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Taliban Leaders May Have Moved to Afghanistan from Pakistan
After operating out of Pakistan for more than a decade, the leaders of Afghanistan's Taliban movement may have moved back to their homeland to try to build on this year's gains in the war and to establish a permanent presence. If confirmed, the move would be a sign of the Taliban's confidence in their fight against the U.S.-backed government in Kabul. It could also be an attempt by the militants to distance themselves from Pakistan, which is accused of supporting the movement. The Taliban's leaders have been based in Pakistani cities, including Quetta, Karachi and Peshawar, since their rule in Afghanistan was overthrown in the 2001 U.S. invasion after the 9/11 attacks. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the leadership shura, or council, relocated to Afghanistan "some months ago," although he would not say to where. One Taliban official said the shura had moved to southern Helmand province, which the insurgents consider to be part of their heartland and where most of the opium that funds their operations is produced. The official refused to be identified because of security reasons. Other Taliban sources said the justice, recruitment and religious councils had also moved to southern Afghanistan. The statements could not be independently confirmed. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's office said it had no confirmation that any such move had taken place. "No intelligence confirms that the Taliban has shifted its shura to Afghanistan," said Haroon Chakhansuri, Ghani's spokesman. "We still believe they are still operating in their safe havens outside Afghanistan." Mujahid, however, said Kabul officials were aware of the moves, prompted by battlefield gains that the insurgents believed would put them in a strong position once talks with the Afghan government aimed at ending the war were restarted. Dialogue broke down earlier this year. The insurgents have spread their footprint across Afghanistan since international combat troops scaled down in 2014. They have...
Public Education Must for Enlightened and Crime-Free Society, Concurrently with Police Reforms
While reforming police is critical for strengthening rule of law in KP, concurrently, educating public about their roles and responsibilities is also crucial to ensure a just, enlightened and crime-free society, Mr. Sahibzada Sajjad Ahmed, SP Security, Peshawar spoke during a consultative meeting of working group on police reforms in Peshawar. He added that the collective vision of the KP police leadership is driving all these reforms to turn KP police into an organization oriented for public service. The initiatives like Criminal Record Verification System (CRVS), Identity Verification System (IVS), and Vehicle Verification System (VVS) are some important developments to achieve the milestones for crime control and public facilitation. The School of Intelligence has significantly improved the intelligence gathering and spot analysis skills of KP police and has thus addressed the issues hampering counter-terrorism and crime-control roles of police. He also said that the citizens who have interacted with the police after reforms so far had found visible changes and were all-praise for the reformation. The most important community policing development in the KP police is the establishment of Dispute Resolution Councils (DRCs). DRC is a restorative justice system which has immensely reduced the burden of civil cases on police station and helped focusing on the investigation of important cases and on their core crime-control and CT roles. The meeting was a part of the project “Ulasi Police”, which is an awareness and advocacy campaign undertaken by the Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) – as part of USAID Small Grants and Ambassadors’ Fund Program – to strengthen the rule of law in KP province by promoting and disseminating the significant police reforms aimed at incorporating local communities’ policing needs and international human rights standards. The endeavor aims to tackle the trust deficit between the public and police, help KP police become an...
Islamic State Strengthening Presence in Afghanistan
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/IS) is expanding its terrorist activities and getting stronger in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region as it loses fighters and territory in the Middle East, reports Voice of America (VOA), citing Afghan officials and analysts. “As [ISIS] has found itself increasingly on the defensive in the Middle East, it seems to be looking for new areas to carve out a presence,” Michael Kugelman, an analyst at the Wilson Center, a global policy research group, told VOA. “The Afghanistan-Pakistan region, where it already has a light footprint, appears to be one of the targets.” VOA’s report comes less than a month after American Gen. John Nicholson, the top commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, warned that the Afghanistan-Pakistan region’s ISIS branch, known as the Khorasan Province (IS-KP/ISIL-K), is seeking to establish its own Caliphate on Afghan soil. Eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, which borders Pakistan, has been identified as ISIL-K’s stronghold. In Nangarhar, VOA has learned that the Islamic State has been using mosques as military centers. “IS has turned at least 60 mosques in five districts of Nangarhar into military training centers,” Abdul Zahir Haqqani, director of religious affairs in Nangarhar, told VOA, noting that “the imams have fled to Jalalabad, Nangarhar’s capital city.” VOA adds that ISIL-K in Nangarhar has also “launched multiple attacks on Afghan police checkposts and villages in recent months, it has imposed taxes on agriculture activities in areas it controls, and it has been cutting down trees in some parts of the province in a timber-smuggling operation to neighboring Pakistan.” The Sunni jihadist group is reportedly operating in the Afghan provinces of Zabul, Ghazni, Kunar, and Nuristan, reported Khaama Press (KP) earlier this year. Except for Ghazni, the provinces lie on Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan. Ghazni is located near the Pakistan border, next to Zabul. ISIL-K “is getting stronger and, in...
Learning from Modi’s Mistakes
November 8 will go down in history for two very different reasons in India and the US. The Americans elected Donald Trump to its highest office, while Indians will remember it as the day that PM Modi unleashed an unprecedented cash crunch. Under heavy criticism for not fulfilling his promise to combat corruption, PM Modi suddenly introduced a policy that appears more smoke and mirrors than substance, and at the very least ill thought out. With a simple pronouncement the Bharatya Janata Party (BJP) leader declared that all Rs500 and Rs1,000 bills — 86 per cent of the money in circulation — were not legal tender effective as of midnight. The cancelled bills must be converted to newly minted Rs2,000 notes before December 30, 2016, in regulated tranches to make it easier to track. Understandably, the populist move has created chaos in an economy where over 85 per cent of the wages and 90 per cent of transactions were cash-based. The announcement was intended as a “surgical strike” to clamp down on “black money,” or untaxed money and counterfeit currency, terrorism financing and corruption. Sadly, the intended targets are not the ones feeling the pain. In fact, responding to a batch of petitions, the Indian Supreme Court noted on Tuesday that rather than a “surgical strike” the policy was more akin to “carpet bombing” with the “collateral damage” being suffered by the average Indian. The court stated that the government’s objective of going after black money and fake currency may be laudable but “the common man should not be made to suffer.” The bench led by Chief Justice of India TS Thakur gave the Center a deadline of November 25 to submit documents to justify the move and to detail the measures it has undertaken to address the public concerns and troubles. The stealth nature was aimed at catching cash hoarders before they laundered their loot. The rich, of course, prefer real estate, other property, gold, stocks and most importantly money abroad as opposed to cash...
Making CPEC A Game Changer
Pakistan is caught in euphoria over China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Called a game changer, all hopes are pinned on this project to bring change in the economic conditions of Pakistan. This network of roads and the intervening projects, especially those related to energy are considered the only straw that would save Pakistan from falling off the delicate balance where energy crisis could either build or fail the country. The PML-N government would have to prove that their tenure had done the needful in bringing the country around from the energy crisis that had eaten away its potential to become the Asian Tiger — a metaphor that was initially spelled out by the PML when it was not annexed to the ‘N’ factor. It is now a matter of concern that much of the terror activities are targeted at Balochistan, where Gwadar is based. Whether it is China, that our so-called enemy India, and the half-friend-half-foe the US, are trying to intimidate, or it is Pakistan whose success is not acceptable to India, in both the cases, it is Pakistan, which would bear the brunt. How many lives will fall before CPEC begins bearing fruit is not known. However, the government does carry the burden of making this project bring structural changes in the lives of the people. That would only be possible if businesses thrive through a consistent supply of electricity. The government claims that it would end loadshedding or restore the country to a steady supply of power by 2018. According to the figures available, the country is producing almost 17,400 megawatts of electricity with the added success of taking up the receivables to 93.5 per cent. The circular debt is being managed at Rs320 billion per month, down from Rs 500 billion. The loss to the GDP due to the power sector was earlier 2.4 per cent, which has come down to 0.4 per cent. The annual loss to the electricity sector has been reduced to Rupees eight billion from Rs200 billion. Industrial units have been barred from...
ATC Sentences Five To Death Over Burning Alive Christian Couple In Kot Radha Kishan In 2014
An Anti-Terrorism Court on Wednesday sentenced five men to death on two counts for their involvement in the burning alive of a Christian couple in Kot Radha Kishan in 2014. ATC-I Judge Chaudhry Muhammad Azam imposed a fine of Rs200,000 on the five men identified as Mehdi Khan, Riaz Kambo, Irfan Shakoor, Muhammad Hanif, and Hafiz Ishtiaq ─ a local prayer leader ─ for their involvement in the lynching. Eight others have also been charged with involvement in the lynching and sentenced to two years each in prison. The eight men were identified as Muhammad Hussain, Noorul Hasan, Muhammad Arsalan, Muhammad Haris, Muhammad Muneer, Muhammad Ramazan, Irfan and Hafiz Shahid. A challan submitted in court claimed the five men handed the death penalty gathered a large mob of hundreds by making announcements over a mosque loudspeaker and incited them to violence with incendiary speech. Kot Radha Kishan lynching A mob of around 400 people lynched Shahzad and Shama for their alleged role in desecrating the Holy Quran in November 2014. Both husband and wife were brick kiln workers from Chak-59 of Kot Radha Kishan, a town in Kasur district. The woman, mother of three, was pregnant. Police and witnesses told Dawn in Nov 2014 that announcements had been made from mosques on Tuesday asking villagers to gather at the Yousaf brick kiln where 25-year-old Shama and her husband Shahzad Masih worked as bonded labourers. Over 1,000 charged people from three villages took out the couple from a room (where they had taken shelter) after tearing apart its roof. The mob tortured the couple before putting them into the kiln’s furnace. The mob held hostage five policemen who tried to rescue the couple. The villagers also manhandled some media personnel and snatched their cameras. Police registered a case against 660 villagers, including 60 who were nominated in a First Information Report lodged on the complaint of Sub-Inspector Muhammad Ali of Chowki Factory Area. The FIR said the mob had thrashed...
Afghan Weekly (Nov 18 – Nov 24, 2016)
This week witnessed another deadly attack claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria targeting a Shia mosque, Baqir-ul-Ulum Mosque, in the Kabul city, killing over 32 people while wounding 85.[1] In a press release by Pakistan’s Foreign Office, Pakistan conveyed profound condolences to the families of those who lost their lives and prayers for early recovery of the injured. Reiterating its unequivocal condemnation of terrorism in all forms and manifestations, the Foreign Office reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment for continued efforts and cooperation for eliminating the menace of terrorism.[2] The US State Department, also, condemned the attack on the mosque in the strongest possible terms, affirming the US’ support to Afghanistan,[3] while the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too, condemned the attack, endorsing India’s support to Afghanistan in the fight against terrorism.[4] Other highlights of this week’s security, internal politics, international engagements and socio-economic developments in Afghanistan follow below. A Security Overview 25 Insurgents, 8 Security Forces Killed in Separate Incidents – November 19, 2016 At least 13 insurgents were killed and 17 others wounded in Afghan security forces' ground operations and air strikes in Sar-e-Pul province.[5] Taliban Commander Killed in Badakhshan Attack – November 19, 2016 Rahm Khuda, a Taliban commander was killed in an attack on a security check post in north-eastern Badakhshan province on 19th November's night, local officials said.[6] 14 Insurgents Killed in Joint Operations Fourteen insurgents were killed in several operation around the country in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Interior said in a statement early 20th November. According to the statement the operations were carried out by the Afghan National Army and National Directorate of Security (NDS) members in Laghman, Uruzgan, Helmand, Paktiya, Maidan Wardak and Nangarhar provinces. "As a result 14 armed militants were killed, 10...
Akhundzada’s Challenges Bigger than his Predecessor
Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada faces multiple internal and external challenges; internally, his movement is marred by differences and rebellion by smaller factions. The rebuttal of Taliban talks with the Afghan government and then its senior members’ private confirmation does show the desperate state of affairs inside the movement. Firstly, some of the Taliban senior leaders are opposing the idea of talks with Kabul as they dub the Afghan government as a US puppet. According to them, such a move could negatively affect the morale of their foot soldiers who are fighting against the government in Kabul. The Taliban breakaway faction, Mullah Rasool group, is opposing the talks openly and any move of negotiations with Kabul could push the disgruntled members of Taliban toward him. The Rasool’s group does not the government in Kabul and has been opposing the current Taliban leaders for differences with them since the days of Mullah Akhtar Mansoor to whom it never pledged allegiance and opposed his selection as the Taliban Chief. Several Taliban commanders including Manan Khan Niazi were angry with Mansoor for concealing Omar’s death and issuing statements for two years in his name.[1] They finally gathered and appointed Rasool as their Chief. Rasool was later on reportedly arrested in Pakistan.[2] Secondly, Akhundzada’s fighters are literally unable to hold to a territory for longer periods of time because of the lethal US air force. Thirdly, Taliban sources said that some of their leaders are war-fatigued and would like to find a way out of conflict the way Hezb-e-Islami’s Hekmetyar did. The loss of local support base probably is another big challenge. Regional dynamics is also in play right now; China and Pakistan, too, are eager to realize the dream of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that will not be possible if militancy continues in Afghanistan. Iran, too, is eager to expand its economic linkages through Pakistan to China and India. All this is...
Sindh Assembly Passes Bill Against Forced Religious Conversions
Sindh Assembly unanimously passed on Thursday a law against forced conversion of religion in the province. A private bill, Criminal Law (Protection of Minorities), was tabled by Pakistan Muslim League – Functional (PML-F) lawmaker Nand Kumar a year ago. It was referred to the standing committee for minority and human rights for feedback and has now been returned to the assembly. Sindh is the first assembly in Pakistan to pass the law. “Forced conversion is an abhorrent and violent offence and an issue that has become prevalent across Sindh [that] must be eliminated by recognising the importance of tolerance, peace and respect for all religions and persons, irrespective of their religion,” the bill read. The law will focus on recognising the right to freedom of religion of all persons, the right to freedom to marry and freedom of choice of marriage of all persons. Age of conversion According to the bill, no person shall be deemed to have changed their religion until they attain the age of maturity, which is 18 years. Similarly, the decision of a minor to convert to another religion will not be recognised until they reach the age of maturity. Defining the punishments for forced conversion, the bill states that any person who forcibly converts another person shall be liable to imprisonment ranging from five years to life and a fine will have to be paid to the victim. Whoever performs or facilitates a marriage while having knowledge that either one or both the parties are victims of forced conversion shall be liable to imprisonment for a minimum of three years or a fine to be paid to the victim or victims. “This shall also include any persons who have provided logistical support or any other essential services for the marriage ceremony,” states the law. It adds that in a case of forced conversion, the accused shall also be liable for other offences, including kidnapping, abduction or compelling a woman for marriage. Complaint mechanism Regarding the mechanism of...
Discussing Afghanistan
The power structures we have come to expect to dominate South Asia are slowly being replaced. The disaster that is the US war in Afghanistan means fewer countries trust it or expect it to deliver stability. The election of Narendra Modi in India has made it all but impossible for Pakistan to maintain good relations with its Eastern neighbour. China, thanks to the CPEC, has made a bold bid to be the primary political player in the region. And now Russia is trying to make its influence felt in the region too. The country that was humiliatingly forced to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1989 is now trying to have its voice heard in planning for the conflict-ridden country’s future. Moscow will be holding a conference, along with Pakistan and China, in December to discuss the situation in Afghanistan and what can be done about it. The meeting will be held the same month as the Heart of Asia conference in India, which is also concerned with peace and stability in Afghanistan. Russia is clearly hoping to dislodge Indian hegemony in South Asia by overtly supporting its neighbours and becoming more involved in regional issues. The opening to do so is certainly there since both Heart of Asia and the US-led Quadrilateral Crisis Group have failed to achieve any diplomatic breakthroughs in Afghanistan. Russia has made other moves recently showing it is ready to pursue a closer alliance with Pakistan. At the Brics summit in India, Russia and China were at the forefront of moves to block India from adopting a resolution denouncing Pakistan as a terrorist state. Russia also carried out joint military exercises with Pakistan, a clear thumb in the eye for India, which has traditionally been a Russian ally. The US, meanwhile, has drifted every closer to India and at the UN General Assembly meeting in September it even held a trilateral meeting with India and Afghanistan without inviting Pakistan. Such moves have led us to Moscow. Of course, Russia has close to zero influence in...
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I am also a member of National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting. Recently, we held a meeting with the Director General of Radio Pakistan and we told them to initiate such local programs (like Constituency Hour) in regional languages to educate and inform people. Even Indian Radio can be heard in FATA which is being used for propaganda purposes and must be closed. Therefore, we should launch some standard and quality programs like CRSS that will change the taste of the listeners.