Eight militants were killed in a gunbattle after a suicide car bombing yesterday at the entrance to an airport outside the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, airport authorities said.
After the car bombing, a group of militants, using light weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, battled international forces for 30 minutes, according to information provided by the media office at the airport.
The Taliban claimed responsibility. In a text message to The Associated Press in Kabul, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said six suicide attackers killed 32 foreign and Afghan security forces at the airport, about 125km east of the Afghan capital.
PHOTO: AFP
The militant group frequently exaggerates its claims.
Ghafor Khan, a spokesman for the provincial police chief in Nangarhar Province, said that during the fighting, international forces blocked access to the area and helicopters patrolled overhead. The airport is situated on a main road on the outskirts of the city that leads to the Pakistani border.
NATO said there had been an incident at the airport, but said it could not immediately provide details.
Elsewhere in the east, US and Afghan forces battled hundreds of militants from an al-Qaeda-linked group for a third day on Tuesday in Kunar Province, the US military said.
Two US soldiers were killed on Sunday in the first day of the operation.
The attack in Kunar was directed against insurgents believed responsible for the roadside bombing that killed five US service members in the area on June 7, a US statement said.
The militants were believed to be members of the Haqqani group, a faction of the Taliban based in Pakistan that has close ties to al-Qaeda. About 600 US and Afghan troops are taking part in the operation, the US statement said.
On Tuesday in Kabul, an Afghan man working for the UN was shot and killed in his vehicle near a busy traffic circle.
The Afghan UN employee who died was driving a white pickup truck with the blue UN logo painted on the side. Another Afghan member of the UN staff, who was in the vehicle, was not wounded, the UN said.
The morning shooting occurred amid heavy traffic near Massoud circle, an intersection near the US Embassy and a US military base. Two windows on the truck were shattered and blood was spattered inside the car.
“The circumstances of the shooting are not yet clear,” a statement released by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said. “United Nations security teams are working with Afghan security institutions to assist investigations.”
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
RSS