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Afghanistan

11 Bad Guys die in two separate operations

2016-12-30

At least five insurgents were killed and eight other wounded in an Afghan security forces operation in Laghman province, local officials said Thursday. According to security officials in Laghman, the operation was conducted in Alishing district. Laghman governor's office said the operation was conducted to remove security threats in the district and province. Meanwhile six Taliban insurgents including their local commander Mullah Rahmatullah were killed in Arghandab district of Zabul province. Zabul Security Chief Jailani Khan Farahi, confirmed the clash said that Lashkar-e-Jhangvi are active in those areas.

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Afghanistan

16 insurgents killed in internal clashes in Nangarhar and Zabul

2015-07-27

[Khaama (Afghanistan)] 16 holy warriors have been killed in internal festivities in eastern and southern parts of the country. Hazrat Hussain Mashriqiwal, front man for the provincial police headquarters of 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 says that 11 bully boyz were killed and 24 others maimed in a clash erupted between two holy warrior groups in Gorgore area of Haska Mina District yesterday. Another report from southern Zabul province suggests that five holy warriors have been killed in festivities between the fighters of Taliban and Daesh in Sardara area of Arghandab District. Colonel Ghulam Jailani Khan Farahi, the deputy police chief of Zabul says that three of those killed belong to Taliban and two others are from Daesh group. Haji Atta Jan Haqbayan, head of the provincial council of Zabul province says that due to sporadic festivities between the two groups, civilians have been fleeing their homes. He said some of these people have arrived in Qalat, the quiet provincial capital, and others in nearby districts where they face problems such as lack of shelter and financial assistance. Haqbayan urged government to take strict actions against the situation.

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Afghanistan

NATO soldier, 35 insurgents killed in renewed Afghanistan violence

2009-04-05

A soldier in a NATO-led force fighting an extremist insurgency in Afghanistan died in a bomb blast on Saturday as the US military announced it had killed 35 Taliban-linked insurgents. The fresh violence came as the US announced that NATO allies would send up to 5,000 more troops to Afghanistan in response to President Barack Obama's call for a greater alliance role in fighting extremists. An International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldier died after a bombing in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, ISAF said in a statement. The ISAF, which draws its troops from 42 nations, does not release the nationalities of its casualties, leaving it to their home country. Nearly 80 international soldiers have died in Afghanistan this year, most of them in attacks, according to icasualties.org, which tracks the conflict here. Two policemen: Also on Saturday, a remote-controlled roadside bomb killed two policemen and wounded four when it blew up their vehicle in southern Zabul province, deputy provincial police chief Ghulam Jailani Khan told AFP. 20 insurgents: The US-led coalition, which works alongside ISAF and the Afghan forces, said meanwhile that Afghan and international troops killed 20 insurgents in the southern province of Helmand on Friday. The battle in the strategic Kajaki district erupted after a patrol was ambushed by numerous men in a "known Taliban stronghold", it said in a statement. "The combined forces returned fire with small-arms fire and called for close air support, destroying six enemy fighting positions and killing 20 insurgents," it said. Taliban in Kajaki are known to be heavily involved in bomb-making and weapons smuggling, attacks on troops and narcotics, the statement said. A statement later said 15 more Taliban were killed in Kajaki on Saturday and a large bomb-making facility, drugs lab and weapons cache uncovered. Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of the world's opium, most of it in the desert province of Helmand, which shares a largely open border with Pakistan, where militants cross to join the insurgency. Kajaki district is the site of one of Afghanistan's largest hydropower dams, a Soviet-era facility that fell into disrepair during the country's decades of conflict and which the United States is working to rehabilitate. Troops control the area around the Kajaki but most of the district is known to be heavily influenced by the Taliban as are large swathes of southern Afghanistan. Friday's battle was one of a series in the past week that the military says has inflicted heavy insurgent casualties, with 20 reported killed in Helmand on Wednesday and 30 in the Helmand-Uruzgan area on Monday. Responding to calls from military commanders for more troops, Obama in February announced he would send 17,000 extra US soldiers to Afghanistan, most of them headed to the south. NATO leaders meeting in France on Saturday are expected to focus on Afghanistan, where the organisation is undertaking its biggest and most ambitious mission ever.

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Afghanistan

Afghanistan: Police killed in mistaken US raid

2008-12-11

(AKI) - Six police and a civilian were killed on Wednesday in a US-led raid on a police station in southern Afghanistan. Authorities said that US forces had mistakenly killed the victims after police fired on the Americans during an operation. A US military statement said the deaths early Wednesday resulted from a "tragic case of mistaken identity on both parts." Thirteen others were reportedly wounded in the air raid which hit a police station in the troubled province of Zabul. Deputy provincial police chief Ghulam Jailani Khan said the bomb had struck just before dawn and destroyed the police station. The statement said the police fired on US forces after the troops battled and killed an armed militant close to a police station in Qalat, the capital of Zabul. Afghan and US officials were travelling from Kabul to the scene of the attack to conduct an investigation.

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Afghanistan

70 Taliban insurgents killed in S Afghanistan clash

2008-07-25

(Xinhua) -- Afghanistan National Army (ANA) clashed with Taliban militants on Thursday in southern Afghan province of Zabul, leaving 70 militants dead, according to a statement of the Interior Ministry. "The Taliban rebels ambushed convoy of ANA on the Kabul-Kandahar highway in the Shah joy district of Zabul province," the statement said, "after hours' fierce fighting ANA foiled the attack killing 70 enemies, arresting four others and a large number of weapons. Some dead bodies of foreign fighters were also found in the battle field." Earlier, Zahir Azimi, spokesman of Defense Ministry, told Xinhua ANA killed 34 Taliban insurgents in the highway clash. Jailani Khan, the provincial deputy police chief also confirmed the clashes between ANA and Taliban fighters and put the number of Taliban casualties as 37, adding the highway is now secured and re-opened. Meanwhile, Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, the purported Taliban spokesman told Xinhua via phone from an unknown hideout that the outfit ambushed ANA convoy, successfully destroying two army's vehicles and killing over 12 Afghan troops.

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Afghanistan

'Nearly 3 dozen militants killed in clash with Afghan, coalition forces'

2008-07-24

Nearly three dozen insurgents were killed Thursday in southern Afghanistan after they attacked an Afghan military convoy, a police official said. The clash occurred in the Shah Joy district of Zabul province, said deputy provincial police chief Jailani Khan. Khan said the army called for assistance from the US-led coalition and Afghan police, and that the three forces surrounded the insurgents, killing 35, at least two of whom were Arabs. Five Taliban militants were arrested. "There was no report of any casualties among the coalition and Afghan forces," Khan said. The US-led coalition did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It was just the latest violence that has gripped the country's south, the Taliban insurgency's primary stronghold.

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India-Pakistan

Taliban kill 7 Afghans accused of spying

2008-07-15

The Taliban have shot dead at least seven Afghan civilians whom they captured on suspicion of working for the government or other organisations, police and the militants said on Monday. The civilians were taken from cars, buses and taxis that were stopped on the main road between Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar on Sunday, said the Deputy Police Chief for Zabul province Jailani Khan. "They have shot them dead. Their bodies are with the police," he said. The seven were abducted in Ghazni province, south of Kabul, and killed in neighbouring Zabul, he said. The Police Chief of Ghazni Khan Mohammad Mujahed, said he had reports that 15 people were taken from the road and all been killed. His men were trying to locate the bodies, he said. Mujahed said the men were dragged from cars along the highway over the past several days. A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahed, also said the militants had killed 15 "spies of the government" who had been captured on the road in recent days. Prostitutes: The hard-line militia on Sunday shot dead two women whom they said were prostitutes and had worked for the police, a claim rejected by the government. President Hamid Karzai condemned the killing and several other recent militants attacks in his country, his office said in a statement. The Taliban imposed a harsh version of Shariah law during their 1996-2001 rule of Afghanistan that included executions for various offences. They are now waging an insurgency against the new government and have killed several Afghans who work with the administration as part of a violent intimidation campaign that has also seen a wave of suicide bombings. In June, the Taliban based in Pakistan beheaded Afghans whom they had also accused of spying. Karzai met the families of the men in Kabul on Monday and vowed afterwards that their deaths would be "avenged."

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Afghanistan

Bombs kill 7 Afghan security personnel

2007-09-04

Twin roadside bombs killed seven Afghan security personnel in the east of the country, while insurgents destroyed a convoy of trucks ferrying supplies for NATO-led troops, officials said Monday. According to AP, the blasts in Kunar province on Sunday destroyed two vehicles, killing four intelligence officers, one policeman and two private security guards, said Ajmal Mukhtar, a spokesman for the provincial governor. According to AFP, six people were killed, who were all Afghan militia fighters hired by US-led forces in the fight against the Taliban. Kunar province lies near the border with Pakistan which is why it is and is believed to be a stronghold of the Taliban. Also Sunday, AP reported that militants attacked a 12-truck convoy carrying supplies for NATO-led troops in southern Zabul province, destroying all the vehicles and sparking a gunbattle that left one of the attackers dead, said Jailani Khan, a police official. However, AFP said the convoy had been consisted of some 50 trucks and 16 vehicles had been torched. Also on Monday, Reuters reported that a Taliban spokesman warned that the militants planned to abduct and kill more nationals from foreign countries whose troops serve under NATO and the US military in Afghanistan. The vow comes just days after the Taliban released 19 South Korean hostages after their government struck a deal that critics said sets a dangerous precedent that could spur more kidnappings and make life even more dangerous for foreigners. “We consider it [kidnapping] as an arm that can help us in imparting a blow to the enemy,” Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location. Yousuf, one of two Taliban spokesmen, said the group would not target nationals from foreign countries who have no troops in Afghanistan.

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Afghanistan

Several killed in hunt for Taliban leader

2007-02-13

Afghan and international troops killed several Taliban fighters in a hunt for a top militant leader on Monday as officials reported that six more insurgents and five policeman died in separate fighting, while a Taliban spokesman said that thousands of the group’s fighters were currently in the southern province of Helmand. The United States-led coalition said in a statement that a battle had erupted in when militants fired rocket-propelled grenade at Afghan and coalition troops looking for an insurgent with ties to Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar. It said that an assessment of damages from the early morning battle near the town of Gereshk had yet to determine the number of “terrorists” killed. It did not say whether the targeted man was among the dead. While the militant’s name is not known, he has also been linked to Mohammad Osmani, who was killed in Helmand in December and remains the highest-ranked Taliban leader killed by the coalition since the fall of the hardline regime in 2001. The statement added that the joint Afghan and coalition assault had been based on “substantial information”. An Afghan soldier was wounded when a vehicle overturned. Separately, the governor of Khogyani district in the eastern province of Nangarhar, Haji Zalmai Khan, said that a roadside bomb struck a US convoy on Monday, wounding an American soldier. Suspects were arrested soon afterwards, he added. There were also clashes in the southern provinces of Uruzgan and Zabul, Afghan officials said. Six Taliban were killed and a dozen arrested late on Sunday after a battle near Tirin Kot, the Uruzgan capital, provincial spokesman Abdul Qayoom Qayomi told AFP, adding that three policemen had been killed and four wounded. In adjoining Zabul, Taliban attacked a police convoy and killed two of the policemen. One wounded Taliban was arrested and two more suspects were also apprehended nearby, highway police commander Ghulam Jailani Khan told AFP. Meanwhile, a purported Taliban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, claimed on Monday that there were “thousands of Taliban” in Helmand. Foreign military officials downplayed the claims.

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Afghanistan

Clashes kill 25 more Taleban in southern Afghanistan

2006-08-24

Strange, you never hear much about northern Afghanistan. KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Clashes and NATO airstrikes killed at least 36 Taleban terrorists fighters in Afghanistan’s violence-wracked south as terrorist militant attacks left a NATO soldier dead and five others wounded, officials said on Wednesday. Eighteen suspected grape-picking Taleban were killed in a clash with police Wednesday in the Khake-Afghan district of southern Zabul province, said Jailani Khan, the province’s deputy police chief. The terrorists militants left the bodies beside their weapons at the scene, Khan said. There were no police casualties. Left the bodies and the weapons, did they? Must have been in a big hurry to bug out. Militants also attacked an Afghan army patrol in Zabul, killing a soldier and wounding four, a Defense Ministry statement said. NATO warplanes responded to Tuesday’s ambush, bombing a Taleban position and killing seven terrorists fighters.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

24 Taliban captured

2004-11-18

Afghan security forces captured 24 Taliban guerrillas, including four mid-level commanders, in operations in the southern province of Zabul last weekend, provincial officials said on Thursday. Provincial security chief Jailani Khan said the guerrillas had been captured on Sunday in two operations in the province. "We arrested some of them in an ambush and some in a house we had under surveillance," Khan said. Zabul Governor Khiyal Mohammad Hussaini identified three of the commanders as Mullah Sulaiman Baheer, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad and Mullah Abdullah. Mullah is a title for a Muslim religious leader and is used by many senior Taliban members. 'Cuz they're so holy. The fourth commander was not identified. Police also detained seven low-ranking Taliban suspects and seized a large weapons cache in a raid in a district west of Kabul on Saturday. On Tuesday, Taliban gunmen raided a police post near a hydro-power dam in the south of the country, killing six policemen, including their commander. On the same day, four police officers were killed and five wounded when their vehicle was hit by a blast in the central province of Uruzgan.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Seven Killed in Gunbattle in Afghanistan

2004-09-29

Taliban militants crept up to an Afghan government office under cover of darkness early Wednesday and launched a gunbattle that left four attackers and three Afghan troops dead, police said. Elsewhere, an explosion killed a motorcyclist in what an Afghan commander suggested was a botched suicide attack, and U.S. troops skirmished with insurgents near the Pakistani border. [VROOM! VROOM!] "Die, cursed infide- [KABOOM!]" The violence comes in the run-up to Afghanistan's Oct. 9 presidential election, which insurgents are trying to derail. The mayor's office in Khaki Afghan, a district of southeastern Zabul province, was targeted Wednesday by rebels armed with machine guns and rifles, deputy police chief Jailani Khan said. In four hours of fighting, four Taliban were killed and two more captured along with their weapons, Khan said. Three Afghan soldiers died and two were wounded. "We are holding the bodies of the four dead Taliban," Khan said. Reports from the scene suggested there were also Arabs among the assailants, he said, but had no further details. The motorcyclist was killed Tuesday in Khost province by an explosion which tore apart his body, set fire to his bike and injured a farmer riding a passing tractor, Gen. Fazel Mohammed Sahel said. "He came across the fields and drove onto the main road near the police checkpoint," said Sahel. "There was a military vehicle driving toward him, and suddenly he blew up." Sahel said the man appeared to be a suicide bomber, but that he had no idea why the explosion occurred on the open road or what kind of mission the dead man might have been on. "We think he had explosives around his body. Half of him was simply gone," he said. The commander said investigators identified pieces of one tank shell and found another unexploded round with a wire attached to it at the scene, just outside Khost city. The American military said suspected Taliban shot at one of its patrols on Monday near Shkin, a border town in Paktika province where U.S. forces man a lonely base. The patrol returned fire and pursued the assailants toward the nearby Pakistani border, where Pakistani forces tried to block their escape, spokesman Maj. Scott Nelson said. American warplanes fired at the rebels, destroying a vehicle. Fifteen local men detained for questioning were subsequently released, said another spokesman, Maj. Mark McCann. There were no reported casualties. While the attackers apparently slipped away, the military said the operation was evidence of blossoming cooperation with Pakistan. "This would never have happened a year ago," Nelson said. "We are exceptionally pleased by that and hope for a continued improvement."

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