Tag Archives: Taliban

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)

Red Cross sounds alarm on rising casualties in ‘ignored’ Afghanistan

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan is in a “downward spiral”, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned on Friday, as he sounded the alarm on rising attacks against medical facilities.

“There are more displaced people, more war-wounded and more disabled people,” ICRC president Peter Maurer said at the end of a visit to Afghanistan – the organization’s largest operation.

“Humanitarian concerns are growing, yet international attention is dwindling. It seems that the more the Afghan people suffer, the less attention there is on them.”

An estimated one million people are displaced within Afghanistan, some having been uprooted multiple times.

The Taliban, ousted from power in a U.S.-led military intervention in 2001, has been waging a violent insurgency to try to topple Afghanistan’s Western-backed government and re-establish a fundamentalist Islamic regime.

The number of civilian casualties hit a record high for the seventh successive year in 2015, with over 11,000 non-combatants killed or injured, according to U.N. data.

Increased ground fighting in and around populated areas, along with suicide and other attacks in major cities, caused many of the deaths and injuries.

Maurer said a particularly worrying trend was the escalation in attacks against medical facilities and staff which was making it increasingly difficult for civilians to access health care.

Such attacks have risen 50 percent in the last year, he said in a statement.

“Every bombed out hospital and every doctor or nurse who is forced to flee, means thousands of people cannot get immediate medical treatment when necessary,” he added.

The most high profile attack was the U.S. bombing of a hospital run by Medecins Sans Frontieres in the northern city of Kunduz in October.

International humanitarian law obliges all warring parties to protect medical missions, the ICRC said.

Maurer noted that Afghans are the second largest group of refugees and migrants arriving in Europe behind Syrians.

“This shows that the chronic violence and insecurity, and the permanent unpredictability of the war, has pushed people beyond their limits,” he added.

In two tweets at the end his trip, Maurer wrote: “My conclusion after a week in Afghanistan: this is not a forgotten conflict, it’s an ignored conflict.

“It defies human logic: the more victims there are in Afghanistan, the less attention there is on the country.”

(Editing by Ros Russell)

Troops pull out of more posts in volatile southern Afghanistan

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan forces have pulled back from strongpoints in the southern province of Uruzgan, continuing a withdrawal which began last month when they abandoned two districts in the neighboring province of Helmand to the Taliban, officials said on Tuesday.

Provincial government spokesman Dost Mohammad Nayab said around 100 troops and police had been pulled from checkpoints in two areas in Shahidi Hassas district and sent to the neighboring district of Deh Rawud.

The Afghan Taliban, seeking to topple the Western-backed government in Kabul and reimpose Islamic rule 15 years after they were ousted from power, said the move, which came after heavy fighting late on Monday, had left the entire area around the village of Yakhdan under their control.

The decision to leave the posts follows months of heavy fighting with the Taliban, who have put government forces under heavy pressure across southern Afghanistan.

“We want to create a reserve battalion in Deh Rawud and we may ask our soldiers and policemen from other districts also to leave their checkpoints,” Nayab said.

Nayab said the withdrawal was prompted by a shortage of troops and police, worn down by combat losses and desertions. He said troop numbers in the province were about 1,000 short of their assigned strength while police were hundreds short.

“Some of them have left the army and police, some have been killed or wounded and some have surrendered to the Taliban,” he said. “We have to control situation here until we receive enough forces.”

NATO officials have long pressed Afghan commanders to pull troops off isolated and hard-to-defend checkpoints and use them more effectively against the Taliban, who have pressed their insurgency since international troops ended most combat operations in 2014.

Uruzgan, which shares a border with the insurgent heartlands of Helmand and Kandahar, is a poor and largely mountainous region which Dutch and Australian troops struggled to stabilize after the Taliban regime was toppled by U.S.-led forces in 2001.

Along with northern Helmand, much of which has been abandoned to the Taliban, it constitutes one of Afghanistan’s main opium smuggling routes, providing a significant source of revenue for the insurgency.

Last month, troops pulled out of the Helmand districts of Musa Qalah and Nawzad, regrouping around a few towns near the provincial capital Lashkar Gah in what authorities said was a tactical decision to deploy forces more effectively.

(Reporting by Mirwais Harooni; writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Pakistani university reopens after Taliban attack, teachers allowed guns

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – The university in northwest Pakistan where Taliban gunmen killed at least 20 people last month reopened for classes on Monday with teachers – but not students – allowed to carry weapons.

Pakistani Taliban militants have threatened more assaults on schools and universities since the Jan. 20 attack on Bacha Khan University in Charsadda, fueling a growing sense of insecurity in the country.

The attack had reminded Pakistanis of the horrors that took place a little over a year earlier, when militants massacred 134 pupils at an army school just 19 miles away, in Peshawar, the main city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Before Monday’s reopening the university took extra security measures, installing new CCTV cameras, hiring more armed guards, and raising the height of boundary walls, vice chancellor Fazal Rahim Marwat told Reuters.

The university also decided that teachers could continue to carry their own licensed weapons as long as they do not display them in classrooms, Marwat said.

A chemistry professor who was killed during last month’s assault had been lauded as a hero for firing back at the attackers. But Marwat said the school decided to reject a request from some teachers to issue them firearms.

“After taking whatever security measures were possible for protection of students and faculty members, we opened the university today for classes‎,” Marwat said.

Students who owned weapons had to submit them at the entrance of the campus, he said.

Firearms are easily available in northwest Pakistan, and gun ownership is ingrained in the culture of Pashtun tribes of the region.

Many of the returning students arrived at the campus with their parents and relatives, who waited while they went to classes. Several, however, were still too traumatized to attend school or were made to stay home by scared parents.

“I know the university has been opened today, but my parents didn’t allow me to go today,” said student Ihsanullah Khan. “I am not afraid and will definitely join my friends very soon.”

Vice chancellor Marwat said the university had arranged counseling sessions for students and for recreational trips elsewhere in the country.

The Pakistani army said the attack on the university was masterminded by Umar Mansoor, a Pakistani Taliban militant based in Afghanistan, who was also blamed for the Peshawar school massacre.

The Pakistani Taliban are fighting to topple the government and install a strict interpretation of Islamic law.

On Monday, an IED blast in Pakistan’s volatile South Waziristan region on the border with Afghanistan left one paramilitary soldier dead and three injured.

(Reporting by Jibran Ahmad and Hafiz Wazir; Writing by Mehreen Zahra-Malik; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Civilian casualties in Afghanistan hit record high, U.N. says

KABUL (Reuters) – Civilian casualties of the war in Afghanistan rose to record levels for the seventh year in row in 2015, as violence spread across the country in the wake of the withdrawal of most international troops, the United Nations reported on Sunday.

At least 3,545 non-combatants died and another 7,457 were injured by fighting last year in a 4-percent increase over 2014, the international organization said in its annual report on civilian casualties.

“The harm done to civilians is totally unacceptable,” Nicholas Haysom, the head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, said in a statement.

Fighting between Western-backed government forces and insurgent groups meant more non-combatants are being caught in the crossfire, investigators wrote, pointing to two developments in particular which pushed casualties up.

Heavy fighting in the northern city of Kunduz, which briefly fell to the Taliban in late September, and a wave of suicide bombs which killed and wounded hundreds of people in the capital Kabul last year were the main factors behind the rise, while elsewhere casualties fell.

“In most parts of Afghanistan in 2015, civilian casualties decreased,” Danielle Bell, director of the U.N. human rights program in Afghanistan, told a news conference.

Ground engagements were the leading cause of civilian casualties at 37 percent, followed by roadside bombs at 21 percent and suicide attacks at 17 percent.

Women and children were hard hit, as casualties among women spiked 37 percent while deaths and injuries increased 14 percent among children.

Casualties attributed to pro-government forces jumped 28 percent compared to 2014 to account for 17 percent of the total.

A 9-percent rise in civilian casualties caused by international forces was attributed largely to a U.S. air strike in October on a Doctors Without Borders hospital that killed 42 staff, patients, family members and injured another 43.

Overall 103 civilians were killed and 67 wounded by foreign forces last year, the report found.

A statement from President Ashraf Ghani accused the Taliban of violating international law. It said Afghan security forces underwent regular training to ensure the protection of civilians and were liable to investigation if any breaches occurred.

As in past years, insurgent groups like the Taliban were blamed for most civilian deaths and injuries, at 62 percent. Investigators accused insurgents of using tactics that “deliberately or indiscriminately” caused harm to civilians.

The Taliban rejected the report, describing it as “propaganda compiled at the behest of occupying forces” and said the government in Kabul and its U.S. ally were the major causes of deaths and injuries.

UN officials said that pledges from both sides to limit casualties had not been backed up.

“The report references commitments made by all parties to the conflict to protect civilians, however, the figures documented in 2015 reflect a disconnect between commitments made and the harsh reality on the ground,” Bell said.

She said the expectation of continued fighting in the coming months showed the need for both sides to take immediate steps to prevent harm to civilians.

Since the United Nations began recording civilian casualties in Afghanistan in 2009, it has documented nearly 59,000 deaths and injuries.

(Additional reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by Michael Perry and Ros Russell)

Afghanistan needs long-term U.S. commitment, general says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States must make a long-term commitment to Afghanistan to stop security there from worsening further and prevent attacks on the West by militants based there, the outgoing commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan said on Tuesday.

General John Campbell said in testimony before a congressional committee that while Afghan security forces had shown “uneven” performance in 2015 and faced major leadership problems, continued U.S. support for the Afghan government was needed to defeat the Taliban and other militant groups including al Qaeda and the Haqqani network.

“These are certainly not residual threats that would allow for a peaceful transition across Afghanistan,” Campbell said. “Ultimately the threats Afghanistan faces require our sustained attention and forward presence.”

Campbell has commanded U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan for the past 18 months and is expected to retire. President Barack Obama has chosen Lieutenant General John Nicholson to replace Campbell.

A blunt Pentagon report released in December said the security situation in Afghanistan deteriorated in the second half of 2015, with the Taliban staging more attacks and inflicting far more casualties on Afghan forces.

The security situation prompted Obama to announce in October that the United States would maintain a force of about 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through most of 2016, instead of drawing down to an embassy-based presence by 2017.

Of 407 district centers in Afghanistan, 26 are under insurgent control or influence, Campbell said, with another 94 district centers viewed as at risk at any given time.

Campbell praised Obama’s decision to maintain a U.S. troop presence throughout most of this year, and said the United States was developing a five-year vision that would avoid the traditional year-to-year planning mindset.

“Now more than ever, the United States should not waver on Afghanistan,” Campbell said. “If we do not make deliberate, measured adjustments, 2016 is at risk of being no better, and possibly worse than 2015.”

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Desertions deplete Afghan forces, adding to security worries

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan/KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan Lieutenant Amanullah said he was ready to fight to the death to stop the Taliban making gains across the south of the country, where insurgents have already overrun a series of districts in their traditional heartland.

In November, 15 months after joining up, he deserted, one of thousands of tired and frustrated soldiers who have shed their uniforms, seriously blunting the Afghan army’s power to repel a growing militant threat.

For Amanullah, everything changed late last year when, fighting on an empty stomach and without being paid for months, militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns attacked his base from all directions in a three-day battle.

The final straw came when requests for reinforcements at the remote outpost went unanswered and colleagues bled to death around him because of a lack of medical care.

When the ambush ended, he joined three friends shedding their uniforms and walking away from the base near Kandahar, an area that has long been a Taliban stronghold.

“I joined the army so that I could support my family and serve my country, but this is a suicide mission,” said Amanullah, 28, who, like many Afghans, uses one name.

The attrition rate hits at the heart of the U.S. exit strategy in Afghanistan, which is to build a force capable of taking on the Taliban when it fully withdraws.

NATO ended its combat mission in Afghanistan at the end of 2014, and a smaller force remains mainly training and advising Afghans. Alarmed by Taliban gains, the United States decided last year to slow the pace of withdrawing troops still there.

In 2015, the Afghan army had to replace about a third of its roughly 170,000 soldiers because of desertions, casualties and low re-enlistment rates, according to figures released by the U.S. military last month. That means a third of the army consists of first-year recruits fresh off a three-month training course.

HEAVY CASUALTIES

The turnover rate is one of the most serious problems faced by Afghan security forces, according to Michael Kugelman, a senior associate for South and Southeast Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

“These high turnover issues increase the possibility that when U.S.-led forces leave Afghanistan for good, whenever that is, they will be leaving Afghan forces unable to fend off a still-ferocious insurgency,” he said.

The United States has spent around $65 billion preparing fledgling Afghan security forces, intended to number about 350,000 personnel, for when it leaves.U.S. General John Campbell, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, told Congress in October high attrition rates are because of poor leadership and soldiers rarely getting holiday.

In some areas, soldiers “have probably been in a consistent fight for three years,” he said.

When the Afghan army in 2015 took over almost all combat operations for the first time since the Taliban were ousted, casualties rose 26 percent, according a NATO military officer. About 15,800 soldiers were wounded or killed, or almost one in 10, according to the officer, who asked not to be named.

Despite the challenges, the overall size of the Afghan army remains stable. Afghans willing to risk their lives for a basic monthly salary of about $300 a month equal those walking away.

RECRUITMENT DRIVE

The army has been running adverts on prime-time television that show inspiring images of resolute soldiers on training exercises, eating in well-stocked mess halls and with good kit.But on the frontlines, army and police deserters complain of commanders having no answer for deadly ambushes, no broader strategy for prevailing in the war, corruption among their leaders and poor food and equipment.

“Barely a day passed without gunfire, ambushes, roadside bombs,” said Farooq, a police officer from Helmand province, who quit his job three months ago. “We were treated as if we had no value and our job was to get killed.”

Sediq Sediqqi, spokesman for the interior ministry, said the government was working to improve conditions for security forces and praised their work under difficult circumstances.

“We are very happy with the commitment of the police and soldiers,” he said.

Since quitting his job, Amanullah said he has been struggling to find work in a nation with one of the lowest labor participation rates in the world. He has decided to reapply for the army.

“I am hoping to work in a safer region and under better commanders,” he said. “I am just waiting for their response.”

(Editing by Mike Collett-White)

Effort to revive Afghanistan peace talks begins in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Delegates from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States held talks on Monday to resurrect a stalled Afghan peace process and end nearly 15 years of bloodshed, even as fighting with Taliban insurgents intensifies.

Senior officials from the four countries are meeting in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, to launch a process they hope will lead to negotiations with Taliban insurgents, who are fighting to re-impose their strict brand of Islamist rule and are not expected at Monday’s talks.

The Pakistani prime minister’s foreign affairs adviser, Sartaj Aziz, opened the meeting, saying the primary goal should be to convince the Taliban to come to the table and consider giving up violence.

“It is therefore important that preconditions are not attached to the start of the negotiation process. This, we argue, will be counterproductive,” he said.

“The threat of use of military action against irreconcilables cannot precede the offer of talks to all the groups.”

Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Karzai and Pakistani Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry were joined by Richard Olson, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan and General Anthony Rock, the top U.S. defense representative in Pakistan, as well as China’s special envoy on Afghanistan affairs, Deng Xijun.

Renewed peace efforts come amid spiraling violence in Afghanistan, with last year one of the bloodiest on record following the withdrawal of most foreign troops at the end of 2014.

In recent months the Taliban have won territory in the southern province of Helmand, briefly captured the northern city of Kunduz and launched a series of suicide bombs in the capital, underlining how hard Afghan government forces are finding it fighting on their own.

Peace efforts last year stalled after the Taliban announced that their founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar, had been dead for two years, throwing the militant group into disarray as rival factions fought for supremacy.

The Taliban, who were ousted in 2001, remain split on whether to take part in talks.

Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour’s faction has shown signs of warming to the idea of eventually joining peace talks, and other groups are considering negotiating, senior members of the movement said last week.

But a splinter group headed by Mullah Mohammad Rasool Akhund, which rejects Mansour’s authority, has dismissed any talks where a mediating role is played by Pakistan, which observers say holds significant sway among Taliban commanders holed up near its border with Afghanistan, or the United States or China.

“We have a very clear-cut stance about peace talks: all the foreign occupying forces would need to be withdrawn,” Mullah Abdul Manan Niazi, Rasool’s deputy, told Reuters on Monday.

“The issue is between the Afghans and only the Afghans can resolve it. We would not allow any third force to mediate between us.”

Officials are keen to limit expectations of a quick breakthrough at Monday’s talks.

Afghanistan has said the aim is to work out a road map for peace negotiations and a way of assessing if they remain on track.

(additional reporting by Jibran Ahmed in Peshawar; Writing by Tommy Wilkes; Editing by Robert Birsel and Mike Collett-White)

President Obama Changes Plan, Troops to Stay in Afghanistan into 2017

Senior administration officials announced that President Barack Obama has decided to keep 5,500 U.S. troops across Afghanistan into 2017, ending his original plans of bringing home most American forces from the Middle Eastern country before the end of his term.

A senior administration official stated the president’s decision came after an “extensive months-long review” along with regular discussions between U.S. commanders in the field, the national security team, and Afghanistan’s leaders.

The new plan slows the pace of the reduction of American forces in the war-torn country. An anonymous official reported that the current U.S. force 9,800 will be staying in Afghanistan through “most of 2016.” After 2016, the remaining troops will focus on training and advising the Afghan army. The U.S. will also continue to using drones and Special Operations forces to strike al-Qaeda and other forces who may be plotting attacks against the United States.

The decision comes after Taliban forces took control of the northern city of Kunduz approximately two weeks ago, causing a major battle with Afghan forces on the ground and U.S. airstrikes supporting them.

U.S.-Led and NATO Special Forces Join Fight in Kunduz

NATO special forces have joined Afghan forces in their attempt to retake the city of Kunduz which fell into Taliban control on Monday.

The heavily assailed airport, which sits on a hilltop a few miles outside Kunduz, is now the only place held by the Afghan army. The nearby Bala Hisar fort fell when soldiers there ran out of ammunition, deputy provincial governor Hamdullah Daneshi said.  Thousands of troops have fled to the airport during the intense fighting over the last two days.

U.S. special forces had been advising Afghan troops while operating from a temporary base at the Kunduz airport for several weeks, according to a special forces commander.

Coalition spokesman Col. Brian Tribus gave few details about the foreign troops’ engagement with insurgents while supporting Afghan forces overnight, including the troops’ nationalities. Although the U.S. and NATO have officially handed over the battle against the Taliban to Afghan forces, the terms of their mission allows them to fight when they come under direct threat.

That happened early Wednesday morning when a team of U.S. special forces “encountered an insurgent threat in the vicinity of the Kunduz airport at approximately 1 am, 30 September,” Tribus told Reuters, adding that the soldier had acted in self-defense. “When they encountered the threat, they defended themselves,” he said.