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Afghanistan

Afghans show support to Karzai

2008-06-17

Hundreds of Afghans gathered in eastern Afghanistan on Monday to express support for President Hamid Karzai’s threat to send troops after Taliban militants inside Pakistan. About 1,500 people including tribal elders and pro-government religious leaders gathered in Sharan, the capital of Paktika province, to back Karzai, provincial government spokesman Ghamai Khan Mohammadyar said. Muhammad Akram Akhpelwak, Paktika’s governor, said gatherings of support were also being held in three other areas of Paktika, AP reported. Tribal chief Amin Jan told AFP from Sharan by telephone: “We support Karzai. Pakistanis are coming to Afghanistan and we have evidence.” Afghans love to fight. I'd let them ... In Paktia, about 300 tribesmen gathered in a hall to express their support to the Karzai’s statement, said Rohullah Samoon, a provincial government spokesman. Analysts said they doubt military action by Afghanistan is imminent, but Pakistan’s prime minister said the threat “will not be taken well”. A spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said he would not comment. But another ISAF official said he thought Karzai’s comments should be seen as a reflection of frustration with militant safe havens but not as a sign that an attack is imminent. Karzai’s comments raise the spectre that a US-trained Afghan military could be used to attack Pakistan. The ISAF official dismissed that idea.

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Afghanistan

Four civilians, 17 Talibs killed in Afghanistan

2008-06-12

Four civilians and 17 Taliban were killed in an attack by US-led forces in eastern Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday, while dozens more rebel casualties were reported elsewhere. Three women and a child were killed Tuesday when the US-led coalition targeted an insurgent hideout in Mata Khan district of Paktika province from the ground and the air, the force said in a statement. "Several militants were killed... Tuesday during a coalition forces operation to disrupt militant operations in Paktika province. The operation also resulted in four civilian deaths," the statement said. Another civilian was injured, it added. The coalition did not give a specific number of militant casualties but a spokesman for the provincial government, Ghamai Khan Mohammadyar, put the rebel death toll at 17. The coalition said one of the women was killed after the troops called in war planes to target militants who were firing on the troops from inside and outside the compound. "When coalition forces forcibly gained entry to the barricaded room, three Afghan women and one boy were wounded," it said, adding that the civilians later died from their injuries in a coalition medical facility. The operation was launched against two "militant leaders," one of whom was involved in improvised bomb attacks on international troops while the other was facilitating "foreign fighter operations," the coalition said. "Several armed militants engaged the force from inside one compound and were killed with small-arms fire," it added. In a separate incident early Wednesday, up to 60 Taliban militants were killed or injured when Afghan troops backed by NATO air support targeted them in the eastern province of Kunar, a provincial police chief said. The Kunar police chief, Abdul Jalal Jalalm, could not specifically say how many rebels had died or were injured but, "according to information 17 bodies were taken to Pakistan." "The Taliban had gathered in Sarkano district. We and the NATO forces targeted them from ground and air. About 60 Taliban were killed and injured," he told AFP. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed told AFP by telephone from an unknown location that nine rebels were slain, mostly in air strikes, but he said the movement also inflicted heavy casualties on the troops. His claims have proved to be exaggerated in the past.

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Afghanistan

Afghan clashes leave 14 Taliban, one police dead

2007-10-09

Kabul - Afghan police killed at least ten militants after they attacked their post in western province of Farah, while four other militants were killed in a separate clash in the country eastern region, officials said on Tuesday. A group of Taliban militants attacked Bakwa district of Farah province on early Tuesday morning but faced a counter-offensive by local police, Abdul Rahman Sarjang, provincial police chief told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. 'During the firefight that took place at 3:00am, more than ten Taliban fighters were killed,' Sarjang said, adding that the rest escaped the area leaving behind the dead bodies of their three comrades. He said that one police officer was also killed in the firefight. In a separate incident, NATO-led forces killed at least four suspected Taliban militants as they were crossing the border from Pakistani soil into Paktika province late on Monday, Ghamai Khan Mohammadyar, provincial spokesman for Paktika's governor told dpa. He said that the bodies of the militants were brought to the provincial capital. Due to a rise in Taliban-led violence, more than 5,000 people, most of them insurgents but also including hundreds of Afghan and international forces, have been killed since the beginning of the year in Afghanistan.

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