Masked gunmen killed 10 people working for the HALO Trust mine-clearing organization in northern Afghanistan, the Afghan Ministry of the Interior said yesterday, blaming the Taliban for the latest attack to rock the violence-wracked country.
The raid happened on Tuesday evening as dozens of deminers were relaxing in the HALO compound in Baghlan Province, after a day spent looking for ordnance in nearby fields.
Baghlan has seen fierce fighting in the past few months, with near-daily battles between the Taliban and government forces in several districts.
Photo: Reuters
“The Taliban entered a compound of a mine-clearing agency ... and started shooting everyone,” ministry spokesman Tareq Arian told reporters.
The attackers were masked, said Jawed Basharat, spokesman for Baghlan Province’s governor.
The UK-based HALO Trust said that “an unknown armed group” killed 10 staff and wounded 16 others.
“Around 110 men, from local communities in northern Afghanistan, were in the camp,” the organization said.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied the insurgents were involved.
“We condemn attacks on the defenseless & view it as brutality,” he wrote on Twitter.
“We have normal relations with NGOs [non-governmental organizations], our mujahidin will never carry out such brutal acts,” he wrote.
UN Resident Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan Ramiz Alakbarov condemned what he said was a “heinous attack” on the workers.
“It is repugnant that an organization that works to clear landmines and other explosives, and better the lives of vulnerable people could be targeted,” he said in a statement.
Violence has surged across the country since May 1, when the US military began its final troop withdrawal amid a deadlock in peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
In several districts where fighting has been intense in recent months, the insurgents have planted roadside bombs and mines to target government forces, but the explosives often kill and wound civilians.
Afghanistan was already one of the most heavily mined countries in the world, a legacy of decades of conflict.
The HALO Trust was founded in 1988 specifically to tackle ordnance left following the nearly 10-year Soviet occupation, and became a favorite cause of Princess Diana.
The organization’s Web site says it has an Afghan workforce of more than 2,600, and has removed landmines from nearly 80 percent of the nation’s recorded minefields and battlefields.
Separately, the Taliban yesterday claimed it had shot down an Afghan military helicopter in the province of Wardak near Kabul, but the Afghan Ministry of Defense said the aircraft had crashed due to “technical reasons.”
Three crew members were killed in the incident, the defense ministry said.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion