Tag Archives: Taliban

Kidnapped U.S.-Canadian couple, three children freed in Pakistan

A still image from a video posted by the Taliban on social media on December 19, 2016 shows American Caitlan Coleman (L) speaking next to her Canadian husband Joshua Boyle and their two sons. Courtesy Taliban/Social media via REUTERS

By Asif Shahzad

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – A kidnapped U.S.-Canadian couple and their three children born in captivity have been freed in Pakistan, nearly five years after the couple was abducted in neighboring Afghanistan, Pakistani and U.S. officials said on Thursday.

American Caitlan Coleman and her Canadian husband Joshua Boyle were kidnapped while backpacking in Afghanistan in 2012 by the Taliban-allied Haqqani network, which the United States has long accused Pakistan of failing to fight.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been highly critical of Islamabad, praised Pakistan’s cooperation with the U.S. government over the freeing of the hostages, saying it represented “a positive moment” for U.S.-Pakistan relations.

“The Pakistani government’s cooperation is a sign that it is honoring America’s wishes for it to do more to provide security in the region,” Trump said in a statement.

The Pakistani army and U.S. government statements offered no details about the operation itself.

The Pakistani army said its forces “recovered” the hostages after acting on U.S. intelligence about their passage into Pakistan from Afghanistan. A U.S. State Department statement used the word “rescue” to describe efforts by the U.S. and Pakistani governments to secure the hostages’ release.

Coleman was pregnant at the time she was kidnapped, and a video released by the Taliban in December showed two sons born while she and her husband were hostages.

Thursday’s statements from Islamabad and Washington were the first mention of a third child.

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland asked for respect for the family’s privacy and thanked the governments of the United States, Pakistan and Afghanistan for their efforts to win the hostages’ release.

“Joshua, Caitlan, their children and the Boyle and Coleman families have endured a horrible ordeal over the past five years. We stand ready to support them as they begin their healing journey,” Freeland said.

The Pakistani effort came as Pakistan and the United States, uneasy allies in fighting Taliban and other Islamist extremists in the region, are experiencing one of the worst lows in their relations.

In recent days, senior U.S. officials have been more pointed about Islamabad’s alleged ties to militant groups, who are battling against U.S. and U.S.-backed forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

The United States has repeatedly accused Pakistan of granting safe haven to militants fighting a 16-year-old war in Afghanistan, further complicating a drawn out conflict that the U.S. military has described as a stalemate between the Taliban and U.S.-backed Afghan government forces.

Last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said the United States would try “one more time” to work with Pakistan in Afghanistan before Trump would “take whatever steps are necessary” to change Pakistan’s behavior.

Pakistan touted the success of the operation as proof of the strength of the alliance.

“The success underscores the importance of timely intelligence sharing and Pakistan’s continued commitment toward fighting this menace through cooperation between two forces against a common enemy,” the Pakistani army statement said.

U.S. intelligence agencies had been tracking the hostages and on Wednesday shared that the family had been moved to Pakistan through Kurram tribal area border, the army said. No other details were immediately available.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Trump’s strategy in the region recognized “the important role Pakistan needs to play to bring stability and ultimately peace to the region.”

“The United States is hopeful that Pakistan’s actions will further a U.S.-Pakistan relationship marked by growing commitments to counterterrorism operations and stronger ties in all other respects,” Tillerson said.

(Reporting by Asif Shahzad; Additional reporting by Phil Stewart in Washington, Andrea Hopkins in Ottawa; Editing by Nick Macfie, Andrew Heavens and Frances Kerry)

Mattis arrives in Afghanistan as rockets hit Kabul airport

Mattis arrives in Afghanistan as rockets hit Kabul airport

By James Mackenzie and Hamid Shalizi

KABUL (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis visited Kabul on Wednesday to pledge support for the government of President Ashraf Ghani, with the precarious security in the Afghan capital underlined by a rocket attack on the airport hours after he touched down.

Arriving from India, where he sought support for the U.S. administration’s new South Asia security plan, Mattis said the United States was determined not to allow “a merciless enemy to kill its way to power”.

Promising a more “holistic” approach without fixed timetables and involving other countries in the region, including Pakistan, he said the Taliban would have to learn they could not defeat the government.

“I want to reinforce to the Taliban that the only path to peace and political legitimacy for them is through a negotiated settlement,” Mattis told a joint news conference with Ghani and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

The visit comes after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a new strategy for Afghanistan, promising a stepped-up military campaign against Taliban insurgents who have gained ground as they seek to reestablish Islamic law after their 2001 ouster.

But a rocket attack on Kabul airport that injured five civilians and was claimed by both Islamic State and Taliban insurgents highlighted the rebels’ ability to strike the Western-backed government.

Fighters holed up in a nearby building continued to resist security forces for hours, a spokesman for the interior minister said.

Mattis condemned the attack as a “criminal act by terrorists”, adding that it was a “classic definition of what the Taliban are up to here now”.

There are now about 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan as part of the 13,500-strong NATO-led Resolute Support mission advising and training Afghan forces as well as a separate counterterrorism mission, targeting Islamic State and Al Qaeda.

As part of the new strategy, which will give U.S. commanders greater freedom to use American firepower against the Taliban, Mattis has said the United States will send an additional 3,000 troops to help train Afghan security forces.

It will also make greater use of its air power to support Afghan forces and strike the Taliban, a strategy that carries the risk of an increase in civilian casualties.

“I don’t want to tell the enemy exactly what we are doing but the whole point is to make certain we have a compelling battlefield advantage over anything the Taliban tries to mass against your forces,” he said.

Mattis said U.S. forces would do “everything humanly possible” to limit civilian casualties, which fueled bitter disputes between Washington and the government of former President Hamid Karzai.

Trump has said he expects NATO allies to step up contributions of both troops and funding to the Afghanistan mission, and Stoltenberg said the credibility of the international alliance depended on maintaining its support.

“We know the cost of staying in Afghanistan,” he said. “But the cost of leaving would be higher. If NATO forces leave too soon, there is a risk Afghanistan may return to a state of chaos and once again become a safe haven for international terrorism.”

(Additional reporting by Mirwais Harooni and Mostafa Hashem in Cairo; Editing by Nick Macfie)

U.S. fighter pilots in Afghanistan prepare for more air strikes

A U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft takes off for a nighttime mission at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, August 22, 2017. REUTERS/Josh Smith

By Josh Smith

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan (Reuters) – For the fighter pilots at the largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan, President Donald Trump’s new strategy for the war should mean escalating an already surging air campaign, and possibly including an unrestrained offensive against the Taliban.

The number of U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan has already dramatically spiked since Trump took office in January, from 1,074 in all of last year to 2,244 as of August 20 this year.

After a months-long review of his Afghanistan policy, Trump committed the United States last week to an open-ended conflict in the country and promised a stepped-up campaign against the Taliban insurgents.

Few details have emerged, but the pilots in Bagram are preparing for the possibility they’ll be taking the fight to the Taliban in a way they haven’t since the U.S.-led “combat mission” in Afghanistan was called off at the end of 2014.

Among their targets since then have been Islamic State militants, who are also active in the country.

“Between the two groups, the Taliban are definitely smarter,” F-16 pilot Maj. Daniel Lindsey told Reuters. “The Taliban are much harder to kill.”

While Islamic State has launched a series of deadly attacks around the country, it has nowhere near the influence, reach, and community ties that the Taliban has.

It’s those factors that pilots say make the Taliban a more challenging target, and one that has outlasted years of heavy bombardment.

“The Taliban is often embedded in the community, but nobody likes the Islamic State, so they are often separate,” Lindsey said.

NEW PARAMETERS

In many ways, Trump’s policy is less a new plan than the continuation of a slow slide back into combat for American troops, although officials are quick to say their mission will remain focused on training and advising Afghan forces.

On Thursday, the commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson, confirmed that his forces would increase air support for Afghan troops.

“We know the enemy fears air power,” he told reporters in Kabul.

White House officials have said that rolling back territorial gains by the Taliban will be one of the key objectives of the new strategy.

For a time after former president Barack Obama declared America’s combat mission over in Afghanistan at the end of 2014, U.S. forces were restricted from attacking the Taliban in most circumstances except self-defense.

As the group expanded its hold in Afghanistan, however, Obama began to loosen some of those rules and Trump has gone further in sending U.S. troops back into battle with their old adversaries.

Asked about the recent effects of U.S. air strikes, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the group’s fighters had become used to dodging American bombs.

“In 2010, 2011 and 2012 the U.S. air strikes were successful and we lost many Mujahideen,” he told Reuters. “But now we have enough experience to avoid casualties during their strikes by hiding in mountain holes and other places.”

Still, forcing the Taliban to hide and preventing them from massing fighters has in some cases been credited with helping Afghan security forces hold on to some cities and blunt Taliban offensives.

EXPANDING STRIKES

Trump also announced that he would “lift restrictions and expand authorities in the field,” but it remains unclear exactly what that would entail.

A U.S. military spokesman in Kabul, Capt. William Salvin, said U.S. forces are still limited to conducting air strikes in three broad circumstances: self-defense, counter-terrorism strikes against specific groups, and helping Afghan troops achieve “strategic effects.”

He declined to say whether those parameters might change.

The U.S. military does not publicize its rules of engagement, but Lindsey said compared to when he was a fighter pilot at the height of the troop surge in Iraq in 2007, the so-called “ROE” in Afghanistan were less restrictive.

“Some guys can complain about it, but most I know don’t seem to have any problem finding Islamic State or Taliban to kill,” he said. “If you use the rules smartly, you’ll get the bad guys.”

The surge in air strikes has led the U.S. Air Force units at Bagram to increase their maintenance and intelligence efforts, said F-16 pilot Maj. Abraham Lehman.

Officials say ramping up the number of strikes further would require the deployment of more support staff as well as additional specialized troops on the ground to coordinate the strikes.

While he said he had no information on new plans to deploy additional aircraft, Lehman said it “made sense” to increase air support as the Pentagon sends thousands more troops to the country.

“What we do is always a joint effort between us and the ground troops,” Lehman said.

(Additional reporting by Mirwais Harooni in Kabul, Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Trump commits U.S. to open-ended Afghanistan war; Taliban vow ‘graveyard’

Military personnel watch as U.S. President Donald Trump announces his strategy for the war in Afghanistan during an address to the nation from Fort Myer, Virginia, U.S., August 21, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

By Steve Holland and Hamid Shalizi

WASHINGTON/KABUL (Reuters) – President Donald Trump committed U.S. troops to an open-ended war in Afghanistan, a decision the Afghan government welcomed on Tuesday but which Taliban insurgents warned would make the country a “graveyard for the American empire”.

Trump offered few specifics in a speech on Monday but promised a stepped-up military campaign against the Taliban who have gained ground against U.S.-backed Afghan government forces. He also singled out Pakistan for harboring militants in safe havens on its soil.

Trump, who had in the past advocated a U.S. withdrawal, acknowledged he was going against his instincts in approving the new campaign plan sought by his military advisers but said he was convinced that leaving posed more risk.

“The consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable,” he said. “A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum that terrorists, including ISIS and al Qaeda, would instantly fill.”

Still, he promised an end to “nation-building” by U.S. forces in what has become American’s longest war and stressed that ultimately Afghanistan’s struggling police and army must defeat the Taliban.

“The stronger the Afghan security forces become, the less we will have to do. Afghans will secure and build their own nation and define their own future. We want them to succeed.”

Most of the approximately 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan work with a NATO-led training and advising mission, with the rest part of a counter-terrorism force that mostly targets pockets of al Qaeda and Islamic State fighters.

While Trump said he would not discuss troop levels or details of the new strategy, U.S. officials said on Monday he had signed off on Defense Secretary James Mattis’ plans to send about 4,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, in welcoming the strategy, said it would increase the capacity of the training mission for Afghan forces, including enhancing its fledgling air force and doubling the size of the Afghan special forces.

“I am grateful to President Trump and the American people for this affirmation of support … for our joint struggle to rid the region from the threat of terrorism,” Ghani said in a statement.

The Taliban swiftly condemned Trump’s decision to keep American troops in Afghanistan without a withdrawal timetable, vowing to continue “jihad” until all U.S. soldiers were gone.

“If the U.S. does not pull all its forces out of Afghanistan, we will make this country the 21st century graveyard for the American empire,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement.

Republican Trump, who had criticized his predecessors for setting deadlines for drawing down troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, declined to put a timeline on expanded U.S. operations in Afghanistan.

Trump now inherits the same challenges as George W. Bush and Barack Obama, including a stubborn Taliban insurgency and a weak, divided Kabul government. He is laying the groundwork for greater U.S. involvement without a clear end in sight or providing specific benchmarks for success.

‘NO BLANK CHECK’

Trump warned that U.S. support “is not a blank check,” and insisted he would not engage in “nation-building,” a practice he has accused his predecessors of doing at huge cost.

Trump insisted through his speech that the Afghan government, Pakistan, India, and NATO allies step up their own commitment to resolving the 16-year conflict.

“We can no longer be silent about Pakistan’s safe havens,” he said.

Senior U.S. officials warned he could reduce security assistance for nuclear-armed Pakistan unless it cooperated more.

A Pakistani army spokesman said on Monday that Pakistan had taken action against all Islamist militants.

“There are no terrorist hideouts in Pakistan,” spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor said.

Pakistan sees Afghanistan as a vital strategic interest. Obama sent Navy SEALs into Pakistan to kill al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, the architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that triggered the war in Afghanistan.

The Taliban government was overthrown by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001 but U.S. forces have been bogged down there ever since. About 2,400 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan.

Trump expanded the U.S. military’s authority for American forces to target militant and criminal networks, warning “that no place is beyond the reach of American arms”.

“Our troops will fight to win,” he said.

Trump’s speech came after a months-long review of U.S. policy in which the president frequently tangled with his top advisers.

He suggested he was hoping for eventual peace talks, and said it might be possible to have a political settlement with elements of the Taliban.

He said he was convinced by his national security advisers to strengthen the U.S. ability to prevent the Taliban from ousting Ghani’s government.

“My original instinct was to pull out,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe, David Alexander, Yeganeh Torbati and Jeff Mason in WASHINGTON, Mirwais Harooni in KABUL, and Jibran Ahmad in PESHAWAR; Writing by Steve Holland and Warren Strobel; Editing by Yara Bayoumy, Peter Cooney and Paul Tait)

Trump to present vision for U.S. strategy in Afghanistan war

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Army soldiers from the 2nd Platoon, B battery 2-8 field artillery, fire a howitzer artillery piece at Seprwan Ghar forward fire base in Panjwai district, Kandahar province southern Afghanistan, June 12, 2011.

By Steve Holland and John Walcott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – It will be President Donald Trump’s turn on Monday to address a problem that vexed his two predecessors when he details his strategy for the war in Afghanistan, America’s longest military conflict.

In a prime-time speech to the nation, Trump may announce a modest increase in U.S. troops, as recommended by his senior advisers.

Trump has long been skeptical of the U.S. approach in the region, where the Afghan war is in its 16th year.

He announced a strategic review soon after taking office in January and has privately questioned whether sending more troops was wise, U.S. officials said.

“We’re not winning,” he told advisers in a mid-July meeting, questioning whether Army General John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, should be fired, an official said.

Trump, who on Sunday ended a two-week working vacation at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club, reached his decision on Afghanistan after lengthy talks with his top military and national security aides at Camp David, Maryland, on Friday.

A White House statement on Sunday said Trump would “provide an update on the path forward for America’s engagement in Afghanistan and South Asia.”

A senior administration official said the likeliest outcome was that Trump would agree to a modest increase in U.S. troops. Current U.S. troop numbers are about 8,400.

The United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, and overthrew the Islamist Taliban government. But U.S. forces have remained bogged down there through the presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama and now Trump.

“I took over a mess, and we’re going to make it a lot less messy,” Trump said when asked about Afghanistan earlier this month.

 

TALIBAN THREAT

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has argued that a U.S. military presence is needed to protect against the ongoing threat from Islamist militants.

Afghan security forces have struggled to prevent advances by Taliban insurgents. The war stymied the Obama administration, which committed an increase of tens of thousands of U.S. troops to reverse Taliban gains, then committed to a troop drawdown, which ultimately had to be halted.

Earlier this year, Trump gave Mattis the authority to set troop levels in Afghanistan, opening the door for future troop increases requested by Nicholson. The general, who leads U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, said in February he needed “a few thousand” additional forces, some potentially drawn from U.S. allies.

U.S. military and intelligence officials are concerned that a Taliban victory would allow al Qaeda and Islamic State’s regional affiliate to establish bases in Afghanistan from which to plot attacks against the United States and its allies.

One reason the White House decision has taken so long, two officials who participated in the discussions said on Sunday, is that it was difficult to get Trump to accept the need for a broader regional strategy that included U.S. policy toward Pakistan before making a decision on whether to send additional forces to Afghanistan.

Both officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, declined to disclose Trump’s decisions on troop levels and Pakistan policy before he does.

The difficulty in reaching a decision was compounded, the two officials said, by the wide range of conflicting options Trump received.

White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster and other advisers favored accepting Nicholson’s request for some 4,000 additional U.S. forces.

But recently ousted White House strategic adviser Steve Bannon had argued for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces, saying that after 16 years, the war was still not winnable, U.S. officials said. Bannon, fired on Friday by Trump, was not at the Camp David meeting.

The officials said that another option examined was shrinking the U.S. force by some 3,000 troops and leaving a smaller counterterrorism and intelligence-gathering contingent to carry out special operations and direct drone strikes against the Taliban.

Proponents argued that option was less costly in lives and money and would add less to the damage already inflicted on U.S. special operations forces by the long-running battles in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Syria.

 

 

(Additional reporting by Idrees Ali traveling with Mattis in Amman; Writing by James Oliphant; Editing Peter Cooney.)

 

Islamic State claims responsibility for attack on Iraqi embassy in Kabul

A member of the Afghan security forces aims his rifle during gun fire at the site of an attack in Kabul, Afghanistan July 31

By Mirwais Harooni

KABUL (Reuters) – Militant group Islamic State on Monday claimed responsibility for an attack on the Iraqi embassy in Kabul that began with a suicide bomber blowing himself up at the main gate, allowing gunmen to enter the building and battle security forces.

The assault came a week after 35 people were killed in a Taliban attack on government workers in Kabul and underlines Afghanistan’s precarious security as the United States weighs an overhaul of its policy in the region.

Afghan security forces confronted three gunmen for hours before the interior ministry announced in mid-afternoon that the attack, in a normally busy business district of the capital, had been suppressed.

“Terrorist attack on Iraqi embassy in Kabul over after all terrorists killed,” the ministry said in a statement.

Islamic State’s Amaq agency said two attackers had blown up the gate, killing seven guards, and two fighters had broken into the compound.

There was no immediate official word on casualties but an Italian-operated hospital nearby said two injured people had been brought in for treatment.

Islamic State has carried out a series of high-profile attacks in Kabul, mainly targeting members of the mainly Shi’ite Hazara community, and fuelling concerns of a possible spillover into Afghanistan from fighting in Syria and Iraq.

The local branch of the movement, often called Daesh, is often known as Islamic State in Khorasan (ISIS-K), after an old name for the region that now includes Afghanistan.

U.S. commanders say it has been severely hit by a campaign of drone strikes and joint Afghan and U.S. Special Forces operations, with hundreds of fighters and commanders killed.

However Afghan security officials say the movement operates in as many as nine provinces, from Nangarhar and Kunar in the east to Badakhshan, Jawzjan and Faryab in the north and Baghdis and Ghor in the west.

The Taliban, fighting to reestablish strict Islamic law 16 years after being expelled by a U.S.-led campaign in 2001, have opposed Islamic State.

 

(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi and Omar Fahmy and Nadine Awadalla in CAIRO; Editing by Michael Perry and Clarence Fernandez)

 

Taliban suicide car bomber kills dozens in Afghan capital

An Afghan shopkeeper inspects his shop after a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan July 24, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

By Hamid Shalizi and James Mackenzie

KABUL (Reuters) – A Taliban suicide attacker detonated a car bomb in the western part of Kabul on Monday, killing up to 35 people and wounding more than 40, government officials said, in one of the worst attacks in the Afghan capital in recent weeks.

Police cordoned off the area, located near the house of the deputy government Chief Executive Mohammad Mohaqiq in a part of the city where many of the mainly Shi’ite Hazara community live.

Monday’s suicide bombing, which targeted government personnel, continued the unrelenting violence that has killed more than 1,700 civilians in Afghanistan so far this year.

The Taliban, which is battling the Western-backed government and a NATO-led coalition for control of Afghanistan, has launched a wave of attacks around the country in recent days, sparking fighting in more than half a dozen provinces.

“I was in my shop when suddenly I heard a terrible sound and as a result all of my shop windows shattered,” said Ali Ahmed, a resident in the area of Monday’s blast.

Acting Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said at least 24 people had been killed and 40 wounded but the casualty toll could rise further.

Another senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the incident with the media, said the toll stood at 35 killed. That was in line with a claim on Twitter by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, who said 37 “intelligence workers” had been killed.

Mujahid said in a tweet claiming responsibility for the attack the target had been two buses that had been under surveillance for two months.

Government security forces said a small bus owned by the Ministry of Mines had been destroyed in the blast but the National Directorate for Security, the main intelligence agency, said none of its personnel had been hit.

Three civilian vehicles and 15 shops were destroyed or damaged in the blast, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

At least 1,662 civilians had already been killed in Afghanistan in the first half of the year.

Kabul has accounted for at least 20 percent of all civilian casualties this year, including at least 150 people killed in a massive truck bomb attack at the end of May, according to United Nations figures.

The Islamic State group claimed an attack on a mosque in the capital two weeks ago that killed at least four people.

On Sunday, dozens of Afghan troops were under siege after Taliban fighters overran a district in northern Faryab province, a spokesman for the provincial police said.

There was also fighting in Baghlan, Badakhshan, and Kunduz provinces in Afghanistan’s north, and Kandahar, Helmand, and Uruzgan in the south, according to officials.

The resurgence of violence also coincides with the U.S. administration weighing up its strategic options for Afghanistan, including the possibility of sending more troops to bolster the NATO-led training and advisory mission already helping Afghan forces.

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi and James Mackenzie; Editing by Paul Tait)

Suicide bomber in Pakistan’s Lahore kills 25, many of them police

Rescue workers and policemen gather after a suicide blast in Lahore, Pakistan July 24, 2017.

By Mubasher Bukhari

LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) – A suicide bomber killed at least 25 people, many of them police, in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Monday, officials said, an attack which shattered a period of relative calm in Pakistan’s second-largest city.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack which wrought carnage near the Lahore Technology Park in the center of the city. Police deployed to clear street vendors from the area had been targeted, a police official said.

“We suspect that he (the suicide bomber) came on a motorcycle and he rammed it into a police checkpoint,” Lahore police operations chief Haider Ashraf told Reuters.

Rescue workers shifted the wounded to hospital and police officers cordoned off the bomb site as army troops also arrived at the scene.

“The death toll we have now is 25 dead and 52 are wounded,” said Jam Sajjad Hussain, spokesman for the Rescue 1122 service.

A wounded man sitting on the roadside was shown crying in pain on television amidst cars and motorcycles mangled by the blast.

The bombing was claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, in a message sent to the media by spokesman Muhammad Khurassani. The Pakistani Taliban are loosely allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents but focus their attacks on the Pakistani government.

Bomb blasts by militants are common in Pakistan, especially in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, but attacks in Lahore have become less frequent in recent years.

Haider Ashraf, deputy inspector general of Punjab police, said the blast was a suicide attack and “police were the target”.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said the majority of those killed and wounded were police and warned the death toll could rise.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the blast in a statement and directed medical efforts for those injured.

In early April, a suicide attack on an army census team that killed at least six people and wounded 18 in Lahore was also claimed by the Pakistani Taliban.

After a series of attacks in February, including two in Lahore that killed over 20 people, Pakistan’s powerful military began a nationwide crackdown on militants.

 

(Additional reporting by Saud Mehsud; Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Nick Macfie and Richard Balmforth)

 

Gunmen kill four police in Pakistani city of Quetta

Relatives react outside the hospital after policemen were shot dead in Quetta, Pakistan July 13, 2017. REUTERS/Naseer Ahmed

By Gul Yousafzai

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Islamist gunmen on Thursday killed a senior police official and three other policemen guarding him in the Pakistani city of Quetta, police said, in an attack claimed by both the Pakistani Taliban and Islamic State.

Superintendent of Police Mubarak Shah, 56, was killed en route to his office when four gunmen riding on motorcycles attacked his vehicle, said city police officer Muhammad Sultan.

“The head and upper parts of all the four victims were targeted,” said Sultan, adding that one policeman was critically wounded.

A faction of the Pakistani Taliban, known as Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, carried out the attack, according to the faction’s spokesman, Asad Mansur.

Islamic State (IS) also claimed the attack on it Amaq News Agency website. Jamaat ur Ahrar and IS have in the past jointly claimed responsibility for attacks in Pakistan.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the attack, his office said.

It was second such attack in a week targeting senior police officers in the volatile Baluchistan province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran. Quetta is the provincial capital.

A suicide bomber on Monday killed a district police chief and his guard in the town of Chaman on the Afghan border. The Pakistani Taliban claimed that bombing in text messages and emails to media.

Violence in Baluchistan has raised concern about security for projects in the $57-billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor, a planned transport and energy link from western China to Pakistan’s southern deep-water port of Gwadar.

Resource-rich Baluchistan has long been plagued by insurgencies by separatists. Islamist groups such as the Taliban and Islamic State also carry out attacks in the region.

Islamist militants have killed thousands of people in Pakistan over the last decade or more, in their bid to impose hardline rule.

(Writing by Asif Shahzad; Editing by Drazen Jorgic, Robert Birsel)

In Afghanistan, U.S. senators call for coherent policy from Trump

U.S. Senator John McCain speaks during a news conference in Kabul, Afghanistan July 4, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

(This story corrects the number of U.S. and other foreign troops in Afghanistan, paragraphs 15, 16.)

KABUL (Reuters) – A bipartisan delegation of U.S. senators visiting Afghanistan on Tuesday called for a new strategy from the Trump administration to turn the tide against an increasingly strong Taliban insurgency and end the longest war in U.S. history.

The delegation led by Senator John McCain was in Kabul on a regional trip that included two days in neighboring Pakistan.

The visit preceded an expected Trump review later in the month of the strategy for the United States’ longest war, now in its 16th year, a subject that was largely absent from last year’s presidential campaign.

Since the exit of most foreign troops in 2014, Afghanistan’s U.S.-backed government has lost ground to a Taliban insurgency in a war that kills and maims thousands of civilians each year and has made Afghanistan the second-ranking country in people seeking refugee status abroad last year, behind Syria.

McCain said in a Kabul press briefing on Tuesday at NATO-coalition headquarters that “none of us would say that we are on a course to success here in Afghanistan”.

“That needs to change and quickly,” added McCain, a sharp critic of Trump within their Republican party.

McCain was accompanied by U.S. senators Lindsey Graham, Elizabeth Warren, Sheldon Whitehouse and David Perdue on the regional tour.

Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, said she came to get “the view on the ground about what is happening” in Afghanistan.

“We need a strategy in the United States that defines our role in Afghanistan, defines our objective and explains how we can get from here to there,” Warren said.

U.S. officials have told Reuters that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will present Trump with strategic options for Afghanistan by mid-July.

Last month, Trump gave Mattis the authority to set American troop levels in Afghanistan, but as commander in chief Trump must sign off on an overall strategy for the war.

U.S. security officials have privately said the most likely options will be to increase training and air support by 3,000-5,000 troops for still-inexperienced Afghan security forces, while also tracking down al Qaeda, Islamic State and other global Islamist militants based in Afghanistan.

The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, has said “several thousand” more foreign troops – mostly trainers – are needed to break a military stalemate with the Taliban.

In 2001, a U.S.-backed military intervention in Afghanistan toppled the Taliban regime, whose ultra-hardline interpretation of sharia (Islamic law) banned most women from public life and executed people not seen as sufficiently pious, such as men with beards not considered long enough.

More than 15 years later, about 13,000 U.S. and allied troops remain in Afghanistan as part of a training and advising mission in support of an elected government that has increasingly been losing ground to a Taliban insurgency that now controls or contests some 40 percent of territory.

Several thousand more American troops operate under a counterterrorism mission aimed at groups like Islamic State and al Qaeda.

(Writing by Kay Johnson; Editing by Mark Heinrich)