Rashid Khan
Tolo News: Afghanistan’s National Cricket Team defeated Bangladesh by 136 runs in the 2018 Asia Cup as they showed an excellent team performance on Thursday evening. A rapid half-century and 2/13 from Rashid Khan saw his side canter to a 136-run win over Bangladesh. Click here to read more (external link).
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Shaida Mohammad Abdali
The Hindu: As the Afghanistan President left at the end of his one-day visit to Delhi, Ambassador Dr. Shaida Mohammad Abdali announced his resignation in a tweet. The timing of his resignation has strengthened speculation that he has differences with the Ghani government and will run for office on return. Click here to read more (external link).
AFP: Women often arrive in extremis at the maternity hospital in southeastern Afghanistan, one of the most active in the world, with more than 60 babies born daily. The Taliban are active in the region and roads are often dangerous after dark, so when 25-year-old Asmad Fahri felt her contractions begin at night she knew she would have to wait until daybreak to begin the three-hour journey to the hospital. Click here to read more (external link).
The Ashura day of mourning is marked with public rituals that involve men and women dressed in black parading through the streets slapping their chests and chanting. (file photo)
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
September 20, 2018
Members of the Shi’ite minorities in Afghanistan and Pakistan have commemorated Ashura, the holiest celebration in their religious calendar, amid heightened security measures against possible sectarian attacks.
The festival making the seventh-century killing of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, this year fell on September 20.
In the Shi’ite neighborhoods of the Afghan capital, Kabul, armed volunteer groups stood guard at mosques and major intersections.
Large vehicles were also banned from streets where places of worship are located to prevent car-bomb attacks, according to Basir Mujahid, a spokesman for Kabul’s police chief.
A series of deadly attacks on Afghanistan’s mainly ethnic Hazara Shi’ite minority in recent weeks had fueled fears of more violence during Ashura.
The Sunni extremist group Islamic State (IS), which considers Shi’a “apostates” who deserve death, claimed responsibility for those attacks.
In neighboring Pakistan, which has been hit by frequent sectarian violence, paramilitary troops and police officers fanned out to protect processions by Shi’ite mourners.
Mobile phone services were also cut in big cities holding commemorations for fear of bombings, and motorbikes were stopped from carrying multiple passengers to prevent drive-by shootings.
The Ashura day of mourning is marked with public rituals that involve men and women dressed in black parading through the streets slapping their chests and chanting.
Some Shi’ite men seek to emulate Hussein’s martyrdom at Karbala, in today’s Iraq, by flagellating themselves with chains or cutting their foreheads.
With reporting by Reuters, AP, and the BBC
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Azizullah Fazli
Tolo News: Azizullah Fazli was formally introduced as the new head of Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) at a ceremony on Wednesday. Fazli said he wants to review the incumbent structure of the cricket board and the selection committee and that he will establish a system through which best employees will be appreciated and admired for their good work. “The national players should work with a national mindset. The Afghanistan Cricket Board requires changes, it has to improve cricket and build cricket grounds that meet international norms,” Fazli said. Click here to read more (external link).
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New York Times: The bay windows in the Bost Hotel’s dining room looked out across the Helmand River. For all the river’s immensity, the current, borne hundreds of miles from up in the Hindu Kush, spoke only in whispers. The air hummed with mosquitoes. Beyond the river, on the outskirts of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, red tracer rounds arced across the night sky. Click here to read more (external link).
Gulajan Abdulbadi Sayyad
Ariana: “We have made our efforts to use the biometric system in the Election Day and to recognize every voters that cannot vote for the second time,” Abdul Basi Sayad, the chairman of IEC said. However, a number of parties claim that they have not negotiated regarding the biometric system with IEC officials and called for holding a tripartite meeting among the government, parties and the company which prepares the system’s technology. “Our specific demand is holding a tripartite meeting among the government, parties and the company that every side can understand the details,” Muhammad Nateqi, a member of Afghanistan Wahdat-e Islami leadership said. Click here to read more (external link).
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Press TV
September 19, 2018
Muslim worshippers leaving a mosque in London have been hit by a car in a possible hate crime that saw the driver hurling Islamophobic slurs at the people taking part in a religious ceremony for the grandson of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
UK police and officials at the Hussaini Association located in the Cricklewood area of northwest London said the attack began in the early hours of Wednesday.
The alleged assailants, reported in local media to be three men and a woman, all in their mid-20s, taunted and shouted Islamophobic insults, police and Mosque officials said.
Witnesses reportedly saw a red Nissan Juke speeding down Oxgate Lane, mounting the pavement, hitting community members who were making their way home after the program ended.
Authorities said a man in his 50s had been hospitalized to receive treatments for a serious leg injury while two men, in their 20s also sustained injuries in the attack.
Up to 1,500 worshipers were at the center to mark the martyrdom of Imam Hussein (PBUH), a grandson of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and Shia Islam’s third Imam.
The lectures and mourning ceremonies, organized by the Hussaini Association, is the largest of such religious programs in London.
The organizers said the program had just finished and those in attendance were leaving the venue when the suspected vehicle veered onto Oxgate Lane from a side road and sped down towards the Edgware Road junction.
One witness reportedly said the driver “was trying to kill people”.
“This was someone who was trying to take out as many people as possible. He swerved left right trying to hit people,” said another bystander.
London Metropolitan Police have confirmed they are treating the incident as a suspected ‘hate crime’ with Police Chief Superintendent Simon Rose describing the attack as a “racist Islamophobic attack”.
Balagh Al Balaghi, the spokesperson for the mosque said in a statement that Muslim living in the area would “not let hatred sow division within the community”. He emphasized the peaceful message of Imam al-Hussein who is honored by Muslims around the world at this time of the year.
The attack comes as anti-Muslim hate crimes and incidents have been steadily rising across the United Kingdom in recent years.
Last year, a man identified as Darren Osborne ploughed into worshipers outside Finsbury Park Mosque in London, leading to the death of 51-year-old Makram Ali.