Car Bomb Wounds 29 in Center of Helmand

At least 29 people, including soldiers, were wounded in a car bomb explosion in Lashkargah, capital of Helmand province on Monday evening, local officials said on Monday.

Omar Zuwak, the spokesman for the Helmand governor, has said that among those wounded in the blast 12 are security personnel. The blast killed at least one military officer, he said.

In eastern Afghanistan, a bomb loaded on a motorcycle targeted the commander of Afghan Local Police (ALP) Babrai. Ten people were wounded in the explosion that followed. The blast occurred in Sorubi district of the province.

Another ALP commander Darya Khan Talash confirmed that the attack happened while Babrai was riding a motorcycle in Surobi bazar.

“Babrai and three of his guards and six civilians were wounded in the blast,” he said.

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Abdullah: Fight against terrorism needs to continue in Afghanistan

Afghan Chief Executive, Abdullah Abdullah has warned that the fight against terrorism needs to continue in Afghanistan; otherwise, the scope of this horror will also reach the United States.

“Fight should be continued against terrorism in Afghanistan. Those terror groups who are fighting in our country now are fighting against you all. I must say that the terrorist groups are supported in the region and have secure hideouts in the region,” CE, Abdullah said during his speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in U.S.

Abdullah called the U.S. new strategy toward Afghanistan effective and emphasized that the policy can bring Taliban group to the negotiation table.

“Part of the US strategy toward south Asia and Afghanistan, the political element aim is that those forces which are fighting against the government and people of Afghanistan will be persuaded to come to the negotiation table,” CE said.

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Mohaqiq expresses concern over increasing Daesh activities, displacement

Deputy Chief Executive Mohammad Mohaqiq has expressed his concerns regarding the expansion of Daesh militants activities in northern provinces of Afghanistan.

“Daesh and its branches have intensified its activities in Afghanistan and it has caused widespread concerns among the people of Afghanistan,” Mohaqiq who was speaking in a seminar on migration in Kabul said.

He stated that the extremist group is widely active in Faryab, Jawzjan, and Sar-e-Pul provinces.

In addition , he said disagreements within the government, discrimination and nepotism are the main reasons behind insecurities and fleeing from the country.

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Ex-president Hamid Karzai accuses U.S. of working with ISIL in Afghanistan

Hamid Karzai, the former president of Afghanistan, has accused the United States of working with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in his country.

In an interview with Al Jazeera TV, Karzai said the US government had allowed Daesh to flourish inside Afghanistan.

“In my view under the full presence, surveillance, military, political, intelligence, Daesh [ISIL] has emerged,” he said. “And for two years the Afghan people came, cried loud about their suffering, of violations. Nothing was done.”

According to Karzai, the US administration under President Donald Trump made Daesh an excuse to drop a massive bomb in Afghanistan on April 2017. But, Karzai said, the very next day Daesh took over another district of Afghanistan.

“That proves to us that there is a hand in it and that hand can be no one else but them [the US] in Afghanistan.”

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Noor Accuses Hekmatyar of Cooperating Daesh in Afghanistan

Atta Mohammad Noor, the governor of Balkh province on Friday accused Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of Hezb-e Islami, for cooperating with the Islamic State (IS) group in Afghanistan.

“You [Hekmatyar] have announced allegiance to Daesh. There is no doubt that you are cooperating and providing guidance to Daesh. You are somehow either directly or indirectly responsible for all these massacres,” Noor said while he was speaking at a gathering for Eid al-Adha in Balkh.

He warned to stand against Hekmatyar until he hasn’t denounced his support for the IS militant group.

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ISIS release photo of suicide bombers who attacked Iraq embassy in Kabul

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group’s offshoot in Afghanistan, ISIS-Khurasan, released the picture of the two suicide bombers who attacked the embassy of Iraq in Kabul on Monday.

The photo purportedly shows two young men who carried out the suicide attack on the Iraqi embassy.

The Ministry of Interior (MoI) spokesman Najib Danish told reporters that the attack was launched by two suicide bombers at around 11 am local time.

He said at least two local workers of the embassy were killed and two others belonging to the national police and police special forces were wounded in the attack.

Danish further added that the security forces arrived in the area immediately after the attack was launched and evacuated the Iraqi ambassador, his deputy, and diplomats of the embassy.
According to Danish the attack was ended after the Afghan security forces eliminated all the remaining attackers during the gun battle.

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‘I Dream Of The Day When There Is Tourism Not Terrorism’

Concussive bomb thunder and smells of gunpowder aren’t unusual for citizens of Nangarhar, the Afghan province where U.S forces recently dropped MOAB, the largest non-nuclear explosive device ever used.

This zone of my native country has been a battleground since the 1980’s Soviet war, which was followed by infestations of Osama bin-Laden’s al-Qaeda, the Taliban, pro-Pakistan mujahideen, and the Haqqani network. The latest plague – and target of that Mother of All Bombs – is Daesh, the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Although I have written before about Afghanistan’s failed state, I dream of a day when the primary product of this land is tourism, not terrorism.

We have beautiful national parks, mountains, lakes and rivers, historic shrines and museums. You can look them up on Trip Advisor.

Sadly, some of these mountains and much of this land has been usurped by Daesh, as it was by other zealots before them.

Why Afghanistan? Three reasons, as they say in the real estate business: location, location, location.

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Hamid Karzai: MOAB ‘brutal act against innocent people’

Kabul, Afghanistan – An attack that saw the United States drop the largest non-nuclear bomb on Afghanistan was a “brutal act” against Afghan people, the environment and the country’s sovereignty, Hamid Karzai, former president, has told Al Jazeera.

The 9,797kg GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) was unleashed in combat for the first time on Thursday, targeting a complex of caves and tunnels used by ISIL fighters in Nangarhar province, according to the US army.

Dubbed the “Mother of All Bombs”, the device can devastate the area around its landing of a radius of more than 1.6km.

“This was an inhuman act, a brutal act against an innocent country, against innocent people, against our land, against our sovereignty, against our soil and against our future,” Karzai said in Kabul.

“A bomb of that magnitude has consequences for the environment, for our lives, for our plants, for our water, for our soil – this is poison.”

At least 90 ISIL fighters were killed in the attack, according to the US and Afghan armies.

For the most part, Afghan officials welcomed the bombing, saying it was a step towards security. They have also said that there were no civilian casualties.

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Major operations ‘Khalid’ to be launched soon to retake lost areas

The Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) will launch a major counter-terrorism operation under the name of Khalid to retake the lost areas.

The Minister of Interior Taj Mohammad Jahid informed regarding the plan as was he was briefing the lawmakers in the Lower House of the Parliament, Wolesi Jirga.

Jahid was among the three top security officials summoned regarding the recent security incidents and deteriorating security situation.

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HRW: Attack On Afghan Hospital A War Crime

The attack on a military hospital in Kabul is a war crime, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement late Wednesday.

HRW was among a growing number of international human rights organization who have condemned the latest incident targeting patients, healthcare personnel, and medical facilities in Afghanistan.
“An armed group affiliated with the Islamic State [Daesh] reportedly claimed responsibility for the day-long attack on the Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan hospital, the main treatment center for wounded Afghan soldiers. Following a suicide attack on the building, gun battles continued for several hours, and hospital staff trapped in the building reported that patients who could not escape remained in their beds. Some of the gunmen were dressed as doctors, according to reports. At least 30 people were killed and dozens wounded, the HRW statement said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross in Kabul denounced the attack as a “heinous crime” with “no justification possible”.

Attacks directly targeting health care facilities in Afghanistan have increased sharply since 2014.

A recent report by the organization Watchlist details some 240 attacks in 2015 and 2016 that killed or injured medical personnel and closed, damaged, or destroyed medical facilities, eroding the healthcare system in Afghanistan. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) documented 119 incidents where healthcare facilities were targeted in 2016.
The Taliban and other insurgents were responsible for the vast majority of these incidents, though Afghan security forces have been responsible for raids on clinics, or have used medical facilities for military purposes.

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