KABUL: A rocket attack on an Afghan religious school killed about 20 Taliban insurgents exchanging fire with security forces, officials said on Friday, adding that no children were among the victims.
The insurgents had taken shelter at the school compound in the central eastern province of Wardak, 35 km (20 miles) southwest of the capital, Kabul, when the airstrike hit late on Wednesday, the officials said.
International forces that conduct most of the air strikes across the country were not immediately available for comment.
Abdul Rahman Mangal, a spokesman for the governor of Wardak, said there were no civilian casualties, adding that all the pupils had gone home before the air strike.
Foreign troops have stepped up air strikes in Afghanistan in recent months as Afghan forces struggle against a resilient Taliban insurgency.
The Taliban are seeking to reimpose strict Islamic law after their 2001 ouster by US-led troops.
Afghan air strike kills about 20 Taliban at religious school
Afghan air strike kills about 20 Taliban at religious school
UK interior minister insists asylum reforms ‘fair’ amid blowback
- Mahmood argued in a speech that she was “restoring order and control” to Britain’s borders
- Amnesty International called the latest measure a “punitive blow”
LONDON: Britain’s interior minister doubled down Thursday on her tough stance on immigration despite criticism from charities and unease within the ruling Labour party that it is shedding left-wing voters.
Shabana Mahmood announced that asylum seekers who break the law or work illegally will be thrown out of government-funded accommodation and lose their support payments.
The policy forms part of a major overhaul of migration rules announced late last year and modelled on Denmark’s strict asylum system that aims to slash irregular migration to the UK.
Mahmood argued in a speech that she was “restoring order and control” to Britain’s borders and that her overhaul of the asylum was “firm but fair,” adding she would open new and safe legal routes.
But Amnesty International called the latest measure a “punitive blow” that “risks forcing people into destitution, homelessness and exploitation while they wait for their claims to be decided.”
Mahmood’s reforms are widely seen as an attempt to stem support for the hard-right Reform UK party, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage.
It has topped opinion polls for a year, in part because of the government’s failure to stop thousands of migrants from arriving in England from northern France on small boats.
But her stance has also been credited with contributing to Labour losing support to the progressive Green party, which won a local election in a traditional Labour heartland last week.
Mahmood said there was a middle path between Farage’s “nightmare pulling up the drawbridge and shutting out the world” and Green Party leader Zack Polanski’s “fairy tale of open borders.”
Her reform that makes refugee status temporary, including for accompanied children, came into force this week.
The status will be reviewed every 30 months, with refugees forced to return to their home countries once those are deemed safe.
They will also need to wait for 20 years, instead of the current five, before they can apply for permanent residency.
She also announced earlier this week that the government would stop issuing education visas to nationals from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan.
It said there had been a surge in asylum applications by students from those countries and almost 135,000 asylum seekers in total had entered the UK using legal routes since 2021.
