Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
September 16, 2019
At least seven people have been killed in separate attacks in Afghanistan while one-third of the country was hit by a blackout.
Mohibullah Mohib, spokesman for the police chief of the western Farah Province, said five people, including women and children, were killed when a roadside bomb hit a vehicle on September 15 near the provincial capital of Farah.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but the Taliban is active in the province and earlier this month it launched an offensive to take the city of Farah. The insurgents briefly seized an army recruitment center and set it ablaze.
A sticky bomb attached to a minibus belonging to the university in Ghazni Province exploded and killed the bus driver on September 16. Arif Noori, spokesman for the provincial governor, said five Ghazni University students were also wounded in the blast.
In eastern Logar Province, a schoolgirl died in the crossfire during a battle in the Mohammad Agha district between the Taliban and the security forces, the police said. A second student was wounded.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s main power utility said that households and businesses in about a third of the country have been hit by blackouts after electricity pylons in the northern province of Baghlan were blown up over the weekend.
The utility, Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS), said on September 16 that three pylons carrying 220 KW of electricity imported from neighboring Uzbekistan had been destroyed the previous day, cutting power in 11 of the country’s 34 provinces, including the capital, Kabul.
There was no claim of responsibility for the attacks, which come as fighting has intensified in northern provinces including Baghlan amid stalled efforts by the United States and the Taliban to agree plans to withdraw thousands of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
DABS said engineers had arrived from neighboring provinces to work on restoring the pylons.
Afghanistan generates only 25 percent of its electricity domestically and the lines bringing power in from Uzbekistan have been attacked regularly, forcing those that can afford it to rely on expensive diesel generators.
With reporting by AP and Reuters
Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
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