|
55 militants killed in Afghan battle
2008-06-23
U.S. soldiers on patrol in a rugged Afghan area bordering Pakistan, June 14, 2007. U.S. and Afghan air and ground forces pounded al Qaeda militants for a second day on Thursday in the Tora Bora mountains close to the Pakistan border where Osama bin Laden once fled in the wake of the 2001 invasion. |
|
KABUL, Afghanistan - Militants ambushed troops patrolling in eastern Afghanistan, prompting a gunbattle and airstrikes that left 55 militants dead, the U.S.-led coalition said Monday. A coalition helicopter attacked men suspected of laying a roadside bomb in the same region, killing one. Afghan officials said two civilians, including a four-year-old boy, also died. The major battle took place Friday in Paktika, one of the Afghan provinces along the porous Pakistani border where clashes between Taliban militants and security forces have intensified in recent months. The coalition said militants ambushed the patrol on a road in Ziruk district with rockets and gunfire, prompting U.S.-led troops to fire back and call in warplanes. The approximately 55 insurgents killed included three key leaders, a coalition statement said. It didn't identify them. Twenty-five militants were wounded and another three detained, it added. "Patrols in the ambush area continue to report additional enemy casualties," it said. The clash was the second in three days to inflict heavy casualties on insurgents, who have little answer to Western airpower. The Afghan Defense Ministry said its soldiers counted the bodies of 94 militants after a joint operation with NATO forces in Arghandab, a valley just outside the southern city of Kandahar, on Wednesday. Outgunned militants have turned increasingly to laying bombs for passing convoys of government or foreign troops. On Monday, the coalition said NATO troops spotted four militants laying a bomb by a road in Nangarhar, another eastern province. After a gunbattle, a coalition helicopter fired on the militants, killing one of them, spokesman 1st Lt. Nathan Perry said. The troops pursued the other three and discovered a cache of bomb-making materials. Perry said he had no reports of civilian casualties. However, Zalmay Dadak, mayor of Khogyani district, said coalition fire also hit a house in a village, killing a man and a 4-year-old boy. Hundreds of villagers blocked the road for several hours on Monday in protest. Mohammed Wali, a village elder, said the father and son were asleep in their house when a projectile hit the roof. Two other homes were hit, killing more than a dozen cows, he said. "We are asking President (Hamid) Karzai and the parliament to get serious about this kind of thing. Otherwise the consequences (for foreign troops) will be the same as for the Russians," he said, a reference to the humbling of Soviet troops by Afghan rebels in the 1980s. Abdul Mohammed, a senior provincial police official, also said one militant and two civilians were believed dead. Civilians are regularly killed in clashes between militants and security forces as well as bearing the brunt of insurgent suicide bombings. Coalition and NATO commanders insist they take all reasonable precautions. They blame militants for launching attacks from family homes. However, they also face criticism for using heavy firepower in residential areas. Elsewhere, police said insurgents fired rockets toward an outpost of security forces in eastern Kunar province on Sunday, but hit a house and wounded a judge and two children. Provincial police chief Abdul Jalal Jalal also said three trucks carrying supplies to coalition forces in Kunar were ambushed and burned Sunday. ___ Associated Press writers Stephen Graham and Amir Shah contributed to this report.
| 
