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CEO: Kundoz collapse shows Afghanistan still needs foreign forces
Afghanistan’s Chief of Executive Officer (CEO), Abdullah Abdullah, said he hoped the northern Afghan town of Kunduz would be retaken in one or two days, but said its fall to the Taliban showed the need for continued foreign support for Afghan forces.
Kunduz this week became the first provincial capital to be taken by the Taliban since the hard-line Islamist movement was toppled from power in 2001.
Abdullah said Afghan forces had been shouldering “a huge responsibility” in the past year since the withdrawal of the bulk of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
“I hope that we will recover Kunduz soon, in the coming one or two days, hopefully,” Abdullah told Reuters in New York where was attending the U.N. General Assembly and meeting Afghanistan’s foreign backers.
“At the same time, the need for maintaining support and sustaining support for Afghan forces is more evident,” he said.
Abdullah said it was up to the United States to decide whether to reconsider plans for reducing its presence.
But he said: “As far as I understand, the view of all those (U.S.) Army generals and officers on the ground … in Afghanistan, as well as our own security and military leadership, is that maintaining a level of force beyond 2016 is necessary.”
In May, U.S. President Barack Obama said that by the end of 2015 the American force in Afghanistan would be roughly half of the current total of about 10,000 and would operate only from bases in the capital, Kabul, and Bagram, a giant air base near that city.
The plan is to reduce the force to just a few hundred by the end of 2016, mainly to protect the embassy and other U.S. interests.
The Wall Street Journal reported last Thursday that U.S. and allied defense officials, increasingly wary of the cutbacks, were reviewing new options that include maintaining the current number of U.S. troops beyond the end of 2016.
Asked about criticisms of himself and President Ashraf Ghani over the fall of Kunduz, Abdullah said the reasons for its capture by the Taliban would have to be looked into.
“We knew that the terrorist groups as well as Taliban had concentrated in Kunduz for quite some time. And how they managed and what happened and which were the shortcomings or weaknesses that led to the fall of Kunduz, that has to be studied on its own merit,” he said.
Abdullah said there would be time to address the criticism. “But today is the time to unite around our security forces and back those security forces and help them in whatever way … so the people of Kunduz are rescued.”
Abdullah elaborated on charges he leveled at neighboring Pakistan in his General Assembly address when he called on Islamabad to crack down on militant sanctuaries.
“I would say that without (the) support the Taliban are receiving in Pakistan, the military, security situation would have been different, so it’s an important issue,” he said.
Abdullah and Ghani were persuaded to share power after months of wrangling over a contested election last year. Abdullah took the title of chief executive, while Ghani was named president.
Reuters
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More needs to be done to boost local industry, says Kabir
The deputy prime minister for policy, Mawlavi Abdul Kabir, met with Nooruddin Azizi, Acting Minister of Commerce and Industry, at Sapidar Palace on Tuesday and discussed issues around the quality of domestic products and the need to grow and develop the industrial sector.
Azizi said that good trade relations with neighboring countries has resulted in stable prices of goods in the country.
He said the Ministry of Commerce and Industry works closely with the private sector. As a result, the private sector functions in a befitting manner and the Islamic Emirate has provided necessary facilities.
Azizi said that based on the Islamic Emirate’s good economic policies, there has been a significant development in the import/export sector in the country.
Kabir in turn voiced appreciation for efforts by the leadership of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and said: “The unprecedented efforts of the IEA’s administrations and the stability of the Afghan currency caused the price of food ingredients to remain in the right state and our people also be able to buy essential materials.”
He emphasized the need to work for a balance in trade with neighboring countries, and said more efforts were needed to improve the quality of domestic products and to grow the sector.
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Russia and Tajikistan hold joint military drills along Afghanistan border
Russia and Tajikistan conducted a joint four-day military exercise along the border with Afghanistan in order to be prepared for any “potential threats”, Tajik media reported this week.
Russian military personnel from the 201st military base in Tajikistan participated in this exercise. Reports stated military personnel practiced various combat tactics, especially tactics to counter terrorist groups that illegally enter Tajikistan.
This comes amid repeated concerns expressed by Afghanistan’s neighbors about what they claim are terrorist threats originating from Afghanistan.
The Islamic Emirate has not yet commented on the drills but has repeatedly denied the presence of terrorist groups in the country. The IEA has also continuously said no militant group will be allowed to threaten another country from Afghanistan.
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