The forgotten ghost of Al-Zawahiri in Kabul

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Al Qaeda leader is already history in the Afghan capital, where the Islamic State imposes terror after killing dozens of members of the Shia minority

A week after the United States killed Ayman Al-Zawahiri in the Sherpur district, the al-Qaeda leader is a forgotten ghost in an Afghan capital where the red and black religious flags of the Shia minority carry the white flags of the emirate in the do not stand. You have to leave Sherpur, where the press is still not well received by the Taliban, and head west to reach the Shia stronghold, a sect to which the Hazara ethnic group belongs. Ashura is being commemorated here amid strict security measures since “about 120 people were killed and injured in the explosions that took place in recent days,” the United Nations said.

The jihadist group Islamic State (IS), an enemy of the Taliban, has claimed responsibility for these attacks that took place in mosques such as Imam Baqer’s, in Sare Kariz, where the emirate’s security forces now block all access. Photos of some of the fallen have been posted on the doors of the small temple, but it is not allowed to turn off the camera or talk to the neighbors. A cordon of bearded men, AK-47 in hand, watches the stream of worshipers and frisks everyone who passes one by one.

Ashura commemorates the martyrdom of Hussein, the grandson of Muhammad, 1330 years ago, who widened the schism in the Muslim world that opened after the death of the Prophet and marked the final separation between Shiites, followers of the Prophet’s family, and Sunnis, who chose the Caliphs. A schism marked in Afghanistan’s recent history by the sectarian violence perpetrated by the Taliban and IS against this minority, which has been whipped up again in the streets of the capital in recent days. In places like Baghdad, on Ashura, worshipers beat their heads with swords and knives until they bleed to commemorate Hussein’s martyrdom. Not in Kabul, but the streets of these Shia neighborhoods near Darul Aman’s palace still bear the bloody marks of those killed in the explosions.

Tension in light of the escalation of sectarian attacks has prompted Islamic authorities to suspend cell phone service for “security reasons”. The phone outage left Kabul incommunicado this Monday morning, and voices critical of Islamists, such as the poet and women’s rights activist Hoda Khamosh, warn that “the Taliban are trying to disconnect the people from the world, they are looking for a cover for their oppression. Crimes cannot be done.” are hidden by disconnecting people from the world.” Khamosh fears the power outage will last until August 15, the date it will be a year since the Taliban returned to power and “they know the people are tired.”

Kabul International Airport retains the Hamid Karzai name in large blue letters, although the former president has dropped the “d” and has remained in “Hami” after a year of Taliban leadership. Given the refusal of international companies to resume flights to the Afghan capital, the two national airlines, Ariana and Kam Air, are stepping up their efforts to keep this entry and exit door open. A door that only privileged Afghans who have a passport with visa or the 350 euros it costs to travel to Dubai or 500 euros if they want to fly to Istanbul can open. A fortune in a country in ruins where getting something to eat has become the priority of every day for millions of people. Impossible to make plans.

“I find it difficult to find anything positive in my life over the past year. I could say safety, but we are already seeing what is happening in Kabul. If there are fewer incidents in the rest of the country, it’s because now those who provoked them are in power, that’s the only reason,” said Mohamed (not his real name), who was surprised by the return. of the Taliban when he served his third year as a soldier of the then Afghan National Army (ANA) For the past few months they have been calling him from the Ministry of Defense but “they quickly sent me back home because they only had their own trust’, complains this 29-year-old ex-soldier, who barely leaves home for the day.

Mohamed, like thousands of other Afghans, was trained to face the Taliban and protect places like Sherpur or Shia neighborhoods, which have been the target of Islamist attacks for two decades. Al-Zawahiri joins the list of dead in Sherpur, an area frequented by expatriates where more than 20 people died in the attack on a Lebanese restaurant in 2014 and more than 150 were killed in the explosion of a truck bomb in 2017 at the doors of the German embassy, ​​actions with the seal of the Haqqani Network, a faction that hosted Osama Bin Laden’s successor. Over the past 12 months, the Taliban have gone from enforcers to defenders and now hide behind walls erected to prevent their own attacks and car bombs. This new role is beginning to overwhelm them, as seen with Al-Zawahiri and with IS’s repeated blows against the Hazaras.

Source: La Verdad

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