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Deputy RS chief visits Afghan officers training academy

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(Last Updated On: March 14, 2021)

Deputy Commander of the NATO Mission in Afghanistan Resolute Support (RS) Italian Army Corps General Nicola Zanelli on Sunday visited the Afghan National Army Officers Academy (ANAOA) on the occasion of the final exercise of the eighteenth Officers Cadets of Commissioning Course.

ANAOA is an academic institution that has achieved full independence after benefiting in the past from the support of the military advisors of the United Kingdom (leading nation), Austria, Denmark, New Zealand and Turkey engaged in RS mission.

Founded in 2012 as a bilateral project between the UK and Afghanistan, it has trained over 5,000 cadets to date.

Accompanied by British Army Brigadier General Jonathan Timmis , RS Chief Mentor for ANAOA, General Zanelli met the Commander of the Unified Training Doctrine Education Command (UTDEC) General Mohammed Nazim Peyenda , the Commander of the “Marshal Fahim” National Defense University General Esanullah Hazim Sapi , and ANAOA Commander Colonel Mohammed Essa Ehsan .

Addressing cadets at the end of the exercise, Zanelli expressed his admiration for the skills and professionalism shown.

“Proper command action,” he said, “constitutes a solid foundation for a credible and effective institution like the ANA, the backbone of the country.”

He added that investing in training and leadership is essential to improve the functionality and self-sustaining capacity of the Afghan security forces.

The drill saw 316 ANA cadets, including 16 women, engaged in a simulated attack conducted by three company-level units. Next April, the cadets will be promoted to the rank of Second Lieutenant and assigned to the operational departments of the ANA.

Students are selected from among military graduates from the ANA, based on an assessment of their leadership ability, ethnicity (to ensure that all are represented) and region of origin.

Their training process lasts one year and is divided into three modules (junior, intermediate, senior) lasting 16 weeks each, on the model of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (UK).

The Afghan National Defense Security Forces (ANDSF) have achieved independence in conducting ground operations and 95% of air operations.

Approximately 9,500 NATO military personnel are involved in training, advising and assisting the ANDSF within the RS mission.

The Italian Armed Forces contribute to the mission with over 800 men and women, employed in Herat, driving the Train, Advise and Assist Command West, and Kabul.

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US urges IEA to fulfill counter-terrorism commitments

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(Last Updated On: March 29, 2024)

The US State Department said on Thursday that Washington is committed to ensuring that Afghanistan can never again be a launching pad for terrorism.

“We remain committed to ensuring that Afghanistan can never again be a launching pad for terrorism, and we continue to push the Taliban (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan) to fulfill all of their counterterrorism commitments to the international community,” the department’s spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a news briefing in Washington.

He reiterated that the United States had clearly communicated to the IEA that it’s their responsibility to ensure that “they give no safe haven to terrorists, whether it be Al Qaeda or ISIS-K or any other terrorist organization”.

Miller also reassured US allies that Washington was closely watching the developments in Afghanistan and was ready to deal with any threat emerging from the region.

“We remain vigilant against the evolving threat of these terrorist groups, and our global coalition to defeat ISIS and the C5+1 help intensify our efforts to monitor terrorist threats from the region and prevent their ability to raise funds, travel, and spread propaganda,” he said.

C5+1 refers to a diplomatic platform involving the five Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgy­zstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) and the United States. It serves as a forum for discussing and addressing regional issues such as security, economic development, and cooperation.

“The United States remains vigilant against the evolving threat posed by terrorist groups, including ISIS-K, and has maintained an unwavering focus on terrorism since President Joe Biden took office three years ago,” Miller said.

The US, he said, was “working both unilaterally and with its partners to successfully disrupt threats across the globe and degrade ISIS”.

“We will continue to work to hold ISIS accountable for its actions and to prevent terrorist attacks against the United States and other Western countries,” Miller said.

This comes as IEA has repeatedly said that it is committed to not allowing anyone to use Afghanistan soil against any other country.

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IEA condemns Israel for confiscating 800 hectares of land in West Bank’s Jordan Valley

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(Last Updated On: March 29, 2024)

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) strongly condemned on Thursday Israel’s decision to seize 800 hectares of land in the occupied West Bank’s Jordan Valley region.

In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said that the recent actions by “the Zionist regime demonstrate that it does not to adhere to international laws, especially international humanitarian law.”

“Continuation of such unilateral actions and ignoring the rights of Palestinian people will further deteriorate the situation,” the statement said.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan expects international actors, particularly influential regional Muslim countries to fulfill their legitimate, human and moral responsibilities in supporting the oppressed people of Palestine and prevent the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied territories,” it added.

Israeli media have reported that Israel seized 800 hectares of land in the Jordan Valley region of the occupied West Bank, claiming it as “state land.”

It is reported the seized land could be used for the construction of illegal Jewish settlements.

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ISIS-K leader reportedly living in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

Sanaullah Ghaffari, also known as Shahab al-Muhajar, is reportedly the ISIS-Khorasan (Daesh) branch leader and is holed up in Pakistan, Reuters reports.

The 29-year-old took over as leader in 2020 and under his leadership the group has carried out extreme attacks as a means of recruiting, Reuters reported.

Reuters noted that little was known about Ghafari before the deadly 2021 ISIS attack on Kabul Airport, which killed 170 Afghan civilians and 13 American soldiers.

But after Friday’s deadly attack in a concert hall in Moscow, which left 139 people dead, Ghaffari’s group has come under intense scrutiny.

Reuters reports that Ghaffari is said to have been involved in several attacks in Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan.

Pakistani officials said months ago that Ghaffari had been killed in Kunar province in Afghanistan in June last year, but Reuters has reported that he did not die and instead fled to Pakistan and lives in the border province of Baluchistan.

Abdul Matin Qani, the spokesman of the Ministry of Interior of Afghanistan, says that Daesh has been suppressed in Afghanistan for more than two years and has lost its operational capacity.

The last attack carried out by Daesh in Afghanistan was the attack on the Kabul Bank office in Kandahar last week which left three dead and 12 wounded.

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