Latest news with #Taleban
Arab Times
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Arab Times
Bomb targeting vehicle carrying police killed 2 officers in northwest Pakistan
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, May 12, (AP): A powerful bomb exploded near a vehicle carrying police officers in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday, killing at least two officers and injuring three others, police said. The attack happened near a roadside open market in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, a local police chief, Masood Khan, said. He said the dead and wounded were transported to a nearby hospital. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan, or TTP, who often target security forces and civilians. TTP is a separate group but a close ally of the Afghan Taleban, who seized power in neighboring Afghanistan in August 2021. Many TTP leaders and fighters have found sanctuaries and have even been living openly in Afghanistan since the Taleban takeover, which also emboldened the Pakistani Taliban.
Arab Times
23-03-2025
- Politics
- Arab Times
US lifts bounties on senior Taleban officials, including Sirajuddin Haqqani: Kabul
KABUL, March 23, (AP): The US has lifted bounties on three senior Taleban figures, including the interior minister who also heads a powerful network blamed for bloody attacks against Afghanistan's former Western-backed government, officials in Kabul said Sunday. Sirajuddin Haqqani, who acknowledged planning a January 2008 attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul, which killed six people, including US citizen Thor David Hesla, no longer appears on the State Department's Rewards for Justice website. The FBI website on Sunday still featured a wanted poster for him. Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani said the US government had revoked the bounties placed on Haqqani, Abdul Aziz Haqqani, and Yahya Haqqani. "These three individuals are two brothers and one paternal cousin,' Qani told the Associated Press. The Haqqani network grew into one of the deadliest arms of the Taleban after the US-led 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. The group employed roadside bombs, suicide bombings and other attacks, including on the Indian and US embassies, the Afghan presidency, and other major targets. They also have been linked to extortion, kidnapping and other criminal activity. A Foreign Ministry official, Zakir Jalaly, said the Taliban's release of US prisoner George Glezmann on Friday and the removal of bounties showed both sides were "moving beyond the effects of the wartime phase and taking constructive steps to pave the way for progress' in bilateral relations. "The recent developments in Afghanistan-US relations are a good example of the pragmatic and realistic engagement between the two governments,' said Jalaly. Another official, Shafi Azam, hailed the development as the beginning of normalization in 2025, citing the Taliban's announcement it was in control of Afghanistan's embassy in Norway. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, China has been the most prominent country to accept one of their diplomats. Other countries have accepted de facto Taliban representatives, like Qatar, which has been a key mediator between the US and the Taliban.
CBC
24-02-2025
- Climate
- CBC
As temperatures rise above freezing in Waterloo region, conservation authority keeps watch on waterways
The temperature is expected to go above zero this week in Waterloo region and area and officials with the Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA) say they'll keep a close watch on the melting snow and ice all along the watershed. Environment Canada's forecast says rain and snow are possible all week, with daytime temperatures remaining above freezing until Friday, when they'll drop again. Vahid Taleban, the manager of flood operations with the GRCA, says they will be conducting a river watch this week along the entire watershed. "What we observed during the months of January and February was that the temperatures were below normal or below averages. Basically as a result of that, there is some ice buildup or ice formation on the water process, which will potentially increase the risk of ice jams if we see a rapid melt," Taleban said. "Another pattern that we're observing is that the degree to which the temperatures will rise are more in the lower portion of the watershed and southern portions like the Brantford and Dunnville area. It will be warmer than upper portions or middle portions of the watershed. And that's ideal for us for the river to be free of ice or having looser ice in the lower portion to like free room for the runoff that's generated from upstream basically." Hoping for a gradual melt The GRCA has divided the length of the watershed into several segments, and in each segment there is a designated person responsible for keeping track of the river conditions. Taleban hopes the melt is gradual and isn't a repeat of February of 2018 when overnight, below zero temperatures jumped to between plus 10 to 15 Celsius and caused flooding because of the snow melt and ice jams. While the flow of the river is monitored 24/7, the snow volumes are looked at about twice a month. Taleban says they look at both the depth of the snow, but also how much water is in the snow pack, what they call the "snow water equivalent." "This year we have seen a lot of snow and yes, sometimes in some areas there are approaching record values. However, the snow is not very dense. It's a bit light. As a result of that, the amount of water that's in the snow pack is not significantly higher than before," he said. People living along the watershed can receive four levels of flood messages by subscribing to a service offered by their municipality or through the GRCA website.
Khaleej Times
10-02-2025
- Politics
- Khaleej Times
Afghans who worked with US should be exempt from aid, refugee freeze: Advocacy group
A group representing US veterans, service members and others is warning the Trump administration of severe impacts on US security unless it exempts tens of thousands of Afghans — many at risk of Taleban retribution — from the president's foreign aid and refugee freeze that has stranded them worldwide. Possible consequences include a loss of trust that could impair local support for US troops in future wars, said a letter sent on Saturday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio by Shawn VanDiver, the head of #AfghanEvac, the main coalition working on the resettlement of Afghans with the US government. Denying the exceptions, it added, also will show foes like Islamic State that "the US abandons its allies", and endanger active-duty Afghan-American US military members' wives, children and parents who are stuck in Afghanistan. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Among President Donald Trump's first acts upon taking office were to order a temporary halt to foreign aid and refugee programmes, pending 90-day reviews. Rubio issued waivers for what he called 'life-saving humanitarian assistance', but aid workers have said those waivers sparked widespread confusion. 'We are asking for relief in the form of exemptions,' said the letter, reviewed by Reuters, which also went to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who served in Afghanistan during the 20-year US war. The US Department of State did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Republican president ordered the refugee freeze as part of an immigration crackdown that he said is needed because of high levels of illegal immigration, but from which he exempted white South Africans on Friday. The foreign aid freeze has stalled flights from Afghanistan for some 40,000 Afghans approved as refugees or for Special Immigration Visas. SIVs are granted to Afghans at risk of Taleban retribution because they worked for the US government during the war that ended with the pullout of the last US troops in August 2021. UN reports say that the Taleban have jailed, tortured and killed Afghans who fought or worked for the former Western-backed government. The Taleban deny the allegations, pointing to a general amnesty approved for former government soldiers and officials. The flight freeze also has stranded some 3,000 vetted Afghans approved for travel to the United States in processing facilities in Qatar and Albania, said VanDiver and a US official, who requested anonymity. Some 50,000 others are marooned in nearly 90 other countries — about half of them in Pakistan — approved for US resettlement or awaiting SIV or refugee processing, they said.
Khaleej Times
06-02-2025
- Politics
- Khaleej Times
Pakistani Taleban kill two police officers in night raid in northwest
An overnight raid on a police checkpoint claimed by the Pakistani Taleban killed two officers, police said on Thursday, while one more remains missing after being abducted in the northwest. More than 1,600 people were killed in attacks in Pakistan last year which was the deadliest in almost a decade according to the Centre for Research and Security Studies, an Islamabad-based analysis group. Around 10 militants attacked the checkpoint near Karak city in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province around 1am, police official Nazar Muhammad said. "Two police officers stationed at the checkpoint were martyred, and six others were injured," he said. Local administrative official Misbah Uddin also confirmed the number of dead and wounded. "The terrorists used heavy weaponry, including mortar shells, during the assault," he said. On Wednesday, an officer was travelling home from his police station elsewhere in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when armed men stopped his car and "abducted him", according to local police official Sajjad Ali. The Pakistani Taleban — which shares a common ideology and lineage with the Afghan Taleban — claimed responsibility for both the checkpoint attack and the kidnapping. They have waged a decades-long insurgency in Pakistan's regions bordering Afghanistan. Violence has surged in those regions since the Taliban surged back to power in 2021. Pakistan has accused the Taleban government of failing to root out militants who launch attacks from Afghan soil, a charge it routinely denies. On Sunday, armed militants killed four members of Pakistan's security forces in an attack on their vehicle in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The day before, separatist militants claimed responsibility for a huge raid killing 18 state paramilitaries in southwestern Balochistan province. According to AFP data 38 people, mainly security officials, have been killed in instances of militant and anti-state violence in Pakistan since the beginning of this year.
