Tag Archives: Afghan government

Exclusive-Cash airlifts planned to bypass Taliban and help Afghans – sources

By Robin Emmott, John O’Donnell and Jonathan Landay

BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As desperate Afghans resort to selling their belongings to buy food, international officials are preparing to fly in cash for the needy while avoiding financing the Taliban government, according to people familiar with the confidential plans.

Planning for the cash airlifts is going ahead against the background of a rapidly collapsing economy where money is short, although diplomats are still debating whether Western powers can demand that the Taliban make concessions in return, according to internal policy documents seen by Reuters.

The emergency funding, aimed at averting a humanitarian crisis in the face of drought and political upheaval, could see U.S. dollar bills flown into Kabul for distribution via banks in payments of less than $200 directly to the poor – with the Taliban’s blessing but without their involvement.

As well as flying in cash to stem the immediate crisis, donor countries want to set up a “humanitarian-plus” trust fund that would pay salaries and keep schools and hospitals open, two senior officials said.

Many Afghans have started selling their possessions to pay for ever scarcer food. The departure of U.S.-led forces and many international donors robbed the country of grants that financed 75% of public spending, according to the World Bank.

The West’s unorthodox strategy reflects the dilemma it faces. Still eager to help Afghanistan after two decades of war, and to prevent mass migration, it is also loathe to give money to the Taliban, who seized power in August and have yet to show significant change from the harsh way they ruled the country between 1996-2001.

CASH DROPS

The United Nations has warned that 14 million Afghans face hunger. Mary-Ellen McGroarty, U.N. World Food Program Afghanistan director, said the economy could collapse in the face of the cash crisis.

“Many parents are foregoing food so that their children can eat,” she has said.

In recent days, Western diplomats and officials have stepped up efforts to establish a cash lifeline.

The United Nations World Food Program has distributed about 10 million Afghanis ($110,000) in cash via a local bank and intends to disburse more soon, said one person with knowledge of the situation.

The cash runs are a trial for larger air deliveries of dollars from Pakistan, the person said.

A senior diplomat said two approaches are under consideration that would inject cash into the Afghan economy. Both are in the planning stages.

Under the first plan, the World Food Program would fly in cash and distribute it directly to people to buy food, expanding on something the agency already has been doing on a smaller scale.

The second approach would see cash flown in to be held by banks on behalf of the United Nations. That would be used to pay salaries to the staff of U.N. agencies and non-governmental organizations, the diplomat said.

A third person said U.N. officials had talked with Afghan banks about opening up cash distribution channels.

“If the country collapses, we will all pay the consequences,” said a senior European Union official. “No one wants to rush into a recognition of the Taliban, but we need to deal with them. The question is not if … but how.”

A spokesperson for the World Food Program said it had helped almost 4 million people in September, nearly triple the August number, chiefly with food, and some cash assistance had been given out in Kabul. The spokesperson said the cash shortage was also affecting the millers and truckers it worked with.

NINE-BILLION-DOLLAR LEVERAGE

Separately, the European Union, Britain and the United States have discussed setting up an international trust fund to bypass the Afghan government and help finance local services, according to two officials with knowledge of the matter.

The Taliban did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the cash airlift plans.

A U.S. Treasury spokesperson said it would allow humanitarian assistance through independent international and non-governmental organizations while “denying assets” to the Taliban and sanctioning its leaders.

The Kabul government has little to fall back on. The central bank, with assets of $9 billion frozen offshore, has burnt through much of its reserves at home.

Shah Mehrabi, an official who helped oversee the bank before the Taliban took over and is still in his post, recently appealed for a release of the overseas reserves.

“If reserves remain frozen, Afghan importers will not be able to pay for their shipments, banks will start to collapse, food will be become scarce,” he said.

But there is also a debate about whether strings should be attached to cash releases.

In a paper written last month and seen by Reuters, French and German officials outline their aim of using money as a “lever” to pressure the Taliban.

“Countries could condition recognition of the political … legitimacy of the Taliban to the commitments they would be ready to take,” officials said in the two-page report.

“Economic and trade levers are among the strongest we have,” the note said, raising the prospect of releasing the Afghan reserves held abroad.

In a separate diplomatic note, French and German officials outline five demands that could be made of the Taliban.

Those include allowing Afghans who want to leave the country to do so, “breaking ties with … terrorist organizations,” allowing access to humanitarian aid, respect for human rights and establishing an “inclusive government.”

(Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, Michelle Nichols and Rupam Jain; Writing by John O’Donnell; Editing by Giles Elgood)

U.S. envoy meets new Taliban chief negotiator as Afghan peace talks near

By Abdul Qadir Sediqi and Jibran Ahmad

KABUL/PESHAWAR (Reuters) – U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has held a meeting in Doha with the head of the new Taliban team due to open peace talks with a team representing the Afghan government, the Islamist insurgent group said on Tuesday.

The negotiations, the result of an agreement between Washington and the Taliban, are to begin in Doha after the release of the last half-dozen or so of 5,000 Taliban prisoners.

The Afghan negotiators had been expected to fly from Kabul to Doha this week, but are awaiting a signal from the Afghan government that the release – to which Western governments have objected – is going ahead.

In Doha, the head of the Taliban’s political office, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, and the new head of the Taliban’s negotiating team, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, met with Khalilzad and Qatar’s deputy prime minister on Monday, Taliban spokesman Dr. Mohammad Naeem said in a statement shared on Twitter.

“Issues related to the prisoners’ release and immediate start of the intra-Afghan talks were discussed,” Naeem said.

Talks with American officials had for the last two years been led by Baradar, who signed a peace deal with Washington this year that paved the way for an international troop withdrawal and intra-Afghan negotiations.

Last week, however, Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhunzada announced that a new, 21-member team would be headed by Haqqani and not Baradar, a co-founder of the Taliban, who has been left out entirely.

Three Taliban commanders based in Afghanistan told Reuters that senior fighters on the ground had in recent weeks expressed reservations about Baradar’s dominance in the talks.

However, Taliban officials told Reuters the team had been changed to give it power to take decisions on the spot.

Haqqani, the Taliban’s former shadow chief justice, also heads its powerful council of religious scholars, according to two senior Taliban officials who did not want to named.

One official said Akhunzada trusted Haqqani more than anyone else in the group: “(His) presence basically means our supreme leader himself will attend the peace talks.”

A diplomat following the peace process from Kabul told Reuters, on condition of anonymity: “Baradar might be effective, but Haqqani is senior. What we know is this was done to have a more authoritative team that can take the decision over there.”

(Reporting by Abdul Qadir Sediqi in Kabul and Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar; Additional reporting by Charlotte Greenfield in Islamabad and Rupam Nair in Mumbai; Writing by Gibran Peshimam; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

West reluctant for ‘dangerous’ Taliban prisoners to be freed: sources

By Hamid Shalizi and Abdul Qadir Sediqi

KABUL (Reuters) – Western powers are backing the Afghan government’s refusal to free hundreds of prisoners accused of some of Afghanistan’s most violent attacks, a release demanded by the Taliban as a condition to start peace talks, five sources told Reuters.

The issue is a final major sticking point which, if resolved, is expected to lead quickly to intra-Afghan peace negotiations in Qatar aimed at ending more than 18 years of war in a U.S.-brokered peace process.

“The contentious part right now is the prisoners issue,” a senior government source told Reuters. Two European diplomats, an Asian diplomat and another Afghan official confirmed his account.

“There are some dangerous Taliban fighters named in the list, and releasing them is literally crossing a red line,” said a senior European diplomat.

“Some NATO members find it extremely uncomfortable to support the release of Taliban prisoners who were behind large-scale suicide attacks on minority groups and on expats.”

The Taliban struck a troop withdrawal agreement with the United States in February to pave the way for talks with the Afghan government. But the insurgent group insisted a list of 5,000 prisoners be released, leading to months of delay as the Afghan government initially refused to set free that many prisoners before talks.

One Afghan security source and one diplomatic source told Reuters the United States had also expressed reservations about releasing some of the group that NATO and the Afghan government were objecting to setting free.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said it wanted peace talks to be launched as soon as possible.

“The United States continues to be encouraged by the great progress on prisoners release by both sides. We support additional releases by both sides to get the issue off the table,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

The sources said that if all prisoners walked free, including those accused of killing many civilians in some of Afghanistan’s bloodiest attacks, it would give the impression the insurgent group had the upper hand over the government while negotiations got underway.

The sources spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Thursday the group still insisted that all 5,000 be released so talks could begin.

The Afghan government in recent weeks released around 3,000 of the prisoners and is prepared to set free all but a few hundred, government sources said. The Taliban has also released hundreds of prisoners.

Included in the contentious group were prisoners involved in large-scale attacks, such as the 2017 truck bombing near Germany’s embassy in Kabul, which killed more than 150, according to two sources.

The Taliban denied high-profile attackers were on their list.

“There are no such people … these are just excuses to create barriers against the peace process,” Mujahid said.

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi, Abdul Qadir Sediqi, Rupam Jain and Charlotte Greenfield; Additional reporting by Jonathan Landay; Writing by Charlotte Greenfield and Tom Brown; Editing by Alison Williams)

Maternity ward massacre shakes Afghanistan and its peace process

By Orooj Hakimi, Abdul Qadir Sediqi and Hamid Shalizi

KABUL (Reuters) – After struggling to get pregnant for years, Zainab, 27, gave birth to a baby boy on Tuesday morning at a small hospital in the southwestern corner of Kabul. She was overjoyed and named the boy Omid, meaning ‘hope’ in Dari.

At around 10 a.m. (0530 GMT), an hour before she and her family were set to return home to neighboring Bamiyan province a three-hour drive away, three gunmen disguised as police burst into the hospital’s maternity ward and started shooting.

Zainab, who rushed back from the washroom after hearing the commotion, collapsed as she took in the scene. She spent seven years trying to have a child, waited nine months to meet her son and had just four hours with him before he was killed.

“I brought my daughter-in-law to Kabul so that she would not lose her baby,” said Zahra Muhammadi, Zainab’s mother-in-law, unable to contain her grief. “Today we’ll take his dead body to Bamiyan.”

No group has claimed responsibility for the massacre of 24 people, including 16 women and two newborns. At least six babies lost their mothers in an attack that has shaken even the war-torn nation numbed by years of militant violence.

“In my more than 20-year career I have not witnessed such a horrific, brutal act,” said Dr. Hassan Kamel, director of Ataturk Children’s Hospital in Kabul.

The raid, on the same day that at least 32 people died in a suicide bomb attack on a funeral in the eastern province of Nangarhar, threatens to derail progress towards U.S.-brokered peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government.

President Ashraf Ghani condemned the attacks and ordered the military to switch to offensive mode rather than the defensive tactics it adopted while U.S. troops withdraw from the country after a long, inconclusive war.

The Taliban, the main militant group, has denied involvement in both attacks, although trust among officials and the broader public has worn thin. An offshoot of Islamic State is also among the suspects: it admitted it was behind the Nangarhar bloodshed.

WE NAMED HIM ‘HOPE’

Muhammadi, the mother-in-law, said she saw one of the attackers firing at pregnant women and new mothers, even as they cowered under hospital beds.

“We gave him the name Omid. Hope for a better future, hope for a better Afghanistan and hope for a mother who has been struggling to have a child for years,” she told Reuters by telephone in Kabul.

The gunmen then turned to target the cradle where Omid had been asleep. As the sound of bullets reverberated through the ward, Muhammadi said she fainted in fear.

“When I opened my eyes, I saw that my grandson’s body had fallen to the ground, covered in blood,” she recalled, as she wailed with grief.

The Kabul attack began in the morning when gunmen entered the Dasht-e-Barchi hospital, throwing grenades and shooting, government officials said. Security forces had killed the attackers by the afternoon.

The 100-bed, government-run hospital hosted a maternity clinic run by Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French name Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

Just hours before the attack, MSF had tweeted a photo of a newborn in his mother’s arms at the clinic after being delivered safely by emergency caesarean section.

On Wednesday, the group condemned the attack, calling it “sickening” and “cowardly”.

“Whilst fighting was ongoing, one woman gave birth to her baby and both are doing well,” MSF said in a statement. “More than ever, MSF stands in solidarity with the Afghan people.”

Deborah Lyons, head of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, condemned the hospital assault in a tweet. “Who attacks newborn babies and new mothers? Who does this? The most innocent of innocents, a baby! Why?”

‘LITTLE POINT’ IN PEACE TALKS

In a statement, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday condemned the two attacks, noted the Taliban had denied responsibility and said the lack of a peace deal left the country vulnerable to such violence.

Pompeo also described the stalled peace effort, which planned for intra-Afghan peace talks to begin on March 10, as “a critical opportunity for Afghans to … build a united front against the menace of terrorism.” Talks have yet to start.

The Pentagon declined to comment on Ghani’s stated intent to restart offensive operations, saying only that the U.S. military continued to reserve the right to defend Afghan security forces if they are attacked by the Taliban.

Relations between the government in Kabul and the Taliban movement, which was ousted from power in 2001 by a U.S.-backed assault in response to the Sept. 11 attacks, are already frayed, and Tuesday’s events will make any rapprochement harder.

“There seems little point in continuing to engage Taliban in ‘peace talks’,” Afghan National Security Advisor Hamdullah Mohib said in a tweet.

For Afghanistan, the hospital attack also risks further disrupting a healthcare network that is creaking amid the challenges of dealing with the new coronavirus pandemic.

More than a third of the coronavirus cases in Kabul have been among doctors and healthcare staff, Reuters reported in early May.

The high rate of infection among healthcare workers has already sparked alarm among medics and some doctors have closed their clinics. At least 5,226 people have been infected by the coronavirus and 132 have died, according to the health ministry.

KABUL MEDICAL COMMUNITY SHAKEN

The attack has shaken the small medical community in Kabul to its core.

Nurses and doctors who survived the hospital attack said they were in shock, and resuming duties would be an emotional challenge on top of the uncertainty caused by the pandemic.

“Last night I could not sleep, as scary scenes of the attack kept crossing my mind,” said Masouma Qurbanzada, a midwife who saw the killings.

“Since yesterday my family has been telling me to stop working in the hospital, nothing is worth my life. But I told them ‘No, I will not stop working as a health worker’.”

Officials at MSF said they were working to try to normalise operations and had received support from other hospitals to treat dozens of infants and adults wounded in the attack.

Some medics at the hospital, however, said it would be hard to move on.

“The gunmen blew up a water tank and then started shooting women. I saw a pool of water and blood from the small gap of a safe room where some of us managed to lock ourselves,” said a nurse with MSF, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“I saw patients being killed even as they begged and pleaded for their life in the holy month of Ramadan. It is very hard for me to work now.”

(Additional reporting by Charlotte Greenfield in Islamabad, Ahmad Sultan in Jalalabad; Writing by Rupam Jain; Editing by Euan Rocha and Mike Collett-White)

No let up in Taliban attacks, fresh orders awaited over deal with U.S.

By Abdul Qadir Sediqi and Jibran Ahmad

KABUL (Reuters) – Taliban fighters attacked Afghan government forces overnight, and militant commanders said on Monday insurgency operations would go-ahead until they receive fresh instructions based on a deal with the United States to reduce violence in the country.

Last week, a senior U.S. administration official said negotiations with Taliban representatives in Qatar had resulted in and agreement in principle for a week-long reduction of violence, but the seven-day period had not commenced. The official said the agreement covered all Afghan forces, and would be closely monitored.

“Our leadership hasn’t conveyed any message about a ceasefire to us,” a Taliban commander in Helmand, a southern province that has seen some of the fiercest fighting.

Commanders in Paktika and Nangarhar – two other provinces regarded as strongholds for the Taliban – also said they would continue their attacks as planned.

On Sunday night, Taliban fighters attacked Afghan government forces manning a checkpoint in the northern province of Kunduz. According to a statement by Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid, they killed 19 security personnel.

The Afghan defense ministry confirmed the attack in a statement but put the death toll at five. It also said retaliatory air strikes were conducted against the militants.

A Taliban spokesman also issued a statement on Monday saying a Afghan military helicopter had been shot down in Nimroz province, but an official there said the helicopter made an emergency landing and had not been attacked.

Despite the violence on the ground, a senior Taliban leader in Doha confirmed a deal with the United States is set to be signed by the end of February in a “signing ceremony” in Doha.

Leaders of the United Nations, European Union and Islamic nations and neighboring countries would be invited to the attend, Mawlavi Abdul Salam Hanafi, deputy chief of the Taliban’s Doha office, was quoted as saying by Nunn Asia – a pro-Taliban website with strong links to the group’s leadership.

“Soon after signing the peace accord, the United States will release 5,000 of our prisoners and we will free 1,000 of theirs,” Hanafi said.

Successful implementation of the deal would move the United States closer to a further drawdown of troop levels in Afghanistan, meeting an objective for U.S. President Donald Trump, who has vowed to stop the “endless wars” as he seeks re-election in November.

There remains a long way to go to a peace settlement and end to the nearly two-decade-old U.S. military presence that began shortly after the 9/11 attacks by al Qaeda. U.S. officials have been clear that the 13,000 U.S. troops will be cut to about 8,600 this year, with or without a withdrawal deal.

(Writing by Gibran Peshimam; Additional Reporting by Sardar Razmal in Kunduz, Afghanistan; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Taliban active in 70 percent of Afghanistan, BBC study finds

Afghan security forces take position on a roof of a building the site of a blast and gunfire between Taliban and Afghan forces in PD 6 in Kabul, Afghanistan March 1, 2017.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Taliban are openly active in 70 percent of Afghanistan’s districts, fully controlling 4 percent of the country and demonstrating an open physical presence in another 66 percent, according to a BBC study published on Tuesday.

The BBC estimate, which it said was based on conversations with more than 1,200 individual sources in all districts of the South Asian country, was significantly higher than the most recent assessment by the NATO-led coalition.

The coalition said on Tuesday that the Taliban contested or controlled only 44 percent of Afghan districts as of October 2017.

Afghanistan has been reeling over the past nine days from a renewed spate of violence that is adding scrutiny to the latest, more aggressive U.S.-backed strategy to bolster Afghan forces battling the Taliban in a 16-year-old war.

A bomb hidden in an ambulance struck the city center and killed more than 100 people, just over a week after an attack on the Hotel Intercontinental, also in Kabul, which left more than 20 people dead, including four U.S. citizens.

The BBC counted 399 districts in Afghanistan, but the NATO-led force counted 407. The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear.

The BBC study said the Afghan government controlled 122 districts, or about 30 percent of the country. Still, it noted, that did not mean that they were free from Taliban attacks.

“Kabul and other major cities, for example, suffered major attacks – launched from adjacent areas, or by sleeper cells – during the research period, as well as before and after,” the report said.

Asked about the BBC’s study, the Pentagon did not comment directly, but pointed to the latest figures by the NATO-led coalition asserting that about 56 percent of Afghanistan’s territory was under Afghan government control or influence.

Captain Thomas Gresback, a spokesman for the coalition in Kabul, said the BBC estimate overstated the militants’ “influence impact”.

“This is a criminal network, not a government in waiting,” Gresback said in an emailed statement.

“What really matters is not the number of districts held, but population controlled. RS assesses that around 12 percent of the population is actually under full Taliban control,” he said, referring to the Resolute Support mission.

The study by Britain’s public broadcaster quoted a spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani playing down the findings.

The BBC study also said Islamic State had a presence in 30 districts, but noted it did not fully control any of them.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart, addional reporting by Robert Birsel in KABUL; Editing by G Crosse and Nick Macfie)