Two suspects have been arrested in Afghanistan in connection with the killing of seven polio vaccinators last month, police said on Saturday, putting the blame on a group opposed to Taliban rule.
The health workers were killed in separate attacks in the northern province of Kunduz while working in a house-to-house campaign to eradicate the crippling virus.
“The arrested men have confessed to their crime and said they shot the polio vaccinators after receiving orders from their leaders from the Resistance Front in the province,” Kunduz police spokesman Qari Obaidullah Abedi said.
The National Resistance Front is led by the son of legendary late anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud. The group’s fighters were the last to hold out against the Taliban takeover last year, retreating to the Panjshir Valley, which eventually fell in September, weeks after the former government forces capitulated.
The Panjshir Valley’s most revered figure is Massoud, known as the “Lion of Panjshir,” who was assassinated by al-Qaeda in 2001, two days before the Sept. 11 attacks. His son Ahmad Massoud has since picked up the mantle, and reports have surfaced of his apparent efforts to organize a resistance with other exiled Afghan leaders.
The Kunduz police spokesman said the two arrested men had also confessed that “they were paid” for murdering the vaccinators.
On Feb. 24, a total of eight polio vaccinators had been killed — seven in Kunduz and one in the neighboring province of Takhar.
The National Resistance Front was not available for immediate comment on the police statement.
Polio teams in Afghanistan had been frequently targeted by insurgent groups until the Taliban’s takeover of the country in August.
Since then, the Taliban have said they want to work with the UN to stamp out the disease.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only two countries where polio has not been eradicated.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
The death toll from a shooting in western Afghanistan rose to 11 on Saturday, after gunmen targeted civilians at a picnic spot in Herat, the provincial authority said. Bullet marks were visible on a wall of the Sayed Mohammad Agha Shia shrine, while bloodstains marked a blanket abandoned at the scene. “Eleven people have been recorded dead and eight others wounded from Friday’s incident, with the condition of two of the wounded reported as critical,” Herat’s information office said in a statement. The update raises a toll of seven killed provided on Friday by the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs
RSS