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Afghanistan

Afghan forces hunt fugitives after Taliban jailbreak

2008-06-15

Follow-up. A huge manhunt was under way today for at least 870 fugitives, including 390 Taliban militants, who were sprung from Kandahar's main prison in an audacious assault last night. An investigation has been launched to find out whether any government officials were involved in the commando-style attack by several dozen Taliban fighters. Oh, you think ... None of the prisoners had yet been tracked down, the deputy justice minister, Mohammad Qasim Hashimzai, told Reuters. "It was a very unprecedented attack and, together with foreign forces, an operation has been launched to track down and arrest the prisoners," he said. The police chief of Kandahar province, Sayed Agha Saqib, said 390 Taliban prisoners were among the 870 inmates who fled the prison during the attack late Friday. I wouldn't be too eager to take those 390 prisoner again ... A Nato spokesman put the number of fugitives at around 1,100. "We admit it," Brigadier General Carlos Branco said. "Their guys did the job properly in that sense, but it does not have a strategic impact. We should not draw any conclusion about the deterioration of the military operations in the area. We should not draw any conclusion about the strength of the Taliban." Prison staff said the assault began when a tanker full of explosives was detonated at the Sarposa compound's main entrance, wrecking the gate and a police post and killing the officers inside. A short time later, a suicide bomber travelling on foot blasted a hole in the back of the prison. A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said 30 insurgents on motorbikes and two suicide bombers attacked the prison, and claimed militants had been planning the assault for two months. "Today, we succeeded," he said, adding that the escaped prisoners were "going to their homes". Funny how we never quite figure out which phone booth Qari is using ... Witnesses said rockets were fired at the prison during the 30-minute battle. A local politician said 15 policemen were killed in the storming of the prison and subsequent clashes. Today, security forces were checking vehicles and motorcyclists on key roads in Kandahar, Afghanistan's second largest city. Some houses were searched where authorities suspected some escapees had hidden, residents said. Nato-led troops were supporting the Afghan security forces in cordoning off the area in the hunt for the prison inmates, said an alliance spokesman in Kabul. Dozens of police and army soldiers were deployed outside the badly damaged prison. A pile of rubble lay where two towers of the jail had collapsed. Wali Karzai, the president of Kandahar's provincial council and the brother of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, said the prison held about 350 suspected Taliban fighters. "There is no one left," he said.

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Afghanistan

Taliban Targets Afghan Police, Civilians

2008-04-24

Police and witnesses say a suicide bomber detonated his explosives soon after Afghan security forces spotted him and chased him in a crowded part of the border town of Spin Boldak. The second suicide bombing targeted a convoy carrying a district police chief in neighboring Helmand province. And authorities in the eastern Kunar province, which borders Pakistan, say insurgents attacked a border post there, killing five policemen. Several other security personnel were wounded while a number of militants were also reported killed in the clash. Taliban insurgents have stepped up attacks this month on Afghan and foreign forces following the traditional winter lull in Afghanistan. But Kabul-based spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, Brigadier General Carlos Branco, says there has been a change in the so-called spring offensive by the Taliban. The spokesman told a news conference in Kabul that this month's attacks have mostly targeted power stations, road workers, de-miners, school teachers and humanitarian workers with an objective to undermine reconstruction and development in Afghanistan. "It is clear that insurgents are intending to destroy anything that relates to development and prosperity in this country," said General Branco. "They have torched schools and murdered teachers, trying through these actions to compromise the education and development of the young generation and by so doing attempting to damage the prospects of future success in Afghanistan."

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Afghanistan

Two British soldiers killed on patrol near Kandahar

2008-04-15

Two British servicemen have been killed while patrolling Nato's main airbase in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence said yesterday. The pair, members of the RAF Regiment, died when their vehicle hit a device near Kandahar airfield. Two other British servicemen were wounded in the blast but were said not to have life-threatening injuries. All next of kin have been informed, an MoD spokesman said. The men were travelling in a Land Rover Wolf, a military version of the Defender widely used by British forces for patrols but not designed to withstand attacks other than from light small arms. The four RAF Regiment troops were taking part in a routine patrol to the west of Kandahar airfield when their vehicle was hit by the device at 6.48pm local time on Sunday. They were treated at the scene before being taken to the field hospital inside the base. "Sadly, despite the best efforts of the medical team, two of the servicemen died as a result of their wounds," the MoD said. Brigadier General Carlos Branco, spokesman of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force, said: "Our most sincere thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the soldiers who died in this tragic incident and with those of the wounded soldiers as well." The deaths take the number of British military personnel killed in Afghanistan since the campaign against the Taliban began in 2001 to 93. Two weeks ago two Royal Marines from 40 Commando patrolling in a lightly armoured Land Rover were killed in an explosion in southern Afghanistan. The vehicle, with stripped-down sides and a machine gun, hit a roadside bomb three miles south of Kajaki, the site of an important dam in northern Helmand province. British patrols in Afghanistan are vulnerable to unexploded mines. Nato troops are also increasingly likely to be targeted by improvised explosive devices as the Taliban resort to "asymmetric" tactics instead of conventional - and invariably unsuccessful - attacks with light weapons and from exposed positions.

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Afghanistan

Afghan troops advance on Musa Qala

2007-12-10

A second NATO soldier was killed on Sunday as Afghan and international troops advanced on the southern town of Musa Qala, which the Taliban has controlled for the last 10 months, defence forces said. Some of the thousands of soldiers involved in the operation launched on Friday had come within two kilometres of the town, progressing through the night and closing in from the north, the Afghan defence force said. An International Security Assistance Force soldier taking part in the campaign to take back the town was killed and another injured when their vehicle hit a mine in the area, ISAF said. The 38-nation alliance force did not give the nationality of the soldiers but a spokesman, Brigadier General Carlos Branco, said they were not British. The force said on Sunday its soldiers were moving cautiously because of the threat of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) planted by the militants. The Afghan Defence Ministry said on Saturday a dozen Taliban and two civilians had also been killed. The Taliban overran Musa Qala in early February, breaking a controversial deal, which led British forces to pull out on the request of elders, who said they would handle security after months of intense fighting. Talks: British Defence Secretary Des Browne was in Kabul Sunday for talks with his Afghan counterpart, Abdul Rahman Wardak, about the push for Musa Qala, the Afghan ministry said. “The Helmand security situation and Musa Qala operation were on top of their discussions,” it said in a statement that quoted Browne as saying the Afghan army’s lead role in the operation was a sign of their capability. ISAF and its partner in a separate US-led coalition are helping build up the Afghan security forces. British military spokesman in Helmand Lieutenant Colonel Richard Eaton said the operation would continue until the “door to Musa Qala is kicked in. And once the door is kicked in, the Afghan army will enter.” The Afghan Defence Ministry meanwhile warned the rebels to lay down their arms “or face waves of attacks”. Two Taliban commanders in the area had been captured, it said. Another rebel commander, Abdul Satar, said the movement’s leaders had run away decamped beat feet left after the launch of the operation. “But our mujahideen (fighters) are resisting,” he said. Another Taliban leader has claimed there are up to 2,000 rebel fighters in the town, but this could not be independently verified. Clashes also erupted early on Sunday outside the town, a resident who gave his name as Mahmood told AFP by telephone. “The Taliban resisted and there is no fighting at this time,” he said. In other fighting between the two sides, 10 Taliban were killed on Saturday in the Panjwayi area of Kandahar province, the Afghan Defence Ministry said on Sunday.

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Afghanistan

Suicide attack on army bus in Kabul kills 16

2007-12-06

Second blast, not the one we reported yesterday. KABUL - A suicide attacker slammed a bomb-filled car into an Afghan army bus in Kabul Wednesday, killing at least 16 people in the second such blast in two days during a visit by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates. The extremist Taleban group claimed responsibility for the morning rush-hour bombing, which struck in the south of the Afghan capital as Gates wrapped up a short visit to assess efforts against an intensifying insurgency. The bus was reduced to a blackened skeleton of mangled metal, its roof and sides blown out. “It was a big explosion and sent fire into the sky,” said Akbari Sarwar, a journalist who was on the road when the blast hit. “When I moved in I saw scores of bodies, legs, arms, heads, flesh everywhere,” he told AFP. Eight Afghan National Army soldiers and eight civilians were killed according to information given to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, spokesman Brigadier General Carlos Branco told reporters. Another defence ministry officials said on condition of anonymity that up to 20 civilians may have been killed, many of them children, but information was still being verified. Four of the dead were children in their early teens, health ministry spokesman Abudullah Fahim said. Seventeen people were treated in hospital, he said.

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Afghanistan

NATO sez airstrike in Nuristan did not kill Afghan workers

2007-11-30

NATO says evidence collected at the site of an airstrike against a Taliban leader in northeastern Afghanistan shows the attack was successful and did not result in the deaths of 14 construction workers. Brigadier General Carlos Branco said Thursday Afghan and NATO forces tracked the movements of the key Taliban leader in Nuristan province, Abdullah Jam Jan, and five of his followers Monday night - and that they were eliminated by a precision airstrike. Branco added there was no construction equipment or materials at the site, indicating there was no presence of civilians.

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Afghanistan

Leaders deny Taliban rules half of nation

2007-11-25

I thought they were talking about pakistan... AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai and the NATO chief yesterday led strong criticism of a European think-tank report that said the Taliban were installed in more than half of Afghanistan. NATO secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said The Senlis Council report released yesterday "should not be considered as realistic". "Of course there are parts of Afghanistan where the going is tough from time to time," he said after talks with Mr Karzai. "We all know that and we all know that NATO forces are in combat in certain parts of Afghanistan." He added: "The analysis the council makes on the situation in Afghanistan, I simply do not share." But soon after, news came from the south of the country that Taliban militants had beheaded seven policemen after overrunning their checkpoints in the strategic area of Arghandab, 25km north of Kandahar city. Six other officers were missing after the Taliban attack, said Abdul Hakim Jan, a police officer. The Senlis report called for NATO's International Security Assistance Force to be doubled in size to 80,000, saying a study had found that 54 per cent of Afghan territory had a permanent Taliban presence. Earlier, The Netherlands announced it would extend the stay of its soldiers in Afghanistan by about two years, public broadcaster NOS reported. Speaking about the Senlis report, ISAF spokesman Brigadier General Carlos Branco said it was unclear where the 80,000 figure came from. "We have shortfalls and more troops would be most welcome," he said. But, "we have not identified a need for 80,000 troops," he said, adding that the report was "sensationalist". Mr Karzai was also dismissive, saying there had been progress in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban government in late 2001. "There are certain areas in southern parts of Afghanistan, especially close to our border with Pakistan, that see attacks from Taliban elements from time to time," he said. And "there are parts of Afghanistan that fall to the Taliban", he said, but "I do not share the analysis". General Branco said the claim that insurgents controlled vast areas of unchallenged territory and that 54 per cent of Afghan territory had a permanent Taliban presence was baseless. "They control not more than a handful of districts, even less," he said, adding these were "very small pockets without territorial continuity". The insurgents also only moved into areas with limited security presence and had often left before troops arrived to reassert control, he said. On a statement in the report that "the question now appears not to be whether the Taliban will return to Kabul, but when this will happen", General Branco said: "The shops are open, people are on the streets. It is a normal city. "It does not seem like a city on the eve of being overtaken by the Taliban." The Senlis Council, a policy think tank with offices in all the posh places Kabul, London, Paris, Brussels, Ottawa and Rio de Janeiro, has been pushing for the legalisation of Afghanistan's opium production, which is 93 per cent of world production. In The Netherlands, the Dutch public broadcaster said the parties in the centre-left coalition Government had agreed to extend the mandate of the Dutch troops in Oruzgan province, which expires in August next year, until 2010. The Dutch cabinet will discuss the extension today and thrash out the details. The NOS said one point that remains to be determined is exactly how long the soldiers will stay, but it is expected to be around two years. The Government of Christian Democrats, Labour and protestant Christian Union is expected to announce its decision next Friday. There are about 1650 Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan. Dutch and Australian troops make up the bulk of the force in Oruzgan.

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