Police kill 18 Taliban fighters in northern Afghanistan, governor says

Earth Times, Saturday, 26 September, 2009 07:05:22 GMT

By Steve Uttridge

Kunduz, Afghanistan -

Eighteen Taliban fighters were killed after they attacked a district headquarters in northern Afghanistan, the provincial governor said Saturday. The fighters fired rockets and mortars at Dashti Archi district headquarters early Saturday, sparking a seven-hour combat with Afghan police forces, Mohamamd Omar, the provincial governor told the German Press Agency dpa.

"Our police forces killed 18 Taliban, including some of their commanders and wounded 10 others," he said, adding that three police officers also sustained injuries.

The Taliban fighters captured several police posts close to district administrative buildings before they were pushed back by the police, Sheikh Sahdi, the district governor said.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said their fighters killed 20 police and completely overran the district centre for four hours before they withdrew to their bases in the province.

The Taliban's influence is speedily spreading in the relatively peaceful northern region. Until 18 months ago, the Taliban fighters mainly operated in southern and eastern regions, their main support bases in the country, but sporadically detonated roadside bombs in northern provinces.

The Taliban's increased presence in the northern region could threaten the new US and NATO military supply line. The international forces in Afghanistan turned to the northern corridor, which delivers supplies from Europe through central Asian countries to Kunduz and Balkh provinces, after the Taliban repeatedly attacked their supply trucks on the two main Pakistani routes.

Five US soldiers killed in Afghanistan: NATO

by Lynne O'Donnell Lynne O'donnell –

Fri Sep 25, 12:58 pm ET

KABUL (AFP) –

 Taliban figters killed another five US soldiers in Afghanistan's southern Taliban stronghold, NATO said Friday, with their commander poised to request more troops to avoid failure in the eight-year war.

Two soldiers were killed outright and three later died of their injuries in a trio of separate incidents on Thursday, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said Friday.

"Two members were killed and one died from wounds as a result of an improvised explosive device (IED) detonation," ISAF said, referring to the remote-controlled bombs that have become the scourge of troops in Afghanistan.

"One service member died of gunshot wounds from an insurgent attack and one service member died of wounds sustained in an insurgent attack while on patrol," the statement added.

NATO and the United States have more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan fighting a Taliban-led insurgency, which is at its deadliest level in the eight years since the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime in Kabul.

The ISAF statement quoted US spokeswoman Captain Regina Gillis as confirming the five dead soldiers were from the United States.

According to the independent icasualties website, which keeps a tally of military deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq, 371 foreign troops have died in Afghanistan so far this year, compared to 294 for all of 2008.

Of those deaths, 213 are US military personnel, the site says.

The war in Afghanistan has become increasingly deadly in recent months as the Taliban stepped up the use of IEDs, to devastating effect.

Military leaders say they are trying to develop new ways to deal with the IED threat, but that the Taliban change their own tactics just as quickly.

The Pentagon said Wednesday that the senior US commander in Afghanistan will submit a request for more troops this week but Washington will not decide on the issue until it completes a review of war strategy.

The details of General Stanley McChrystal's request remain unclear but he is reportedly expected to ask for at least 10,000 additional troops to help turn the tide against Taliban insurgents.

In an assessment leaked to US media, the commander warned the NAT0-led mission faces failure without more resources and called for a shift in emphasis from killing rebels to winning the support of ordinary people.

McChrystal, who assumed command in June, said in the report that the Afghan campaign "has been historically under-resourced and remains so today".

"Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) -- while Afghan security capacity matures -- risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible," he wrote.

US President Barack Obama has already ordered 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan. There are about 65,000 US troops in Afghanistan, due to reach 68,000 by the end of year.

Southern Afghanistan, the spiritual home of the Taliban, has been the worst killing field for Western troops.

Foreign forces fired in the direction of Taliban mortar fire in the Watapur district of Kandahar province on Thursday, hitting a house and killing four civilians, district governor Zalmai Yousufzai said.

The dead were three women and a man, he said.

In Helmand province, Taliban fighters and Afghan police have been fighting since Thursday after Taliban fighters  attacked a police post in Musa Qala district, killing one police officer and wounding seven, an official said.

"The fighting is still ongoing," district governor Abdul Salaam told AFP, claiming there were "15 Taliban killed so far".

In neighbouring Kandahar province, police attacked Taliban fighters as they laid IEDs on a highway, said provincial police chief Assadullah Shairzad.

"Two (Taliban fighters) were killed, they left their dead behind and the rest of them escaped," he said.

McChrystal submits Afghanistan troops request

By Peter Graff

Saturday, 26 September, 2009

KABUL (Reuters) –

The commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan returned to Kabul on Saturday after flying to Europe to deliver his request for more troops in person to U.S. and NATO commanders, his spokesman said.

General Stanley McChrystal gave his long-awaited request for more troops to U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Admiral James Stavridis, said spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Tadd Sholtis.

"At the end of that meeting General McChrystal did provide a copy of the force requirements to Admiral Mullen on the U.S. side and Admiral Stavridis on the NATO side," Sholtis said. The unannounced meeting took place at an air base in Germany.

In a bleak assessment prepared last month and leaked to the media in recent days, McChrystal wrote that his mission would likely fail if he is not given reinforcements for his force, now more than 100,000 strong, including about 63,000 Americans.

Officials have not said exactly how many extra troops McChrystal believes he needs, although U.S. defense and congressional officials have suggested the request would be for about 30,000 extra troops.

President Barack Obama, who has already ordered 21,000 extra troops to Afghanistan this year, has described himself as a "skeptical audience" of the case for more troops.

He has said he will not take a decision on McChrystal's request until he finishes a thorough re-evaluation of the U.S. strategy in the region, a delay that has been criticized by Republican opponents.

His administration is described as divided, with Vice President Joe Biden seen as favoring cutting back the force.

POLL SHOWS OPPOSITION TO EXTRA TROOPS

A Gallup poll published on Friday showed a fall in support for the war, with 50 percent of Americans opposed to sending more troops, while 41 percent supported it. Obama said he understood the public's concerns.

"This is not easy and I would expect that the public would ask some very tough questions," he told a news conference at a summit of world leaders in Pittsburgh on Friday. "That's exactly what I'm doing, is asking some tough questions."

McChrystal's bleak assessment from last month said that the additional troops were needed to enact a new counter-insurgency strategy which would focus on protecting Afghanis in populated areas and counter a strengthening Taliban-led (resistance to NATO forces).

Since then, increasing evidence of fraud in an Afghan presidential election has made the case for sending more troops to protect the Afghan government more difficult to defend.

"What's most important is that there is a sense of legitimacy in Afghanistan among the Afghan people for their government," Obama said. "If there is not, that makes our task much more difficult."

A U.N.-backed watchdog found "clear and convincing evidence of fraud" in the August 20 vote and ordered a recount of some 3,000 polling stations, about 12 percent of the total.

Preliminary results showed President Hamid Karzai winning in a single round with 54.6 percent of the vote, but if enough of his ballots are nullified in the recount that he ends up with less than 50 percent, a second round must be held.

Afghanistan's election authorities and the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) agreed this week to conduct the recount by studying just a sample of ballots from suspicious polling stations, to speed up the process.

Samples of 313 ballot boxes were randomly selected on Thursday to be audited in detail, the ECC said in a statement.

Officials hope to complete the recount of samples so that they can certify a result in the next two weeks, allowing a second round, if needed, to be held before winter weather sets in around the end of October.

(For more Reuters coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan, see: http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/afghanistanpakistan)

(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)