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AFGHANISTAN

12 dead in Afghanistan blast: Norway army

A suicide bomber on Wednesday killed at least 12 people and injured many more in the Faryab province in northern Afghanistan, a Norwegian armed forces' spokesman told AFP.

Published: 4 April 2012 10:13 CEST
Updated: 4 April 2012 11:22 CEST

"There are many dead and injured. The numbers I have for the time being are at least 12 killed, but this number is not definitive," Lieutenant Colonel John Espen Lien said, adding that no Norwegian soldiers in NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were nearby when the blast occurred.

Most of the foreign forces in the Faryab province are Norwegians.

Whether the victims were civilians or military personnel was not immediately clear.

Faryab provincial authorities and a hospital doctor in the provincial capital Maymana meanwhile said at least five people had been killed and 26 others injured in the attack near a park in the city.

Northern Afghanistan has generally been spared this kind of attack, which have been common in the restive southeast of the country and are most often attributed to the Taliban.

Norway contributes a little over 400 soldiers to the 130,000-strong NATO-led ISAF force fighting a decade-long Taliban insurgency against President Hamid Karzai's Western-backed government.

The Scandinavian country, which has lost 10 soliders in Afghanistan since international forces invaded in late 2001, plan to withdraw most of its troops from the country next year.

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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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