Shahidy
Times Now: Soraya Shahidy of Afghanistan is an artist in the conservative country who is breaking stereotypes with her creations. Shahidy believes she is the first-ever females tattoo artist in a country where many scholars say that tattoos are forbidden under Islam. Click here to read more (external link).
Ariana: A photograph obtained by The Guardian shows a senior Australian special forces soldier drinking beer out of the prosthetic leg of a dead Taliban fighter at an unauthorised bar on a base in Uruzgan province, in Afghanistan, in 2009. The picture of the beer swilling soldier comes amid a growing scandal following the release of a report recently that Australia’s special forces were allegedly responsible for the unlawful death of 39 Afghans. Click here to read more (external link).
Ahmadi
Tolo News: A document seen by Tolo News suggests that Ajmal Ahmadi, the governor of the Central Bank of Afghanistan, has made dozens of new appointments over the recent months with special privileges offered to the candidates. The documents show that some of the newly appointed employees were paid more than 450,000 Afs under the name of an exceptional salary difference. Click here to read more (external link).
1TV: A total of 150 new cases of HIV were registered over the past nine months in Afghanistan, the country’s health ministry said on Tuesday. Data with the Ministry of Public Health shows that 3,033 people have been infected with HIV since 1989. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News: The Ministry of Public Health on Tuesday reported 219 new positive cases of COVID-19 out of 1,650 samples tested in the last 24 hours. Data by the ministry shows that the cumulative total of cases is now 46,717, the cumulative total of reported deaths is 1,800, and the cumulative total of recoveries is 36,232. Click here to read more (external link).
Jamila is 35 years old, a mother of six, and says her drug-dealing husband got her addicted to heroin. In the southern Afghan city of Kandahar where she lives, there are an estimated 300,000 drug addicts and only one treatment center that offers no places for women.
In Afghanistan’s central Bamiyan province, women have enjoyed relatively more freedom than elsewhere in the country. But many of them are now facing an uncertain future. VOA’s Ayesha Tanzeem reports.
Donald Trump
The Atlantic: Since the day he entered office, President Donald Trump hasn’t been able to make up his mind about whether the United States should keep fighting in Afghanistan. His most recent decision to arbitrarily reduce U.S. troops’ presence to a nice, round number by January 15 was no different. Far from ending what he calls an “endless war,” Trump has only put the 2,500 troops who will remain in Afghanistan at greater risk. Click here to read more (external link).
Hamza Waziristani
By Radio Free Afghanistan / Radio Mashaal
November 30, 2020
Afghan forces have killed a member of the Taliban whom Kabul says was the mastermind of a suicide car-bombing that left at least 30 security personnel dead.
Hamza Waziristani was killed in an air strike overnight in the eastern province of Ghazni, where the bomber struck an Afghan military base on November 29.
Health officials in Ghazni said 30 people died in the November 29 attack, but the Defense Ministry — which is known to downplay tolls in attacks against its forces — said 10 were killed.
The attack was one of the deadliest in months targeting Afghan government forces as violence has surged despite the start in September of peace talks between President Ashraf Ghani’s administration and the Taliban in Qatar.
The intra-Afghan talks are part of a February deal between the United States and the Taliban that paved the way for the withdrawal of foreign troops by May 2021.
No group has claimed the Ghazni attack, but the Taliban often does not comment on deadly attacks it is accused of carrying out.
“The mastermind behind yesterday’s terrorist attack on the (Ghazni) base was killed along with seven other terrorists,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement on November 30.
Military spokesman Fawad Aman told the media that Waziristani was a Taliban militant from the Pakistani border region of Waziristan.
In northwestern Badghis Province, officials said the commander of an Afghan Army brigade was killed in a Taliban mortar attack late on November 29.
The commander, Abdul Basir Nuristani, was killed in the Bala Murgha district of the province, local officials said.
The officials said a mortar landed in the army compound and that 11 other soldiers were also wounded.
In neighboring Pakistan, unidentified gunmen on November 30 killed four tribal elders in the North Waziristan tribal district bordering Afghanistan, police officials and locals told RFE/RL.
The incident occurred in Khaisoor, a town in the Mir Ali region of North Waziristan. The elders were traveling in a car when gunmen opened fire at them from another vehicle. The attackers managed to escape the scene.
With reporting by dpa and dawn.com
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