The Afghan government organized funeral preparations yesterday for its deputy spy chief, who was assassinated in a suicide attack that laid bare the threat from an increasingly brazen Taliban.
Abdullah Laghmani was killed with 23 other people when a suicide bomber walked into a crowd of government officials and civilians leaving a mosque in the capital of his home province Laghman, in the east, on Wednesday.
The attack in broad daylight, outside a place of worship during the holy month of Ramadan when Muslims are fasting showed the increasing brutality of the insurgent militia whose reach is expanding into previously peaceful areas.
Eight years after the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the former Taliban regime, Afghanistan has become increasingly treacherous.
Already, this year has been a record-breaking year for the number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan and elections last month have been heavily tainted by allegations of fraud and fears of catastrophically low turnout.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is leading a laborious count with 47.3 percent of the vote from 60 percent of polling stations, paid tribute to Laghmani and ordered the intelligence agency to organize a funeral.
“The president instructed a commission headed by the director general of the National Directorate of Security ... besides helping the wounded and condoling their families, to organize a deserving funeral ceremony,” his office said.
Laghmani’s body had been transferred to the morgue at the military hospital in the Afghan capital with the funeral delayed until today so that his son could return from abroad, one government official said.
The Taliban, which has regrouped since the US-led invasion with help from safe havens in Pakistan, claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack and said Laghmani had been the target.
Britain announced the death yesterday of yet another soldier killed in a bomb attack in southern Helmand Province, which is the epicenter of Afghanistan’s poppy-growing industry to make opium and heroin and a Taliban stronghold.
More than 300 foreign troops have died in Afghanistan so far this year. Most deaths have been caused by improvised explosive devices — small, concealed and remotely detonated bombs that have become the Taliban weapon of choice.
In southern province Kandahar, NATO and Afghan troops captured a Taliban militant allegedly involved in several IED attacks, the military said.
In the US, which contributes around two-thirds of the 100,000 Western troops in Afghanistan, a growing number of experts doubt the war can be won as US President Barack Obama contemplates a further troop increase.
Nearly six in 10 Americans are opposed to the war in Afghanistan, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released this week.
“The similarities to Vietnam are ominous,” wrote Wesley Clark, a former NATO commander, in the New York Daily News.
“There, too, an insurgency was led and supported from outside the borders of the state in which our troops were fighting. There, too, sanctuaries across international borders stymied US military efforts,” the retired general said.
At talks in Paris focused on a path ahead in Afghanistan after the elections, European, US and NATO leaders said Western troops, which now number more than 100,000 in the country, would stay until security is achieved.
The envoys called for a “fair process” to prevail after claims of massive fraud while UN envoy Kai Eide called on Afghanistan’s next leader to show determination to implement reforms to take the country forward.
Karzai leads his main rival Abdullah Abdullah 47.3 percent to 32.6 percent based on results from just over 60 percent of polling stations.
But Abdullah, who has alleged state-engineered fraud, has said he will not accept the result if he considers it compromised by irregularities.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of