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Saturday, January 18, 2014

At least 2 Americans killed in Kabul, Aghanistan restaurant attack that left 21 dead

A suicide bomber and two gunmen stormed a popular eatery in Afghanistan where foreign diplomats and wealthy Afghans congregate. The U.S. Embassy confirmed two American citizens were killed.

La Taverna du Liban, a popular Lebanese restaurant in Kabul, was targeted by a suicide bomber and two gunmen — killing two Americans and at least 19 others.

epa04028134 Afghan security officials stand guard outside the damaged entrance of a Lebanese restaurant that was attacked in Kabul, Afghanistan, 18 January 2014. Thirteen foreigners were among 21 people killed in a Taliban attack in a section of the Afghan capital popular with diplomats, police said on 18 January. One suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to a Lebanese restaurant, opening the way for two gunmen to enter and shoot patrons and staff on 17 Janaury. EPA/S. SABAWOON

KABUL, Afghanistan — The death toll from a Taliban attack on a Kabul restaurant popular with foreigners and affluent Afghans has risen to 21 people, officials said Saturday, in the deadliest violence against foreign civilians in the country since the start of the war nearly 13 years ago.
Kabul police chief Gen. Mohammad Zahir Zahir said the victims included 13 foreigners and eight Afghans and said the majority were civilians. The U.S. Embassy said that at least two private U.S. citizens were among the victims but provided no other details.
The dead at the La Taverna du Liban restaurant included the head of the International Monetary Fund in Afghanistan, three United Nations staff and a member of the European Police Mission in Afghanistan. The UN had initially reported four dead, but had counted the IMF representative.
Zahir and international officials said the dead included two Britons, two Canadians, a Dane, a Russian, two Lebanese, a Somali-American and a Pakistani. At least four people were wounded and about eight Afghans, mostly the kitchen staff, survived.

Reuters

Afghan policemen help an injured man at the site of a restaurant attack in Kabul.

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Five women, four foreign and one Afghan, were also among the dead, Zahir said.
The three attackers, including a suicide bomber and two gunmen, were also killed during Friday night’s assault on the Lebanese restaurant.
The dead included the head of the IMF in Afghanistan, Wabel Abdallah, a 60-year-old Lebanese national; a Danish European Policewoman and her British bodyguard, while the U.N. in Kabul said its three staff members included a Pakistani, a Russian and a Somali-American. The restaurant’s Lebanese owner, Kamal Hamade, was also killed.

Rahmat Gul/AP

Afghan security forces investigate the aftermath of Friday's suicide attack and shooting in Kabul around dinnertime Friday.

The attack was condemned by the U.N. Security Council, NATO and the European Union.

“I strongly condemn this attack on random civilians and my thoughts and deepest sympathy goes to the next of kin,” Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt said in a statement.
The Danish Foreign Ministry declined to release details about the victim as customary but Denmark’s TV2 said she was a 34-year-old woman.

JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images

Afghan police arrive at the scene of a suicide bomber and gun attack in Kabul on Friday. At least 16 people were killed at a Lebanese eatery frequented by foreigners and Afghans.

“I condemn in the strongest possible terms this appalling and unjustifiable violence. The perpetrators must be brought to justice,” EU High Representative Catherine Ashton said Saturday.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s office has not yet condemned the attack.
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The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was in reprisal for an Afghan military operation earlier in the week against insurgents in eastern Parwan province, which the insurgents claimed killed many civilians. The Taliban frequently provide exaggerated casualty figures.

JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images

Afghan police keep back traffic near a restaurant popular with Afghans and foreign diplomats that was attacked by gunmen and a suicide bomber on Friday night. At least 16 people died.

“The target of the attack was a restaurant frequented by high ranking foreigners,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in an emailed statement. He said the attack targeted a place “where the invaders used to dine with booze and liquor in the plenty.”
He described the “revenge attack” as having delivered a “heavy admonitory blow to the enemy which they shall never forget.”
During the operation last Wednesday in eastern Parwan province, Afghan officials said that Taliban fighters opened fire on an Afghan commando unit trying to capture an insurgent leader in his home. After opening fire on the Afghan soldiers, killing one of their American advisers, the team called the U.S.-led coalition for air support.
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The governor of Parwan, Abdul Basir Salangi, said a Taliban leader, three of his family members and five civilians in a neighboring home, from which insurgents were also firing on the Afghan commandos, died in the ensuing combat. He added that seven Taliban fighters were also killed.
Insurgents have frequently targeted foreign interests around the country and in Kabul.
The deadliest previous attack against foreign civilians was in Sept. 8, 2012, when nine civilian employees of a private aviation company were killed in a suicide attack happened near Kabul airport. They included eight South Africans and a Kyrgyz.
The Taliban have stepped up a campaign of violence in recent months after foreign forces handed over control of security for the country to the Afghan army and police ahead of their full withdrawal by the end of 2014.

California declares drought emergency

Los Angeles: California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency on Friday due to what could be the western US state’s worst drought in a century, which has sparked wildfires and hurt farmers.

The declaration allows authorities to access federal help to battle the dry spell that has left huge swathes of tinder-dry forest vulnerable to going up in flames.

On Thursday, a massive blaze raged just outside Los Angeles, damaging several homes and forcing residents to evacuate the area, where the fire risk had been elevated for weeks.

Brown urged state residents to reduce their water use by at least 20 per cent.

“I’ve declared this emergency and I’m calling on all Californians to conserve water in every way possible,” he said in a statement.

“We can’t make it rain,” he added.

“But we can be much better prepared for the terrible consequences that California’s drought now threatens, including dramatically less water for our farms and communities, and increased fires in both urban and rural areas.”

Brown told reporters in San Francisco that the current conditions were possibly “the worst drought that California has ever seen since records [began] about 100 years ago,” media reports said.

The region is suffering its third dry winter in a row, highlighted by the Los Angeles inferno.

California and other western US states are routinely hit with wildfires during the summer, but winter blazes, like the ones burning currently, are relatively rare.

California’s rivers and reservoirs have reached record lows, with only 20 per cent of the normal average supplies of water from melting snowpack, which flows down from mountains like the Sierra Nevada.

“Water years 2012 and 2013 were dry statewide, especially in parts of the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California,” said the state’s Department of Water Resources (DWR) in its latest drought update.

“Water year 2014, which began on October 1st, continues this trend. Precipitation in some areas of the state is tracking at about the driest year of record.”

Farmer Mark Fontanilla was among dozens of people who staged a protest outside the state capitol in Sacramento on Thursday, urging Brown to do more.

“You can turn off your taps and minimise your pool and all that, but until we build more dams and increase the water storage, and get these clowns out of office, we’re gonna be importing our food from China,” he told KCRA television.

On average, half of California’s rain falls in December, January and February, the DWR noted, lamenting the lack of precipitation but saying it had not yet given up hope of some this winter.

“It is still too early, however, to call this water year, and Mother Nature may surprise us,” it said.

Friday, January 17, 2014

IMF and UN officials killed in Kabul restaurant attack

1 hour ago

A senior IMF official and four UN employees were among 15 people killed in a suicide bomb and gun attack on a restaurant in Kabul, officials say.
Wabel Abdallah, the head of the IMF's Afghanistan office, and the UN civilian staff died in the capital's popular Taverna du Liban, in what UN chief Ban Ki-moon said was a "horrific attack".
Philip Palmer reports.

SAN FRANCISCO: US chip giant Intel has said it will trim its workforce by five per cent this year as it shifts from personal computers to powering mobile gadgets.

Word of the job cuts came a day after Intel reported that its net profit last year sank 13 per cent but that the troubled personal computer market appeared to be stabilising.