Taliban take 10th provincial capital as fighters advance towards Kabul

Published

3 years ago

August 12, 2021

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Fighting in Afghanistan’s Kandahar region has become “extremely intense” amid the continued insurgence of the Taliban in the country.

It comes after warnings the capital Kabul could fall within the next 90 days, with the hardline Islamist group now controlling around 65% of Afghanistan.

In Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second largest city which is situated 480km (300 miles) south-west of Kabul, citizens are fleeing violence as the Taliban threatens to take control of the region.

The city’s Sarposa prison has also been overrun, with the Taliban releasing around 1,000 prisoners – thought to be held on political grounds.

Taliban officials said that it is now in control of the facility, with staff surrendering and offering up their ammunition.

An aid worker in the area told Reuters that “fighting did not stop until 4am and then after the first prayers, it started up again”, while a doctor said the hospital has seen scores of bodies of armed forces members and wounded Taliban fighters as a result of the “extremely intense” fighting.

The group has now taken 10 local provincial capitals as it continues its assault towards Kabul.

It includes the capture of Ghazni city on Thursday, just 80 miles south-west of Kabul, where insurgents launched a number of attacks.

Fighting was still ongoing on the outskirts of the city. However, Afghan officials told the Associated Press news agency Taliban fighters were raising their flags and the city had calmed after hours of heavy fighting.

The battle for control of Lashkar Gah, west of Kandahar in Helmand Province, continues too – where the Taliban have captured a police headquarters.

The government previously insisted it remained in control of both areas, but the Islamist group has claimed it has now taken over the areas.

Heading into the capital, access to Kabul through the nearby valleys was packed with civilians trying to get into the city amid the rapid gains made by the Taliban, but there are fears that suicide bombers and insurgents could be among them.

On Wednesday, David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee, warned the West not to take its eyes off Afghanistan as the Taliban’s forces continue to make gains after British and US troops were withdrawn.

The former British foreign secretary said: “The time when troops were there was not used to develop a stable political settlement for the country and the great fear for the moment is that the gains being enjoyed by the people are on the rack.”

Mr Miliband said 5,000 civilians were killed in the most recent fighting, 30,000 people a week are fleeing the country, and 350,000 people are homeless.

He added the refugee danger is “real and present” to neighbouring states, with 100,000 leaving Afghanistan each month and going into Pakistan and Iran.

The US Air Force appears to be carrying out air strikes to support Afghan forces, with data suggesting that B-52 bombers and F-15 jets were among the aircraft involved in fighting overnight.

However, it is not clear what casualties or damage the strikes caused.

World

Israel rejects ceasefire proposal and presses ahead with ‘targeted strikes’ on Rafah

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4 hours ago

May 7, 2024

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Israel rejects ceasefire proposal and presses ahead with 'targeted strikes' on Rafah

Israel has rejected a ceasefire proposal accepted by Hamas and announced it is pushing ahead with an assault on the town of Rafah in southern Gaza.

The Israeli military said it was conducting “targeted strikes” against Hamas in the east of the city, which is the group’s final stronghold in Gaza.

Soon after Israeli tanks entered Rafah and advanced as close as 200m from Rafah’s crossing with Egypt, the Associated Press reported, citing an Egyptian official who said the operation appeared to be limited in scope.

Middle East latest: Follow live updates

Hamas had said its chief, Ismail Haniyeh, had informed Qatari and Egyptian mediators the group had accepted their proposal for a ceasefire, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the truce proposal falls short of its demands.

However, it added Israel would send a delegation to meet negotiators today in order to try to reach an agreement.

Qatar’s foreign ministry said its delegation will head to Egypt’s capital Cairo to continue indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas. Egypt and Qatar have been mediating talks between Hamas and Israel for months.

Thousands of Israelis protested around the country calling for an immediate agreement. In Jerusalem, around a hundred marched towards Mr Netanyahu’s home with a banner reading: “The blood is on your hands.”

An Israeli official described the Hamas announcement as “a ruse intended to make Israel look like the side refusing a deal”.

Aid groups have warned an attack on Rafah would be disastrous for the 1.4 million Palestinians who have fled there.

Analysis: Peace in Gaza looks as distant as ever

Five killed in airstrikes

Israeli airstrikes killed at least five people in the city last night, including a child and a woman, hospital officials said.

On Sunday Hamas fighters near the Rafah crossing fired mortars into southern Israel and killed four Israeli soldiers.

Israeli leaflets, texts and radio broadcasts ordered Palestinians to evacuate the eastern neighbourhoods of Rafah, warning an attack was imminent and cautioning that anyone who stays “puts themselves and their family members in danger”.

Israel and Hamas urged to ‘go the extra mile’

US President Joe Biden has spoken with Mr Netanyahu and reiterated US concerns about an invasion of Rafah, while UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres urged Israel and Hamas “to go the extra mile needed to make an agreement”, his spokesperson said.

More than 34,600 Palestinians have been killed during the war, around two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza – though the tally does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

The UN has warned the enclave is on the brink of famine.

The war began when Hamas militants stormed across the border into Israel on 7 October, killing around 1,200 people and taking 252 hostages, of whom 133 are believed to still be in captivity in Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

World

Vladimir Putin’s fifth presidential inauguration marks more of the same for a Russia with little choice

Published

4 hours ago

May 7, 2024

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Vladimir Putin's fifth presidential inauguration marks more of the same for a Russia with little choice

The term “inauguration” may feel slightly misleading. After all, this is not his first time.

Today’s ceremony will be the fifth occasion Vladimir Putin has been sworn in as Russia’s president, and it marks the start of another six years at the top.

He is already the Kremlin’s longest-serving leader since Joseph Stalin, having been in power for nearly two and a half decades – 20 years as president, four as prime minister.

By the end of this term, only Catherine the Great will be ahead of him – she ruled Russia way back in the 18th century.

So to some, President Putin may feel more like Permanent Putin.

There is a whole generation here that hasn’t lived under anyone else.

The ceremony itself will be a lavish affair, inside the glittering Grand Kremlin Palace, Russia’s “new” leader will swear an oath of loyalty to the people in front of thousands of guests.

Former Hollywood action hero (and now Russian citizen) Steven Seagal and Germany’s ex-chancellor Gerhard Schroder were among the celebrities and VIPs last time around in 2018.

A lot has changed since then, though. It will be fascinating to see who accepts their invitation.

Putin 5.0 is no surprise, of course. His victory in March’s election was a given.

The only question was his level of support. Officially, he won 87% of the vote, which was widely condemned by Western governments as being neither free nor fair.

The latest polling, however, points to a similar figure. According to the independent Levada Centre, Putin’s current approval ratings are 85%, not far off his all-time-high.

In part, that is down to a “rally behind the flag effect”, says Levada head Denis Volkov, which Putin has been tapping into since his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

But there are other factors too – namely, silencing of the opposition.

“If not Putin, then who?” is a common response, Denis says, when Levada conducts its polls.

What’s more, the Kremlin has complete control of the media landscape.

The population is fed a strict diet of fawning coverage and today will be no different.

For the past week, the main channels have been running adverts urging people to tune into the inauguration.

It’s a spectacle Russia has got used to.

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‘I wanted her to have a future’: Dad’s grief as he buries daughter, 7, crushed to death on migrant boat

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4 hours ago

May 7, 2024

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'I wanted her to have a future': Dad's grief as he buries daughter, 7, crushed to death on migrant boat

There are times when a person is so gripped with helpless despair that they are lost within themselves. Ahmed Alhashimi, a proud man, looks at the small coffin, wrings his hands, stares at the ground and weeps.

Inside the bright white coffin is the body of his daughter, Sara. Watched by a small crowd of family members, charity workers, well-meaning locals and even council workers, her coffin is lowered into a grave.

Then, for 10 or 15 minutes, a group of mourners work hard to use shovels, and even bare hands, to fill the grave with earth.

The mound is patted down, a wooden marker put in place, with her name engraved upon it, and flowers are placed on the grave along with flowers, photos and – crushingly – a favourite soft toy.

Sara was just seven years old when she died a fortnight ago, crushed on a horrendously overcrowded migrant boat that left shore with more than 100 people on board.

Four other people died that day, too. But it is the image of Sara – young, innocent and vulnerable – that lingers. The death of a child is chilling for anyone. For her family, it is devastating.

They want to remember her, to celebrate and mourn. And so it is that, as we stand next to the morgue where his daughter’s body rests, Ahmed actually wants to talk to me.

He invites us to spend the day with him, travelling to the morgue in Lille where prayers are offered, and then to her burial.

“For all the sadness and sorrow, those final scenes of her life are ones that I will never forget,” he tells me, glassy-eyed.

“When she was taken out of the boat, those scenes I will never forget for the rest of my life.

“I lost my daughter. Every father who has a daughter, who knows the love you get from a daughter, can imagine the feeling they would suffer if they were to lose their daughter. For me – I am not imagining. I lost her for real.”

The story of cross-Channel migration is a long one, and it is pockmarked with victims. But Sara is unusual in this. Her parents were Iraqis, but they met in Belgium, where Sara was born while her parents lived in Antwerp.

The family spent some time in Finland, but then tried to make their lives in Sweden. Sara went to school there and learned the language.

Other members of her extended family had been given asylum in the country but, for some reason, Ahmed’s immediate family were denied that status.

They feared being deported back to Iraq and so, instead, decided to try to reach the United Kingdom.

“We were in Sweden for seven years and we did not even think of leaving” Ahmed tells me. “Our children would go to school and live their normal lives. But when we were obliged to leave Sweden, when we received the deportation letter, I was left with no alternative.

“I had no choice,” Ahmed says. “I wanted to protect her life, I wanted her to have a future, a life with dignity like other children, but I could not. Everything went against me.

“The Swedish government, and the immigration officials, are the reason behind the tragedy we suffered. We are talking about children, who were born here in Europe. How could you send them to Iraq?”

I wonder whether he has thought of the future, of what would happen to his family now. Does he still hope to cross the Channel?

Ahmed shakes his head. “Of course not, of course not,” he says, gently. “I do not think of that any more, just the thought of that hurts me.

“I lost my child, I lost my daughter. She was like a butterfly, like a bird, she was everything to us, the light in our home, our source of laughter, she was everything. I lost her and I do not want to lose her brothers.”

He says the boat on which they were travelling was packed, but safe until it was boarded by a rival group of migrants.

“They attacked us,” he tells me. “The water was only a metre deep but there was chaos. That’s when people suffocated.”

His hope now is that the British government will see his pain, feel his loss, and offer hope.

“I call on the British people and the government to help me reach Britain legally. I don’t want assistance. I can work, so can my wife. I just want security and safety for my children. That is all.”

Sara lies now under the shade of a tree in Lille’s cemetery. A girl born in Belgium, to Iraqi parents, who grew up in Sweden and was bound for Britain – now laid to rest in northern France.

It is an awful reminder that there is nothing simple about the challenge of migration. The questions are profound, and the tentacles spread far. And it is also a dire warning – this has been a record year for crossings, and for deaths.

So far this year, I have already been to the funerals of two seven-year-old girls who died trying to cross the Channel on a small boat. There will, inevitably, be another tragedy. The only question is when.