Four journalists among 21 people killed in Kabul twin blasts

[Devil Soul]

Four journalists among 21 people killed in Kabul twin blasts
AFPUpdated April 30, 2018
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A wounded man looks at the site of double explosions, in Kabul. — AP

Kabul suicide explosions


At least 21 people were killed, including Agence France-Presse (AFP) chief photographer Shah Marai and three other journalists, when two suicide blasts ripped through Kabul on Monday, the health ministry and AFP have confirmed.

Ministry spokesman Wahid Majroh told Afghanistan's largest private TV channel Tolo News that at least 27 people were wounded and rushed to hospital, warning that some were in critical condition and the toll could yet rise.

The second explosion came minutes after the first at targeted reporters at the scene, police spokesman Kabul Hashmat Stanikzai told AFP.

This undated file photo shows AFP photographer Shah Marai in Kabul. — AFP


"The bomber disguised himself as a journalist and detonated himself among the crowd," he said.

A security source also confirmed both were suicide blasts.

The first bomb was detonated by an assailant on a motorcycle and left at least four dead and five injured, according to the interior ministry.

Stanikzai confirmed that journalists had been killed, but said he did not know how many. AFP confirmed that, along with Marai, two journalists from 1TVand one from Tolo News were among the dead.

Marai joined AFP as a driver in 1996, the year the Taliban seized power, and began taking pictures on the side, covering stories including the US invasion in 2001.

In 2002 he became a full-time photo stringer, rising through the ranks to become chief photographer in the bureau.

He leaves behind six children, including a newborn daughter.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred shortly before 8am (0330 GMT) near the headquarters of the Afghan intelligence services, the interior ministry said.

It comes days after the Taliban kicked off their spring offensive in an apparent rejection of calls for the militants to take up the Afghan government's offer of peace talks.

During the announcement the group vowed to target US forces and "their intelligence agents" as well as their "internal supporters".

The blasts follow several bloody attacks across the country including a bombing that targeted a voter registration centre in Kabul that killed at least 57 people last week.

The Taliban said the offensive was partly a response to US President Donald Trump's new strategy for Afghanistan announced last August, which gave US forces more leeway to go after insurgents.

President Ashraf Ghani's government is under pressure on multiple fronts this year as it prepares to hold October's long-delayed elections while its security forces struggle to get the upper hand on the battlefield and prevent civilian casualties.

Officials have acknowledged that security is a major concern because the Taliban and other militant groups control or contest large swathes of the country.

A series of attacks on voter registration centres across the war-torn has deterred many Afghans from signing up to participate in the October 20 ballot.

Some Western and Afghan officials expect 2018 to be a particularly bloody year.

General John Nicholson, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, told Tolo TV last month that he expected the Taliban to carry out more suicide attacks this fighting season.

 

[Devil Soul]

Death toll in Kabul suicide blasts rises to 21: health ministry
By AFP
Published: April 30, 2018
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PHOTO: REUTERS

KABUL: At least 21 people were killed, including Agence France-Presse chief photographer Shah Marai and three other journalists, when two suicide blasts ripped through Kabul early Monday, the health ministry has confirmed.

At least 27 people were wounded and rushed to hospital, where some are in critical condition, spokesperson Wahid Majroh told Tolo news, warning the toll could rise.

Agence France-Presse chief photographer Shah Marai was among the dead in the second explosion, which targeted journalists who had come to cover the initial suicide blast.

The second explosion came minutes after the first and targeted reporters who were on the scene, police spokesperson Kabul Hashmat Stanikzai told AFP.

Two dead, several injured in Kabul blast

“The second explosion took place in the same area. We do not know the nature of the blast, but it is the same location,” interior ministry spokesperson Najib Danish told AFP.

The first blast was detonated by an assailant on a motorcycle and left at least four dead and five injured, according to the interior ministry.

The initial attack occurred shortly before 8:00am near the headquarters of the Afghan intelligence services Danish said.
No group has claimed responsibility.

At least nine killed in Kabul suicide attack

It comes days after the Taliban kicked off their spring offensive in an apparent rejection of calls for the militants to take up the Afghan government’s offer of peace talks.

During the announcement the group vowed to target US forces and “their intelligence agents” as well as their “internal supporters”.

 

[Hindustani78]

A scene after one of the double blasts rocked a Kabul area on April 30, 2018. | Photo Credit: AP

http://www.thehindu.com/news/intern...-explosions/article23725630.ece?homepage=true
Terror group says a "brother" took "apostate security forces, media and other people" by surprise.

At least 25 people were killed, including AFP chief photographer for Afghanistan Shah Marai and nine other journalists, when two suicide blasts ripped through Kabul on Monday.

Kabul police spokesman Hashmat Stanikzai said the second explosion came minutes after the first and targeted reporters at the scene. “The bomber disguised himself as a journalist and detonated himself among the crowd,” he said.

Deadly attack at voter registration centre
The attacks came just a week after the blast at a voter registration centre that killed 60 people, in the wake of warnings by security officials against the risk of increasing attacks ahead of parliamentary elections planned in October.

Monday's first explosion in the Shashdarak area close to buildings of the NDS intelligence service was followed by one outside the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing, just as people were entering the government office.

Four people were killed and five injured in the first explosion, said Najib Danish, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, adding that authorities had despatched ambulances to the incident sites.

Soon after, the second explosion took place beside journalists who had gathered to cover the first blast, killing or wounding a number of photographers, Reuters witnesses said.

'Brother took apostate security forces by surprise'
In a statement, the Islamic State said via its propaganda agency Amaq, that the first bomber hit the Kabul headquarters of Afghanistan's intelligence services and security forces, with the second blast targeting journalists who had rushed to the scene.

The statement from IS's "Khorasan" province, the group's Afghan branch, said the first attacker "struck the headquarters of the Afghan intelligence services in Kabul."

"Apostate security forces, media and other people rushed to the scene of the operation, where a brother took them by surprise and martyred himself with his explosives vest," it added.

It gave the name of the first bomber as "Kaaka al-Kurdi", suggesting he was of Kurdish origin, and the second as Khalil al-Qurashi.

Reuters photographer hurt slightly
A Reuters photographer was slightly hurt by flying shrapnel.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health put the total toll at 21 dead and 27 injured.

Taliban militants, fighting to restore their version of strict Islamic law to Afghanistan, announced their usual spring offensive last week and there has been heavy fighting in several areas of the country since.

Hundreds of people have been killed and wounded in a series of high profile attacks in Kabul since the beginning of the year, despite President Ashraf Ghani's offer in February for peace talks "without preconditions."

http://www.thehindu.com/news/intern...-insecurity/article23732150.ece?homepage=true

Monday’s attacks in Afghanistan, a week after 60 people were killed at a voter registration centre in the city, underlined mounting insecurity despite repeated government pledges to tighten defences.

“These attacks caused untold human suffering to Afghan families,” said Tadamichi Yamamoto, the top UN official in Afghanistan.

The attacks in rapid succession were a grim reminder of the strength of both the Taliban and Islamic State (IS)’s emerging Afghanistan branch to wreak violence despite stepped up U.S. air attacks under President Donald Trump’s new policy.

Taliban offensive

Taliban militants announced their usual spring offensive last week and there has been heavy fighting in several areas of the country since.

The Afghan Journalists Safety Committee (AFJSC) said nine journalists were killed in Kabul, the worst toll for media workers in a single attack in the country.

Afghanistan was already considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, with at least 20 killed last year. Last week, unidentified gunmen shot a journalist in the southern city of Kandahar.

Monday’s attack was the most serious on the Afghan media since 2016, when seven workers for Tolo News were killed in an attack claimed by the Taliban.

Eight of the journalists were from Afghan outlets: two reporters from the Mashal TV, a cameraman and a reporter working for 1TV, three reporters from Radio Azadi and one from Tolo News, the AFJSC said.

The French news agency Agence France-Presse said its chief photographer in Afghanistan, Shah Marai, was killed.

A Reuters photographer was slightly hurt by shrapnel.

In Khost, Ahmad Shah, who worked for the BBC’s Pashto language service as well as for Reuters, was killed on the outskirts of the city, according to Talib Mangal, spokesman for Khost's provincial governor. The BBC confirmed the death in a statement on Twitter. There was no indication of any direct link between the attacks in Kabul and Khost.

Globally, it was the worst attack on journalists in a single incident since 31 reporters and photographers were killed in a massacre in the southern Philippines in 2009.

 

[hussain0216]

Amazing how bad news coming out of Afghanistan isnt even upsetting anymore

 

[Dalit]

This has is routine in Afghanistan. Everyone is vying for some slice of the pie.

 

[Path-Finder]

https://twitter.com/x/status/990935884336902145

 

[BATMAN]

Afghan regime don't want any independent reporter.
If BBC reporter was at the place of incidence than its inside job.

 

[Solomon2]

Opinion: Afghanistan blasts are an attack on press freedom
In a double suicide attack in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, one of the attackers mingled with reporters — and detonated the explosives. It was a calculated attack on press freedom, says DW's Sandra Petersmann.




At least nine reporters are dead, killed on the job. Killing civilians is a war crime, but who cares about such laws in places like Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo? On the Afghan battlefield, too, targeted attacks on civilians have become part of everyday life.

Civilians are tortured and killed to demoralize the population, to make them docile and to silence them. Journalists are civilians, and when they are silenced, democracy itself is endangered.

Growing media sector seen as threat

According to eyewitness reports, the second attacker in Kabul carried a camera and pretended to be a reporter, mingling with the actual journalists reporting on the first explosion — the same journalists who risk their lives every single day to give the victims of the Afghanistan war a face and a voice.


DW's Sandra Petersmann

The emergence of a lively media presence is one of the few success stories of the international military intervention that toppled the Taliban regime in the fall of 2001.

Today, Afghanistan has at least 170 radio stations and dozens of newspapers. More than 30 TV programs broadcast from the capital, Kabul, alone. Young media professionals keep alive dwindling hopes for a democratic process.

After a motorcycle rider blew himself up in the middle of early Monday morning rush hour traffic in the vicinity of the Afghan intelligence service's headquarters, many journalists made their way to the scene of the attack. To report. To break the silence after an explosion that turns victims into anonymous numbers. But that did not happen. Instead, the second attacker triggered his device. The Afghan branch of the so-called Islamic State has claimed responsibility. But it could also have been the Taliban. Or any other armed group or warlord militia feeling threatened by a lively public discourse.

Read more: A bloody start to Afghan election process

Hatred never overcome in Afghanistan

AFP chief photographer Shah Marai was one of the nine reporters killed. Marai, who leaves behind a wife and six children, began his career with the French news agency during the era of the Taliban.

"They hated journalists, so I was always very discreet," he wrote on October 14, 2016 in a correspondent blog. That hatred never disappeared over the almost two decades since the radical Islamists were toppled. Weapons don't quash hatred. It would take a credible political vision, one that is open to debate. It would take reporters who ask questions.


AFP photographer Shah Marai was killed in the Kabul attack

In his blog, Marais summed up the largely failed Western intervention:

"There is no more hope. Life seems to be even more difficult than under the Taliban because of the insecurity … Every morning as I go to the office and every evening when I return home, all I think of are cars that can be booby-trapped, or of suicide bombers coming out of a crowd. "

Kabul has seen 10 severe attacks in the first four months of this year alone. There is a climate of fear. People stay out of the public eye when they can. But this is no way for a civil society to flourish. Shah Marai ended his 2016 blog entry with the following words:

"I have never felt life to have so little prospects and I don't see a way out. It's a time of anxiety."

Pulling democracy out by the roots

Monday's blasts were not the first attacks on press freedom in Afghanistan. But this coordinated attack constitutes a massacre of journalists, with the clear aim of pulling the fledgling democratic ideas in the country out by the roots.

Read more: The job hazards of an Afghan district governor

Parliamentary elections are scheduled for October — three years late. Registration centers have become prime targets in recent weeks. How many reporters will rush to the next site of an attack or report about large public election campaign events? The spotlight Afghan reporters have been shining on life in war-torn Afghanistan, always risking their lives, has been dimmed yet again.

And as dusk fell on April 30 in Afghanistan, the BBC announced that in a separate incident, one of their reporters, Ahmad Shah, had been shot in the eastern Afghan province of Khost — the 10th journalist to be killed in a single day. Meanwhile, another attack on a NATO convoy in Kandahar in the south of the country has claimed the lives of 11 children. But they will remain anonymous, disappearing into the country's growing number of casualties.

• Date 30.04.2018
• Author Sandra Petersmann

 

[Hindustani78]

https://www.thehindu.com/news/inter...icide-blast/article24697383.ece?homepage=true
KABUL, August 15, 2018 19:13 IST
Updated: August 15, 2018 19:13 IST

A man who was injured in a deadly suicide bombing that targeted a training class in a private building in the Shia neighbourhood of Dasht-i Barcha, is placed in an ambulance in western Kabul on August 15, 2018. | Photo Credit: AP


A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up in front of an educational centre in a mainly Shia area in the west of the Afghan capital Kabul on August 15, killing at least 25 people, officials said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, which came after several weeks of relative calm in Kabul but previous attacks on Shia targets in the area have been claimed by Islamic State.

The Taliban, who have been intensifying their attacks against military and government centres in recent weeks, issued a statement denying involvement.

The Public Health Ministry said 35 wounded had been brought to city hospitals, in addition to the 25 killed, adding to the mounting list of civilian casualties this year.

The attack occurred as the government was facing heavy pressure over a Taliban attack on the central city of Ghazni that led to five days of intense fighting during which hundreds of civilians and members of the security forces were killed.

The attack on Ghazni, one of the biggest seen for years in Afghanistan, fuelled criticism that President Ashraf Ghani's Western-backed government was incapable of protecting the country.

With parliamentary elections due on October 20, the government had been bracing for more attacks in Kabul and other cities, even while hopes of peace talks with the Taliban had been fuelled by a three day truce during the Eid al-Fitr holiday in June.