Taliban takes full control of Zaranj, capital of Nimruz province

According to reports, Taliban have taken full control of Zaranj, the capital of Nimruz province, without a fight. The western locale is the first provincial capital to fall under Taliban control since it launched its offensive across the country in May.

Jihadists and other independent sources on social media have posted videos of Taliban fighters patrolling Zaranj. The images also show them in control of the military base, as well as Zaranj Airport.

Taliban fighters were photographed outside the governor’s compound and the headquarters of the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s intelligence agency. Prisoners are streaming out of the local prison.

Some of these images were produced by Taliban spokesman Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, but additional sources confirm the fall of Zaranj.

This afternoon, the governor’s office, command and many other facilities in Zaranj, the capital of Nimroz province, fell into the hands of mujahidin and the remaining areas are being cleared.

Nimroz airfield and the rest of the battalion were also completely conquered.]

Afghan journalist Bilal Sarwary confirmed that the Taliban now controls Zaranj.

“Zaranj city becomes the first provincial capital to fall to the Taliban without a single shot being fired,” Sarwary noted on Twitter.

Taliban takeover of Zaranj is a major victory for the group, which is also battling for control of multiple other provincial capitals. Government forces are currently clinging to a cluster of buildings in the center of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, as the Taliban controls the rest of the city.

Taliban are in control of neighborhoods in Kandahar and Herat cities, and are launching frequent assaults in other capitals, such as Taluqan, Kunduz City, Ghazni City, Mitharlam, and Shiberghan.

Zaranj, which is on the border with Iran, is a major trade route and was a source of customs income for the Afghan government. The Taliban now operates four of the six major border crossings, and is collecting millions of dollars in revenue daily.

The Taliban’s objective is to restore its Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, either via force or by diplomacy. It is currently fighting to impose its repressive regime on the Afghan people.

Hiroshima marks 76th anniversary of US atomic bombing

Hiroshima on Friday marked the 76th anniversary of the world’s first atomic bombing, as the mayor of the Japanese city urged global leaders to unite to eliminate nuclear weapons, just as they are united against the coronavirus. Mayor Kazumi Matsui urged world leaders to commit to nuclear disarmament as seriously as they tackle a pandemic that the international community recognizes as “threat to humanity.”

“Nuclear weapons, developed to win wars, are a threat of total annihilation that we can certainly end, if all nations work together,” Matsui said.

The United States dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6th August 1945, destroying the city and killing 140,000 people. It dropped a second bomb three days later on Nagasaki, killing another 70,000. Japan surrendered on 15th August 1945, ending World War II.

But countries stockpiled nuclear weapons in the Cold War and a standoff continues to this day.

Matsui renewed his demand that Japan’s government “immediately” sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga did not mention the treaty in his speech at the Hiroshima Peace Park ceremony, where aging survivors, officials and some dignitaries observed a minute of silence for the blast. At a news conference later, Suga said he has no intention of signing the treaty.

“The treaty lacks support not only from the nuclear weapons states including the United States but also from many countries that do not possess nuclear arms,” Suga said. “What’s appropriate is to seek a passage to realistically promote the nuclear disarmament.”

The global Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons took effect in January after years of civil effort joined by the atomic bombing survivors, or hibakusha. But while more than 50 countries have ratified it, the treaty notably lacks the US and other nuclear powers as well as Japan, which has relied on the US nuclear umbrella for its defense since the war’s end.

After the ceremony, Suga apologized for inadvertently skipping parts of his speech. Parts that were dropped included his pledge to pursue efforts toward achieving a nuclear free world as head of the world’s only country to have suffered atomic attacks fully aware of the inhumanity of the nuclear weapons, according to his speech posted on the Prime Minister’s Office.

Some said Suga skipping those parts of his speech spotlighted what could be seen as government hypocrisy over nuclear disarmament and the treatment of atomic bombing survivors.

“The important point is that his heart wasn’t simply there,” former Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, told an online news conference later Friday, referring to Suga.

Many survivors of the bombings have lasting injuries and illnesses linked to the bombs and radiation exposure and faced discrimination in Japanese society.

The government began to medically support certified survivors in 1968 after more than 20 years of effort by the survivors.

As of March, 127,755 survivors, whose average age is now almost 84, are certified as hibakusha and eligible for government medical support, according to the health and welfare ministry.

Suga announced last month the medical benefits would be extended to 84 Hiroshima survivors who had been denied aid because they were outside a government-set boundary. The victims were exposed to radioactive “black rain” that fell in the city after the bombing and fought a long legal battle for their health problems to be recognized.

Matsui urged Suga’s government to further widen support and have generous assistance quickly reach all those still suffering physical and emotional effects of radiation, including the black rain survivors who were not part of the lawsuit.

Thursday’s ceremony at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park was significantly scaled down because of the coronavirus pandemic and was also eclipsed by the Olympics being held in Tokyo, where even national NHK television quickly switched to the games after the main speeches.

 

 

Kashmir: Modi trying to convert demographic majority into political minority

Two years ago, on 5th August 2019, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi removed the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir as a state and redesignated it as two union territories, Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and Ladakh, which are governed directly from Delhi. 

He also scrapped Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which had allowed J&K to make its own laws, and cancelled Article 35A, which gave its legislature the power to determine who was a permanent resident of the state.

The effective annexation of J&K was overwhelmingly rejected by Kashmiri Muslims. Pakistan virulently opposed it, arguing that because J&K was considered by the United Nations Security Council to be disputed territory; its annexation violated international law.

Modi claimed that this unilateral move would bring peace and development to J&K. Not surprisingly, this action by his Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has only brought more misery and more violence. And, sadly, the future doesn’t look promising.

Within a year, the impact on the economy of J&K was disastrous. Another year later, and notwithstanding the Modi government’s assertions that the political changes had brought socioeconomic development to the region, economic activity has come to a standstill. A double lockdown, political and Covid-driven, has hit the tourism industry very hard. Starved of international tourists, those running the famous house boats on Dal Lake in Srinagar are desperately struggling to survive.

Many of the political leaders arrested two years ago are still under house arrest or in jail. The BJP has made rampant use of a particularly harsh piece of legislation, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act—which permits detention without charge for up to six months—to crack down on all forms of dissent. Torture and mistreatment of detainees, including teenagers, is common practice. Less than 1% of arrests under the act have resulted in a conviction in the past 10 years. Modi has used the law to silence civil-society organizations, in particular, the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons and the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society—the only two groups documenting human rights abuses in J&K.

India’s harsh and uncompromising approach to J&K has come to the attention of the UN. In March 2021, five UN special rapporteurs wrote a letter to the Modi government expressing their concerns over arbitrary detentions, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in J&K. That letter and five previous communications by other UN rapporteurs since 5 August 2019 have been ignored.

In June 2021, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, concerned by grave human rights violations in J&K, asked the Indian government to end the use of shotgun pellets against children. The dire situation in J&K has also come to the attention of the EU. A number of members of the European Parliament have written to the president and vice president of the European Commission expressing concern about the human rights violations in J&K.

Kashmiri political leaders­—most of whom have lost all credibility with Kashmiris—have demanded that J&K’s statehood be restored. Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai has said in the Indian parliament that statehood would be ‘granted at an appropriate time after normalcy is restored’. The Indian government’s response begs more questions about Kashmir’s future.

In the meantime, Delhi has extended until March 2022 the role of the Delimitation Commission established to redraw the electoral constituencies of J&K. Most Kashmiris fear that the commission’s real task is to redraw the electoral map to make it easier for the BJP to win the next election, whenever that will be.

But more worrisome to Kashmiris is that since the legislative changes in August 2019, well over three million domicile certificates have been granted to non-Kashmiris, most of them non-Muslims. Moreover, there’s a fear that Delhi will apply to Kashmir the 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act, which requires Muslims to prove their citizenship. Many would not be able to do so because they have no official papers to confirm their legal status.

The Modi government has been keen to assist the return to Kashmir of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits (Hindus) who left because of the security situation in the 1990s. As former J&K finance minister Haseeb Drabu noted, Kashmiris are worried that through the use of legislative and administrative actions the Modi government is trying ‘to convert a demographic majority into a political minority’.

Despite the misery Kashmiris endure daily, the international community has no appetite to confront Modi on this. And he knows it.

There are critical strategic issues to deal with, notably the growing tension between the West and China and the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, in which India could play an important role. India’s geostrategic importance is further strengthened by its membership, along with the US, Japan and Australia, of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. Given that context, Kashmir simply doesn’t make it onto the agenda.

On his recent visit to India, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken did not allow Kashmir and other human rights issues, such as the poor treatment of Muslims in India, to complicate the bilateral meeting. When asked to comment on the wobbliness of India’s democracy, Blinken stated, ‘We view Indian democracy as a force for good in defense of a free and open Indo-Pacific. We also recognize that every democracy, starting with our own, is a work in progress.’ This would have been sweet music to his host, India’s Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar.

Sadly, once again, politics takes precedence over human rights issues. There’s no expectation that anything will change soon for Kashmiris because there’s absolutely no international pressure on Modi to relent.

Israel shifts target to Lebanon from Gaza

According to an AP report, Israel on Thursday escalated its rocket attacks by launching rare airstrikes on Lebanon. The Israeli army said in a statement that jets struck the launch sites from which rockets had been fired a day ago as well as another target used to attack Israel in the past. 

The IDF blamed Lebanon for the shelling and warned “against further attempts to harm Israeli civilians and Israel’s sovereignty.”

The overnight airstrikes in southern Lebanon were a marked escalation at a politically sensitive time. Israel’s new eight-party governing coalition is trying to keep peace under a fragile cease fire that ended an 11-day war with Hamas in Gaza in May. Several incidents leading up to this week’s rocket fire from Lebanon have focused attention on Israel’s northern border.

The strikes came at a time Lebanon is mired in multiple crises, including a devastating economic and financial crisis and political deadlock that has left the country without a functional government for a full year.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun said Israel’s use of its air force to target Lebanese villages “is the first of its kind since 2006 and indicated the presence of aggressive, escalatory intentions” against Lebanon.

Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah fought a devastating, month-long war in 2006 which killed some 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and around 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers. The war failed to neutralize the group’s rocket threat, and Israeli officials say Hezbollah’s improved missile arsenal is now capable of striking virtually anywhere in the country.

No one has claimed responsibility for the rocket fire from Lebanon, and Hezbollah has not commented. The Hezbollah-owned Al-Manar TV reported the Israeli strikes at around 2 a.m. Thursday, saying they hit an empty area in the Mahmoudiya Village in Marjayoun district.

Avichai Adraee, the Israeli army’s Arabic-language spokesman, said the Lebanese government is responsible for what happens on its territories and warned against more attacks on Israel from south Lebanon.

Three rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory Wednesday and the army responded with sustained artillery fire, Israel’s military said. The announcement came after sirens sounded in northern Israel warning of a possible rocket attack. Two rockets landed inside Israeli territory, the army said.

Channel 12 reported that one rocket exploded in an open area and another was intercepted by Israel’s defense system, known as the Iron Dome. Israeli media reported that the incoming rockets started fires near Kiryat Shmona, a community of about 20,000 people near the Lebanese border.

The Lebanese military reported 92 artillery shells fired by Israel on Lebanese villages. It said the Israeli artillery shelling resulted in a fire in the village of Rashaya al-Fukhar. In a statement, the Lebanese army also said it was conducting patrols in the border region and had set up a number of checkpoints and opened an investigation to determine the source of the rocket fire.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price condemned the rocket fire from Lebanon. “Israel has the right to defend itself against such attacks,” he told reporters in Washington, adding that the US would remain engaged with partners “in the region in an effort to de-escalate the situation.”

At the United Nations, spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, was aware of the rocket fire and Israel’s artillery response. He said the UNIFIL commander, Maj. Gen. Stefano Del Col, appealed for a cease-fire and urged both sides to “exercise maximum restraint to avoid further escalation.”

Following Turkey, Pakistan should also refuse influx of Afghan Refugees

The United States has asked Pakistan and Turkey to open doors for the entry of Afghan refugees. Interestingly, Turkey has already refused to be part of this plan. Now the Government of Pakistan has to express its consent to be part of this plan. The popular demand is that following Turkey Pakistan also should not allow influx of Afghan refugees.

The United States wants Pakistan to keep its borders with Afghanistan open for Afghan refugees. The super power taking a retreat from Afghanistan believes that two countries, Iran and Pakistan can play a pivotal role in the resettlement plan.

Since the United States does not have diplomatic relations with Iran, US policy makers look at Pakistan to help them in transferring of refugees to Turkey via Iran.

They are using a strange argument “If people go north or if they go via Iran to Turkey, they have an opportunity both to enter the country as well as to register with either the government or with UNHCR.”

The US State Department asked Turkey to allow Afghans to stay in the country for up to 14 months before they are resettled in the United States.

The Turkish government has refused to follow the US plan to use third countries to resettle Afghans, saying the move would cause a “great migration crisis” in the region.

Reportedly, Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Moeed Yusuf said at a briefing in Washington that arrangements should be made to keep displaced Afghans inside their country instead of pushing them into Pakistan. Adding, “Pakistan does not have the capacity to take more refugees.”

Moeed has also been fully supported by Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed saying, “We have decided not to open our border for refugees; the aid agencies can help the needy on the other side too.”

It is on record that since 1979, Pakistan has been hosting millions of Afghans and more than three million are permanently settled in the country.

Some critics say, “Influx of Afghan refugees into Pakistan has ushered ‘arms and drugs’ culture, religious extremism and sectarian killing. It may be true that most of the Afghans taking refuge in Pakistan are law abiding, but terrorist, under the disguise of refugees, have created safe sanctuaries and use residents of the areas as human shield.”

Turkey refuses to shoulder Afghan migration

Foreign Ministry of Turkey has called the United States “irresponsible” after the Biden administration announced it would expand efforts to assist at-risk Afghan citizens with the major caveat that the adjudication process would take months in a third country.

Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tanju Bilgic said Wednesday the US statement had suggested Turkey as an application spot “without consultation.” He said Turkey does not have the capacity to shoulder another migration crisis.

“The US may directly transport these people by plane. Turkey will not take over the international responsibilities of third countries,” Bilgic said and added Turkey would not allow its laws to be abused by other countries. He said the US announcement would trigger a major refugee crisis.

Turkey is already hosting some 3.7 million Syrians who fled the civil war there. Afghans have also fled to Turkey to escape their country’s war and instability. Media reports from border towns with Iran show the number of Afghans crossing into Turkey is on the rise.

The State Department had said it was widening the scope of Afghans eligible for refugee status in United States to include current and former employees of US-based news organizations, US-based aid and development agencies and other relief groups that receive US funding. Current and former employees of the US government and the NATO military operation who don’t meet the criteria for a dedicated program for such workers are also covered.

But applicants must leave Afghanistan to begin the adjudication process that may take 12-14 months in a third country, and the US does not intend to support their departures or stays there.

Ebrahim Raisi faces five contentious issues

Ebrahim Raisi is scheduled to take oath in Majlis (Parliament) as 8^th President of Islamic Republic of Iran on 5^th August 2021. About 115 officials from 73 countries have been invited to the ceremony. 

The former Chief Justice, who won the 18^th June presidential election, has been authorized by Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution. Earlier, the Guardian Council, which oversees elections, had sent his credentials to the Office of the Leader.

Raisi says his top priorities are resolving budget deficit, stabilizing the capital market, controlling inflation, fighting the coronavirus pandemic, addressing the issue of water scarcity, and increasing production of electricity. 

The five contentious issues facing Raisi are:

Fixing the economy 

The top priority is to revive the economy hit hard by sanctions since former US president Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, the damage later compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic. Iran has lost billions of dollars of crucial oil revenues, as it remained out of the international financial system. If the sanctions are lifted, Iran can witness stabilization of the macroeconomic environment, with an acceleration of growth and a fall in inflation. But the new president will still have to manage public expectations because one of the risks is that people think that everything will improve immediately and they may be disappointed, if situation does not improve.  

Improving foreign relations

If a compromise on the nuclear issue is reached, it will probably not allow Western investors to return to the Iranian market in the short term. Diplomatic normalization between Tehran and Washington seems to be an indispensable condition. The new president will have to find a new way to ensure a minimum of improvement in the economic living conditions of the population by managing the level of hostility with the Joe Biden administration. Raisi wants to prioritize relations with countries geographically close to Iran, which have been on friendly terms with China. Tensions with the West are likely to continue to simmer, but the process of diplomatic normalization with Saudi Arabia may persist.

Overcoming Covid-19 

When the Covid-19 pandemic struck, Iran quickly became the region's worst-hit country. The official figures were believed to underestimate the real toll, some three million people have been infected and more than 81,000 died. Iran has fallen behind in its vaccination campaign, partly because of US sanctions. An easing of sanctions, as well as the possible short-term release of one or more Iranian-designed vaccines, could help the effort.    

Regaining the people's trust

Iran's isolation and economic pain, as well as repression of two waves of protests, in the winter of 2017-2018 and in November 2019, have left their mark. Iranians were also dismayed by the January 2020 downing of a Ukrainian airliner by Iran's military amid high tensions with the United States. The crisis of confidence can be termed deep and widespread. 

Tackling environmental problems 

Ecological issues may be Iran's forgotten priority, but they loom large in the country of 83 million threatened by climate change, water shortages, desertification and urban air pollution. The environmental crisis in Iran is a reality, but so far the government has not been able to put in place a comprehensive policy. Environmental issues were not discussed in three televised pre-election debates. Water resources have depleted due to destruction of natural resources caused by unsustainable agricultural and industrial practices. Unfortunately, it takes only two rains to completely forget about it.