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IEA rejects UN chief’s claim of extrajudicial killings of former officials
The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) on Monday rejected claims made by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres that scores of former Afghan officials, security force members, and people who worked with the foreign military have been killed since the withdrawal of US and NATO troops.
IEA deputy spokesman Inamullah Samangani tweeted that the allegations were not true.
“The UN Secretary-General’s information that hundreds of members of the previous government were killed after the rule of the Islamic Emirate is not true,” he said.
According to Samangani, after the general amnesty was declared in August last year, following the collapse of the previous government, “no one is allowed to harm anyone, if anything happened as a result of personal revenge, we investigated it and punished the perpetrators”.
This comes after Reuters reported that a report by Guterres to the UN Security Council states that the IEA and its allies are believed to have killed scores of former Afghan officials, security force members and people who worked with the international military contingent since the U.S.-led pullout.
Guterres’ report painted a picture of worsening living conditions for Afghanistan’s 39 million people despite an end of combat.
“An entire complex social and economic system is shutting down,” Guterres said.
The UN mission “continues to receive credible allegations of killings, enforced disappearances and other violations” against former officials, security force members and people who worked for the US-led international military contingent despite a general amnesty announced by the IEA, the report said.
The mission states that more than 100 of those individuals have been killed – more than two-thirds of them allegedly by the IEA or their affiliates – since August 15.
Guterres stated there are also allegations of the extra-judicial killings of at least 50 people suspected of belonging to Daesh (ISIS-K).
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Girls’ education is a ‘vital issue’ for Afghanistan: Karzai
Former president Hamid Karzai said in a meeting with Iran’s ambassador and special representative, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, that education of girls was a “vital issue” for Afghanistan.
Karzai said he appreciated Iran’s cooperation and its standing with the Afghan people, especially Iran’s contributions to education in Afghanistan.
During the meeting, Karzai said peace and stability in the region are in the interest of all regional countries.
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Uzbekistan’s humanitarian aid arrives in Balkh
A shipment of humanitarian aid from Uzbekistan was handed over on Thursday to the local officials of Balkh province in the trade port of Hairatan.
Local authorities said the aid, which includes flour, oil, wheat, sugar and meat, has been handed over by Uzbekistan’s Surkhandarya governor to the governor of Balkh.
The governor of Surkhandarya stated the purpose of sending this aid was to support the people of Afghanistan and stressed the need for the development of good relations between the two countries.
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Afghanistan’s problems caused more damage to Pakistan than 3 wars with India: Durrani
Islamabad’s special envoy for Afghanistan Asif Durrani said on Wednesday that Pakistan has suffered more due to Afghanistan’s internal situation than Pakistan has suffered in three wars with India in terms of blood spilt and finances drained.
Durrani said at a one-day International Conference titled “Pakistan in the Emerging Geopolitical Landscape”, which was organized by the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI) and the German Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), that over 80,000 Pakistanis died in the two decades of the War on Terror and that his country was still counting its dead and injured.
“After the withdrawal of NATO forces, it was hoped that peace in Afghanistan would bring peace to the region. However, such expectations were short-lived,” he said.
He also stated that attacks by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant group on Pakistan’s border areas increased by 65 percent, while suicide attacks increased by 500 percent.
“The TTP’s enhanced attacks on Pakistan while using Afghan soil have been a serious concern for Pakistan. Another worrying aspect is the participation of Afghan nationals in these attacks,” he said.
Durrani also said Pakistan had suffered geopolitically since the Soviet Union invaded the neighboring country.
“The post-9/11 world order has negatively impacted Pakistan. Apart from losing 80,000 citizens’ lives, including 8,000 law enforcement agency personnel, the country’s economic opportunity cost is estimated at $150 billion,” Durrani said.
Talking about the future outlook for Pakistan in the regional context, Durrani said that while “our eastern neighbor is likely to continue with its anti-Pakistan pursuits, the western border poses an avoidable irritant in the short to medium term.”
However, he said Pakistan can overcome its difficulties with Afghanistan, including the TTP challenge.
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