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Tag: Kabul

  • 30 killed in Afghan hotel attack

    30 killed in Afghan hotel attack

    An Afghanistan government official on Monday said death toll in Saturday’s attack on the Kabul Intercontinental Hotel has reached 30.

    Gunmen in army uniforms had stormed and battled Afghan Special Forces through the night on Saturday at the hotel.

    Wahid Majroh, a spokesman for the ministry of public health, however said the final toll of dead and wounded may still be higher.

    Majroh said 19 bodies had been brought into city hospitals, with six identified as foreigners.

    However, a senior Afghan security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media, said the death toll was over 30 and might climb higher.

    The dead included hotel staff and guests, as well as members of the security forces who fought the attackers.

    Interior ministry spokesman Najib Danesh said all five attackers were also killed.

    In Kiev, Ukrainian foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin said on Twitter that six Ukrainians were killed in the attack.

    The raid was the latest in a series of attacks which have underlined the city’s vulnerability and the ability of militants to mount high-profile operations aimed at undermining confidence in the Western-backed government.

    Read Also: 30 killed in Kabul hospital attack

    No fewer than 150 guests were able to flee as parts of the building caught fire, with some shimmying down sheets tied together and dropped from upper-floor windows and others rescued by Afghan forces.

    Local airline Kam Air said around 40 of its pilots and air crew, many of whom are foreigners, were staying in the hotel and as many as 10 had been killed.

    Local media reports said the dead included Venezuelans and Ukrainians.

    Zamari Kamgar, the airline’s deputy director, said it was still trying to locate staff.

    The Taliban, which attacked the same hotel in 2011, claimed responsibility for the attack through spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid in a statement.

    A statement from the interior ministry put the blame on the Haqqani network, a group affiliated with the Taliban that is notorious for its attacks on urban targets.

    Abdul Naseri, a guest who was at the hotel for a conference, was in the hall of the hotel when he saw four gunmen dressed in army uniforms.

    Naseri said: “They were shouting in Pashto (language), ‘Don’t leave any of them alive, good or bad’. ‘Shoot and kill them all,’ one of them shouted.

    “I ran to my room on the second floor. I opened the window and tried to get out using a tree but the branch broke and I fell to the ground. I hurt my back and broke a leg.”

    Even after officials said the attack was over, sporadic gunshots and explosions could be heard from the site.

    As day broke on Sunday, thick clouds of black smoke poured from the building, an imposing 1960s structure set on a hilltop and heavily protected like most public buildings in Kabul.

    The Intercontinental is one of two main luxury hotels in the city and had been due to host an information technology conference on Sunday.

    No fewer than 100 IT managers and engineers were on site when the attack took place, said Ahmad Waheed, an official at the telecommunications ministry.

    Danesh said a private company had taken over responsibility for security at the hotel three weeks ago and there would be an investigation into possible failings.

    The attack came just days after a U.S. embassy warning of possible attacks on hotels in Kabul.

    Several armored U.S. military vehicles with heavy machine guns could be seen close to the hotel along with Afghan police units as Special Forces maneuvered around the site.

    Hotel manager Ahmad Haris Nayab, who escaped unhurt, said the attackers had got into the main part of the hotel through a kitchen before going through the hotel, with many guests trapped in their rooms.

    The senior security official said that the attackers had moved directly from the first floor to the fourth and fifth floors, suggesting the attack had been carefully prepared, possibly with inside help.

    “When the sixth floor caught fire this morning, my roommate told me, either burn or escape,” said Mohammad Musa, who was hiding in his room on the top floor.

    Reuters/NAN

  • Afghan capital mourns victims of truck bomb blast as anger swirls

    Afghan capital mourns victims of truck bomb blast as anger swirls

    Kabul on Thursday mourned victims of a powerful truck bomb that killed no fewer than 80 people and wounded hundreds amid growing public anger at the government’s failure to prevent yet another deadly attack in the heart of the Afghan capital.

    Wednesday’s blast, at the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, ripped through a traffic-clogged street, packed with people on their way to school or work during the morning rush hour, causing hundreds of casualties in an instant and sending a tower of black smoke into the sky.

    In scale, it was one of the worst such attacks since the U.S.-led campaign to oust the Taliban in 2001 but in kind, it was only the latest in a grim series that has killed thousands of civilians over the years.

    President Ashraf Ghani made a televised address late on Wednesday, calling for national unity in the face of the attack, which his National Directorate for Security blamed on the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network, but he faces an increasingly angry public.

    “For God’s sake, what is happening to this country?,” said Ghulam Sakhi, a shoemaker whose shop is close to the site of the blast.

    “People leave home to fetch a loaf of bread for their children and later that evening, their dead body is sent back to the family.”

    The explosion occurred near the German embassy at one of the entrances to Kabul’s unofficial Green Zone, a haphazard warren of concrete blast walls and sandbagged check points that has grown up around the diplomatic quarter over the years as the insurgency has intensified.

    While the sewage tanker carrying the bomb was stopped from entering the zone, it was unclear how such a large quantity of explosives could get through the ring of checkpoints set up around Kabul to protect the capital.

    A huge crater ripped into the ground at the site of the blast and shattered windows in houses more than a kilometer away were testament to the power of the explosion, which was set off by a bomb concealed in the tanker.

    Several embassies were damaged and a number of foreigners wounded, but the majority of victims were, as ever in such attacks, Afghan civilians.

    “Right now, thousands of our people are in mourning. Why and for how long do we have to suffer this situation?

    “We want our leaders to ensure security in the country and if they can’t, they should resign,”said shopkeeper Enayatullah Mohammadi.

    Deputy Interior Minister Murad Ali said on Thursday that 80 people had been killed and 463 wounded in the attack.

    The true number of victims may never be known, however.

    According to police, several guards who apparently stopped the tanker from entering the Green Zone have simply disappeared.

    There has been no claim of responsibility but Afghanistan’s National Directorate for Security blamed the Haqqani network, a Taliban affiliate directly integrated into the militant movement, and said it had been helped by Pakistan’s intelligence service.

    The Taliban have denied involvement.

    On the streets, however, the main concern was survival.

    “Every morning when I leave my house, I’m not sure whether I will come back home alive,” said Najibullah Jan, another shopkeeper whose store is located near the blast site.

  • 150,000 Afghans displaced – UN

    150,000 Afghans displaced – UN

    The United Nations said in its conflict latest figures that more than 149,000 Afghans fled their homes in the first six months of the year due to the ongoing conflict.

    The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a bulletin released on Thursday in Kabul that many of those affected were farmers who were missing critical sowing and harvest times.

    It said the crisis has put their livelihoods at risk and increasing food insecurity in Afghanistan.

    The UN noted that the northern province of Baghlan was one of the worst hit by the conflict still affecting 29 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.

    It complained that it had no access to many of the internally displaced persons.

  • Kabul suicide attack leaves 28 dead, over 300 injured

    Kabul suicide attack leaves 28 dead, over 300 injured

    Nothing less than  28 people have been confirmed dead  and more than 300 injured after an explosion rocked Kabul, Afghanistan on Tuesday morning.

    This was confirmed by the Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi,   after a suicide car bomber targeted the office of a security team protecting government VIPs caused the explosion.

    First a suicide bomber blew up his explosives-laden lorry on the gate of the department and then other armed attackers went in and started shooting on the rest of the enemies, CNN reports.

    However,Afghan President,  Mohammad Ashraf Ghani condemned the terrorist attack in Pule Mahmood Khan area, Kabul, which martyred and injured a number of Afghan innocent civilians in strongest terms,” a statement released by the president’s office read.

     

  • U.S. drones kill 17 in Afghanistan

    An early Friday report from Kabul said 17 people were killed by U.S. drones in south-eastern Afghanistan during the week.

    Nematullah Baburi, a member of the council of Paktika province, said there were conflicting reports on the identities of the causalities, while the local officials said the dead were civilians, while police and foreign forces said all casualties were militants.

    He, however, insisted that three drone airstrikes conducted by U.S. forces in the Nematabad area of Gomal district killed 17 civilians including a tribal elder.

    Baburi said the first strike targeted a vehicle carrying an elder named Haji Rozuddin on Wednesday, killing all 12 passengers.

    “Two other airstrikes a few kilometres away the same day killed 5 villagers.

    Another council member, Fazal Katawazai, confirmed that the strikes had left civilian casualties, but said he did not know how many.
    He said there were problems getting more information, as the phones do not work there.

    Katawaza said another problem was that the local government only controls the district centre, while other areas are in control of Taliban.

    The provincial police and international forces said only Taliban militants were killed in the airstrikes.

    Gen. Zorawar Zahid, Paktika’s Police Chief, declining to comment on reports of Rozuddin’s death, stressing that no civilians were killed.

    Meanwhile, a spokesman of the U.S. forces in Kabul said that there was no evidence of civilian casualties.

    Drone strikes have intensified since Islamic State militants have started appearing in Afghanistan. Most of them have been in Nangarhar province, north-east of Paktika.

     

  • IMF, U.N. officials among 21 killed in Kabul suicide attack

    Gunmen burst into the restaurant spraying diners with bullets after the bomber blew himself up near the entrance around 7.30 p.m. on Friday evening.

    Thirteen foreigners were among those killed, according to police, and details of the victims began to trickle through Saturday.

    The U.S. embassy said in a post on Twitter that at least two U.S. private citizens were killed. Britain and Canada confirmed they had each lost two nationals, and Denmark said one of its citizens also died.

    After the initial blast, sporadic bursts of gunfire were heard over the next hour. The two gunmen inside the Lebanese restaurant, located in Kabul’s diplomatic enclave, were shot dead by police, an Afghan official said.

    Most foreign forces are preparing to leave Afghanistan this year after more than a decade of war, and there are fears that the Taliban will intensify attacks in the run up to an election in April to find a successor to President Hamid Karzai.

    At odds with Washington over the terms, Karzai is still deliberating whether to allow some U.S. troops to stay on. If no agreement is reached, Afghan forces could be left to fight the insurgents on their own.

    The Taliban claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack, calling it revenge for a U.S. airstrike earlier this week that had also drawn condemnation from Karzai as eight civilians were killed.

    Several kitchen staff survived by fleeing to the roof, where they hid until they were rescued by police.

    “When I was in the kitchen, I heard an explosion outside. Then all the guys escaped up and I went to the roof and stayed with my back to the chimney for two or three hours,” said Suleiman, a cook at the Lebanese restaurant.

    By midnight, a clearance operation was still underway, with police nervously flashing lasers at passing cars and people on the dark, dusty streets.

    The restaurant had been running for several years, and was a favourite haunt for foreigners, including diplomats, contractors, journalists and aid workers.

    A couple of armed guards were usually on duty at the front entrance, which led to a courtyard in front of the main ground floor dining room.

    The suicide bomb attack took place at the front entrance, but accounts differed over where the gunmen had entered from.

    “The target of the attack was a restaurant frequented by high ranking foreigners… where the invaders used to dine with booze and liquor in the plenty,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in an e-mailed statement, written in English.

    Karzai issued a statement on Saturday condemning the attack, using the opportunity to swipe at the United States for not doing enough to fight “terrorism”.

    “If NATO forces led by the United States of America want to be united and partner with the Afghan people, they have to target terrorism,” he said in a statement. Karzai is upset with Washington, believing it could do more to persuade the Taliban to begin direct peace talks with his government.

    The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) representative in Afghanistan, 60-year-old Lebanese national Wabel Abdallah, was one of the diners killed. He had been leading the Fund’s office in Kabul since 2008.

    “This is tragic news, and we at the Fund are all devastated,” Managing Director Christine Lagarde said in a statement. “Our hearts go out to Wabel’s family and friends, as well as the other victims of this attack.”

    The U.N. initially said four staff were killed, but had counted the IMF’s representative in the total. The three included a Russian, an American and a Pakistani.

    The Russian was the senior U.N. political officer in trying to negotiate a start to peace talks with the Taliban.

    “You can imagine the effect it has had on staff members here,” U.N. spokesman Ari Gaitanis told Reuters.

    A British Foreign Office spokeswoman said two Britons were killed in the attack. Del Singh, a British Labour Party candidate for the European Parliament was one of British victims, the other was serving with the EU Police Mission in Afghanistan. A Dane serving with the mission also died.

    Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said two Canadians were killed, but it was unclear which organisation they worked for.

    While the U.S. embassy Twitter post specified the dead Americans were private citizens, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said none of the dead included embassy staff.

    Foreign casualties were taken to a military base in Kabul. At a hospital morgue near the attack, Afghans screamed and cried as they mourned attack victims, some pressing scarves to their faces to stifle sobs. One young man, grieving for his dead father, kicked a wall and howled.

    “One of the restaurant’s cooks was wounded,” said a doctor, Abdul Bashir. “Two dead bodies have been taken to the morgue.”

    While the south and south east of Afghanistan have been the main theatres of action in a war that has dragged on for more than a decade, Kabul has suffered regular attacks.

    Taliban fighters mounted several attacks in the capital during the summer months last year, but the assault on Friday inflicted far higher casualties.

    With attacks still happening daily, Afghanistan and the United States are struggling to agree on a bilateral security pact, raising the prospect that Washington may yet pull out all of its troops this year unless differences are ironed out.

  • My advice for Boko Haram- Afghan President

    My advice for Boko Haram- Afghan President

    Afghan President  Hamid Karzai has advised Boko Haram insurgents in Nigeria to sheath their swords.

    He gave the advice when Nigeria’s Ambassador to Afghanistan, Dauda Danladi presented his letters of credence in Kabul, the Afghan capital recently.

    He called on the Boko Haram members to lay down their arms if they are true Muslims and embrace amnesty offered by federal government noting that no religion preaches violence.

    “Boko Haram should stop burning schools, Mosques, Churches in the name of Islam.  You should not destroy your country if you are true Muslims. You should protect lives because in Islam if you kill one, it is as if you have killed the whole of humanity and if you save life, it is as if you have saved the whole of humanity”

    He said Afghans have seen the futility of violence and put behind them the ugly past and have now embraced peace through dialogue.

    He recalled the activities of the Taliban’s in Afghanistan saying it was externally motivated and the people were used by the Taliban’s to commit suicide bombing without knowledge that they will be committing suicide.

    He said in most cases suicide bombers were given jackets containing bombs and on wearing it somebody who will follow them will detonate it on reaching their targets.

    Afghanistan First Deputy Minister of Defense, Saran Pooh-Enayatullah Nazari  while receiving Ambassador Danladi advised  Boko Haram members  not to or emulate the Taliban’s because they were supported by external forces to cause problems which made more than half a million orphans and widows in Afghanistan.

    Adding that Afghanistan lost over two million people, while one million were disabled, Nazari hoped his country’s experience should be a lesson to fundamentalists in Nigeria to stop any actions that will destabilize the country.

    “War is not good. It is like a flame and will destroy both the good and the bad.  Whoever makes efforts to stop it, God will reward him and who so ever try to aggravate it will destroy everything and will be responsible before God,” Nazari stated.

    He suggested the need for Nigeria to open its doors for Afghan young officers to attend some basic training in Nigeria.

    He hoped that Nigeria would not go through the same problem experienced by Afghanistan before embracing peace through dialogue.

    The Deputy Chairman of the Higher Peace Council, Abdul Hakim Mujahid who was a former Taliban Ambassador to United Nations also said that contrary to the perception of many, Islam is the religion of peace.

    While calling for religious tolerance, Mujahid quoted the Holy Quran Chapter 8 verse 72 which stated that “ …We have created you into different nations and tribes so that you can understand one another,
    the best among you in the sight of Allah is he who fears Allah most”.

    He said if Allah wanted to make all nations Muslims or Christians, he has the power to do so, but noted that in his wisdom, he chose not to do so.

    Danladi who is Nigeria’s nonresident ambassador to Afghanistan commended the efforts of President Karzai’s administration.

    He assured that Nigeria’s transformation agenda initiated by President Goodluck Jonathan on the international scene is global peace and economic diplomacy;

    He said issues on manpower development, capacity building and institutional strengthening will be forwarded to relevant authorities in Nigeria for consideration under a conducive atmosphere.