29 June 2011
Nine suicide bombers penetrated several rings of security to lay siege to one of the capital’s premier hotels for six hours overnight Tuesday in a complex attack that jolted Afghans’ sense of security and highlighted the weakness of their police forces. At least 21 people were killed: all the attackers, two policemen, nine Afghan civilians, and one foreigner, a Spaniard. One witness said that the police failed to stop a man who obviously...
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27 June 2011
Taliban insurgents used an eight-year-old girl carrying a bag of explosives to attack a police checkpost in central Afghanistan, the Afghan government said on Sunday, making her one of the youngest child bombers of the decade-old conflict.
The incident took place in Char Chino district of central Uruzgan province, the interior ministry said. "The insurgents handed over a bag with a homemade bomb to an eight-year-old girl and asked her to take it...
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27 June 2011
Funerals of victims of a car bombing at a hospital in Afghanistan's eastern Logar province have been taking place.
Thirty-eight people, including pregnant women, children, doctors and nurses, died in the attack, officials say - the deadliest on a medical facility since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
The hospital, in Azra district, was destroyed, leaving people buried under rubble.
Officials blamed the attack on the Taliban, but the group denied...
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21 June 2011
A Taliban suicide bomber targeted a provincial governor in northern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing two civilians and wounding another two, the interior ministry said.
The attack struck the usually peaceful province of Parwan, when the bomber tried to enter the compound of governor Basir Salangi.
"At around 10:45am (0615 GMT) Tuesday, a suicide bomber detonated himself in front of the gate of the Parwan governor's compound. As a result, two civilians...
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20 June 2011
A suicide attacker blew up his explosives-laden car next to a German military convoy in northern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing three Afghan civilians, officials and witnesses said.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack.
The bomber detonated his vehicle on a busy road on the edge of Kunduz city, near the airport, the Afghan Interior Ministry said. [...]
Three civilians were killed and 11 were wounded in the...
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20 June 2011
Suicide bombers in army uniform attacked a Kabul police compound on Saturday, killing nine people in the second major assault inside the Afghan capital in less than a month, the Interior Ministry said.
The Taliban, which claimed responsibility for the assault, vowed last month to carry out attacks on foreign and Afghan troops and government officials, and have assassinated several senior police commanders since the start of the year.
Three policemen,...
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15 June 2011
The Taliban targeted top government officials in Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing 11 people in two suicide blasts and firing rockets at the vice president and interior minister, who escaped unhurt. Nine civilians were among those who died in the attacks [...] In the first, an attacker drove a car laden with explosives towards the education and agriculture departments in Mahmud Raqi, capital of Kapisa province northeast of Kabul. [...] Taliban...
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10 June 2011
A suicide bomber detonated his explosives at a memorial service for the assassinated police chief of north Afghanistan Friday, killing at least four policemen, local security and health officials said.
The attack appeared to target the police chief of Kunduz province, Sameullah Qatra, whose predecessor in the post was killed by a suicide bomber in March. Qatra was near the bomber but escaped unhurt, his spokesman Sayed Sarwar Hussaini said.
A string...
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02 June 2011
An alarming number of children in Pakistan and Afghanistan believe immortality is at their fingertips -- provided they're pressing a button detonating the bombs strapped to their bodies.
And while most people associate a bomb blast with the finality of the grave, one young would-be suicide bomber told RFE/RL that he associates it with "heaven."
A 15-year-old Afghan who was educated in a madrasah, or Islamic religious school, in the Pakistani city...
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30 May 2011
A suicide bomber struck a security gathering in Afghanistan's north on Saturday, injuring a provincial governor and the German commander of foreign troops in the region, and killing at least six people — including two senior Afghan police commanders and two German soldiers, Afghan and coalition officials said.
[...] NATO's International Security Assistance Force confirmed that two Western soldiers were killed in the attack, and German media,...
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