Dispatches from Afghanistan: the tragic death of a ten-year-old as family awaits SIV, the girls’ ball team left behind and in fear for their lives, and the Taliban government clamping down

The latest from the ground in Afghanistan...

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.

-Rumi, 13th Century Persian Poet

It has now been more than two months since the Taliban took the reins at the Presidential Palace. Over the first month, access to stories, ministries and interviews was surprisingly smooth…. But certainly, through the second month, the Emirate has tightened its not-well-oiled machines. Nobody wants to speak; they all mandate that one approval must be met with another approval and then another and so on, creating a significantly more challenging working environment for journalists.

It would be reasonably safe to say that the Talibs are more afraid of journalists – at least international ones – than journalists are fearful of them. Moreover, reporting comes at a critical juncture when the new Emirate is trying to form its government and solidify some international aid; thus, speaking out of the tried-and-true narrative risks big-time repercussions from the top echelons.

The thing with the Taliban is that they do listen to orders. When they are informed internally that they can’t do something, they seemingly obey. My observation is that if they wanted to do things right, they technically could, but with the risk of not appearing as though they are cowering to international demands.

Yet without the international community somehow at the table, they cannot run a country. Even those in the most rural villages – those used to living off the land without support – are tired, hungry, and unable to make minimal ends meet.

And when your support base can’t feed their family, conflict and corruption are only a matter of time. Unfortunately, Afghanistan remains a frail place. Although far more peaceful than it was just over eight weeks ago, it still bestows a sense of teetering on the edge of something sinister, of something not being quite right.

I often think of the Plato quote (although it is debatable that he said it): Only the dead have seen the end of war.

I hope and pray for the Afghan people that the window stretches out long enough for life to really resume.

AFGHAN GIRL’S GRUESOME MURDER SPARKS INVESTIGATION INTO POSSIBLE ORGAN HARVESTING RING

The chilling, cold-blooded killing of a 10-year-old Afghan girl has sparked an investigation into a possible organ harvesting or snuff filmmaking ring.

The tragic death of the girl, Henna, occurred more than a month after her family applied for Special Immigrant Visas to leave the Taliban-controlled country – but according to her grief-stricken relatives, her family has not heard back from the US government.

In the early hours of a Friday morning earlier this month – the only weekend day in Afghanistan – the girl was allegedly targeted by her neighbor to “do them a favor” and buy them bread, her relatives said. The neighbor, Mohammad, allegedly claimed to have had a heart condition and told the neighbors he did not want the women of the house roaming the streets under the Taliban’s gaze.

“The women were relentless,” the sobbing grandmother, Parveen, recalls. “They made Henna get out of bed, and that is how they got her.”

But when Henna went to deliver the bread, her family says, she was “abducted” and murdered. Five adults inside the neighboring home — suspected ringleaders Mohammad, 67, and his son Ahmad, 26, as well as three women — were arrested and remain behind bars.

The true motivation for the killing may never be known. But both her family and the Taliban suspect a broader, more sinister kidnapping ring has been unearthed. The two men of the house had already been taken in for questioning a week earlier, Taliban police say, on suspicions of child abductions and organ harvesting – and the property was under surveillance when the grim homicide took place.

Henna was apparently suffocated, the side of her neck was severed, and she sustained multiple stab wounds around her abdominal region, as evidenced by pictures of her wounds.

“They tied a scarf around her neck, and then there were at least seven or eight knives to the stomach, possibly trying to remove the organ,” said Taliban Police Commander Mawalwi Tayeb, Head of the Criminal Investigation Department.

As per Islamic custom, she was buried immediately before a proper autopsy and investigation could be conducted.

Yet Tayeb also notes that they are probing the possibility that the “mafia” could also be motivated financially by making “black films” – usually referred to in the west as snuff films – showing the brutal death, which are then disturbingly sold to twisted minds over the internet.

CLICK TO READ MORE ABOUT HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN AFGHANISTAN AND HEENA’S TRAGEDY

AFGHAN WOMEN’S HANDBALL TEAM WAS LEFT BEHIND — AND NOW THEY FEAR FOR THEIR LIVES

While many Afghan women’s and girls’ sports teams fled the country in the weeks following the Taliban’s August 15th take over, a team of handball players has been left behind.

The team tried desperately and fruitlessly to get inside Hamid Karzai International Airport amid the frantic US evacuation, according to team member Soraya Karimi, 25, who was also a law student and rights activist, as well as the proud daughter of a woman police officer. Still, each time they got close to the gates; authorities turned them away.

And over the ensuing weeks, she says, no further assistance efforts have been made.

“The teams of badminton, cricket, football [soccer] league teams, many of them have left. The only team left is us,” Soraya says. “The Afghanistan Handball Federation head was lazy and did nothing to get us out. We tried our best to get evacuated, but we couldn’t get out, and there has since been no correspondence.”

Now, the athletes say they are depressed, anxious, afraid, and unsure — and unable to play the sport they love as they fear for their lives.

“The handball women sports team of Herat is warned to give up exercise and must not do further operations,” cautions the handwritten letter on official Islamic Emirate letterhead. “If this act is repeated, by the Mujahadeen of the Islamic Emirate, you will be severely punished according to Shariah.”

The letter came months after their teammate, national player Nooria Tabesh, was gunned down in her home in the northern province of Sar-e-pul in April. Local reports at the time indicated that the assailant fled to nearby Taliban-controlled pockets.

The International Sports Press Association subsequently condemned the fact that numerous similar incidents had spiked in the beleaguered country, often with no individual or group claiming responsibility and no justice or accountability for the crimes.

“The Taliban says that they have changed, but they have not changed, and they are tracking down (activists and athletes),” said Soraya, sitting alongside her teammates Basira, 18, Anisgul, 19, and Shakiba, 21. “The chief of the Afghan badminton disappeared after the Taliban took over, he has been kidnapped, and we don’t know where he is now. And our teammate was killed during the holy month of Ramadan.”

And on their hurried journey two weeks ago from their homes in Herat to the seemingly safer confines of Kabul — where they aren’t as known by the community and thus face fewer risks — Soraya and her brother were beaten at a Taliban checkpoint at Kandahar. His entire left side seeped purple from the butt of a rifle after the Taliban disapproved of the content on his phone.

Compounding the danger they face in their hometown, the women explained that a famed Herat Malawi — a high-ranking religious scholar — has denounced the young women publicly, stating that they have “no dignity.”

If you are interested in learning more about the aftermath of war, please pick up a copy of my book “Only Cry for the Living: Lessons from Inside the ISIS Battlefield.”

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