HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s businesses and underground rail stations re-opened as usual on Monday morning, after a chaotic Sunday that saw police fire water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters who blocked roads and threw petrol bombs outside government headquarters.
Thousands of anti-government protesters, many clad in black masks, caps and shades to obscure their identity, had raced through the streets, engaged in cat-and-mouse tactics with police, setting street fires and blocking roads in the heart of the former British colony where many key business districts are located.
Authorities moved quickly to douse the fires and police fired volleys of tear gas to disperse them, including in the bustling shopping and tourist district of Causeway Bay.
Police issued a statement early on Monday expressing “severe condemnation” after what began as a mostly peaceful protest had spiraled into violence in some of the Chinese territory’s key business, shopping and tourist districts.
Around 20 “radical protesters” had attacked two police officers on Sunday evening, hurling petrol bombs, bricks, and threatening the safety of the officers, the statement said.
The demonstrations were the latest in over three months of sometimes violent protests, with protesters angered by what they see as creeping interference by Beijing in Hong Kong’s affairs despite promises by Beijing to grant the city wide-ranging autonomy and freedoms denied in mainland China.
The initial trigger for the protests was a contentious extradition bill, now withdrawn, that would have allowed people to be sent to mainland China for trial.
The protests have since broadened into other demands including universal suffrage and an independent inquiry into allegations of excessive force by the police.
At least 18 people were injured, three of them seriously, during Sunday’s violence, according to the Hospital Authority.
Nearly 1,400 people have been arrested since the protests started in June, but police gave no update on the number arrested over the weekend.
The protests have weighed on the city’s economy as it faces its first recession in a decade, with tourist arrivals plunging 40 percent in August amid some disruptions at the city’s international airport.
By Sunday evening, the running battles between anti-government protesters and police had spilled into street brawls between rival groups in the districts of Fortress Hill and North Point further east on Hong Kong island, where men in white T-shirts, believed to be pro-Beijing supporters, some wielding hammers, rods and knives, clashed with anti-government activists.
On a street close to North Point, home to a large pro-Beijing community, a Reuters witness saw one man in a white T-shirt sprawled on the ground with head wounds.
Hong Kong media reported that groups of pro-Beijing supporters had attacked journalists.
Police eventually intervened and sealed off some roads to try to restore order, and they were seen taking away several men and women from an office run by a pro-Beijing association.
Democratic lawmaker Ted Hui was arrested for allegedly obstructing the police, according to his Democratic Party’s Facebook page, as he tried to mediate on the streets in North Point.
Hong Kong reopens after violent weekend of clashes and protests
Hong Kong reopens after violent weekend of clashes and protests
- Thousands of anti-government protesters engaged in cat-and-mouse tactics with police on Sunday
- Police issued a statement expressing ‘severe condemnation’ after the peaceful protest spiraled into violence
Afghanistan says it thwarted Pakistani airstrike on Bagram Air Base as fighting enters fourth day
- The fighting has been the most severe between the neighbors for years
- Pakistan accuses Taliban government of harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it
KABUL: Afghanistan thwarted attempted airstrikes on Bagram Air Base, the former US military base north of Kabul, authorities said Sunday, while cross-border fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan stretched into a fourth day.
The fighting has been the most severe between the neighbors for years, with Pakistan declaring that it’s in “open war” with Afghanistan.
The conflict has alarmed the international community, particularly as the area is one where other militant organizations, including Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group, still have a presence and have been trying to resurface.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it and also of allying with its archrival India.
Border clashes in October killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants until a Qatari-mediated ceasefire ended the intense fighting. But several rounds of peace talks in Turkiye in November failed to produce a lasting agreement, and the two sides have occasionally traded fire since then.
On Sunday, the police headquarters of Parwan province, where Bagram is located, said in a statement that several Pakistani military jets had entered Afghan airspace “and attempted to bomb Bagram Air Base” at around 5 a.m.
The statement said Afghan forces responded with “anti-aircraft and missile defense systems” and had managed to thwart the attack.
There was no immediate response from Pakistan’s military or government regarding Kabul’s claim of attempted airstrikes on Bagram or the ongoing fighting.
Bagram was the United States’ largest military base in Afghanistan. It was taken over by the Taliban as they swept across the country and took control in the wake of the chaotic US withdrawal from the country in 2021. Last year, US President Donald Trump suggested he wanted to reestablish a US presence at the base.
The current fighting began when Afghanistan launched a broad cross-border attack on Thursday night, saying it was in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes the previous Sunday.
Pakistan had said its airstrike had targeted the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. Afghanistan had said only civilians were killed.
The TTP militant group, which is separate but closely allied with Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, operates inside Pakistan, where it has been blamed for hundreds of deaths in bombings and other attacks over the years.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of providing a safe haven within Afghanistan for the TTP, an accusation that Afghanistan denies.
After Thursday’s Afghan attack, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif declared that “our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us.”
In the ongoing fighting, each side claims to have killed hundreds of the other side’s forces — and both governments put their own casualties at drastically lower numbers.
Two Pakistani security officials said that Pakistani ground forces were still in control on Sunday of a key Afghan post and a 32-square-kilometer area in the southern Zhob sector near Kandahar province, after having seized it during fighting Friday. The captured post and surrounding area remain under Pakistani control, they added. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
In Kabul, the Afghan government rejected Pakistan’s claims. Deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat called the reports “baseless.”
Afghan officials said that fighting had continued overnight and into Sunday in the border areas.
The police command spokesman for Nangarhar province, Said Tayyeb Hammad, said that anti-aircraft missiles were used from the provincial capital, Jalalabad, and surrounding areas on Pakistani fighter jets flying overhead Sunday morning.
Defense Ministry spokesman Enayatulah Khowarazmi said that Afghan forces had launched counterattacks with snipers across the border from Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost and Kandahar provinces overnight. He said that two Pakistani drones had been shot down and dozens of Pakistani soldiers had been killed.
Fitrat said that Pakistani drone attacks hit civilian homes in Nangarhar province late Saturday, killing a woman and a child, while mortar fire killed another civilian when it hit a home in Paktia province.
There was no immediate response to the claims from Pakistani officials.
