Category Archives: Afghanistan

Heston Russell defamation case: 2GB pursued ‘culture war’ when criticising ABC stories, court told

Posted on by

ABC executive Jo Puccini tells court rival radio station derided ‘all’ of public broadcaster’s alleged war crimes coverage

Radio broadcaster 2GB engaged in a culture war when repeatedly criticising the ABC’s war crimes reporting, the public broadcaster’s head of investigations has told the federal court.

The ABC executive Jo Puccini was the final witness in a six-day defamation trial brought by former commando Heston Russell, who is suing the ABC and investigative journalists Mark Willacy and Josh Robertson.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

UK aid budget cuts are ‘death sentence’ for world’s most vulnerable children

Posted on by

Save the Children and Oxfam urge government to restore aid budget back to 0.7% of national income

UK aid cuts are a “death sentence” for children in the world’s most dangerous places, aid charities have warned after an internal government report revealed the impact of budget reductions on the most vulnerable.

The government faced calls from NGOs including Save the Children and Oxfam to restore the aid budget back to 0.7% of national income, after the potential effects of cuts were outlined in grim detail by an assessment produced by civil servants.

Continue reading...

Women’s health at risk from UK aid cuts, Foreign Office warned

Posted on by

Thousands more women will be forced into unsafe abortions and die in pregnancy and childbirth, ministers told

Hundreds of thousands more women will face unsafe abortions and thousands will die in pregnancy and childbirth as a result of UK aid cuts in 2023-24, Foreign Office ministers were warned in an internal assessment.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) published its programme allocations for the next two years last month, showing that official development assistance (ODA) spend is due to rise marginally in 2023-24 and then increase by 12% in 2024-25 to £8.3bn.

Continue reading...

Islamic State says it carried out Pakistan suicide bombing that killed 54

Posted on by

Blast took place at political rally for a pro-Taliban party as country faces a rising tide of militant attacks

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed 54 people in Pakistan, as the country battles a rising tide of militant attacks.

The bombing took place at a rally for a pro-Taliban party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a province bordering Afghanistan that has faced a rapidly declining security situation due to attacks from militant groups including the Pakistan Taliban and Islamic State’s regional affiliate.

Continue reading...

Heston Russell: former commando tells court he altered invoice he gave to ABC journalist as proof he paid charity

Posted on by

Admission made in defamation trial against national broadcaster over allegations about the execution of an Afghan prisoner

Heston Russell has admitted to altering an invoice before giving it to an ABC journalist who asked for proof the former commando had paid a veterans’ charity the money he said he had raised for it.

Russell is suing the ABC over two online news articles, a television news item and a radio broadcast that relate to the alleged actions in Afghanistan in 2012 of the November platoon, which Russell commanded.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Female Afghan judge wins legal battle to come to UK

Posted on by

‘Overjoyed’ justice and son, who spent two years in hiding in Pakistan, reunited with family after landmark case

A female Afghan judge who was in hiding in Pakistan after fleeing the Taliban has won a landmark right to sanctuary in the UK.

The 53-year-old judge, whose true identity cannot be disclosed due to security concerns but is referred to as Yosra, was granted the right to come to the UK after a long legal battle with the Home Office.

Continue reading...

Tory MP Tobias Ellwood apologises for video praising Taliban

Posted on by

MP ‘sorry for poor communication’ after he credited group with improving safety in Afghanistan

A senior Conservative MP has apologised and deleted a video in which he praised the Taliban and credited them with improving safety in Afghanistan.

Tobias Ellwood said he was “sorry for my poor communication” after his actions outraged fellow Tory MPs and military veterans, and an attempt was launched to challenge his role as chair of the Commons defence select committee.

Continue reading...

US aid policies undermined success of Afghanistan mission, says watchdog chief

Posted on by

Poor oversight, lack of understanding and weak collaboration between allies contributed to ease of Taliban takeover, conclude US and UK aid bodies at London conference

America’s huge, badly-coordinated and politically-driven aid programme in Afghanistan engendered the corruption that undermined its entire mission and turned Afghans away from the western coalition, according to the head of a US aid watchdog.

“We did not really understand Afghanistan or how it worked as a country,” John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (Sigar), told a conference at the defence and security thinktank the Royal United Services Institute.

Continue reading...

Lyft driver who worked as US interpreter in Afghanistan shot dead in Washington

Posted on by

Nasratullah Ahmadyar, 31, who left Afghanistan on last flight from Kabul in 2021, died in hospital after being shot in his car

A Virginia man who previously served as an interpreter for the US military in Afghanistan was fatally shot this week working as a rideshare driver in Washington.

Nasratullah Ahmadyar, 31, was shot and killed on Monday while driving for Lyft, WUSA 9 reported. He had worked as an interpreter with the army special forces, but left Afghanistan on the last flight out of the country during the US withdrawal in 2021.

Continue reading...

SAS must be named in inquiry into alleged unlawful killings, says Afghan families’ lawyer

Posted on by

MoD acknowledged at preliminary hearing that ‘UK special forces’ were present in Afghanistan

A partial admission by the defence secretary that UK special forces were present in Afghanistan risks discrediting a public inquiry investigating allegations of unlawful killings by the SAS, according to a lawyer representing victims’ families.

Richard Hermer KC said Ben Wallace had made only “a semi-concession” in a preliminary hearing on Wednesday, when the minister made a rare acknowledgment that “UK special forces” were present in Afghanistan.

Continue reading...

Taliban order closure of beauty salons in Afghanistan

Posted on by

Morality ministry decrees another reduction of Afghan women’s access to public spaces

The Taliban administration in Afghanistan has ordered beauty salons to close within a month, the morality ministry said, in the latest shrinking of access to public places for Afghan women.

“The deadline for the closing of beauty parlours for women is one month,” Mohammad Sadiq Akif, a spokesperson for the Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and Propagation of Virtue, said on Tuesday, referring to a ministry notice.

Continue reading...

Eighty Afghan civilians may have been summarily killed by SAS, inquiry told

Posted on by

Lawyers for bereaved families allege British soldiers carried out policy of terminating all fighting-age men

Eighty Afghans may have been victim of summary killings by three separate British SAS units operating in the country between 2010 and 2013, lawyers representing the bereaved families have told a public inquiry.

One of the elite soldiers is believed to have “personally killed” 35 Afghans on a single six-month tour of duty as part of an alleged policy to terminate “all fighting-age males” in homes raided, “regardless of the threat they posed”.

Continue reading...

Scathing report on US withdrawal from Afghanistan blames Trump and Biden

Posted on by

State department’s findings also reflect poorly on Antony Blinken as it outlines the agency’s failure to expand crisis taskforce

A US state department report on Friday criticized the handling of the 2021 evacuation from Afghanistan, saying decisions by President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump to withdraw troops had “serious consequences for the viability” and security of the former US-backed government.

Adverse findings in the report also reflected badly on Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, without naming him. They included the department’s failure to expand its crisis-management taskforce as the Taliban advanced on Kabul in August 2021 and the lack of a senior diplomat “to oversee all elements of the crisis response”.

Continue reading...

Jacqui Lambie asks ICC to investigate Australian military commanders for alleged war crimes

Posted on by

Lambie tells Senate the Brereton report gave senior commanders a ‘free pass’ while soldiers were ‘thrown under the bus’

Senator Jacqui Lambie has told the Senate she has asked the international criminal court (ICC) to investigate senior Australian Defence Force commanders for alleged war crimes.

Lambie said that the Brereton report gave senior commanders a “free pass” while soldiers were “thrown under the bus”.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Australian federal police abandon two alleged murder investigations into Ben Roberts-Smith

Posted on by

The long-running investigations into murder allegations in Afghanistan will be replaced by new inquiries because of concerns about evidence

Two key criminal investigations into alleged murders involving Ben Roberts-Smith have been abandoned by the Australian federal police because of concerns over potentially inadmissible evidence.

The long-running investigations – into murder allegations at a compound codenamed Whiskey 108 and in the southern Afghan village of Darwan – will be replaced by new inquiries undertaken by a new joint taskforce, staffed by officials from the Office of the Special Investigator and federal police investigators not previously connected to the cases.

Continue reading...

Thousands of Afghan refugees in UK set to be made homeless

Posted on by

Downing Street crisis meeting hears that about 8,000 who arrived under Operation Warm Welcome will be evicted this summer with nowhere to go

Thousands of Afghan refugees in the UK face homelessness this summer, the government was warned last week at a secret crisis meeting in Downing Street.

Council officials told No 10 and Home Office civil servants that about 8,000 Afghan refugees, allowed into the country in 2021 under the slogan Operation Warm Welcome, are due to be evicted from hotels as early as August because of a government deadline, yet have nowhere to go.

Continue reading...

Nearly 80 primary schoolgirls believed poisoned in Afghanistan

Posted on by

Two schools in northern province targeted, says education official, who suggested the attacker was motivated by a personal grudge

Nearly 80 girls were poisoned and hospitalised in two separate attacks at their primary schools in northern Afghanistan, a local education official said on Sunday.

He said the person who orchestrated the poisoning had a personal grudge but did not elaborate. The attacks took place in Sar-e-Pul province over Saturday and Sunday.

Continue reading...

Australian government considers compensation for Afghanistan war crime victims

Posted on by

Human rights and legal groups have stepped up their calls for a compensation plan in the wake of the Ben Roberts-Smith defamation ruling

The Australian government is looking for “a way forward” to compensate families of victims of alleged war crimes in Afghanistan, the defence minister has told legal advocates.

But officials continue to warn about the complexity of the compensation issue, one of the key outstanding recommendations from the landmark Brereton inquiry into alleged war crimes by Australian special forces soldiers.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Ben Roberts-Smith defamation loss bad news for Seven boss as Nine marks ‘day of justice’

Posted on by

Seven chairman Kerry Stokes, who parachuted the former soldier into a network job in 2015, says ‘the judgment does not accord with the man I know’

For Seven’s chairman, Kerry Stokes, the verdict in the Ben Roberts-Smith defamation trial was all bad news.

The cost of the trial is estimated to be between $25m and $35m and, with the billionaire media proprietor bankrolling the former soldier and Seven employee, Stokes’s legal tab will be significant if he does pick up the bill.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

US warned it might suspend ties with Australian special forces over war crime allegations

Posted on by

Gen Angus Campbell also tells Senate that army member’s employment arrangements were ‘adjusted’ after US raised issue

The United States warned that it may have to suspend cooperation with Australian special forces after the release of a report into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan, the Senate has heard.

The chief of the Australian defence force, Gen Angus Campbell, also confirmed that an army member’s employment arrangements had been “adjusted” after the US raised the issue.

Continue reading...