World

A suicide bomber attacked an education centre in the Afghan capital on Friday where hundreds of students were preparing for university exams, killing at least 20 people, most of them young women.

The bombing happened in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood of western Kabul, a predominantly Shiite Muslim area home to the minority Hazara community, the target of some of Afghanistan’s most deadly attacks.

The bomber shot dead two security guards before entering the gender-segregated classroom, student Ali Irfani, who escaped the carnage, told AFP.

“Not many boys were hit because they were at the rear end of the classroom. The bomber entered from the front door where girls were sitting,” he said.

Akbar, another student witness, also told AFP that young women made up most of the casualties, with up to 600 people in the hall at the time.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the blast at Kaaj Higher Educational Centre, which coaches students for university admission tests. 

However, the jihadist Islamic State group has claimed previous attacks in the area targeting girls, schools and mosques.

A resident who ferried victims to hospitals said he saw body parts scattered across the floor of the hall.

“Many students were hit by shrapnel in their head, neck and eyes,” said Asadullah Jahangir. 

Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran said 20 people were killed and 27 others wounded.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) told AFP that at least 24 people were killed and 36 others wounded in the attack, adding the numbers were expected to rise.

A shopkeeper from the neighbourhood said there was a loud explosion and then crowds of students rushed out of the centre.

“It was chaos as many students, boys and girls, tried to escape from the building. It was a horrific scene. Everyone was so scared,” he told AFP, requesting anonymity.

Italian NGO Emergency, which operates a hospital in Kabul, said it had received 22 patients, including 20 women, two of whom had died. 

“The victims are all between 18 and 25 years old, and most of them were in the classroom to take an exam,” it said in a statement.

– ‘Shamefaced’ –

The Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan last year brought an end to a two-decade war and a significant reduction in violence, but security has begun to deteriorate in recent months.

In April, two deadly bomb blasts on the same day at separate education centres in Dasht-e-Barchi killed six people and wounded at least 20 others.

Friday’s attack is a “shamefaced reminder of the ineptitude and utter failure of the Taliban, as de facto authorities, to protect the people of Afghanistan”, Samira Hamidi of rights group Amnesty International said in a statement.

The United Nations’ special rapporteur on Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, condemned the attack.

“Onslaught on education for Hazaras & Shiites must end. Stop attacks on Afghanistan’s future, stop international crimes,” he said on Twitter.

Afghanistan’s Shiite Hazaras have faced persecution for decades, targeted by the Taliban during their insurgency against the former US-backed government and by IS — both of which consider Shiites heretics. 

Families on Friday rushed to hospitals where ambulances arrived with victims, and lists of those confirmed dead or wounded were posted on the walls.

“We didn’t find her here,” a distressed woman looking for her sister at one of the hospitals told AFP. “She was 19 years old.”

“We are calling her but she’s not responding.”

Last year, before the Taliban returned to power, at least 85 people — mainly girl students — were killed and about 300 wounded when three bombs exploded near their school in the area.

No group claimed responsibility, but a year earlier IS claimed a suicide attack on an educational centre in the same neighbourhood that killed 24, including students.

In May 2020, the group was blamed for a gun attack on a maternity ward of a hospital in Dasht-e-Barchi that killed 25 people, including new mothers.

Education is a flashpoint issue in Afghanistan, with the Taliban blocking many girls from returning to secondary education. Islamic State also stands against the education of women and girls.

Iran said Friday that nine foreigners were arrested over deadly street protests sparked by the death of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, as demonstrations across the country entered a third week amid gunfire.

Dozens have been killed in a crackdown on the protests that erupted when Amini, 22, died in custody three days after her arrest by the notorious morality police in Tehran for allegedly breaching the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.

On Friday, Iranian security forces opened fire on angry protesters, foreign-based opposition media reported.

“Death to the dictator,” bare-headed women chanted in the northwestern city of Ardabil, said Iran International, a Persian-language television station based in London.

Iran’s intelligence ministry said “nine foreign nationals from Germany, Poland, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, etc. were arrested at or behind the scene of riots”, along with 256 members of outlawed opposition groups.

In the southwestern city of Ahvaz, security forces fired tear gas to disperse scores of people who streamed onto the streets jeering and shouting anti-government slogans, in another video shared by the channel.

In Zahedan, near Iran’s southeastern border with Pakistan, men braved gunfire as they stoned a police station, other footage shared by the channel showed.

Stretcher parties were seen carrying away men bloodied by apparent bullet wounds in the footage, which AFP was unable to immediately verify.

State media said police in Zahedan had returned fire when they came under attack by gunmen, while Ahmad Taheri, the Sistan-Baluchestan provincial police chief, said three police stations were attacked.

“A number of police members as well as passers-by have been injured in the exchange of fire,” the state broadcaster said.

– Confront ‘mercilessly’ –

Women have defiantly burned their headscarves and cut their hair in the protests over Amini’s death, announced September 16, that are the biggest seen in Iran since demonstrations in November 2019 over fuel price rises.

A leading Iranian human rights lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, told US news magazine Time that she expected the protests to go on regardless of the intensity of the authorities’ crackdown.

“What the people want is regime change, and no return to the past,” said Sotoudeh, who is on medical furlough from a 38-year jail sentence for her advocacy work.

“And what we can see from the current protests and strikes that are now being initiated is a very real possibility of regime change.”

Amnesty International said Iran was intentionally using lethal force against the protesters, adding that without international action “beyond statements of condemnation” more people risk being killed.

Amnesty said it had obtained a leaked official document issued to the commanders of armed forces in all provinces on September 21 instructing them to “severely confront” protesters.

Another leaked document showed that on September 23, the commander of the armed forces in Mazandaran province, where some of the deadliest clashes have taken place, ordered security forces to “confront mercilessly, going as far as causing deaths, any unrest by rioters and anti-revolutionaries”.

The NGO said it had confirmed 52 deaths in the protests but the toll was likely higher.

Another rights group, Oslo-based Iran Human Rights, said 83 people were confirmed to have been killed, while Iran’s Fars news agency has put the death toll at “around 60”.

– Outside forces –

Amnesty’s warning comes as Iran presses ahead with an intensifying crackdown that has seen the arrest of many journalists, activists and other prominent figures.

Former Iranian international footballer Hossein Maahini was arrested Friday after supporting the protests on his social media accounts, state media said.

Iranian football fans, meanwhile, asked FIFA to ban their national team from this year’s World Cup in Qatar over the crackdown.

Security forces also arrested singer Shervin Hajipour, whose song “Baraye” (“For”) made up of tweets about the protests went viral on Instagram, the rights group Article 19 said.

His song, which racked up millions of views, has now been removed from his Instagram account.

The crackdown has drawn widespread international condemnation.

Demonstrations of solidarity with Iranian women have been held worldwide, and rallies are planned in 77 cities on Saturday.

Iran has blamed outside forces for the protests, and on Wednesday it launched cross-border missile and drone strikes that killed 14 people in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region, accusing rebel groups based there of fuelling the unrest.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards pledged to carry out more attacks until the groups are disarmed.

The United States said one of its citizens had been killed in the Iranian strikes.

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Iranian security forces opened fire on angry protesters as street violence sparked by the death of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini entered a third week on Friday, foreign-based opposition media reported.

Dozens have been killed in a crackdown on the protests that erupted when Amini, 22, died in custody three days after her arrest by the notorious morality police in Tehran for allegedly breaching the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.

“Death to the dictator,” bare-headed women chanted in the northwestern city of Ardabil, said Iran International, a Persian-language television station based in London.

In the southwestern city of Ahvaz, security forces fired tear gas to disperse scores of people who streamed onto the streets jeering and shouting anti-government slogans, in another video shared by the channel.

In Zahedan, near Iran’s southeastern border with Pakistan, men braved gunfire as they stoned a police station, other footage shared by the channel showed.

Stretcher parties were seen carrying away men bloodied by apparent bullet wounds in the footage, which AFP was unable to immediately verify.

State media said police in Zahedan had returned fire when they came attack by gunmen.

“A number of police members as well as passers-by have been injured in the exchange of fire,” the state broadcaster said.

– Confront ‘mercilessly’ –

Women have defiantly burned their headscarves and cut their hair in the protests over Amini’s death, announced September 16, that are the biggest seen in Iran since protests in November 2019 over fuel price rises.

Leading human rights lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, told US news magazine Time that she expected the protests to go on regardless of the intensity of the authorities’ crackdown.

“What the people want is regime change, and no return to the past,” said Sotoudeh, who is on medical furlough from a 38-year jail sentence for her advocacy work.

“And what we can see from the current protests and strikes that are now being initiated is a very real possibility of regime change.”

Amnesty International said Iran was intentionally using lethal force against the protesters, adding that without international action “beyond statements of condemnation” more people risk being killed.

“The Iranian authorities have mobilised their well-honed machinery of repression to ruthlessly crack down on nationwide protests in an attempt to thwart any challenge to their power,” it said.

Amnesty said it had obtained a leaked official document issued to the commanders of armed forces in all provinces on September 21 instructing them to “severely confront” protesters.

Another leaked document showed that on September 23, the commander of the armed forces in Mazandaran province, where some of the deadliest clashes have taken place, ordered security forces to “confront mercilessly, going as far as causing deaths, any unrest by rioters and anti-revolutionaries”.

The NGO said it had confirmed 52 deaths in the protests but the toll was likely higher.

Another rights group, Oslo-based Iran Human Rights, said 83 people were confirmed to have been killed, while Iran’s Fars news agency has put the toll at “around 60” dead.

– Outside forces –

Amnesty’s warning comes as Iran presses ahead with an intensifying crackdown that has seen the arrest of many journalists, activists and other prominent figures.

Former Iranian international footballer Hossein Maahini was arrested Friday after supporting the protests on his social media accounts, state media said.

In a letter on Friday, Iranian football fans asked FIFA to ban their national team from this year’s World Cup in Qatar over the crackdown.

Security forces also arrested singer Shervin Hajipour, whose song “Baraye” (“For”) made up of tweets about the protests went viral on Instagram, the rights group Article 19 said.

His song, which racked up millions of views, has now been removed from his Instagram account.

Iran also arrested woman protester Donya Rad, who drew praise online after being shown eating out in Tehran without a headscarf, her sister Dina tweeted.

The crackdown has drawn widespread international condemnation.

Demonstrations of solidarity with Iranian women have been held worldwide, and rallies are planned in 77 cities on Saturday.

Iran has blamed outside forces for the protests, and on Wednesday it launched cross-border missile and drone strikes that killed 14 people in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, accusing rebel groups based there of fuelling the unrest.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards pledged to carry out more attacks until the groups are disarmed.

The United States said one of its citizens had been killed in the Iranian strikes.

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The Burkina Faso government admitted an “internal crisis” within the army was behind troop deployments Friday in key areas of the capital, saying negotiations were now underway after shots rang out before dawn.

Gunfire was heard around the presidential palace and headquarters of the military junta, which itself seized power in a coup last January, witnesses told AFP.

The transitional government said the developing situation was linked to an “internal crisis in the army”, after AFP journalists saw troops block several main roads in the capital Ouagadougou.

Government spokesman Lionel Bilgo told AFP “talks are continuing to try to reach a settlement without trouble”.

“I heard heavy detonations around 4:30 am (0430 GMT) and now the roads around my home have been sealed off by military vehicles,” said a resident who lives close to the presidential palace.

During the morning more shots had rung out an AFP video journalist said in the Ouaga 2000 neighbourhood that houses both the presidential and military junta headquarters.

Bilgo said the “crisis” was based on army pay claims, and that junta leader Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba was taking part in discussions with the men.

A government source had earlier confirmed that Damiba was “in a safe place” without giving more details.

The state television was cut for several hours, broadcasting a blank screen for several hours saying: “no video signal”.

A second government source said, “The negotiations are continuing… the soldiers are maintaining pressure through their presence at strategic points they occupied this morning” in the capital.

Soldiers were seen at the city’s main crossroads, especially in Ouaga 2000 but also outside the state television centre, an AFP journalist said. 

In Brussels, the EU voiced “concern” at events in the Burkina capital.

“A military movement was observed from 04:30 this morning. The situation still remains particularly confused,” said spokeswoman Nabila Massrali.

– Rein in jihadists –

Violence has long wracked the landlocked west African country where Damiba took power in a January coup, ousting elected leader Roch Marc Christian Kabore.

Damiba has pledged to restore civilian rule within two years and to defeat the armed factions.

As in bordering countries, insurgents affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group have stoked the unrest.

Thousands have died and about two million have been displaced by the fighting since 2015 when the insurgency spread into Burkina Faso, which has since become the epicentre of the violence across the Sahel.

Damiba earlier this month sacked his defence minister and assumed the role himself.

The mini-shuffle, the first since the appointment of a transitional government in March, saw only one new minister introduced — Colonel-Major Silas Keita was named minister delegate in charge of national defence and promoted to brigadier general. 

More than 40 percent of Burkina Faso, a former French colony, is outside government control.

Attacks have increased since mid-March, despite the junta’s vow to make security its top priority.

– Bloody September –

September has been particularly bloody.

On Monday, suspected jihadists attacked a convoy carrying supplies to the town of Djibo in the north of the country. The government said 11 soldiers died and around 50 civilians were missing.

On September 5 an improvised explosive device struck a supply convoy in the north killing 35 civilians dead and wounding 37.

The following day, at least nine people, seven civilians and two soldiers, were killed in two separate attacks by suspected jihadists.

In June, 86 civilians died in a massacre at Seytenga, near the border with Niger.

Much of the impoverished Sahel region is battling the insurgency.

Starting in northern Mali in 2012, the insurgents attacked neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger in 2015.

The violence has in recent years begun to spill over into coastal states Ivory Coast, Togo and Benin.

“The deteriorating security situation in Burkina Faso and Mali has made the north of the coastal countries the new front line against armed groups operating in the Sahel,” the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a German think tank, said in a report in April.

Five years after the failed secession push in Catalonia which landed him in jail, Oriol Junqueras remains convinced that defying Spain with a banned independence referendum was the right move. 

But the former deputy head of the region says the separatist camp needs to rally more support if its dream of an independent Catalan state is to one day become a reality.

“We did what we had to do,” the professor-turned-politician said during an interview with AFP when asked about the failed secession drive that came to a head in October 2017.

“I am deeply proud of all that we have done, of our commitment, of having been able to convene, organise and hold a referendum on self-determination,” the 53-year-old added.

Despite being banned by the Spanish courts, the October 1, 2017 referendum organised by Catalonia’s separatist government went ahead but descended into chaos as police moved in to stop it, sparking confrontations marred by violence.

Based on the results of this vote — which were never independently corroborated — the Catalan parliament declared independence on October 27.

Spanish authorities responded by sacking the Catalan government and pressed charges against the region’s leaders who either fled abroad or were jailed like Junqueras.

– Declining support –

Today the separatist movement is deeply divided over the path forward and Catalonia’s ruling pro-independence coalition is on the point of collapse.

While Junqueras’s ERC party favours dialogue with Madrid, its junior coalition partners, the JxC of former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont has taken a more confrontational approach.

Despite passions running high over independence, the region itself also remains divided, with only 41 percent in favour of separation while 52 percent want to remain in Spain, the latest survey suggested.

In an October 2017 poll support for independence in the wealthy northeastern region of Spain stood at 49 percent.

“What we must do today, is be democratically stronger” in the face of the “repressive” Spanish state, said Junqueras, a lifelong supporter of independence and father-of-two who also served as Catalonia’s economy minister.

The “main mistake” of the separatist camp in 2017 was that it did not “talk more with people, convince more people” to back the cause, he added.

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government last year pardoned Junqueras and eight other Catalan separatist leaders who were serving lengthy jail terms for their roles in the ill-fated independence bid.

Junqueras was in 2019 sentenced to 13 years behind bars, the longest term among the nine pardoned leaders. He spent over three years in prison before his pardon.

As Catalonia’s former vice president Junqueras was convicted of sedition and misuse of public funds after the unauthorised 2017 referendum which led to Spain’s worst political crisis in decades.

– ‘Made us stronger’ –

Puigdemont, who was the head of Catalonia’s government at the time of the referendum, evaded arrest by fleeing to Belgium after Catalonia’s short-lived declaration of independence.

“I was convinced that my obligation was to be as close as possible to my citizens, at the same time I understand perfectly that other people opted for exile,” Junqueras said.

“The fact that we have been in jail has only made us stronger in every way,” he added.

“It has also opened many doors in the international community that were more difficult to open previously, so in this sense the time in prison has also been a very profitable investment.”

He cited as an example an August finding from the UN’s Human Rights Committee which concluded Spain had violated the political rights of Catalan politicians including Junqueras.

The committee found that Spain violated their rights when they were suspended from office before having been convicted.

A suicide bomber attacked an education centre in the Afghan capital on Friday where hundreds of students were preparing for university exams, killing at least 19 people, most of them young women.

The bombing happened in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood of western Kabul, a predominantly Shiite Muslim area home to the minority Hazara community, the target of some of Afghanistan’s most deadly attacks.

The bomber shot dead two security guards before entering the gender-segregated classroom, student Ali Irfani, who escaped the carnage, told AFP.

“Not many boys were hit because they were at the rear end of the classroom. The bomber entered from the front door where girls were sitting,” he said.

Akbar, another student witness, also told AFP that young women made up most of the casualties, with up to 600 people in the hall at the time.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the blast at Kaaj Higher Educational Centre, which coaches students for university admission tests. 

However, the jihadist Islamic State group has claimed previous attacks in the area targeting girls, schools, mosques and a maternity hospital.

A resident who ferried victims to hospitals said he saw body parts scattered across the floor of the hall.

“Many students were hit by shrapnel in their head, neck and eyes,” said Asadullah Jahangir. 

Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran said 19 people were killed and 27 others wounded. 

A shopkeeper from the neighbourhood said there was a loud explosion and then crowds of students rushed out of the centre.

“It was chaos as many students, boys and girls, tried to escape from the building. It was a horrific scene. Everyone was so scared,” he told AFP, requesting anonymity.

Italian NGO Emergency, which operates a hospital in Kabul, said it had received 22 patients at the facility, including 20 women, two of whom had died. 

“The victims are all between 18 and 25 years old, and most of them were in the classroom to take an exam,” it said in a statement.

– ‘Shamefaced’ –

The Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan last year brought an end to a two-decade war and a significant reduction in violence, but security has begun to deteriorate in recent months.

In April, two deadly bomb blasts on the same day at separate education centres in Dasht-e-Barchi killed six people and wounded at least 20 others.

Friday’s attack is a “shamefaced reminder of the ineptitude and utter failure of the Taliban, as de facto authorities, to protect the people of Afghanistan”, Samira Hamidi of rights group Amnesty International said in a statement.

The United Nations’ special rapporteur on Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, condemned the attack.

“Onslaught on education for Hazaras & Shiites must end. Stop attacks on Afghanistan’s future, stop international crimes,” he said on Twitter.

Afghanistan’s Shiite Hazaras have faced persecution for decades, targeted by the Taliban during their insurgency against the former US-backed government and by IS — both of which consider Shiites heretics. 

Families on Friday rushed to hospitals where ambulances arrived with victims, and lists of those confirmed dead or wounded were posted on the walls.

“We didn’t find her here,” a distressed woman looking for her sister at one of the hospitals told AFP. “She was 19 years old.”

“We are calling her but she’s not responding.”

Last year, before the Taliban returned to power, at least 85 people — mainly girl students — were killed and about 300 wounded when three bombs exploded near their school in the area.

No group claimed responsibility, but a year earlier IS claimed a suicide attack on an educational centre in the same neighbourhood that killed 24, including students.

In May 2020, the group was blamed for a gun attack on a maternity ward of a hospital in Dasht-e-Barchi that killed 25 people, including new mothers.

Education is a flashpoint issue in Afghanistan, with the Taliban blocking many girls from returning to secondary education. Islamic State also stands against the education of women and girls.

abh-qb-ash-jd/dhc

Iran’s government and security forces committed “crimes against humanity” in their suppression of huge nationwide protests in 2019, an international panel of lawyers probing the crackdown concluded on Friday.

The Iran Atrocities (Aban) Tribunal, which was convened by various human rights groups, heard evidence from over 250 witnesses as it investigated whether the Iranian regime broke international law in its response to the demonstrations. 

The protests, of a magnitude rarely seen in Iran following the 1979 Islamic Revolution and being repeated across the country in recent weeks, erupted nationwide in November 2019 after a sudden hike in fuel prices.

Activists say the authorities managed to impose control only after a ruthless crackdown that, according to Amnesty International, left at least 304 people dead in a deliberate policy to shoot at demonstrators.

The London tribunal said expert evidence suggested that the actual number killed was likely far larger and possibly as high as 1,515.

“The panel unanimously finds… beyond a reasonable doubt that the Iranian government and the security forces designed and implemented a plan to commit crimes against humanity,” the tribunal’s six legal experts said in their judgment summary.

It found various branches of the regime — from the interior ministry to the feared Basij militia — conducted murder, imprisonment, enforced disappearances, torture and sexual violence to quell the protests and conceal its crimes.

– ‘Case to answer’ –

Five of the six serving as jurists also concluded that protestors and bystanders were “discriminately targeted for their collective involvement in the protests or their perceived association” with them.

They cited 161 people as perpetrators of the alleged crimes against humanity, including supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, former president Hassan Rouhani, and nearly a dozen other senior regime figures.

“We’ve named some of those who are responsible in the sense of there being a case to answer,” Wayne Jordash, a criminal lawyer who chaired the tribunal panel, told AFP after the judgment was read aloud at an event in London.

He said the report has particular resonance now as protesters once again face violent repression as they demonstrate across Iran over the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini on September 16.

“The current protests look like the Aban 2019 protests, and the government’s response looks pretty much the same,” Jordash added.

“I would be very surprised if the government isn’t again engaged in a range of crimes against humanity and gross human rights violations.”

– ‘Suffered’ –

The Aban tribunal — named after the Iranian month when the events took place — was founded by NGOs including the London-based Justice for Iran, which campaigns against impunity for crimes in Iran, and the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights (IHR).

It heard evidence in two public sessions held in London last November and online in February, analysing videos, written and expert testimony, and well as witnesses’ verbal accounts.

Some of those witnesses and relatives of those killed or detained during the protests attended the London judgment reading and held aloft photographs of their loved ones as it concluded.

“Today, it makes me very happy — it needed to be done a lot sooner,” said Mohammad Amin, 42, an Iranian exile living in Britain since last year who witnessed the crackdown in Baluchestan, southeast Iran.

“A lot of people in my area, in my city… were injured and killed and really the people in my area suffered the most,” he told AFP, speaking through a translator.

“I saw the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) and the security forces shoot up protesters… they were just killing people.”

The Iranian government could not immediately be reached for comment on the tribunal’s conclusions.