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Qari Baba

Qari Baba

Taliban

Afghanistan/South Asia

20050815

Afghanistan

Taliban warn residents against vehicle movement

2006-04-19

In tit-for-tat reaction to the government's ban on pillion riding, Taliban in the Andar district of Ghazni province have warned residents against vehicle movement. The provincial authorities have banned unregistered motorcycles in the province after the killing of former governor Taj Mohammad, alias Qari Baba about a month back. A number of residents of the Andar district told Pajhwok Afghan News over the telephone that Taliban went into villages and warned people against riding vehicles in the district, which is adjacent to the provincial capital. Amin Khan Qayumzai, resident of Andar and a doctor, who is running his clinic in Ghazni City, said he had been informed by his family not to come to house in his car. Another resident of the district Haji Sher Mohammad said they had seen no vehicle plying roads in the district today (Monday). The warning was issued by Taliban last night. Confirming the ban on vehicle movement by Taliban in Andar, provincial Governor Sher Alam Ibrahimi said the militants did so in response to the government's ban on pillion riding. He said the Taliban were involved in killing of innocent citizens and sabotaging the peace of the province. "Taliban have further weakened and they want to hide their weakness by teasing and threatening the common citizens." An officer in the provincial police headquarters, on condition of anonymity, said no vehicle had come from the Andar district to Ghazni City or other districts today. He said the law-enforcement agencies were ready to launch an anti-Taliban operation in the district.

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Afghanistan

Former governor among 15 killed in Taleban attacks

2006-03-19

KANDAHAR - At least nine policemen, a former governor, his four companions and a security guard were killed in separate attacks in Afghanistan blamed on the Taleban, officials said on Saturday. A bomb blast Friday killed nine policemen who were escorting the bodies of four Albanians kidnapped by Taleban terrorists fighters last week in an area between Kandahar and neighbouring Helmand province in the south. Initial reports had said five policemen were killed in the attack in Maiwand district but Kandahar’s governor on Saturday revised the toll upwards to nine. “The new information we have got indicates that nine policemen were killed in Friday’s attack,” governor Asadullah Khaled said. On Saturday, suspected Taleban terrorists rebels killed former Ghanzi province governor Taj Mohammad, known as Qari Baba, and his four companions in the southern province, one of the hotbeds of the Taleban. “I confirm that Qari Baba and his four companions were killed this morning,” local police official Habibullah Jan said. Baba was working as an advisor to the current governor of Ghazni, Sher Alam. Jan blamed the attack on remnants of the Taleban terrorists and their Islamic allies, including those loyal to former Afghan prime minister and warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, now on the US most wanted list. “Taleban and Hekmatyar’s men are believed to be behind this cowardly attack,” Jan said. Cowardly is the right word for Hek. Also on Saturday, an attempt to kill Sher Alam failed while two of the attackers were shot dead by his security personnel. “A group of Taleban terrorists attacked our convoy near Gulan district,” Alam said. He said no one was hurt in his convoy and in retaliatory fire his bodyguards killed two Taleban. The rest of the attackers escaped. Two gut-shot? Very nice. Late Friday suspected Taleban terrorists attacked a private construction company site in southern Afghanistan that left one security guard dead while two others were reported missing, officials said. The men, who were guarding a reconstruction site for a private Afghan company, came under attack by dozens of suspected Taleban terrorists militants in Zabul province, police chief Ghulam Nabi Mullahkhil said. In another attack claimed by the Taleban terrorists, four Afghan soliders were wounded in a clash with Taleban fighters in Zabul, a local commander said. The soldiers were in “bad condition” in a local hospital, Zabul military commander Rahmatullah Raufi said. The Taleban are waging a bloody insurgency against the new government and its foreign allies. The violence left about 1,700 people dead in Afghanistan last year, many of them terrorists militants. Many of them? Oh goodie!

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Afghanistan

Afghan protesters denounce suicide bombings

2006-01-23

Hundreds of Afghans staged a protest on Saturday to denounce a wave of suicide bomb attacks, with many of the protesters blaming Pakistan for the violence. "We condemn these suicide attacks," protesters shouted outside the provincial governor's offices in the city of Ghazni. There have been 13 suicide blasts since November, the worst last Monday when 23 people were killed in the town of Spin Boldak, on the border with Pakistan. The government blames foreign al Qaeda and Taliban supporters for the violence. "The UN should stop Pakistan from interfering in Afghanistan," Qari Baba, a former governor of Ghazni province, told the crowd. The crowd also chanted: "Death to Pakistan, death to ISI." Meanwhile, the governor of Afghanistan's troubled southern province of Kandahar once again accused Pakistan on Saturday of involvement in the Spin Boldak explosion, claiming ‘terrorists are being trained in the neighbouring country'. Kandahar governor told a Pakistani private TV on phone from Kandahar that the enemies of Afghanistan's sovereignty, territorial integrity and stability were freely roaming around in Pakistan. "In the Frontier and Balochistan provinces, Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants have been allowed to take up residence. They are being trained at terrorist camps in these provinces with a view to disturbing peace in Afghanistan," he alleged. The governor reiterated the suicide attackers, who killed dozens of people in Kandahar, were Pakistani citizens. Condolences for the bombers were offered in Pakistan, asserted the governor, who hastened to point to his desire for good neighbourly relations with Pakistan. He argued Kabul had exercised a lot of patience and restraint so far just because of its yearning for warm ties with Islamabad. "We have conveyed our concerns to Pakistan formally and through diplomatic channels," he maintained. Pakistan Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed rejected allegations by Kandahar governor that Pakistan had hands in a recent bomb blast in the Afghan border town of Spinboldak. "Pakistan never backed the militant outfits," Rashid said when his attention was drawn towards allegations by Asadullah Khalid. Rashid added Pakistan desirous of peace in Afghanistan, saying Pakistan has stationed 70,000 troops along the common border to curb the movement of militants. "We are obliged to answer only those queries or allegations the government of Afghanistan formally addresses to Pakistan. But no such accusations have reached us from Afghanistan - formally or through diplomatic channels," Rashid continued. And of course, I had to read the Peshawar Defender-Scimitar to find this news; the MSM is busy wringing its hands over a possible conservative win in Canada...

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Another Taleban Commander Captured, 4 Killed

2005-08-15

A key Taleban commander was captured and four Taleban militants were killed in separate incidents in Afghanistan in the latest violence before parliamentary elections, the US military said yesterday. Afghan security forces backed by US troops in a raid on Saturday captured Qari Baba, former governor of Ghazni province under the hard-line Taleban regime, said US military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O’Hara. Qari Baba had been leading attacks against US troops and the Afghan government in the southeastern province of Ghazni. The National Security Directorate “led the raid and coalition forces worked together to detain Qari Baba at his home in an operation that was a success for all concerned,” O’Hara said. A weapons cache of 16 AK-47s, several machineguns, rocket-propelled grenades and launchers, cell phones and a large amount of ammunition was discovered in his house in Andar district, he said. On Friday, three insurgents were killed and two Afghan National Police were wounded in a firefight near the town of Deh Rawood in the southern province of Uruzgan, the US military said in a statement. The battle broke out after Afghan and US forces, patrolling in the area, came into contact with an unknown number of “enemy combatants” near the town which has been a hotbed for Taleban activity, it said. The same day one “enemy combatant” was killed in another attack by seven to 10 militants on an Afghan-US military convoy south of Kabul, the statement said. Hundreds of American Marines and Afghan special forces trekked far into remote Afghan mountains to retake a valley controlled by militants suspected of ambushing a team of US commandos and shooting down a special forces helicopter. The major offensive Saturday in eastern Kunar province, near the border with Pakistan, is the biggest yet against those believed responsible for the twin attacks on June 28, the deadliest blow for American forces in Afghanistan since ousting the Taleban in 2001.

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Afghanistan

Sayyaf supporter named governor of Ghazni

2002-02-12

The Afghan interim administration has appointed a local commander, Qari Baba, as the governor of eastern Ghazni province. Radio Kabul said Baba was chosen by Hamid Karzai. Describing Baba as the strongest military figure in the area, AIP said he had fought against the Soviet occupation of 1979 to 1989 under the command of Abdul Rab Rasool Sayyaf. There has been no reaction so far from Ghazni's shura on his appointment. Sayyaf, despite his association with the Northern Alliance, is a pretty shady character. Beelzebub Hekmatyar has spoken kindly of him, his representatives refused to sign the Bonn agreement that created Karzai's transitional government, and there are suspicions he was involved in Masood's assassination.

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