A powerful blast ripped through the funeral yesterday of an Afghan provincial governor who was killed in a suicide attack a day earlier, causing casualties, a correspondent said.
The explosion happened in Hisarak village in the eastern province of Khost as several Afghan ministers and MPs attended the funeral of Hakim Taniwal, late governor of neighboring Paktia province, the correspondent said.
At least four policemen and one civilian could be seen lying on the ground after the blast, witness Bakhti Gul said.
"Just before they started to bury the body a suicide blast took place," he said.
Officials could offer no further details.
Taniwal died on Sunday when a suicide bomber blew himself up while pretending to greet him outside the gates of the governor's office in Gardez, the capital of Paktia province.
Taliban
The Taliban movement, blamed for a spiraling insurgency in Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Taniwal, in his 60s, was a former sociology professor who spent about 20 years in exile in Melbourne, Australia and returned after the Taliban were ousted by US-led and Afghan resistance forces.
He also served as a minister in Karzai's government and as governor of Khost province, which neighbors Paktia.
In the south, NATO said on Sunday it had killed at least 94 Taliban fighters in airstrikes and ground attacks, pushing the reported toll from a nine-day counterinsurgency operation past 420. A top local official said the battle was winding down, and residents said hundreds of militants had fled the area.
The wave of violence, on the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the US, has cast a grim shadow over Afghanistan. The insurgency-wracked country is locked into its worst bout of fighting since the US-led ouster of the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001.
Suicide bombers
The US military, meanwhile, said that a suicide bombing cell was operating in Kabul, with the aim of targeting foreign troops, another sign that Afghan insurgents have adopted some of the terror tactics used in Iraq and are expanding their operations beyond the volatile south and east.
The warning came two days after a car bomber rammed into a US army convoy near the US Embassy, killing 16 people, including two US soldiers, the worst such attack in the capital. Four days earlier, another suicide bomber in Kabul hit a British military convoy, killing one soldier and four Afghans.
"This cell is alive and working and remains very much a threat," Colonel Tom Collins, the chief US spokesman, told a news conference in Kabul.
Collins said that the coalition had had intelligence that a bomber was in the city before Friday's attack, but lacked a description of the attacker or the vehicle he was using.
In the south, where NATO says its Operation Medusa has killed more than 420 Taliban near Kandahar city since Sept. 2, residents said that hundreds of Taliban had fled the area. Kandahar Governor Asadullah Khalid said the fighting was nearing a close and Taliban militants were in flight.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique