Articles by "HERAT"
Herat, Jul 31: A roadside bomb hit a Kabul-bound passenger bus in western Afghanistan today, killing at least eight people and wounding around 40, mostly women and children, officials said.
"It was a bomb planted by the Taliban to hit security forces but unfortunately it got a passenger bus," Farah provincial police spokesman Muhibullah Muhib told AFP.
There was no immediate confirmation that the Taliban was responsible for the blast, but Afghanistan's largest militant group is very active in the province.
The explosion happened as the bus travelled through Bala Baluk district of Farah at 4:30 am (0000 GMT), provincial governor spokesman Naser Mehri told AFP.
Photos posted on social media purportedly of the bus showed the vehicle's blackened shell and dozens of Afghan men standing at the scene.
Civilians have borne the brunt of the 17-year conflict and improvised explosive devices, such as remotely detonated or pressure-plate bombs, are one of the main causes of casualties.
Such IEDs caused 877 civilian casualties in the first half of 2018 -- 232 deaths and 645 wounded -- accounting for 17 percent of overall casualties.
The Taliban has a heavy presence in Farah. It launched a major attempt to take over the provincial capital in May, triggering intense fighting with US and Afghan forces.
After a day-long battle, they forced the Taliban fighters to the outskirts of the city. (AFP)
HERAT, Afghanistan, May 15: Taliban
fighters threatened the provincial capital of Farah in western Afghanistan on
Tuesday, with fighting underway on the outskirts of the city where government
forces were defending two police districts, officials and residents said.
A Farah government official and several residents said
security forces were engaged in police districts two and three, around 4 km
(2.5 miles) from the city centre.
"The Taliban are moving very fast, if the
government does not take serious and speedy action, the province is going to
collapse to Taliban," said Hamidullah, a resident of the city reached by
telephone.
Other residents, who spoke on condition of anonymity
because of fears of possible Taliban retribution, said Taliban forces began
their operation at around 2.00 a.m. (2130 GMT Monday), attacking the city from
several directions.
Noorulhaq Khaliqi, a military spokesman in Farah, said
Afghan security forces had repelled the attack but some residents said the
Taliban had already set up checkpoints around the city and were checking identity
cards and preventing people from fleeing.
The fighting adds to the growing number of crisis
points around Afghanistan since the Taliban began their annual spring offensive
last month, including a series of deadly suicide attacks in the capital, Kabul.
District centres have been lost or threatened in the
northern provinces of Baghlan and Badakhshan and there has been heavy fighting
in Faryab in the northwest and Ghazni and Zabul, south of Kabul.
Farah, a remote and sparsely populated province on the
border with Iran, has seen months of heavy fighting, with hundreds of police
and soldiers killed and severe losses inflicted even on elite special forces
units.
Residents in Farah have long warned that the city was
vulnerable. The governor of the province stepped down in January, blaming the
worsening security situation and what he said was political interference and
corruption.
The province, which also borders the opium-rich
Taliban heartland of Helmand province, has key smuggling routes into Iran.
Hundreds of fighters have moved there as U.S. and Afghan forces have stepped up
operations in Helmand.
A doctor from the provincial hospital in Farah, who
did not want to be identified, said so far two dead and 16 wounded members of
the Afghan security forces, as well as five wounded civilians including women
and children, had been taken to the hospital. REUTERS
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