Category Archives: Afghanistan

Inquiry into alleged war crimes by Australian special forces in Afghanistan delivers final report

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Defence chief Angus Campbell will consider the findings and decide how much detail will be released publicly

The inquiry into alleged war crimes by Australian special forces in Afghanistan has delivered its final report to the chief of the defence force, who is now considering how many of the “uncomfortable” findings to make public.

Defence chief Angus Campbell confirmed on Friday evening he had received the Afghanistan inquiry report from the inspector general of the Australian defence force, who has been examining the conduct of elite Australian forces in more than 55 incidents of alleged unlawful killings between 2005 and 2016.

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‘We live in constant fear’: Kabul buries its dead after Isis attack on university

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The brutal killing of at least 35 people on Monday has left Afghanistan’s younger generation fearful of the future

At a mountainside graveyard, surrounded by dusty brown hills specked with colourfully painted houses, 20 year-old Marziah Tahery was laid to rest on Tuesday; a light breeze in the warm autumn air, echoes of children’s play in the distance.

The morning before – as on most other days – she had gone enthusiastically into Kabul University where she had been studying public administration and policy.

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Attack on Kabul University by Isis gunmen leaves 22 dead

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Afghan government declares day of mourning after incident in which attackers shot dead

At least 22 people were killed and 22 wounded after Islamic State-affiliated gunmen stormed Kabul University as it was hosting a book fair attended by Iran’s ambassador to Afghanistan, taking hostages and fighting gun battles with security forces for more than five hours.

The Afghan government has declared Tuesday a national day of mourning following the attack. Three attackers shot at fleeing students and gunned down others in their classrooms in what was the second assault on an educational facility in the country in recent weeks. The gunmen were shot dead by Afghan security forces, authorities said.

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Anti-France protests draw tens of thousands across Muslim world

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Demonstrations held in Pakistan, Lebanon, Palestinian territories and Afghanistan

Tens of thousands of Muslims in Pakistan, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and elsewhere joined protests on Friday over the French president Emmanuel Macron’s vow to protect the right to caricature the prophet Muhammad.

Demonstrations in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, turned violent as 2,000 people who tried to march towards the French embassy were pushed back by police firing teargas and using batons. Crowds of Islamist activists hanged an effigy of Macron from an overpass after pounding it with their shoes.

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Afghan security forces kill senior al-Qaida leader

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Abu Muhsin al-Masri was on FBI’s most-wanted list and had been charged with terrorism offences in US

Afghan security forces have killed Abu Muhsin al-Masri, a senior al-Qaida leader who was on the FBI’s most-wanted list, Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) said in a tweet late on Saturday.

Al-Masri has been charged in the United States with having provided material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organisation, and conspiracy to kill US nationals.

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Trump’s Afghanistan withdrawal announcement takes US officials by surprise

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Tweet calling for troops’ return by Christmas puts peace negotiations in jeopardy and was greeted enthusiastically by the Taliban

Donald Trump has announced on Twitter that he wants to bring all US troops home from Afghanistan by Christmas – a plan that came as a surprise to administration officials and which puts complicated peace negotiations in jeopardy.

Multiple officials told the Associated Press they had not been informed of any such deadline and military experts said it would be impossible to withdraw all 5,000 US troops in Afghanistan and dismantle the US military headquarters by the end of the year.

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‘It breaks my heart’: Uighurs wrongfully held at Guantánamo plead to be with families

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Salahidin Abdulahad, Khalil Mamut and Ayoub Mohammed are desperate to be reunited with their children in Canada

They were captured by bounty hunters, shipped across the world by American soldiers and held for years in Guantánamo Bay.

Salahidin Abdulahad, Khalil Mamut and Ayoub Mohammed were eventually cleared by US courts and released. Their time in the notorious prison, however, continues to haunt them.

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Coalminer’s daughter comes out top in Afghanistan’s university entrance exam

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  • Shamsia Alizada, 18, first out of more than 170,000 students
  • Government in talks with Taliban, which barred girls in schools

The daughter of an Afghan coalminer has come top in the country’s university entrance exam and is setting her sights on becoming a doctor.

Shamsia Alizada, 18, came first out of more than 170,000 students, the education ministry said, prompting congratulations from former president Hamid Karzai and foreign envoys including the US charge d’affaires.

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More Afghan interpreters eligible to move to UK under new rules

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Government expands scheme for linguists who risked lives for British troops

Dozens more Afghan interpreters who risked their lives for British troops will be able to apply to settle in the UK following the government decision to expand a relocation scheme.

Former interpreters and servicemen have welcomed the move, which could mean about 100 linguists and their families will be made eligible to apply for resettlement – but said more must be done for the hundreds still at risk of reprisals in Afghanistan.

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US warns Afghan women of increased risk of extremist attack

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Message from the US embassy comes during long-postponed direct talks between the government and the Taliban

The United States has warned women in Afghanistan that they are at increased risk of attack by extremist groups.

The US embassy in Kabul warned on Thursday that “extremist organisations continue to plan attacks against a variety of targets […], including a heightened risk of attacks targeting female government and civilian workers, including teachers, human rights activists, office workers, and government employees.”

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Afghan peace talks with Taliban begin in Doha with rocky path ahead

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Securing a ceasefire and safeguarding rights of women and minorities are key challenges

The Taliban and Afghan government negotiators launched historic peace talks on Saturday, aiming to end decades of war through a political settlement that would be unprecedented in the country’s recent history.

Negotiations will be long and complicated; there is a yawning gulf between the Taliban’s vision of an austerely Islamic state and the government’s commitment to the constitution that guarantees democracy and women’s rights, even if its implementation is mixed.

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Afghan government to start peace talks with Taliban

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Negotiations to end the long civil war were agreed as part of a withdrawal deal signed by the US

The Afghan government and the Taliban will open peace talks on Saturday, trying to reach a power-sharing deal as American troops leave the country after nearly two decades.

The negotiations to try to end the long civil war were agreed as part of a withdrawal deal that the US signed with the Taliban in February, but have stalled for months over details of a promised prisoner exchange.

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Conflicts since start of US ‘war on terror’ have displaced 37m people – report

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Study focuses on post-9/11 wars in which US initiated combat or took part in military operations

Conflicts with US military involvement have displaced at least 37 million people since the beginning of the “war on terror” nearly two decades ago, a report has estimated.

The invasion of Iraq and the decades of instability that have followed in the country have uprooted at least 9.2 million so far, the costliest of the eight US military operations that were included in the report by Brown University’s Costs of War Project.

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Female Afghan peace negotiator wounded in assassination bid

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Women’s rights activist Fawzia Koofi, a member of the team negotiating a deal with the Taliban, was shot in the arm

A female member of Afghanistan’s peace negotiating team has been slightly wounded in an assassination attempt, officials say.

Fawzia Koofi, who is also a former parliamentarian, was attacked on Friday afternoon near the capital, Kabul, while returning from a visit to the northern province of Parwan.

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‘Peace where rights aren’t trampled’: Afghan women’s demands ahead of Taliban talks

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With negotiations set to begin, women have been sharing their ‘red lines’ on the progress they refuse to see negotiated

Farahnaz Forotan was three when the Taliban had arrived in Kabul. It was 1996. “I have this memory of a snowy day, I was sitting on my mother’s lap, in a minibus, and she was crying. I didn’t understand why she was crying,” Forotan says. It was the day her family became refugees.

“It was the civil war, and we had to leave our home and country to live in Iran – alive, but living in pain and facing discrimination,” she says.

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Polio vaccinations resume in Pakistan and Afghanistan after Covid-19 delays

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Fight to eradicate disease getting ‘back on track’ after surge in cases due to pause in vaccination campaigns

Polio vaccination campaigns have resumed in Afghanistan and Pakistan – the last two polio-endemic countries in the world – after a “surge” in cases.

The pandemic halted campaigns in both countries in March and confirmed cases have now reached 34 in Afghanistan and 63 in Pakistan – where cases are being recorded in areas of the country previously free of the disease.

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Afghan girl shot dead Taliban fighters who killed her parents, say officials

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Teenager Qamar Gul and her younger brother fought a battle with an insurgent group who stormed their village

An Afghan girl shot dead three Taliban fighters after they killed her parents because they supported the government, local officials have said.

The incident happened last week when a group of 40 insurgents stormed the village of Geriveh, in central Ghor province, where 16-year-old Qamar Gul was living with her parents and brother.

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Artlords, not warlords – how Kabul’s artists battle for the streets

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Muralists are covering the Afghan capital’s blast walls with agitprop imagery and calling out corruption

From the killing of George Floyd in the US and the drowning of Afghan refugees in Iran, to the signing of the US-Taliban agreement towards peace and brutal murder of a Japanese aid worker, a group of Afghan artists have taken paintbrushes to adorn Kabul’s grey blast walls with vivid imagery.

The barriers have been transformed into politically inspired murals, which the artists hope will create “visual dialogue” and raise awareness of corruption and injustices.

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Top US general vows response if military confirms reports of Russian bounties

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Gen Mark Milley tells lawmakers Pentagon is investigating reports Russia paid for attacks on US soldiers in Afghanistan

America’s top general has said military intelligence agencies are working to corroborate reports of Russia paying Taliban fighters bounties for killing US soldiers and vowed a response if they were confirmed.

Gen Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, told the House armed services committee, that the Pentagon was committed to discovering whether Russian military intelligence had paid for attacks on American soldiers in Afghanistan.

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Hunger could kill millions more than Covid-19, warns Oxfam

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Starvation looms from Afghanistan to Haiti as coronavirus restrictions wipe out incomes and cut food supplies

Millions of people are being pushed towards hunger by the coronavirus pandemic, which could end up killing more people through lack of food than from the illness itself, Oxfam has warned.

Closed borders, curfews and travel restrictions have disrupted food supplies and incomes in already fragile countries, forcing an extra million people closer to famine in Afghanistan and heightening the humanitarian disaster in Yemen, where two-thirds already live in hunger.

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