A Taliban ambush of a police convoy in western Afghanistan left 20 policemen dead, officials said yesterday as minority Shiite residents in the capital, Kabul, took to the streets for the second day to protest the arrest of local militia commander.
The ambush took place on Sunday afternoon in Farah Province, provincial council member Dadullah Qaneh said.
Four policemen, including the deputy provincial police chief, were wounded in the attack near Lash wa Juwayn District.
The convoy was on its way to the district to introduce newly appointed district police chief when it came under attack, council member Abdul Samad Salehi said.
The newly appointed chief was killed, Qaneh said.
The Taliban, who over the past few years have taken over nearly half of Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest in a series of near-daily Taliban assaults on Afghan military and security forces throughout the country.
The Taliban view the US-backed government in Kabul as a dysfunctional Western puppet and have refused repeated offers to negotiate with it.
Meanwhile, demonstrators blocked all roads in the western section of Kabul for a second day yesterday, protesting the arrest of Alipoor, who leads a Shiite militia in the western Ghor Province and who goes by one name.
It was not clear what he is charged with, but state-allied militias are often accused of extortion and other mafia-like behavior.
On Sunday, hundreds clashed with police during the protest. Three policemen were shot and wounded and another 20 were hit by stones thrown by the protesters, who torched two police checkpoints.
“I can hear sporadic sound of shooting form the area,” Afghan lawmaker Nasrullah Sadeqizada said of yesterday’s protest.
Sadeqizada lives near the area and spoke to reporters over the telephone.
Mahobullah, another resident form the area who also uses only one name, said that hundreds of protesters were carrying posters of Alipoor, shouting: “Alipoor is innocent” and demanding that the commander be set free.
During a previous attempt in June to arrest Alipoor, security forces in Ghor clashed with his followers, leading to the deaths of seven civilians and four policemen.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver