KABUL: Insurgents killed 19 security personnel in separate assaults in Afghanistan, officials said Thursday, a day after twin bombings in Kabul killed 21 people, including two local TV reporters.
Another 89 people were wounded in Wednesday’s bombings, in a Shiite neighborhood of the capital. The attack bore the hallmarks of the Daesh group, which has carried out a wave of bombings against minority Shiites in recent years. The Taliban denied responsibility.
Later Wednesday, suspected Taliban insurgents overran a security outpost in the northern Badghis province and then ambushed reinforcements, killing a total of 10 soldiers, according to Jamshid Shahabi, a spokesman for the governor.
In what is being described as an insider attack, a local police official in the northern Takhar province turned his weapon on his colleagues early Thursday, killing all eight. Abdul Khali Aseir, the provincial police spokesman, says the gunman escaped.
Two journalists from Afghanistan’s TOLO TV were among those killed in the Kabul bombings. Samim Faramarz and Ramiz Ahmadi were “fearless” reporters who represented what is best in the country, the station said in a posting on Twitter.
“They challenged and pushed boundaries to deliver news to millions daily … We are devastated,” it said.
The UN envoy to Afghanistan, Tadamichi Yamamoto, condemned the “callous attack” in Kabul and expressed “deep concern over the heavy price paid by Afghan media, with the killing of journalists in Afghanistan being among the highest in the world.”
In April, nine journalists who rushed to the scene of an explosion in Kabul were killed by a second suicide bomber. A 10th journalist was killed the same day, shot in eastern Khost province.
Both the Taliban and Daesh carry out near-daily attacks in Afghanistan targeting security forces and government officials, but Daesh also regularly targets Shiites, who it views as apostates.
In the same neighborhood where the twin bombings took place, a Daesh suicide bomber killed 35 high school graduates last month as they sat for their university entrance exams. The dead were all teenagers.
Attacks kill 19 Afghan forces after twin bombings in Kabul
Attacks kill 19 Afghan forces after twin bombings in Kabul
- The attack bore the hallmarks of the Daesh group, which has carried out a wave of bombings against minority Shiites in recent years
- A local police official in the northern Takhar province turned his weapon on his colleagues early Thursday, killing all eight
Trump insists he struck Iran on his own terms
- “We are now a nation divided between those who want to fight wars for Israel and those who just want peace and to be able to afford their bills and health insurance,” Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X.
- Rubio himself doubled down on Tuesday after meeting with US House and Senate members, while insisting that “No, I told you this had to happen anyway”
WASHINGTON, United States: President Donald Trump and his team scrambled Tuesday to reclaim the narrative on why he decided to attack Iran, after his top diplomat suggested the US struck only after learning of an imminent Israeli strike.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio alarmed Democrats — who say only Congress can declare war — as well as many of Trump’s MAGA supporters on Monday when he said: “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.”
“We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio told reporters.
Administration officials quickly backpedalled, insisting Trump authorized the strikes because Tehran was not seriously negotiating an accord on limiting its nuclear ambitions, and the United States needed to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities.
“No, Marco Rubio Didn’t Claim That Israel Dragged Trump into War with Iran,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted Tuesday on X.
At an Oval Office meeting later with Germany’s chancellor, Trump went further, saying that “Based on the way the negotiation was going, I think they (Iran) were going to attack first. And I didn’t want that to happen.”
“So, if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.”
- Had to happen? -
Rubio himself doubled down on Tuesday after meeting with US House and Senate members, while insisting that “No, I told you this had to happen anyway.”
“The president made a decision. The decision he made was that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide... behind this ability to conduct an attack.”
Critics seized on the muddied messaging to accuse Trump of precipitating the country into a war without a clear rationale, without informing Congress — and without a clear idea of how it might end.
They noted that just two weeks ago, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed Trump again in Washington to take a hard line, in their seventh meeting since Trump’s return to power last year.
Some Republican allies rallied behind the president, with Senator Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, insisting that “No one pushes or drags Donald Trump anywhere.”
“He acts in the vital national security interest of the United States,” Cotton told the “Fox & Friends” morning show.
But as crucial US midterm elections approach that could see Republicans lose their congressional majority, Trump risks shedding supporters who had welcomed his pledge to end foreign military interventions.
“We are now a nation divided between those who want to fight wars for Israel and those who just want peace and to be able to afford their bills and health insurance,” Marjorie Taylor Greene, a top former Trump ally and a major figure in the populist and isolationist hard right, posted on X.
