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Overall, the population in this region resides in structures that are vulnerable to earthquake shaking, though resistant structures exist. The predominant vulnerable building types are adobe block and unreinforced brick with mud and timber post construction. Recent earthquakes in this area have caused secondary hazards such as landslides that might have contributed to losses. The quake followed extremely damaging twin M6.3 earthquakes on October 7 in which more than 2 400 people lost their lives and more than 2 000 were injured. Some districts adjoining areas that had been completely flattened by earlier quakes had suffered huge losses, Herat’s governor’s...

Another earthquake has hit western Afghanistan, just days after two large quakes in the same region killed more than 1,000 people.The new 6.3 magnitude quake struck at around 05:10 local time (00:40 GMT) on Wednesday, 28km (17 miles) north of Herat, killing at least one person.More than 100 were injured and taken to hospital, health officials said.Unicef said more than 90% of those who died in this week's earthquakes in Afghanistan were women and children.The wider impact of the latest quake is not yet clear, but many people were sleeping in the open after their homes were destroyed on Saturday.The...

A Turkish court on Thursday charged a Syrian national suspected of plotting to slam speedboats packed with explosives into cruise ships loaded with Israeli tourists, lawyers and police said. According to The AP, defense lawyer Ilhami Sayan said the suspect, identified in the Turkish media as Lu'ai Sakra, was charged with membership in an "illegal organization." He was arrested earlier this month. Police said Sakra was linked to al-Qaeda. "I have no regrets," Sakra shouted to journalists as he was led into the courthouse. "I was going to attack Israeli ships. If they come, my friends will attack them." "I...

A Taliban attack on a U.S. consulate in the early morning hours Friday initially highlighted longstanding fears in Congress of an accelerated withdrawal while President Obama insists that the war in the Afghanistan be ended by his hand. Local reports of damage in Herat and the response, though, raise questions about just how much diplomatic security has been improved in the wake of the four deaths at Benghazi a year ago. The feared repeat of a 9/11 Benghazi attack came two days after the anniversary when attackers deployed car bombs in an SUV and minivan at the gates to the...

Early reports stating a car bomb on the US Consulate in Herat Afghanistan. Injuries being reported.

Two weeks ago, Turkish police arrested an Islamist with ties to many upper tier al-Qaida members. The man not only tried to get asylum in Germany, but claims to have known about the London bombings beforehand and to have helped the 9/11 pilots. The Turkish interrogators in Istanbul's high-security prison wanted to be polite; they wanted to show respect for Islam. They offered their prisoner, an Islamist named Luai Sakra, 31, a chance to pray during a pause in questioning. They'd done the same thing with earlier suspects. The move was supposed to establish trust. But this prisoner reacted a...

HERAT, Afghanistan — In the 1970s, tourists traveled to western Afghanistan to climb on the ruins of an ancient citadel, a fortress resembling a sandcastle that has stood overlooking the city of Herat for thousands of years. The citadel was crumbling then, but today the newly restored structure, dating back to the days of Alexander the Great, is a hopeful sign of progress in a country beset by war. Hundreds of Afghan craftsmen worked to restore the ruins’ past glory with help from the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and about $2.4 million from the U.S. and German governments. The...

KANDAHAR CITY, May 3 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Important Taliban commanders were among more than 130 people killed in a recent counter-insurgency operation in the western Herat province, insiders confided to Pajhwok Afghan News on Thursday. A key commander released recently along with four others in exchange for Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo died in the Zerkoh raid, which also left over 50 civilians dead, touched off furious protests and prompted President Hamid Karzai to warn foreign troops against collateral damage. The much-criticised prisoner swap resulted in the release of Ustad Yasir, Mufti Latifullah Hakimi, Mansoor Ahmad, Hamdullah and Mullah Ghaffar....

KABUL, April 30 (Reuters) - U.S.-led coalition troops have killed scores of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan over the past several days, the coalition said on Monday. Backed by air support, the Taliban were killed in two separate battles in the western province of Herat, which lies near the border with Iran and has been relatively safer until recently compared to the southern and eastern areas where the Taliban are largely active, it said in a statement.

ALARM - an American killed in an attack commits suicide in Afghanistan KABUL - an American, employed by the State Department, was killed Thursday in a attack-suicide with the booby-trapped car with Herat, the large city of the west of Afghanistan, declared a spokesman of the American embassy in Kabul.

Moving pics of the religious (gasp) ceremony in Herat for the 17 Spanish soldiers killed recently. It's in Spanish, but pretty self-explanatory. They're adding more pictures as events unfold. Click the back arrow for some pics of Zapatero looking really dopey.

This is just in CNN reported that 17 spanish troops killed in afghanistan will keep you posted

War brutalizes man, every afghan bears living testimony to this. If the landscape of Afghanistan bears the craters of the endless war, the political and military leadership in Afghanistan also carries war's indelible scars. It is important never to lose sight of this. Ahmed Shah Mas'ud was born to an army family in 1953 in the Panjshir Valley north of the Afghan capital Kabul. His father was a colonel in the Afghan Army and enrolled his son at Kabul's Lycee Istiqlal High School. Upon graduation Mas'ud joined Kabul's Polytechnic Institute. In 1973 King Zahir Shah was deposed and exiled by...

HERAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Up to seven supporters of an ousted Afghan governor were killed and 20 wounded on Sunday in clashes with police and U.S. troops in the western city of Herat, which was placed under night curfew. The curfew order from the city's army commander came after hundreds of supporters of Ismail Khan, sacked by President Hamid Karzai on Saturday as part of his election pledge to rein in warlords, burned and looted U.N. offices and set fire to the Pakistani consulate. Doctors said up to seven of Khan's supporters were killed and 50 wounded in clashes with...

Explosion Outside Western Afghan Police Station Kills Five, Injures Dozens More Amir Shah/Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A bomb exploded outside a police station in the western Afghan city of Herat on Sunday, killing five people and injuring dozens more, including a police officer, authorities said. Herat police chief Ziauddin Mahmoudi said a time bomb concealed in a pile of garbage along a main road exploded near a building with shops on the ground floor and a police station on the upper floor. The blast killed five people, including a 12-year-old boy, and wounded at least one police officer,...

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Forces loyal to Herat's governor claimed to have retaken control in the western city Monday after fierce factional fighting that killed Afghanistan's aviation minister and left as many as 100 people dead. The governor's troops fought against those of militia commander Zaher Naib Zada, who said his forces were responsible for Sunday's fatal shooting of Aviation Minister Mirwais Sadiq, which sparked the clashes. Fighters loyal to Gov. Ismail Khan - the aviation minster's father - retook Zada's militia barracks and detained 25 of his fighters but the commander himself escaped capture, police chief Zia Mauddin Mahmud...

KABUL (Reuters) - An Afghan cabinet minister has been killed in the western city of Herat, provoking ferocious tank and gun battles in which the city's military commander said more than 100 people died. There were conflicting accounts of the killing of Civil Aviation Minister Mirwais Sadiq, son of powerful Herat provincial governor Ismail Khan. Khan's spokesman said he was ambushed but officials from both sides said he was killed trying to enter the house of a local government commander. The fighting looked to be the worst between pro-government factions since President Hamid Karzai was installed after U.S.-led forces...

Kabul-to-Kandahar Road Completed; Other Successes Noted in Afghanistan By Richard Brownell Talon News December 18, 2003NEW YORK (Talon News) -- A paved road stretching 300 miles and connecting the Afghan city of Kandahar with the nation's capital of Kabul completed this week is just one of many improvements Afghanistan has seen in the past year, according to State Department officials in Washington Wednesday."The Afghans ... are an inconceivably resilient and resourceful and hardworking people," said USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator James Kunder. "They have provided many of the laborers and subcontractors for the Kabul-to-Kandahar highways."The original highway from Kandahar to Kabul...

  Provisional Reconstruction Team begins work in HeratBy Maj. Richard C. Sater Spc. Mary Miller and two young Afghan girls in traditional costume plant a tree at the conclusion of the opening ceremony for the Provincial Reconstruction Team headquarters. Miller is assigned to the 407th Civil Affairs Battalion, Fort Snelling, Minn. Maj. Richard Sater HERAT, Afghanistan (Army News Service, Dec. 4, 2003) -– Two little girls in traditional Afghan dress giggled as they helped plant a young pine tree outside a new building on the northwest side of town housing the headquarters for the Herat Provincial Reconstruction Team. The...

KABUL, Aug 13 (AFP) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai stripped powerful warlord Ismail Khan of his post as military commander of western Afghanistan in a major reshuffle of provincial governors and officials, the state Bakhtar news agency and officials said on Wednesday. The National Security Council decided Khan could not retain his post as military commander while governor of Herat province it said, citing a decree by Karzai who said earlier this year that officials could not hold both military and civil posts. A new Herat military commander would be named shortly, Bakhtar said. Human rights organisations have accused...