Thirteen killed in Afghan violence

KABUL: At least 13 people, including five Afghan border police, a Nato soldier and two would-be suicide bombers were killed across Afghanistan Saturday, officials said.

The border guards died when their vehicle was ambushed in Gulran district of Hirat province in western Afghanistan, General Sulaiman, the commander of rapid reaction forces in the area, told AFP.

“The vehicle first hit a roadside bomb and then the militants opened fire using grenade launchers and small arms,” he said.

The Nato soldier died in an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan, the International Security Assistance Force said, without providing any further details.

Also on Saturday, a roadside bomb hit a civilian truck in Lashkar Gah, the capital city of volatile Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, killing three civilians and wounding three others.

“They were labours going to their work in the morning when their truck hit the roadside bomb that killed three and wounded three others,” the provincial spokesman Daud Ahmadi said.

In southeastern Afghanistan, Afghan and Nato security forces shot dead four attackers attempting to target Barmal district chief office in Paktika province on Saturday, Mukhlis Afghan the provincial spokesman said.

“Two attackers had suicide vests on, but were killed before being able to detonate and two others were armed,” he said, adding that there were no other fatalities.

The east and southeastern regions of Afghanistan have been the focus of US-led coalition efforts recently, shifting from Taliban strongholds in the south towards the restive area along the border with Pakistan.

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Blast kills 11 on bus in Syria, clashes elsewhere

BEIRUT: An explosion killed at least 11 people on a minibus carrying prisoners in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib on Saturday, the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

The British-based group, which monitors a 10-month-old uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, gave no further details. No independent confirmation was available.

In other violence, heavy fighting broke out between the Syrian army and soldiers who have defected to join anti-Assad insurgents in an area near the border with Turkey, Al Jazeera television reported.

It gave no further details of the clashes which it said were in the city of Jisr al-Shughour.

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Maoist landmine attack kills 12 policemen in India

PATNA, India: A landmine attack by Maoist militants in eastern India killed at least 12 policemen and injured three others, authorities said on Saturday.

The attack, targeting a police vehicle in Jharkhand state, was to protest against the killing of one of the top Maoist leaders Koteswar Rao — better known as Kishenji — by security forces last year, police said.

“The Maoists triggered a powerful landmine targeting the police vehicle in Garhwa district,” senior police official Suman Gupta told AFP by telephone from state capital Ranchi.

The policemen were apparently trapped by the Maoists in a forested area of the district, Gupta added.

The Maoist insurgency, which began in 1967, feeds off land disputes, police brutality and corruption, and is strongest in the poorest and most deprived areas of India, many of which are rich in natural resources.

The attack was the latest in a series of militant strikes on often poorly trained police battling the Maoist militants, fighting to overthrow all state and national authorities.

Last month, another landmine attack by Maoist militants in the same state struck a convoy of a senior politician, killing 10 policemen and a young boy.

The increasingly lethal insurgency has spread to around 20 of India’s 29 states and has been described by Prime Minister Singh as the country’s biggest internal security threat.

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Grossman in Kabul for talks with Karzai on peace

KABUL: US envoy Marc Grossman arrived in Kabul Saturday for talks with President Hamid Karzai on preliminary peace negotiations with Taliban insurgents.

“The United States stands ready to assist in any way we can an Afghan-led reconciliation process to find a peaceful end to this conflict,” he said in a statement.

“I look forward to calling on President Karzai and discussing next steps.”

Grossman’s visit comes in the wake of an announcement by the Taliban that it planned to open a political office in Qatar ahead of talks with Washington on ending Afghanistan’s 10-year war.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton despatched Grossman to Kabul to discuss the development with Karzai, who was reportedly concerned that he would be sidelined in the Qatar talks.

Washington has consistently said that any talks with the Taliban to end the war could only take place with the agreement of the Afghan government, which eventually should lead the process.

“I have made it clear to President Karzai that we will work with him, under his leadership,” Clinton said.

A US official said that if Karzai was agreeable, the talks could open within weeks.

Grossman’s visit comes a day after French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he was considering an early exit from Afghanistan after an Afghan soldier shot dead four unarmed French troops during a sports session inside a base.

France has some 3,600 troops in Afghanistan with US-led coalition forces totalling about 130,000. The coalition forces plan to pull out their combat troops by the end of 2014.

Grossman had planned to visit neighbouring Pakistan ahead of his trip to Kabul but was snubbed by Islamabad amid a drastic deterioration of ties, particularly after a Nato air strike near the Afghan border on November 26 killed 24 Pakistani troops.

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