UN Removes 5 Taliban from Sanctions Blacklist

UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. Security Council on Friday removed five Taliban members from its sanctions blacklist, a move sought by the Afghan government to promote reconciliation. Still, it was just half the number Afghan President Hamid Karzai was seeking. Council diplomats said those taken off the list include former U.N. ambassador Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad Awrang; Abdul Salam Zaeef, author of "My Life with the Taliban;" Abdul Satar Paktin; and two members described as "deceased," Abdul Samad Khaksar and Muhammad Islam Mohammadi. The decision leaves 132 Taliban members on the list and still subject to an asset freeze and travel ban. Earlier this month, Staffan De Mistura, the top U.N. envoy in Afghanistan, said Afghan officials submitted 10 names which were forwarded to the council committee that monitors sanctions against al-Qaida and the Taliban and decides whether to take them off the blacklist. Zaeef, the Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Friday that while he's personally happy to be off the sanctions list, more needs to be done to achieve stability in Afghanistan because people are dying every day and there is no peace. "This is just a small step — a small step — toward peace," he said. "There are lots of obstacles. There needs to be even more names delisted." Zaeef is believed to be a conduit between the Afghan government and Mullah Omar's Taliban. Karzai has been making peace overtures to the Taliban militants who ruled the country for five years before they were driven out in the U.S.-led invasion at the end of 2001. Last month, Afghan delegates to a national conference, or peace jirga, called on the government and its international partners to remove some people from the sanctions list — a long-standing demand of the Taliban to help promote reconciliation and a political solution to the nearly nine-year Afghan war. (AP)

KABUL - President Hamid Karzai on Thursday reiterated his call for international action against terrorist sanctuaries and training centers beyond Afghanistan's borders. His remarks come days after a website called Wikileaks released over 90,000 documents on the war. The leaked memos accused Pakistan's spy agency of aiding the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. His administration was still reading and analyzing the stream of US military documents, he said, warning the reports might endanger the lives of Afghans who provided the information to the website. "It is extremely irresponsible and shocking; there are lives in danger," remarked the Afghan leader, who has directed his Cabinet ministers to look into the documents, particularly the papers on civilian casualties. "The international community is here to fight the menace of terrorism, but there is danger elsewhere and they are not acting," he told a news briefing in Kabul. Karzai asked the world to mount pressure on Pakistan to dismantle the terrorist hideouts instead of damaging the homes of ordinary Afghans in counterinsurgency operations. He said Afghanistan would continue to cooperate with the global fraternity if the approach to the war on terror was altered in light of the leaked memos. The government would expand relations with neighbouring countries so that Afghanistan could fight against the menace on its own, the president promised. (Pajhwok)

WASHINGTON - The massive illegal drugs trade inside Afghanistan funds the terrorist operations of the Taliban and other extremist organizations and fuels large scale corruption in the country, a top US official said. "Funding from the drug trade supports the Taliban other insurgent groups trying to overthrow the Afghan government,” David T Johnson, assistant secretary of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs said in his testimony before a Congressional committee on Wednesday. The drug trade also fuels widespread corruption which undermines the ability of the government of Afghanistan to provide security, expand development and strengthen the rule of law, he said. "Drug trade poses a threat to coalition efforts to stabilise the region and Afghanistan itself," Johnson said. Unlike Colombia, opium from Afghanistan does not go directly to the United States, but is transported through and sold in Europe, Russia, China, the Middle East and West Africa, he added. "To ensure a comprehensive and coordinated approach to the drug problem in Afghanistan, we are currently working with our interagency and international partners to target narcotics traffickers and drug lords – especially those with ties to the insurgency – and enhance the government’s focus on agriculture, interdiction, demand reduction, public information and rule of law," Johnson said. "All of our efforts aim to connect the Afghan people to effective government institutions, build the capacity of central and provincial authorities, provide legal alternatives to poppy, and target – and dismantle – the very intersection where corruption, insurgency and narcotics threaten the progress of Afghanistan, its neighbours and the United States,” he said. While most of the opiates produced in Afghanistan pass through Iran and Pakistan en route to regional and international markets, Central Asia is still an important route for opiates destined for the Russian market. "To help stem the flow of Afghan opium and heroin through Central Asia and onward to Europe and Russia we work closely with drug control agencies and border services in the region to improve interdiction, law enforcement information sharing and border controls," Johnson said. (Pajhwok)

WASHINGTON - A growing number of Afghan minority leaders who once participated fully in Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's government, have expressed that his move to negotiate with the Taliban has alienated and marginalized them and feared that it might lead to civil war in the region. According to the Washington Post, minority leaders of Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek, who once were closely associated with Karzai, have expressed their concern that Karzai is marginalizing them by making efforts to strike a peace deal with the insurgents. Amarullah Saleh, the man who served Karzai as top intelligence official for six years has launched a campaign to warn Afghans that Karzai has lost conviction in the fight against the Taliban and is recklessly pursuing a political deal with insurgents. He warned that Karzai''s push for negotiation with insurgents is a fatal mistake, which could eventually lead to civil war. "Karzai''s chosen policy would endanger the progress made over the past nine years in the fields of democracy and women’s rights. If I don’t raise my voice we are headed towards a crisis," he told college students in Kabul. The report states that Saleh is not motivated by ethnic rivalries with the majority Pashtuns or by a desire to undermine Karzai, whom he describes as a decent man and a patriot. He rather wants to use nonviolence to pressure the government into a harder line against the Taliban. "The Taliban have reached the gates of Kabul, we will not stop this movement even if it costs our blood," Saleh said. Although the United States officials have supported Afghan government-led talks in theory, but practically they are apprehensive as Karzai has pursued his own peace initiatives, seemingly without Western involvement. "Any political reconciliation process has to be genuinely national and genuinely inclusive. Otherwise we’re simply storing up the next set of problems that will break out. And in this country when problems break out, they tend to lead to violence," NATO''s senior civilian representative in Afghanistan, Ambassador Mark Sedwill, said. (ANI)

NEW YORK - The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Friday welcomed the commitments made this week by the Afghan Government towards greater security, improved governance and tackling corruption, and called on the international community to support the country’s efforts. “The members of the Council looked forward to the timely implementation of these commitments,” Ambassador Joy Ogwu of Nigeria, which holds the rotating Council presidency for this month, said in a statement read out to the press. The statement followed a closed-door meeting during which Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon briefed the Council on his visit to Afghanistan earlier this week and his participation in the Kabul Conference held on 20 July. Top officials from over 60 countries, as well as international and regional organizations and financial institutions, attended the meeting, the first international gathering on Afghanistan to be held inside the country. It concluded with the adoption of a communiqué setting out the commitments for action that form part of what is known as the “Kabul process,” which will see a transition to greater Afghan responsibility and ownership, in both security and civilian areas. “The members of the Council supported this Afghan-led process, which aims to accelerate Afghan leadership and ownership, strengthen international partnership and regional cooperation, improve Afghanistan’s governance, enhance the capabilities of its security forces, deliver economic growth and provide better protection for the rights of all its citizens,” said Ms. Ogwu. Mr. Ban told the Council he was encouraged by the outcome of the conference, while adding that “words must be followed up with deeds – by the Afghan authorities and by the international community,” UN spokesperson Martin Nesirky told reporters. In today’s statement, Council members also acknowledged the intention of the Afghan Government to engage with the 15-member body and the international community in a transparent process of de-listing individuals from the Consolidated List of individuals and entities subject to UN sanctions in connection with Al-Qaida and the Taliban. Individuals on the list, which include 137 Afghan nationals, are subject to the assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo imposed under Council resolution 1267 of 1999, and related resolutions, by which all UN Member States are required to impose sanctions on Osama bin Laden, the Taliban and those associated with them. (Monitoring Desk)