Afghan Man Detained Following Mass Knife Attack In France

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franceRadio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
September 1, 2019

Police in France detained an Afghan asylum-seeker after one person was killed and nine others injured in a knife attack near a commuter train station outside Lyon.

Authorities on August 31 described the attacker as a 33-year-old Afghan citizen who had applied for asylum in France and was waiting for a response.

Police said a 19-year-old man was killed and three of the others were in critical condition following what was described as a “frenzied” attack.

“There was blood everywhere,” said a woman who witnessed the attack in the town of Villeurbanne.

Authorities said the incident did not immediately appear to be terrorism-related and it was not known if the assailant knew the victims.

French cities are on high alert following several deadly attacks blamed on Islamic extremists in 2015 and 2016.

Based on reporting by AP and AFP

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.

Pakistani Army, Quetta Shura Design Taliban’s Programs: Saleh

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Amrullah Saleh

Amrullah Saleh

Ariana: Pakistan’s army and the Quetta Shura are designing programs for the Taliban insurgent group, a senior member of Ashraf Ghani’s State-Builder team said on Saturday. Amrullah Saleh, the former chief of Afghan intelligence agency and first Vice President of Ashraf Ghani’s electoral ticket said that the Taliban are not independent to launch direct talks with the Afghan government. Click here to read more (external link).

Taliban Insurgents Assault Key Afghan City as Peace Talks Continue

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kunduzAyaz Gul
VOA News
August 31, 2019

ISLAMABAD – The Taliban have staged a “large-scale” predawn attack on an important city in northern Afghanistan, even as leaders of the insurgent group are engaged in marathon peace talks with the United States on ending the deadly war.

Residents and officials said Saturday insurgents assaulted Kunduz, the capital of the province with the same name, from several different directions, triggering intense gun battles with Afghan government forces.

Both sides reportedly have suffered casualties and civilians also have been harmed, though exact details of the battlefield losses could not be ascertained from independent sources. The fighting disrupted power supplies and cell phone services to Kunduz, cutting off all communications.

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Roohullah Amadzai told reporters the Taliban managed to enter central parts of Kunduz and took positions in civilian population, including the main hospital.

Ahmadzai said security forces, backed by airpower, were responding to the insurgent attack to force them out of the city while making sure civilians and patients were not harmed in the process. He confirmed both Afghan and foreign forces carried out airstrikes against Taliban positions in the city, killing at least 25 insurgents.

The Afghan city, located on a key highway providing easy access to much of northern border provinces, repeatedly has come under Taliban attack since 2015 and was briefly held twice by the insurgents. The Taliban has since taken control of much of the province.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed in his latest statement that insurgents remained in control of areas they overran at the start of the assault, and they have inflicted heavy casualties on pro-government forces during ongoing clashes.

The Taliban advances prompted top Afghan security officials to arrive in Kunduz later in the day along with the U.S. commander of international forces, General Scott Miller. A Kabul government spokesman, Feroz Bashari, said the officials will “lead clearance operations” against the insurgents. He also tweeted a picture of Miller with other officials from a meeting in the embattled city.

The latest battlefield insurgent attack came on a day when Taliban leaders resumed talks with U.S. interlocutors in the Gulf state of Qatar after taking a one-day break for internal consultations.

The crucial ninth round in the yearlong dialogue between the two adversaries in the 18-year-old Afghan war started on August 22 amid exceptions it would lead to a peace agreement. But it was not clear whether a deal was imminent.

The Taliban is pressing the United States and its NATO allies to pull out their troops from Afghanistan, while Washington wants counterterrorism guarantees from the insurgents, a nationwide cease-fire and the Taliban’s participation in intra-Afghan talks to permanently end hostilities in the country.

President Donald Trump said this week he plans to reduce U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 8,600 from the current level of roughly 14,000. He would not discuss the fate of the residual force.

The Taliban has not responded to Trump’s latest statement, which runs counter to repeated insurgent assertions that in ongoing peace talks with the U.S., an understanding has been reached on a complete withdrawal of foreign troops.

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Presidential Candidates Stress On Fair Election

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ballot_boxTolo News: Five presidential candidates including Abdullah Abdullah, Rahmatullah Nabil, Ahmad Wali Massoud, Abdul Latif Pedram and Noorullah Jalili held campaign rallies on the 32nd day of the election campaign in Kabul where they stressed the need for transparent polls. The presidential election is scheduled for 28 September. According to the Election Commission, the transfer of election materials to provinces was kicked off on Friday and will continue until September 11. Almost 5,000 polling centers will be opened on the Election Day, according to the commission. Click here to read more (external link).

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US war in Afghanistan has become a ‘political liability’: Analyst

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us_army-soldiersPress TV
August 30, 2019

The 18-year US war in Afghanistan has become a “political liability” for the administration of President Donald Trump and is growing more unpopular in the United States, says an American political analyst in Virginia.

“Americans increasingly are in favor of withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan,” said Keith Preston, chief editor of AttacktheSystem.com.

The US military “is trying to pull out gradually without giving the appearance of having been defeated; American policy makers do not want to view themselves as having lost the war in Afghanistan,” Preston told Press TV on Thursday.

“I suspect that what they want to do is maintain a puppet government in Afghanistan that will most likely continue in the same way that the current government has, which is essentially an Amerian puppet,” he added.

Trump said Thursday that the US plans to reduce the number of American troops in Afghanistan from 14,000 to 8,600 and then will determine further drawdowns.

In an interview with Fox News, Trump said the US will keep a troop presence in Afghanistan even if Washington reaches an agreement with the Taliban.

“We’re going down to 8,600 [troops] and then we make a determination from there,” the US president said. “We’re always going to have a presence.”

Trump has repeatedly advocated for bringing US troops back from Afghanistan, putting him at odds with hawkish Republican lawmakers like Senator Lindsey Graham.

US officials have held several rounds of direct negotiations with the Taliban to pull out American forces in exchange for concessions. The militant group says it does not recognize the government in Kabul.

The Taliban said on Wednesday it was close to a “final agreement” with US officials on a deal that would see American forces withdraw from Afghanistan in exchange for a pledge that the country would not become a haven for other militant groups.

The US invaded Afghanistan to overthrow the ruling Taliban regime. US troops were first sent to Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

American forces have since remained bogged down in Afghanistan through the presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and now, Donald Trump.

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Final Touches Being Put on Deal As Taliban Reviews Proposal On U.S. Withdrawal

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peaceBy RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan
August 29, 2019

As U.S. and Taliban officials look to apparently seal a historic deal to end the 18-year Afghan conflict, leaders of the extremist militant group are reviewing the proposed agreement at an undisclosed location along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

A senior Taliban commander in Pakistan told the AFP news agency on August 28 that “all Shura (consultation) members have received the draft and they are reading it carefully.”

However, he said “no go-ahead signal has been given to the Taliban negotiating team” in the Qatari capital of Doha.

Their response may “take a day or two” since the group’s leadership needs to reach a consensus, the Taliban official said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, who has been leading the talks, will come to Kabul “in one or two” days and brief President Ashraf Ghani about the agreement, according to officials close to the negotiations.

The Taliban has refused to negotiate directly with the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.

The focal point of the deal is for American forces to gradually withdraw from Afghanistan in exchange for a Taliban promise that the country would not become a sanctuary for international militants.

The statements came during a ninth round of talks as officials in the war-wracked country said that at least 14 pro-government militia members were killed by Taliban militants in the western province of Herat.

“We hope to have good news soon for our Muslim, independence-seeking nation,” said Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for the Taliban’s political office in Doha.

A senior security official in Kabul said the Taliban and U.S. officials had agreed upon a timeline of about 14 to 24 months for the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Details would be shared with the Afghan government before they were made public, the official said.

The United States formally ended its Afghan combat mission in 2014 but about 14,000 U.S. troops remain in the country, mainly training and advising government forces battling the Taliban, an affiliate of the Islamic State group, and other militants. Some U.S. forces carry out counterterrorism operations.

At the Pentagon, the top U.S. general, Joseph Dunford, said it was “premature” to talk about the future of U.S. counterterrorism forces in Afghanistan.

“Any agreement that we have moving forward, the president has been clear, is going to be conditions based,” said General Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“We’re going to make sure that Afghanistan is not a sanctuary, and we’re going to try to have an effort to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan,” Dunford told reporters, adding that any agreement should also lead to dialogue between the Taliban and the Afghan government for a broader peace deal.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper, standing next to him, said the deal must guarantee that Afghanistan “is no longer a safe haven for terrorists to attack the United States.”

Despite the U.S. and Taliban talks, there has been no let-up in violence in Afghanistan.

As the talks were underway this week, a 60-year-old pro-government commander was killed in an August 27 battle against a group of Taliban militants that included his own son.

The overnight battle in Afghanistan’s northern province of Jowzjan took place just hours after the slain commander, Baz Muhammad, spoke to RFE/RL about the need to end a war which pits “sons against fathers and brothers and against brothers.”

Separately, in eastern Nangarhar Province, the governor’s spokesman Attaullah Khogynai said a university professor was killed and two others wounded on August 27 when a bomb attached to their car exploded in the provincial capital, Jalalabad.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack in Nangarhar, where both the Taliban and the local affiliate of the Islamic State extremist group are active.

With reporting by AFP, AP, Reuters, and Interfax

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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Investigative Report Confirms Civilian Casualties In Logar

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logarTolo News: Following conflicting reports about civilian deaths in Afghan forces operation in the eastern province of Logar, an investigative report by TOLOnews correspondent Sharif Amiri reveals that civilians were harmed as a result of the military a operation by a special unit of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.  Click here to read more (external link).

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