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NUG-HIA to Bring Political Stability in Afghanistan: Analysts
The deal between the Afghan National Unity Government (NUG) and Chief of Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) Gulbadin Hikmatyar will affect positively political stability in Afghanistan, analysts having known as Afghan experts have said. Hikmatyar, who is dubbed as a ‘butcher of Kabul’ for allegedly killing thousands of people in the country’s civil war in 1990s would be granted amnesty under the agreement. His role in Afghanistan passed through several phases: The HIA chief was considered as significant anti-Soviet Jihadi during the cold war era and played an important role in Afghan Jihad besides the politics of the country as Prime Minister. In 1990s’ civil war in Afghanistan, he reportedly committed heinous war crimes, even supervised rocket bombardment on Kabul. Now, he goes for peace deal vowing to shun violence and also appealing powerful Taliban to join the reconciliation process. In the past he was blamed to have organized attacks on coalition forces and Afghans and also for ties with Al-Qaeda and Daesh in Afghanistan. But for couple of years, he has been considered militarily irrelevant and has been in hiding. As per the 25-point long pact, HIA would abide by the Afghan Constitution and will dismantle its militant wing. The government pledged to release HIA’s prisoners and lift all restrictions on the group and Hikmatyar. The deal could be implemented once Hikmatyar and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani sign it. Rahimullah Yousafzai, Expert on militancy and the region, told CRSS, “the deal with Hikmatyar may not be important militarily but most likely lead the breakaway factions of HIA would to reunite after the peace deal. Such a situation would make Hikmatyar the most powerful figure and HIA large political party in the country. HIA was divided into four factions namely: HIA United Afghanistan faction led by Wahidullah Sabawon, HIA Hamdard led by Juma Khan Hamdard, and the faction led by Abbdul Hadi Arghandiwal. The faction led by Hikmatyar was the...
Hekmatyar Committed a Major Crime By Signing Peace Deal: Taliban
The Taliban militants group in Afghanistan has slammed Gulbuddin Hekmatyar for allowing his party to sign a draft peace agreement with the Afghan government, saying Hekmatyar has committed ‘a major crime’. “Not only will he face the wrath of Allah for leaving jihad, but he has committed a major crime,” the group said in an article published in its website. Titled The Concept of Peace In Islam, the group offered scathing criticism of Hekmatyar without naming him, according to Gandhara/RFERL. “[He is] backing this government by concluding a peace agreement with it,” the article said. “Doesn’t it tantamount to supporting the occupying forces and joining them?” Questionnning Hekmatyar’s nearly 40-year militant career, which saw him transform from a student rebel in the 1970s into the leader of the most powerful anti-Soviet guerilla faction of the 1980s, the group said “If making peace with the occupiers was of such importance, then why didn’t these peace-loving people make peace with the Russians, who killed 2 million people and their occupation was followed by a brutal civil war?” “Why has making peace with the United States become a legitimate option now, when it was not acceptable for 15 years?” the group said. Hezb-e-Islami is the first militant group to sign a draft peace agreement with the Afghan government following a call made by the government to join peace process in a bid to end the ongoing violence through reconciliation process. The Taliban group however rejected the plea and announced its spring offensive in April this year forcing the Afghan government to give up peae efforts and respond to Taliban’s insurgency with military option. This article originally appeared on www.khaama.com , September 27, 2016. Original link. Disclaimer: Views expressed in the article are not necessarily supported by CRSS.
Why India Has Everything to Gain If Third Party Mediates With Pakistan
As the government reviews the Indus Water treaty , it would do well to remember that the water sharing arrangement and the Rann of Kutch agreements that have both stood the test of time and wars, were both negotiated by a third party. While the World Bank helped India and Pakistan with Indus, the UK played a role in solving the border dispute over the salty marsh lands. As India and Pakistan spar once again, over the unrest in Kashmir and the terror attack at an army camp in Uri, should New Delhi redraw its redlines and opt for a mediator? As a keen watcher of the Kashmir conflict, I’d make the case that a third party makes maximum logical strategic sense. Here’s why. It is in India’s interest to engage Nawaz a third party for several reasons. First, Pakistan reiterates its demand for third party mediation on Kashmir and thus would be hard-pressed to reject this approach. Speak to senior Pakistani diplomats and bureaucrats and they will concede privately that were such a process to start, the outcome would evolve towards the view that the Line of Control (LoC) be made the international border. India has everything to gain and Pakistan more to lose in the event of third party involvement. President Bill Clinton virtually endorsed the LoC as an international border when, he said in Islamabad in March 2000, soon after the short but sharp war in Kargil that, “History will not reward those who try to forcefully redraw borders with blood.” Bilateral talks with Pakistan are unlikely to transform the LoC into an international border. Talks with Pakistan and a third party are likely to be more effective in clarifying the unreality of Pakistan’s stated goals for Kashmir. It would not be difficult for Indian government officials to defend third party involvement politically. Indeed, it would be easier to generate public support for third party involvement than for a resumption of the bilateral dialogue that hasn’t seen much progress since the Mumbai attacks of 2008....
Multiplicity of opinions and ideas is crucial for growth and progress: Dutch Political Affairs Sec
As a child, I was fortunate that I was always able to engage my teachers and explore a range of concepts and questions because critical thinking was encouraged. This is what teachers in Pakistan need to do, to engage the youth in a manner that creates safe spaces for discourse. These remarks were made by Martijn Beerthuizen, First Secretary for Political Affairs of The Netherlands, during the closing ceremony of Pakistan Center of Excellence’s (PACE) eighth round of collaborative workshops; a four day residential training program between September 23 and 26, 2016. He also said that our perspective is narrowed if we never break out of our comfort zones, and that the best path to progress was to look at life from a multitude of angles, perspectives and ideas. Beerthuizen, who recently came to Pakistan, said that this was his first time addressing a public gathering in Pakistan, and that he was very excited to be here. PACE is a major CVE initiative launched by the Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) - with the support from the government of Netherlands - to promote democratic values, respect for diversity, fundamental human rights and virtues of tolerance as a measure of ensuring social peace and harmony for peaceful co-existence. It aims to facilitate a socio-political discourse – the Alternate Narrative on democratic rights and responsibilities anchored in the globally accepted and practiced concepts. These concepts include adherence to the rule of law, equal citizenry, secular governance as a primary condition for social cohesion, and tolerance within the society at all levels. The resource persons and public intellectuals who interacted with the participating university lecturers and professors from different universities across Pakistan included Dr. Niaz Murtaza, Ms. Humaira Masihuddin, Ms. Tahira Abdullah, Ms. Sara Farid, Dr. Shoaib Suddle, Mr. Safiullah Gul, and Mr. Charles Petrie. The discussion themes we primarily rule of law, tolerance,...
World Bank Pledges Continued Support to Afghanistan
On Sunday Peters held discussion over government's preparations for the Ministerial Conference on Afghanistan in Brussels in October and reviewed development progress in the country. During his stay, he met with President Ashraf Ghani, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah and a number of cabinet ministers, including Eklil Hakimi, Minister of Finance, the WB said in a statement issued late Sunday. Peters was accompanied by Annette Dixon, World Bank Vice President for the South Asia Region. "The World Bank Group will stay the course in supporting the people of Afghanistan in these challenging times," said Peters. "The World Bank Group commends the government of national unity for its achievements in the last two years under difficult circumstances, and for its preparation of the conference. It will be important for Afghanistan to signal before and after the conference a commitment to implement key policy reforms, building on the achievements of recent years." WB is providing robust support to the government in preparation for the Brussels Conference, especially through contributing key analytical work for discussions on development issues. In addition, the statement added that the WB's analytical work highlights the need for continued high levels of aid, with more aid provided through the government budget to maximize local economic impacts and ensure that government can finance its priority programs. The analysis shows that, with adequate international assistance, policy reforms, private sector development and investment in social services, Afghanistan has the potential to move to a sustainable higher growth trajectory, driven by agriculture and extractives. "The Bank analysis shows that there is potential for faster growth through agriculture and mining. Agriculture can be a major driver of growth, supporting incomes, creating jobs, and reducing poverty. Even with the risks involved, mining represents a vital complement to agriculture, providing the only...
Former Taliban spokesperson killed in Afghan raid
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan former spokesman Azam Tariq was among four Taliban leaders killed in an operation conducted by Afghan security forces in Paktika province early Sunday. While confirming Tariq’s death, the TTP said that his son was also among those killed in the operation. His death was also confirmed by security sources in the tribal region. The slain TTP leader, whose real name was Raees Khan, had earlier served as the spokesperson for the banned TTP. He was currently working as spokesperson of the Mehsud Taliban faction led by Khan Sayed ‘Sajna’. According to sources, most members of the Sajna group live in Paktika province. They apparently crossed into Afghanistan after fleeing military operations in the Waziristan tribal regions. In June this year, the brother and uncle of Hakimullah Mehsud surrendered to the authorities in the Kurram Agency after returning from the Afghan province. Tribal sources earlier told The Express Tribune that the Hakimullah splinter group was instrumental in the handing over of family members of the slain leader “under an arrangement” with the authorities. The Hakimullah group neither parted ways with Maulvi Fazlullah’s TTP nor did the latter disown it. A senior leader of the group, Janat Khan alias Zabal, was the main character behind the campaign to encourage Mehsuds’ return home. Zabal was killed along with his guard in Paktika in April this year. He played a key role in persuading many Mehsud militants to return to a peaceful life, a source familiar with the initiative said. A serious rift over leadership broke out within the ranks of the Taliban following the death of Hakimullah Mehsud in November 2013. Taliban sources say as many as 200 fighters had been killed in clashes between supporters of rival factions led by Sheharyar Mehsud and Khan Said ‘Sajna’, respectively. This article originally appeared in The Express Tribune, September 26, 2016. Original link. Disclaimer: Views expressed in the article are not...
Kashmir: Where the Truth Doesn’t Matter
NPR’s Julie McCarthy was in Kashmir earlier in September and reported on how different the unrest seems now compared to previous years. “First of all, there's this unprecedented kind of force being used. There's these high-velocity pellet shotguns for crowd control. And it's left thousands of people riddled with pellet injuries. And a lot of them have damaged eyesight. And some demonstrators have thrown stones, attacked police stations and government buildings. And, unusually, this started in rural areas. And it has spread throughout the Kashmir Valley. And it's lasted over 60 days. That's also unusual.” Perhaps it’s not enough to point out that the champion of this latest uprising, a person who was slain in a fashion frequently called “extrajudicial” by others in the press, and whose killing was the primary provocation for the current uprising, was a self-declared militant who had used social media to resist the Indian occupation. He was someone who had become a symbol of the true spirit of resistance in the hearts of all Kashmiris. The protest over Burhan Wani’s killing was obviously different. Real different. Kashmiris are not a violent people. The country has throughout history been known for its peaceful communal relations among Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Muslims. Yet it expressed a state of frustration that had reached a boiling point. His killing set off a protest movement that was unusual in its scale. As many as 200,000 people attended his funeral in direct violation of a state curfew order that should have kept people immobilized in their homes. One wonders why the honoring of the dead with a funeral procession would scare the daylights out of India. Enough to shoot them with shotguns? These guns weren’t, it should be added, pointed at infiltrators sneaking across the Line Of Control (LoC). They were pointed at moms and dads, sons and daughters, of Kashmiris. Perhaps some Pakistani agent was handing everyone a Snickers candy bar to show...
Surgical Strikes and The Doval Doctrine
Internally, the Indian security forces seem to be set on a kill-maim-blind-disable campaign in Kashmir. Externally, New Delhi has embarked on a smear-isolate-discredit-Pakistan mission—very much in synch with the Ajit Doval doctrine—accompanied by an offensive anchored in politico-diplomatic isolation of the country. The barbs that diplomats and leaders of both countries exchange, particularly the Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s characterization of Pakistan as a “terrorist country” represent the other plank of the campaign to bracket Pakistan with all sorts of negatives, including, of course, terrorism. And incidents such as Pathankot or Uri perfectly fit into this gameplan. Public calls for reprisal in the shape of surgical strikes are then the natural reaction to such deadly incidents. Uri revived emories of Mumbai and the public outrage that it triggered. But the idea of surgical strikes dates to the post-Mumbai scenario, when India’s top military, political and intelligence leadership had in a secret meeting on December 2, 2008, mulled over this option. This meeting had apparently taken place shortly before a delegation of US senators led by John McCain and Lindsey Graham visited New Delhi to sniff out the mood. From there they travelled to Lahore, where they discussed the surgical strike option. “Senator McCain wanted to know from me… what the reaction of the Pakistan army and the public at large would be if there was a limited air-raid on Muridke,” writes Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri in his book Neither a Hawk nor a Dove. I was “horrified at the mere suggestion.” There have been moderate voices too, such as that of Manoj Kumar Joshi, who have been far more restrained and calculated in their condemnation of Pakistan than the majority. We need to manage our relations, rather than push for “crushing Pakistan, cutting Pakistan to size,” Joshi said in a Rajiya Sabha TV debate The senators, also accompanied by Richard Holbrooke, the then special Pak-Afghan...
Afghanistan Signs Draft Peace Deal With Prominent Warlord
Afghanistan's government signed a draft peace deal on Thursday with a designated "global terrorist" after lengthy negotiations that could pave the way for a similar accord with the Taliban, who have been waging war on Kabul for 15 years. The deal with warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is the country's first peace agreement since the Taliban launched their insurgency in 2001, after being driven from power in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the United States. It grants full political rights to his Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin party and obliges the Afghan authorities to work to have it removed from the United Nations' list of foreign terrorist organizations. Hekmatyar himself was designated by the U.S. as a "global terrorist" in 2003. He was blacklisted at Washington's request by the U.N. the same year, and has similar status with the British government. The agreement ends years of talks between Kabul and Hekmatyar, who is in his late 60s. It should enable him to return to Afghanistan after 20 years in exile — he is believed to live in Pakistan — as it includes provisions for his security at government expense. The signing ceremony was broadcast live on television. The agreement was signed by the head of Kabul's High Peace Council, Ahmad Gilani, national security adviser Mohammad Hanif Atmar, and Hekmatyar's representative Amin Karim. Hekmatyar's son Habiburahman sat with an audience of officials. To be formalized, the agreement must be signed by President Ashraf Ghani and Hekamtyar; Atmar said it would happen "as soon as possible." The deal marks a victory of sorts for Ghani, who has been unable to bring peace to Afghanistan despite election promises and early efforts to forge a close diplomatic relationship with neighboring Pakistan. The failure of those efforts has seen Ghani reverse course in recent months — he now openly accuses Pakistan of supporting the Taliban. Pakistan denies the accusations, though the Taliban's leadership councils are based in Quetta and other...
Officials Speak of Daesh Presence in Zabul, Nangarhar
Officials in Zabul and Nangarhar said on Wednesday that Daesh insurgents are still active in parts of the two provinces and that the insurgent group is trying to extend its presence to other areas but has so far failed. Khak Afghan district in Zabul was reportedly Daesh's first base in the province but local officials said the group has extended its territory to other parts of the province. "Arghandab, Daichopan, Mizan and Nawbahar districts are witnessing a huge presence of foreign Taliban. Two years ago they raised the Daesh flag but have now pledged their allegiance to al-Qaeda, but they are the same people," said Attaullah Haq Bayan, head of Zabul provincial council. Meanwhile, officials from Nangarhar said that Daesh safe havens have been hit by air strikes and that soon ground operations will be launched to eliminate their hideouts. "Daesh will be suppressed in areas where they are active. They cannot move forward. Our air strikes are ongoing to hit their hideouts," said Nangarhar governor Attaullah Khogtani. The Ministry of Defense meanwhile said they believe that Daesh is no longer a serious threat to Afghanistan's security. "Daesh is now active in Achin and Kot districts, but their presence is not at the level that was expected," said Habiburrahman Afzal, deputy spokesman for the defense ministry. This article originally appeared on www.tolonews.com, September 21, 2016. Original link. Disclaimer: Views expressed in the article are not necessarily supported by CRSS.
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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.