21 Afghan soldiers Ukraine’s new era: Speaker killed by Taliban, takes over as interim prez Karzai slams Pak
STRATEGIC MOVE Oleksander Turchinov is a confidant of Yanukovich’s arch-rival
KIEV: The whereabouts and legitimacy of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych were unclear on Sunday, after he left the capital and his archfoe Yulia Tymoshenko was freed from prison and returned to Kiev to address a massive crowd.
Ukraine’s newly-emboldened legislature voted on Sunday to hand the president’s powers to the Parliament speaker, a Tymoshenko ally — Oleksander Turchinov.
But Yanukovych has said Parliament decisions in recent days are illegal. A plane with Yanukovych onboard was denied permission to take off on Saturday evening from Donetsk, a city in eastern Ukraine that is the president’s base of support the State Border Guard Service said.
The Kiev protest camp at the centre of the anti-Yanukovych movement filled with more demonstrators on Sunday morning, a day that saw a stunning reversal of fortune in a political standoff that has left scores dead and worried the US, Europe and Russia. “We need to punish those with blood on their hands,” said Artyom Zhilyansky, a protester. ASADABAD: Afghan President Hamid Karzai slammed Pakistan on Sunday for failing to “eliminate nests of terror” after the Taliban killed 21 soldiers and kidnapped seven in a daring raid on a border outpost.
The attack in the eastern Kunar province was the single deadliest strike on Afghan troops in recent months by the Taliban, and caused Karzai to cancel a planned two-day visit to Sri Lanka.
Afghanistan and Pakistan regularly accuse each other of supporting militant attacks in the other country, with the latest outburst coming days after Islamabad said 23 of its paramilitary soldiers were killed on Afghan soil. Kunar provincial governor Shujah-Ul Mulk Jalala said 21 were killed and seven kidnapped in the raid in the Ghaziabad district, with the Taliban later claiming credit.
Reinforcements were sent to the area to hunt for the attackers and release the kidnapped troops, the defence ministry said in a statement. The rebels attacked the reinforcing troops with a suicide bombing and gun attack but caused no casualties.
In a statement issued by his office, Karzai demanded action