NATO Attacks Kill 14 Afghan fighters

A series of air strikes launched by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has killed 14 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. NATO attack was launched along with Afghan soldiers As quoted by the Associated Press, Monday, September 13, 2010, attacks came as Nato patrols across the river in the province of Uruzgan.NATO forces then requested air support after receiving small arms fire. NATO to ensure that no civilian casualties.

A number of attacks and clashes in recent improved allied forces to suppress the Taliban fighters.In a separate incident, a rocket fired by Taliban fighters against an army supply base in the Afghan city of Jalalabad, eastern Nangarhar province.A spokesman for local police, Ghafor Khan said the rocket attack was not on target. But it hit a house, until injuring nine civilians, including children.The attacks coincided with rising tensions ahead of parliamentary elections. Taliban try to overthrow the government of the United States and its allies pro in Kabul and expel foreign troops from that country.

Afghan Soldiers Kill Three British soldiers

Kandahar, Afghanistan A renegade Afghan soldiers killed three British soldiers in patrolling together on Tuesday in Helmand, the southern provinces, local security sources said that the British news agency Reuters. Two more British soldiers wounded in the attack near Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand, where about 9,000 British soldiers deployed as part of the NATO-led force. NATO said in a statement said that three soldiers were killed in an attack in southern Afghanistan, but did not elaborate. “We confirm that one Afghan soldier shot and killed three British soldiers,” said defense ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi Afghanistan told the French news agency AFP in Kabul.

The attack on Tuesday was not the first time foreign troops were killed by Afghan security forces, which raises concern in the West about the level of infiltration of the Taliban in the country’s security forces, trained and financed as part of NATO’s war against militants, who rose again. “If true, it is very regrettable,” said Waheed Omer, spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai. In the deadliest such attack, an Afghan police killed five British soldiers in training camp in Helmand province in November.

A month later, an Afghan soldier shot and killed one U.S. soldier and wounded two soldiers with the NATO base in Italy and Afghanistan in Badghis, northwest Afghanistan. Happened several other attacks by army and police uniforms against government and foreign troops. It makes 317 the number of deaths of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001. A number of 101 British soldiers killed in Sangin.Kendali those areas will be submitted to the United States troops at the end of this year.(AFP)

bomb killed a Pakistani construction worker and wounded six of his compatriots on Sunday in Afghanistan's southern city of Kandahar

A roadside bomb killed a Pakistani construction worker and wounded six of his compatriots on Sunday in Afghanistan’s southern city of Kandahar, police said.The device hit the vehicle which was carrying the group on a road close to Pakistan’s consulate in the eastern part of the city and came after a series of attacks overnight by Taliban killed 31 people in several parts of Kandahar.

“It was a roadside bomb that hit the vehicle of Pakistani construction workers, killed one of them and wounded six more,” police officer Mohammad Asif told Reuters.Last week, five Pakistani employees of the same Pakistani construction firm, CITA, were gunned down by unknown people in another part of Kandahar.Kandahar is the next target of an offensive by NATO-led forces after foreign and Afghan troops secured a district regarded as a key Taliban stronghold from the militants in adjacent Helmand in recent weeks.Before the Taliban’s ouster in a U.S.-led invasion in 2001, Kandahar was the traditional and spiritual seat of power of the militants.No one has claimed responsibility for the deadly attack of last week or Sunday’s one on the Pakistani nationals in Kandahar.

U.S. led forces in Afghanistan will launch a new military operation later this year to get full control of Kandahar

WASHINGTON   U.S. led forces in Afghanistan will launch a new military operation later this year to get full control of Kandahar, the former “capital city” of the Taliban, a senior U.S. official said on Friday. The top U.S. general in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, had already flagged his intention to target Kandahar following an offensive, now in its third week, to retake control of the Taliban stronghold of Marjah in neighboring Helmand province.

“If our overall goal for 2010 in Afghanistan is to reverse the momentum (of the Taliban) … then we think we’ve got to get to Kandahar this year,” said the senior Obama administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity.Militants have over the past year made startling gains in the area around Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban movement. Reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Omar ruled Afghanistan from there before U.S.-led forces invaded in 2001.McChrystal described the city in his assessment of the war last August as the “key geographic objective” of the Quetta Shura Taliban, the main faction led by Mullah Omar.

The U.S. official was offering an assessment of the offensive in Marjah, which the administration views as key preparation for the potentially bigger battle of Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city.

TEST CASE FOR BIG PRIZE

Marjah is one of the biggest operations in the more than eight-year-old Afghan war. It is also an early test of President Barack Obama’s plan to add 30,000 more troops to win control of Taliban strongholds and eventually transfer them to Afghan authority.”The way to look at Marjah is that it is the tactical prelude to larger more comprehensive operations later this year in Kandahar city,” the administration official said.

“Bringing comprehensive population security to Kandahar city is really the centerpiece of operations this year and therefore Marjah is the prelude,” he said.The British commander of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan said last week that NATO forces would sweep toward Kandahar over the next six months.

On Thursday, Afghan authorities raised the Afghan flag over Marjah to signify the handover of control to the government from NATO troops led by U.S. Marines.The official said military commanders on the ground believed it would take several weeks yet to clear the remaining pockets of resistance in and around Marjah.”We are somewhere between clear and hold and that is pretty much on track. What is going to be more challenging than the clearing process will be the building process,” he said.

He acknowledged U.S. and Afghan security forces would not initially have the trust of Marjah’s residents.”It is not so much a matter of a physical contest about who controls the weapons, it’s a question of who controls the confidence of the people. That will only come after we are able to deliver,” he said.Washington hopes its latest offensive will decisively turn the momentum in a war that commanders say has been going the way of the Taliban.Under Obama’s new strategy, NATO and Afghan security forces are to secure population centers across Afghanistan so that the government can move in.(Reuters)

NEAR MARJAH, Afghanistan U.S. and Afghan forces ringed the Taliban stronghold of Marjah

NEAR MARJAH, Afghanistan  U.S. and Afghan forces ringed the Taliban stronghold of Marjah on Thursday, sealing off escape routes and setting the stage for what is being described as the biggest offensive of the nine-year war. Taliban defenders repeatedly fired rockets and mortars at units poised in foxholes along the edge of the town, apparently trying to lure NATO forces into skirmishes before the big attack. “They’re trying to draw us in,” said Capt. Joshua Winfrey, 30, of Tulsa, Okla., commander of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines. Up to 1,000 militants are believed holed up in Marjah, a key Taliban logistics base and center of the lucrative opium poppy trade. But the biggest threats are likely to be the land mines and bombs hidden in the roads and fields of the farming community, 380 miles (610 kilometers) southwest of Kabul. The precise date for the attack has been kept secret. U.S. officials have signaled for weeks they planned to seize Marjah, a town of about 80,000 people in Helmand province and the biggest community in southern Afghanistan under Taliban control. NATO officials say the goal is to seize the town quickly and re-establish Afghan government authority, bringing public services in hopes of winning support of the townspeople once the Taliban are gone. Hundreds of Afghan soldiers were to join U.S. Marines in the attack to emphasize the Afghan role in the operation. A Taliban spokesman dismissed the significance of Marjah, saying the NATO operation was “more propaganda than military necessity.”

Nevertheless, the spokesman, Mohammed Yusuf, said in a dialogue on the Taliban Web site that the insurgents would strike the attackers with explosives and hit-and-run tactics, according to a summary by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant Internet traffic. In preparation for the offensive, a U.S.-Afghan force led by the U.S. Army’s 5th Stryker Brigade moved south from Lashkar Gah and linked up Thursday with Marines on the northern edge of Marjah, closing off a main Taliban escape route. Marines and Army soldiers fired colored smoke grenades to show each other that they were friendly forces. U.S. and Afghan forces have now finished their deployment along the main road in and out of Marjah, leaving the Taliban no way out except across bleak, open desert – where they could easily be spotted. The Army’s advance was slowed as U.S. and Afghan soldiers cleared the thicket of mines and bombs hidden in canals and along the roads and fought off harassment attacks along the way by small bands of insurgents. Two U.S. attack helicopters fired Hellfire missiles at a compound near Marjah from where insurgents had been firing at the advancing Americans. Marines along the edge of the town exchanged fire with insurgents. There were no reports of casualties.

16 policemen killed in 2 attacks in Afghanistan

Operation Eastern Resolve II

KABUL  Taliban fighters attacked checkpoints in northern and southern Afghanistan on Monday, killing 16 members of the Afghan National police.Eight policemen were killed before dawn when militants targeted a checkpoint in the northern province of Baghlan. At about the same time, Taliban fighters attacked another outpost in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, killing another eight policemen, the Interior Ministry said.Two militants were killed and another was wounded in the Baghlan attack, deputy provincial police chief Zalmai Mangal. Baghlan Gov. Mohammad Akbar Barakzai said the policemen were providing security on the main road through the province.In Lashkar Gah, provincial spokesman Daud Ahmadi said the attack occurred before dawn.One policeman who disappeared may have been linked to the attackers, he said, adding the Taliban made off with a police vehicle, six Kalashnikov rifles and a heavy machine gun.

Separately on Monday, NATO said an Afghan-international security force detained a weapons smuggler and a small group of other militants in Khost province in eastern Afghanistan. The suspect allegedly worked with the al-Qaida-linked Haqqani network of militants.

The Haqqani network of Afghan fighters directs the battle against U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan from the Waziristan tribal region in Pakistan. NATO said the suspect surrendered to the joint force at a compound in the Sabari district of Khost province.In southern Afghanistan, NATO said an Afghan-international security force detained a Taliban weapons smuggler and a couple of other militants in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar province.No shots were fired and no one was injured in either operation.

Afghan government said NATO forces killed six civilians during a pre-dawn operation

killed six civilians

KABUL  The Afghan government said NATO forces killed six civilians during a pre-dawn operation Tuesday in eastern Afghanistan. NATO disputed the allegation saying only militants died.International forces have pledged to avoid civilian deaths in recent months, but insurgents often live among villagers making them vulnerable during nighttime raids.

Seven insurgents were killed and four detained after the attack in Laghman province on a compound of a militant leader responsible for directing several suicide strikes in the region, NATO said in a statement.
Afghan and international forces came under fire as they assaulted the compound, sparking a gunbattle, it said.

A statement issued by the presidential palace said six civilians were killed during the firefight, including one woman. Provincial officials said 12 people were killed in the clash outside the provincial capital of Mehtar Lam, some of them civilians, but did not specify a number.

However, NATO spokeswoman Capt. Jane Campbell said there were “no operational reports to substantiate those claims of harming civilians, including women and children during this operation.”

About 400 people marched on Mehtar Lam to protest the deaths, carrying bodies of some of the dead, said provincial government spokesman Sayed Ahmad Safi.Groups of men laid the blanket-wrapped bodies on wooden cots, which they hoisted above them as they walked, footage from Associated Press Television showed.

“Whoever came onto the roof of their home, they killed them. Some were killed inside their houses,” said Ismail, a villager who only gave one name and said he lost seven members of his family. “All those killed were innocent villagers, farmers. The Americans even killed our women.”The protest turned violent as the demonstrators tried to enter the city. They clashed with police and one protester was killed, Safi said.