LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan: Taliban militants have attacked an Afghan army post and killed 18 government soldiers, the defense ministry said on Saturday, while a suicide bomber in the capital killed one person and wounded six.
Violence has intensified in Afghanistan since US President Donald Trump unveiled a more aggressive strategy in August with US-led forces carrying out more air strikes and the Taliban responding with bombs, ambushes and raids.
Militants attacked a government army post overnight on Friday in the western province of Farah, a Ministry of Defense spokesman said.
“A large number of Taliban attacked an army outpost and we lost 18 soldiers and two were wounded,” said the spokesman, Dawlat Waziri.
Waziri said he had no more details of the attack. The Talbian claimed responsibility and said two of their fighters were killed.
The bomb in Kabul on Saturday was the latest in a spate of attacks in the city in which hundreds of people have been killed and wounded.
The capital has been on high alert since a Taliban suicide bomber blew up an explosive-packed ambulance on a busy street on Jan. 27, killing more than 100 people and wounding at least 235.
A week earlier, militants killed more than 20 people, including four Americans, in an attack on one of the city’s top hotels. The Taliban claimed that attack too.
On Saturday, a bomber blew himself up on a road near the headquarters of Afghanistan’s NATO-led mission. The identity of the casualties was not known, said Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish.
Daesh claimed responsibility in a message on their Amaq news agency.
Daesh’s Afghan affiliate, which first appeared near the border with Pakistan in 2015, has become increasingly active and has claimed several recent attacks.
The Western-backed government is under growing public pressure to set aside rivalries and improve security.
President Ashaf Ghani has approved a new security plan for Kabul but it was not clear what steps could be taken in the city of 5 million people, which already has numerous checkpoints and vehicle restrictions.
Also on Saturday, at least one civilian was killed and eight were wounded when a suicide bomber detonated a car-bomb in Lashkar Gah, the capital of the southern province of Helmand, said Omar Zwak, a spokesman for the provincial governor.
The Taliban, fighting to drive out foreign troops and re-establish their form of strict Islamic law, claimed responsibility.
In another attack in the province, a suicide bomber targeted an Afghan army post killing two soldiers and wounding one, Zwak said.
Militants attack Afghan army post killing 18 soldiers
Militants attack Afghan army post killing 18 soldiers
France investigates two Franco-Israelis for ‘complicity in genocide’
- The warrants were issued in July last year for Nili Kupfer-Naouri of the Israel is Forever group and Rachel Touitou of the Tsav 9 group, the source close to the investigation told AFP following a French media report
PARIS: French authorities have issued warrants for two Franco-Israeli nationals for “complicity in genocide” over allegations that they tried to stop humanitarian aid entering conflict stricken Gaza, a legal source said Monday.
According to a lawyer for the NGOs that made a legal complaint last year, it is the first time that a country has considered the blocking of aid as possible “complicity in genocide.”
The warrants were issued in July last year for Nili Kupfer-Naouri of the Israel is Forever group and Rachel Touitou of the Tsav 9 group, the source close to the investigation told AFP following a French media report.
The warrants call for the two to appear before an investigating magistrate but not for their detention.
The pair are accused of seeking to block aid trucks entering Gaza between January and November 2024 and in May last year at the Nitzana and Kerem Shalom frontier posts.
Olivier Pardo, a lawyer for Kupfer-Naouri, said the “pacifist” actions sought to condemn the “hijacking” of humanitarian aid by Hamas and other groups that launched the October 7, 2023 attacks that set off the Gaza war.
“If peacefully demonstrating with an Israeli flag against a terrorist organization seizing humanitarian aid, diverting it, and reselling it at exorbitant prices to Gazans is a crime — then there is no need to look down on the mullahs, France is Iran!” said Touitou, 34, on her social media account.
In an interview with The News website, Kupfer-Naouri, 50, called the French investigation “anti-semitic madness.”
Pardo said Kupfer-Naouri was in Israel but was ready to speak to French investigators there.
The two activists are also suspected of “public provocation for genocide” by calling for aid to be prevented from reaching Gaza, the source said.
Another source close to the investigation said warrants could be issued for about 10 other people.
The complaints were made last year by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and the rights groups Al-Haq and Al-Mezan. Clemence Bectarte, a lawyer for the groups, said it was the first investigation of its kind in genocide law.
Other legal complaints have also been made in France for “war crimes” over the deaths of Franco-Palestinian children in Gaza in an Israeli bombing raid and against two Franco-Israeli soldiers who took part in operations in the territory.
Another complaint is over the Hamas attack that set off the war.
