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Afghan forces’ casualties high in 2016: US general
Afghan security forces are suffering rising levels of battlefield casualties this year and some of the Taliban’s finances have been disrupted after a U.S. airstrike killed their leader, top US commander in Afghanistan has said.
Reuters has quoted U.S. Army General and the commander of NATO-led Resolute Support Mission, John Nicholson telling a small group of reporters that the rising casualties were largely the result of Taliban attacks on fixed Afghan positions.
“This year, we’re seeing more tactical success (by the Afghans) on the battlefield but more casualties as well,” Nicholson quoted by Reuters saying this late on Saturday.
“It’s when they’re in a defensive posture, such as in checkpoints being overrun, is where the majority of the casualties are occurring,” he added.
According to the figures in 2015 more than 5,000 Afghan forces were killed and over 14,000 were wounded in the fight against the insurgents.
Nicolson said Akhtar Mansour, the supreme leader of Taliban who was killed in US drone strike, had tight control of Taliban finances.
“So what we’re seeing are some indications that some of the finances of the organization have been disrupted,” he said.
U.S. commander also added that Mansour’s successor, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, is not a unifying figure within the Taliban ranks and the group were struggling after the killing of Mansour.
Despite the previouse plan last week U.S. president Barak Obama announced that he plans to keep 8,400 US troops until the end of his term.
U.S. allies also renewed their commitments on Saturday to support the Afghan security forces till 2020.
The Afghan embassy in Oslo will resume consular services on coming Monday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kabul announced Saturday.
The ministry said in a statement that the resumption of consular services in Norway was a “positive step.”
In August last year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kabul declared the consular services of Afghan missions in 14 Western countries including Norway to be invalid.
The statement cited corruption, lack of transparency and non-coordination with the ministry as reasons for the closure.
Eighteen people were injured following a dispute between two brothers in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province on Friday, local officials said.
The incident occurred in the Old Bazaar area of Gereshk district and the people were injured when the son of one of the two brothers threw a hand grenade, the provincial department of information and culture said.
Two of the injured people are said to be in critical condition.
Officials did not say what caused the dispute.
One person has been arrested in connection with the incident.
The U.N. children´s agency on Saturday urged the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) to immediately lift a lingering ban on girls’ education to save the future of millions who have been deprived of their right to education since the IEA returned to power in 2021.
The appeal by UNICEF comes as a new school year began in Afghanistan without girls beyond sixth grade. The ban, said the agency, has deprived 400,000 more girls of their right to education, bringing the total to 2.2 million.
“For over three years, the rights of girls in Afghanistan have been violated,” Catherine Russell, UNICEF executive director, said in a statement. “All girls must be allowed to return to school now. If these capable, bright young girls continue to be denied an education, then the repercussions will last for generations.”
A ban on the education of girls will harm the future of millions of Afghan girls, she said, adding that if the ban persists until 2030, “more than four million girls will have been deprived of their right to education beyond primary school.” The consequences, she added, will be “catastrophic.”
Russell warned that the decline in female doctors and midwives will leave women and girls without crucial medical care. This situation is projected to result in an estimated 1,600 additional maternal deaths and over 3,500 infant deaths. “These are not just numbers, they represent lives lost and families shattered,” she said.
The Islamic Emirate has previously said that the issue of girls’ education is an internal issue in Afghanistan and efforts are being made to resolve it.
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