Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Outside a Shiite shrine in Kabul, four armed Taliban fighters stood guard on a recent Friday as worshippers filed in for weekly prayers. Alongside them was a guard from Afghanistan’s mainly Shiite Hazara minority, an automatic rifle slung over his shoulder.

It was a sign of the strange, new relationship brought by the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. The Taliban, Sunni hard-liners who for decades targeted the Hazaras as heretics, are now their only protection against a more brutal enemy: the Islamic State group.

KABUL, Nov 15 (Reuters) - A bomb blast in the Afghan capital of Kabul wounded two people on Monday, the Taliban's interior ministry said, just two days after a similar explosion that was claimed by the Islamic State militant group.

Both devices were of a magnetic type attached to vehicles that have become common in Afghanistan, generally causing fewer casualties and less damage than suicide attacks, but used in targeted killings that undermine confidence in security.

KABUL, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Taliban forces held a military parade in Kabul on Sunday using captured American-made armoured vehicles and Russian helicopters in a display that showed their ongoing transformation from an insurgent force to a regular standing army.

The Taliban operated as insurgent fighters for two decades but have used the large stock of weapons and equipment left behind when the former Western-backed government collapsed in August to overhaul their forces.

KABUL, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- At least one civilian was killed and four others wounded when an explosion struck a bus on a busy road in the western part of Afghanistan's capital Kabul on Saturday, according to multiple sources.

"We heard a huge blast in the minibus carrying commuters in Mahtab Qala locality of Dashti Bari area. The whole place has now been sealed off by the Taliban security forces," an eyewitness told Xinhua.

The vehicle caught fire, sending a column of thick smoke into the sky and triggering panic, the witness said.

JALALABAD, Afghanistan, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- A total of 15 people were injured as a bomb blast ripped through a mosque in Spin Ghar district of the eastern Nangarhar province on Friday, a local official said.

The official, on condition of anonymity, said that the blast took place inside a mosque in Tarili village of Spin Ghar district at 01:30 p.m. local time when the mosque was full of worshippers.

Among the injured, three were in critical condition.

FIROZ KOAH, Afghanistan, Nov 11 (NNN-BIA) – Four Afghan children were wounded, in a landmine explosion, in the western province of Ghor, as landmines and explosive remnants of war continued to pose a lingering threat to Afghans’ lives, a local official confirmed today.

The incident occurred yesterday afternoon, when children were grazing their sheep in Tasarqi village, on the outskirts of provincial capital, Firoz Koah, Abdul Satar, chairman of the provincial health directorate, said.

KABUL, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The caretaker government of Afghanistan on Wednesday downplayed the security threat posed by the hardliner Islamic State (IS), or Daesh outfit, saying security forces had arrested 600 militants affiliated with the armed group over the past three months.

"The security forces of the Islamic Emirate have destroyed 21 bases of the Daesh group in different provinces including Kabul, Nangarhar and Herat and also captured about 600 militants over the past three months," spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters at a press briefing here.

KABUL, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The caretaker government of Afghanistan on Wednesday downplayed the security threat posed by the hardliner Islamic State (IS), or Daesh outfit, saying security forces had arrested 600 militants affiliated with the armed group over the past three months.

"The security forces of the Islamic Emirate have destroyed 21 bases of the Daesh group in different provinces including Kabul, Nangarhar and Herat and also captured about 600 militants over the past three months," spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters at a press briefing here.

TALUQAN, Afghanistan, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- A total of five people were killed and two others wounded in road accidents in the two northern Afghan provinces of Takhar and Badakhshan, sources confirmed Sunday.

In Takhar province, three Taliban security forces members were killed and two others wounded when a pick-up truck veered off a road in Chal district on Sunday morning, Assadullah Hoshman at the district hospital told Xinhua.

06 Nov 2021; MEMO: Turkey has reopened ten girls-only schools in Afghanistan, following talks with the Taliban to increase opportunity for women in the country.

During a parliamentary meeting on Friday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced that ten out of the 14 girls-only schools run by the Maarif Foundation – a Turkish state-funded organisation which runs 80 schools overall in the country – have been reopened.