U.S. airstrikes are helping to blunt Taliban advances across Afghanistan, although Pentagon officials warn American air power alone will not be enough to push back the insurgent offensive.  For weeks, the United States has been launching “over-the-horizon” strikes from its Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar and from its carrier strike group in the Persian Gulf, hitting Taliban targets with a heavy mix of AC-130 gunships and MQ-9 Reaper drones.  But there have been questions regarding the effectiveness of the strikes, with Taliban officials claiming the group has captured seven provincial capitals over the past five days, and tweeting Tuesday that an eighth capital, Faizabad, in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province, was about to fall.  “We have every confidence that those strikes are hitting what we’re aiming at and are having an effect on the Taliban,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters Tuesday, saying additional strikes have been carried out “in just the last several days.”  Taliban fighters stand guard at a checkpoint in Kunduz city, northern Afghanistan, Aug. 9, 2021.Kirby acknowledged U.S. airstrikes alone would not be enough to hold Taliban fighters at bay.  “Nobody is suggesting, nobody has suggested here at the Pentagon that airstrikes are a panacea that will solve all the problems, all of the conditions on the ground,” he said.   “What we have said is that the Afghan forces have the capability, they have the capacity, they have a numerical advantage,” Kirby added. “It’s really going to come down to the leadership and the will to use those capabilities.”  At the White House on Tuesday, President Joe Biden echoed that call.  “They’ve got to want to fight,” he told reporters, adding there will be no reconsideration of the U.S. decision to complete its military withdrawal by August 31. “We spent over a trillion dollars over 20 years. We trained and equipped with modern equipment over 300,000 Afghan forces,” Biden said. “They outnumber the Taliban.” “They have to fight for themselves, fight for their nation,” he said. FILE – Afghan Special forces patrol a deserted street during fighting with Taliban fighters, in Lashkar Gah, Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, Aug. 3, 2021.U.S. officials argue that fighting back will allow the Afghan government to gain leverage in ongoing negotiations with the Taliban. But despite an announcement earlier this month by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that the military had launched a new campaign to stabilize the country, there have been few signs of progress on the ground.  Ghani Announces Afghanistan Security Plan, Promises Improvements in 6 MonthsPresident Ashraf Ghani says military will be responsible for defending strategic targets while police, under Interior Ministry, will defend cities and strategic district centersIn a series of posts on social media Tuesday, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Taliban fighters had captured Farah, the capital of Afghanistan’s Farah province, and said their forces were “on the verge of entering Feyzabad city,” the capital of Badakhshan province.  #Taliban spokesman claiming the capture of #Farah, the capital of Farah provinceNo independent confirmation or comment from #Afghanistan gvt officials, though residents have told various media that the Taliban had taken some gvt buildings in the cityhttps://t.co/04ajKIl8pw— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) August 10, 2021VOA could not independently verify the claims. There was no immediate confirmation by Afghan government officials.  U.S. officials have pledged continued support to the Afghan government and security forces beyond the August 31 deadline for Washington’s military withdrawal. That includes a proposed $3.3 billion in funding for Afghan security forces in the proposed Fiscal Year 2022 budget.  White House Proposes Slight Boost in Aid for Afghan Forces  US President Joe Biden’s proposed fiscal year 2022 defense budget asks for an additional $300 million to support Afghan government forces in the absence of US troopsU.S. officials also point out that the U.S. has already provided the Afghan air force with three refurbished Black Hawk helicopters since the withdrawal began this past May, and that another 34 are on the way.  The U.S. is also in the process of purchasing more A-29 Super Tucano strike planes for Afghanistan and continuing to provide maintenance support from afar. Washington, too, has promised to continue to resupply the Afghan security forces with food and equipment, and pay their salaries. U.S. officials, separately Tuesday, voiced hope that their efforts may find a way to impress upon Taliban leaders that their current offensive is not in anyone’s interest. “There is room for diplomatic progress to be made,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said, pointing to the presence in Doha of Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan. .@US4AfghanPeace “He will press the #Taliban to stop their military offensive & to negotiate” per @StateDeptSpox”If the #Taliban continues down this path we are likely to see a prolonged,protracted period of violence, of instability &that is certainly not in anyone’s interest”— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) August 10, 2021″The idea that we don’t have leverage or that the Islamic Republic, the government of Afghanistan doesn’t have leverage, is not the case,” Price told reporters, cautioning, “There are other tools at our disposal that fall short of reintroducing U.S. forces. We have not ruled any of those out.” For the second day in a row, however, the Pentagon indicated that as the August 31 deadline for the U.S. withdrawal draws closer, U.S. airstrikes, at least, will become less likely. “The drawdown … in many ways, in many facets, is all but complete,” Kirby told Pentagon reporters. “The where and the when in terms of feasibility of these strikes is going to be different and it’s going to decline.”  
 
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The International Committee of the Red Cross said Tuesday its health facilities in Afghanistan have treated more than 4,000 patients wounded by weapons over the past week, an indication of the intensity of the recent Afghan conflict 
 
The violence comes as the United States along with regional and international stakeholders have gathered in Doha, Qatar, to press the Afghan parties to the conflict to urgently seek a negotiated settlement to the South Asian country’s long war.  US special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad (L) and the United Nations Secretary-General’s personal envoy on Afghanistan Jean Arnault walk down a hotel lobby in Doha during an international meeting, Aug. 10, 2021. An ICRC statement called on both Afghan government forces and Taliban insurgents for immediate restraint, stressing that civilians and vital infrastructure such as hospitals must be protected from fighting. 
 
Hundreds of thousands of civilians are at risk as fighting intensifies in and around Kunduz, Lashkar Gah, Kandahar, and other Afghan contested cities, it added. 
 
“Street-to-street clashes in Kunduz, Lashkar Gah and other cities over the last few days have injured hundreds of civilians even as medical services are heavily strained due to damage to health facilities and a lack of staff,” the ICRC said.  Afghans inspect damaged shops after fighting between Taliban and Afghan security forces in Kunduz city, northern Afghanistan, Aug. 8, 2021.Several cities have no electricity, and water supply systems are barely operational in some places. 
 
“We are seeing homes destroyed, medical staff and patients put at tremendous risk, and hospitals, electricity and water infrastructure damage,” said Eloi Fillion, ICRC’s head of delegation in Afghanistan. 
 
Fillion said the use of explosive weapons, such as grenades, rockets, mortars and bombs, in cities is having an indiscriminate impact on the population. “Many families have no option but to flee in search of a safer place,” he said. “This must stop.” An internally displaced child from northern provinces, who fled from his home due the fighting between Taliban and Afghan security forces, sleeps in a public park that they use as shelter in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 10, 2021. 
In July alone, the ICRC said it had helped nearly 13,000 patients suffering from “weapon-related injuries” across Afghanistan. 
 
The international aid agency noted the number appears likely to rise in August as fighting increases in highly populated areas.  
 
The violence comes as regional and international stakeholders Tuesday gathered in Qatar to collectively press representatives of the Afghan parties to the conflict to resume peace talks and urgently reach a political settlement to bring an end to the bloodshed.  Qatar to Host International Meetings on Afghan PeaceInitiative seeks to accelerate talks between Taliban insurgents and the Afghan government before conflict spirals out of control Washington said Monday that U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, in several planned rounds of meetings this week starting Tuesday in the Qatari capital, Doha, will “help formulate a joint international response to the rapidly deteriorating” situation in Afghanistan. 
 
The U.S. State Department said Khalilzad “will press the Taliban to stop their military offensive and to negotiate a political settlement, which is the only path to stability and development in Afghanistan.” 
 
The Taliban have captured several cities in the last week and threaten many more, raising the prospects for the Islamist group to regain power in Afghanistan. 
 
Washington and representatives of other countries attending the Afghan peace-related meetings in Doha will renew their pledge not to recognize a government in Kabul imposed by force, according to the U.S. statement.  The United Nations warned last month that the Afghan war, in the first six months of this year, showed an almost 50% rise in civilian casualties compared with 2020. 
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With seven family members to feed, Abdul Khaliq needed the money. But Monday morning, his small fruit cart in Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan remained devoid of customers.“There is no business. There is fighting. … I am here since the morning, but I can’t make any money. People have nothing,” he told VOA.Business in the capital of Balkh province came to a standstill, and shops started shutting down after news spread that the Taliban were advancing. The militants had already captured five provincial capitals in the north or northeast of the country since Friday. Monday morning, pro-Taliban social media accounts began saying the militants had attacked Mazar from four sides.The claim was false — the only fighting reported was some 20 kilometers from the city near an army base in Dihdadi District — but the rumor traveled fast. For the population of Mazar, which had heard about the collapse of five nearby provincial capitals within two days, 20 kilometers was not far enough.“We hear the Taliban are coming into Mazar city. … People are escaping. Fifty percent of the shops are closed, although the Taliban are still on the outskirts. But people are scared,” Mazar resident Hamid Askar said.In this picture taken on July 15, 2021, Afghan militia fighters keep a watch at an outpost against Taliban insurgents at Charkint district in Balkh Province.Worsening the panic were scenes from a day ago that went viral on social media. Kunduz, another city in the north only a few hours’ drive from Mazar, saw heavy fighting and was largely taken over by the Taliban.Videos showed people running as plumes of black smoke rose in the air behind them. Tall orange and red flames were consuming parts of the city.Mazar residents did not want to take a chance. Central Mazar’s busy streets became deserted. People lined up in banks and at ATM machines to withdraw money.It did not help that another northern capital, Aibak of Samangan province, was overrun by the Taliban the same day — the sixth provincial capital to collapse since Friday. The militants now control most of the north.In this picture taken on July 11, 2021 an Afghan militia fighter keeps a watch at an outpost against Taliban insurgents at Charkint district in Balkh Province.In a country that has been at war for four decades, Mazar was one of the cities left relatively intact. It did not see heavy street-to-street fighting. This time, the residents seemed to be planning for a different outcome.“The Taliban are coming. The city is collapsing. Anyone with money has escaped. The poor are left behind,” said shopkeeper Najibullah, who has only one name.Witnesses said that during the panic in Mazar, they saw few security forces. Anyone who could afford it tried to escape. Travel agents had double the business they have on a normal day. Even airlines doubled their flights.“Usually, we have two to three flights daily from Mazar to Kabul, but it has increased to five to six,” travel agent Sameer said. “Previously, the ticket was $85 one way, but now it has increased to $113.”He said his office has seen a rush of people trying to get to safe locations ever since the security situation deteriorated in the neighborhood.This photograph taken on July 14, 2021 shows Salima Mazari, 2nd L, a female district governor in male-dominated Afghanistan, looking on while accompanied by security personnel near the frontlines against the Taliban in Balkh province.In the afternoon, the Afghan military released a video on social media saying it had repulsed the Taliban attack on Dihdadi District.“Now, the presence of commandos in Kod-Barq area of Dehdadi district, #Balkh province. The terrorists attack on district repulsed; dozens #terrorists were killed and wounded in reciprocal operation of #commandos and Public Resistance Forces,” tweeted Defense Ministry spokesman Fawad Aman.Now the presence of commandos in Kod-Barq area of Dehdadi district, #Balkh province. The terrorists attack on district repulsed; dozens #terrorists were killed and wounded in reciprocal operation of #commandos and Public Resistance Forces. pic.twitter.com/PjpzcywAFy— Fawad Aman (@FawadAman2) August 9, 2021He later wrote that the Taliban had also been pushed back in northern Baghlan province.The Taliban have made swift territorial gains in Afghanistan since May when the foreign forces started their withdrawal. President Joe Biden had received stiff criticism from political opponents and independent analysts for his decision to withdraw all forces before the Taliban made a political settlement with the Afghan government.Negotiations between the two sides officially began in September 2020 but have so far remained fruitless.The violence has exacerbated the already existing humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan. The country has had a severe drought for several years, and according to the United Nations, more than 18 million people, which make up half the country’s population, are now in need of humanitarian assistance. 
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Panic gripped northern Afghanistan’s famous city Mazar-e-Sharif Monday after news of a Taliban advance. VOA’s Ayesha Tanzeem reports from Kabul that Taliban have overrun five northern or northeastern capitals since Saturday. Because of the security risks to journalists, all the footage in this report was recorded by cellphone or taken from viral social media videos.Camera: Gul Rahim Niazman                            Produced by: Malik Waqar Ahmed  
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Suspected Taliban fighters killed an Afghan radio station manager in Kabul and kidnapped a journalist in southern Helmand province, local government officials said on Monday, reporting the latest in a long line of attacks targeting media workers.Gunmen shot Toofan Omari, the station manager of Paktia Ghag radio and an officer for NAI, a rights group supporting independent media in Afghanistan, in a targeted killing in the capital on Sunday.”Omari was killed by unidentified gunmen…he was liberal man…we are being targeted for working independently,” said Mujeeb Khelwatgar, the head of NAI.Officials in Kabul suspected Taliban fighters had carried out the attack.Last month the NAI report at least 30 journalists and media workers have been killed, wounded or abducted by militant groups in Afghanistan this year.In southern Helmand province, officials said Taliban fighters had seized a local journalist, Nematullah Hemat, from his home in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, on Sunday.”There is just absolutely no clue where the Taliban have taken Hemat…we are really in a state of panic, said Razwan Miakhel, head of private TV channel, Gharghasht TV where Hemat was employed.A Taliban spokesperson told Reuters that he had no information on either the killing in Kabul or the abducted journalist in Helmand.A coalition of Afghan news organizations have written to U.S. President Joe Biden and leaders in the House of Representatives, urging them to grant special immigration visas to Afghan journalists and support staff.The Taliban seized three northern cities over the weekend and were threatening to capture more, ramping up an offensive against Afghan government forces that followed Washington’s announcement that it would end its military mission in the country by the end of the month.
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The beleaguered Afghan government is having to turn to veteran warlords to try to fend off the Taliban as international forces withdraw from the country.The warlords return to playing a major military role is a key part of President Ashraf Ghani’s national mobilization plan to halt the Taliban’s nationwide offensive but is raising fears that at best it will lead to Afghanistan splintering once again into dueling local fiefdoms, setting the stage for a prolonged and messy civil war, mirroring what unfolded in the 1990s after the Soviet withdrawal.A former top British army commander General Richard Barrons, told the BBC Monday he fears the country will be plunged into a decades-long civil war and dubbed the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan a “strategic mistake.” “I don’t believe it’s in our own interest,” he said.Abdul Rashid Dostum is among the old warlords returning to the fray as the Taliban gains more territory. More than a dozen cities are now under siege by the Taliban, including several provincial capitals.The lightning offensive by the Taliban has rocked the Afghan government and unfolded in the wake of the decision by the Biden administration to withdraw U.S. troops from the country. Almost all NATO troops will be gone by September.In Herat, the scene of heavy fighting, the defense of the city is being overseen by another veteran warlord, 70-year-old Mohammed Ismail Khan, a former mujahedeen leader against the Russians and the Taliban. His forces are estimated to comprise of 6,000 volunteers, some veterans from the civil war in the 1990s, according to Western military officials.FILE – Afghan warlord and former mujahedeen leader Mohammed Ismail Khan addresses a gathering at his home in Herat, Afghanistan, July 9, 2021.Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who long vowed to clean out warlords, met with Dostum last week on his return to Afghanistan from Turkey, where the former army paratrooper and onetime U.S. ally was reported to be undergoing medical treatment.Dostum is a former Afghan vice-president but currently holds no official government position. He was a key figure in the fight against the Taliban in the 1990s and has long been seen as one of Afghanistan’s most powerful but notorious warlords. His militia was accused by rights groups in the 1990s of rapes and massacres of prisoners.Some Afghan experts are doubtful that the support of veteran warlords and their newly formed and revived militias will be sufficient to fend off the Taliban, unless the demoralized Afghan army pulls its weight more.Among the doubters is Vanda Felbab-Brown, director of the Initiative on Non-state Armed Actors at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington. She noted in a tweet Sunday that the Taliban has been notching up successes in areas where there are strong anti-Taliban militias which have been embraced by the Afghan government.With Afghan soldiers and weapons in short supply, though, Western diplomats and analysts say the Afghan president has little option but to call for help from the veteran warlords he’s tried to keep at arm’s length in the past.  They add that political factions, regional bosses and powerbrokers will start growing their militias even without the encouragement of the central government.FILE – Abdul Rashid Dostum, center, a former warlord and Afghanistan’s vice president at the time, disembarks with members of his entourage from his plane on arrival at Kabul International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, July 22, 2018.“As Taliban victories on the battlefield grow, all other factions will ramp up their efforts to build militias and create an opposing force to defeat them,” predict Annie Pforzheimer, a former acting deputy assistant Secretary of State for Afghanistan, and Nilofar Sakhi, who has been involved in the Afghan peace process since 2010.In a commentary for the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank, they said: “Expect regional powers to arm and supply money to their preferred factions and for the militias to keep switching sides and loyalties for gains that will further weaken the Afghan central government.”Romain Malejacq, author of the book “Warlord Survival: The Delusion of State Building in Afghanistan,” foresees a similar outcome. “Whether the central government manages to hold its own and resist the Taliban or not, post-NATO Afghanistan is likely to feature a patchwork of overlapping, competing, political orders between the state, the Taliban, the warlords and other non-state armed actors — something resembling Afghanistan of the 1990s,” he wrote in paper for the Clingendael Institute, a Dutch international affairs think tank.
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India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) said on Sunday it conducted raids at nearly five dozen places linked to banned religious organization Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) in Jammu and Kashmir in an alleged terrorism funding case.The government accuses Jamaat-e-Islami of supporting militancy in Indian-controlled Kashmir, which is at the heart of decades of conflict with Muslim Pakistan.India’s main counterterrorism arm said in a statement that members of the organization have collected funds domestically and abroad through donations for the charity and welfare activities, but the funds were instead used for violent and secessionist activities.”The funds raised by JeI are also being channeled to proscribed terrorist organizations such as Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba and others through well-organized networks of JeI cadres,” the agency said.The agency raided premises of the association’s leadership, its members and also trusts run by JeI.The NIA also said JeI had motivated impressionable youth in Kashmir and recruited new members in Jammu and Kashmir to participate in disruptive secessionist activities.JeI was banned by the Indian government after a militant strike in Kashmir more than two years ago, which was claimed by a Pakistan-based Islamist militant group and in which 40 Indian troops were killed when a suicide bomber rammed his car into a bus carrying paramilitary troops.The JeI could not be reached for comment on Sunday. It has not previously commented on its funding but has said it had not done anything to invite the ban.
 
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Two back-to-back international meetings are being convened in Qatar this week to press Afghanistan’s warring parties to resume peace negotiations and reach a deal before the Afghan conflict spirals out of control.  
 
The diplomatic effort comes amid dramatic battlefield advances by Taliban insurgents even as the United States continues airstrikes in support of embattled Afghan government forces.  
 
It also follows last week’s warning by the United Nations that “the war in Afghanistan has entered a new, deadlier, and more destructive phase.”
 
The U.S. special representative for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, and his counterparts from Russia, China and Pakistan, will meet in the Qatari capital, Doha, on Wednesday under what is officially known as the “extended troika,” diplomatic sources told VOA.
 
The Moscow-initiated group conducts regular consultations on ways to support intra-Afghan negotiations to help the parties reach a political settlement and a permanent and comprehensive cease-fire.
 
The extended troika will hold consultations before meeting Doha-based Taliban and Kabul government representatives who are engaged in slow-moving intra-Afghan peace negotiations there, VOA learned from reliable sources at the Pakistani Foreign Ministry.
 
The extended troika will be preceded by a meeting on Tuesday of Afghanistan’s immediate neighbors. Russia, the United Nations and United States have also been invited to Tuesday’s meeting.
 
The goal of both discussions will be “to seek a possible common ground” between the two Afghan adversaries “at a time when (the Taliban) have started occupying provincial capitals,” the Foreign Ministry sources said.Taliban Capture Large Parts of Kunduz, 2 Other Provincial CapitalsInsurgents’ takeover of Afghanistan’s provincial capitals began Friday with Zaranj, the capital of NimruzPakistan’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Muhammad Sadiq, and the country’s ambassador to Kabul, Mansoor Khan, will be visiting Doha to attend the Afghan peace-related meetings there, the sources added.
 
“We are always looking for ways and means to help accelerate the negotiations because we don’t see a military solution to the war in Afghanistan,” Khalilzad told VOA last week.  
 
“There must be a political solution, a political agreement for a lasting peace, and we will stay with it. We are committed to staying with it until that goal is achieved,” the U.S. envoy pledged.  
 
The Taliban advances have raised the prospects of the Islamist group’s return to power in Afghanistan.  
 
At its last meeting in April this year, the extended troika had warned the insurgents not to attempt to militarily seize control of the Afghan capital, Kabul.  
 
“We do not support the establishment in Afghanistan of any government imposed by force,” said a joint statement issued at the time.  
 
The peace efforts come as United States troops, under directives by U.S. President Joe Biden, are set to leave Afghanistan, along with its NATO-allied troops, by the end of this month after 20 years.   
 
The withdrawal is a crucial outcome of Washington’s peace-building agreement that the Taliban and United States signed in February 2020 when Donald Trump was U.S. president. But the intra-Afghan negotiations that stemmed from the landmark deal have failed to make any significant progress and are stalled. 
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Taliban fighters have seized key government buildings in the northeastern Afghan city of Kunduz, leaving government forces hanging onto control of the airport and their own base, a provincial assembly lawmaker said on Sunday.A Taliban offensive has gathered momentum in recent days, as the insurgents unleashed their forces across Afghanistan after the United States announced it would end its military mission in the country by the end of August.On Friday the insurgents captured their first provincial capital in years when they took control of Zaranj, on the border with Iran in Afghanistan’s southern Nimroz province.And on Saturday the deputy governor of the northern province of Jowzan said the outskirts of provincial capital Sheberghan was under attack from the insurgents.An Afghan security forces spokesperson said “extremely (heavy) fighting is going on” in Kunduz, as security forces fought to defend the city, regarded as a strategic prize as it lies at the gateway to mineral-rich northern provinces and Central Asia.But a provincial lawmaker in Kunduz told Reuters the insurgents had taken key buildings in the city of 270,000 people, raising fears that it could be the latest to fall to the Taliban.”Heavy clashes started yesterday afternoon, all government headquarters are in control of the Taliban, only the army base and the airport is with ANDSF (Afghan security forces) from where they are resisting the Taliban,” Amruddin Wali, a member of Kunduz provincial assembly, said.Rohullah Ahmadzai, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense, said on Facebook that special forces were in Kunduz and had been conducting ‘clearance operations’ in the city to take back media offices that the Taliban had captured.Health officials in Kunduz said that 14 bodies, including those of women and children, and more than 30 injured people have been taken to hospital. 
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Taliban fighters entered the capital of northern Afghanistan’s Jawzjan province Saturday after sweeping through nine of 10 districts in the province, a provincial lawmaker said.The government did not deny lawmaker Mohammad Karim Jawzjani’s contention that Taliban fighters had entered Sheberghan but said the city had not fallen. If the city falls, it will be the second provincial capital in as many days to succumb to the Taliban. Several other of the country’s 34 provincial capitals are threatened.On Friday, the Taliban took control of the southwestern Nimroz provincial capital of Zaranj, where the government says it is still battling insurgents inside the capital.Sheberghan is particularly strategic because it is the stronghold of U.S-allied Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum, whose militias are among those resurrected to aid the Afghan National Security and Defense Forces.Heavy airstrikes were reported by residents of Sheberghan who also said the Taliban had freed prisoners from the city jail. They requested to remain anonymous fearing retaliation from both sides.Taliban fighters have swept through large swathes of Afghanistan at surprising speed, initially taking districts, many in remote areas. In recent weeks they have laid siege to several provincial capitals across the country as the last U.S. and NATO troops leave the country. The U.S. Central Command says the withdrawal is more than 95% complete and will be finished by Aug. 31.The U.S. Air Force continues to aid the Afghan air force’s bombing of Taliban targets in southern Helmand and Kandahar provinces as Afghan security forces try to prevent a Taliban takeover.On Saturday, the U.S. and British embassies in Kabul repeated a warning to its citizens still there to leave “immediately” as the security situation deteriorated.The U.S. Embassy in Kabul also issued a statement Saturday condemning the Taliban’s military onslaught saying it was contrary to the insurgent group’s claim to support a negotiated peace settlement.The statement called for an immediate end to fighting and a start to “negotiations to end the suffering of the Afghan people and pave the way for an inclusive political settlement that benefits all Afghans and ensures that Afghanistan does not again serve as a safe haven for terrorists.”On Friday, Taliban fighters assassinated Dawa Khan Menapal, the chief of the Afghan government’s press operations for local and foreign media. It came just days after a coordinated attempt was made to kill acting defense chief Bismillah Khan Mohammadi in a posh and deeply secure neighborhood of the capital.Internally displaced families sit inside a school after they left their homes following fighting between Afghan security forces and Taliban, in Ghaziabad District in the northern part of Kunar province on Aug. 7, 2021.In a report to the U.N. Security Council on Friday the U.N. envoy for Afghanistan urged the council to demand the Taliban immediately stop attacking cities in their offensive to take more territory.Deborah Lyons also called on the international community to urge both sides to stop fighting and negotiate to prevent a “catastrophe” in the war-torn country.In Afghanistan’s Helmand and Kandahar provinces in the south of the country thousands of Afghans were displaced by the fighting and living in miserable conditions.In Helmand’s provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan’s elite commando forces aided by regular troops were trying to dislodge the Taliban but with little success, said Nafeeza Faiez, a provincial council member. Taliban are in control of nine of the city’s 10 police districts.Faiez said conditions for residents are desperate as they hunker down inside their homes, unable to get supplies or get to hospitals for treatment. Many of the public buildings have also been badly damaged in the fighting.”People have no access to any service,” she said.More than half of Afghanistan’s 421 districts and district centers are now in Taliban hands. While many are in remote regions, some are extremely strategic, giving the Taliban control of lucrative border crossings with Iran, Tajikistan and Pakistan.The insurgent force on Friday closed one of the country’s most lucrative borders with Pakistan at Spin Boldak in southeastern Afghanistan. The Taliban were protesting a demand from Pakistan that all Afghans crossing the border must have Afghan passports and Pakistani visas.The group said Pakistan was implementing the demands of the Afghan government and demanded that previous procedures in which identities were rarely checked as people crossed the border be reinstituted.Thousands of Afghans and Pakistanis cross the border daily and a steady stream of trucks passes through, bringing goods to land-locked Afghanistan from the Arabian Sea port city of Karachi in Pakistan.Hundreds of people were waiting Saturday to pass through and more than 600 trucks, many loaded with perishable fresh foods, were backed up in both countries.Islamabad’s relationship with Kabul has been troubled, with both sides accusing each other of harboring militants. Afghan Taliban leaders live in Pakistan and Kabul is bitterly critical of Pakistan for aiding them and treating their fighters in hospitals in Pakistan. Islamabad meanwhile charges that Kabul provides a safe haven to the Pakistani Taliban, a separate militant group that regularly stages attacks in Pakistan. 
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An Afghan Air Force pilot was killed by a bomb in a Kabul district on Saturday, officials said, in an attack claimed by the Taliban.Hamidullah Azimi was killed when a sticky bomb attached to his vehicle went off, officials said, adding that five civilians were injured in the explosion.Azimi was trained in flying U.S.-made UH60 Black Hawk helicopters, and he had been working with the Afghan Air Force for almost four years, Afghan Air Force Commander Abdul Fatah Eshaqzai told Reuters.He had moved to Kabul with his family one year ago because of security threats, Eshaqzai said.Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Muhajid said in a statement that the Taliban had carried out the attack.Reuters was first to detail a Taliban campaign to assassinate pilots off-base that Afghan officials say had killed at least seven Afghan pilots before Saturday’s attack.Pilots targetedThe Taliban have confirmed existence of a program that would see U.S.-trained Afghan pilots “targeted and eliminated.”U.S. and Afghan officials believe the targeting of pilots by the Taliban is a deliberate effort to destroy Afghanistan’s corps of U.S.- and NATO-trained military pilots as fighting escalates across the country.The Taliban, who have no air force, are looking to level the playing field as they press major ground offensives that have seen them swiftly seize territory since May.Emboldened by Washington’s announcement to withdraw all U.S. troops by the end of August, the Taliban have launched a bloody military blitz across the country, which has gained momentum in recent days.On Friday, insurgents captured their first provincial capital in years when they took control of Zaranj in Afghanistan’s southern Nimroz province.As the insurgents look to take control of other cities, the Afghan Air Force has played a crucial role in holding them back.Azimi’s death came days after the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR), in a report to Congress, said the Taliban assassinations of pilots detailed by Reuters were another “worrisome development” for the Afghan Air Force as it reels from a surge in fighting.
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Both the United States and Britain issued advisories Saturday to their citizens, urging them to leave Afghanistan immediately using commercial flight options.“Given the security conditions and reduced staffing, the Embassy’s ability to assist U.S. citizens in Afghanistan is extremely limited even within Kabul,” a statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in Kabul said.The advisories are consistent with past positions of both countries.In April, the U.S. ordered all embassy staff that can work from elsewhere out of the country.“We have been consistently clear that the security situation is uncertain,” a British Embassy spokesman said.    Violence in Afghanistan has steadily increased since the announcement that foreign forces were going to withdraw from the country.UN Envoy: Afghanistan War in ‘Deadlier, More Destructive Phase’Calls for Security Council action come as Taliban make military gains around countryThe Taliban has attacked several parts of the country and nearly doubled the territory under its control, including overrunning several key border crossings.Targeted killings of journalists, human rights activists, and government officials also have skyrocketed. Dawa Khan Menapal, the director of the Government Media and Information Center (GMIC), was assassinated during Friday prayers in Kabul.Fighting continues to rage in several Afghan cities. On Friday, the Taliban took over Zaranj, the first provincial capital to fall to the militants since the withdrawal of foreign forces.On Saturday Taliban militants overran a second provincial capital, Sheberghan, in Jawzjan province, after weeks of clashes and heavy fighting. The city is home to Afghanistan’s highest ranking military officer, former warlord Marshall Abdul Rashid Dostum.  Social media videos showed prisoners escaping Jawzjan prison as heavy fighting raged around the city.Meanwhile, in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, Afghan security forces have wrested control of the city center from the Taliban after intense fighting and heavy airstrikes that killed many civilians and damaged the city’s infrastructure.The U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued a press release Saturday afternoon, condemning the Taliban offensive against cities and calling on the militants to agree to cease-fire and engage in peace negotiations.   “These Taliban actions to forcibly impose its rule are unacceptable and contradict its claim to support a negotiated settlement in the Doha peace process. They demonstrate wanton disregard for the welfare and rights of civilians and will worsen this country’s humanitarian crisis,” the release said.  In a statement Friday to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the head of the U.N. Mission on Afghanistan, Deborah Lyons, said at least 104 civilians were killed in the Lashkar Gah fighting in the last 10 days alone, as recorded by the city’s two main hospitals.  “In the past weeks, the war in Afghanistan has entered a new, deadlier and more destructive phase,” she said.  Videos shared on social media showed the city’s market in flames.The Taliban issued a statement reassuring former civil servants and government employees, “including those who worked in the security sector in Nimruz and other provinces,” that they were safe and should not try to flee.News of alleged Taliban atrocities in other parts of the country, however, have forced many to try to escape. A large number of people from Nimruz tried to cross over into Iran, which borders the province, but they were turned back by Iranian border guards.Lyons warned that the war was “reminiscent of Syria recently or Sarajevo in the not-so-distant past,” and she said that without the UNSC’s support, the country could descend “into a situation of catastrophe so serious that it would have few, if any, parallels in this century.”
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Indian and Chinese troops have pulled back from a disputed border area in the Himalayas where soldiers from both sides had been facing off for over a year, according to the Indian army.Although the announcement marks progress in the resolving border disputes that have worsened ties between the two Asian countries, other points of friction persist.The withdrawal from the Gogra area in eastern Ladakh marked the second round of disengagement this year. It came six months after India and China pulled back troops from a strategic Himalayan Lake, Pangong Tso, that had emerged as their most serious flashpoint in decades and led to a massive military buildup in the region.An Indian army statement Friday said that both sides had dismantled “temporary structures erected by them along with allied infrastructure, with the actions being mutually verified.” It said that troops were back in their “respective permanent bases and that “the landform in the area has been restored by both sides to the pre-standoff period.”The agreement was reached at talks between military commanders of the two sides held last Saturday.The Indian army statement said that “With this one more sensitive area of face-off has been resolved” and that both sides have expressed their commitment “to take the talks forward and resolve the remaining issues along the LAC.”The LAC refers to the line of actual control that marks the unsettled border in the Himalayas between the two countries.“It is a step in the right direction because these are points of potential conflict that are sought to be cooled down,” according to Jayadeva Ranade, head of the Center for China Analysis and Strategy in New Delhi. “But it is very limited progress. They have to start addressing the bigger issues in other areas that would lead to thinning out of forces massed along the Himalayan border.”The standoff in Ladakh between India and China began in April last year and led to deadly hand-to-hand combat that killed 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers.The pullback in the Gogra area took place three weeks after the Indian and Chinese foreign ministers met in mid-July in Tajikistan on the sidelines of a regional meeting.Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar had said that any unilateral change in the status quo along their disputed border was “not acceptable” to India and that overall ties can only develop after “full restoration of peace and tranquility” in eastern Ladakh.In a statement issued by the Chinese foreign ministry, the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi had said that “China-India relations still stay at a low level, which is not in the interest of either side” and called on the two sides to find a solution to the border issue through dialogue and consultation.The most serious dispute between the two countries centers on an area known as Depsang Plain, according to Bharat Karnad, a strategic affairs expert at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. “That is really the crux because it allows Indian troops access to a key Himalayan pass. It is critical to restore status quo here but it will be a challenge to do that in this strategic point.”China denies that its troops have crossed the border between the two countries. 
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After India’s largest slum defeated the pandemic, some of its young residents pulled out their phones to write, shoot and release a triumphant rap video.”At first we were afraid, what would happen to us? But we stood with the doctors… now it’s your turn,” rapped the young men in the video.We Did It — Kar Dikhaya in Hindi — showcased new talent and won acclaim from celebrities, but its creators’ abiding goal was to fight the stigma dogging this densely populated corner of Mumbai.The Dharavi slum is home to around 1 million people, many of whom live in single-room shanties and share communal toilets.Its labyrinthine alleys have long been associated with filth and disease despite its remarkable success in the battle against COVID-19, and its residents battle constant discrimination.But Ayush Tegar Renuka, one of the star students of the Dharavi Dream Project hip-hop academy, told AFP he feels “so proud” of belonging to the community.”The Dharavi shown on TV channels and the real Dharavi are very different places,” the 16-year-old said.Ayush began breakdancing three years ago, brushing off his widowed mother’s pleas to give up a pursuit she feared would result in a trip to the hospital.She was not alone. Many parents were initially reluctant to enroll their children in the school’s free classes, dismissing hip-hop as dangerous, a distraction from homework or simply a waste of time.The Dharavi Dream Project’s co-founder Dolly Rateshwar was determined to change their minds.The daughter of a Hindu priest, Rateshwar was nervous about venturing into the neighborhood, but the teenagers she met struck a chord with her.”I was raised in a very conservative family… I never knew there was a bigger world out there,” the 38-year-old told AFP.”And I was worried that these kids might lose out on life because they didn’t know the possibilities open to them.”‘My confidence level was zero’The school opened its doors in 2015, offering free classes in breakdancing, beatboxing and rapping to around 20 students, with digital media start-up Qyuki — Rateshwar’s employer — and US entertainment titan Universal Music Group footing the bill.As the project won praise from musical icons such as Oscar-winning composer A.R. Rahman it rapidly expanded, with young students like Joshua Joseph — now better known as MC Josh — using hip-hop to tell their stories.If black rappers in the United States could shine a light on racism, he reasoned, hip-hop could do the same for India’s glaring inequality and mistreatment of marginalized communities.”My confidence level was zero before I started to rap,” the 21-year-old told AFP. “The school changed my life.”When COVID-19 arrived, the rapper’s income collapsed overnight as Dharavi was put under a stringent monthslong lockdown.Mumbai authorities quickly realized that the slum held the key to defeating the pandemic and launched “Mission Dharavi” — aggressively sanitizing communal toilets, running daily “fever camps” to check for symptoms, repurposing wedding halls as quarantine facilities, and asking residents to stay home.By the end of June 2020, Dharavi had recorded just 82 deaths — a fraction of Mumbai’s over 4,500 fatalities.Like the slum, the school staff also refused to be cowed by the virus, switching to online classes soon after the first wave of infections hit last year.As the pandemic ground on, Rateshwar realized that the academy could expand its reach even further, and broadcast an invitation on Instagram for anyone, anywhere, to join their classes.They received 800 responses in the first 24 hours.A year on, the school hosts 100 students who attend every online session — half from Dharavi itself — and 300 others who pop in occasionally, including from overseas.’Everyone wants to become a superstar’But Rateshwar’s focus remains firmly on students from the Mumbai slum, on making sure their voices are heard and their future prospects secured.”Obviously everyone wants to become a superstar but … I also try to tell them about alternative careers in the music industry, as artists’ managers, or jobs in social media,” she said. “Most of all, I want them to stand tall.”For 21-year-old teacher Vikram Gaja Godakiya, who learned breakdancing from YouTube videos, the school means much more than a steady paycheck.”People have always been unfair to Dharavi,” he told AFP, describing how the pandemic had made employers increasingly reluctant to hire slum-dwellers.When Godakiya started breakdancing in secret nine years ago, he never imagined he would be able to do it for a living.”Breaking has given my life purpose,” he said.     “I want my students to know that they can do anything if they give it their 100 percent.” 
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Cyclist Farid Noori hopes to increase awareness of his home country’s scenic beauty. Connor Smith has the story.
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The first Afghan city fell to the Taliban Friday when the militants overran Zaranj, the provincial capital of Nimruz in southwestern Afghanistan, bordering Iran.  Haji Nabi Barahwe, the deputy provincial governor, confirmed to VOA the Taliban has captured the city, and Afghan security forces have retreated to the Delaram district of Nimruz province.  
 
“Zaranj city fell into Taliban’s hands,” Haji Nabi Barahawe told VOA. “The Taliban took control of the office of the governor. Afghan security forces are scattered. Forces from the National Directorate of Security fought the Taliban for an hour. Currently, the government forces control only Chahar Burjak district.”  
 
He did not say whether the NDS forces surrendered or retreated and he added that the  Taliban have control over three of the five districts in the province.Taliban Assassinate Head of Afghan Government Media Department The Taliban claimed responsibility for the death, with spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid sending a message to media saying ‘he was killed in a special attack carried out by mujahideen’ 
Separately, the Taliban assassinated the Afghan government’s top media officer Friday in Kabul.
 
Dawa Khan Menapal, head of the Government Media and Information Center, was targeted in a high-security zone of the Afghan capital.  
 
The Taliban, in a brief statement sent to media, took responsibility for the attack, the latest in a series of assassinations of senior government officials carried out by the insurgents.  
 
Acting U.S. Ambassador in Kabul Ross Wilson denounced the killing of Menapal.  
 
“We are saddened & disgusted by the Taliban’s targeted killing of Dawa Khan Meenapal, a friend and colleague, whose career was focused on providing truthful information to all Afghans about #Afghanistan,” Wilson wrote on Twitter. “These murders are an affront to Afghans’ human rights & freedom of speech.”Qari Ahmad Yousf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, tweeted that the provincial governor house building, provincial police compound, and other government buildings in Nimroz were under their control. Pro-Taliban accounts showed pictures and videos of militants in front of government buildings.  Afghan journalist Bilal Sarwary said it looks like the Taliban used the same tactic they did in other parts of the country. They negotiated with tribal elders ahead of time. “Reportedly, elders and others approached the provincial government and requested that they surrender to the Taliban without a fight,” Sarwary said.He also said Thursday night someone raised a Taliban flag in the center of the city and  caused panic.  At least one social media video showed prisoners escaping from Nimruz prison, while another showed what appeared to be looting in Zaranj.Nimruz is a small town. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Frud Bezhan called it “an isolated town in the remote southwestern province of Nimroz, not a “major city” nor even a “city” at all,” in his Tweet. Already seeing journalists mischaracterize Zaranj, which fell to the Taliban. It is an isolated town in the remote southwestern province of Nimroz, not a “major city” nor even a “city” at all. That said, it is a commercial hub that has strategic and economic value.— Frud Bezhan فرود بيژن (@FrudBezhan) August 6, 2021It is a major transit hub for trade with Iran, however, as well as a human smuggling route. According to local channel Tolonews, a large number of Afghans from Nimruz anticipated a Taliban onslaught and attempted to flee across the border with Iran, but the border guards stopped them and sent them back.    
Fierce fighting was continuing Friday in several Afghan cities. On Friday, Taliban militants entered parts of Sherbeghan, the provincial capital of Jowzjan province and home to warlord Field Marshall Abdul Rashid Dostam.  
 
An Afghan defense ministry spokesman, however, claimed later in the evening that Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) restored government control over Sheberghan. Fawad Aman vowed security forces will clear Nimroz of the Taliban soon.#Sheberghan has been cleared of the terrorists. #ANDSF and Public Uprising Forces inflicted heavy casualties to #Taliban and the death bodies remained on the streets and alleys of the city. Taliban will be defeated in #Nimruz as well. pic.twitter.com/c8LmFS0TJq— Fawad Aman (@FawadAman2) August 6, 2021
It was not possible to immediately to verify the claims from independent sources, as both of the Afghan warring sides routinely exaggerate their battlefield gains.Ayaz Gul in Islamabad and VOA’s Afghan Service in Washington contributed to this report.
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In the longest-running protest of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, farmers have been camped around the Indian capital for over eight months to demand the scrapping of new laws they fear will ruin their livelihoods.  Anjana Pasricha visits the protest site to see how and why farmers have braved winter, summer, the pandemic’s ferocious second wave and the monsoon rains.Camera: Darshan Singh
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Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents closed a major crossing point Friday for travel and trade with Pakistan, demanding the neighboring country end the alleged mistreatment of Afghan travelers and ease other restrictions. The abrupt closure of the busy Spin Boldak crossing into the southwestern Pakistani town of Chaman has stranded hundreds of travelers and trucks carrying commercial goods in both directions, according to traders and witnesses.The Taliban’s swift battlefield advances against Afghan government forces since early May have enabled them to seize control of dozens of districts across the conflict-hit country, including most of landlocked Afghanistan’s trade crossings with neighboring countries.They include Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Pakistan. The loss of these trade routes is estimated to have cost the Afghan government tens of millions of dollars in revenues.FILE – Families wait to cross the Afghanistan-Pakistan border point in Spin Boldak, Kandahar province, Afghanistan, March 7, 2017.Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid defended the move, alleging Afghan travelers are being mistreated by the Pakistani side.”They [Pakistan] open the border gate only for two, three hours during the entire day for people traveling from Afghanistan, including patients, [Afghan] refugees, traders and others,” Mujahid told VOA.He demanded that Pakistan open the border route for the entire day, as had been the case in the past, arguing it was not possible for such a large number of people to cross over in such a short period of time.”Men and women are extensively frisked and traders are also harassed,” Mujahid said.Since the Taliban captured the Spin Boldak crossing, he added, Pakistani authorities also have banned entry of Afghans who possess refugee status and national identification cards. “Until Pakistani authorities address these issues and remove the restrictions, the border gate will remain closed,” Mujahid said.Pakistani officials have not commented on the closure of the border by the Taliban.”Around 700 trucks and 2,000 people are stuck on both sides of the border,” Imran Khan Kakar, a senior member of the Pak-Afghan Chamber of Commerce in Chaman, told VOA.Khan said Pakistani border officials told the traders they were in contact with the Taliban and the two sides were scheduled to meet later in the day to discuss the issue.Pakistan had sealed the Chaman-Spin Boldak crossing after the Afghan insurgent group seized control of it in the second week of July, halting all trade and traffic through the usually bustling crossroads in the region.Last week, Islamabad partially reopened the facility to allow travelers and truck convoys stranded on both sides of the border to resume their journey.Pakistani officials argued the partial reopening of the crossing was a humanitarian gesture, noting Islamabad recognizes the Afghan government in Kabul as the legitimate entity and not the Taliban insurgency.The Taliban’s capture of Spin Boldak and surrounding districts of the embattled Afghan province of Kandahar have fueled Pakistan’s tensions with the Afghan government, which has long accused Islamabad of backing the insurgents.There are five crossings on the nearly 2,640-kilometer border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Three of them are used for travel and bilateral and transit trade activities, while the rest are dedicated to travelers, including Afghan refugees.Pakistan, which denies accusations of links with the Taliban, still hosts about 3 million Afghans as registered refugees and economic migrants. 
 
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Pakistan is echoing warnings from Washington that neither the Afghan government nor the Taliban can get what they want if they insist on pushing ahead with military campaigns instead of working to reach an agreement through negotiations.Fighting between government forces and Taliban fighters has surged in recent weeks, with the August 31 deadline for the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan drawing ever closer, prompting U.S. forces to increase the number of airstrikes in support of the Afghan military.Yet Pakistan’s national security adviser, in Washington for meetings with U.S. officials, said Thursday that a military victory for the Afghan government or the Taliban is simply not realistic.’No forceful takeover'”It is not possible for either side to get what they want on the battlefield,” Moeed Yusuf told a virtual audience at the U.S. Institute for Peace. “A compromise is inevitable.”“The messaging on the ground has to be perfectly clear that we will go to any extent needed to patch this conversation up among Afghans to bring it to its logical conclusion, which is to end violence. No forceful takeover,” he said.Yusuf said Pakistan has agreed to work with the United States to help the Afghan government and the Taliban end their hostilities, adding that continued fighting is not in Islamabad’s interest. He called peace in Afghanistan “nonnegotiable.”“Protracted conflict in Afghanistan undermines Pakistan’s transformed vision for itself, which is a paradigm focused on geoeconomics,” he said. “How can we tell the investors of the world who are interested in Pakistan that there is a place that’s very unstable next to us, but don’t worry, that doesn’t affect the region?”When pressed on whether Pakistan could do more to pressure the Taliban to accept a negotiated settlement, Yusef said Pakistani officials can only do so much.“When the troops withdraw, the leverage decreases. When the Taliban make gains on the battlefield, logically, the leverage decreases,” he said.U.S. officials have long implored Pakistan to do more to influence the Taliban, going as far as to suspend security assistance in 2018.Talks stepped upTalks between U.S. and Pakistani officials, though, have increased in recent months. Many of those conversations have focused on Afghanistan, with both countries expressing concern about the country’s trajectory.General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned last month that the Taliban appeared to have seized “strategic momentum” as their fighters gained control of about half of Afghanistan’s district centers.Pentagon Admits Taliban Control Half of Afghan District CentersTop US general says Afghan forces purposely ceding ground to protect major population centersA more recent report, by the U.S. Defense Department’s inspector general, described the situation in Afghanistan as bleak and warned that the Afghan government was facing an “existential crisis” because of the gains by Taliban forces.Afghan Government Facing ‘Existential Crisis’ A report from the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction raises concerns about whether Afghan government forces can hold off the TalibanStill, U.S. officials have insisted repeatedly that a Taliban victory is not a “foregone conclusion.”Taliban Victory in Afghanistan ‘Not a Foregone Conclusion’US military’s top general praises response of Afghanistan’s security forces as US, coalition troops leave country As the U.S. withdrawal has progressed, however, officials have also warned that officials in Kabul should be wary of relying on military force.”The [Afghan] government cannot get rid of the Taliban,” U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad told VOA earlier this week. “And the Taliban cannot conquer Afghanistan and have a government … that has the support of the overwhelming majority of the Afghans.”US Envoy: Afghanistan Will Become ‘Pariah State’ if Taliban Takes Country by ForceIn an interview with VOA, Zalmay Khalilzad speaks about what responsibility Washington has for Afghanistan following troop departure and whether Taliban are already violating February agreement with USAyaz Gul contributed to this report from Islamabad. 
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Traders in Indian-administered Kashmir have accused police of forcing them to open their shops in the capital, Srinagar, to “portray normalcy” on the anniversary of the revocation of the region’s special autonomy status.Residents of the disputed region were observing a spontaneous shutdown Thursday to protest the Indian government’s decision to revoke its special status on August 5, 2019 — a move that converted the area from a full-fledged state into two union territories.Police had warned shopkeepers to refrain from observing a strike on the second anniversary of the scrapping of Indian Kashmir’s limited autonomy.A shopkeeper who identified himself as Mohammad Ashraf told VOA that he was at his home when one of his neighboring shopkeepers and a friend called him saying that police had cut the locks on his shop and opened it.Police ‘did not care’“I came running and found my shop open,” Ashraf said, while displaying the broken locks on the floor. “Policemen did not care about the safety of our goods as thieves could have easily emptied the products of the shopkeepers in their absence.”Three men in civilian clothes were seen cutting and breaking the locks in the Budshah-Chowk area of Srinagar, under the supervision of a large caravan of police. The incident was recorded in a Indian policemen guard at a closed market during a strike by separatists on the second anniversary of India’s revocation of the disputed region’s semiautonomy in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Aug. 5, 2021.Several shopkeepers who spoke to VOA said they opened their shops under the extreme pressure from police. “I would have never come, but I feared my shop, too, would be thrown open forcefully. Trust me, I have not even changed my clothes after I heard police were cutting and breaking the locks,” a shopkeeper on Court Road told VOA, wishing not to be named.Zubair Ahmad, president of the Budshah-Chowk traders association, condemned the incident. He said he spoke to the officer in charge at the scene, but instead of apologizing, the officer began to threaten shopkeepers with arrest under the Public Safety Act — a draconian law that allows police in Kashmir to book anyone for two years without a court hearing.Who can help?“Had this incident been a normal case, we would have approached police, but in this case police themselves opened our shops illegally, like thieves. I wonder: to whom shall we approach?” he asked.Ahmad said shopkeepers are worried about their safety and wonder who will guard them in case of a militant attack. “Police did their work and left,” he said, “but I have a question to everyone, and that is: Who will guarantee our safety in case a militant comes and attacks us?”Kashmiri shopkeeper Ghulam Mohideen shows locks of his shop that he said were broken by police in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Aug 5, 2021.VOA contacted Senior Superintendent of Srinagar Police Sandeep Choudhary for comment but he disconnected the call.Senior Police Officer Tanushree of east Srinagar city, who uses one name, said in an interview with local magazine The Kashmir Walla that the government would not support any strike. “We want everything to be normal. As it is today, it should be [like that] tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow,” she said.”It is a policy now that hartal [a strike] would not be supported. All people should go toward normalcy … whether it is August 5, 13 July or other anniversaries. … Everything is normal now. We also want Kashmir to be normal now,” she added.Call for dialogueMembers of the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Deceleration, an amalgam of pro-India political parties that vow to fight for the revival of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status, continued to protest the police action.Mehbooba Mufti, a former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, called for India and Pakistan to enter into a dialogue to resolve the long-standing question of sovereignty over Kashmir.“This day when the [ruling] BJP [party] is celebrating the annulment of Article 370 across India, people of Kashmir are mourning,” she said in reference to the revocation of Indian-administered Kashmir’s special status.”The BJP destroyed Jammu and Kashmir through its erring policies. In 2019, our rights were snatched by the BJP government, and we will take those rights back,” Mufti said. “Shopkeepers were threatened with losing their lease deeds in case they don’t open up shops. The auto drivers were asked to ply the roads. We have to resist this oppression.”Rallies, firecrackersMeanwhile, the Union Territory wing of the BJP celebrated the abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status by setting off firecrackers and conducting rallies at locations in the Kashmir Valley. Members also distributed sweets.The Indian government has said scrapping Kashmir’s autonomy was necessary to spur development in the region and end a three-decade armed rebellion by Muslim separatist groups that has killed thousands. But the move is deeply unpopular in India’s only majority Muslim region.
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The U.S. has begun granting special immigrant visas to thousands of Afghans whose work for the U.S. military has made them vulnerable to attacks by the Taliban as the militants rapidly extend their control over the country.  VOA’s Mahdy Mehraeen spoke with one woman who left Afghanistan as part of a previous stage of the SIV program.Camera: Kevin Nha 
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Russia begins mass military exercises with its Central Asian allies Tajikistan and Uzbekistan near the Tajik border with Afghanistan this week.  The maneuvers come against the backdrop of a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan – and rapid territorial gains by its adversaries in the Afghan Taliban. For VOA from Moscow, Charles Maynes reports.  Camera: Ricardo Marquina-Montanana, Producer: Marcus Harton
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Angry villagers in the Indian capital held a protest Thursday outside a crematorium where they say a 9-year-old girl was raped and killed earlier this week.The protesters, sitting on a makeshift stage, held placards demanding justice for the girl, who lived nearby. The case has revived outrage over the number of gruesome sexual crimes against women in India as well the treatment of those on the lowest rung of the country’s rigid caste system, from which the girl hailed.Four men suspected in the crime, all of them workers at the crematorium, have been arrested but have yet to be charged, said police officer Ingit Pratap Singh.Police said the girl told her mother on Sunday that she was going to get water at a tap at the crematorium in southwest New Delhi. About 30 minutes later, police said, the crematorium’s priest called the mother, who was told that her daughter had been electrocuted.The mother was shown her daughter’s body, which the suspects then cremated without calling authorities, police said.The mother said she saw her daughter’s body on the floor of the crematorium with bruises all over. She said the priest and three other men at the crematorium told her not to call the police and threatened her.The mother cannot be named due to Indian law that prohibits releasing information that could identify the victims of sexual crimes.Villagers said some of the girl’s remains were saved from the crematorium.Singh said the extent of the cremation meant a postmortem examination was unable to establish whether the girl was raped or how she was killed.“The cause of death is inconclusive,” he said.Police said forensic experts were testing her clothing for bodily fluids or other evidence.The suspects are in police custody but under Indian law can’t be formally charged until the police investigation is complete.Rape and sexual violence have been under the spotlight in India since the 2012 gang rape and killing of a 23-year-old student on a New Delhi bus. The attack sparked massive protests and inspired lawmakers to order the creation of fast-track courts dedicated to rape cases and stiffen penalties for those convicted of the crime.Four men sentenced to death for the 2012 attack were later hanged.Nevertheless, such crimes persist, and according to government data a woman is raped every 15 minutes in India.Rights organizations say that woman who are on the lowest level of India’s unforgiving Hindu caste hierarchy — known as Dalits — are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence and other attacks.They say men from dominant castes often use sexual violence as a weapon to reinforce repressive hierarchies. They say police frequently fail to investigate such crimes and survivors and the families of victims struggle to get justice.Tina Verma, an activist who was among the 200 protesters gathered Thursday outside the crematorium, said she frequently used to see the girl begging outside a Sufi Muslim shrine just across from the cremation ground.“I shudder at the thought of what was done to her,” said Verma, who has been on a hunger strike for two days to demand justice for the girl. “This is a barbaric crime and must be dealt with swiftly.” 
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When thousands gathered in a former Taliban stronghold in Pakistan’s South Waziristan region to denounce the militants’ actions in Afghanistan, the mass rally attracted little attention among Pakistani news networks.Journalists and rights associations say the lack of coverage of last month’s rally is a result of a long-running government campaign to deprive the organizing group of attention, and a sign of the government pressures Pakistani media endure.The group behind the rally — a broad-based civil rights movement known as Pashtun Tahafuz (protection) Movement (PTM) — is popular among young ethnic Pashtuns in Pakistan’s northwest, where for years people have borne the brunt of the Taliban’s battle with the Pakistani military.The group’s leaders are highly critical of the Taliban as well as the military’s leadership, saying their communities have suffered from state-sponsored terrorism because of Islamabad’s longtime ties to the Taliban.Pakistan’s military rejects such allegations and points to thousands of its soldiers who have died fighting the militants over the last decade.Several senior Pakistani officials have accused PTM of being a foreign-funded political movement with connections to Afghan and Indian intelligence services. And a PTM leader is currently in prison on conspiracy charges.  But the group, which calls itself a non-violent movement, denies accusations it receives foreign funding.Grass-roots opposition to the TalibanPTM leader Manzoor Pashteen said that Pashtuns would not support the war on their land, apparently referring to the Pashtun regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan which straddle their shared border.“War can’t resolve the Afghan issue. Only a democratic approach and respect to peoples’ vote can resolve the Afghan issue,” Manzoor Pashteen told last month’s rally near the Afghan border at Makeen, a major town in the South Waziristan.But outside of social media and a few local journalists who post content on YouTube, no mention of PTM’s pro-peace narrative was made in Pakistan’s bigger news outlets.The gap in coverage was noticed by some politicians and activists on social media. Farhatullah Babar, a retired senator and former spokesperson for Pakistan’s president, wrote, “Those who say there is no censorship and media in Pakistan is freer than UK’s should watch videos of PTM Jalsa in Makeen South Waziristan today. Then search for a line about it in mainstream media.”Those who say there’s no censorship & media in Pakistan is freer than UK’s should watch videos of PTM jalsa in Makin South Waziristan today. Then search for a line about it in mainstream media. If in vain then recall Judge Isa words “nebulous tactics” & ponder over it. Will help— Farhatullah Babar (@FarhatullahB) July 27, 2021A former head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Afrasiab Khattak, also expressed his frustration, tweeting: “A demonstration of solidarity with Afghan people/peace/republic. No coverage in Pak media.A huge gathering of Pashtuns in Makeen, South waziristan, today organised by PTM. The gathering opposed the undeclared war against Afghanistan from Pakistani side killing innocent people. A demonstration of solidarity with Afghan people/peace/republic. No coverage in Pak media. pic.twitter.com/L3iHgfWT3i— Afrasiab Khattak (@a_siab) July 27, 2021Despite the major media blackout, the PTM group gets its message out through social media and YouTube, keeping it a potent political force that is now more directly opposing the Taliban’s violence in Afghanistan.Pakistan’s government has announced no official policy censoring PTM, but Freedom House and other media monitors reported that many outlets stopped reporting on the group in April 2019, when a Pakistani military spokesperson announced that PTM’s grievances would no longer be tolerated and accused the group of receiving funds from Afghan and Indian intelligence agencies.In its 2021 report, Freedom House criticized Pakistan, saying “the state continued to enforce a media blackout on the PTM and its members during the year.”Two Pakistani journalists who spoke with VOA said reporters try to cover events and PTM rallies in their region but doing so comes with risks.Allah Khan, a journalist in Wanna, South Waziristan, streams PTM events, political demonstrations and human interest stories on his Zhagh News (Voice News) YouTube and Facebook accounts.“We journalists send stories on PTM to mainstream news outlets but they don’t publish it,” he told VOA.  “I was arrested and put in jail for 12 days for streaming the PTM protest before this last Ramadan [April 2021].”Matiullah Jan, an Islamabad-based journalist and Vlogger, told VOA, “You can see here that Taliban and their spokesmen are interviewed here in the media but when you talk of PTM, even the social media platforms are under pressure (for covering it).”Jan said that in areas like Waziristan, people can stream events but they “face threats and pressures from local authorities and police.”He added, “It explains the contradiction in state policy—people who want peace here and in Afghanistan, they are not given coverage in media.”Shahzada Zulfiqar, the head of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, told VOA Deewa that media in Pakistan face many restrictions.“Media houses surrendered (to pressures). PEMRA, a government media regulatory body, is being used as a tool to put lock to people’s mouths,” he said, adding that the country has a poor ranking on press freedom watch lists.Pakistan ranks 145 out of 180 countries, where 1 is the freest, on the press freedom index compiled by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF).In its 2021 report, RSF says the Pakistani media have become a priority target for the country’s “deep state,” a reference to the military and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).Dangerous territoryNorth and South Waziristan border Afghanistan’s Khost and Paktika provinces, which after the September 2001 terror attacks on the U.S. became an international terrorism hub. After 20 years of war and drone strikes, international fighters still operate in the mountainous region.Reporting in the area remains an enormous challenge. Journalists who are not residents of Waziristan are officially not allowed to enter Waziristan unless they are embedded with Pakistani security agencies. To reach the main town of Makeen in South Waziristan from Dabara, a town some 70 kilometers away, locals must pass through about a dozen army check posts.The venue for last month’s rally was once a no-go area for residents themselves. The Taliban and their allies had converted schools and cement-block buildings into bases for their operations.After a long campaign by Pakistan’s military, the area now is under its control. But the PTM has accused it of gross human rights violations — allegations the army rejects. 
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