NATO Forces Kill 20 Afghanis, Taliban Fighters Seize Ghazni and Kill 4 Government Security Officers

Editorial Note:

In the past, many of the casualties were Afghani civilians despite initial claims they were Taliban fighters.

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AP Headline: 20 Suspected Taliban Killed in Southern Afghanistan Clash, Police Official Says

By NOOR KHAN
Associated Press Writer

Oct 4, 2007, 5:18 AM EDT

KANDAHAR Afghanistan (AP) --

Afghani troops backed by NATO-led forces clashed with suspected Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan, leaving 20 of them dead, a provincial police chief said Thursday.

The authorities recovered three dead bodies of the Taliban fighters alongside numerous weapons after the clash in Shah Wali Kot district in Kandahar province late Wednesday, said Kandahar police chief Sayed Agha Saqib. There were no injuries among Afghan and NATO troops.

Retreating Taliban fighters took 17 bodies off the battlefield, Saqib said.

NATO officials could not immediately confirm Saqib's account, and said they were checking the report. The clash could not be independently verified due to the remoteness of the area where it took place.

In a separate incident, Taliban fighters attacked a police checkpoint in Arghistan district, also in Kandahar province, wounding three officers on Wednesday, Saqib said. There were no report of Taliban casualties from that clash.

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Taliban seize Afghan district of Ghazni,

GHAZNI (Afghanistan), Oct 3, 2007

Hundreds of Taliban fighters captured a remote district in Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing two policemen and driving out the rest, officials said.

Fighters separately gunned down two intelligence agency employees, while another in a rash of suicide bombings targeted NATO troops but only gave one of them a bump on the head, Afghan and Nato officials said.

Taliban fighters attacked the Ajristan district centre in the province of Ghazni, about 200 kilometres southwest of Kabul, with artillery and rocket fire, the interior ministry said.

They torched the main government building, Ghazni police chief General Alishah Ahmadzai said. Police pulled out in a “tactical move” following heavy attacks, interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said. Two policemen were killed, he said.

“We have sent reinforcements and will retake the district.” The Taliban militia, which has stepped up its campaign against the government in the past two years, has captured several remote districts over recent months.

Most have been retaken fairly easily but several parts of southern Afghanistan are in Taliban control. In another attack, Taliban fighters on motorbikes shot dead two employees of the National Directorate of Security – Afghanistan’s intelligence agency – in the eastern city of Khost, said Mirajan, the provincial deputy head of intelligence.

And a suicide attacker detonated a car bomb close to an International Security Assistance Force convoy in the central town of Tirin Kot, causing only a bump to the head of an ISAF soldier, an alliance spokesman said.

The attack in the province of Uruzgan comes a day after a suicide attack on a police bus in the capital on Tuesday killed 13 people.—AFP

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