♪ [gunfire] u.s. expresses confidence in the afghan security forces after they call for help to try to reverse a key loss to the taliban. ♪ i'm lauren taylor and this is al jazeera live from london and also coming up. >> we are seeing a new global movement to counter the violent extremism that i.s.i.l. needs to survive. >> antiefforts stepped up on the sidelines of the u.n. general assembly. the women fighting to save one of america's largest family planning organizations.

and under sea sanctuary, new zealand creates a huge marine reserve in the south pacific. ♪ hello, afghan forces backed by u.s. air support launched counter offensive to capture kunduz from fighters and they dug in and said to be closing in on the city airport at one of the few many places in government control. the southern fall of kunduz on monday is a major setback for government and raises further doubts about its ability to tackle the taliban and stephanie decker reports. >> reporter: there are no government troops left here. taliban fighters are now in control of large parts of kunduz city. here they are symbolically raising their flag in the city square. this battle is not over the afghan government has announced a major military operation to

recapture kunduz. >> translator: in the first place we should take care of the civilian casualties, we have already paid attention and we will continue. the enemy has conceded heavy damages including the air strikes and the operation, i don't want to go into the detail of the operations. >> reporter: special forces have been brought in and the u.s. military confirmed an air strike on the outskirts of the city on tuesday morning. but it's proven difficult for some reenforcements to reach kunduz because the taliban set up boobie traps along the way. as part of the take over on montalb montalban gunman released inmates and fighters and issued a statement telling residents not to worry and to go about their daily lives. it will be difficult with a major military operation underway. [gunfire] one of the most significant territorial gains taliban fighters made since 2001 when they were deposed by the u.s.

led engags and go with ghani's first anniversary of government and afghan forces face the taliban alone after u.s. and nato troops pulled out last year and this resent move is the boldest in the long campaign by taliban to take more control of the country, a strong message to whoever is watching that 14 years after being deposed and battling coalition and afghan forces the taliban can still take control of a major city in less than 24 hours. stephanie decker, al jazeera. al jazeera's is traveling with the afghan army and sent this update from the bad land province. >> reporter: afghan security forces today tried four times to send reenforcement to the operation to retake the city. but all the four times they are shelled and suffered at least

ten soldiers dead in this att k attack. and the shells could go anywhere. now, what we are hearing in the past few minutes from our colleagues in kunduz, there are the taliban are trying to get the control of the airport, the airport is basically on the outskirts of kunduz city and that is where all government officials from kunduz city and security forces are stationed now and trying to survive it. taliban are not even getting close to the walls of that airport, trying to get in to that airport. >> last half hour the u.s. has described the situation in kunduz as a setback and expressed confidence in the afghan security forces, roslyn jordan is in washington d.c. and joins me now and tell us a bit more about what they have been saying about all of this event. >> well, lauren, not only has the pentagon spokesperson peter

cook said that the situation in kunduz is fluid he did reiterate that the u.s. believes that the afghan military is capable of retaking and regaining control of kunduz from the taliban. he also dismissed suggestions that the situation in kunduz is similar to that of mosul which fell in early 2014 for one he noted that there are u.s. and other coalition forces in the area to provide training and support to the afghan forces and that apparently wasn't the case with iraqky forces when mosul fell in 2014. however, he did indicate that beyond the one air strike carried out by what he described as a fixed wing aircraft, basically some sort of fighter plane or fighter jet, he did not know whether there would be more air strikes carried out by u.s. forces in support of the afghan military. even so it wasn't a resounding

endorsement of the situation because obviously if members of the taliban have been able to walk through the streets of kunduz without any apparent interference certainly the afghan military and their coalition partners have a lot of work ahead of them. >> and it did look like a sort of quite well planned operation, didn't it? >> it did look like a very well orchestrated operation, carried out by the taliban and it did raise some questions at this briefing with peter cook about whether the 14 years at the u.s. military has spent waging war inside afghanistan has actually been worth the time, the money and the loss of life. the u.s. military has been trying to help the government of president hadi stand up the military but there are now new questions about whether or not the afghan military is actually capable of carrying out this fight successfully without a significant intervention from

u.s. and other forces. >> roslyn jordan thank you very much indeed. ♪ barack obama has hosted an international conference on counter terrorism on the sidelines of a u.n. general assembly in new york. three new countries nigeria and tunisia and malaysia joined the u.s. led coalition fighting the islamic state of iraq and levante and u.s. president says if antiforces keep working together the group will be defeated. >> there are profound changes taking place in the middle east and north africa. there are problems that have built up over decades that are expressing themselves and manifesting themselves in organizations like i.s.i.l. even if we were to wipe out the entire codray of i.s.i.l. leadership we would still have

some of these forces at work. but ultimately i am optimistic. in iraq and in syria i.s.i.l. is surrounded by communities, countries and a broad international coalition committed to its destruction. we've seen that i.s.i.l. can be defeated on the battlefield where there is sound organization and a government and military that is coordinating with this coalition and with our diplomatic efforts. and here at this summit we are seeing a new global movement to counter the violent extremism that i.s.i.l. needs to survive. >> let's go to kristen who is live for us at u.n. headquarters in new york and kristen who else did we hear from at that summit? >> well we heard from some united states major allies like the united kingdom and turkey and saudi arabia and perhaps more interesting is who we did not hear from, iran, major ally

of the syrian president bashar al-assad was not invited to take part in the event and russia sent a low-level diplomate and despite talk from vladimir pootin and about and tear terrorism and i.s.i.l. and they have an event on counter terrorism in the security council on wednesday and the russian ambassador to the united nations making no secret of their displeasure the united states held this separate event calling it disrespectful and saying it was under mining, the u.n. by working outside of the security council and nonetheless many countries did take part and 100 were inviting and heard from turkey and interesting and a major power broker in the region drawing parallels between i.s.i.l. and its own fight against the pkk the kurdistan workers party comparing the two as terrorist organizations, a little awkward for the united states since the pkk and the

kurds have been a major ally in fighting i.s.i.l. >> major announcements? >> not really. we did hear from the united states that they were enacting new sanctions against 35 individuals and entities from a number of different countries and attempt to cutoff funding for i.s.i.l., that was welcome news to the iraqis who as more countries to dry up resources for this group, iraq of course continues to get help from some 17 nations in training its military to deal with these groups but no major discussions and no major announcements if you will regarding i.s.i.l. in syria which of course that is a majority stronghold for this group. and you know there is aerial bombings still going on from the united states and france but not a lot new there. >> okay, kristen thank you very much. meanwhile the ukraine president

porteshenko had an attack on russia and highlightd what he called open and unprovoked aggression from russia which accused of helping separatist fighters in east ukraine. >> despite the fact until now russia refused to officially admits its direct military invasion, today there is no doubt that this is an aggressive war against my country, against ukraine. to mislead the world community russian leadership orders to take off the military servicemen and identification marker of the military equipment. to abone done soldiers on the battlefield and used mobile to eliminate traces of his crime on ukraine and souls. still to come on al jazeera, the video said to show the aftermath of attack on a wedding party in yemen that killed more than 100 people.

plus the cocktail of illegal drugs blamed for a rise in violent crime in south africa. ♪

♪ hello again and reminder of the top stories on al jazeera, taliban fighters in afghanistan reported to be trying to take control of the airport in kunduz, the city fell suddenly to taliban on monday. u.s. president barack obama says nigeria, mie malaysia and tunisia are in with them at a summit in u.n. and addressed the

general assembly to accuse russia of an open and unprovoked aggression in eastern ukraine. they entered the barracks of the presidential guard and a coup two weeks ago and forced to hand back power after international pressure and some elements refused to lay down their weapons and aiding the army to surround their headquarters in oogadago and shots were fired and unclear if there were casualties. in iraq air strikes hit the old city in the center of mosul for the first time and mosul under the islamic state of iraq and levante since last year and they try to prevent casualties and 17 people are reported to have been killed. it's not clear who carried out the strike. and let's go live now to baghdad where al jazeera emran-khan and why is this significant?

>> they avoided densely populated areas and the air strike we are told by diplomatic sources is it's likely to be highly targeted in an intelligence led operations but no more details than that, we reached out to iraqi army to try to find out who took part in this air strike, where it was iraqi airforce or coalition and they refused to comment on that as well but what this will show you is the limited usefulness of air strikes. what they really are good at is making i.s.i.l. and cutting off i.s.i.l. sorry and making them stick to the areas that they already control but in order to get rid of them from a place you need ground forces and you need close air support and that hasn't happened in most of this and like you say they have been in control of the territory over a year and talking to residents inside mosul and are living in fear and worried the air strikes are a bit on the outskirts are getting closer and closer to densely populated areas and living in their sellers because they are scared of air strikes

and the ground offensive coming into mosul so it's significant the air strike has taken place on a target within the center of the old city. now that is also crucial because i.s.i.l. embedded themselves within the civilian population there so it's very difficult to target them. >> and give us an idea what the government is saying about the progress they think they are making against i.s.i.l. and generally across the country. >> well, the counter terrorism conference in new york and hadi gave a speech a few hours ago and laid out what they can achieve and they were hard fought successes and acknowledged the fight they made sacrifices and challenges and talking about the fact there is a budget deficit here and a lot of money that needs to be spent on the fight against i.s.i.l. that simply is not in the government coffers and needs the international community to step up. now when he is talking about international community there are two very different ways of thinking when it comes to fights

i.s.i.l., one is the american way and want to back the iraqi army and the other is russian and iran way and want to back the million malitias and had some success in the fight against i.s.i.l. and he is under tremendous pressure at the moment domestically because he has to come back from new york with concrete measures whether that is intelligence sharing, supplies, logistics or more weapons and doesn't seem to come back or at least will come back with any of those things. now there is another conference that goes on in about 24 hours time that the russians are leading with the security council so iraqis will be hoping that they will see some more concrete measures there but at the moment it looks like the measures that have been taken place are a generational change in combatting extremism, they are not really coming quick enough for the iraqis here. >> thank you. u.n. secretary-general ban ki-moon strongly condemned attack at a wedding in yemen

which killed at least 131 people, these pictures are said to be of the aftermath recorded in a village near the red sea port of al-macca and broadcast by a houthi rebel t.v. station and al jazeera is unable to verify independently and saudi-led coalition which is bombing houthi positions denies allegations that its war planes targeted the wedding. witnesses however insist that two missiles hit the tents and believe they were fired by saudi-led jets. >> translator: what target? you hit wedding. a wedding tent with women and children inside. all civilians. 131 of them. so what strategic targets are you talking about? >> a group of al jazeera journalists and employees who were convicted in egypt has made a formal request to president sisi to grant amnesty, a part of the case that mohamed and fahmy walked free last week and two

more work for al jazeera arabic and peter greste and dominick cane work for al jazeera english at the time of their convictions and three are egyptian and cannot return for fear of arrest to their country and they and al jazeera deny all allegations against them. >> we are very grateful to president sisi in pardon ending our colleagues. this is the thing that has been really worrying us all up until this point and fantastic to see them as free men. this was in pardon ending these guys, president sisi and his i think acknowledged there was an error, there was a mistake that was made here and that he has moved towards readdressing that but this is just a step. what he has to do from here on is to pardon the rest of us as he has promised and what i wanted to say to you today is i have formally began that application process by writing

to president sisi by submitting our application and lodging our application in through the court. >> reporter: the head of a u.s. family planning organization has been facing tough questions from a congressional committee, planned parenthood received more than 500 million dollars in taxpayer funds each year. that is under threat after it emerged the organization sold aborted fetal tissue for research and we report from washington. >> came to capitol hill with a message for members of congress don't defund planned parenthood. they say for many working class americans it's their only access to affordable healthcare. and she was in graduate school suffering from endometrosis and turned to planned parent hood to preserve her fertility when she could no longer afford medication. >> i worked hard to get in the graduate program and looking at i need to get a job, i'm not going to be able to study for this one reason. so planned parenthood made it so i was able to get the

medication. >> reporter: she turned to planned parenthood 7 years ago after finding a lump in her breast. >> planned parenthood was the first place to contact to get a cancer screening and it saved my life. >> not every one sees it as a benevolent organization and have aborti abortions after videos exposed planned parenthood executives openly discussing the aborted fetal tissue for profit. >> particular tissues like, you know, cardiac or they want eyes or they want neural. >> reporter: many in congress are incensed and thinking of cutting the 400 million for the clinic and the president appearing before a congressional committee. >> comply with and indeed go

beyond the requirements of the law. the outrageous accusations levelled against planned parenthood based on heavily doctored videos are offensive and categorically untrue. >> taxpayer dollars are being used to free up services that you provide, that are abborant services in the view of many taxpayers. >> reporter: but others in congress say the hearing is nothing more than political theatre and an attack on women's reproductive choices that has been going on since abortion was legalized in the u.s. in 1973. >> what is really under attack is the right of women to control their own bodies, their own reproduction, their own reproduction and their own reproductive health. >> she agrees and why she says she came to tell congress abortions are just a small part of what planned parenthood does, and because of her medical

condition her chance at motherhood would never have happened without its support. kimberly with al jazeera, washington. germany imposing tougher conditions for migrants from countys in the balkins and struggles to cope with a record surge in them in number of refugees and the list of so called safe origin countries and means people from the states can be deported more quickly. the mass exodus to europe shows no signs of abating and hundreds of refugees and migrants brought to sicily after being rescued off libya and new arrivals include many women and young children and the coast guard said they were found in periless rubber dinghys which largely deflated and libya coast guards detained 230 people to reach europe by vote east of tripoli and lack of support from the

international currenty come binded with the country's long coastline is fueling libya's migrant crisis. violent crime is increasing in south africa. police statistics show almost 5% rise in murders and it's the first time it has risen for three consecutive year since the end of apartheid and we report from pretoria. >> reporter: illegal drugs fuel drugs in south africa and these men are adopted to a mix of heroin and marijuana, they steal to pay for it and sometimes commit worse crimes. >> other people do kill for it. >> reporter: they live in fear of attack by the people they hurt. >> in south africa there is no justice, if you steal from people. >> reporter: a man accused of being a criminal was killed last week by vigilantes and people are taking the law into their own hands because they don't trust the police and that is adding to a rising murder rate.

and he runs operation stop and a group of parents with little more than good will and hearts broken by their children who are drug addicts and he says some police are working with drug dealers. >> if they try to arrest these people, somebody somewhere who is their senior said leave those people. it's what we heard from them. >> reporter: south africa's police force is being scrutinized, it's the first time since apartheid that the number of murders has increased three years running. >> that area is very sub born and undivided. >> reporter: the national police commissioner for fitness is being reviewed after police shot dead 34 minors three years ago and the police are just one part of the crime story. the reasons for the high level of crime in south africa are complex. violence is a legacy of apartheid, there is also an

employment and poverty. corruption within government and the police. some of which are wider social issues but the institute for security studies says police are trying to spin the statistics by emphasizing that overall crime is down. >> under mine our efforts to point out where the problems are in terms of crime and the need for us, very, very urgently to find solutions. >> reporter: a cutting crime is not only a job for the police but improving trust and confidence in the policemen and women would make the task easier. tanya page, la grange -- al jazeera pertoria. a volcano erupted for the second time this week. 4,000 meter high ash cloud has towered above the volcano and towns and villages surrounding the peek have been alerted and

volcano has been dormant several years and increasingly active two years ago. typhoon hit china after battering taiwan and killing at least three people and winds of 100 miles per hour hit the coast in the province. also sea life had to be protected off the coast of new zealand and fishing band as one of the world's larger sanctuaries created in the south pacific and gerald tan has the details. >> the region is one of the most isolated places on earth, hundreds of marine species live in the waters, many of them unique, some endangered. >> this is probably one of the most significant that has been in a marine reserve because this is one of the last pristine sites in our ocean that is being preserved because this is an area that is unhabited by humans and it's such a large area. >> reporter: new zealand's

prime minister has plans for the ocean sanctuary and will be thousands of kilometers. >> this is an area twice the size of land mass and 50 times the time of the largest national park. it is truly a special place and we want to keep it that way. >> reporter: the announcement gained immediate attention. >> just over an hour ago at the united nations the prime minister of new zealand john key made an announcement that we can all celebrate. >> reporter: not everybody is celebrating. mining, and fishing are now ban from the area, although some in the industries are upset, the government says the benefits outweigh the costs. >> i'm confident the majority of new zealand is a loss economically but well worthwhile for a global contribution towards environmental protection in the ocean. >> reporter: new zealand says the area will be policed using satellite data and defense force

patrols and new laws expected to come in force within the next year to protect the region for generations to come. gerald tan, al jazeera. plenty more for you any time on our website, the address is that of al jazeera.com. welcome to panama. i'd heard the stories of a rich and diverse forest. >> hi, buddy! >> i'd be lying if i didn't admit that i was psyched to be here. i'd find plenty of butterflies and a heck of a lot more. >> did you see that guy? >> that's what i could count on. but then, panama surprised me. techknow came here to check out the massive panama c