Dozens of civilians, 12 US troops killed in Kabul airport blasts

Suicide bombers struck the crowded gates of Kabul airport with at least two explosions on Thursday, causing a bloodbath among civilians and US troops, and bringing a catastrophic halt to the airlift of tens of thousands of Afghans desperate to flee.

Two US officials put the US death toll at 12 service members killed, making it one of the deadliest incidents for American troops of the entire 20-year war.

There was no complete toll of Afghan civilians but video images uploaded by Afghan journalists showed dozens of bodies of people killed in packed crowds outside the airport.

A watery ditch by the airport fence was filled with bloodsoaked corpses, some being fished out and laid in heaps on the canal side while wailing civilians searched for loved ones.

Several Western countries said the airlift of civilians was now effectively over, with the United States having sealed the gates of the airport leaving no way out for tens of thousands of Afghans who worked for the West through two decades of war.

A Taliban official said at least 13 people including children had been killed in the attack and 52 were wounded, though it was clear from video footage that those figures were far from complete. One surgical hospital run by an Italian charity said it alone was treating more than 60 wounded.

The explosions took place amid the crowds outside the airport who have been massing for days in hope of escaping in an airlift which the United States says will end by Tuesday, following the swift capture of the country by the Taliban.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blasts, but US officials pointed the finger at Islamic State's Afghan affiliate, ISIS-Khorosan, which has emerged as enemies of both the West and of the Taliban.

A witness who gave his name as Jamshed said he went to the airport in the hope of getting a visa for the United States.

"There was a very strong and powerful suicide attack, in the middle of the people. Many were killed, including Americans," he said.

'COMPLEX ATTACK'

Zubair, a 24 year-old civil engineer, who had been trying for a nearly week to get inside the airport with a cousin who had papers authorizing him to travel to the United States, said he was 50 meters from the first of two suicide bombers who detonated explosives at the gate.

"Men, women and children were screaming. I saw many injured people – men, women and children – being loaded into private vehicles and taken toward the hospitals," he said. After the explosions there was gunfire.

Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said on Twitter: "We can confirm that the explosion at the Abbey Gate was the result of a complex attack that resulted in a number of US and civilian casualties. We can also confirm at least one other explosion at or near the Baron Hotel, a short distance from Abbey Gate."

Taliban official Suhail Shaheen said there were two explosions in a crowded area managed by US forces. "We strongly condemn this gruesome incident and will take every step to bring the culprits to justice."

The Taliban did not identify the attackers, but a spokesman described it as the work of "evil circles" who would be suppressed once the foreign troops leave.

Washington and its allies had been urging civilians to stay away from the airport on Thursday, citing the threat of an Islamic State suicide attack.

In the past 12 days, Western countries have evacuated nearly 100,000 people, mostly Afghans who helped them. But they say many thousands more will be left behind following President Joe Biden's order to pull out all troops by Aug 31.

The last few days of the airlift will mostly be used to withdraw the remaining troops. Canada and some European countries have already announced the end of their airlifts, while publicly lamenting Biden's abrupt pullout.

AIRPORT DOORS 'CLOSED'

"The doors at the airport are now closed and it is no longer possible to get people in," Norwegian Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide said on Thursday.

"We wish we could have stayed longer and rescued everyone," the acting chief of Canada's defense staff, General Wayne Eyre, told reporters.

Biden ordered all troops out of Afghanistan by the end of the month to comply with a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban negotiated by his predecessor Donald Trump. He spurned calls this week from European allies for more time.

The abrupt collapse of the Western-backed government in Afghanistan caught US officials by surprise and risks reversing gains, especially in the rights of women and girls, millions of whom have been going to school and work, once forbidden under the Taliban.

Biden has defended the decision to leave, saying US forces could not stay indefinitely. But his critics say the US force, which once numbered more than 100,000, had been reduced in recent years to just a few thousand troops, no longer involved in fighting on the ground and mainly confined to an air base. It was a fraction of the size of US military contingents that have stayed in places such as Korea for decades.

The US troops killed on Thursday were the first to die in action in Afghanistan in 18 months.

Violence from Islamic State creates a headache for the Taliban who have promised that their victory will bring peace to Afghanistan at last. Fighters claiming allegiance to Islamic State began appearing in eastern Afghanistan at the end of 2014 and have established a reputation for extreme brutality.

Since the day before the Taliban swept into Kabul, the United States and its allies have mounted one of the biggest air evacuations in history, bringing out about 95,700 people, including 13,400 on Wednesday, the White House said on Thursday.

The Taliban have encouraged Afghans to stay, while saying those with permission to leave will still be allowed to do so once foreign troops leave and commercial flights resume.

The Taliban's 1996-2001 rule was marked by public executions and the curtailment of basic freedoms. The group was overthrown two decades ago by US-led forces for hosting the al Qaeda militants who masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

The Taliban have said they will respect human rights in line with Islamic law and will not allow terrorists to operate from the country.

-reuters-

Islamic scholars to decide role of women in Afghanistan, says senior Taliban member

A senior Taliban leader has said that the role of women in Afghanistan, including their right to work and education and how they should dress, would ultimately be decided by a council of Islamic scholars.

"Our ulema (scholars) will decide whether girls are allowed to go to school or not," Waheedullah Hashimi, who has access to the group's decision-making, told Reuters.

"They will decide whether they should wear hijab, burqa, or only (a) veil plus abaya or something, or not. That is up to them." 

The hijab is usually a scarf covering the head, the burqa is an all-enveloping robe while the abaya is a robe that leaves the face uncovered. 

On Tuesday, the Taliban's main spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, told a news conference in Kabul that women would be allowed to work and study and "will be very active in society but within the framework of Islam."

During their 1996-2001 rule, also guided by Islamic law, the Taliban stopped women from working. Girls were not allowed to go to school and women had to wear burqas to go out, and then only when accompanied by a male relative.

Those who broke the rules sometimes suffered humiliation and public beatings by the Taliban's religious police.

Western leaders have said they will judge the new Taliban by their actions, including how they treats girls and women.

"We will judge this regime based on the choices it makes, and by its actions rather than by its words, on its attitude to terrorism, to crime and narcotics, as well as humanitarian access, and the rights of girls to receive an education," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday.

"People in Afghanistan 99.99% are Muslims and they believe in Islam," Hashimi said. "When you believe in laws, definitely you should apply that law. We have a council, a very prominent council of Ulema. They will decide what to do." 

Despite its surge across Afghanistan in recent weeks, Hashimi said even the Taliban had not expected to enter Kabul so soon. But chaos ensued in the capital after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, he said. 

"Therefore our leadership ordered our Taliban to Kabul city. There was no one to resist. No one at all. So we entered and everything was laid kind of empty. So we occupied and now we are in control of Kabul city." (Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

-reuters-

Afghan women forced from banking jobs as Taliban take control

In early July, as Taliban insurgents were seizing territory from government forces across Afghanistan, fighters from the group walked into the offices of Azizi Bank in the southern city of Kandahar and ordered nine women working there to leave.

The gunmen escorted them to their homes and told them not to return to their jobs. Instead, they explained that male relatives could take their place, according to three of the women involved and the bank's manager.

 "It's really strange to not be allowed to get to work, but now this is what it is," Noor Khatera, a 43-year-old woman who had worked in the accounts department of the bank told Reuters.

"I taught myself English and even learned how to operate a computer, but now I will have to look for a place where I can just work with more women around."

The incident is an early sign that some of the rights won by Afghan women over the 20 years since the hardline Islamist militant movement was toppled could be reversed.

The Taliban have steadily overrun the country since US troops began withdrawing in May and the insurgents entered the capital on Sunday.

When they last ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, women could not work, girls were not allowed to attend school and women had to cover their face and be accompanied by a male relative if they wanted to venture out of their homes.

Women who broke the rules sometimes suffered humiliation and public beatings by the Taliban's religious police under the group's strict interpretation of Islamic law.

During hitherto fruitless talks over a political settlement in recent years, Taliban leaders made assurances to the West that women would enjoy equal rights in accordance with what was granted by Islam, including the ability to work and be educated.

'THE WORLD SHOULD HELP US'

Two days after the episode at Azizi Bank, a similar scene played out at a branch of another Afghan lender, Bank Milli, in the western city of Herat, according to two female cashiers who witnessed it.

Three Taliban fighters carrying guns entered the branch, admonishing female employees for showing their faces in public. Women there quit, sending male relatives in their place.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid did not respond to a request for comment about the two incidents. Spokespeople for the two banks did not respond to requests for comment.

On the broader question of whether women would be allowed to work in banks in areas it controls, Mujahid added that no decision had yet been made.

"After the establishment of the Islamic system, it will be decided according to the law, and God willing, there will be no problems," he said.

The United States and others Western powers fear that the Taliban will roll back many of the freedoms won by women.

Gains made in women's right have been touted as one of the biggest accomplishments during the 20 years that US-led forces have been deployed in Afghanistan, although they have mostly been made in urban centres.

Afghan women working in fields including journalism, healthcare and law enforcement have been killed in a wave of attacks since peace talks began last year between the Taliban and the US-backed Afghan government.

The government blames most targeted killings on the Taliban, who deny carrying out assassinations.

"The Taliban will regress freedom at all levels and that is what we are fighting against," an Afghan government spokesperson said.

"Women and children are suffering the most and our forces are trying to save democracy. The world should understand and help us."

Scores of educated Afghan women took to social media to appeal for help and express their frustration.

"With every city collapsing, human bodies collapse, dreams collapse, history and future collapse, art and culture collapse, life and beauty collapse, our world collapses," Rada Akbar wrote on Twitter. "Someone please stop this." 

(Reporting by Rupam Jain in Mumbai; Writing by Alasdair Pal; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Mike Collett-White and Philippa Fletcher)

-reuters-

At least 28 killed in mosque blast in Afghanistan

JALALABAD, Afghanistan - At least 28 worshippers were killed and dozens wounded by a blast inside an Afghan mosque during Friday prayers, officials said, a day after the United Nations said violence in the country had reached "unacceptable" levels.

The explosion, which witnesses said collapsed the mosque's roof, took place in eastern Nangarhar province and wounded at least 55 people, provincial governor spokesman Attaullah Khogyani told AFP.

He said the dead were "all worshippers" in the blast in Haska Mina district, roughly 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the provincial capital Jalalabad.

A doctor at a hospital in Haska Mina gave a slightly higher toll, telling AFP that "around" 32 bodies had been brought in, along with 50 wounded.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Both the Taliban and the Islamic State group are active in Nangarhar province.

Witnesses said the roof of the mosque had fallen through after the "loud" explosion, the nature of which was not immediately clear.

"Dozens of people were killed and wounded and were taken in several ambulances," Haji Amanat Khan, a 65-year-old local resident, told AFP.

The blast came after the UN released a new report on Thursday saying an "unprecedented" number of civilians were killed or wounded in Afghanistan from July to September.

The report, which also charts violence throughout 2019 so far, underscores how "Afghans have been exposed to extreme levels of violence for many years" despite promises by all sides to "prevent and mitigate harm to civilians."

It also noted the absurdity of the ever-increasing price paid by civilians given the widespread belief that the war in Afghanistan cannot be won by either side.

"Civilian casualties are totally unacceptable," said the UN's special representative in Afghanistan, Tadamichi Yamamoto, adding they demonstrate the importance of talks leading to a ceasefire and a permanent political settlement.

The figures - 1,174 deaths and 3,139 injured from July 1 until September 30 - represent a 42-percent increase compared to the same period last year.

The UN laid most of the blame for the spike at the feet of "anti-government elements" such as the Taliban, who have been carrying out a bloody insurgency in Afghanistan for more than 18 years.

July alone saw more casualties than in any other month on record since the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) began documenting the violence in 2009.

The first six months of 2019 had seen casualties drop slightly compared to previous years.

But the violence has surged so far in the third quarter that it yanked the overall total for the year back on par with the bloodiest since NATO withdrew its combat forces at the end of 2014.

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Voting in Afghanistan's presidential election begins

KABUL - Voting began on Saturday to elect a president for Afghanistan with more than 9 million Afghan registered voters potentially heading to the polls amid fears of violence and fraud.

Tens of thousands of Afghan forces were deployed across 34 provinces to protect voters and polling stations from Taliban attacks.

The hardline insurgent group has threatened voters to stay away from the election or face dire consequences.

About 9.6 million of Afghanistan's 34 million people are registered to vote for one of 14 candidates at around 5,000 polling centers that will be protected by some 100,000 Afghan forces with air support from U.S. forces.

More than 400 polling centers will remain closed because they are situated in areas under Taliban control. Hundreds more in schools, mosques and district centers will be closed because of security concerns.

The voting process is another source of concern. The Independent Election Commission (IEC) has come under criticism for issuing contradictory and unclear statements over what processes will be in place to prevent fraud if biometric systems fail during the eight hours of voting.

Four of the 18 candidates registered to contest for the top job dropped out of the race, but their names remain on the biometric voting devices.

The chief contenders are incumbent President Ashraf Ghani and his former deputy Abdullah Abdullah, both of whom came to power in 2014 after a bitterly contested election marred by fraud.

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US military likely to ramp up operations against Taliban: US general

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- The US military is likely to accelerate the pace of its operations in Afghanistan to counter an increase in Taliban attacks, a senior US general said following Washington's suspension of peace talks with the insurgents.

US Marine General Kenneth McKenzie, the head of US Central Command, said during a visit to Afghanistan that the Taliban overplayed its hand in peace negotiations by carrying out a spate of high-profile attacks, including one that killed a US soldier last week.

The Taliban, which controls more territory than at any time since 2001 when it governed the country, said on Sunday that more American lives would be lost.

McKenzie declined to comment on the Taliban statement. But he noted that US troops in Afghanistan were hardly "defenseless."

"We're certainly not going to sit still and let them carry out some self-described race to victory. That's not going to happen," McKenzie told a group of reporters traveling with him during a stop at Bagram Airfield in northeastern Afghanistan.

Airstrikes by US-led international forces and Afghanistan’s small air force already are at a high level - a Sept. 3 United Nations report said there had been 506 between May 10 and Aug. 8, a 57 percent increase from the same period in 2018.

Asked whether increasing operations against the Taliban could include airstrikes and raids by US and Afghan commandos, McKenzie responded: "I think we're talking a total spectrum."

"And, again, whatever targets are available, whatever targets can be lawfully and ethically struck, I think we're going to pursue those targets," he said.

Any increase in US military action would correspond to an acceleration of Taliban attacks, McKenzie said.

The insurgents' determination to step up both attacks on provincial centers and suicide bombings even as discussions were taking place was a major factor in pushing US President Donald Trump to announce on Saturday that he was canceling peace talks aimed at ending America's longest war of 18 years.

The halt to the negotiations has fueled fears of even more violence across Afghanistan, with heightened security warnings in the capital Kabul and other centers ahead of a presidential election scheduled for Sept. 28.

TALIBAN MISCALCULATION

Trump, a longtime critic of the Afghan war, and the billions of dollars it costs, had been preparing an unprecedented meeting with the insurgency's leaders at the presidential compound in Camp David, Maryland.

But he called off the event after the latest violence.

Trump on Monday said talks with Taliban leaders are "dead" but that he was still considering a US troop drawdown.

Reuters has reported on growing misgivings that had been building within Trump's administration about the peace deal negotiated by a special US envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad.

McKenzie said he believed the Taliban underestimated the delicate nature of the talks with Washington, even in their later stages.

"I think they overplayed their hand," McKenzie said. "They misjudged the character of the American people. I think they misjudged the character of the president of the United States."

The growing tension on the ground in Afghanistan adds to the uncertainty about the future course for American forces, many of whom must now simultaneously brace for an increase in fighting while also awaiting potential orders to withdraw.

The United States has about 14,000 troops in Afghanistan, a figure that Trump has said he would like to reduce to about 8,600.

A further intensification in airstrikes poses a grave risk of increasing civilian casualties - and fueling support for the Taliban - which were 39 percent higher for the first half of 2019 from the same period in 2018, a July UN report said.

A spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan disputed the methods and findings but declined to provide civilian casualty figures.

Asked what his message was in his talks on Monday with US special operations forces, medical teams and other personnel he visited at bases in Afghanistan, McKenzie told reporters that they would need to keep fighting the "hard fight" for now.

"We just have to hold the line right now," McKenzie said.

"We're going to make some decisions, I think, back in our nation's capital over the next few days and that will give us increased guidance going ahead," he added, without elaborating.

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Taliban kill at least 10 in 'horrifying' attack in Afghan capital

KABUL - The Taliban killed at least 10 people, including a Romanian soldier, in a fresh bombing in Kabul on Thursday -- yet another horrific attack on the Afghan capital as the US and the insurgents negotiate a deal to see American troops leave the country.

The car bomb blast shook Shash Darak, a heavily fortified area adjacent to the Green Zone and home to several important complexes including the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the Afghan intelligence service.

Apparent surveillance footage of the attack, which occurred at about 10:10 a.m. (0540 GMT), showed a grey minivan explode just after it had cut in front of a line of white SUVs waiting to make a right turn right onto a street.

One nearby pedestrian can be seen turning and trying to run away as the minivan crashed through a barrier just before the blast.

Romania's defense ministry said in a statement that a Romanian soldier "lost his life today while executing a mixed patrol mission near (the) Green Zone in Kabul". 

His death comes after a Romanian employee of the European nation's embassy was killed in a separate Taliban attack in east Kabul on Monday.

According to interior ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi, at least 10 civilians were killed and 42 more wounded. 

But Farid Ahmad Karimi, general manager at the Wazir Akbar Khan hospital close to the bomb site, told AFP that both civilians and security personnel were among the dead and wounded.

On Twitter, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack, saying a "martyrdom seeker" -- or suicide bomber -- had triggered the car bomb and that 12 "foreign invaders" were killed.

Massoud Zazai, who owns a photo studio across the street from the blast site, said he was in his shop when the explosion happened.

"I fell off my chair and it got dark inside the shop because of smoke and dust," Zazai told AFP.

"I went out to the scene moments after the attack, the side of the road was littered with debris and bodies."

Through the smoke, Zazai said he could hear injured people crying and calling for their mothers and brothers.

"I saw at least five very badly injured, one was covered in blood and not moving. It was horrifying."

The attack was close to where the Islamic State group killed 9 journalists in a blast in April last year, including AFP Kabul's chief photographer Shah Marai.


'Bitten by the snake'

On Monday, a Romanian was among at least 16 people who were killed in a Taliban attack on a residential area in east Kabul. 

Currently, Romania contributes about 760 military personnel to the US-led NATO mission in Afghanistan, which has a total force size of about 17,000 troops from 39 countries.

The capital has been gripped by a surge in deadly violence even after the US and the insurgents reached an agreement "in principle" that would see the Pentagon pull thousands of troops from Afghanistan in return for various Taliban security promises.


But there is increasing unease about the deal, with Afghans fearing it will lead to a return of the Taliban to power, and a growing chorus of US lawmakers and officials expressing doubts.

According to parts of the deal made public so far, the Pentagon would pull about 5,000 of its 13,000 or so troops from five bases across Afghanistan by early next year, provided the Taliban hews to its security pledges.

The insurgents have said they will renounce Al-Qaeda, fight the Islamic State group and stop jihadists using Afghanistan as a safe haven.

On Wednesday, the Afghan government expressed doubts about the prospective deal, saying officials need more information about the risks it poses.

"There is too much concern about it, and we are still not assured of what consequences this agreement could have for Afghanistan's future," presidential advisor Waheed Omar told journalists Thursday.

"The people of Afghanistan have been bitten by the snake before, and have been witness to the consequences of hasty deals".

Even as negotiations for an accord have entered what are widely considered to be the final stages, violence has surged across Afghanistan.

On Saturday, the Taliban attempted to seize the provincial capital of Kunduz in the north and sporadic fighting has continued on the outskirts all week. 

Insurgents launched an operation in the city of Pul-e Khumri, the capital of neighboring Baghlan province on Sunday.

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Six dead, 50 children wounded in Taliban car bomb attack on Kabul

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - At least 6 people were killed and dozens, including 50 children, were wounded Monday when the Taliban detonated a powerful car bomb in Kabul, officials said -- the latest deadly attack in one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a child.

Save the Children led international condemnation of the blast targeting a defense ministry building, which sent a plume of smoke into the air during rush hour and shook buildings nearly two kilometers (1.2 miles) away. 

Gunmen then stormed a nearby building, triggering a gun battle with special forces in the Puli Mahmood Khan neighbourhood of the Afghan capital. 

At least 6 people were killed, including a child and 2 special forces, said interior ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi.

The health ministry put the wounded toll at 116 people. Among the injured were 50 children, officials said, adding that most had been hurt by flying glass and were in stable condition.

Rahimi said all 5 gunmen and the driver of the car had been killed, and a clearing operation was over.

Some social media images purportedly taken at a hospital showed wounded, stunned children in school uniforms, still clutching books as they arrived for treatment. 

Five schools were damaged in the blast, the education ministry said.

Save the Children branded the attack "utterly deplorable", warning that "children's smaller bodies sustain more serious injuries than adults" and that the trauma of such attacks can stay with them for years.

'The world turned upside down' -

The Taliban claimed the attack, which came just two days after the insurgents began a seventh round of talks with the US in Qatar, as Washington eyes a breakthrough before Afghanistan's presidential election in September.

"We were sitting inside the office when the world turned upside down on us," said Zaher Usman, an employee at a branch of the culture ministry, which he said stands just 150 meters (yards) from the blast site.

"When I opened my eyes, the office was filled with smoke and dust and everything was broken, my colleagues were screaming," Usman told AFP by telephone.

AFP reporters could hear gunshots and multiple smaller explosions for hours after the initial blast, before the clearing operation was announced. 

The interior ministry said 210 civilians had been rescued from buildings nearby.

Taliban reject talks with Kabul 

Nearby Shamshad TV station, which was attacked in 2017, aired images of broken glass and damage to its offices. 

"I was terrified," Shamshad anchor Hashmat Stanikzai told AFP. 

A media watchdog said seven Shamshad journalists were among the wounded.

The attack came as the US was set to resume negotiations with the militants in Doha.

With the attack still ongoing, the Taliban spokesman in Doha again insisted that the insurgents will not negotiate with Kabul.

"Once the timeline for the withdrawal of foreign forces is set in the presence of international observers, then we will begin the talks to the Afghan side, but we will not talk to the Kabul administration as a government," Suhail Shaheen tweeted. 

There are deep concerns among Afghans who fear Washington will rush for the exits and allow the militants to return to some semblance of power.

However, US officials have insisted that "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed", including intra-Afghan talks.

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Trump vows to keep Guantanamo Bay prison open

WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump announced Tuesday he would keep Guantanamo Bay open, breaking from his predecessor Barack Obama's lengthy and ultimately failed efforts to shutter the maligned detention facility.

"I just signed an order directing Secretary Mattis to reexamine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay," Trump said, in his State of the Union address to Congress, in keeping with a campaign promise.

Under president George W. Bush, the US military hastily constructed a prison camp on Guantanamo Bay, located on the US naval base on the eastern tip of Cuba, in the months following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

At first, inmates were held in cages and fenced in with razor wire, and conditions for the orange jumpsuit-clad detainees provoked a global outcry in 2002.

That early facility, known as Camp X-Ray, was soon replaced with more permanent structures and today, Guantanamo Bay consists of numerous high-security prison buildings.

At the height of its operations after 9/11, the facility held 780 people, detained mostly for their alleged ties to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Since then, hundreds have been transferred back to their home countries or other places.

Some of the most notorious inmates, including several alleged 9/11 co-conspirators, among them accused mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, are still awaiting trial.

Their cases have been beset by legal woes at Guantanamo, where a bespoke criminal justice system grants detainees -- who are considered "unprivileged enemy belligerents" -- only some of the legal rights that US federal courts guarantee.

Of the 41 inmates remaining at Guantanamo, about 26 are trapped in legal purgatory.

These so-called "forever prisoners" have never been charged -- yet they have been deemed too dangerous to release.

Some were cleared for release under Obama, but have been stranded at Guantanamo under the Trump administration.

'BAD DUDES' 

On the campaign trail, Trump famously vowed he would load Guantanamo with "bad dudes," and said it would be "fine" if US terror suspects were sent there for trial.

In 2009, soon after he was sworn in, Obama ordered the prison to be closed within a year, and no new inmate has been sent there since early 2008.

Political bickering, vehement Republican opposition and foreign allies' reluctance to take in the prisoners meant Obama could not close Guantanamo, though the population dropped from 242 to 41 under his watch.

Since becoming president, Trump has toyed with the idea of sending Americans to Guantanamo, though federal judges would likely bar any such attempt.

In October, he suggested that the man accused of carrying out a deadly truck attack along a bike path in New York could be sent to Guantanamo, but he later backed off the idea.

Another case that could potentially bring Guantanamo into legal focus is that of a US citizen who was captured in Syria and had allegedly been fighting for the Islamic State group.

The man, whose name has not been released, is apparently being held in Iraq.

The American Civil Liberties Union has taken up his case and a federal judge has ruled that the US must give it advance notice before transferring the man overseas.

That would allow time for the ACLU to mount a legal challenge.

bur-oh/dc

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Huge car bomb near embassies in Afghan capital kills or wounds dozens

KABUL - A powerful car bomb exploded in the center of Afghanistan's capital on Wednesday, killing or wounding dozens of people and sending clouds of black smoke into the sky above the presidential palace and foreign embassies, officials said

Basir Mujahid, a spokesman for Kabul police, said several people were killed and wounded in the blast near the fortified entrance to the German embassy.

"It was a car bomb near the German embassy, but there are several other important compounds and offices near there too. It is hard to say what the exact target is," Mujahid said.

The explosion shattered windows and blew doors off their hinges in houses hundreds of metres (yards) away.

A public health spokesman said at least 67 wounded people had been taken to hospitals around Kabul.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast. A spokesman for Taliban insurgents said he was gathering information.

Violence around Afghanistan has been rising throughout the year, as the Taliban push to defeat the U.S.-backed government and reimpose Islamic law after their 2001 ouster in a Washington-backed invasion.

Since most international troops withdrew at the end of 2014, the Taliban have gained ground and now control or contest about 40 percent of the country, according to U.S. estimates, though President Ashraf Ghani's government holds all provincial centres.

U.S. President Donald Trump is due to decide soon on a recommendation to send 3,000 to 5,000 more troops to bolster the small NATO training force and U.S. counter-terrorism mission now totalling just over 10,000.

The commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, told a congressional hearing earlier this year that he needed several thousand more troops to help Afghan forces break a "stalemate" with the Taliban.

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