Women mourn after ISIS attack on Sikh temple in Kabul Credit: BBC News KABUL — An Islamic State gunman stormed a temple used by Sikh and Hindu minorities in Kabul on Wednesday, killing 25 worshipers during an hours-long battle with Afghan security forces. More than six hours after the attack began, the Interior Ministry said the building had been cleared. Spokesman Tariq Aryan said eight were wounded in addition to the 25 killed. Afghan security forces rescued 80 others from the site, he said. The Islamic State asserted responsibility for the attack in a statement posted by the group’s media arm, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks the online postings of Islamist militant org
A total of 21 villagers were killed and about two dozen injured when military jets opened fire on four majority Christian villages in Chin State, Myanmar (Burma) over the weekend. Eyewitness said twelve people were killed in the first attack on two villages in Paletwa Township by Myanmar Army planes on 14 March. A further eight people died the following day in an airstrike on two other villages. The attacks caused about 2,000 residents to flee to a nearby town. Traumatised and tearful Chin villagers flee their burning homes and make their way to safety by boat “We did not expect that the military’s fighter jet would shoot into our village,” said a survivor. “In one family, seven people were
Darfur Women Action Group (DWAG) expresses a grave concern regarding an attack on Monday, March 9th, that has killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 17 people in South Darfur. We would like to repeat our urgent calls for the effective provision of security and well-being for Darfuri residents, as well as for the apprehension and prosecution of the individuals who have carried out such violent crimes. The security status of Darfur is a cornerstone in the peaceful transition and sustainable development of the entire nation of Sudan, and thus cannot be ignored. Justice for the victims of this most recent attack, likewise, cannot be foregone. Reports from the civilians on the ground and
More evidence has emerged that the Indian police took part in violence against Muslims or stood aside during fighting in the capital last month. Kaushar Ali, 49, who was beaten up by Delhi police officers on Feb. 24, was visited by his relatives at a hospital earlier this month. Photographs by Atul Loke NEW DELHI — Kaushar Ali, a house painter, was trying to get home when he ran into a battle. Hindu and Muslim mobs were hurling rocks at each other, blocking a street he needed to cross to get to his children. Mr. Ali, who is Muslim, said that he turned to some police officers for help. That was his mistake. The officers threw him onto the ground, he said, and cracked him on the head. They sta
Hundreds of thousands of people fleeing Syria’s war ended up in Idlib city. But with the front line just five miles away, the city may not be a refuge much longer. About 100 displaced families live in a temporary shelter in a soccer stadium in Idlib city. The city is likely to be the Syrian government’s next target. Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times IDLIB, Syria — Before the war in Syria, Idlib city, with its tree-lined avenues and white-stone buildings, was known for its calm, provincial air. Today it overflows with families who fled the war in other parts of Syria, swelling the population to nearly a million people. Some shelter in bombed-out buildings. Those who can’t find s
Most women’s attackers remain free while the Mexican government does next to nothing to prevent and punish gender violence. A protest against gender violence in Mexico City in February. Credit...Gustavo Graf Maldonado/Reuters MIAMI — María de Jesús Jaime Zamudio, also known as Marichuy, died a week after falling from the fifth floor of the building in Mexico City she lived in, in the night between Jan. 15 and 16, 2016. Her mother, Yesenia Zamudio, has never believed the fall was an accident or a suicide attempt, as the local authorities suggested at the time of the tragedy. For the past four years she has insisted that her daughter was murdered. In September 2019, Marichuy’s case was reclass
Nabad al Hayat Surgical Hospital in southern Idlib Province served around 200,000 people before being destroyed in a Russian airstrike on May 5. In a Russian Air Force transmission obtained by The Times, a pilot can be heard receiving the hospital’s exact coordinates before bombing it.Credit...Orient News first posted October 13, 2019 By Evan Hill and Christiaan Triebert An analysis of previously unpublished Russian Air Force radio recordings, plane spotter logs and witness accounts allowed The Times to trace bombings of four hospitals in just 12 hours in May and tie Russian pilots to each one. The 12-hour period beginning on May 5 represents a small slice of the air war in Syria, but it is
The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court ('ICC' or 'Court') decided unanimously to authorise the Prosecutor to commence an investigation into alleged crimes under the jurisdiction of the Court in relation to the situation in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The judges of the Appeals Chamber (left to right) Judge Solomy Balungi Bossa, Judge Howard Morrison, Presiding Judge Piotr Hofmański, Judge Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza, and Judge Kimberly Prost on 5 March 2020 at the seat of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands. ©ICC-CPI The Appeals Chamber's judgment amended the decision of Pre-Trial Chamber II of 12 April 2019, which had rejected the Prosecuto
The cemeteries have become easy targets for vandals in Alsace, a region with an uneasy relationship to a troubled wartime past and a penchant for voting far right. Robert Tornare helps protect the 200-year-old Jewish cemetery in Wintzenheim in eastern France. Credit...Kasia Strek for The New York Times WESTHOFFEN, France — Some of the forgotten tombstones in the old Jewish cemetery look suspiciously whitened. It took vigorous scrubbing to get rid of the swastikas. The defacing in December of gravestones in the cemetery in Westhoffen, a sleepy village in Alsace, was not isolated. In the absence of actual Jews in the Alsace countryside, their tombs have become easy targets in a region with an
The panel condemned tactics they said the Syrian government and Russia were still using in the northwest province of Idlib. SMLXL A Times investigation used cockpit recordings to show for the first time how Russian pilots attacked civilians in Syria this summer, killing dozens.CreditCredit...Macro Media Center. Click on image to view video of Russian bombing attack on Syrian civilians, a war crime. GENEVA — United Nations investigators said on Monday that Russia had committed war crimes in Syria by carrying out indiscriminate airstrikes on civilian targets in 2019, condemning tactics they said the Syrian government and its allies were still using in the northwest province of Idlib.
For the first time, an Iraqi court has held the Islamic State accountable for its atrocities against the Yazidi religious minority. Ashwaq Haji Hamid Talo visiting a temple near Sinjar in 2018 to pay tribute to ISIS victims from her village. Credit...Agence France-Presse, via Getty Images BAGHDAD — Iraq has held thousands of trials for members of the Islamic State, but until Monday none had sought to bring justice specifically to the thousands of members of the Yazidi religious minority who were kidnapped, raped and killed. A soft-spoken 20-year old Yazidi woman changed that when she decided to testify in open court. The witness, Ashwaq Haji Hamid Talo, gave a restrained but searing account
Many Indians believed it was only a matter of time before Hindu nationalism provoked the kind of bloodshed that exploded in New Delhi. A shop owner on Sunday looking at the remains of his shop after it was destroyed by riots in northeast New Delhi. Credit...Atul Loke for The New York Times The New York Times NEW DELHI — This past week, as neighborhoods in India’s capital burned and religiously driven bloodletting consumed more than 40 lives, most of them Muslim, India’s government was quick to say that the violence was spontaneous. But as reality has settled in, critics say the killings were neither spontaneous nor without warning: They were inevitable. Step by step, they argue, policies en
