Flash flood in Afghanistan kills at least 95, sweeps away thousands of homes

Crisis-hit Afghanistan loses lives in flash floods. Apart from deaths, homes have been swept away leaving the people stranded. The country is reeling from an economic and humanitarian crisis. These are because of Western sanctions imposed after the Taliban returned to power last year. It is now the people who are suffering and are at the receiving end. The extreme weather is aggravated by the flooding in neighboring Pakistan. Its Disaster Management Authority reveals floods have killed 820 people since mid-June. Moreover, thousands of homes are damaged or destroyed as are many bridges. These have disturbed the lives of the people and limited the travel options. Nearly 100 dead in Afghanistan floods, officials say.

Deputy Minister of Disaster Management of Afghanistan informed a section of the media that food assistance had been dispatched to many flood-affected areas. Moreover, there are promises from aid organizations for delivery of emergency assistance. However, these might fall short of actual requirements. With winter around the corner, the affected families with women and children would face difficult times. They have lost their shelters. To add to their miseries, they have lost their agricultural farms and orchards. Either these are destroyed or their harvest has been damaged. In fact, their survival is at stake and the situation will worsen in the coming weeks and months. They need help to return to normalcy as soon as possible. An earthquake in Afghanistan in June killed more than 1,000 people and the country has been through a number of natural disasters and extreme weather events. Hence, aid organizations, the United Nations and the global community have to extend help to the flood-affected Afghans. The immediate need is for basic amenities like food, shelter and medicine apart from homes, livelihood and drinking water sources.

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Bus and oil tanker collision near Kabul in Afghanistan kills more than 70

In one of the worst road accidents in Afghanistan, two buses and an oil tanker collided and burst into flames leaving more than 70 people dead - the dead included women and children and many of the victims were charred and burnt beyond recognition in the head-on crash that occurred near the capital Kabul.
This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 8 May 2016.

Many persons suffered serious injuries on the highway that links the two largest cities in the conflict-hit country. The vehicles involved in the accident were completely gutted in the eastern Ghazni province. A ministry spokesman has indicated that the death toll has soared to 73 and there are fears of still more casualties.
The area is one of the worst affected by the Taliban insurgency and insecurity is on the rise around Afghanistan as the militants continue with their 15-year insurgency against the Western-backed Kabul government. Moreover, most of the roads in Afghanistan are dangerous roads and in dilapidated condition and traffic rules are rarely enforced.
Road accidents are not new. At least 18 people were killed in May last year when a mini-van overturned in the western province of Badghis. And, before that, in April 2013 a bus hit a fuel tanker in the southern province of Kandahar and 45 people died.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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Flop show in Afghanistan as forces unable to retake Kunduz from the Taliban

It turned out to be a flop show as the counterattack promised by Afghan forces to retake the strategic city of Kunduz was unsuccessful. Kunduz is a city of 300,000 in northern Afghanistan and the region is one of the main bread baskets of Afghanistan – it also boasts of rich mining assets and lies on a strategic crossroads connecting Afghanistan to Pakistan, China and Central Asia.
This has been reported in foxnews.com dated 30 September 2015.

The efforts to retake Kunduz from the Taliban militants collapsed when hundreds of soldiers and civilians reportedly fled to the city's airport, where they were surrounded by insurgent forces. The Taliban fighters had fanned out across Kunduz and had closed the roads. They had also thrown up checkpoints and torched government buildings as fearful residents huddled indoors.
Obviously, the Afghan forces who tried to retake the city were stalled by roadblocks and ambushes and were not able to move closer than about a mile toward their target.
The US carried out air strikes but, fearing civilian casualties, they reverted to retake the city by painstaking street-by-street fighting.
The fall of Kunduz, the first urban area taken by the Taliban since the U.S.-led invasion ousted their regime 14 years ago, is perceived as a major setback to President Ashraf Ghani. He wants to bring peace to Afghanistan and wants to draw the Taliban to peace talks.
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Taliban seizes half of Kunduz – residents flee in panic

Taliban insurgents seized half of Kunduz, an Afghan provincial capital, and locals fled in panic as the hardline Islamists breached, for the first time, a major city since being ousted from power in 2001. They hoisted their flag over the main square and freed prisoners from the local jail apart from setting on fire to the headquarters of the local intelligence agency.
This has been reported in zeenews.india.com dated 28 September 2015.

This incursion of the Taliban into Kunduz barely nine months after the NATO combat mission ended comes as a major psychological blow to the country`s Western-trained security forces. As admitted by the Kunduz police - half the city has fallen into the hands of Taliban insurgents. And, the local forces had yet to receive promised reinforcements from Kabul.
Incidentally, this was the Taliban’s third attempt this year to breach the city and, it coincides with the first anniversary of President Ashraf Ghani`s national unity government in power. Most of the NATO troops had left by the end of 2014 and a residual force of around 13,000 remains for training and counter-terrorism operations.
Obviously, Afghanistan is on its own and has to fend for itself.
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Security forces kill four Taliban gunmen before they could storm Kabul guesthouse

Security forces killed four Taliban gunmen in a six hour overnight gun battle in the Wazir Akbar Khan district in Kabul – the area is home to a number of embassies and official buildings. The assailants had come armed with weapons like a rocket propelled grenade launcher and other weapons. As per the interior ministry there has been no civilian or military casualties.
This has been reported in bbc.com dated 27 May 2015.

The Taliban has accepted responsibility for the attack.
The four attackers had one RPG launcher, three AK-47s and one grenade launcher.
As indicated by the Afghanistan's interior ministry, the target was the Heetal Guesthouse which had been attacked by the Taliban earlier in 2009 also. The guesthouse is now called the Rabbani Guesthouse which is a favorite with foreigners.
It is owned by the Rabbani family, including Afghanistan's current Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani, and its former president, Burhanuddin Rabbani.
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Suicide blast outside a bank in Jalalabad kills 33 and injures another 100

#jalalabadattack #afghanistan #taliban #suicidebomber #nangarhar At least 33 persons have been killed and over 100 injured when a suicide bomber attacked outside a bank in Jalalabad, a city in eastern Afghanistan, where people had gathered to withdraw money. This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 18 April 2015.

The suicide bomber on a motorcycle had targeted a crowd of military personnel and civilians and detonated an explosive-laden motorcycle in the heart of a crowded commercial district. The head of the Nangarhar's provincial hospital has confirmed 33 dead bodies and over 100 wounded were brought to the hospital.
Taliban insurgents have denied being involved in this attack even though they have admitted to being behind earlier attacks that coincided with the sharp drop in number of foreign troops. A spokesman of the group has said that it was an evil act and that they condemn it.
It may be recalled that NATO, at one time, had 130,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and, now, has only a skeleton staff of a few thousand left who are involved mainly in training and special operations.

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Suspected case of poisoning in Herat – 100 school children fall sick after eating boiled beans

#Herat #Afghanistan #foodpoisioning #streetvendor #taliban In a suspected case of mass scale food poisoning, over 100 Afghan schoolchildren aged between 7 and 12, had to be hospitalized after they fell ill from eating beans that they had bought from a street vendor.
This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 11 April 2015.

All the children are students of the Fatiha School in Afghanistan's Herat province. As revealed by Abdul Jabar Rozi, the police chief of Herat, the children had been told by a street vendor selling the beans that he would ask their teachers to give them good marks in their exams if they ate the beans.
The vendor has, since, been arrested and an investigation has been launched into whether the food was deliberately tainted, he said.
In the opinion of the police chief, enemies might be behind this. His conclusion is based on the fact that, in the past, Taliban insurgents have poisoned Afghan police and army soldiers. There have been periodic reports of poison attacks on schools but those have mostly turned out to be due to accidental food poisoning or to effects of mass hysteria.
Incidentally, food poisoning and waterborne diseases are prevalent in Afghanistan, which has suffered through decades of war and has limited public infrastructure. But, this appears to be a case of intentional harm to children.

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United States finally leaves Afghanistan after 13-years

#Afghanistan #Taliban #Kabul #expats As per the agreement with Afghanistan authorities, the US and its allies would be officially ending their 13-year war on December 31. But, Afghanistan appears to be in the grip of worsening violence and the remaining foreign workers have retreated further inside fortified compounds.
The life of people will not be the same anymore because, as an expat restaurant manager has confided - he once had 28 employees on his rolls, today he has only eight. He is married to an Afghan and he will stay on in Afghanistan.
The scene is the same everywhere. The US-led war in Afghanistan had brought in plenty of international aid workers, diplomats and security contractors and, as a result, a frenetic social scene was created in Kabul - that is now a distant memory because a number of Taliban attacks on expat hang-outs shattered any illusions that foreign civilians were safe in the city.
The places are still open but, on view are bored waiters and empty tables. The tennis club is also deserted, the pool-side French restaurant is closed and picnic trips no longer happen.
The atmosphere in Kabul is much subdued. The number of expats have dwindled as compared to 2008and 2010. Those who remain are always in fear of their lives because last January there was a Taliban attack on the popular Taverna du Liban restaurant. A total of 21 people were killed, including 13 foreigners.

2014 - The year of Malala Yousafzai and her Nobel Prize

#malala #nobelpeaceprize #taliban Brave heart 17-year-old Malala Yousafzai is the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace prize. She had been shot by the Taliban because she wanted the girls in Pakistan to get educated and not remain suppressed by the draconian laws of the Taliban.
. , has tried to shake the world leaders out of slumber when, in her acceptance speech in Oslo, she gave her unique message – build schools, not tanks.
She is from Pakistan and won this year’s Nobel Prize for Peace along with Indian child rights campaigner Kailash Satyarthi.
At the ceremony, Thorbjoern Jagl-and, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel committee, at the ceremony in Oslo, the capital of Norway described both the recipients as ‘a young girl and a somewhat older man, one from Pakistan and one from India, one Muslim, the other Hindu; both symbols of what the world needs: more unity and fraternity between the nations.’ It may be recalled that Malala, a schoolgirl from Swat valley in Pakistan became a global icon after she was shot and nearly killed by the Taliban on Oct 9, 2012, for insisting that girls had a right to education. She had a miraculous recovery when she was flown for extensive surgery to Birmingham, England.
After recovery, she continues to stay in London with her family ever since, continuing both her education and activism. Taliban bullets could not rob her of her determination.
During her acceptance speech, she has asked several pertinent questions to the world - why is it that countries which we call `strong’ are so powerful in creating wars but so weak in bringing peace? … Why is it that giving guns is so easy but giving books is so hard? Why is it that making tanks is so easy, but building schools is so difficult?”
These are some questions that world leaders need to ask themselves and put their heads together and solve issues by peaceful methods.
Malala has reiterated that she will continue this fight until I see every child in school, and her wish is to one day become the Prime Minister of Pakistan.