...Arabic for
students...
intensified attacks in a district heavily populated by minority Hazara
...a grouping of Dari-speaking people of Sino-Tibetan descent inhabiting Afghanistan and Pakistain. They are predominantly Shia Moslems and not particularly warlike, which makes them favored targets...s Sunday, as US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad returned to the region as part of efforts to convince the group to end the 17-year war.
In pre-dawn fighting in Jaghori district in the southeastern province of Ghazni, turbans killed 15 civilians and 10 members of Afghanistan's elite special forces, provincial police front man Ahmad Khan Sirat told AFP.
Another six special forces and eight civilians were maimed, Sirat added.
The information could not be immediately verified by another source in the province where telecommunications are poor. A front man for the Afghan defence ministry in Kabul would not answer his phone.
Taliban front man Zabiullah Mujahid said in a WhatsApp message that 22 Afghan commandos had been killed and "a large number" maimed.
Fighting in the district has been ongoing since Wednesday, fanning fears that the violence could be rooted in ethnic or sectarian differences.
Kabul deployed special forces to the area on Thursday to reinforce local Hazara pro-government fighters, as the Taliban denied targeting "any specific race, ethnicity or sect".
Most Hazaras belong to the Shia branch of Islam. The Taliban, which are Sunni and largely ethnic Pashtuns, have been accused of committing human rights
One man's rights are another man's existential threat.
violations against the group during their oppressive 1996-2001 rule.
The flare up in violence coincided with the return of Khalilzad to Afghanistan as he seeks to coordinate regional efforts to bring about peace in the war-torn country. Khalilzad met with President Ashraf Ghani
...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. ..on Saturday. The former US ambassador to Kabul also will visit Pakistain, United Arab Emirates and Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi..., where the Taliban has a political office.
A Taliban delegation met with Khalilzad in Doha in October to discuss ending the Afghan conflict. That was followed by a Russia-led international gathering in Moscow on Friday that included Taliban representatives.
The Afghan government boycotted the meeting, but the country's High Peace Council, which is responsible for reconciliation efforts with the krazed killers, sent a delegation.
The flurry of diplomatic efforts to kickstart peace talks comes as the Taliban make gains on the battlefield and cause record-high casualties among security forces. A recent US government watchdog report said Kabul's control of Afghanistan had slipped in recent months as local forces made little or no progress against the Taliban.
In a grim assessment of the war, the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) cited NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants...
's Resolute Support mission as saying this summer's casualty toll for Afghan forces had been worse than ever.