Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

Insecurity: National and Regional Concerns

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Insecurity: National and Regional Concerns

The growing insecurity in Afghanistan has caused widely national and regional concerns. The recent killing of coal miners in Baghlan has sparked a massive outcry in the country with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), Parliament Members (MPs), the Ulema, Civil Society Activists and government condemning the incident. AIHRC, civil society activists and the Ulema council on Saturday condemned the killings reportedly committed by Daesh fighters and said it is a war crime. “Killing of civilians because of their racial and ethnic differences is a war crime,” said Mohammad Taqi Wahidi, the AIHRC media officer in the province.  “Sometimes they kill people chanting Allah is great and misuse religion and this is shameful. Religion is strongly against killing and it does not condone it,” said Mohsin Danish, a member of Balkh Ulema Council. MPs also denounced the killing of the coalminers and said if the situation continues, the country will face a crisis.
Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, the CEO’s second deputy, said that Daesh had increased its activities in the country. He had been talking about the 13 coalmine victims in Baghlan in what is believed to have been a Daesh attack. Mohaqiq linked the killing to Takfiri groups and said out of 100 terrorist groups in the world, 20 of them are active in Afghanistan. “They are part of Takfiri groups that are active in Syria, Iraq and some other countries. They have been active in Afghanistan for about one year,” he said. The group first started activities in Nangarhar province and then recruited fighters from Logar and Nuristan provinces. But recently the group carried out activities in Faryab, Jawzjan, Sar-e-Pul, Uruzgan and Baghlan provinces. According to Ministry of Defense (MoD), Daesh is active in Nangarhar, Kunar, Nuristan and Zabul provinces. In addition, “A number of armed individuals use the name of terrorist groups to carry out some criminal activities. They first change their flag and then their fighting tactics and carry out such activities that they did in Baghlan,” said Mohammad Radmanesh, deputy spokesman of MoD.
A number of MPs said terrorists want to create discord among the people using religion and tribal issues and urged government to investigate the issue. Several times, they applied their evil strategies through a series of deadly attacks on mosques but luckily failed to reach their sinister goals. With attacking on the mosques and killing dozens of innocents, they also proved that neither they are committed to Islamic teaching and nor to national or international values.
Over the past months, Afghanistan has witnessed a surge in terror activities by Daesh. The initial information shows Daesh is behind the sectarian attacks. Their main goal is to create divisions between Shias and Sunnis. It is also quoted by Mohammad Hussain one of the coalmine survivors that the reason of assault was because of their beliefs. “We were trying to escape in our vehicle when they shot us. They killed one person and then stopped us and told us you belong to another religion, you are non-believers and your death is allowed and then they started shooting us and others fell in the river and I got wounded in my back,” he said”.  In October 2016, at least 14 Shia Muslims lost their lives in a powerful blast at a mosque in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. The attack was carried out hours after gunmen targeted worshippers at a shrine in the capital, Kabul, and killed 18 people.
The rise of Daesh in Afghanistan has triggered local and regional concerns. Mainly, Daesh is active in Syria and Iraq, has reportedly managed to take recruits from Taliban defectors in Afghanistan. In August, Daesh claimed responsibility for a bombing during a demonstration in Kabul, where at least 90 people were killed and hundreds injured. They have been expanding for one last year and are always looking for new geographical areas. It is said that they are present in at least 11 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces.
There are serious grounds to expect that the situation in Afghanistan will rapidly deteriorate including the disunity of the government authorities, the government legitimacy crisis, and increasing ethnic tensions. The triangle talks in Moscow also cannot be underestimated due to several analyses. First, Moscow fears that this zone of instability could spread northwards into the Central Asian countries that border Russia. Second, over the past 15 years Russia has changed from a transit route into a market for Afghan heroin, which distress up to 25,000 Russian lives every year. And the third concern is the development of Daesh (ISIS) infrastructure in Afghanistan that can be used to export terrorist activity to the North Caucasus and the Volga region.
Over all, the People are really tired and concerned suffering from long-lasting crises. It is really a big shame when we hear that a group of Afghan old women have taken up arms to fight the double threat of Taliban and Daesh Group. It is said that they moved to take the revenge of their victimized brothers, sisters, children and husband while it is the responsibility of government to protect people and pursue terrifying actors.
It obvious, that remote northern parts of Afghanistan has seen the center of militant activities and regrouping while the loosely writ of the state in these parts, giving a almost free hand to the Taliban and Daesh who in turn are fighting each other for control of these areas.

Mohammad Zahir Akbari is the newly emerging writer of the Daily Outlook Afghanistan. He can be reached at mohammadzahirakbari@ gmail.com

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