Senior TTP Commander Injured in Afghanistan
Security sources in Pakistan said that Padshah Khan Mehsud, one of the senior commanders of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), had been injured in an attack in Afghanistan on Sunday.
Security sources in Pakistan said that Padshah Khan Mehsud, one of the senior commanders of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), had been injured in an attack in Afghanistan on Sunday.
Mehsud is believed to be the TTP leader Noor Wali Mehsud's "right-hand man" and confidant.
However, Afghanistan International's sources did not mention who targeted Mehsud.
So far, there is no information about his health condition.
TTP has not officially confirmed or denied attack on Mehsud or his injury.
Michèle Taylor, US Permanent Representative to the UN Human Rights Council, on Monday said that the situation of women in Afghanistan is getting worse every passing day.
She asked the countries of the world to stick to their current agreement regarding the policies of the Taliban.
She added that normalisation of relations with the group should depend on the change in their behaviour in Afghanistan.
Addressing a UN Human Rights Council session, Taylor, like representatives from various countries, expressed support for the statement of Richard Bennett, UN Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan.
At the 54th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, Bennett said that Taliban's policies against women are "cruel and misogynistic". He added that Taliban "systematically" violates and restricts the rights of women and girls.
In her statement, Taylor said that the Taliban are trying to completely remove women from the public sphere. She reiterated once again that the US and the international community will not recognise Taliban regime until it changes its extremist policies.
She also asked the representatives of other governments to maintain their unity against the Taliban and ask the group to change its policies against women and other layers of the Afghan society.
Without naming the Taliban, Taylor said that the existing reports about the killing and torture of the former Afghan government employees are valid and expressed concern about it.
The Taliban has denied the human rights organisations’ reports regarding the killing and torture of former security forces members in Afghanistan.
At the 54th meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday, Güven Begeç, Turkiye’s representative, said that depriving Afghan women of their right to education and employment will worsen the social and economic situation of Afghanistan in the long run.
Begec said that these restrictions are against the will of the Afghan people.
He added that Turkiye expresses solidarity with the Afghan people, especially Afghan women and girls.
While expressing concern over the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, Begec said that 28 million people are in dire need of humanitarian aid.
"Millions of [Afghan] children go to bed hungry every night," he said at the UN Human Rights Council meeting.
He added that Ankara is trying to promote human rights through interaction [with the Taliban] and find ways for the economic and social participation of the people in Afghanistan.
During a meeting with Tamana Zaryab Paryani, an Afghan activist, who is on a hunger strike in Germany, the father of Malala Yousafzai, noble peace winner, said that Afghan and Pakistani Taliban are not different, and both are terrorists.
Education activist Ziauddin Yousafzai had travelled to Germany on Monday to support the demands of Paryani for the recognition of Taliban’s gender apartheid.
They called the restrictions on women in Afghanistan imposed by the Taliban "an extreme version of apartheid”.
Yousafzai said, "I think there are distinctions between Afghanistan’s and Africa’s experience of apartheid, because what was imposed to women in Afghanistan has been more severe than what was imposed on coloured people in Africa."
Toor Pekai Yousafzai, Malala's mother, also asked the international community to support the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan, especially their right to education.
Previously, Yousafzai had supported the protest of Paryani and other Afghan human rights activists using the two hashtags, "Stop gender apartheid in Afghanistan" and "Let Afghan girls get an education".
Paryani has been on a hunger strike since Friday, September 1, demanding recognition of the "gender apartheid" in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
In this protest, a number of human rights activists from Afghanistan and Iran also joined Paryani.
Meanwhile, Berivan Aymaz, vice-president of State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia visited Paryani at her sit-in tent in Cologne. She asked Paryani to end the hunger strike and invited her to speak in the state parliament.
Also, Paryani confirmed to Afghanistan International that Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights for Afghanistan, also spoke to her on the phone.
On the other hand, Schahina Gambir, a member of the German Parliament, described Paryani’s hunger strike as a "drastic protest tool".
This representative of the Green Party in the German Bundestag said that the choice of such drastic form of protest shows how desperate the situation of women in Afghanistan is.
Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, Taliban’s Minister of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, announced that the ministry has more than 5,000 agents in Afghanistan.
He said that all of these officials are religious clerics.
He added that only the Taliban has a minister dedicated to the propagation of virtue and prevention of vice and other Islamic countries lack having such an agency.
The Taliban-controlled media agency, Bakhtar News Agency, on Sunday reported that Hanafi, during his trip to Baghlan urged people to cooperate with this ministry of the Taliban.
Earlier, officials of this ministry had told media personnel that their members have no right to use violence against the people.
However, contrary to their statement, Afghanistan International has published several video clips over the past several months showing the ministry’s agents using violence against the people.
Also, the ministry’s officials have been accused of violating people's privacy in many cases. House search operations without a warrant and checking people's phones are among such cases of violating people's privacy.
During his speech in Baghlan, Hanafi said that their mission is "to implement virtues and eliminate vice".
Sarfraz Bugti, Pakistan's Acting Interior Minister, has once again criticised the use of Afghan soil to foment violence against Pakistan.
Bugti said that the attack on Chitral last week had been organised in Afghanistan, but it is not yet known whether Afghan nationals had also been involved in the attack.
He was referring to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) attack on Wednesday, September 6, in Chitral of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa state, due to which several Pakistani soldiers were killed.
During a press conference in Islamabad, Bugti expressed hope that the Afghan Taliban will implement the Doha Agreement and ensure that the Afghan soil is not used against any other country.
Referring to the identity of the attackers in Chitral, this Pakistani official added, "It doesn't matter who waged this attack. For us, they are all terrorists."
Bugti said that the increase in terror attacks is not so high that it will panic Islamabad. He stressed that the government will not allow anyone to impose their will by force.
Following the attack on Chitral, last week a spokesperson of the TTP called the attack a "major operation" and claimed that they have captured several villages.
Chitral shares a border with Kunar, Nuristan and Badakhshan provinces of Afghanistan.
