The Taliban denounced this week’s international conference on Afghanistan’s future, saying the “vague and terrible agenda” shows that the US and its allies intend to abandon the country and blame their ultimate defeat on the Afghan government.
Representatives of the US and 60 other countries met on Tuesday to endorse Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s plan for Afghan police and soldiers to take charge of security nationwide by 2014. Karzai also urged his international backers to distribute more of their development aid through his government.
In a statement posted in English on their Web site, the Taliban said the conference showed that the US “has lost the initiatives and is unable to resolve Afghanistan issue.”
The statement was distributed to news organizations by the SITE Intelligence Group that monitors extremist communications.
“Whatever actions are taken in this regard have already been doomed to a failure,” the statement said. “It is evident from the vague and terrible agenda of the conference ... that America and the international community intend to pull out of Afghanistan” and blame “all the coming destruction’s [sic], humiliation and defeat on Kabul puppet regime,” meaning the Karzai administration, it said.
A massive security crackdown prevented the Taliban from launching any major attacks in the capital during the conference.
However, rockets fired at the Kabul airport on Tuesday forced the plane carrying UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt to divert to Bagram Air Field north of the city.
The Taliban said the attack “turned the moments of peace and safety of the US invaders into disaster” and left conference participants “scared to death.”
Also on Wednesday, NATO said insurgents beheaded six Afghan policemen after attacking their checkpoint in northern Afghanistan the day before. The coalition said militants attacked a number of government buildings and the checkpoint on Tuesday in Baghlan Province’s Dahanah-ye Ghori district. The attackers overran the checkpoint and decapitated the six policemen, NATO said.
Elsewhere, NATO reported three more service member deaths in roadside bombings on Wednesday in southern Afghanistan. The alliance did not report nationalities, but the Danish military said one of the dead was a Danish soldier.
Another Dane was wounded, the Danish military said.
The deaths brought the number of NATO service members killed this month to 67.
Violence and casualties have surged in recent months as the US and its allies have stepped up the fight against the Taliban. Last month was the deadliest month of the war for international troops with 103 deaths, including 60 Americans.
In Australia, the defense ministry said the main NATO base outside the southern city of Kandahar came under Taliban rocket fire late on Monday, causing minor damage but no Australian casualties.
No further details were released. The NATO base at the Kandahar Air Field comes under rocket and mortar fire from time to time, usually without causing major damage or casualties.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
‘PLAINLY ERRONEOUS’: The justice department appealed a Trump-appointed judge’s blocking of the release of a report into election interference by the incoming president US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal cases against US president-elect Donald Trump on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and mishandling of classified documents, has resigned after submitting his investigative report on Trump, an expected move that came amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the days ahead. The US Department of Justice disclosed Smith’s departure in a footnote of a court filing on Saturday, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump is inaugurated, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions
RSS