A bomb killed seven people on a bus in Afghanistan yesterday, the latest in a string of attacks linked to an insurgency that Washington hopes to reverse with a strategy likely to be unveiled in days.
The blast occurred in the eastern province of Khost, which has seen a series of attacks over the past week, including a bombing at a New Year’s Day gathering at the weekend that killed two men.
“There was an IED [improvised explosive device] planted by the enemies of the people of Afghanistan that hit the vehicle,” Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.
“As a result seven civilians, including a woman, were killed and nine other civilians wounded,” he said of the blast about 20km outside the city of Khost.
Militant attacks and military raids have picked up in recent weeks with the arrival of spring, which has traditionally seen a surge in violence during Afghanistan’s long years of conflict.
Afghans had hoped the ouster of the hardline Taliban regime from power in late 2001 would herald the end of three decades of war, which sent roughly 8 million people into exile and left millions more dead or wounded.
But an insurgency led by Taliban militants has thwarted dreams of stability, with the violence peaking last year to leave nearly 2,200 civilians dead, most of them in attacks.
US President Barack Obama has switched the focus of the “war on terror” from Iraq to Afghanistan and ordered 17,000 more US troops to Afghanistan, where there are already about 75,000 soldiers under US and NATO command.
He is also preparing to roll out a new strategy for the embattled nation, expected to be unveiled at an international meeting on Afghanistan in the Netherlands on March 31.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is due to attend, along with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Obama said on Tuesday that the strategy would be more “focused,” “disciplined” and “comprehensive” than the previous US anti-terror effort.
It was important to stay on the “offense” against a terror threat that was not going away, he said, stressing the need for better diplomatic and development strategy as part of a wider global effort in the war zone.
The new plan is also likely to focus on militant bases in neighboring Pakistan, where hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaeda rebels fled to escape the US-led invasion of Afghanistan that toppled the Taliban government.
The strategy is also expected to reinforce demands for a major expansion of Kabul’s security forces, notably the police, and wooing “moderate” insurgents to renounce fighting and accept the post-Taliban Constitution.
Obama’s National Security Adviser James Jones said the US would also ask Europe to increase non-military aid to Afghanistan.
“We are going to ask our friends to think about civil reconstruction because ... we have not had the cohesion and the joint effort up until now,” he said in an interview in France on Tuesday.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS