RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan
September 9, 2018
KABUL — A suicide bomber on a motorcycle has blown himself up near a procession in the Afghan capital commemorating the death of a revered resistance leader, killing at least seven people, officials say.
Kabul police spokesman Hashmat Stanekzai told RFE/RL that more than 20 people were wounded when the blast hit a procession honoring former mujahedin commander Ahmad Shah Masud.
All the casualties were civilians, according to the Interior Ministry.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest deadly attack in the Afghan capital.
Hours earlier, Afghan security forces shot and killed a man they said was planning to blow himself up near supporters of Masud, who led resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and to Taliban rule from 1996-2001.
Masud, an ethnic Tajik, was assassinated ahead of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, and other late defenders of Afghanistan.
Before the September 9 blast rocked Kabul, gunfire could be heard across the city as demonstrators fired automatic weapons to commemorate the 17th anniversary of Masud’s death.
Health Ministry spokesman Waheed Majroh said at least 13 people were wounded by falling bullets and taken to hospital.
Police arrested 110 people carrying weapons and firing aimlessly, and seized 20 cars, the Interior Ministry said.
The September 9 blast came four days after a twin bomb attack at a Kabul wrestling club killed more than 20 people.
The extremist group Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the bombings, which occurred in a predominately Shi’ite neighborhood.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, officials said more than 20 members of the Afghan security forces were reported killed on September 9.
Ten security personnel died and eight wounded during an hourslong gunbattle with militants in Wardak Province, near Kabul, provincial governor spokesman Abdul Rahman Mangal said.
“Air strikes were called in and over 50 Taliban fighters were killed” in the fighting in Daimirdad district, he added.
In the western province of Herat, attackers targeted a checkpoint in Obe district, killing nine members of the security forces, according to provincial governor spokesman Jailani Farhad.
Five others were wounded in the attack that ended when reinforcements were sent to the scene, Farhad said, adding that 15 militants were also killed.
And in northern Baghlan Province, five army soldiers were killed when militants attacked checkpoints, Defense Ministry spokesman Ghafor Ahmad Jawed said.
He added that reinforcements were being sent to the area.
The officials said the three attacks were carried out by the Taliban, though the militant group did not immediately comment on the assaults.
Afghan government forces have struggled to counter attacks from both the Taliban and the IS group since the withdrawal of most NATO combat troops in 2014.
The latest violence comes ahead of parliamentary elections next month and amid escalating tensions between ethnic groups in Afghanistan.
With reporting by AFP, Reuters, and AP
Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
Related
ON
*A “Sacred Mission”
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••
===================
GREAT
AHMAD SHAH MASSOOD
OF
AFGHANISTAN
.
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*****
***
THE
HIGH RIVER VALLEY :
•••••••••••••••••••••
*
Strong sense of traditional Islamic piety
always dominated most aspects of lives; like
daily prayer calls- all through out the constellations of towns and villages that stretched below under the high peaked glaciers and lower rugged terrains along the steep mountain slopes and swift-running river flows of Punj-Shayr high valley ((roughly 75 miles long)).
Interacting towns and villages are also dotted along the Punj-Shayr river banks, on its winding path ways, from
“Gul-Bahahr” rapids and falls, all the way to “Tug-Aub” hamlets
south of
“Kapisa” Province.
((next to eastern high flanks of the
“Shamali’s big valley”)).
*****
***
*
Those loosely-connected and traditional networks of isolated communities were always culturally well-defined and tacitly maintained under unofficially-strict Islamic norms and jurisdictions which gave the whole region a rare form of “cohesive unity”- unparalleled to most other parts
of
the country at large.
*
Those deeply-held ancient symbolic expressions
((early 70’s)) were always acting as a sort of counterbalance to
shifting cultural modes and trends of
“Kabul City”
((roughly 60 miles southeast from the entrance to the Punj-Shayr valley))
*
Kabul City was rapidly modernizing and slowly turning into a major international political hub right in the midst
of
Central and Southwest Asia.
*
A case in point, was the presence of more than thirty embassies that were representing many countries across the world.
*
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~~~~~
~~~
~
FOR
A SACRED CAUSE :
••••••••••••••••••••
*
The intensification of tug of the cold-wars among the major international political power brokers and their collaborators,
((later 70’s and onwards)), began to gradually stir endemic regional instabilities that made the whole region, at times, greatly-vulnerable
to
extreme forms of social upheaval and foreign take overs.
*
*
The Capital was getting increasingly alienated, on its social, economical and political platforms and affairs, from the rest of the strongly-established traditional rural lives, outside the mainstreams of the Capital city where foreigners, ((even hippies)), were freely mingling and actively pushing and selling their unique agendas to agents of the government and local businesses
*
The political mobilization and later tactical resistance and stands of the alliance under
Ahmad Shah Massood’s charismatic ideological and military leadership against the Soviet invasion ((December of 1979)) turned as a solid model, for most other parts of the country.
*
The mottos of his movement were closely resonated with the traditional cultural and religious aspirations of the majority of the people of Afghanistan
*
=================
Social mobilization of the Muslim people of
“Punj-Shayr”, ((a conservative and isolated river valley bastion)), was set to be used as a model for the rest of the country- it was the beginning of a “sacred cause” that soon transcended the
geographic boundaries
and
ethnic lines.
==================
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The wise leadership formulated something special by embracing
deeply-rooted traditionally-practical schools of Islamic jurisprudence as inspirational guide- it was all meant to address the cherished traditional religious norms, as well as, the cultural independence of those isolated folks that were increasingly coming under intense social pressures and harmful grips of foreign-inspired ideologies.
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*
Ahmad Shah Massood was keenly aware of his position and the required urgency and devotion to help counter the imposing agendas that were mainly serving the exclusive geopolitical interests of the imposing powers.
*
==========
=====
===
=
ON
A STRAIGHT PATH :
••••••••••••••••••••
*
Soon, after the Soviet departure from Afghanistan, ((1989)), all hopeful signs of a peaceful Afghanistan dashed; due to executions of new rounds of destabilizing plots that were obviously meant to perpetuate anarchies and derail peaceful process among the Islamic political parties inside Afghanistan.
*
*
The dilemmas of the presence of arrogantly-poised
foreign military and diplomatic corps, on one hand, and the critically-importance of a peaceful resolution as a final aspiration of the regular folks, on the other hand, kept
Ahmad Shah Massood
and
other honorable resistance leaders vigilant, as well as,
suspiciously-puzzled- all due to greedy and savage natures of the foreign-conceived
dirty schemes and their
direct
and/or
indirect
military interventions.
*
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***************
**********
*****
Obviously, the main purpose of the foreign perpetrators was to maintain the powerful mass movements of Afghanistan at bay- by keeping the internal infernos aflame under the intense fires of
imposed anarchies
and
disunity.
*
*
In spite of major efforts
by
Ahmad Shah Massood; his associates and other honorable Islamic leaders of Afghanistan for a peaceful resolution, the leaderships
of
the bullying international powers were always opting
to
deprive
the great people
of
Afghanistan, once again, from restoration
of
civilized
law and order
*
*****************************
*****************************
*AN
IMPARTIAL
INTERNATIONAL PEACE CONFERENCE
ON
AFGHANISTAN
IS
THE
ONLY
LOGICAL
ROUTE !!!!!
*