Month: April 2022

KABUL: At least 16 people were killed by bomb blasts in two Afghan cities on Thursday — including 12 worshippers at a Shia mosque in an attack claimed by the militant Islamic State group (IS).

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the bomb blast at the Shia mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif and stressed the need for eradication of terrorism from the region.

Since Taliban fighters seized control of Afghanistan last year after ousting the US-backed government, the number of bombings has fallen but the jihadist and Sunni IS has continued with attacks — often against Shia targets.

Earlier this week, at least six people were killed in twin blasts that hit a boys’ school in a Shia neighbourhood of Kabul.

PM Sharif condemns bomb blast at mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif

Grisly images posted to social media showed victims of Thursday’s attack being carried to hospital from Seh Dokan mosque in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

“Blood and fear are everywhere,” Ahmad Zia Zindani, spokesman for the provincial public health department in Balkh, said, adding “people were screaming” while seeking news of their relatives at the hospital.

“Many residents were also coming to donate blood,” he said.

The blast occurred as worshippers were offering midday prayers during Ramazan.

Twelve people were killed and 58 wounded, including 32 in serious condition, Zindani said.

In a statement, the IS said that “the soldiers of the caliphate managed to get a booby-trapped bag” inside the mosque, detonating it from afar.

In a separate blast on Thursday in the city of Kunduz, at least four people were killed and 18 wounded when a bicycle bomb exploded near a vehicle carrying mechanics working for the Taliban, police spokesman Obaidullah Abedi said.

‘Religious, ethnic hostility’

Shia Afghans, who are mostly from the Hazara community that makes up between 10 and 20 per cent of the country’s 38 million people, have long been the target of the IS, who consider them heretics.

“There is religious and ethnic hostility towards the Shias and Hazaras in particular,” said prominent Shia leader Mohammad Mohaqqiq. “All extremist groups that are in Afghanistan, be it IS or even Taliban, have shown this hostility.”

No group has yet to claim the deadly attack on a boys’ school in Kabul on Tuesday, which also wounded more than 25.

“Systematic targeted attacks on crowded schools & mosques call for immediate investigation, accountability and end to such human rights violations,” tweeted Richard Bennett, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan on human rights.

Taliban officials insist their forces have defeated the IS, but analysts say the group is a key security challenge. Since seizing power, the Taliban have regularly raided suspected IS hideouts in eastern Nangarhar province.

In May last year at least 85 people — mainly girl students — were killed and about 300 wounded when three bombs exploded near their school in the Shia-dominated Dasht-i-Barchi neighbourhood of Kabul.

No group claimed responsibility for that, but in October 2020 the IS admitted a suicide attack on an educational centre in the same area that killed 24 people, including students.

In May 2020, the group was blamed for a bloody attack on a maternity ward of a hospital in the same neighbourhood that killed 25 people, including new mothers.

Two training camps used by Hamas, the group that rules the blockaded enclave, were hit, and no casualties were reported, witnesses said.

Israeli war planes struck a security post and part of an underground site used to produce rocket engines, the Israeli military said in a statement.

Earlier, a rocket fired from Gaza struck southern Israel, causing slight damage to a house but no injuries, police said. No faction claimed responsibility for what is the second such attack in days.

In a statement, Hamas said Israel’s bombing will only encourage Palestinians to “resist the occupation and step up their support for Jerusalem and its people”.

Meanwhile, the Arab League called on Israel on Thursday to end Jewish prayers inside the compound of Islam’s third holiest shrine in East Jerusalem, warning it was a flagrant affront to Muslim feelings that could trigger wider conflict.

They said while Israel was restricting the right of worship of Muslims in Jerusalem’s Old City, ultra-nationalist Jews under police protection were being allowed at the height of the Muslim fasting month of Ramazan to enter the Al Aqsa mosque compound.

“Our demands are clear that Al Aqsa and Haram al Sharif in all its area is a sole place of worship for Muslims,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al Safadi told reporters alongside the Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit after an emergency meeting in Amman on the matter.

Gheit said Israel was violating centuries-old policy according to which non-Muslims may visit the Al Aqsa compound, Islam’ s third most sacred site after Makkah and Medina, but not pray there.

The senior official made the statement during a press briefing today in response to a question from a journalist.

“As you are well aware that Imran Khan is still blaming US for his ouster from PM’s office while he’s also asking his supporters to keep protesting outside the White House. But yesterday Congresswoman Ilhan Omar met with Mr. Khan in Islamabad. It was kind of an hour-long meeting. Close associates of Mr. Khan claim that United States trying to clear the air with Mr. Khan. Is it true that Ilhan Omar is representing Biden government there in Islamabad,” the journalist had asked.

“Well, as I understand it, Representative Omar is not visiting Pakistan on US government-sponsored travel, so I’d need to refer you to her office for questions on her travel,” Price replied.

Omar, who made history as one of the first two Muslim women elected to the US Congress, arrived in Islamabad earlier this week on a visit to Pakistan. The Congresswoman will stay in Pakistan till April 24.

During her stay, she has met several important figures, including President Dr Arif Alvi, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and Foreign Office officials, as well as PTI Chairman Imran Khan.

Omar’s first day in Pakistan was dominated by a controversy over her meeting with ex-premier Khan who claims a Washington-backed conspiracy was behind his government’s ouster. Washington has denied the claims.

Besides taking a hardline on the private interactions between politicians and US officials, Khan has in his speeches at public rallies vowed no subservience to the US while accusing his opponents of toeing Washington’s line.

According to PTI’s Shireen Mazari, Omar had discussed Islamophobia and other related issues in the meeting with Khan at the PTI chairman’s Bani Gala residence.

Politicians and social media users immediately questioned the PTI chairman about the meeting with the American legislator and reminded him of his criticism of US officials meeting opposition figures. Newly elected Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah led the charge by asking Khan if his meeting with Omar was “a conspiracy or interference”.

Mazari, subsequently, fired back at the critics by saying that Omar was not a part of the US administration.

Omar’s visit to AJK

Price’s statement on Omar’s visit has come a day after she visited Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), where she acknowledged that the Kash­mir dispute was not being talked about in the power centres of the US at the required level.

“I don’t believe that it [Kashmir] is being talked about to the extent it needs to be, not only in Congress but also with the [US] administration,” she said while speaking to local journalists in Azad Kashmir.

“And that the condemnations and concerns of those who fight for human rights and the question of the Kashmir issue will be included in those [hearings],” she said.

She, however, expressed the hope that her visit would pave the way for “many more conversations” on the Kashmir issue.

Omar further told the journalists that on the question of Kashmir, “we held a committee hearing on the foreign affairs committee to look at the reports of human rights violations and to talk about the bigger issue with the [Narendra] Modi administration’s anti-Muslim rhetoric and how that’s leading to human rights violations as well”.

Separately during a meeting with AJK President Barrister Sultan Mahmood, Omar voiced serious concern over human rights violations in India and occupied Kashmir and said she would again take up the issue with the US Congress as well as the Biden administration.

“We are deeply worried about India’s August 5, 2019 move,” she told the AJK president, according to a press release issued by the latter’s office.

For his party, the AJK president highlighted the “dire need for the international community, particularly the US, to come forward and help resolve this (Kashmir) dispute between the two nuclear powers”.

According to official sources, the Congresswoman was also flown to the Line of Control (LoC) in the Chakothi sector, where she was briefed on the situation before and after the fresh understanding between the Pakistani and Indian armies to respect the 2003 ceasefire agreement.

Some residents, who had been affected by Indian shelling prior to the ceasefire, had also gathered there and shared their tales of horror with the visitors.

Meanwhile, Omar’s visit to Azad Kashmir did not sit well with India and New Delhi condemned it in a strongly-worded statement.

Indian media quoted Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson for India’s external affairs ministry, as saying: “Let me just say that if such a politician (Omar) wishes to practice her narrow-minded politics at home, that’s her business.

“But violating our territorial integrity and sovereignty … makes this ours, and we think the visit is condemnable.”

Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government has sought to quell a long-running insurgency in Indian-occupied Kashmir and buttress its hold over the Muslim-majority region.

New Delhi nullified the area’s limited autonomy in 2019, when authorities arrested thousands and imposed the world’s longest internet shutdown, seeking to forestall local opposition to the move.

It is the most militarised part of India, with more than half a million soldiers and paramilitaries deployed across the region.

High security is being put in place for Modi’s visit, but he can nonetheless expect a rousing welcome in Palli, with tens of thousands expected to welcome him at an event marshalled by his governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The village is in Jammu, the Hindu-majority southern part of the territory, which celebrated New Delhi’s introduction of direct rule as a bulwark against Kashmir’s freedom struggle.

Modi will preside over a ceremony to mark Panchayati Raj — a day that commemorates grassroots democracy, although occupied Kashmir has been without an elected regional government since 2018, when the BJP left its ruling coalition and the New Delhi-appointed governor stepped in.

Its last chief minister was detained during the clampdown and only released more than a year later.

Sunday’s event will see Modi lead the region “into a new era of development”, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha told reporters.

‘Fearful atmosphere’

Modi’s government says its decision to end the occupied territory’s limited autonomy was aimed at fostering a lasting peace and bringing investment into the troubled region, where tens of thousands of people have been killed over the years.

The result has been a rigid security framework that has rendered public protest virtually impossible and that critics say has put a stranglehold on civic life.

Around 2,300 people, mostly politicians and activists who have campaigned against Indian rule, have been arrested under vaguely worded legislation that allows authorities to designate anyone as a terrorist and puts the burden of innocence on the accused.

International human rights groups have condemned the measures.

Foreign journalists are barred from visiting and local reporters are often summoned by counterinsurgency police and questioned over their work, with three arrested in recent months under preventative detention laws.

“Reporting from Kashmir is now like walking and living on the razor’s edge all the time,” a journalist working for an Indian newspaper told AFP, declining to be identified for fear of government reprisals.

“It’s a very fearful atmosphere.”

Police say that violence has declined since the 2019 overhaul of occupied Kashmir’s status.

But almost 1,000 people have been killed in that time — among them soldiers, freedom fighters and civilians.

Most of the violence has taken place in the mostly Muslim Kashmir valley, which according to reports is not on Modi’s weekend itinerary.

Sunday’s event will be his first formal public appearance in the region since the crackdown, although he has made informal visits to celebrate Hindu religious festivals with troops stationed along the Line of Control with Pakistan.

The 2019 changes also opened land ownership, jobs and local university places in occupied Kashmir to all Indians — privileges which had been earlier reserved for the territory’s permanent residents.

Commentators allege the move was aimed at boosting a Hindu constituency in the contested region, likening it to “settler colonialism”.

Modi’s visit was “pandering” to a population already inclined to support his agenda in the territory, historian and political commentator Siddiq Wahid told AFP.

But, he added, “it will be hard to achieve that and deflect attention from the overarching territorial dispute”.