Police on Thursday arrested a suspected Taliban militant entering a provincial capital in restive southern Afghanistan with explosives loaded on a donkey, officials said.
“Police had reports that some explosives were being brought into the city on a donkey,” the government spokesperson in troubled Zabul, Gulab Shah Alikhail, told Agence France-Presse in the provincial capital Qalat.
“Police arrested the man with the explosives today [Thursday],” he said.
Alikhail said the explosive material was meant for “destructive” purposes and said it was work of the “enemies of Afghanistan”, official jargon for the remnants of the ousted Taliban regime.
The Taliban regime was toppled by a United States-led invasion in late 2001 over its refusal to surrender Osama bin Laden for the September 11 attacks on the US.
The Taliban’s insurgency has been growing every year since then. This year large groups of Taliban have confronted security forces in the south in some of the biggest and deadliest battles since the Taliban regime was removed. — AFP