The Afghan government will send hundreds of troops to reassert central authority and disarm rebel militia in the capital of a central province overrun last week by forces of a renegade commander.
A battalion of troops would be sent to Chaghcharan, capital of Ghor province, from the western city of Herat today, said Defense Ministry spokesman General Zahir Azimy said.
It would be the third such deployment of the fledgling Afghan National Army (ANA) to restive provinces where commanders have resisted attempts to disarm their militia forces before elections due to be held in September.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has struggled to impose the authority of his US-backed government across Afghanistan since he took over after US-led forces overthrew the Taliban in late 2001.
Instability caused by local power tussles has coincided with a growing Islamic insurgency blamed on Taliban guerrillas and their allies, raising serious doubts that the elections can be held as planned in September.
Azimy, who said on Sunday that no troops would be rushed to Ghor to deal with the unrest, explained that the battalion would provide security, prevent further clashes, assert central authority and help implement disarmament.
"The National Security Council has decided to send one ANA battalion from Herat," Azimy said. "The ANA are getting ready and tomorrow they will go to Ghor."
A battalion, or kandak, typically numbers between 500 and 850 soldiers. The ANA's total strength is around 10,000 troops.
Chaghcharan, capital of the remote central province of Ghor, was seized on Friday by forces of commander Abdul Salaam Khan, who have resisted the government's drive for militias to disarm.
Khan's forces pushed out Ghor police chief General Zaman and the head of the government military division, General Ahmad, who appealed to the central government to send troops to back them.
Ghor's governor, Ibrahim Malikzada, was forced last Thursday to flee the fighting in which 18 people were killed or wounded, but said at the weekend he was willing to work with Khan.
He headed back to the province after meeting the National Security Council in Kabul on Sunday, the government said.
The ANA troops preparing to leave for Ghor were deployed to Herat in March after the son of powerful local governor, Ismail Khan, was killed in a clash with a pro-government commander.
Ismail Khan has consistently resisted calls to disarm his private militia, saying it would create a security vacuum in the west of the country, a relatively stable region.
Jean Arnault, the UN Special Representative to Afghanistan, welcomed the deployment of forces to Ghor, where he described the situation as "still very unstable."
He called on factional leaders across Afghanistan to speed up disarmament of their militias.
ROCKET ATTACK
Meanwhile, attackers fired rocket-propelled grenades at a UN election office south of Kabul early yesterday, damaging several vehicles and underscoring risks to the September polls.
The attack in Logar, a province just south of Kabul, showed the need for the international community to do more to protect the electoral process, Arnault said.
"Again, so close to Kabul and so close to the security umbrella provided by the international community," he told a news briefing. No casualties were reported.
"We are now facing attacks -- direct attacks -- with fairly heavy weapons, against the office of the electoral process," he said.
UN spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said four four-wheel-drive vehicles were damaged in the attack on the joint UN-Afghan electoral office at about 1.30am in which attackers fired three rocket-propelled grenades before escaping.
Arnault urged NATO to send more troops quickly.
NATO is due to hold a high-level meeting in Istanbul from June 28 to June 29 to consider the repeated appeals to expand its mainly Kabul-based peacekeeping force into the restive provinces.
NATO needed to send more troops by the end of next month if they were to be effective in protecting the electoral campaign and voting, he said.
Taliban and allied Islamic militants have vowed to disrupt the polls and the attack is just the latest on a provincial office working to register voters.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
RSS