It's All About Muhammad

THE JERUSALEM POST — The US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the rapid advance of the Taliban are not necessarily a simple cause and effect. The US had very few troops in Afghanistan, and they weren’t doing much fighting for years. The Taliban appear to have planned a massive offensive, unlike anything seen in the past, likely with foreign intelligence and other support, after having sent delegations to Russia, China, Iran, Qatar and Pakistan. This means that what is happening has unforeseen consequences. There are many unanswered questions. The New York Times claims that “few will gang up on the U.S. for finally stopping a failed enterprise.” But in the longer term, “the notion that you cannot count on the Americans will strike deeper roots because of Afghanistan.’’ This may underpin some European reactions, according to the article. What is more perplexing is that other NATO members, including European countries, also withdrew from Afghanistan and yet, oddly, this doesn’t erode confidence in whether anyone can count on NATO or European countries. The unspoken point may be that no one was counting on NATO or European states anyway, so it was America’s war to lose. There many arguments floating around now about whether things had to turn out this way in Afghanistan. An article at The Dispatch by Paul Miller argues it didn’t have to end like this. The US could have kept training the Afghan army until it was ready to fight. They could have given Kabul more leverage in discussions with the Taliban. It’s hard to know. Many countries appear to be rushing in to feast on the failure. Turkey wants to have discussions with the Taliban and run the airport. Iran, working with China, sees a silver lining in Afghanistan. As Pakistan, Russia, Iran, China and Turkey prepare to rush in, European countries are evacuating embassy staff. [READ MORE]

BUSINESS INSIDER — The Taliban were seen dragging men accused of theft through the streets of the newly-captured city of Herat in Afghanistan on Friday.

Photos taken by journalist Bilal Sarwary show men tarred in black with nooses around their necks being paraded through the streets as armed militants flank them. Some of the militants are pictured pulling at the nooses.

“Taliban accused these men of theft, their faces were colored with black color, to embarrass them and were paraded in Herat city after the Friday prayers,” Sarwary wrote alongside the pictures.

Another video shows a crowd of people following the men.

The images come one day after the Taliban seized control of Herat, which is the country’s third-largest city.

“The city looks like a frontline, a ghost town,” provincial council member Ghulam Habib Hashimi told Reuters. “Families have either left or are hiding in their homes.”

Taliban insurgents also seized Afghanistan’s second-largest city, Kandahar, on Friday.

A US defense official has since said there is mounting concern that the militant could make a move on Kabul, the country’s capital, within days.

“Kabul is not right now in an imminent threat environment, but clearly … if you just look at what the Taliban has been doing, you can see that they are trying to isolate Kabul,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said, according to Reuters.

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THE GUARDIAN — What are we expecting to happen in coming days?

The Taliban have said they will not stop fighting until the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, resigns. Ghani held urgent talks with local leaders and international partners on Saturday, but gave no sign of responding to the Taliban’s demand, saying “reintegration of the security and defense forces is our priority, and serious measures are being taken in this regard”.

Ghani’s resignation would help to avoid many, many deaths in a battle for Kabul, which is why he is facing international pressure to do so.

Activists have however warned of targeted killings in areas that fell under Taliban control in recent weeks.

There have also been restrictions brought in on women’s rights, which have raised fears the country is returning to the harsh restrictions of Taliban rule in the 1990s, even though the group’s envoys have promised they respect women’s rights under Islam. In Kandahar women were ordered from banking jobs at gunpoint, and told that male relatives could take their place, Reuters reported. And after Herat fell to the Taliban, rights activists said that women have been barred from the university, where they make up over half of students.

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