KABUL: (MEP) The year 2015 like other years passed and people around the country witnessed strange, memorable and shocking incidents.
However, in Afghanistan beside good news, war and upsetting news was more that left a number of families bereaved.
In the year that ends within few hours, Afghanistan has experienced many ups and downs and the first-year of national unity government faced with difficulties and challenges.
Publication of the death of Mullah Mohammed Omar after two years, the fall of Kunduz city, beheading of seven passengers, the emergence of the Islamic State, the flood of immigrants and the departure of a large number of foreign troops in Afghanistan was the top news.
‘Death of Mullah Mohammad Omar stopped peace talks’
Pakistan announced the death of Mullah Mohammad Omar, the former leader of Taliban group on Wednesday November 28, which was officially approved by President Ashraf Ghani. The report suggested that Mullah Omar was killed two years ago in Pakistan.
The news was followed by implications, the first aftershocks was entered the peace talks and the second round of the talks despite having much hope after the death of Mullah Mohammad Omar, was stopped.
The first round of peace talks between Taliban and the Afghan government representatives was held in the city of Murree, Pakistan in July 7.
However, the second round of peace talks was supposed to be held in Pakistan in July 30, but a day before that, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying the talks had been postponed due to the publication of the death of Mullah Mohammad Omar.
The Taliban’s factions from the consequences was his death, with the confirmation of the death of Mullah Mohammad Omar, branch in Taliban’s group and inter-group clashes were shaped.
After the publication of the death of Mullah Omar, “Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour” his vice president was introduced as leader of the group, but some people including Mullah Omar’s family refused his ‘allegiance swear’ and several groups were formed between Taliban that each had a claim to leadership.
On the other hand, Mullah Abdul-Rasool in western country, had introduced himself as leader and a number of Taliban militants had also pledged allegiance to him in which they confirmed the split into two Taliban groups.
The two groups have clashes on many occasions and caused heavy casualties.
‘The fall of Kunduz’
Taliban during the past fifteen years, from time to time in one of the districts or small parts of the country have showed strength and seized the region and displayed their power, though the brave security forces recaptured the region as soon as possible.
But the seizer of Kunduz city for the first time in fifteen years, put ‘a whole city’ in Taliban’ control and the security forces as well as the government also took action to reclaim Kunduz.
Kunduz city located in northern part of the country, fell by Taliban on Monday, 28 September. Taliban had launched coordinated attacks from four site and captured the entire city in smallest opportunity.
After a week of clashes, security forces had managed to enter the city and replaced the country’s tricolor flag with the white flag of Taliban.
The battle of the complete withdrawal of the Taliban and the purifying of all parts of Kunduz city lasted nearly 14 days and during this period a large number of families were immigrated in neighboring provinces and were left homeless. Many were also killed and hundreds wounded.
A delegation of 6 members took the responsibility of fact-finding task right after the President ordered so and after two months a 28-page report of their work result announced in which the weakness of management and inconsistency were the main causes of the fall of Kunduz that after the publication of the report, a large number of security officials in Kunduz were dismissed by President Ghani.
Other important issues in Kunduz conflict was ‘launch of attack’ on Doctors Without Border hospital by the US Air Force.
The attack completely destroyed the hospital building and at least 42 people had been killed.
‘Withdrawal and Entry of Foreign Troops from Afghanistan’
Since the beginning of year 2015, left the ‘burden of security’ on the country’s security forces as 130 thousand foreign troops stationed in the country had left Afghanistan and the remaining of few forces under the name of “The mission strongly supports” continued to operate.
After that, the security of the country was left on 100 thousand army and the country’s forces had essentially clashed with insurgents.
This responsibility caused a major casualties to the security forces.
However, the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country by the end of 2015 reversed in a way and after the fall of Kunduz and the increase of attacks in Helmand, the United States and Britain resent troops to the country.
‘Strained relations with Islamabad’
The publication of the death of Mullah Mohammad Omar led to the halt of peace talks which caused the increasing of Taliban’s attacks in the country in many ways.
A truck bomb explosion in Shah-Shahid area of Kabul was one of this kind of attacks which caused huge damages and left heavy casualties to the civilians.
This process led to strained relations between Kabul and Islamabad than in the past where the invitation of Pakistani officials with the Afghanistan was denied several times.
Leaders in Islamabad were in vain and unsuccessful despite putting all their efforts for talks with officials in Kabul and have considered the International Summit on Climate Change in Paris as the ‘best chance’ to hold talks with president Ghani on the sideline of the summit.
The Heart of Asia conference was a new commitment to Afghanistan and Pakistan to reach a joint struggle against terrorism. However, these promises have not been put in action so far as if it’s like “written on the ice and put it in the sun.”
‘Farkhunda, Rukhshana and Tabasum, failed patience of people’
In the year that today is the last day, children, especially girls, seen most of injuries, and faced the most tragic events. At the end of March 2015 marked one of the worst disasters in history, a large number of young men planned to kill a young girl in Kabul and had decided to kill her in any possible way.
Farkhunda was killed after she had been accused of burning the pieces of holy Quran in ‘Shahdo Shamshira’ mosque.
Men and the young people killed her by throwing stone, wood, kicking, punching, iron and car despite she herself tried and asked for help but there was no one to hear her voice and screaming until her dead body was dragged by car and was brutally set on fire.
Meanwhile, the month of November conducted a field trail in Ghor and witnessed the stoning of a young girl “Rukhshana.”
The stoning of Rukhshana was one of the most shocking incident in Afghanistan in November 11, 2015 and the video of the shocking incident was published.
The displaying of Rukhshana’s killing was cruelty and hardships of women in Afghanistan.
The girl has been sentenced to death after summary trials and was stoned and murdered notoriously by a number men and villagers.
On the other hand, a number of travelers who were captured a year ago were beheaded in November and among them a baby girl named Tabasum who was also brutally beheaded by insurgents.
The patience of the people and the process has led to widespread protests in front of the presidential palace in which people from all of the nations had participated.
These incidents caused serious reactions of domestic, institutions, foreign and human rights in Afghanistan but the perpetrators of the incidents are not yet arrested.
Rise of the Islamic state (IS) in Afghanistan
In early 2015, the ISIS reports were published in Nangarhar but Afghan officials strongly denied the report, but after an attack on 27 March carried near the “New Kabul Bank” that killed at least 33 people, in which ISIS took responsibility for the attack and officially announced it presence in Afghanistan.
This created a lot of concern among the people of Afghanistan but Taliban claimed that the Islamic State does not have any place in Afghanistan.
After the rise of ISIS, the activity of this group was higher in the East and in one case, Nangarhar University students also raised the white flag of Taliban and black flag of ISIS, the influence of these groups in academia made the country highlighted.
Also the ‘Voice of khilafat’ radio is related to the activities of ISIS and it shows existence of this group in the country, however a number of Afghan officials have accused the government of negligence in relation to the presence of terrorist groups in Afghanistan.
But Zahir Qadir, Vice President of the House of Representatives in open court, accused the government and the national security for supporting the Islamic State.
He urged the government to encourage his people to fight against the Islamic State in order to disclose the documents about support of the head of the National Security Council to Islamic State.
Also takeoff and landing of unidentified aircraft in some areas were controlled by ISIS in Nangarhar and made Zahir Qadir to order his men to target the aircrafts.
The remarks by Zahir Qadir cause the US reactions and the country urged Kabul leaders to prevent the beheading and the activities of Zahir Qadir‘s men.
‘A new wave of youth migration’
Insecurity and rising unemployment in the country led to a large number of youth who needed job opportunities leave the country and were in search of a peaceful life in European countries.
In 2015, Afghanistan, with faced a new wave of immigration in which a number of brain also escaped and put their heart in risky ways of trafficking.
According to statistics, at least daily average of 2 thousand people leave the country and a number of them before reaching to the destination country, was being arrested by police, or loses lives in the sea.
