Local officials say more than 300 schools are under Taliban’s control in northern Kunduz province, where the insurgents recruit students for fighting.

However, the militant group vehemently denies recruiting schoolchildren as fighters. It says children’s recruitment as fighters is forbidden under Taliban’s policy and the Islamic Shariah.

Education in the province was badly affected during the siege of Kunduz City by Taliban militants for a few days. The strategic city, which fell to the rebels on September 25, 2015, was recaptured by the security forces after a two-week clearing operation.

In addition to huge losses inflicted on the people and damage done to government facilities, 150 schools were also closed. Education department spokesman Abdul Basir Waziri told Pajhwok Afghan News thousands of boys and girls were enrolled in the schools closed.

The schools have been reopened, but all important documents of the urban education department and five schools had been torched during the fierce battle for Kunduz City, the spokesman revealed.

Maulvi Sirajuddin Shaheed and Hazrat Ali High Schools were hit by heavy weapons fire. All important papers and equipment there were burnt, he added.

Sibghatullah, a student at the Hazrat Ali High School, blamed the insurgents for setting alight equipment and documents. He alleged a madrassa (seminary) was also torched.

“We could not come to school during two weeks of fighting. Even after our school reopened, most of children stayed away because of security concerns,” the students continued.

Sibghatullah requested the government to take effective measures to improve the security situation in the city so that students leant their lessons in a peaceful atmosphere.

Government’s concern

Kunduz officials explain of the 497 schools in the province, more than 300 are located in areas under Taliban’s control. The fighters mark absent the teachers and students who do not come in time. A long absence may translate into a teacher’s sacking or a student’s rustication.

Acting Governor Hamdullah Danishi admitted the Taliban even influenced transfers and employment of teachers. Without giving details of the areas under militant control, he confirmed the rebels were active just one kilometre from Kunduz City.

In parts of Imam Sahib, Dasht-i-Archi, Qala-i-Zal, Khanabad and Chahar Dara districts, the guerrilla presence had been taking a heavy toll on education. “The Taliban train students against the government and recruit them for fighting. Our elders should make a decision on the issue,” he demanded.

Danishi revealed the militants were recruiting students from Nangarhar and Kunduz provinces — a practice that must be stopped forthwith.

A resident of Chahar Dara district, who requested not to be named, said the rebels had devoted a specific time to training students on how to use different kinds of weapons at Basos School.

“Even small children there can handle all manner of weapons,” the source said, adding the militants awarded prizes to the students singing songs in praise of Taliban. The rebels could only force schoolchildren and teachers into complying with their orders, he commented.

Abdul Qadir, hailing from the Aqtash area of Khanabad district, disclosed a teacher was fired by the fighters staying away from his duty for a few days. Qadir, whose has three school-going children, said the Taliban had directed students to come to school in time if they did not want to be marked absent.

Aqtash is a vast area, containing 80 villages. It was recently upgraded to the status of district in line with a presidential decree.

The acting governor warned school students would swell militant ranks if the province was not cleared of the Taliban. Some residents claimed the fighters had imposed their own syllabus on schools. The subject called Culture and Life Experiences has been replaced by Taliban-written book Islamic Emirate.

But the Taliban rejected the allegations they are recruiting students from schools under their control. The group’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said: “We lay an emphasis on students’ arrival at schools in time and getting healthy education.

“It’s their time to acquire education. Their recruitment is forbidden based on Sharia law and conventionally.” He verified Taliban’s interference in schools where teachers remained absent habitually or paid no attention to the education of children.

“Teachers are first motivated to come to schools in time. If they don’t listen, they are warned. And if they ignore warning, we sack them,” he clarified. The teachers employed in violation of merit were unacceptable to them, he continued.

Mujahid vowed to interfere in schools where students were taught subjects that were in conflict with the Shariah. For example, he said, teaching music was not was violative of Sharia.

Version of education department

The acting director of education rejected as baseless claims about the closure of schools. Not a single schools was shut and the education process was going on smoothly, he insisted.

Students of five schools that were destroyed in recent clashes are going to nearby schools. They had appeared without any major problems in their annual exams, the official maintained.

Jamhuriat High School, Ashqari Middle School and Hamid Agha Primary Schools have been destroyed in Kunduz City as result of the fighting. A girls’ high school and a Quran memorisation centre for females in Dasht-i-Archi district were also ruined.

Some of the schools were situated in Taliban-dominated areas, but tribal elders were in contact with the rebels to allow the payment of salaries to teachers and avoid hampering the delivery of books and other scholastic materials, the director added.

Insecurity was not confined to Kunduz, but the issue was common in all provinces of the country, he observed, saying the government had to provide a better environment for students.

Students await stability

Although some schools were closed due to insecurity, they continued with their studies by going to other schools, said Abdul Malik, an eighth-grade student. Enrolled at the Abdul Fatah School in Chahardara district, he appeared in the annual exams elsewhere.

He asked the government to ensure the security of schools and keep students from running into a similar situation in the future.

Meanwhile, some students complained they had been deprived of education. Syed Yasin, a student of ninth class at Damshakh School in Chardara said the Taliban had warned all people of the area not to send their children to school.

Despite their strong urge to continue their studies, more than 200 students have been deprived of education, waiting for the early return of stability to the insecure area. Their schools had been partially destroyed in recent years, he said, while asking the government to conduct clearing operations against the militants.

Anti-corruption struggle

Education officials claim curbing corruption in the department, but residents of the province allege teacher posts have been sold over the past few years.

“My daughter has done BA in education. This year, I tried to find her a job in a school. I literally toiled for months, but could not find any job for her,” a government employee said on condition of anonymity.

The appointing authorities sought 60,000 afghanis in backhander from him, but he could not afford to pay that big an amount. Regretting the sorry state of affairs, he said many applicants did not have the required connections.

Over the past three years, the ordinary mortals have been in the dark about teacher vacancies in the education department, according to the man, who asked the ministry to make appointments on the basis of an open competition.

Meanwhile, the acting director of education admitted there had been problems in the department, but since his takeover, a campaign had been launched to banish corruption.

He said they had conducted an open-merit test featuring by more than 2,000 candidates for teacher vacancies. The result would be declared soon, the official promised.

“With the introduction of merit, many educated people will get jobs on the one hand and corruption will be contained to a large extent on the other,” he remarked.

He asked the people if any of the education employees ask for bribe, they should contact him to refer the officials to judiciary departments.

School security councils

According to education officials, councils for protecting schools have been set up in the provincial capital and districts of Kunduz. They are responsible for providing security for schools.

A member of the council in Khanabad district, Abdul Saboor, said the body was set up a year back. All members of the council are bound to share problems of the schools with the education department and protect them from militant attacks.

The councils, entitled to no privileges from the government, have voluntarily accepted responsibility for facilitating children’s education in a peaceful environment.

No doubt, the collapse of Kunduz City badly affected the education system. However, the councils did not allow the schools to be closed, Saboor said, urging the Taliban and other armed groups not to harm educational institutes and let the rising generation continue its education.

Accommodation problem

The acting director of education says more than 330,000 male and female students are taught by over 8,000 teachers at 497 schools across the province. Of them, 270 schools have their own buildings.

This year, the department plans to construct 45 schools with financial support from the Ministry of Education and donor agencies. Work on 16 school buildings is underway in different parts of the province.

“With the construction of school buildings, students will be protected from the adverse effects of the sun. They will no longer need to study under trees,” the director concluded.

 

pajhwok.com

Maharashtra ATS Chief said the Mumbai ATS is ready to combat terrorism. He added that their emphasis would be on counter radicalisation as they do not want the youth to get involved in this.

Amid the national crackdown on terrorists and terror suspects, the Mumbai Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) has blocked 94 websites linked to Islamic State of Iraq and the LevantS.

“94 websites used to radicalise people online have been blocked. We are monitoring websites and social media sites, so that these are not mishandled. Any website used to propagate ISIS agenda is being blocked. We are trying to create an ATS website to connect with the people,” said Maharashtra ATS Chief Vivek Phansalkar.

Phansalkar further said that the Mumbai ATS is ready to combat terrorism. He added that their emphasis would be on counter radicalisation as they do not want the youth to get involved in this.

“Wherever needed, we take the help of the state police and ATS and this coordination will continue. We would appeal to people, if they notice elements which are suspect of doing something wrong, please report to the control rooms of the police station, we will definitely respond,” he added.

Armed with critical inputs from US Central Intelligence Agency, investigation agencies on Friday continued their crackdown against suspected Islamic State sympathisers and arrested 14 persons for allegedly plotting to launch attacks during Republic Day celebrations.

The multi-city raids that had begun on Friday across six states wound up with the arrest of Imran Mozzam Khan Pathan of Aurangabad in Maharashtra.

 

dnaindia.com

So far, ISIS has not turned its attention heavily toward the religiously diverse target.

Hardly a day passes without a new “Islamist” terror attack somewhere in the world.

The violence has long since metastasized from its original Near Eastern flash points to Western urban centers. The terrorists’ targets lie in Europe, Africa and also Asia, as the recent attack in Indonesia shows.

India, too, has experienced a rising fear of terrorism, although the perception of an imminent threat seems far weaker here than in Europe’s alarmed capitals.

Luckily, India seems to be in the midst of a hiatus from attacks by Islamist terrorists. The country is a blank spot, it appears, from the perspective of the groups in Syria and its neighbors.

Pakistan’s role

For historical reasons, in fact, Indians associate terrorism primarily not with the Arab turmoil but with neighboring Pakistan. On numerous occasions their nation has been targeted by terrorists on instruction of operators in that country.

This terrorism directed from across the borders reached a climax in November 2008 when heavily armed fighters attacked Mumbai, India’s economic metropolis, took numerous hostages and engaged in deadly battles with the security forces for three days. In the end, 170 lay dead. Ever since, “26/11” has been India’s equivalent of America’s “9/11”.

India was treated to a remake of neighborly terrorism in early January of this year. Heavily armed fighters sneaked over the borders from Pakistan and attacked an Indian airbase.

The fighting at Pathankot lasted three days. In the end, the Indian defenders killed all six intruders while losing seven of their own men.

After Paris

Pakistan’s predominance in India’s security thinking does not mean the Delhi government takes the Islamist threats from the Middle East lightly.

Alarm bells went off when Abu Bakr Al- Baghdadi, the head of the “Islamic State” terrorist group, included the South Asian subcontinent in his aspired global caliphate.

Following the terrorist attacks in Paris in November last year, India’s government updated the country’s threat analysis.

The authorities did reassure the public that ISIS had not established any significant presence in India. But they also said, for the first time, that the group had managed to radicalize sections of the local population. This opens up the possibility of ISIS-sponsored terrorist action on Indian territory.

Fertile recruitment ground?

Numerically India seems a suitable target for Islamist propaganda. The country’s Muslim minority numbers 180 million. One out of every ten Muslims worldwide holds Indian citizenship. Indonesia is the only country with a bigger Muslim population.

Moreover, many of India’s Muslims do feel politically and socially marginalized. Worries that they could end up in the crosshairs of recruitment efforts of Islamist terrorist outfits are therefore not made up out of thin air.

The media in India give much space to the terrorism story, newspapers carry myriad reports covering various counter-terrorism efforts.

These reveal that the authorities have a very clear picture of the status of ISIS-related activities in the country.

According to publically available data 23 young Indian nationals have joined the call for Jihad to fight alongside “Islamic State” in the Middle East; on numerous occasions, the newspapers have reported that, out of these 23 men, six have lost their lives in battle.

The methods applied by the Islamist militia to lure young men into their fold are also well documented. Social media play a pivotal role.

Using Facebook, Twitter or WhatsUp the recruiters make contact and engage their target audience. The surveillance of the Internet, therefore, takes center stage in India’s anti-ISIS-strategy.

New Delhi’s intelligence operators have established close links with U.S., Arab, and also Israeli intelligence services. Narendra Modi’s government is particularly fond of Israel.

Talks on how to strengthen the bilateral cooperation in the sensitive field of combating Islamist terrorists are expected to play an important role in continued high-level talks with Israeli officials.

Why so few recruits so far?

Compared with other countries, however, the number of ISIS recruits from India is negligible.

This may perhaps be attributed to the efficiency of the surveillance and containment efforts of the authorities.

On the other hand, the propaganda efforts of the “Islamic State” seem to fall on deaf ears among the very big majority of Indian Muslims. For most of them, the Arab world is a distant universe with few immediate concerns for them.

Does this mean the Islamist threat is under control in India? If you give credence to the government’s assurances the answer is yes.

However, only the future will show whether the home of the world’s largest Muslim minority will stay unharmed.

It is a confrontation some have magnified, to the benefit of ISIS propagandists and recruiters, to a global clash between the West and Islam. If it becomes framed as a clash between the entire non-Muslim world and Islam, India’s security could deteriorate.

 

theglobalist.com

Malaysian police said on Sunday seven members of an Islamic State (IS) cell had been arrested in a three-day operation carried out across the Southeast Asian country.

Malaysian police said on Sunday seven members of an Islamic State (IS) cell had been arrested in a three-day operation carried out across the Southeast Asian country.

The operation was launched in four states on January 22, ahead of Monday’s International Conference on Deradicalisation and Countering Violent Extremism that Malaysia is hosting.

Police said the suspects had received instructions to carry out attacks in Malaysia by Syrian-based IS members, including Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian militant named as the mastermind of Jan. 14 suicide attacks in Jakarta which killed seven people.

“All of the suspects are members of the same cell, who are responsible for planning terror attacks in strategic locations throughout Malaysia,” Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar said in a statement.

He said the suspects were also given orders by Muhammad Wanndy Mohamed Jedi, a known Malaysian IS recruiter who had previously been linked to a beheading video in Syria.

The arrests were made following the Jan. 15 capture of a suspected militant who had confessed to planning a suicide attack in Kuala Lumpur, according to Khalid.

One of the suspects was believed to be responsible for collecting and channelling funds to Malaysian citizens looking to join up with IS in Syria. The funds were also to be used to fund a terrorist operation in Malaysia, Khalid said.

All seven suspects were Malaysian men aged between 26 and 50 years old. Among the items seized in the operation were bullets, books on jihad, Islamic State flags and propaganda videos.

 

 

indiatoday.intoday.in

The Narendra Modi government has started countering the radicalization threat from the Islamic State though the group’s links with the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), which has led to concerns of a possible fallout in the border states of West Bengal and Assam.

The IS has claimed several terror attacks in Bangladesh and reports have suggested it is working with cadres of the JMB, responsible for the October 2014 blast in Burdwan. JMB cadres have reportedly shown allegiance to the so-called “caliphate” of IS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

There is a heightened alert over JMB after the probe into the Burdwan blast showed its cadres had infiltrated border states. During the investigation, security agencies arrested 18 people from Bengal, Assam and Jharkhand.

No less than 10 IS terror strikes have taken place in Bangladesh in the past year, and security agencies are concerned of a possible fallout in Bengal and Assam.

Sources, however, said there is no evidence of any logistical or financial support to IS activities in India from Pakistan, which itself is reeling under the group’s threat. The IS claimed a recent attack on the Pakistani consulate in the Afghan city of Jalalabad that killed seven.

As the government counters the IS threat, evidence has emerged that busted terror modules in India were funded from West Asia via the hawala route.

With one more person arrested from Aurangabad in Maharashtra on Saturday night, the total number of people arrested for alleged links to the radical fundamentalist group has risen to 16.

Top government sources said the Indian chapter of IS was named Jundal Khalifa (Army of the Caliphate) by so-called Amir-e-Hind Mudabbir Sheikh of Mumbra town in Thane district.

Sheikh, a trained web designer from Thane Polytechnic, was radicalized over the Internet in the past two years and was on the scanner of security agencies.

Besides being associated in the past with Wahdat-e-Islam, a splinter group of the SIMI, Sheikh was in touch with Yousuf-al-Hindi, the nom de guerre of ex-Indian Mujahideen terrorist Mohammed Shafi Armar of Bhatkal in Karnataka.

Armar and a couple of ex-IM terrorists are now fighting with the IS in Syria and Iraq.

 

manilatimes.net

At least 16 Daesh insurgents were killed in Afghan security forces air strikes in eastern Nangarhar province on Saturday, local officials said.

The air strikes took place in Achin and Haskamina districts of the province after the Afghan air forces targeted the Daesh insurgents, a spokesman for the provincial governor, Attaullah Khoghyani said.

“Qari Wahab and Qari Hafizullah, two commanders of Daesh are among the dead,” he said.

He added that there were no civilian casualties during the air strikes.

In the past months, the Afghan and foreign troops have increased their air strikes in eastern parts of Afghanistan in which dozens of Daesh insurgents were killed.

 

tolonews.com

In the 13th issue of its online magazine, Dabiq, Islamic State has claimed that it won’t be long before Kashmir is run over by the organisation.

The claims were made by the ‘emir of Khorasan’, Hafiz Saeed Khan, in an interview to the magazine. Khan, also known as Mullah Saeed Orkazai, is an erstwhile commander of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. The TTP is responsible for Peshawar school attack of 2014 that killed 141 people, and the attack on Bacha Khan University earlier this week.

He later defected to IS to become the group’s operative head in ‘Khorasan’, the region that stretches across Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan and extends to parts of India and China.

“It had once been under the authority of the Muslims, along with the regions surrounding it. Afterwards, the secularist – cow-worshipping Hindus and atheist Chinese – conquered other nearby regions, as is the case in parts of Kashmir and Turkistan,” said Saeed, stressing on the importance of the region in re-establishing the caliphate and expanding their territory in the eastern part.

When asked if IS was capable of fighting ‘cow-worshiping Hindus’ and apostate factions such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, he answered that “there are specific arrangements in those regions and Muslims will soon hear pleasant news about the caliphate’s expansion to those lands”.

Hitting out against the Pakistan Army for exploiting Kashmir issue for personal interest, khan added, “When preservation of their interests (Pakistan Army’s) is required, they ceasefire, withdraw, and retreat. The intelligence agencies have left Kashmiris in the middle of the road and in worst of situations. Pakistani ‘interests’ always fluctuates back and forth, especially in the last years, until Kashmir hits a roadblock and there was no one to save them from the quagmire into which they were thrown. Many Kashmiris and soldiers of militant factions left and made hijrah to wilayat khurasan.”

Adding that apostate factions and agents such as LeT do not have control over any region in Kashmir as they followed the tug and pull of Pakistani army, he said, “There’s a big opportunity…establish the religion of Allah there (Kashmir) and for IS to expand to it.”

 

ibnlive.com

At least 36 anti-government armed militants were killed and 48 others were wounded in counter-terrorism operations led by the Afghan National Army (ANA) forces in the past 24 hours.

The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said the operations were jointly conducted in various parts of the country and as a result at least 48 militants were also injured.

A statement by MoD said at last 46 others were also injured during the operations and various types of weapons and ammunition were confiscated by the security forces.

The operations were conducted in the vicinity of AChin and Behsud districts of Nangarhar province, Manogi district of Kunar, Qarghai district of Laghman, Khoshi, Mohammad Agha and Azra districts of Logar, Nerkh and Daimerdad districts of Maidan Wardak, central parts and Dasht-e-district of Kunduz, Tagab district of Badakhshan, Nawa district of Helmand, central Baghlan, Koh-e-Safi district of Parwan province.

The anti-government armed militant groups have not commented regarding the report so far.

The Afghan national security forces have doubled counter-terrorism operations in different parts of the country amid deteriorating security situation in the country.

The Taliban-led insurgency have been rampant during the recent weeks in different parts of the country, including capital Kabul besides the newly-emerged loyalists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group are looking to expand foothold in the country.

 

khaama.com

Fighting one’s own demons is always a challenging task. But, as Pakistan is finding, a selective slaughter, or cull, is infinitely more difficult.

That explains why, however hard it tries, the fight against terror remains a complex mission to accomplish. But the world, including India, needs to help Pakistan in this battle.

The price Pakistan has paid in terms of human lives and economic loss in the fight against terror is mind-numbing. In December 2014, Pakistan’s National Assembly was told that Pakistan had suffered losses of $80 billion and 50,000 lives in the war on terror over the preceding decade.

Despite American largesse, the economic cost of the fight against terrorism has been bleeding Pakistan, whose economy is just over a tenth the size of India’s at $225 billion. Capital has flown and jobs dried up in the lengthening shadow of terror, not to mention the agony of those directly affected by the death of a loved one or breadwinner.

In each country’s history a defining moment comes when public sentiment drives a change in a fatally flawed national policy. That moment for Pakistan happened when terrorists mowed down 132 school children in a Peshawar school in 2014. Tehreek-e-Taliban, better known as the Pakistani Taliban, had claimed responsibility for the school massacre; now it has gained further opprobrium by striking a university campus.

After the unspeakable bloodbath in Peshawar, Pakistan had declared a collective resolve to stamp out terrorists. But efforts since then show how winning this battle goes beyond declaring steely resolve. To be fair, Pakistan has not remained idle. It intensified the raids against militants in the tribal areas of Waziristan and cracked down on groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). The Pakistan army took the fight against terrorism more seriously than before, driven by public sentiment and US demands.

But the country still falls well short on addressing the vital question of how to stop militant Islamist outfits acting as strategic assets against Afghanistan and India. These groups could be used for achieving Pakistan’s initial objectives. But they then take on a life of their own, often not obeying their masters, who are left in a quandary over how to reign them in.

Any blanket clampdown on groups like the Lakshar-e-Taiba, blamed for the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and Jaish-e-Mohammad, behind the Pathankot air base strike, is not easy because for long they remained of crucial importance for the Pakistan establishment. LeT may be a proscribed organisation but it has unfrozen assets in many parts of the country; Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation are the frontal organizations operating with impunity. In other words, Pakistan continues to be a victim of the fallacious distinction between good terrorist and bad terrorist

Unless Pakistan makes a strategic shift in its approach of not using its demons as angels in furthering its interests in the sub continent, its own fight against terror cannot succeed. There have been many bloody wake-up calls, and there have been many half-measures. But to win its own battle against terrorism, Pakistan needs to go the whole way. And all the countries with a stake in the region need to either help Pakistan in its efforts, or at least give it a long rope.

 

hindustantimes.com

The Tajik government forcibly shaved the beards of 13,000 men to hinder them from becoming jihadis, Radio Free Europe reports. This makes part of a wider campaign against Islamic outlook, thought to curb militant identity. Approximately 500 Tajik nationals are thought to be fighting as volunteers for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Chatham House reports.

President Imomali Rakhmon of Tajikistan has taken successive waves of measures that resemble those of Kemal Ataturk in the 1920’s and 1930s. Then Turkey sought to modernize society, beginning from its outlook. At the time, Turkish Republic legislation forbade Islamic garment and headwear, for men and women, exchanged Arabic scripture for the Latin alphabet, and proclaimed polygamy illegal. Islamic garments disputes of a similar kind have been also common in Britain, France, Belgium and, most recently, Estonia.

The modern “iconoclastic” crackdown on Islamic militants in Tajikistan also entails shutting down shops selling Islamic clothes and “convincing women” to quit wearing hijab or head covers. The latest measures targeted the Khatlon region, bordering Afghanistan.

Hardline political opposition in Tajikistan is associated with political Islam and the country has suffered a bloody civil war between 1992 and 1997. The 8-million country is 90% Muslim and has since the 1990s seen successive waves of attempts to limit the social and political power of militant Islam; since 2005, children under 18 are not allowed to attend Mosques, the Washington Post reports.

 

neurope.eu