Afghanistan’s president lauded Osama bin Laden’s death as a serious blow to terrorism yesterday and said the strike in Pakistan proves the real fight against terrorists is outside his country’s borders.
“This is a very important day. Maybe you have already heard on the television or on the radio that American forces have killed Osama bin Laden, delivering him his due punishment,” Afghan President Hamid Karzai told an assembly of district government officials in Kabul, as the hall erupted in applause.
Karzai also used the chance to chastise international forces again for concentrating so much of their military effort in Afghanistan. Karzai has repeatedly said that more of the focus should be across the border in Pakistan where al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders reportedly live.
“For years we have said that the fight against terrorism is not in Afghan villages and houses,” Karzai said. “It is in safe havens and today that was shown to be true.”
He offered his appreciation to international and Afghan forces who have lost their lives in the nearly 10-year war in Afghanistan and expressed hope that bin Laden’s death could mean the end of terrorism, but he said now is the time to stop assaults that endanger or harass Afghan civilians.
However, Karzai said Afghanistan stands ready to do its part to help fight terrorists and extremists.
“We are with you and we are your allies,” he said, noting that many Afghans had died because of bin Laden’s terror network.
Meanwhile, in the south, Afghans in the Taliban heartland described bin Laden as al-Qaeda’s “No. 1 martyr.”
“Now he is the No. 1 martyr for al-Qaeda because he is stronger dead than alive,” one man, who asked not to be identified, said in Kandahar. “He always predicted that he would be killed by Americans. Now he will become a fire that Muslims will follow for generations.”
Kandahar was the birthplace of the Taliban and is believed to be where al-Qaeda hatched the plan to attack the US almost 10 years ago.
The Taliban were toppled by US-backed Afghan forces in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but the war has dragged on since, hitting its most violent levels last year.
“Bin Laden’s death doesn’t matter because al-Qaeda is more than him and it’s a big idea now,” another Kandahar man said.
While al-Qaeda’s influence in Afghanistan has waned, the -Taliban-led insurgency has grown. Violence in Afghanistan hit its worst levels last year since the Taliban were ousted, despite the presence of about 150,000 foreign troops.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing