Afghanistan

KABUL, Dec 21 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Seven people, including a highway police chief, were killed, in two improvised bomb explosions in Afghanistan today, local police confirmed.

In eastern Parwan province, five police officers, including provincial highway police chief, Wali Mohammad, were killed, after the vehicle they were aboard, touched off a bomb in Police District 2 of the provincial capital, Charikar city roughly at 1:30 a.m. this morning, Mohammad Sadiq Hashimi, of the provincial police said.

KABUL (Reuters) - A car bombing in Kabul targeting an Afghan lawmaker killed at least nine people, officials said.

Lawmaker Khan Mohammad Wardak survived the blast but is among 20 injured including women and children, Afghan Interior Minister Massoud Andarabi said.

It is unclear whether the explosive was planted in a car parked on the lawmaker’s route or if a vehicle with the bomb was being driven by a bomber, Andarabi added.

No one has claimed responsibility for the blast.

HERAT, Afghanistan, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- Afghanistan and Iran jointly inaugurated a main railway after two freight trains officially traveled along Herat-Khaf railway project, linking Afghanistan's western Herat province with Khaf city of Iran, general director of Afghanistan railway authority said Thursday.

"The Herat-Khaf railway project is inaugurated Thursday with a construction cost of about 75 million U.S. dollars," director Yamma Shams told a ceremony held in Ghoryan district of Herat.

JALALABAD/KABUL (Reuters) - Gunmen shot and killed a female television journalist, who was also a women’s rights activist, in Afghanistan on Thursday, an incident that underscores an increasing trend of violence against journalists in the country.

Malalai Maiwand, a reporter at Enikas Radio and TV in Nangarhar, was killed along with her driver in an attack on their vehicle in Jalalabad, capital of the eastern province of Nangarhar, taking the total number of journalists and media workers killed this year in Afghanistan to 10.

KABUL, Dec 5 (NNN-XINHUA) – A judge of the Afghan Supreme Court has been assassinated, in the country’s capital, a local TV channel reported today.

Abdul Jamil was shot dead after Friday prayers, outside a mosque in the Rahman Mina neighbourhood Police District 8, on Friday, Tolo News TV reported.

No group has claimed responsibility for the killing, the latest in a string of targeted attacks in the country.

Afghan officials usually regard the killings as targeted attacks by the Taliban militant group.

GARDEZ, Afghanistan, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Three security forces members were killed and 14 civilians wounded in a bomb explosion at a main traffic circle in Gardez city, capital of Afghanistan's eastern Paktia province on Thursday, local police confirmed.

It was a car bomb explosion that occurred roughly at 6:30 p.m. local time when a joint convoy of Afghan security forces members was passing by the area, Hayyat Nezami, provincial police spokesman, told Xinhua.

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan government and Taliban representatives said on Wednesday they had reached a preliminary deal to press on with peace talks, their first written agreement in 19 years of war and welcomed by the United Nations and Washington.

The agreement lays out the way forward for further discussion but is considered a breakthrough because it will allow negotiators to move on to more substantive issues, including talks on a ceasefire.

Kabul, Nov 30, IRNA – Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on Monday condemning a terrorist attack in which a senior Iranian nuclear and defense industry scientist was assassinated.  

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the head of the Research and Innovation Organization of Iran Ministry of Defense, was assassinated in a terrorist attack near Tehran on Friday afternoon.

In its statement, the Afghan ministry also sympathized with the bereaved family of Dr. Fakhrizadeh.

GHAZNI, Afghanistan, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) -- At least 30 military personnel were killed and 24 others wounded after a suicide car bomb hit a military camp in Ghazni city, capital of Afghanistan's eastern Ghazni province on Sunday, a local official confirmed.

"Some 30 killed and 24 wounded were admitted at main civil hospital in Ghazni city following an explosion this morning," Baz Mohammad Hemat, director of Ghazni civil hospital, told Xinhua.

The number of casualties may change, he said.

TALUQAN, Afghanistan, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) -- Unknown armed men gunned down three civilians including a woman in the northern Takhar province on Wednesday, provincial police spokesman Abdul Khalil Asir said Thursday.

According to the official, the incident took place in Farkhar district on Wednesday evening when a woman along with two of her relatives was going home and the culprits made their good escape.

Without providing more details, the official added that investigation had been initiated into the deadly incident.