Omnibus Afghanistan thread

spaminator

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Brother of Afghan opposition figure executed by Taliban, family says
Author of the article:Reuters
Reuters
Publishing date:Sep 10, 2021 • 18 hours ago • 1 minute read • 6 Comments
Vice President of Afghanistan Amrullah Saleh speaks during a function at the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul on August 4, 2021.
Vice President of Afghanistan Amrullah Saleh speaks during a function at the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul on August 4, 2021. PHOTO BY SAJJAD HUSSAIN /AFP via Getty Images
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The Taliban have executed the brother of Amrullah Saleh, the former Afghan vice president who became one of the leaders of anti-Taliban opposition forces in the Panjshir valley, his nephew said on Friday.

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The news that Saleh’s brother Rohullah Azizi was killed came days after Taliban forces took control of the provincial center of Panjshir, the last province holding out against them.


“They executed my uncle,” Ebadullah Saleh told Reuters in a text message. “They killed him yesterday and would not let us bury him. They kept saying his body should rot.”

The Urdu language account of the Taliban information service Alemarah said that “according to reports” Rohullah Saleh was killed during fighting in Panjshir.


Saleh, a former head of the National Directorate of Security, the intelligence service of the Western-backed government that collapsed last month, is at large though his exact location remains unclear.

The National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, which groups opposition forces loyal to local leader Ahmad Massoud, has pledged to continue opposing the Taliban even after the fall of Panjshir’s provincial capital Bazarak.
 

spaminator

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Afghan journalists beaten in Taliban detention, editor says
Author of the article:Reuters
Reuters
Publishing date:Sep 09, 2021 • 19 hours ago • 2 minute read • Join the conversation
Journalists show their injuries after being beaten by the Taliban in Kabul, Afghanistan September 8, 2021 in this picture obtained from social media.
Journalists show their injuries after being beaten by the Taliban in Kabul, Afghanistan September 8, 2021 in this picture obtained from social media. PHOTO BY ETILAATROZ /via REUTERS
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Two Afghan journalists were beaten in police custody this week after covering a protest by women in Kabul where they were detained by the Taliban, their editor said.

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Zaki Daryabi, founder and editor-in-chief of the Etilaat Roz newspaper, shared images on social media of two male reporters, one with large, red welts across his lower back and legs and the other with similar marks on his shoulder and arm.

Afghan journalists say they were beaten by Taliban...
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Both men’s faces were also bruised and cut in the pictures, which were verified by Reuters.

When asked about the incident, an acting Taliban minister, who was named in his post when the new government was announced on Tuesday, said that any attack on journalists would be investigated. He declined to be identified.

Daryabi said the beatings sent a chilling message to the media in Afghanistan, where an independent press, much of it funded by Western donors, has flourished in the last 20 years.

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“Five colleagues were kept in a detention center for more than 4 hours, and during these four hours two of our colleagues were beaten and tortured brutally,” he told Reuters on Thursday, the day after the incident.

He said the injured reporters were taken to hospital and advised by doctors to take two weeks’ rest.

The Taliban, who swept into the capital Kabul on Aug. 15 and now rule Afghanistan again after fighting a 20-year insurgency against foreign and Afghan forces, have vowed to allow the media to operate and respect people’s human rights.

But incidents of abuse since they came to power have raised doubts among some Afghans.

Taqi Daryabi, one of the two Etilaat Roz journalists, said seven or eight people beat them for about 10 minutes.

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“They would raise sticks and beat us with all of their strength. After they beat us, they saw that we had passed out. They took us to lock us up in a cell with a few others,” he said. Reuters could not independently verify his account.

The last time the Taliban ruled the country from 1996-2001 there was no independent media and the Internet was in its infancy.

Several journalists have complained of assault since the Taliban returned to power, and some women have said they were not allowed to carry on working in media jobs.

Under the first Taliban rule, women were banned from work and education. The group has said in recent weeks that women will be allowed to work and attend university within the parameters of Islamic law.

“With the sudden collapse of the government, Etilaat Roz initially decided to stay and operate in the hope that there would be no big issue for media and journalists,” Daryabi said.

“But with the yesterday’s incident, that little hope I had for the future of media and journalists in country is destroyed.”
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spaminator

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ALL FOR LOVE: Florida woman gives $25Gs to con man posing as U.S. soldier in Afghanistan
When he asked for $300,000, she says she could no longer deny all the red flags.

Author of the article:Denette Wilford
Publishing date:Sep 16, 2021 • 16 hours ago • 2 minute read • Join the conversation
Online dating fraud.
Online dating fraud. PHOTO BY STOCK ART /Getty Images
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A Florida woman thought she had found Mr. Right when, really, he turned out to be all kinds of wrong after he used the crisis in Afghanistan to scam her out of $25,000.

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Susan Rizzo, of Fort Lauderdale, met a man who called himself Nicholas Shawn Wells Edwards on a dating site in June. He was a handsome officer with the U.S. Army stationed in Afghanistan. Or so Rizzo thought, reported WTVJ.


Between missions, their relationship evolved, Rizzo claimed. They spoke on the phone and even made plans to attend a wedding together.

“I feel my life is in limbo while waiting for your safe return,” Rizzo wrote to him on Aug. 14, to which he replied, “A lot didn’t go as planned … a lot of decision making amongst most of the special ops soldiers.”

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Rizzo grew concerned, recalling to the news outlet, “I am panicking. I am freaking out. I am sending him messages. I just need an alert that he’s safe, that he’s fine.”

Edwards soon informed Rizzo he had fled to the Middle East but had spent all his money getting out of Afghanistan and needed help to get to her in Florida.

So she followed his instructions and transferred $25,000 into his bank account.

“I sent the money feeling it was right based on where we were at,” Rizzo told WTJV.


He then came back to her with an even bigger request: Send $300,000, supposedly as part of a business deal for them.

Rizzo even went so far as to withdraw the money and head to FedEx but she stopped herself, knowing she could no longer deny all the red flags.

“For somebody else to get taken like this emotionally and financially – it’s embarrassing. It’s hurtful.”

Rizzo contacted the FBI, and has since reached out to the Fort Lauderdale Police Department to make them aware of the situation.

“I don’t want this to happen to somebody else,” she said, adding, “if there’s a way for me to get my money back that would be wonderful.”
 

Dixie Cup

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I'm still amazed at how people fall for this. The same with corresponding with prisoners & "falling in love" with them even tho' they've committed heinous crimes. Guess it takes all kinds....sigh
 
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Blackleaf

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1632537405513.png

On January 13, 1842, a single man on horseback approached the British garrison at Jalalabad, where soldiers were waiting for a retreating army of several thousand. Exhausted, the man had part of his skull shaved off by a sword and his horse was so exhausted that it would soon perish. As he was brought into the walls of the city the lone man was asked where the rest of the army was. “I am the army,” he replied. Thus ended a disastrous retreat from Kabul, where a British force of some 4,500 soldiers and thousands of civilians was almost entirely destroyed.

 
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spaminator

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Afghan women ministers warned Canada of Taliban atrocities in June: Senator
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Marie Woolf
Publishing date:Oct 04, 2021 • 16 hours ago • 3 minute read • 11 Comments
Afghan women's rights defenders and civil activists protest to call on the Taliban for the preservation of their achievements and education, in front of the presidential palace in Kabul, Sept. 3, 2021.
Afghan women's rights defenders and civil activists protest to call on the Taliban for the preservation of their achievements and education, in front of the presidential palace in Kabul, Sept. 3, 2021. PHOTO BY STRINGER/FILE PHOTO /REUTERS
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OTTAWA — Afghan women ministers made pleas to Canadian politicians for help — and shared warnings about atrocities and the erosion of women’s rights — two months before the Taliban took control of Kabul.

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In June, female Afghan ministers begged Canada to “do something for us” as the Taliban advanced, says a Canadian senator who took part in a videoconference between Canadian and Afghan politicians.


The desperate request was made during a Zoom meeting of the Canada-Afghanistan Parliamentary Friendship Group, attended by Canadian ministers, MPs and senators.

In July, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Canada briefed the group about brutalities, including targeted killings and moves to oppress women, as the Taliban took over more of the country.

Ambassador Hassan Soroosh gave a graphic account of the Taliban as it advanced, killing women and clerics who did not agree with their interpretation of Islam, said Sen. Salma Ataullahjan, co-chair of the parliamentary friendship group.

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Ataullahjan said Soroosh also told of how the Taliban issued statements ordering local religious leaders to draw up lists of unmarried girls over the age of 15 and widows under 45, so they could be wed to Taliban leaders.

Ataullahjan, who attended both meetings, described how Afghan female ministers “kept telling us: ‘do something for us.”‘

She said the June meeting — where Canadian cabinet ministers were present — rang alarm bells, and she argued that Canada should have acted sooner to evacuate vulnerable Afghans.

The senator said she plans to make a statement in Parliament when it returns and press the Liberal government to explain why it did not taken more urgent steps.

She says although the Taliban’s actions were not a surprise, the meetings showed the “urgency” of the situation.

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“The June one was the most significant because the women (ministers) were very concerned — you could see. There was an urgency. We were hearing that they were worried they would lose everything — all this progress (on women’s rights). They said ‘do something for us.’ There was that sense of desperation. I was really, really concerned,” the senator said.

“At the meeting with the ambassador in July we got a very, very comprehensive brief. The ambassador outlined the executions that were taking place, of (people) being targeted,” she added.

The ambassador was unavailable for comment.

By June, the Taliban were in control of almost one-third of Afghanistan and advancing swiftly. It seized control of Kabul, the capital, on Aug. 15. U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan, after two decades, on Aug. 30.

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Canada has been criticized for not doing enough to assist Afghans, and Canadians based in the country, who wanted to leave.

In July, Canada drew up plans to evacuate interpreters who assisted Canadian Forces. In all, the Canadian military helped remove than 3,700 people from Kabul over a period of weeks before pulling out at the end of August. The Liberal government has also pledged to resettle 40,000 Afghan refugees.


Ataullahjan, a Pashtun who was brought up in Pakistan but used to visit Kabul as a girl, said more should have been done after the warnings were heard.

The June 14 meeting of the friendship group was also attended by Maryam Monsef, then minister for women, and Deborah Schulte, minister of seniors at the time, as well as MPs and senators, according to Ataullahjan and her parliamentary assistant, Ayah Stretch.

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At the July 29 meeting — just weeks before the Taliban took Kabul — Afghanistan’s ambassador gave “horrific reports of what was happening” as the Taliban advanced, according to Stretch. She provided The Canadian Press with her notes of the July meeting, and said the June meeting demonstrated just how serious the situation was becoming for Afghans.

“Afghan women ministers in our Zoom call were telling us a crisis was going to happen,” she said in an interview.

“They were telling us how bad the situation was. That was the red flag. We knew back then that we needed to act quickly. We knew what the Taliban were doing years ago — it was disappointing to hear they were doing this again.”

Global Affairs Canada spokesman John Babcock said Ottawa “remains committed to Afghanistan and the Afghan people and we will continue to do all that we can to support them.”

Canada has no plans to recognize the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan, he added.

“The Taliban remain a listed terrorist entity under Canadian law. If the Taliban choose to ignore fundamental human rights — the rights of women, girls and minority groups — they should expect international isolation.

“We recognize that Afghan women have fought hard to realize their rights, and that they deserve the international community’s ongoing support.”
 

Ron in Regina

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Afghan Gun Dealers Are Selling American Weapons Seized By the Taliban #BidenEffect

By Cassandra Fairbanks
Published October 6, 2021 at 10:00am
292 Comments
I hope that they are first registering them on the UN global gun registry, and ensuring the their customers are also following suit. Filling out all the necessary forms and making sure that the address is correct for their caves, etc…