Taliban
Rights group: Taliban unlawfully killed 13 ethnic Hazaras
Taliban forces unlawfully killed 13 ethnic Hazaras, most of them Afghan soldiers who had surrendered to the insurgents, a prominent rights group said Tuesday.
The killings took place in the village of Kahor in Daykundi province in central Afghanistan on Aug. 30, according to an investigation by Amnesty International. Eleven of the victims were members of the Afghan national security forces and two were civilians, among them a 17-year-old girl.
The reported killings took place about two weeks after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in a blitz campaign, culminating in their takeover of Kabul. At the time, Taliban leaders sought to reassure Afghans that they had changed from their previous harsh rule of the country in the late 1990s.
Read:Taliban raid suspected IS hideout after bombing in capital
The world has been watching whether the Taliban would live up to their initial promises of tolerance and inclusiveness toward women and ethnic minorities, among them the Shiite Hazaras. However, Taliban actions so far, such as renewed restrictions on women and the appointment of an all-male government, have been met with dismay by the international community.
Hazaras make up around 9% of Afghanistan’s 36 million people. They are often targeted because they are Shiite Muslims in a Sunni-majority country.
Amnesty's secretary general, Agnes Callamard, said that “these cold-blooded executions (of the Hazaras) are further proof that the Taliban are committing the same horrific abuses they were notorious for during their previous rule of Afghanistan."
Taliban spokespersons Zabihullah Mujahid and Bilal Karimi did not respond to calls from The Associated Press seeking comment.
The rights group said Sadiqullah Abed, the Taliban-appointed chief of police for Daykundi, denied any killings had happened and only said that a member of the Taliban had been wounded in an attack in the province.
The Taliban took control of Daykundi province on Aug. 14, according to the Amnesty report, and an estimated 34 former soldiers sought safety in Khidir district. The soldiers, who had government military equipment and weaponry with them, agreed to surrender to the Taliban.
Mohammad Azim Sedaqat, who led the group’s surrender, arranged to decommission the weapons in the presence of Taliban members.
Read:Taliban issue no-shave order to barbers in Afghan province
On Aug. 30, an estimated 300 Taliban fighters arrived in a convoy close to Dahani Qul village, where the security forces members were staying, some with family members, according to Amnesty’s report. As the security forces attempted to leave the area with their families, Taliban fighters caught up with them and opened fire on the crowd, killing a 17-year-old girl named Masuma. One soldier fired back, killing a Taliban fighter and wounding another.
The Taliban continued to shoot as the families fled, killing two soldiers, according to the report. After nine security forces surrendered, the Taliban took them to a nearby river basin and killed them, according to the rights group.
Amnesty said it verified photographs and video evidence taken in the aftermath of the killings.
Taliban raid suspected IS hideout after bombing in capital
Taliban forces raided an Islamic State affiliate's hideout in the Afghan capital and killed several insurgents, hours after a deadly bombing outside a mosque in Kabul, the Taliban said Monday.
Sunday's bombing outside the Eid Gah mosque killed five civilians, and while no claim of responsibility was made, suspicion quickly fell on the Islamic State group, which has ramped up attacks against its Taliban enemy since their takeover of Kabul in mid-August.
Read:Life in a madrasa as Afghanistan enters new era
Taliban officials had gathered at the mosque to mourn the passing of Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid's mother.
In a statement Monday, Mujahid said Taliban forces raided an Islamic State operations center in the northern Kabul neighborhood of Khair Khana. It did not say how many IS insurgents killed or whether any Taliban were injured in the operation.
Sunday's bombing was the deadliest attack since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan with the chaotic departure of the last U.S. troops on Aug. 31.
The Islamic State group had claimed responsibility for the horrific bombing on Aug. 26 that killed more than 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. military personnel outside the Kabul airport, where thousands of people were trying to reach the airport to escape Taliban rule.
Read: Taliban issue no-shave order to barbers in Afghan province
The Islamic State reemerged in Afghanistan in 2020 after being weakened by a heavy U.S. bombing campaign directed against them in the eastern part of the country in 2019. They were blamed for a horrific attack in 2020 on a maternity hospital that killed 24 people, including newborn babies. Earlier this year, they were held responsible for a brutal attack on a school in Afghanistan's mostly Shiite neighborhood of Dasht-e-Barchi that killed more than 80 students.
Sunday's bombing underscores the growing challenges for the Taliban. The group carried out frequent attacks during their 20-year insurgency, but are now faced with trying to contain rival militants who have used the same methods. And they are doing so during a national economic meltdown without the massive foreign aid given to U.S.-backed government they toppled.
Life in a madrasa as Afghanistan enters new era
In a school in a remote corner of the Afghan capital, a cacophony of children’s voices recite Islam’s holiest book.
Sunshine streams through the windows of the Khatamul Anbiya madrasa, where a dozen young boys sit in a circle under the tutelage of their teacher, Ismatullah Mudaqiq.
The students are awake by 4:30 a.m. and start the day with prayers. They spend class time memorizing the Quran, chanting verses until the words are ingrained. At any moment, Mudaqiq might test them by asking that a verse be recited from memory.
Attention is turning to the future of education in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, with calls among urban educated Afghans and the international community for equal access to education for girls and women. The madrasas -- Islamic religious schools for elementary and higher learning, attended only by boys -- represent another segment of Afghan society, poorer and more conservative.
Read: Asian TT Championships: Bangladesh men beat Afghanistan, women Nepal
And they too are uncertain what the future will hold under the Taliban.
Taliban issue no-shave order to barbers in Afghan province
The Taliban banned barbershops in a southern Afghanistan province from shaving or trimming beards, claiming their edict is in line with Shariah, or Islamic, law.
The order in Helmand province was issued Monday by the provincial Taliban government's vice and virtue department to barbers in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital.
Read: World should recognise us as leaders of Afghanistan: Taliban
“Since I have heard (about the ban on trimming beards) I am heart broken," said Bilal Ahmad, a Lashkar Gah resident. "This is the city and everyone follows a way of living, so they have to be left alone to do whatever they want.”
During their previous rule of Afghanistan, the Taliban adhered to a harsh interpretation of Islam. Since overrunning Kabul on Aug. 15 and again taking control of the country, the world has been watching to see whether they will re-create their strict governance of the late 1990s.
Some indication came on Saturday, when Taliban fighters killed four alleged kidnappers and later hung their bodies in the public squares of the western city of Herat.
Read: Taliban hang body in public; signal return to past tactics
"If anyone violates the rule (they) will be punished and no one has a right to complain,” said the order issued to the barbers. It wasn't immediately clear what penalties the barbers could face if they don't adhere to the no shaving or trimming rule.
During the Taliban’s previous rule, the conservative Islamists demanded that men grow beards. Since being ousted from power following the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, many men have opted for no or cleanly trimmed beards.
Barbershop owner Jalaluddin, who like many Afghans goes by only one name, said he hoped the Taliban would reconsider their demands.
Read: Taliban replace ministry for women with ‘virtue’ authorities
“I request our Taliban brothers to give freedom to people to live the way they want, if they want to trim their beard or hair," he said. "Now we have few clients coming to us, they are scared, they don’t want to trim their hair or beards, so I request them let people free, so we have our business and people can freely come to us.”
Another barbershop owner, Sher Afzal, also said the decree hurts the bottom line. “If someone comes for a haircut, they will come back to us after 40 to 45 days, so it is affecting our business like any other businesses,” he said.
Taliban, ex-Afghan government dispute ends with no UN speech
The dispute between Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers and its former government over who should speak at the United Nations’ annual meeting of world leaders finally has an answer: no one.
The Taliban had challenged the credentials of the ambassador from Afghanistan’s former government, and asked to represent the country at this year’s General Assembly summit, which began Sept. 21 and ends Monday.
But all challenges to credentials must be heard by the assembly’s credentials committee, which generally meets in November and did not convene earlier to hear the challenge.
Read: World should recognise us as leaders of Afghanistan: Taliban
U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said that as of Friday, Afghanistan’s currently recognized U.N. ambassador, Ghulam Isaczai, was listed as speaking for the country.
But, Dujarric told The Associated Press on Monday morning: “We were notified Saturday by the Afghan Mission that they would no longer be speaking.”
Afghanistan was scheduled to deliver the final address of the gathering of presidents, prime ministers, monarchs and ministers on Monday afternoon. But it was not on the list of speakers issued Monday morning.
A phone message seeking comment was left with Afghanistan’s U.N. mission.
The Taliban overran most of Afghanistan last month as U.S. and NATO forces were in the final stages of their chaotic withdrawal from the country after 20 years and argue that they are now in charge and have the right to represent the country at the United Nations. Isaczai represents former president Ashraf Ghani’s government.
Read:US, Pakistan face each other again on Afghanistan threats
In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the Taliban’s newly appointed foreign minister, Ameer Khan Muttaqi, said Ghani was “ousted” as of Aug. 15 and that countries across the world “no longer recognize him as president.”
Therefore, Muttaqi said, Isaczai no longer represents Afghanistan and the Taliban was nominating a new U.N. permanent representative, Mohammad Suhail Shaheen. He was a spokesperson for the Taliban during peace negotiations in Qatar.
“We have all the requirements needed for recognition of a government,” Shaheen told the AP last Wednesday. “So we hope the U.N., as a neutral world body, recognize the current government of Afghanistan.”
When the Taliban last ruled from 1996 to 2001, the U.N. refused to recognize their government and instead gave Afghanistan’s seat to the previous, warlord-dominated government of President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was killed by a suicide bomber in 2011. It was Rabbani’s government that brought Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of 9/11, to Afghanistan from Sudan in 1996.
Read: Afghanistan’s Taliban want to address General Assembly: UN
The Taliban have said they want international recognition and financial help to rebuild the war-battered country. But the makeup of the new Taliban government poses a dilemma for the United Nations. Several of the interim ministers — including Muttaqi — are on the U.N.’s so-called blacklist of international terrorists and funders of terrorism.
When the credentials committee members do meet, they could use Taliban recognition as leverage to press for a more inclusive government that guarantees human rights, especially for girls who were barred from going to school during their previous rule, and women who weren’t able to work.
The committee’s members are the United States, Russia, China, Bahama, Bhutan, Chile, Namibia, Sierra Leone and Sweden.
World should recognise us as leaders of Afghanistan: Taliban
A victory over terrorism is impossible without the outside world's recognition of the Taliban authority in Afghanistan, Abdul Salam Hanafi, deputy head of the temporary government formed by the group, said Monday.
"If the world wants the Taliban to successfully combat drug [trafficking] and terrorism, it should recognise the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," he told Afghanistan's Aamaj News agency. "The Taliban seeks to establish diplomatic ties with the US and interact with the whole world."
The Taliban launched a large-scale operation to take control of Afghanistan after the US declared its troop pullout earlier this year.
READ: Taliban hang body in public; signal return to past tactics
On August 15, Afghanistan's then-president Ashraf Ghani fled the country, while the Taliban swept into Kabul without encountering any resistance.
In early September, the Taliban declared that the entire territory of the country was under their control, and formed an interim government.
READ: Russia says it’s in sync with US, China, Pakistan on Taliban
US, Pakistan face each other again on Afghanistan threats
The Taliban’s takeover of Kabul has deepened the mutual distrust between the U.S. and Pakistan, putative allies who have tangled over Afghanistan. But both sides still need each other.
As the Biden administration looks for new ways to stop terrorist threats in Afghanistan, it probably will look again to Pakistan, which remains critical to U.S. intelligence and national security because of its proximity to Afghanistan and connections to the Taliban leaders now in charge.
Over two decades of war, American officials accused Pakistan of playing a double game by promising to fight terrorism and cooperate with Washington while cultivating the Taliban and other extremist groups that attacked U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Islamabad pointed to what it saw as failed promises of a supportive government in Kabul after the U.S. drove the Taliban from power after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as extremist groups took refuge in eastern Afghanistan and launched deadly attacks throughout Pakistan.
But the U.S. wants Pakistani cooperation in counterterrorism efforts and could seek permission to fly surveillance flights into Afghanistan or other intelligence cooperation. Pakistan wants U.S. military aid and good relations with Washington, even as its leaders openly celebrate the Taliban’s rise to power.
Read:Russia says it’s in sync with US, China, Pakistan on Taliban
“Over the last 20 years, Pakistan has been vital for various logistics purposes for the U.S. military. What’s really been troubling is that, unfortunately, there hasn’t been a lot of trust,” said U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat who is on the House Intelligence Committee. “I think the question is whether we can get over that history to arrive at a new understanding.”
Pakistan’s prime minister, in remarks Friday to the U.N. General Assembly, made clear there is a long way to go. Imran Khan tried to portray his country as the victim of American ungratefulness for its assistance in Afghanistan over the years. Instead of a mere “word of appreciation,” Pakistan has received blame, Khan said.
Former diplomats and intelligence officers from both countries say the possibilities for cooperation are severely limited by the events of the past two decades and Pakistan’s enduring competition with India.
The previous Afghan government, which was strongly backed by India, routinely accused Pakistan of harboring the Taliban. The new Taliban government includes officials that American officials have long believed are linked to Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence.
Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States, said he understood “the temptation of officials in both countries to try and take advantage of the situation” and find common ground. But Haqqani said he expected Pakistan to give “all possible cooperation to the Taliban.”
“This has been a moment Pakistan has been waiting for 20 years,” said Haqqani, now at the Hudson Institute think tank. “They now feel that they have a satellite state.”
U.S. officials are trying to quickly build what President Joe Biden calls an “over the horizon” capacity to monitor and stop terrorist threats.
Without a partner country bordering Afghanistan, the U.S. has to fly surveillance drones long distances, limiting the time they can be used to watch over targets. The U.S. also lost most of its network of informants and intelligence partners in the now-deposed Afghan government, making it critical to find common ground with other governments that have more resources in the country.
Read: Don't isolate the Taliban, Pakistan urges
Pakistan could be helpful in that effort by allowing “overflight” rights for American spy planes from the Persian Gulf or permitting the U.S. to base surveillance or counterterrorism teams along its border with Afghanistan. There are few other options among Afghanistan’s neighbors. Iran is a U.S. adversary and Central Asian countries north of Afghanistan all face varying degrees of Russian influence.
There are no known agreements so far.
CIA Director William Burns visited Islamabad this month to meet with Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, Pakistan’s army chief, and Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed, who leads the ISI, according to a Pakistani government statement. Burns and Hameed have separately visited Kabul in recent weeks to meet with Taliban leaders. The CIA declined to comment on the visits.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi noted this past week that Islamabad had cooperated with U.S. requests to facilitate peace talks before the Taliban takeover and that it had agreed to U.S. military requests throughout the war.
“We have often been criticized for not doing enough,” Qureshi told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “But we’ve not been appreciated enough for having done what was done.”
Qureshi would not directly answer whether Pakistan would allow the basing of surveillance equipment or overflight of drones.
“They don’t have to be physically there to share intelligence,” he said of the U.S. “There are smarter ways of doing it.”
The CIA and ISI have a long history in Afghanistan, dating to their shared goal of arming bands of mujahedeen — “freedom fighters” — against the Soviet Union’s occupation in the 1980s. The CIA sent weapons and money into Afghanistan through Pakistan.
Read: Afghanistan’s Taliban want to address General Assembly: UN
Those fighters included Osama bin Laden. Others would become leaders of the Taliban, which emerged victorious from a civil war in 1996 and gained control of most of the country. The Taliban gave refuge to bin Laden and other leaders of al-Qaida, which launched deadly attacks on Americans abroad in 1998 and then struck the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001.
After 9/11, the U.S. immediately sought Pakistan’s cooperation in its fight against al-Qaida and other terrorist groups. Declassified cables published by George Washington University’s National Security Archive show officials in President George W. Bush’s administration made several demands of Pakistan, from intercepting arms shipments heading to al-Qaida to providing the U.S. with intelligence and permission to fly military and intelligence planes over its territory.
The CIA would carry out hundreds of drone strikes launched from Pakistan targeting al-Qaida leaders and others alleged to have ties to terrorist groups. Hundreds of civilians died in the strikes, according to figures kept by outside observers, leading to widespread protests and public anger in Pakistan.
Pakistan continued to be accused of harboring the Taliban after the U.S.-backed coalition drove the group from power in Kabul. And bin Laden was killed in 2011 by U.S. special forces in a secret raid on a compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, home to the country’s military academy. The bin Laden operation led many in the U.S. to question whether Pakistan had harbored bin Laden and angered Pakistanis who felt the raid violated their sovereignty.
For years, CIA officials tried to confront their Pakistani counterparts after collecting more proof of Pakistani intelligence officers helping the Taliban move money and fighters into a then-growing insurgency in neighboring Afghanistan, said Douglas London, who oversaw the CIA’s counterterrorism operations in South Asia until 2018.
“They would say, ‘You just come to my office, tell me where the location is,’” he said. “They would just usually pay lip service to us and say they couldn’t confirm the intel.”
London, author of the forthcoming book “The Recruiter,” said he expected American intelligence would consider limited partnerships with Pakistan on mutual enemies such as al-Qaeda or Islamic State-Khorasan, which took responsibility for the deadly suicide attack outside the Kabul airport last month during the final days of the U.S. evacuation.
The risk, London said, is at times “your partner is as much of a threat to you as the enemy who you’re pursuing.”
Taliban hang body in public; signal return to past tactics
The Taliban hanged a dead body from a crane parked in a city square in Afghanistan on Saturday in a gruesome display that signaled the hard-line movement’s return to some of its brutal tactics of the past.
Taliban officials initially brought four bodies to the central square in the western city of Herat, then moved three of them to other parts of the city for public display, said Wazir Ahmad Seddiqi, who runs a pharmacy on the edge of the square.
Taliban officials announced that the four were caught taking part in a kidnapping earlier Saturday and were killed by police, Seddiqi said. Ziaulhaq Jalali, a Taliban-appointed district police chief in Herat, said later that Taliban members rescued a father and son who had been abducted by four kidnappers after an exchange of gunfire. He said a Taliban fighter and a civilian were wounded by the kidnappers, and that the kidnappers were killed in crossfire.
Read: Islamic State militants claim attacks on Taliban
An Associated Press video showed crowds gathering around the crane and peering up at the body as some men chanted.
“The aim of this action is to alert all criminals that they are not safe,” a Taliban commander who did not identify himself told the AP in an on-camera interview conducted in the square.
Since the Taliban overran Kabul on Aug. 15 and seized control of the country, Afghans and the world have been watching to see whether they will re-create their harsh rule of the late 1990s, which included public stonings and limb amputations of alleged criminals, some of which took place in front of large crowds at a stadium.
After one of the Taliban’s founders said in an interview with The Associated Press this past week that the hard-line movement would once again carry out executions and amputations of hands, the U.S. State Department said such acts “would constitute clear gross abuses of human rights.”
Spokesman Ned Price told reporters Friday at his briefing that the United States would “stand firm with the international community to hold perpetrators of these — of any such abuses — accountable.”
Read: Taliban replace ministry for women with ‘virtue’ authorities
The Taliban’s leaders remain entrenched in a deeply conservative, hard-line worldview, even if they are embracing technological changes, such as video and mobile phones.
“Everyone criticized us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Mullah Nooruddin Turabi said in the AP interview. “No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Quran.”
Also Saturday, a roadside bomb hit a Taliban car in the capital of eastern Nangarhar province, wounding at least one person, a Taliban official said. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing. The Islamic State group affiliate, which is headquartered in eastern Afghanistan, has said it was behind similar attacks in Jalalabad last week that killed 12 people.
The person wounded in the attack is a municipal worker, Taliban spokesperson Mohammad Hanif said.
Russia says it’s in sync with US, China, Pakistan on Taliban
Russia, China, Pakistan and the United States are working together to ensure that Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers keep their promises, especially to form a genuinely representative government and prevent extremism from spreading, Russia’s foreign minister said Saturday.
Sergey Lavrov said the four countries are in ongoing contact. He said representatives from Russia, China and Pakistan recently traveled to Qatar and then to Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, to engage with both the Taliban and representatives of “secular authorities” — former president Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, who headed the ousted government’s negotiating council with the Taliban.
Lavrov said the interim government announced by the Taliban does not reflect “the whole gamut of Afghan society — ethno-religious and political forces — so we are engaging in contacts. They are ongoing.”
The Taliban have promised an inclusive government, a more moderate form of Islamic rule than when they last ruled the country from 1996 to 2001 including respecting women’s rights, providing stability after 20 years of war, fighting terrorism and extremism and stopping militants from using their territory to launch attacks. But recent moves suggest they may be returning to more repressive policies, particularly toward women and girls.
Read: Don't isolate the Taliban, Pakistan urges
“What’s most important ... is to ensure that the promises that they have proclaimed publicly to be kept,” Lavrov said. “And for us, that is the top priority.”
At a wide-ranging news conference and in his speech afterward at the U.N. General Assembly, Lavrov criticized the Biden administration including for its hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan.
He said the U.S. and NATO pullout “was carried out out without any consideration of the consequences ... that there are many weapons left in Afghanistan.” It remains critical, he said, that such weapons aren’t used for “destructive purposes.”
Later, in his assembly speech, Lavrov accused the United States and its Western allies of “persistent attempts to diminish the U.N.’s role in resolving the key problems of today or to sideline it or to make it a malleable tool for promoting someone’s selfish interests.”
As examples, Lavrov said Germany and France recently announced the creation of an Alliance For Multilateralism “even though what kind of structure could be more multilateral than the United Nations?”
Read: Afghanistan’s Taliban want to address General Assembly: UN
The United States is also sidestepping the U.N., he said, pointing to the recent U.S. announcement of a “Summit for Democracy” despite, Lavrov said, U.S. President Joe Biden’s pledge this week “that the U.S. is not seeking a world divided into opposing blocs.”
“It goes without saying that Washington is going to choose the participants by itself, thus hijacking the right to decide to what degree a country meets the standards of democracy,” Lavrov said. “Essentially, this initiative is quite in the spirit of a Cold War, as it declares a new ideological crusade against all dissenters.”
Lavrov was asked for Russia’s reaction to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ warning last week that the world could be plunged into a new Cold War potentially more dangerous than the lengthy one between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union unless the United States and China repair their “totally dysfunctional” relationship.
He replied: “Of course, we see the tension tightening in relations between China and the United States.” He expressed “great concern” at the rising tensions, pointing to the Biden administration’s recently proclaimed Indo-Pacific strategy — whose objectives, he said, include “deterring China’s development,” disputes over the South China Sea, and the recent U.S.-Britain deal to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia.
More broadly, Lavrov said, relations among the big powers must be “respectful.” He emphasized that Russia was “keen to ensure that never will these relations morph into nuclear war.”
Read: Islamic State militants claim attacks on Taliban
The major powers have a “great responsibility,” he said, to negotiate and make compromises on the critical issues facing the world and that Russia is now “revitalizing” its proposal for a summit of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — Russia, China, U.S., UK and France. He said discussions are under way on specific questions for an agenda, and “we may perhaps begin with an online meeting.”
On other global issues, the United States has been pressing for Iran to resume nuclear negotiations, but Lavrov said it was then-President Donald Trump who pulled the U.S. out of the nuclear agreement, so to declare that “time is running out, anybody could say this — but not Washington.”
In his first speech to the General Assembly earlier this week, new Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi criticized the United States but appeared not to rule out a return to the negotiating table for the nuclear accord, saying Iran considers talks useful if their ultimate outcome is the lifting of all sanctions. Still, he stated: “We don’t trust the promises made by the U.S. government.”
Lavrov said Russia would like to see the resumption of negotiations to restore the original agreement as soon as possible. “We have a very serious hope -- and I think this is well-founded optimism -- that we will achieve results,” he said, because “this is something everybody wants.”
Top Pakistan diplomat details Taliban plan
Be realistic. Show patience. Engage. And above all, don’t isolate. Those are the pillars of an approach emerging in Pakistan to deal with the fledgling government that is suddenly running the country next door once again — Afghanistan’s resurgent, often-volatile Taliban.
Pakistan’s government is proposing that the international community develop a road map that leads to diplomatic recognition of the Taliban — with incentives if they fulfill its requirements — and then sit down face to face and talk it out with the militia’s leaders.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi outlined the idea Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly’s meeting of world leaders.
“If they live up to those expectations, they would make it easier for themselves, they will get acceptability, which is required for recognition,” Qureshi told the AP. “At the same time, the international community has to realize: What’s the alternative? What are the options? This is the reality, and can they turn away from this reality?”
He said Pakistan “is in sync with the international community” in wanting to see a peaceful, stable Afghanistan with no space for terrorist elements to increase their foothold, and for the Taliban to ensure “that Afghan soil is never used again against any country.”
“But we are saying, be more realistic in your approach,” Qureshi said. “Try an innovative way of engaging with them. The way that they were being dealt with has not worked.”
Read: Saarc FMs' meet on UN assembly sidelines called off over Afghanistan
Expectations from the Taliban leadership could include an inclusive government and assurances for human rights, especially for women and girls, Qureshi said. In turn, he said, the Afghan government might be motivated by receiving development, economic and reconstruction aid to help recover from decades of war.
He urged the United States, the International Monetary Fund and other countries that have frozen Afghan government funds to immediately release the money so it can be used “for promoting normalcy in Afghanistan.” And he pledged that Pakistan is ready to play a “constructive, positive” role in opening communications channels with the Taliban because it, too, benefits from peace and stability.
This is the second time that the Taliban, who adhere to a strict version of Islam, have ruled Afghanistan. The first time, from 1996 to 2001, ended when they were ousted by a U.S.-led coalition after the 9/11 attacks, which were directed by Osama bin Laden from Afghanistan.
During that rule, Taliban leaders and police barred girls from school and prohibited women from working outside the home or leaving it without a male escort. After they were overthrown, Afghan women still faced challenges in the male-dominated society but increasingly stepped into powerful positions in government and numerous fields.
But when the U.S. withdrew its military from Afghanistan last month, the government collapsed and a new generation of the Taliban resurged, taking over almost immediately. In the weeks since, many countries have expressed disappointment that the Taliban’s interim government is not inclusive as its spokesman had promised.
While the new government has allowed young girls to attend school, it has not yet allowed older girls to return to secondary school, and most women to return to work despite a promise in April that women “can serve their society in the education, business, health and social fields while maintaining correct Islamic hijab.”
Pakistan, which shares a long border with Afghanistan, has a long and sometimes conflicted relationship with its neighbor that includes attempts to prevent terrorism there and, some say, also encouraging it. The Islamabad government has a fundamental vested interest in ensuring that whatever the new Afghanistan offers, it is not a threat to Pakistan.
Read: Afghanistan’s Taliban want to address General Assembly: UN
That, Qureshi says, requires a steady and calibrated approach.
“It has to be a realistic assessment, a pragmatic view on both sides, and that will set the tone for recognition eventually,” the Pakistani minister said. The good news, he said: The Taliban are listening, “and they are not insensitive to what is being said by neighbors and the international community.”
How does he know they’re listening? He says the interim government, drawn mostly from Afghanistan’s dominant Pashtun ethnic group, made some additions on Tuesday. It added representatives from the country’s ethnic minorities — Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras, who are Shiite Muslims in the majority Sunni Muslim country.
“Yes, there are no women yet,” Qureshi said. “But let us let the situation evolve.”
He stressed that the Taliban must make decisions in coming days and weeks that will enhance their acceptability.
“What the international community can do, in my view, is sit together and work out a roadmap,” Qureshi said. “And if they fulfill those expectations, this is what the international community can do to help them stabilize their economy. This is the humanitarian assistance that can be provided. This is how they can help rebuild Afghanistan, reconstruction and so on and so forth.”
He added: “With this roadmap ahead, I think an international engagement can be more productive.”
On Wednesday night, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said after a meeting of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council that all five nations — the United States, China, Britain, Russia and France — want “an Afghanistan at peace, stable, where humanitarian aid can be distributed without problems or discrimination.”
He also described a hoped-for “Afghanistan where the rights of women and girls are respected, an Afghanistan that won’t be a sanctuary for terrorism, an Afghanistan where we have an inclusive government representing the different sectors of the population.”
Read: Fearful US residents in Afghanistan hiding out from Taliban
Qureshi said there are different forums where the international community can work out the best way to approach the situation. In the meantime, he asserted, things seem to be stabilizing. Less than six weeks after the Taliban seized power on Aug. 15, he said, Pakistan has received information that the law-and-order situation has improved, fighting has stopped and many internally displaced Afghans are going home.
“That’s a positive sign,” Qureshi said.
He said Pakistan hasn’t seen a new influx of Afghan refugees — a sensitive issue for Pakistanis, who are highly motivated to prevent it. A humanitarian crisis, a foundering economy and workers who return to jobs and school but aren’t getting salaries and don’t have money could cause Afghans to flee across the porous border into Pakistan, which has suffered economically from such arrivals over decades of conflict.
Qureshi prescribed patience and realism. After all, he says, every previous attempt to stabilize Afghanistan has failed, so don’t expect new efforts to produce immediate success with the Taliban. If the United States and its allies “could not convince them or eliminate them in two decades, how will you do it in the next two months or the next two years?” he wondered.
Asked whether he had a prediction of what Afghanistan might be like in six months, Qureshi turned the question back on his AP interviewer, replying: “Can you guarantee me U.S. behavior over the next six months?”