Afghanistan

(AP) --- Afghan special forces soldiers who fought alongside American troops and then fled to Iran after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal last year are now being recruited by the Russian military to fight in Ukraine, three former Afghan generals told The Associated Press.

They said the Russians want to attract thousands of the former elite Afghan commandos into a “foreign legion” with offers of steady, $1,500-a-month payments and promises of safe havens for themselves and their families so they can avoid deportation home to what many assume would be death at the hands of the Taliban.

KABUL, Oct 29 (NNN-ANA) – Provincial administration has decided to rebuild the buildings of nine schools, in Afghanistan’s eastern Logar province, the state-run Bakhtar news agency reported, today.

The buildings would be reconstructed at a cost of 100,000 U.S. dollars and the reconstruction work would start soon, said provincial education directorate spokesman, Shah Poor Arab, the report said.

Many schools and colleges had been destroyed or damaged during the past 20 years of the U.S.-led so-called “war on terror” in Afghanistan, which ended in Aug, last year.

PUL-E-KHUMRI, Afghanistan, Oct 25 (NNN-ANA) – A clash between two families, over the ownership of a farmland, in northern Afghanistan’s Baghlan province, claimed the lives of four persons and injured three others yesterday, the provincial police spokesman, Shir Ahmad Burhani, said today.

The clash, according to the official, erupted last night, after one family claimed the ownership over a piece of land, while another rejected and resorted to firearms, which resulted in the killing of four persons, two from each family.

KANDAHAR, Oct 9 (NNN-ANA) – The Taliban-run caretaker administration, has started the reconstruction of a major highway in the southern Kandahar province, officials said.

In the first phase, 55 km of the road linking Kandahar to the neighbouring Zabul province, would be reconstructed, followed by the reconstruction of highways linking Kandahar to Kabul and Kandahar to Herat, said Bakht Mohammad, who is with the reconstruction project.

The first phase project will be finished in five months, with funds provided by the administration, the official said.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A group of Afghan women Saturday protested a suicide bombing that killed or wounded dozens of students in a Shiite education center in the capital Kabul a day earlier, demanding better security from the Taliban-run government.

The demonstration was quickly broken up by Taliban police.

The bomber struck an education center Friday packed with hundreds of students in a Shiite neighborhood, killing 19 people and wounding 27. Among the casualties were teenagers taking practice university entrance exams, a Taliban spokesman said.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A suicide bomber struck an education center in a Shiite area of the Afghan capital on Friday, killing 19 people and wounding 27, including teenagers who were taking university practice entry exams, a Taliban spokesman said.

KABUL, Sept 18 (NNN-ANA) – Afghan police discovered a weapon cache and arrested five persons for keeping arms illegally, in the eastern Kapisa province, the Interior Ministry said, in a statement here, today.

During a cleanup operation yesterday, police personnel, besides discovering 21 stocks of assault rifles, including AK-47, also found and confiscated two sets of walkie-talkies, a few hand grenades, a laptop computer, and a number of ammunitions, the statement said.

15 Sep 2022; MEMO: China said, on Thursday, that the US-blocked Afghan foreign reserves should be returned immediately so that Afghanistan could utilise them independently, Anadolu News Agency reports.

"The frozen assets are life-saving money of Afghan people, which should be returned immediately, disposed of by Afghanistan independently, and used for the improvement of the livelihood and peaceful reconstruction," Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, said.

KABUL, Sept 10 (Reuters) - A Black Hawk helicopter crashed during a Taliban training exercise in Afghanistan's capital Kabul, killing three, the group's defence ministry said on Saturday.

"An American Black Hawk helicopter, which was flown ... for training, crashed due to a technical problem inside the campus of the National Defence University," said Ministry of Defence spokesperson Enaytullah Khowrazmi, adding five people were also injured.

HERAT, Afghanistan, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) -- A total of 18 people have been confirmed dead and 23 others were injured as a blast ripped through a mosque in Herat city, capital of Afghanistan's western Herat province on Friday, a local official said.

"A total of 18 persons including prominent cleric Mawlawi Mujib Rahman Ansari and his brother Habib Rahman Ansari were killed and 23 others injured in a blast outside the Gazar Gah mosque in Herat city today," the provincial administration spokesman Mawlawi Hamidullah Matawakil told reporters.