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AFGHANISTAN

‘We killed Swedish soldiers’: Taliban

The Taliban has claimed that it was behind the attack that killed two Swedish solders and their Afghan interpreter on Sunday.

Published: 11 February 2010 16:04 CET
'We killed Swedish soldiers': Taliban

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid made the claim to local newspapers as well as on one of the militant Islamist group’s websites, according to a report from Javed Hamim Kakar at the Afghan news agency Pajhwok.

Mujahid is known as an official Taliban spokesperson under the leadership of Mullah Omar, head of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

In an interview with Swedish news agency TT in the autumn, Mujahid said:

“Send your troops home. We do not want to kill Swedes and we do not want you to kill Afghans, but that will be the result of the troops’ presence.”

“Furthermore, the Swedish troops are not here to defend Sweden. Or to help the people of Afghanistan. You are here on the orders of the USA – you are the Americans’ slaves.”

Whether the claims of responsibility for the killings are true or false is impossible to establish. It is well known that the Taliban has a tendency to claim responsibility for every attack it deems successful.

28-year-old Captain Johan Palmlöv and 31-year-old Lieutenant Gunnar Andersson, and their Afghan interpreter Mohammad Shahab Ayouby, were part of a patrol which came under fire on Sunday near a police station, 40 kilometres west of Mazar-e Sharif, near the village of Gurgi Tappeh.

Soldiers in the patrol have confirmed that their attacker was dressed in an Afghan police officer’s uniform. His identity is the subject of the military police investigation.

AFGHANISTAN

Spain starts evacuating Afghan employees via Pakistan

Spain was on Monday evacuating via Pakistan Afghan helpers left behind when western forces quit Kabul, a government source confirmed on condition of anonymity.

Published: 11 October 2021 15:58 CEST
A group of Afghan nationals stand on the tarmac after disembarking from the last Spanish evacuation flight at the Torrejon de Ardoz air base near Madrid in August. Photo: PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU / AFP)
A group of Afghan nationals stand on the tarmac after disembarking from the last Spanish evacuation flight at the Torrejon de Ardoz air base near Madrid in August. Photo: PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU / AFP)

The government source declined to give any details of the move, citing security concerns.

But Spanish media, including daily El País and National Radio, reported that Madrid would bring close to 250 Afghan citizens, who had already crossed into Pakistan and would be flown out on military transport planes.

The first flight was expected to arrive on Monday evening.

Spain’s evacuations have been weeks in the making, with Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares visiting Pakistan and Qatar in early September to lay the groundwork.

Madrid evacuated over 2,000 people, most of them Afghans who had worked for Spain and their families, during the western withdrawal as the Taliban seized power in Kabul in August.

But the flights had to stop once the final American troops that had been protecting the Afghan capital’s airport left.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said in August that Spain would not “lose interest in the Afghans who had remained” in their country but wanted to leave.

The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, on Friday urged the bloc’s member states to host a “minimum” of between 10,000 and 20,000 more Afghan refugees.

“To welcome them, we have to evacuate them, and we’re getting down to it, but it’s not easy,” he said in Madrid.

The EU has said a demand by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to take in 42,500 Afghan refugees over five years can be achieved — although any decision lies with member states.

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