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Afghanistan/South Asia

Talibs continue bumping off clerics who don't agree with them

2005-08-24

A cleric escaped unhurt after suspected Taliban militants bombed his house on Tuesday in the latest attack on religious leaders who back Afghanistan’s US-friendly administration, officials said. Maulvi Rehmatullah, leader of the religious council of Khost province, was leaving his house when the blast happened, said Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal. The attack was the sixth on pro-government clerics in the past three months. Mashal blamed it on “enemies of peace and stability” – Afghan jargon for the Taliban and their allies. On Sunday Taliban insurgents shot dead Mulla Abdullah Malang, deputy head of the religious council of the Panjwaey district in Kandahar province, and his companion. In May Maulvi Abdullah Fayyaz, chief of the Islamic Council in Kandahar, was gunned down near his house. Twenty-one people died when a suicide bomber struck at his funeral on June 1. Fayyaz had spoken out against Taliban leader Mulla Muhammad Omar, who has been on the run since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan toppled the fundamentalist militia in late 2001. A month later another leading member of the Kandahar Islamic Council, Maulvi Muhammad Musbah, was ambushed and shot dead outside the city. Separately in Qalat, capital of Zabul province, three civilians were wounded late on Monday when suspected Taliban opened fire on their vehicle, officials said. “The Taliban might have mistaken the civilian vehicle for a government vehicle,” said provincial spokesman Gulab Ali Khali.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Two US embassy staff hurt in blast near Afghan capital

2005-08-22

Two US embassy officials have been hurt in a roadside bomb that hit their convoy near the Afghan capital, a spokesman says. The blast near Kabul came hours after a bomb attack killed four US soldiers in the restive Zabul province, in the southern part of the country. "I can confirm that two American personnel of the US embassy were slightly hurt while on a routine embassy mission," Michael Macy, a US embassy spokesman told Reuters. He declined to identify the two and also refused to say if the US ambassador to Afghanistan, Ronald Neumann, was in the convoy when the blast occurred. He says an investigation has been launched to find out who was behind the attack. Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal says the incident occurred on a dirt road in Paghman, a resort area located some 20 kilometres west of the capital.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Ex-Taliban commander killed

2005-08-21

KABUL: A former Taliban commander, who was loyal to the government of President Hamid Karzai, was killed in Kabul, officials said on Saturday. Karim Qarabaghi and his nephew were killed in their car by assailants firing from a passing vehicle in the city's northern suburb on Friday, they said. "We do not know whether it (the assassination) was because of personal enmity or because he once had joined the Taliban," said Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal. Before joining the Taliban in 1996, Qarabaghi served as a military commander for ex-Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who like the Taliban remnants, is leading an insurgency against the current government and foreign forces. After the fall of the Taliban, Qarabaghi joined factions supporting US forces and stayed in Kabul, but had no government position. Qarabaghi's killing comes during a slow-paced government amnesty for rank and file Taliban fighters.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Afghanistan says Al-Qaeda, Taliban leaders are in Pakistan

2005-07-07

They've only got to catch them once to settle the argument, don't they? Afghanistan said that senior Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders were hiding in Pakistan's tribal areas, the latest salvo in a row between the two neighbours over their success in the so-called "war on terror". The comments by Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal came a day after Pakistan's interior minister was quoted as saying that Osama bin Laden and other key militants may be in southern Afghanistan. "We believe that the senior Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders are still hiding in the tribal belt of Pakistan's federally controlled tribal area," Mashal told AFP on Wednesday. US and Afghan officials have long said they think bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda kingpins have been hiding out in the mountains on the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan since the Taliban were toppled in late 2001. Islamabad and Kabul have recently traded accusations about whose side of the border the militants are on, and who is to blame for failing to find them. Pakistan's interior minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao reportedly told state media Tuesday that bin Laden, his deputy Ayman Al-Zawahiri and fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar might be in troubled southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban have stepped up attacks.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Taliban leadership may be surrounded

2005-06-23

Afghan and U.S. forces surrounded an area in Afghanistan on Thursday where senior commanders of elusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar were thought to be hiding, Afghan security officials said. I don't think I'd get my hopes up. Mullah Omar's pretty good at hopping his motorcycle and leaving his loyal minions in the lurch — if it's him they have surrounded in the first place. The operation, backed by U.S. helicopter gunships, followed a big U.S.-backed offensive that killed more than 100 militants in the same region of the border between Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul provinces in the past three days, the officials said. Those holed up in the Dai Chopan area included Mullah Dadullah, a member of the Taliban's 10-man leadership council headed by Omar, and Mullah Brother, another commander thought close to the Taliban leader, the Defence Ministry said. Oh. So it's not Mullah Omar. I don't know anything about the motorcycling skills of the other guys... Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ishaq Paiman identified the others as Mullah Abdul Hakim, Mullah Abdul Hanan and Mullah Abdul Basir. Mullah is a title for a Muslim cleric used by many top Taliban members. General Mohammad Muslim Hamid, army commander for the southern region, said the area had been surrounded and the Taliban commanders were believed to be hiding there. Yeah, but I still don't expect great results from surrounding them... General Fateh Khan, another commander taking part in the operation, said it involved Afghan security forces, as well as U.S. helicopter gunships and U.S. ground troops. A U.S. military spokeswoman said she had no information about the operation. Fateh Khan said the Taliban commanders were with more than 150 of their fighters. Is that before or after subtracting the 100 deaders? Fateh Khan said troops were closing in from three sides to try to capture them, which would be a major coup for the government of President Hamid Karzai. Reza Khan, a man sentenced to death last year for killing four journalists in 2001, including two from Reuters, said at his trial Mullah Brother, one of the Taliban commanders believed hiding in the Dai Chopan area, had ordered the killings. The journalists were Australian television cameraman Harry Burton and Afghan photographer Azizullah Haidari of Reuters, Spaniard Julio Fuentes of El Mundo and Italian Maria Grazia Cutuli of Corriere della Sera. Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said 103 guerrillas had been killed in three days of fighting and the offensive had been a major blow to the Taliban's bid to disrupt Sept. 18 parliamentary elections, the next big step in Afghanistan's difficult path to stability. Being dead does tend to disrupt your plans, doesn't it? He said most were killed by U.S. helicopter gunships as they fled Mian Nishin, a district the rebels seized last week, and included three commanders -- Mullah Jamil, Mullah Ghani and Mullah Easa. Sixteen fighters had been captured, he said. Mashal's figure would bring the guerrilla death toll reported by the government and U.S. forces in clashes in the southwest in the past week to more than 153. Hundreds more guerrillas have been reported killed in a surge of clashes this year. Boy, they're gonna depopulate all of Pakistan in a mere 17,576 years at this rate... Three Afghan troops were killed and six U.S. soldiers wounded, while two U.S. helicopters were damaged by ground fire. A U.S. air force pilot was killed when his U-2 spyplane crashed on Wednesday after a mission over Afghanistan. Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said on Wednesday seven guerrillas had been killed including Easa. He said no Taliban fighters had been captured.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Attack a blow to Taliban bid to disrupt poll

2005-06-23

Afghan and US forces have killed more than 100 Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan, in the biggest defeat for the militants in the region in two years. The offensive this week was a major blow to the guerillas' bid to disrupt parliament elections in September, Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said. Obviously, he hasn't been reading the New York Times Most were killed by US helicopter gunships as they fled a district on the border of Kandahar, Zabul and Uruzgan provinces seized by the Taliban last week, he said. The dead included three senior Taliban commanders, while three Afghan police troops were also killed.The US military said six of its troops were slightly wounded and two helicopters damaged by ground fire, while a US Air Force pilot was killed when his U-2 spy plane crashed on Wednesday after a reconnaissance mission over Afghanistan. Mr Mashal said up to 150 guerillas escaped the three-day onslaught and crossed into Pakistan. He said the Taliban fighters included Urdu-speaking Pakistani militants, while police said at least two militants killed may have been from Chechnya. The latest figures bring the guerilla death toll reported by the Government and US forces in clashes in the south-west in the past week to more than 153. Hundreds more have been reported killed in a surge of activity earlier this year before the September 18 elections. "This is a serious blow for the Taliban," Mr Mashal said. "This is the first time they had gathered in such large numbers in about a year."

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Afghanistan/South Asia

'Over 100' Taleban rebels killed

2005-06-23

US and Afghan officials say that more than 100 Taleban fighters have been killed in southern Afghanistan in one of the biggest offensives in two years. Hundreds of Afghan troops backed by US-led coalition forces have taken part in the clashes in Zabul province that started on Tuesday. The Taleban deny having lost any of their men. The government says a number of senior Taleban fighters have been surrounded, Reuters news agency reports. On Tuesday, the pilot of a US spy plane was killed when his aircraft crashed while returning to its base in the United Arab Emirates from Afghanistan. It is not clear whether the crash was connected to the ongoing offensive. Most of the fighting has taken place in the Daychopan district of Zabul province, near the border with Kandahar. "We have 103 bodies," Afghan interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal is quoted as saying by Reuters. "All of them were armed. Most were killed by coalition helicopter gunships," he said. A British military spokeswoman, Lt Gemma Fullman, said British planes provided close air support but did not drop any munitions, the AFP news agency reports. Afghan police commander Gen Salim Khan said eight Afghan security force members had died. The US military said five US soldiers had been wounded. Taleban spokesman, Latifullah Hakimi, denied any of the group's fighters had been killed or captured. "No, no, we're ok. Must be somebody else." An Afghan defence ministry spokesman said on Thursday that Afghan forces had some 150 Taleban fighters surrounded, Reuters says. They include a senior Taleban member, Mullah Dadullah. I've lost count of the number of Mullah Dad's we've killed or captured. The fighting began after Afghan and coalition forces were attacked by rebels with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades on Tuesday, according to a US military statement. The forces were patrolling an area south-west of Daychopan near the border with Kandahar province when the attack took place. Tuesday's incident follows a wave of violence earlier this week in which at least 38 rebels were killed in clashes with US-led coalition and Afghan forces in southern Afghanistan. The BBC's Andrew North in Kabul says doubt has been cast on some of the US military's previous claims about insurgent casualty numbers. But our correspondent says barely a day goes by now without serious violence across south and east Afghanistan, raising fears for security in September's planned parliamentary elections. The US has about 18,000 troops in Afghanistan tackling remnants of the Taleban that was ousted in late 2001. Not mentioning the wave of Arab fighters and Paks imported since. Nearly 400 people have been killed in Taleban-linked violence this year, following a lull over winter - most of them suspected militants but also about 30 US troops. Additional: Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said captured guerrillas had revealed that Mullah Dadullah and Mullah Brother, both members of the Taliban leadership council led by Omar, had been in the area of the fighting at least until Tuesday. "We have concrete reports that they were there until at least the day before yesterday," he said. "They may still be there, they could have escaped, or they could have been killed." Mashal said the men were thought to be key links between the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network as well as with Pakistani militant groups and may even have had direct contacts with bin Laden and his number two Ayman al-Zawahri. Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ishaq Paiman said earlier the two were hiding in the Dai Chopan area with three other commanders he named as Mullah Abdul Hakim, Mullah Abdul Hanan and Mullah Abdul Basir. Mullah is a title for a Muslim cleric used by many top Taliban members. General Fateh Khan, a commander taking part in the operation, said they holed up with more than 150 guerrillas. He said Afghan and U.S. troops backed by U.S. helicopter gunships were closing in from three sides to try to capture them, which would be a major coup for the United States and the government of President Hamid Karzai, who came to power after U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban in late 2001.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Al-Qaeda tied to Pakistani, Afghan bloodshed

2005-06-03

Authorities see al Qaeda links in suicide attacks that killed 44 people in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the past week that appeared aimed at showing Osama bin Laden's network remains a potent force. But officials and analysts say they have yet to find evidence the bombings were coordinated by a central figure, least of all by bin Laden himself. On Wednesday, a suicide bomber detonated explosives in a mosque in the Afghan city of Kandahar as mourners gathered to pay respects to assassinated anti-Taliban cleric Abdullah Fayaz. It was the first ever suicide attack on a mosque in Afghanistan. It came two days after a suicide attack on a minority Shi'ite Muslim mosque in Karachi in neighbouring Pakistan and five days after a similar attack on a Muslim festival in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Pakistani editor and commentator Najam Sethi said the attacks were clearly aimed at destabilising Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, two of President George W. Bush's main allies in his global war on terrorism. "It's a backlash against the campaign against al Qaeda and political Islam in Afghanistan and Pakistan under the aegis of the United States," he said. "I don't think these are incidents without any relationship," he said. "But it's not that some supreme leader is coordinating all these attacks. This does not mean Osama bin Laden is orchestrating all these attacks." The governor of Afghanistan's Kandahar province, Gul Agha Sherzai, blamed al Qaeda for the blast there and said the dead bomber appeared to be an Arab. Pakistani intelligence officials said the attacks in Pakistan both appeared to be the work of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a militant groups with close links to al Qaeda. A Pakistan intelligence official said there was suspicion al Qaeda was trying to show it it was still a threat after Musharraf said recently al Qaeda's back had been broken. "The suicide attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan could possibly be reactions to the arrest of al Liby," said one intelligence official, who declined to be identified. But analysts said there was a lack of hard evidence to show the attacks were jointly planned. "It's a possibility, yes; whether it's a probability, I'm not sure," said Pakistani strategic analyst Shaukat Qadir. A spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, Colonel Jim Yonts, said the possibility of a connection was being investigated, but no link had been found. Analysts say a crackdown on al Qaeda in Pakistan, which has resulted in hundreds of arrests, and the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan had forced militants to operate in small, isolated groups. Sophisticated U.S. eavesdropping has made communication between these cells dangerous. More bomb attacks were a reflection of the success of the U.S. and Afghan campaign against the Taliban insurgency, Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said. "The enemies of peace and stability have been defeated in the frontline of war and now they're focusing on soft targets." Pakistani Rahimullah Yusufzai, an expert on Afghanistan, noted that anti-Taliban cleric Abdullah Fayaz was killed the same day pro-government tribal leader Faridullah Wazir was killed in Pakistan. "It shows targetted killings are going on here and in Afghanistan and the same is happening in Iraq. But it does not necessarily mean they are cooperating with each other," he said. While militants might not be able to cooperate, they were getting inspiration from one another and adopting similar, increasingly brutal tactics, Yusufzai said. "It's a dangerous trend."

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Bomb Injures Seven in Afghanistan

2005-05-31

A bicycle bomb targeting a NATO-led vehicle exploded yesterday near Kabul, wounding at least seven Afghans, hours after a rocket was fired at the peacekeeping force's headquarters in the capital, officials said. Taleban militants claimed responsibility for the bombing. The twin attacks, which caused no casualties among members of the 8,300-strong International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, highlighted the deteriorating security situation in Kabul. The remote-controlled bomb was set on a bicycle left on the side of the main road from Kabul to eastern Jalalabad city and detonated at about 9:30 a.m., district police chief Mohammed Akbar told AFP. "Seven people were injured, some of them seriously: Four were in a taxi passing by, three were pedestrians," Akbar said. "The taxi driver was seriously injured and was taken to hospital." At the scene, where ISAF patrols pass almost every hour, pieces of metal, the remains of the blown up bicycle and the partially destroyed taxi could be seen. "The target was obviously the ISAF patrols or aimed at creating an atmosphere of violence in the city," Akbar added. Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal confirmed the blast in the Hod Qhail neighborhood east of Kabul targeted an ISAF vehicle. "It was aimed at an ISAF vehicle, but missed it and struck a taxi and pedestrians passing by." The force's spokesman Lt. Karen Tissot van Patot told AFP no peacekeepers were injured in the blast. She said it happened nine kilometers east of the capital but gave no other details.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Afghanistan 'bomb attack foiled'

2005-04-25

Afghan police say they have foiled a suicide bomb attack after they stopped a car loaded with explosives and arrested its driver. The incident happened in the western city of Herat during a routine inspection of vehicles at a checkpoint. The police found rockets, mines and anti-aircraft shells inside the car, an official said. The incident comes after a bomb exploded in a car in the capital, Kabul, on Sunday. No-one was injured. Investigators declined to say who might have been planning the alleged attack. Could be the Navajo, never did trust them. Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said the bomb was made of rockets, mortar rounds, land mines and dynamite wired together "It was almost 400 to 500 kilos (880 to 1,100 pounds) of explosives placed in a Toyota station wagon model 1993 and its Afghan national driver has been arrested as well," he told AFP news agency. There has been an increase in militant activity in the south and east of Afghanistan after a lull during the winter.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Two killed by own bomb in Afghanistan

2005-02-02

Two suspected insurgents were killed when a bomb they were trying to plant on a key highway in northeastern Afghanistan exploded, an official said Monday. The pair, who had Afghan identity papers, were killed while placing a bomb on a road which links the eastern city of Jalalabad to Kunar province, said Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal. "During the investigation police found Afghan identities and voting cards in their pockets," Mashal said. The two seemed to have used their voter cards in last year's presidential election, he said.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Afghans Wonder Who Is Holding the UN Workers as Hostages

2004-11-18

From Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty [Afghan] Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said on 17 November that he believes the group calling itself Jaysh al-Muslimin (Army of the Muslims) is not holding the three UN workers hostage, as it has claimed, Reuters reported. "You can tell by the deadlines and the demands, which keep being broken and relaxed," Mashal said, justifying the Afghan government's opinion. "We think they [hostages] are being held by some armed robbers who abducted them. Our reports suggest that the hostages are still in or around Kabul," Mashal added. Army of the Muslims, a splinter group of the neo-Taliban, reportedly abducted the UN election workers on 28 October and has repeatedly changed its demands and deadlines for ending the hostage crisis Abdul Latif Hakimi, purporting to speak on behalf of the neo-Taliban, told RFE/RL on 17 November that he does not think anyone associated with his movement is involved in the UN kidnappings. "Kidnapping or taking people hostage, I believe, is neither an action that could be effective against the enemy nor will there be a reasonable response to the demands," Hakimi said. "There is also another problem: It is said that women are among the hostages. I believe kidnapping women does not conform to Islamic Shari'a law."

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