Pakistan News » Afghanistan

NATO air strike kills six children: Afghan officials

AFP — Mon, 28 May 2012 01:34:54 +0000

KABUL, Afghanistan – A NATO air strike killed a family of eight, including six children, when it hit their home in eastern Afghanistan, local officials said on Sunday. Saturday night’s incident in Paktia province threatens to further sour already shaky ties between President Hamid Karzai and his Western backers and will likely enrage Afghan civilians [...]

Afghans ‘concerned’ over airforce as NATO pulls out

AFP — Mon, 28 May 2012 01:26:28 +0000

KABUL – Afghanistan’s defence ministry has expressed concern over the slow pace of developing its airforce ahead of a scheduled withdrawal of NATO troops and equipment, the government said Sunday. More than a dozen transport aircraft provided to the Afghan airforce by the United States have been grounded because of age, a lack of spares [...]

Four NATO soldiers killed in Afghanistan

AFP — Mon, 28 May 2012 01:15:49 +0000

KABUL – Four NATO soldiers have been killed in bomb blasts in southern Afghanistan, according to the International Security Assistance Force. The soldiers died “following separate improvised explosive device attacks” on Saturday, ISAF said in a statement, without providing further details or the nationalities of the victims. The latest deaths take the toll among NATO [...]

Afghan parliament approves US strategic pact

AFP — Sat, 26 May 2012 22:56:39 +0000

KABUL – Afghanistan’s parliament on Saturday voted by an overwhelming majority to ratify a strategic partnership agreement with the United States signed earlier this month, lawmakers said. “We voted with a majority in favour of the strategic pact,” MP Shukria Essakhil told AFP. “Only five MPs voted against it,” she said, adding that around 190 [...]

Hollande defends French exit in Afghanistan

AFP — Fri, 25 May 2012 11:15:15 +0000

NIJRAB BASE, Afghanistan – President Francois Hollande visited Afghanistan on Friday to defend France’s imminent departure from the war, telling troops that it would be coordinated closely with Afghan and NATO allies. Hollande met French soldiers deployed in the volatile province of Kapisa and held talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on his first visit [...]

NATO summit’s forgotten people: Afghan civilians

AFP — Wed, 23 May 2012 21:36:20 +0000

KABUL – Far from the bright lights of Chicago where world leaders met to shape NATO’s exit from Afghanistan, one of the war’s victims, 12-year-old Aleema, sums up her life in three words: “It’s the worst.” Aleema, who has lived in a mud hovel in a refugee camp on the outskirts of Kabul for four [...]

Two foreign women kidnapped in Afghanistan

AFP — Wed, 23 May 2012 12:14:06 +0000

KUNDUZ, Afghanistan – Gunmen have kidnapped two foreign women aid workers and their three Afghan colleagues in the remote province of Badakhshan in northeast Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday. “Yesterday evening, five health workers, including two female foreign nationals, were kidnapped in the Yaftal area,” the provincial governor’s spokesman, Abdul Mahroof Rasikh, told AFP. Police were [...]

US ambassador to Kabul to step down early

AFP — Tue, 22 May 2012 22:11:51 +0000

KABUL – The US ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, is to leave his post early for health reasons, US officials said Tuesday, a day after NATO leaders charted a path out of the Afghan war at a summit in Chicago. The veteran diplomat, who was appointed to Kabul 10 months ago for a two-year term, [...]

Afghan attack kills two NATO soldiers, two children

AFP — Sun, 20 May 2012 23:07:52 +0000

KABUL – Two NATO soldiers were killed in an attack in Afghanistan Sunday as alliance leaders gathered in Chicago for a summit dominated by plans to pull troops out of the Afghan war. Two children also died and several civilians were wounded as a suicide bomber targeted a NATO convoy in Tirin Kot, capital of [...]

Afghan suicide attack kills 13

AFP — Sun, 20 May 2012 04:13:59 +0000

KHOST, Afghanistan – A suicide bomber struck at a lunch gathering of Afghan police and local civilians in southeast Afghanistan on Saturday killing at least 13 people, three of them policemen, officials said. The attacker, wearing a suicide vest, walked into a police checkpost in the troubled district of Alisher in Khost province and detonated [...]

Two NATO troops killed in Afghan attack

AFP — Fri, 18 May 2012 11:57:48 +0000

KABUL, Afghanistan – Two NATO soldiers were killed and six others wounded in a rocket attack on their base in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Kunar Friday, an Afghan official with NATO forces said. “Two ISAF soldiers were killed and six others injured in a Taliban rocket attack on an ISAF base in Nari ditrict today,” [...]

Four attackers killed in Afghan governor assault

AFP — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:03:48 +0000

HERAT, Afghanistan – Four attackers launched an assault on the governor’s compound in Afghanistan’s western Farah province on Thursday and were shot dead in a firefight, an official said. “Four suicide attackers who stormed the governor’s compound exchanged gunfire with the police. All four attackers were killed by the police. There were no casualties among [...]

NATO’s rush for exit risks Afghan collapse: report

AFP — Thu, 17 May 2012 11:47:05 +0000

KABUL – NATO’s rush to get out of a “quagmire” in Afghanistan risks the collapse of the state and strategic failure for the Western alliance in its decade-long war, a former EU adviser has warned. “The intervention veered from ‘too little too late’ in its crucial early years, to one of ‘too much too late’,” [...]

Afghanistan to pump oil in five months: official

AFP — Thu, 17 May 2012 00:31:10 +0000

KABUL – Afghanistan will start pumping oil for the first time within five months, an official said Wednesday, as part of the nation’s efforts to tap underground treasures estimated to be worth billions. China’s National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and its Afghan partner the Watan Group will initially produce 5,000 barrels a day, mining ministry spokesman [...]

Bomb kills seven in Afghan market

AFP — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:35:15 +0000

KABUL – A remotely-detonated bomb ripped through a bazaar in northwestern Afghanistan on Monday, killing seven civilians, including a provincial councillor, and injuring eight other people, police said. The blast in Ghormach district in the province of Faryab was the latest in a string of deadly bombings and suicide attacks since Taliban insurgents announced the [...]

Afghan swimmer dreams of London Paralympics

AFP — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:27:59 +0000

KABUL – Afghan teenager Malek Mohammad balances on his hands, readies his stumps, then dives perilously into the water. The 18-year-old, whose legs were blown off by a Soviet landmine, dreams of swimming for Afghanistan in the London Paralympics. “I hope they select me to participate in the London Games. So I am just praying,” [...]

Top Afghan peace negotiator shot dead in Kabul

AFP — Mon, 14 May 2012 00:38:21 +0000

KABUL – A senior Afghan peace negotiator and close ally of President Hamid Karzai was shot dead Sunday, dealing a major blow to Kabul’s efforts to broker peace with Taliban insurgents. Arsala Rahmani, a former minister in the Taliban regime, was a “key negotiator” in the High Peace Council (HPC) established by Karzai to hold [...]

NATO a step closer to getting out of Afghan war

AFP — Mon, 14 May 2012 00:32:17 +0000

KABUL – NATO took a step closer to getting out of the Afghan war on Sunday as the Kabul government announced local forces would take over control of security in a large new slice of the country. In the third phase of a five-tranche military transition process, 122 more districts throughout Afghanistan will come under [...]

Call for NATO summit to protect Afghan women

AFP — Sat, 12 May 2012 17:00:24 +0000

KABUL : The upcoming NATO summit in Chicago must ensure that special measures are taken to protect the rights of Afghan women as US-led coalition forces prepare to pull out, UN organisations said Saturday. There is widespread concern that gains women have made in the 10 years since the overthrow of the brutal Taliban [...]

Afghan roadside bomb kills four police

AFP — Sat, 12 May 2012 16:46:58 +0000

HERAT : A roadside bomb killed four Afghan policemen when it ripped through their patrol vehicle in western Afghanistan, a provincial government official says. “A police pick-up truck hit a roadside bomb planted by insurgents in Qaraghul area in Qadis district of western Badghis province,” a provincial governor spokesman, Salahuddin Majeedi told AFP. “Unfortunately, [...]