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IEA to open high schools for girls next week

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(Last Updated On: March 18, 2022)

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) will allow girls around Afghanistan to return to class when high schools open next week, an education official said on Thursday, after months of uncertainty over whether the IEA would allow full access to education for girls and women, Reuters reported.

“All schools are going to open to all boys and girls,” Aziz Ahmad Rayan, a spokesman for the Ministry of Education, told Reuters.

“But there are some conditions for girls,” he said, adding that female students would be taught separately from males and only by female teachers.

In some rural areas where there was a shortage of female teachers, he said that older male teachers would be allowed to teach girls, Reuters reported.

“There is no school that will close for this year. If there is any school that closes, it is the responsibility of the education ministry to open it,” Rayan added.

Allowing girls and women into schools and colleges has been one of the key demands the international community has made of the IEA since it toppled the Western-backed government last August.

Most countries have so far refused to formally recognise the IEA, amid concerns over their treatment of girls and women and allegations of human rights abuses against former soldiers and officials from the ousted administration.

The IEA have vowed to investigate alleged abuses, and say they are not seeking revenge on their former enemies.

The last time the IEA ruled Afghanistan, from 1996 to 2001, they banned female education and most employment. Since regaining power, boys and men have returned to education in far greater number than girls and women, Reuters reported.

The Islamic Emirate (IE) is seeking to run the country according to its interpretation of Islamic law while at the same time accessing billions of dollars in development aid that it desperately needs to stave off widespread poverty and hunger.

Sanctions against some leading members of the group have complicated the situation.

The IEA say they respect women’s rights in accordance with Islamic law and local custom. But many women have reported restrictions on access to public life, including jobs, forcing some to drop out of the workforce.

Heather Barr, associate women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch, urged the international community against complacency after the announcement.

“There has been a huge focus by donors on girls’ secondary schools — multiple donors have told me they see this issue as ‘totemic’,” she said.

Barr added that reopening schools would not necessarily mean that the broader rights of women and girls in society would be protected.

Seventeen-year-old Farzana said she was already washing and ironing her uniform as she anticipated joining her friends in her Kabul classroom. After six months at home, she said she and others had struggled mentally being away from studies.

“I feel very powerful. We can show not only (the Taliban) but also the world (that) we never stop, and Afghanistan won’t return to previous decades,” she said.

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US urges IEA to fulfill counter-terrorism commitments

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(Last Updated On: March 29, 2024)

The US State Department said on Thursday that Washington is committed to ensuring that Afghanistan can never again be a launching pad for terrorism.

“We remain committed to ensuring that Afghanistan can never again be a launching pad for terrorism, and we continue to push the Taliban (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan) to fulfill all of their counterterrorism commitments to the international community,” the department’s spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a news briefing in Washington.

He reiterated that the United States had clearly communicated to the IEA that it’s their responsibility to ensure that “they give no safe haven to terrorists, whether it be Al Qaeda or ISIS-K or any other terrorist organization”.

Miller also reassured US allies that Washington was closely watching the developments in Afghanistan and was ready to deal with any threat emerging from the region.

“We remain vigilant against the evolving threat of these terrorist groups, and our global coalition to defeat ISIS and the C5+1 help intensify our efforts to monitor terrorist threats from the region and prevent their ability to raise funds, travel, and spread propaganda,” he said.

C5+1 refers to a diplomatic platform involving the five Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgy­zstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) and the United States. It serves as a forum for discussing and addressing regional issues such as security, economic development, and cooperation.

“The United States remains vigilant against the evolving threat posed by terrorist groups, including ISIS-K, and has maintained an unwavering focus on terrorism since President Joe Biden took office three years ago,” Miller said.

The US, he said, was “working both unilaterally and with its partners to successfully disrupt threats across the globe and degrade ISIS”.

“We will continue to work to hold ISIS accountable for its actions and to prevent terrorist attacks against the United States and other Western countries,” Miller said.

This comes as IEA has repeatedly said that it is committed to not allowing anyone to use Afghanistan soil against any other country.

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IEA condemns Israel for confiscating 800 hectares of land in West Bank’s Jordan Valley

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(Last Updated On: March 29, 2024)

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) strongly condemned on Thursday Israel’s decision to seize 800 hectares of land in the occupied West Bank’s Jordan Valley region.

In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said that the recent actions by “the Zionist regime demonstrate that it does not to adhere to international laws, especially international humanitarian law.”

“Continuation of such unilateral actions and ignoring the rights of Palestinian people will further deteriorate the situation,” the statement said.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan expects international actors, particularly influential regional Muslim countries to fulfill their legitimate, human and moral responsibilities in supporting the oppressed people of Palestine and prevent the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied territories,” it added.

Israeli media have reported that Israel seized 800 hectares of land in the Jordan Valley region of the occupied West Bank, claiming it as “state land.”

It is reported the seized land could be used for the construction of illegal Jewish settlements.

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ISIS-K leader reportedly living in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

Sanaullah Ghaffari, also known as Shahab al-Muhajar, is reportedly the ISIS-Khorasan (Daesh) branch leader and is holed up in Pakistan, Reuters reports.

The 29-year-old took over as leader in 2020 and under his leadership the group has carried out extreme attacks as a means of recruiting, Reuters reported.

Reuters noted that little was known about Ghafari before the deadly 2021 ISIS attack on Kabul Airport, which killed 170 Afghan civilians and 13 American soldiers.

But after Friday’s deadly attack in a concert hall in Moscow, which left 139 people dead, Ghaffari’s group has come under intense scrutiny.

Reuters reports that Ghaffari is said to have been involved in several attacks in Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan.

Pakistani officials said months ago that Ghaffari had been killed in Kunar province in Afghanistan in June last year, but Reuters has reported that he did not die and instead fled to Pakistan and lives in the border province of Baluchistan.

Abdul Matin Qani, the spokesman of the Ministry of Interior of Afghanistan, says that Daesh has been suppressed in Afghanistan for more than two years and has lost its operational capacity.

The last attack carried out by Daesh in Afghanistan was the attack on the Kabul Bank office in Kandahar last week which left three dead and 12 wounded.

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