Russia announces war games; UK worried by 'extremely aggressive' probing of air space

By Gabriela Baczynska

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia accused NATO on Monday of destabilizing northern Europe and the Baltics by carrying out drills there and announced new military exercises of its own, increasing tension over the Ukraine crisis.

NATO responded by blaming Moscow for instability in the region, while British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said he was concerned by "extremely aggressive" probing of Britain's air space by Russian planes.

"It is entirely appropriate for NATO countries in particular to work together to respond to what is a change of Russia's dealings with NATO and indeed the non-NATO European countries," he told a parliamentary committee in London.

Russia announced it would hold more military exercises in 2015 than this year -- including one in the Central military district that includes Moscow, and another involving Belarus.

NATO says it has beefed up defenses of its members since Russia seized Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in March and began backing separatists in parts of Ukraine the Kremlin now calls "New Russia". At least 4,300 people have died in the conflict.

Throughout the Ukraine crisis, Moscow has accused the Western military alliance of promoting instability and has staged war games at critical junctures.

"They are trying to destabilize the most stable region in the world -- northern Europe," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Meshkov said of NATO in an interview with the Russian news agency Interfax. "The endless military exercises, transferring aircraft capable of carrying nuclear arms to the Baltic states. This reality is extremely negative."

NATO says Russia has sent troops and weapons to Ukraine in recent days to aid the pro-Moscow separatists in violation of a ceasefire. Moscow denies sending troops, although many of its soldiers have died there.

"We see a significant military buildup in and around Ukraine," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in Brussels. "Large transfers of Russian advanced weapons, equipment and military personnel to violent separatists."

Most former Communist countries of Eastern Europe have joined NATO since the 1990s, although the three Baltic states Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are the only parts of the former Soviet Union itself to join. Ukraine is not a NATO member.

BALTIC STATES CONCERNED

NATO said in late October that British, Danish, German, Norwegian, Portuguese and Turkish planes had all intercepted Russian air craft in a flurry of incidents.

The U.S. ambassador to NATO said on Monday additional measures taken by the alliance were defensive.

"If you look at the scale of Russian activities in Crimea, first in Crimea and now in southeastern Ukraine, it's quite evident that they are destabilizing," the envoy, Douglas Lute, told a news conference in Brussels.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius told Reuters that Russia was to blame for instability by "carrying out aggression against its own neighbor" in Ukraine. The Latvian and Estonian defense ministries expressed concern about Russia's "increased activity in the Baltic Sea region".

Ukraine said on Sunday a convoy of 106 vehicles had entered its eastern territory from Russia. A Ukrainian military spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, said on Monday Russian special forces were now taking part in attacks on Donetsk airport in the east.

Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said in an interview that Europe and the United States should begin supplying arms to his country, as this would deter the rebels.

(Additional reporting by Alexei Anishchuk and Ludmila Danilova in Moscow, Adrian Croft in Brussels, Andrius Sytas in Vilnius, Dabiel Flynn in Dakar, Pavel Polityuk in Kiev and Kylie MacLellan; Writing by Gabriela Baczynska and Timothy Heritage; Editing by Peter Graffand Crispian Balmer)

• Politics & Government
• Armed Forces
• Russia
• NATO
• Ukraine

11.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Iran to turn uranium into reactor fuel under extended deal: source

By Fredrik Dahl

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran will convert more of its higher-grade enriched uranium into reactor fuel under an extended nuclear deal with world powers, making the material less suitable for building atomic bombs, a diplomatic source and a U.S. think-tank said on Monday.

Iran and the United States, France, Germany, Britain, China, and Russia failed to meet a Nov. 24 deadline for resolving their dispute over Tehran's nuclear program. They gave themselves until the end of June for further negotiations.

It was the second time this year they had missed a self-imposed target for a comprehensive agreement under which Iran would curb its nuclear program in exchange for an end to sanctions hobbling Tehran's economy.

As a result, a preliminary accord reached in late 2013 will remain in force. Under its terms, Iran halted its most sensitive nuclear activity in return for limited easing of sanctions.

Accordingly, Iran earlier this year eliminated its stockpile of uranium gas enriched to a fissile concentration of 20 percent, a relatively short technical step away from weapons-grade material. A large part of it was processed into oxide.

View gallery

Iranian workers stand in front of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, about 1,200 km (746 miles) south  …

When the deal was first extended in July, Iran undertook to move further away from potential weapons material by converting 25 kg of the uranium oxide - a quarter of the total - into nuclear fuel during the initial four-month extension.

The diplomatic source said Iran would now continue this work and he suggested around 5 kg would be converted per month.

The U.S.-based Arms Control Association said 35 kg of uranium oxide would be turned into fuel over s seven-month period. It said Iran had also made specific commitments limiting its development of advanced centrifuges to refine uranium.

In July, a U.S. official said that once the oxide had been turned into fuel plates, Iran would "find it quite difficult and time-consuming" to use it in any effort to develop a bomb.

In a letter seen by Reuters on Monday, Iran and the six powers asked the U.N. nuclear watchdog to continue checks that Tehran is honoring its undertakings, including "monitoring of fuel fabrication" for a Tehran research reactor.

The governing board of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency will hold an extraordinary meeting in Vienna on Dec. 11 to discuss its monitoring of the nuclear deal extension.

Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapons capability, saying its atomic energy program is meant to generate electricity.

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)

• Politics & Government
• Nuclear Policy
• Iran

11.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Hong Kong warns protesters not to return after clashes close government HQ

By Clare Baldwin and James Pomfret

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Thousands of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists forced the temporary closure of government headquarters on Monday after clashing with police, defying orders to retreat after more than two months of sustained protests in the Chinese-controlled city.

Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying said police had been tolerant but would now take "resolute action", suggesting that patience may have finally run out.

Speaking on a stage on Monday night in the heart of the Admiralty protest site next to government headquarters, student leader Joshua Wong said he and two others, including a secondary school student, would start a hunger strike to pressure Beijing to grant Hong Kong full democracy.

"Today, we have decided to do this because we feel have no other road to take," said 18-year-old Wong, to loud applause and chants of support from hundreds of protesters gathered in the rain.

He was speaking after chaos erupted as commuters made their way to work, with hundreds of protesters surrounding Admiralty Centre, which houses offices and retail outlets, in a stand-off with police. The central government offices and the legislature were forced to close in the morning, as were scores of shops.

The latest flare-up, during which police charged protesters with batons and pepper spray, showed the frustration of protesters at Beijing's refusal to budge on electoral reforms and grant greater democracy to the former British colony.

"Some people have mistaken the police's tolerance for weakness," Leung told reporters. "I call for students who are planning to return to the occupation sites tonight not to do so."

He did not respond when asked if police would clear the sites on Monday.

Hong Kong Federation of Students leader Alex Chow said the protesters had intended to paralyze government headquarters.

"The plan was a failure on the whole, given that even if some places were occupied, they were cleared by the police immediately," Chow said.

The democracy movement represents one of the biggest threats for China's Communist Party leadership since Beijing's 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy student protests in and around Tiananmen Square.

Financial Secretary John Tsang said the protests had damaged Hong Kong's international image and hurt investor confidence, adding the city's economic growth could be lower than the government's forecast of 2.2 percent. The territory also reported a slowdown in monthly retail sales.

Hundreds of riot police scattered the crowds in several rounds of heated clashes overnight, forcing protesters back with pepper spray and batons.

Scores of volunteer medics attended to numerous injured, some of whom lay unconscious and others with blood streaming from head gashes. Police said at least 40 arrests were made.

The unrest took place as British lawmakers said they had been told by the Chinese Embassy they would not be allowed to enter Hong Kong as part of an inquiry into Britain's relations with its former colony and progress toward democracy.

Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" formula that gave it some autonomy from the mainland and an undated promise of universal suffrage.

The protesters are demanding free elections for the city's next leader in 2017 rather than the vote between screened candidates that Beijing has said it would allow.

The Hong Kong rallies drew more than 100,000 on to the streets at their peak. Numbers have since dwindled and public support for the movement has waned.

(Additional reporting by Diana Chan, Kinling Lo, Clare Jim, Michelle Chen and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Angus MacSwan)

• Unrest, Conflicts & War
• Politics & Government
• Hong Kong
• Beijing

11.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

More U.S.-led strikes hit Islamic State in Syria, Iraq, U.S. says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States led 55 air strikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria since Friday, according to U.S. Central Command.

In a statement on Monday, Centcom said there were 27 air strikes against the Islamic State militant group in Syria and 28 strikes in Iraq, hitting a wide variety of targets including Islamic State buildings, vehicles, tanks and fighting units.

One of the strikes in Syria hit the al Qaeda-affiliated Khorasan Group, it said.

(Reporting by Washington Newsroom; Editing by Bill Trott)

• Politics & Government
• Islamic State
• Syria
• air strikes
• Iraq

11.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

French parliament to call for recognition of Palestinian state

By John Irish

PARIS (Reuters) - French lawmakers are set to vote on Tuesday to call on the government to recognize Palestine, a symbolic move that will not immediately affect France's diplomatic stance but demonstrates growing European impatience with a stalled peace process.

While most developing countries recognize Palestine as a state, most Western European countries do not, supporting the Israeli and U.S. position that an independent Palestinian state should emerge from negotiations with Israel.

But European countries have grown increasingly frustrated with Israel, which since the collapse of the latest U.S.-sponsored talks in April has pressed on with construction of settlements in territory the Palestinians want for their state.

Palestinians say negotiations have failed and they have no choice but to pursue independence unilaterally.

In October, Sweden became the biggest Western European country to recognize Palestine, and parliaments in Britain and Ireland both held votes in which they backed non-binding resolutions in favor of recognition.

Israel has strongly opposed all such moves. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Tuesday's proposed French vote a "grave mistake".

The French motion, raised by the ruling Socialists and backed by left-wing parties and some conservatives, asks the government to "use the recognition of a Palestinian state with the aim of resolving the conflict definitively".

Speaking to parliament ahead of the vote, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the government would not be bound by the vote. But he said the status quo was unacceptable and France would recognize an independent Palestine without a negotiated settlement if a final round of talks is not successful.

He backed a two-year timeframe to relaunch and conclude negotiations, and said Paris was working on a United Nations Security Council resolution that would set those parameters.

"If this final effort to reach a negotiated solution fails, then France will have to do what it takes by recognizing without delay the Palestinian state," Fabius said.

The vote, due around 11.00 a.m. ET, has raised domestic political pressure on the French government to be more active on the issue. A recent poll showed more than 60 percent of French supported a Palestinian state.

(Reporting by John Irish; Editing by Peter Graff)

• Politics & Government
• Foreign Policy
• Palestinian state
• Palestine
• independent Palestinian state

11.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Hong Kong protesters clash with police near heart of financial district

By Clare Baldwin and James Pomfret

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Thousands of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists clashed with police early on Monday as they tried to encircle government headquarters, defying orders from authorities to retreat after more than two months of demonstrations.

Chaos erupted as commuters made their way to work, with hundreds of protesters surrounding Admiralty Center, which houses offices and retail outlets, in a tense stand-off with police. Many shops remained shut by mid-morning.

The latest flare-up blocked access to key roads and government offices were closed on Monday morning.

Riot police armed with batons and pepper spray had earlier charged protesters, forcing them off one road near government offices. Police had cleared that area more than a month ago during some of the most violent scenes since the demonstrations began in late September.

The democracy movement represents one of the biggest threats for China's Communist Party leadership since its bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy student protests in and around Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

View gallery

Police use pepper spray during clashes with pro-democracy protesters at a rally close to the chief e …

On Monday, crowds chanting "Surround government headquarters!" and "Open the road!", made their way to the buildings in Admiralty, next to Hong Kong's central business district and some of the world's most expensive real estate.

"I urge everyone to stay here until the morning to keep surrounding the government headquarters. Let's stop the government from functioning tomorrow," a protester clad in a black T-shirt shouted into a loud hailer.

Scores of protesters with wooden shields and metal barricades charged police as officers warned them to retreat. Police, who have been accused of using excessive force, struck demonstrators with batons in a bid to push them back.

Hong Kong media reported that 40 people had been arrested overnight.

Hong Kong's pro-democracy protesters are demanding free elections for the city's next leader in 2017 rather than the vote between pre-screened candidates that Beijing has said it would allow.

View gallery

Injured protesters are treated during a rally close to the chief executive office in Hong Kong, Nove …

Demonstrators threw bottles, helmets and umbrellas at police as tensions escalated overnight.

Police used pepper spray in an attempt to disperse the protesters, dragging several to the ground before cuffing them with plastic ties and taking them away. Scores of demonstrators held up umbrellas, which have become a symbol of the pro-democracy movement, to protect themselves from the spray.

The activists tried to reclaim Lung Wo Road in Admiralty, where police moved in on Monday, in running battles throughout the night.

Two student groups who have led the disobedience campaign had urged supporters to escalate their actions at the main protest site in the Admiralty neighborhood.

The flare-up comes after four nights of clashes in the working-class district of Mong Kok, across the harbor from Admiralty. Police had cleared the area - one of the city's largest and most volatile protest sites - on Wednesday.

The latest clashes underscore the challenges authorities face as a restive younger generation contests Beijing's grip on the financial hub and demands greater democracy.

Twenty-eight people were arrested in the unrest on Friday night and early Saturday in Mong Kok, which is packed with shops, street stalls, jewellery stores and restaurants.

The Hong Kong rallies drew more than 100,000 on to the streets at their peak. Numbers have since dwindled to a few hundred and public support for the movement has waned.

(Additional reporting by Diana Chan and Clare Jim; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Paul Tait)

• Unrest, Conflicts & War
• Politics & Government
• Hong Kong

11.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Thirty U.S.-led strikes hit Islamic State in Syria's Raqqa: monitoring group

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A U.S.-led coalition carried out at least 30 air strikes in Syria against Islamic State militants in the northern province of Raqqa on Saturday, a monitoring group said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the air strikes hit Islamic State positions in the northern outskirts of Raqqa city, a major stronghold of the hardline Islamist militants.

The areas hit by the strikes included the 17th Division, a Syrian army base that Islamic State seized in July, the Observatory said.

The U.S.-led coalition began bombing Islamic State in Syria in September. Syria's nearly four-year-old civil war has continued unabated throughout the country.

The Observatory said 19 people were killed including seven women and two children when Syrian government warplanes struck the town of Jassim in the southern province of Deraa on Sunday.

Dozens of others were wounded and the death toll was expected to rise because a number were in critical condition, the Observatory said.

Fighting also continued in the Kurdish town of Kobani, northwest of Raqqa on the border with Turkey, where Kurdish defenders have been holding off an assault by Islamic State fighters for more than two months.

At least 62 people have been killed in fighting in Kobani, known as Ayn al-Arab in Arabic, since early on Saturday, the Observatory said.

(Reporting by Alexander Dziadosz; Editing by Rosalind Russell)

• Unrest, Conflicts & War
• Society & Culture
• Syria

11.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Afghan forces ill equipped to fight Taliban without NATO

By Kay Johnson and Mirwais Harooni

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan district police chief Ahmadullah Anwari only has enough grenades to hand out three to each checkpoint in an area of Helmand province swarming with Taliban insurgents who launch almost daily attacks on security forces.

"Sometimes up to 200 Taliban attack our checkpoints and if there are no army reinforcements, we lose the fight," said Anwari, in charge of one of Afghanistan's most volatile districts, Sangin.

"It shames me to say that we don't have enough weapons and equipment. But this is a bitter reality."

As most foreign combat troops prepare to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014 after 13 years of war, the experiences of Anwari and other police chiefs and army commanders across the country are NATO's biggest worry.

The United States, which provides the bulk of NATO troops in Afghanistan, has poured some $61 billion into training a nascent 350,000-strong security force, seeing it as the lynchpin of a plan to exit its longest war.

U.S. and Afghan commanders have praised the bravery and effectiveness of local soldiers, police and others in the face of a Taliban onslaught that has killed more than 4,600 Afghan security force members already this year.

And, despite increasingly deadly suicide bombings and assaults on military and civilian targets, most of the country is under government control, albeit loosely in some areas.

"The Afghan national security forces are winning, and this is a hugely capable fighting force who have been holding their ground against the enemy," Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, second-in-command for coalition forces, told a recent press briefing.

Yet wary of the threat posed by the Taliban as thousands of troops, and most of their sophisticated arms and equipment, head for the exit, Washington appears to be hedging its bets.

President Barack Obama recently freed those few thousand U.S. soldiers remaining post-2014 as part of a 12,000-strong NATO force to engage the Taliban in combat if necessary.

AIR SUPPORT CRUCIAL

Incidents in recent days illustrate how Afghan forces will struggle with reduced Western support, particularly from the air, however much they may have progressed.

They also underline how fragile stability remains in Afghanistan, where the West is desperate to prevent the hardline Islamist Taliban movement from returning to power 13 years after it was toppled for protecting al Qaeda.

When insurgents attacked a foreign guest house in central Kabul last Thursday, Afghan commandos killed the attackers, but international helicopters and special forces helped in the mop-up operation that lasted hours.

Taliban fighters also entered Camp Bastion, a large base in the southern Helmand province handed over to Afghan troops a month ago by withdrawing U.S. and British forces. It took Afghan soldiers three days to drive the insurgents out.

Gen. John Campbell, commander of international forces in Afghanistan, said the U.S. would provide limited close air support next year and new aircraft to allow the Afghan Air Force to attack the enemy and evacuate the wounded.

But that takes time. It will be at least three or four years before a home-grown air force can replace U.S. planes and helicopters, said Maj. Gen. John McMullen, the U.S. officer in charge of developing Afghan air capabilities.

    The prospect of less frequent intervention by fighter jets and attack helicopters across the country's often hostile terrain is a daunting one.

"If we had air support, we could very easily defeat the Taliban and we would not face a big number of fatalities," said Mohebullah, police chief of Baraki Barak district in the eastern province of Logar.

In August, hundreds of Taliban mounted one of its most brazen attacks in recent years in Logar, just south of Kabul.

Mohebullah, who goes by one name, said his men were fighting bravely but complained of being outgunned. Officers are armed with AK-47 rifles and a few rocket-propelled grenade launchers, but he said insurgents had mortars and machine guns.

CIVILIAN CASUALTIES KEEP RISING

Aside from air support and weapons, intelligence gathering is still dependent on U.S. systems. Keeping supply chains running for everything from ammunition to spare parts for vehicles is another recurring problem.

Civilian casualties are climbing, meanwhile, with more than 1,500 people killed in the first six months of 2014, 17 percent higher than in the first half of 2013 and on track to make this year the deadliest of the war, according to the UN.

Nearly 3,500 foreign soldiers have died since 2001, including around 2,200 Americans.

The U.S.-led coalition says insurgent attacks have fallen this year, although the number of 18,000 given by Anderson still amounts to more than 50 a day.

And while the coalition says Afghan forces control most of the country, the reality on the ground can be very different.

Graeme Smith, senior Kabul analyst for the International Crisis Group, says that in many remote districts, the government controls a few administrative buildings "but the influence of Afghan forces may not extend far beyond that point".

(Additional reporting by Jessica Donati; Writing by Kay Johnson; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

• War
• Military & Defense
• Afghanistan
• Taliban
• Afghan Air Force

11.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Mubarak verdict fuels protests, mockery in Egypt

By Amr Dalsh

CAIRO (Reuters)- - Protests erupted at universities across Egypt on Sunday, condemning a court decision to drop criminal charges against Hosni Mubarak, the president whose ouster in the 2011 uprising raised hopes of a new era of political openness.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at Cairo University, waving pictures of Mubarak behind bars and demanding the "fall of the regime", the rallying cry of the Arab Spring uprisings that shook governments from Tunisia to the Gulf in 2011.

Police stood ready at the gates to bar students that sought to take their demonstration into the streets.

An Egyptian court on Saturday dropped its case against Mubarak over the killing of protesters in the 2011 uprising that ended his 30-year rule.

The ruling was seen by activists as the latest sign that the rights won during the revolt are being eroded.

View gallery

Anti-Mubarak protesters run from tear gas fired by riot police during a protest after former Egyptia …

While the decision could be met with a rebuke from Washington, it is unlikely to upend a relationship that has strengthened during the U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State. Cairo's strong public support for the campaign demonstrates how far Egypt has come in restoring its place as a premier U.S. partner in the Arab world since last year's authoritarian crackdown in Egypt and military takeover.

Although the United States was a proponent of the Arab Spring, Washington in June renewed ties with Cairo and its current government, led by another strongman, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

In Tahir Square, the symbolic heart of the revolt that ousted Mubarak, two people were killed and nine were wounded on Saturday evening, when security forces fired tear gas and birdshot to disperse about 1,000 protesters who attempted to enter the area.

Security forces closed a Cairo metro station, the state news agency said, an apparent effort to prevent gatherings downtown.

Clashes also erupted at Zagazig University in the Nile Delta, and the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper said 11 students were detained after setting fire to a building.

View gallery

Anti-Mubarak protesters gesture after former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's verdict, in fron …

Many Egyptians who lived through the rule of former airforce officer Mubarak view it as a period of autocracy and crony capitalism. His overthrow led to Egypt's first free election. But the winner, Mohamed Mursi, was ousted last year by Sisi, another military officer who won a presidential vote in May.

Egyptian authorities have since jailed Mursi and thousands of his Muslim Brotherhood supporters, sentencing hundreds to death in mass trials that drew international criticism.

By contrast, Mubarak-era figures have been released and new laws curtailing political freedoms have raised fears among activists that the old leadership is back.

"Down with Hosni Mubarak, down with every Mubarak, down with military rule" said one Facebook page that called for protests against the ruling.

The verdict has also prompted a deluge of online cartoons about the return of the old guard.

One animated video begins with a group of Mubarak-era politicians in a darkened cell facing an array of charges. One by one they are released and end up celebrating their freedom with their former president, singing "yes, we are back".

(Reporting by Amr Dalsh, Ali Abdelaty, Lin Noueihed and Jason Szep; Editing by Rosalind Russell and Frances Kerry)

• Unrest, Conflicts & War
• Politics & Government
• Hosni Mubarak
• Egypt
• Cairo University

11.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Kabul police chief quits after attack that group says killed three staff

By Jessica Donati and Kay Johnson

KABUL (Reuters) - The police chief of Afghanistan's capital quit on Sunday, his spokesman said, following a third deadly Taliban attack in 10 days on foreign guest houses in Kabul.

Also on Sunday, the charity whose guest house was targeted in the latest attack said three of its aid workers were killed by insurgents who used guns and explosives. Earlier, Kabul police said one foreigner and other Afghan died.

The statement on the website of the U.S.-based Partnership in Academics and Development (PAD) did not give the nationalities of the three. A Western security official said they were South Africans.

Meanwhile, Kabul's police spokesman declined to comment on the reason for the chief's resignation.

"We can only confirm... he will not continue his job as police chief anymore," Hashmat Stanekzai said.

View gallery

Afghan policemen stand at the site of a Taliban attack on a foreign aid workers' guest house in  …

The Taliban and its militant allies have increased pressure on Kabul, which has seen a spike in deadly attacks on military and civilian targets.

Over the past 10 days, three compounds used by foreign organizations have been hit by armed attackers. In separate attacks in Kabul, two American soldiers, two British embassy workers and dozens of Afghan civilians have died.

The Taliban said on Saturday it had attacked the foreign guesthouse because it was a center of Christian faith. This was the second time this year the Taliban targeted a group that it said had links to Christianity.

PAD, which supports education in Afghanistan, said it would continue its activities despite the attack.

The group could not be reached immediately for comment.

(Additional reporting by Mirwais Harooni; Editing by Richard Borsuk)

• Unrest, Conflicts & War
• Politics & Government
• Kabul
• police chief

11.01 | 0 komentar | Read More