NATO airstrike kills Taliban commander, police say

AP – July 16, 2010

KABUL, Afghanistan –

A NATO airstrike killed a Taliban commander responsible for a suicide attack on a U.S. aid program in northern Afghanistan, police said, while a raid killed another insurgent (pro-NATO media refer to Taliban fighters as insurgents, militants, or terrorists) who smuggled in foreign fighters through Iran, officials said Friday.

International troops working with Afghan forces say they have killed or captured dozens of senior insurgent figures since April as they aggressively step up operations against the Taliban leadership. However, those successes haven't slowed the pace of militant attacks, which continue daily.

In the northern province of Kunduz, a precision airstrike killed a local Taliban commander who uses the alias Qari Latif, the provincial police chief said.

Latif died along with 12 other insurgents while they met in a field under a tree Thursday outside the provincial capital, police chief Abdul Razaq Yaqoubi said.

NATO confirmed an airstrike targeted a senior insurgent commander who was at a meeting to choose a new Taliban "shadow governor" in a Kunduz district, but the alliance said in a statement it was still investigating the outcome.

The international force said the insurgent chief had boasted of being behind a suicide car bomb on a USAID station in Kunduz city earlier this month that killed two civilians and wounded seven others.

"The Kunduz attack was a shameful act against an organization that was here only to provide assistance to the Afghan people," said Lt. Col. Ian Tudlong, joint command chief of operations for the NATO-led force.

In western Farah province next to Iran, international and Afghan forces also raided a militant training camp Thursday, killing another Taliban commander and several more insurgents, NATO said.

The slain insurgent leader was responsible for bringing foreign fighters into Afghanistan from Iran, a statement said. NATO officials would not say what nationality the foreign militants were.

The Farah raid was a result of tips from the community on the camp's existence and location, NATO said. Support from the Afghan people is a key to the counterinsurgency strategy the international force is rolling out in Afghanistan, trying to turn around the nearly 9-year-old war.

2 US troops killed by bomb blast in Afghanistan

AP – Thu Jul 15, 9:44 pm ET

KABUL, Afghanistan –

Two U.S. service members were killed in a roadside bombing in restive southern Afghanistan, where thousands of American troops have been deployed to wrest back control of insurgent strongholds.

Also in the south, gunmen kidnapped five Health Ministry employees in volatile Kandahar province while insurgents killed a district official elsewhere, reportedly on the orders of the Taliban supreme leader, officials said Thursday.

Insurgent bombings, gunbattles, assassinations and abductions have skyrocketed this year. The circumstances surrounding the deaths of the two American troops were unclear as NATO released no more details.

Members of a medical team were abducted Wednesday while returning to Kandahar city, the provincial capital, after visiting a project in Maiwand district, provincial spokesman Zulmi Ayubi said Thursday.

Gunmen forced the car to stop about a mile (two kilometers) outside Maiwand and kidnapped two doctors, a pharmacist, a nurse and their driver, Ayubi said. The Health Ministry issued a statement calling for their release.

The kidnappers were not identified.

In neighboring Uruzgan province, insurgents manning a makeshift checkpoint pulled a district leader out of his vehicle and shot him dead Tuesday, according to Gulab Khan, the provincial deputy police chief.

A NATO statement said Saleh Mohammad was on a list of Afghan officials that Mullah Mohammad Omar, the leader of the main Afghan Taliban faction, sent to his followers with orders to kill.

Also in Uruzgan, police said they killed a local Taliban commander, identified as Mullah Dawood, in a gunbattle.

A routine police patrol discovered the insurgents in a village in Tarin Kot district, said Khan. He said five militants, including the commander and a bomb-maker, died in the fighting and police suffered no casualties.

Taliban spokesmen could not be reached for comment.

Building up Afghan police and army into a reliable security force is one of the lynchpins of the new counterinsurgency policy for the nearly nine-year-old Afghan war. It calls for an increase in international troops to secure areas and then turn them over to local authorities, eventually allowing foreign troops to withdraw without the Taliban seizing power again.

Taliban Commander, Insurgents Killed in Raid on Insurgent Training Camp

7/16/10 | ISAF Public Affairs Office
ISAF Joint Command - Afghanistan
2010-07-CA-095
 KABUL, Afghanistan (July 16, 2010) -

An Afghan-international security force killed a Taliban commander and a number of insurgents in Farah province yesterday.

The commander, Mullah Akhtar, was responsible for bringing foreign fighters from Iran into Afghanistan.

The combined security force went to a Taliban and foreign fighter training camp in Bala Boluk district based on tips provided to the security force.
 
As the security force approached the site a group of individuals fired on the security force. A coalition aircraft provided suppressive fire to allow the security force to close in on the suspected insurgents.

During the assault, an enemy fighter detonated an improvised explosive device (IED). None of the security force members were injured by the blast. During the initial sweep, the security force found one of the dead fighters had booby trapped himself with a hand grenade rigged to detonate if moved. There were no injuries as a result of the subsequent detonation.

The security force continued to pursue the retreating insurgents - several of whom engaged the security force from a truck poorly disguised as an Afghan National Police vehicle. A coalition aircraft returned fire, killing the insurgents.

The security force secured the area and found multiple automatic weapons, hand grenades, small-arms, IED-making components, two rocket propelled grenade (RPG) launchers and multiple RPG rockets with and around the dead insurgents. No civilians were injured during this operation.