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| Thursday, 10 June 2004 |
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US, Afghan forces kill 23 militants KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Wednesday (Reuters) U.S. and Afghan forces backed by air strikes killed 23 militants in southern Afghanistan during a drive to improve security for September elections, Afghan officials said. At least two U.S. soldiers and several Afghan fighters were wounded in the action in the rugged Dai Chopan region of Zabul province, said Jan Mohammad Khan, the governor of neighbouring Uruzgan province where the Marines are based. "Among the 21 Taliban killed in the fighting, we found a Chechen with his passport," he told Reuters by telephone from the scene. He said the dead also included a mid-ranking Taliban commander named Mullah Janam. Haji Mohammad Wali, a spokesman for Helmand province, said government forces killed two guerrillas in Helmand's Mosa Qala district, while two government soldiers were wounded. The Taliban casualty toll would be one of the worst the group has suffered in a single day in the past year. But Taliban official Mohammed Fateh Mohammed Ghazi said only three guerrillas had been wounded and the militants had "inflicted heavy casualties on Afghan and U.S. forces". The U.S. military did not immediately comment. In central Afghanistan, Taliban guerrillas ambushed U.S. Marines, provoking an "intense firefight" in which some guerrillas were killed and five Marines wounded, a U.S. military statement said, without giving the number of guerrilla deaths or the site of the clash. The statement by Marines spokesman Captain Eric Dent said the Marines had detained four guerrillas, two of them wounded, after the fighting, and that an Afghan government soldier and an interpreter were also wounded. U.S. and Afghan forces launched a broad operation against militants across southern Afghanistan last week aimed at improving security for elections due in September. On Friday, they said they had killed 17 Taliban guerrillas in Kandahar province the previous day. On Monday, one U.S. soldier was killed and two were wounded when a bomb blew up their vehicle in Uruzgan province. On May 29 four U.S. soldiers were killed in a similar incident in Zabul. Monday's death took to 57 the number of U.S. combat deaths in Afghanistan since the United States attacked the country in late 2001 and overthrew the Taliban for failing to hand over al Qaeda militants blamed for the September 11 attacks that year. U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai, the United States and the United Nations appear determined to push on with elections in September despite growing concerns about security. More than 750 people have died in militant-related violence since last August, the bloodiest period since the Taliban's fall. |
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