ISTANBUL: The UN’s cultural agency on Friday added four new sites in Iran, India, China and Micronesia to its World Heritage list.
The sites named by UNESCO include the so-called qanat water systems in Iran, the Zuojiang Huashan rock art cultural landscape in China and the archaeological site of Nalanda Mahavihara in India.
The landscape in China is all that remains today of the bronze age culture, known as “bronze drum” after its most characteristic artefacts, once prevalent across the country’s south, the agency said in a statement.
The site in Iran is an example of an ancient water-supply system, known as qanat, suited for the most arid areas.
The fourth site is Nan Madol, a ceremonial center of eastern Micronesia in the Federated States of Micronesia containing mediaeval palaces and tombs.
The Micronesian site is a series of 99 artificial islets built with walls of basalt and coral boulders.
It was, however, immediately placed on UNESCO’s list of heritage-in-danger.
The UN agency warned threats to the site were notably the construction of navigation channels which was leading to the uncontrolled growth of the mangrove, making the historic edifices more fragile.
The heritage-in-danger list is intended to highlight the risks facing world heritage sites that need protection and allows the committee to allocate immediate support from the World Heritage Fund.
UNESCO named the old towns of Djenne in Mali and Shakhrisyabz in Uzbekistan on Wednesday on its heritage-in-danger list during its 40th meeting of its World Heritage Committee in Istanbul.
All five of Libya’s World Heritage sites were named on Thursday by the agency as at risk of damage from the civil war that continues to rage in the country.
Meanwhile, the complex of churches and holy sites in the Georgian town of Mtskheta was removed from the in-danger list, where it had been listed since 2009.The meeting will end on July 20.
UNESCO adds four new sites to World Heritage list
UNESCO adds four new sites to World Heritage list
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.
