http://www.sada-e-azadi.net/index.php/en/afghanistan/35-afghanistan/12951-high-powered-afghan-delegation-due-in-islamabad-today

http://www.sada-e-azadi.net/index.php/en/afghanistan/35-afghanistan/12942-51-militants-killed-during-counter-terrorism-operations

http://www.sada-e-azadi.net/index.php/en/afghanistan/capital/12949-in-several-joint-clearance-operations-11-armed-insurgents-killed

Eleven people were injured in a grenade explosion when they came out of the Jamia Trenz mosque in Shopian after offering morning prayers.

The ‘Nimazis’ (those who offer daily Muslim prayers) discovered an inverted metallic tumbler in the mosque compound. When one of them tried to turn the tumbler straight, the grenade kept under it exploded,” a senior police official told IANS here.

On Wednesday, four people, including an officer of the Jammu and Kashmir police, two CRPF troopers and a civilian, were injured in Khanyar area here when militants hurled a grenade at a patrol party of the security forces.

http://www.newkerala.com/news/2015/fullnews-102842.html

At least nine insurgents were killed in special ground and air operations by the Afghan security forces in eastern Nangarhar province on Wednesday, provincial police said in a statement.

The operation was launched in Hasarak and Sherzad districts of the province and 18 others wounded, police spokesman Hazrat Hussain Mashriqiwal said.

“Among the dead bodies two Chinese also seen,” he stated.

Eleven others including one Pakistani citizen detained during the operation, he said adding that the Pakistani was reportedly a doctor who had been treating injured Taliban members.

However, the statement did not provide details about casualties among the security forces during the operation.

The Taliban have not yet commented on the incident.

http://www.tolonews.com/en/afghanistan/20880-nine-insurgents-killed-in-nangarhar-operation

Unknown gunmen kidnapped 12 ethnic minority Hazaras from a car in east Afghanistan, days after suspected Taliban fighters kidnapped and killed four Hazaras in the same province, officials said on Wednesday.

Tuesday’s kidnappings in the province of Ghazni follow a spate of suicide bombings in Kabul last week and add to fears of an increase in sectarian violence as the Taliban’s anti-government insurgency gathers pace.

The passengers were travelling to Ghazni city when the gunmen stopped their car in Jaghuri, officials said.

“We are currently in contact with local elders. They will speak with the kidnappers to free our Hazara people,” Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, a deputy governor of Ghazni, told Reuters.

Hazaras, an ethnic group belonging mainly to the Shi’ite branch of Islam, were persecuted under the Taliban’s hardline Sunni Islamist rule, although sectarian violence has been rare since the end of the Taliban rule in 2001.

On Sunday, suspected Taliban fighters, seeking to re-establish their hard-line Islamist regime after it was toppled by U.S.-led military intervention in 2001, kidnapped four Hazaras while they were travelling from the Jaghori district to Ghazni.

“The Taliban kidnapped them from a car in a same way and later security forces found their bodies,” Ahmadi said.

In February, masked gunmen kidnapped 30 Hazaras in the southern province of Zabul. Nineteen were freed in May, two were killed and nine are still missing.

Almost 5,000 civilians were killed or wounded in Afghanistan in the first half of the year, according to U.N. figures.

Apart from its political significance and potential diplomatic advantage, the recent arrest of Pakistani militant Muhammad Naved Yakub following a deadly attack on a Border Security Force (BSF) convoy outside the garrison town of Udhampur has proved a truly ‘prized catch’ for the security forces.

They have on the basis of “valuable information” extracted from him during his interrogation carried out a number of operations against Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in Kashmir Valley particularly southern Pulwama-Shopian-Anantnag-Kulgam belt. The latest was an encounter with a group of militants that started in Ratnipora area of Pulwama on Monday evening and ended on Tuesday afternoon with the killing of a top LeT commander Showkat Ahmed Lone and his colleague Gulzar Ahmed.

Earlier on August 6, a similar gun battle resulted in the killing of the outfit’s district commander Talib Afzal Hussein Shah alias Omar in Astan Mohalla of Kakapora area in Pulwama district. However, another militant trapped with Shah escaped the security forces’ dragnet. A couple of other attempts also failed to yield ‘desired results’ as the militants reportedly named by Naved during his interrogation had already changed the locations identified by him when these were raided by security forces. In yet another incident, the militants hiding in a private house gave the security forces a slip after brief encounter.

Also, the security forces have been able to lay their hands on half a dozen people who had allegedly helped Naved during his stays at various places in Kulgam, Anantnag and Pulwama district of Kashmir Valley or, as has been claimed by the officials, are ‘over-ground’ activists or sympathisers of the LeT.

http://www.asianage.com/india/captured-pakistani-militant-naved-reveals-undercover-terror-network-452

Taliban insurgents have condemned the video released by Daesh purportedly showing the execution of prisoners in a ‘brutal’ manner, resembling the execution style used by the group’s affiliates in Iraq and Syria.

“A horrific video was released yesterday showing kidnappers who associate themselves with Daesh [Isis] brutally martyring several white-bearded tribal elders and villagers with explosives,” a statement posted on Taliban website states.

“This offence and other such brutal actions by a few irresponsible ignorant individuals under the guise of Islam and Muslims are intolerable,” it adds.

Messages and commentary released with the video claim that it was filmed in eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan and those executed were captured after fighting between Daesh, Taliban and government troops.

The video showed captured men being blown up with explosives. This style of execution was never used by militants in Afghanistan.

At the end of the video, there are questions, “Do you have a taste for digging your own graves? Do you want to be beheaded?” the two other styles of execution being used by ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

http://www.khaama.com/taliban-condemns-horrific-daesh-execution-video-3741

Some 50 Taliban militants have been killed as Afghan army had waged operations across the country since early Monday, the country’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday morning.

“The Afghan army carried out operations over the past 24 hours, killing 50 terrorists and wounding 38 others in different provinces,” the ministry said in a statement providing daily operational updates.

The army’s specialists had found and defused 32 roadside bombs and landmines while the army operations had also led to seizure of weapons and ammunition, the statement said, adding that six army personnel were also killed as a result of enemy’s firing and roadside bomb explosions within the same period, according to the statement.

The Taliban militant group has yet to make comments.

The Taliban-led violence continues in Afghanistan. Afghan security forces have pressed on clearing the militants in restive provinces as they assumed the full security charges from NATO-led troops since Jan. 1.

The Taliban responds by bombing and armed attacks.

On Monday, five civilians were killed and 16 others wounded in a suicide bomb attack near Kabul International airport.

The overnight operation launched by security forces to flush out militants in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district resumed this morning, police said.

The officials said that the gun battle resumed this morning after heavy fire was exchanged between the holed up militants and the security forces.

Acting on specific input about the presence of militants in Ratnipora area of the district, a joint team of police and army cordoned off the area and launched a search operation late on Monday.

As the search operation was on, the hiding militants fired upon the security forces. The forces retaliated triggering an encounter, police said.

Firing was on till last reports came in, they said, adding there were no casualties so far in the gun battle.

Meanwhile, protests broke out in the surrounding areas of Rantipora this morning after the encounter resumed.

According to the police, some youth in the surrounding area of the encounter site engaged in minor stone pelting on the security forces.

The protests were going on when the last reports came in, police said, adding no one was injured in the clashes.

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/150811/nation-current-affairs/article/security-forces-resume-operation-against-militants-kashmirs