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Tag: Afghanistan

  • SAD! Earthquake claims over 600 in Afganistan

    SAD! Earthquake claims over 600 in Afganistan

    A massive rescue operation was underway in Afghanistan Monday after a strong earthquake and multiple aftershocks flattened homes in the impoverished nation, killing more than 600 people, the interior ministry said.

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    The earthquake struck just before midnight, shaking buildings from Kabul to neighbouring Pakistan’s capital Islamabad.

    Near the epicentre in the east of the country, “610 people were killed and 1,300 were injured in Kunar province, with numerous houses destroyed”, spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani told AFP, adding that in neighbouring Nangarhar province 12 people were killed and another 255 injured.

    The Taliban authorities and the United Nations mobilised rescue efforts to hard-hit areas.

    “The UN in Afghanistan is deeply saddened by the devastating earthquake that struck the eastern region & claimed hundreds of lives,” the UN said on X, saying teams were on the ground “delivering emergency assistance & lifesaving support”.

    The epicentre of the quake, which struck at a relatively shallow depth of eight kilometres, was 27 kilometres from the city of Jalalabad in Nangarhar province, according to the US Geological Survey.

    Shallow quakes tend to cause more damage than deep tremors.

    Frequent quakes
    A series of aftershocks followed throughout the night, including a powerful and shallow 5.2-magnitude quake just after 4:00 am (2330 GMT Sunday).

    Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.

    Nangarhar province was also hit by flooding overnight Friday to Saturday, which killed five people and destroyed crops and property, provincial authorities said.

    In June 2022, a 5.9-magnitude quake struck the impoverished eastern border province of Paktika, killing more than 1,000 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.

    Ravaged by four decades of war, Afghanistan is already contending with a humanitarian disaster.

    With the return of the Taliban, foreign aid to Afghanistan has shrunk dramatically, undermining the already impoverished nation’s ability to respond to disasters.

    In 2015, more than 380 people were killed in Pakistan and Afghanistan when a powerful 7.5-magnitude earthquake ripped across the two countries, with the bulk of the deaths in Pakistan.

    In that disaster, 12 young Afghan girls were crushed to death in a stampede as they tried to flee their shaking school building.

    AFP

  • Humanitarian situation in Afghanistan deteriorating, aid groups warn

    Humanitarian situation in Afghanistan deteriorating, aid groups warn

    Aid organisations are warning of a dramatic deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan in the coming winter.

    “The harsh Afghan winter is weeks away when families will be forced to make the impossible choice between heating their homes and feeding their children,’’ the United Nations World Food Programme said on online platform X on Tuesday.

    Executive Director of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) Germany, Corina Pfitzner emphasise that the situation in the country is already a catastrophic

    According to UN figures, more than 29 million of the country’s 40 million people are currently dependent on humanitarian aid, .

    Pfitzner  in addition added that, many people were still without shelter after the series of earthquakes in western Afghanistan,.

    The coming winter will also make medical care in the country more difficult, as many regions will soon be barely accessible for mobile health teams due to snowfall.

    After decades of conflict, Afghanistan lacks basic infrastructure in many places. “These systems have to be built now,’’ says Pfitzner.

    “We look to the coming period with great concern,’’ Florian Westphal of Save the Children told dpa.

    Since the announced mass deportation of unregistered Afghan refugees in neighbouring Pakistan, hundreds of families are currently returning to Afghanistan every day but often without knowing where they will find accommodation, he said.

    However, for many, the only option is to stay in tents at the border, in spite of falling temperatures

     

  • Bomb blast kills mother, 5 children

    Bomb blast kills mother, 5 children

    Official on Monday reported that five children along with their mother were killed in a grenade bomb blast in Afghanistan’s central province of Ghor.

    Abdulhai Zaeem, the provincial director of information and culture, told dpa that the incident happened on Sunday in the provincial capital Firozkoh city, when the children were playing with a hand grenade inside their house.

    Zaeem said unexploded military supplies left from decades of war often cause casualties among children in Afghanistan.

    According to the director, on Friday, two children were killed and two others wounded when they were hit by an unexploded mortar shell in Logar province. The children were collecting firewood when the incident happened.

    The United Nations data showed that at least 118,443 people were killed as a result of armed conflict in the country since December 2008, when the UN started the official recording of civilian casualties.

  • BREAKING: Controversial cleric killed in suicide bombing

    BREAKING: Controversial cleric killed in suicide bombing

    A controversial cleric has been killed in an explosion in Afghanistan’s western province of Herat, officials said on Friday.

    In a statement, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said that Mawlana Mujib-ul-Rahman Ansari had been killed during Friday prayers at the biggest mosque in the city.

    Mujahid vowed that Taliban forces would punish the perpetrators behind the attack.

    Provincial police spokesperson Mahmoud Shah Rasooli said the incident took place when the cleric was entering the mosque while coming from his house.

    “One of the suicide bombers blew himself up and the cleric while kissing his hands,” the police spokesman said.

    Rasooli said a number of people had been killed in the attack, but did not give a precise number.

    The famous cleric was a major supporter of the Taliban government.

    Since the Taliban’s return to power, attacks on places of worship had increased in the country.

    The Islamic State terrorist group had claimed responsibility for a number of these attacks against religious minorities, but there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Friday bombing.

  • Explosion heard in western Kabul, Afghanistan

    An eyewitness has disclosed to newsmen that an explosion was heard in western Kabul, Afghanistan on Tuesday.

    The eyewitnesses who declined to be named said that the blast took place close to students’ class in the Dasht-e-Barchi area, a suburb of Police District 18 around noon.

    Meanwhile, Kabul Police spokesman Khalid Zadran confirmed the blast and said in his Twitter account.

    Preliminary information indicated that a cylinder of gas exploded in a shop in the Naqash area of Police District 18, today and firefighters have arrived at the site to extinguish the fire.

    This was the second blast in Afghanistan’s capital city Kabul since Sunday.

    In the previous blast which occurred next to a hotel on Sunday, one person sustained injury, according to the police.

  • Ukraine War: “We must stand in solidarity with the Afghan people” – UN official

    Ukraine War: “We must stand in solidarity with the Afghan people” – UN official

    Achim Steine, a senior United Nations (UN) official on Wednesday called on the international community not to forget the situation in Afghanistan amid a global focus on the war in Ukraine.

    “While the world’s attention is turned to Ukraine and the ripple effect from that war, we must also stand in solidarity with the Afghan people,” Achim Steiner, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) head said during a two-day visit to Afghanistan.

    Steiner draws attention to Thursday’s donor conference for Afghanistan.

    The conference is hosted by Qatar, Britain and Germany, the UN is to appeal for eight billion U.S. dollars in humanitarian aid.

    Steiner warned that the lives and livelihoods of millions of Afghans are under threat.

    The Taliban regained power last year amid the chaotic withdrawal of the international forces.

    He said Afghanistan was facing possible economic collapse, a frozen banking system and liquidity shortages, with as many as 80 per cent of the population in debt.

    UN estimates that more than 24 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance.

  • Suicide bomber kills 55 at Shiite mosque in Afghanistan

    Suicide bomber kills 55 at Shiite mosque in Afghanistan

    A suicide bomb attack on worshippers at a Shiite mosque in the Afghan city of Kunduz has killed at least 55 people in the bloodiest assault since US forces left the country in August.

    Scores more victims from the minority community were wounded in Friday’s blast, which was claimed by the Islamic State group and appeared designed to further destabilize Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban takeover.

    The regional branch of the rabidly sectarian IS has repeatedly targeted Shiites in Afghanistan. It is a Sunni Islamist group like the Taliban, but the two are bitter rivals.

    “It was a very terrifying incident,” said a teacher in Kunduz, who lives near the mosque.

    “Many of our neighbours have been killed and wounded. A 16-year-old neighbour was killed. They couldn’t find half of his body.”

    Pictures from the scene showed debris strewn inside the mosque, its windows blown out by the explosion. Some men were seen carrying a body draped in a bloody sheet to an ambulance.

    A medical source at Kunduz Provincial Hospital said 35 dead and more than 55 wounded had been taken there, while Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said 20 dead and several dozen wounded were brought to its hospital.

    Aminullah, an eyewitness whose brother was at the mosque, said: “After I heard the explosion, I called my brother but he did not pick up.”

    “I walked towards the mosque and found my brother wounded and faint. We immediately took him to the MSF hospital.”

    Matiullah Rohani, the Taliban government’s director of culture and information in Kunduz, confirmed it was a suicide attack, and put the death toll at 46.

    The Taliban have been seeking to consolidate power but still face attacks from the regional IS branch, called Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K).

    The Taliban security chief in the northern city accused the mosque attackers of trying to foment trouble between Shiites and Sunnis.

    “We assure our Shiite brothers that in the future, we will provide security for them and that such problems will not happen to them,” Mulawi Dost Muhammad said.

    Residents of the city, the capital of Kunduz province, told AFP the mosque blast happened during Friday prayers, the most important of the week for Muslims.

  • Afghanistan crisis: Putin blasts US over ‘Irresponsible attempts to impose democracy’

    Afghanistan crisis: Putin blasts US over ‘Irresponsible attempts to impose democracy’

    President Vladimir Putin of Russia has blamed the United States and its allies for the crisis in Afghanistan.

    According to Putin, the roles played in Afghanistan by America and its associates have caused destabilization and chaos in the South Asian country and for the rest of the world.

    Putin made the remark during the BRICS virtual Summit on Thursday.

    The summit was attended by the President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President of China Xi Jinping, and President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa, amongst others.

    BRICS was created to serve as a platform for promoting and strengthening business, trade and investment ties amongst the five countries.

    He insisted that the way the US forces withdrew from the country gave rise to further internal tension.

    The US had said that the reason its troops were in the Afghanistan for the past 20 years was to get at Alqaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden, as well as destroy terror strongholds in the country.

    US president Joe Biden had also exonerated himself from the current Taliban reign in the country while adding that the U.S. invested so much in the country and trained about 300,000 Afghan security forces to ward off any advance by non-state actors, before its final withdrawal on August 31.

    But Putin told BRICS members that it was wrong for foreign forces to use whatever means to get another country to align with its own values.

    “I have mentioned many times that the current round of the crisis in Afghanistan is a direct consequence of irresponsible extraneous attempts to impose someone else’s values on the country and to build democratic structures using socio-political engineering techniques, ignoring the historical and national specifics of other nations and the traditions by which they live.

    “The withdrawal of the US and their allies from Afghanistan has led to a new crisis situation, and it remains unclear how it will affect regional and global security, so it is absolutely right that our countries pay special attention to this issue.

    “All of that leads to nothing but destabilisation and, ultimately, chaos, after which the masterminds behind these experiments hastily retreat leaving their charges behind. The entire international community then has to face the consequences,” he said.

    After the submissions by all the members, BRICS jointly declared that the latest developments in Afghanistan was a global concern.

    They committed themselves to ensuring that Afghanistan will not serve as a place for the spread of terrorism.

    “We call for refraining from violence and settling the situation by peaceful means. We stress the need to contribute to fostering an inclusive intra-Afghan dialogue so as to ensure stability, civil peace, law and order in the country.

    “We condemn in the strongest terms the terrorist attacks near the Hamid Karzai Kabul International Airport that resulted in a large number of deaths and injuries.

    We underscore the priority of fighting terrorism, including preventing attempts by terrorist organisations to use Afghan territory as terrorist sanctuary and to carry out attacks against other countries, as well as drug trade within Afghanistan.

    We emphasise the need to address the humanitarian situation and to uphold human rights, including those of women, children and minorities,” BRICS said in a statement obtained issued to journalists.

  • Taliban clears air on social media ban in Afghanistan

    Taliban clears air on social media ban in Afghanistan

    Taliban Spokesman Suhail Shaheen on Tuesday said the Taliban movement had no plans to introduce any restrictions on social media in Afghanistan.

    Shaheen said the Taliban believed in the freedom of speech, ready to accept criticism, and would only make efforts to limit the spreading of fake information.

    “No, there aren’t any restrictions on social media. We believe in the freedom of speech.

    “If someone criticizes our activities or has some views that he wants to express, it is fine with us, it is all part of freedom of speech.

    “But of course we do not want the spread of lies and fabrications, those might be restricted. Otherwise, we don’t have any problem,” Shaheen said.

  • Taliban calls for peaceful solution of Panjshir standoff

    Taliban calls for peaceful solution of Panjshir standoff

    A Taliban senior leader, Mullah Amir Khan Mutaqi has called for peaceful solution of the standoff in Afghanistan’s Panjshir province, urged the people of Panjshir to help stabilise peace and security in the country.

    “Panjshir as a part of Afghanistan deserves to live in peace. The Islamic Emirate has declared general amnesty and there is no reason to fight.

    “War is enough, let’s stop fighting and live in peace,’’ Mutaqi said in a message on Wednesday.

    Panjshir, the only province among Afghanistan’s 34 provinces which has remained out of Taliban’s control since the fall of major cities including capital Kabul.

    Since Monday, there were reports of skirmishes between Taliban forces and the anti-Taliban fighters in areas bordering Panjshir Valley.

    Ahmad Masoud, the son of late anti-Taliban resistance leader Ahmad Shah Masoud, who was leading an anti-Taliban resistance in Panjshir Valley, has reportedly said that he was going to find negotiated solution to the standoff.

    He said, though in the meantime, he urged the people to be ready to defend the valley.

    Mutaqi in his message said that the Taliban in spite of deploying troops around Panjshir would continue dialogue.