A Palestinian family, whose house was demolished by Israeli bulldozers, walk past a tent on April 21, 2015 in the southern West Bank. (AFP/File)

by Ma’an News Agency

UN officials visited the Palestinian Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar in the central occupied West Bank district of Jerusalem on Wednesday, which is under threat of forcible relocation by Israeli authorities who delivered demolition notices to every single house in the village on Sunday, and called the situation “unacceptable.”

Coordinator for Humanitarian Aid and UN Development Activities for the occupied Palestinian territory Robert Piper and Director of UNRWA Operations in the West Bank Scott Anderson visited the small village located in Area C — the more than 60 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli control and the site of frequent Israeli demolitions.

“Khan al-Ahmar is one of the most vulnerable communities in the West Bank, struggling to maintain a minimum standard of living in the face of intense pressure from the Israeli authorities to move to a planned relocation site,” Piper said in a statement, adding that “this is unacceptable and it must stop.”

Over the past week, Israeli authorities delivered demolition notices to the village’s 40 homes and elementary school, including stop-work orders targeting various structures in the village. Locals told Ma’an at the time that Israeli forces imposed a military closure on the area before delivering the demolition warrants, as faculty and students of the school were prevented from accessing the building.

Despite the fact that the community, and the school in particular, has been threatened with demolition by the Israeli government for years, locals said the issuing of demolition warrants to every single house was an unprecedented blow.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz has reported that Israeli authorities confirmed the widespread issuance of demolition orders was unprecedented in the area, and that the raid was “a declaration of intention in advance of an attempt to evacuate the entire village.”

The demolition notices were issued on the basis of the community lacking almost impossible to obtain Israeli building permits, which the UN has said results from the discriminatory zoning and planning regimes implemented in Area C.

According to the statement released by the UN, the enforcement of these orders in Khan al-Ahmar would “directly impact the homes and livelihoods of over 140 Palestinian refugees, more than half of them children.”

The statement also highlighted that the orders have also targeted the village’s primary school, built out of tires and mud. The school was built with the help of international donors, and according to the UN serves some 170 Bedouin children in the area.

“The developments in Khan al Ahmar are not unique,” Piper said. “Thousands of families live in fear of demolitions at any moment, and entire communities exist in chronic instability.”

“When schools are demolished, the right to education of Palestinian children is also threatened. This creates a coercive environment that forces certain Palestinian communities to move elsewhere, ” he noted.

He added that the international community should work together to support and protect vulnerable communities like the Bedouin, while “insisting that international law is respected.”

Khan al-Ahmar, like other Bedouin communities in the region, is under threat of relocation by Israel for being located in the contentious “E1 corridor” set up by the Israeli government to link annexed East Jerusalem with the mega settlement of Maale Adumim.

Israeli authorities plan to build thousands of homes for Jewish-only settlements in E1, which would effectively divide the West Bank and make the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state — as envisaged by the two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict — almost impossible.

Rights groups and Bedouin community members have sharply criticized Israel’s relocation plans for the Bedouin residing near the illegal Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, claiming that the removal would displace indigenous Palestinians for the sake of expanding Israeli settlements across the occupied West Bank in violation of international law.

The statement reiterated the UN’s longstanding condemnation of the forcible transfer of Bedouin communities without their free, prior, and informed consent.

“The entire existence of this community, the homes, animal sheds and school that we visited today, is under threat. I am gravely concerned about Israel’s continued pressures to force these Bedouin from their homes, destroying their livelihoods and their distinct culture,”Anderson said in the statement, adding that “many of these Palestine refugee families have already had their homes demolished several times within the last couple of years.”

“I urge the Israeli authorities to halt all plans and practices that will directly or indirectly lead refugees to be displaced once again,” he said.

The village is one of 46 villages comprising of a population of 7,000 — 70 percent of whom are Palestinian refugees — in the central West Bank that are considered by the UN as being at risk of forcible transfer by Israeli authorities to alternative sites, in violation of international law, the statement highlighted.

The demolition raids this past week were the latest in a years-long legal battle waged by the Israeli government and residents of illegal Israeli settlements surrounding Khan al-Ahmar to demolish and relocate the school, which was built in 2009 with the assistance of Italian NGO Vento Di Terra using ecological methods.

In August last year, after reports emerged that the Israeli prime minister’s office ordered the school to be closed down, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the state of Israel provide a formal opinion on the school the following week.

In October, the state postponed issuing a decision at the Supreme Court for four months.

Now, four months later, the status of case remained unclear. A spokesperson for the Israeli Justice Ministry did not immediately respond to Ma’an on a request for comment on the case.

On Wednesday, the European Union (EU) Missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah also released a statement condemning Israeli demolition policies in Area C of the West Bank, saying that since the start of 2017, 218 Palestinians had already been displaced due to Israeli-imposed demolitions, confiscations, and evictions in Area C. More than half of those displaced were children, the statement added.

The statement went on to highlight the record-high amount of Israeli-enforced demolitions of Palestinian structures in 2016, saying that “6,088 Palestinians were affected by 872 demolitions in Area C, among whom 1,663 were children.”

Negotiations off to rocky start after opposition threatens to skip opening ceremony over disagreements.

UN envoy de Mistura pleaded to the sides of the Syrian conflict ‘to work together’ [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Geneva, Switzerland – UN-led negotiations on the war in Syria got off to a delayed start following disputes over the participation of the Syrian opposition delegation.

Opposition representatives nearly missed the opening ceremony of the talks on Thursday after threatening not to attend over disagreements on the make-up and format of the session. But in a last-minute turnaround, they arrived late and as one large delegation.

UN envoy Staffan de Mistura formally began the fourth round of talks in Geneva in an opening session that brought the opposition and government delegations face-to-face at UN headquarters with expectations of a breakthrough low.

“I ask you to work together. I know it’s not going to be easy to end this horrible conflict and lay the foundation for a country at peace with itself, sovereign and unified,” de Mistura told the two delegations, who sat on opposite sides of the stage.

“It is your opportunity and solemn responsibility … not to condemn future generations of Syrian children to long years of bitter and bloody conflict.”

The talks are part of the latest political initiative to bring an end to a six-year war that has killed nearly half a million people, wounded more than a million, and forced more than 12 million – half of the country’s prewar population – from their homes.

Hopes for a ‘work plan’

In a news conference shortly after his opening speech, de Mistura said he would meet with each side on Friday in the hopes of setting a “work plan” for the remainder of the negotiations.

At the last Syria talks in Geneva 10 months ago, de Mistura had to shuttle between the government and opposition delegations in different rooms.

The opening ceremony on Thursday was delayed by several hours after disputes between the main opposition bloc – the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) – and de Mistura over the structure of the opposition delegation.

The bloated size of the delegation was due partly to de Mistura’s inclusion of two other groups – the Moscow and the Cairo platforms – in the talks. The envoy invited the two pro-Russia, government-tolerated opposition groups to sit separately from the HNC, an umbrella group of armed and political factions.

“You must have seen that there was, in particular, a very heavy [presence] on the side of the opposition in the room … they were including also the armed groups … because, as you know, peace is made between those who fight each other,” said de Mistura.

The idea of the opposition sitting at different tables riled the Saudi Arabia-based HNC, leading to hours of last-minute diplomacy ahead of the opening ceremony as diplomats scrambled to find a solution.

“Today, the real opposition that represents the Syrian people is the HNC. This delegation and the HNC, extends its hand to any national partner that adopts the will of the Syrian people,” Naser al-Hariri, head of the HNC delegation, told reporters ahead of the opening session.

“We hope that the Moscow and Cairo platforms will prioritise national interest and the interests of the Syrian people,” Hariri said.

“The HNC was in contact with the Cairo and Moscow platforms in previous meetings. There are ongoing efforts to join these platforms within the opposition delegation so that we are represented as one delegation.”

De Mistura said there had been “serious progress” made in the hours leading up to the opening ceremony in “forming a united political opposition,” but that there was still much work to be done.

Truce violations

The talks in Geneva came about after Russia, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and Turkey, a backer of the Syrian opposition, managed to forge a fragile nationwide ceasefire in place since December 30.

The Syrian government and the opposition agreed to participate in negotiations despite daily violations of the truce.

Much has changed on the ground in Syria since de Mistura suspended the last round of talks in Geneva last April after a previous ceasefire collapsed and heavy fighting resumed.

Russia’s September 2015 military intervention drastically changed the balance of power, propping up Assad’s embattled forces and helping them to retake key parts of the country.

With the help of Russian jets and Iranian-backed fighters, Syrian government forces dealt the rebels their biggest defeat in the conflict in December by retaking Aleppo, Syria’s commercial capital before the war and a rebel stronghold since 2012.

The Russian-backed push on the battlefield has been coupled with a similar takeover by Moscow in the diplomatic arena – a move helped by confusion surrounding US President Donald Trump’s Syria policy.

While the Geneva talks are seen as the most serious diplomatic effort in months, disputes over the agenda and long-standing disagreements between the opposition and the government on the future of the country have cast doubts on whether any progress will be achieved.

A day before the talks began, de Mistura said he was not expecting any major breakthroughs, but added he was determined to maintain “proactive momentum” on UN Security Council Resolution 2254, a document that provides the backbone of the talks.

“254 lays out a clear agenda, including specific language on governance, constitutions, elections, and even for the way negotiations should be timed,” said de Mistura. “That is what must now be discussed.”

Though matters on the ground have shifted, the starkly different political objectives of the warring sides remain unchanged from previous rounds of negotiations.

For the Syrian opposition, a political transition that ensures the removal of Assad remains the only option for peace – an issue that the government in Damascus has consistently refused to consider.

De Mistura said the biggest challenge ahead of the delegates was a “lack of trust” as he appealed to the two sides to use the talks as an opportunity for peace.

“We do know what will happen if we fail once again – more deaths, more suffering, more terrorism, more refugees,” he said.

(Agencies)

At least seven killed and many wounded as powerful blast rips through market in city’s affluent Defence area.

Pakistani security officials inspect the scene of the bomb blast in Lahore [AP]

by Al Jazeera

At least seven people were killed and 17 wounded in a bomb blast at a market in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore, government officials said.

Thursday’s blast follows a string of attacks across the country.

The bombing ripped through a building that was under construction at a commercial market in the affluent Defence area, replete with upmarket boutiques and cafes as well as an academy for the international hair salon Toni & Guy.

“It was a bomb attack,” Nayab Haider, a spokesman for the provincial Punjab police said. “It was a planted explosive device. We do not yet know if it was a timed device or remote detonated.”

No group has immediately claimed the attack.

Television footage showed a smouldering building and several crumpled cars with their windows blown out.

“My God, my God, I saw so many bodies,” Imtiaz Ali, a barber in the Toni & Guy salon, told the AFP news agency. “When I came out I first just saw smoke and dust … Bikes upturned. Cars destroyed. My own colleague’s car windows blown out. My clients’ cars blown out. I was close to fainting.”

According to police, 20kg of explosives were planted at the market.

Rescue official Rizwan Naseer told reporters: “Rescue operations have been completed, and all the wounded and killed have been taken to hospital. We suspect there may be one or two more bodies trapped under the rubble, which we are still investigating.”

Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder said the area was busy at the time of attack.

Reports of a second blast in the Gulberg area were later retracted by government officials, who said that a tyre blowout caused the loud sound.

Since mid-February, various armed groups have killed at least 130 people across the country and wounded hundreds more.

On February 17, Pakistan suffered the deadliest attack in more than two years as a suicide bomber killed at least 88 people and injured hundreds at a Sufi shrine. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) said it was behind that attack.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a Pakistani Taliban-linked armed group, claimed responsibility for last Monday’s suicide attack targeting police at a protest rally in central Lahore. At least 13 people died in the blast.

Military response

Government and military officials have vowed extensive operations to hunt down fighters across the country and Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan has been shut down due to security concerns.

After the shrine bombing, Pakistani security forces said they had killed more than 100 suspected fighters in targeted campaigns across the country.

On Wednesday, Pakistan’s army announced that it was launching a new military operation in response to recent violence.

Dubbed Radd-al-Fasaad, the operation by paramilitary forces in Punjab focuses on counterterrorism.

The Punjab is Pakistan’s most populous province, with Lahore its capital.

The operation aims to provide “more effective border security”, a military statement said.

The army has pursued a series of operations in the country’s tribal areas over the past 15 years.

Zarb-e-Azb, the latest, was launched in 2014 to target the Pakistani Taliban and their allies in North Waziristan, the group’s headquarters.

Last year North Waziristan was declared cleared of armed groups, but intelligence-based operations under the banner of Zarb-e-Azb continued across Pakistan.

Radd-al-Fasaad marks the first time the military has formally announced a security operation in Pakistan’s most populous province, which is also the political heartland of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

The operation gives policing powers to the paramilitary Rangers force when pursuing suspects.

Iraqi forces storm ISIL-held Mosul International Airport as they continue offensive on western half of the city.

The operation to retake Iraq’s second largest city was officially launched in October and, in January, its eastern half was declared ‘fully liberated’ [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

US-backed Iraqi security forces closing in on the ISIL-held western half of Mosul have stormed the city’s airport and a nearby military base, state television said.

Counterterrorism service (CTS) troops and elite interior ministry units known as Rapid Response forces descended on the airport early on Thursday and the nearby Ghazlani military complex, CTS spokesman Sabah al-Numan told state TV.

“This is one of the major achievements that the Iraqi forces were hoping to get in the first phase of going towards the Western side of the city,” said Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid, reporting from Erbil.

“This area is about 30 kms away from the western edge of the city, and Iraqi forces now say that they are in full control.

“They say that the two main buildings of the city have been destroyed by ISIL and they have found a number of car bombs parked on strategic locations in the entry points and along the runway of Mosul International Airport.”

The airport and military complex, which includes barracks and training grounds and sprawls across an area close to the Baghdad-Mosul highway was captured by ISIL fighters when they overran Mosul in June 2014.

The advances come days after Iraqi forces officially launched the operation to push ISIL out of Mosul’s western half.

The operation to retake Iraq’s second largest city was officially launched in October and in January its eastern half was declared “fully liberated.”

A US-led coalition has been providing close air support throughout the campaign to retake Iraq’s second-largest city.

US special operations forces are embedded with some Iraqi units and thousands of US troops are in Iraq providing logistical and other support.

US Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis was holding discussions with US and Iraqi officials, a week before he is expected to present a new strategy to President Donald Trump for defeating ISIL .

Trump has repeatedly vowed to eliminate the group but has provided few details about how his approach might differ from that of the Obama administration, which had partnered with Syrian and Iraqi forces to drive ISIL out of several towns and cities.

The battle for western Mosul , the group’s last major urban bastion in Iraq, is expected to be the most daunting yet.

The streets are older and narrower in that sector of the city, which stretches west from the River Tigris, forcing Iraqi soldiers to leave the relative safety of their armoured vehicles.

The presence of up to 750,000 civilians also poses a challenge .

Two suicide car bombers struck army and paramilitary forces west of Mosul on Monday, killing and wounding a number of troops, two army officers said, without specifying the number of casualties.

A third suicide car bomber was blown up before reaching the troops, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief the media.

ISIL claimed responsibility for two attacks in an online statement, saying the attackers were British and Iraqi.

In break from strict secular past, defence ministry allows female officers cover their heads with plain headscarves.

by Al Jazeera

Turkey has for the first time allowed female members of the armed forces to wear headscarves while on duty as part of their uniform.

Women serving in the armed forces “will be able to cover their heads” under their caps or berets so long as the headscarf is “the same colour as the uniform and without pattern”, said a new defence ministry regulation announced on Wednesday.

The lift on the ban is going to come into effect once the regulation is announced in the Official Gazette, according to Turkish media.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has long pressed for the removal of restrictions on women wearing the headscarf in the officially secular state.

Turkey lifted a ban on the wearing of headscarves on university campuses in 2010.

It allowed female students to wear the garment in state institutions from 2013 and in high school in 2014.

In August 2016, AKP government lifted the ban on headscarves in the police force.

Turkish military has long been known as the “protector of secularism” in the country and worked against efforts to lift the headscarf ban in the public sector for decades.

Turkish authorities have launched an unprecedented shake-up of the country’s security forces after a section of the army attempted to overthrow the government on July 15, and sacked thousands of officers, footsoldiers and even generals who allegedly took part in the violent plot.

Troops backed by jets battle their way to Mosul airport, as US defence chief arrives in Baghdad on unannounced visit.

Members of the Iraqi rapid response forces look at smoke rising from clashes in southern Mosul during a battle with ISIL fighters [Alaa al-Marjani/Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Iraqi security forces have pushed into the southern outskirts of Mosul on the second day of a new offensive to drive ISIL fighters from the city’s western half, as US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis arrived in Baghdad on an unannounced visit.

Iraqi forces backed by jets and helicopters battled their way to Mosul airport on Monday as they prepared to take on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group’s stronghold in the city’s west bank.

“The federal police has resumed its advance … Our cannons are targeting Daesh defence lines with heavy fire,” federal police chief Raed Shaker Jawdat said, using and Arabic acronym for ISIL, also known as ISIS.

The main focus of Monday’s operations was to secure an area south of the Al-Buseif airport.

“It’s a strategic location because it is on a hill. We have to seize today because ISIL fighters can fight back from there,” Jawdat told AFP news agency near the front line.

Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS), who have urban warfare experience and did most of the fighting in east Mosul, were seen heading across the desert to the western side of Mosul.

They are expected to breach the densely populated western part of the city once other forces have moved all the way up to Mosul’s limits.

ISIL fighters defending Mosul’s west bank have no choice, but to protect their bastion. Bridges across the Tigris in the city have been destroyed and Iraqi forces have cut off escape routes.

Meanwhile, Iraqi police forces in armoured vehicles were moving towards the sprawling Ghazlani military base on the southwestern outskirts of the city according to the AP news agency.

Backed by aerial support from the US-led international coalition, Iraqi police, CTS and regular army troops launched an offensive on Sunday to retake western Mosul from ISIL following a 100-day campaign that pushed the fighters from the eastern half of the city.

The Iraqi forces said they had seized 17 villages from ISIL on Sunday, according to top army commander Abdul Ameer Yarallah.

‘Not here to seize anybody’s oil’

Meanwhile, Mattis, on an unannounced visit to Iraq, said the US “is not in Iraq to seize anybody’s oil”, shifting away from an idea proposed by President Donald Trump that has rattled Iraq’s leaders.

“I think all of us here in this room, all of us in America have generally paid for our gas and oil all along, and I’m sure that we will continue to do that in the future,” Mattis told reporters travelling with him on Monday.

Mattis arrived in Baghdad on Tuesday, as the Pentagon considers ways to accelerate the campaign against ISIL in Iraq and Syria.

Under the president’s deadline, Mattis has just a week to send Trump a strategy to ramp up the fight and defeat ISIL.

Trump has signed an order on January 28 that gives Mattis and senior military leaders 30 days to come up with a new plan to beef up the fight. Any plan is likely to depend on US and coalition troops working with and through the local forces in both countries.

Humanitarian cost

As the fight to take control of ISIL-occupied sections of Mosul continues, about 750,000 civilians are still believed to be trapped in western Mosul.

Aid organisations had feared an exodus of unprecedented proportions before the start of the fighting, which began four months ago with a government push on the east, but a significant majority of residents stayed home.

The aid community fears a bigger exodus from west Mosul, however.

“We are racing against the clock to prepare emergency sites south of Mosul to receive displaced families,” Lise Grande, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, said in a statement.

Save the Children urged all parties to protect the estimated 350,000 children currently trapped in west Mosul.

“This is the grim choice for children in western Mosul right now: bombs, crossfire and hunger if they stay – or execution and snipers if they try to run,” said Maurizio Crivallero, the charity’s Iraq director.

by Kalbe Ali, Dawn

Islamabad: The Hindu community is set to have a personal law for the first time as the Senate on Friday unanimously passed ‘The Hindu Marriage Bill 2017’.

The bill — appro­ved by the National Assem­bly on Sept 26, 2015 — is likely to get presidential assent next week to become a law.

The bill will mainly help Hindu women get documentary proof of their marriage. It will be the first personal law for Pakistani Hindus, applicable in Punjab, Balo­chis­tan and Khyber Pakhtun­khwa. Sindh has already formulated its own Hindu marriage law.

The bill presented in the Senate by Law Minister Zahid Hamid faced no opposition or objection. It was mainly due to the considerate and sympathetic views expres­sed by the senators and the MNAs of all political parties in the relevant standing committees.

The bill was approved by the Senate Functional Com­mittee on Human Rights on Jan 2 with an overwhelming majority. However, Senator Mufti Abdul Sattar of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl had opposed the bill, claiming that the Constitution was vast enough to cater for such needs.

While approving the bill, committee chairperson Senator Nasreen Jalil of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement had announced: “This was unfair — not only against the principles of Islam but also a human rights violation — that we have not been able to formulate a personal family law for the Hindus of Pakistan.”

Senators Aitzaz Ahsan, Dr Jehanzeb Jamaldini and Sitara Ayaz, while supporting the bill, had said it related to the marriage of Hindus living in Pakistan and had nothing to do with Muslims.

Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, who had been working relentlessly for three years to have a Hindu marriage law in the country, expressed gratitude to the parliamentarians.

“Such laws will help discourage forced conversions and streamline the Hindu community after the marriage of individuals,” he said, adding that it was difficult for married Hindu women to prove that they were married, which was one of the key tools for miscreants involved in forced conversion.

The law paves the way for a document ‘Shadi Parath’ — similar to Nikahnama for Muslims — to be signed by a pundit and registered with the relevant government department.

However, the Hindu parliamentarians and members of the community had concerns over one of the clauses of the bill that deals with ‘annulment of marriage’. It states that one of the partners can approach the court for separation if anyone of them changes the religion.

“What we demand that the separation case should be filed before the conversion as it has given an option to the miscreants to kidnap a married woman, keep her under illegal custody and present her in a court that she has converted to Islam and does not want to live with a Hindu man,” Dr Vankwani said.

However, the bill is widely acceptable for Hindus living in Pakistan because it relates to marriage, registration of marriage, separation and remarriage, with the minimum age of marriage set at 18 years for both boys and girls.

Two border crossings with Afghanistan closed and at least 39 ‘terrorists’ killed after attack at Sehwan shrine kills 88.

Thursday’s attack was the deadliest in Pakistan since 2014 [Wali Muhammed/Al Jazeera]

by Asad Hashim, Al Jazeera

Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan has closed two of its border crossings with Afghanistan and demanded that Kabul takes action against 76 “terrorists” it says are hiding in Afghan territory in response to the worst attack on Pakistani soil since 2014.

At least 88 people were killed and hundreds more wounded when a suicide attacker targeted a gathering of worshippers at a shrine in the southern town of Sehwan on Thursday.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group claimed responsibility for the blast.

The shrine, built in 1356, is by the tomb of Syed Muhammad Usman Marwandi, the Sufi philosopher poet better known as Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, one of Pakistan’s most venerated saints.

On Friday, Pakistan’s military said Afghanistan must take “immediate action” against the 76 people identified to them.

Security officials told Al Jazeera that at least 39 suspected fighters had been killed in security raids carried out overnight in response to the attack.

Thursday’s attack came after one of the bloodiest weeks in recent memory in Pakistan, with at least 99 people killed in a series of attacks since Monday, most claimed by the Pakistani Taliban or one of its factions.

On Monday, 13 people were killed in a suicide bombing at a rally in the eastern city of Lahore.

That attack was followed on Wednesday by a suicide bombing at a government office in the Mohmand tribal area and a suicide attack on government employees in Peshawar, killing six people.

Two police officers were killed on Tuesday while trying to defuse a bomb in the Balochistan provincial capital of Quetta.

Border closure

Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder said the second major border crossing at Chaman, which leads to Kandahar in Afghanistan from the Pakistani city of Quetta, was closed on Friday after the Torkham border was sealed off late on Thursday.

In Sehwan, meanwhile, police cordoned off the shrine early on Friday as forensic investigators arrived.

The floor of the shrine was still stained with blood on Friday morning as dozens of protesters pushed past police pickets demanding to be allowed to continue to worship there.

At least 20 children are believed to be among the dead, the head of Sehwan’s medical facility, Moeen Uddin Siddiqui, said.

At 3.30am, the shrine’s caretaker stood among the carnage and defiantly rang its bell, a daily ritual that he vowed to continue.

The Sindh provincial government announced three days of mourning as Pakistanis vented their grief and fury on social media, bemoaning the lack of medical facilities to help the wounded, with the nearest hospital around 70km from the shrine.

All shrines in the province have been closed, a decision that prompted furious reaction from protesters in Sehwan.

“Give us the charge of the mazaar [shrine], we will take care of it rather than the police,” a shopkeeper said.

“Keeping it closed is unfair to the people of Sehwan. We can take care of our own place. We can do everything to protect it.”

‘Afghan role’

Pakistan’s military has long blamed the Afghan government for allowing sanctuary on its soil to fighters targeting Pakistan since a 2014 Pakistani military operation to drive out armed groups from the country’s restive tribal areas.

“Recent Ts acts are being exec on directions from hostile powers and from sanctuaries in Afghanistan. We shall defend and respond,” tweeted Pakistan military spokesman Asif Ghafoor.

Afghanistan denies the charge, accusing Pakistan in turn of allowing leaders of the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network armed groups to roam freely on Pakistani soil.

Pakistan denies this, but several high-profile Afghan Taliban leaders have been killed or captured on its soil, including former chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a US drone strike last year.

Pakistan Taliban leaders have similarly been captured or killed on Afghan soil.

Following the attack in Lahore, the Pakistani Foreign Office summoned senior Afghan embassy official Syed Abdul Nasir Yousafi.

“Afghanistan was urged to take urgent measures to eliminate the terrorists and their sanctuaries, financiers and handlers operating from its territory,” according to a Foreign Office statement.

Analysts, however, warn that in this “war of sanctuaries”, space is being left open for armed groups to continue to launch attacks.

Since the launch in 2014 of a military operation in the tribal area of North Waziristan – then-headquarters of the Pakistani Taliban and its allies – the Pakistani military says it has killed more than 3,500 fighters and destroyed Taliban infrastructure.

At least 583 soldiers have also been killed.

Since then, violence had decreased markedly, but sporadic high-casualty attacks continued to occur, notably a hospital bombing killing 74 in Quetta and an Easter Day park bombing that killed more than 70 last year.

Thursday’s attack was the deadliest in Pakistan since December 2014, when fighters assaulted a school in Peshawar, killing 154 people, mostly schoolchildren.

by The New Arab

This picture taken on January 10, 2017 shows Afghan policemen standing guard at the site of an explosion near the governor’s compound in Kandahar. (AFP/Jawed Tanveer)

The UAE’s ambassador to Afghanistan died on Wednesday of wounds sustained in a 10 January bombing in Kandahar, according to state media.

Juma Mohammed Abdullah al-Kaabi’s death was confirmed by the UAE’s official WAM news agency who described the ambassador as a “martyr” in a blast which killed five other Emirati officials.

The ambassador was leading a UAE delegation to the provincial governor’s office in the southern city when the bomber struck, killing 12 people instantly. Both he and governor Humayun Azizi suffered serious burns.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was “deeply saddened” by the envoy’s death, his office said.

“The UAE ambassador and his colleagues paid the ultimate sacrifice in promoting peace and development in Afghanistan to be remembered forever,” it said in a statement.

“The president expresses his condolences and sympathies to the family of the late ambassador as well as to the government and the people of United Arab Emirates.”

The bombing was one of multiple attacks that struck three Afghan cities on 10 January, killing 57 people.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for twin bombs that hit a parliamentary annexe in Kabul and a suicide bombing in Lashkar Gah, capital of restive Helmand province. However, it did not claim the Kandahar attack.

Provincial police chief Abdul Raziq blamed the Kandahar bombing on the Haqqani network, a group separate from, but allied, with the Taliban.

The UAE has historically had good relations with the Taliban and was among three governments that recognized the Taliban administration that ruled in Kabul between 1996 and 2001.

Security in Afghanistan has become increasingly precarious as US-backed forces struggle to combat a resilient Taliban insurgency as well as al-Qaeda and Daesh group militants.

Last week, a search was launched to find two Red Cross workers that were kidnapped after IS militants ambushed a convoy and left six workers dead.

The attack underscores how aid workers in Afghanistan have increasingly become casualties of a surge in militant violence in recent years, prompting the ICRC, which has been working in Afghanistan for three decades, announcing a hold to nationwide operations.

At least one killed and several wounded in blast claimed by Pakistani Taliban as violence across country rises.

by Asad Hashim, Al Jazeera

Peshawar, Pakistan – A suicide bomber targeted a government van in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, killing at least one person and wounding several others, officials said.

Pakistani Taliban, Tehreek e-Taliban, claimed Wednesday’s attack which follows a recent surge in violence across the country.

“We claim responsibility for the suicide attack on the vehicle of the judiciary. The man who carried out the suicide attack was the brave warrior Sabir Swati,” the group said in a statement, as it warned of further attacks.

“Remember that the Pakistani judiciary and those […] who work for it are an obstacle to the imposition of an Islamic system. These people are the reason for mujahideen [fighters] being imprisoned or executed.”

The attacker, who rammed his motorcycle into the van, appeared to be targeting government judicial employees in the Hayatabad area, police officials said.

“There was a suicide bomber on a motorcycle … the driver of the van has been killed, and four others have been wounded,” said senior police official Sajjad Ahmed, speaking to media at the site of the explosion.

Tauheed Zulfiqar, a spokesperson for the nearby Hayatabad Medical Complex where the wounded were being treated, confirmed the death toll.

Images of the blast showed the mangled wreckage of the van crashed into a low wall, with its windows and doors badly damaged.

Police cordoned off the site and deployed a security perimeter.

“We have found body parts of the bomber as well as his motorcycle, which hit the van,” said Ahmed. “We have started a search operation, we will be able to share more information after it is completed.”

Muhammad Tahir, Peshawar’s police chief, said: “The initial analysis shows that at least 15kg of explosives were used in this attack.”

Prominent opposition politician Imran Khan was due to visit the nearby Hayatabad Medical Complex later in the day, and police had been directed to secure the area.

A bomb disposal unit team and additional security had been dispatched to the area hours earlier, police sources said.

“Security was on high alert, because [Imran Khan] had to go to this hospital,” provincial Information Minister Mushtaq Ghani told local television channel Dawn.

The attack came hours after a suicide bombing at a government office in the nearby Mohmand tribal area, which killed at least five people, including three policemen and two civilians.

On Monday, at least 13 people were killed when a suicide blast targeted police officers at a protest in the eastern city of Lahore.