NEW DELHI: India and Afghanistan must stand together to free the two countries from terrorism, Afghan envoy to New Delhi Shaida Abdali said, condemning the terror attack in Jalalabad in which 19 people, including a number of Sikhs, were killed. In a clear reference to Pakistan, Mr Abdali said India …
Read More »NSA, Chinese envoy confer on regional cooperation
AT-KABUL: National Security Advisor, Haneef Atmar met Monday with Liu Jinsong, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Kabul, discussing regional cooperation and the peace program in Afghanistan. Mr. Liu supported the recent ceasefire between government and Taliban militants, expressed happiness over the regional and international consensus about Afghanistan. …
Read More »Karzai saddened over Sikh representative’s killing
AT-KABUL: Former President, Hamid Karzai was extremely saddened over the killing Avtar Singh Khalsa, representative of the country’s Sikh community. Singh was killed along several other Sikhs Sunday when a suicide bomber blew himself up among a gathering of Sikhs in Jalalabad city, the provincial capital of Nangarhar. Singh was …
Read More »Attack against minority Sikhs ‘a big crime’; Abdullah
AT-KABUL: Chief Executive, Abdullah Abdullah, condemned attack against the Sikh community in Jalalabad as “a big crime”. A suicide bomber targeted a group of Afghan Sikhs and Hindus on Sunday in Jalalabad city, the provincial capital of Nangarhar. Around 19 people were killed in the attack, 13 of whom were …
Read More »Editorial: Diversity under attack
In the past three decades, close to 99 percent of Hindu and Sikh citizens of Afghanistan have left the country. An investigation by TOLOnews reveals that the Sikh and Hindu population number was 220,000 in the 1980’s. That number dropped sharply to 15,000 when the mujahideen took power during the …
Read More »Abdullah against ‘safe zone’ blueprint
AT-KABUL: As the spectre of ceding the Taliban autonomous regions in the south as part of a ploy to reconcile the unruly faction is gaining traction, the Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah has delivered a scathing critique over likely so-called safe zones, which he argued would unleash irreversible consequences as insurgent …
Read More »Anti-polio drive begins; Unrest prevents vaccination of one million children
By Farhad Naibkhel-KABUL: The Ministry of Public Health on Monday announced the launch of a campaign to administer polio vaccines to children countrywide, amid fears anti-polio workers may not reach out to over one million children due to widespread unrest. “In each polio vaccination drive, MoPH targets about 6.5 million …
Read More »Tensions high as gov’t covertly poised to prolong tenure
AT-KABUL: The Afghan government and the United States are making systematic arrangements to prolong tenure of the current government of national unity through a Constitutional Loya Jirga. Political analysts believe that the government neither has the intention of neither holding transparent elections nor bringing peace; and that elections are engineered …
Read More »Editorial: Ceasefire ended
The unilateral ceasefire that lasted for 18 days ended. But anytime could be resumed. President Ashraf Ghani already said he was ready to extend the ceasefire anytime when the Taliban are ready. Offensive operations took up again on Saturday after Ghani called off truce with the Taliban. There was much …
Read More »Gen. Raziq says encouraging Quetta Shura for peace talks
AT-KABUL: Southern Kandahar’s Police Chief Gen. Abdul Raziq has claimed that he had recently participated in talks with Taliban’s Quetta Council leaders and is encouraging them to contemplate entering peace talks with the Afghan government. And according to Gen. Raziq, almost half of the Taliban leaders representing the Quetta Shura …
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