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| Afghanistan |
| Suicide Attack on Afghanistan Funeral Kills at Least 9 |
| 2015-01-30 |
| [AnNahar] At least nine people were killed Thursday when a jacket wallah let 'er rip at a funeral for the victims of a roadside kaboom in eastern Afghanistan, provincial officials said. "A suicide kaboomer let 'er rip when he was identified by the police," said Khawani, the deputy security chief of eastern Laghman province where the attack took place, who goes by one name. "Nine people were killed -- five police and four civilians -- as a result of the attack," he told AFP, adding that 34 people were also maimed by the bomb. Earlier a local official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said at least eight people were killed in the attack in the city of Mehtarlam. Laghman governor front man Sarhadi Zwak placed the corpse count at 16, with another 39 maimed. No one has grabbed credit for the attack but suicide kabooms are a hallmark of the Taliban's war against foreign and Afghan cops, now in its fourteenth year. The turbans are able to mount regular attacks across swathes of the country, particularly southern and eastern provinces. Thursday's funeral was being held for a police commander and three other people who were killed in a roadside kaboom blast, according to Zwak. Afghanistan saw a surge in violence last year as international forces wound down their combat mission, which began in 2001. It has now been downgraded to support and training duties to help the Afghan army and police. About 17,000 foreign soldiers, most of them from the U.S., will remain in Afghanistan as part of the new mission. But U.S. troop numbers are set to halve within 12 months and fall to almost nothing in two years. Civilian casualties rose 19 percent from the previous year to a record high in 2014, with nearly 3,200 civilians killed and over 6,400 injured, according to a U.N. report released in December. Casualties among children jumped a third and among women by 12 percent by the end of November, in the deadliest year for non-combatants, said the report. Afghanistan is also grappling with political instability after politicians Wednesday rejected most of President Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. .. 's nominees for the new cabinet, a fresh setback for the newly formed "national unity government". Ghani, like his predecessor Hamid Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtunface on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... , has promised to reach out to the Taliban to find a lasting peace for his country, without compromising on fundamental values including women's rights. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #7 Laissez les tetes rouler |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2015-01-30 17:24 |
| #6 Touché! |
| Posted by: Shipman 2015-01-30 17:07 |
| #5 I bet they'd go really nuts at a funeral in New Orleans. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2015-01-30 16:06 |
| #4 You, of course, are referring to those you RINOs call the "American Taliban"? |
| Posted by: Pappy 2015-01-30 14:33 |
| #3 Cong never called me RINO! |
| Posted by: Shipman 2015-01-30 11:39 |
| #2 I've thought them and IS as more akin to the Viet Cong, Sandinistas, Khmer Rouge, ANC, PLO, Black Panthers, et cetera. Which is probably why the Left and this regime act the way they do - it's a common ground of sorts. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2015-01-30 11:18 |
| #1 but the Taliban aren't terrorists, right, Josh Earnest? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2015-01-30 09:17 |