A group of Afghan women who were held captive by Islamic State in eastern Afghanistan finally broke their silence and spoke about IS torture and mistreatment. They said the terror group kept them in confined quarters for days at a time.

“We were kept in dark places, not allowed to pray and our children could not cry or make noise,” one of the women told VOA’s Afghanistan Service last week.

The women were captured by IS fighters in Nangarhar province in early 2016 and were held captive for more than four months before they were released as part of a prisoner-swap deal negotiated by tribal elders in the region.

Fearing retribution from IS fighters, the women did not disclose the atrocities of the terror group for almost a year, and they finally revealed their ordeal at an event in the provincial capital Jalalabad last week, where provincial officials and citizens celebrated International Women’s Day.

For security reasons, all women requested anonymity while speaking to VOA’s reporter in eastern Afghanistan.

The prisoner swap reportedly had been approved by the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, according to the head of the local uprising forces in Nangarhar.

Afghan security forces reportedly had captured families of local fighters loyal to Islamic State when they conducted a military operation against the group in the region in 2016. Government took them into custody for investigation.

In response, IS fighters attacked a village in the restive Kot district that supported the government and abducted several women and children after executing the men of the families.

‘We were starved’  

The women told VOA that IS starved them in dark cells operated by the terror group in eastern Afghanistan. The group accused villagers of becoming “infidels” by supporting the Afghan government and living in government-controlled areas.

“They kept beating us and telling us that they would kill us because we became Kaafir [non-Muslim],” one of the women said.

She added that militants were fearful of airstrikes and used relocation as a tactic to circumvent the potential threat.

“They kept us moving from one place to another and at last they relocated us to Momand Dara in the Achin district,” another woman said, adding that their captors showed them videos of how their husbands were executed.

One woman from the group, who was captured along with two of her young daughters, said the vast majority of IS members were foreigners because they spoke in different languages.

“The militants had long hair, and wore masks on their faces and spoke different languages,” she said.

The women’s accounts of their captivity were confirmed to VOA by the head of the Afghan Human Right Commission in Nangarhar.

“These women whose husbands were killed by the IS lived in the group’s captivity,” Sabrina Hamidi, head of the human rights commission in Nangarhar told VOA.

After losing their husbands, these women are on their own now and have to provide for their children. Traditionally, men are the primary breadwinners in Afghanistan, particularly in rural areas. When they die, in many cases women are not allowed to remarry or go back to their parents.

They urged the Afghan government to assist them and their children.  

IS expansion

IS fighters have made inroads into Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province in recent years and are active in several districts, particularly the Kot district, which has a border with Pakistan.

Last summer, the group launched a massive surprise attack against the district, killing dozens and displacing thousands of civilians from the area.  

Over the years, the terror group has attacked several government installations and villages in several other districts of the province, as well. In some areas, they closed public schools and replaced them their own religious seminaries.

Recently, IS seems to have expanded it activities from its stronghold in eastern Afghanistan to other parts of country.

The group has taken responsibility for several deadly attacks in capital Kabul in recent months, including last week’s deadly attack on a military hospital that killed 31 people and wounded more than 80 others.

They set on fire two shrines in northern Jowzjan province last week, calling them heretic and blasphemous.  

But U.S. forces in Afghanistan say the Afghan government has had recent victories against the group, and the number of IS fighters has been reduced substantially — from nearly 3,000 fighters to several hundred — because of  joint U.S.-Afghan operations over the past year.  

“We believe that there are approximately 700 members of ISIS, perhaps even less now based on the operations, that are still contained to less than three districts down in [eastern] Nangarhar,” U.S. Brigadier General Charles Cleveland, a spokesman for NATO’s Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, told reporters in Kabul last week.
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Russia has hinted at involving the United States in a newly-launched regional dialogue Moscow says is aimed at seeking a negotiated settlement to the conflict in Afghanistan. The move comes as Afghanistan’s national security adviser is due to visit Moscow to discuss the prospects for promoting reconciliation with armed opposition in his country.

Moscow’s stepped up Afghan diplomacy stems from its concerns that a protracted conflict is encouraging Islamic State militants to establish a foothold in the war-torn country and export terrorism to neighboring Central Asian states that ultimately could threaten Russian security.

In December, the Russian government hosted senior foreign ministry officials from China and Pakistan for the first time to discuss ways to encourage direct talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban. The participants also exchanged views on how to collectively work to contain “spillover” effects of terrorism.

Kabul strongly objected being left out of the trilateral meeting, however, while U.S. officials also questioned Russia’s intentions for organizing the talks.

The criticism and skepticism prompted Moscow to expand the format of the dialogue to include Afghanistan, along with Iran and India, in the next meeting it hosted last month.

Involving more partners

“At its next stage we think it will be important to, in a timely fashion, involve in that same process our Central Asian partners as well as the United States,” said Vladimir Safronkov, the Russian deputy ambassador to the United Nations, on Friday. He was addressing a U.N. Security Council meeting on the situation in Afghanistan.

Safronkov reiterated that the consultations are working out “a single regional approach” to “reinvigorate” the Afghan reconciliation process.

He made the remarks on a day when the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that Afghan National Security Adviser Haneef Atmar will visit Moscow March 17 for talks with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

“The officials will discuss the security situation and prospects for promoting national reconciliation in Afghanistan, as well as ways to develop multilateral cooperation within the Moscow format of regional consultations on Afghanistan,” the ministry said.

Russia-Taliban contacts not welcome

While Afghan officials and the U.S. military welcome Russian peace efforts, they are critical of Moscow’s overt contacts with the Taliban.

Russia maintains that “the limited contacts” with the Taliban are meant to encourage the group to join Kabul-led peace efforts and to ensure security of Russian citizens in the country.

But General John Nicholson, U.S. commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan, told a congressional hearing last month that Russian attempts to overtly legitimize the Taliban are based on arguments that the insurgents, and not Afghan forces, are effectively fighting IS militants. He dismissed those assertions as misleading and said Moscow is only trying to undermine U.S.-led counterterrorism efforts in the region.

Speaking in India earlier this week, National Security Adviser Atmar said his government continues to warn Moscow that any assistance to the Taliban will not be seen as “a gesture of friendship” toward Afghanistan.  

“They [Russia] are assuring us that this is not the case. All they want to do is to facilitate peace in Afghanistan and second a counter-response to Daesh. There we disagree. We say the best response to Daesh is state-to-state relations and cooperation, you cannot get it from non-state actors. Don’t expect a terrorist to be taking on another terrorist,” explained Atmar, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

Afghan officials in the country’s northern border provinces have also lately alleged that Russia is helping the Taliban establish training camps in their areas.

Russia says allegations ‘absurd’

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday responded to what it dismissed as baseless allegations and U.S. criticism.

“The distribution of such absurd inventions revealed a staged campaign to discredit our country, during which the Afghan and world community is thrown the thesis of Russia ‘undermining’ international anti-terrorist efforts in Afghanistan,” according to a statement published on the ministry’s website.

It went on to assert that the campaign is to “divert attention from accountability for the numerous mistakes in more than 16 years of foreign military presence in Afghanistan.”

Moscow blames the U.S.-led international efforts for the worsening Afghan security conditions that it says allowed IS to find space in the country.

Afghan security forces backed by American airpower have conducted successful major operations against IS over the last year and confined the terrorist group to less than three districts in the eastern Nangarhar province, according to a latest U.S. military assessment. It says the number of IS fighters also has been reduced to about 700 from an estimated 3,000 a year ago.

Speaking on Friday at the U.N. Security Council meeting, though, Russia’s Safronkov challenged those assessments.

“We think that there are some three-and-a-half-thousand active members of [Islamic State] operating in the country. The realistic figure given all the cells operating could be much higher,” he said. The Russian ambassador contradicted U.S. assessments and asserted that IS is active in more than one Afghan province.

“Their main regions of action are Helmand, Kandahar, Faryab, Bagram, Kunduz. So we would call everyone to devote to that problem heightened attention and not to try and somehow gloss it over to ignore it,” Safronkov said..

IS has stepped up attacks in Afghanistan and took credit for Wednesday’s suicide attack on the country’s largest military hospital in Kabul. The assault left more than 50 people dead and scores of others wounded.

Russian envoy Safronkov asserted that the Kabul attack is more proof of the expanding and strengthening structure of IS in Afghanistan.
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South Korea’s recently impeached president Park Geun-hye maintained her silence Saturday, remaining inside the presidential palace while rival protests continued in the streets.

Park has not been heard from since the Constitutional Court voted unanimously to uphold her impeachment on Friday and has not vacated the “Blue House” as the presidential residence is called, where her aides have said she requires more time to prepare for her move to her private home.

Tens of thousands of Koreans who supported the ouster took to the streets over the weekend, cheering and waving flags, while another group of those who supported Park vowed to resist what they call “political assassination.”

Seoul police anticipated violence between the two groups, particularly after three protesters were killed in clashes since the decision was announced.

The stunning and sudden collapse of Park’s presidency was caused by allegations that a multi-million dollar influence-peddling scandal was being run out of the Blue House.

In December, 234 members of the 300-seat National Assembly voted to impeach Park.

The president’s image as a strong and incorruptible leader crumbled under allegations her longtime friend, Choi Soon-sil, secretly exploited her close relationship with Park to force Korean conglomerates to donate some $65 million to two dubious foundations, while at the same time funneling some of the funds and lucrative side contracts to companies owned by herself and her friends.
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John Sopko’s message to the Afghan people is simple: Corruption kills.

It kills soldiers and citizens alike. And if it’s not brought under control, it could kill the country’s fragile future.

“People have to understand that corruption isn’t about just money,” said Sopko, who heads corruption watchdog Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the watchdog for the $113 billion that the U.S. has given the country. “It’s about lives.”

“The main threat to the success of the war [on terrorism] is corruption. Corruption steals from the Afghan government. Corruption actually steals salaries, steals weapons, steals fuel from the Afghan government,” Sopko said.

He recalled a contract that was designed to protect Afghanistan’s hazardous roads from terrorist bombs. It went to an American company, with Afghans doing the work. The money was stolen, and the right work wasn’t done.

“As a result, soldiers died,” Sopko told VOA’s Afghan Service in an interview. “There have been many examples … where corruption has meant that the Afghan soldiers don’t have enough bullets or guns, or they don’t have enough fuel, or enough food, or enough medical equipment because it was stolen.

“The Afghan people should be as outraged as I am and U.S. taxpayers are about corruption,” he said.

Cash infusion

In a rush to fill the vacuum created when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to oust the terrorists responsible for plotting the 9/11 attacks, Washington and aid agencies pumped money into the poverty-wracked nation to help install a new government and start a development plan to overcome the poverty that breeds extremism.

While there were successes, the strategy also fed corruption in a country where it already was endemic.

“The U.S. did contribute to the problem, unintentionally,” Sopko said. “The U.S. and its allies probably gave too much money too fast to too small a country, such as Afghanistan, with too little oversight.

“When that happens, corrupt Afghans, corrupt Americans and corrupt contractors will steal money and then bribe officials. The blame is two-sided; it takes two to tango. The United States could have done a better job in overseeing the billions of dollars that were sent to Afghanistan,” he said.

SIGAR was created in 2010. Sopko, a former Justice Department prosecutor who fought organized crime at home, was brought aboard two years later. He discovered that while some money was lost to sheer waste, corruption ate up a large chunk of what was left. And not all of it went to line Afghan officials’ pockets.

“We’ve arrested over 100 contractors, U.S. government employees, U.S. military employees, and they are serving time,” Sopko said. “We’ve recovered about $1 billion in fines and restitution.”

Confidential hotline

SIGAR also is working with the Afghan government to turn around a long tradition of corruption in its ministries.

“Many of the generals have paid to get their jobs, many of the police have paid to do their jobs,” Sopko said. “Many of the former ministers have put their friends and cronies in these agencies.

“This is the difficulty that the Afghan government has. They have to ferret out those corrupt elements. Collaborating together, we can fight corruption better that we can do alone or the Afghan government can do it alone. We may have helped create the problem. Now we have to help the Afghan government stop the corruption and basically take a knife and cut out the cancer that is corruption.”

While he wishes the current Afghan government would do more, he has found them a more willing partner than the previous administration.

“They have to have a willing partner. Up to now they have, and we hope that continues,” Sopko said.

Still, mistrust of the government is pervasive. SIGAR has set up a confidential hotline for citizens to report corruption.

“Many of our best cases come from brave Afghans who have contacted this hotline,” said Sopko.

Getting rid of corruption is also key to fighting Afghanistan’s drug problems. And both are critical to fighting terrorism.

“The drug trade supports the insurgents and the extremists,” Sopko said, quoting Gen. John Nicholson, the head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, as saying insurgents get about 60 percent of their funding from the drug trade. “The corruption supports the insurgents. We have evidence of that.”

Sopko said President Ashraf Ghani warned, years before he became the country’s leader, that Afghanistan had the potential to become a narco-terrorist state.

“And it’s trending that way because no one is seriously addressing the narcotics problem,” Sopko said. “We hope the Afghan people and the new American administration will be more aggressive.”
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Three families who helped shelter former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in Hong Kong in 2013 after his mass leak of information about surveillance programs have asked Canada for asylum, their lawyer said Friday.

The families — three Sri Lankan adults, a Filipina, and three stateless children — have long-pending asylum claims in Hong Kong that they fear may soon be rejected, lawyer Marc-Andre Seguin said in a phone interview from Hong Kong.

Seguin said the families had been thrust into the spotlight after the September release of the Oliver Stone film Snowden, which referred to their role in Snowden’s flight from the United States in 2013 and, eventually, to Russia.

Seguin said the families and Hong Kong-based lawyer Robert Tibbo, who introduced his clients to Snowden, now face increasingly adverse circumstances in Hong Kong.

They said that they have been “actively sought by Sri Lankan operatives” in recent months and fear for their safety in Hong Kong, Seguin said. Reuters could not independently verify their stories.

A spokeswoman for Canada’s immigration minister said his office does not comment on current or possible cases and could not confirm or deny having received the applications.

Hong Kong authorities have yet to confirm that they are investigating claims Sri Lankan operatives were working in the territory, but a Security Bureau spokesman said it was illegal for foreign agencies to carry out law enforcement action within Hong Kong.

Snowden’s leaks of classified information about government surveillance programs caused an international furor over the reach of U.S. spy operations. His defenders see him as a whistleblower who exposed the extent of government snooping on citizens. He has been allowed to remain in Russia for another three years and will next year qualify to apply for Russian citizenship, his Russian lawyer was quoted as saying in January. 
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Six years ago, more than 18,000 people died or went missing as a tsunami triggered by a massive quake engulfed coastal areas of northeastern Japan. The lives of tens of thousands more people were unraveled when they lost family members, friends, homes and livelihoods. The displacement widened as entire communities fled after meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant.

Japan is marking the anniversary of the disaster Saturday with somber ceremonies in Tokyo and in cities and towns in the northeast. Most of the towns devastated in the March 11, 2011, disasters have only partially rebuilt, and local authorities are struggling to finance construction. Meanwhile, despite an abundance of jobs thanks to the rebuilding, the population in most of the region is falling.

Here are some measures of progress in Japan’s recovery:

RECONSTRUCTION: The government spent 26 trillion yen ($220 billion) in recovery and rebuilding from 2011-2015, but is set to slash that to 6.5 trillion yen in 2016-2020. Reconstruction has been hampered by a shortage of workers, and while much of the public housing planned to replace destroyed homes has been finished, about a fifth of the units stand empty.

DISPLACED FAMILIES: As many as 150,000 people fled radiation-affected areas near the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant. As of February, 123,000 were still displaced. Housing subsidies for so-called “voluntary evacuees,” those who left areas not designated as evacuation zones, are scheduled to run out by the end of March. Japanese media say some of those families have struggled to find new housing.

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THE NUCLEAR PLANT: Tokyo Electric Power Co. is struggling to decommission the wrecked plant and the estimated total cost exceeds 21 trillion yen ($182 billion). Cleanup of nearby areas has lagged, and radiation levels remain high. The cost of that cleanup has reportedly almost doubled to 4 trillion yen ($35 billion). TEPCO officials say radiation is not leaking outside of the reactors.

FISHERIES: Many of the seaside towns in the disaster zone relied heavily on fishing and aquaculture. Data from Iwate prefecture, one of the hardest-hit areas, shows harvests of salmon and oysters at 40 percent of the level when the tsunami hit. Other industries, such as sea urchin and abalone, have recovered to about 80 percent of normal. The region’s fisheries still employ about 14,000 people, but that’s down from about 18,000 in 2010.

THE MISSING: As of Friday, 2,553 people are still missing, and occasionally teams still search the coastline for signs of their remains. What is also missing are the many close-knit fishing hamlets and waterfronts in areas that were scoured bare by the tsunami, where only foundations remain.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party is on course for a landslide victory in India’s most important battleground state, early returns showed Saturday, in a personal triumph that will strengthen his claim to a second term as national leader.

If the Bharatiya Janata Party does wrest control of Uttar Pradesh it would be a ringing endorsement of Modi’s stewardship of Asia’s third-largest economy after his high-risk decision last November to scrap high-value banknotes worth 86 percent of the cash in circulation.

Though premature to call the final outcome, the Election Commission of India said the BJP was leading in 284 of the 403 seats in the northern state, which if confirmed by results would give itthe biggest majority scored by any party in the state since 1980.

The BJP’s vote share based on early counting is more than 40 percent, the election commission said, close to the party’s winning vote share in Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 national election when it won the biggest majority in three decades.

Two months of campaigning

“This will be a phenomenal endorsement for Narendra Modi and will put him on track for winning the 2019 election,” Prannoy Roy, editor of TV channel NDTV said.

Modi threw himself into the Uttar Pradesh campaign after his party got off to a slow start, delivering dozens of rallies and turning the contest into a test of his personal popularity and his radical move to abolish big banknotes to rein in corruption.

“The results will redefine the prime minister’s political destiny and his future course of action,” an aide to Modi in the capital, New Delhi, told Reuters.

Postelection surveys had suggested Modi’s BJP had done enough to come in first in Uttar Pradesh, home to 1 in 6 Indians, but that it might fall short of an outright majority.

Results for four other state elections are also due Saturday, and early counting put the BJP ahead in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand and Manipur in the northeast, while marginally behind the opposition Congress party in the coastal state of Goa.

Congress is ahead in Punjab state, the trends show, offering at least some consolation after Rahul Gandhi, heir apparent to the party leadership, failed again to make an impact.

Investors watching

Voting in Uttar Pradesh, a state of 220 million people, was conducted in seven stages and ended Thursday.

The BJP’s opponents include an alliance between Congress and the ruling Samajwadi Party, a tie-up that caught Modi’s party off guard. A better-than-expected showing by a third party could complicate the picture as results filter out.

A strong BJP showing would be welcomed by investors counting on further economic reforms, including the launch of a national sales tax, in the absence of any credible opponent who might halt Modi’s march to a second term in 2019.

Short of a majority, the BJP could see opponents block its path to power in the state by forming a coalition, although Modi’s party will also look to persuade its smaller rivals to join forces.

“If the BJP fails to secure a majority, then Modi’s economic decisions will be questioned and his failure to create jobs will impact his political future,” said Mohan Guruswamy, who heads the Centre for Policy Alternatives, an independent think-tank. 

 
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