3 NATO Soldiers, 103 Afghanis Killed in War Attacks, in June 23-25, 2008

 

Airstrikes kill 22 in Afghanistan

25. June 2008, 09:17
By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer

Coalition airstrikes killed 22 (alleged Taliban fighters) who were attacking two towns in eastern Afghanistan, and explosions killed two more foreign soldiers in the south, officials said Wednesday.

Fighting between Taliban-led fighters and security forces is surging, clouding hopes that the six-year, multibillion-dollar effort to stabilize the country will succeed any time soon.

The U.S.-led coalition said Afghan police called for help when (allegedTaliban fighters) armed with rockets and guns attacked government offices in the Sarobi and Gomal districts of Paktika province on Tuesday night.

"When coalition air support arrived, the 22 (alleged Taliban fighters) who attacked the district centers were positively identified and killed," a coalition statement said.

The top U.S. general in Afghanistan said Tuesday that attacks in the east of the country have increased 40 percent this year over 2007.

Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser told reporters in Washington that troops are tracking "a syndicate" of militants including Taliban, al-Qaida, Pakistanis and Afghans who move back and forth over the Afghan-Pakistani border.

On Wednesday, the coalition said one of its troops died and three others were wounded when a bomb hit a vehicle on a combat operation in Helmand province.

Several (alleged Taliban fighters) were killed and a dozen more detained during clashes that included airstrikes the previous day in the province's Reg district, it said.

One NATO soldier also died in Helmand when an explosion hit a patrol in Nahri Sarraj district on Tuesday, the alliance said. The nationalities of the two dead troops were not released.

A total of 111 foreign troops have now died in Afghanistan this year, including 36 so far this month — a faster monthly pace than in Iraq, where 23 have died so far in June.

Also on Wednesday, Britain's defense ministry in London said that a British soldier was killed by an explosion in Afghanistan's Helmand province.

The soldier from the 4th Battalion Parachute Regiment was checking for land mines when he was killed by a suspected roadside bomb Tuesday in the Upper Sangin Valley.

The death announced Wednesday brings to 108 the number of British troops to die in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.

The paratrooper is the 11th British soldier killed in Afghanistan this month. Seven were members of the Parachute Regiment, including another soldier killed Tuesday in a firefight with the Taliban.


http://www.afghannews.net/index.php?action=show&type=news&id=2896

26 Afghanis, two NATO soldiers killed in Afghan war

24. June 2008, 15:11
By Emranullah Arif, AFP

NATO warplanes and Afghan forces killed 26 (alleged Taliban fighters), while two NATO soldiers died in separate attacks, officials said Tuesday.

The violence made June one of the bloodiest months so far in an insurgency launched by Taliban fighters after its ouster from government by US-led forces in 2001.

Several foreign fighters were among the dead after the air strike early Tuesday by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the eastern province of Paktia, near the border with Pakistan, officials said.

Fighters opened fire on the headquarters of the province's Sayed Karam district but were driven away after a gunbattle which caused slight damage to the building, provincial government spokesman Rohullah Samoon said.

"NATO helicopters then bombed the (alleged Taliban fighters) and killed 14 of them on the spot. Our policemen arrested another four wounded, and one of the wounded also died in hospital," Samoon told AFP.

Many of those killed were Pakistanis, Samoon said, adding that the wounded rebels were from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The Taliban attack came a day after the separate US-led coalition said air strikes and clashes had killed 55 (alleged Taliban fighters) who ambushed a patrol in eastern Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, 11 Taliban fighters and three policemen were killed after an attack by rebels on a police post in southern Kandahar province overnight, police said.

"We launched a counterattack today. Eleven Taliban have been killed so far and their bodies are on the ground," Juma Gul Hemat, the police chief of neighbouring Uruzgan province, told AFP.

He added that the fighting was ongoing.

Britain's Ministry of Defence meanwhile said one of its soldiers died in a firefight during an operation against Taliban militants in southern Helmand province.

Separately, a NATO soldier was killed and three others wounded after a landmine struck their patrol in eastern Afghanistan Tuesday, the alliance force said.

The incident took place in Nangarhar province's Khogyani district where more than 200 villagers had protested the alleged killing of two civilians a day earlier, ISAF said.

The latest fatalities bring to 101 the number of foreign soldiers killed in the country this year, according to an AFP tally.

Eastern Afghanistan borders Pakistan's lawless tribal regions, where Afghan and Western officials say the militants have "safe havens" which they use to launch cross-border attacks in Afghanistan.

Taliban attacks in eastern Afghanistan were up 40 percent in the first five months of 2008 compared with the same period last year, the US commander in the region said Tuesday.

"We've had about a 40 percent increase in 'kinetic events': we define those as the number of enemy attacks that we've had on our coalition and our Afghan partners," US Army Major General Jeffrey Schloesser told reporters during a teleconference from Afghanistan.

"This number was not unexpected," he continued, adding that the frequency of attacks had increased each year since 2002. "The enemies are aggressively burning schools, killing teachers and students."

War attacks in Afghanistan is on the upswing, despite the presence of some 70,000 troops multinational troops, some under US command, some under NATO.

http://www.afghannews.net/index.php?action=show&type=news&id=2895

---

Fair Use Notice

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.