Taliban Announces 31 Dead Due to Fire in Northern Afghanistan

The two recent border skirmishes have left at least 10 dead and 45 wounded.

Earlier, Pakistani media had reported that a delegation of four Pakistani religious scholars will visit Kabul and Kandahar to discuss the recent border skirmish with senior Taliban officials, including Mullah Muhammad Yaqoob, the group's defense minister.

Islamabad had announced that at least nine Pakistani civilians had been killed and 45 have been injured in two separate border incidents at the Spin Boldak-Chaman crossing, last week.

The Taliban had also announced that a member of this group had been killed, and a number of civilians had been injured in the border clashes.

Taliban and Pakistani forces engaged in gunfight on December 11 and 15 in Spin Boldak border areas.

Officials from the ministry of public works of the Taliban urged people to avoid traveling through the northern route until further notice.

During the last two days, there have been two fires and explosions at the Salang tunnel, which connects northern Afghanistan to the capital Kabul.

The exact number of victims of these explosions is not available. However, the Taliban told the media on Sunday that at least 19 people have been killed and 32 others have been injured in the first explosion.

The number of casualties from the second explosion is not clear yet.

According to the local people, "The Taliban want to seize six thousand acres of land of the indigenous people.”

Local sources said that this land mainly belongs to the members of Uzbek and Tajik communities in the province.

In the photos obtained by Afghanistan International, people of Sar-e-Pol villages are seen marching with shovels on their shoulders and chanting slogans against "ethnic oppression".

The Taliban have not yet reacted to these protests.

After the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban on August 15, 2021, reports of forced migration of local people have emerged from various provinces of Afghanistan.

Karzai recently left Kabul for Dubai and then traveled to Germany.

As per the photo from the meeting with Manawi, other political figures including former chief of staff of president, Karim Khoram, had been present.

Manawi, who is considered to be close to Ahmad Massoud, the leader of the National Resistance Front, recently delivered documents to the International Criminal Court that include the crimes of the Taliban.

Qomi has recently published a report of his meeting with Afghan elites in Iran through his Twitter account in which he used the word Afghanistani instead of Afghan referring to those he met.

In response to Qomi, Al Hanafi Wardak, a twitter account with 75,100 followers which claims to belong to an official of the Taliban ministry of foreign affairs in its bio, said, "As a prominent diplomat in Afghanistan affairs and now acting head of the embassy in Kabul, it is important to know that our identity is Afghan, not Afghanistani."

The constitution of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan called the identity of all citizens of the country as "Afghan", but many citizens of the country believe that "Afghan" is not the national identity of all people of Afghanistan and that the word "Afghanistani" should be used for citizens of Afghanistan.