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Kabul, Jan 9 (DPA) Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s new cabinet lineup was formally presented Saturday to the country’s parliament after the legislators rejected 17 designated ministers last week.
The new 16 nominees included Zalmai Rasool, a former national security advisor slated to be foreign minister. The post was vacant in the previous list.
None of the rejected [...]
Kabul, Dec 31 (DPA) For retired army colonel Gholam Rabani, the troop timetable set by US President Barack Obama is a clear sign that NATO forces will abandon Afghanistan just as Soviet troops did two decades ago.
‘Sending 30,000 troops to Afghanistan to finish the job,’ Obama in an unexpected move also set summer 2011 as [...]
Kabul, Dec. 30 (ANI): More and more Afghans are turning to Taliban courts to get speedy justice, as the corrupt and incompetent government of President Hamid Karzai has proved to be futile to resolve disputes – particularly at local level.
When [...]
Kabul, Dec 28 (DPA) Afghan President Hamid Karzai ordered an investigation Monday into a NATO airstrike that, according to his office, killed ten civilians – including eight school students – in eastern Afghanistan.
The civilians were killed in the airstrike Sunday morning in Narang district of eastern province of Kunar, the presidential palace said in a [...]
Kabul, Dec. 17 (ANI): A top UN official in Afghanistan had proposed a plan to replace President Hamid Karzai with a more Washington-friendly figure three months ago – when the widespread fraud in the presidential election was becoming clear.
The top UN official in Kabul, [...]
Kabul, Dec 15 (DPA) President Hamid Karzai Tuesday vowed to combat widespread corruption in his government at all levels, calling it a menace that has brought shame to the country.
Since his re-election last month in polls marred by massive fraud, Karzai has been under mounting pressure from his government’s Western allies to crack down on [...]
Kabul, Dec 15 (DPA) Eight people, including four women, were killed and 40 were injured Tuesday in a suicide bombing in Kabul’s diplomatic enclave, officials said.
A Taliban spokesman denied involvement in the attack.
‘As a result of the suicide attack today (Tuesday), four men and four women were martyred,’ the interior ministry said in a statement.
President [...]
Kabul, Dec 15 (DPA) Afghan President Hamid Karzai said five people, including two women, were killed in a suspected suicide attack at the diplomatic enclave of Kabul Tuesday.
Speaking to senior government officials and diplomats at an anti-corruption conference, he said the blast took place near the residence of former first vice-president Ahmad Zia Massoud, who [...]
Kabul, Dec. 15 (ANI): A large explosion rocked Kabul’s main diplomatic and government residential district on Tuesday morning killing at least four civilians and injuring several others.
The blast occurred hours before President Hamid Karzai was expected to attend an anti-corruption conference in the [...]
Islamabad, Dec. 10 (ANI): Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan has said that talks with the extremists are very necessary to prevent further chaos in the country.
“It is high time to enter into dialogue with the militants to save the future of the nation, as it was the question of the [...]
Kabul, Dec 8 (DPA) US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday that the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan would take ’several years’ as Afghan forces needed to be strengthened by recruiting more soldiers and police to take charge of the country’s security.
Gates, who arrived in Kabul on a surprise visit Tuesday morning to discuss with [...]
Washington, Dec 7 (DPA) Afghan President Hamid Karzai has asked the international community to have patience as Afghanistan builds the ability to take responsibility for its own security.
In his first Western interview Sunday since US President Obama announced plans to put another 30,000 troops in Afghanistan, Karzai told US-based broadcaster CNN that he hoped to [...]
Islamabad, Dec.3 (ANI): President Barack Obama’s timetable for deploying additional American forces in Afghanistan next summer and his decision to start withdrawing them from July 2011, has rattled both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
According to a report in the New York Times, Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta said the announcement that American troops could begin leaving [...]
London, Nov 29 (IANS) International forces will begin a lengthy process of withdrawing from Afghanistan by the end of 2010 under a detailed roadmap to be agreed at an international conference here January, according to a report Sunday.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has set out detailed ‘benchmarks’ for the process of ‘Afghanisation’ amid growing calls [...]
Kabul, Nov 25 (DPA) The Taliban’s fugitive leader, Mullah Omar, Wednesday rejected the Afghan government’s call for talks with Taliban-led insurgents.
His statement came ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha and days after President Hamid Karzai renewed his calls to Taliban militants for peace during his inauguration speech last week.
‘The people of Afghanistan will [...]
Kabul, Nov 24 (DPA) The new cabinet for President Hamid Karzai, who was re-elected in a poll marred by massive fraud, is expected to be announced ‘in a near future’, his spokesman said Tuesday.
Karzai, who was sworn in for a second five-year term Thursday, has been under international pressure to cleanse his administration by excluding [...]
Kabul, Nov. 22 (ANI): Two ministers in Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai’s cabinet are facing arrests on theft and fraud charges, as investigators in the country’s newly set-up anti-corruption force have gathered sufficient evidence against the two ministers.
Warrants have been signed for the arrest of Sediq Chakari, the minister of hajj and Islamic affairs and another [...]
Multan (Pakistan), Nov.21 (ANI): Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said that Islamabad should also be included in the talks between the Indian government and Kashmiri leaders, as it is also a party to the dispute.
Interacting with media persons here, Qureshi denied being involved in any back-channel diplomacy with India, and added that Islamabad [...]
Kabul, Nov.20 (ANI): At least 13 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack in the western Afghan city of Farah on Friday.
Reports said that a suicide bomber riding a motorcycle killed the 13 people, including a police officer, and wounded 30 others in a busy city square.
Several children were among the wounded in the [...]
Washington, Nov 20 (IANS) Noting that a ‘cross border fertilisation of terrorism’ is preventing both Pakistan and Afghanistan to defeat the forces threatening them, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wants the two countries to work together to defeat terrorism.
‘We know that there is a cross-border fertilisation of extremism and terrorism,’ Clinton who was in Afghanistan [...]
Kabul, Nov. 20 (ANI): Afghan President Hamid Karzai has set a five-year time frame for Afghan forces to take over from international troops.
“We are determined that by the next five years, the Afghan forces are capable of taking the lead in ensuring security and stability across the country,” The Telegraph quoted Karzai, as saying.
Karzai’s statement [...]
Kabul, Nov 19 (IANS) Ten civilians were killed and many others injured Thursday when a suicide bomber blew himself up in Uruzgan province in southern Afghanistan, the police said.
Nearly two dozen people were injured in the blast at 3.30 p.m. in Dehrawad district.
An official said the suicide bomber first tried to attack an army convoy [...]
Budapest, Nov 19 (DPA) A NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan would lead to a strengthening of al-Qaeda and cause instability to spread through the region, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Thursday in the Hungarian capital.
Rasmussen spoke of the possibility of a gradual handover of power to Afghan security forces beginning as early as next [...]
Kabul, Nov.19 (ANI): Promising Thursday to prosecute corrupt government officials and end a culture of impunity during his second term, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai said that his administration would move beyond the cronyism and graft of the past five years.
Speaking after his inauguration here, Karzai, who has come under intense international pressure to clean [...]
Kabul, Nov 19(ANI): Indian External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said here on Thursday that international forces should continue to stay in Afghanistan to bring about a balance in that country.
Interacting with the media here, Krishna said: “India believes that international forces have played a major role in Afghanistan and they need to continue to [...]
Kabul, Nov 19 (DPA) Tight security marked the beginning of the inauguration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai at Kabul’s presidential palace for a second term in office Thursday.
Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, as well as the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain took part in the ceremony.
More [...]
New Delhi, Nov 18 (IANS) External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna reached Kabul Wednesday, a day ahead of the inauguration of President Hamid Karzai for a second term.
India had earlier send its congratulations to President Karzai for winning the second presidential elections in the war-ravaged country. India has a large multi-billion dollar rehabilitation and development programme [...]
Kabul, Nov 18 (DPA) Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in Kabul Wednesday, a day ahead of the inauguration of President Hamid Karzai for a second term, officials said.
Karzai was declared winner of Afghanistan’s fraud-marred election after his main challenger Abdullah Abdullah dropped out of a run-off [...]
Kabul, Nov. 18 (ANI): A minister in Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai’s cabinet has been accused of accepting roughly 30-million-dollar bribe to award the country’s largest development project to a Chinese mining firm, a US official has claimed.
The Washington Post quoted the US official as [...]
Islamabad, Nov 17 (IANS) Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari will pay an official visit to Afghanistan Thursday to attend the oath taking ceremony in Kabul by President Hamid Karzai for his second term in office.
Diplomatic sources told Online news agency that the president will be accompanied, among others, by Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and [...]
