Taliban militants yesterday opened fire on a delegation of senior Afghan officials — including two of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s brothers — visiting villages in southern Afghanistan where a US soldier is suspected of killing 16 civilians.
The attack came as students in the east staged the first significant protest in response to Sunday’s shootings, raising worries of a repeat of the wave of violent demonstrations that rocked the nation after last month’s burning of Korans by troops at a US base.
The militants killed an Afghan soldier who was providing security for the delegation in Balandi village, said General Abdul Razaq, the police chief for Kandahar Province, where the visit took place.
Another Afghan soldier and a military prosecutor were wounded, he said.
The delegation was in a mosque for a service for those killed on Sunday when the gunfire erupted.
One of the president’s brothers, Qayum Karzai, said the attack didn’t seem serious to him.
“We were giving them our condolences, then we heard two very, very light shots,” he said. “Then we assumed that it was the national army that started to fire in the air.”
He said the members of the delegation, which also included Kandahar Governor Tooryalai Wesa and Afghan Minister of Border and Tribal Affairs Asadullah Khalid, were safe and headed back to Kandahar city.
Before the attack on the delegation, the Taliban vowed to kill and behead those responsible for the civilian deaths in the two villages in Panjwai district, considered the birthplace of the militant group.
Nine of the 16 killed were children, and three were women, according to President Karzai.
The US has an army staff sergeant in custody who is suspected of carrying out Sunday’s killings, but has not released his name.
Villagers have described him stalking from house to house in the middle of the night, opening fire on sleeping families and then burning some of the dead bodies.
Their anger was evident yesterday in discussions with the visiting officials before the attack cut the visit short.
“Today, the Kandahar governor was trying to explain to the villagers that he was only one soldier, that he was not a sane person and that he was sick,” said Abdul Rahim Ayubi, a Kandahar lawmaker who was part of the delegation. “But the people were just shouting and they were very angry. They didn’t listen to the governor. They accused him of defending the Americans instead of defending the Kandahari people.”
The delegation did manage before the shooting started to pay out compensation to family members of the victims — US$2,000 for each death and US$1,000 for each person wounded.
Meanwhile, hundreds of students staged the first significant protest in response to the tragedy. The students protesting at a university in Jalalabad city, 125km east of Kabul, were incensed.
“Death to America!” and “Death to the soldier who killed our civilians!” shouted the crowd.
Some carried a banner that called for a public trial of the soldier, who US officials have identified as a married, 38-year-old father of two who was trained as a sniper and recently suffered a head injury in Iraq. Other protesters burned an effigy of US President Barack Obama.
“The reason we are protesting is because of the killing of innocent children and other civilians by this tyrant US soldier,” said Sardar Wali, a university student. “We want the United Nations and the Afghan government to publicly try this guy.”
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement that the soldier should be tried as a war criminal and executed by the victims’ relatives.
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
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
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