Tag Archives: Kabul

In symbolic end to war, U.S. general steps down from Afghanistan command

By Phil Stewart

KABUL (Reuters) -The U.S. general leading the war in Afghanistan, Austin Miller, relinquished command on Monday at a ceremony in Kabul, in what was a symbolic end to America’s longest conflict even as Taliban insurgents gain momentum across the country.

Miller, America’s last four-star commander to serve on the ground in Afghanistan, stepped down ahead of a formal end to the U.S. military mission there on Aug. 31, a date set by President Joe Biden as he looks to extricate the country from the two-decade-old war.

Addressing a small gathering outside his military headquarters in Kabul, Miller vowed to remember the lives lost in the fighting and called on the Taliban to halt a wave of violent attacks that have given them control of more territory than at any time since the conflict began.

“What I tell the Taliban is they’re responsible too. The violence that’s going on is against the will of the Afghan people, and it needs to stop,” Miller said. While the ceremony may offer some sense of closure for U.S. veterans who served in Afghanistan, it’s unclear whether it will succeed in reassuring the Western-backed Afghan government as the Taliban press ground offensives.

U.S. Marine General Kenneth McKenzie, whose Florida-based Central Command oversees U.S. forces in hot-spots including Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, flew into Kabul to underscore America’s future assistance to Afghan security forces.

“You can count on our support in the dangerous and difficult days ahead. We will be with you,” McKenzie said in his address.

Speaking separately to a small group of reporters, McKenzie cautioned that the Taliban, in his view, were seeking “a military solution” to a war that the United States has unsuccessfully tried to end with a peace agreement between the Taliban and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s government.

He said provincial capitals were at risk but noted that the U.S.-backed Afghan security forces “are determined to fight very hard for those provincial capitals.”

McKenzie will be able to authorize U.S. air strikes against the Taliban through Aug. 31 in support of Ghani’s Western-backed government.

But after that, the Marine general said when it came to U.S. strikes in Afghanistan, his focus will shift squarely to counter-terrorism operations against al Qaeda and Islamic State.

INTELLIGENCE NETWORK

Gathering enough intelligence on the ground to prevent another Sept. 11-style attack could become increasingly challenging, as America’s intelligence network weakens with the U.S. withdrawal and as Afghan troops lose territory.

U.S. Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat and former senior Pentagon official, said many lawmakers were still looking for answers from the Biden administration about how the U.S. will be able to detect a future al Qaeda plot against the United States.

“I don’t need them to tell the entire world what our day-after plan is. But I think it’s important that they let us know some of the details on a private basis,” Slotkin said.

U.S. officials do not believe the Taliban could be relied upon to prevent al Qaeda from again plotting attacks against the United States from Afghan soil.

The United Nations said in a report in January there were as many as 500 al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan and that the Taliban maintained a close relationship with the Islamist extremist group.

LONGEST-SERVING GENERAL

As he steps down, Miller, 60, has spent longer on the ground than any of the previous generals to command the war.

He had a close call in 2018 when a rogue Afghan bodyguard in Kandahar province opened fire and killed a powerful Afghan police chief standing near Miller. A U.S. brigadier general was wounded, as were other Americans, but Miller emerged unscathed.

After Miller leaves the post, the Pentagon has engineered a transition that will allow a series of generals to carry on with supporting Afghan security forces, mostly from overseas.

Beyond McKenzie’s over watch from Florida, a Qatar-based brigadier general, Curtis Buzzard, will focus on administering funding support for the Afghan security forces – including aircraft maintenance support.

In Kabul, Navy Rear Admiral Peter Vasely will lead a newly created U.S. Forces Afghanistan-Forward, focusing on protecting the U.S. embassy and the airport.

Vasely, as a two-star admiral, is higher ranked than usual for a U.S. embassy-based post. But a U.S. defense official added that Afghanistan was a “very unique situation.”

“There’s no comparable diplomatic security situation in the world with what we’re going to establish,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Still, what happens next in Afghanistan appears to be increasingly out of America’s control.

Biden acknowledged on Thursday that Afghanistan’s future was far from certain but said the Afghan people must decide their own fate.

“I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan with no reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome,” he said.

About 2,400 U.S. service members have been killed in America’s longest war – and many thousands wounded.

(Reporting by Phil StewartEditing by Robert Birsel and Paul Simao)

Era ends, war looms as U.S. forces quit main base in Afghanistan

KABUL (Reuters) -American troops pulled out of their main military base in Afghanistan on Friday, leaving behind a piece of the World Trade Center they buried 20 years ago in a country that the top U.S. commander has warned may descend into civil war without them.

“All American soldiers and members of NATO forces have left the Bagram air base,” said a senior U.S. security official on condition of anonymity.

Though a few more troops have yet to withdraw from another base in the capital Kabul, the Bagram pullout brings an effective end to the longest war in American history.

The base, an hour’s drive north of Kabul, was where the U.S. military has coordinated its air war and logistical support for its entire Afghan mission. The Taliban thanked them for leaving.

“We consider this withdrawal a positive step. Afghans can get closer to stability and peace with the full withdrawal of foreign forces,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters.

Other Afghans were more circumspect. “The Americans must leave Afghanistan and there should be peace in this country,” said Kabul resident Javed Arman. But he added: “We are in a difficult situation. Most people have fled their districts and some districts have fallen. Seven districts in Paktia province have fallen and are now under Taliban control.”

For the international forces, more than 3,500 of whom died in Afghanistan, the exit came with no pageantry. A Western diplomat in Kabul said the United States and its NATO allies had “won many battles, but have lost the Afghan war”.

It was at Bagram, by a bullet-ridden Soviet-built air strip on a plain hemmed in by the snow-capped peaks of the Hindu Kush, that New York City firefighters and police were flown to bury a piece of the World Trade Center in December, 2001, days after the Taliban were toppled for harboring Osama bin Laden.

It was also here that the CIA ran a “black site” detention center for terrorism suspects and subjected them to abuse that President Barack Obama subsequently acknowledged as torture.

Later it swelled into a sprawling fortified city for a huge international military force, with fast food joints, gyms and a café serving something called “the mother of all coffees.” Two runways perpetually roared. Presidents flew in and gave speeches; celebrities came and told jokes.

An Afghan official said the base would be officially handed over to the government at a ceremony on Saturday.

The U.S. defense official said General Austin Miller, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan “still retains all the capabilities and authorities to protect the force” stationed in the capital, Kabul.

Earlier this week, Miller told journalists in Kabul that civil war for Afghanistan was “certainly a path that can be visualized”, with Taliban fighters sweeping into districts around the country in recent weeks as foreign troops flew home.

Two other U.S. security officials said this week the majority of U.S. military personnel would most likely be gone by July 4, with a residual force remaining to protect the embassy.

That would be more than two months ahead of the timetable set by Biden, who had promised they would be home by Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the attack that brought them here.

Washington agreed to withdraw in a deal negotiated last year with the Taliban under Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump, and Biden rejected advice from generals to hang on until a political agreement could be reached between the insurgents and the U.S.-backed Kabul government of President Ashraf Ghani.

“MANAGE THE CONSEQUENCES”

Last week, Ghani visited Washington. Biden told him: “Afghans are going to have to decide their future, what they want.” Ghani said his job was now to “manage the consequences” of the U.S. withdrawal.

In exchange for the U.S. withdrawal, the Taliban have promised not to allow international terrorists to operate from Afghan soil. They made a commitment to negotiate with the Afghan government, but those talks, in the Qatari capital Doha, made little progress.

In a statement, the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan this week said the United States was firmly committed to assist Afghanistan and will provide security assistance of $3 billion in 2022.

“We urge an end to violence, respect for the human rights of all Afghans and serious negotiations in Doha so that a just and durable peace may be achieved,” the embassy stated.

The Taliban refuse to declare a ceasefire. Afghan soldiers have been surrendering or abandoning their posts. Militia groups that fought against the Taliban before the Americans arrived are taking up arms to fight them again.

A senior western diplomat said the United States has asked three Central Asian nations – Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – to temporarily provide home to about 10,000 Afghan citizens who had either worked with the U.S. or allied forces.

Several European nations were also providing refuge to hundreds of Afghan employees and their families as they faced direct threat from the Taliban.

Since Biden’s announcement that he would press ahead with Trump’s withdrawal plan, insurgents have made advances across Afghanistan, notably in the north, where for years after their ouster they had a minimal presence.

Fighting was intensifying between government forces and the Taliban in the northeastern province of Badakshan, officials said on Friday.

(Reporting by Afghanistan bureau; Writing by Peter Graff, Editing by William Maclean)

Afghan civilians take up arms as U.S.-led forces leave

PARWAN, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Gun in hand, 55-year-old Dost Mohammad Salangi recites poetry as he leads a small group of men to a look-out post high in the rugged hills of Parwan province, north of the Afghan capital Kabul.

Heavily bearded and wearing a traditional circular pakol hat to keep off the sun, he has a warning for the Islamist militant Taliban movement, which has increased attacks on Afghan forces and claimed more territory as foreign troops withdraw.

“If they impose war on us, oppress us and encroach on women and people’s property, even our seven-year-old children will be armed and will stand against them,” he told Reuters.

Salangi is one of hundreds of former “mujahideen” fighters and civilians who have felt compelled to take up arms to help the army repel a growing Taliban insurgency.

The group’s ascendancy on the ground comes as the last U.S.-led international forces prepare to leave after two decades of fighting that ended with no clear victory for either side.

“We have to protect our country … now there is no choice as the foreign forces abandon us,” said Farid Mohammed, a young student who joined a local anti-Taliban leader from Parwan.

He was speaking as the German military concluded the withdrawal of the second largest contingent of foreign troops after the United States with around 150,000 soldiers deployed over the past two decades, many of them serving more than one tour in the country.

U.S. President Joe Biden and NATO said in mid-April they would pull out the roughly 10,000 foreign troops still in Afghanistan by Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York that prompted the mission.

The United Nations envoy for Afghanistan said this week the Taliban had taken more than 50 of 370 districts and was positioned to control provincial capitals as the country looked increasingly unstable as foreign military support ended.

Armed mainly with old assault rifles, pistols and grenade launchers, men like Salangi and Mohammed have joined local shopkeepers and traders as part of a loosely-formed Public Uprising Force trying to reclaim some of those areas.

Ajmal Omar Shinwari, a spokesman for the Afghan defense and security forces, said Afghans keen to take up arms against the Taliban were being absorbed intro the structure of territorial army forces.

But some political analysts warn of the growing risk of a return to civil war as more groups took up arms.

Faced with rising violence, President Ashraf Ghani visited Washington in June to meet Biden, who pledged U.S. support to Afghanistan but said Afghans must decide their own future.

Talks to try and find a political settlement in Afghanistan have stalled, although the head of the Afghan peace council has said they should not be abandoned despite the surge in Taliban attacks.

(Reporting by Afghanistan bureau, Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

Bombers aim for buses in new tactic to spread death and fear in Afghanistan

KABUL (Reuters) – Militants in Afghanistan are adopting a new tactic to spread fear in the capital, Kabul, especially among the the ethnic Hazara minority, planting bombs on crowded buses that have until now largely been spared such bloodshed.

Two blasts on buses in an area dominated by Shi’ite Muslim Hazras killed at least 12 people and wounded 10 on Tuesday, raising new fears in the community and alarming security officials who say such attacks are nearly impossible to stop.

Four people were killed and four wounded in the same neighborhood on Thursday when a bomb blew up a passenger van, police said.

“Our schools, worship sites, education centers, wedding halls have been attacked by Daesh in the past and now it’s the buses,” said shopkeeper Ahmad Ehsan, referring to the Islamic State militant group, which claimed responsibility for the Tuesday attacks.

“Nowhere is safe for us. We’re the soft, easy targets everywhere,” he said.

Hazaras have long been targeted by Sunni militant groups such as the Taliban and Islamic State.

On May 8, bombs outside a school in the same part of Kabul killed 80 people, most of them schoolgirls.

University student Sarah Nawandesh, who lives in the western part of Kabul where the bombings took place, said she now took the bus to university in “great fear”.

Police issued a statement on Wednesday urging residents to be vigilant while using public transport.

A senior security official said the bombing of public transport was a worrying new threat in the city of seven million people.

“Our enemies change tactics … this is a new threat, a new trend,” said the official, who declined to be identified.

Nearly 1,800 civilians were killed or wounded in the first three months of 2021 during fighting between government forces and Taliban insurgents despite efforts to find peace, the United Nations said last month.

The United States has announced a plan to withdraw all of its troops by Sept. 11, exactly two decades since the al Qaeda attacks on the United States that led to a new round of war in Afghanistan.

(Reporting by Kabul bureau; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Days after bombing, Afghans despair at three-day limit to ceasefire

KABUL (Reuters) – An announcement by the Taliban that they would cease fire for three days for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr has been met by many Afghans with little but despair, just days after a bombing that killed at least 80 people, most of them schoolgirls.

The insurgents said late on Sunday they were offering the pause in fighting so Afghans could celebrate Eid in peace. The truce is meant to come into force on Thursday morning, at a critical moment with U.S. forces in the process of withdrawing after 20 years.

But many Afghans described the short holiday pause in fighting as a fruitless gesture. The Taliban observed a similar truce last year.

“If a ceasefire had been declared some days ago, perhaps these schoolgirls would have been alive and celebrating Eid with their families,” said Shah Wali, a Kabul shopkeeper, referring to Saturday’s bomb attack on a girls school mainly attended by Shi’ite Muslim members of the Hazara ethnic minority.

“It is a good and appropriate action, but not only on the three days of Eid… we want a permanent ceasefire,” he told Reuters.

The Taliban have condemned Saturday’s bombing, which U.S. officials suspect may have been the work of a rival militant group, such as Islamic State.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment about Afghans calling for a longer ceasefire in the wake of the bombing.

University student Shugufa Azaryoon, 22, said she did not welcome the ceasefire at all. Previous ceasefires had been used by Taliban fighters only to regroup and launch attacks after Eid, she said.

PERMANENT CEASEFIRE HASHTAG

The Afghan government wants the Taliban to agree to a more comprehensive ceasefire to promote political talks. The Taliban say they want to lay down their arms, but cannot do so permanently until a political settlement is reached.

Meanwhile, the hashtag “AfghansWantPermanentCeasefire” trended in Afghanistan on Facebook and Twitter in the lead up to Eid, which marks the end of the Ramadan holy fasting month.

Facebook user Sadaf Jamali wrote: “I kill people in Ramadan, I don’t kill people in Eid, but after Eid I will (kill) them again…This is Taliban’s logic #AfghansWantPermanentCeasefire”.

A day before the ceasefire was to begin, Taliban insurgents launched an offensive and took control of a key district located an hour’s drive from the capital Kabul.

Washington, which is pulling its remaining troops out of Afghanistan over the next four months, had long said its withdrawal was conditional on the Taliban reducing violence, but now says it is leaving no matter what.

U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad welcomed the announcement of the three-day ceasefire, but said on Twitter that “Afghans deserve much more: a political settlement & a permanent ceasefire.”

Government employee Saifullah Khan said the three-day ceasefire did not leave enough time to travel to spend the holiday with his family, who live in a village two-days’ journey away.

“I wish they had announced a longer ceasefire,” he said. “Like hundreds of thousands of other Afghans I have to wait for a real and permanent ceasefire…only a miracle can make this possible.”

(Reporting by Kabul newsroom; Editing by Peter Graff)

Exclusive-As U.S. prepared exit, Taliban protected foreign bases, but killed Afghans

By Rupam Jain, Abdul Qadir Sediqi and Charlotte Greenfield

KABUL (Reuters) – Taliban fighters have protected western military bases in Afghanistan from attacks by rival, or rogue Islamist groups for over a year under a secret annex to a pact for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces by May 1, three Western officials with knowledge of the agreement told Reuters.

The U.S. State Department gave no immediate response to Reuters over the existence of any such document. Nor did it have any immediate comment on what the three officials described as a “Taliban ring of protection”.

Since United States struck a deal with the Taliban in February 2020, paving the way for America to end its longest war, there have been no U.S. combat deaths, and there have been only isolated attacks on U.S. bases.

Instead, the Taliban intensified attacks on Afghan government forces, and civilian casualties have spiraled.

Peace talks between the militants and the government, begun in September, have made no significant progress, and a U.N. report said civilian casualties were up 45% in the last three months of 2020 from a year earlier.

Testing Taliban patience, U.S. President Joe Biden served notice that the U.S. withdrawal would overshoot the May 1 deadline agreed by the previous U.S. administration, while giving an assurance that it would be completed by Sept. 11 – the 20th anniversary of the al Qaeda attacks on the United States.

When the deadline passes on Saturday, around 2,000 U.S. troops will still be in Afghanistan, according to a western security official in Kabul. The commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan, U.S. Army General Scott Miller earlier this week said an orderly withdrawal and the handing over of military bases and equipment to Afghan forces had begun.

Afghan soldiers left manning those bases could need plenty of firepower to resist any offensive by Taliban fighters who have been occupying strategic positions in surrounding areas.

In the past two weeks alone, the militants have killed more than 100 Afghan security personnel in a surge of attacks that followed Biden’s announcement that a U.S. withdrawal would take a few months more.

Two of the Western officials said Washington had accepted the Taliban’s offer to shield the western military bases from attacks by the likes of Islamic State.

The officials said the Taliban had wanted to demonstrate good faith by meeting a commitment to ensure Afghan soil was not used for attacks on U.S. interests – a key U.S. demand in the February agreement.

“They provided a layer of cover, almost like a buffer and ordered their fighters to not injure or kill any foreign soldier in this period,” said one western diplomat involved in the process.

The western officials said it was also important for the Taliban to show its ability to control the more recalcitrant factions in its movement, like the Haqqani network, which has often followed its own agenda, though its leader Sirajuddin Haqqani is the second-highest ranking commander in the Taliban.

A Kabul-based western security official said that militants had kept their side of the bargain.

“The Taliban swiftly responded to even minor attacks conducted by the Haqqani network and Islamic State fighters around the bases,” he said.

DEADLINE SATURDAY

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid declined to comment on the so-called “ring of protection” agreement.

More broadly, he said no security guarantee has been given to the United States beyond Saturday’s deadline, but talks were underway among the group’s leadership and with the U.S. side.

“So far our commitment of not attacking the foreign forces is until May 1, after that whether we will attack or not is an issue under discussion,” said Mujahid.

Mullah Baradar, the Taliban’s deputy political chief, held talks with U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad to discuss the peace process on Thursday, another militant spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, said in a Twitter post.

Clearly having the militants holding positions around Western bases presents a danger if no understanding is reached.

“They’ve definitely moved ever closer to a lot of Afghan and foreign bases,” said Ashley Jackson, co-director of the Centre for the Study of Armed Groups at Overseas Development Institute, a London-based think-tank.

“Encircling U.S., NATO, and Afghan bases seems like the Taliban strategy to poise themselves to take over when foreign forces leave.”

Afghan defense ministry spokesman Fawad Aman said the Taliban had ramped up violence against the Afghan people and their government, while holding fire against foreign forces.

More than 3,000 Afghan civilians were killed and almost 5,800 were wounded in 2020, according to a United Nation report.

“By not attacking the foreign forces but continuously targeting the Afghan security forces and civilians, the Taliban have shown that they are fighting against the people of Afghanistan,” Aman said.

Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, sympathized with that view, saying: “they have every right to lambaste a U.S.-Taliban agreement for failing to bring a semblance of relief to Afghans themselves.”

(Reporting by Abdul Qadir Sediqi in Kabul, Charlotte Greenfield in Islamabad and Rupam Jain in Panjim, India; Additional reporting by Jonathan Landay in Washington; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Trump may settle for partial Afghan withdrawal, despite Pentagon shakeup: sources

By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s new Pentagon leadership team has not yet signaled an imminent, total withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, raising expectations among allies that Trump might settle for only a partial reduction this year, sources said.

Trump fired his defense secretary, Mark Esper, and appointed other top Pentagon officials last week after longstanding concerns that his priorities were not being dealt with urgently enough at the Defense Department.

They included ending the 19-year-old Afghan engagement by Christmas, an ambitious target that opponents of the country’s longest war welcomed but which Trump’s critics warned could be reckless given ongoing militant violence plaguing Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has featured in a flurry of introductory calls by acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, Esper’s replacement, to U.S. allies’ defense ministers and chiefs of defense, a senior U.S. defense official told Reuters.

“It was a part of many of them because it is of great importance to our NATO allies, our allies in the region and also just global security and protecting the American homeland,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

But the official, speaking after the calls with allies, suggested that Trump would not push a withdrawal faster than conditions on the ground allow.

U.S. and Afghan officials are warning of troubling levels of violence by Taliban insurgents and persistent Taliban links to al Qaeda.

It was those ties that triggered U.S. military intervention in 2001 following the 9/11 attacks, which al Qaeda carried out. Thousands of American and allied troops have died in fighting in Afghanistan since then.

Some U.S. military officials, citing U.S. counter-terrorism priorities in Afghanistan, have privately urged Trump against going to zero at this point and want to keep U.S. troop levels at around 4,500 for now.

“The president has acted appropriately in this, has never said: ‘Hey, we’re going to zero. Let’s go tomorrow.’ It has always been a conditions-based effort and that effort continues,” the senior U.S. defense official said, without explicitly detailing future drawdown plans.

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

‘SEE FIGHT TO THE FINISH’

Over the past four years, predicting Trump’s policy pronouncements has not always been easy.

On Oct. 7, Trump said on Twitter: “We should have the small remaining number of our BRAVE Men and Women serving in Afghanistan home by Christmas!”

But U.S. officials say he has yet to issue orders to carry that withdrawal out. Doing so now would be difficult for the U.S. military to execute, especially given the reliance of NATO allies on the United States for logistical support, they add.

One NATO official, who asked not to be named, said the belief was the United States could soon announce a drawdown to 2,500 to 3,000 troops by Christmas.

National security adviser Robert O’Brien already raised such a possibility, saying last month the United States would go down to 2,500 by early 2021, in comments overshadowed by Trump’s Christmas timeline.

A NATO diplomat said Miller, in his introductory call with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, did not suggest a complete withdrawal but instead a reduction of troops.

The senior U.S. defense official said U.S. withdrawals from Afghanistan had been carried out in an “educated way so as not to revisit the Iraq withdrawal that failed in 2011.”

Then-President Barack Obama withdrew troops against military advice, only to return them to Iraq three years later.

Regardless of what Trump might do, Taliban militants, fighting against the U.S.-backed government in Kabul, have called on the United States to stick to a February agreement with the Trump administration to withdraw U.S. troops by May, subject to certain security guarantees.

Violence has been rising throughout Afghanistan, with the Taliban attacking provincial capitals, in some case prompting U.S. airstrikes.

In Kabul, there is growing fear of a precipitous withdrawal that could further embolden the Taliban and undercut already sputtering peace talks, sources say. Miller, in a message to the U.S. armed forces released over the weekend, echoed Trump’s desire to end America’s overseas engagements by saying “it’s time to come home.” But he did not offer a timetable and stressed the need to finish the fight against al Qaeda.

The Taliban harbored al Qaeda’s leaders and the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan said the Taliban had not fulfilled their February accord commitment to break ties with al Qaeda.

“We are on the verge of defeating al Qaeda and its associates, but we must avoid our past strategic error of failing to see the fight through to the finish,” wrote Miller, a former Green Beret and counter-terrorism official.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Washington, Robin Emmott in Brussels and John Irish in Paris; Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

‘Death coming for me’: Gunmen cut young lives short in Kabul campus slaughter

By Abdul Qadir Sediqi, Orooj Hakimi and Hamid Shalizi

KABUL (Reuters) – As Mohammad clambered out of a second-floor window at Kabul University on Monday to escape gunmen rampaging across the campus, he was sure death was close.

Minutes earlier, the 20-year-old had been sitting in his classroom in the Afghan university’s National Legal Training Center building, waiting for a lecturer at the start of what should have been a regular Monday morning.

Then three gunmen began shooting, killing at least 35 in an attack on unarmed young people that has shocked a country where insurgent violence is common despite peace talks between Taliban militants and the U.S.-backed government.

“Sounds of screaming, gunshots and hand grenade explosions reverberated inside the building,” Mohammad, who asked to go by his first name, told Reuters by ‘phone. “Many lives and dreams were shattered.”

The brazen attack has been claimed by Islamic State, a jihadist group that is an enemy of the Taliban and not part of Afghanistan’s halting peace process.

The Taliban, which wants a share of power as U.S. troops withdraw after nearly 20 years of shoring up the government in Kabul, has denied involvement in Monday’s massacre.

That has done little to reassure a nation where trust in the Taliban – responsible for killing thousands of civilians and government troops in recent years – is at a low ebb.

The fact that young people were specifically targeted just over a week after a suicide bomber killed 24 people – most aged between 15 and 26 – at a Kabul education centre, has only heightened the sense of anger and loss.

About a hundred students gathered near Kabul University campus on Tuesday to protest against the peace talks, which are being held in Doha.

“We want to raise our voices to the world and say we shall never give up,” said M. Younus, one of the demonstrators. “No matter how many they kill, we will continue our studies.”

MORNING CALM SHATTERED

The gunmen entered the building Mohammad was in – located beside an entrance to the campus – at around 11 a.m. (0630 GMT).

Officials say they are still piecing together the sequence of events. They have yet to establish whether the attackers entered the campus by force or if arms had been stored on site to be accessed after they entered the grounds.

“With the start of gunshots I looked outside and saw well-equipped men in police force uniforms running toward our building,” said Mohammad, a third year student in the law and political science faculty.

It was not clear whether he was referring to the insurgents or security forces who engaged them in battle. In some previous militant attacks in Afghanistan, perpetrators have disguised themselves as members of the police or army.

Along with his classmates, Mohammad rushed to wedge chairs and tables in front of their classroom door to stop the attackers from entering. As the explosions and gunshots neared, the students desperately looked for a way to escape.

“Our class had windows facing the rear of the building where there are many trees; using the trees we managed to climb down,” said Mohammad, who heard screams behind him from the building he had fled.

“I saw death coming for me, I don’t know whose prayers saved me.”

FROZEN IN FEAR

A short distance away on the sprawling campus, Somaya Mohammadi, 20, had been taking notes in her Islamic Culture lecture when she looked out of the window and saw a large number of students running frantically toward the exit gate.

“One of the students shouted that suicide attackers had entered the university,” Mohammadi, a student at the Faculty of Engineering, recalled.

There was shock and panic as she and her classmates grabbed their belongings and rushed out of the building.

Mohammadi said she froze in fear.

“I was shivering and could not walk at all … I got out of the building with the help of my friends.”

Outside, there was chaos.

“Everyone was running … the university was very crowded,” said 21-year-old Niloufar Alamyar.

A third year student, Alamyar had been training to be a journalist – a difficult and dangerous job in Afghanistan. But she was not prepared for what she saw.

“I did not think I would ever see such a scene in life,” she said, adding that students were directed to flee via the south gate of the campus, away from where the attackers had entered and were exchanging heavy fire with security forces.

The battle continued for some six hours, according to officials.

LUCKY TO BE ALIVE

Mohammad, Mohammadi and Alamyar made it out alive, unharmed. Others were less fortunate.

Mustafa Jan witnessed classmates being killed.

“I saw an attacker pass by the classroom. When he returned, he fired into the classroom. He killed and wounded a number of my classmates and then went to other classes.”

Outside, as Mohammadi fled, she desperately tried to call her best friend Marzia, who did not respond. She was to meet Marzia after class to return a book she had borrowed.

“Bring it tomorrow after the class,” Marzia, who was in the final year of a public policy course, had texted the night before. The two had been friends for nine years and graduated school together.

When Marzia did not answer, Mohammadi called one of her classmates, who informed her that Marzia was dead.

“I just could not believe it,” said Mohammadi, who stumbled across a picture of Marzia on social media laying lifeless on the floor, covered in blood.

“Marzia was very talented student, and she was top of her class,” said Mohammadi, weeping. “I’ll miss her loud laugh and jokes. I still can’t believe she is no more.”

(Additional reporting by Hameed Farzad; Writing by Gibran Peshimam; Editing by Euan Rocha and Mike Collett-White)

Taliban prisoner issue almost resolved, peace talks expected ‘soon’: sources, officials

By Abdul Qadir Sediqi and Charlotte Greenfield

KABUL/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Peace talks between warring Afghan factions are expected to start as soon as they iron out their main differences over the release of the “most dangerous” Taliban prisoners, officials and sources from both sides said.

Despite a major push by the United States, there has been a delay in the intra-Afghan talks as the Afghan government and some key NATO members are uncomfortable about the release of Taliban commanders accused of conducting large-scale attacks that killed civilians in recent years.

An Afghan government source said the prisoner issue had largely been resolved and they would release an alternative set of prisoners with talks expected to start mid-July.

“The Taliban agreed because it was delaying the talks,” he said, adding the government had also demanded a guarantee from the Taliban that it was no longer holding any Afghan security force prisoners.

A source close to the Taliban said the group was willing to move forward so long as most of the 5,000 prisoners demanded were released.

“I don’t think releasing or not releasing 200 or 300 prisoners will matter in the process, the Taliban can agree for (those) prisoners to remain in Afghan government custody,” the source said.

Taliban political spokesman Suhail Shaheen could not be reached for comment but has reiterated in recent weeks that the group expects the full terms of their February agreement with the United States, including the release of 5,000 prisoners, to be implemented before talks can start.

Pakistan, seen as a key regional player in getting the Taliban to peace talks, said it expected negotiations to begin very soon and was optimistic that sticking points, including the prisoner issue, would be resolved.

“I think we are almost there,” Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told Reuters in an interview on Thursday. “The impediments have been addressed one by one and now there is a general agreement that this is the way forward…I’m expecting things to be begin quickly.”

(Reporting by Abdul Qadir Sediqi, Hamid Shalizi and Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Islamic State attacks Kabul gathering, killing at least 32

By Abdul Qadir Sediqi and Orooj Hakimi

KABUL (Reuters) – Islamic State gunmen opened fire at a ceremony in Kabul on Friday, killing at least 32 people in the first major attack in the city since the United States reached an agreement with the Afghan Taliban on a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops.

A top Afghan political leader, Abdullah Abdullah, was present along with other key political figures and escaped unharmed.

Some 81 people were wounded, a government spokesman said, adding that the death toll could rise.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, the group’s Amaq news agency reported on its telegram channel.

The Taliban, who were ousted from power by U.S.-led troops in 2001, denied involvement almost immediately.

The gathering marked the 25th anniversary of the death of Abdul Ali Mazari, an ethnic Hazara leader who was killed in 1995 after being taken prisoner by the Taliban.

Several people were killed in a similar attack on the same commemoration last year, which Islamic State had also said was carried out by its militants.

“The attack started with a boom, apparently a rocket landed in the area, Abdullah and some other politicians … escaped the attack unhurt,” Abdullah’s spokesman, Fraidoon Kwazoon, who was also present, told Reuters by telephone.

Broadcaster Tolo News showed live footage of people running for cover as gunfire was heard.

Afghan defense forces continued to fight gunmen throughout the day, finally securing the area by killing about three gunmen in the late afternoon, according to ministry of interior spokesman Nasrat Rahimi.

President Ashraf Ghani tweeted that the attack was “a crime against humanity and against the national unity of Afghanistan”.

Abdullah was runner-up in the last three Afghan presidential elections, each of which he disputed. He has served as chief executive of a coalition government since 2014 and is also a former foreign minister.

Ghani said he had telephoned Abdullah, his longtime political rival. Abdullah is contesting an Electoral Commission announcement last month declaring Ghani the winner of September’s presidential election.

Dozens of relatives gathered at the morgue of a hospital not far from the blast, with many breaking down in tears as they waited to identify their loved ones.

Ambulances and stretchers bustled back and forth at the hospital to deliver the wounded for treatment.

“I was at the ceremony when gunshots started. I rushed toward the door to get out of the area but suddenly my foot was hit by a bullet,” Mukhtar Jan told Reuters from a stretcher at the hospital.

Ali Attayee, at the hospital to support his wounded brother, said: “Those who committed this crime want to destroy our people… We’re sorry for those committing such crimes.”

Representatives of the United States, European Union and NATO condemned the attack.

“We strongly condemn today’s vicious attack…We stand with Afghanistan for peace,” the U.S. charge d’affaires in Kabul, Ross Wilson, wrote on Twitter.

The attack was one of the largest on civilians in Afghanistan in a year.

“Horrific attack in Kabul today…heartbreaking and unacceptable. We are tired of war and violence,” said Shahrzad Akbar, head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

Hazaras are mostly Shi’ite Muslims. Minority Shi’ites have been repeatedly attacked by Sunni militants in Afghanistan.

The United States has sought to spearhead efforts toward a lasting peace arrangement. Violence decreased during a seven-day hold-down accord with the Taliban before last Saturday’s deal, though the Taliban have since resumed attacks on Afghan forces.

(Reporting by Abdul Qadir Sediqi, Orooj Hakimi, Rupam Jain, Samargul Zwak, Sayed Hassib and Hesham Abdul Khalek; Writing by Charlotte Greenfield and Gibran Peshimam; Editing by Robert Birsel, Kevin Liffey, Peter Graff and Nick Macfie)