Tag Archives: Afghanistan

U.S. probing Afghan-born bomber’s motive, foreign travel

A still image captured from a video from WABC television shows a conscious man believed to be New York bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami being loaded into an ambulance after a shoot-out with police in New Jersey

By Joseph Ax and Mica Rosenberg

LINDEN, N.J. (Reuters) – U.S. investigators were looking on Tuesday for clues to why an Afghanistan-born man might have planted bombs around the New York area over the weekend, including whether the suspect had accomplices or was radicalized overseas.

Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, was arrested on Monday in Linden, New Jersey, after a gun battle with police. They were summoned by a neighborhood bar owner who thought the bearded man sleeping against his closed tavern’s front door in pouring rain resembled the bombing suspect.

Rahami and two police officers were wounded in the exchange of gunfire.

The events put New York on edge and fueled the debate about U.S. security seven weeks before the presidential election, with candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton clashing once again on Monday.

Rahami was suspected of a spate of weekend bombings, including a blast in New York’s crowded Chelsea neighborhood that wounded 29 people, and two in suburban New Jersey that caused no injuries.

He lived with his family above the First American Fried Chicken restaurant in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

The suspect’s foreign trips were coming under scrutiny, with U.S. media reporting that he had traveled to Pakistan and his native Afghanistan multiple times. Police were looking into whether he was radicalized during that time.

U.S. security sources have confirmed that Rahami underwent secondary screening after returning from foreign travel in recent years and passed on every occasion.

Travelers coming from Afghanistan and Pakistan, which both have a strong Taliban presence, are routinely required to undergo secondary screening.

“There could have been a more intensive holding and screening in that situation,” U.S. Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine, told CNN. “The problem is what happened next didn’t really go into any depth.”

Rahami’s wife left the United States a few days before the bombings, CNN reported on Tuesday, citing a law enforcement source.

‘ACT OF TERROR’

Authorities did not offer any immediate information on the possible motives of Rahami, whom Union County prosecutors charged with five counts of attempted murder in the first degree and two second-degree weapons charges.

He was in critical but stable condition as a result of his wounds, and police had not yet been able to interview him in depth, New York Police Department Commissioner James O’Neill said on Tuesday.

O’Neill, who was sworn in as commissioner on Monday, said he was encouraged that officers found Rahami hiding alone.

“It’s a good sign that we found him in a doorway,” O’Neill told CBS “This Morning.” “Hopefully that means he had nowhere to go.”

More charges were expected to be brought against Rahami in federal court. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called the Saturday night bombing “an act of terror.”

Rahami is also suspected of planting a bomb that exploded on the New Jersey shore on Saturday, a device found near the New York blast, and up to six more devices found near the Elizabeth train station on Sunday night.

All of the people injured in Saturday night’s blast have been released from hospitals.The bombings and subsequent manhunt prompted even greater security in New York. The largest U.S. city was already on high alert for a gathering of world leaders at the United Nations in New York for the annual General Assembly this week. An additional 1,000 officers were deployed.

The blasts, the manhunt and an apparently unrelated stabbing attack in Minnesota over the weekend created tensions similar to those that followed other recent attacks, such as the mass shootings in Orlando and San Bernardino, California.

The Minnesota attacker was described a “soldier of the Islamic State,” the militant group’s news agency said.

Rahami had not previously been identified as dangerous, but Elizabeth police knew of his family because of late-night noise and crowd complaints at its halal chicken restaurant.

(Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball, Julia Edwards, Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu in Washington; Roberta Rampton, Hilary Russ and Daniel Trotta in New York, Roselle Chen in Linden, New Jersey, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles.; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Gunmen attack American university in Kabul, students flee

A wounded man lies inside an ambulance following an attack at American University of Afghanistan in Kabul, Afghanistan

By Hamid Shalizi

KABUL (Reuters) – Suspected militants stormed the Kabul campus of the American University of Afghanistan on Wednesday with some students jumping from second floor windows to escape the gunfire and explosions, witnesses and officials said.

Foreign staff and dozens of pupils were trapped in the compound hours after the attack began at about 6:30 p.m. (10 a.m. ET).

News of casualties was sketchy, but the head of hospitals in the Afghan capital said at least one person had been killed and 14 students wounded in the assault.

“Many students jumped from the second floor, some broke their legs and some hurt their head trying to escape,” Abdullah Fahimi, a student who escaped, told Reuters. He injured his ankle making the leap.

“We were in the class when we heard a loud explosion followed by gunfire. It was very close. Some students were crying, others were screaming.”

A senior interior ministry official said that elite Afghan forces had surrounded the university and witnesses at the scene said special forces had entered the walled compound where gunfire that had lasted for more than an hour had since stopped.

“There are two gunmen hiding inside the building and a clearing operation is ongoing to eliminate them,” interior ministry spokesman, Sediq Sediqqi, said.

CAR BOMB

Ahmad Mukhtar, another student who fled the scene, said the gunmen had got into the university buildings despite security measures including three or four armed guards and watchtowers.

He added that he believed the attack had started at the main gate into the compound.

“I finished my class and was about to leave when I heard a few gunshots and a huge explosion, followed by more gunfire,” he said. “I ran toward the emergency exit with other students, climbed the wall and jumped outside.”

Kabul police chief, Abdul Rahman Rahimi, told Reuters that the attack began with a car bomb and several attackers had entered the campus.

Islamist militant groups, mainly the Afghan Taliban and a local offshoot of Islamic State, have claimed a string of recent atrocities aimed at destabilizing the country and toppling the Western-backed government of President Ashraf Ghani.

No one has claimed the university attack.

It is the second time this month that the university or its staff have been targeted.

Two teachers, an American and an Australian, remain missing after being abducted at gunpoint from a road nearby on Aug. 7.

Taliban insurgents control large swathes of Afghanistan, and local armed forces are struggling to contain them, especially in the provinces of Helmand to the south and Kunduz to the north.

NATO ended its combat mission in December 2014, but thousands of troops remain to train and assist Afghan forces, while several thousand more U.S. soldiers are engaged in a separate mission focusing on al Qaeda and Islamic State.

(Writing by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Louise Ireland)

U.S. says 300 Islamic State fighters killed in Afghan operation

U.S. troops arrive at the site of an explosion in Kabul

By Sanjeev Miglani

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Afghan forces, backed by the United States, have killed an estimated 300 Islamic State fighters in an operation mounted two weeks ago, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan said on Wednesday, calling it a severe blow to the group.

General John Nicholson said the offensive in the eastern province of Nangarhar was part of U.S. operations to degrade the capabilities of Islamic State wherever it raised its head, whether in Iraq and Syria or in Afghanistan.

The group, believed to be confined to three or four of the more than 400 districts in Afghanistan, last month claimed responsibility for bombing a demonstration by the Shi’ite Hazara minority in the capital, Kabul, in which at least 80 people were killed.

Nicholson, in New Delhi for talks with the Indian military which has provided training and some arms to Afghanistan, said Afghan forces supported by the United States had just carried out a counter-terrorism operation against Islamic State.

“They killed a number of top leaders of the organization and upto 300 of their fighters,” he told reporters.

“Obviously it’s difficult to get an exact count, but what this amounts to is about 25 percent of the organization at least, and so this represents a severe setback for them.”

Islamic State first appeared in Afghanistan at the beginning of 2015, and had about 3,000 fighters at the height of the movement, many of them former members of militant groups such as the Pakistani Taliban and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

Previously considered a much smaller threat than its bitter enemies the Taliban, the group’s bomb attack in Kabul underlined how dangerous it could be, even without holding large tracts of territory.

On Tuesday, another U.S. military official said American soldiers helping Afghan troops fight Islamic State in Nangarhar were forced to abandon equipment and weapons when their position came under fire.

Fighters from the group had circulated photographs of a rocket launcher, grenades, ammunition, identification cards, an encrypted radio and other equipment they said they had seized.

By being more aggressive, the Afghan military were more successful this year against the Taliban than in 2015, when they lost 5,000 men, Nicholson said.

The killing of Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Akhtar Mansour in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan had been a greater blow to the group than they had let on, partly because the Taliban were having trouble getting control of the finances he dealt with, Nicholson said.

(Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Civilian casualties increase as Afghanistan troops battle Taliban

Broken glass and debris are seen inside a resturant a day after a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan

By Josh Smith

KABUL (Reuters) – Civilians are being killed and wounded in record numbers in Afghanistan, the United Nations reported on Monday, just days after one of the deadliest attacks ever in Kabul.

Overall at least 1,601 civilians were killed and 3,565 wounded in the war in the first six months of 2016, the United Nations reported, as insurgent groups like the Taliban try to topple the government installed in Kabul after the 2001 U.S.-led military intervention.

Anti-government groups, the largest of which is the Taliban, accounted for at least 60 percent of non-combatants killed and wounded.

Twin blasts on Saturday were claimed by Islamic State militants and killed at least 80 people and injured more than 230, most of them civilians.

Those numbers are not included in the U.N. report, but the attack highlighted its finding that suicide bombings and complex attacks are now harming more civilians than are roadside bombs.

Casualties caused by pro-government forces increased 47 percent over the same period last year, the United Nations said.

Afghan forces were responsible for 22 percent of casualties overall, and the international troops remaining in the country caused 2 percent, while 17 percent could not be attributed to one side or the other.

For the first time, the Afghan air force killed or wounded more civilians in its operations than did air strikes carried out by international forces, the United Nations reported.

U.N. officials said they had heard more commitments by both sides, but few effective actions to improve protection of civilians.

“Every civilian casualty represents a failure of commitment and should be a call to action for parties to the conflict to take meaningful, concrete steps to reduce civilians’ suffering and increase protection,” Tadamichi Yamamoto, the top U.N. official in Afghanistan, said in the report.

“Platitudes not backed by meaningful action ring hollow over time. History and the collective memory of the Afghan people will judge leaders of all parties to this conflict by their actual conduct.”

‘INDISCRIMINATE TACTICS’

More than 1,500 children were killed and wounded by the war, in the highest toll ever recorded in a six-month period by the United Nations.

Most civilians were caught up in ground clashes between the two sides as the Taliban increasingly threatened population centers and government troops went on the offensive following the withdrawal of most international combat troops in 2014.

Ground engagements accounted for 38 percent of casualties, followed by complex and suicide attacks at 20 percent, U.N. investigators found.

Casualties caused by roadside bombs decreased dramatically, by 21 percent, a drop the United Nations attributed to changes in the nature of the conflict, as well as better bomb-detection by the government.

The report was sharply critical of the Taliban, who “continued using indiscriminate tactics, including carrying out devastating complex and suicide attacks in civilian areas”.

Islamic State, a group that has made some limited inroads in Afghanistan, accounted for 122 casualties in the first six months of 2016 compared with 13 casualties attributed to it in the same period last year.

The increasing number of casualties caused by the government, meanwhile, was largely due to wide use of heavy explosives during ground battles, investigators reported.

Aerial operations by the Afghan air force in 2016 caused more than triple the number of civilian casualties during the same period in 2015, according to the report, as new aircraft and weapons were deployed.

At least 111 civilians, 85 of them women or children, were killed or wounded by Afghan helicopters and warplanes.

On June 13, for example, Afghan helicopters fired rockets and machine guns at a funeral ceremony for a Taliban member, killing or wounding at least 15 women and children, alongside insurgents, investigators found.

U.N. officials called for an immediate halt to the use of air strikes in populated areas and urged Afghan air crews to use “greater restraint”.

While international forces declared their combat mission over at the end of 2014, they continue to conduct air strikes and special operations missions.

Air strikes by international forces, comprised mostly of American warplanes, caused 38 deaths and 12 injuries among civilians, the U.N. reported.

(Reporting by Josh Smith; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Separate bomb attacks kill at least 22 in Afghanistan

Officials cleaning the site of the bombing June 20 2016

By Mirwais Harooni

KABUL (Reuters) – More than 20 people were killed in separate bomb attacks in Afghanistan on Monday, including at least 14 when a suicide bomber struck a minibus carrying Nepali security contractors in the capital Kabul, officials said.

A Reuters witness saw several apparently dead victims and at least two wounded being carried out of the remains of a yellow bus after the suicide bomber struck the vehicle in the capital.

Hours later, a bomb planted in a motorbike killed at least eight civilians and wounded another 18 in a crowded market in the northern province of Badakhshan, said provincial government spokesman Naveed Frotan. The casualty count could rise, he said.

The attacks are the latest in a surge of violence that highlights the challenges faced by the government in Kabul and its Western backers as Washington considers whether to delay plans to cut the number of its troops in Afghanistan.

Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said on Twitter that 14 people had been killed and eight wounded in the attack in Kabul. Police were working to identify the victims, he said.

The casualties appeared to include Afghan civilians and Nepali security contractors, Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi said, after police and emergency vehicles surrounded the scene in the Banae district in the east of the city.

He said the suicide bomber had waited near a compound housing the security contractors and struck as the vehicle moved through early morning traffic. Besides the bus passengers, several people in an adjacent market were also wounded in the attack during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the Kabul attack in a statement from the Islamist group’s main spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, on Twitter. However it denied responsibility for the attack in Badakhshan.

Islamic State, which is bitterly opposed by the Taliban, said it carried out the Kabul attack but Zabihullah Mujahid dismissed the claim as “rubbish”.

“By organizing this attack, we wanted to show Americans and NATO military officials that we can conduct attacks wherever, and whenever, we want,” the Taliban spokesman said.

The Nepal government was still working through its embassy in Pakistan, which also oversees Afghanistan, to verify reports that its citizens were involved in the attack, Foreign Ministry spokesman Bharat Paudel said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent his condolences to his two South Asian neighbors after the attack.

“We strongly condemn the horrible tragedy in Kabul. Our deep condolences to people and governments of Afghanistan and Nepal on loss of innocent lives,” Modi said on Twitter.

Another explosion in Kabul later on Monday morning wounded a provincial council member and at least three of his bodyguards, Kabul police spokesman Basir Mujahid said. It was thought a bomb had been attached to the lawmaker’s car, he said.

The attacks underlined how serious the security threat facing Afghanistan remains since former Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a U.S. drone strike last month and was replaced by Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada.

The blasts follow a deadly suicide attack on a bus carrying justice ministry staff near Kabul last month and a separate attack on a court in the central city of Ghazni on June 1.

The Taliban claimed both those attacks in revenge for the execution of six Taliban prisoners.

(Reporting by Mirwais Harooni and Hamid Shalizi; Additional reporting by Gopal Sharma in KATHMANDU and Jibran Ahmad in PESHAWAR; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Paul Tait and Clarence Fernandez)

Wife of Orlando shooter could face charges soon

Gunshot survivor Angel Santiago recounts his story at a news conference at Florida Hospital Orlando on the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando

By Letitia Stein and Julia Edwards

ORLANDO, Fla./WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The wife of the gunman who killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub could face criminal charges as early as Wednesday after a federal grand jury was convened to study possible wrongdoing by her, a law enforcement source said.

Omar Mateen’s wife, Noor Salman, knew of his plans for what became the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, said the law enforcement source, who has been briefed on the matter.

U.S. Senator Angus King, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which received a briefing on the investigation into Sunday’s massacre, told CNN it appeared Salman had “some knowledge” of what was going on.

“She definitely is, I guess you would say, a person of interest right now and appears to be cooperating and can provide us with some important information,” King said.

Salman was with Mateen when he cased possible targets in the past two months, including the Disney World resort in April, a shopping complex called Disney Springs and the Pulse nightclub in early June, CNN and NBC reported.

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer was due to open a family assistance center at a stadium on Wednesday where those directly affected by the tragedy will be able to get information, support and other resources, city officials said.

Mateen, who was shot dead by police SWAT team members after a three-hour standoff, called 911 during his rampage to profess allegiance to various militant Islamist groups.

Federal investigators have said he was likely self-radicalized and there was no evidence he received any help or instructions from outside groups such as Islamic State. Mateen, 29, was a U.S. citizen, born in New York of Afghan immigrant parents and worked as a security guard.

“He appears to have been an angry, disturbed, unstable young man who became radicalized,” President Barack Obama told reporters.

Salman’s mother, Ekbal Zahi Salman, lives in a middle-class neighborhood in Rodeo, California, about 25 miles (40 km) north of San Francisco. A neighbor said Noor Salman only visited her mother once after she married Mateen.

Noor Salman’s mother “didn’t like him very much. He didn’t allow her (Noor) to come here,” said neighbor Rajinder Chahal. He said he had spoken to Noor Salman’s mother after the Orlando attack and she “was crying, weeping.”

“I’M NEXT”

Mateen’s rampage at Pulse was systematic as he worked his way through the packed club shooting people who were already down, apparently to ensure they were killed, said Angel Colon, a wounded survivor.

“I look over and he shoots the girl next to me and I was just there laying down and thinking, ‘I’m next, I’m dead,'” he said.

Mateen shot him twice more, one bullet seemingly aimed for Colon’s head striking his hand, and another hitting his hip, Colon said at Orlando Regional Medical Center, where he is one of 27 survivors being treated.

Vigils continued on Tuesday in Orlando. Hundreds of students gathered to pray and sing in the evening at the University of Central Florida. They shone cellphone flashlights during a reading of the names of the dead including two alumni.

The shooting raised questions about how the United States should respond to violent extremists at home and abroad. The Federal Bureau of Investigation questioned Mateen in 2013 and 2014 for suspected ties to Islamist militants but was unable to verify that he posed a threat.

Obama slammed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for his proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States, joining fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton in portraying Trump as unfit for the White House.

Trump criticized Obama for not using the term “radical Islamic terrorism” to describe Islamist militants. Obama replied that using that label would not accomplish anything.

ISLAMIC STATE PLEDGE

Mateen made 911 calls from the club in which he pledged loyalty to the leader of Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, whose organization controls parts of Iraq and Syria.

“We could hear him talking to 911 saying that the reason why he’s doing this is because he wants America to stop bombing his country,” said Patience Carter, 20, who was trapped in a bathroom stall at the nightclub as Mateen prowled outside.

U.S. officials were investigating media reports that Mateen may have been gay but not openly so, and questioning whether that could have driven his attack, according to two people who have been briefed on the investigation and requested anonymity to discuss it.

Barbara Poma, the owner of the Pulse nightclub, speaking through a representative, denied reports Mateen had been a regular patron.

“Untrue and totally ridiculous,” spokeswoman Sara Brady said in an email when asked about the claim.

A former wife of Mateen, Sitora Yusufiy, said her ex-husband had facets of his life that he did not share with his family, such as drinking and going to nightclubs.

“He did have a different side to him that he could not open up to his father about,” Yusufiy told CNN. “It doesn’t surprise me that he might be gay.”

She has previously said he was mentally unstable and beat her and that she fled their home after four months of marriage.

(Additional reporting by Eric Beech in Washington, Barbara Liston, Bernie Woodall and Yara Bayoumy in Orlando, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, Wis., Zachary Fagenson in Port St. Lucie, Fla., and Alexandria Sage in Rodeo, Calif.; Writing by Alistair Bell and Fiona Ortiz; Editing by Dominic Evans and Bill Trott)

U.S. plans billions in Afghan funding until 2020

Graffiti is seen on a wall of the Darul Aman palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, June 5, 2016.

By Josh Smith

KABUL (Reuters) – The United States is asking its allies helping with security in Afghanistan to maintain funding for Afghan forces at a cost of nearly $5 billion a year until at least 2020, a top U.S. military commander said on Monday.

The plan extends the international financial commitment for the foreseeable future at a time when Western leaders have been hoping to reduce Afghanistan’s reliance on foreign military aid.

Military commanders are making the pitch for continued funding ahead of a NATO summit in Warsaw in early July, where the alliance’s leaders will discuss support for the Afghan government, which is struggling to contain a resurgent Taliban insurgency.

“There is strong agreement, certainly from the chiefs of defense, that the support for Afghanistan … needs to continue,” Major General Skip Davis told reporters in Kabul.

“I think there is much more consensus on the fact that stemming extremism here, in the region, is a direct contribution to security in the homeland. There’s a willingness to do what it takes.”

Efforts by Western nations to extract themselves from the war in Afghanistan have been frustrated by high levels of violence.

When they gathered at a similar summit in 2012, NATO members and other nations had planned on slowly reducing financial support for Afghanistan as international troops withdrew.

“Obviously, conditions have changed since decisions were made back in 2012 and 2014,” Davis said.

Under the current funding structure, the United States provides a little more than $3.5 billion a year.

Other countries contribute another $900 million to $1 billion, while the Afghan government pays more than $400 million, a share Davis said was expected to grow.

Commanders say that general level of funding is expected to continue for at least four years.

The funding is based on maintaining a goal of 352,000 Afghan soldiers and police. The official roster currently includes about 320,000 members of the security forces, Davis said.

Among the factors that coalition commanders are considering as they recommend funding and troop levels are the high rates of Afghan casualties, their struggles in training new troops and replacing damaged equipment, and the continuing “fragility” of the national government, Davis said.

“Last year was a big signal that the Afghan army and police need some more time,” he said.

“They are resilient, they fought well and they took on leadership, but at the same time, they had some significant challenges and the Taliban proved much more resilient than we expected and less likely to come to the table for reconciliation.”

(Reporting by Josh Smith; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Embed quickly turns deadly for NPR team in Afghanistan

NPR photojournalist David Gilkey is pictured at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan in this handout photo

By Zainullah Stanekzai

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) – The NPR photojournalist and his Afghan colleague killed in Afghanistan on Sunday died on the first day of an embed with local troops, highlighting the risks for reporters in a country where increasing amounts of territory are off-limits.

Photographer David Gilkey and Zabihullah Tamanna, an Afghan journalist working as a translator, were killed in a Taliban ambush shortly after joining Afghan troops in Helmand province, one of the most volatile areas in the country.

The NPR team, including Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman and producer Monika Evstatieva, had just spent several days with coalition troops, including U.S. special forces, before they went over to an Afghan unit, said Colonel Michael Lawhorn, a spokesman for the NATO-led military coalition.

The team spent Sunday morning in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah interviewing local officials, according to Shakil Ahmad Tasal, a public affairs officer for the 205th Corps who accompanied the NPR team during the drive.

The team carried a letter from the Afghan Ministry of Defence, directing the soldiers to escort them to the town of Marjah, roughly 30 km (18 miles) away, he said.

While Lashkar Gah has remained in government control, some surrounding areas of Helmand have been under serious pressure from Islamist militants from the Taliban insurgency.

Earlier this year in Marjah, U.S. forces conducted several air strikes to help beleaguered Afghan troops, and a U.S. Special Forces soldier was killed and two others were wounded during a Taliban attack.

On Sunday afternoon, a convoy of six lightly armoured Humvees, which also carried an Afghan general, was nearing Marjah when Taliban gunmen opened fire, pelting the vehicles with small arms and rocket fire.

“We were taking very heavy fire,” Tasal told Reuters.

The Humvee carrying Tamanna and Gilkey was hit by a shell and caught fire, killing the journalists and the soldier driving the vehicle, according to witnesses and NPR.

DOZENS FORM GUARD OF HONOR

A gunfight raged for at least 30 minutes before coalition and Afghan aircraft arrived overhead, apparently prompting the Taliban to break off the attack, Tasal said.

The coalition said its aircraft provided surveillance for the Afghans, while attack aircraft were put on standby but never launched.

The other two NPR staffers, traveling in another vehicle, were unharmed.

A veteran photojournalist, Gilkey, 50, had reported from Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001, and won awards for covering veterans issues in the United States and the ebola breakout in Africa.

In a video posted by NPR on May 13, just prior to his departure for Afghanistan, Gilkey described a desire to get close to what is happening.

“What I always try to show in my pictures is what it’s like for the guys on the ground that are having to operate there,” he said.

Like many Afghan journalists who perform the lion’s share of the work covering their country, Tamanna had worked for a variety of foreign outlets, including the Chinese news agency Xinhua and Turkey’s Anadolu News Agency.

Qualified journalists in their own right, Afghans like Tamanna are often contracted to provide translation and other help for foreign reporters.

“He was a very honest, responsible person and loved his country,” Haroon Sabawoon, a friend and business partner, said of Tamanna. “He was very polite, calm and had high hopes for peace and security.”

Tamanna, 38, left behind a wife and three children.

Afghan troops recovered the bodies of the slain journalists and handed them over to coalition forces at Camp Shorab, where the team had just previously been embedded with American troops, Lawhorn said.

“Dozens and dozens” of U.S. troops at the base formed an honor guard, stood to attention and saluted when the journalists’ remains arrived, Bowman reported to NPR.

Coalition CH-47 helicopters then transported them to the base at Kandahar Air Field, Lawhorn said.

(Additional reporting by Josh Smith and Hamid Shalizi in Kabul; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

Finland says refugees can return to Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia

Iraqi refugees returning from Finland arrive at Baghdad airport, Iraq February 18, 2016.

HELSINKI (Reuters) – Finland tightened restrictions on giving residence permits to asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia on Tuesday, saying it was now largely safe for them to return to their war-torn homes.

Authorities in Helsinki, where anti-immigration political groups have been on the rise, said security had improved to such an extent that refugees would generally not be at risk in any parts of the three countries, despite the running conflicts.

There was no immediate reaction from refugee agencies. But the statement by the Finnish Immigration Service came in the face of a string of international assessments of the scale of the ongoing bloodshed and refugee crisis.

“It will be more difficult for applicants from these countries to be granted a residence permit,” the immigration service said in a statement.

“It is currently possible for asylum seekers to return to all areas in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia without the ongoing armed conflicts as such presenting a danger to them only because they are staying in the country.”

Asylum seekers would now only be allowed to stay if they could prove that they were individually at risk.

Somalia has been slowly recovering from more than two decades of war. But the government is still fighting an Islamist insurgency by the militant group al Shabaab, which regularly launches gun and bomb attacks in the capital Mogadishu and other cities.

Islamic State still holds key cities and vast swathes of territory in northern and western Iraq which it seized in 2014.

Despite battlefield setbacks over the past year, the militants have continued to attack civilians in areas under government control including a string of attacks last week in and around the capital that killed more than 100 people.

The Taliban launched a spring offensive in Afghanistan last month, vowing to drive out the Western-backed government in Kabul and restore strict Islamic rule.

Finland’s center-right coalition government – which includes nationalist Finns party – has tightened its immigration policies since the influx of asylum seekers last year.

Groups of self-proclaimed patriots have launched regular patrols and marches, saying they want to protect locals from immigrants.

Around 32,500 people applied for asylum in 2015 from 3,600 in 2014, with most of them coming from Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. Numbers have come down significantly this year.

(Reporting by Jussi Rosendahl; Additional reporting by Edmund Blair in Nairobi, Stephen Kalin in Baghdad; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Killings, Kidnappings and burnout; the hazards of aid work

Red Cross workers assist a collapsed migrant after he crossed Greece's border with Macedonia, in

By Katie Nguyen

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – You’re an aid worker speeding back to base after a long, cold day questioning people who have fled fighting about what they need to survive. Out of nowhere a girl runs into the road and is knocked over by your driver.

Within minutes, your four-wheel drive is surrounded by bystanders. First they shout, then they start banging windows and rocking the vehicle. Before long they prise open the car door and pull your driver out. Some are armed. What do you do?

It’s perhaps the toughest dilemma aid workers face during their brief stint in war-torn “Badistan” – in reality, a training camp in the grounds of a golf course near Gatwick Airport where they are confronted with mass casualties, a minefield and gun battles in various role-play scenarios.

The three-day course run by security risk management company, International Location Safety (ILS), is one of scores aimed at mitigating the risks of working in the field where aid staff kidnappings have quadrupled since 2002.

The perils of the job came under scrutiny in November when a court in Oslo found the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) guilty of gross negligence and awarded damages to a former employee abducted by gunmen from a Kenyan refugee camp in 2012.

It was the first case of its kind to reach a court judgment, igniting debate over whether aid agencies would become more risk-averse as a result.

“There has been an increasing bunkerisation of aid workers who operate out of compounds and are restricted in where they go,” said ILS Managing Director George Shaw.

“It does worry me that it will continue to happen. But that would be a lack of understanding of what the (NRC) ruling means. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do high-risk programs. It means we should do high-risk programs safely.”

NO SUCH THING AS RISK-FREE

Michael O’Neill, a former director of global safety and security at Save the Children International and now deputy chair of INSSA, an international NGO safety and security group, said the NRC case made it clear that organizations could do better.

“It’s not enough just to write (a security risk management system) down on paper. It’s not enough just to say it’s there,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “If it can happen to NRC, then who among us is not vulnerable at some level?”

Convening the first World Humanitarian Summit on the biggest issues facing the delivery of relief, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on warring parties to respect and protect aid workers, as well as the wounded and sick, from attack.

The summit in Istanbul later this month comes as leading aid officials warn of ever-increasing humanitarian needs due to crises ranging from Syria’s conflict to climate change.

The year 2013 was the worst for aid workers with 460 killed, kidnapped or seriously wounded, according to Humanitarian Outcomes which has collected data on the topic since 1997.

Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan and Syria have gained a reputation for being most dangerous for aid workers, with the majority of attacks over the past decade or so occurring there.

Afghanistan alone accounted for 27 percent of those attacks between 2005 and 2014. But Somalia, with fewer aid workers, has seen an even higher rate of violence against humanitarians.

National staff are by far the most vulnerable. In 2014, they accounted for 90 percent of victims, roughly in proportion to their numbers in the field, Humanitarian Outcomes said.

REDUCING THE THREATS

Few believe all risks can be eliminated, but many agree that one of the most important ways to lessen them is to get the support of locals.

Too often aid workers are targeted because they are no longer perceived to be neutral. Wouter Kok, a security adviser for Medecins Sans Frontieres, said assuring all sides in a conflict of the agency’s impartiality is key to its security approach.

“We have to get back to that independence,” said Kok, who works for the Dutch arm of the medical charity.

“What we’ve seen in the last 10 to 20 years is that belligerents have tried to use humanitarian aid to win hearts and minds, and sometimes organizations have allowed themselves to be used,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Understanding the nuances of a conflict, the local culture and people’s motivations, together with strong negotiating skills, are also critical to mitigating risks, experts said.

Big organizations are increasingly aware that aid programs need to be designed with security in mind, INSSA’s O’Neill said. “Good programming and good security go hand in hand.”

For example, poorly designed food distributions can quickly turn ugly. But seeking the input of local communities, giving people a clear idea of what they will receive and setting up a complaints table away from the lines are some ways to reduce the risk, he said.

Caring for the mental health of aid workers is an overlooked but crucial aspect of keeping them safe, said Sara Pantuliano, director of humanitarian programs at the London-based Overseas Development Institute.

“The one thing that is forgotten the most is the levels of stress and trauma aid workers experience, and that is particularly true for local staff because they often have family affected by this crisis,” Pantuliano said.

“I think people don’t even raise the issue of being under stress or the threat of burning out or needing a proper break, needing to recuperate, because they may be accused of not being fit for the job,” she added.

For more on the World Humanitarian Summit, please visit: http://news.trust.org/spotlight/reshape-aid

(Reporting by Katie Nguyen; editing by Megan Rowling and Ros Russell. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories)