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Afghanistan

Afghan police kill would-be cross-dressing boomer

2008-06-13

Afghan police said on Thursday they killed a would-be suicide bomber disguised in a burqa after he ignored warning shots. Officers guarding a police compound in Helmand shot the man after he ignored an order to freeze and started running towards the building. He was shot in the forehead and was killed on the spot. When we took off his burqa we found he was a man with suicide vest tied around his body." Officers guarding a police compound in southern Helmand province shot the man after he ignored an order to freeze and instead started running towards the building, said provincial police chief Mohammad Hussain Andiwal. "He was shot in the forehead after he ignored warning shots and was killed on the spot. When we took off his burqa we found he was a man with suicide vest tied around his body," Andiwal said. The explosives did not go off and there were no other casualties, he said. Andiwal said the man was a Taliban militant, but there was no immediate claim of responsibility from the group, which has claimed most of the suicide attacks against Afghan and foreign forces. Last week a BBC reporter Abdul Samad Rohani in Helmand was abducted and later killed. The Afghan government said its initial findings indicate the Taliban killed the reporter who had received death threats from the extremists, but they said they were not involved in the killing. "They were abducting children, were raping them and were video recording the sexual abuse for networks they were in contact with." Kabul: Separately, a criminal group, which abducted and raped schoolchildren then recorded the abuse to make pornographic videos, has been busted in Kabul, intelligence officials said. The group of four people had kidnapped five children below the age of 12 as they went home from school in the city, said a spokesman for the Afghan National Directorate of Security. "They were abducting children, were raping them and were video recording the sexual abuse for networks they were in contact with," Sayed Ansari told reporters. Ansari said the men had confessed to their crimes. Meanwhile, agents also raided a house where kidnappers kept a man they abducted for ransom in an overnight raid last night, killing the group leader and arresting two others, one of them a woman, he said.

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Afghanistan

Bomber kills Afghan policeman who caught Taliban

2008-04-05

A suicide bomber in southern Afghanistan attacked and killed a police commander on Friday who was responsible for the arrest this week of a mid-level Taliban leader, a provincial police chief said. Two other policemen and a civilian were killed in the blast in the capital of Helmand province, Lashkar Gah, police said. The bomber blew himself up after walking up to a vehicle in which a police officer known as Commander Mareez was travelling with some of his men, said police chief Mohammad Hussain Andiwal. Mareez was responsible for the capture on Monday of an insurgent commander known as Naqibullah, Andiwal said. "The Taliban are behind the attack in retaliation for the capture of their commander," Andiwal said. Three policemen were wounded in the attack, Andiwal said. Several shopkeepers were also hurt, residents said. Taliban commander Naqibullah was captured after a shoot-out near Lashkar Gah in which three Taliban were killed. Naqibullah had twice escaped from prison and the Interior Ministry said in February he had been killed in a clash.

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Afghanistan

Taliban attack Afghan power plant

2008-03-30

KABUL - Taliban insurgents blew up a power station in the southern Afghan province of Helmand on Saturday, killing two people and wounding eight, police said. The power station, in the district of Girishk, is the main source of electricity for the area. “Two employees of the station were killed and eight other people including two passers-by were wounded in the explosion,” said provincial police chief, Hussain Andiwal. “The building was damaged but the power supply machinery is safe,” he said.

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Afghanistan

Car bomb in Afghan market kills 8

2008-03-27

KABUL - A car bomb exploded in a market in the southern Afghan province of Helmand on Wednesday killing at least eight people and wounding 17, police said. Provincial police chief Hussain Andiwal said no members of the [foreign] security forces were in the farmers’ market in Girishk district when the bomb went off. “The explosives were inside a car parked in a weekly market where a sizable number of people were buying and selling goods,” Andiwal said. “The target was civilians. There no foreign or Afghan forces in the area.” Children were also among the victims, he said. Brave, brave Lions of Islam™. A Taliban spokesman denied responsibility for the attack. "Wudn't us. It wuz... ummm... somebody else." The Taliban launched about 140 suicide attacks in Afghanistan last year, but routinely deny responsibility for attacks where there are a large number of civilian casualties. Figured out it wasn't good public relations, did they ... There are so many other people in the suicide kaboom business it's real easy to shift the blame. The Taliban spokesman said militants had killed several Afghan policemen with a remote-controlled roadside bomb in the same district earlier in the day. Helmand police chief Andiwal said two Afghan policemen were killed and two wounded in that attack.

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Afghanistan

Ten killed in fresh violence in Afghanistan

2007-12-31

(KUNA) -- At least 10 people, including two civilians, two policemen and six security guards of a private company were killed in separate attacks in Afghanistan on Sunday. The two civilians died as a roadside bomb struck their vehicle in the southern province of Helmand, a provincial police chief said. The bomb was planted by enemies of the country - the term Afghan officials used for Taliban militants - to target the Afghan and foreign troops, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Hussain Andiwal told KUNA. Taliban militants so far did not claim responsibility for the attack. Separately, six security guards of a private security company and two policemen were killed as Taliban attacked their convoy with rockets in the central Maidan Wardak province, located some 40 kilometers south of the central capital Kabul. Police chief of the province Brig. Gen. Muzaffaruddin confirmed the attack and the casualties, adding that the security men and policemen returned fire and wounded four of the assailants. Meanwhile, a Taliban commander, who was reportedly sacked by the militants' fugitive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, said he was still the commander of Taliban in Afghanistan. Mansoor Dadullah, the brother of dreaded Taliban commander Mulla Dadullah, who was killed in a military action a few months back, was removed from his post, a Taliban statement had said on Saturday. However, Mansoor Dadulla said he was still the commander of Taliban in southern Afghanistan. This is the first revolt in the ranks of Taliban since their ouster as a result of US-led invasion in late 2001.

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Afghanistan

Four dozen Talibs banged in Musa Qala area

2007-10-21

The separate US-led coalition, which works alongside ISAF and the Afghan security forces, said it killed around four dozen Taliban fighters in two straight days of fighting elsewhere in Helmand. Nearly three dozen were killed Saturday and more than a dozen on Friday in fighting in the Musa Qala area, an insurgent hotbed. Both battles were sparked by ambushes which Afghan and coalition soldiers beat back with return fire and help from war planes, the force said. The fighting was "part of a larger operation to disrupt terrorist activities in the Helmand province," it said in a statement. Helmand produces most of Afghanistan's opium which the United Nations says accounts for up 93 percent of world supply. The top US commander in Afghanistan, General Dan McNeill, said this week he estimated up to 40 percent of the Taliban's income comes from opium, the raw ingredient of heroin. The Taliban have been in control of the Musa Qala district centre for months and officials have said the small town has become a headquarters for rebels who are assisted by foreign "jihadists" in their bid to topple the US-backed Kabul government. In other bloodshed, two policemen were killed and four wounded Saturday when a bomb blew up their pick-up in the eastern province of Paktia, provincial police chief Ismatullah Alizai said, blaming the Taliban. Unknown gunmen meanwhile shot dead a tribal elder in the same province, he said. A toddler died when she was struck by a gunshot from a NATO soldier while troops killed four dozen Taliban in two days of battles in Afghanistan's top opium-growing area, officials said Saturday. NATO's International Security Assistance Force said it deeply regretted the death of the child in the southern province of Helmand on Friday. Helmand provincial police chief Mohammad Hussain Andiwal said the girl was two years old and the incident had happened outside her home. An ISAF soldier fired a single shot to stop a vehicle from coming too close to a military patrol, the force said in a statement. The bullet allegedly ricocheted and hit the child although the incident was being investigated, it said. "Sometime later, a family brought a child suffering from a gunshot wound to the head to an ISAF base for medical attention. Unfortunately, the child died," it said. Several civilians have been killed in Afghanistan this year by warning shots fired to stop people approaching international security force checkpoints and patrols. Troops are the main target of Taliban suicide bombs, often delivered by car or fixed to a person who launches himself at the soldiers.

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