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Tag: Kabul

  • Taliban detains professor who protested ban on women’s education

    Taliban detains professor who protested ban on women’s education

    Ismail Mashal was arrested after he tore up his degree certificates on live television to protest the exclusion of women from higher education, according to the Taliban.

    An academic who tore up his degrees on live television in protest against a ban on women attending universities in the nation was detained by Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities, according to his aide on Friday.

    “From today I don’t need these diplomas any more because this country is no place for an education. If my sister and my mother can’t study, then I don’t accept this education,” veteran journalism lecturer Ismail Mashal said in the video that went viral on social media last month.

    Mashal’s aide Farid Ahmad Fazli told AFP news agency that the academic was “mercilessly beaten” and taken away in a very disrespectful manner by members of “the Islamic Emirate”, the Taliban government.

    Al Jazeera was also able to confirm Mashal’s detention.

    The shredding of his degree certificates on local Tolonews in December caused a storm, adding to protests by women and activists against a Taliban edict ending women’s university education.

    A Taliban official confirmed the detention.

    “Teacher Mashal had indulged in provocative actions against the system for some time,” tweeted Abdul Haq Hammad, director at the Ministry of Information and Culture.

    “The security agencies took him for investigation.”

    ‘Giving free books’

    In recent days, domestic channels showed Mashal carting books around the capital, Kabul, and offering them to passers-by.

    Mashal, who has worked as a lecturer for more than 10 years at three Kabul universities, was arrested on Thursday despite having “committed no crime”, Fazli said.

    “He was giving free books to sisters (women) and men,” he added. “He is still in detention and we don’t know where he is being held.”

    It is rare to see a man protest in support of women in Afghanistan but Mashal, who ran a co-educational institute, said he would stand up for women’s rights.

    “As a man and as a teacher, I was unable to do anything else for them, and I felt that my certificates had become useless. So, I tore them,” he told AFP at the time.

    “I’m raising my voice. I’m standing with my sisters … My protest will continue even if it costs my life.”

    Curb on women’s rights

    The denial of secondary and tertiary education for girls and women has been a continuing concern expressed by the international community.

    The majority of girls’ secondary schools remain closed, and most girls who should be attending grades 7-12 are denied access to school, based solely on their gender, experts have said.

    Women and girls in Afghanistan have been protesting against the measures continuously for the past five months, demanding their rights to education, work and freedom.

    Their Taliban rulers have repeatedly beaten, threatened or arrested demonstrating women.

    The Taliban, which returned to power in August 2021, initially promised women’s rights and media freedom but has since gradually imposed curbs on women, bringing back memories of its last rule between 1996 and 2001.

    Some senior Taliban leaders have said that Islam grants women rights to education and work but the hardline faction of the group has prevailed in implementing anti-women measures.

  • Explosion outside Kabul’s Afghan Foreign Ministry

    Explosion outside Kabul’s Afghan Foreign Ministry

    There were casualties from the explosion in the Afghan capital, according to police spokesman Khalid Zadran.

    A senior police official confirmed that there were casualties from an explosion that was reported to have occurred near the foreign ministry in Kabul, Afghanistan.

    Police spokesman Khalid Zadran stated that “security teams have reached the area” after the explosion occurred on Wednesday at around 4 p.m. local time (11:30 p.m. GMT).

    Requests for comment on Wednesday went unanswered by the spokespeople for the Taliban-run interior and foreign affairs ministries.

    Source: Aljazeera.com
  • Dozens feared dead in explosion outside Kabul military airport

    Dozens feared dead in explosion outside Kabul military airport

    A spokesman for the interior ministry controlled by the Taliban says that an explosion outside the airport resulted in numerous casualties.

    Multiple people have been hurt in an explosion that occurred near Kabul’s military airport, according to a spokesman for the Taliban-run interior ministry.

    “Today morning an explosion took place outside Kabul military airport, due to which a number of our citizens were martyred and injured,” spokesman Abdul Nafi Takor told Reuters news agency, adding that an investigation is underway.

    He did not specify the nature or target of the explosion. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast.

    Local residents said a loud explosion was heard before 8am (03:30 GMT) in the vicinity of the military side of the heavily fortified airport.

    They said the area had been sealed off by security forces, and all roads had been closed.

    The Taliban authorities claim to have improved security since storming back to power in August 2021 but there have been scores of bomb blasts and attacks, many claimed by the local chapter of the ISIL (ISIS) armed group.

    Last month, at least five Chinese nationals were wounded when ISIL attackers stormed a hotel popular with Chinese nationals in Kabul.

    Hundreds of people, including members of Afghanistan’s minority communities, have been killed and wounded in attacks since the Taliban returned to power.

  • Kabul blast kills teenagers sitting practice exam

    A suicide attack at a tuition centre in the Afghan capital Kabul has killed at least 19 people, most of them female students, police and witnesses say.

    Nearly 30 others were wounded at the Kaaj education centre in the Dasht-e-Barchi area in the west of the city.

    Students had been sitting a practice university exam when the bomber struck. No group has yet claimed the attack.

    Many of those in the area are minority Hazaras, who have often been targeted by Islamic State (IS) militants.

    Footage on local TV and shared on social media appeared to show scenes from a nearby hospital, where rows of covered bodies were laid out on the floor. Other media reportedly from the site of the private college showed rubble and upturned tables in the damaged classrooms.

    “We didn’t find her here,” a woman who was looking for her sister at one of the hospitals told AFP news agency. “She was 19 years old.”

    Eyewitnesses told the BBC that most of the victims were girls. A student who was wounded told AFP that there were around 600 people in the room when the attack happened.

    Young man at hospital after the attack
    Friends and relatives have been looking for their loved ones in hospitals in the capital

    The Kaaj tuition centre is a private college which teaches both male and female students. Most girls’ schools in the country have been closed since the Taliban returned to power in August last year, but some private schools are open.

    Hazaras, most of whom are Shia Muslims, have long faced persecution from IS and the Taliban, which both adhere to Sunni Islam.

    The Hazaras are Afghanistan’s third largest ethnic group.

    On Friday the Taliban’s interior ministry spokesman said security teams were at the site and condemned the attack.

    Abdul Nafy Takor said attacking civilian targets “proves the enemy’s inhuman cruelty and lack of moral standards”.

    The attack was also strongly condemned by the United Nations and the US.

    “Targeting a room full of students taking exams is shameful; all students should be able to pursue an education in peace and without fear,” said Karen Decker, charge d’affaires at the US mission to Afghanistan, in a tweet.

    The security situation in Afghanistan, which had improved after the end of fighting following the Taliban takeover, has been deteriorating in recent months, with a number of attacks on civilians but also Taliban supporters. Some have been claimed by IS, which is a bitter rival of the Taliban.

    Schools and hospitals have been targeted in the Dasht-e-Barchi area in a series of attacks, most of which are thought to have been the work of IS.

    Last year – before the Taliban returned to power – a bomb attack on a girls school in Dasht-e-Barchi killed at least 85 people, mainly students, and wounded hundreds more.

    Source: BBC

     

  • Photos: Poverty pushes Afghan children to work at brick kilns

    A recent Save the Children survey says half of Afghanistan’s families have put children to work to keep food on the table.

    Nabila works 10 hours or more a day, doing the heavy, dirty labour of packing mud into moulds and hauling wheelbarrows full of bricks. At 12 years old, she has been working in brick factories for half her life now, and she is probably the oldest of all her co-workers.

    Already high, the number of children put to work in Afghanistan is growing, fuelled by the collapse of the economy after the Taliban took over the country and the world cut off financial aid just more than a year ago.

    A recent survey by Save the Children estimated that half of Afghanistan’s families have put children to work to keep food on the table as livelihoods crumbled.

    Nowhere is it clearer than in the many brick factories on the highway north of the capital, Kabul. Conditions in the furnaces are tough even for adults. But in almost all of them, children as young as four or five labour alongside their families from early morning until dark.

    Children do every step of the brickmaking process. They haul canisters of water and carry the wooden brick moulds full of mud to put in the sun to dry. They load and push wheelbarrows full of dried bricks to the kiln for firing, then push back wheelbarrows full of fired bricks.

    Afghanistan Child Labor
    Afghan children working at a brick factory [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]

    Only a few have been to school. Nabila, the 12-year-old, has been working in brick factories since she was five or six. Like many other brick workers, her family works part of the year at a kiln near Kabul, the other part at one outside Jalalabad, near the Pakistani border.

    “We can’t think about anything else but work,” she said.

    Mohabbat, a nine-year-old boy, stopped for a moment with a pained expression as he carried a load of charcoal. “My back hurts,” he said.

    Asked what he wished for, he first asked: “What is a wish?”

    Once it was explained, he was quiet for a moment, thinking. “I wish to go to school and eat good food,” he said, then added: “I wish to work well so that we can have a house.”

    The landscape around the factories is bleak and barren, with the kilns’ smokestacks pumping out black, sooty smoke. Families live in dilapidated mud houses next to furnaces, each with a corner where they make their bricks. For most, a day’s meal is bread soaked in tea.

    Rahim has three children working with him at a brick kiln, ranging from five to 12 years. He said he had no choice. “There’s no other way,” he said. “How can they study when we don’t have bread to eat? Survival is more important.”

    Afghanistan Child Labor
    Afghan children who work at a brick factory on the outskirts of Kabul [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]

    Workers get the equivalent of $4 for every 1,000 bricks they make. One adult working alone cannot do that amount in a day, but if the children help, they can make 1,500 bricks a day, workers said.

    According to surveys by Save the Children, the percentage of families saying they had a child working outside the home grew from 18 percent to 22 percent from December to June. That would suggest more than one million children nationwide were working. Another 22 percent of the children said they were asked to work on the family business or farm.

    In June, 77 percent of the surveyed families reported they had lost half their income or more compared with a year ago, up from 61 percent in December.

    At one of the kilns, it begins to rain. At first, the children were cheerful, thinking it would be a refreshing drizzle in the heat. Then the wind kicked up. A blast of dust hit them, coating their faces. The air turned yellow with dust. Some of the children could not open their eyes, but they kept working. The rain opened up into a downpour.

    The children were soaked. One boy had water and mud pouring off of him, but like the others, he said he could not take shelter without finishing his work.

    “We are used to it,” he said. Then he told another boy, “Hurry up, let’s finish it.”

    Workers get the equivalent of $4 for every 1,000 bricks they make. One adult working alone cannot do that amount in a day, but if the children help, they can make 1,500 bricks a day, workers said.

    According to surveys by Save the Children, the percentage of families saying they had a child working outside the home grew from 18 percent to 22 percent from December to June. That would suggest more than one million children nationwide were working. Another 22 percent of the children said they were asked to work on the family business or farm.

    In June, 77 percent of the surveyed families reported they had lost half their income or more compared with a year ago, up from 61 percent in December.

    At one of the kilns, it begins to rain. At first, the children were cheerful, thinking it would be a refreshing drizzle in the heat. Then the wind kicked up. A blast of dust hit them, coating their faces. The air turned yellow with dust. Some of the children could not open their eyes, but they kept working. The rain opened up into a downpour.

    The children were soaked. One boy had water and mud pouring off of him, but like the others, he said he could not take shelter without finishing his work.

    “We are used to it,” he said. Then he told another boy, “Hurry up, let’s finish it.”

    A 12-year-old Afghan girl works in a brick factory. The number of children put to work in Afghanistan is growing, fuelled by the collapse of the economy. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]

    A recent survey by Save the Children estimated that half of Afghanistan’s families have put children to work to keep food on the table as livelihoods crumbled. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]
    Children as young as four or five years old labour alongside their families in the many brick factories on the highway north out of the capital. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]
    A 13-year-old Afghan boy in a brick factory. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]
    Workers get the equivalent of $4 for every 1,000 bricks they make. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]
    A four-year-old Afghan girl sleeps after work at a brick factory. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]

    Afghan children fill a wooden brick mould at a brick factory. [Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo]
    DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the authors and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana 
    Source: Aljazeera.com

  • Taliban break up rare protest by Afghan women in Kabul

    Taliban fighters have dispersed dozens of women protesters in Kabul, almost a year after the militant group seized power.

    About 40 women marched through the Afghan capital demanding rights, before the Taliban broke it up by firing into the air.

    The fighters seized their mobile phones, stopping one of the first women’s protests in months.

    Since the Taliban takeover, women rights’ have been severely restricted.

    The protesters chanted their demands for “bread, work and freedom”, carrying a banner reading “August 15 is a black day” – a reference to the day the Taliban captured Kabul in 2021.

    Some journalists covering the march were reportedly also beaten.

    In the year since the Taliban returned to power, they have issued various orders restricting the freedom of women – barring them from most government jobs, secondary education and from travelling more than 45 miles (70km) without a male guardian.

    In May, the militants decreed that Afghan women will have to wear the Islamic face veil for the first time in decades.

    If a woman refuses to comply, her male guardians could be sent to jail for three days – although this is not always enforced.

    There have been minor sporadic protests over the past year, but any form of dissent is being crushed.

    Afghanistan is the only country in the world that officially limits education by gender – a major sticking point in the Taliban’s attempts to gain international legitimacy.

    Girls have been banned from receiving secondary education, the ministry for women’s affairs has been disbanded, and in many cases women have not been allowed to work.

     

    Source: BBC

  • Afghanistan: Deadly explosion rocks Sikh site in Kabul

    An assault on a Sikh prayer site in Afghanistan has left one worshipper and a Taliban member dead as well as the unidentified attackers.

    The site in the capital Kabul was hit by a bomb early in the morning when up to 30 people were inside.

    It is the last remaining Sikh place of worship, or Gurdwara, in the capital.

    Community leaders recently estimated that just 140 Sikhs remained in predominantly Muslim Afghanistan, down from 100,000 in the 1970s.

    India, which is home to most of the world’s Sikh population, said it was “deeply concerned” at news of the attack.

    A local official at the scene, Gornam Singh, told Reuters news agency that the Taliban were not allowing Sikhs to enter the site after the attack.

    Scene inside the Gurdwara in Kabul after the attack
    IMAGE SOURCE,MALIK MUDASSIR/BBC Image caption, The attackers reportedly initially used hand grenades to try and enter the compound of the Gurdwara

    TV footage showed grey plumes of smoke rising from the area.

    A Taliban spokesman told Reuters news agency the attackers had attempted to drive a car laden with explosives into the area but they detonated before they reached their target.

    The Taliban, which took control of Afghanistan last year, said a clearance operation was still under way although the attack had ended.

    The BBC’s Secunder Kermani was interviewing relatives of victims outside a hospital when two Taliban militants stopped his crew, trying to delete their footage.

    Since the Taliban took power, the country has seen continuing attacks by rival Sunni Muslim militant group Islamic State:

    • In April, a bomb attack killed 31 people and injured 87 at a Shia Muslim mosque in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif
    • In December, an assault on a military hospital in Kabul killed more than 20 people and injured 16

    Source: BBC

  • Death toll in Afghanistan wedding blast rises to 80

    The death toll from a suicide bomb attack at a wedding hall in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul has risen to 80.

    The death toll stood at 63 on Sunday, a day after the blast, which jumped to 80 by Wednesday. Interior Ministry spokesman Nusrat Rahimi said 17 civilians died from their wounds in recent days.

    He added that 30 people were in critical condition after the attack.

    “Seventeen others have succumbed to their injuries in hospital and over 160 are still being treated either in hospitals or at home,” Rahimi said.

    The blast was so powerful that it blew much of the roof off the huge wedding hall, where hundreds of guests had gathered.

    Read:Afghanistan: Bomb rips through wedding in Kabul

    The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) group claimed responsibility for the attack.

    It was Kabul’s deadliest attack since January 2018 when the Taliban packed an ambulance with explosives and detonated it in a crowded street – killing 103 people, according to an official toll.

    Many Afghanistan independence day celebrations that were scheduled to take place on August 19 were suspended in the aftermath of the horrific attack.

    Security failure

    So far, security officials have yet to provide any explanation as to why the wedding was targeted.

    Mansoor, a 28-year-old Afghan who had 12 relatives attending the wedding, said he was told by some survivors that the attacker arrived on a bicycle.

    He said he believed the target of the attack was not the wedding party.

    “If you pay attention, there is a police headquarters on this road. There are at least two checkpoints he would have passed. Everyone said he appeared to be heading further along the road, but somehow he turned back,” he said.

    Read:Roadside bomb tears through bus in Afghanistan, officials say

    Though Afghan wedding events have been targeted in the past, the attacks have mostly taken place in remote areas and usually attended by high-profile officials or strongmen targeted by rival forces or armed groups such as the Taliban or ISIL.

    US forces have also been accused of attacking several wedding parties across the country during their military air campaigns.

    Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani strongly condemned the attack, vowing to “take revenge for every civilian drop of blood”.

    “Our struggle will continue against [ISIL], we will take revenge and will root them out,” he said on Monday.

    He urged the international community to join those efforts.

    Source: aljazeera.com

  • Kabul wedding blast: Groom has ‘lost hope’ after deadly attack

    The bridegroom whose wedding was targeted by a suicide bomber in the Afghan capital Kabul says he has “lost hope” after the deadly attack.

    In a TV interview, Mirwais Elmi said his bride survived but his brother and other relatives were among the 63 people killed in Saturday’s attack.

    The Islamic State (IS) group has admitted carrying out the bombing, which also wounded more than 180.

    President Ashraf Ghani described the attack as “barbaric”.

    He blamed the Taliban for “providing a platform to terrorists”. The Taliban, who are engaged in peace talks with the US, condemned the attack.

    In the interview with Tolo News, Mirwais Elmi recalled greeting smiling guests in the packed wedding hall only to see their bodies carried out hours later.

    “My family, my bride are in shock, they cannot even speak. My bride keeps fainting,” he said.

    “I’ve lost hope. I lost my brother, I lost my friends, I lost my relatives. I will never see happiness in my life again.

    “I can’t go to the funerals, I feel very weak … I know that this won’t be the last suffering for Afghans, the suffering will continue,” he added.

    The bride’s father told Afghan media that 14 members of his family had died in the attack.

    Despite the ongoing talks to try and end the 18-year US war, civilians across Afghanistan continue to suffer a tremendous toll.

    Read:Afghanistan: Bomb rips through wedding in Kabul

    The latest attack underscores how difficult the path to peace in Afghanistan will be: IS, who have a presence in eastern and northern Afghanistan and are fighting against both the government and US-led international forces, are not part of the talks.

    What happened?

    An IS statement said that one of its fighters blew himself up at a “large gathering” while others “detonated a parked explosives-laden vehicle” when emergency services arrived.

    The attack took place in a district populated mainly by Shia Muslims.

    Sunni Muslim militants, including the Taliban and the Islamic State group, have repeatedly targeted Shia Hazara minorities in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

    Funerals have been taking place for the victims of the blast

    Speaking from a hospital bed, wedding guest Munir Ahmad, 23, said his cousin was among the dead.

    “The wedding guests were dancing and celebrating when the blast happened,” he told AFP news agency.

    “Following the explosion, there was total chaos. Everyone was screaming and crying for their loved ones.”

    Afghan weddings often take place in large halls where men are segregated from the women and children.

    What reaction has there been?

    Writing on Twitter, President Ghani said he had called a security meeting to “review and prevent such security lapses.”

    Afghanistan’s chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, described it as a “crime against humanity” and the US ambassador to Afghanistan, John Bass, called it an act of “extreme depravity”.

    A Taliban spokesman said the group “strongly condemned” the attack.

    Read:At least two killed in Afghan TV bus bombing in Kabul

    “There is no justification for such deliberate and brutal killings and targeting of women and children,” Zabiullah Mujaheed said in a text message to the media.

    How are Afghan peace talks progressing?

    Taliban and US representatives have been holding talks in Qatar’s capital, Doha, and both sides have reported progress.

    On Sunday, US President Donald Trump told reporters in New Jersey that the negotiations were going well.

    “We’re having very good discussions with the Taliban. We’re having very good discussions with the Afghan government,” he said.

    The US has about 14,000 troops in Afghanistan and is part of a Nato mission there. Since the start of his presidency Mr Trump has said he wants to pull the US troops out.

    The deal would include a phased US troop pullout in exchange for Taliban guarantees that Afghanistan will not be used by extremist groups to attack US targets.

    The Taliban would also begin negotiations with an Afghan delegation on a framework for peace including an eventual ceasefire. The militants have been refusing to negotiate with the Afghan government until a timetable for the US withdrawal is agreed upon.

    The Taliban now control more territory than at any point since they were forced from power in 2001.