Foreign forces in Afghanistan said on Saturday they had killed around 80 insurgents in the past 24 hours, most of them in a strike on rebels preparing an attack near the Pakistan border.A group of 45 men and several smaller ones of eight to 10 were spotted just inside the border later on Friday preparing to attack a base in Paktika province, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said. “They were clearly armed and they were clearly hostile and that is why they were engaged,” ISAF spokesman Major John Thomas said. ISAF forces conducted reconnaissance to confirm their suspicions and the insurgents fired on a coalition aircraft, he said.
Coalition forces then unleashed combined air and artillery strikes as the insurgents tried to escape across the border, he said. The operation was coordinated with Pakistan. An ISAF spokesman for the east of the country, Major Donald Korpi, said “up to 60 Taliban were killed”.
Suspected Taliban insurgents abducted 17 Afghan mine cleaners who were traveling in Ghazni province on Saturday, Mine Detection and Dogs Centre head Shohab Hakimi told AFP. GhazniÂ’s provincial police chief confirmed the incident but said only 12 de-miners were abducted, along with three sniffer dogs.
The coalition reported separately that its soldiers working with Afghan troops had killed nearly 20 “enemy fighters” in a seven-hour battle late Friday in the southern province of Kandahar. Several more fighters were killed in the adjoining province of Uruzgan when a battle erupted after troops were shot at with multiple rockets.
| The Interior Ministry announced that Afghan and foreign security forces had killed more than 1,500 insurgents in about 80 operations across Afghanistan since March. About 530 more, including 23 would-be suicide bombers, were captured. |
An attack on coalition troops in near Langar village in Helmand left one soldier dead and two others wounded on Saturday, the US military said. The nationality of the dead and wounded troops was not disclosed.
The Interior Ministry announced that Afghan and foreign security forces had killed more than 1,500 insurgents in about 80 operations across Afghanistan since March. About 530 more, including 23 would-be suicide bombers, were captured, it said in a statement.
In Kabul, Karzai said those fighting the insurgents were being “careless” following a spate of civilian deaths, including 25 killed in an air strike on Friday and 53 in the last three days. “In the past five or six nights and days, we had huge civilian casualties ... caused by NATO and coalition carelessness,” he said.