Tag Archives: Afghanistan

Suicide bombers attack two Afghan mosques, at least 72 dead

By Hamid Shalizi

KABUL (Reuters) – Suicide bombers attacked two mosques in Afghanistan on Friday, killing at least 72 people including children, officials and witnesses said.

One bomber walked into a Shi’ite Muslim mosque in the capital Kabul as people were praying on Friday night and detonated an explosive, one of the worshippers there, Mahmood Shah Husaini, said.

At least 39 people died in the blast at the Imam Zaman mosque in the city’s western Dasht-e-Barchi district, interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said.

No group claimed responsibility. But Shi’ite Muslims have suffered a series of attacks in Afghanistan in recent months, many of them claimed by the Sunni Muslim militants of Islamic State.

Separately, a suicide bombing killed at least 33 people at a mosque in central Ghor province, a police spokesman said.

The attack appeared to target a local leader from the Jamiat political party, according to a statement from Balkh provincial governor Atta Mohammad Noor, a leading figure in Jamiat.

Again, no one immediately claimed responsibility.

(Additional reporting by Jalil Ahmad Rezaee in Herat; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Catherine Evans and Andrew Heavens)

Pakistan, Afghanistan in angry tangle over border fence to keep out militants

A view of the border fence outside the Kitton outpost on the border with Afghanistan in North Waziristan, Pakistan October 18, 2017. REUTERS/Caren Firouz

(This October 18 story has been refiled to fix dateline, amend headline and first paragraph)

ANGOOR ADDA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistan is betting that a pair of nine-foot chain-link fences topped with barbed wire will stop incursions by Islamist militants from Afghanistan, which opposes Islamabad’s plans for a barrier along the disputed frontier.

Pakistan plans to fence up most of the 2,500 km (1,500 mile) frontier despite Kabul’s protests that the barrier would divide families and friends along the Pashtun tribal belt straddling the colonial-era Durand Line drawn up by the British in 1893.

Pakistan’s military estimates that it will need about 56 billion rupees ($532 million) for the project, while there are also plans to build 750 border forts and employ high-tech surveillance systems to prevent militants crossing.

In the rolling hills of the Angoor Adda village in South Waziristan, part of Pakistan’s restive Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), three rolls of barbed wire are sandwiched in the six-foot gap between the chain-link fences.

“(The fence) is a paradigm change. It is an epoch shift in the border control management,” said a Pakistani army officer in command of South Waziristan during a presentation to foreign media on Wednesday.

“There will not be an inch of international border (in South Waziristan) which shall not remain under our observation.”

Pakistan’s military has so far fenced off about 43 km of the frontier, starting with the most violence-prone areas in FATA, and is expected to recruit tens of thousands of new troops to man the border. It is not clear how long it will take to fence the entire boundary.

But Pakistan’s plans have also drawn criticism from across the border.

Gulab Mangal, governor of the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar, told Reuters the wall will create “more hatred and resentment” between two neighbors and will do neither country any good.

“The fence will definitely create a lot of trouble for the people along the border on both sides but no wall or fence can separate these tribes,” he said.

“I urge the tribes to stand against this action.”

Pakistan has blamed Pakistani Taliban militants it says are based on Afghan soil for a spate of attacks at home over the past year, urging Kabul to eradicate “sanctuaries” for militants.

Afghanistan, in turn, accuses Islamabad of sheltering the leadership of the Afghan Taliban militants who are battling the Western-backed government in Kabul.

Both countries deny aiding militants, but relations between the two have soured in recent years. In May, the tension rose when 10 people were killed in two border villages in Baluchistan region.

The clashes occurred in so-called “divided villages”, where the Durand Line goes through the heart of the community, and where residents are now bracing for the fence to split their villages in two.

Pakistan’s previous attempts to build a fence failed about a decade ago and many doubt whether its possible to secure such a lengthy border.

But Pakistani army officials are undeterred by the scepticism and insist they will finish the job as the country’s security rests on this fence.

“By the time we are done, inshallah, we will be very sure of one thing: that nobody can cross this place,” said the Pakistani officer in charge of South Waziristan.

(Reporting by Reuters TV in South Waziristan and Hamid Shalizi in Kabul; Writing by Drazen Jorgic)

Taliban attacks kill at least 69 across Afghanistan

Smoke rises from police headquarters while Afghan security forces keep watch after a suicide car bomber and gunmen attacked the provincial police headquarters in Gardez, the capital of Paktia province, Afghanistan October 17, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer

By Mirwais Harooni

KABUL (Reuters) – Taliban militants struck government targets in many provinces of Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing at least 69 people, including a senior police commander, and wounding scores of others.

The deadliest attack hit a police training centre attached to the police headquarters in Gardez, main city of Paktia province.

Two Taliban suicide car bombers paved the way for a number of gunmen to attack the compound, officials and militants said. At least 21 police officers were killed, including the Paktia provincial police chief, with 48 others wounded, according to government officials.

The attack also left at least 20 civilians dead and 110 wounded, the Interior Ministry said. Security forces killed at least five attackers.

Dozens of dead and wounded were taken to the city hospital, even as many more lay where they fell during the fighting, deputy public health director Hedayatullah Hameedi said.

The Taliban, seeking to reimpose strict Islamic law after their 2001 ouster by U.S.-led forces, claimed responsibility.

The militant group also attacked a district centre in neighbouring Ghazni province on Tuesday, detonating an armoured Humvee vehicles packed with explosives near the provincial governor’s office.

Provincial officials said at least 15 government security forces were killed and 12 wounded in the Ghazni attacks, with 13 civilians killed and seven wounded.

The Taliban said they had killed 31 security forces and wounded 21 in those clashes.

Fighting was also reported near local government centres in Farah and Kandahar provinces.

 

(Additional reporting by Mustafa Andalib in Ghazni; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Nick Macfie)

 

Afghan-Pakistan border villages brace for Berlin Wall-style divide

Pakistani soldiers keep guard as citizens returning from Afghanistan at the border-crossing town of Chaman, Pakistan, October 5, 2017. Picture taken October 5, 2017. REUTERS/Drazen Jorgic

By Drazen Jorgic and Gul Yousafzai

CHAMAN/QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Thousands of Pashtun tribal people who for decades ignored the invisible line that bisects their dusty villages and demarcates the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier are bracing for a Berlin Wall-style divide of their neighborhoods.

Pakistan, worried by Islamist attacks, is building a fence to prevent militants criss-crossing the porous 2,500 km (1,500 mile) frontier along the disputed colonial-era Durand line drawn up by the British in 1893.

The fence, which Kabul opposes, will run down the middle of so-called “divided villages” where few people have passports and Pashtun tribal loyalty often trumps allegiance to the state.

Seven such villages are dotted around Chaman district, home to the bustling border-crossing town of Chaman in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Baluchistan. Other divided villages are believed to exist further north in the restive Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

Pakistani officials in Baluchistan are now working on shifting Pakistani citizens in the divided villages to their side of the fence and say security worries override concerns that it will break up communities.

“(A border wall) was there in Germany, it is in Mexico. It is all over the world – why not in Afghanistan and Pakistan?” said Col. Muhammad Usman, commander of Pakistan’s Frontier Corps paramilitary force in Chaman.

“These tribals have to understand that this is Pakistan and that place is Afghanistan.”

Yet scepticism about the fence abounds. Pakistan’s previous attempts to build one failed about a decade ago and many doubt whether its possible to secure such a lengthy border.

THE TRUMP EFFECT

The appeal of erecting physical border barriers waned after the Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989. But in recent years, several populist leaders have advocated building walls to curtail movement of foreigners, most notably U.S. President Donald Trump, who wants a wall along the entire border with Mexico.

Hungary’s right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban recently fenced the border with Serbia to prevent Syrian refugees and other Muslim migrants from entering the eastern European country that acts as a gateway to the European Union.

Pakistan, in anticipation of the fence, plans to build more than 100 new border posts and Islamabad is recruiting in excess of 30,000 soldiers to man them, according to a senior military source.

“Trump is doing as per requirements of America; we are doing as per requirements of Pakistan,” added Usman.

Tense relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan boiled over in two divided villages in May during Pakistan’s census survey. More than 10 people were killed when Afghan border troops, objecting to the census, clashed with the Frontier Corps in Killi Jahangir and Killi Luqman villages near Chaman.

Kabul and Islamabad accuse each other of sheltering militants and providing safe havens for Islamist groups who carry out cross-border attacks.

Many residents in Killi Jahangir and Killi Luqman welcome the fence in the hope it will prevent bloodshed. But others are concerned it will hurt business and separate them from friends and family.

“There will no infiltration of terrorists or suspects from Afghan areas… but my own small business, which I was doing with Afghan people, will be affected,” said Abdul Jabbar, a Pakistani owner of a small enterprise in Killi Jahangir.

Pakistani officials have long struggled to impose security in the Pashtun tribal heartland. The area stretches for hundreds of kilometers, including rugged mountainous terrain, and has been a hotbed of arms and heroin smuggling for decades. U.S drone strikes have also targeted militants from al Qaeda and other groups in the region.

For the likes of taxi driver Abdul Razzaq, 30, having peace of mind offsets the loss of business due to the fence.

“Now I can sleep in my home without any fear,” he said.

(Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Afghan Shi’ites fear further attacks on Ashura celebrations

File Photo - Afghan security forces inspect at the site of a suicide attack near a large Shi'ite mosque, Kabul, Afghanistan. September 29, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

KABUL (Reuters) – The Afghan capital Kabul braced on Saturday for further possible attacks ahead of Ashura, the holiest day on the Shi’ite Muslim calendar, a day after an attack claimed by Islamic State that killed at least five people near a large Shi’ite mosque.

Ahead of the celebration on Sunday, signs of increased security were in evidence across Kabul, with extra police checkpoints and roadblocks in many areas, while security was also increased in other cities.

Afghanistan, a majority Sunni Muslim country, has traditionally not suffered the sectarian violence that has devastated countries like Iraq, but a series of attacks over recent years have targeted the Shi’ite community.

“We are concerned about this. We had internal fighting in the past but never religious fighting,” said Arif Rahmani, a member of parliament and a member of the mainly Shi’ite Hazara community that has been particularly targeted.

The government has provided some basic training and weapons for a few hundred volunteer guards near mosques and other meeting places but many fear that the protection, which covers only some of the city’s more than 400 Shi’ite mosques, is insufficient.

In 2011, more than 80 people were killed in Ashura attacks in Kabul and the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and there have been a string of others since, with 20 people killed in a suicide attack on a mosque in Kabul a month ago.

Friday’s attack, by suicide bombers posing as shepherds walking their sheep along a road outside the Hussainya mosque in the Qala-e-Fatehullah area of the city, did not reach the mosque itself but wounded 20 people in addition to the five killed.

No up-to-date census data exists for Afghanistan but different estimates put the size of the Shi’ite community at between 10-20 percent of the population, mostly Persian-speaking Tajiks and Hazaras.

Ashura, on the 10th day of the month of Muharram, celebrates the martyrdom of Hussein, one of the grandsons of the Prophet Mohammad, and is marked by large public commemorations by Shi’ite Muslims.

President Ashraf Ghani condemned Friday’s attack and said it would not break the unity between religions in Afghanistan.

But at a time when rivalry between the patchwork of different ethnic groups in the country has increasingly come into the open, Rahmani said the evident objective of the attacks was to ratchet up the tensions to create instability.

“In the past, there were warnings that there were groups that wanted to stir ethnic and religious conflict among Afghans but now it is reality,” Rahmani said. “There are people who want to create disunity among ethnic and religious groups,” he said.

(Reporting by Mirwais Harooni and James Mackenzie; Editing by Richard Pullin)

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)

Afghanistan will never again be militant sanctuary: U.S. ambassador

U.S. soldiers take part in a memorial ceremony to commemorate the 16th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, in Kabul, Afghanistan September 11, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

By Josh Smith

KABUL (Reuters) – The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan said on Monday Washington would never allow militants to use the country as a sanctuary, as American and allied troops in Kabul commemorated the Sept. 11 attacks.

U.S. President Donald Trump in August committed nearly 4,000 additional troops to Afghanistan as part of an open-ended campaign against Taliban insurgents who have made advances in recent years.

A U.S. led intervention sparked by the Sept. 11 attacks toppled the Taliban government in 2001. Since then more than 2,400 American troops and more than 1,000 international allies have died in Afghanistan.

“Today we remember how this conflict began but let us also remember how this must end, with Afghanistan never again serving as an ungoverned space, sanctuary or base for those who are bent on attacking us and our allies,” ambassador Hugo Llorens told a crowd of soldiers at the NATO coalition’s headquarters in Kabul.

The United states would also “completely annihilate” Islamic State militants in the region, Llorens said.

The Taliban on Monday claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing that wounded several NATO troops and Afghan civilians in a province north Kabul.

(Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

U.S. to send 3,500 additional troops to Afghanistan

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Marines walk inside their base after they are back from training with Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers in Helmand province, Afghanistan July 6, 2017. REUTERS/ Omar Sobhani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States will send about 3,500 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, a figure broadly in line with expectations as the United States boosts support for the Afghan military.

The disclosure by the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, comes as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine General Joseph Dunford hold closed door briefings with members of Congress about President Donald Trump’s regional strategy.

The Pentagon said it would not comment on additional troop numbers until Mattis makes an announcement.

If confirmed, it would bring the total number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to about 14,500.

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 Taliban insurgents.

Last week Mattis said he had signed orders to send additional troops to Afghanistan but did not specify the size of the force, saying he first needed to brief Congress.

U.S. officials have for months told Reuters that Trump had given Mattis the authority to send about 4,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.

The U.S. presence in Afghanistan peaked at more than 100,000 troops in 2011, when Washington was under domestic political pressure to draw down the costly operation.

Some U.S. officials have told Reuters they questioned the benefit of sending more troops to Afghanistan because any politically palatable number would not be enough to turn the tide, much less create stability and security.

To date, more than 2,300 Americans have been killed and over 17,000 wounded in Afghanistan.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart; Editing by Bill Trott)

Australian military probes ‘rumors’ of possible war crimes in Afghanistan

FILE PHOTO: The rear gunner of an Australian Chinook transport chopper mans a heavy machine gun during a low flight over the Arghandab valley in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan, May 3, 2010. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis

cThe Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported in July on an alleged cover-up of the killing of an Afghan boy as well as hundreds of pages of leaked defense force documents relating to the secretive operations of the country’s special forces.

On Friday, the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force released a statement saying it was conducting an inquiry “into rumors of possible breaches of the Laws of Armed Conflict” by Australian troops in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.

“The inquiry would like anyone who has information regarding possible breaches of the Laws of Armed Conflict by Australian forces in Afghanistan, or rumors of them, to contact the inquiry,” the statement read.

Australia is not a member of NATO but is a staunch U.S. ally and has had troops in Afghanistan since 2002.

As recently as May, Australia recommitted to the 16-year-long, seemingly intractable war against the Taliban and other Islamist militants by sending an additional 30 troops to Afghanistan to join the NATO-led training and assistance mission.

That brought Australia’s total Afghan deployment to 300 troops.

(Reporting by Joseph Hinchliffe; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Mattis signs orders to send additional troops to Afghanistan

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis looks on during a bilateral meeting with South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-Moo at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., August 30, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Thursday he had signed deployment orders to send additional troops to Afghanistan but did not specify the size of the force.

“Yes, I have signed orders but it is not complete. In other words I have signed some of the (orders for) troops that will go and we are identifying the specific ones,” Mattis told reporters.

Mattis declined to comment on how many additional troops were included in the orders, but U.S. officials have told Reuters that President Donald Trump has given Mattis the authority to send about 4,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.

“It is more advisers, it is more enablers, fire support, for example,” Mattis said. He added that no additional troops had moved in yet and could take a “couple of days.”

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 Afghan Taliban insurgents.

The security situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated for the United States and Afghan government over the past few years.

The Afghan government was assessed by the U.S. military to control or influence almost 60 percent of Afghanistan’s 407 districts as of Feb. 20, a nearly 11 percentage-point decrease from the same time in 2016, according to data released by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

About 11,000 U.S. troops are serving in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said on Wednesday, thousands more than it has previously stated.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by James Dalgleish and Alistair Bell)