Blast near Indian embassy in Kabul kills 80, injures 320; Modi briefed, Sushma Swaraj says 'staff safe'

May 31, 2017

Kabul, May 31: The death toll in the Kabul car bombing near the diplomatic region has climbed to 80, reports said, and so far over 320 people have been injured. A blast was reported in Kabul just fifty metres away from the Indian embassy, at around 9.30 am (IST) on Wednesday.

kabul

A statement from the Ministry of Interior Affairs says it "condemns in the strongest terms the terrorist attack" that killed so many, including women and children. The ministry did not have details on the possible target of the attack.

An eyewitness told the local Pajwok news agency that the blast took place in front of the office of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Afghanistan's primary intelligence agency. However, CNN-news 18 reported that the site of the explosion was very close to the the German Gate, which is the entry point to the road which houses missions of several countries, the closes being the German Embassy.

Bodies littered the scene and a huge plume of smoke rose from the area which houses foreign embassies. Witnesses described dozens of cars choking the roads as wounded survivors and panicked schoolgirls sought safety, with men and woman struggling to get through security checkpoints to search for loved ones.

"A car bomb" exploded at 8:25 am, Danish said. The blast in the Wazir Akbar Khan area happened near several embassies and not far from the presidential palace.

The impact of the blast was so heavy that more than 30 vehicles in the area were either destroyed or damaged badly; houses hundreds of metres away from the blast site were damaged and windows and doors blown off their hinges. Bodies and injured people were seen in the area. Some women were seen screaming for the lost relatives at the site of explosion.

Ismail Kawasi, spokesman for the public health ministry, said more than 50 wounded people are in Kabul hospitals so far. Eye-witness said that the blast was so heavy more than 30 vehicles were either destroyed or damaged. Windows were shattered in shops, restaurants and other buildings up to a kilometer from the blast site.

Indian embassy building suffers damage

Even though, it was not immediately clear what the target was, the Indian intelligence agency has not ruled out the fact that the target of the explosion could have been the Indian mission in Afghanistan.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted about the safety of the Indian embassy staffers and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been briefed about the incident.

Manpreet Vohra, India's envoy to Afghanistan, told that the blast hit around 100 metres as the crow flies from India's embassy, one of several in the area.

"We are all safe, all our staff, all our personnel are safe. However, the blast was very large and nearby buildings including our own building have considerable damage in terms of broken glass and shattered windows and blown doors etc," he said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also tweeted condemning the massive attack.

The explosion also shattered windows at the Japanese embassy. "Two Japanese embassy staffers were mildly injured, suffering cuts", a foreign ministry official in Tokyo said. French and German embassy buildings also faced some damage.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but the explosion comes amid heightened activity of the Taliban, which has staged a slew of deadly attacks in Afghanistan in the recent past. The Taliban has vowed to step up its annual 'spring offensive.'

The Islamic State group has also claimed responsibility for several recent bombings in the Afghan capital, including a powerful blast targeting an armoured NATO convoy that killed at least eight people and wounded 28 on 3 May.

Wednesday's attack underscores spiralling insecurity in Afghanistan, where Afghan forces beset by soaring casualties and desertions are struggling to beat back the insurgents. More than one third of the country is outside government control.

Afghan troops are backed by US and NATO forces, and the Pentagon has reportedly asked the White House to send thousands more troops to the country to break the deadlocked fight against the Taliban.

US troops in Afghanistan number about 8,400 today, and there are another 5,000 from NATO allies, who also mainly serve in an advisory capacity — a far cry from the US presence of more than 100,000 six years ago.

Pentagon chief Jim Mattis has warned of "another tough year" for both foreign troops and local forces in Afghanistan, where more than one third of the country is outside of government control.

In an incident as recent as Friday, at least 15 Afghan soldiers were killed when Taliban fighters attacked their base in Kandahar. At least 30 soldiers were killed in a similar attack in Shah Wali Kot late Monday and two days later, 13 others died in another insurgent raid in Kandahar's Maiwand district.

Besides this, incidents of attack on the Indian mission in Afghanistan have been reported in the past too. Nine people were killed in an Taliban-claimed attack in March last year after terrorists, including suicide bombers, struck the Indian consulate in Jalalabad. In January 2016, the Indian consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif in Northern Afghanistan was also attacked.

Kabul province had the highest number of casualties in the first three months of 2017 thanks to multiple attacks in the city, with civilians bearing the brunt of the violence.

This is an updating news story. More details will be added to the story as and when they are available.

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February 18,2020

Beijing, Feb 18: Police in China have arrested a prominent activist who had been a fugitive for weeks and criticised President Xi Jinping's handling of the coronavirus epidemic while in hiding, a rights group said Tuesday.

Anti-corruption activist Xu Zhiyong was arrested on Saturday after being on the run since December, according to Amnesty International.

China's ruling Communist Party has severely curtailed civil liberties since Xi took power in 2012, rounding up rights lawyers, labour activists and even Marxist students.

The death this month of a whistleblowing doctor who was reprimanded by police for raising the alarm about the deadly new virus before dying of it himself triggered rare calls for political reform and freedom of speech.

The "Chinese government's battle against the coronavirus has in no way diverted it from its ongoing general campaign to crush all dissenting voices," said Patrick Poon, China researcher at Amnesty International, in an emailed statement.

Another source, who spoke to news agency on the condition of anonymity, said Xu had been arrested in the southern city of Guangzhou.

Guangzhou police did not respond to requests for comment.

Xu went into hiding after authorities broke up a December gathering of intellectuals discussing political reform in the eastern coastal city of Xiamen in Fujian province, prior to the coronavirus crisis.

Over a dozen lawyers and activists were detained or disappeared after the Xiamen gathering, according to rights groups -- and Xu's detention appears linked to his presence at the meeting, explained Poon.

But while on the run, Xu continued to post information on Twitter about rights issues.

On February 4 Xu released an article calling on Xi to step down and criticised his leadership across a range of issues including the US-China trade war, Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests and the coronavirus epidemic, which has now killed nearly 1,900 people.

"Medical supplies are tight, hospitals are filled with patients, and a large number of infected people have no way to be diagnosed," he wrote. "It's a mess."

"The coronavirus outbreak shows just how important values like freedom of expression and transparency are -- the exact values that Xu has long advocated," Yaqiu Wang, China researcher at Human Rights Watch, told news agency.

But the disappearance of Xu illustrates how the Chinese state "persists in its old ways" by "silencing its critics", she said.

Xu -- who founded a movement calling for greater transparency among high-ranking officials -- previously served a four-year prison sentence from 2013 to 2017 for organising an "illegal gathering".

"That he was a fugitive for so many days while continuing to speak out, that in itself was... a kind of challenge to (Chinese authorities)," said Hua Ze, a long-time friend of Xu who told AFP she lost contact with the Chinese activist on Saturday morning.

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April 15,2020

Seoul, Apr 15: Wearing masks and gloves, South Korean voters cast their ballots on Wednesday to elect 300 parliamentary lawmakers amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Voting kicked off at 6 am (local time) and was to run until 6 pm (local time) at 14,330 polling stations across the country, according to the National Election Commission (NEC). The number of eligible voters is 44 million, according to Yonhap news agency.

The once-in-four-years legislative election is widely seen as a referendum on President Moon Jae-in, whose five-year term will end in mid-2022, as well as a test of the country's fight against COVID-19 under the leadership of Moon, The Strait Times reported.

South Korea has received international praise for its massive testing capability and other innovative measures, such as drive-through testing and high-tech contact tracing.

Experts, therefore, expect the ruling Democratic Party (DP) to extend its lead in Parliament, given that the government's handling of the virus outbreak is viewed positively both at home and abroad, as per The Strait Times.

At least 10,564 people in the country have been infected by coronavirus, which has claimed 222 lives. About 2,800 patients are undergoing treatment.

The number of new cases has fallen from a high of 813 on February 29 to below 50 for six days in a row as an intensive social distancing campaign that started on March 21 remained in place.

Several surveys cited by the newspaper also showed that voters consider the pandemic as the biggest factor in their decision. A recent poll showed that 72.6 per cent of respondents rated the government's response to the outbreak as positive.

The NEC has said that public safety at polling stations will be a priority to prevent any possible spread of the virus.

All 14,330 polling stations and 251 counting stations will be disinfected on polling day, the NEC was quoted.

Voters will undergo temperature screening and those registering temperatures of 37.5 degrees Celsius or higher or display respiratory symptoms will have to exercise their franchise at a separate booth.

Tuesday was the last of 13 days of campaigning, which saw most candidates reducing their ground activities and face-to-face encounters with voters. Instead, the candidates boosted their online presence with videos and social media engagements in a bid to win votes, according to The Strait Times.

In addition, the government has also decided to temporarily lift quarantine rules to permit self-isolators to vote in the elections. Some 50,000 people in self-isolation who have no symptoms and expressed a willingness to vote will be allowed to cast ballots after the regular voting ends in the evening.

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April 6,2020

Tokyo, April 6: Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is planning to declare a state of emergency in view of the surging cases of coronavirus in the country, especially in Tokyo and other large cities, government sources said on Monday.

Pressure had been mounting on Abe to make the declaration amid a spurt in COVID-19 cases recently, with calls for the move from Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike and the Japan Medical Association intensifying, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Tokyo metropolitan government, along with healthcare specialists, said that the number of hospital beds available for coronavirus patients will soon reach capacity, with the health ministry rapidly trying to secure more beds.

Adding to pressure on the government to demonstrably bolster its preventive and countermeasures to the spread of the virus, a panel of government experts warned recently that the country's healthcare system could collapse if coronavirus cases continue to spike.

The healthcare system in Tokyo and four other prefectures are under increased strain and "drastic countermeasures need to be taken as quickly as possible," the experts said.

As of Sunday, 143 new cases of COVID-19 were recorded in Tokyo, a record daily high for the capital, bringing the total to 1,034, with Japan's health ministry and local governments adding that nationwide cases rose to 3,531 as of Sunday afternoon.

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