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Afghanistan

Taliban leaders among 8 killed in US drone strike in Laghman province

2017-08-12

[Khaama (Afghanistan)] At least eight Taliban ...Arabic for students... bandidos myrmidons including their key local commanders were killed in a dronezap conducted by the US forces in eastern Laghmna province of Afghanistan. The provincial government media office in a statement said the Arclight airstrike was carried out late on Wednesday night. The statement further added that the Arclight airstrike was carried out in the vicinity of Alisheng district in Masmod area at around 9 pm local time. Three senior local Taliban leaders with two of them identified as Shah Jahan and Taza Gul were among those killed, the provincial government said. The statement also added that the murderous Moslems were targeted as they were travelling in the area and were moving to an unknown location. Commander Shah Jahan was a prominent leader of the Taliban and brother of an ex-Taliban leader Zar Jan who was originally a resident of Dawlat Shah district and was actively involved in anti-government militancy and major destructive activities, according to the local officials. The anti-government armed krazed killer groups including the Taliban bandidos myrmidons have not commented regarding the report so far.

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India-Pakistan

Suspected robber killed in ‘encounter’

2017-02-27

[DAWN] KARACHI: A suspect was rubbed out in an ’encounter’ in the early hours of Saturday in Sohrab Goth police limits, according to officials. They said that the incident occurred during random spot checking of vehicles, when the police indicated to motorcyclists to stop for identification in Chutta Gabol Goth. However, ars longa, vita brevis... they opened fire on the police and attempted to flee. In an ensuing exchange of gunfire, one suspect was killed while his accomplice managed to escape, the officials said. The dear departed was identified as Zar Jan, the police added. They claimed to have seized one pistol and a cycle of violence without number plate from his custody.

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India-Pakistan

Former peace bodies hand over arms to administration

2015-12-20

[DAWN] GHALANAI: Former peace committees of Mohmand Agency ... Named for the Mohmand clan of the Sarban Pahstuns, a truculent, quarrelsome lot. In Pakistain, the Mohmands infest their eponymous Agency, metastasizing as far as the plains of Peshawar, Charsadda, and Mardan. Mohmands are also scattered throughout Pakistan in urban areas including Karachi, Lahore, and Quetta. In Afghanistan they are mainly found in Nangarhar and Kunar... 's Baizai tehsil voluntarily handed over a huge cache of weapons to the administration in Bahi Daag area on Saturday. Assistant Political Agent Abdullah Shah told newsmen that the handing over of weapons to the administration marked the phasing out of the peace committees. Heads of former peace committees, Malik Sultan Kodakhel, Malik Sanober Khan, Malik Zar Jan and Malik Sabir Khan, and a large number of tribal elders attended the ceremony. "It is part of the National Action Plan and in accordance with the directives of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... governor and the political administration for handing over heavy weapons to the administration in order to strengthen the writ of the state," said Mr Shah. He said that for the first time the administration had deployed 300 Levies personnel in the area to secure the border posts and for that purpose the weapons would be given to them. The weapons, which were handed over, included three RPG-7, five anti-aircraft guns, eight short-range missiles, two anti-tank mines, thousands of live rounds of different bores and 44 shells of RPG-7 ammunition. Talking to journalists, chief of Baizai former peace committee Malik Sultan Koda Khel said that peace was restored in the area because of the sacrifices rendered by security forces, tribal people and peace committees. "We handed over the weapons to the local administration because there is no terrorist in the area," he said. Mr Sultan said the area needed mega projects in health, education and communication sectors. He said 45 volunteers of the Baizai committee had been killed and 83 injured in terrorist attacks in the area.

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India-Pakistan

TTP commander killed in drone attack

2009-07-19

A local Taliban commander was killed and four of his aides injured when a US drone targeted their hideout in Shaktoi area of Ladha tehsil in South Waziristan Agency late on Friday. The political administration sources said the drone fired two missiles that landed near the house of local Taliban chief Ameer Abdullah Mehsud. Commander Zar Jan Mehsud of the Kekarai tribe died in the attack while four others sustained injuries. The sources said a meeting was underway in the compound when the missiles struck the house. Meanwhile, the agency's political administration started a crackdown against the Mehsud tribe and arrested dozens of tribesmen, besides sealing their business centres in Dera Ismail Khan and Tank districts.

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India-Pakistan

10 militants perish in Orakzai blitz

2009-07-19

Ten militants were killed and seven others injured when fighter planes pounded the hideouts of militants in Orakzai Agency while a close aide of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Baitullah Mehsud, Zar Jan Mahsud, was killed and four others sustained serious injuries in a US drone attack in South Waziristan Agency (SWA) on Saturday. Tribal sources said the fighter planes pounded the hideouts and compounds of the militants in Arghanjo, Sam Killay, Jabba and Katakhel in Mamozai area of Orakzai Agency, killing 10 militants and injuring seven others. The sources said 11 compounds of the militants were destroyed in the operation. The injured militants were taken to a private clinic in the agency. Eyewitnesses said the fighter planes also hit a house of a militant commander, Ameenullah, in Sam Killay, killing two women and as many children. The people of the troubled areas in the tribal region have started migration towards safer places. Commander Zar Jan had just came out of the building, along with his four bodyguards, when he came under attack by the US spy plane... "We don't know whether or not someone had attached a chip to his clothes." Meanwhile, a US spy plane fired two missiles at the house of a militant commander in Shaktoi village near Ladha subdivision of South Waziristan Agency, killing an important militant commander and a close aide of the TTP chief Baitullah Mehsud, Zar Jan Mahsud, and injuring four others. Sources close to the militants said the drone fired two missiles, which landed near the house of Taliban commander Ameer Abdullah Shah Mahsud, where a crucial meeting of the Mehsud militant commanders was in progress. Commander Zar Jan had just came out of the building, along with his four bodyguards, when he came under attack by the US spy plane. His colleagues recalled that Zar Jan had told them that he wanted to prepare for prayers and went out of the building. "We don't know whether or not someone had attached a chip to his clothes, but the moment he went out of the house the drone fired missiles, killing him on the spot," said a friend of Zar Jan while requesting anonymity. Four other militants escorting Zar Jan received serious injuries, he added. The injured militants, he maintained, were taken to a private health facility in the nearby Ladha town, where two of them were stated to be in critical condition. He said few doctors are available in the Mehsuds-inhabited areas of South Waziristan nowadays after the government launched an operation against Baitullah Mehsud and his fighters.

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India-Pakistan

Baitullah launches parallel justice system for Mehsuds

2008-08-17

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Baitullah Mehsud has divided the areas inhabited by the Mehsud tribe in the South Waziristan Agency into four administrative units and constituted committees of the Taliban commanders to settle disputes and issues of tribesmen. In a statement issued on Saturday, the TTP media wing said Mohammad Raees would head the four Taliban committees. The committees would cover the four units where Mehsud tribe lives. These are Barwand, Srarogha, Makeen and Saam. A four-member committee included Maulvi Azmatullan, Maulvi Abdul Aziz, Maulvi Nasruddin and Maulvi Rasul Din (all TTP commanders) would supervise the Barwand unit comprising Chagmalai, Jetrai, Tangai and Khasura areas. The second committee comprises Maulvi Ikramullah, Maulvi Rizwanullah, Maulvi Faiz Mohammad and Maulvi Abdus Salam, who would listen to people's complaints in Spinkai Raghzai, Deela, Wocha Khawra, Janata and Shikari areas. Similarly, the Makeen unit comprises Shaktoi, Dutoi, Zangara, Qalandar and Lowara areas and the committee members nominated for these places are Aleem Khan, Mazloom Yar Sahib, Maulvi Zar Jan and Maulvi Bilal. Likewise, the areas included in the Saam unit are Kaniguram, Badaber, Mashta and Mani Toi and the committee had Maulvi Khair Muhammad, Maulvi Abdul Wahab, Miraj Khan from Ladha and Sherabat Khan.

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Afghanistan-Pak-India

Afghan court demands death for 2 over journalists’ killing

2005-10-29

KABUL - An Afghan court has ruled two brothers should be executed for their involvement in the 2001 killing of four journalists, including two from Reuters, a senior judge said on Friday. Zar Jan and Abdul Wahid can both appeal the verdict which was announced at a trial on Thursday, the judge told Reuters. Five other men, accomplices of the pair, were each sentenced to 20 years in jail for other criminal acts such as highway robbery and theft, he said. The brothers have confessed partial involvement in the killing of the journalists at Tangi Abrishum, about 90 km (55 miles) east of Kabul on Nov. 19, 2001, days after US-led forces overthrew the Taleban government, the judge said. "We dunnit, and we're glad!" The journalists were Australian television cameraman Harry Burton and Afghan photographer Azizullah Haidari, both Reuters employees, Spaniard Julio Fuentes of El Mundo newspaper and Italian Maria Grazia Cutuli of Corriere della Sera newspaper. Anyone know if a Spanish court is poised to intervene? The judge described Zar Jan as the leader of a criminal gang and said he was also wanted on suspicion of armed robbery, kidnapping and other killings. A third suspect in the killing, Reza Khan, who was arrested in November, has also been sentenced to death by two courts. Khan has said the gang had acted on the orders of a Taliban commander. If the final court approves the death sentence for the trio, only President Hamid Karzai can decide their fate, on the basis of Afghanistan’s law.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Afghan May Face Death in Journalist Deaths

2005-06-07

The alleged leader of a gang that killed four journalists covering the collapse of the Taliban in 2001 will probably face the death penalty if convicted, a judge said Monday, a day after the man was captured in a shoot-out with police. Sounds fair to me, but then, I'm old-fashioned that way... Zar Jan was accused of heading the group of armed men who stopped the four journalists — three of them foreigners — as they traveled in a convoy from the eastern city of Jalalabad on Nov. 19, 2001 — six days after the Taliban militia abandoned Kabul in the wake of heavy U.S. bombing. Judge Abdul Baset Bakhtyari, who presided over the trial of another suspect in the killings, said Jan also may be charged with murder once police investigators hand over his case to the courts. He said the alleged gang boss would likely face the death penalty if convicted. "Zar Jan has been wanted for a long time," Bakhtyari told The Associated Press. "He was in charge of the gang. They stopped the car of the journalists, searched them and then took them away from the road and killed them." It was not clear whether Bakhtyari would preside over Jan's trial. I'll feel better if he does. Zar Jan might not like it... Jan was caught with five other members of his gang on Sunday as they robbed a house in the town of Sarobi, about 35 miles east of the capital, Kabul, said Jamil Khan, head of the city police's criminal investigation department. Jan was shot and wounded in the gunbattle and brought to a hospital in Kabul, he said. Gut shot, maybe? Is it very painful? Is there any chance of sepsis? Those killed in the 2001 attack were Australian television cameraman Harry Burton and Afghan photographer Azizullah Haidari of the Reuters new agency; Maria Grazia Cutuli of the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera; and Julio Fuentes of the Spanish daily El Mundo. Two men already have been convicted in connection with the murders. One was sentenced to 16 years in prison. The other, Reza Khan, was sentenced to death on charges of murder and for raping the Italian reporter. Khan has appealed his sentence to Afghanistan's highest court.

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