PULI ALAM, Afghanistan: At least 17 people were killed in a car bomb explosion in Afghanistan on Thursday as crowds shopped ahead of the Muslim festival of Eid Al-Adha, officials and a medic said.
“Seventeen bodies and 21 wounded people were brought to our hospital,” Sediqullah, a senior doctor at a hospital in the city of Puli Alam in Logar province, told AFP.
The interior ministry confirmed the blast, which came on the eve of a three-day cease-fire between the Taliban and Kabul.
“It was a suicide car bomb in a crowded place where our people were shopping for Eid Al-Adha,” Dedar Lawang, spokesman for Logar’s governor, told AFP.
The explosion occurred near the governor’s office, said Jamshed Ahmad, a student at the site of the blast.
The interior ministry condemned the explosion.
“The terrorists have once again struck on the night of Eid Al-Adha and killed a number of our countrymen,” interior ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the blast had “nothing to do” with the insurgents.
The extremist Daesh group, which has claimed a string of high-profile attacks on civilians in recent years, did not immediately comment on Thursday’s blast.
The Taliban and Afghan government have agreed on a three-day cease-fire starting Friday, the first day of Eid.
The truce is slated to last for the duration of the festival, which marks the end of Hajj.
The cease-fire has raised hopes of a permanent truce ahead of much-awaited peace talks between the two foes.
The talks were initially scheduled for March, but have been delayed amid a contentious prisoner exchange.
The prisoner swap was agreed in a deal between the Taliban and Washington signed in February but which excluded Kabul.
The deal stipulated that Kabul release 5,000 Taliban prisoners in return for 1,000 Afghan security personnel held captive by the insurgents.
On Thursday, the Taliban announced they had released another 82 government inmates, the last remaining batch of prisoners they had pledged to free.
“The process has been completed successfully ... and a total of 1,005 prisoners have been released,” Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen said on Twitter.
Afghan authorities have so far freed more than 4,400 Taliban prisoners, with further releases expected in the coming days.
On Tuesday, President Ashraf Ghani said peace talks with the Taliban could begin as early as next week, once the exchange is complete.
Car bomb kills at least 17 in Afghanistan ahead of cease-fire
https://arab.news/9hxfv
Car bomb kills at least 17 in Afghanistan ahead of cease-fire
- Suicide bomber struck as crowds shopped ahead of the Muslim festival of Eid Al-Adha
- Blast came on eve of a three-day cease-fire between Taliban and Kabul
Zelensky says Russia preparing for new ‘year of war’
- Putin earlier said Russia would achieve its goals in its Ukraine offensive, including seizing Ukrainian territories it claims as its own
KYIV, Ukraine: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday Russia was preparing to wage a new “year of war” on his country in 2026, after his counterpart Vladimir Putin said Moscow would “certainly” achieve its objectives.
“Today, we heard yet another signal from Moscow that they are preparing to make next year a year of war,” Zelensky said in his regular evening address.
The statement was a reaction to Putin, who earlier said Russia would achieve its goals in its Ukraine offensive, including seizing Ukrainian territories it claims as its own, amid a flurry of international diplomacy to end the war.
“The goals of the special military operation will certainly be achieved,” Putin told a meeting with defense ministry officials in Moscow, using the Kremlin’s wording for the nearly four-year war.
“We would prefer to do this and eliminate the root causes of the conflict through diplomacy,” he said, vowing to seize the Ukrainian lands Russia claims to have annexed “by military means” if “the opposing country and its foreign patrons refuse to engage in substantive discussions.”
Putin’s hawkish comments come as Ukraine on Monday hailed “progress” made on the question of future security guarantees for Kyiv, after two days of talks with US President Donald Trump’s envoys in Berlin.
But according to Zelensky, differences remain on the question of what territories Ukraine would have to cede to Russia.
Washington’s initial proposal — criticized by Ukraine and its allies as overly favorable to Russia — would have seen Kyiv withdraw from its eastern Donetsk region and the United States de facto recognize the Donetsk, Crimea and Lugansk regions as Russian.
Zelensky at EU summit
The current contents of the revised plan remain unclear.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Kremlin said Russia was waiting for information from the US on the outcome of the talks in Berlin.
“We expect that, as soon as they are ready, our American counterparts will inform us of the results of their work with the Ukrainians and the Europeans,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
In September 2022, Russia claimed to have officially annexed the Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Lugansk and Kherson regions, even though it did not have full military control over all of them.
Zelensky is expected to attend a summit in Brussels on Thursday to lobby European Union leaders to adopt a plan to use frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine’s defenses.
He said in his evening address that Putin’s bellicose signals “are not only for us.”
“It is important that our partners see this, and important that they not only see it but also respond, including our partners in the United States of America, who often say that Russia supposedly wants to end the war,” he said, accusing Moscow of trying to “undermine diplomacy.”
