While the world’s attention is focused on Ukraine, Afghanistan has plunged into darkness. The Taliban are tightening their control amid growing reports of detentions, rapes, and summary executions of minorities, rights advocates, women, and people associated with the old government or the new resistance.
See also: Afghanistan Must Not Turn Into The World’s Forgotten Crisis
While the last year was wrought with challenges for many amid the pandemic and now a war, the World Happiness Report 2022 looks to rank which countries have risen above and which have fallen during uncertain times.
It may come as no surprise that Finland is at the top of the list as the “happiest” country in the world of the more than 150 countries that the World Happiness Report ranks as it has been there for the last five years.
At the very bottom of the report, in what would be suggested as the world’s “unhappiest” country, is Afghanistan.
The United Nations Security Council has adopted a resolution to secure a formal presence in Afghanistan, whose Taliban government remains unrecognised by the international community.
The resolution, without using the word “Taliban”, spells out a new one-year mandate for the UN political mission in Afghanistan, calling it “crucial” to peace.
In recent weeks, the Taliban have launched a massive house-to-house search in Kabul and other Afghan cities, in what a Taliban spokesperson called a “cleaning operation” to look for weapons and criminals. But thousands of Afghans fear they are about to be persecuted because of their links to the country’s former, Western-backed government, or to U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan over the past 20 years.
See also:
–Taliban Resurrects Gender Segregation In Public Offices, Transport In Afghanistan
–DHS Offering Temporary Protection And Work Permits To Afghans In U.S.
The dire humanitarian situation in Afghanistan should not be forgotten as the world’s attention is focused on the conflict in Ukraine, the United Nation’s High Commissioner for Refugees said on Tuesday ahead of a key donor conference set to take place this month.
See also:
–Afghanistan: Food Insecurity And Malnutrition Threaten ‘An Entire Generation’
–US Moral Decline In Afghanistan: The Frozen Funds
As for China, how realistic is it for an Islam-phobic Han regime – which has gone even to the extent of banning Ramzan fasting – to become a patron and partner of an Islamic regime committed to establishing a Sunni theocratic state based on sharia law and a Wahabi world view?
See also: Taliban To Participate In Third Regional Meeting On Afghanistan In China
When President Joe Biden decided to withdraw the U.S. military from Afghanistan last year, much of America’s news media came down on him like a ton of bricks. Republicans piled on, calling the withdrawal an “unmitigated disaster.”
But getting out was the right move.
In fact, the real mistake was the opposite: The Biden administration did not end the war, but continued it by other means, which are turning out to be more violent and destabilizing. The economic sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies are causing widespread, severe hunger in this desperately poor country.
Unless those sanctions are soon reversed, it is estimated that more people will die from the economic impact of sanctions over the next year than the number who died in 20 years of war.
It has been fourteen days since the invasion of Ukraine. To Afghans, it is the 14th day since the international community’s eyes have been deflected from the atrocities committed by the Taliban on the Afghan people. In this past couple of weeks, the world has been heavily focused on how Ukraine’s situation unfolds, and the Taliban have taken full advantage of this blind spot.
In their latest policy, , as well as other places. Door to door inspections are making people live in fear each day, until a group of armed terrorists barges into their homes. Breaking and looting has been reported in abundance. This mass search was presumably about collecting guns and ammunitions from the houses. Much like the rest of the world and in particular the United States, many Afghans also hold private rifles and hand guns. This gave the Taliban the perfect excuse to search every house in Kabul city, though many report that former government officials and military personnel are their primary targets.
Across the country, 5 million children are on the brink of famine. Many young people are in despair; suicide is on the rise.
The rapid escalation of war in Ukraine is set to make this crisis even worse. We fear now that soaring prices of wheat – reaching their highest level since 2008 as a result of the invasion – could multiply the impact of a famine in Afghanistan.
The United Nations has seen the scale of our misery, launching its largest-ever appeal for funds for a country: $4.4bn. But rather than heed this appeal, Joe Biden has decided to claim our money at the moment of our greatest need.
Trucks with heavy machine guns stopped at street corners, unloading men in camouflage carrying radios and assault rifles. Going door to door, they barged into homes, tossed open drawers and pored through cellphones — looking for any connection to an armed insurgency.
These soldiers carrying out a cordon and search operation in Afghanistan’s capital were not American troops, who for nearly 20 years conducted similar operations that drove many Afghans into the arms of the Taliban.
They were the Taliban.
The sweep, which began on Friday, has spanned several provinces and remains underway, is the largest operation of its kind since the Taliban seized power in August and the first carried out in daylight.
Despite the Taliban’s assurances upon taking control of Afghanistan that it would not target its perceived enemies in retaliation, evidence reveals that the de facto authority is actively advancing its bloody record of atrocity crimes with arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture and targeted killings.
The Taliban are conducting a huge security sweep of Kabul and other Afghan cities, their spokesman said on Sunday, going house-to-house in search of weapons and criminals blamed for a recent spate of robberies and kidnappings.
The operation, which started on Friday, has alarmed many who fear being targeted because of their association with the previous Western-backed regime or the US-led foreign forces who finally withdrew on August 31.
UPI:
The general license from the Treasury will “expand authorizations for commercial and financial transactions, in Afghanistan, including with Afghanistan’s governing institutions,” which would “otherwise be prohibited by U.S. sanctions,” senior administration officials said through teleconference Friday, according to a White House statement.
“However, it does not authorize financial transactions to the Taliban, Haqqani Network, associated entities, and any blocked individual who is in a leadership role of a governing institution in Afghanistan,” the statement said.
“The license will ensure U.S. sanctions do not stand in the way of transactions and activities needed to provide aid and support the basic human needs of the people of Afghanistan. It reflects our deep commitment to support the people of Afghanistan during this ongoing humanitarian and economic crisis.”
See also:
–Afghanistan’s Kabul University Reopens After Taliban Takeover
The west has inflicted catastrophic damage on Afghanistan and its own reputation by imposing a policy of starvation on the country, according to David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary and chief executive of the International Rescue Committee.
“If we wanted to create a failed state we could not have a more effective policy mix than the one we have at the moment,” he told the Guardian.
Miliband has been at the forefront of those lobbying the Biden administration and the World Bank to release cash not only for humanitarian aid but also to start reconstructing the economy.
Afghanistan’s former president on Sunday called a White House order to unfreeze $3.5 billion in Afghan assets held in the U.S. for families of 9/11 victims an atrocity against the Afghan people.
“The people of Afghanistan share the pain of the American people, share the pain of the families and loved ones of those who died, who lost their lives in the tragedy of September 11,” said Karzai. “We commiserate with them (but) Afghan people are as much victims as those families who lost their lives. … Withholding money or seizing money from the people of Afghanistan in their name is unjust and unfair and an atrocity against Afghan people.”
President Biden’s order signed last Friday freed $7 billion in Afghan assets currently held in the United States, to be divided between 9/11 victims and humanitarian aid to Afghans.
Sept. 11 victims and their families have legal claims against the Taliban and the $7 billion in the U.S. banking system. The $3.5 billion was set aside for a U.S. court to decide whether it can be used to settle claims by families of 9/11 victims. U.S. courts would also have to sign off before the release of humanitarian assistance money.
We “ask the U.S. courts to do the opposite, to return the Afghan money back to the Afghan people,” said Karzai. “This money does not belong to any government ,,, this money belongs to the people of Afghanistan.”
See also:
–Withdrawing Afghanistan’s Money Is Another Mess for Biden
–Biden’s Decision On Frozen Funds Stokes Anger Among Afghans
The Biden administration announced on Friday that it intends to split the Afghan central bank’s assets — which are held in the possession of the New York Federal Reserve Bank — between the families of 9/11 victims and unspecified efforts “for the benefit of the Afghan people.” The decision puts Biden on track to cause more death and destruction in Afghanistan than was caused by the 20 years of war that he ended.
Foreign terror groups ranging from al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) enjoy more freedom in Afghanistan than in recent years, and Osama bin Laden’s son visited the country in October for meetings with the Taliban, according to a new UN report.
The latest report of the UN Security Council on activities of the Islamic State and al-Qaeda and their affiliates, made public this week, said the Taliban have not done anything to limit the activities of foreign terrorists – an assertion that will strengthen suspicions about the setup in Kabul in capitals around the world.
The UN’s analytical support and sanctions monitoring team prepares such reports twice a year as part of efforts to implement sanctions imposed on Islamic State and al-Qaeda. The report said al-Qaeda was maintaining a “strategic silence” after congratulating the Taliban on its victory on August 31 last year, apparently “not to compromise Taliban efforts to gain international recognition and legitimacy”.
International banks can transfer money to Afghanistan for humanitarian purposes, and aid groups are allowed to pay teachers and healthcare workers at state-run institutions without fear of breaching sanctions on the Taliban, the United States said on Wednesday.
The US Department of the Treasury offered guidance on sanctions exemptions issued in September and December for humanitarian work in Afghanistan, where the United Nations says more than half the country’s 39 million people suffer extreme hunger and the economy, education and social services are facing collapse.
It’s approaching six months since the Taliban took over the Afghan capital, Kabul, on August 15. And in the months since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, neighboring China has taken a keen interest in the fate of the Central Asian country.
The interest, in fact, predated the Taliban takeover. In late July, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and a nine-member Taliban delegation met in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin. The meeting, some analysts said at the time, underscored Beijing’s warming ties with the Islamist group and the Taliban’s growing clout on the global stage.
President Joe Biden on Sunday called on the Taliban to immediately release hostage Mark Frerichs, with Monday marking two years the Lombard-raised man has been held captive in Afghanistan.
“The Taliban must immediately release Mark before it can expect any consideration of its aspirations for legitimacy. This is not negotiable,” Biden said in a statement, with no details about how the president plans to enforce his demand.
