U.S. and United Nations — provided recruits and safe havens on Pakistani soil for the Afghan Taliban.

Afghan Taliban rulers now appear to be returning the favor by refusing to evict TTP leaders from Afghan soil or crack down on their activities, as Pakistan has requested.

Instead, the Taliban advised interlocutors in Islamabad to engage in peace talks with the extremist group. The Afghan Taliban mediated a 30-day truce between the TTP and the Pakistani government in November as a “confidence-building measure” for reconciliation talks.

But the process fell apart in early December, and the TTP has resumed deadly attacks on Pakistani forces.

The Afghan Taliban told Pakistan that the TTP fought alongside them for 20 years in Afghanistan, Pakistani Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told Pakistani lawmakers when discussing Kabul’s hands-off approach to the TTP.

This has reportedly compelled Pakistan to retaliate covertly against TTP leaders in Afghanistan, including targeting them with drone attacks. Several key members of the group have been killed in Afghan border provinces in recent weeks, but there have been no claims of responsibility.

The TTP has taken credit for killing thousands of people in Pakistan, including security forces, in suicide bombings and other attacks over several years.

Even so, officials in Islamabad note that the Taliban have only recently returned to power after two decades and face serious governance and financial challenges.

“It was a natural expectation that there would be a considerable reduction in incidents of violence in Pakistan undertaken by [Afghan-based] groups such as TTP,” said a senior Pakistani official who has taken part in recent bilateral meetings with Taliban leaders in Kabul. The official wished to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak to journalists.

“But this is not happening, and it means that those groups continue to receive support and funding from somewhere. That is a cause of serious worry for Pakistan,” he said. “We are having a very frank engagement with them on this issue. They are aware of the troublemakers in Afghanistan, but they also tell us it would require time, patience and understanding to deal with this issue.”

Test case

Pakistani officials say they have told the Taliban government that Islamabad will extend diplomatic recognition only after other nations do so. In their view, how Afghanistan’s Islamist rulers deal with the TTP will serve as a test case for their counterterrorism pledges to the broader international community.

Pakistan and China are encouraging the Taliban to forge an international counterterrorism framework to ensure terrorist groups do not have operational freedom in Afghanistan, diplomatic sources privy to the discussions told VOA.

A U.N. terrorism monitoring report released last week said the Taliban had failed to take “steps to limit the activities of foreign terrorist fighters in the country.”

The report added: “On the contrary, terrorist groups enjoy greater freedom [in Afghanistan] than at any time in recent history.”

The Taliban Foreign Ministry rejected the U.N. findings, saying, “Afghanistan is witnessing exemplary security since the Islamic Emirate regained full sovereignty over the country.” Islamic Emirate is the official name of the Taliban government.

Pakistan was one of three countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to recognize the Taliban government in the late 1990s.

Michael Kugelman, the deputy director of the Asia program at the Washington-based Wilson Center, said Islamabad had received a “rude awakening” from the cross-border attacks from Taliban-held Afghanistan.

“These attacks, coupled with the Taliban’s desire to be sure that Afghans don’t perceive the group to be doing Pakistan’s bidding, have generated tensions. But at the end of the day, the relationship will endure,” Kugelman said.

“The Taliban is Pakistan’s ticket to influence and access in Afghanistan. And Pakistan is a critical diplomatic backer of the Taliban. In effect, despite tensions, both sides need each other, and that means we shouldn’t expect a rupture.”

In a report released this month, the International Crisis Group said Pakistan faces difficult challenges in shaping policy toward the Taliban in Afghanistan, but it predicted Islamabad would maintain close ties with the regime.

In doing so, Pakistan has an opportunity to do some good, according to the ICG.

“It should use those ties carefully, to nudge the Taliban toward compromises on governance, including on respect for basic rights and adherence to counterterrorism commitments that might win them greater favor abroad and help ease Afghanistan’s humanitarian tragedy,” the ICG report said.
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The Islamic State is so far showing few signs of faltering, just days after U.S. special operation forces dropped into northwest Syria and surrounded the terror group’s leader, who they say then blew himself up without a fight.

Intelligence agencies and independent analysts tracking IS on social media have yet to find any official acknowledgement of the death of Amir Muhammad Sa’id Abdal-Rahman al-Mawla, or word of a replacement.

Instead, they say IS social media operatives and followers have mostly acted as though the loss of the terror group’s second leader in less than three years is immaterial.

“It’s more business as usual, continuing to claim attacks in Africa, Afghanistan, Syria,” according to Raphael Gluck, the co-founder of Jihadoscope, a company that monitors online activity by Islamist extremists.

“[It] proves their point that the ISIS dream doesn’t die with the killing of their leader,” he added, using another acronym for the terror group.

‘Business as usual’

In one video from the IS-run Amaq News Agency, and shared by the SITE Intelligence Group, IS propagandists show fighters with the terror group’s West Africa Province (ISWAP) overrunning a Nigerien military post.

A second Amaq video, posted a couple of days later and shared by SITE, shows the wreckage of a vehicle bombed by ISWAP fighters in near the Nigerien town of Marte.

Just a day after al-Mawla’s death, IS’ Central African Province claimed it freed 20 prisoners in an operation in eastern Congo.

Some analysts who study IS say while much of what the terror group is putting out on social media is about branding and trying to maintain its fearsome image, some of it is also a reflection of realities on the ground.

“The organization is ticking along quite nicely, even in this period now,” Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director of the New York and Berlin-based Counter Extremism Project (CEP), told VOA.

“Yes, you killed the leader. That’s a big blow,” said Schindler, who spent three years overseeing the United Nations team that tracked IS, as well as rival terror group al-Qaida and also Afghanistan’s Taliban. “But the organization itself is not strategically weak … a network-based organization can always replace a leader.”

Accounts from countries closely following the fortunes of IS would seem to back that up.

UN report: IS gaining support, strength

Intelligence shared with the United Nations for a report released past Friday warned that despite some serious setbacks, IS “continues to operate as an entrenched rural insurgency in Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic, exploiting the porous border between the two countries, while maintaining operations in areas of low security pressure.”

The U.N. report, compiled prior to al-Mawla’s death, also said IS commanded a fighting force in Iraq and Syria of as many as 10,000 followers and that the group maintained access to about $50 million in cash reserves.

U.S. intelligence estimates suggest IS may enjoy even more support, with up to 16,000 fighters spread across the two countries.

At the same time, IS affiliates have continued to grow stronger, particularly in Africa and in Afghanistan, where IS-Khorasan province has doubled in size in recent months, to close to 4,000 fighters.

Intelligence provided to the U.N. from member states further indicates that IS-Khorasan now “controls limited territory in eastern Afghanistan” and that it is “capable of conducting high-profile and complex attacks.”

The same intelligence further suggests the IS Afghan affiliate has been getting an infusion of cash from IS core in Iraq and Syria, perhaps as much as $500 million over the past six months.

Under timelines shared by U.S. Defense Department officials, IS-Khorasan could also be just three months away from regenerating the capabilities required to conduct attacks on the West.

The question, though, for intelligence agencies and analysts is, to what extent was the Islamic State’s al-Mawla responsible for the terror group’s global successes?

Al-Mawla’s leadership

Senior U.S. administration officials, briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the raid that ended al-Mawla’s life, said the terror leader played a pivotal role, having a hand in operations like the one that attempted to free upwards of 4,000 jailed IS fighters from a prison in northeast Syria last month, and also coordinating with IS affiliates, all through a network of couriers.

“We anticipate that this is going to lead to disruption within ISIS,” one senior administration official said following the raid in Idlib.

Not everyone agrees.

Some analysts, like the Counter Extremism Project’s Schindler, argue al-Mawla was not much more than a placeholder for the group.

“As far as the function of the center of ISIS is concerned, i.e. brand management, making sure that the affiliates are on target of what they’re supposed to be doing, encouraging attacks in the West, he did not play a role whatsoever,” Schindler told VOA. “All of the strategic decisions that helped the Islamic State to survive and thrive after the fall of the physical caliphate … were done beforehand so long before 2019.”

Others argue that while al-Mawla, who also went by multiple other names, including Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi and Hajji ‘Abdallah, may not have presented himself as a charismatic figurehead, he was nonetheless effective.

“If he was a weak leader, I don’t think the Islamic State would have remained cohesive, particularly the branches or the provinces” said Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

“He’s done a pretty decent job in keeping the group together under some extremely difficult times,” Roggio told VOA, adding that the way al-Mawla blew himself up suggests the terror group will not face a leadership vacuum.

“These guys, they don’t retire, they don’t go off into the sunset,” he said. “I think knowing that someone else would take up the mantle would give him more reason to be able to pull the trigger.”
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KABUL — Only five hospitals in Afghanistan still offer COVID-19 treatment, with 33 others having been forced to close in recent months for lack of doctors, medicines and even heat. This comes as the economically devastated nation is hit by a steep rise in the number of reported coronavirus cases.

At Kabul’s only COVID-19 treatment hospital, staff can only heat the building at night because of lack of fuel, even as winter temperatures drop below freezing during the day. Patients are bundled under heavy blankets. Its director, Dr. Mohammed Gul Liwal, said they need everything from oxygen to medicine supplies.

The facility, called the Afghan Japan Communicable Disease Hospital, has 100 beds. The COVID-19 ward is almost always full as the virus rages. Before late January, the hospital was getting one or two new coronavirus patients a day. In the past two weeks, 10 to 12 new patients have been admitted daily, Liwal said.

“The situation is worsening day by day,” said Liwal, speaking inside a chilly conference room. Since the Taliban takeover almost six months ago, hospital employees have received only one month’s salary, in December.

Afghanistan’s health care system, which survived for nearly two decades almost entirely on international donor funding, has been devastated since the Taliban returned to power in August following the chaotic end to the 20-year U.S.-led intervention.

Afghanistan’s economy crashed after nearly $10 billion in assets abroad were frozen and financial aid to the government was largely halted.

The health system collapse has only worsened the humanitarian crisis in the country.

Roughly 90% of the population has fallen below the poverty level, and with families barely able to afford food, at least a million children are threatened with starvation.

The omicron variant is hitting Afghanistan hard, Liwal said, but he admits it is just a guess because the country is still waiting for kits that test specifically for the variant. They were supposed to arrive before the end of last month, said Public Health Ministry spokesman Dr. Javid Hazhir. The World Health Organization now says Afghanistan will get the kits by the end of February.

The organization says that between January 30 and February 5, public laboratories in Afghanistan tested 8,496 samples, of which nearly half, were positive for COVID-19. Those numbers translate into 47.4% positivity rate, the world health body said.

As of Tuesday, the WHO recorded 7,442 deaths and close to 167,000 infections since the start of the pandemic almost two years ago. In the absence of large-scale testing, these relatively low figures are believed to be a result of extreme under-reporting.

With 3.2 million vaccine doses in stock, Hazhir said the administration has launched a campaign through mosques, clerics and mobile vaccine clinics to get more people vaccinated. Currently barely 27% of Afghanistan’s 38 million people have been vaccinated, most with the single-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine.

Getting Afghans to follow even a minimum of safety protocols, like mask wearing and social distancing, has been near impossible, Liwal said. For many struggling to feed their families, COVID-19 ranks low on their list of fears, he said. The Public Health Ministry has run awareness campaigns about the value of masks and social distancing, but most people aren’t listening.

Even in the Afghan Japan hospital, where signs warn people that mask wearing is mandatory, most people in the dimly lit halls were without masks. In the intensive care unit, where half of the 10 patients in the ward were on ventilators, doctors and attendants wore only surgical masks and gowns for protection as they moved from bed to bed.

The head of the unit, Dr. Naeemullah, said he needs more ventilators and, even more urgently, he needs doctors trained on using ventilators. He is overstretched and rarely paid, but feels duty-bound to serve his patients. Liwal said several doctors have left Afghanistan.

Most of the hospital’s 200 employees come to work regularly despite months without pay.

In December, a U.S.-based charity affiliated with Johns Hopkins University provided two months funding, which gave the hospital staff their December salary and a promise of another paycheck in January. The public health ministry is now in negotiations with the WHO to take over the cost of running the hospital through June, said Liwal.

Liwal said other Kabul hospitals used to be able to take some patients, but now no longer have the resources. With a lack of funds and staff leaving, 33 facilities offering COVID-19 treatment nationwide have shut down, he said.

The Afghan Japan hospital’s only microbiologist, Dr. Faridullah Qazizada, earned less than $1,000 a month before the Taliban took power. He has received only one month’s salary since August, he said. He says his equipment and facilities are barely adequate.

“The whole health system has been destroyed,” he said. 
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Authorities ordered schools in southern India to close for three days as protests grew over a ban on wearing the hijab. 

At one demonstration Tuesday, officers fired tear gas to scatter protesters at a government-run school campus. A larger-than-usual police presence was noted at schools in nearby towns in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, Agence France-Presse reported. 

“I appeal to all the students, teachers, and management of schools and colleges … to maintain peace and harmony,” Basavaraj Bommai, the chief minister of Karnataka, said after announcing the school closures, according to AFP.  

Muslim students in Karnataka state had been told not to wear the hijab and were prohibited from entering classrooms with it on. Since December 31, students wearing headscarves at Udupi College have been marked absent despite their attempts to attend their classes, according to Al-Jazeera news service. 

The first student protests began at Udupi College, an all-girls high school in the Udupi district of Karnataka. As more schools began banning the hijab, students filed petitions with the state courts claiming that their religious rights were being challenged, the Associated Press reported. On Tuesday, Karnataka’s top court began hearing one of these petitions but adjourned before ruling. 

“What we are witnessing is a form of religious apartheid. The decree is discriminatory, and it disproportionately affects Muslim women,” said A.H. Almas, a student who has been protesting at the school for weeks, AP said.  

In response to the Muslim protests, some Hindu students began wearing saffron shawls, a symbol of Hindu nationalist groups, according to AP, and claiming the protests were disrupting their education. 

On Monday, Udupi College allowed girls wearing hijabs to attend classes, but they had to sit in separate classrooms, AP reported. 

“It is humiliating,” Almas said. “How long are we going to accept that citizens can be stigmatized because of their religion?” 

Minority communities have been expressing a growing fear of increasing persecution under the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.  

Bharatiya Janata, Modi’s Hindu nationalist party, governs Karnataka state and has expressed its full support for the ban, according to AFP. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse. 
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Farhad Darya, a well-known Afghan singer, and his wife Sultana say they cannot just watch as millions of people in Afghanistan face the threat of starvation this winter. From their home in Virginia, the two launched an emergency appeal on GoFundMe to solicit funds and provide food to some of the most vulnerable Afghans.

Donors responded generously, raising more than $31,000. But the Afghan American couple are still unable to get the money to anyone who needs it.

GoFundMe, the site where the Daryas raised the money, says it no longer releases funds directly to individuals in Afghanistan because the country is now controlled by the Taliban. The recently announced policy, GoFundMe says, is to ensure the platform is “acting in compliance with all laws and regulations, protecting fundraiser organizers and donors.”

The United States has imposed strict economic and financial sanctions on Taliban entities including Afghanistan’s state-run central bank, but U.S. officials have exempted humanitarian-only operations in the country from sanctions.

Treasury Department officials have met with representatives of non-profit organizations to reassure them they won’t be penalized for doing humanitarian work. Last week, Under Secretary of Treasury Brian Nelson spoke with NGO leaders to highlight a new list of Frequently Asked Questions “designed to provide clarity and further facilitate humanitarian aid and commercial activity in Afghanistan.”

That has not yet led to policy changes at GoFundMe, which currently has dozens of funding appeals still active on the platform, with calls for urgent funding to save lives and reduce suffering in Afghanistan.

Russell Bergeron, a resident of Missouri, has raised $965 to support teachers at a private school in Kabul.

“Our funds have been frozen for no reason,” said Bergeron. “The donations we have begun to accumulate are being held stagnant while the students and teachers we are trying to help fall further away from staying afloat.”

If funds remain blocked, Bergeron warned, the school he wants to support in Kabul might be closed soon.

The United Nations has warned that millions of Afghans face starvation this winter, and the Daryas understand the urgency.

“We need to save lives and we have no time to waste,” Farhad Darya told VOA. “People need food, medicine and shelter right at this moment.”

Trust First

GoFundMe says it understands fundraisers intend to help those in need in Afghanistan, but it cannot sidestep U.S. laws and regulations.

Before funds can be transferred, Afghanistan funding campaign organizers must be verified by GoFundMe’s Trust & Safety team.

The process is expected to protect both the organizers and donors of an appeal, and to ensure compliance with U.S. government laws and financial regulations, the platform told VOA.

For the organizers to be considered as verified, they should first identify their targeted recipients and any relationships with them and specify how the funds will be used.

Until these facts are established, the funds will remain at GoFundMe accounts.

But the platform’s users call these procedures stringent and inhibiting.

“It takes GoFundMe weeks to respond to an email,” said Darya, adding that there were concerns the platform could be holding the funds and charging interest fees.

“We’re calling for emergency funding,” he said. “It’s a matter of saving lives and reducing human sufferings, and this needs to be recognized by GoFundMe.”

Work with NGOs

Although transfer of funds by individuals is restricted, GoFundMe does allow campaigners to raise funds for verified NGOs like Doctors Without Borders as well as U.N. agencies.

Individual campaigners say such an approach does not meet their fundraising objectives.

“NGOs have their own priorities and policies and charge administrative and operational fees. We transfer 100 percent of the funds and make no charges,” said Darya. “Individuals sometimes raise funding for a particular individual in urgent need and shouldn’t be restricted.”

GoFundMe says it has raised more than $15 billion for various causes since 2010. The platform’s most generous crowdfunding response in 2021 was for Ashley Safiyya, the mother of eight-week-old Azaylia Diamond Cain, who was undergoing advanced chemotherapy for AML Leukemia. More than $2 million was raised for the treatment of little Cain, who died in April 2021 at only eight months old.
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