Taliban militants fired at least nine rockets at the Afghan capital before dawn yesterday in the biggest attack of its kind for several years, some landing near major Western embassies, police and witnesses said.
Amid a serious escalation of violence before Aug. 20 presidential elections, a provincial governor escaped unhurt after roadside bombs hit his convoy just west of the capital in an apparent assassination attempt, a spokesman said.
The Taliban have vowed to disrupt the elections and have called on Afghans to boycott the ballot, the second direct presidential poll since the Islamists were toppled by US-backed Afghan forces in 2001. Violence across Afghanistan this year had already reached its worst level since 2001 and escalated further after thousands of US Marines launched a major offensive in the Taliban stronghold of Helmand last month.
Senior police officer Sayed Ghafar said two rockets landed in the Wazir Akbar Khan diplomatic area, home to both the US and British embassies as well as the headquarters of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. At least one rocket landed near a hospital close to the US embassy, TV pictures showed.
Residents said yesterday’s rocket attack was the biggest for several years.
It was also the first serious attack in Kabul in in this year’s upswing of violence, which has gradually spread out of Taliban strongholds in the south and east.
Meanwhile, NATO’s new civilian and military leaders are briefing members of the alliance’s decision-making North Atlantic Council on recent command changes in Afghanistan and other matters affecting the war.
The NATO secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, and supreme allied commander US Admiral James Stavridis were meeting yesterday with envoys from the alliance’s 28 member states.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
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