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Tag: Kabul attack

  • Afghan ladies protest Hazara ‘genocide’ after Kabul bombing

    Dozens of girls from Afghanistan’s minority Hazara neighborhood protested within the capital Saturday after a suicide bombing a day earlier killed 20 individuals — largely younger ladies from the ethnic group.

    A bomber blew himself up on Friday at a Kabul examine corridor as a whole lot of pupils have been taking checks in preparation for college entrance exams within the metropolis’s Dasht-e-Barchi space.

    The western neighbourhood is a predominantly Shiite Muslim enclave and residential to the minority Hazara neighborhood — a traditionally oppressed group that has been focused in a few of Afghanistan’s most brutal assaults in recent times.

    Police mentioned not less than 20 individuals have been killed however the United Nations has put the quantity at 24.

    On Saturday about 50 ladies chanted, “Stop Hazara genocide, it’s not a crime to be a Shiite”, as they marched previous a hospital in Dasht-e-Barchi the place a number of victims of the assault have been being handled.

    Dressed in black hijabs and headscarves, offended protesters carried banners that learn: “Stop killing Hazaras”, an AFP correspondent reported.

    Witnesses have instructed AFP that the suicide attacker detonated within the ladies’s part of the gender-segregated corridor.

    “Yesterday’s attack was against the Hazaras and Hazara girls,” protester Farzana Ahmadi, 19, instructed AFP.

    “We demand a stop to this genocide. We staged the protest to demand our rights.”

    Protesters later gathered in entrance of the hospital and chanted slogans as dozens of closely armed Taliban, some carrying rocket-propelled-grenade launchers, stored watch.

    Since the hardline Taliban returned to energy final August, ladies’s protests have turn out to be dangerous, with quite a few demonstrators detained and rallies damaged up by Taliban forces firing pictures within the air.

    No group has claimed accountability for Friday’s assault on the Kaaj Higher Educational Centre.

    But the jihadist Islamic State (IS) group regards Shiites as heretics and has beforehand claimed assaults within the space concentrating on ladies, faculties and mosques.

    The Taliban additionally regard the Hazara neighborhood as heathens, and rights teams usually accused the Islamists of concentrating on them throughout their 20-year insurgency towards the previous US-backed authorities.

    Since returning to workplace the Taliban have pledged to guard minorities and clamp down on safety threats.

    However, rights group Amnesty International mentioned Friday’s assault was “a shamefaced reminder of the inaptitude and utter failure of the Taliban, as de-facto authorities, to protect the people of Afghanistan”.

    In May final 12 months, earlier than the Taliban’s return to energy, not less than 85 individuals — primarily ladies — have been killed and about 300 have been wounded when three bombs exploded close to their faculty in Dasht-e-Barchi.

    No group once more claimed accountability, however a 12 months earlier IS claimed a suicide assault on an academic centre in the identical space that killed 24.

    IS has emerged as a key safety problem for the Taliban, however officers declare their forces have defeated the jihadists.

    — ENDS —

  • Huge explosion hits Kabul mosque, many casualties feared

    An enormous explosion struck a mosque in Kabul throughout night prayers on Wednesday, witnesses and police mentioned, with many feared useless or injured.

    Police mentioned there have been a number of casualties however didn’t say what number of. One Taliban intelligence official instructed Reuters that as many as 35 individuals might have been wounded or killed, and the toll may rise additional. Al Jazeera quoted an unidentified official as giving a loss of life toll of 20.

    Kabul’s Emergency Hospital mentioned on Twitter that they had acquired 27 sufferers wounded within the blast, together with a seven-year-old baby.

    Witnesses instructed Reuters the highly effective explosion was heard in a northern Kabul neighbourhood, shattering home windows in close by buildings. Ambulances rushed to the spot.

    “A blast happened inside a mosque…. the blast has casualties, but the numbers are not clear yet,” Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran instructed Reuters.

    The Taliban intelligence official, talking on situation of anonymity, mentioned the explosion occurred in a mosque amongst worshippers in Khair Khana space of Kabul.

    The Imam of the mosque was amongst these killed and the toll may nonetheless rise, the supply added. Intelligence groups had been at blast website and investigations had been ongoing.

    Other officers within the Taliban authorities didn’t reply to a number of requests to verify the variety of casualties.

  • Suicide bomber killed at Kabul passport workplace gate

    A suicide bomber was killed on the gate of a passport workplace within the Afghan capital Kabul on Thursday, a authorities spokesman stated, and a number of other folks had been injured within the blast, based on unconfirmed reviews.
    A spokesman for Afghanistan’s inside ministry stated the attacker was shot and killed whereas attempting to enter the passport workplace premises.
    One member of the Taliban who was a witness informed Reuters a number of folks had been injured, and the constructing and streets across the space had been locked down by Taliban safety forces.

    Large crowds of Afghans have been thronging exterior the passport workplace in a bid to get journey paperwork in current days after the service was restarted after weeks of suspension.
    Officials stated that Thursdays are reserved as a special occasion for Taliban officers to go to the passport workplace to make journey paperwork.

  • US navy flies out evacuees in waning hours of withdrawal from Afghanistan

    The US navy flew extra determined evacuees out of the Afghan capital on Monday within the waning hours of a last American withdrawal because the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate claimed duty for concentrating on the Kabul airport with rockets. The US navy reported no American casualties.
    The focus of the US evacuation was growing on getting the final Americans out. Senior administration officers mentioned Sunday that the United States has the capability to evacuate the roughly 300 US residents remaining in Afghanistan who wish to go away earlier than President Joe Biden’s Tuesday deadline.

    “This is the most dangerous time in an already extraordinarily dangerous mission these last couple of days,” mentioned America’s prime diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
    The regular stream of US navy jets taking off and touchdown at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan’s capital continued Monday even after rocket hearth focused the airport and rockets hit a close-by neighbourhood. US Central Command spokesman Bill Urban mentioned 5 rockets focused the airport and a US defensive system on the airfield often known as a Counter Rocket, Artillery and Mortar System, or C-RAM, was employed towards them. He mentioned there have been no US casualties and the airfield continued to function. Further particulars weren’t instantly obtainable. The White House mentioned Biden had been briefed on the rocket assault.
    Locals view a car broken by a rocket assault in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 30, 2021. (AP)
    Biden’s nationwide safety adviser, Jake Sullivan, mentioned Sunday that for these US residents searching for instantly to go away Afghanistan by the looming deadline, “we have the capacity to have 300 Americans, which is roughly the number we think are remaining, come to the airport and get on planes in the time that is remaining.”
    The White House mentioned Monday morning that about 1,200 individuals have been evacuated from Kabul over the prior 24 hours aboard 26 US navy flights and two allied flights.

    Sullivan mentioned the US doesn’t at present plan to have an ongoing embassy presence after the ultimate US troop withdrawal. But he pledged the US “will make sure there is safe passage for any American citizen, any legal permanent resident,” after Tuesday, in addition to for “those Afghans who helped us.” But untold numbers of susceptible Afghans, scared of a return to the brutality of pre-2001 Taliban rule, are prone to be left behind.
    Evacuees from Afghanistan are seen at their momentary shelter contained in the US Army Rhine Ordonanz Barracks in Kaiserslautern, Germany, August 30, 2021. (Reuters)
    Blinken mentioned the US was working with different international locations within the area to both maintain the Kabul airport open after Tuesday or to reopen it “in a timely fashion.”
    He additionally mentioned that whereas the airport is vital, “there are other ways to leave Afghanistan, including by road, and many countries border Afghanistan.” The US, he mentioned, is “making sure that we have in place all of the necessary tools and means to facilitate the travel for those who seek to leave Afghanistan” after Tuesday.
    There are also roughly 280 others who’ve mentioned they’re Americans however who’ve instructed the State Department they plan to stay within the nation or are undecided. According to the newest totals, about 114,000 individuals have been evacuated since Aug. 14, together with roughly 2,900 on navy and coalition flights throughout the 24 hours ending at 3 a.m. Sunday.

    MG Taylor: As of right now, greater than 122,000 people together with 5,400 Americans have been evacuated from Afghanistan. pic.twitter.com/3uIYyqBxJs
    — Department of Defense 🇺🇸 (@DeptofDefense) August 30, 2021
    Members of Congress criticized the chaotic and violent evacuation.
    “We didn’t have to be in this rush-rush circumstance with terrorists breathing down our neck,” mentioned Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah. “But it’s really the responsibility of the prior administration and this administration that has caused this crisis to be upon us and has led to what is without question a humanitarian and foreign policy tragedy.”
    Senate Republican chief Mitch McConnell of Kentucky mentioned the US coverage in Afghanistan, with 2,500 troops on the bottom, had been working. “We were, in effect, keeping the lid on, keeping terrorists from reconstituting, and having a light footprint in the country,” he mentioned.
    Panjshir: Militiamen loyal to Ahmad Massoud, son of the late Ahmad Shah Massoud, participate in a coaching train, in Panjshir province, northeastern Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 30, 2021. (AP)
    US officers mentioned Sunday’s American drone strike hit a car carrying a number of Islamic State suicide bombers, inflicting secondary explosions indicating the presence of a considerable quantity of explosive materials. A senior US official mentioned the navy drone fired a Hellfire missile at a car in a compound between two buildings after individuals have been seen loading explosives into the trunk.

    The official mentioned there was an preliminary explosion attributable to the missile, adopted by a a lot bigger fireball, believed to be the results of the substantial quantity of explosives contained in the car. The US believes that two Islamic State group people who have been focused have been killed.
    In an announcement, US Central Command mentioned it’s wanting into the experiences of civilian casualties that will have been attributable to the secondary explosions. An Afghan official mentioned three kids have been killed within the strike. The officers spoke on the situation of anonymity to debate navy operations.
    Crowds collect exterior the primary foreign money trade in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021. (Image/NYT)
    It was the second airstrike in latest days the US has carried out towards the militant group, which claimed duty for the suicide bombing Thursday on the Kabul airport gate that killed 13 US service members and scores of Afghans struggling to get in another country and escape the brand new Taliban rule. The Pentagon mentioned a US drone mission in jap Afghanistan killed two members of IS’ Afghanistan affiliate early Saturday native time in retaliation for the airport bombing.
    In Delaware, Biden met privately with the households of the American troops killed within the suicide assault and solemnly watched because the stays of the fallen returned to US soil from Afghanistan. First woman Jill Biden and lots of the prime US protection and navy leaders joined him on the tarmac at Dover Air Force Base to grieve with family members because the “dignified transfer” of stays unfolded, a navy ritual for these killed in overseas fight.
    The 13 service members have been the primary US troops killed in Afghanistan since February 2020, the month the Trump administration struck an settlement with the Taliban by which the militant group halted assaults on Americans in trade for a US settlement to take away all troops and contractors by May 2021. Biden introduced in April that the two,500 to three,000 troops who remained can be out by September, ending what he has referred to as America’s without end struggle.
    The White House has rescheduled Biden’s assembly with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, from Monday to Wednesday because the US pullout from Afghanistan enters its tense last hours.
    Sullivan appeared on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” CNN’s “State of the Union” and “Fox News Sunday.” Blinken was interviewed on ABC’s “This Week” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.” McConnell was on Fox and Romney was on CNN.

  • US strikes at Islamic State militants in Kabul as Afghan withdrawal nears finish

    A US drone strike killed a suicide automotive bomber who Pentagon officers mentioned was getting ready to strike Kabul airport on Sunday, as American forces labored to finish a withdrawal that can finish 20 years of army involvement in Afghanistan.
    The strike was the second by the US army since an Islamic State suicide bomb outdoors the airport on Thursday killed lots of of Afghans civilians and 13 US troops. The airport has been the scene of a large airlift by US and allied forces evacuating their residents and at-risk Afghans that is because of wind up forward of a Tuesday deadline set by US President Joe Biden.
    Officials mentioned the strike focused suspected militants from ISIS-Okay, a neighborhood affiliate of Islamic State that’s an enemy of each the West and the Taliban motion that seized energy on Aug. 15 after a lightning offensive. One US official mentioned it was carried out by an unmanned plane and that secondary explosions confirmed the goal had been carrying a considerable quantity of explosives.

    Television footage confirmed black smoke rising into the sky. US officers had mentioned they have been significantly involved about ISIS-Okay attacking the airport as American troops depart, specifically the menace from rockets and vehicle-borne explosives.
    Biden mentioned on Saturday that his army chiefs had advised him one other militant assault was extremely seemingly. The drone strike came about whereas remaining civilians waited at Hamid Karzai International Airport to be flown out earlier than the final troops depart, a Western safety official mentioned. A US official advised Reuters on Saturday that fewer than 4,000 US troops remained.

    The Taliban mentioned they’d began their very own investigations into the US strike and whether or not the goal was actually a suicide bomber driving a automobile loaded with explosives.
    The United States and allies have taken about 114,400 individuals — together with overseas nationals and weak Afghans — in a foreign country up to now two weeks, however tens of 1000’s who wish to go shall be left behind.
    “We tried every option because our lives are in danger. They (the Americans or foreign powers) must show us a way to be saved. We should leave Afghanistan or they should provide a safe place for us,” mentioned one girl outdoors the airport.
    The airlift — one of many greatest such evacuation operations ever — marked the top of a 20-year Western mission in Afghanistan that started when US-led forces ousted a Taliban authorities that had offered secure haven for the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults on the United States. The remaining chapter got here after the United States and the Taliban made a deal final 12 months to withdraw overseas troops. The Western-backed authorities and Afghan military then melted away as Taliban fighters swept throughout the nation earlier this month.
    A Taliban official advised Reuters the Islamist group had engineers and technicians able to take cost of the airport. “We are waiting for the final nod from the Americans to secure full control over Kabul airport as both sides aim for a swift handover,” mentioned the official, talking on situation of anonymity.
    Honouring the useless
    At a ceremony on Sunday at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to honor members of the US army killed in Thursday’s assault, Biden shut his eyes and tilted his head again because the flag-draped switch circumstances carrying the stays emerged from a army aircraft. Crying could possibly be heard and one girl collapsed. None of the fallen service members was over the age of 31, and 5 have been simply 20, as previous because the battle in Afghanistan itself.
    Biden has vowed to go after the perpetrators and the United States mentioned on Saturday it had killed two ISIS-Okay militants in a drone strike the day earlier than. The Taliban condemned that strike, which came about in japanese Nangarhar Province bordering Pakistan, saying they need to have been advised about it prematurely. Biden’s nationwide safety adviser, Jake Sullivan, advised CBS’ “Face the Nation” in an interview that Washington anticipated the Taliban to proceed to permit secure passage for Americans and others to depart the nation after the US army withdrawal is accomplished.
    The Afghan authorities’s collapse leaves an administrative vacuum that has led to fears of an financial disaster and widespread starvation. Prices for commodities together with flour, oil and rice are quickly rising and the forex is plunging, with cash changers in Pakistan already refusing to just accept the afghani. On Saturday, officers ordered banks to reopen and imposed a restrict on withdrawals of $200 or 20,000 afghani. Long traces forming outdoors financial institution branches.
    Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has mentioned the group will announce a full Cabinet within the coming days, and that the difficulties will subside rapidly as soon as the brand new administration is up and operating. But with its financial system shattered by a long time of battle, Afghanistan is now dealing with the top of billions of {dollars} in overseas support poured in by Western donors.
    The Taliban additionally appealed to the United States and different Western nations to take care of diplomatic relations after withdrawing. Britain mentioned that ought to occur provided that the Taliban enable secure passage for individuals who wish to depart and respect human rights.

    The Taliban’s 1996-2001 rule was marked by a harsh model of sharia, Islamic regulation, with many political rights and fundamental freedoms curtailed and ladies severely oppressed. Afghanistan was additionally a hub for anti-Western militants, and Washington, London and others worry it’d develop into so once more.
    Biden has confronted criticism at house and overseas for the chaos surrounding the ultimate weeks of US army presence in Afghanistan. He has defended his selections, saying the United States way back achieved its rationale for invading in 2001.

  • Final UK evacuation flight leaves Kabul; troops head residence

    Prime Minister Boris Johnson praised the “heroic” evacuation effort, at the same time as the federal government acknowledged some eligible Afghan civilians had been left behind. The UK’s high navy officer conceded that “we haven’t been able to bring everybody out.”
    The UK authorities stated late on Saturday that about 1,000 troops who ran an airlift of British nationals and Afghan civilians had departed from Kabul airport, hours after the ultimate evacuation flight for civilians. Most nations aside from the United States had already left.

    Before departing, Britain’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Laurie Bristow, stated from Kabul airport that it was “time to close this phase of the operation now.”
    “But we haven’t forgotten the people who still need to leave,” Bristow stated in a video posted on Twitter. “We’ll continue to do everything we can to help them. Nor have we forgotten the brave, decent people of Afghanistan. They deserve to live in peace and security.”
    Britain says it has evacuated greater than 15,000 folks from Kabul up to now two weeks however that as many as 1,100 Afghans who had been entitled to come back to the UK have been left behind. Some British lawmakers who’ve been making an attempt to assist stranded constituents and their households imagine the true complete is increased.

    “We haven’t been able to bring everybody out, and that has been heartbreaking, and there have been some very challenging judgments that have had to be made on the ground,” the top of British armed forces, Gen. Nick Carter, instructed the BBC.
    Foreign residents from all over the world and the Afghans who labored with them have sought to depart the nation for the reason that Taliban’s swift takeover this month after most US forces departed. About 117,000 folks have been evacuated via Kabul airport, based on American officers.

  • As US troops searched Afghans, a bomber within the crowd moved in

    The suicide bomber waited till the final attainable second, U.S. officers mentioned.
    A crowd straining to get into Hamid Karzai International Airport had converged on Abbey Gate, a predominant entryway manned by Marines and different service members. The troops knew that they could possibly be focused in an assault; simply the day earlier than, the State Department had warned of a “credible” menace at three gates on the airport, the place greater than 5,000 U.S. troops had helped to evacuate greater than 100,000 folks in lower than two weeks. Abbey Gate was on the listing.

    Airport safety had closed two of the gates, however determined to depart Abbey Gate open, U.S. officers mentioned.
    An Afghan girl tries to determine a physique at a hospital in Kabul on Friday, a day after the assaults close to the airport. (AP)
    They additionally mentioned that, earlier within the day, Taliban commanders and fighters manning checkpoints alongside the airport route twice pushed again surging crowds, however they got here again once more.

    That third time, another person got here with them.
    At 5:48 p.m., the bomber, sporting a 25-pound explosive vest below clothes, walked as much as the group of Americans who have been frisking folks hoping to enter the complicated. He waited, officers mentioned, till simply earlier than he was about to be searched by the U.S. troops. And then he detonated the bomb, which was unusually massive for a suicide vest, killing himself and igniting an assault that would depart dozens of individuals lifeless, together with 13 U.S. service members.

    “This is close-up war — the breath of the person you are searching is upon you,” Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the top of United States Central Command, mentioned Thursday after the assault, describing the face-to-face contact between Marines on the airport gate and Afghans they have to search earlier than permitting them to enter.
    An individual wounded in a bomb blast outdoors the worldwide airport in Kabul, Afghanistan on Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021, arrives at a hospital in Kabul. The Pentagon confirmed at the least two blasts outdoors the Kabul airport and mentioned there have been quite a few casualties, after Western governments warned of a safety menace there. (Victor J. Blue/The New York Times)
    Pentagon officers mentioned they have been nonetheless piecing collectively the chain of occasions that occurred at Abbey Gate on Thursday. There might be after-action opinions and storyboards with detailed lists of what led as much as that second. There might be questions: Why have been so many service members grouped so shut collectively? How did the bomber evade the Taliban checkpoints? Did somebody let him via?

    As the scope of the harm turned clearer, well being officers in Kabul raised the loss of life toll, saying at the least 170 folks had been killed. Afghans looking for to flee Taliban rule continued to stream to the airport Friday, however the dimension of the gang was estimated within the tons of, down from the 1000’s who have been there when the blast occurred. The airport remained largely locked down, though evacuation flights continued.

    Just after 2 p.m. Friday, as one other gray-tailed U.S. plane lifted into the sky from the airport, this one carrying the flag-draped coffins of the 13 Americans, the anguish from Thursday’s bombing unfold from Kabul to Kansas. At the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, service members have been bracing for the ritual of dressing and making ready yet one more group of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan.
    Kabul: Afghans lie on beds at a hospital after they have been wounded within the lethal assaults outdoors the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Aug. 27, 2021. Two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabul’s airport Thursday, remodeling a scene of desperation into one among horror within the waning days of an airlift for these fleeing the Taliban takeover. (AP/PTI)
    “I’m never been one for politics and I’m not going to start now,” Marilyn Soviak, the sister of Maxton Soviak, a Navy corpsman from Ohio who was among the many lifeless, posted on Instagram. “What I will say is that my beautiful, intelligent, beat-to-the-sound of his own drum, annoying, charming baby brother was killed yesterday helping to save lives.”
    Just after the bomb went off, Defense Department officers mentioned, fighters close by started firing weapons. The officers mentioned that a number of the Americans and Afghans at Abbey Gate may need been hit by that gunfire. There was a lot confusion within the aftermath of the explosion that the army initially reported {that a} second suicide bombing had taken place at close by Baron Hotel. That turned out to be false, based on Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor, the Joint Staff deputy director for regional operations.
    At 25 kilos, the vest worn by the suicide bomber did untold harm. According to Army manuals, suicide bombers sometimes put on both a belt containing 10 kilos or much less of explosives, or a vest full of 10 to twenty kilos of explosives. With a 25-pound vest that included items of steel that acted as deadly shrapnel, the bomber additionally wounded dozens of Afghans, in addition to 14 extra U.S. troops, who have been medevaced to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center close to the Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
    From the second final month that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a Marine Expeditionary Unit from the USS Iwo Jima to disembark in Kuwait and be prepared to assist with evacuations within the occasion that Kabul fell to a surging Taliban, it has been clear to U.S. troops that they may as soon as once more find yourself on the entrance traces of a warfare in Afghanistan that has been declared completed by a succession of presidents.
    It didn’t take lengthy for Hamid Karzai International Airport to rework from a industrial hub to the ultimate defensive place for the U.S. army, which had as soon as surged tens of 1000’s of troops to far-flung corners of Afghanistan. Apache gunships circled overhead, and Marine quick-reaction forces orbited the perimeter. In the command heart, feeds from drones and surveillance cameras piped in infrared photographs of crowds massing on the gates.

    The Marines who have been manning Abbey Gate on Thursday had arrived in Kabul a couple of week earlier. They have been recent, and linked up with their British paratrooper counterparts with one aim in thoughts: Get as many individuals via as attainable. That meant utilizing an interpreter and a loudspeaker to steer a surging crowd to maneuver again, a painstaking process that allowed the Marines to open two entry factors.
    The fall of Kabul had unleashed a tsunami of cellphone calls, emails and determined texts from the overseas organizations that had labored in Afghanistan over the previous 20 years, all imploring the Pentagon for assist getting their Afghan staff and allies evacuated. Other individuals who labored with Afghans, together with lecturers who visited colleges in Afghanistan, joined American senators, media chiefs and the heads of worldwide organizations in asking for assist for his or her former companions, who’re at risk of Taliban reprisals.
    The requests reached the U.S. troops at Kabul airport. “The Marines who died were the ones who were helping our team,” mentioned Cori Shepherd, a filmmaker who as soon as helped Afghan women come to highschool within the United States. “These men were quite literally going into the masses and pulling our women to safety, while coordinating with our guy to find them. The men who worked Abbey Gate were brave beyond measure.”
    Rear Adm. Peter G. Vasely, a former member of the Navy SEALs working the airport operation, requested Taliban commanders to examine folks heading towards Abbey Gate extra carefully, the officers mentioned. The Taliban, McKenzie instructed reporters on Thursday, could have “thwarted” different makes an attempt.

    But ultimately, “there’s no substitute for a young man or woman — a young United States man or woman — standing up there conducting a search of that person before we let him in,” McKenzie mentioned.
    The effort to get weak folks out of Afghanistan will proceed, he mentioned. “Because that is why we are there.”

  • A 12 months after Kabul assault, Afghan Sikhs lengthy for a settled life 

    A 12 months after 25 Afghan Sikhs have been killed within the Kabul gurdwara assault in March final 12 months, United Sikhs, an NGO affiliated to the United Nations, paid tribute to the deceased, and honoured the surviving households in New Delhi on Wednesday.
    The assault had taken place contained in the Guru Har Rai Sahib Gurudwara.
    Chaibul Singh, 25, was in Ghazni in Afghanistan on March 25 final 12 months when he obtained a name from a member of the family informing him concerning the gurdwara assault. Chaibul’s childhood pal and his uncle have been amongst these killed.
    In September 2020, Chaibul got here to India on an emergency flight with eight different relations. They are but to be formally categorized as refugees or residents of India. They haven’t any Aadhaar card, which makes it tough for them to search out jobs. “That one incident changed our lives. While we had shops and homes there, we had to leave everything behind. Now, I work here for Rs 8,000 and my younger brother does a menial job earning Rs 7,000 a month. Lack of documentation and difficulty in speaking Hindi also works against us. We used to speak Pashto or Punjabi in Afghanistan. People find it difficult to understand my Punjabi dialect here,” added Chaibul.
    Parvinder Singh Nanda, director, United Sikhs, stated that they had been working laborious to help these households, because it was tough for them to maintain by themselves.

    “To even get medical treatment, they require money and some ID proof. We have helped them get passports, assisted with educational assistance and also provided them free medical assistance through the Delhi government. The next step is to seek assistance from the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, the process for which is under way,” he added.

    Surbeer Singh, 39, of Ghazni, Afghanistan, a widely-respected spiritual chief of Sikh Afghan households in Delhi, says, “The Indian government has helped us by bringing us to the country through emergency flights. I know of at least 87 families who came to India, along with mine. We don’t need Aadhaar cards. We need to get resettled.”
    Surbeer Singh’s concluding assertion is illustrative and can stick with you. “I cannot get out of my mind the image of the three-year-old girl who was killed in the massacre. There were children, elderly people and women in the Gurdwara that day. The attack left people in shock. While we never feared anything earlier, this incident changed that and we were forced to start looking at other options.”

  • Sikh man killed in Kabul blastL Wife watches final rites on video name; in her arms, toddler son who by no means noticed his father

    EVER SINCE his son was born final October, Sunny Singh alias Manto (27), a small-time medicines and spices dealer, would name his spouse in Ludhiana a number of instances a day from Kabul.
    “He would say that he cannot wait to hold Gurvansh in his arms,” mentioned Shivani alias Sneha, the spouse of Sunny, an Afghan Sikh who died in a blast in Kabul Saturday.
    Sunny by no means received to see his son. As his final rites had been completed by members of the minority Sikh group in Kabul, his spouse watched on video name.
    “My husband had gone to Kabul in August last year and our son was born in October. He had not returned to Ludhiana since then. He was living in Kabul to earn for us but his heart and mind were always here. On Friday night, he spoke to me till late night and kept asking if the baby was doing fine. But he has died without seeing his son. There can’t be anything more unfortunate,” mentioned Shivani (21) from Mundian Kalan of Ludhiana, who had received married to Sunny in February final 12 months.
    Harinder Singh Khalsa, one other Afghan Sikh whose household lives in Meena Bazar of Ludhiana, whereas talking to The Indian Express from Kabul, mentioned, “Sunny, Chucha Singh and Sher Singh were in their shops in Shor Bazar when the explosion took place… Sunny was born in Kabul and his cremation was done here only Saturday.”
    Shivani mentioned that ever since she heard the information of her husband’s loss of life, she has been questioning what the long run holds for her and her son, who’s affected by a coronary heart ailment since beginning. “We do not even have our own home as of now… There can’t be a more unfortunate thing than my son not being able to meet his father…”