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/ 20 October 2008
A British aid worker was shot dead in Kabul on Monday in a killing claimed by the Taliban which accused her organisation of ”preaching Christianity”.
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/ 24 September 2008
Three policemen were killed by a landmine planted by Taliban insurgents in a police post in the Afghan capital on Wednesday, a police official said.
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/ 15 September 2008
Taliban militants dragged a school teacher out of a mosque in Afghanistan and cut off his ears as a ”punishment” for working for the government.
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/ 8 September 2008
The US military said it planned to reopen an investigation into civilian deaths in a coalition air strike in western Afghanistan last month.
President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday he had no regrets about sending 700 more troops to Afghanistan, after insurgents killed 10 soldiers
India on Monday said its peace process with Pakistan was "under stress" after this month’s suicide attack against its Kabul embassy.
A suicide car bomber rammed two diplomatic vehicles entering the Indian Embassy in Kabul on Monday, killing 41 people and wounding 141.
A helicopter belonging to United States-led coalition troops was shot down by small-arms fire south of the Afghan capital on Wednesday.
Afghanistan’s snow leopards have barely survived three decades of war. But now the few remaining mountain leopards in the country face another threat.
Waheed Ullah, a scruffy Kabul shoeshine boy, had never heard of skateboarding. Then one evening he perched his body on a skateboard and pushed off.
Afghan authorities said on Saturday they have killed more than 100 Taliban-linked militants in an operation to retake a remote district from the rebels in south-western Afghanistan. The rebels were killed during two days of operations by Afghan security forces and their international allies in Bakwa, a remote district in the south-western province of Farah.
Taliban insurgents have ordered residents of a province near the capital Kabul to stop watching television, saying the networks were showing un-Islamic programmes, officials and local media said on Tuesday. The order is the last in a wave of curbs that the resurgent militants have announced in areas they are active.
A suspected suicide bomber killed 15 Afghans and wounded 14 more in eastern Afghanistan, close to the border with Pakistan on Tuesday, a Nato spokesperson said. The Taliban have vowed to step up suicide attacks this year to undermine the faith of Afghans in the ability of their government to provide security.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai escaped unhurt after an assassination attempt by Taliban fighters with guns and rockets during an official celebration in the capital, Kabul, on Sunday. Government ministers along with leaders of other political factions were seen ducking for cover after gunfire sounded at the celebration to mark the 16th anniversary of fall of the Afghan communist government.
The new United Nations envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, arrived in Kabul on Friday with a pledge to improve coordination with President Hamid Karzai’s government. ”The Afghan government has asked for that for a very long time and we have to respond in a better way than we have managed so far,” said Eide.
A suicide car bomber killed eight Afghan civilians in an attack on United States troops near the airport in Afghanistan’s capital on Thursday, a Nato spokesperson said. Thirty-five civilians were wounded in the attack, but the four US soldiers inside the two vehicles targeted suffered only minor cuts and bruises.
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/ 9 February 2008
More than 750 people have perished as a result of severe cold and heavy snowfalls this winter across Afghanistan, a government official said on Saturday. The cold spell, the worst in decades in the impoverished and mountainous country, has also killed nearly 230 000 cattle, said Noor Padshah Kohistani of the National Disaster Management Commission.
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/ 31 January 2008
A suicide bomber targeted an Afghan army bus in the centre of Kabul on Thursday, causing numerous casualties, officials said. One civilian was killed and four people were wounded, including an army officer, they said. A purported Taliban spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, said one of the militant group’s suicide bombers was responsible for the blast.
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/ 16 January 2008
Cold weather and heavy snow have killed more than 100 people and more than 35 000 head of cattle in the past week across Afghanistan, officials said on Wednesday. Several major roads have also been blocked by avalanches and hundreds of people have been affected by bad weather, they said.
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/ 15 January 2008
Taliban militants stormed Kabul’s leading luxury hotel on Monday night, killing seven people in a significant escalation of insurgent tactics against foreign civilians in Afghanistan. The Norwegian Foreign Minister, Jonas Gahr Stoere, and other guests fled into the basement of the five-star Serena hotel.
More than 200 militants were killed in last month’s major operation to retake the southern Taliban stronghold of Musa Qala, the Afghan Defence Ministry said on Thursday. Seventeen Taliban commanders were among the dead following the military operation to drive out the rebels, who had held the small town for 10 months, the ministry said.
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/ 21 December 2007
Living in Afghanistan, the world’s unrivalled producer of heroin, Faqirullah has no problem finding drugs to feed his habit. What concerns him is getting the cash to buy them. No matter how difficult, the 27-year-old says he has to find the equivalent of $4 to $6 for his daily fix. Faqirullah, who goes by a single name, is one of a growing number of Afghan drug addicts.
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/ 15 December 2007
A suicide bomber blew up a car packed with rockets outside police headquarters in the Afghan capital on Saturday killing several people, officials said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. The car was packed with BM12 rockets pointing towards the police chief’s office, said a police official.
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/ 5 December 2007
A suicide bomber targeted a bus carrying Afghan army personnel in Kabul on Wednesday, killing six military staff and seven civilians, a defence ministry source said. The bomber used a car in the attack, which happened during the morning rush hour on a road in the south-western part of the city.
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/ 4 December 2007
A suicide bomber rammed a car into a convoy of Nato forces close to the airport in the Afghan capital on Tuesday, wounding 10 Afghan civilians, a police official said. A spokesperson for the Taliban said the militant Islamic group carried out the attack to ”welcome” United States Defence Secretary Robert Gates.
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/ 24 November 2007
A suicide bomb on the outskirts of the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Saturday killed six schoolchildren and wounded three Italians working on an aid project building a bridge, an Interior Ministry spokesperson said. ”It was a suicide bomber … six schoolchildren coming out from school were killed,” said Zemarai Bashary.
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/ 9 November 2007
A suicide attack in Afghanistan this week killed 59 children and five teachers, the education ministry said Friday, taking the death toll to 75 in the deadliest attack in the insurgency-hit country. Six lawmakers and five bodyguards were also killed in the blast on Tuesday in the northern province of Baghlan.
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/ 28 October 2007
United States-led coalition and Afghan troops killed about 80 Taliban fighters in a six-hour battle following an ambush in southern Afghanistan, the US military said on Sunday. Taliban fighters opened fire on Saturday with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades on the joint coalition and Afghan army patrol from a trench near Musa Qala in Helmand province.
A suicide bomber killed 12 Afghan police on a bus in Kabul on Tuesday, a police official said, the second such attack in the capital in four days. ”The report we have indicates that so far 12 police have been killed and 15 wounded,” said the official who declined to be named.
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/ 30 September 2007
A suicide bomber killed 28 Afghan troops and two civilians on Saturday in an attack on an army bus in Kabul, the Afghan president said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, the deadliest in the Afghan capital since the hard-line Islamist movement was ousted from power for harbouring al-Qaeda leaders.
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/ 29 September 2007
A bomb attack on a bus carrying Afghan army troops killed at least 27 people on Saturday in the capital, a witness said. Police at the scene initially said it was a suicide bomb attack, but one official said it could have been caused by a large land mine. Residents helped police pick up pieces of flesh and put them into plastic bags.
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/ 26 September 2007
Nato and United States-led troops backed up by warplanes said on Wednesday they had killed nearly 170 Taliban in two major battles in southern Afghanistan, while a US-led coalition soldier also died. The heaviest of the fighting with the Islamic insurgents erupted on Tuesday in the volatile southern province of Helmand.