Taliban Enters Old Bazaar Of Balkhab District As Clashes Intensity With Mawlawi Mahdi

The World Hazara Council added that the Taliban intended to enter Balkhab to target Hazara mosques, hospitals, and crowded areas as they began their operations in the district since June 23 to suppress Mawlawi Mahdi, their only Hazara commander.

The World Hazara Council has stressed that the continuing violence in the district has had catastrophic consequences for civilians and residents in the area. "The council fears that as violence and tensions escalate, a genocide by the Taliban looms large for the Hazara community in Balkhab," the statement read.

The council called on the international community to pay attention to the Taliban attack and the possibility of violence by the group against civilians in the area. The World Hazara Council has called for an immediate end to the Taliban attacks on civilians in Balkhab.

The Taliban had committed the "massacre of Hazara civilians" in Mazar-e-Sharif in 1998, in serious violation of international humanitarian law, the council added.

Over the past few days, the Taliban sent thousands of troops from Afghanistan’s northern provinces to suppress Mawlawi Mahdi in Balkhab district of Sar-e-Pul province. Several fighters have reportedly been killed and injured in clashes between the two sides.

Mawlawi Mehdi is the only Hazara Taliban commander who moved to Balkhab district and left the group after he was ousted from the Taliban’s directorate of intelligence in Bamiyan. The Taliban have now sent thousands of troops to Balkhab to suppress the group’s former commander.

Travel exemptions permitting 15 Taliban officials to go abroad for negotiations were set to expire Monday.

Abdul Ghani Baradar, Abdul Salam Hanafi, Amir Khan Muttaqi and Sher Abbas Stanikzai are the prominent figures of Taliban whose travel exemption has been extended for three months. Diplomatic sources told AFP that the travel ban on two Taliban members is in response to the heavy restrictions the hardliners have imposed on Afghan women.

The diplomats told AFP that after difficult negotiations, Taliban’s sanction committee in the United Nations agreed to the travel exemption of 13 Taliban senior members. Meanwhile, some countries have been supporting cancelation of travel exemption for all Taliban leaders due to extreme violation of women’s rights, however, many objected to this move.

Economic sanctions, including trade and suspension of these individuals’ assets, military sanctions and military interaction with these Taliban officials, remains in place. The travel ban on some of the Taliban’s officials was lifted by Donald Trump, the former president of United States in 2019, to pave the way for peace negotiations between the US and the Taliban.

The travel exemption list published by the United Nations includes Shahabuddin Delawar, Taliban’s minister of mines; Khairullah Khair Khah, Taliban’s minister of information and culture; Abdul Haq Wasiq, Taliban’s chief of intelligence; Noorullah Noori, Taliban’s minister of borders and tribal affairs; Abdul Latif Mansoor, Taliban’s minister of energy and water; Mullah Fazil Mazloom, Taliban’s deputy minister of defense; Mawlawi Abdul Kabir, Taliban’s political affairs deputy prime minister; Din Mohammad Hanif, Taliban’s minister of economy and Noor Mohammad Saqib, Taliban’s minister of Hajj.

“This was a mistake”, said one of the ministry’s spokespersons.

“On behalf of the families of the British nationals, we express their apologies for any breach of Afghan culture, customs or laws, and offer their assurance of future good conduct,” the UK ministry announced.

This comes close on the heels of the announcement made by Hugo Shorter, the Chargé d’Affaires at the UK Mission to Afghanistan working from Doha, in which he said that “the UK does not support anyone, including Afghan nationals, seeking to achieve political change through violence, or any activity inciting violence for political purposes, in Afghanistan, and will not allow UK soil to be used to plan or prepare it, and we strongly discourage others from doing so”. Shorter added that there is no alternative than to “engage pragmatically” with the current administration in Afghanistan.

The invitation to Muttaqi to be part of discussions with representatives from countries across the world was extended by Kamilov during a meeting in which both sides spoke about the current situation in Afghanistan, and strengthening economical and transit relationship in Kabul.

Since the Taliban’s takeover, Uzbekistan is one of the few neighboring countries that have maintained ties with the group, and in the past 10 months, both the countries’ officials have met several times.

As per a statement of the Taliban’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Uzbekistan’s National Security Adviser (NSA) said that security of his country is affiliated with the security and stability in Afghanistan. The NSA said that Uzbekistan’s government is ready to work with the Taliban government to strengthen political, economic, and transit relations.

The Taliban statement then added that Muttaqi appreciated Uzbekistan’s cooperation with Afghans in political and economic fields and said that he will participate in the conference.

The NRF asked the Taliban not to start any military operation in areas controlled by them as it will endanger the life of the Taliban prisoners. The NRF assured the global community through their statement that the Taliban prisoners have been transferred to safe places and have been taken care of according to Islamic obligations and Geneva’s convention about war prisoners.

The NRF added that even though they gave immunity to two other Taliban members, however, they took up arms and lost their lives as the result of the ensuing clash. The Taliban have not yet commented on the issue.

On Thursday, June 16, the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan announced that its forces have shot down a Taliban helicopter in Dara Arezo of Panjshir province, and taken into custody five individuals including two pilots, two flying engineers and one Taliban commander. Taliban had maintained that the said helicopter made an emergency landing in Dara Arezo of Panjshir province due to technical problems.

The NRF has been pushing for the prisoner swap as reports of the arrest and torture of civilians accused of being NRF members had been published by international human rights organizations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The rights watchdogs have expressed deep concerns over the torture and arbitrary arrests of civilians in Panjshir province and the Andarab district of Baghlan province. HRW in a statement had said that the Taliban tortured civilians and in some cases, the detainees lost their lives due to the torture.