For years, Zebulon Simentov branded himself as the “last Jew of Afghanistan.” He charged reporters for interviews and held court in Kabul’s only remaining synagogue. He left the country last month for Istanbul after the Taliban seized power.

Now it appears he was not the last one.

Simentov’s distant cousin, Tova Moradi, was born and raised in Kabul and lived there until last week. Fearing for their safety, Moradi, her children and nearly two dozen grandchildren fled the country in recent weeks in an escape orchestrated by an Israeli aid group, activists and prominent Jewish philanthropists.

“I loved my country, loved it very much, but had to leave because my children were in danger,” Moradi told The Associated Press from her modest quarters in the Albanian town of Golem, whose beachside resorts have been converted to makeshift homes for some 2,000 Afghan refugees.

Moradi, 83, was one of 10 children born to a Jewish family in Kabul. At the age of 16, she ran away from home and married a Muslim man. She never converted to Islam, maintained some Jewish traditions, and it was no secret that she was Jewish.

“She never denied her Judaism, she just got married in order to save her life as you cannot be safe as a young girl in Afghanistan,” her daughter, Khorshid, told the AP from her home in Canada, where she and three of her siblings moved after the Taliban first seized power in Afghanistan in the 1990s.

Despite friction over her decision to marry outside the faith, Moradi stayed in touch with some of her family over the years. Her parents and siblings fled Afghanistan in the 1960s and 1980s. Her parents are buried at Jerusalem’s Har Menuhot cemetery, and many of her surviving siblings and their descendants live in Israel.

But until this week, she had not spoken to some of her sisters in over half a century.

“Yesterday, I saw my sisters, nieces and nephews after around 60 years through a video call. We spoke for hours,” Moradi said. “I was really happy, I saw their children and they met mine.”

“They said ‘it’s like she came back from the grave,’” Khorshid said.

During the first period of Taliban rule, from 1996 until the 2001 US-led invasion, Moradi tried to maintain a low profile. But she risked her life by hiding Rabbi Isaak Levi, one of the few remaining Afghan Jews, from the Taliban.

Levi and Simentov lived together for years in the decrepit synagogue in Kabul but famously despised one another and fought often. The Taliban usually left them alone, but intervened during one such dispute, arresting them, beating them and confiscating the synagogue’s ancient Torah scroll.

IsraAid CEO Yotam Polizer said the organisation, which has provided relief after disasters such as the Japanese tsunami in 2011 and the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, had already extracted the Afghan women’s cycling team and dozens of other Afghans from the country when it heard about Moradi and her family.

He said Afghan diplomats overseas, Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s office, and Jewish businessmen. worked together to get them out.

Now, Moradi and six of her relatives are in Albania, and another 25 relatives made it to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates earlier this week. They hope to secure passage to Canada to reunite with her children who live there.

At least 100 people have been killed or wounded in an explosion targeting Shiite Muslims at a mosque in northern Afghanistan, according to a Taliban police official.

Dost Mohammad Obaida said the “majority of them have been killed”.

The blast occurred during the Friday prayer service at the Gozar-e-Sayed Abad Mosque in Kunduz province, when members of the Shiite minority typically go in large numbers for worship.

If confirmed, the death toll would be the highest in an attack by militants since US and Nato troops left Afghanistan at the end of August and the Taliban took control.

Witness Ali Reza said he was praying at the time of the explosion and reported seeing many casualties.

Taliban chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Taliban special forces had arrived at the scene and were investigating the incident.

The cause of the blast was not immediately clear. No group has claimed responsibility.

The Taliban leadership has been grappling with a growing threat from the local affiliate of the so-called Islamic State group, known as the Islamic State in Khorasan.

IS militants have ramped up attacks to target their rivals, including two deadly bombings in Kabul.

IS has also targeted Afghanistan’s religious minorities in attacks.

An Afghan interpreter has pleaded with the UK Government to help the families “who offered their sons when your sons needed help” in the fight against terror.

The 35-year-old man and his brother started helping British forces when he was just 17 before emigrating to the UK in 2011.

Although he is now a British citizen, his brother and parents remain trapped in Kabul as the Taliban move to complete their lightning quick takeover of the country.

The interpreter, who gave his name only as Mr Hottak to protect his family’s identity, is now planning a protest outside Parliament on Wednesday to demand the UK offer asylum to all interpreters and their families.

He told the PA news agency: “That nation (Afghanistan) had lost all hope when it was under the Taliban regime, they were only alive, they weren’t living.

“But the international community came, they gave them hope, they gave them dreams, they started living with humanity, and then suddenly you pull out the rug from under their feet and leave them alone like that.

“To the audience here in the UK please, support these interpreters and their families, their parents, their siblings, those who have offered their sons when your sons needed help.

“We supported you in that war against terror, many of us carry mental and physical scars.

“Our parents and our families have supported us against all the odds and against all our relatives who were against aiding the Americans in that country.”

The interpreter said that only today the father of a fellow interpreter in Paktia province was shot dead in front of his family when he refused to reveal the whereabouts of his son.

His own parents are currently in hiding while his brother – having finally been granted asylum in Britain – is desperately trying to get a flight out of Kabul.

“My parents are among the victims who gave two of their sons to the British forces to do work alongside them in the war against terror and today they are left behind to face the cruelty and brutality of the Taliban,” Mr Hottak said.

When asked if he had faith in the Taliban’s promises that human rights would be respected, he replied: “Do you think that’s fair that you are giving people the choice of either leave the country or we will butcher you? Do you think that’s a fair deal to strike with the Taliban?”

Mr Hottak continued: “The Americans betrayed us – toppling our entire system and blaming the Afghan nation for it, saying that we should fight.

“How would you fight a zombie group that all they know is to kill?”

Appealing to the British people, Mr Hottak said: “I don’t want you to be in my shoes but for a second just think how would you feel knowing that your parents, your siblings, could be killed for the crimes that you have committed?”

He added: “Your crime is serving your country, fighting against terrorism, but today the international community are running away and leaving your parents behind.

“There is nothing that I as an individual can do, but as a UK citizen I have the right to ask ‘do not leave me to suffer like this, bring my loved ones here with me’.”

Mr Hottak is being supported in his campaign by Afghanistan veteran Major Andrew Fox, who served three tours in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2010 with the Royal Welsh and later the Parachute regiment.

Major Fox, 42, said any promises from the Taliban not to take revenge against those that had helped the British and Americans as “pure lies”.

“They are monsters and they are simply trying to get the west on side with their takeover,” he said.

“What they are saying doesn’t match anything at all that I am hearing about on the ground and people messaging me from Afghanistan,” Major Fox said.

“They are going door-to-door, they are threatening people, they are calling them up and saying they are going to hunt them down, they are passing messages saying, ‘we are coming back once the Americans have left’.”

He added: “I’ve seen images of soldiers executed on their doorsteps and units that have tried to surrender being executed to a man.

“So their words and their actions in no way line up. I don’t believe a word they are saying, they are monsters and they are simply trying to get us onside.”

Major Fox said it was imperative to keep the issue of evacuating interpreters and their families uppermost in MPs’ minds as they reconvene to debate the Afghan crisis on Wednesday afternoon.

“I think the Government are going to do their best, it is a really fiendishly complicated situation in Afghanistan,” he said.

He added: “It is something that needs resolving and we can’t just walk away from a moral obligation – we have to do everything we can to get as many people out as possible.”

The protest is due to take place at Parliament Square at 10am.

Read More: Afghan Interpreters Who Fought With Us Have Been Let Down

The so-called Islamic State terror group has attacked the Afghan capital with a barrage of mortar shells, killing at least one civilian and wounding a second.

The extremist group said it was behind the violence on its affiliated Amaq News website, saying it fired 10 Katyusha rockets towards Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport.

Three shells hit the airport early on Saturday morning, slightly damaging a Kam Air aircraft.

Kam Air, which provides domestic and international flights, was Afghanistan’s first privately-owned airline when it began operating in 2003.

A window of one of the aircraft parked at the airport was damaged by a ricocheting piece of a shell, according to an airport official. No-one was hurt and the aircraft was empty at the time.

The 10 shells were fired from a vehicle parked on the northern edge of the capital, with several rounds landing in residential areas of the city.

Afghanistan’s Islamic State affiliate has carried out similar attacks in the past, including last month when it claimed credit for firing two dozen mortar rounds that killed eight civilians and wounded 31.

It also claimed the killing earlier this week of Afghan journalist Malala Maiwand in eastern Nangrahar province.

Read More: Afghan translators who fought with us have been let down

The Trump administration is expected to cut the number of US troops in Afghanistan almost in half to 2,500 by January 15, an official has said.

The order would stop short of outgoing President Donald Trump’s goal to have all troops withdrawn by the end of the year, which had faced opposition from military and diplomatic advisers.

The Pentagon also expects to cut the number of troops in Iraq to 2,500, a reduction of more than 500. The decisions come as no surprise, following Mr Trump’s shake-up of the Pentagon leadership last week in which he installed loyalists who share his frustration with the continued troop presence in the war zones.

The cuts give Mr Trump an accomplishment in his final weeks in office even as he refuses to concede his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

The official said military leaders were told over the weekend about the planned withdrawals and an executive order is in the works but has not yet been delivered to commanders.

There are between 4,500-5,000 troops in Afghanistan now, and more than 3,000 in Iraq.

Under the planned order, the troop cuts would be completed just five days before Mr Biden takes office, leaving him with a smaller military footprint in the two key war zones.

Mr Trump’s new Pentagon chief, Christopher Miller, hinted at the troop withdrawals over the weekend in a carefully worded message to the force that suggested compromise.

He said that “we remain committed to finishing the war that al Qaida brought to our shores in 2001″. And he warned that “we must avoid our past strategic error of failing to see the fight through to the finish”.

But he also made it clear that “all wars must end”.

“This fight has been long, our sacrifices have been enormous and many are weary of war – I’m one of them,” he said. “Ending wars requires compromise and partnership. We met the challenge; we gave it our all. Now, it’s time to come home.”

The accelerated withdrawal, however, goes against the long-standing advice from Mr Trump’s military leadership, including marine general Frank McKenzie, top US commander for the Middle East. But officials suggested this week that commanders will be able to live with the partial pull-out, which allows them to keep counter-terrorism troops in Afghanistan and gives more time to remove critical equipment.

Mr McKenzie and others have repeatedly argued that a hasty withdrawal could undercut negotiations to finalise ongoing peace negotiations between the Taliban and representatives of Afghan society, including the current Afghan government. And they also warn that US forces should remain in the country to keep militants from the so-called Islamic State in check.

Read More: Significant changes due to the Afghanistan locally employed staff ex-gratia scheme or ‘Afghan Interpreters Scheme’. 

We have long campaigned on the case of Mohammed Nabi Wardak, an Afghan military translator who saw action in Helmand with British forces when our troops were in-country and in the midst of controlling the violence and terrorism associated with the Taliban.

Our work rallied the Sun newspaper, as well as others, in highlighting the case of ‘Nabi’ and those Afghan interpreters who risked their lives to ensure the safety and security of residents in Helmand, which during 2009-2011, saw some of the worst attacks against civilians and British forces in the region.

After 3 years of work on highlighting Nabi’s case and advocating for changes to this Scheme, the Government has listened and made some significant changes which means that more former Afghan translators meet the criteria for possible resettlement into the United Kingdom.

The crux of the changes are these:

–        In 2018, the Defence Secretary announced that the criteria for the Afghan Locally Employed Ex-Gratia Scheme was expanded to include all Afghan interpreters who served for a year or more on the frontline in Helmand from May 2006. They were eligible for relocation to the United Kingdom if they met these basic criteria and these guidelines were a further enhancement on the initial parameters of the scheme which stipulated that only those Afghan personnel serving on the 19^th of December 2012, and who were made redundant, were eligible for relocation. It was a significant expansion of the scheme, though there was one caveat. That caveat was that any personnel who were dismissed or resigned would not be eligible and the scheme therefore only included those made redundant.

–        Lobbying by many agencies, including Faith Matters, has led to a further change to the Ex-Gratia Scheme (EGS) and we are grateful to the Government’s change in position and for the willingness to understand that the lives of wider numbers of former Afghan personnel are at stake, particularly with the Taliban vying for governmental positions in a peace agreement in Afghanistan.

–        Last month, a further change to the EGS was made. The Defence Secretary and the Home Secretary extended the Scheme again. In a letter to Faith Matters, the text highlighted that Locally Employed Afghan Civilians who also resigned from service would be included for resettlement. The relevant text is outlined below:

“As such, the criteria now require either that the applicant was made redundant on or after 01 May 2006 with 12 months or more service outside the wire on the frontline in Helmand, or that the applicant resigned on or after 01 May 2006 with 18 months or more service outside the wire on the frontline in Helmand. If a former LEC meets these new criteria, they will be eligible for relocation.”

These changes mean that Mohammed Nabi Wardak’s case meets these criteria and he could, (after 4 years of having left Afghanistan), finally be able to enter the United Kingdom with his family.

Nabi has not seen his family since he fled Afghanistan and he resigned because of multiple Taliban threats to his life for supporting and assisting the British army in Afghanistan. These threats were played out with an attempted kidnap attempt against him in broad daylight. If the perpetrators had managed to kidnap him, Nabi’s fate would certainly have been an execution by the Taliban for helping British forces.

We remember asking Nabi why he joined as a military interpreter and his answer was simple; he said “I thought that the British could make a better Afghanistan, where girls could go to school and we could not live in fear”.

Nabi fled Afghanistan after multiple threats to his life in-country. He travelled to Turkey and his labour was brutally exploited since he had no means of support. He then followed the route that Syrian refugees were taking to get into Europe to seek asylum, which he did, only to be arrested and thrown into jail. He was eventually released and left destitute on the streets of Athens where he slept on park benches and ate and drunk what members of the public could give him. The excruciating heat of Athens in summer and a lack of public drinking water sources also nearly cost him his life as he was destitute on the streets.

It should never really have reached this point and our country should have opened its doors many years go to people like Nabi who risked their lives for our soldiers. We are now at the final stages for entry of this man and his family into this country. Let us hope that Nabi and his family are with us before Christmas. There is light at the end of this tunnel and about time too.

Read more: Thirteen killed, 120 injured in Afghan car bombing

A suicide attack in Afghanistan’s capital has killed at least 10 people and wounded 20 others, including schoolchildren, the interior ministry said.

The explosion struck outside an education centre in a heavily Shiite neighbourhood of western Kabul.

Interior ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said the attacker was trying to enter the centre when he was stopped by security guards.

No group claimed immediate responsibility for the bombing.

The Taliban rejected any connection with the attack.

An Islamic State affiliate claimed responsibility for a similar suicide attack at an education centre in August 2018, in which 34 students were killed.

Within Afghanistan, IS has launched large-scale attacks on minority Shiites, whom it views as apostates.

The US signed a peace deal with the Taliban in February, opening up a path towards withdrawing American troops from the conflict.

Earlier on Saturday, a roadside bomb killed nine people in eastern Afghanistan after it struck a minivan full of civilians, a local official said.

Ghazni province police spokesman Ahmad Khan Sirat said a second roadside bomb killed two policemen, after it struck their vehicle that was making its way to the victims of the first explosion.

He added that the bombings had wounded several others, and that the attacks were under investigation.

No-one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks.

The provincial police spokesman claimed the Taliban had placed the bomb.

Read: Thirteen killed, over one hundred injured in Afghanistan car bomb blast

A suicide car bombing killed at least 13 people and injured around 120 others in Afghanistan’s western Ghor province on Sunday, officials said.

Mohammad Omer Lalzad, the head of a hospital in Ghor, said emergency staff were treating dozens of people with both serious and light injuries from the bombing. He expected the death toll to rise.

Interior Ministry spokesman Tariq Aran said the bomber struck near the entrance of the provincial police chief’s office and other nearby government buildings in the area.

No-one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes amid an increase in attacks by the Taliban as representatives of the group and Afghan government officials hold their first-ever face-to-face talks in Qatar, where the Taliban have had a political office for many years. The negotiations are meant to end the country’s decades-long war.

Arif Aber, spokesman for the provincial governor in Ghor, said the blast was so strong that its sound could be heard across Feroz Koh, the capital city of the province.

“It damaged and partially destroyed a few government buildings, including the police chief’s office, the women’s affairs department and the provincial office for refugees,” the spokesman said.

On Friday, the Taliban agreed to suspend attacks in southern Afghanistan that had displaced thousands of residents in recent days.

It came after the US vowed to halt all strikes and night raids in keeping with the peace agreement America signed with the Taliban in February.

The US had been carrying out air strikes in support of Afghan forces trying to repel Taliban assaults in Helmand province, which threatened to derail efforts to end Afghanistan’s war.

Jalaluddin Haqqani, founder of the militant Haqqani network, one of the most powerful and feared groups in the Afghan insurgency, has died after a long illness, the Taliban said on Tuesday.

Haqqani, who founded the network in the 1970s, gave up operational leadership of the group some years ago to his son Sirajuddin, who is now deputy leader of the Afghan Taliban, with a $5-million U.S. bounty on his head.

“Haqqani had become quite old and was suffering from different health problems,” said one Taliban source close to the Haqqani family.

The Taliban issued a statement on Haqqani’s death but did not say where or when he died but said he had been ill and bed-ridden for several years.

Defence ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanish said the death was not expected to mean any major change for the Haqqani network, blamed by Afghan and U.S. security officials for some of the most devastating suicide attacks of the past decade.

“Operationally, his death will not have an impact on the group,” he said, adding that Haqqani’s role in recent years was ideological rather than practical.

Haqqani achieved prominence as a guerrilla leader in the U.S.-backed campaign against Soviet forces occupying Afghanistan during the 1980s but later allied himself with the Taliban, fighting American troops after the Taliban were ousted in 2001.

Haqqani is considered to have introduced suicide bombing to Afghanistan, where it was previously unknown, and his group became notorious for complex, well-organised attacks on both Afghan and U.S. military, as well as civilian targets and high-profile kidnappings.

Last year, a bomber believed to have been sent by the network blew himself up in the heart of the government and embassy district in the Afghan capital Kabul, killing about 150 people.

With hopes for peace talks raised by an unprecedented ceasefire in June, news of the death of one of the most notorious militant commanders comes at a sensitive time for both the Taliban and Kabul’s Western-backed government.

Jalaluddin Haqqani’s death has been reported a number of times over recent years and the reports have never been disproved.

A security official in Kabul, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be quoted by name, said Afghan intelligence services believed that Haqqani had in fact died some three years ago.

The official said the announcement of the death should be seen in connection with increased pressure from the United States on Pakistan over U.S. accusations Pakistan is not doing enough to defeat militant groups on its territory.

U.S. and Afghan officials have long said the group was based in Pakistan’s border region of North Waziristan, was for years close to al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden and operated with the support of Pakistani intelligence services.

Pakistan has rejected that accusation and has pointed to the network’s early links to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency as it grew in strength during the anti-Soviet Mujahideen war of the 1980s.

No comment was immediately available from the Pakistan.

A growing number of migrants are finding jobs in Germany, according to data released on Tuesday that will give heart to supporters of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to let in hundreds of thousands of war refugees since 2015.

Figures last week also showed that German companies have managed to attract more apprentices to on-the-job training schemes due to a surge in applications from asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Syria.

The figures will feed into a running debate in Germany on the impact of Merkel’s decision in 2015 to open German borders to more than a million migrants, many of them refugees from war zones in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

Critics including the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party have said the new arrivals will be a burden on Germany’s welfare system and economy.

But the head of Germany’s Labour Office, Detlef Scheele, told dpa news agency there was no reason to be overly pessimistic about the country’s ability to cope with the record number of arrivals.

“This is all going pretty well,” he said, adding that the numbers were slightly better than expected. “These are good numbers, also taking into account that the people came here for humanitarian reasons and not for finding a job,” Scheele added.

The number of employed migrants from the eight countries with the biggest numbers of asylum seekers surged by more than 100,000 to 306,574 in May compared with the same month in the previous year, data from the Labour Office showed.

SKILLED LABOUR SHORTAGE

Among those, roughly three out of four had a labour contract in which the company and the employee were paying full contributions to social insurance schemes, the data showed.

There were roughly 500,000 people from the eight main asylum seeker countries who were registered as looking for work in July, the data showed. This includes people who are currently completing an integration and language course.

Among those, nearly 197,000 people were registered as unemployed which is roughly in line with the level seen a year earlier, the data showed.

Shortages of skilled labour and a lack of young people willing to commit to on-the-job training for up to 3 1/2 years have become big concerns for managers in Europe’s largest economy.

Vacancies for training positions have reached their highest level in more than 20 years with more than a third of companies unable to fill all of their training spots.

The number of new arrivals in Germany has fallen sharply this year, partly due to stricter border controls across Europe as well as tighter asylum rules in Germany and other countries.

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