Taliban attempt to ease woes tied to food supply

As group seeks legitimacy, attacks on journalists noted

The Taliban government has cut import duties on food staples as it grapples with soaring prices and a cash crunch that have made it more difficult for Afghans to feed their families just as a bitter winter looms.

Afghanistan has often struggled with soaring food prices caused by shortages and supply-chain problems, posing a major issue for the Taliban, who swept into power in August as U.S. troops were exiting. The country depends largely on imports and foreign aid for its food supply.

The Finance Ministry cut the import tariffs for a ton of flour to about $11 from almost three times that, for instance, spokesman Ahmad Wali Haqmal said.

Afghanistan brings in more than half of its food needs from neighboring countries, in particular Pakistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, Haqmal said. The country is also a significant rice buyer, consuming about 600,000 tons annually, he added.

Some of the imports were smuggled in to avoid duties, with some customs officials getting bribed to help, Haqmal said. The Taliban were working to stop the corruption, and as a result, tax revenue has doubled to $4 million a day compared with last month, he added.

Much is at stake for the Taliban and Afghanistan as the winter approaches. A United Nations report this week warned that more than half of Afghanistan's population would face acute hunger as of next month, driven by a deepening economic crisis.

The 22.8 million people at risk is the highest in the 10 years since the data was compiled, the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization said. That's 37% higher than the previous assessment in April, before the Taliban took power.

In a bid to address the problem, the Taliban unveiled a "food-for-work" program this week in Kabul. The plan was to give 40,000 people jobs that would be paid with bags of wheat, the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock said.

Also Wednesday, a media watchdog said it had recorded more than 30 instances of violence and threats of violence against Afghan journalists over the past two months, with nearly 90% committed by the Taliban.

More than 40% of the cases recorded by The Afghanistan National Journalists Union were physical beatings and another 40% were verbal threats of violence, said Masorro Lutfi, the group's head. The remainder involved cases in which journalists were imprisoned for a day.

One journalist was killed.

The report comes as Afghanistan's Taliban rulers attempt to open diplomatic channels with an international community largely reluctant to formally recognize their rule. They are trying to position themselves as responsible rulers, who promise security for all.

Taliban deputy cultural and information minister and spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told The Associated Press they are aware of the cases of violence toward journalists and are investigating in order to punish the perpetrators.

"The new transition and unprofessionalism of our friends caused it," said Mujahid, promising the problem will be solved.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for an attack by gunmen in early October in which journalist Sayed Maroof Sadat was killed in eastern Nangarhar province along with his cousin and two Taliban members.

In another related development Wednesday, NATO offered an early look at a post-mortem on its operations in Afghanistan, say the bloc became a victim of "mission creep" as the military organization allowed itself to be dragged into helping rebuild the impoverished, conflict-torn country.

Assistant Secretary-General for Operations John Manza and NATO's 30 deputy national envoys are compiling a report on almost two decades of work in Afghanistan. They were tasked with the job after the Afghan president fled and the NATO-trained Afghan army collapsed when President Joe Biden announced that he was pulling U.S. troops out, paving the way for the Taliban to seize power.

Manza explained that it initially had around 5,000 troops based mostly in and around the capital Kabul, but that within 3 years its focus shifted to "tackling the root causes of terrorism" by helping to rebuild a landlocked country riven by ethnic and tribal divisions and with a poorly educated population.

NATO troop numbers increased to around 60,000 by 2006, with military-civilian teams spread around the largely lawless country trying to foster economic growth and better governance in almost every province.

"This really substantial increase did not have the desired effects," Manza said. "The insurgency was still gaining strength. The nation was still suffering greatly from corruption and governmental performance was not improving."

Manza said: "you have to ask, and we've been asking this a lot in the committee I chair, were these goals realistic that we had at the time?" He said that even though the international community did not appear to be achieving its goals, "our response to the poor progress ... was to do more."

Information for this article was contributed by Eltaf Najafizada of Bloomberg News; and by Tameem Akhgar and Lorne Cook of The Associated Press.

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