While Taliban militants in Afghanistan harvest up to $3 billion annually from opium poppy profits, another moneymaker lies beneath the country’s war-ravaged soil: lapis lazuli, a deep ultramarine blue mineral almost entirely unique to Afghanistan. The gem is now the Taliban’s second biggest revenue-generator, raking in almost $20 million last year.

This week, Global Witness released a report claiming illegal lapis lazuli mining is draining the Afghan government of billions in potential profits, while filling armed insurgent groups’ war chests.

And the Taliban isn’t the only group allured by the blue gemstone. In recent months, the Islamic State (ISIS) affiliate in Afghanistan has also had its eye on lapis lazuli, sparking bitter competition for mine control in Badakhshan, the once peaceful northern province where the majority of lapis mines are concentrated. The province is becoming increasingly violent and destabilized, prompting Global Witness to appeal for the gemstone’s classification as a conflict mineral, similar to a “blood diamond” from the Congo or Ivory Coast.

“At the moment, more than 50 percent of the revenue that is coming out of the mine is being handed straight on to the Taliban,” said Stephen Carter, author of the report. “The Taliban in Badakhshan have close links to ISIS as well, so this is a very serious security issue.”

Two years ago, local warlord Abdul Malek seized control of the lapis mines in Badakhshan, reportedly shelling out a huge quantity of cash to the Taliban to ensure a monopoly. Some say Afghan politicians and officials turn a blind eye to illegal lapis extraction because they pocket a portion of export profits.

“It’s a big issue for the people of Afghanistan because they are losing their property to groups of terrorists, which on one side are stealing our property and on the other side are strengthening their terrorist group. So it’s a lose-lose situation,” Daud Saba, Afghanistan’s mines minister, told Reuters in November.

Afghanistan is rich in mineral assets—including copper, emeralds, lithium, onyx, and rubies. The BBC recently cited a geological survey claiming Afghanistan sits on almost $1 trillion in undeveloped mining profits, enough to pull the country out of its economic lethargy if properly developed and regulated. Skeptics say it’s too early to put a price tag on hypothetical mineral profits.

“There is a great deal of interest in diverse minerals and gems [in Afghanistan] but without more exploration putting a value on it seems speculative,”said Talmage Payne, a social entrepreneur specializing in international trade and development with Hagar International and World Hope International.

China particularly admires lapis lazuli and is the biggest buyer of Afghanistan’s controversial blue gemstone. China’s import habits stand in contrast to its official position as peace-broker on Afghanistan’s regional security talks. Along with Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United States, China is part of a four-country peace dialogue consultation group designed to bring the Taliban into talks and end war in the country.

worldmag.com

President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani has instructed the relevant security institutions to eliminate the income sources of the Taliban group, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group and other terror networks in the country.

The Office of the President said the issue of income sources of the terror groups was discussed during the National Security Council (NSC) meeting chaired by President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani today.

The NSC presented their report regarding the income sources of the Taliban group, ISIS loyalists and other terror networks to President Ghani.

The meeting also focused on the security situation of Helmand, Uruzgan, Laghman, Kunduz, Sar-e-Pul, Baghlan, Faryab, Paktia, Paktiak, and Kunar provinces.

The Afghan security forces were hailed for their bravey in fighting the militants and instructed the security organs to take necessary steps in a bid to prevent security threats in the mentioned provinces.

Instructions by President Ghani to eliminate the financial sources of the terror groups comes as reports emerged on Monday regarding the illegal mining by insurgent groups and warlords which fuels insurgency and war in the country.

The report by Global Witness released on Monday stated that the illegal mining of the minerals funnels millions of dollars into the hands of corrupt warlords and the militant groups besides fuelling the conflict in the country.

khaama.com

An American photojournalist and Afghan interpreter working for U.S.-based National Public Radio were killed on Sunday afternoon after their vehicle came under fire in southern Afghanistan.

David Gilkey, 50, and Zabihullah Tamanna, 38, were on assignment and traveling with the Afghan army near Taliban-contested Marjah district in Helmand province when their vehicle was hit by “shellfire,” according to a NPR statement. Two other NPR staff, Tom Bowman and producer Monika Evstatieva, were unhurt.

“We are devastated by the death of David and Zabihullah,” Jarl Mohn, NPR’s chief executive officer, said in the statement. “Horrific incidents like this remind us of the important role journalists play in America’s civic life.”

At least 24 journalists and media workers have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. One-third of them were international reporters. The deadliest attack on media workers since 2001 occurred in January, when seven Afghan Tolonews channel staff were killed in Kabul, the capital. A policeman shot at Associated Press journalists in 2014, killing a photographer and wounding a reporter.

Journalist Deaths

“Even though much of the world’s attention has shifted away, let no one doubt that Afghanistan remains a dangerous place for journalists — local and foreign — working to cover that protracted conflict,” Bob Dietz, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, said in a statement.

Journalists killed in connection with their work or for unclear reasons almost doubled to 110 in 2015 compared with the previous year, according to a report by Reporters Without Borders. Syria and Iraq remained the world’s deadliest countries for the journalists, it said.

Gilkey received numerous national and international awards throughout his career, such as the Edward R. Murrow Award in 2015. He was honored by the White House Photographers Association and was named Still Photographer of the Year in 2011.

“David has been covering war and conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11,” Michael Oreskes, NPR’s senior vice president of news, said in the statement. “He was devoted to helping the public see these wars and the people caught up in them. He died pursuing that commitment.”

bloomberg.com

Three assailants riding a motorcycle stabbed and then shot Mahmuda Aktar, 33, while she was on her way to put her son onto a school bus near her home in the southeastern port city of Chittagong, police said.

The wife of a senior Bangladeshi police official known for battling Islamist militants was stabbed and shot to death today, and machete-wielding assailants killed a Christian grocer in a separate incident.

Both attacks appeared to be the work of Islamist militants who have killed at least 30 people, including religious minorities, liberal bloggers and academics, since February last year, police said.

DETAILS OF THE CASE:

Three assailants riding a motorcycle stabbed and then shot Mahmuda Aktar, 33, while she was on her way to put her son onto a school bus near her home in the southeastern port city of Chittagong, police said.

“She was stabbed first. Then they shot her in the head three times,” Humayan Kabir, deputy police commissioner of Chittagong, told Reuters.

Her husband, police superintendent Babul Aktar, has played an important role in cracking down on militants in the region.

“Babul Aktar is an efficient police officer and played a key role in apprehending Islamists. They might have killed his wife because they failed to get him,” Interior Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters.

Aktar, who was recently posted to police headquarters in the capital, Dhaka, busted several hideouts of the banned group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen. His team also arrested one of the group’s leaders, who was later killed in a grenade blast during a police raid in October.

GOVERNMENT LAUNCHES CRACKDOWN ON MILITANT GROUPS

The government has launched a crackdown on militant groups who want to impose strict Islamic law on Bangladesh, whose population of 160 million are mostly moderate Muslims.

In Sunday’s other killing, Sunil Gomes, a 60-year-old shopkeeper, was hacked to death in his shop in the northern district of Natore, local police official Manirul Islam said.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for killing Gomes, according to the U.S.-based monitoring service SITE.

Islamic State and al Qaeda have claimed responsibility for many killings in the past but the government denies either group has a presence in Bangladesh and says home-grown radicals are responsible.

State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam told Reuters in an interview last month that Islamic State was trying to ride a wave of religious radicalisation by falsely claiming killings, and said there was enough evidence implicating domestic militant groups.

intoday.in

Twenty Seven Islamic State (IS) or Daesh militants and four Taliban have been killed in eastern Nangarhar and Central Logar provinces, official said on Sunday.

Attaullah Khogyani, the governor spokesman, told Pajhwok Afghan News and 27 IS rebels had been killed and 18 others wounded in security forces offensive codename Shahin-13 in Kot district of Nangarhar from the past two days.

He said Laghar Joy, Khoragi, Wach Kot and some other areas of the district had been cleared of the rebels in the operation.

Security forces seized weapons and ammunitions and suffered no causalities in the offensive, he said.

Separately, officials of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) detained 3 Taliban and five other suspects for having links with IS from Kot, Batikot and Jalalabad City, the provincial capital, a statement from the governor house said.

In Logar, four Taliban were killed and six others wounded during separate clashes, Salem Saleh, the governor spokesman said.

Security forces captured a rocket and a three machingunes during the operation conducted in Porak, Babos, Dadokhel and Kamalkhel localities.

pajhwok.com

The U.S. State Department said on June 2 that the number of terrorist attacks around the world declined last year for the first time since 2012, and that such attacks were becoming more decentralised and diffuse, reports The News.

Terrorist attacks fell by 13 percent compared with 2014, while fatalities caused by terrorist activity declined by 14 percent, the agency said in its report on global terrorism, which tracks trends in political violence. The State Department’s acting coordinator for counterterrorism, Justin Siberell, said the drop was due to fewer attacks in Iraq, Pakistan and Nigeria.

More than 55 percent of attacks attributed to terrorists last year occurred in five countries: Iraq, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Nigeria, he said. Terrorist attacks and deaths increased in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, the Philippines, Syria and Turkey, according to Siberell.

“The global terrorist threat continued to evolve rapidly in 2015, becoming increasingly decentralized and diffuse,” the report said. “Although terrorist attacks took place in 92 countries in 2015, they were heavily concentrated geographically, as they have been for the past several years.” Data compiled by the University of Maryland for the State Department showed there were 11,774 terrorist attacks worldwide during the year, in which more than 28,300 people died and roughly 35,300 others were wounded.

satp.org

A planned drawdown of U.S. troops in Afghanistan threatens to set back progress in the 15-year war and could allow militants to establish a greater foothold there, a group of 13 retired U.S. generals and senior diplomats have warned President Barack Obama.

In an open letter published Friday in The National Interest, the former heads of U.S. military and diplomatic efforts in Afghanistan urged the president to maintain current U.S. troop levels in that country through the end of his term.

“It would likely have helpful effects on refugee flows, the confidence of the Taliban, the morale of the Afghan military and Afghan people, the state of the Afghan economy and perhaps even the strategic assessments of some in Pakistan,” they wrote.

The letter was signed by David Petraeus, a former U.S. Army general and CIA director who led U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan; Zalmay Khalilzad and Ryan Crocker, former ambassadors to Afghanistan; and 10 other generals and diplomats.

A troop reduction would have the opposite effects and could create greater insecurity by allowing al-Qaida and the Islamic State group to expand and causing Afghanistan to “revert to the chaos of the 1990s,” the officials asserted.

Their warning came days before U.S. Army Gen. John W. Nicholson was expected to issue a review of the situation for the 90 days since he became the top U.S. commander there. The country’s international backers are also set to meet in Warsaw in July and Brussels in October to discuss their continued commitments.

Obama’s latest plan, announced last fall, calls for a reduction of U.S. forces by nearly half, from roughly 9,800 to 5,500 by early 2017. He had long planned to pull out nearly all U.S. troops before leaving office.

But since the withdrawal of most international combat forces at the end of 2014, the Afghan military has struggled to beat back the Taliban, who are believed to control the most territory since 2001.

In recent months, military and political leaders have urged a drawdown based on conditions on the ground, rather than a deadline.

A troop-level freeze would allow Obama’s successor to assess the situation and “adjust accordingly,” the retired generals and diplomats wrote.

“This step would be seen as a positive reaffirmation of America’s commitment to that nation, its people and its security.”

stripes.com

Country Reports on Terrorism 2015 released by the United States State Department on June 2 notes that according to the Government of Tajikistan, 700 Tajiks had left the country to fight with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) by the end of 2015.

In addition, the government remained concerned that instability in neighboring Afghanistan would push violent extremist groups across the border into Tajikistan, according to the report.

In response, the Government of Tajikistan worked to strengthen its efforts to fight terrorism and radicalization, although its focus was almost entirely on law enforcement measures, with little attention given to countering violent extremism.  Tajikistan reportedly sought to increase military and law enforcement capacity to conduct tactical operations through bilateral and multilateral assistance programs, including programs funded by the United States.  The United States, Russia, Japan, and the EU also provided funding for border security programs.

Three were reportedly three major events in 2015 that further heightened the government’s focus on the threat of terrorism within the country: 1) defection of the commander of the elite police unit OMON (Special Purpose Mobility Unit), Gulmurod Halimov, to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in April; 2) a series of attacks committed by a group of supporters of former Deputy Minister of Defense Abduhalim Nazarzoda in and around Dushanbe on September 4 that left nine police and 17 attackers dead; and 3) the Taliban’s seizure of the city of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan in late September that increased concern in Tajikistan of a possible spillover of fighters and refugees.

The report says that Tajikistan continued to make progress in improving border security with bilateral and multilateral assistance, although effectively policing the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border remained a difficult task requiring more resources and capabilities than were available to the Tajik government.  Within the region, the illicit trafficking of opiates transiting the Commonwealth of Independent States destined for the Russian Federation and Eastern Europe was the predominant funding mechanism for Afghan-based terrorist activity.  Drug trafficking in the region is inextricably tied to terrorism, and drug proceeds enable this activity.  Afghan Drug Trafficking Organizations and Organized Criminal Groups tied to violent extremist organizations frequently solicit the exchange of weapons, arms, or vehicles for drugs in lieu of currency-based remuneration.

The UN Office of Drugs and Crime, in conjunction with DEA and the Department of State, provided interdiction related training to Tajikistan (and Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan) in support of the Border Liaison Office program.  The U.S. Central Command Counter Narcotics Program continued to provide facilities, outposts, and material support (including ground-sensor interdiction technology) to the Tajik Border Guards under the State Committee for National Security.  In 2015, the Department of State’s Export Control and Border Security program routinely provided both training and material support to Tajikistan to improve border control, contraband interdiction, and counter-proliferation capabilities.

news.tj/

A senior leader of the Taliban militants group was killed during a special military operation conducted by the Afghan police forces in central Maidan Wardak province of Afghanistan.

The Ministry of Interior (MoI) said the operation was conducted in Ibrahim Khel village of Wardak in the bordering region of central Logar province.

A statement by MoI said commander Noorialai was a key Taliban group commander who was killed with his 5 fighters during the operation.

MoI in its statement further added that the commander was involved in major terrorist activities in this province, including kidnappings and attacks on telecommunication towers.

The Taliban militants group has not commented regarding the report so far.

The Taliban militants are active in a number of the districts of Maidan Wardak province where they often carry out insurgency activities.

The insurgents of the group are often carrying out kidnappings and attacks on the main highway connecting Kabul with the southern and southeastern provinces.

khaama.com