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US puts brother of Haqqani network on terror list

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(Last Updated On: October 25, 2022)

HAQQANI

The United States has named the brother of the head of the Haqqani Network a “specially designated global terrorist,” the State Department said Tuesday.

Based in Pakistan, the Haqqani Network has close ties to Al-Qaeda and has been blamed for many of the most deadly attacks against US and government targets in Afghanistan.

The group’s leader Sirajuddin Haqqani has long been one of Washington’s most important targets, and is now joined by his brother Abdul Aziz Haqqani on the blacklist.

The Haqqanis are seen as close to hardline elements in Pakistani military intelligence and Sirajuddin was last month named as one of two deputy leaders of the Afghan Taliban.

“For several years, Aziz Haqqani has been involved in planning and carrying out improvised explosive device attacks against Afghan government targets,” the State Department said.

According to the statement, Aziz Haqqani also “assumed responsibility for all major Haqqani Network attacks after the death of his brother, Badruddin Haqqani.”

Aziz already had a $5 million US bounty on his head and the Haqqani faction has long been designated a “terrorist organization.”

He now joins his brother as subject to the seizure of any assets he may have in areas under US control, while Americans are banned from doing business with him.

With Abdul Aziz, the family network is led by Sirajuddin’s uncle and brother-in-law along with Abdul Rauf Zakir, the alleged head of the group’s suicide operations.

The Haqqani Network was set up in the 1970s as an Islamist force to oppose the Marxist regime in Kabul and its Soviet backers, and fought in the Afghan civil war.

Today it has rear bases in Pakistan’s lawless tribal territories while carrying out deadly attacks deep inside Afghanistan as far as the capital Kabul.

US intelligence holds it responsible for some of the most audacious strikes of the insurgency, including the 2009 Camp Chapman bombing, which killed seven CIA agents.

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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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