Another sometime Nigerien spokesperson, Insa Garba Saidou, put it in blunter terms: “The American bases and civilian personnel cannot stay on Nigerien soil any longer.”

The announcements came as terrorism in the West African Sahel has spiked and in the wake of a visit to Niger by a high-level American delegation, including Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee and General Michael Langley, chief of U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM. Niger’s repudiation of its ally is just the latest blow to Washington’s sputtering counterterrorism efforts in the region. In recent years, longstanding U.S. military partnerships with Burkina Faso and Mali have also been curtailed following coups by U.S.-trained officers. Niger was, in fact, the last major bastion of American military influence in the West African Sahel.

Such setbacks there are just the latest in a series of stalemates, fiascos, or outright defeats that have come to typify America’s Global War on Terror. During 20-plus years of armed interventions, U.S. military missions have been repeatedly upended across Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, including a sputtering stalemate in Somalia, an intervention-turned-blowback-engine in Libya, and outright implosions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

This maelstrom of U.S. defeat and retreat has left at least 4.5 million people dead, including an estimated 940,000 from direct violence, more than 432,000 of them civilians, according to Brown University’s Costs of War Project. As many as 60 million people have also been displaced due to the violence stoked by America’s “forever wars.”

President Biden has both claimed that he’s ended those wars and that the United States will continue to fight them for the foreseeable future — possibly forever — “to protect the people and interests of the United States.” The toll has been devastating, particularly in the Sahel, but Washington has largely ignored the costs borne by the people most affected by its failing counterterrorism efforts.   

“Reducing Terrorism” Leads to a 50,000% Increase in… Yes!… Terrorism

Roughly 1,000 U.S. military personnel and civilian contractors are deployed to Niger, most of them near the town of Agadez at Air Base 201 on the southern edge of the Sahara desert. Known to locals as “Base Americaine,” that outpost has been the cornerstone of an archipelago of U.S. military bases in the region and is the key to America’s military power projection and surveillance efforts in North and West Africa. Since the 2010s, the U.S. has sunk roughly a quarter-billion dollars into that outpost alone.

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Washington has been focused on Niger and its neighbors since the opening days of the Global War on Terror, pouring military aid into the nations of West Africa through dozens of “security cooperation” efforts, among them the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership, a program designed to “counter and prevent violent extremism” in the region. Training and assistance to local militaries offered through that partnership has alone cost America more than $1 billion.

Just prior to his recent visit to Niger, AFRICOM’s General Langley went before the Senate Armed Services Committee to rebuke America’s longtime West African partners. “During the past three years, national defense forces turned their guns against their own elected governments in Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, and Niger,” he said. “These juntas avoid accountability to the peoples they claim to serve.”

Langley did not mention, however, that at least 15 officers who benefited from American security cooperation have been involved in 12 coups in West Africa and the greater Sahel during the Global War on Terror. They include the very nations he named: Burkina Faso (2014, 2015, and twice in 2022); Guinea (2021); Mali (2012, 2020, and 2021); and Niger (2023). In fact, at least five leaders of a July coup in Niger received U.S. assistance, according to an American official. When they overthrew that country’s democratically elected president, they, in turn, appointed five U.S.-trained members of the Nigerien security forces to serve as governors.

Langley went on to lament that, while coup leaders invariably promise to defeat terrorist threats, they fail to do so and then “turn to partners who lack restrictions in dealing with coup governments… particularly Russia.” But he also failed to lay out America’s direct responsibility for the security freefall in the Sahel, despite more than a decade of expensive efforts to remedy the situation.

“We came, we saw, he died,” then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joked after a U.S.-led NATO air campaign helped overthrow Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, the longtime Libyan dictator, in 2011. President Barack Obama hailed the intervention as a success, even as Libya began to slip into near-failed-state status. Obama would later admit that “failing to plan for the day after” Qaddafi’s defeat was the “worst mistake” of his presidency.

As the Libyan leader fell, Tuareg fighters in his service looted his regime’s weapons caches, returned to their native Mali, and began to take over the northern part of that nation. Anger in Mali’s armed forces over the government’s ineffective response resulted in a 2012 military coup led by Amadou Sanogo, an officer who learned English in Texas, and underwent infantry-officer basic training in Georgia, military-intelligence instruction in Arizona, and mentorship by Marines in Virginia.

Having overthrown Mali’s democratic government, Sanogo proved hapless in battling local militants who had also benefitted from the arms flowing out of Libya. With Mali in chaos, those Tuareg fighters declared their own independent state, only to be pushed aside by heavily armed Islamist militants who instituted a harsh brand of Shariah law, causing a humanitarian crisis. A joint French, American, and African mission prevented Mali’s complete collapse but pushed the Islamists to the borders of both Burkina Faso and Niger, spreading terror and chaos to those countries.

Since then, the nations of the West African Sahel have been plagued by terrorist groups that have evolved, splintered, and reconstituted themselves. Under the black banners of jihadist militancy, men on motorcycles armed with Kalashnikov rifles regularly roar into villages to impose zakat (an Islamic tax) and terrorize and kill civilians. Relentless attacks by such armed groups have not only destabilized Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, prompting coups and political instability, but have spread south to countries along the Gulf of Guinea. Violence has, for example, spiked in Togo (633%) and Benin (718%), according to Pentagon statistics.

American officials have often turned a blind eye to the carnage. Asked about the devolving situation in Niger, for instance, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel recently insisted that security partnerships in West Africa “are mutually beneficial and are intended to achieve what we believe to be shared goals of detecting, deterring, and reducing terrorist violence.”  His pronouncement is either an outright lie or a total fantasy.

After 20 years, it’s clear that America’s Sahelian partnerships aren’t “reducing terrorist violence” at all. Even the Pentagon tacitly admits this. Despite U.S. troop strength in Niger growing by more than 900% in the last decade and American commandos training local counterparts, while fighting and even dying there; despite hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into Burkina Faso in the form of training as well as equipment like armored personnel carriers, body armor, communications gear, machine guns, night-vision equipment, and rifles; and despite U.S. security assistance pouring into Mali and its military officers receiving training from the United States, terrorist violence in the Sahel has in no way been reduced. In 2002 and 2003, according to State Department statistics, terrorists caused 23 casualties in all of Africa. Last year, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Pentagon research institution, attacks by Islamist militants in the Sahel alone resulted in 11,643 deaths – an increase of more than 50,000%.

Pack Up Your War

In January 2021, President Biden entered the White House promising to end his country’s forever wars.  He quickly claimed to have kept his pledge. “I stand here today for the first time in 20 years with the United States not at war,” Biden announced months later. “We’ve turned the page.” 

Late last year, however, in one of his periodic “war powers” missives to Congress, detailing publicly acknowledged U.S. military operations around the world, Biden said just the opposite. In fact, he left open the possibility that America’s forever wars might, indeed, go on forever. “It is not possible,” he wrote, “to know at this time the precise scope or the duration of the deployments of United States Armed Forces that are or will be necessary to counter terrorist threats to the United States.”

Niger’s U.S.-trained junta has made it clear that it wants America’s forever war there to end. That would assumedly mean the closing of Air Base 201 and the withdrawal of about 1,000 American military personnel and contractors. So far, however, Washington shows no signs of acceding to their wishes. “We are aware of the March 16th statement… announcing an end to the status of forces agreement between Niger and the United States,” said Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh. “We are working through diplomatic channels to seek clarification… I don’t have a timeframe of any withdrawal of forces.”

“The U.S. military is in Niger at the request of the Government of Niger,” said AFRICOM spokesperson Kelly Cahalan last year. Now that the junta has told AFRICOM to leave, the command has little to say. Email return receipts show that TomDispatch’s questions about developments in Niger sent to AFRICOM’s press office were read by a raft of personnel including Cahalan, Zack Frank, Joshua Frey, Yvonne Levardi, Rebekah Clark Mattes, Christopher Meade, Takisha Miller, Alvin Phillips, Robert Dixon, Lennea Montandon, and Courtney Dock, AFRICOM’s deputy director of public affairs, but none of them answered any of the questions posed. Cahalan instead referred TomDispatch to the State Department. The State Department, in turn, directed TomDispatch to the transcript of a press conference dealing primarily with U.S. diplomatic efforts in the Philippines.

“USAFRICOM needs to stay in West Africa… to limit the spread of terrorism across the region and beyond,” General Langley told the Senate Armed Services Committee in March.  But Niger’s junta insists that AFRICOM needs to go and U.S. failures to “limit the spread of terrorism” in Niger and beyond are a key reason why.  “This security cooperation did not live up to the expectations of Nigeriens — all the massacres committed by the jihadists were carried out while the Americans were here,” said a Nigerien security analyst who has worked with U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

America’s forever wars, including the battle for the Sahel, have ground on through the presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden with failure the defining storyline and catastrophic results the norm. From the Islamic State routing the U.S.-trained Iraqi army in 2014 to the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan in 2021, from the forever stalemate in Somalia to the 2011 destabilization of Libya that plunged the Sahel into chaos and now threatens the littoral states along the Gulf of Guinea, the Global War on Terror has been responsible for the deaths, wounding, or displacement of tens of millions of people.

Carnage, stalemate, and failure seem to have had remarkably little effect on Washington’s desire to continue funding and fighting such wars, but facts on the ground like the Taliban’s triumph in Afghanistan have sometimes forced Washington’s hand. Niger’s junta is pursuing another such path, attempting to end an American forever war in one small corner of the world — doing what President Biden pledged but failed to do. Still, the question remains: Will the Biden administration reverse a course that the U.S. has been on since the early 2000s?  Will it agree to set a date for withdrawal? Will Washington finally pack up its disastrous war and go home?

Copyright 2024 Nick Turse

Tomdispatch.com

The other bombing hit a mosque in Hangu in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa Province. The mosque was known to be frequented by members of the local police. The suicide bombers had tried to hit the police station first and been repulsed, so they turned to a soft target. There have been 300 attacks in this province this year.

The insurgent movement in the tribal areas of northern Pakistan, the Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (TTP), denied involvement. The TTP is closely allied with the Taliban who now again rule Afghanistan, and there are frictions between the Taliban and the current Pakistani government.

That the attack in Mastung targeted worshipers commemorating the birthday of the Prophet suggests that the perpetrators were members of ISIL, the so-called “Islamic State” group. When ISIL was ruling northern Iraq and eastern Syria, they banned celebrating Muhammad’s birthday as a sinful “innovation.” Their views on the matter are in accord with the fundamentalist Wahhabi branch of Islam in Saudi Arabia, where jurists such as Abdel Aziz Bin Baz (d. 1999) also forbade honoring the Prophet’s birthday. Small ISIL cells have carried out terrorist attacks on the Taliban in Afghanistan, and have occasionally hit targets in Pakistan itself. In Baluchistan, the so-called Islamic State- Pakistan Province is active, whereas in Khyber Pushtunkhwa the rival Islamic State – Khurasan carries out attacks. The latter was likely the perpetrator at Hangu.

Pakistan’s own security has declined because of infighting among the country’s political elite since Prime Minister Imran Khan was unseated in a vote of no confidence on April 10, 2022, in which 20 former supporters in the parliament defected. Khan has castigated the parliamentary maneuver as an illegitimate plot, and is now in jail on corruption charges that his followers say are trumped up.

I’d say 98% of the Muslims in the world approve of commemorating the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, which is usually given as the twelfth day of the third month of the Islamic calendar, Rabi’ al-Awwal in 570 CE, nearly six centuries after the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.

I wrote a book about the Prophet Muhammad, in which I discuss the likely circumstances of his birth, but more importantly his teachings on peace and reconciliation.

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It is a great shame that some do things in his name at which he clearly would horrified.

Admittedly, historians do not think large public celebrations of this day began until about the 1100s CE, some 500 years after the Prophet. Since that time, poetry and hymns have been composed for the occasion, and people have developed customs like giving children toy horses or staging parades in the streets and putting up illuminated chandeliers and lanterns over city streets. That is why some scholars consider it an innovation. But most of those see it as a good innovation. The fundamentalist Wahhabi and Salafi tendencies, in contrast, tend to see all later innovations not present at the beginnings of Islam as illegitimate.

In Pakistan, most people celebrate the entire Muslim month of Rabi` al-Awwal as the birth month of the Prophet. Marching bands, rides on caparisoned camels, and other activities of public “fun” are popular.

It is widely celebrated among American Muslims.

The major Sunni religious authority, the al-Azhar seminary in Cairo, Egypt, has repeatedly upheld the legitimacy of such celebrations. The considered legal ruling or fatwa says, “It is not permissible according to Islamic law to challenge the legitimacy of celebrating the anniversary of the Prophet’s birthday due to the forbidden things that may occur during it. Rather, we denounce the evils that may surround it, and we warn those who commit it – with wisdom and leniency – that these evils contradict the basic purpose for which these honorable occasions were held.”

Sufis, Muslim mystics, have sometimes engaged in ecstatic rituals on this anniversary of which the more sober clerics disapprove. You could compare this difference to one between, say, mainstream Presbyterian clerics and Pentecostalists.

Still, there is a broad consensus in both Sunni and Shiite Islam that commemorating the birth of the Prophet is a good thing, a moment of joy and celebration.

The ISIL terrorist group, which has wrought a vast swathe of destruction through Muslim societies and has also committed terrorism in Europe and the US, has a policy of acting harshly, “like wild beasts” (tawahhush). By attempting to outlaw perfectly innocent and uplifting religious practices like the birth of the Prophet, they set themselves up as superior to other Muslims and can use such prohibitions as a means of asserting power over others. Hence the bombing of the procession outside a mosque in Mastung. The good news is that the Muslims themselves have waged a concerted and brave campaign to root out this wicked heresy that has created so many orphans.

(The Conversation) – The crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, or “MBS,” is bringing a new vision of a “moderate, balanced” Saudi Islam by minimizing the role of Saudi religious institutions once seen as critical to the monarchy.

For decades, Saudi kings provided support to religious scholars and institutions that advocated an austere form of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism. The kingdom enforced strict codes of morality, placing restrictions on the rights of women and religious minorities, among others.

Under MBS, women have been allowed to drive; co-educational classrooms, movie theaters and all-night concerts in the desert – in which men and women dance together – are a new normal.

Scholars Yasmine Farouk and Nathan J. Brown call the diminishing role of Wahhabi religious scholars within Saudi domestic and international policy nothing short of a “revolution” in Saudi affairs.

MBS acknowledges that these reforms risk infuriating certain constituents or could even provoke retaliation. As a scholar who studies interpretations of Islamic law to justify or contest militancy, I’ve followed these reforms closely.

In the past, Saudis who challenged the authority of Wahhabis have provoked unrest. When King Fahd, who ruled between 1982-2005, rejected the advice of his Wahhabi scholars and allowed the U.S. military to station weapons and female service members on Saudi soil, several of them supported a violent insurrection against him.

MBS seems unconcerned with such challenges. In an interview broadcast widely throughout the kingdom, MBS chastised Wahhabi scholars, accusing some of falsifying Islamic doctrines. He then detained a major Wahhabi scholar from whom he once sought counsel, charging him with crimes against the monarchy. MBS defended these actions, claiming, “We are returning to what we were before. A country of moderate Islam that is open to all religions, traditions and people around the globe.”

Negotiating Wahhabism

This proclaimed return of “moderate Islam” echoes the reforms of MBS’s grandfather, King Abdulaziz, founder of the modern Saudi kingdom. This vision rejects policies toward Wahhabi Islam favored by his uncles, King Faisal and King Khalid.

Between 1925 and 1932, Abdulaziz suppressed Wahhabi scholars and militants who had demanded that he uphold their version of “pure Islam” and not open the kingdom to trade and development. He did the opposite and asserted the supremacy of the monarchy.

The booming Saudi oil economy developed by Abdulaziz required his son, King Faisal, who ruled from 1964 to 1975, to reconsider the monarchy’s relationship with Wahhabism. Unlike Abdulaziz, Faisal believed Wahhabis would help him save the kingdom.

Saudis who felt left behind in the emerging Saudi oil economy had found an inspirational symbol of liberation in Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who helped overthrow the Egyptian monarchy in 1952 and implemented plans to redistribute Egyptian wealth.

Faisal encouraged Wahhabi scholars to work with politically driven Islamists to reject the revolutionary politics of Abdel Nasser’s Egypt and craft a new vision of Islam for Saudi youth.

Faisal permitted Wahhabi scholars to reform Saudi educational institutions with their conservative Islamic curriculum. Abroad, Faisal’s scholars presented Wahhabism as an authentic Islamic alternative to the Cold War ideologies of the U.S. and USSR. Wealthy Saudis, these Wahhabi scholars argued, had a religious duty to promote Wahhabism across the globe.

Resisting Wahhabism

Faisal’s reforms met with success. King Khalid, who followed Faisal, continued to favor Wahhabi scholars, particularly while responding to two major challenges in 1979.

A group of Saudi students, who believed Faisal’s and Khalid’s reforms to be illegitimate, seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Islam’s most sacred site, for two weeks in 1979. An attack on the Grand Mosque was viewed as an attack on the monarchy itself, which claims the mantle of “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.”

The seizure came to a violent end with combined action by French and Saudi military forces. Afterward, Khalid agreed to elevate religious officials who affirmed the Islamic credentials of the monarchy.

Also in 1979, other Saudi youth traveled to join the resistance against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. One such Saudi who answered the call that year was Osama bin Laden, who would establish al-Qaida in 1988.

Bin Laden’s and al-Qaida’s grievances against the monarchy emerged following King Fahd’s acceptance of an increased deployment of U.S. soldiers to Saudi soil following Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Bin Ladin proclaimed the presence of American infidels in Saudi Arabia to be a defilement of Islamic holy lands, an “affront” to Islamic sensibilities, and demanded the destruction of the monarchy. Al-Qaida launched anti-Saudi insurgent campaigns lasting through 2010.

Not all conservative Islamist leaders called for violence. As historian Madawi Al-Rasheed notes, many Saudi scholars framed themselves as reformers who sought to correct Fahd’s departures from “authentic” Islam and restore Faisal’s vision.

When MBS speaks of a “moderate Islam” he is not just condemning the violence of al-Qaida. He’s abandoning the monarchy’s accommodations of the Wahhabi establishment. He blames some Wahhabi scholars for the violence that the monarchy faced in 1979 and again in the the 1990s and 2000s.

He has worked quickly to erase those accommodations and, like his grandfather, affirm the supremacy of the monarchy.

A ‘moderate Wahhabism’ for Saudi society?

Many of these revolutionary changes occurred amid the 2016 unveiling of “Saudi Vision 2030,” a plan for complete Saudi political, economic, educational and cultural transformation. MBS believes that this will meet the demands of Saudis under the age of 30 – who number more than 60% of the kingdom’s population.

The religious curriculum shaped by King Faisal is gone, replaced with a “Saudi first” education, which removes Ibn abd al-Wahhab, the founder of Wahhabism, from textbooks and emphasizes Saudi patriotism over a Wahhabi Islamic religious identity. Saudi Arabia has announced it will no longer fund mosques and Wahhabi educational institutions in other countries.

Saudi religious police, once tasked with upholding public morality, saw their powers curtailed. They no longer have powers of investigation or arrest. They cannot punish behaviors deemed morally inappropriate.

Critics remain unimpressed, noting that demoting religious officials does not diminish the violence of the Saudi state. Religious police continue their online surveillance of social media. In 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist, was killed following his calls for a continued voice for Islamist reformers in Saudi Arabia. Al-Rasheed argues that the images of a new Saudi society conceal suppression of Saudi reformers. Some observers note that a growing Saudi “surveillance state,” with capacities to peek into the private lives of Saudis, underwrites these reforms.

As Peter Mandaville, a scholar of international affairs, observes, the “moderate Islam” offered by MBS is complicated. On the one hand, it characterizes a new tolerant Saudi Arabian Islam. Yet, inside the kingdom, Mandaville argues that the “moderate Islam” of MBS demands that Saudi youth – as good Muslims – will submit to the authority of the monarchy over the kingdom’s affairs.

Some observers believe this might not be enough. Mohammad Fadel, a professor of Islamic legal history, argues that the current configuration of the Saudi monarchy is incompatible with “the kind of independent thought the crown prince is calling for in matters of religion.” Saudi society will flourish, he adds, “when Prince Mohammed recognizes the right of Muslims to rule themselves politically.”

With these reforms to Wahhabism, MBS hopes to secure the loyalty of a generation of young Saudis. As Saudi history would indicate, however, such a bargain requires constant renegotiation and renewal.

Nathan French, Associate Professor of Religion, Miami University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

( The Irish Times ) – Four global aid agencies have suspended services in Afghanistan in response to a Taliban ban on women working at non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

In a joint statement, Care, Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council and the International Rescue Committee said: “We cannot effectively reach children, women and men in desperate need in Afghanistan without our female staff.”

The agencies said women employees enabled them to reach “millions of Afghans in need since August 2021″ when the Taliban seized power.

Some 3,000 women are employed by the International Rescue Committee alone and make up 40 per cent of its staff.

Many of the 180 foreign and local NGOs operating in Afghanistan funnel UN and other external aid to Afghans in need of shelter, food, and medical treatment.

Over the weekend, the Taliban’s minister of economy Din Mohammad Hanif signed an order barring women from working in national and international NGOs as they were not wearing headscarves and failing to observe other Islamic laws. He warned any organisation that didn’t comply with the order would have its licence revoked.

The edict came after condemnation by Sunni Islamic scholars and governments of last week’s ban by the Taliban on women attending university. Cairo-based Sunni authority on the faith, Grand Imam Ahmad al-Tayeb of the Al-Azhar Islamic heritage institution, ruled that the ban contradicts Muslim canon law (sharia) and conflicts with Islam’s call for both men and women “to seek knowledge from cradle to grave”.  He argued the ban ignored 2,000 sayings of the Prophet Muhammad as well as “historic roles women have assumed in education, science, and politics”.  He called the prohibition “shocking” and said it should not have been issued by any Muslim.

The Abu Dhabi-located Muslim Council of Elders also opposed the ban, saying: “Islam liberated women from pre-Islamic traditions that deprived them of their rights and rendered them unable to function.”

The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar have expressed concern over the ban while Pakistan, a Taliban ally, said it was disappointed.

In a bid to pre-empt the university ban, six Gulf Co-operation Council members met Taliban acting foreign minister Amir Khan Mutaqi in Doha last month and urged full inclusion of women and girls in Afghan affairs. The UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Saudi Arabia – which base their laws on sharia – told the Taliban to make a reconciliation plan that “respects basic freedoms and rights, including women’s right to work and education”.

In March, the Taliban closed girls’ secondary schools but allowed girls’ elementary schools to operate. However, girls and teachers have, reportedly, been told not to go to elementary schools.

This would deny literacy to half 40 million Afghans.

Reprinted from The Irish Times with the permission of the author.

(RFE/RL ) – The Taliban banned women from attending universities in Afghanistan on December 20. In a statement, the Taliban’s Higher Education Ministry said the decision was effective immediately, and ordered educational institutions to inform the ministry of their compliance. The ministry did not give any reasons for its decision.

The move was quickly condemned by countries and rights groups around the world. In Afghanistan, female university students wept and consoled each other after hearing the news. Students in Nangahar University in eastern Afghanistan staged a protest on December 21 and male students walked out of their exams in solidarity with their female classmates. On December 22, around 50 women staged a rally in Kabul that was violently broken up by Taliban fighters.

Why It’s Important: The Taliban’s university ban is the latest restriction against women in Afghanistan. Since the Taliban seized power last year, the militant group has severely curtailed female education and women’s right to work. The militants have also imposed restrictions on women’s appearances and freedom of movement.

The university ban is a major blow to women. But it was also expected. Nida Mohammad Nadim, a hard-line cleric who was appointed as the Taliban’s minister for higher education in October, has said that female education is “un-Islamic and against Afghan values.”

The Taliban’s latest ban has also provided further evidence that the group is bent on reestablishing its brutal regime from the 1990s, when women were barred from working outside their homes and girls were banned from attending school.

What’s Next: When it seized power, the Taliban pledged to uphold women’s rights. The militant group projected a more moderate image to convince the world that it had changed. But the Taliban has failed to meet its promises and reimposed many of its repressive policies of the past. Observers have said the militants are likely to further restrict the rights of women.

Mustafa Sarwar is a senior news editor for RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan.

Copyright (c)2022 RFE/RL, Inc. Used with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

RFE/RL

(The Conversation) – Most Muslims celebrate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad on the 12th day of the third month of the Islamic calendar, Rabi’ al-awaal – which starts on the evening of Oct. 7 in 2022. Muslims view the celebration, called Mawlid al-Nabi or simply the Mawlid, like many other Islamic celebrations: as a sign of respect and adoration of Muhammad, whom they believe to be God’s messenger.

According to Muslim tradition, Muhammad was a righteous man born around A.D. 570, whom God designated as his final prophet. He learned God’s message by heart and recited it. Later on, the verses were written down to preserve the text – what is now the Quran.

Most countries with majority Muslim populations, from Pakistan to Malaysia to Sudan, commemorate the prophet’s birthday each year. The most colorful celebrations are carried out in Egypt, with Sufi dhikr poetry commemorating the prophet, and games, toys and colorful sweets given to kids.

Yet not all Muslims will mark the holiday. In a few countries, like Saudi Arabia, it’s just like any other day. The focus of my research is how Muslim societies relate to their faith, including their sense of social justice and their expectations of governments. While most Muslim countries encourage commemorating the Mawlid, the opposite is true in communities shaped by the ultra-conservative Wahhabi school of Islam, whose global influence has rapidly expanded in recent decades.

Wahhabi disapproval

The Wahhabi movement was started in 1744 by Muhamed Ibn Abdel Wahab, a religious scholar and reformer in what is today Saudi Arabia. Muhamed Ibn Saud, a political leader considered the founder of the Saud dynasty, legitimized his authority by seeking Ibn Abdel Wahab’s religious opinions. Ibn Saud was eager to wrest more power from the Ottoman Empire, which controlled much of the peninsula at the time.

Since then, Wahhabism has spread across the Muslim world in countries such as Yemen, the post-Soviet states, Tunisia and Egypt – especially after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which spurred Iran’s rise as a regional power and prompted Saudi Arabia to try and compete.

An austere school of Islam, Wahhabism often encourages the literal interpretation of the Quran and is especially suspicious of any practices they see as idolatry. For example, Saudi authorities have clamped down on worship at saints’ tombs and razed some holy sites entirely. In extreme cases, Salafis – a related school of Islam – have claimed that the relics and statues of ancient Egypt should be destroyed. In Saudi Arabia, the religious police, called mutaween, guard the prophet’s burial grounds in Medina during pilgrimage seasons to prevent visitors from touching it or praying close to it.

Conservatives frown upon adoration of the prophet. Wahhabi puritans consider the Mawlid heretical, citing a saying of the prophet, called a hadith: Every heresy is a misguidance, and every misguidance will end in hell. The word for “heresy” here, “bid’ah,” is often used to condemn Muslim practices seen as innovations, like celebrating the prophet’s birthday.

Celebrating with awe

Critics of Wahhabism argue that it compromises people’s relationship with God by cutting off instinctual human behavior, like wanting to honor a prophet.

As opposed to the literal and conservative focus on the oneness of God, which Wahabis emphasize, most Muslims observe the prophet’s birthday as a sign of love, respect and awe.

The Mawlid is celebrated in many ways and forms in the Muslim world, whether it is quietly observed by fasting and reading the Quran, or by kids dressing up in bright colors and getting a tiny horse or a doll made out of sugar. The practices vary, but the one thing they articulate are the admirable qualities of the prophet and how dear he is to his followers.

Deina Abdelkader, Associate Professor of Political Science, UMass Lowell

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Protesters gathered outside Kesra Hospital in Tehran where Ms. Amini was taken (though we now know she was pronounced dead on arrival). They chanted anti-government slogans, such as “From Kordestan to Tehran, women are oppressed” and some women unveiled.

These scenes were repeated at Ms. Amini’s funeral itself, where hundreds of mourners gathered and some shouted slogans such as “Death to the dictatorship!” against the Islamic Republic and its leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Women tore off their headscarves and held them up to the sky while chanting, according to Firaz Dağ at the Germany-based Kurdish web site, Nûçe Ciwan .

The controversy is multi-faceted, since it concerns women’s rights but also the rights of the Kurdish minority of mountainous western Iran. There are about 6,730,000 Kurds in Iran, about 8% of the population. Kurds are majority Sunni and many are Sufis, and they have often chafed under Shiite Iranian rule. At some points in recent years police in the province have detained dozens of Sunni religious activists in Kurdistan.

At Ms. Amini’s funeral, her grandfather read from the Kurdish poet Shirku Bikas a poem entitled “Tehran does not laugh for Anyone.” He concluded, “We will not fall short, we will not kowtow.”

Although protesters insisted that Ms. Amini had been beaten or tortured, Tehran police said she died of a heart attack while in a waiting area and showed video of Ms. Amini speaking to a police official and then returning to her chair, when she collapsed. Iran’s hard line president, Ebrahim Raisi, has called for an inquiry into her death.

As a social historian, I would just observe that women in their twenties are the healthiest group in any human population, so that they are far more likely to die of accidents, homicide or suicide than from any medical condition. The Tehran medical examiner has said that he should have autopsy results in three weeks. My guess is that Ms. Amini was beaten on the head, which caused a traumatic brain injury and bleeding in the brain or caused a brain aneurysm. That would explain her abrupt collapse. The likelihood that she had a heart attack is virtually nil unless she had a congenital condition from birth, which her parents deny.

Al Jazeera English reports that “the reformist Etemad Melli political party urged Iran’s parliament to cancel the law on the mandatory hijab and suggested President Ebrahim Raisi do away with the morality police.”

Al Jazeera also said that famed Iranian film director Asghar Farhadi issued a rare rebuke, calling Amini’s death while detained by police “a crime.”

It remains to be seen whether the incident has a long-term effect on Iran’s often vital women’s movement, which constantly struggles against religiously-backed male chauvinism and misogyny.

( Middle East Monitor ) – On 15 August 2021, the world looked on with trepidation as the situation in Afghanistan reached a critical juncture with the Afghan Taliban assuming power in the country. The takeover was swift, and relatively peaceful, with little resistance from the masses, followed by the abrupt withdrawal of US forces, leading to a new set of debates and questions. Was this the same Taliban or a different version? What was to be the future of Afghanistan’s women? What would be the fate of political opponents who had been seen as advocates of foreign occupation? The answers remain unclear almost a year later. There was little doubt about a Taliban revival with the US exit and in the absence of a negotiated settlement. In fact, a military takeover by the group was almost expected. But the manner and speed with which Afghanistan fell to the Taliban was shocking and unprecedented.

Afghanistan is currently going through one of its most important and critical phases, even when one considers the violence and instability of the last two decades. Since the Taliban’s assumption of power, the situation inside Afghanistan resulted in unaddressed questions regarding changes in domestic governance, political freedoms, human rights and especially women’s rights, counterterrorism assurances, and the overall commitment to regional peace and stability.

15 August 2022 will mark one year since the Taliban dispensation assumed power. While, initially, there were uncertainties regarding the Taliban’s rule, the past one year has somewhat set the tone and is an indication of how the group intends to govern the country. Even within the confines of the current interim set up, the real test for the Taliban is by no means limited to securing power, but revolves around legitimacy, acceptance, performance and of course recognition. The group has been engaging independently as well as through Doha with the international community and regional countries, and while it seeks recognition, present engagement does entail de facto recognition.

Domestically, the group’s performance is debatable; however, one has seen an overall improvement in the security of the country with the exception of attacks by transnational terrorist groups like the Islamic State Khorastan Province (ISKP). The group is still trying to consolidate its position and power within its ranks as well as within the country. Governance without a doubt continues to remain a huge challenge, as the group, it seems, does not have the expertise or manpower to run the ministries. This is primarily because the majority of the educated Afghans have left the country.

While the group had time and again given assurances that it would work towards the formation of an inclusive political system and has expanded its cabinet to include a few members from other ethnic factions, unfortunately the set-up of a representative political dispensation as the group had claimed is still unfulfilled. However, the fact that the group has said the set-up is an interim arrangement is somewhat reassuring and one hopes the future government will be more inclusive. The group is struggling to formulate policies towards Afghan institutions like the bureaucracy, security and armed forces to name a few. Moreover, the group has not only inherited weak institutions but a nonexistent economy, an ongoing humanitarian crisis and effects of natural calamities; in other words, it is work in progress.

Moreover, financial sanctions on the Taliban, have largely played a part in paralyzing the banking system which has thus affected all aspects of the economy. While the provision of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan by certain countries, including the US, which has provided $775 million, is certainly reassuring; however, it is not enough to stabilise the economy let alone sustain the Afghan population of which some 95 per cent are suffering from food insecurity.

This is a huge dilemma for the Afghan population and remains one of the biggest challenges. Thus, in such dire circumstances, it is important for the international community to move away from politics and push towards a consolidated effort to ensure that Afghanistan does not further collapse into a humanitarian disaster that will then require more financial support as well as a different and enhanced set of challenges regarding refugees, among other issues.

Despite grave economic challenges, the Taliban have in their limited capacity taken measures to clamp down on corruption, and generate domestic revenue through custom and tariff duties. For example, between September and December in 2021, they collected around $400 million through revenues, taxes and on the increased export of natural resources like coal. Moreover, the group has kept official revenues flowing, and a “handful of holdovers from the former government are maintaining sophisticated financial-management software set up by the American-backed regime to run their revenue-collection systems.” The group also published a three-month budget, which has given some cause for optimism.

As a USIP report noted: “The Taliban budget is nearly balanced — and realistically projects no aid flows directly into the budget. Though the revenue projections may be somewhat optimistic, in general the budget seems relatively prudent, and compares well in this regard against past Afghan budgets.” However, any optimism is also necessarily circumscribed. There are plenty of other considerations after all. Such as the group’s inability or unwillingness to fulfill their pledges of reform pertaining to very basic yet fundamental rights, such as women’s education and their role in public life is a major impediment and stumbling block in the way of progress as it continues to keep the international community at bay from Afghanistan. Moreover, while the group has allowed private media channels to operate and often engage in public debates and discourse, many journalists have been at risk.

While children have been returning to schools, the Taliban reversed their previous decision to allow Afghan girls to return to high schools, this is both unfortunate and regrettable to say the least – and a major issue of concern for regional countries including Pakistan. It is imperative for the Taliban to realise that although Afghanistan has been at war with itself, the international community and the masses have evolved, and would like their rights to basic yet fundamental issues such as human/women right and education to name a few to be met. Hence, if the Taliban do not honour their pledges of reform, the group will lose the little support and engagement it currently enjoys from the international community. Moreover, it will become extremely challenging for regional countries to engage with the group let alone consider their formal recognition.

The biggest threats to Afghanistan are domestic constraints such as the economy and a possible humanitarian crisis, and just as importantly, the concern that the country will fall prey to transnational terrorist elements. Already, there has been some resistance shown in the north where the National Resistance Front (NRF) headed by Ahmed Masood has remained strident in its opposition towards the group. It has been trying to muster up support for its cause and lobby against the possible international recognition of the Taliban government as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. While the NRF has been trying to expand on both national and global levels, it has so far failed to gain the necessary support for its cause. This also reveals a new Afghan and international context, and a different set of perceptions and aspirations for different groups in Afghanistan, since the NRF had received some support in the past.

However, if the Taliban are not able to consolidate their position and ensure some semblance of stability, the fear is not so much of a civil war from groups such as the NRF but rather of transnational terrorist elements taking advantage of the situation and filling the vacuum. This fear has been echoed by the former UN Special Representative for Afghanistan, who also noted that “Afghanistan’s collapsing economy is heightening the risk of extremism.” After all, since the Taliban assumed power in August 2021, there has been a major spike in attacks by the ISKP domestically and against Afghanistan’s neighbours, primarily Pakistan, followed by Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. In Pakistan’s case, the rise in Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) activity and attacks against Pakistani security personnel independently as well as in collaboration with the ISKP has been of particular concern. It not only raises doubts on the Taliban’s ability to honour their commitments regarding counterterrorism assurances but also their capability to deal with transnational terrorist groups operating within the country.

While Afghanistan is being viewed as a regional issue – particularly in terms of the ongoing crises in different parts of the world, this is a gross miscalculation because as the past has proven, Afghanistan has always had global ramifications and the threat of transnational terrorist groups like the ISKP will not remain a concern for the region alone as it has global aspirations and believes in a global caliphate, hence no conflict should take precedence over the other. Accordingly, Afghanistan should not be abandoned nor ignored as it has been in the past because it will not bode well for any stakeholder. This is a time to remain engaged with Afghanistan– where the onus is on all sides to deliver. However, to achieve this, all sides need to learn to compromise and accommodate each other and instead of viewing Afghanistan as a regional issue, it must be viewed as a shared responsibility, Afghanistan is a global issue that warrants a collective and dedicated response.

While the Taliban are certainly not ideal, it must be asked whether there are any viable alternatives at this stage. Perhaps a clearer question is whether the international community desires the Taliban to fail or succeed – the answer, it appears at this point, will mean the failure or success of Afghanistan. While the Taliban face several understandable challenges be it limitations regarding governance, differences within the group’s leadership over policies or the full use of Afghanistan’s resources, the fact is that now that they are in power, they have to shoulder the responsibility of being a responsible government that serves the Afghan people. Surely, this can only happen once they attain legitimacy from the masses themselves. However, despite the grave challenges, this is still a unique and unprecedented opportunity for Afghans to come together and focus on a state and government that is inclusive, responsible, accountable and lastly, one that serves the Afghan people, because Afghanistan’s future greatly shapes the security architecture of the entire region.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

Via Middle East Monitor

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

This article by Imen Boudali was first published by Raseef22, and is being republished as part of a content-sharing partnership with Global Voices.

( Globalvoices.org ) – In May of each year, Tunisia hosts a unique and extraordinary event. The north African country, home to the oldest synagogue in Africa, celebrates and revives its Jewish roots through the pilgrimage of La Ghriba, an event bringing together different religions on the tranquil island of Djerba.

As soon as the ferry approaches the coast, Djerba welcomes you with serenity. This island, the historical home of Tunisians of all three major monotheistic faiths and the site of an annual Jewish pilgrimage, is often called the “island of dreams.” It gives visitors a sense of belonging and embraces them like no other place. Palm trees as far as the eye can see, all along the occasionally rudimentary roads, you quickly start seeing Djerba’s signature houses or houche, the island’s small, colourful shops, men in grey jebbas, women in beskris, malhfas (traditional outfits worn only by women of that island) and dhallalas (traditional straw hats) everywhere.

La Ghriba is an event bringing together different religions on the tranquil island of Djerba. Image by Imen Boudali, used with permission.

This scenery is complemented by the smell of the beautiful blue sea, the fishermen and their boats scattered here and there, the vendors of jasmine flower bouquets, the groups of old men playing checkers and the women driving motorbikes. In essence, when you are here, you absorb colours, hues, and shapes, sometimes basic and minimalist, but never dull or wearisome.

But it is not only the heavenly coasts or the incomparable sunsets that make this place unique and beautiful; it’s the people, and, for this, Djerba is not only adored by Tunisians, but by countless visitors from all over the world.

Djerba’s inhabitants have succeeded over the course of the island’s history in maintaining a peaceful coexistence between its Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities that has become exceedingly rare, not just in the Arab region, but also around the world.

Jews of Djerba

Before the creation of Israel in 1948, Tunisia was home to more than 100,000 Jews, but, as years passed, and with the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, many left. However, the country is home to one of the MENA region’s largest Jewish communities with 2,000 Jews, including 1,200 living in Djerba.

To this day, and despite their not very large number, Jewish Tunisians continue to hold an important place in Djerbian society and are, like their non-Jewish neighbors, active in the island’s tourism industry.

Djerba is home to one Jewish school (yeshiva), which offers both secular and religious education for five- and six-year-olds as well as teenagers aged 14 years old. Going through the classrooms, one hears students discussing Torah verses, switching between Tunisian Arabic and the biblical Hebrew of the texts. In another of the island’s schools, Souani Primary School, Muslim and Jewish students study together in the same classrooms, sharing in secular academic pursuit and anchoring the future of their society in principles of inter-religious harmony.

Djerba’s Jewish legacy, as well as the legacy of Tunisia’s religious diversity, is on full display each year during the Ghriba pilgrimage. This annual rendezvous took place this year from May 14 to 22 with various events, including visiting the synagogue, giving alms and doing charity, prayers, and other local traditions.

Non-Jewish Tunisians frequently participate in some of the synagogue’s traditions. For instance, many local women and visitors bring eggs marked with the names of young girls of their families, and leave them in a particular spot at the synagogue. Once the pilgrimage is over, the eggs are taken back to the young girls who then eat them in the hope of boosting their marriage prospects.

A colourful pilgrimage

As you walk towards the synagogue, the security presence is certainly noteworthy. Hundreds of police, special forces and armored vehicles are stationed along the street and around the place of worship to ensure the smooth running of the festivities. Before entering the premises, visitors go through a scanner, and their belongings are thoroughly searched.

When you pass the security apparatus, hundreds of Tunisian flags and the characteristic blue and white of the buildings welcome you.

Music plays in the background. Everyone feels the atmosphere of festivity. Young and old, you can see that everyone dresses in their finest clothing. Under the sun of an April afternoon, groups of visitors flock in festive clothing, quickening their steps to find a seat in the Oukala (a sort of very traditional and cheap hotel in popular Tunisian neighbourhoods) where a music party is organized.

“My mom bought new clothes so I can wear them today. Now I am waiting for my friends to come so we can play together. I am very excited!,” said Ishmail, 8, smiling wholeheartedly alongside his parents and other family members.

Other attendees, more focused on the religious aspect of the event, choose to go directly to the synagogue. Despite its relatively small size, the building’s interior is astoundingly beautiful. The blue earthenware tiles, embracing the four walls up to the ceiling, are striking. The room is teeming with people.

Under the arcades and the eternal lamps, some attendees are seated to read the Torah, others are lighting candles and whispering, discreetly with eyes closed, their long-held wishes.

“I came to deposit this egg in the name of my single niece,” Eliana, a Franco-Tunisian septuagenarian said. “I know she doesn’t really believe in these stories, but since I was little, I used to come to this synagogue and see my mother and my aunts do this. It’s part of our history and our identity, and I’m keeping the heritage alive.”

Touristic relevance, security concerns

This annual pilgrimage is not only important for the local community, but for the whole country, from an economic perspective, through reviving the island’s touristic sector, and politically, since it helps to forge the peaceful and multicultural identity of Tunisia. The event is prepared months in advance, with the participation of various stakeholders, including the Ministry of the Interior — all to avoid any bad surprises.

In recent memory, Tunisia has experienced two tragic attacks on Djerba’s Jewish community. The first was in 1985, when a soldier in charge of maintaining order opened fire inside the Ghriba Synagogue, killing five people. Then, in 2002, a 25-year-old Franco-Tunisian linked to the Al-Qaeda killed 21 people.

With these incidents in mind, the Tunisian authorities sought to make this annual event more secure. Head of Government Najla Bouden, Minister of Tourism Mohamed Moez Belhassine, Governor of Médenine Said Ben Zayed, Chief Rabbi of Tunisia Haïm Bittan, as well as several ambassadors and diplomats from countries like France, Belgium, Germany, Italy and the USA attended the launch of this year’s pilgrimage.

“Djerba remains a melting pot of civilizations and a land of peace and tolerance for all, from which emanates a message of love and peace,” said Bouden.

For his part, Tourism Minister Belhassine said that the pilgrimage of La Ghriba is an important event that kicks off the tourist and summer season and sends multiple messages to the world about peaceful coexistence and tolerance for a better and more open community.

He added that this important event, which, according to him, gathered about 3,000 visitors, 50 journalists and dignitaries from 14 nationalities, is an occasion to not only discover the multi-cultural aspect of the island, but to dive into a rich destination offering endless advantages.

As for the organizers of the pilgrimage, led by Perez Trabelsi (chairman of the Jewish Ghriba Committee and leader of the Jewish community in Djerba), they considered that this year’s visit was exceptional and distinct on several levels. For them, after two years of pandemic, sending a message of peace and coexistence from Tunisia for the rest of the world was crucial in these tumultuous times.

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By Imen Boudali is a Tunisian journalist who has worked in Tunisia and across the MENA region, contributing in media outlets like Al-Ahram and the Arab Weekly. This article first appeared in Raseef22.

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