Welcome to The Azadi Briefing, an RFE/RL e-newsletter that unpacks the important thing points in Afghanistan. To subscribe, click on right here.
I am Abubakar Siddique, a senior correspondent at RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi. This is what I have been monitoring and what I am keeping track of within the days forward.
The Key Situation
The Afghan Taliban and Pakistan have been engaged in an escalating confrontation over Islamabad’s mass expulsion of Afghan refugees.
Final month, Islamabad ordered 1.7 million undocumented Afghan refugees and migrants to go away the South Asian nation or face arrest and compelled deportation after November 1. Over 300,000 Afghans, many with solely the garments on their again, have returned to their homeland since then.
Pakistan stated its determination was in response to the Taliban’s refusal to expel the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) extremist group. Islamabad has accused the Taliban of sheltering the TTP, which is waging a lethal insurgency towards Pakistan. The TTP has shut ideological and organizational ties with the Afghan Taliban.
”After noncooperation by the Afghan interim authorities, Pakistan has determined to take issues into its personal arms, and Pakistan’s current actions are neither sudden or shocking,” Pakistani caretaker Prime Minister Anwar ul-Haq Kakar stated on November 8.
Chief Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, in the meantime, stated on November 8 that the group was not ”accountable for sustaining peace in Pakistan.”
Final week, the Taliban’s protection minister, Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, warned Pakistan to ”think about the implications of its actions and sow as a lot as it might reap.”
Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban’s international minister, advised the BBC that Islamabad was utilizing the mass deportations to stress the group to formally acknowledge the border with Pakistan, which Afghanistan rejects.
Why It is Essential: The confrontation has uncovered the escalating tensions between the Taliban and Pakistan, longtime allies that seem to have fallen out.
The edges look like on a collision course, with little indication that they will easy over their rising variations.
There have been a number of rounds of lethal clashes between Pakistani and Taliban forces in current months, main Islamabad to shut the border.
What’s Subsequent: Pakistan and the Taliban seem more likely to stay on a path of confrontation. As their pursuits conflict, Islamabad and the Taliban are more likely to proceed seeing one another as adversaries.
In the meantime, the continued mass expulsions of Afghans by Pakistan are more likely to worsen the devastating humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan, the world’s largest.
What To Hold An Eye On
The Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-Okay) extremist group claimed duty for the most recent assault concentrating on Afghanistan’s Shi’ite Hazara minority.
On November 7, no less than seven folks had been killed and 20 injured in a bomb assault on a bus within the predominantly Shi’ite neighborhood of Dasht-e Barchi in Kabul.
”The state of affairs was horrible,” one eyewitness advised RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi. ”I believe the casualties had been excessive.”
This was the third IS-Okay assault on the Shi’ite group in current weeks. On October 26, a bomb assault killed 4 folks inside a sports activities membership in Dasht-e Barchi. Within the deadliest assault, no less than 25 worshippers had been killed when a bomb focused a mosque within the northern metropolis of Pul-e Khumri on October 13.
Why It is Important: The Taliban has pledged to guard Afghanistan’s spiritual minorities. However the Shi’ite group has accused the Taliban of failing to forestall lethal assaults on Hazara.
IS-Okay’s new wave of assaults has additionally raised questions concerning the Taliban’s claims that it has severely weakened the extremist group, which as soon as managed rural territory in japanese Afghanistan.
That is all from me for now. Do not forget to ship me any questions, feedback, or ideas that you’ve. You may at all times attain us at azadi.english@rferl.org.
Till subsequent time,
Abubakar Siddique
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The Azadi Briefing will subsequent seem on December 1.