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Afghanistan

Afghan Officials Preparing For Militant Incursions From Pakistan

2009-03-16

Security officials in eastern Afghanistan have expressed concern that a recent peace deal between Pakistani officials and pro-Taliban leaders in the Bajaur tribal area of western Pakistan could "reorganize destructive activities." Konar Province's chief of security, Abdul Jalal Jalal, told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that reports indicate that militants are trying to reestablish their bases in neighboring Afghanistan since signing the peace deal. He added that 700 additional U.S.-led coalition forces are being sent to the border to counter the threat, and Afghanistan's national army and police in the area are going through preventative measures in case of more crossborder incursions.

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Afghanistan

British soldier, 4 road workers killed in attacks

2008-12-26

KABUL - A British soldier was killed in southern Afghanistan on Christmas Eve, while four road construction workers and two militants were killed elsewhere in the country, officials said Thursday. The British soldier was killed by insurgent fire in Nad Ali district in the southern province of Helmand on Wednesday, the British Defence Ministry said in a statement. NATO-led forces in Kabul also confirmed the death of the soldier in a statement. "We are saddened by this brave serviceman's death, and our deepest condolences go to his family and loved ones, especially during this holiday season," Captain Mark Windsor, a NATO spokesman said. The soldier was the seventh British serviceman to die in the province in the past two weeks. More than 130 British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since their deployment following the ouster of Taliban regime in late 2001. Elsewhere, four road construction workers were killed and two others were wounded in a rocket attack in Souki district of eastern Kunar province on Wednesday, Engineer Haseeb Karimzai, director of the Afghan Road Construction Company said. "They were working on the road when a rocket fired from an unknown place hit the road close to the work site, killing and wounding our workers" he said. Abdul Jalal Jalal, provincial police chief, said the attack was "the work of enemies of Afghanistan," a term often used by Afghan officials to describe the Taliban militants. Coalition spokesmen were not available for comment.

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India-Pakistan

Jirga vows to continue action against Taliban

2008-10-08

A grand jirga of Salarzai tribal elders in Bajaur Agency vowed on Tuesday to continue action against the Taliban. The jirga decided to torch the houses of those found providing shelter to Taliban, while also imposing a fine of Rs 1 million on such people and expelling them from the agency. Unwelcome Afghans: Meanwhile, Afghan refugees were returning to Afghanistan after officials accused them of links with Taliban and ordered them out. Bacha Khan, a police official at the Toorwandi border post in Bajaur, told AP that refugees had been crossing steadily into Afghanistan, while others had moved to other parts of Pakistan. He said an estimated 20,000 refugees had returned home in recent weeks. An Afghan community leader in Khar, Bajaur's main town, urged the government to provide transport to the refugees who complied with the order to leave the agency. "We are poor people, and we don't have enough money to pay for the buses," Ghulam Jan said. Kunar provincial police chief Abdul Jalal Jalal said a total of 30,000 people had arrived from Pakistan. Orakzai: Meanwhile, locals released 14 Taliban after foreigners withdrew from Orakzai Agency following negotiations with elders from Chapri Ferozkhel.

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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

Mullah Ahmad Shah aka Commander Ismail Killed

2008-04-16

A senior Taliban commander who became a hero to Islamic militants for his role in shooting down a U.S. helicopter in 2005, killing all 16 special forces troops aboard, has been killed by Pakistani security forces, officials and Taliban militants tell CBS News. Mullah Ismail, a notorious Taliban commander from the Afghan province of Kunar, was killed in a shootout with Pakistani police as he traveled with a kidnapped trader, a local police officer said Wednesday. He was apparently on his way into the lawless Northwest Frontier Province along the Afghan border. Officer Mukarma Khan said Ismail, also known as Mullah Ahmad Shah, had kidnapped the trader from a camp for Afghan refugees in Pakistan and was trying to transport him back to the border when he failed to stop at the checkpoint. He apparently opened fire on the police and was killed in the following exchange of gunfire. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed the death of the key commander and said he was a prominent Taliban figure in the area. Abdul Jalal Jalal, chief of police in Afghanistan's Kunar province, where Ismail was based, told CBS News that he was also aware about the militant's death in Pakistan. He described him as the "most wanted terrorist in Kunar province." A Taliban sub-commander in Kunar province, who spoke on condition of anonymity, would not confirm the killing. But he told CBS News Ismail's death "would be a full-scale blow." He praised Ismail for the shooting down of the Chinook in 2005. Ismail was also said to be a key facilitator of al Qaeda militants in the region - many of whom come from outside southeast Asia [sic] and do not speak the local languages. According to Taliban sources, Osama bin Laden personally honored Ismail's authority in the area after the Chinook attack in a letter sent through an intermediary. Police chief Jalal said Ismail and the militants under his command were behind many attacks on NATO, U.S. and Afghan forces in the northeastern part of Afghanistan. Ismail became a hero for al Qaeda and the Taliban after his group hit a U.S. Navy MH-47 Chinook helicopter in late June 2005, apparently with a shoulder-fired rocket. The helicopter was one of four aircraft ferrying special forces into the area on a reconnaissance mission. It was considered a lucky shot from an inaccurate weapon; but it left eight Navy SEALs and eight Army air crew from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment dead. Read report from June 30, 2005. It was the deadliest single attack on U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the invasion to topple the Taliban in 2001. The Chinook was shot down as it ferried troops into the region to search for four Navy SEALs who had gone missing in the area in late June. Three of the men were found dead, but one, who was wounded, managed to escape - read report from July 3, 2005 - to a local home, where he was hidden from the Taliban and eventually rescued by U.S. forces. On Wednesday, Afghan shepherd Gulab Khan, who says he's the one who saved the life of the only surviving SEAL, told CBS News that Mullah Ismail attacked his village the day after the helicopter was shot down, searching for any survivors. Khan said he protected the SEAL, but his actions brought death threats from Ismail and his militants, which prompted the shepherd to relocate his entire family to the provincial capital. He described Ismail as the most powerful militant in Kunar province.

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Afghanistan

21 believed dead in Afghan violence

2007-08-06

At least 20 people, including six civilians and 10 police officers, were killed in a weekend of violence across insurgency-hit Afghanistan, police said on Sunday. Taliban insurgents killed two policemen and wounded three in an attack on a police post in the Chapa Dara district in Kunar, provincial spokesman Shah Wasi Mangal said. In an attack blamed on Taliban insurgents, three policemen were killed when a remotely detonated mine tore through their vehicle in the eastern province of Kunar on Sunday, provincial police commander Abdul Jalal Jalal said. They had been travelling to a Taliban-dominated district to reinforce police who had been under attack there since late Saturday, he said. Separately, a roadside bomb typical of those deployed by the Taliban killed two Afghan civilians in the southern province of Kandahar on Sunday, provincial police chief Sayed Agha Saqeb said. Also in Zhari, which has seen some of the worst of the insurgent violence this year, several Taliban rebels killed a policeman in an overnight attack on his post, he said. Four police officers were killed in the southern province of Logar just south of the capital Kabul when they were ambushed on patrol overnight, the interior ministry said. Five Taliban insurgents were also believed to have been killed in the ensuing gunfight, but this was not confirmed, he said. Taliban militants fighting the Afghan government and foreign forces claimed responsibility for the attacks. Separately, four Afghan policemen were killed and three wounded when a rocket-propelled grenade hit their vehicle in the southern province of Logar late on Saturday, said provincial governor Abdullah Wardak. Afghan forces captured two Taliban leaders in the Bermel district of the eastern province of Paktika in an early morning operation, the US military said in a statement. It said the captured leaders were responsible for planting and transporting roadside bombs. The statement said the pair also had connections with other senior Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders in Paktika and neighbouring Pakistan.

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Afghanistan

27 militants killed in Afghanistan fighting

2007-06-02

Clashes involving NATO and Afghan troops against Taliban fighters in Afghanistan killed 27 militants, two civilians, one NATO soldier and one member of Afghan police, officials said on Friday. A soldier from NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was killed and three wounded in eastern Afghanistan, ISAF said in a statement, reported the Associated Press. In the southern fight, NATO troops as well as Afghan police and soldiers, battled Taliban fighters in the Zhari district of Kandahar province for three hours, leaving 20 Taliban dead, said Khairuddin Khan, Zhari district chief. A Taliban commander called Mullah Naqibullah was among those killed, Khan said. Neither NATO nor Afghan forces suffered any casualties, he added. ISAF’s press office said it had no immediate information about the clash. In the east, Taliban fighters attacked the home of a police official in Zurmat district of Paktia province late on Thursday, said Ghulam Dastagir, deputy provincial police chief. Police reinforcements were called in, sparking a battle that left six Taliban dead and seven injured, he added. Five rockets were fired from the top of a mountain in Kunar province, hitting several civilian homes and killing two women, said provincial police chief Abdul Jalal Jalal. Five more civilians were injured. In Khost province, small bombs exploded before dawn on Friday outside the houses of six government officials and a man working as a translator for the US military, said Wazir Pacha, a police spokesman. No one was hurt. Violence has increased around Afghanistan the last several weeks. More than 1,800 people have died in insurgency-related violence this year, according an Associated Press count based on US, NATO and Afghan statements. According to AFP, insurgents also attacked a police post in Nuristan province, sparking a gun battle that killed a policeman and a militant and wounded four police, provincial governor Tamim Nuristani said. The US-led coalition also announced the arrest of a Taliban sub-commander and bomb-maker in the south of the country. It said the man, Haji Salam, had also been involved in suicide attacks in the southern province of Ghazni. Meanwhile, Reuters reported that despite the loss of a NATO Chinook helicopter this week with seven soldiers on board, a British-led offensive to drive the Taliban from strongholds in Helmand province is yielding success, Western military officers said. A force of 2,000 troops launched the operation two days ago to trap Taliban militants north of the Sangin Valley and in the Kajaki dam region, officials said. Securing the area around the Kajaki dam, a key hydroelectric project that could bring power to hundreds of thousands of poor Afghans, is a key objective, because officials hope a turbine can be transported to the area this summer for a power project that could improve electricity for almost 2 million Afghans.

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