Insider attack leaves 4 Afghan police dead in Kandahar

According to local authorities in southern Kandahar province of Afghanistan  at least 4 Afghan police officers were shot dead by their comrade in the latest wave of insider attacks in this province.
The officials further added at least 3 more officers were wounded following the attack which took place after they were poisoned in their security check post in Spin Boldak district.

Provincial governor spokesman Javid Faisal said the incident took place after one of the Afgan border police officer poisoned his comrades food and opened fire on them.

Mr. Faisal further added the attacker managed to flee the area after the assault while the three injured officers were taken to hospital for treatment purposes.

A spokesman for the Afghan border protection police forces in southern Afghanistan Ghorzan Afridi said security forces have launched an investigation to find out further details behind the incident.

No group including the Taliban militants has so far claimed responsibility behind the incident.

from KHAAMA
By Sajad - December 19 2012, 3:39 pm

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from XINHUA:
2012-12-19 19:09:36
Police kills 4 colleagues, wounds 3 in southern Afghan town

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Dec. 19 (Xinhua) -- A police constable of Border Police Force in the southern Kandahar province 450 km south of Kabul killed four colleagues and wounded three others in a checkpoint Tuesday night and fled away, Jawed Faisal the spokesman for Kandahar Governor said Wednesday. "The tragic incident took place late last night in a checkpoint in Spinboldak district," Faisal told Xinhua.

Without giving more details, he added that investigation is underway.

Meantime, an official on the condition of anonymity said that the culprit after poisoning the food and killing eight colleagues made his good escape.

Meantime, a Taliban purported spokesman in talks with media via telephone from unknown location described it a new tactic, insisting nine police were killed and few others sustained injuries in the incident.

Taliban penetrated elements, in the past had also targetted NATO-led troops and Afghan security personnel.

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Dec. 19., 2012. - RC-East operational update

BAGRAM, Afghanistan - Afghan and coalition forces cleared three improvised explosive devices during operations in eastern Afghanistan throughout the past 24 hours, Dec. 18.


Ghazni province
Afghan National Security Forces and coalition forces found and safely cleared one IED in Andar district.

Logar province
Afghan National Security Forces and coalition forces found and safely cleared two IEDs in Muhammad Aghah district.

Operations in RC-East are ongoing.

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Hundreds of Chinese landmines seized in Kandahar

KANDAHAR CITY (PAN): Hundreds of landmines, made in China, have been seized by border police in the southern province of Kandahar, the Ministry of Interior (MoI) said on Wednesday.

A man was arrested in connection with the landmines that were seized from a tractor in the border town of Spin Boldak late on Tuesday, a statement from MoI said. The detainee has confessed to his plan for delivering the bombs to the militants.

Border police official Mohammad Nasir confirmed to Pajhwok Afghan News the mines were recovered in Yaghi Talab area near the border with Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province.

The tractor had crossed into the district from Pakistan’s soil, the official claimed, saying the 555 anti-personal mines had been handed over to the National Directorate of Security -- Afghanistan’s spy service.

Javed Faisal, the Kandahar governor’s spokesman, also verified the seizure. The detainee was under investigation, he said, refusing to provide further details.

from Pajhwok
By Bashir Ahmad Naadem Dec 19, 2012 - 14:24   

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6 IED planters killed by their own bomb in S.Afghanistan

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan, Dec. 19 (Xinhua) -- Six Taliban militants were killed as their explosive device went off accidentally in Helmand province 555 km south of Kabul on Wednesday, spokesman for provincial administration Ahmad Zirak said.

"A group of Taliban rebels were busy planting mine on a road in Gereshk district Wednesday morning but the device exploded accidentally, killing six insurgents including a group commander Mullah Mohammad Shah on the spot," Zirat told Xinhua.

Taliban militants fighting the government and largely relying on suicide and roadside bombings are yet to comment.

from XINHUA
2012-12-19 18:31:21

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Three more polio workers shot in Pakistan

An injured polio health worker receives medical treatment at a hospital in northwest Pakistan's Peshawar, Dec. 19, 2012. At least one health worker was injured on Wednesday in firing on polio-eradication team in Pakistan's northwest city of Peshawar, bringing the number of injured to two and death toll to six in four separate attacks over the last two days, local police and health officials said. (Xinhua/Ahmad Sidique)

Three more polio workers shot in Pakistan; eight dead in 48 hours
(Reuters) - Three workers in a polio eradication campaign were shot in Pakistan on Wednesday, and two of them were killed, the latest in a string of attacks that has partially halted the U.N.-backed global health campaign to stamp out the crippling disease.

Following the violence, the United Nations in Pakistan has pulled all staff involved in the immunization campaign off the streets, spokesman Michael Coleman said.

Wednesday saw at least three separate attacks. In the north-western district of Charsadda, men on motorbikes shot dead a woman and her driver, police and health officials said.

Hours earlier, a male health worker was shot and badly wounded in the nearby provincial capital of Peshawar. He remains in a critical condition, said a doctor at the Lady Reading Hospital where he is being treated.

Four other women health workers were shot at but not hit in nearby Nowshera, said Jan Baz Afridi, deputy head of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation.

It is not clear exactly who is behind the violence but some Islamists, including Taliban militants, have long opposed the campaign, with some saying it is aimed at sterilizing Muslims.

The Taliban have repeatedly issued threats against the polio eradication campaign and health workers said they received calls telling them to stop working with the "infidels".

But a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, Ihsanullah Ihsan, told Reuters his group was not involved in the violence.

On Monday and Tuesday, six female health workers were killed in attacks in the southern port city of Karachi and in Peshawar. The youngest was 17.

The shootings, five of which happened in Karachi, home to 18 million people, led provincial health authorities to suspend the polio eradication campaign in the province of Sindh.

But authorities in Khyber Paktunkhwa province, where the capital is Peshawar, said they would not accept a recommendation to suspend the campaign even as the United Nations ordered their staff to suspend work.

"You know halting the campaign at this stage would create more problems as it's not a one-day phenomenon. If we stopped the campaign it would encourage the forces opposing the polio vaccination," said an official in the province, Javed Marwat.

Despite this, many health workers told Reuters they would not be going to work until the security situation improved.

The Taliban have repeatedly said the campaign is a Western conspiracy to sterilize or spy on Muslims or said the vaccinations could only continue if attacks by U.S. drone aircraft stopped.

Their suspicions increased after it emerged that the CIA had used a fake vaccination campaign to try to gather information about Osama bin Laden, before he was found and killed in a northern Pakistani town last year.

On Wednesday, Pakistan Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf said the campaign needed to go on.

"We cannot and would not allow polio to wreak havoc on the lives of our children," he said in a statement.

Pakistan had 20,000 polio cases in 1994 but vigorous vaccination efforts had brought the number down to 56 in 2012, the statement said.

A global vaccination campaign has eradicated the disease from everywhere except Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.

Polio can paralyse or kill within hours of infection. It is transmitted person-to-person, meaning that as long as one child is infected, the disease can be passed to others.

from REUTERS
By Jibran Ahmad
PESHAWAR, Pakistan | Wed Dec 19, 2012 8:19am GMT
(Reporting By Katharine Houreld; Editing by Michael Perry and Robert Birsel)

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