Nearly 100 Taliban, governor killed in southern Afghanistan

AFGHANISTAN: NATO and Afghan troops killed 94 Taliban rebels in a major insurgent stronghold in southern Afghanistan while a respected provincial governor died in a suicide blast Sunday, officials said.

The violence underscored the precarious situation in Afghanistan on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks the atrocity that prompted the toppling of the fundamentalist Taliban.

The insurgents died during Operation Medusa, which was launched on September 2 and is the biggest anti-Taliban offensive involving NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The fierce battles take to over 450 the number of rebels killed in the operation focussed on the Panjwayi district, which is 35 kilometres (20 miles) west of the Taliban birthplace of Kandahar.

"In the past nine days the ISAF and Afghan operation has struck hard at the insurgents' heartland," ISAF spokesman Major Luke Knittig told a news conference in Kabul.

The 94 Taliban were killed and one was wounded in four different engagements in the area from late Saturday until around dawn on Sunday, he said.

The force also inflicted "severe losses" in separate artillery and air strikes on rebels who were spotted gathering for a counterattack, the force said in a statement. The number of casualties was still being determined.

Two coalition soldiers who were training Afghan troops were also killed in combat in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, ISAF said. One died in Panjwayi during Operation Medusa and the other died in Zabul province. Panjwayi district is one of the most entrenched Taliban hotspots in Afghanistan and has seen several deadly attacks on foreign troops and civilians.

Medusa is the biggest operation in the south since ISAF took over the area on July 31 from a US-led coalition that had driven the Taliban from power in late 2001. There was no indication when the operation would end, NATO spokesman Mark Laity told the news conference.

"When we are happy we have achieved our objectives, we will stop," he said.

One of the key tasks is to stop more Taliban from neighbouring Helmand province infiltrating the area where some 700 rebels were initially believed to be hiding out, said another ISAF spokesman, Major Quentin Innis.

Meanwhile Hakim Taniwal, the governor of Paktia province in eastern Afghanistan, his nephew and chief bodyguard were killed Sunday in a suicide attack claimed by the Taliban.

Taniwal, in his 60s, was a former sociology professor who previously lived in exile in Melbourne, Australia.

He had also served as minister in the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The bomber had been waiting outside the gates of Taniwal's office and blew himself up as the group left the building, interior ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanizai said.

Taliban spokesman Mohammad Hanif said one of the movement's fighters had carried out the attack, which follows several assassination attempts on other provincial governors.

Separately, the US military warned that a Taliban-linked suicide cell was operating in Kabul and was likely behind a suicide attack in the capital on Friday that killed 16 people including two US soldiers.

"Through our intelligence sources we know that there is a cell in Kabul, at least one, whose primary mission is to seek out coalition and international troops and hit them with suicide bombs," spokesman Colonel Thomas Collins said.

Police in Kabul discovered and defused three remote-controlled bombs hidden at a traffic roundabout Sunday. Also two policemen were killed when dozens of Taliban rebels attacked their post in western Farah province with machine guns and rockets on Saturday.

The Taliban insurgency has gathered steam this year despite half a decade of international efforts to rebuild the shattered country, which Osama bin Laden used as a base from which to coordinate the 9/11 attacks.

There are about 10,000 mainly British, Canadian and Dutch troops in the south facing what British commanders have said is the most intense fighting their forces have experienced in decades and which is worse on a daily basis than that in Iraq.

NATO military chiefs are calling on their member states to send more men and equipment to Afghanistan, saying that they are currently at about 85 percent of requirements.

Kabul, Monday, AFP.