Two foreign nationals, believed to be Westerners, and an Afghan were killed in a shoot-out in broad daylight in central Kabul yesterday, the city’s deputy police chief said.
It was unclear what prompted the exchange of fire outside the offices of the international courier company DHL, Alishah Ahmadzai said. Another senior official said, on condition of anonymity, that the shootout erupted after an argument between the foreigners and their Afghan guards.
“Two foreigners and one Afghan have been killed,” Ahmadzai said.
Two people were also wounded, he said, without giving their identities.
A police investigator said two of the dead were killed in a four-wheeled drive vehicle just outside the office of the courier company. They were killed just after they left the office and got into the vehicle, another witness said.
At least one of the dead foreigners was an employee of DHL, a man who said he was a friend told reporters.
The vehicle was covered in a large tarpaulin as police removed the bodies and drove them away, a reporter said.
One of the bodies had been slumped in the front seat of the vehicle, the reporter said. Blood was pooled just outside as well as in the front and back seats and the front windows were blown out, he said.
It was the second fatal shooting in the city since a British South African aid worker was shot dead on Monday while she was walking to work.
The extremist Taliban movement, waging an insurgency against the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, claimed responsibility for the killing but authorities have not confirmed they were involved.
Security has plummeted in Afghanistan with insurgent attacks and crime surging.
Foreign nationals are rarely killed in Kabul, although there have been several kidnappings.
The aid worker, Gayle Williams, 34, was shot several times in a western suburb, said the SERVE Afghanistan aid organization for which she had been working.
The Taliban claimed she was killed because SERVE was “preaching Christianity,” a charge rejected by the group that works to help disabled Afghans.
Deteriorating security has prompted many of the thousands of aid groups and other international organizations in Afghanistan to step up security measures, with most foreigners limiting their travel and employing guards.
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
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
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
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS