LONDON: A former head of the UK armed forces has called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to outline the country’s strategy for Afghanistan as the war-torn nation slides into further conflict amid the Taliban’s advance.
Gen. Lord Richards, former chief of defense staff, said he is “fed up” with the government’s lack of planning for the next stage of supporting Afghanistan, where he served as the commander of coalition forces between 2006 and 2007. He lamented the West’s “defeat” in the country.
With Western forces lined up to be fully removed by Sept. 11, Richards warned of the potential creation of an “ungoverned space” that could be exploited by terror groups for the planning of atrocities such as the 9/11 attacks.
He told the BBC that he takes a “share of the blame” for the West’s calamitous performance in Afghanistan, but that while NATO military force — chiefly from the US and Britain — largely achieved what was expected, politicians had failed to give Afghanistan sufficient economic and political support following the 2001 removal of the Taliban from power.
“We have invested — as a country, as the West and the US particularly — 20 years of time and much money and many lives in Afghanistan,” said Richards.
“I’m getting a little bit fed up that I’ve not heard from our government — indeed from the prime minister — as to why we have reached this nadir. It’s really not good enough, and I would like to hear from the government — I think it’s a prime ministerial obligation now — as to why we’ve got into this position and what we are now going to do about it,” he added.
“It’s deflecting attention from our defeat. Added to what happened in Iraq, Libya, Syria, it’s a pretty sorry tale of Western failed geo-strategy over the last 20 years. And it’s time we had an explanation of why and what are we now going to do about it, to prevent it from happening in the way we all now fear might occur.”
The decorated former officer complained that following the invasion, the UN conducted a “light-touch” approach masterminded by envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, which meant the West failed to build on the military gains of 2001.
Richards said the short supply of economic support meant that the Taliban returned as a threat five years later.
“As all soldiers will tell you, we know we can’t win these things by military means alone. What we hoped we were doing was providing an opportunity for governments, the whole of the West, to act in the way they needed, not just militarily but politically and economically,” he added.
“That didn’t happen … At the very moment, in 2002 to 2005, when the West should have poured in assets — and I’m talking primarily non-military by the way — we didn’t do so. The Taliban sensed an opportunity, they came back.”
Richards warned that the Taliban’s capture of Kandahar — Afghanistan’s second city — is “inevitable” without a change in strategy, which would lead to the group sweeping across the south of the country.
“My biggest worry at the moment is, with the Western forces having pulled out with no adequate explanation of what is going to replace them, we are going to see a potential collapse in Afghan Armed Forces morale,” he said, adding that the resurgence of Taliban control would “almost certainly” facilitate the return of terror training camps.
“There will be ungoverned space … and in that ungoverned space terrorist acts may yet again be planned and executed,” warned Richards.
“I think we all forget too readily the scenes of 9/11, the Twin Towers and the attack in Washington. That is actually why we went into Afghanistan, and we’ve been spectacularly successful in achieving what we aimed to do,” he added.
“That is now being put at risk, along with all the wonderful gains in terms of education, health, and democracy, allowing people to hope for the future. All that is now, I’m afraid at great risk. We don’t have a substitute strategy and I want to hear what it should be.”
Ex-general takes aim at UK PM’s Afghan ‘silence’
https://arab.news/9e3xc
Ex-general takes aim at UK PM’s Afghan ‘silence’
- Gen. Lord Richards: “Ungoverned space” will create opportunities for terror groups
Bangladeshi influencers promote tree planting to fight record heat
- Climate change is causing more frequent, severe and lengthy heatwaves
- Last week, temperatures climbed to over 43 C in Bangladesh
DHAKA: Social media influencers in Bangladesh are urging millions of their followers to plant trees as part of a campaign to combat climate change as the South Asian nation reels from the worst heatwave in decades.
Bangladesh recorded extreme temperatures for most days in April, with the mercury climbing to over 43.8 C last week. Meteorologists say last month saw the country’s longest heatwave, prompting authorities to shut schools and encourage citizens to stay indoors during the day.
Scientists have said climate change is causing more frequent, severe and lengthy heatwaves during the summer months.
In the capital, Dhaka, where rapid changes have stripped the crowded city of the trees, lakes and ponds that once offered its residents relief and shelter, social media influencers and students have launched initiatives in a bid to create a more livable environment.
One of the calls came from influencer Iftekhar Rafsan, who announced a plan to plant a million trees to his 4.3 million followers on Facebook on April 21.
“The temperatures in this country are now getting unbearably high. On the other hand, Dhaka is one of the worst cities in the world in terms of pollution levels … These two issues combined guided my ideas to plant trees. I care about the sustainability of this planet,” Rafsan told Arab News over the weekend.
The 26-year-old is meeting with city officials to coordinate his initiative, which will also involve year-round monitoring and nursing to ensure sustainable growth.
“We have heard about global warming since childhood. Now, it has become a reality … I am going to put my best effort into making this tree plantation campaign a success. If everybody does it together, it’s going to be easier,” he said.
Since announcing his campaign Rafsan, known as a food vlogger in Bangladesh, said he had received positive feedback from his fans.
“The youths among my followers seemed much more concerned about the issue, and that makes me more optimistic about the future. They care a lot about what’s happening around them,” he said.
The cyberspace call to look after the environment was echoed by Peya Jannatul, a 32-year-old model, actor and lawyer, who last month asked her 1.6 million Facebook followers to start planting 10 trees each.
“Many people have no idea why this heatwave is happening. Through my plantation initiative, I want to increase awareness among the people,” Jannatul said.
“My intention is to work on mitigating the overall impact of climate change, and it can’t be done alone. The more we can engage the people with more awareness, it will yield even better results.”
She hopes to encourage her followers to start gardening at home and use their rooftops for planting, while also promoting other environmentally friendly ideas such as recycling.
Jannatul is hoping to use her platform to spread more awareness in Bangladesh, which is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Like Rafsan, her campaign has been well-received by the online community.
“We don’t live here on this Earth only for ourselves. There are greater reasons. The impacts of climate change are severely impacting birds and animals too. To maintain the ecological balance, every creature on this earth is equally important. So, it’s our responsibility to maintain a planet livable for all,” she said.
As the persistent and intense heatwave swept across Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Students’ League also launched a campaign to plant 500,000 trees “to overcome the ongoing severe heatwave” in the country, hoping to engage its membership of over 5 million.
Established in 1948, BSL is the oldest students’ political organization in Bangladesh and the student wing of the country’s ruling party Awami League.
BSL Vice President Khadimul Bashar Joy said the campaign was part of a mega-project the group hoped would continue in the years to come.
“Since we are facing a global challenge of climate change, it is our responsibility to act in this regard as a conscious citizen,” Joy told Arab News.
“It is our sacred duty to plant at least two to three saplings every year to make this Earth livable for the next generation. It’s not only for our country, it’s for the whole world, for the people on this planet.”
UK system of arms exports to Israel not the same as US, Cameron says
- Cameron was responding to a question on whether Britain would follow the US to withhold weapons
LONDON: Foreign Secretary David Cameron described Britain’s system and scale of arms exports to Israel as completely different from those in the United States, saying the sales it licenses were relatively small and policed by strict procedures.
Cameron was responding to a question on whether Britain would follow the US after it warned that it would withhold weapons from Israel in case of a major invasion of Rafah.
“There’s a very fundamental difference between the US situation and the UK situation,” Cameron said after a speech.
“The US is a massive state supplier of weapons to Israel ... we do not have a UK Government supply of weapons to Israel, we have a number of licenses, and I think our defense exports to Israel are responsible for significantly less than 1 percent of their total.”
Daesh claims bombing in Afghanistan that killed officers involved in an anti-poppy crop campaign
- Daesh group’s affiliate has conducted attacks on schools, hospitals, mosques and Shiite areas across Afghanistan
- The Taliban pledged to wipe out the country’s drug cultivation industry and imposed a formal ban in April 2022
ISLAMABAD: The Daesh group claimed responsibility for a bombing in Afghanistan’s northeast that killed police officers who were part of an anti-poppy crop campaign.
A motorcycle was booby-trapped and exploded, targeting a Taliban patrol in Faizabad town in Badakhshan province, killing and wounding 12 members of the patrol as well as destroying a four-wheel drive vehicle, the group said in a statement late Wednesday.
Abdul Mateen Qani, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said the officers were on their way to destroy poppy crops in the area.
The Daesh group’s affiliate in Afghanistan, a major Taliban rival, has conducted attacks on schools, hospitals, mosques and Shiite areas throughout the country. In March, the group said one of its suicide bombers detonated an explosive belt among Taliban gathered near a Kandahar bank to receive their salaries.
The Taliban pledged to wipe out the country’s drug cultivation industry and imposed a formal ban in April 2022, dealing a heavy blow to hundreds of thousands of farmers and day laborers who relied on proceeds from the crop to survive. Opium cultivation crashed by 95 percent after the ban, a report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said last November.
Protests are rare in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, but there was a backlash in Badakhshan last week in response to the poppy eradication campaign.
It prompted a high-ranking delegation led by the chief of military staff Fasihudin Fitrat to visit the region and negotiate with protesters.
Protests erupted last Friday after a man was shot and killed by the Taliban for resisting poppy eradication attempts in Darayum district. Another was killed on Saturday during a protest in Argo district.
India’s Modi skips election in Kashmir as critics dispute integration claims
- Narendra Modi says the 2019 revocation of special constitutional status brought normalcy to Kashmir
- Critics say the BJP should have treated the election as a referendum in its favor, but it seems ‘scared’
ANANTNAG, India: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is crisscrossing India in a marathon election campaign but, for the first time since 1996, his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is not contesting in Kashmir, where a 35-year uprising against Indian rule has killed tens of thousands of people.
Instead, the main contenders for the three seats in the Muslim-majority region are powerful local parties, the National Conference and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). They will contest against each other but both say they are opposed to the Hindu nationalist BJP and will align with the Congress party-led opposition alliance.
Analysts and opposition parties say the BJP decided to skip contesting the election because the outcome is likely to contradict Modi’s narrative of a peaceful, more integrated Kashmir since he removed the region’s semi-autonomous status in 2019 and brought it under New Delhi’s control.
The BJP, along with allies, is contesting in every other part of India and is tipped to win a majority of parliament’s 543 seats on the back of its Hindu-first image.
“Why are they absent from the election?” asked Omar Abdullah, a leader of the National Conference and a former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir state.
“Clearly there is a gap between what the BJP claims to have done and the reality on the ground,” he said, speaking in his home in Kashmir’s main city, Srinagar.
Modi says his 2019 decision brought normalcy to Kashmir after decades of bloodshed and that he will bring investments and jobs soon. The federal Home (Interior) Minister Amit Shah backs up the government’s position by claiming that youths now hold laptops in their hands instead of stones that they used to throw at security forces in the past.
As part of the move, Jammu and Kashmir state was split into two federally ruled areas — the Muslim-dominated Kashmir valley with the Hindu-dominated Jammu plains, and mountainous, Buddhist-dominated Ladakh.
The government slapped a harsh lockdown on Kashmir at the time and Abdullah and almost all other local leaders were held in custody for months.
Ravinder Raina, the chief of the Kashmir unit of the BJP, said the party’s decision to skip the election was part of a broader strategy, although he declined to give specifics.
“The BJP will not fight, but support a candidate who will work for peace, happiness, brotherhood and democracy,” in each of the three seats, he said. The BJP has not yet announced which of the many small parties in the fray it will support.
Alienation, discontent
Interviews with over a dozen residents, political leaders, security officials and analysts in Kashmir and New Delhi indicate that discontent and alienation continue to simmer in the heavily militarized Himalayan region.
Besides the three-decade insurgency, Kashmir is divided into India-controlled and Pakistan-controlled sectors and claimed in full by both nations. The nuclear-armed enemies have fought two of their three wars since independence in 1947 over Kashmir.
India claims that Islamic Pakistan has supported the insurgency in Kashmir, while Islamabad says it only provides moral support to the people there.
Abdul Hameed, a 50-year-old garment store owner in Pulwama town near Srinagar, said the federal government had kept the lid on Kashmir since 2019, masking the true situation.
“But it is like a spring. Right now they have crushed it. But who knows when will it burst open again,” he said.
Although there are fewer restrictions on people’s movements compared to five years ago, there are still tens of thousands of troops in the valley to enforce the peace.
For decades, residents and human rights groups have accused Indian security forces of atrocities against the mainly Muslim population. The government says cases of abuse are isolated acts and it prosecutes any soldier found guilty of human rights violations.
Indian military data show there are over 100 active militants in the region, who allegedly target security forces and workers from other parts of India. Militants killed an air force soldier in an attack on a military convoy on Saturday, officials said.
“The absence of an elected system over here is an indication of the fact that things are not as they are portrayed,” said Sheikh Showkat Hussain, a retired law professor, in Srinagar. “They (the BJP) should have treated (this election) as a referendum in their favor. But they seem to be scared.”
In the May 2019 general election, the BJP contested all three seats in Kashmir, losing them to Abdullah’s National Conference. This year, BJP is contesting the two seats in Jammu and one in Ladakh, all of which it had won in 2019.
Mehbooba Mufti, the chief of the PDP, is contesting from the Anantnag-Rajouri constituency, which many believed might have been the BJP’s best bet to enter Kashmir in this election.
Gerrymandering
In 2022, a federal government-appointed commission changed the borders of constituencies in Kashmir and Jammu.
To Kashmir’s Anantnag, which had around 1.6 million largely Muslim votes in 2019, it added around 1 million mostly Hindu voters from Jammu’s Poonch and Rajouri districts.
Mufti told Reuters that by clubbing them, the Modi administration was “changing the balance of the voters.” The BJP, she said, wants to “disempower and they want to divest, dispossess Muslims, especially the Kashmiris.”
National Conference’s Abdullah also claimed that the redrawing of the district was done to give BJP an “advantage.”
But they still didn’t field a candidate, which “tells you just how bad things must be for the BJP,” Abdullah said.
However, BJP’s Raina said that the redrawing has made the constituencies more representative of the region.
Floods misery reminder of climate’s role in supercharging rain
- Though not all directly attributed to global warming, they are occurring in a year of record-breaking temperatures and underscore what scientists have long warned — that climate change drives more extreme weather
PARIS: Floods have been tearing a path of destruction across the globe, hammering Kenya, submerging Dubai, and forcing hundreds of thousands of people from Russia to China, Brazil and Somalia from their homes.
Though not all directly attributed to global warming, they are occurring in a year of record-breaking temperatures and underscore what scientists have long warned — that climate change drives more extreme weather.
Climate change isn’t just about rising temperatures but the knock-on effect of all that extra heat being trapped in the atmosphere and seas.
April was the 11th consecutive month to break its own heat record, the EU climate monitor Copernicus said on Wednesday, while ocean temperatures have been off the charts for even longer.
“The recent extreme precipitation events are consistent with what is expected in an increasingly warmer climate,” Sonia Seneviratne, an expert on the UN-mandated IPCC scientific panel, told AFP.
Warmer oceans mean greater evaporation, and warmer air can hold more water vapor.
Scientists even have a calculation for this: for every one degree Celsius in temperature rise, the atmosphere can hold seven percent more moisture.
“This results in more intense rainfall events,” Davide Faranda, an expert on extreme weather at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), told AFP.
In April, Pakistan recorded double the amount of normal monthly rainfall — one province saw 437 percent more than average — while the UAE received about two years worth of rain in a single day.
This, however, doesn’t mean everywhere on Earth is getting wetter.
Richard Allan from the University of Reading said “a warmer, thirstier atmosphere is more effective at sapping moisture from one region and feeding this excess water into storms elsewhere.”
This translates into extreme rain and floods in some areas but worse heatwaves and droughts in others, the climate scientist told AFP.
Natural climate variability also influence weather and global rainfall patterns.
This includes cyclical phenomenon like El Nino, which tends to bring heat and rain extremes, and helped fuel the high temperatures seen over land and sea this past year.
While natural variability plays a role “the observed long-term global increase in heavy precipitation has been driven by human-induced climate change,” said Seneviratne.
Carlo Buontempo, a director at Copernicus, said cycles like El Nino ebb and flow but the extra heat trapped by rising greenhouse gas emissions would “keep pushing the global temperature toward new records.”
Considering the overlapping forces at play, attributing any one flood to climate change alone can be fraught, and each event must be taken on a case-by-case basis.
But scientists have developed peer-reviewed methods that allow for the quick comparison of an event today against simulations that consider a world in which global warming had not occurred.
For example, World Weather Attribution, the scientists who pioneered this approach, said the drenching of the UAE and Oman last month was “most likely” exacerbated by global warming caused by burning fossil fuels.
ClimaMeter, another rapid assessment network who use a different methodology, said major floods in China in April were “likely influenced” by global warming and El Nino.
“It can be difficult to disentangle global warming and natural variability” and some weather events are more clear-cut than others, said Flavio Pons, a climatologist who worked on the China assessment.
In the case of devastating floods in Brazil, however, ClimaMeter were able to exclude El Nino as a significant factor and name human-driven climate change as the primary culprit.
Many of the countries swamped by heavy floods at the moment — such as Burundi, Afghanistan and Somalia — rank among the poorest and least able to mobilize a response to such disasters.
But the experience in Dubai showed even wealthy states were not prepared, said Seneviratne.
“We know that a warmer climate is conducive to more severe weather extremes but we cannot predict exactly when and where these extremes will occur,” Joel Hirschi from the UK’s National Oceanography Center told AFP.
“Current levels of preparedness for weather extremes are inadequate... Preparing and investing now is cheaper than delaying action.”
