South Asia Terrorism Portal

AFGHANISTAN

A Child's Nightmare
Sanchita Bhattacharya
Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management

On May 8, 2021, terrorists carried out a Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device attack in front of the Sayed Al-Shuhada School in the Afghan capital city, Kabul, killing at least 68 children and injuring 165 others.

On April 25, 2021, seven civilians including two children were killed in an Afghan Air Force airstrike in the Darawolang village of Jalrez District of Wardak Province.

On April 10, 2021, a roadside bomb killed two children and injured a woman in the Zwandohadira area of Arghandab District, Kandahar Province.

Meanwhile, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) report, “Afghanistan Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict First Quarter Update: 1 January to 31 March 2021”, the period covered recorded 552 child casualties (151 killed and 401 injured). There were 448 child casualties (153 killed and 295 injured) in the corresponding  period of 2020.

Through 2020, there were 2,619 child casualties (760 killed and 1,859 injured).

Some of the prominent incidents of 2020 include:

December 18, 2020: At least 15 children were killed when a motorbike laden with explosives blew up near a religious gathering in Gilan District of Ghazni Province. The children had gathered at a home to recite verses of the Holy Quran, a regular activity on Friday, when the blast took place.

October 24, 2020: 24 people including teenaged students were killed in a suicide blast at the Kawsar-e-Danish education centre in Kabul. Islamic State claimed responsibility in a statement on Telegram, without providing evidence.

May 12, 2020: Militants in Police uniform attacked the maternity ward in Dasht-e-Barch Hospital killing 24, including newborn babies. The three attackers, who gained access dressed as Police officers, were all killed by security personnel.

June 20, 2020: At least three children were killed in a mine explosion in Paikamari village in Ferozkoh city of Ghor Province.

June 18, 2020: A mortar bomb blast inside a seminary in the Ishkamish District of Takhar Province killed nine seminary students. Six students were also injured in the explosion.

As per UNAMA data, at least 7,819 children have been killed and 18,815 injured in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2020. The condition of children remains appalling in the war-torn country.

The most striking statement of the latest UNAMA report, "Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict Annual Report, 2020" released in February 2021, describing the deplorable condition of children in Afghanistan, was by the father of victim on September 14, 2020:

Worryingly, the percentage of Taliban involvement in children’s causality is increasing. According to the UNAMA Annual Report, 2020, out of 2,619 child casualties (760 killed and 1,859 injured) between January and December 2020, the Taliban was responsible for 940 (262 killed and 678 injured), i.e., 35.89 per cent. In 2019, the Taliban was responsible for 11.18 per cent of total child casualties recorded in the country.

Not only the terrorists, but Government Forces (both Afghan and International) have also been responsible for mass child casualties. In 2020, UNAMA attributed 849 child casualties (279 killed and 570 injured) to the Afghan National Security Force (ANSF), 46 child casualties (36 killed and 10 injured) to international military forces, and 23 child casualties (nine killed and 14 injured) to pro-government armed groups.

Action on Armed Violence in its May 6, 2021 report, noted that in Afghanistan, between 2016 and 2020, a total of 1,598 child casualties (785 children killed and 813 children injured) resulted from US and Afghan airstrikes.

Amidst rising insecurity, Afghan children continue to face several other challenges, including access to education, health care, and other basic services.

In 2020, UNAMA verified 62 incidents affecting children’s access to education in Afghanistan including attacks targeting or incidentally damaging schools; the killing, injury and abduction of education personnel; and threats against education facilities and personnel. Between  January 1 and December 31, 2019, UNAMA verified 70 such incidents impacting access to education. Previously in 2018, UNAMA recorded 191 incidents affecting education.

UNAMA also verified 90 attacks impacting healthcare delivery in 2020, a 20 per cent increase as compared to 2019, when there were 75 such attacks.

In addition, Afghan children suffer from poverty, hunger and chronic scarcity of food as a result of the persistent violence in the country. Some 10 million children in Afghanistan are currently at risk of not having enough food to eat in 2021. According to UNICEF’s Afghanistan Report-Humanitarian Action for Children, 2021, 2.8 million children are acutely malnourished.

Meanwhile, on April 14, 2021, US President Joe Biden announced full withdrawal of all troops from Afghanistan, no later than September 11, 2021. "A drawdown is underway," White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated on April 29, 2021.

In upcoming months, with foreign troops gone, it is widely expected that the overall security situation will deteriorate further in the country.  Civilians will bear the brunt of increased insecurity, and children will not only be subject to greater violence but also to a spectrum of socio-economic misfortunes, extreme deprivation and an environment of uncertainty that have long made childhood in Afghanistan a relentless nightmare.

PAKISTAN

Tense Borders
Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

On May 7, 2021, one soldier was injured when militants from across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border opened fire, targeting a military check post in the Bajaur District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack.

On May 5, 2021, four Frontier Corps (FC) soldiers were killed while six were injured, when terrorists attacked them in the Manzakai sector, along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, in the Zhob District of Balochistan. TTP claimed responsibility for the attack. In a statement, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) disclosed,

Referring to the attack in the Zhob border area, the Balochistan Home Minister Mir Ziaullah Langove asserted, on May 5, 2021, that work on the Pakistan-Afghan border fence would be completed at all costs.

The first militant attack, targeting fencing work from across the border reportedly took place on September 15, 2013. Major General, Sanaullah Khan and Lieutenant Colonel Tauseef, were killed, along with another soldier, Irfan Sattar, in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast on the Pakistan-Afghan Border in the Upper Dir District of KP. The then TTP ‘spokesman’ Shahidullah Shahid claimed responsibility for the attack.

According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), since September 15, 2013, there have been at least 118 such attacks by militants from across the border, in which at least 231 Pakistani Security Force (SF) personnel and 74 civilians have been killed, while another 311 sustained injuries (data till May 16, 2021). 84 terrorists were also killed in retaliatory action by SFs. Four incidents (including the two mentioned above) resulting in five deaths (all SF personnel) and seven injuries (all SF personnel) have already been reported in 2021. Seven such incidents resulting in 11 deaths (10 SF personnel and one militant) were reported in 2020. There were seven attacks in 2019 (22 fatalities: 20 SF personnel and two militants).

Though the fencing work along the Border began in 2005, it gained momentum in mid-2013, and restricted the free movement of terrorists across the border, which is why the terrorists started attacking the fencing work.

It is pertinent to recall here that, in September 2005, Pakistan first announced that it had plans to build a 2,611-kilometre fence (1,230 kilometres in KP and 1,381 kilometres in Balochistan) along its border with Afghanistan, purportedly to check armed militants and drug smugglers moving between the two countries. But Afghanistan raised objections on the grounds that this was an attempt to make the disputed border permanent. After Afghanistan’s objections, Pakistani authorities temporarily put the plan on hold. Over a year later, on December 26, 2006, Pakistan again declared its plans for mining and fencing the border, but was again opposed by the Afghanistan Government. The then Afghan President Hamid Karzai stated, on December 28, 2006, that the moves would only hurt the people living in the region and would not stem cross-border terrorism.

The attempt to build the fence recorded the first border fencing-related skirmish in April 2007 in the then South Waziristan Agency. Pakistani SFs operating in South Waziristan made a three-tier security deployment on April 11, 2007, to stop cross-border infiltration by terrorists into Afghanistan. Pakistan fenced 12-kilometers of its border stretch with Afghanistan, but Afghan troops tore down the fence on April 19, leading to a gun-battle, though there were no casualties. Another attempt was made in May 2007 when Pakistan erected the first section of a fence in the Lowara Mandi area of then North Waziristan on May 10, 2007, which led to cross border firing between Pakistani and Afghan forces, in which at least seven Afghan soldiers were killed.  According to SATP, since May 11, 2007, there have been at least five such incidents, in which 41 persons, including 25 SF personnel and 16 civilians, have been killed (data till May 14, 2021).

The border fencing programme, meanwhile, was halted during 2007-2013, due to intense pressure from terrorists active in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas.

Later, Pakistan started excavation work on a several-hundred-kilometres-long trench along the Balochistan border in April 2013. The work has progressed rapidly since then.

Providing details on December 4, 2020, ISPR disclosed that the fence had already been installed along about 83 per cent of the border and hundreds of new border outposts and forts had been constructed. Two three-meter-high mesh fences, a couple of meters apart, have been filled and topped with coils of razor wire, running through rugged terrain and snow-covered, treacherous mountains at elevations as high as 4,000 meters. Further, on February 19, 2021, Federal Minister of Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad announced that the fencing on Pakistan’s borders with Afghanistan would be completed by June 2021, and that 90 per cent of the fencing had already been completed.       

On December 4, 2020, ISPR also claimed that the fencing resulted in a “massive decrease” in the number of terrorism-related incidents in Pakistan, adding that Pakistani troops involved in building the fence had come under militant attacks from the Afghan side and, in some cases, clashes with Afghan SFs as well.

While cross-border terrorism has been the purported objective of the construction, the Pakistan Army has also been trying to legalise its century-old claims over the Durand Line by erecting the fencing unilaterally.

Afghanistan, on the other hand, has rightly objected to this action, as the fencing has been done with the purpose of unilaterally consolidating the border. The Pakistani lie is exposed more by the fact that this border has long been used by Pakistan to send terrorists trained on its soil into Afghanistan to fight foreign and Afghan national troops.

In the meantime, Afghanistan continues to raise objections at several platforms against this unilateral fencing. On August 11, 2020, the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed that Islamabad was conducting “illegal” fencing along the Durand Line and lodged a protest through the Afghan Embassy in Islamabad to Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Pakistani Embassy in Kabul. The Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs protest came after the statement by the Deputy Governor of Afghanistan’s Kunar Province, Gul Mohammad Bedar, who asserted that Pakistan had started constructing the fencing in a ‘shifty way’. He also stated that Pakistan wanted to take over some important areas of Afghanistan.

Janan Mosazai, Afghanistan's former ambassador to Pakistan, argued that the fence will "adversely affect the bilateral relationship" and cause further "popular alienation" among Pashtuns on both sides of the border. He added,

With the announcement of the withdrawal date of American Forces from Afghanistan and all likelihood of increasing insecurity in the country, the Af-Pak border is bound to see more violence in days to come.

AFGHANISTAN

255 civilians killed during Ramadan, says Ministry of Interior: On May 11, the Ministry of Interior said that the Taliban were responsible for 200 blasts and 15 suicide bombings during Ramadan. The Ministry of Interior Affairs said that 15 suicide attacks and dozens of other attacks have been carried out "by the Taliban" since the start of Ramadan on April 13. Tolo News, May 12, 2021.

157 Taliban militants killed across Afghanistan, says MoD: The Ministry of Defence on May 11 stated that 157 Taliban were killed and 99 others were wounded in various Afghan National Defence and Security Forces' operations over the past 24 hours. The defence operations were conducted in Laghman, Kunar, Paktia, Wardak, Ghazni, Zabul, Herat, Farah, Balkh, Samangan, Jawzjan, Helmand, Nimroz, Takhar, Kunduz, and Baghlan provinces. The Khaama Press, May 12, 2021.

President Ashraf Ghani and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discuss Afghan Peace over phone: The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on May 14 spoke with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on phone and the two sides discussed the regional efforts to advance the Afghan peace process. Secretary Blinken conveyed Eid greetings and expressed his deepest condolences to the families of those lost in recent violence in Afghanistan, including in the horrific attack on a girls' school in Kabul last week, the US State Department said in a statement. Tolo News, Mat 15, 2021.

Negotiators from Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and Taiban met in Doha to expediate peace: The negotiators from the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Taliban met in Doha on May 14 and discussed the expedition of peace efforts. The two sides agreed to continue their negotiations after Eid, Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem said. Tolo News, May 10, 2021.

BANGLADESH

Ansar Al Islam aims to recruit youth from religious and general education background, says report: Ansar Al Islam aims to recruit youth from religious and general education background. Ansar Al Islam plans to recruit youth from secondary schools, madrasahs, universities, Islamic parties and others associated with militant groups. The Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) recently retrieved some documents regarding member recruitment by this militant organization of Al-Qaeda orientation. Prothomalo, May 12, 2021.

Ansar Al Islam 'spiritual leader' had connections with HeI, say Counterterrorism Officials: Counterterrorism officials on May 10 said that the 'spiritual leader' of Al-Qaeda-inspired militant outfit Ansar Al Islam, Ali Hasan Osama (27), had connections with Qawmi madrasa-based organization Hefajat-e-Islam (HeI). Osama took his oath from a top HeI leader. The investigators have also got a photo of the oath-taking event, they said. The Daily Star, May 11, 2021.

Terrorists will not be allowed to disturb peace in Western border areas, says CoAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa:The Chief of the Army Staff (CoAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa on May 14 vowed that the terrorists will not be allowed to disturb the hard-earned peace in the Western border areas. He said, "Terrorists would never be allowed to disturb the hard-earned peace in these areas. Pakistan Army and LEAs will do whatever it takes till the job is fully accomplished." Ary News, May 15, 2021.