KABUL, AFGHANISTAN // Afghan and international troops captured a Taliban district chief in a four-hour gunfight in the southern province of Helmand, Nato said today.
In northern Afghanistan, four rockets slammed into a base housing about 120 South Korean construction and security personnel in Parwan province, the South Korean Foreign Ministry said today. No casualties were reported in yesterday's attack.
Nato said the Taliban leader was captured after a joint Afghan-international force surrounded a compound on Wednesday night in the remote Baghran district in the northern part of Helmand province.
Taliban fighters inside the compound fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns before troops called in a precision airstrike, the Nato statement said.
There were no casualties among civilians, Afghan troops or international service members, according to the alliance. However, an undisclosed number of Taliban were killed or wounded. The wounded included the Taliban district chief for Now Zad, a former insurgent stronghold to the south where US Marines have reported progress in winning over the population after a major offensive last summer.
The joint force seized dozens of automatic weapons, grenade launchers and 20 pounds of opium, the Nato statement said.
Elsewhere, three Afghans were killed and another wounded by a roadside bomb today near a US outpost in Kunar province of eastern Afghanistan, a US statement said.
In Seoul, the foreign ministry spokesman Kim Young-sun said no group claimed responsibility for the rocket attack on the South Korean base in the north of Afghanistan, which occurred a day before the reconstruction team planned to officially launch its mission.
In 2007, South Korea withdrew troops from Afghanistan following a hostage stand-off in which the Taliban killed two South Koreans after demanding that Seoul immediately withdraw its forces.
The attacks occurred as Gen David Petraeus, widely credited with turning around the war in Iraq, prepared to assume command of the troubled US and Nato force in Afghanistan. His predecessor Gen Stanley McChrystal was fired last week over critical remarks made by him and his staff about Obama administration officials in Rolling Stone magazine.
Mr Petraeus was unanimously confirmed by the US Senate on Wednesday and flew immediately to Brussels, Belgium where he briefed Nato officials today.
Violence is on the rise in Afghanistan, where June was the deadliest month of the war for the Nato-led force with at least 102 deaths among international service members.
* AP
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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Ms Yang's top tips for parents new to the UAE
- Join parent networks
- Look beyond school fees
- Keep an open mind
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The fake news generation
288,000 – the number of posts reported as hate speech that were deleted by Facebook globally each month in May and June this year
11% – the number of Americans who said they trusted the news they read on Snapchat as of June 2017, according to Statista. Over a quarter stated that they ‘rarely trusted’ the news they read on social media in general
31% - the number of young people in the US aged between 10 and 18 who said they had shared a news story online in the last six months that they later found out was wrong or inaccurate
63% - percentage of Arab nationals who said they get their news from social media every single day.
What are the GCSE grade equivalents?
- Grade 9 = above an A*
- Grade 8 = between grades A* and A
- Grade 7 = grade A
- Grade 6 = just above a grade B
- Grade 5 = between grades B and C
- Grade 4 = grade C
- Grade 3 = between grades D and E
- Grade 2 = between grades E and F
- Grade 1 = between grades F and G
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Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
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%3Cp%3E1.%20Labour%20productivity%20is%20lower%20than%20the%20average%20of%20the%20developed%20economies%2C%20particularly%20in%20the%20non-tradable%20industries.%3Cbr%3E2.%20The%20low%20level%20of%20basic%20skills%20among%20workers%20and%20the%20high%20level%20of%20inequality%20between%20those%20with%20various%20skills.%3Cbr%3E3.%20Low%20employment%20rates%2C%20particularly%20among%20Arab%20women%20and%20Ultra-Othodox%20Jewish%20men.%3Cbr%3E4.%20A%20lack%20of%20basic%20knowledge%20required%20for%20integration%20into%20the%20labour%20force%2C%20due%20to%20the%20lack%20of%20core%20curriculum%20studies%20in%20schools%20for%20Ultra-Othodox%20Jews.%3Cbr%3E5.%20A%20need%20to%20upgrade%20and%20expand%20physical%20infrastructure%2C%20particularly%20mass%20transit%20infrastructure.%3Cbr%3E6.%20The%20poverty%20rate%20at%20more%20than%20double%20the%20OECD%20average.%3Cbr%3E7.%20Population%20growth%20of%20about%202%20per%20cent%20per%20year%2C%20compared%20to%200.6%20per%20cent%20OECD%20average%20posing%20challenge%20for%20fiscal%20policy%20and%20underpinning%20pressure%20on%20education%2C%20health%20care%2C%20welfare%20housing%20and%20physical%20infrastructure%2C%20which%20will%20increase%20in%20the%20coming%20years.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A