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And the school thrived for a decade, sending orchestras and ensembles on tours around the world and playing to packed venues. “There’s a fight between dark forces and progressive forces of this nation.”Zohra Ahmadi rehearses with the Afghan Youth Orchestra in Braga, Portugal. Before she left, Zohra said her 63-year-old grandmother, Sabera Yawari, told her to stay positive. Members of the Afghan Youth Orchestra perform at Carnegie Hall in New York City. “My family will come, Taliban will be gone, and it just feels good.”“It’s also making me more strong,” Farida added.

Persons: ANIM, ”, Farida, Farida —, Ahmad Sarmast, ” Sarmast, “, ” Zohra, Marc Smith, Sarmast, Zohra, Sabera Yawari, Jennifer Taylor, “ We’ve, it’s, Jennifer Taylor “, “ It’s, ” Farida Organizations: NBC News, Afghan Youth Orchestra, NBC, “, Carnegie Hall, Braga’s Conservatory of Music, Kennedy Center, Washington , D.C Locations: U.S, Kabul, Portugal, Braga, United States, Germany, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Afghanistan, “ Portugal, Kabul’s, Qatar, New York City, Lisbon, Washington ,, New York

☆ LGBTQ Afghans say they face abuse in detention as Taliban crackdown intensifies
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-19 | by ( Billy Stockwell | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +14 min

“He grabbed me from behind, tore my clothes apart and raped me,” Sohrab – whose name has been changed for security reasons – told CNN in October. Transgender and gender non-conforming people are being “consistently” targeted at Taliban checkpoints due to their choice of clothing, human rights groups said. “I will never forget when the Taliban came to our house,” Samiar Nazari, a 22-year-old transgender man, told CNN. Other human rights groups have documented instances of extrajudicial detention, conducted out of the public eye. With little sign that the Taliban will improve their record on human rights, many in the country feel abandoned by the international community.

Persons: Sohrab, “, ” Sohrab –, –, ” Sohrab, Wakil Kohsar, Roshaniya, ”, Neela Ghoshal, Artemis Akbary, Ghoshal, ” Samiar, ” Nazari, Akbary, Abdul, ” Abdul, David Osborn, Osborn, It’s, Sano –, Sano, ” Sano, He’s, Rosemary DiCarlo, DiCarlo, Yuki Iwamura, UNAMA Organizations: CNN, “, Taliban, Taliban’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Afghan LGBT Organization, Getty, ” CNN, US Department of State, Facebook, Afghan, UK’s, Information Resilience, Afghan Witness, ”, UN, Political, Peacebuilding, United Nations Locations: Afghanistan, Czech Republic, Pul, Kabul, AFP, –, ‘ Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Herat, Afghanistan’s, Jalalabad, Qatar

☆ Opinion | What Do I Owe the Dead of My Generation’s Mismanaged Wars?
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-26 | by ( Phil Klay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

We passed row after row of pristine white tombs, the dead of all the just wars and unjust wars that made and remade this country, and my relative told us he found it quite moving; he hadn’t been expecting that. Perhaps he thought it’d be more bombastic, or obviously militaristic, and he was taken by the beauty and serenity and quiet dignity of the place. The Marines were trying to manage the chaos of the poorly planned evacuation of Afghans from Kabul — a humanitarian mission at heart, trying to help those we were abandoning. The blast killed the aid worker and his relatives, seven of whom were children. The sort of people those Marines died trying to help.

Persons: hadn’t, it’d, Nicole Gee, “, ” Organizations: Arlington National, Marine, Marines, ISIS Locations: Afghanistan, Arlington, Ireland, Kabul

☆ Kabul airport attack exclusive: New evidence challenges the Pentagon’s official account of a horrific incident as the US withdrew from Afghanistan
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-24 | by ( Nick Paton Walsh | Mick Krever | Mark Baron | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +22 min

One told CNN he heard the first large burst of shooting come from where US Marines were standing, near the blast site. This is significantly more than the three “near simultaneous” bursts of gunfire that the Pentagon investigations have claimed occurred. The Supplemental Review found no new evidence of a complex attack, and uncovered no new assertions of outgoing fire post-blast. “They were targeting people,” another, Nazir, 16, told CNN. CNN spoke with about ten Marines anonymously, many of whom described hearing gunfire and feeling under attack from it.

Persons: Hamid, Akhter Gulfam, –, Wakil Koshar, Robert Maher, Sarah Morris, Morris, Maher, Rob Lodewick, ”, “, ” Shogofa Hamidi, Morsal, Nazir, ” Noorullah Zakhel, Read, Sayeed Ahmadi, ” Ahmadi, Ahmadi, Lodewick, Marcus Yam, CNN's Nick Paton Walsh, “ You’ve, they’ve, It’s, Taylor Crul, Romel Finley, Finley, Barber, ‘, ” Finley, Christian Sanchez, Sanchez, Staff Mark Milley, Kenneth “ Frank ” McKenzie, Darrell Issa, Nick Paton Walsh, Sandi Sidhu, Julia Hollingsworth, Masoud Popalzai, Sitara Zamani, Abdul Basir Bina, Katie Polglase, Gianluca Mezzofiore Organizations: CNN, United, Pentagon, US, Airport, NATO, US Army Central Command, Getty, Montana State University, University of Southampton, Marines, British Ministry of Defense, U.S . Central Command, AP CNN, “, Los Angeles Times, Marine, ” Marines, Navy, US Air Force, . Air Force, Reuters, US Marines, YouTube, Investigators, Joint Chiefs, Staff, Central Command Locations: Kabul, Afghanistan, United States, airport’s, American, British, AFP, Bozeman, England, US, Kabul airport's, U.S, Finland, ”

☆ The Taliban promised to provide security to Afghans. New data shows threat from ISIS is growing
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Eliza Mackintosh Ehsan Popalzai Antonio Jarne Lou Robinson | Eliza Mackintosh | Ehsan Popalzai | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +19 min

“Currently we don’t have security in Afghanistan at all, whenever we go out we don’t know if we will come home alive or not,” he added. Taliban security forces guard a checkpoint near the foreign ministry in Kabul on March 27, after an ISIS-K suicide bomber struck the site. The data, which is available in a live map, includes 367 pieces of open-source evidence — largely videos and images shared on social media — about 70 ISIS-K attacks since August 2021. As the Taliban try to minimize the threat ISIS-K poses, attacks on civilians continue. Taliban security forces have been waging ongoing operations and night raids against ISIS-K.

☆ Taliban Said to Kill Islamic State Militant Behind Attack That Killed 13 Americans
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Gordon Lubold | William Mauldin | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

An image from a video shows U.S. Marines near Abbey Gate at Kabul’s airport following a suicide attack in 2021. Photo: Department of Defense/Associated PressWASHINGTON—Taliban fighters in Afghanistan recently killed an Islamic State militant who U.S. officials believe was responsible for the August 2021 suicide attack at the Kabul airport that killed 13 U.S. service members. The attack at the airport’s Abbey Gate, during the chaotic withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan that summer, also killed at least 170 Afghans and injured 40 other U.S. troops, according to U.S. officials.

☆ FIFA concerned about Canada's refusal to honor Afghan visa letters -court filings
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Anna Mehler Paperny | Thomson Reuters | Toronto-Based Correspondent Covering Among Other Topics Migration | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Canada refused to accept "visa facilitation letters" FIFA and Canadian Senator Marilou McPhedran handed out based on a template provided by a Canadian Department of National Defence employee in attempts to evacuate 640 women athletes, their coaches and others, according to court documents. Canada said those letters were inauthentic and that it did not authorize anyone to issue them and asked police to investigate their distribution. The email is among newly released court documents that convey FIFA’s role in efforts to get young Afghan athletes and those close to them out of Afghanistan. FIFA and the Canadian government did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the documents. "After I received the visa facilitation letters from Canada, I chose not to follow through with evacuation by the American government," one unidentified plaintiff said in their affidavit.

☆ Taliban Prove to Be Formidable Tax Collectors, Putting Squeeze on Afghans
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-16 | by ( Saeed Shah | Photographs Elise Blanchard For The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

KABUL—For decades, most businesses in Kabul’s busy Mandawi market got by without paying their taxes. That changed when the Taliban swept to power. Now every shop is ponying up, said Haji Hafeezullah Ismati, who sells fur hats in the market. For some of them, the added cost has proven untenable. A friend and fellow shopkeeper recently closed his business and now drives a taxi, Mr. Ismati said.

☆ Frozen Afghan Funds Have Done Little to Sway Taliban
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Daniella Cheslow | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The U.S. wants Kabul’s central bank, the Da Afghanistan Bank, to show it is independent and ready to counter money-laundering and terrorism financing. When the Biden administration seized $7 billion of Afghanistan’s central bank reserves two years ago, it set aside half for victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, and deposited the rest in a Swiss-based fund that it said would benefit the Afghan people. Today, that $3.5 billion remains frozen. The Taliban-controlled central bank says it wants the money to stabilize its crippled financial sector. In the U.S., officials close to the situation say the money hasn’t been enough of an enticement to dissuade the Islamist regime from policies the U.S. and the West find objectionable.

☆ How one family’s struggle illustrates problems with the program meant to help Afghans who helped the US
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Jim Sciutto | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —For more than a year, I have been trying to help a family leave Afghanistan for safety and a new life abroad. However, SIV approval does not equal freedom for him and other Afghans with similar status – far from it. And last week, Congress removed language from the National Defense Authorization Act that would have extended the program for another year. To get to one of those countries, Afghans need passports – a relative luxury for many. The State Department tells CNN it had been managing to get only about 250 Afghans and their family members out of the country per week.

CNN —Three people were killed and many others injured after gunmen attacked a hotel in Kabul, the Afghan capital, on Monday. The attack ended with all three gunmen killed and hotel guests safely evacuated, according to a tweet from Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mojahid on Monday. Mojahid added that no foreign nationals were killed, but two foreign nationals were wounded after jumping from the rooftop. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters at a briefing on Tuesday that five Chinese nationals were among the injured. China’s state-run Xinhua news agency said the attack happened near a Chinese guesthouse and its embassy in Kabul was closely monitoring the situation.

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