Tuesday, March 13, 2012

9 militants killed and detained in Afghan operations

Afghan Interior Ministry on Tuesday announced at least 2 armed insurgents were killed and 7 others were detained following military operations by Afghan National Police.

According to a statement issued by the Afghan Interior Ministry, the militants were killed during 5 separate military operations conducted by Afghan National Police during the past 24 hours.

The operations were conducted in conjunction with the Afghan National Army, Afghan Intelligence and International Coalition Security forces at Kabul, Helmand, Uruzgan, Logar and Khost provinces of Afghanistan.

Afghan security forces also seized 41 Kgs of drugs, 18 arms, 2 Rocket Launchers, a machine gun and ammunitions along with four motorcycles being used by the militants.

Anti-government armed militant groups yet to comment regarding the reports.

from KHAAMA
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More than 2 tons of explosives seized in Baghlan province

According to local authorities in northern Afghanistan, more than 2 tons of explosives and around 20 weapons were discovered and seized in  northern Baghlan province.

Provincial Police Chief Gen. Asadullah Shirzad on Monday said, the weapons, ammunitions and explosives were seized by counter-terrorism department of the Baghlan security commandment during the past from various regions of the northern Baghlan province.

Gen. Shirzad further added, the explosives and ammunitions include mortar rounds, improvised explosive devices, hand grenades, artillery rounds and remote controlled mines which were seized from Khenjan, Dushi, central Baghlan and Nahrin districts of northern Baghlan province.

He also said no suspect has been detained in connection to the arms and weapons cache and Afghan security forces have launched search operation.

In the meantime provincial officials announced Afghan security forces discovered a vehicle in the 3rd district of Baghlan province, which was stolen by thieves in northern Mazar-e-Sharif city.

Author: Ajmal Omeri, Baghlan province.

from KHAAMA
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Boko Haram Attack Mandawari Police Division in Kano

Suspected members of the Boko Haram sect on Monday attacked Mandawari Police station and injured two police officers according to eyewitnesses, who pleaded anonymity.

However, the police said gunmen riding on motorcycle attacked the police station and the policemen repelled the attack.

Kano State police command in a press statement made available to reporters on Monday explained that a group of armed men, who were on motorcycles, joined others who dropped from a Toyota Lite Hace bus, advanced on foot and attacked the Mandawari Police Division.

According to them, the policemen on duty who were on alert successfully repelled the attack and pursued the hoodlums into the neighbourhood with a view to arresting them. No causality was recorded during the incident and investigation is also on progress.

The police command said the officer disarmed one of the hoodlums and shot him dead with the riffle and added that a motorcycle (Jinchen) and 21 rounds of live ammunition were abandoned and recovered saying the investigation has commenced over the incidence.

At Mandawari quarters, resident of the area where left panicking for the fear of military raid in the neighbourhood searching for the suspects, while many of the residents have fled the area and those staying behind have remained indoors.

The attack on the Mandawari police station was the third time since the eruption of the insecurity in the state on January 20th during the multiple bomb blast that killed 185 people in the capital.

from allAfrica

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Karzai's Kandahar Delegation Attacked; Protestors Burn Obama Effigy

Gunmen opened fire on the Afghan President's delegation sent to investigate the Kandahar killings as the group left a mosque in the Panjwai district on Tuesday morning, according to Afghan officials.

No one from the delegation - which included two of Karzai's brothers - was hurt; however a male civilian who was outside the mosque was shot in the leg, Abud Rahim Ayoubi, a member of Afghan parliament from Kandahar told TOLOnews.

The delegation includes Karzai's brothers, Shah Wali Karzai and Qayuom Karzai, Tooryalai Wisa, the governor of Kandahar, and Asadullah Halid, Minister of Tribal and Border Affairs.

Shah Wali Karzai is head of the Karz district in Kandahar, and Qayoum Karzai is a member of the Kandahar provincial council.

The delegation was inside a mosque in the Panjwai district meeting with locals about the shooting of 16 civilians by a US soldier on Sunday.

The gunmen - said to be "several" - fled immediately after firing the shots. None of them have been apprehended and no group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Meanwhile, hundreds of university students in eastern Afghanistan turned out for a demonstration on Tuesday against the Kandahar killings.

Students burned a makeshift effigy which they said represented US President Barack Obama while chanting slogans such as "Death to America", according to TOLOnews reporter who was in the area.

Nangahar provincial spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai confirmed the reports.

Although the protest held up traffic on the Kabul-Jalalabad highway for a few hours, there were no reports of violence.

Afghan security personnel were present at the demonstration which lasted from around 8am until the students dispersed by 12pm.

Afghan Members of Parliament also protested the Kandahar shooting for a second day in Kabul by walking out of Tuesday's sitting session early.

MPs suspended the House of Representative sitting on Monday after calling for those responsible for Sunday's attack on Afghan civilians to be tried under Afghan law.

from TOLONEWS
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US drone strike kills five in South Waziristan

PESHAWAR: At least five suspected militants were killed as a US drone bombarded a vehicle with missiles in the tribal area of South Waziristan agency on Tuesday, security officials said.

The attack took place in the remote Drey Nishtar area of South Waziristan along the Afghan border, part of the semi-autonomous northwestern tribal belt that Washington considers a global hub of Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants.

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) reportedly fired two missiles at the pickup truck carrying the five passengers. The vehicle caught fire, causing the bodies to be burned and making identification difficult.

One security official said the far-flung and mountainous Drey Nishtar lies on the Afghan border where militants try to cross into Afghanistan to attack US-led Nato troops who have been fighting a Taliban insurgency for 10 years.

“A US drone fired two missiles into a vehicle. Five militants have been killed,” a second Pakistani security official told AFP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

President Barack Obama in January confirmed for the first time that US drones target militants on Pakistani soil, but American officials do not discuss details of the covert programme.

The attacks fuel anti-American resentment in Pakistan, whose relations with the US nosedived over the covert raid that killed Osama bin Laden last May and air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November.

In Britain, a law firm said Sunday it would sue Foreign Secretary William Hague on behalf of a Pakistani man, whose father was killed by a drone strike, over claims that British intelligence was used to assist in attacks.

Lawyers will claim that civilian intelligence officers who pass on intelligence are not “lawful combatants”, therefore cannot claim immunity from criminal law and could be liable as “secondary parties to murder”.

They will also argue that the immunity clause does not apply as Pakistan is not currently involved in an “international armed conflict”.

The New America Foundation think-tank in Washington says drone strikes have killed between 1,715 and 2,680 people in Pakistan in the past eight years.

US diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks in late 2010 showed that Pakistan’s civilian and military leaders privately supported US drone attacks, despite public condemnation in a country where the US alliance is hugely unpopular.

Islamabad is now reviewing its US alliance in the wake of the November deaths and has kept its Afghan border closed to Nato supply convoys since then.

It ordered US personnel to leave the Shamsi air base in southwestern Pakistan, widely believed to have been a hub for the CIA drone programme, and is thought likely to impose taxes on convoys if it reopens the Afghan border.

According to an AFP tally, 45 US missile strikes were reported in Pakistan’s tribal belt in 2009, the year Obama took office, 101 in 2010 and 64 in 2011. Tuesday’s attack was the ninth reported so far this year.

In North Waziristan, gunmen on Tuesday shot dead the top government official in the town of Mir Ali, Azmat Jamal, after barging into his office, Pakistani security officials said.

“Five gunmen managed to enter inside his office and opened fire on him, he was taken to hospital where he died,” one official told AFP.

“Attackers also hurled hand grenade before fleeing the scene,” a second official told AFP.

from DAWN
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