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Afghanistan/South Asia

4 killed in Afghan landmine blast

2005-09-27

Two Afghan policemen and two civilians were killed by a landmine explosion today in the restive southern province of Helmand, a provincial official said. The four were travelling in a car when the mine went off but it was not possible to say if it was newly planted device or one of the millions that litter the country after decades of war, said Haji Mohammad Wali, spokesman for the provincial governor. Wali also said two Taliban fighters were killed in an overnight clash with security forces in another part of the province.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Pakistani militant killed, two injured in Afghanistan

2005-08-31

A ‘Pakistani Taliban’ was killed while two others suffered injuries in an overnight clash with security forces in the southwestern Helmand province, officials said on Tuesday. Haji Mohammad Wali, spokesman for the Helmand province governor, said the body of the Pakistani fighter was still lying at the scene of the clash in Baghny district. He refused to say how armed Pakistanis had entered the troubled province despite improved border security. Helmand’s Deputy Police chief Haji Mohammad Ayub claimed two Kalashnikov assault rifles, as many hand-grenades and a walkie-talkie had been seized from the combatants. Meanwhile, a Taliban sympathiser was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the murder of a government servant. The detainee confessed to complicity in the murder, receiving arms from “Pakistan and delivering them to Taliban,” a Helmand military official said. In the western Logar province, US military said, Afghan and coalition forces killed one combatant, wounded two and captured another. Seven rebels had initiated an attack with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire directed at a coalition patrol travelling from Kabul to Pul-e-Alam, causing minor damage to one vehicle. In another incident in the southeastern city of Khost, police defused five remote-controlled bombs near a petrol pump. Khost police chief Mohammad Ayub said the bombs were found at the Tanai Bus Station. “If the devices had exploded, they would have caused widespread damage,” said Ayub, who blamed “enemies of the country for trying to create an atmosphere of insecurity and instability.” A veiled woman had been sighted near the site before police discovered the bombs, Ayub said, warning “From now on, policewomen would check suspected females to avert explosions and other disruptive acts.” In the build-up to the September 18 parliamentary elections, violence has sharply escalated in southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan where afghan security personnel, coalition troops and pro-government clerics have been the target.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Afghan commander killed by Taliban

2005-06-03

The commander of a pro-government Afghan militia force was killed by a roadside bomb on Friday in an attack blamed on Taliban insurgents. It was the latest in a wave of bomb attacks that have killed and wounded dozens of people in Afghanistan in the past few months. Shadi Khan, the former chief of Deshu district police in the southern Helmand province, was killed and two of his bodyguards were wounded when his car was hit by the blast, said Haji Mohammad Wali, spokesman for the provincial governor. He blamed Taliban insurgents but drug running and tribal and factional rivalry are known to have caused violence in the province in the past. Two Afghan deminers were killed and five wounded by a roadside bomb in Helmand on Wednesday. They were the fifth deminers to be killed in two weeks. Twenty people, including the police chief of the capital, Kabul, were killed by a suicide bomber in nearby Kandahar province on Wednesday. The Kandahar governor blamed the al Qaeda militant network. In a separate attack, an energy official in Zabul province, also in the south, was killed in a Taliban ambush on Thursday night as he was transporting electrical equipment, a provincial official said.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

At Least 22 Killed in Renewed Afghan Violence

2005-02-25

At least 22 rebels and troops have been killed in a renewed surge in violence in Afghanistan, U.S. and Afghan officials said on Friday. Gunmen killed nine Afghan troops in southern Helmand province near the border with Pakistan, a provincial government official said on Friday, in one of the bloodiest attacks against Afghan forces for months. The soldiers were killed while on a night patrol in the Chakool Ghar area of the province. "Two of those killed were officers and the other seven were soldiers," said Haji Mohammad Wali, spokesman for the provincial governor. "The car they were traveling and their weapons have gone missing, too." Wali said it was not clear who was behind the attack but a Taliban spokesman said their fighters were responsible. "Our mujahideen (holy warriors) killed the soldiers in an ambush," Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said by telephone from an undisclosed location. The U.S. military said seven Taliban rebels also died on Thursday during a U.S. helicopter raid in the southeastern province of Khost after five Afghan soldiers were wounded in an ambush. Afghan officials said their forces killed six more Taliban guerrillas after the ambush. A Taliban spokesman said five Taliban fighters died. A U.S. military statement said there were no casualties among U.S.-led forces. Helmand was a bastion of the Taliban until they were driven from power in late 2001 and it is also one of Afghanistan's major drug producing areas. Last week, gunmen killed two Afghan aid workers and stole their vehicle in the province. Wali said the Taliban also killed an Afghan soldier and wounded three others in an attack on their post in a mountainous area near the eastern city of Jalalabad on Friday. Taliban activity has eased over the winter, and U.S.-led forces operating in the south and southeast have kept up the pressure on Afghanistan's vanquished rulers following their failure to disrupt an historic presidential election in October.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Taleban remnants kill six Afghan soldiers

2005-01-14

Remnants of Afghanistan's ousted Taleban government have killed six Afghan troops in a restive southern province of the country, a local official said on Thursday. The soldiers were seized from a military vehicle on Wednesday in Washare district of Helmand province, Haji Mohammad Wali, a provincial spokesman said. "Then the Taleban killed the six soldiers and dumped their bodies near an underground water canal," Wali told reporters. Are the Afghan troops allowed to shoot back? Just asking. Suspected Taleban attacks have subsided since Afghanistan's first-ever presidential elections in October. Wednesday's attack had the highest death toll for months. Helmand lies near the border with Iran and Pakistan and is one of the leading narcotics-producing regions of Afghanistan.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Taliban kill 6, raid Afghan hydro dam

2004-11-17

Taliban gunmen raided a police post near an Afghan hydro-power dam and killed six policemen, including their commander, a provincial official said on Wednesday. The Kajaki Dam, which supplies power to southern Afghanistan's main city, Kandahar, was not damaged in the late-night attack, said Haji Mohammad Wali, spokesman for the governor of Helmand province, where the dam is located. One Taliban fighter was killed and two wounded when police returned fire, he said. "We have the body of the Taliban fighter," Wali said.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

3 Aghans, 2 Taliban toes up

2004-08-02

At least two Afghan soldiers and two suspected Taliban militants were killed in clashes near the Pakistani border on Monday, and aircraft from U.S.-led forces were circling over the area. Another soldier was killed on Sunday night when suspected Taliban militants opened fire from a motorcycle on a car being used for voter registration in the southern province of Helmand, officials said. Motorcyles Of Doom strike again! The fighting south of Khost, in the district of Gurbuz just a few kilometres (miles) from the Pakistan border, lasted for more than eight hours. "Two Afghan soldiers were wounded and two killed, and on the Taliban side we found two dead bodies and captured one," General Khialbaz Sherzai, commander of the Afghan army's 25th Division, told Reuters. He said the captured militant appeared to be a foreigner, possibly of Arab extraction. "Say, ya'll ain't from around these parts!" Sherzai said his forces saw dozens of wounded militants crossing into Pakistan, where members of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban as well as foreign militants with links to al Qaeda are said to be active. Wounded, sepsis, slow-painful lingering death.... Gut shot... Sucking chest woonds... Sucking head wounds... I like it! Too bad for Mahmoud that all the better Pakistani docs emigrated to America; I bet that sucking chest wound could have been fixed. And then they bumped off all the leftovers because they were Shiites. That's planning ahead... Pakistan denies Afghan accusations that its territory is being used as a sanctuary by militants. "Nobody here, we asked." Taliban official Mullah Abdul Samad said U.S. aircraft were involved in the fighting, and eyewitnesses said they were flying over the area an hour or so after the clash ended. The drive-by shooting in Helmand's provincial capital of Lashkar Gah was the latest in a series of attacks on election workers in Afghanistan. The two gunmen carrying AK-47s escaped on a motorcycle, said Haji Mohammad Wali, spokesman for the Helmand governor. More details here: More than 100 Afghan and American troops supported by U.S. warplanes clashed with 50 militants near the Pakistani frontier Monday, inflicting "heavy losses" on the rebels in the fiercest border skirmish in months, the U.S. military said. An Afghan commander said the fight began when the militants attacked a border post near Zhawara, 40 miles south of Khost city, early on Monday morning. Maj. Rick Peat, an American spokesman, said U.S.-led troops and more than 100 Afghan militia soldiers engaged the militants at about 2 a.m. A B1 bomber, two A-10 ground-attack aircraft and four Cobra helicopter gunships provided support. When you care enough to send the very best! "The militants retreated in panic and were pursued by the attack aircraft," Peat said. "Feet, don't fail me now!" Gen. Khial Baz, the provincial military commander, said four Afghan soldiers were wounded. However, Peat said only two were hurt and that they were evacuated to a hospital for treatment. Four hours later, U.S. and Afghan forces, supported A-10s, fought about 20 of the militants in a renewed battle. "Again, the militants retreated after incurring heavy losses," Peat said. One Afghan soldier was killed and three others wounded in the second clash, he said. He didn't give a specific figure for the rebel deaths. Still counting body parts

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Toe tag for Taliban trio

2004-05-25

Three guerrillas from Afghanistan's ousted Taleban militia were killed on Monday in clashes with government forces in the southern province of Helmand, a local official said. Haji Mohammad Wali, spokesman for the governor of Helmand, said Afghan forces chased the guerrillas into hills around Yakchal, close to the border with Kandahar province, after the militants had ambushed government troops on Sunday. In the initial ambush, four soldiers and three guerrillas were wounded and a Taleban fighter was killed, he said. In a separate incident in the central province of Uruzgan, Taleban suspects launched an attack late on Sunday near the provincial capital of Tirin Kot. Taleban spokesman Haji Latif Hakimi said three soldiers were killed and one government vehicle destroyed. But a provincial security official countered that two civilians had been killed in the raid.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

US soldier killed in Taliban raid

2004-05-16

One American soldier was killed in Afghanistan and two were slightly wounded after their convoy was attacked near Girishk, in the southern province of Helmand, the U.S. military said on Sunday. A brief statement said the attack took place late on Saturday, and the two wounded soldiers had already returned to duty. One suspect had been detained. The attack appeared to be the same as a clash reported by Afghan officials in an area around 80 km (50 miles) north of Girishk called Mosa Qala. Mosa Qala is 450 km (280 miles) southwest of Kabul. Helmand intelligence chief Haji Dad Mohammad Khan told Reuters that three suspected Taliban had been arrested after attacking U.S. forces in the area, and that up to 500 Afghan troops were involved in search operations. Haji Mohammad Wali, spokesman for the Helmand governor, said unidentified men in a car attacked the convoy and damaged one U.S. military vehicle. American forces called in close air support. Taliban spokesman Haji Latif Hakimi said the radical Islamic militia waging an insurgency against foreign troops and the central government was behind the attack, although his claims of 10 U.S. soldiers killed appeared to be exaggerated. In a separate incident, a U.S. soldier suffered severe wounds when his vehicle was hit by a bomb on Thursday around 30 km (19 miles) southeast of Qalat in the southern province of Zabul.

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