21 killed last week as violence continues to claim lives

KABUL (Pajhwok):  The Islamic Emirate’s decision to ban women from working with UN agencies drew widespread reactions last week, when the interim government expressed its desire to expand bilateral relations with Russia and Japan pledged $5 million in aid to Afghanistan.

Last week’s major events

• Ban on Afghan women work with UN triggers widespread reactions
• IEA rejects CSTO concerns as unfounded
• Muttaqi: Afghanistan interested in expanding ties with Russia
• Japan pledges $5 million in aid to Afghanistan

Casualties

Violence continued to take lives in Afghanistan as last week 21 people were killed and two others were injured in various incidents of violence across the country.

Security forces killed six Daesh or Islamic State militants in Balkh, two in Herat and one in Parwan and held three women and seven children from the house where the operation was conducted in Charikar on Friday night.

Due to a misunderstanding that led to firing between security forces in central Panjsher province, two people, including a judge, were injured.

Unknown people killed two children with sticks and stones in Sari Pul province, where a woman’s body was found. In Parwan, a person was killed with a knife and a young man shot and killed his father in Kandahar province. A drug addict killed his wife in the same province.

According to reports, two children of a family were killed when an old rocket shell exploded in Maidan Wardak province, unknown gunmen killed one person in Bamiyan and three people were killed in a conflict between two families in Baghlan.

Note: These figures are based on reports reaching Pajhwok Afghan News. Some incidents may have gone unreported or sources provided incorrect figures.

In the previous week, 17 people were killed and 16 others were injured in various incidents across the country.

While before the regime change in August 2021, hundreds of civilians, security forces and insurgents would get killed and wounded every week.

 Ban on UN’s female staff

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) last week asked all its staff in Afghanistan not to come to their jobs until further notice after the Islamic Emirate issued an order to ban UN female employees.

The UN called the decision as illegal and unacceptable according to international laws. UN special representative for Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, has been talking to the senior officials of the caretaker government in this regard.

UN Secretary General Antonio Gutierres called the ban a violation of the inalienable fundamental human rights of women and called for immediately revoking the decision.

“It also violates Afghanistan’s obligations under international human rights law and infringes on the principle of non-discrimination, which is a core tenet underpinning the United Nations Charter,” he said in a statement.

Female staff members were essential for UN operations, including in the delivery of life-saving assistances, he said, warning the decision would harm the Afghan people, millions of whom were in need of assistance.

Guterres called on the caretaker government to reverse all measures restricting women’s and girls’ rights to work, education and freedom of movement.

Six global organisations urged the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) to lift restrictions on Afghan women aid workers.

Save the Children, Norwegian Refugee Council, Danish Refugee Council, INTERSOS, Action Against Hunger and World Vision issued the call in a joint statement late on Wednesday.

The call came a day after the interim government extended the ban on Afghan women aid workers to UN agencies in the country.

Leaders of the six organisations said: “Without our female staff, the humanitarian community cannot effectively reach women and girls. With more than 28 million people in desperate need of aid to survive, this act will cut off people’s lifelines.”

Also the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the US State Department, the Australian Foreign Minister, the Japanese Embassy in Kabul and the German Embassy in Afghanistan condemned the decision and called it a loss for Afghans.

In addition, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, the Foreign Minister of Norway, the representative of the United Arab Emirates in the United Nations and some others said that the new decision of the Islamic Emirate would leave a negative impact on the world’s interaction with Afghanistan.

In Ankara, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu discussed Afghanistan during a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.

The Turkish FM criticized the attitude of the Islamic Emirate towards women and girls in Afghanistan and called it an unacceptable.

The United Nations Security Council held a closed-door meeting on Afghanistan at the request of Japan and the United Arab Emirates after the word’s body said women’s activities in their relevant agencies had been restricted in Afghanistan. The details of the meeting have not yet been published.

But speaking to reporters in New York after the UNSC meeting, US deputy ambassador to the UN, Robert Wood, said Washington considers the ban “basically as another effort by the Taliban to erase Afghan women and girls from society.”

Barbara Woodward, the Permanent Representative of the UK to the UN, said that “it would be very hard to recognize the Taliban as a government” as they are “excluding women from society in general and that is not an acceptable step for recognition.”

While asked about the ban, the Russian ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, told reporters that “everybody was appalled by the decision that Taliban made.”

“We agreed to work on a product by the Security Council, proposed by some delegations, to work it in a quiet atmosphere and come up with something that would be useful and balanced,” he said.

CSTO concerns about threats of terrorism from Afghanistan

The Russia-led bloc Collective Security Treaty Organization has once again expressed its concern about an increasing risk that terrorist groups from Afghanistan will infiltrate its member countries.

The Russian news agency, TASS, quoted SCTO Secretary General Imangali Tasmagambetov as saying that there was an increasing risk that terrorist groups and extremist ideas will infiltrate the territories of CSTO allies.

“Complex threats coming from Afghanistan are of particular concern,” he pointed out, addressing a meeting of senior officials from the organization’s Secretariat and Joint Headquarters.

Tasmagambetov noted that apart from various terrorist groups, the forces behind illicit drug production and trafficking were also strengthening their positions in Afghanistan.

Before him, Chief of the Joint Staff of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) Colonel General Anatoly Sidorov had said the number of Islamic State or Daesh had significantly increased to about 6,500, with up to 4,000 militants concentrated along Tajikistan’s southern border in the provinces of Badakhshan, Kunduz and Takhar.

But Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesperson of the Islamic Emirate, said Daesh group had no physical presence in any region of Afghanistan.

He said some countries were trying to portray Daesh as a great danger and then use it as propaganda against the Afghan people and the system.

Relations with Russia

Last week, acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi met Russian ambassador in Kabul Dmitry Zhirnov and assured him that no serious security threat inside or emanated from Afghanistan and that the Islamic Emirate was willing to strengthen its political and economic relations with Russia.

The meeting comes after Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s special representative for Afghanistan, said that Russia had started its consular services in Balkh province.

Muttaqi said that there was no serious security threat inside nor emanating from Afghanistan and said security had improved in the country.

“The meeting focused on detailed discussions of political, security, and economic cooperation between Afghanistan and Russia,” the Foreign Ministry of Afghanistan wrote on its twitter page.

Dmitry Zhirnov also stressed maintaining close ties between the two countries, expressing readiness for future visits by various government delegations between the two countries.

Zabihullah Mujahid once again called the international community’s interaction with the caretaker government as beneficial and asked the international community to interact instead of putting pressure on the Islamic Emirate.

The embassies of China, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, India, Turkey, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are currently operational in Afghanistan.

Continuity of aid

Japan last week pledged five million US dollars to Afghanistan in assistance and Saudi Arabia also donated 100 tons of dates to Afghanistan.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has appealed for 4.6 billion dollars for humanitarian aid in Afghanistan for the current year, but it has so far received only five percent of the appeal. The World Food Program says Afghanistan is facing the highest risk of famine in 25 years.

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