Taliban insurgents have seized control of the administrative headquarters of a district in northern Sar-e Pol Province, where fighting has been ongoing for days, officials said yesterday.
Amanuddin Aman, spokesman for the provincial police chief, said hundreds of insurgents had attacked the Kohistanat District headquarters from different directions early yesterday morning.
Provincial police chief General Mohammad Asef Jabarkhail said that reinforcements had not been sent to back up the police in the fight, because Kohistanat is 100km from the provincial capital.
“Right now we are working on a plan to launch a joint operation to retake the district from the Taliban,” he said, adding that one police commander and seven of his men had been forced to surrender.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said in a statement that the group’s gunmen now control the entire district and have seized police vehicles, weapons and ammunition.
Afghanistan’s war with the Taliban has intensified this year and spread to the country’s previously peaceful northern regions.
LOST VILLAGES
In Kunduz Province, bordering Tajikistan, Taliban fighters attacked the Khan Abad District late on Monday, and had taken control of a number of villages, provincial police chief spokesman Sarwar Hussaini said.
“Afghan security forces have been sent in to support the locals fighting the Taliban to take back control of the lost villages,” he said.
Kunduz has been battling insurgency since the Taliban launched their summer offensive in April and joined forces with other regional insurgents. The fighters have come close to the provincial capital on a number of occasions, and maintain a heavy presence in the surrounding districts.
The Taliban sent a statement to the media claiming responsibility for the Kunduz attacks.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was