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Task team finds Mi-17 helicopter downed in Wardak by ATGM

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(Last Updated On: May 26, 2021)

The Wolesi Jirga (Lower House of the Parliament) delegation, tasked to probe the helicopter crash in Maidan Wardak province in March, said in a report Tuesday that the Mi-17 military chopper had been hit by an anti-tank guided-missile (ATGM).

The delegation shared its findings two months after the Mi-17 was shot down during a military operation in Behsud district in Wardak. Four pilots and five security force members were killed in the incident.

ATGMs range in size from shoulder-launched weapons, which can be transported by a single soldier, to larger tripod-mounted weapons, which require a squad or team to transport and fire, to vehicle and aircraft mounted missile systems.

Government officials meanwhile accused fighters loyal to a public uprising forces’ commander Abdul Ghani Alipour, also known as commander Shamsher (Sword), of shooting down the helicopter.

Alipour has however consistently denied his involvement in the incident and stated in a sound clip: “We have nothing to fire one with from the air. Maybe those who are filming from the air shot it. If it was me, I would from the ground not from the air because we have only got RPG rockets and have no access to missiles.”

The Wolesi Jirga team’s findings meanwhile also indicate that the helicopter was hit by an ATGM capable of hitting targets in a range between 1.5 km to 5 km and that “the helicopter was hit from a distance of 3 km, which means ordinary rockets such as RPG or Type 82 rocket launcher is useless [at hitting] targets from this distance.”

According to the report, the missile is made by Russia and China, while Iran has also manufactured a copied version of the weapon.

The Wolesi Jirga’s findings, however, did not elaborate who was behind the downing of the helicopter but it stated: “When the missile was fired, the area was under the control of men loyal to Alipour.”

Meanwhile, a number of Afghan MPs stated that the findings lack details and accurate information.

“Neither Alipour has the capability of shooting down the helicopter using guided-missiles nor has he access to such kinds of rockets,” MP Ahmad Shah Ramazan said.

MP Shegofa Noorzai stated: “We want more clarity about the downing of the helicopter, the findings need more discussions and in the next sessions the main clues about how the helicopter was hit must be found out.”

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ISIS-K leader reportedly living in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

Sanaullah Ghaffari, also known as Shahab al-Muhajar, is reportedly the ISIS-Khorasan (Daesh) branch leader and is holed up in Pakistan, Reuters reports.

The 29-year-old took over as leader in 2020 and under his leadership the group has carried out extreme attacks as a means of recruiting, Reuters reported.

Reuters noted that little was known about Ghafari before the deadly 2021 ISIS attack on Kabul Airport, which killed 170 Afghan civilians and 13 American soldiers.

But after Friday’s deadly attack in a concert hall in Moscow, which left 139 people dead, Ghaffari’s group has come under intense scrutiny.

Reuters reports that Ghaffari is said to have been involved in several attacks in Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan.

Pakistani officials said months ago that Ghaffari had been killed in Kunar province in Afghanistan in June last year, but Reuters has reported that he did not die and instead fled to Pakistan and lives in the border province of Baluchistan.

Abdul Matin Qani, the spokesman of the Ministry of Interior of Afghanistan, says that Daesh has been suppressed in Afghanistan for more than two years and has lost its operational capacity.

The last attack carried out by Daesh in Afghanistan was the attack on the Kabul Bank office in Kandahar last week which left three dead and 12 wounded.

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IPL: Sunrisers thump MI in record breaking match

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

It was raining records at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Wednesday with the hosts Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) clinching a 31-run victory over Mumbai Indians (MI) in Match 8 of the Tata Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024.

Sunrisers’ batting rewrote the record books on a batting belter after the posted 277 for three.

SRH now have the highest team score in the history of the IPL – beating Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) 263 for five from the 2013 season.

In reply, MI made a spirited effort, and at one stage, were contenders to do the near impossible. In the slog overs, the enormity of the target proved a bit too much, and SRH clinched victory, but not without numerous nervous moments.

To put into perspective the carnage we witnessed – Heinrich Klaasen’s 23-ball half-century was the slowest fifty of the SRH innings.

Travis Head, playing his first match for SRH, raced to the milestone in 18 balls. Abhishek Sharma got there even faster – in 16 balls – to record the quickest fifty by an SRH batter in IPL history.

While Sunrisers notched up the highest total in the 16-year history of the IPL, just as incredibly, Mumbai Indians almost paid them back with the same coin, their batters coming out with a nothing-to-lose attitude.

The sixes kept rolling off the Mumbai bats too, helping them keep up with the asking rate for most of the chase, eventually however, they ran out of steam and finished on 246 for 5, the highest IPL total in a losing cause.

As ESPNcricinfo reported, never were more runs scored in a men’s T20 match (523). Never were most sixes hit in a men’s T20 (38). At the end of the close to four-hour six-fest, only two bowlers returned with an economy rate of under ten an over.

Thursday, March 28 : Match 9

Thursday’s match at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur sees Rajasthan Royals go up against Delhi Capitals.

Fans in Afghanistan can tune in to Ariana Television to watch the match live from 6.30pm. Alternatively the match can be screened live on arianatelevision.com

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Magnitude 5.2 quake jolts Afghanistan

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

An earthquake measuring a magnitude of 5.2 on the Richter Scale jolted Afghanistan on Thursday afternoon, the National Center for Seismology reported.

The quake was at a depth of 70km and epicentered in the mountainous north-eastern area of Ashkāsham.

The jolt was felt across the region including in Kabul, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan

There were no immediate reports of any casualties.

In October last year, over 2,000 people were killed when four 6.3-magnitude earthquakes struck in Herat province.

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