Afghanistan is creeping back into America’s line of sight.
ANOTHER WAR THEY LOST IGNOBLY
Huma Yusuf
T
“YOU can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.” Those famous lyrics are going to haunt American officials after next month’s US presidential elections as Washington again considers its Afghanistan problem. How it will broach this problem is unsurprisingly of interest to Pakistan’s establishment. But rather than endure a case of déjà vu, could our leaders pitch a new approach?
Just under 24 million Afghans require humanitarian assistance, 48 per cent of them live below the poverty line, and Afghan women’s rights are so decimated that women are now prohibited from even speaking in public. Over the past three years, these factors have not been sufficient to draw global attention to Afghanistan. The world remains focused on the conflict in the Middle East, Russia’s posturing, and US-China rivalry.
And yet, Afghanistan is creeping back into America’s line of sight, and the recent arrest of an Afghan national in Oklahoma for allegedly planning Election Day attacks in the name of IS will put the issue into centre focus. The man was apprehended while trying to stockpile weapons after trawling through online IS propaganda. His detention is a reminder that the US is not secure against terrorism while militant safe havens persist.
Even earlier, Afghanistan was back in US headlines, because it has become a useful punching bag in the context of domestic politics. America’s chaotic departure from Afghanistan — based on a deal with the Afghan Taliban brokered by the Trump administration, followed by an exit plan executed by the Biden administration — has featured repeatedly on the campaign trail, with Republicans and Democrats blaming each other for all that went wrong.
The Republican Party timed its publication last month of a report that sharply criticises the Biden administration for failing to plan for the return to power of the Taliban, and taking steps to safely evacuate Americans and their Afghan allies beforehand. It aims to defend the Republicans’ record following last year’s After Action Review, an internal US government probe into both sides’ failings during the withdrawal, particularly the failure to anticipate and plan for worst-case scenarios. Having stirred the Afghan pot to win domestic political points, the next US government will have to contend with what it has brewed.
Reprioritisation of Afghanistan will also be driven by the fact that Russia is seeking to emerge as a regional leader on the topic. The Moscow Format meeting involving regional governments earlier this month focused on Afghanistan, and stressed how regional security hinges on the Taliban’s ability to clamp down on militant groups operating from its soil. This is not a conversation Washington can easily ignore.
In this context, Pakistan is preparing for a throwback to the days when Washington worried about global terrorism threats emanating from Afghanistan, and sought to tackle them by scattering counterterrorism funding in Islamabad’s direction. Increased CT cooperation was the focus of bilateral meetings between the US and Pakistan in May, and the government’s decision to ‘reinvigorate’ its national CT strategy in June appeared strategically timed.
No doubt, Pakistan faces a grave and material security threat from groups such as the TTP that carry out cross-border attacks from Afghanistan. The rapid rise in militant attacks is alarming: August’s death toll of 254 people killed in militant attacks — the highest over the past six years — was an unambiguous warning sign. Pakistan should absolutely do whatever it takes to eliminate this security threat, including cooperating with regional governments similarly affected, as well as global players with their own vested interests such as the US.
But what the state should not do is cynically use CT considerations as a blunt instrument against public dissent. Nor should it assume that rekindled US interest in regional security offers it carte blanche to clamp down in the name of national security. The PTM ban on tenuous security grounds, the conflation of Pakhtun identity with terrorism and anti-state positioning, the focus on Afghan flags at the PTM jirga — these are missteps that distract from the real threat and damage state credibility.
Perhaps this time around the government can take advantage of the presence of a large, local constituency that is opposed to extremist violence, and instead, privileges peaceful protest, rule of law and democratic rights. Throughout our erstwhile ‘war on terror’ we sought effective CT narratives. These now exist in the form of grassroots movements across the country. A changing geopolitical context should not embolden their suppression — it should empower them as strong alternatives to future cycles of violence.
The writer is a political and integrity risk analyst.
X: @humayusuf
Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2024
Huma Yusuf
Published October 14, 2024
DAWN
T“YOU can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.” Those famous lyrics are going to haunt American officials after next month’s US presidential elections as Washington again considers its Afghanistan problem. How it will broach this problem is unsurprisingly of interest to Pakistan’s establishment. But rather than endure a case of déjà vu, could our leaders pitch a new approach?
Just under 24 million Afghans require humanitarian assistance, 48 per cent of them live below the poverty line, and Afghan women’s rights are so decimated that women are now prohibited from even speaking in public. Over the past three years, these factors have not been sufficient to draw global attention to Afghanistan. The world remains focused on the conflict in the Middle East, Russia’s posturing, and US-China rivalry.
And yet, Afghanistan is creeping back into America’s line of sight, and the recent arrest of an Afghan national in Oklahoma for allegedly planning Election Day attacks in the name of IS will put the issue into centre focus. The man was apprehended while trying to stockpile weapons after trawling through online IS propaganda. His detention is a reminder that the US is not secure against terrorism while militant safe havens persist.
Even earlier, Afghanistan was back in US headlines, because it has become a useful punching bag in the context of domestic politics. America’s chaotic departure from Afghanistan — based on a deal with the Afghan Taliban brokered by the Trump administration, followed by an exit plan executed by the Biden administration — has featured repeatedly on the campaign trail, with Republicans and Democrats blaming each other for all that went wrong.
The Republican Party timed its publication last month of a report that sharply criticises the Biden administration for failing to plan for the return to power of the Taliban, and taking steps to safely evacuate Americans and their Afghan allies beforehand. It aims to defend the Republicans’ record following last year’s After Action Review, an internal US government probe into both sides’ failings during the withdrawal, particularly the failure to anticipate and plan for worst-case scenarios. Having stirred the Afghan pot to win domestic political points, the next US government will have to contend with what it has brewed.
Reprioritisation of Afghanistan will also be driven by the fact that Russia is seeking to emerge as a regional leader on the topic. The Moscow Format meeting involving regional governments earlier this month focused on Afghanistan, and stressed how regional security hinges on the Taliban’s ability to clamp down on militant groups operating from its soil. This is not a conversation Washington can easily ignore.
In this context, Pakistan is preparing for a throwback to the days when Washington worried about global terrorism threats emanating from Afghanistan, and sought to tackle them by scattering counterterrorism funding in Islamabad’s direction. Increased CT cooperation was the focus of bilateral meetings between the US and Pakistan in May, and the government’s decision to ‘reinvigorate’ its national CT strategy in June appeared strategically timed.
No doubt, Pakistan faces a grave and material security threat from groups such as the TTP that carry out cross-border attacks from Afghanistan. The rapid rise in militant attacks is alarming: August’s death toll of 254 people killed in militant attacks — the highest over the past six years — was an unambiguous warning sign. Pakistan should absolutely do whatever it takes to eliminate this security threat, including cooperating with regional governments similarly affected, as well as global players with their own vested interests such as the US.
But what the state should not do is cynically use CT considerations as a blunt instrument against public dissent. Nor should it assume that rekindled US interest in regional security offers it carte blanche to clamp down in the name of national security. The PTM ban on tenuous security grounds, the conflation of Pakhtun identity with terrorism and anti-state positioning, the focus on Afghan flags at the PTM jirga — these are missteps that distract from the real threat and damage state credibility.
Perhaps this time around the government can take advantage of the presence of a large, local constituency that is opposed to extremist violence, and instead, privileges peaceful protest, rule of law and democratic rights. Throughout our erstwhile ‘war on terror’ we sought effective CT narratives. These now exist in the form of grassroots movements across the country. A changing geopolitical context should not embolden their suppression — it should empower them as strong alternatives to future cycles of violence.
The writer is a political and integrity risk analyst.
X: @humayusuf
Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2024
Afghan Taliban vow to implement media ban on images of living things
Kabul (AFP) – Afghanistan's Taliban morality ministry pledged Monday to implement a law banning news media from publishing images of all living things, with journalists told the rule will be gradually enforced.
Issued on: 14/10/2024
Journalists summoned
In central Ghazni province on Sunday, PVPV officials summoned local journalists and told them the morality police would start gradually implementing the law.
They advised visual journalists to take photos from further away and film fewer events "to get in the habit", a journalist who did not want to give his name for fear of reprisal told AFP.
Reporters in Maidan Wardak province were also told the rules would be implemented gradually in a similar meeting.
Television and pictures of living things were banned across the country under the previous Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, but a similar edict has so far not been broadly imposed since their return to power.
Since 2021, however, officials have sporadically forced business owners to follow some censorship rules, such as crossing out the faces of men and women on adverts, covering the heads of shop mannequins with plastic bags, and blurring the eyes of fish pictured on restaurant menus.
Kabul (AFP) – Afghanistan's Taliban morality ministry pledged Monday to implement a law banning news media from publishing images of all living things, with journalists told the rule will be gradually enforced.
Issued on: 14/10/2024
A sign of the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice is seen at an entrance gate of a government building in Kabul © Hoshang Hashimi / AFP
It comes after the Taliban government recently announced legislation formalising their strict interpretations of Islamic law that have been imposed since they swept to power in 2021.
"The law applies to all Afghanistan... and it will be implemented gradually," the spokesman for the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (PVPV) Saiful Islam Khyber told AFP, adding that officials would work to persuade people that images of living things are against Islamic law.
"Coercion has no place in the implementation of the law," he said.
"It's only advice, and convincing people these things are really contrary to sharia (law) and must be avoided."
The new law detailed several rules for news media, including banning the publication of images of all living things and ordering outlets not to mock or humiliate Islam, or contradict Islamic law.
Aspects of the new law have not yet been strictly enforced, including advise to the general public not to take or look at images of living things on phones and other devices.
Taliban officials continue to regularly post photos of people on social media and Afghan journalists have told AFP they received assurances from authorities after the law was announced that they would be able to continue their work.
The information ministry did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment.
"Until now, regarding the articles of the law related to media, there are ongoing efforts in many provinces to implement it but that has not started in all provinces," Khyber said.
He added "work has started" in the southern Taliban stronghold of Kandahar and the neighbouring Helmand province, as well as northern Takhar.
Before the recent law was announced, Taliban officials in Kandahar were banned from taking photos and videos of living things but the rule did not include news media.
"Now it applies to everyone," Khyber said.
It comes after the Taliban government recently announced legislation formalising their strict interpretations of Islamic law that have been imposed since they swept to power in 2021.
"The law applies to all Afghanistan... and it will be implemented gradually," the spokesman for the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (PVPV) Saiful Islam Khyber told AFP, adding that officials would work to persuade people that images of living things are against Islamic law.
"Coercion has no place in the implementation of the law," he said.
"It's only advice, and convincing people these things are really contrary to sharia (law) and must be avoided."
The new law detailed several rules for news media, including banning the publication of images of all living things and ordering outlets not to mock or humiliate Islam, or contradict Islamic law.
Aspects of the new law have not yet been strictly enforced, including advise to the general public not to take or look at images of living things on phones and other devices.
Taliban officials continue to regularly post photos of people on social media and Afghan journalists have told AFP they received assurances from authorities after the law was announced that they would be able to continue their work.
The information ministry did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment.
"Until now, regarding the articles of the law related to media, there are ongoing efforts in many provinces to implement it but that has not started in all provinces," Khyber said.
He added "work has started" in the southern Taliban stronghold of Kandahar and the neighbouring Helmand province, as well as northern Takhar.
Before the recent law was announced, Taliban officials in Kandahar were banned from taking photos and videos of living things but the rule did not include news media.
"Now it applies to everyone," Khyber said.
Journalists summoned
In central Ghazni province on Sunday, PVPV officials summoned local journalists and told them the morality police would start gradually implementing the law.
They advised visual journalists to take photos from further away and film fewer events "to get in the habit", a journalist who did not want to give his name for fear of reprisal told AFP.
Reporters in Maidan Wardak province were also told the rules would be implemented gradually in a similar meeting.
Television and pictures of living things were banned across the country under the previous Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, but a similar edict has so far not been broadly imposed since their return to power.
Since 2021, however, officials have sporadically forced business owners to follow some censorship rules, such as crossing out the faces of men and women on adverts, covering the heads of shop mannequins with plastic bags, and blurring the eyes of fish pictured on restaurant menus.
Images of living things, including a fish at a restaurant in Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, are often censored in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover
© Wakil KOHSAR / AFP
When the Taliban authorities seized control of the country after a two-decade-long insurgency against foreign-backed governments, Afghanistan had 8,400 media employees.
Only 5,100 remain in the profession, according to media industry sources.
This figure includes 560 women, who have borne the brunt of restrictions the United Nations have called "gender apartheid", including being ordered to wear masks on television.
In Helmand, women's voices have been banned from television and radio.
Afghanistan has slipped from 122nd place to 178th out of 180 countries in a press freedom ranking compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
© 2024 AFP
When the Taliban authorities seized control of the country after a two-decade-long insurgency against foreign-backed governments, Afghanistan had 8,400 media employees.
Only 5,100 remain in the profession, according to media industry sources.
This figure includes 560 women, who have borne the brunt of restrictions the United Nations have called "gender apartheid", including being ordered to wear masks on television.
In Helmand, women's voices have been banned from television and radio.
Afghanistan has slipped from 122nd place to 178th out of 180 countries in a press freedom ranking compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
© 2024 AFP
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