Taliban kill senior policeman in east Afghanistan

KHOST: Taliban insurgents ambushed and killed a senior police officer in eastern Afghanistan, provincial officials said on Sunday, the latest in a string of insurgent assassinations of government officials.

The incident came a day after NATO leaders wrapped up a major summit in Lisbon to endorse plans to hand control of security in Afghanistan to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.

Akbar Jan, chief of police for Musa Khil district in restive Khost province, which shares a border with Pakistan, was killed in an ambush by insurgents, provincial police chief Abdul Hakim Esaaqzai told Reuters.

Two of his bodyguards were also wounded, Esaaqzai said.

Last month, a bombing of a mosque killed the governor of Kunduz province together with at least 12 other worshippers.

In the same month roadside bombs planted by Taliban insurgents also

CCTV footage of Peshawar bomb released

PESHAWAR: CCTV footage of suicide attack on FC Chief Siffwat Ghayur at Peshawar Cantt. has been issued.

The footage begins with images showing traffic plying normally around a traffic signal. Then the suicide bomber present at the signal blows himself up just when the vehicle of FC Commandant Siffwat Ghayur stops at red light.

The powerful blast turns the scene into total chaos with eruption of fire and smoke.

PM condemns suicide attack on Commandant FC

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani has strongly condemned the suicide attack in Peshawar on Wednesday in which FC Commandant Sifwat Ghayur along with his bodyguards.

It is most deplorable, he said, that when the whole nation, particularly the people of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa are facing worst difficulties because of floods the terrorists have chosen to add to their miseries through such inhuman acts.

He ordered the concerned authorities for holding an immediate enquiry into the sad incident and provide best medical facilities tothe injured.

The Prime Minister conveyed his heartfelt condolences and sincere sympathies to the members of the bereaved families.

He prayed to Almighty Allah to shower his blessings upon the departed souls and grant strength to the families to bear this immense loss with equanimity.

Kyrgyz acting president says toll ”could touch 2,000”

OSH: Roza Otunbayeva, Kyrgyzstan”s interim leader, says the death toll from ethnic clashes in the country”s south could reach 2000, manifold higher than the official figure of 200.

Her comments on Friday came shortly before she visited Osh, the southern city wracked by clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks over the last few days.

“I would multiply by 10 times the official figures,” she told the Russian daily Kommersant.

“Because there were very many deaths in the countryside, and our customs dictate that we bury our dead right away, before sunset.”

Wearing a bullet-proof vest and ringed by security, Otunbayeva encountered an angry crowd at Osh.

Al Jazeera”s Clayton Swisher, who was travelling with her, said the interim leader was surrounded by a shouting mob at the end of her visit and had to be taken into a building by her bodyguards.

“The number-one complaint people had when they saw the interim president was ”What took you so long to get down here?”,” he said.

Otunbayeva defended her government from criticism that it had been unable to contain the ethnic bloodshed and to cope with the escalating humanitarian crisis.

“Leave us some hope! Stop saying that we are not working,” she said. “Our forces say that they are coping.

Also on Friday, Otunbayeva announced that Russia would help the country in restoring security.

“Russian troops will guard some strategic sites… to ensure security for these sites,” she said.

Russia had previously refused Otunbayeva”s request to dispatch military forces to help quell unrest, although the country did send humanitarian aid.

As Otunbayeva toured southern Kyrgyzstan, the UN human rights council urged the country to conduct a “full and transparent investigation” into the unrest and to hold those responsible to account.

In a unanimous resolution passed on Friday, the 47-member body also condemned “provocations and violence in Osh and Jalal-Abad”.

Our correspondent said there was a heavy security presence in Osh.

“We saw security everywhere, we saw heavy road blocks. We also saw militias and individuals wearing ski masks.

“When we flow from Osh to Jalal-abad, we saw houses completely ransacked, devastated, some of them still smoldering.

“These were scenes the interim president was looking at through the window, taking all this in.”

The World Health Organisation said that it was working on a worst-case estimate that the crisis in Kyrgyzstan may affect up to one million people, about a third of whom could be refugees.

Up to 100,000 people have already sought refuge in neighbouring Uzbekistan, not counting children, while about 300,000 are thought to be internally displaced, according to the United Nations.

The WHO said 700,000 more could be displaced within Kyrgyzstan but stressed that the figures were a “worst-case scenario”.

Yemen official, four guards killed in Yemeni air strike

A Yemeni air strike against an Al-Qaeda operative claimed the lives of a local official and four of his boduguards and the target managed to flee after being wounded, a security source said Tuesday.
The Al-Qaeda operative, Mohamed Said Bin Jardane, was wounded and then escaped, the source said of the overnight strike on a farm in the eastern province of Marib. But a local official, Jaber Ali al-Shabwani and four of his bodyguards were killed in the strike, the source said, adding that the vehicle they were in was at the farm that was bombed in the raid. The official had been negotiating for a week for Jardane’s surrender. He had gone to the farm, belonging to Jardane’s family, for talks.

Attacked Pakistani ambassador leaves Tehran hospital

TEHRAN: Pakistan”s ambassador to Iran left a Tehran hospital in good health on Wednesday, a day after he was injured by an Afghan assailant, news agencies reported.

“Mohammad Bakhsh Abbasi, Pakistan ambassador to Tehran who sustained a minor injury left the hospital moments ago,” the official news agency said. “He left the hospital in a satisfactory physical condition.”

Iran”s foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast, quoted in the local media, said Abbasi had been “beaten up by an unarmed Afghan” on Tuesday but ruled out an assassination attempt. The Afghan attacker had been arrested and put under investigation.

Tehran police chief Hossein Sajedi-Nia told news agency on Tuesday that the ambassador suffered a head injury while walking to his gym.

“The ambassador goes to a gym several times a week without his bodyguards,” he said. “While he was on his way, he had a clash with a 21-year-old Afghan. He was injured on the head and fell.”

Iftikhar urges militants to lay down arms for talks

NOWSHEHRA: Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said Tuesday that talks could be held with militants only if they accepted the writ of state by laying down their arms.

Speaking at a seminar here, he said there was no room for a military operation in Kala Dhaka at this time. He, however, warned that action would be taken if militants were found hiding there.

He said, “Faisal Shahzad hails from Kyber Pakhtunkhwa and if he is involved in terrorism, deserves stern punishment.”

To a question, he said that the threat of dire consequences issued against Pakistan was not given by the US policymaking body but a personal opinion of an individual.

Hussain said that talks with militants were possible if they laid down arms.

Pak Ambassador to Iran attacked, 2 guards killed

ISLAMABAD: The vehicle of Pakistan’s Ambassador to Tehran M B Abbasi came under gun attack in Tehran, Geo reported Tuesday.

According to Arab TV, two guards of the Pakistani ambassador also died in the attack.

Meanwhile, Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said that the ambassador was attacked with a knife, in which he sustained minor injury.

The spokesman said there was no truth about the deaths of two guards in the attack.

Pak Ambassador to Tehran escapes attempt on life

TEHRAN: Pakistan’s ambassador to Tehran M B Abbasi escaped unhurt a knife attack, Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit confirmed Tuesday.

The foreign office spokesman said Abbasi is safe.

He said there is also no truth about the deaths of two guards in the attack.

Earlier, Arab TV claimed that the vehicle of Pakistani ambassador came under gun attack, killing two of his guards.

A foreign news agency adds: Pakistan”s ambassador to Tehran was injured and taken to hospital on Tuesday when his car was attacked by an Afghan, Iran”s foreign ministry spokesman told state-run television.

“The Pakistan ambassador”s car has been attacked by an Afghan. The ambassador has been injured and he is in hospital. The Afghan has been arrested,” the spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted as saying.

He did not give any further details in his comments made on state-run Arabic language Al-Alam television.

But Tehran police chief said the ambassador, Mohammad Bakhsh Abbasi, was injured in a confrontation.

“The ambassador went to a gym several times a week without his bodyguards. This afternoon while he was on his way he had a clash with a 21-year-old Afghan, he was injured on the head and fell,” police chief Hossein Sajedi-Nia told ISNA news agency.

“Policemen appeared on the scene after phone calls by people and arrested that person,” he said. “The ambassador is well now and the detained man is being interrogated.”

Germany Extends Afghanistan Mission

Germany Extends Afghanistan Mission, Germany’s parliament has voted to extend the mandate of troops serving in Afghanistan for one year but did not lift the upper limit of soldiers able to be sent there, currently set at 4,500.
The Bundestag lower house voted 445 deputies out of 594 in favour of the motion, which will ensure that German troops stay in the country until at least December 2010. Germany currently has about 4,300 troops in Afghanistan, the third-largest contributor to a 110,000-strong international force after the United States and Britain.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato’s secretary general, said on Wednesday that members of the military alliance would send at least 5,000 troops to back the US increase of 30,000 extra soldiers announced by Barack Obama, the US president, on Tuesday.
But the full extent of extra resources coming from the military alliance remains unclear.

---

Germany Extends Afghanistan Mission was first posted on December 4, 2009 at 4:44 pm.

Next Page »