NAIROBI: Riot police patrolled Kenya’s capital Nairobi on Tuesday morning as young activists called for more protests following last week’s deadly clashes.
Members of the protest movement, which has no official leaders and largely organizes via social media, have rejected appeals from President William Ruto for dialogue, even after he abandoned proposed tax hikes.
Infuriated by the deaths last week — at least 39 according to the government-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNHCR) — many are now demanding that Ruto step down.
“We are determined to push for the president’s resignation,” Ojango Omondi, an activist in Nairobi, said. “We hope for a peaceful protest and minimal casualties, if any.”
The protests that started as an online outpouring of anger over nearly $2.7 billion of tax hikes in a proposed finance bill have grown into a nationwide movement against corruption and misgovernance, and become the most serious crisis of Ruto’s nearly two-year-old presidency.
He has been caught between the competing demands of lenders such as the International Monetary Fund, which are urging the heavily-indebted government to cut deficits, and a hard-pressed population reeling from the soaring cost of living.
Ruto has directed the treasury to come up with ways to cut spending to fill the budget gap caused by the bill’s withdrawal, and also said more borrowing will be required.
The protests, which began in mid-June, were mostly peaceful until last Tuesday, when police clashed with demonstrators. Some protesters briefly stormed parliament and set part of it ablaze. The police opened fire, killing many, human rights group said.
The KNHCR said on Monday that 39 people have been killed and 361 people injured since the first protest on June 18.
Ruto has defended the police’s actions, saying they were doing their best under difficult circumstances. He blamed violence on “criminals” who he said had hijacked the demonstrations.
“It’s a beautiful day to choose patriotism. A beautiful day to choose peace, order and the sanctity of our nationhood,” State House communications director Gerald Bitok wrote on X on Tuesday morning, adding in Swahili: “Violence is not patriotism.”
It was not clear to what extent people would respond to the new calls for protests. There were no reports of demonstrations early in the morning.
Shops were opening as usual in downtown Nairobi, the site of the most intense protests last week. Police had erected roadblocks leading to the president’s official residence.
“I think it’s not going to be maandamano (protest) because maybe people are afraid, because some people have been shot,” said Kennedy Otwal, who was walking through downtown.
Riot police patrol Nairobi as Kenyan activists call for more protests
https://arab.news/97e2m
Riot police patrol Nairobi as Kenyan activists call for more protests
- Members of the protest movement have rejected appeals from President William Ruto for dialogue
- Protests started as an online outpouring of anger over nearly $2.7 billion of tax hikes in a proposed finance bill
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.
