32 2GM Wednesday October 14 2020 | the times
Wo r l d
Fighting erupted between Taliban
forces and Afghan troops in the capital
of Helmand province yesterday, raising
fears that stalled peace talks could
collapse.
Afghan soldiers, backed by US air-
strikes, launched a counterattack after
the Taliban sent raids into Lashkar Gah
on Sunday. The insurgents overran
checkpoints and encircled the city,
taking neighbouring districts.
Local officials insisted that the secur-
ity forces had fallen back in a “tactical
retreat”. Afghan commandos were
flown in to defend the city, pushing
back against Taliban positions around
the outskirts on Monday night. Gunfire
and explosions were reported as
American jets and drones patrolled
overhead, strafing the insurgents.
The Taliban have besieged Lashkar
Gah both before and after British
troops withdrew in 2014 after 13 years
on the ground. The group took the city
in the mid-1990s but were driven out
when the US invaded in 2001. In 2008
and 2016 the insurgents reached the
outskirts before being forced back.
Hundreds of families have fled the
latest fighting, clogging roads around
the city. Some retreated into the centre
while others tried to flee the province.
The Taliban blocked the main road east
Taliban battle
for control of
Helmand capital
towards Kandahar, forcing people back.
“There is still fighting going on in the
outskirts but Lashkar Gah city is
secure,” Attaullah Afghan, a member of
the Helmand provincial council, said.
“There has been heavy bombardment
of Taliban positions and casualties on
both sides. Hundreds of families are
coming to the city from areas where
there is fighting.”
Abdul Rasheed, a cloth merchant
who was heading to Kabul, told The
Times he had seen the Taliban and
Afghan forces fighting for the past two
days. “I saw the white Taliban flag on
the entrance of the city on Sunday and
people started looting the remains of
the Afghan army posts,” he said.
“Taliban fighters targeted by the US
airstrikes are hiding in civilian areas.
This is a fully fledged war. One cannot
say there has been a peace agreement
between the US and the Taliban.”
With peace talks deadlocked, the
attack appears calculated to test the re-
solve of the Americans and Afghans.
Since the dialogue between Kabul and
the insurgents opened in Qatar a
month ago the process has stalled over
Taliban demands that the talks be held
in an Islamic legal framework. The in-
surgents have rejected calls by the
Afghan government to declare a
ceasefire, unwilling to abandon the
advantage that led to the negotiations.
President Trump has called for a
swift withdrawal of the fewer than
5,000 troops remaining in Afghanistan.
He tweeted last week that he would
bring the US service personnel home
by Christmas. Officials at the Pentagon
have contradicted that schedule.
General Scott Miller, commander of
the US and Nato forces in Afghanistan,
said that the assault was a violation of
the deal struck in February, which set
out a timetable for a final withdrawal of
American troops from Afghanistan by
next May.Afghanistan
Hugh Tomlinson, Haroon Janjua
Depths of devotion A humpback whale calf rests beneath its mother off Australia
while a male “escort”, which protects them from predators, nuzzles from belowAlmost 600 reported
dead in disputed region
Armenia Azerbaijan and Armenia
have accused each other of
violating a ceasefire agreed after
hundreds of deaths in the
disputed region of Nagorno-
Karabakh in the past two weeks.
Ethnic Armenian officials there
said that their military death toll
was 542, up 17 from Monday,
when Russia and EU members
appealed to both sides to respect
the truce. Azerbaijan said that 42
Azeri civilians had been killed
and 206 injured since September- It has not disclosed military
casualties. The Russia-brokered
ceasefire on Saturday was aimed
at allowing ethnic Armenian
forces and Azerbaijan to swap
prisoners and bodies. (Reuters)
Russia ‘behind Norway
parliament cyberattack’
Norway Russia was behind a
cyberattack on the Norwegian
parliament in August, in which
the email accounts of several
lawmakers and parliamentary
employees were accessed, the
Norwegian foreign minister said.
Ine Eriksen Soereide said that
Norway would not stand for such
attacks on its democratic
institutions. Russia denied
responsibility. (Reuters)Aid plea to offset rise
in natural disasters
Switzerland The need for
international humanitarian aid
could rise by 50 per cent in the
next ten years as more natural
disasters occur, the UN weather
agency has warned. The World
Meteorological Agency, based in
Geneva, urged governments to
spend more on early-warning
systems to improve their ability to
prepare for and reduce the
impact of such calamities. (AP)Teenage brothers killed
crossing train tracks
Germany Two brothers aged 13
and 17 were killed by a train in
Bruckberg, northeast of Munich,
as they ran across the tracks
while the barriers were down to
try to make their own
connection. The driver braked
but was unable to stop in time.
Several people, including
children, witnessed the accident
and police sent crisis teams to
provide counselling. (AP)‘Anti-radiation’ dung
is not to be sniffed at
India A “chip” made from cow
dung can stop mobile phone
radiation, a government unit said.
The National Cow Commission
did not explain how the chip
worked but said it could be kept
inside a phone cover. It added:
“Cow dung is anti-radiation, it
protects all, if you bring this
home your place will become
radiation-free. All this has been
approved by science.” (AFP)Museum pulls Mongol
show and blames China
France A museum has postponed
an exhibition on Genghis Khan,
the 13th-century Mongol leader,
citing interference by China. The
Chateau des ducs de Bretagne in
Nantes said Beijing demanded
that the words Genghis Khan,
empire and Mongol be omitted
from the exhibition, which was
planned with the Inner Mongolia
Museum. China is repressing
ethnic Mongols in the region. (AP)The Japanese navy will launch a scaled-
down warship after a fall in recruitment
among young people who cannot
tolerate long periods at sea without
access to their smartphones.
The 30FFM frigate is designed for a
crew of about 90 sailors, half that of the
older vessels. The smaller crews reflect
the crisis in recruitment faced by the
Maritime Self-Defence Force (MSDF).
In 2018 it only reached 60 per cent of its
quota and raised the upper age limit for
Japanese warships shrink after young shun navy
recruits from 26 to 32. It has also taken
steps to overcome the principal disin-
centive to prospective sailors — en-
forced isolation. Sailors can now send
emails from their mobile phones and
have limited wireless internet access.
The first two vessels of the 3,900-ton
30FFM class are expected to be
launched next month from shipyards in
Nagasaki and Tamano and to be com-
missioned in 2022 after sea trials. There
is a budget for ten new frigates with an
eventual target of 22 — almost half the
MSDF’s planned fleet of 54 ships.
Japan is increasing its naval capaci-ties to deal with China’s assertive pres-
ence in the East China Sea. It has offi-
cially protested over two Chinese
coastguard ships that entered what it
regards as its territorial waters near the
Senkaku Islands, which China claims as
the Diaoyu. The ships appeared on
Sunday and were still there yesterday.
In further tensions in the region,
Yoshihide Suga, Japan’s new prime min-
ister, has threatened to pull out of a
summit with President Xi of China and
President Moon of South Korea unless
the latter’s government compromises
in a bitter dispute over wartime history.In 2018 South Korea’s Supreme Court
ordered two Japanese companies,
Mitsubishi and Nippon Steel, to pay
compensation to former labourers
forced to work for them during the
Second World War. Japan insists that all
such claims were settled in 1965 when
the countries signed a peace treaty.
Mr Moon’s government says that it
cannot interfere in judicial decisions.
The Japanese government is reported
to have said that it would be “impossi-
ble” for Mr Suga to take part in the
planned meeting unless “proper meas-
ures” were taken by South Korea.Japan
Richard Lloyd Parry To k y o
China bans haj for Muslims who fail patriotism test
JASMINE CAREY/CATERS NEWSChina has ordered Muslim citizens to
prove that they are patriotic and law-
abiding before they are allowed to
undertake the haj, under a new law that
it says will safeguard national security.
Beijing said that it was banning
private haj trips, with all pilgrimages
now organised through the state’s
Islamic Association. All pilgrims will be
subjected to a vetting and “education”
process and accompanied by officials to
Saudi Arabia. Anyone who attempts to
travel alone faces prosecution.
The law is the latest move by China to
exert control over its minority Muslim
population. The government continues
to face condemnation for forcing mil-
lions of people from the Uighur com-
munity of Xinjiang into work camps for“vocational training” and re-education
as part of a counterterrorism campaign.
China says that the rule will “safe-
guard citizens’ religious and belief
freedoms, sinicise China’s religions,
regulate Islamic haj affairs, and protect
the normal order of haj activities”.
Chinese pilgrims are already subject
to surveillance on the haj. In 2018 the
state-run Global Times quoted officials
as saying that the authorities had issueda GPS tracker to about 3,000 partici-
pants, which provided 24-hour moni-
toring of their location and movements.
China officially has a Muslim popu-
lation of about 20 million and receives
about 12,000 haj places every year from
Saudi Arabia through its quota system.
Millions of pilgrims from around the
world complete the haj to Mecca in nor-
mal years, a rite that is expected of
every able-bodied Muslim at least once.China
Didi Tang Beijing
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