Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

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Manish_P
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by Manish_P »

^ Oh dear, lost opportunity for jihadistan to collect rent (provide security)... COAS Munir better return from SA with something substantial.
ArjunPandit
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by ArjunPandit »

htey can still provide security
Manish_P
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by Manish_P »

Since BCCI India had taken up the role of foster care of the Afghan cricket team (for the past many years), have we actioned some items (no Afghan player in IPL), stopping of monetary support ?

Yawn - Australia pull out of Afghan cricket series over Taliban crackdown on women
Australia pulled out of an upcoming one-day series against Afghanistan in the United Arab Emirates on Thursday citing Taliban moves to further restrict women’s rights.

The men’s team were due to face their Afghan counterparts in three games, which form part of the ICC Super League, in March following a tour to India.

But Cricket Australia said that following consultations with stakeholders, including the Australian government, it would no longer take place.

“This decision follows the recent announcement by the Taliban of further restrictions on women’s and girls’ education and employment opportunities and their ability to access parks and gyms,” it said in a statement.
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by Dilbu »

Chinese officials have narrowly escaped as per reports in other outlets.
Afghanistan: Deadly suicide bombing outside foreign ministry
A suicide bomb attack outside the Afghan foreign ministry in Kabul has caused heavy casualties.

Police said at least five civilians had been killed but another Taliban official put the toll as high as 20.

The local offshoot of the Islamic State group, known as Isis-K, claimed it carried out the attack.

It comes after recent blasts targeting foreign interests. Several countries, including Turkey and China, have embassies in the area.

The attack took place about 16:00 local time (11:30 GMT) when the bomber tried, but failed to enter the ministry building itself, the Taliban said.

"I saw the man blowing himself up," said Jamshed Karimi, a driver who was waiting outside the ministry.

Mr Karimi told AFP that he saw a man holding a bag and with a rifle slung over his shoulder walk past. "He passed by my car and after a few seconds there was a loud blast."

The building itself did not appear to be badly damaged. At the nearby interior ministry, window panes were also shattered by the explosion.
Cyrano
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by Cyrano »

https://t.me/loordofwar/72382

Look at the Taliban propaganda map, apparently
Taliban propaganda modestly states that by 2026 the Taliban will take control of Tajikistan, by 2029 - half of India [actually the map seems to imply Pakistan] and Iran, and by 2047 will conquer Israel
Well, if they are nursing these kind of ambitions our outlook (incl mine) wrt Afg and Pak both need a significant update.

A jihadi merger of Afg+Pak to ultimately threaten India cannot be allowed to happen. Some preemptive doctrines need to be activated.
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by Dilbu »

Manish_P wrote:^ Oh dear, lost opportunity for jihadistan to collect rent (provide security)... COAS Munir better return from SA with something substantial.
The latest attack in Kabul aimed at Chinese officials is exactly due to the above mentioned khujli of TSP. Hopefully this will widen the split between Taliban and TSP further.
Manish_P
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by Manish_P »

Dilbu wrote:
Manish_P wrote:^ Oh dear, lost opportunity for jihadistan to collect rent (provide security)... COAS Munir better return from SA with something substantial.
The latest attack in Kabul aimed at Chinese officials is exactly due to the above mentioned khujli of TSP. Hopefully this will widen the split between Taliban and TSP further.
The fork tongued two faced Uniformed jihadis might even use this to pitch to the Americans that if given enough money they will buy out the good Talibunnies to remove the bad elements and then attack the Chinese - basically try and sell USSR-Afghan redux
Aditya_V
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by Aditya_V »

It was never about the pitch the Pakis made but more about containing India or screwing the Soviets which drove American aid.
ramana
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by ramana »

ICWA Report dated Jan 2023

The Crisis in Afghanistan and Taliban regime

https://www.icwa.in/WriteReadData/RTF19 ... 783333.pdf

Read chapter 6

Have stopped reading bokwas US reports as they have no skin in the game.
ramana
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by ramana »

"Discussions over the past 12 months have largely centred
around the question of legitimacy from external powers. However,
the regime’s crucial challenge lies in winning legitimacy from the
people they govern. Disgruntlement with the Taliban rule—for the
lack of employment opportunities, food insecurity, lack of basic
rights, the threat of summary execution or forced disappearance—
could eventually translate into concerted civic resistance.
There
has been mounting evidence of active and passive resistance to the
Taliban rule over the past few months—for example, there have
been more protests in the past few months than in all the years of
the first Emirate, especially by women.
As far as armed resistance
in concerned, despite the Taliban’s rigorous attempt to dismantle
it, armed resistance exists in Afghanistan. However, so far, none of
the armed resistance forces have managed to touch base with all the
ethnicities across the country; as a result, a “national movement”
that can counter the Taliban is largely lacking at present."

Add the recent moves to suppress women.

Put that in this perspective.
ricky_v
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by ricky_v »

interesting, humorous, and stifling at the same time
https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/en ... -in-kabul/
A large number of Taleban fighters have moved to Afghanistan’s cities since the movement’s capture of power, many of them seeing life in the city for the first time in their lifetime. These fighters, many of whom are from villages, had lived modest lives, entirely focused on the war. Their circumstances have changed entirely since the Taleban’s victory. Guest author Sabawoon Samim has interviewed five members of the Taleban who have come to live in Kabul,

To this end, the author conducted in-depth conversations with five members of the movement about their new, post-takeover life. They ranged in age from 24 to 32 and had spent between six and 11 years in the Taleban, at different ranks: a Taleban commander, a sniper, a deputy commander and two fighters. They were, respectively, from Paktika, Paktia, Wardak, Logar and Kandahar provinces.

Two were appointed to civilian roles, the other three to security jobs, one in the Ministry of Interior and two in the armed forces. All are now living in Kabul, without their families, and only return to their home provinces during vacations.
What I don’t like about Kabul is its ever-increasing traffic holdups. Last year, it was tolerable but in the last few months, it’s become more and more congested. People complain that the Taleban brought poverty, but, looking at this traffic and the large number of people in the bazaars and restaurants, I wonder where that poverty is.

Another thing I don’t like, not only about Kabul but broadly about life after the fatha, are the new restrictions. In the group, we had a great degree of freedom about where to go, where to stay, and whether to participate in the war.

However, these days, you have to go to the office before 8 AM and stay there till 4 PM. If you don’t go, you’re considered absent, and [the wage for] that day is cut from your salary. We’re now used to that, but it was especially difficult in the first two or three months.

The other problem in Kabul is that my comrades are now scattered throughout Afghanistan. Those in Kabul, like me, work from 8 AM to 4 PM. So, most of the week, we don’t get any time to meet each other.
Of course, it has plenty of negative aspects, like their support for the occupation, women not wearing proper clothing, youths flirting with girls and cutting their hair in a style even people in America might not adopt, but these are the problems that nowadays exist also in the rural areas.

And the savageness of people against each other, in particular against women – dozens of women approach the hawza on a daily basis and register their complaints. They’re victims, subject to different forms of brutality. The head of the hawza and all other mujahedin pay special attention to solving their problems. During the first days when women approached us, many mujahedin, including myself, were hiding from them because never in our whole lives have we talked to strange women. In the days that followed, the head of the hawza instructed us that sharia does allow us to talk to them because we are now the authorities and the only people that can solve their problems.
What I don’t like about the city is that it’s like a closed society. People live cheek-by-jowl but don’t interact with each other. This is in part bad, as people don’t cooperate with each other, but also has a positive feature: unlike the village, no one bothers you about what you do, what you wear, who comes to your home and who leaves it. People don’t interfere in your life and don’t talk about you behind your back.

There is another thing I dislike and that’s how restricted our lives are now, unlike anything we experienced before. The Taleban used to be free of restrictions, but now we sit in one place, behind a desk and a computer 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Life’s become so wearisome; you do the same things every day. Being away from the family has only doubled the problem.
In our ministry, there’s little work for me to do. Therefore, I spend most of my time on Twitter. We’re connected to speedy Wi-Fi and internet. Many mujahedin, including me, are addicted to the internet, especially Twitter.

In those first days, when we sometimes came out of the ministry to Macroyan bazaar, there were a lot of women wearing indecent clothes. We anticipated they would wear hijab,[7] but after the initial days when women feared the mujahedin a lot, their attire has actually become less proper.

Now, they’ve become assertive to the extent they’re entirely heedless of us. Many of our friends say that, apart from us coming and replacing the police and officials of the former regime, little has changed from the Republic’s time in Kabul. During the first few days, many of my comrades and I hardly dared to make our way to the bazaar because of them [women]. We hoped the situation would soon get better, but it didn’t. Even worse, one of my classmates in his computer course is also a woman. We sit in the same classroom. Although I despise women that don’t wear proper clothes, nonetheless, I can’t turn my back on the bazaar or my class because of them. If they’re unashamed, let us also be so. This is the only thing I never imagined a Taleb would encounter in his lifetime.

In the first days, everyone feared us and we had the chance to change many things, but I think in the last year, people observed us, interacted with us, and now no longer fear us because they understand that Taleban are neither Punjabis[8] nor any other sort of strange human being.
the old rigours of running an empire, not wresting one has sapped even the taliban, wonder what ted kascynzky would have to say to that
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by Dilbu »

This looks like a media hit job by TSP. They are claiming security issues are spooking foreign missions in Kabul.
Saudi ‘exit’ from Kabul sparks fears of exodus
ISLAMABAD: Saudi diplomats’ departure from Kabul amid security concerns has sparked fears that at least three other countries were also planning to close their embassies in Afghanistan, though Taliban and other officials have dismissed such reports.

An Afghan Taliban official has confirmed to Dawn that Saudi Arabia has withdrawn its staff, but said the Saudis “have told us that they have withdrawn emb­a­ssy staff for a week-long training”.

After Saudi Arabia’s “temporary withdrawal” of staff, reports surfaced about the closure of the UAE, Qatari and Russian missions in Kabul.

However, the Afghan official, who did not wish to be identified, denied rumours about the closure of the UAE’s mission, saying that although the UAE did not have an ambassador there, the embassy was still being run by several diplomats.
The militant Islamic State-Khurasan (IS-K) group had claimed the attack on Mr Nizamani. The same day, gunmen had stormed the central office of Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan as its chief Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was delivering a Friday sermon. Guards there killed two attackers, who were also said to be IS-K men.

Reports suggest that an IS-K resurgence has made foreign missions in the country uneasy, with the group claiming attacks on Pakistani and Russian embassies and a hotel run and frequented by Chinese nationals. While Taliban officials always downplay any threat, the international community is wary of their claims.

In the immediate aftermath of the US evacuation from Kabul, the group claimed the attack on Kabul International Airport, which took at least 183 lives. It has also staged deadly attacks in southern Kandahar and northern Kunduz provinces.

Pakistan’s former envoy to Kabul, Mansoor Khan, told Dawn that the militant Islamic State group had been a serious threat in Afghanistan for many years, and after the Taliban takeover in Aug 2021, several intelligence agencies have said in their assessments that the number of IS-aligned fighters in various parts of the country has been on the rise.

In his view, the Afghan interim government should bolster cooperation with its neighbours for cooperation in counterterrorism actions to combat IS-K and other terrorist groups, such as the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). {Is that a threat?}
Tanaji
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by Tanaji »

Afghanistan announces graduation of 3 new helicopter pilots

Image

@chetakji

Did you go barefoot when you qualified? :wink:
KL Dubey
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by KL Dubey »

Jahil BRFullahs should understand before posting. This is the result from the Afghaniveer scheme, attempting to follow Rajnath's scheme in India. 8)
Manish_P
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by Manish_P »

^^

Is the photu on the certificate to help them know what kind of vehicle they are supposed to get into :?:
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by krithivas »

A Surprise Participant At Course By India For Foreign Delegates: Taliban
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/taliban ... ia-3859009
The course is being offered by the Ministry of External Affairs through the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode. All the partner countries of the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme were invited for the course
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by vijayk »

https://archive.ph/oPwE1
India Offers Taliban Officials a Course in Economics, Leadership

Four-day program is called ‘Immersing with Indian Thoughts’
New Delhi doesn’t formally recognize the Taliban government
India will include Taliban officials in a crash course on its culture, legislation and business climate, underscoring New Delhi’s continued interest in staying engaged with Afghanistan’s new government.
The four-day virtual course that starts Tuesday is called “Immersing with Indian Thoughts,” and will be taught by the Indian Institute of Management in the southern city of Kozhikode. The elite management school is working with the India Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme, as part of India’s Ministry of External Affairs’ regular roster of trainings.
“All those working for the current government can receive the online training after a process of selection by relevant authorities,” said Suhail Shaheen, a senior Taliban diplomat in Doha, Qatar, where the group has a political office. The Taliban-led Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently released a circular inviting diplomats and personnel to register for the course.
The participants will learn about India’s “economic environment, regulatory ecosystem, leadership insights, social and historical backdrop, cultural heritage, legal and environmental landscape, consumer mindsets and business risks,” according to the ITEC website.
It appears that there’s an effort on the part of India to show some direct delivery of technical assistance to Taliban, which would help in building good working relations for now,” said Farid Mamundzay, Afghan Ambassador in New Delhi, a holdout from the country’s previous US-backed government who does not represent the Taliban. “This technical assistance could be the starting point of a larger humanitarian and aid package of India to the Taliban.
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by sanman »

Taliban want to reclaim Afghan embassy in New Delhi, and are demanding opponents vacate the premises:

ricky_v
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by ricky_v »

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-65787391

Image
The men belong to a Taliban anti-narcotics unit in the eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, and we've been given rare access to join them on one of their patrols to eradicate poppy farming. Less than two years ago the men were insurgent fighters, part of a war to seize control of the country. Now they've won and are on the ruling side, enforcing the orders of their leader.

In April 2022, Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada decreed that cultivation of the poppy - from which opium, the key ingredient for the drug heroin can be extracted - was strictly prohibited. Anyone violating the ban would have their field destroyed and be penalised according to Sharia law.

A Taliban spokesman told the BBC they imposed the ban because of the harmful effects of opium - which is taken from the poppy seed capsules - and because it goes against their religious beliefs. Afghanistan used to produce more than 80% of the world's opium. Heroin made from Afghan opium makes up 95% of the market in Europe.

The BBC has now travelled in Afghanistan - and used satellite analysis - to examine the effects of the direct action on opium poppy cultivation. The Taliban leaders appear to have been more successful cracking down on cultivation than anyone ever has.
The Taliban decree wasn't applied to the 2022 opium harvest, which according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) increased by a third over 2021.

This year though, is very different. The evidence we saw on the ground is backed up by imagery taken from above.

David Mansfield, a leading expert on Afghanistan's drugs trade, is working with Alcis - a UK firm which specialises in satellite analysis.

"It is likely that cultivation will be less than 20% of what it was in 2022. The scale of the reduction will be unprecedented," he says.

A large number of farmers have complied with the ban, and Taliban fighters have been destroying the crops of those that haven't.


Alcis's analysis shows that poppy cultivation in Helmand has reduced by more than 99%. "The high resolution imagery of Helmand province shows that poppy cultivation is down to less than 1,000 hectares when it was 129,000 hectares the previous year," says David Mansfield.
Image
Billions of dollars were spent by the US in Afghanistan to try to eradicate opium production and trafficking, in the hope of cutting the Taliban's source of funding.

They launched airstrikes on poppy fields in Taliban-controlled territory, burnt opium stocks and conducted raids on drug laboratories.

But opium was also grown freely in areas controlled by the US-backed former Afghan regime, something the BBC witnessed prior to the Taliban takeover in 2021.

For now, the Taliban appears to have accomplished in Afghanistan what the West couldn't. But there are questions about how long they can sustain it.
ricky_v
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by ricky_v »

https://archive.is/KiNYB
The Taliban’s Successful Opium Ban is Bad for Afghans and the World
The Taliban have done it again: implementing a nearly complete ban against cultivation of opium poppy — Afghanistan’s most important agricultural product — repeating their similarly successful 2000-2001 prohibition on the crop. But the temptation to view the current ban in an overly positive light — as an important global counter-narcotics victory — must be avoided. This is particularly true given the state of Afghanistan’s economy and the country’s humanitarian situation. Indeed, the ban imposes huge economic and humanitarian costs on Afghans and it is likely to further stimulate an outflow of refugees. It may even result in internal challenges for the Taliban itself. And, in the long run, it will not have lasting counter-narcotics benefits within Afghanistan or globally.
In Helmand, by far Afghanistan’s largest opium-producing province, the area of poppy cultivation was cut from over 129,000 hectares (ha) in 2022 to only 740 ha as of April 2023. The reduction in Nangarhar, another long-standing opium producing province, is also impressive — only 865 ha this year compared to over 7,000 ha in 2022.
This is the pattern more broadly in south and southwest Afghanistan. Reductions in other provinces such as Badakhshan will be more limited, but these areas produced much less opium in the first place. Though the full picture is not yet clear, Afghanistan may approach the 90 percent reduction in cultivation achieved during the Taliban’s previous opium ban in 2000-2001. This is an undeniable achievement, particularly given the much larger size of the opium economy this time around (an estimated 233,000 ha in 2022 versus some 82,000 ha in 2000).
There were also major efforts during 2022 to crack down on ephedra, the main ingredient for Afghanistan’s thriving methamphetamine industry. These actions sent strong signals to the rural population in advance of the fall 2022 planting season, which, along with outreach and threats, effectively deterred planting of opium poppy in the south and southwest of the country. As a result, the bulk of the reduction in poppy cultivation reflected people not planting in the first place, and this was complemented by eradication of some remaining poppy fields soon after planting.

Unlike the Taliban’s previous opium ban, the current ban encompasses trade and processing of opiates, not just poppy cultivation. But just as the standing 2022 winter crop was exempted from eradication, it appears that trade in opium produced in 2022 and earlier has been allowed to continue. With the sharp decline in opium poppy cultivation for this year’s harvest, the bulk of ongoing trade must be in the ample supplies of “older” opium (UNODC estimated that Afghan opium production was 6,800 metric tons in 2021 and 6,200 metric tons in 2022). It remains to be seen whether this is a temporary dispensation or will be more permanent. In 2000-2001, trade in opiates was never hindered.
The economic shock from the opium ban is enormous: Not including adverse effects on downstream processing, trade, transport and exports, Afghanistan’s farm-level rural economy has lost more than $1 billion per year worth of economic activity as calculated by Mansfield, including as much as hundreds of millions of dollars that had accrued to poorer wage laborers and sharecroppers. Moreover, replacing poppy with wheat (as has been happening during the current opium ban) is economically unviable for Afghanistan’s rural sector as a whole and especially for households owning limited or no land. Most Afghans don’t achieve food security by growing their own food. Rather, people make ends meet by growing cash crops or producing other agricultural products (e.g., livestock and dairy), which can be sold to provide resources to purchase food needs, or by working other jobs. Wheat is a low-value crop and a poor substitute for opium, though it does serve as a temporary recourse for people who may expect to return to opium poppy later, in particular for landowners whose fields are ample enough to serve their own family’s food needs. Fruits and other tree crops would be more viable substitutes for opium poppy over the long run but require significant time and investments.


Another, related outcome is that more people will try to leave Afghanistan, going to nearby countries and then onward to Turkey and Europe. As Mansfield documents, the cost of people smuggling is low compared to the potential rewards of being employed in and sending remittances from Europe.

(It should be noted that the Taliban as a movement and now as a governing regime do not hold sizable inventories of opium.)
The impact of the opium ban on drug supplies and prices in other countries, and ultimately in Europe, will not be immediate. After the 2000 Taliban ban, it took about 18 months to two years for the impacts to play out in Europe, as Mansfield notes, in the form of effective price increases through adulteration of the purity of heroin on markets, which exacerbated risks to problem drug users from overdoses.

But maintaining these bans has invariably proved difficult. It is unclear what the Taliban would have done during the late 2001 planting season, after the 2000 ban weakened them politically in key rural areas and arguably contributed at least in part to their surprisingly rapid defeat by international forces after 9/11. There were already signs of increasing resistance against the ban, which suggest that it could not have been fully maintained even if the Taliban had remained in power. And the provincial-level bans during the Islamic Republic period became increasingly hard to sustain over time as privation and resistance against them grew.

As more influential middle-sized and larger landowners in the south and southwest deplete their opium inventories they are unlikely to be as accepting as they were in the first year and could even lobby against continuation of the ban. As a core Taliban constituency, their voices will be heard, though to what effect remains to be seen. And in the east and northeast, where landholdings are small and resistance already significant, it may well snowball if the ban is enforced for a second year.
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by ricky_v »

the original paper
https://archive.is/ZIbiT

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In fact, what followed Haibatullah’s proclamation in April 2022 was a steady ramping up of pressure on drugs production, initially targeting the smaller lower yielding spring and summer poppy crops in the south and southwest, before tackling the methamphetamine industry over the summer and fall, and culminating in concerted action against the 2022/23 poppy crop.

The campaign also involved building support for the ban among the different wings of the administration and rural constituents, something that may still not have been fully achieved given continued cultivation and the slower pace of eradication in some areas, particularly Badakhshan. Far from absolute, Haibatullah’s drugs ban seems to be a policy shaped by the economic and political realities of Afghanistan and the well documented challenges that Afghan leaders have historically had imposing their will on both state institutions and on the rural areas where drugs production is concentrated.
In fact, what often goes unnoticed in parts of south and southwest Afghanistan is just how much desert land has been grabbed and brought under cultivation in the last decade. Irrigated by groundwater pumped by solar power, farmers in these former desert lands can cultivate three or four hectares of land, with more than half of it dedicated to poppy; a stark contrast to those in the east and northeast where farmers with more than a hectare of irrigated land are considered land-rich, and where poppy is concentrated in areas where landholdings are much smaller.

The growing draw on ground water will also have helped farmers in the south and southwest gain healthy yields where others will have been more severely impacted by drought. Even in the canal irrigated areas, farmers have installed solar powered deep wells to draw on ground water for periods when the surface water runs dry. As such, many farmers in Helmand and other parts of the south would have been shielded from the worst of the drought in 2022, and obtained opium yields of 60 kilogrammes per hectare or more that they have been able to store for the proverbial “rainy day”.
Over the course of the summer of 2022 the Taliban ratcheted up their efforts against the methamphetamine industry, targeting the ephedra crop in the highlands and ephedrine labs across the country. In particular, the Taliban built on the restrictions they had imposed on the most visible signs of the methamphetamine industry during the initial months of their rule: the trading of ephedra at Abdul Wadood bazaar in Bakwa in the southwestern province of Farah.

Since as early as 2017 Abdul Wadood had been a central hub of the ephedra trade. During the Afghan Republic traders would purchase ephedra harvested across the central highlands of Afghanistan - where the crop grows wild – and sell it at Abdul Wadood. The crop would be purchased in a wide array of provinces, including Badghis, Ghazni, Ghor, Uruzgan, Farah, and parts of northern Helmand, and transported to the bazaar without any legal restrictions. Once in Abdul Wadood the crop would be stored on open ground in the centre of the bazaar, where it would be milled and sold to the growing number of makeshift ephedrine labs that had been established in the surrounding area.

On 27 November 2021 high resolution satellite imagery showed almost 12,000 cubic metres of ephedra in Abdul Wadood, enough to make 220 metric tons of methamphetamine. By the end of January 2022 there was nothing left, the bazaar was empty, and it has remained so ever since.
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While highlighting the efforts of the authorities to impose a ban, the growing number of provinces in which these actions were taken – from Bamian to Herat, Ghor to Sar e Pol, Uruzgan to Faryab – also revealed just how extensive the ephedra trade and ephedrine production had become even prior to the Taliban takeover, and how footloose the industry continues to be. When it comes to methamphetamine, disruption rather than elimination is the more likely outcome of these efforts.

By November 2022, opium prices had risen to almost US$360 per kilogram in the south and southwest, and US$ 475 per kilogram in the east – triple what it had been in November 2021 - and a stark contrast to the prices of around US$ 60 per kilogram in the harvest of 2020, the month before the Taliban came to power. While many might assume this dramatic increase in prices would have prompted farmers to plant in the fall, urged on by the prospect of higher income, it was often the opposite. In fact, across much of the south and southwest farmers refrained from cultivation altogether. With a heightened risk of arrest and crop destruction, and buoyed by stocks from their 2022 crop and rising prices, many elected not to grow.
In other parts of Afghanistan there was no such economic advantages. More mountainous and densely populated areas – provinces like Nangarhar or Badakhshan - do not have the irrigated land of those in the south and southwest, and are therefore unlikely to have the opium stocks from previous year. Up in the areas where poppy has been most densely cultivated in the east and north east it is difficult to find a farmer cultivating one hectare of land; a farmer cultivating one hectare of poppy is extremely rare. Consequently, recalcitrance was more common, and planting persisted, in some of the more remote parts of Nangarhar despite the threat of eradication and arrest. Whilst in Badakhshan, there was little effort to deter planting at all.

In the south and southwest videos started to surface in the media showing crop destruction even behind compound walls, something that the authorities during the former Afghan Republic would try to avoid, fearful of provoking unrest due to the private nature of these spaces and a custom of seclusion.

Over the course of the season the Taliban moved beyond their heartlands and stepped up the eradication effort across rural Afghanistan. Provinces as diverse as Herat, Zabul, Faryab, Takhar, Sar e Pul, Baghlan, Kunduz, Balkh, and Parwan were all subjected to eradication. In most areas there were few incidents and eradication prompted little reaction. In the more recalcitrant east and north east - areas where planting this season was more widespread - the Taliban met violent resistance that culminated in deaths and injuries to both farmers and the local authorities.
Image
In the east, protracted violence in the upper reaches of the remote district of Achin in Nangarhar, did not deter the Taliban from their efforts and they pressed on up into the upper valleys of Bandar, Pekha, and Mohmand, to destroy the crop in all but the farthest farms. Imagery shows that such were their efforts to deter planting and destroy the remaining crop that by the end of the 2022/23 growing season only 865 hectares of poppy were left intact in Nangarhar, compared to more than 7,000 hectares in 2022.

What will remain of this year’s crop in Badakhshan is not yet clear. There are reports that violent resistance in Darayem in May 2023 prompted the authorities to curtail their already limited eradication efforts in the province. With the option of cultivating a spring crop in the more remote rainfed lands where the authorities will be unwilling to engage, there is a possibility that a substantial amount of this years poppy crop will remain unscathed, and that that cultivation may even increase compared to 2022.

However, drawing on the results of the high resolution satellite imagery analysis Badakhshan will be the exception not the rule. Ultimately, the lion’s share of Afghanistan’s opium crop is grown in the south and southwest of the country, with as much as half of it cultivated in Helmand alone. With high resolution imagery showing only 740 hectares of opium poppy remaining in Helmand in April 2023, compared to over 129,000 hectares in 2022, and similarly low levels of cultivation across much of the main irrigated lands of the southern provinces of Kandahar, Farah, and Nimroz where poppy is usually grown, the evidence points to the lowest crops since the Taliban last imposed a ban in 2001. Despite the scepticism, a ban really is in place.

Who will question what continued cultivation – and resistance to eradication - in some of the upper valleys of Nangarhar and Badakhshan mean; the implications for Haibatullah’s rule; and whether it will be possible (or wise) to impose a ban for a second year.


However, were the current ban to be extended into a second season it could create a different dynamic; it would certainly be an unprecedented action, and could lead to price gauging in western European markets even before a genuine shortage occurs downstream. At this stage, with so much inventory in place it certainly seems that concerns that this year’s ban will cause a fentanyl epidemic are likely misplaced but all bets would be off were a second year of a ban imposed, and were the Taliban to move against the trade in the fall of 2023, as is rumoured.
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by ricky_v »

report on the iskp

https://www.usip.org/sites/default/file ... h-asia.pdf
A Separate Wilayat for Pakistan
In neighboring Pakistan, the Islamic State’s network today is dominated by two factions. The
first consists of former TTP cadres who are predominantly Salafis from northwestern Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) Province.17 The second is made up of anti-Shia sectarian elements active in
southern Balochistan Province.18 The differing political objectives of these two communities in
Pakistan initially divided the Islamic State network in the country into two separate regional administrative units based on a geographical division: a province in Afghanistan, and another in Pakistan.
The Islamic State’s central leadership announced a separate administrative unit for Pakistan,
named the Wilayat Pakistan, or ISPP, in May 2019, formally separating it from ISKP. Establishing
ISPP was most likely prompted by the Islamic State’s desire to project regional strength at a time
when it was losing its territorial control in Syria and Iraq. To date, however, the existence of ISPP
has not helped the Islamic State noticeably expand its activities in the country.
Just two years after its creation, ISPP was reduced in size by the loss of KPK, which, in July 2021,
became part of the organizational network of ISKP. This restructuring appears to have been part
of ISKP’s strategy to utilize the opportunities in KPK to revamp its war against the Pakistani state.
Several other factors also help explain this restructuring. The majority of ISKP’s Afghan leadership
originate from Salafi seminaries in the province, and recruits from KPK played a crucial role in ISKP’s
original expansion.19 The province additionally shares a difficult-to-govern border with Afghanistan,
which has allowed it to serve as a launchpad for Afghan insurgencies since the 1970s.20
ISKP now hopes that the extensive networks of militants in the Afghan diaspora in KPK can
help facilitate its war with the Afghan Taliban. Further, the merger also allows the group to conduct operations in Pakistan, which ISKP blames for the Taliban’s fight against ISKP in Afghanistan
and for damaging the Islamist cause in Afghanistan.21 This narrative has become more dominant
in ISKP propaganda since the affiliate came under the control of Afghan militants.
ISKP-TTP Relations
ISKP’s relations with the TTP also changed after ISKP’s territorial collapse in Afghanistan.
Although tensions between the two groups were prevalent from ISKP’s creation due to its largescale recruitment among TTP leaders and cadres, they did not become public until July 2020,
when the two groups traded accusations in the media. This occurred as the TTP began its own
organizational resurgence, with several Pakistani militant groups, including former TTP splinters,
joining or rejoining the TTP.22
In July 2020, the TTP declared that ISKP was a stooge of regional intelligence agencies and
had been established to damage the jihadi movement in the region.23 These verbal tensions escalated further after the Taliban takeover of Kabul in August 2021, when the TTP publicly renewed
its pledge of allegiance to the Afghan Taliban.24 Soon thereafter, ISKP accused the TTP of taking
help from the Indian intelligence service and obeying its instructions to carry out terrorist attacks
in Pakistan.25 Over the ensuing year, these verbal confrontations escalated to involve armed confrontations and assassinations.
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by Manish_P »

ricky_v wrote:https://archive.is/KiNYB
The Taliban’s Successful Opium Ban is Bad for Afghans and the World
The Taliban have done it again: implementing a nearly complete ban against cultivation of opium poppy — Afghanistan’s most important agricultural product...
What would be the effect on Pakistan?
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by ricky_v »

Manish_P wrote: What would be the effect on Pakistan?
i have limited knowledge on the global drug circulation, so my post is purely speculation, but one thing certain is that this issue needs to be considered along with the larger picture that i posted on the understanding us thread on the fentanyl crisis there

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7615&start=6840#p2591813

Image
now consider this image as well, which is basically a rough potency comparison of heroin, fentanyl and carfentanil, as seen, fent and carfent can be "stepped on" for a much larger amount than heroin, iow it can be mixed / cut many times over with other stimulants and still the kick would be much higher, withdrawal is also not an option as that leaves the person with long-term disabilities


so currently,
1) the synthetic opioid, fent, is in a higher demand than heroin which is made from natural poppy; the chemicals are mostly supplied by china either as a whole, or most commonly in separate kits to mix and match by cartels, pakistan does not have the intellectual or industrial / pharma heft or setup to compete with this system, tactically, they may be induced by china to push this merchandise to india, afghanistan and iran, but in the longer run they lose out on the loyalty of the poor sharecroppers, farmers of the opium business, this may dent their overall standing and impact their ability for mischief-making in afg

2) as per the paper, the main areas targeted by the taliban was the central and south, stronghold of the taliban, and the main transport market was in the province bordering iran in the south-west, but, the province of nangarhar, with its capital of jalalabad (in the east bordering the durand line) which i believe is a stronghold of pakistan and the province of badakhshan bordering gilgit-baltistan had strong clashes with the taliban on this issue and continued growing opium in contravention to the directive, so i believe that the pakis are still holding onto some leverage via their proxies in this matter
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by Manish_P »

^ Thanks. Pakistan will not lose an opportunity to earn - either by getting in on the producing/trafficking chain... or by demanding aid to NOT to produce/traffic the stuff.
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by ricky_v »

ha, this is pakistan we are talking about, they will steal sht from a dog's ashole if they have the right bag to bring it unscathed to the buyer... they will indulge in trafficking AND demand aid to stop trafficking with their patented non-state actor defense
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by Manish_P »

^ haha quite correct.

I am simple SDRE.. don't have the cunning business acumen of the paki jernails.
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by sanman »

V_Raman
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by V_Raman »

Manish_P wrote:
ricky_v wrote:https://archive.is/KiNYB
The Taliban’s Successful Opium Ban is Bad for Afghans and the World
What would be the effect on Pakistan?
Surreal read - I never thought such articles would be passed off as scholarly!
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by ricky_v »

https://unherd.com/2023/07/the-impossib ... ghanistan/
To many in the West, an Afghanistan that flourishes under the Taliban, or even one that survives, cannot possibly be true. Under their rule, the country can only be a place of unremitting failure and misery. The decision of Tobias Ellwood, then, as chair of the UK’s defence select committee, to post a video praising the Taliban for improving safety in Afghanistan was never going to find a warm reception.


In 2021, the UN issued a desperate warning about an impending disastrous famine in Afghanistan. The Taliban takeover and the exodus of international NGOs, they said, had caused a collapse in food supplies. They projected one million children were likely to die in the coming winter. And yet, winter came and passed without a famine and without mass deaths. Did the UN’s experts take that as a prompt to review their metrics? Not at all. Instead, they repeated the prediction for the next winter, and were wrong again. Afghanistan is an agricultural country with centuries-long experience in handling scarcity; accustomed to harsh winters and isolation, they knew what to do.
Afghanistan’s drug trade has been almost eradicated, as confirmed by international watchdog agencies and satellite surveillance. The borders are mostly secure, and the Taliban have built good cooperation with neighbouring border police such as that of Uzbekistan. Even the International Crisis Group, no fan of the Taliban, has acknowledged that security across the country has improved, with the exception of pockets of anti-Taliban extremists.

Elsewhere, the economy is better than it was under the Western-installed and Western-funded governments, the latter having required near total international subsidy while the Taliban are managing not just on their own, but under sanctions. Improved security also means improved trade routes and revitalised agriculture. As the US Institute of Peace, another critic of the Taliban, notes: “the Taliban have taken some positive steps toward financial stability by publishing a fiscally responsible three-month budget and raising considerable amounts of domestic revenue — especially through customs duties, which have risen with a crackdown on corruption”.


As for corruption, Transparency International, the Europe-based watchdog agency, elevated Taliban-ruled Afghanistan by 24 places from where it had been under Western governments, from 174th to 150th, which the government-funded Voice of America termed “a remarkable status upgrade”.

After Ellwood posted his video, he was tarred, feathered and threatened with expulsion, causing him to ignominiously cave in and agree that, like Mr Morgenstern’s academic, he must have “imagined the whole thing”. This dream, however, has cost us, and them, incalculable harm. This time, let’s focus on the facts rather than wishes.
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by g.sarkar »

I was trying to find out what happened to Mr. Amrullah Saleh, and this is what I found:
https://www.firstpost.com/world/us-hand ... 39292.html
'US hand in glove with Taliban, using it & associated terror groups for geopolitics': Afghanistan ex-VP Amrullah Saleh
Former Vice-President of Afghanistan Amrullah Saleh alleged that the US's CIA has delivered two Mi-17 Russian made helicopters to the Taliban's GDI which are now parked in western section of the Kabul Airport
Umang Sharma, July 07, 2023

Former Vice-President of Afghanistan Amrullah Saleh, who had put up a brave fight against the Taliban after it took over Kabul in an unstoppable wave as the US wound down its presence in the war-ravaged country, has levelled serious allegations of collusion between the Taliban and American spy agency CIA.
Apart from accusing the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of having provided the Taliban with Russian made weapons and helicopters, he tweeted accusing America of being hand in glove with the regressive and repressive Taliban regime.
“The US’s CIA has delivered two Mi-17 Russian made helicopters to the Taliban’s GDI, tail number 163 and 165 which are now parked in western section of the Kabul Airport. These two helicopters were operated by the CIA during the republic and were taken for maintenance to UAE. They are gifted to the Talibs as part of the secret annexes of the Doha deal conspiracy,” Saleh tweeted.
.....
Gautam
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by wig »

https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/ta ... 0b50&ei=16


Taliban Imposes Restrictions on Afghanistan's Sikh, Hindu Minorities
extracts
Under the Taliban, Sikhs and Hindus have faced severe restrictions, including on their appearances, and have been banned from marking their religious holidays in public, leaving many with no choice but to escape their homeland, RFE/RL reported.

"I cannot go anywhere freely," Fari Kaur, one of the last remaining Sikhs in the capital, Kabul said.

"When I go out, I'm forced to dress like a Muslim so that I can't be identified as a Sikh," she said, in reference to the Taliban's order that all women must wear the all-encompassing burqa or niqab.
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by drnayar »

V_Raman wrote: 17 Jun 2023 03:01
Manish_P wrote:
What would be the effect on Pakistan?
Surreal read - I never thought such articles would be passed off as scholarly!
AF opium is a major source of funding for the ISI ..and god knows who else [CIA at least some part of it and the MI6 !] ..almost every clandestine org has a finger in the pie. The Taliban for sure knows who is hurting and where :mrgreen: ..and its not the AF populace
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by krithivas »

Any and all Indians that opposed the Citizenship Amendment Act to allow Afghan Hindus and Sikhs to settle and freely live in India are resposible for the murder of Hindus and Sikhs in Afghanistan.
wig wrote: 26 Aug 2023 20:25 https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/ta ... 0b50&ei=16


Taliban Imposes Restrictions on Afghanistan's Sikh, Hindu Minorities
extracts
Under the Taliban, Sikhs and Hindus have faced severe restrictions, including on their appearances, and have been banned from marking their religious holidays in public, leaving many with no choice but to escape their homeland, RFE/RL reported.

"I cannot go anywhere freely," Fari Kaur, one of the last remaining Sikhs in the capital, Kabul said.

"When I go out, I'm forced to dress like a Muslim so that I can't be identified as a Sikh," she said, in reference to the Taliban's order that all women must wear the all-encompassing burqa or niqab.
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by g.sarkar »

https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/110757 ... ng-pullout
US denies leaving any weapons in Afghanistan during pullout
United States rejected Pakistan’s statements about the weapons American troops had allegedly left in Afghanistan before pulling out of the war-ravaged country
News Desk, September 07, 2023

WASHINGTON: The United States has rejected Pakistan’s statements about the weapons American troops had allegedly left in Afghanistan before pulling out of the war-ravaged country.
Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said America did not leave behind any military equipment for terrorist organisations in Afghanistan.
His remarks came after Pakistan’s Prime Minister Anwaar ul Haq Kakar and Ambassador Masood Khan had reportedly said the weapons left behind by America had fallen into the hands of terrorists.
Kirby said the US had left only a limited amount of equipment and aircraft in Kabul. At the airport, he said, America had left trucks, and technical and firefighting equipment.
When a journalist drew his attention to reports that the $7 billion worth of weapons in Afghanistan had fallen into the hands of terrorists, the National Security Council spokesman said the military equipment being talked about had been actually handed over to the Afghan defence forces.
All that military equipment was for the Afghan defence forces, as it was the US mission to build their capacity and enable them to fulfil their country’s security responsibility themselves, said Kirby. He said it the Afghan forces themselves that had abandoned that equipment.
......
Gautam
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by Manish_P »

g.sarkar wrote: 07 Sep 2023 09:28
...
When a journalist drew his attention to reports that the $7 billion worth of weapons in Afghanistan had fallen into the hands of terrorists, the National Security Council spokesman said the military equipment being talked about had been actually handed over to the Afghan defence forces.
......
:lol: Well he is technically correct :lol:

Bakis are just sore because Khan didn't hand over the stuff to them, the sole defeaters of two supah-powahs
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by Pratyush »

Who was it, who tried to warn the baki's that Afghanistan is your strategic death and not Strategic Depth?
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by chetak »

Manish_P wrote: 07 Sep 2023 10:07
g.sarkar wrote: 07 Sep 2023 09:28
:lol: Well he is technically correct :lol:

Bakis are just sore because Khan didn't hand over the stuff to them, the sole defeaters of two supah-powahs

Manish ji,


After the amriki departure, the pakis stole, bought, "borrowed" many thousands of amriki "abandoned" military vehicles from the afghan jihadis and drove them to pukestan in convoy after never ending convoy.

those were the very short heyday and honeymoon celebrations period before the afghans realized the harsh reality of taqiya applied to them by fellow jihadis

the paki army still has some very foolish dreams of running roughshod over the afghan lands in the name of their famed crore kammandu jernails and "strength" of their atmi takat, the pav and dai kilo variety, and their delusionary concept of strategic depth.

the afghans have hit back with the durand line trump card and that is slowly evolving into a monstrosity, with a hideous life of its own, a monster of gargantuan proportions, lethal to the pakis, if some aggrieved outsider lends it the paki defined "diplomatic, political, and moral" support
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by g.sarkar »

IMHO, USA left billions of $$ worth of equipment purposely to destabilize the area (Afghanistan, Pakistan and India) for future. They did not have much use for the equipment, and did not want to spend more money to transport it back. Giving it to Afghan government, who would then sell it to the highest bidder, meant that warlords will keep fighting for the foreseeable future. Who knows, it might even go to the Stans and destabilize them. The US likes to fish in troubled waters.
Gautam
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Re: Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Post by Manish_P »

chetak wrote: 07 Sep 2023 11:34...

After the amriki departure, the pakis stole, bought, "borrowed" many thousands of amriki "abandoned" military vehicles from the afghan jihadis and drove them to pukestan in convoy after never ending convoy.
...
Precisely the sore point, Chetak sir.

The bious bakis believe it was/is their entitlement via divine decree to be gifted the items rather than having to buy or steal them.

Likewise they have always been sore with their cousins, the Britshits, for not handing the whole of Hindustan to them (the rightful descendants of the Mughals) when they departed the land in 1947.
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