By Afshain Afzal

To much a surprise to those who wrote the plot, Taliban have distanced from occupying Afghan capital Kabul and other major cities but they are in de-facto control over almost whole Afghanistan. There are speculations who would lead the country? But Washington is much perturbed over the survival of Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada in Quetta February 2021 attack. In the backdrop of US-funded Pashtuns, pretending as Taliban, and other leaders who have started assembling at Kabul and are eagerly waiting for the top Taliban leadership to reach Kabul to unfold plans how to rule Afghanistan. Interestingly, Washington, Tehran and New Delhi are deadly against Taliban inclusion in the political process and are resisting the return the Taliban to power, however, all of them are maintaining links and influence over the splinter groups. Meanwhile, Taliban leadership has asked the Afghans not to fall trap in Western and Indian propaganda and leave their country on their call. They urged the people not to flee and to counter “black propaganda” about them through WhatsAap and social media accounts. Many countries including Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have reported return of Afghans voluntarily back to Afghanistan, who earlier took refuge in these countries.

In a quick move, the Western and Indian operators, running the Taliban websites and social media accounts in Pashto, Persian, Arabic, Urdu, Dari, French, English and other languages went offline and have disappeared all of the sudden. Some new websites and blogs have popped up which talks about interfaith harmony and liking Islam and other religions as shield to defend attacks from anti-religious groups. Many religious and sectarian website are openly misquoting statements of past religious leaders, Hadith and verses from Al Quran to support anti-orthodox point of views. Agencies working in Afghanistan are keeping track of prisoners released under post 29^th February 2021 agreement through their mobile numbers and WhatsAap and Social media accounts to identify whole groups they are engaged with. However, so far not much achievement has been reported. New fake accounts have been opened in the name of released prisoners to develop engineered linkages.

Few years back, on 25 July 2018, Alice Wells, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia led a US delegation to Qatar to meet with representatives of the splinter faction of Afghan Taliban. At that time discussion included feedback on the confidence in the new leadership of Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada. Since then Western players are on the hunt of Mullah Akhundzada and other top leadership. In February this year, Indian intelligence agencies revealed that Mullah Akhundzada was killed along with other Taliban leaders including Mullah Matiuallah, Hafiz Abdul Majeed and four others in a blast in Pakistani provincial capital, Quetta. Same, could not be confirmed rather denied by Taliban ranks. In fact, US and allies would be at great disadvantage if the actual Taliban of Afghanistan return to power. Therefore, stage has been set for Qatar-based splinter group, Iran backed contenders including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his son Ghairat Baheer, who are considered by Tehran and the US as a Pashtun-trump card as he not only remained prime minister in 1992 but renounced Hezb-i Islami and joined the moderates. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is expected to prove asset for enhanced Afghanistan-Iran relations.

As the UN-back peace talks with Qatar-based splinter group of Taliban turned into a success story; there are high chances that Taliban will have concrete role in a future Afghan government. We have also the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolutions 2513 (2020), adopted by the UNSC at its 8742nd meeting on 10 March 2020, which annexed the US-Taliban “Doha agreement” of 29 February 2020 signed by the Trump administration to UNSC Resolution 2513 and which not only welcomed “significant steps towards ending the war and opening the door to intra-Afghan negotiations” but expressed its readiness upon the commencement of the intra-Afghan negotiations to consider the start of the of review of the status of designations of individuals, groups, undertakings and entities on the List established and maintained pursuant to resolution. As it is evident from intra-Afghan deal and continuing negotiations as well as ground facts that Taliban are not engaged or in support activities that threaten the peace, stability and security of Afghanistan, UNSC is bond to affect the review of Taliban’s status of designations of individuals, groups, undertakings and entities on the Consolidated List of the Committee established and maintained established pursuant to various UNSC resolutions. Fake videos of extremely threatening nature are purposely being made viral to dub Taliban as extremists and terrorists in the eyes of international community.

In a most important development Western nations have started retrieving Afghan populations who have either been converted to other faiths or have got them addicted in social and moral ills and sins. Apart from them, Italian aid network Caritas Caritas which settled and helped Afghan citizens and Tribal citizens, especially children from Pakistan have expressed fears after Pushtun-Taliban comeback on 15 August 2021 that such children should be evacuated to other countries to avoid prosecution. According to the US International Religious Freedom Report, published in 2009, there are between 1,000 and 8,000 Christians secretly practicing their faith in the country. However, there is only one officially recognized Christian church as Catholic Chapel inside the Italian Embassy in Kabul, run by Catholic mission sui juris of Afghanistan. Kabul based International Gay and Lesbian Aquatics Association (IGLA) attracted world attraction on sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) and called for the protection of women, children, LGBTIQ people and other vulnerable persons in Afghanistan including religious minorities, journalists and human rights defenders. The organization propagated that these groups have come under threat, and many have gone into hiding out of fear. Reports reflects that all such Afghans are been evacuated to other countries.

Other events include sighting of huge transport aircrafts and helicopters carrying passengers for evacuation to airports and other countries. These immigrants are exempted from COVID precautions and are jampacked in closed environment. On reaching the destination, compulsory isolation is also not observed. A number of countries have have officially announced to temporarily host or all transit to Afghans evacuated immigrants from Afghanistan which include US, France, Germany, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Poland, Pakistan, India, Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Albania, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Mexico, Rwanda, Ukraine and Uganda etc. Meanwhile Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) of US and India have started homework on the confidential course reports of each and every individual who was trained from Indian Military, Security Forces. Police and Government institutions. It was revealed that there were 46 different military institutions from where many Afghans had undergone training. However, reports from Kabul reveled that many Afghan National Amry (ANA) and other security forces personnel have started joining Taliban and other Pashtun commanders in alliance.

One wonders, the United Nations Organization (UNO) is considered as an instrument of peace in the world then when it is watching the planned massacre of Taliban which is being planned by the target killers and biological attackers, who would target individuals and groups to create COVID like symptoms followed by deaths. More so, why COVID precautions are not followed while US-supervised immigration of specific community? Can a foreign force take along young boys and girls, many of them under the age of 18 years, to another country without the permission of the country from which they belong? It is a civil war and violence which is being planned under the supervision of UNO. It is high time that UN Secretary General must ensure withdrawal of all foreign combat and non-combat foreign forces from Afghanistan as per 29 February 2020 agreement, exclude names after review of Taliban’s status of designations of individuals, groups, undertakings and entities on the Consolidated List of the Committee established and maintained established pursuant to various UNSC resolutions and prevent foreigners from planning ethnic cleansing.