Kabul: A fundraiser has been set up to support the People’s Uprising Movement in Herat. Abdul Raziq Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Movement in Herat, told Salamwatandar that the fund had been created spontaneously by the people.
Abdul Raziq Ahmadi adds that the donations collected in this fund will be spent for the frontline fighters, the wounded and the families of the victims of the People’s Uprising Movement. According to him, a number of Herat residents inside and outside the province have already donated to the fund.
The spokesman for the Movement in Herat also said that a number of benefactors inside and outside Herat had also announced their readiness to help. He emphasized that the creation of this fund shows the strong will of the people of Herat to stand against the Taliban and that this resistance will last as long as the Taliban do not make peace.
Meanwhile, Dr. Rangin Dadfar Spanta, an adviser to former President Hamid Karzai, has recently taken over the leadership of the Council for International, Political, Popular and Financial Support of the Popular Resistance Movement led by Mohammad Ismail Khan. However, Abdul Raziq Ahmadi, a spokesman for the People’s Uprising Movement in Herat, said that in addition to Spanta, a number of other Herat figures had taken responsibility for the political and cultural support of the Movement.
Meanwhile, the meeting of the National Mobilization Military Council was held in the presence of the leader of the Islamic Jamiat and the commanders of political parties. In this meeting, the area of responsibility and the lines of each section were identified and divided. Parties and commanders expressed their readiness to carry out their duties and defend the people. The commanders assured the people that they would stand up for their lives to defend Balkh. The parties listed their needs, including tanks and ammunition, and called for their immediate provision.
This comes even as for several days now a campaign has been launched on social networks under the title of “Sanction Pakistan”. A number of high-ranking government officials, including Amrullah Saleh, the first vice-president, have also joined the campaign. Users are urging the United Nations and the international community to boycott Pakistan by using the hashtag #SanctionPakistan. According to social media users, Pakistan supports the Taliban and interferes in Afghanistan, which is why UN sanctions should be imposed on the country.
The campaign was formed ahead of a special UN Security Council meeting on Friday, but resumed on Monday. The campaign hashtag has become a dominant trend on Twitter and Facebook. As of Monday evening, the hashtag had been used about 140,000 times on Twitter and nearly 100,000 times on Facebook.
Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have been strained for months. Officials in Afghanistan accuse Pakistan of openly supporting the Taliban. Islamabad has always denied the allegations and claims to be a supporter of peace and stability in Afghanistan.
In other news, Germany’s defense minister rejected on Monday calls for its soldiers to return to Afghanistan after Taliban insurgents took Kunduz city where German troops were deployed for a decade. Germany had the second largest military contingent in Afghanistan after the United States, losing more troops in combat in Kunduz than anywhere else since World War Two.
The Taliban overran three provincial capitals including Kunduz at the weekend as it pressed an offensive since foreign troops began a withdrawal. “The reports from Kunduz and from all over Afghanistan are bitter and hurt a lot,” Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said on Twitter. “Are society and parliament prepared to send the armed forces into a war and remain there with lots of troops for at least a generation? If we are not, then the joint withdrawal with the partners remains the right decision.”
Meanwhile, on the other hand, Dr. Wahid Majrooh, Acting Minister of Public Health, met Filipe Ribeiro, the Afghanistan representative for Doctors Without Borders, at his office to discuss humanitarian assistance during the violent times. In this meeting, there was a discussion on how to provide the services of Doctors Without Borders in the country and the joint cooperation of the Ministry of Public Health with this institution.
The Acting Minister of Public Health thanked Médecins Sans Frontières for its services and all the doctors currently serving in the war-torn provinces, and stressed the need to strengthen the organization’s cooperation in Afghanistan.
Dr. Majrooh also said that in addition to dealing with trauma cases, daily activities in the health centers of war-torn provinces should be strengthened. Ribeiro, emphasizing on the cooperation of this organization with the Ministry of Public Health, said that they are going to establish a 25-bed unit for trauma cases in Kandahar province and also to Kunduz, Helmand and other provinces where this organization provides services Medication and assistive equipment.
Filipe also pledged to continue emergency services for children and corona in Herat province. He also thanked the Ministry of Public Health for its cooperation with the organization and praised the efforts of the health sector in providing health services. Médecins Sans Frontières operates in Khost, Herat, Kandahar, Helmand and Kunduz provinces and provides health services to the public alongside the Ministry of Public Health.
