Afghan forces ‘seize’ bomb-making cache

Taleban kill 5

KABUL, June 10, (Agencies): Afghan security forces on Sunday seized 156 sacks of ammonium nitrate, widely used in making explosives, from the back of a vegetable truck crossing from Pakistan, an official said, in one of the biggest such finds.

Intelligence officers found nearly eight tonnes of the chemical, “brought for insurgent activities”, hidden under sacks of vegetables on the truck at the Torkham border crossing, at the end of the Khyber Pass, a spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar province told Reuters.

Ammonium nitrate is widely used as a fertiliser, but for security reasons, imports into Afghanistan are banned.

Afghanistan faces insurgencies by the Taleban, Islamic State and the Taleban-linked Haqqani network. Pakistan and Afghanistan frequently accuse each other of harbouring terrorists planning cross-border raids.

A massive truck bomb struck the Afghan capital, Kabul, in May last year, killing more than 150 people.

The Taleban on Saturday announced a surprise three-day ceasefire over the Muslim Eid holiday this month, their first offer of its kind, days after the government declared an unconditional ceasefire of its own.

The governor of Nangarhar was dismissed last month as part of an administrative shakeup in a region where security has sharply deteriorated.

Officials in Nangarhar said he had failed to tackle endemic corruption in the province, which includes the Torkham post, the main crossing point into Pakistan for both goods and people as well as major smuggling routes.

Foreign air strikes targeted two Islamic State hideouts in the province, killing six insurgents, an Afghan military official told Reuters on Sunday. He did not say when the attack took place.

Ghani

Stormed

In southern Kandahar province, the Taleban stormed a security checkpoint on Saturday night, killing five police, a spokesman for the provincial governor told Reuters.

In August, US President Donald Trump unveiled a more hawkish military approach to Afghanistan, including a surge in air strikes, aimed at forcing the Taleban to the negotiating table.

Meanwhile, an Afghan official says the Taleban have attacked a checkpoint in the southern Kandahar province, killing five security forces

The attack late Saturday comes ahead of a three-day ceasefire timed to coincide with the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the Muslim Holy Month of Ramadan.

Daud Ahmadi, spokesman for the provincial governor in Kandahar, says three other forces were wounded in the attack.

The Taleban claimed the attack in a statement to media. The Taleban announced the upcoming ceasefire on Saturday, saying they would continue to defend themselves if attacked and would continue targeting foreign forces. The government announced the ceasefire last week. The holiday, and the cease-fire, is expected to begin later this week.

In related news, Afghans exhausted by a nearly 17-year war that is older than many of the country’s citizens breathed a sigh of relief Saturday after the Taleban announced its first ceasefire since the 2001 US invasion — but some remain wary.

The decision to suspend fighting for the first three days of Eid, the holiday that marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan and a time when Muslims visit family and friends, took many in the war-weary country by surprise.

Messages

Afghans flooded Facebook with messages of hope that the unprecedented ceasefire, which came two days after the government’s own unexpected announcement of a week-long halt to operations against the Taleban, could lead to a longer-lasting peace deal.

“It is a good move by the government and Taleban. Anyone who has lost someone to this war will welcome it,” wrote Mohammad Najeeb.

Shah Jahan posted: “I hope this is a step towards peace. I also hope other terrorist groups such as DAESH don’t disrupt it.”

DAESH is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group, which has a relatively small but potent presence in Afghanistan.

“I still cannot believe they (the Taleban) accepted the ceasefire offer. This is the very first ceasefire I have witnessed since I was born,” wrote Karwan, whose profile had only one name.

“For as long as I can remember it has been war, war, war.”

Baktash Mobarez said the Taleban’s announcement had “brought so much hope and happiness” to a country worn down by four decades of conflict.

“Imagine if one day all of the 20 terrorist groups active here stop fighting,” he said.

But others expressed doubts over the Taleban’s sincerity, pointing to the dozens of Afghan security forces killed in a spate of attacks claimed by the group in the hours leading up to the announcement.

Militants launched two separate assaults in the western province of Herat and the northern province of Kunduz overnight, killing at least 36 soldiers and police, officials said.

The group also claimed responsibility for an attack on an Afghan military base in the southern province of Kandahar.

The ceasefire could help build trust between the government and the Taleban, and provide “a very good stepping stone for further interaction”, the analyst told AFP.

President Ashraf Ghani’s ceasefire declaration on Thursday came on the heels of a fatwa issued by Afghanistan’s top clerics branding suicide attacks “haram”, or forbidden.

It also followed the Pentagon’s announcement that senior Taleban officials had been negotiating with Afghan authorities on a possible ceasefire.

Afghan political analyst Haroon Mir said the Taleban’s reciprocal, albeit shorter, ceasefire was “positive” for the Afghan people, but he cautioned that significant hurdles to peace remained.

“The question now is, is the US willing to accept negotiations with the Taleban?” Mir said.

Before Ghani’s peace talks offer to the Taleban in February, which the group ignored, the militants had issued a letter calling on the United States to negotiate directly with them. Washington refused.