Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Afghanistan

Rubio Threatens Bounties On Taliban Leaders Over Detained Americans

2025-01-27

[VOAnews] U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio

…who is clearly relishing his new role in the Trump administration…

on Saturday threatened bounties on the heads of Afghanistan's Taliban leaders, sharply escalating the tone as he said more Americans may be detained in the country than previously thought.

The threat comes days after the Afghan Taliban government and the United States swapped prisoners in one of the final acts of former U.S. President Joe Biden.

The new top U.S. diplomat issued the harsh warning via social media, in a rhetorical style strikingly similar to his boss, President Donald Trump.

"Just hearing the Taliban is holding more American hostages than has been reported," Rubio wrote on X.

"If this is true, we will have to immediately place a VERY BIG bounty on their top leaders, maybe even bigger than the one we had on bin Laden," he said, referring to the al-Qaida leader killed by U.S. forces in 2011.

Rubio did not describe who the other Americans may be, but there have long been accounts of missing Americans whose cases were not formally taken up by the U.S. government as wrongful detentions.

In the deal with the Biden administration, the Taliban freed the best-known American detained in Afghanistan, Ryan Corbett, who had been living with his family in the country and was seized in August 2022.

Also freed was William McKenty, an American about whom little information has been released.

The United States in turn freed Khan Mohammed, who was serving a life sentence in a California prison.

Mohammed was convicted of trafficking heroin and opium into the United States and was accused of seeking rockets to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

The United States offered a bounty of $25 million for information leading to the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden shortly after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, with Congress later authorizing the secretary of state to offer up to $50 million.

No one is believed to have collected the bounty for bin Laden, who was killed in a U.S. raid in Pakistan.

HARDER LINE ON TALIBAN?
Trump is known for brandishing threats in his speeches and on social media. But he is also a critic of U.S. military interventions overseas and in his second inaugural address Monday said he aspired to be a "peacemaker."

In his first term, the Trump administration broke a then-taboo and negotiated directly with the Taliban -- with Trump even proposing a summit with the then-insurgents at the Camp David presidential retreat -- as he brokered a deal to pull U.S. troops and end America's longest war.

Biden carried out the agreement, with the Western-backed government swiftly collapsing and the Taliban retaking power in August 2021 just after U.S. troops left.

The scenes of chaos in Kabul brought strong criticism of Biden, especially when 13 American troops and scores of Afghans died in a suicide bombing at the city's airport.

The Biden administration had low-level contacts with Taliban government representatives but made little headway.

Some members of Trump's Republican Party criticized even the limited U.S. engagements with the Taliban government and especially the humanitarian assistance authorized by the Biden administration, which insisted the money was for urgent needs in the impoverished country and never routed through the Taliban.

Rubio on Friday froze nearly all U.S. aid around the world.

No country has officially recognized the Taliban government, which has imposed severe restrictions on women and girls under its ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam.

The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor on Thursday said he was seeking arrest warrants for senior Taliban leaders over the persecution of women.

Link

Afghanistan

Islamic Emirate Confirms Prisoner Exchange with the US

2025-01-22

[ToloNews] The Islamic Emirate has confirmed the exchange of an Afghan prisoner for two American detainees.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Afghan prisoner released by the US, identified as Khan Mohammad, had been held in jug in Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,.

While the Islamic Emirate has not disclosed the identities of the released American citizens, US media reports suggest they are Ryan Corbett and William McKinty. The exchange took place in the final hours of Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. Old, boring, a plagiarist, fond of hair sniffing and grabbing the protruding parts of women, and not whatcha call brilliant....
's presidency.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the exchange was facilitated by Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
, and the Islamic Emirate views any US initiatives aimed at normalizing relations positively.

Zia Ahmad Takal, head of public relations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said: "The Islamic Emirate welcomes steps by the United States that help normalize and expand relations between the two countries."

US media reported that Ryan Corbett's family has expressed gratitude to Qatar for its efforts in securing his release.

CNN
...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for...
said: "The Taliban
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
agreed to swap two Americans being held in Afghanistan for one Taliban member serving a life sentence in a US prison. But there was an unexpected delay (at least in part due to bad weather in Washington and Kabul) and Donald Trump
...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!...
was officially back in the White House when Americans Ryan Corbett and William McKenty were handed over and on their way home early Tuesday, exchanged for Afghan Taliban member Khan Mohammed who was convicted in 2008 on narco-terrorism charges."

Zalmai Afghan Yar, a military analyst, said: "The prisoner exchange, based on diplomatic dialogues, is considered a positive step. Solutions can be found for all conflicts through negotiations. We hope that continued talks will help Afghanistan emerge from isolation."

Previously, the US State Department identified three American citizens—Ryan Corbett, George Gelsman, and Mahmood Habibi—in the custody of the Islamic Emirate, citing the issue as a major obstacle to US engagement with Afghanistan's interim government.

Sayed Qaribullah Sadat, a political analyst, expressed hope that, "Through mutual understanding, the issue of prisoners and other existing challenges between Afghanistan and the U.S. can be resolved. This process could help eliminate misunderstandings."

According to the US Department of Justice, Khan Mohammad was arrested in Nangarhar
The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country..
province on October 29, 2006, on drug-related charges and was transferred to the US in November 2007. In 2008, he was sentenced to two life terms.

Khan Mohammad Released After Nearly Two Decades in US Prison

[ToloNews] Khan Mohammad, an Afghan prisoner released by the United States in exchange for two American detainees, has spoken about his years of imprisonment.

He was arrested by US forces in Jalalabad in 2006 on charges of drug trafficking and plotting attacks against foreign troops. He was later sentenced to life imprisonment in a prison in California.

The 55-year-old, a resident of Chaparhar district in Nangarhar province, was freed following efforts by Afghanistan’s interim government and has now reunited with his family in Nangarhar.

Recalling his ordeal, Khan Mohammad, a former Guantanamo detainee, said: “I was accused of selling drugs and financing the Islamic Emirate. They also claimed I was involved in a major plot to attack Nangarhar airport to kill US forces. Based on these allegations, I was sentenced to two life terms.”

His son, Rafiullah, expressed relief upon hearing his father’s voice after years of separation. However, he insists that his father was innocent and demands compensation from the US government.

“No crime was ever proven against him. He spent twenty years in prison unjustly. Our demand is that the US government compensate us for the long years my father was wrongfully imprisoned,” said Rafiullah.

Meanwhile, local authorities have said that the interim government continues to work towards securing the release of other Afghan prisoners held abroad.

Azizullah Mustafa, the deputy governor of Nangarhar, said: “The Islamic Emirate is making efforts to secure the release of another detainee, Haji Mohammad Rahim, and reunite him with his family.”

Khan Mohammad’s release from a California prison comes as another Afghan, Rahimullah, remains detained at Guantanamo Bay. The interim government is actively pursuing his release as well.

Link

India-Pakistan

Driver in Karachi shot by employer in confrontation over alleged rape of maid's daughter: police

2019-03-24

[DAWN] A man working as a driver for a prominent political family of Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
was shot and maimed by his employer in Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
on Saturday over allegations of raping the minor daughter of a domestic helper, according to police.

Gizri Station House Officer Khan Mohammed Bhatti told Dawn that the 20-year-old driver, Mohammed Irfan, was shot at and maimed inside the Defence Housing Authority residence where he worked.

The officer said that an initial probe revealed that the maimed man had allegedly raped the teenage daughter of the family’s maid inside the home two days ago. The mother had complained to her employer, who then called the driver to question him. He stated his innocence and claimed that it was a false accusation against him.

"The owner of the house was not satisfied with his response, and in order to frighten him, resorted to firing a shot and the bullet hit the driver," said the officer, sharing the initial findings of the case.

The driver was taken to Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) where he was found to be out of danger, according to Dr Seemin Jamali, executive director of the hospital. The bullet struck his right thigh.

Later on Saturday night, SHO Bhatti told Dawn that the police have registered a rape case against the injured driver on the complaint of the victim's mother. The officer said the girl is around 13-14 years old. The police will get a medical examination done from the hospital on Sunday, he added.

Link

Afghanistan

Islamic State hideout filled with explosives, suicide vests discovered in Kabul

2018-02-04

[Chicago Tribune] The discovery of an Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
hideout filled with explosives and boom jackets in a poor Kabul neighborhood reflects the failure of Afghanistan's corruption-wracked government to protect the capital, analysts and residents said Friday.

This week's revelation that bully boyz were operating in Kabul's western Qala-e-Wahid district follows a recent series of horrific attacks in the heavily guarded city that killed nearly 200 people and maimed hundreds more, including foreigners.

Security forces were led to the safe house by an murderous Moslem who was captured during an attack Monday by IS bully boyz on a military academy in Kabul in which 11 soldiers died, according to an intelligence official.

From behind the 10-foot green metal doors, the gunnies were plotting to use the explosives, weapons and boom jackets in three more large attacks in Kabul, the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with his agency's rules and did not elaborate on the plans.

Khan Mohammed, a resident of Qala-e-Wahid, told the AP that locals rarely see a police patrol in the neighborhood and stay at home after dark because of marauding gangs of thieves. They say the government can't provide security.

"It is dangerous for all the people of Qala-e-Wahid that ISIS was here, but they came here because it is an insecure area," Mohammed said, using the Arabic acronym for the Death Eater group.

"For ISIS, this was the perfect area because you can bring everything here from anywhere," added Mohammed, whose home is across the lane from the IS hideout.

Link

Terror Networks

Afghan farmer helps convict Taliban member In U.S. court

2008-12-28

The Afghan farmer didn't even know how to work the recording device tucked in his vest pocket when he approached a member of the Taliban who was plotting to launch a rocket attack on a U.S. air base. But if he was nervous about helping the Americans, the farmer didn't show it. "What is the target?" he asked as the two men stood in a field on the outskirts of their Afghan village, according to transcripts of the recordings. "Do they want to shoot the foreigners or the local people?"

"The Americans are infidels, and Jihad is allowed against them," replied Khan Mohammed, the Taliban associate. "If we have to fire toward the airport, we will do it, and if not the airport, wherever else they are stationed."

The farmer, who was working for U.S. federal agents stationed in Afghanistan, secretly recorded Mohammed more than 10 times using a digital audio device and a tiny video camera shielded in his traditional vest. The focus of the investigation was at first on rockets but soon changed to opium and heroin, lucrative narcotics that U.S. officials say help finance the Taliban's insurgency. The farmer's undercover work eventually led to Mohammed's arrest in October 2006 by Afghan police working with the federal agents. With the cooperation of the Afghan government, he was brought to the United States in late 2007.

Convicted in May of drug trafficking and engaging in narco-terrorism after a five-day trial, Mohammed was sentenced to life in prison yesterday by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington. The judge said Mohammed, the first known Afghan Taliban member convicted in a U.S. courtroom, deserved a stiff sentence because he was a serious drug dealer and a terrorist bent on killing Americans in any way he could.

In recent years, authorities have brought five prosecutions in U.S. courts against Afghan drug dealers, and they say such cases are a critical component of their strategy to sever the flow of drug-tainted cash to the Taliban. As part of that effort, U.S. officials have been pushing the Afghan government to cut down poppy fields and have been trying to reform the nation's justice system, eliminate corruption and encourage the production of food crops. Bowing to U.S. pressure, NATO has also expanded its counterinsurgency mission in Afghanistan to include drug trafficking. Such efforts face a daunting challenge. Although opium production is down 19 percent this year, largely because of a severe drought, Afghan farmers continue to grow opium poppies on 388,000 acres. The country supplies about 90 percent of the world's heroin, though only about 10 percent of the U.S. demand for the drug, according to United Nations and U.S. government estimates.

U.S. officials say curbing opium production is key to stabilizing the country. The Taliban, which had once outlawed poppy growing, has become a key source of protection for many opium growers and collected as much as $400 million last year in levies on those farmers, according to the United Nations. The Taliban uses that cash to buy weapons, clothing and food to sustain its insurgency, government officials and outside experts say.

Justice Department prosecutor Matthew Stiglitz said in court yesterday that Mohammed's "significance ultimately rests with the symbiotic confluence of two worlds: drugs and terrorism. Without him or men like him, there is no effective insurgency in Afghanistan." Mohammed's attorneys, public defenders assigned to represent him, said he was just a middleman trying to help a friend buy drugs, not a terrorist.

The Justice Department declined to discuss the case or to talk more broadly about its counternarcotics cases originating in Afghanistan. But a review of hundreds of pages of trial testimony, court documents and other records provides a rare look into the challenges facing authorities as they push to bring such cases in U.S. courts.
Much more at link

Link

Afghanistan

Afghan Troops Kill Over 150 Insurgents From Pakistan (more info)

2008-07-16

H/T The Strata-Sphere.... looks like the situation is heating up
The Afghan National Army (ANA), Afghan border police and US special forces have killed more than 150 fighters, mostly Pakistanis, in a military operation in south eastern Paktika province, a spokesman said Wednesday. "Last night, more than 350 fighters, most of them Pakistanis, entered Afghanistan from Pakistan, and attacked in the Barmal district of south-eastern Paktika province," Ghamai Khan Mohammed Yari told DPA in a telephone interview.

He said the ANA and border police, aided by a coalition airstrike, "counter-attacked the militants and after one hour's fighting, more than 150 insurgents were killed, most of them Pakistani nationals."

"A driver with a truck full of explosive materials also was arrested in Angoor Adah area of Barmal district by Afghan forces. The driver was from Multan area of Pakistan," Yari added.

A press release issued from ISAF headquarter in Kabul said that the NATO-led International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) responded to an attack from militants Pakistan's Paktika province. "ISAF's Task Force in Paktika province received multiple rocket attacks from militants inside Pakistan on July 15," the press release said.

ISAF troops identified the point of origin of the rocket attacks "and responded in self defence with a combination of fire from attack helicopters and artillery into Pakistan", it added. The NATO-led ISAF press release did not mention anything about casualties in the military operation.
Our troopers get another biggie
In a related development, ISAF forces also said they had killed a Taliban field commander in Kandahar province during an airstrike. "(Mullah) Mahmoud is reported to have commanded more than 250 Taliban fighters and was responsible for many insurgent operations in Kandahar province," an ISAF statement said.

The statement said intelligence had shown several insurgent commanders meeting to regroup their forces and plan further attacks against the Arghandab district and Kandahar city. "Afghan forces established observation of the area and called in an airstrike using ISAF aircraft," the statement said.

"Our troops have the initiative in Kandahar province," Brigadier General Denis Thompson, Commander of Task Force Kandahar, said.

In other developments, an ISAF soldier died of non-combat related causes in Parvan province on Wednesday, ISAF officials said. The nationality of the soldier was not given.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Talib convicted in US for 'narco-terrorism'

2008-05-17

A member of an Afghan Taliban cell was convicted by a federal jury on Thursday on charges of narco-terrorism and narcotics distribution, the US Justice Department said in a statement.

Khan Mohammed, from Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan, is the first person to be convicted under a narco-terrorism provision of the USA Patriot Act that went into effect in March 2006, the statement said. US officials said Mohammed was caught in an investigation by the US Drug Enforcement Administration with the help of a cooperating witness. As an enemy of the United States, Khan Mohammed intended to ship heroin to the United States and use profits from the trade to assist the Taliban, DEA administrator Michele Leonhart said. A dangerous double threat, Kahn Mohammed purchased rockets to attack American and coalition soldiers, she added. He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years and a maximum of life in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 10.

Mohammed was first indicted in Dec 2006 on narcotics distribution charges and was brought to the United States in November 2007. A second indictment in January 2008 charged him with engaging in drug trafficking to fund a terrorist organization.

Link

India-Pakistan

Failed assasination attempt at Musharraf

2007-07-06

Gunners fired after President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's plane took off from a military base on Friday in what one official described as a failed assassination attempt.

Security forces quickly raided a nearby home with anti-aircraft guns on the roof, taking the owner in for questioning and searching for a couple who rented the property this week, officials said.

A senior security official said Musharraf was aboard when the plane came under fire, but insisted the aircraft was not within range of the attempt in Rawalpindi, a garrison city south of the capital where Musharraf narrowly escaped two attempts on his life in 2003.

Television footage from an overlooking building showed a large gun pointed skyward next to a satellite dish as security officials rushed around. Two anti-aircraft guns and a light machine gun were found on the roof and the homeowner was taken in for questioning, three officials told The Associated Press.

"It was an unsuccessful effort by miscreants to target the president's plane," the senior security official told AP. The official, like those who described the raid on the house, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record. "They fled quickly, and our security agencies are still investigating."

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad denied local news reports that the president's plane was targeted by a rocket, but provided no further details.

A resident in the neighborhood, Mohammed Asif, 31, said that he heard two loud bangs about "a minute or less than a minute" apart and then saw a man firing an AK-47 rifle from an off-white Suzuki car passing by his home.

"A small plane was flying at that time," Asif, a worker in Rawalpindi's fruit market, told an AP reporter.

According to state-run Pakistan Television, Musharraf flew from the air base Friday and later safely landed in Turbat, a remote southwestern town where he was to inspect efforts to bring relief to hundreds of thousands of people affected by recent catastrophic flooding.

Khan Mohammed, a road construction worker, who was in a nearby street, said he heard someone fire single shots and then a burst from an automatic weapon but he said he didn't know where the gunfire originated or what it was aimed at.

"It lasted for about five minutes," Mohammed said.

Mohammed said that he heard the roar of a flying plane when the firing occurred.

In northwestern Pakistan, a suicide attacker on a bicycle rigged with explosives struck a military convey and killed four soldiers Friday, officials said. And a remote-controlled bomb exploded near a military convoy in Dir, in the same area.

In North Waziristan, elsewhere in the Afghan border region, tribesmen chased militants who had kidnapped an army instructor, sparking a shootout that left six people dead and the soldier injured, officials said.

Link

Afghanistan

19 killed in Afghan fighting

2006-02-06

Militants attacked government offices and a police convoy Saturday, continuing a series of assaults that have left at least 41 people dead in the southern region over two days, government officials said.

About 250 Afghan forces fought more than 200 rebels in some of the area�s fiercest fighting in months. At least 19 people were killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan Saturday.

Fighting began Friday with a mountain ambush on a police convoy that left 16 militants and six policemen dead and scores wounded, said Amir Mohammed Akhund, the deputy governor of Helmand province, which borders Pakistan.

The violence spread across the border as a roadside bomb exploded by an army vehicle Saturday in a northwestern tribal region of Pakistan, killing three Pakistani security personnel, an official said.

No one immediately asserted responsibility, but security officials pointed to militants linked to al Qaeda in previous attacks in the area, where Pakistan has sent thousands of troops to flush out insurgents.

Afghan officials said U.S. forces joined the battle Friday and Saturday, but a U.S. military spokesman said he could confirm involvement only in the first day of fighting.

American and British warplanes bombed suspected Taliban militants fleeing the fighting around midnight Friday, killing eight of them, said Khan Mohammed, a police chief in Helmand province. The fighting prompted dozens of families to flee their villages, he said.

A group of militants who escaped from the initial clash attacked a government office early Saturday, killing the government chief and wounding four police officers, said Akhund, the deputy governor.

Later in the day, another group of militants attacked the main government office in a neighboring district, setting off a two-hour gun battle that left one policeman and three suspected Taliban fighters dead, he said.

Militants used a remote-controlled bomb to attack a police convoy in Kandahar, the main city in southern Afghanistan and a former Taliban stronghold, said Sher Mohammed, a police officer.

A woman and a child who were walking in the area were killed, and three other passersby were wounded, he added.

Also in Kandahar, a Taliban commander, Abdul Samad, was killed by border forces as he tried to enter illegally from neighboring Pakistan, said Asadullah Khalid, the governor of Kandahar. Ten other militants fled back across the frontier.

Link

Afghanistan-Pak-India

Terrorists ~~Militants~~ Attack Kabul

2005-10-25

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Terrorists ~~Militants~~ attacked security forces on two sides of Kabul, killing seven people in some of the deadliest attacks near the Afghan capital in months, police said Tuesday. Security forces also uncovered a cache of bombs inside the city of 4 million. Terrorists ~~Militants~~ were suspected of plotting to use the weapons against international peacekeepers, police said. It was not immediately clear whether the two attacks were coordinated, but they underscored the security threat facing the tightly guarded capital, home to thousands of foreign aid workers and diplomats, among others.

The first attack was late Monday when rerrorists ~~rebels~~ fired rockets at a U.S.-led coalition convoy 10 miles south of Kabul. But the rockets missed their target and instead hit three civilian cars, killing six Afghans, said Khan Mohammed, the police chief in Logar province.

Sounds like Heks boys are at it again

Three civilians were also wounded. A child was among the dead, he said.

The civilian cars were traveling close behind five military Humvee vehicles on a main north-south road when they were hit by two rockets and small-arms fire, Mohammed said. The police chief said extra security forces rushed to the area and surrounded a run-down fort where the assailants were thought to be hiding. A coalition spokeswoman, Sgt. Marina Evans, said she had no details on the attack.

The second assault came hours later, just before dawn Tuesday. Terrorists ~~Militants~~ opened fire with assault rifles on a police vehicle 30 miles east of Kabul, near a key trade route linking the capital with the eastern Pakistani border, said Ghafor Khan, a police spokesman in the eastern town of Jalalabad.

"hours later" and "30 miles east". Yeah, a closely coordinated attack

The attack killed a senior police officer who was a teacher at a police academy. Two others were wounded, he said. Khan said investigators suspect the victims were targeted because they "are teaching new police recruits and are crucial to bringing peace to our country." The fledgling police force has been hit hard in recent months in a string of ambushes that have left dozens of officers dead.

The bombs discovered in Kabul were found in a junkyard of old military vehicles in the northern part of the city, said Interior Ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanekzai. The explosives were made from old anti-personnel mines, and terrorists ~~rebels~~ were "suspected to be planning to use them against ISAF," he said, referring to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, which guards the capital.
Terrorists ~~Militants~~ fired rockets at the northern city of Fayzabad during the past two nights, wounding a local U.N. staff member and damaging a compound belonging to the government's intelligence agency, police chief Fazil Ahmad Nazari said.

Taliban-led terrorists ~~rebels~~ have stepped up violence in the past half-year and killed more than 1,400 people. The bloodshed has left many southern and eastern regions off limts to aid workers and raised fears for the country's fragile democracy.

Link

Afghanistan/South Asia

13 Taliban killed, 40 captured by US and Afghan forces

2005-09-06

U.S. and Afghan forces killed 13 suspected Taliban fighters, and captured dozens more, in a remote area where a political candidate was kidnapped and executed last week, a provincial governor said Monday. U.S. and Afghan troops dropped by parachute from American aircraft in the operation, which began Sunday, Gov. Assadullah Khalid said by telephone from Kandahar, the capital of the province of the same name. None of the allied forces was injured.

This qualifies as a combat drop for the airborne guys, right?

The airborne assault targeted insurgents suspected of killing Khan Mohammed, a candidate for Kandahar's provincial council in the nation's Sept. 18 elections who had been abducted Friday, the governor added.

At least four other candidates have been killed in the weeks before the elections for the lower house of Afghanistan's parliament and provincial councils. It is the first vote for parliament since U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban's hard-line Islamic regime in late 2001.

Backed by U.S. attack helicopters, the American and Afghan troops, and local police, landed Sunday in the remote Lal valley, about 50 miles northwest of Kandahar, the governor said. More than 40 suspected insurgents were detained. They are being interrogated, U.S. Col. Jim Yonts, spokesman for the coalition forces, told reporters in Kabul, the Afghan capital. Khalid said some might be released soon, while the rest will be put on trial as Taliban militants.

"I think this was a group that was hiding and getting ready to conduct operations to bring chaos to the process of the elections in Afghanistan, so this (assault) will decrease the danger of the Taliban insurgency," the governor added.

Yonts denied there was any link between the offensive, which is still under way, and Friday's kidnappings and executions.

Link

Afghanistan/South Asia

Soldiers kill 17 near Miranshah

2005-07-18

PESHAWAR: Seventeen suspected foreign militants and a Pakistan Army soldier were killed in a clash near the Pak-Afghan border in North Waziristan Agency late on Saturday night, officials told Daily Times on Sunday. The army cordoned off a compound near Miranshah after receiving information that foreign militants might be there. During the search, militants tried escaping in two vehicles, but were stopped by the army. The drivers ignored the orders and men sitting inside started shooting and throwing grenades at the soldiers, killing one. The soldiers shot back and destroyed one of the vehicles with an RPG, which also ignited munitions in the vehicle.

A military source speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons said the dead included 15 women and children and two men. Four Central Asians and 12 local supporters were arrested, ISPR said. Explosive materials, detonators and instructions for making improvised explosive devices were seized from the scene, along with four passports from Kazakhstan, it added. The women and boys were used as a âhuman shieldsâ, but they also threw grenades at the troops, the release said.

Residents of Miranshah said troops had cordoned off the area after the clash. Security officials have said hundreds of Arab, Central Asian and Afghan militants, allegedly linked to the Al Qaeda terrorist network, are in the North and South Waziristan Agencies bordering Afghanistan. Army and paramilitary troops have carried out several operations to hunt down fighters in the two areas.

In South Waziristan Agency on Sunday, gunmen fired on a pro-government tribal elder, missing him but killing one passer-by and injuring another, an intelligence official said on customary condition of anonymity. Malik Khan Mohammed Machikhel, 50, was attacked in a bazaar in Khaisor, a village northeast of Wana, South Waziristan Agency, the official said. Anti-government militants have been accused of killing several tribal elders suspected of helping authorities.

Link

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