Taliban’s Interior Ministry Warns of ISIS Attack on Group’s Officials

Jul 12, 2023, 09:42 GMT+1

The Taliban's Ministry of Interior (MoI) has warned that ISIS plans to attack officials of the group who have returned from the Hajj pilgrimage, according to a letter obtained by Afghanistan International.

The Taliban’s Ministry of Interior has issued the letter to the group’s police chiefs across 34 provinces of Afghanistan and warned about “suicide attacks” by ISIS.

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Time For Madrassas & Universities To Unite In Afghanistan, Says Sirajuddin Haqqani

Jul 11, 2023, 14:28 GMT+1

Sirajuddin Haqqani, Taliban’s Minister of Interior, has said that for a long time, there have been attempts that religious seminaries confront with universities in Afghanistan.

Haqqani added that the group will not allow any confrontation between the two educational institutions.

According to Haqqani, after 45 years, now there is an opportunity for solidarity and unity between madrassas, schools, and universities in Afghanistan.

Neda Mohammad Nadeem, the Taliban’s Minister of Higher Education, also asked university lecturers and teachers to compete in innovation and scientific research.

While the two senior Taliban officials talk about university education, the group has transformed schools and educational centers in different provinces of Afghanistan into madrassas and several teachers have been fired and mullahs or people sympathetic to the Taliban have been appointed instead of them.

The Haqqani Network changed the famous “Habibia” school in Khost province, which had 7,000 students, into “Al-Jihad Madrassa”.

Recently, the Taliban has removed teacher training units from the structure of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education, which has caused unemployment of more than 4,000 employees, of these educational units in Afghanistan.

Chinese Company To Invest in Medicine Sector in Afghanistan, Says Taliban

Jul 11, 2023, 12:42 GMT+1

The Taliban's Food and Drug Authority announced that a Chinese company will invest ten million dollars in the medicine sector in Afghanistan.

According to Taliban officials, this company has asked for security for its staff in Afghanistan.

Mutiullah Sahibzada, deputy director of the Food and Drug Authority, said that the Taliban facilitates an investment environment and security has been guaranteed across Afghanistan.

Sahibzada asked the Chinese company to increase its investment in the medicine sector in Afghanistan and focus more on the production of medicines that have not been produced in Afghanistan before.

After the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 in Afghanistan, the group has repeatedly announced the investment of Chinese companies, especially in the mining sector of the country.

In 2022, the Taliban signed an oil extraction contract with a Chinese company in northern Afghanistan for 25 years.

Aynak copper mine in Logar province has also been contracted with a Chinese company, but the mining operations have not kicked off at the mining site yet.

Social Media Users Blasts Taliban Senior Official Who Called Twitter “Free Speech Hub”

Jul 11, 2023, 11:54 GMT+1

Social media users said that senior members of a group that has killed several journalists in Afghanistan over the past two decades are currently feeling good about the freedom of speech on Twitter.

The reactions come after Anas Haqqani, senior Taliban member and brother of the group’s interior minister, expressed support for Twitter which has been dubbed as a rival to the newly launched “Threads” app.

Jane Ferguson, a journalist from PBS, said, “Haqqani (his fighters have been murdering Afghan journalists and their families for years) feels good about Twitter’s freedom of speech….”

Anas Haqqani's recent tweet about Twitter has been interpreted by many as his entry into the fight between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, the owners of Twitter and Meta companies.

Despite severe violations of freedom of speech in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, this well-known figure of the Haqqani network on Monday said that Twitter doesn’t have an intolerant policy like Meta platforms.

Besides reactions of journalists to Anas Haqqani’s statement, Ali Maisam Nazary, the head of foreign relations of the National Resistance Front, said on Twitter that the Haqqani faction of the Taliban is notorious for "massacres of civilians and assassination of journalists", and now he has praised Twitter for its commitment to freedom of expression.

Nazary said that the group’s own actions contradict these values as they commit war crimes and suppress “the rights and liberties of Afghanistan’s citizens, particularly their freedom of expression”.

He asked Elon Musk, the executive chairman of Twitter, to prevent terrorist groups that threaten global security from exploiting the social media network.

Homeira Qaderi, prominent human rights defender, also reacted to Haqqani’s stance on Twitter.

She pointed to the detention of her brother, Khalid Qaderi, a journalist from Herat city and wrote, “My brother who is a journalist, was imprisoned for a year just for expressing his opinion.”

Qaderi said that it is “shameful” that Anas Haqqani talks about freedom of speech.

Natiq Malikzada, another Afghan journalist , also wrote on his Twitter handle, “While Anas Haqqani lectures us on freedom of expression, the Taliban intelligence under the control of his brother Sirajuddin Haqqani is busy shackling journalists that defy the group’s policy on media censorship.”

Twitter is one of the most favoured social media networks of the Taliban’s officials and supporters of the group. In a joint research in 2022, researchers from four prestigious universities in the United States and Canada found that the Taliban have used Twitter and other social networks as a weapon to dominate Afghanistan.

These researchers investigated the use and influence of Taliban accounts in social networks from April 1 to September 16, 2021.

In this research, it has been stated that the Taliban was more successful in using Twitter than the 18 main Afghan news organisations.

Anas Haqqani talks about freedom of speech on Twitter even though after the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan, about 60 percent of the media has collapsed or has been banned in Afghanistan and the Taliban intelligence detains journalists.

In late 2022, Afghanistan’s Journalists Center in a report said that after the Taliban’s takeover of the country, media and journalists’ freedom in Afghanistan has severely deteriorated.

Quran Desecration in Stockholm: Taliban Bans Sweden’s Activities in Afghanistan

Jul 11, 2023, 10:05 GMT+1

The Taliban announced that the group has ordered a ban on all activities of Sweden in Afghanistan. The group said that the ban will continue until the government of Sweden offers an apology to Muslims in relation to the Quran burning incident which took place in Stockholm.

On Tuesday, the Taliban asked other Islamic countries to reconsider their engagement with Sweden too.

In a statement, the Taliban stated that with the permission of the Swedish government, Quran was burned in the country, which insulted the beliefs of Muslims.

The group said that the “Islamic Emirate ordered” Sweden to stop all its activities in Afghanistan until Sweden apologises to Muslims for its "sinister act".

After protests in Islamic countries, the government of Sweden called the burning of the Quran in this country "anti-Islamic" and condemned it.

The Swedish Foreign Ministry said in a statement that burning Quran and any other holy book is insulting and disrespectful and a clearly provocative act. The statement added that expressing racism, xenophobia, and intolerance has no place in Sweden and Europe.

Meanwhile, the person who burned the Quran had received permission from the Swedish police, but burning the Quran near a mosque caused the police to start an investigation saying that this action might cause concern for an ethnic group.

The 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation on Sunday, in an emergency meeting in Saudi Arabia, called for collective measures to prevent the burning of the Quran in the future.

US Using Pakistan Airspace to Attack Targets in Afghanistan, Says Pak Special Envoy

Jul 10, 2023, 15:07 GMT+1

Asif Durrani, Pakistan's special envoy for Afghanistan, confirmed that based on UN resolutions, the United States has been using Pakistan's airspace to attack targets inside Afghanistan.

Durrani urged Taliban officials not to complain about the issue to the Pakistani government.

This is for the first time that a senior Pakistani official has confirmed the use of the country’s airspace for the US’ over-the-horizon attack in Afghanistan.

After the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, the US targeted Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of the al-Qaeda network, and several other targets of the terror group in Kabul and Ghazni provinces.

The United States also conducts surveillance operations in Afghanistan's airspace. Taliban officials, including the group's defence minister, have said several times that Afghanistan's airspace has remained "occupied”.

The Taliban have publicly asked Pakistan to prevent the US unmanned aircraft from crossing that country's airspace into Afghanistan's airspace.

However, in an interview with "Pashto 1" TV channel, Durrani said that the UN resolution to suppress the al-Qaeda network has been applicable.

Pakistan's special envoy for Afghanistan said that the whole world is committed to the 1367 and 1373 UN resolutions. That’s why, he stressed that “we [Pakistan] should not be blamed”.

This senior Pakistani diplomat added that the same resolutions allowed the US to attack Ayman al-Zawahiri, the former leader of the al-Qaeda network in District 10 of Kabul, and Osama bin Laden, the founder of the terror group in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Durrani emphasised that the Taliban has not been a proxy force of Pakistan in Afghanistan. He stressed that "every Afghan is a free man”.

Officials of the former Afghan government accused the Pakistani government of being dishonest in the Afghan peace process and of supporting the Taliban to continue terror and insurgency in Afghanistan.

However, Durrani said, "The solution to Afghanistan's problem was not in the hands of Pakistan, but I ask them, what did you do for the interests of Pakistan? They facilitated India and another front appeared against us and India was giving money to Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistani and Baloch fighters.”