An explosion targeting Afghanistan’s energy minister outside a girls school killed four civilians in the country’s far west, police said. A Taliban official claimed responsibility for the blast yesterday morning.
Taliban assassination attempts against officials have intensified this year, with more than 100 officials and pro-government tribal elders attacked — half of them fatally.
The convoy carrying Afghan Energy Minister Ismail Khan, a power broker in the western region of Herat, was headed to the airport when the bomb exploded outside the high school, said Raouf Ahmadi, a police spokesman. Ahmadi said four civilians died and 17 people were wounded, including four of Khan’s bodyguards.
PHOTO: EPA
He said Khan escaped unharmed and arrived safely at the airport.
A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for what he said was a car bomb targeting Khan, who was once governor of Herat, a western province bordering Iran. He said Khan was among the dead, though Mujahid’s claims often turn out to be false.
The Taliban assassination campaign is a strong sign of deteriorating security in the country, where a record number of US and NATO troops have also died this year. The Obama administration is now debating whether to send more US troops to Afghanistan as its government faces allegations of widespread fraud from the disputed Aug. 20 presidential election.
Afghanistan’s election organizers on Saturday released preliminary results for 30 of the country’s 34 provinces, more than a month after nationwide voting.
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said turnout was 37.8 percent, slightly higher than the 37.7 percent who took part in the presidential poll.
A total of 3,339 candidates contested 420 seats. Results announced Saturday show that 251 men and 106 women were elected.
A quarter of the provincial council seats were reserved for women.
At least four candidates were killed during the campaign.
“These results are preliminary and may change based on ECC [Electoral Complaints Commission] decisions,” an IEC statement said.
“The IEC will announce the final results as soon as they have received and implemented the final decisions of the ECC,” it said.
The statement added that results from the remaining four provinces would be announced “soon.”
The polls have been mired in controversy, with complaints of irregularities.
The ECC is investigating thousands of fraud claims in the presidential election, only the second in Afghanistan’s turbulent history.
Preliminary results from the presidential poll show incumbent Hamid Karzai leading with 54.6 percent of the vote, against 27.8 percent for his main rival, former Afghan foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday declared martial law in an unannounced late night address broadcast live on YTN television. Yoon said he had no choice but to resort to such a measure in order to safeguard free and constitutional order, saying opposition parties have taken hostage of the parliamentary process to throw the country into a crisis. "I declare martial law to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces, to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, and to protect the free
‘ANCIENT AND MODERN’: The project, which took 22 years to complete, unearthed more than 300,000 treasures now on display across the network It caused untold commotion, decades of disruption and — among historians and archeologists — controversy and despair, but at midday on Saturday, the antiquities-rich subterranean world of Thessaloniki opened to a world of driverless trains and high-tech automation with the inauguration of its long-awaited subway. The excitement on the streets of the northern Greek port city is almost palpable. “Archaeologically, it has been an extremely complex and difficult endeavor,” said Greek Minister of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs Lina Mendoni of the more than 300,000 finds made since construction began 22 years ago. “To get here required a battle on many
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘AMERICA FIRST’: Patel, 44, previously called for stripping the FBI of its intelligence-gathering role and purging its ranks of anyone who refuses to support Trump’s agenda US president-elect Donald Trump has tapped Kash Patel to be FBI director, nominating a loyalist to lead the chief US law enforcement agency — which Trump has long derided as corrupt. Patel rose to prominence expressing outrage over the agency’s investigation into whether Trump’s campaign conspired with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. With the nomination of Patel, Trump is signaling that he is preparing to carry out his threat to oust FBI Director Christopher Wray, a Republican first appointed by Trump during his first term as president, whose 10-year term at the FBI does not expire until 2027. FBI