Kabul: At least 13 Taliban insurgents, including five of their leaders, were killed in Andkhoy and two of their Humvee bombers were destroyed.
Defense and security forces with the slogan “Allah Akbar” thwarted the Taliban offensive in Andkhoy district of Faryab province. Taliban attacked the checkpoints of the defense and security forces in Andkhoy district of Faryab province at 1am. In this clash, seven other insurgents were wounded and the attack was repulsed.
Also, Mawlawi Anas, the Taliban’s unnamed governor for Bamyan province, was killed in an airstrike in Dara-e-Suf district of Samangan province, the Ministry of Defense said. Fawad Aman, deputy spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, tweeted on Wednesday that 40 other Taliban insurgents had been killed and 13 others wounded in the attack.
Aman also said that 15 vehicles and a large quantity of Taliban weapons had been destroyed in the airstrikes. The Taliban group has denied the allegations. The airstrikes were carried out in the Dar-e-Suf district of Samangan province as the district regained control of security and defense forces late last month after falling to the Taliban.
Meanwhile, two people were arrested in Nangarhar on charges of assassinating three female vaccinators. Local sources in Nangarhar province said that two people have been arrested on charges of assassinating three female vaccinators in the province.
Ataullah Khogyani, spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar, told Subhe kabul daily that the men were detained by NDS forces in Behsud district of the province on Tuesday night. According to him, one of these people is the main perpetrator of the assassination of three female vaccinators in the first month of the current solar year in the city of Jalalabad, and during the initial investigation, he confessed to his crime.
The spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar said the detainees were members of the IS-K group that carried out targeted killings in the province. It is worth mentioning that in two separate incidents the three female vaccinators were assassinated in the PDs of 4 and 7 of Jalalabad city, the capital of Nangarhar province. After the incident, four male vaccinators were killed and three others were injured in four separate incidents.
Also, the media office of the Takhar Police Command said that Noor Mohammad Ismaili, the police chief of Baharak district of the province, was killed on Tuesday night in a battle with the Taliban in the village of “Blak Werthabooz” in Taloqan city. And Kabul police announced that a IED detonated at around 08:15am on Wednesday in the Blokhay Hawayee area of PD10 of Kabul city. Two people were injured in the blast, according to police.
In fact, police of PD3 of Herat arrested two people from PDs of 9 and 14 in connection with illegal carrying and smuggling of weapons. The mentioned individuals are currently under the supervision of the police and their relative files have been prepared and handed over to the relevant body.
This comes as heavy fighting has been going on for several days inside the city of Lashkargah, the capital of Helmand province. Some Lashkargah residents say that Taliban fighters are using people’s homes to protect themselves from airstrikes by security forces. Hayatullah, a resident of Helmand province, said the government should evict the Taliban from their homes and withdraw the war from the city so that they could live in peace. According to Hayatullah, all the exit routes of the city are closed to the people. He said that if the government sends new forces to the province and launches operations, the city will be cleansed of the Taliban.
Currently, the war inside the city of Lashkargah is in full swing. Telecommunication networks are inactive in this province. The only network in the province that is operating poorly is Afghan Wireless. People are worried that broadcasting will be cut off completely and that they will not be able to find out about their families.
Meanwhile, Helmand Governor Mohammad Wali Alizai says he is working hard to save the city of Lashkargah from collapse. Alizai added that airstrikes on the Taliban had increased and that a large number of the insurgents had been killed. According to him, the war between the security forces and the Taliban is intensifying. “The war in Helmand is not with the Taliban, but with Pakistan. Large numbers of Pakistanis have been killed in the past few days and their bodies have been transported to Pakistan. We have assured the president that Helmand will become a slaughterhouse for Pakistani fighters and that the Taliban and Pakistanis will be destroyed in Helmand and the entire southern region,” said the governor of Helmand. Even, the Office of the United Nations Assistance Mission (UNAMA) on Tuesday described the increase in civilian casualties in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, as worrying.
Meanwhile, Afghan asylum seekers in Germany are increasingly succeeding in their appeals to German courts to be allowed to remain in the country, according to government data. The data pertaining to the success rate of appeals against scheduled deportations to Afghanistan was recently made public in response to a question for information from a member of Die Linke, The Left party in German parliament. Of 4,212 asylum decisions for Afghan nationals made between January and May this year, 3,203 applicants were granted protection in Germany, while 1,009 claims were rejected. That’s according to a reply by Germany’s Interior Ministry to a question from Ulla Jelpke, a Left Party lawmaker. The rate means claimants succeeded in some 76% of lawsuits that were formally accepted. The information provided by the ministry also shows an uptick in the success rate of Afghan applicants in appeals against German asylum decisions. Between January and May last year, some 55% of substantive claims succeeded, with the figure rising to 60% for the year as a whole.
Despite the numbers, the German government has continued to state it is pressing ahead with the deportation of rejected asylum seekers to Afghanistan, even as the militant Islamist Taliban advances, following the withdrawal of international troops from the country.
In other news, Turkey will not accept the “irresponsible decision taken by the US” regarding Afghan refugees, a spokesperson for the Turkish Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday. The statement came after the US State Department announced a US Refugee Admissions Program Priority 2 Designation for Afghan nationals who worked for the US government, US-based non-governmental organizations and press organizations.
“The US Department of State statement said on August 2 that the immigration applications of Afghans to the US will be received from third countries through their affiliated organizations, also referring to our country,” said Tanju Bilgic. Bilgic said the US statement will cause a great migration crisis in the region and increase the suffering of Afghan people on migration routes. He said “it is unacceptable to seek a solution in our country without our consent, instead of finding a solution among the countries in the region.”
Bilgic said that Turkey, which has hosted the largest number of refugees in the world for the past seven years, “does not have the capacity to undertake a new migration crisis on behalf of a third country.” Turkey will not take over the international responsibilities of third countries in any case and will not allow its laws to be abused by third countries for their own purposes, he added. “No one should expect the Turkish nation to bear the burden of the migration crises caused by the decisions of third countries in our region,” he said.
