Afghanistan and the Taliban Terrorists

                                                                       

Our USA State Department was not sure whether or not the Taliban are still terrorists 3 years ago in 2013.

They had opened an office in Qatar to bring on stability without the USA's help.  Afghan President Hamid Karzai has halted talks with the United States “to protest the way the Americans are reaching out to the Taliban in efforts to find a political solution to the war.” Karzai expressed his disappointment with the U.S. government for holding direct talks with the Taliban before bringing Afghan officials into the negotiations.  Not terrorists?  Then why did they kill " 14 Hazaras in Ghor Province? in 2014?  Violent attacks in Afghanistan cause a surge in child civilian casualties and impeded access to medical care then.  "The Taliban view the country's minority Shia community as apostates, and have targeted Hazaras in the past with suicide bombings and other attacks."  In this case, they stopped a bus and killed the Hazaras on it who are Shi'ites.  Are they really that much different from IS?  

The Taliban has taken over much of Afghanistan and does not want their competitor, Daesh (IS) to enter this country, so they have warned them to stay away.  "Afghan policemen stand guard near the site of a Taliban attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, May 27, 2015."  The Taliban has been losing some of its fighters to Daesh in the last few months, something Western countries have also noticed in some of their population.  In their letter to Bagdadi, they have appealed to him saying that the Taliban is based on "religious brotherhood "and asks him to understand and let them have a pass. Being the Taliban is a band of terrorists, there is more to it than brotherhood.  They even attack Afghanis and Pakistanis.  
                                                                               

The Taliban "is an Islamic fundamentalist political movement in Afghanistan currently waging war (an insurgency, or jihad) within that country.  From 1996 to 2001, it held power in Afghanistan and enforced a strict interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law, of which the international community and leading Muslims have been highly critical.
                                                                             

Their ideology has been guilty of many outlandish acts  "which resulted in the brutal treatment of many Afghans, especially women.   During their rule from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban and their allies committed massacres against Afghan civilians, denied UN food supplies to 160,000 starving civilians and conducted a policy of scorched earth, burning vast areas of fertile land and destroying tens of thousands of homes.  In its post-9/11 insurgency, the group has been accused of using terrorism as a specific tactic to further their ideological and political goals.   According to the United Nations, the Taliban and their allies were responsible for 75% of Afghan civilian casualties in 2010, 80% in 2011, and 80% in 2012.  

They are worse than the Mafia was in the United States in the 20's and 30's, fighting off other 

equally nasty mobs aiming to take over.  

Osama bin Laden was taken out by the USA in Pakistan in May 2011.  This also brought on 

the  assassination of many important Afghanis by the Taliban insurgents.  

"The Afghan Taliban's main goal is a full withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan and the fall of the Afghan central government under Ashraf Ghani. The Taliban leadership operates in so-called leadership councils (shuras). The main Taliban leader was Mullah Omar, who reportedly died in April 2013. He was replaced by Mullah Akhter Mansoor, although some senior Taliban members do not recognize him as their leader."

Afghanistan is not doing well.  It is one of the poorest countries in the world with a population of about 28,395, 716 people who are 99% Sunni and some Shi'a.  It's an Islamic state following the Hanafi and Jafari fiqhs like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, etc.  It is the 12th largest Muslim majority state, whereas Pakistan is the 2nd largest with 172,800,000 population and 97% Sunni and Shi'a, also another Islamic state.  Afghanistan is one of the least developed and most corrupt states in the world.  .  
                                                                              

Pashtos "Afghan Amir Sher Ali Khan (in the center with his son) and his delegation in Ambala, near Lahore, in 1869.

Out of Afghanistan's population, about 13,750,117 were Pashtuns in 2008, just a little less than half the population.  Some, no doubt, belong to the Taliban, but not all of them.  Those that don't have suffered harm from them.  The Pashtos are made up of several different tribes claiming descent from several different groups.  An interesting point  is that several tribes come from the Lost 10 Tribes of Israel.  "According to Ethnologue, the total population of the group is estimated to be around 50 million,  but an accurate count remains elusive due to the lack of an official census in Afghanistan since 1979.   Estimates of the number of Pashtun tribes and clans range from about 350 to over 400."
                                                                                

Indian Bollywood actor, Saif Ali Khan's paternal ancestors were Pashtuns.
The movie, Eklavya-The Royal Guard, stars Saif, of which is the only Indian video I possess.  Born in New Delhi, India,  he is the son of Sharmila Tagore, and Indian cricketer, Mansoor Ali Khan. Both his grandfather, Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi, and father were professional cricketers. His mother, Sharmila Tagore, an actress within her own rights, is the grand-niece of renowned Rabindranath Tagore, who converted to Islam after marrying Saif's father. 

"Many high-ranking government officials in Afghanistan are Pashtuns, including: Zalmay Rasoul, Abdul Rahim Wardak, Omar Zakhilwal, Ghulam Farooq Wardak, Anwar ul-Haq Ahady, Yousef Pashtun and Amirzai Sangin. The list of current governors of Afghanistan, as well as the parliamentarians in the House of the People and House of Elders, include large percentage of Pashtuns. The Chief of staff of the Afghan National Army, Sher Mohammad Karimi, and Commander of the Afghan Air Force,Mohammad Dawran, as well as Chief Justice of Afghanistan Abdul Salam Azimi and Attorney General Mohammad Ishaq Aloko also belong to the Pashtun ethnic group."

There is so much to improve on in Afghanistan, where does one begin;  from the culture comes this corruption that is running amok.  No wonder terrorists do well here.  Wherever people do not follow their  law, it develops; here, Mexico, wherever.  It must start with politicians, and then expect others to do the same.  


Resource: http://www.newsweek.com/taliban-warns-isis-dont-come-afghanistan-343651
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban_insurgency
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtuns
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2013/06/19/state-dept-unsure-if-taliban-still-considered-terrorists/
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2014/07/afghanistan-attack-201472553221541767.html
****http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2015/10/pashtuns-and-jews-who-have-lived-in.html

Taliban Terrorists in Pakistan Joining With ISIS

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                            

Around 1977, The Soviets were going into Afghanistan.  The Taliban terrorists movement can be traced to the Pakistani-trained mujahideen in northern Pakistan during this Soviet war in Afghanistan.  It started with the President of Pakistan, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who was afraid that the Soviets were planning to invade Balochistan, Pakistan.  Therefore he sent Akhtar Abdur Rahman to Saudi Arabia to get support for his Afghan resistance against Soviet occupation forces.  The USA (CIA)  and Saudi Arabia then joined the struggle against the Soviet Union and provided money. (see comment at end).

It looks like "The Pakistani Taliban, who are fighting against the state to set up a hardline Sunni theocracy, 
                                                                   

Malala Yousafzai b: July 12, 1997, shot October 9, 2012
in Mingora, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan,
Received Nobel Peace Prize

On October 9, 2012, a young Pakistani girl, a Pashtun named Malala Yousafzai,  boarded her school bus and then was shot 3 times and left for dead. by a Taliban terrorist.  Why?  She was outspoken and for female education.  Her father was the principal of her school.  Is this so hard to understand?  It was for the Taliban who want to keep people in the Middle Ages, evidently.  
                                                                         

Pashtun tribes live in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.  They are thought to be from the
 10 Lost Tribes
 of Israel originally who were captured by the Assyrians in 721 BCE
They have their own land where they are to be left alone and their own culture.  They are Muslim but also have kept the culture of Judaism as well.

                As many things who get a foothold, the Taliban continued to rage terrorism in Pakistan.
                                                                             

 The attack we remember was last December 16, 2014 with a massacre in Peshawar of 150 pupils and teachers.  The terrorists, all of whom were foreign nationals, included one Chechen, three Arabs and two Afghans. "On 2 December 2015, Pakistan hanged four militants involved in the Peshawar massacre."
                                                                        

On January 30, 2015, a bomb blasted a Shia Mosque in Shikarpur district, Sindh province and killed 40 people.  "The Jundallah militant group claimed that they had carried out the attack. The group has been linked to Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and announced allegiance to Islamic State (IS) last year.

On February 13, 2015, Terrorists attacked a Shi'a mosque in Peshawar at the end of prayers with guns and grenades.  20 people were killed by 5 or 6 men dressed in military uniforms.  The Taliban, hard liners,   claimed responsibility and said the attack was revenge for Pakistan's crackdown on militants following a December school massacre.      

Response from Shi'a was: "Either Pakistan will become your graveyard, or God's law, sharia, will be implemented," Taliban commander Khaleefa Omar Mansoor said in a video in which he was flanked by three young militants clutching AK-47 assault rifles.
This is the first in a series of revenge attacks ... Wait for the rest," Mansoor, who had earlier claimed responsibility for the Dec. 16 school attack in which more than 150 people were killed, said in the video sent by email to reporters.

On March 15, 2015, 2 churches were bombed in Youhanabad,  Lahore, Pakistan and killed 14.  Two explosions targeting the worshippers there were used.  68 people were wounded.  "The church involved was the  Roman Catholic Church and Christ Church  during their Sunday services, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome.  
 Pope John Paul II visited Pakistan on 16 February 1981.

There are over one million Catholics in Pakistan, which represents less than 1% of the total population. "  "St. Thomas’ Church, Wah Cantt was attacked by a group of armed men on 28 March 2011 which resulted in damages. It is believed that the incident was related to the recent episode of the burning of the Quran by Pastor Terry Jones in the U.S.

The situation in Pakistan deteriorated to such an extent that by 2013 large numbers of Christians started to seek asylum overseas

May 13, 2015: A bus was attacked by 8 gunmen killed 45 people  in Karachi, Pakistan."Most of the victims were of the Ismaili Shia Muslim minority." This attacked has been claimed by 2 other groups, Jundallah and ISIS."  Evidently these 2 groups are melding together now.  


On September 18, 2015, Taliban gunmen rushed the Badaber air force base in Peshawar and killed 29 people.  Most airmen were in their morning prayers in the mosque at the time.  

On December 13, 2015,   the Taliban attacked a market-place in the Kurram tribal region in town of Parachinar and killed 24 people at a clothes market with a bomb.  

A Pakistani Army spokesman said on December 12 that the military had killed 3,400 Taliban rebels in the offensive launched in mid-June 2014.  There must be many more of these terrorists.  

On Tuesday, December 29, 2015, a Taliban suicide bomber killed 26 people in Mardan, Pakistan.  This left more than 45 wounded.  It was the deadliest attacked since last December's massacre of 150 in Peshawar.  The bomber was on a motorbike and when stopped by the security guard, blew himself up.  

Pashtuns have been constantly attacked by terrorists and have suffered a great deal in order to keep their freedom.  Now it looks like the Taliban has hooked up with ISIS in their religious zeal to force everyone to their idea of Sharia law.  They are a religion of death, not peace.  
Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Peshawar_school_massacre
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34287385
http://gandhara.rferl.org/content/pakistan-parachinar-bomb-blast/27424155.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Karachi_bus_shooting
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-blast-idUSKBN0LH0UK20150214
http://www.dawn.com/news/1169713
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholicism_in_Pakistan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lahore_church_bombings

Pashtuns and Jews Who Have Lived in Afghanistan

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                    

Taliban and Pashtuns in Afghanistan

Central Asia has some inhabitants who believe they were descended from the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.
                                                                       

 They are Pashtuns and have been living in Afghanistan. Pashtuns claim they are descended from one of the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel and that the name of their country is from Afghana, a grandson of King Saul.   In 721 BCE, the Assyrians had attacked Israel and captured the best of the men of the 10 Tribes and took them to their land as slaves. The Jewish history therefore is 2,500 years of being in Afghanistan.  According to their history, they arrived after the Babylonian Exile of 597 and 586 BCE when they attacked and took away   about 10,000 Jewish prisoners of Judah, which was the southern half of Israel.  If they are from this exile, they would be of the Tribe of Judah and a few from the tribe of Benjamin, who were not lost. Judah was made up of the largest tribe, Judeans.  Then again, they could have been captured from Israel at that time from those that were lucky enough to have remained.                                            
                       Descendants of King of Israel Saul

1   King of Israel Saul b: in abt 10000 BCE
.   2     [1] Michal the First, Daughter of Saul
.....   +[2] King of Israel David b: in 1000 BCE Bethlehem
. *2nd Husband of [1] Michal the First, Daughter of Saul:
..... +Phalti
.    2   King at Mahanaim Eshbaal
.  2   Merab
..... +[2] King of Israel David b: in 1000 BCE Bethlehem
.  2   Jeremiahin Pashtun
.....      3        Afghana Pashtun, Commander in Chief

                                                                                 

                                                                                                               

The Jews, not the Pashtuns,  date their entrance to Afghanistan back to the 7th century when Islamists left Saudi Arabia to convert the world.  Jews living in Saudi Arabia had to convert to Islam or flee upon pain of death.  Jews that have been living in Ghor, Afghanistan are thought to be from those who came early on.

                                                                           

Jewish cemetery in Herat, Afghanistan

 In 1946, a Jewish cemetery was discovered here in Ghor and the earliest tombstones date from the 8th century,  752-753.  The latest date was from 1012 to 1249.  The inscriptions on the tombstones are in Hebrew, Aramaic and Judeo-Persian, a language with elements of medieval Persian and also having Hebrew-Aramaic parts.  It was written in Hebrew script, and spoken by the members of the local Jewish community.
                                                                         

Jews were known to also be living in Afghanistan in early medieval times, but what happened to them by the 12th century is unknown.  Since Islam came into being in the 7th century, no doubt they all were either forced to convert, were killed or were forced to leave.

As far as all Afghanis goes, —A study by The Genographic Project has found that the majority of all known ethnic Afghans share a unique genetic heritage derived from a common ancestral population that most likely emerged during the Neolithic revolution and the formation of early farming communities. Through detailed DNA analysis of samples from 27 provinces, the Genographic team found the inter-Afghan genetic variability to be mostly attributed to the formation of the first civilizations in the region during the Bronze Age. (That would be from about 3150 BCE.)   [from "WASHINGTON (March 28, 2012)].... "We now know that major cultural evolutions and prehistoric technological advancements, followed later by migrations and conquests, have left traceable records in the Afghans’ DNA, giving us an amazing insight into the origin of this population,” said Haber."

                                                                             

RASHI-aka Rabbi Solomon Yitzhaki (1040-1105)

 To compare Europe with the East, it was in the 11th century that RASHI, the great Jewish biblical commentator,  was born in France and then studied and taught  in the Rhineland.  He traces his family tree back to King David.
                                                                             

Ghenghis Khan-c1162 to August 18, 1227

Genghis Khan invaded the land in 1222, making Jewish communities reduced in size to isolated pockets.  The important Jewish centers were in Kabul, Herat, Ghazni and Balkh.   Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, is 3,500 years old.  That means the city was started in the year 1,485 BCE, a little before Moses was born.   ""The Jews had formed a community of leather and karakul merchants, poor people and money lenders alike. The large Jewish families mostly lived in the border city of Herat, while the families' patriarchs traveled back and forth on trading trips across the majestic mountains of Afghanistan on whose rocks their prayers were carved in Hebrew and sometimes even Aramaic, moving between the routes on the ancient silk road."
                                                                         

There have been Jews living in Afghanistan in the 19th century who were an extension of the Persian Jewish community.  Most Afghan Jews spoke Judeo-Persian, and their religious rites were those of the Persian Jews, but they did not study the Talmud, probably because they didn't know about them.    They continued to live in a medieval atmosphere and had been confined in their ghettos. By living in Persia for so long, they missed out on the continued thinking and development of Judaism of their distant peers.  Nothing improved for them by moving to Afghanistan, at least religiously.  You could tell who was Jewish because they had to wear black turbans.

 There actually have been 2 Talmuds.  One is the Babylonian and the other is the Palestinian.  The Babylonian is the more popular one.  They are collections of the records of academic discussions and of the judicial administration of Jewish LAW by the generations of scholars and jurists in many academies and in more than one country during several centuries after 200 CE.  This is when the book, the Mishnah was completed, also.  Each Talmud is made up of the Mishnah together with a gemara. which is both a commentary on and a supplement to the Mishnah.  Both Talmuds contain non-legal or aggadic digressions.  The writers mentioned in the Palestinian Talmud all lived before 400 CE.  Those of the Babylonian Talmud lived before 500 CE.  These are like the last words on Jewish law and rational thinking.

In the 20th century, Jews arrived from Central Asia fleeing Russian repression, and later there were those fleeing from communist threat.

  There were some 40,000 Jews in Afghanistan a century ago.  Among them were many prosperous merchants.  After 1870 there were several successive governmental measure of repression on these Jews.  In the mid 1930's, it seems the hand of Hitler seeped into to this country as well and these measures, as those happening in Germany, reduced the Jewish population. In 1948, about 5,000 Jews were living in Afghanistan.   Nearly all emigrated to Israel after the foundation of the State in 1948, though some did move to India for economic reasons.  In the 70s, some 300 Jews were still in Afghanistan, and most left after the Soviet invasion of 1979.   Only about  50 Jews lived in Afghanistan by 1990.  So go the Jews, also goes the good of the state.  Look what's happened since then.  By 2007, there was one Jew left in Kabul, Zablon Simintov,* who continued to take care of his synagogue.
                                                                             

King Zaher Shah took over in 1933-1935 and had liked the Jews well enough and so protected them.  Jews then had a certain degree of religious freedom.  They attended their synagogues and were observant Jews.

Jews dressed quite similar like the surrounding Islamic population.  They spoke Judea-Persian instead of Urdu which  is not a language in Afghanistan Pasthos, but of people including Pashtos  in India.   The Dari language is similar to Farsi and is spoken so at that time either Dari or Pastho may have been spoken by Jews in Afghanistan.   They used Hebrew in the synagogue and in religious studies, just like Americans do.
                                                                           

Young Afghani-American Jewish lady 

An American Afghani woman said that she wants her children to know that their ancestors came from Kabul, Afghanistan.                                              

Kabul neighborhood 

 Her mother and family immigrated from Afghanistan to the USA in 1964 along with other Jews.  Her ancestors had left good but simple living conditions, nothing fancy.  Their homes were considered middle-class.  Her grandfather and great grandfather had been in the textile business.  Afghan Jews left their country because they wanted to have a better life and education for their children.  Perhaps they saw the eventual Taliban developing and fighting in their future.
                                                                     

Taliban terrorism of which some Pashtuns have joined

Today's modern war is taking place in Afghanistan where Russians fought and now Americans fight terrorists such as ISIS.  The most recent error was in Americans bombing a hospital in Kunduz in northern Afghanistan  belonging to Doctors Without Borders, thinking they were hitting ISIS terrorists.  Afghanistan has turned into a battleground.  

At any rate, "Thus, Itzhak Ben-Zvi, the second President of Israel, in his 1957 book The Exiled and the Redeemed, writes that Hebrew migrations into Afghanistan began: "with a sprinkling of exiles from Samaria who had been transplanted there by Shalmaneser, King of Assyria (719 BC) [...] The Afghan tribes, among whom the Jews have lived for generations, are Moslems who retain to this day their amazing tradition about their descent from the Ten Tribes. It is an ancient tradition, and one not without some historical plausibility... if the Afghan tribes persistently adhere to the tradition that they were once Hebrews and in course of time embraced Islam, and there is not an alternative tradition also existent among them, they are certainly Jewish." (p. 176)

In the 2000s, the "lost tribes" hypothesis was popularized by Shalva Weil, an anthropologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, In 2010, The Observer under the title "Pashtun clue to lost tribes of Israel" claimed that "Some leading Israeli anthropologists believe that, of all the many groups in the world who claim a connection to the 10 lost tribes, 

the Pashtuns, or Pathans, have the most compelling case" and on a planned study on the ancestry of the Afridi Pashtuns (while noting that "A previous genetic study in the same area did not provide proof one way or the other"), also citing Weil as saying "Of all the groups, there is more convincing evidence about the Pathans than anybody else, but the Pathans are the ones who would reject Israel most ferociously. That is the sweet irony".

Not entirely, Dr. Weil.  A few are seeing their history and are cheering for Israel.  They're sharing their information with each other.  The tide may be turning.  

Resource:  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Pashtun_descent_from_Israelites
http://aryanaencyclopedia.blogspot.com/2011/04/jews-of-afghanistan.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Exile.html
http://www.snipview.com/q/Afghan_Jews
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabul
*  (http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2012/01/one-lone-jew-left-in-afghanistan-with.html)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Afghanistan
http://www.ancient.eu/Bronze_Age/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/doctors-without-borders-airstrike-hits-afghan-hospital-killing-3-staffers/2015/10/03/2ed13104-b50a-48ec-9eb9-92db8ee3a876_story.html
H. Shah, Pashto